Giampietro Stocco's Uchronicles

Le cronache ucroniche di Giampietro Stocco

	WHO I AM
	WRITINGS
	NERO
	CHAOS
	ARCHIVE
	LINKS
	CONTACT ME
Acid rain Christian Lisboa is born in Chile, lives in Santiago, and is electronic engineer. Works on analytic instruments and knows therefore about installing, training, maintenance and calibration . In his scarce free tie, he writes what he sees, hears and feels, what he does since high school times. Acid rain is the second short story that Christian has wanted to publish on The Uchronicles. *Acid rain* During the dawn, the weather balloons detected an increasing of the air density in all the continents. Nevertheless, this increase was masked by a very worrisome factor for all the inhabitants of the civilized centers: the moisture of the acid rain diminished his pH from 5,7 to 5.4. The United Nations called to an urgent meeting to all the environmental commissions urbi et orbi, and the more environment care jeopardized governments began to apply sanctions, from fines to the temporary closing of the supposedly responsible chemical industries. In all the humid zones of the planet, at the dawn,. the nimbostratus kind cloud concentration allowed to foretell a heavy shower during the day, but no one meteorological institute spread a strange phenomenon, caught by very few observers: the stratocumulus, in spite of to be found at low height, occupied in addition a great space in the atmosphere, arriving at heights superior to the six kilometers, zone occupied normally by the altostratus or altocumuli. Indifferent to the climatic change, the cities normally woke up of his drowsiness and began their anxious grind. The mothers woke up their children to send them to the school, hoping that the torrential rain began later, when they were well protected under the safe ceiling of the schools. Million workers dared to use their bicycles to arrive at the industries, million women chose their clothes privileging the combination of colors, ignoring the necessity to protect itself of the imminent heavy shower. And the rain began. Precise, like synchronized according to the time zones, in each humid region it rained in the morning from ten past eight. Torrentially, as everybody feared. More than one hundred millimeters of rain in a day, without stopping at any moment. And it continued on the following day without variation, a nd to the subsequent one. The floods began, the people evacuations and the emergency plans in all the planet were activated. The brains had arrived during the night, in each region of the world. They were leaved about twelve kilometers height by his transports, because those could not descend to level zero. In addition, at that height they were undetectables by the terrestrial military installations. If some pilot of some of the hundreds of commercial flights that furrowed to the sky to that hour had seen them, he have been surprised observing “a cloud being fused with the clouds", enormous floating objects that descended smoothly in the dark sky. But nobody saw them. They reduced the descending speed when they mixing itself with the alto-cumuli, and then stayed per hours in that invisible strip for the humans eyes. They were prepared to stay during many hours without food, just with the humidity that they caught through their hundreds of small tentacles. During thousands of years they had done this type of travels, preparing them carefully until last of the details, analyzing meticulously the composition of the air and the water, the fauna and local flora, the energy variations, the organized biological societies, the culture. In no planet they had failed. They knew clearly that they could find some resistance, but normally the problems appeared with the less intelligent species, those than they had more developed the territorial instinct. The intelligent beings trusted their technological instruments, those that easily were evaded by the brains. click to continue

Do you read Italian? Then try my last novel, Figlio della Schiera, published by Chinaski, 187 pp., 9,00 euros.

WHAT'S ALTERNATE HISTORY?

• The Forum
• On Wikipedia
• Bibliography and new books
• Other Timelines
• Alternate Travelling
• David Atwell's experience
• Playing role games

Want to buy Dea del Caos? Go on IBS | Go on BOL

Stylist in science fiction

Bruce McAllister has been writing and publishing science fiction and fantasy for over forty years. His stories have appeared in the major f&sf magazines, original anthologies and "year's best anthologies." His novels include HUMANITY PRIME (Ace Books, in l971) and DREAM BABY (ST. MARTINS, 1988), which was based on a nominee for both the Hugo and Nebula awards in the novelette category. His short story "Kin" was a finalist for the Hugo in 2007. His short-story collection, THE GIRL WHO LOVED, appeared in 2007. He has served as associate editor of BEST SF anthology series edited by Harry Harrison and Brian Aldiss; co-edited with Harry Harrison THERE WON'T BE WAR; served on the first James Tiptree Memorial Award jury; and for twenty years taught creative writing at a small university in Southern California. He is now a fullt-time writing coach and book and screenplay . Here's an interview with him.

Hello, Bruce, and thank you for your time. Do you want to speak about Humanity Prime (HP), which is the novel that made you know worldwide?

HUMANITY PRIME was my first novel, and it appeared in Terry Carr's celebrated "Ace Specials" series. I was very young--twenty-four--and in many ways it is a young-man's novel: very earnest, overly ambitious for the craft I wielded at the time, and full of the motifs of the science fiction genre I loved so much. Terry gave me a contract to do it based on the short stories I'd published at that point, and the novel I delivered to him was immense and sprawling and needed a lot of cutting and shaping--which Terry went ahead and did on his own and did marvelously. I've forever be grateful to him for this generosity. He was an amazing editor and good soul.

HP is definitely not an easy book: why did you choose the way of the conscience flux or interior monologue?

Since the novel is about a telepathic race of merpeople whose members can remember the memories of their ancestors--through a collective consciousness--I could not imagine trying to capture that without using a stream-of-consciousness style, interior monologue and perspective. They're not a "verbal" people; their thinking is "imagistic," and that's what I tried to capture through the style.

What's science fiction for you?

I have always found this question difficult to answer; and that is because a writer learns his craft from the writers who came before him, and yet that craft is dedicated to evoking his own voices and vision. Critics and readers have compared my voice and vision at times to the science fiction of James Tiptree, Alfred Bester, Ray Bradbury, Robert Heinlein, Theodore Sturgeon and others; and indeed I've learned my craft from these wonderful writers, and many others; but Theodore Sturgeon is the only one among those named that I can myself see the influence of. Among the other many science fiction authors I like to read and that I admire for their magic are Ursula Le Guin, Gregory Benford, Barry Malzberg, and Harry Harrison.

click to continue

Throwing Orson down

Science Fiction Tango

interview with Claudia de Bella

Claudia De Bella is a SF writer and translator from Argentina. She has published stories in magazines such as Axxón, Cuasar, Potencial, Vórtice, Sinergia and Neuromante (Argentina), Somnium (Brazil), TDS y Nuevo Mondo (Italy) and Alfa Eridiani y Sable (Spain); long is the list of translations: novelettes, stories and articles. Claudia speaks English and Portuguese. She took part in SF collections like Visiones, Fase Dos and Axxón (Argentina). She got the Premio Más Allá del Círculo Argentino de CF y Fantasía in the category "story" (por "Amoité") and "translator" and the prize of the Best Regional Play in the Argentine Province Misiones for "La Puerta Abierta", a terror theater piece. Besides her translation work in English and Portuguese for Axxón y Sinergia, she has lately been active for the Ediciones Cuasar in Argentina and for the Grupo AJEC and La Factoría de Ideas in Spain, translating Greg Egan, Algis Budrys, Vernor Vinge, Bruce McAllister y H.P. Lovecraft, among others.

Claudia, you write science fiction in Latin America. Does this influence your writing, or you choose the same topics as an author from USA would do?

The topics may be the same, but the approach is completely different. I think that, to call yourself a writer, you should write from your experiencie, culture and background. It would be stupid to write from a USA point of view when you live in another country. So being a Latin American naturally influences my writing, as also does my life story, knowledge and feelings. But my choice of the topics is completely free. I can write about space travel, for instance, as I did in my story "Planetas de Papel", but with a twist a North American writer could never bring about. Many people think there are some topics which are "forbidden" for non-USA writers. I strongly disagree with that. Every topic is valid as long as you deal with it from your own perspective. In fact, Latin American or European views of the future are different sides of the same story and I don't want to miss that. I refuse to think of a future which is pre-determined by only one country.

Often Latin american literature is considered to be very critical upon US' values. Does this apply also to science fiction?

Again, you can't separate your culture and life experience from your writing. If Latin Americans criticise the USA for true reasons, a SF writer shouldn't be an exception. Of course there are a lot of authors in this continent who deal with different SF topics which don't always include a political o social criticism, but the extrapolation of present conditions has always been a major resource in the genre, so we shouldn't be surprised to find many stories where this criticism appears.

Which US sf authors do you feel close to?

There are many, but I can mention Theodore Sturgeon, Ursula K. LeGuin, Connie Willis, Lucius Shepard and Bruce McAllister... people who write from a human point of view rather than focusing on the technology. Anyway, as a reader, I'm also a big fan of Ted Chiang and the Australian Greg Egan, two very different writers with a style of their own.

click to continue

Dengue Fever's rising up...

Sf-like cross-over

Interview with the Dengue Fever

Halfways between Long Beach and Phnom Penh, the Dengue Fever releases a new album, Venus on Earth. The band confirms its roots, especially speaking about surf music, but with an eye on world music tradition. A mix that makes me think on sf. Just listen to them and say I'm wrong! That's why the Uchronicles has decided about this interview.

Hello DF and welcome on The Uchronicles. Where does your inspiration come out from?

Wine, woman, and whiskey. That and all music that transcends space and time.

It's been written that you focus on the music that was played in Vietnam during the war in the '60's. Is this true?

Actually it's music that was written in Cambodia during the Viet Nam war. We used that as a template to start from but we have added our own influences into the mix over time.

How did you decide to mix together pop-rock and Asian music or Asian atmospheres?

It was a natural mix of what the band was listening to at the time.

Myself, I find your music rather close to the style of bands just like B52's. Do you think to owe something to them?

The link would be that both the B52's and the popular Cambodian song writers of the 60's were influenced by American surf music. I would say we all owe something to the Ventures, the Beach Boys etc...

click to continue

This site is a member of WebRing. To browse visit here.

Zepti.org - web search engine

Business Logos

The way of Weescoosa by Saurio Here comes back Saurio, the Argentinian author of Bach ha muerto This time The Uchronicles hosts an English translation of a short story of his: The way of Weescosa, translated from the Spanish by Daniel W. Koon. Saurio is born in Buenos Aires, in 1965; apart from his writing, he's journalist, graphic designer, painter, and many other things... From 2000 he co-directs, together with Leonardo Longhi, an ezine called La Idea Fija . He owns also a personal website, El maravilloso mundo de Saurio (or: www.sauriomundo.com.ar), and two blogs - Las Armas del Reino II and La sonriente cocina de Peloncha, and finally a photo-blog: Lo cartele de nosotros. THE WAY OF WEESCOOSA 1. -- The Legacy of William Roderick Necken Mercifully, the mind has many mechanisms to prevent it from piecing together all the hair-raising contents that are locked within it. Ignorance is a blessing bestowed upon the human race, who lie bathed in the black waters of forgetfulness and ignorance of the arcane abysms beyond our imaginations, swirling in the infinite ether of a universe that has preceded us by many eons and that harbors terrors that have driven to death and madness those who have even dared to gaze upon its mysteries. The sciences, rapt in their egotistical, vain ways, serving middling governments and corrupt tyrants, have pushed the study of these cryptic arcana to the fringes, thus forestalling further injury. But lamentably the day will come when all the power and the horror that lies beyond human comprehension shall tempt the ambitious hearts of small and miserable men -- and woe betide us on that day ! -- cornering us into such a feeble position against such terrible odds that the threats of eternal punishment heaped upon us by the whore of Rome when we give free rein to the intrinsic passions of our dual nature will seem in comparison like a picnic on a tropical island where native beauties attend us with the servility appropriate to climes where no civilized being would dream of trying to survive on his own. Only theosophy has had any inkling, in this decadent new Dark Age, of the majestic grandeur of the cosmic cycle in which our world and our race are nothing more than fleeting incidents, mere eddies of existence in terrifying seas where lie forever those who are not dead, the hair-raising ancient races that would freeze our blood if we did not seek refuge in the bland optimism that the mundane charms of this world afford us. But it was not this esoteric discipline that offered me a fleeting glimpse of these prohibited sights, that made me shudder and that drove me mad, that tormented my dreams and stiffened my vigilance. No, it was misfortune that forced me to confront this terrible revelation that lies waiting behind the doorstep to the Infinite and Incommensurable. It all began several years ago, when I came to call at the deathbed of my uncle, Professor William Roderick Necken, Honorary Doctor of Sledic languages at the Polysemic University of Ffwagnell, Kismet, Horde Island. My uncle was an expert in ancient inscriptions of that mysterious and ubiquitous lost civilization, and the most prestigious archeological authorities of the world consulted him constantly. In his ninety-third year, a dark and unexpected illness had compromised his unbreakable iron health and finally sent him to an early grave. Officially it was declared that a negro sailor that my uncle had met in his walks through the docks of Oldhaven had infected him with the illness that made him abandon this vale of tears. It should come as no surprise, given the infinity of infections and plagues transported by members of this simian race, but the fact that the doctors could find no true physical cause for my uncle’s surprising death and that they found themselves rapt in the most absolute perplexity, as well as the startling glimpses I was later vouchsafed, led me to wonder whether it was truly a sickness, or something else entirely, that had so irrevocably truncated the career of the illustrious professor William Roderick Necken. When I learned that my uncle had fallen gravely ill and that he had asked after me, I ran posthaste to the clinic where he was lodged. I had not had any contact with him in years and it surprised me that he would request my presence. “Perhaps he wished to leave me his collection of rare Sumerian cherubim... or his hundreds of Horish ceremonial octahedra... or his exquisite Dothic capitals,” I thought ambitiously whilst I climbed the steps of the hospital. The tableau that awaited me could not have been more agonizing. The poor old man was a mere shadow of the William Roderick Necken that I had known during those summers that my mother brought me to the family farm in Highgrass, New Hempshire: skinny, pale, emaciated, with a feverish shine in his opaque, nearly blind eyes. “Ah, Howard, you’ve arrived,” came the barely audible wisp of a voice. “Come here, my son.... I mean... my nephew... because you are my nephew and not my son. Correct, Howard?” “Yes, uncle, I’m your sister Margaret’s son.” “And how does that guarantee that I’m not your father! You could be my son! You need to take a paternity test! Nurse! Nurse!” “Uncle, Uncle, calm down. There’s no need for any kind of paternity test...” “Ah, yes, of course!” he interrupts. “I’d forgotten that your religion forbids you from having your blood extracted.” “What religion, Uncle? I’m a scientist! I’m an atheist!” “What? Are you not a Dolphitic Orthodox?” “No, Uncle, that’s cousin Nathan. Harriet’s son.” “Oh, yes, of course, that’s right. That useless Nathan... I always said that that scatterbrain would end up like that, tangled up in sects. And his mother’s to blame, for dressing him like a girl till he was twelve and breastfeeding him till he was eighteen. No excuse for it! We are heading irreversibly toward a new Dark Age in which Superstition will once more vanquish Reason! Woe to us, living under the iron rule of Ignorance and the contempt toward everything that is Beautiful and Balanced! They should have never allowed immigration to this country! Harmony reigned before those dirty Italians came with their sinister glances and their shrill voices, filling the streets with their coloured posters written in an almost animal languages and incomprehensible signs and hurling themselves at us, the original colonists having arrived in this Promised Land from the Blessed Isles!” Exhausted by the effort that his righteous and stirring diatribe had summoned up, my uncle fell heavily onto his bed, his eyes glassy and dull. “No! Uncle! You’ve died! And without leaving a will!” A bony claw with a force unusual for a moribund old man grabbed me by the neck and pulled me over toward his toothless, liver-spotted mouth. “Silence, you fool, you albatross! My time has not yet come.” “I’m sorry. It’s just that I thought that...” click to continue
	WORDS AND MUSIC
Altri Fabbricanti Carmilla Chinaski Ediciones Minotauro Eymerich Fantascienza.com Fanucci Forlaget Prudentia Casa America Fratelli Frilli Editori Gianpaolo Castaldo Inti-Illimani Opera Narrativa Quilapayun Radio Città Futura RAI Sironi

THE WAY OF WEESCOOSA