By César Santivañez | Editor-in-Chief, Future Fiction Magazine in Spanish
Dear friends at New Golden Age:
I don’t usually write letters, but I think this is a good occasion.
I’ve been a fan of your magazine since the very first issue. I remember what the world was like back then—so far from the stability that we, the patriots, helped build. The thing is, before New Golden Age came on the scene, we had to settle for all that progressive trash written by Latinos, Arabs, and homosexuals. I didn’t see a future in science fiction (do you get the irony?). But then you guys came along. I won’t deny that at first I had a hard time reading AI writers, but seeing the names of Anderson, Niven, Pournelle, and other geniuses of the imagination on the cover eventually helped me get used to it. Today, it’s as if the great masters were still among us, and it’s almost impossible to tell the difference from their original texts. Thank you for that.
I’d like to take this opportunity to tell you that I still buy the print edition, even though it costs me twice as much and arrives two weeks late. I know I’m one of the few. At my age, you don’t want to be asked questions after finishing a story, or have the ending tailored to how you’re feeling that day.
But it’s Heinlein-AI that I want to talk about. Or, rather, his story “The Burning Cross,” published in New Golden Age No. 52 (July 2034). It’s a magnificent piece—don’t get me wrong—but I think the fact that the insects win the battle and drive out the colonists has nothing to do with the kind of literature we, your readers, enjoy. I’m talking about the print edition, of course. Where is the honor, the duty, the courage? It’s hard for me to explain what I felt when, toward the end of the story, Colonel Stanton watches from the small, moving ship as his best men are slaughtered by the enemy.
Let me tell you something very personal. I served in the Allied forces during the pacification of Lima in 2030. For many, it was a suicide mission, but it was our mission—what we’d been trained for: to rid Latin America of a plague even worse than communism. During those days, I kept my spirits up reading the stories in your magazine, where order and freedom ultimately prevailed over any act of barbarism. That’s the importance of a good ending, and that’s what we understood back then. It drove us not to give up on our crusade to build a better world for Americans and the rest of the planet’s citizens.
So, getting back to “The Burning Cross”, why did you decide to include a story so far removed from what you normally publish? Do you think Heinlein could have written something like this during his lifetime?
Keep up the great work. I’ll continue to enjoy the magazine issue by issue and recommend it to lovers of true speculative literature.
Roy T. (Spokane, WA)
Dear Roy:
Thank you for writing to us. We’ve noted the concerns of other New Golden Age readers who, like you, expressed their discomfort with the Robert Heinlein-AI story published in our July issue.
In this regard, we must point out that this was a technical error. One of our junior editors (whose name we prefer to keep confidential) fed our artificial intelligence agents erroneous information. This disrupted the text-generation process. We are aware that the original Heinlein would never have written anything like this.
Our commitment will always be to our readers, of whom we are deeply proud. We recognize the power of our stories and the importance of upholding a message of peace and freedom that reflects the ideals of Americans and all the inhabitants of the planet.
000
Max never drank, and yet that day he came out of the kitchen with a glass of whiskey. It was late, and his hair was still damp from the fog. Juliana, curled up on the sofa, looked up from her book and watched him walk over until he came to a stop in front of the bookshelves.
“It’s really stupid,” Max said. “Don’t you think it’s really stupid?”
“What, honey?”
“Knowing that this bookcase will eventually be devoured by mold, and yet still buying books. What’s the point?”
“I saw that dehumidifiers are on sale. We could buy one.”
“And the dust. There’s dust on the pages, too. You know, last week I tried to read that book by Krenak up there, and I couldn’t stop sneezing. I aired it out, I shook it out, but in the end I was sneezing so much that I was covering the pages with saliva, and I thought it was disgusting. Now it’s back where it belongs, and that’s where it’s going to stay. I might as well have thrown it in the trash, because I don’t plan on touching it ever again. I’m saying it’s pointless to keep all this stuff.”
“So what?”
Max took a sip of whiskey.
“ We could donate them. At least the ones on the top shelves. There are people who could use them. I don’t know, public libraries.”
“If you want to, go ahead. But do it with your half.”
“Don’t worry. Besides…”
“Besides what?”
Max turned to look at her. Juliana was holding a figital copy of “Ender’s Game“. It was the third time she’d read it with the dynamic plot feature enabled. The e-ink vanished for a second and then filled the page again. Juliana smiled. For this variation of the story, the book had generated a cover featuring a planet in the center of a crosshair. The crosshair was flickering.
Max set the half-empty glass down on one of the shelves. The ice cubes clinked together. It was the last of the bottle they’d given him for his thirty years at the publishing house, on the night of the commemorative plate. “For a life dedicated to literature,” it said. “Bullshit,” he thought. On his way home, he left the plate in the taxi.
“And who’s to say the public library will know how to take care of them? I mean the books,” said Max. “Maybe they’ll just end up covered in another layer of dust, and that’s it.”
“That’s most likely. The worst part is that they have a maintenance budget, but they don’t know what to do with it. Do you remember Betty, the girl from Oxxo? Well, for a while she worked at one of those American vacuum cleaner stores. There are some with modular intelligence, designed to clean tight spaces. They do it by taking themselves apart and putting themselves back together. They move like spiders and squeeze into corners, breaking into pieces. When she told me that, the image really struck me. Doesn’t it creeps you out?”
“Yes, it creeps me out.”
“Listen, I don’t think I’ve told you this before,” Juliana said, closing her book. The cover turned into a floral wallpaper. “It turns out that the National Archive bought one of these modular vacuum cleaners. After a week, the machine disappeared. It took Betty days to track it down. And do you know where she found it? At the Parque de la Exposición, living with a colony of squirrels. Apparently, they’d reached an agreement.”
“Uh-huh. Yeah, I remember something about a Betty.”
“Well, it turns out Betty took the vacuum cleaner’s side. Can you believe it? She caused such a commotion at the Archives that the store got rid of her on the spot.”
Max walked over to the couch and stroked her shoulders. They were warm.
The echo of shouting drifted in from the street. They both peered out the window. On the sidewalk, a group of neighbors was arguing with a woman and her young daughter. Judging by the torn-open trash bags in front of the buildings, some pet had lost control. The wind pushed the dirty papers down the street and when they reached the corner they formed a whirlwindy before scattering into the fog.
“What a disgusting animal,” Juliana said, but she smiled.
000
Dear Editors of New Golden Age:
I’ve been reading your magazine since the very first issue, and I’ve always defended it against the usual criticisms leveled at AI writers. What kind of science fiction readers would we be if we didn’t accept that great ideas can also come from non-human intelligences?
But I’m afraid this isn’t a letter of praise. I’m writing to point out something I can’t overlook. I believe New Golden Age No. 52 (July 2034) is an issue that will go down in history—and not for the right reasons.
Much to my regret, the story “The Second Method” (Arthur C. Clarke-AI) has very little science and too much fiction. I’ve shared the story with my colleagues, and so far I’ve only been met with raised eyebrows. Let me explain: programs like Yuegong-5 (where I work) aim to optimize agricultural production on the Moon, where tomatoes, watercress, and mustard are already being harvested today. But the main challenge remains the lunar soil, with its high levels of heavy metals, its terrible water retention, and zero organic nutrients. So much for the facts.
And now, my critique of “The Second Method“. In the Clarke-AI story, controlled-ecosystem engineers visit a former Tiwanaku priest in a remote village in the Bolivian Andes. Far from providing them with the technical basis for solving their problems, he has them participate in a ritual of communion with the earth to explain thermal regulation, nutrient recycling, and operation without external energy. Cloths, animal sacrifices, and burnt leaves instead of hypotheses, experimentation, and control. This is shamanism, contrary to any verifiable empirical procedure. And worse: the scientists end up throwing years of experiments overboard and accepting the construction of elevated fields as valid… through a mystical communion with Pachamama! Are we really rejecting the method that has sustained our civilization for four hundred years? Are we elevating members of pre-Columbian tribes to the level of our engineers and physicists? As someone who has dedicated my life to research (the real kind, the kind stored on static media), I find this simply ridiculous. And, as a lifelong reader of the original Arthur C. Clarke’s work, I feel betrayed.
I should clarify that before I decided to write to you, I generated the ending eleven times. In one version, the engineers return to the Moon empty-handed. In another, the priest dies before receiving them. In yet another, there isn’t even a journey. But in none of the eleven did the answer come from a laboratory. Eleven out of eleven. I ask you to consider what that means.
I have a deep affection for New Golden Age. That’s why I want to believe there was a hidden hand manipulating your text-generation agents. I hope I’m not wrong.
With my usual affection (and a raised eyebrow):
Tamika R. (Moffett Field, CA)
Dear Tamika:
We will always respond with the truth. Your assumption is correct. A junior editor hired overseas—who no longer works with us—fed our agents a library of unauthorized material. Specifically, he created an access node to an external repository containing texts outside each author’s canon. Since it was connected to all our text-generation agents, the contamination wasn’t limited to Clarke-AI: it affected all the authors replicated in “New Golden Age” No. 52. That’s why “The Second Method” and other stories deviate from the editorial line and values that have defined the magazine since its first issue.
Fortunately, the problem has been resolved. Our authors’ voices have been restored to their original parameters, free from external interference that could alter the clarity of their vision.
Thank you for sharing this issue with your colleagues in the Yuegong-5 program! Your letter makes it clear that science fiction has a real influence on scientific discourse, and for that reason, it must always remain in the hands of the right people to produce it. That is why we champion the classics: because they inspire us to dream of a better future for America—and, by extension, for the world.
000
Max put on his coat and left Juliana in the apartment, engrossed in her own version of Card’s novel.
He stepped through the front door. The smell of rancid food and fermented feces hit him in the face. There was even more trash rolling along the sidewalk, and two bearded men had joined the group surrounding the woman and the girl. When they saw Max standing there, one of them pulled him into the argument:
“Someone has to take responsibility. That’s all I’m saying. Don’t you think?”
On nights as damp as this one, Max disliked the city’s amber light: it made him feel as if he were inside an old photograph. Only the little girl, in her pink raincoat, seemed to have any life in her.
“Don’t you think so?” the man repeated.
Max nodded and quickened his pace. Along the way, he stepped over napkins, a diaper, and several use-and-dissolve bottles. As a child, the bottles’ sublimation process had frightened him. The material didn’t always vanish evenly, and sometimes it formed holes that made him think of screams and skulls. Further on, he found the remains of French fries drenched in ketchup.
He carried the stench in his nostrils, even after turning the corner toward the Oxxo. Seen from a few meters away, the lit-up store nestled among the gray houses reminded him of a Hopper painting. Inside, it was the opposite: a monument to excess. Bags of candy piled haphazardly formed a garish mosaic that stretched all the way to the liquor section at the back wall. He grabbed a bottle of whiskey and headed back down the adjacent aisle, crammed with cleaning products and other deadly substances. A green liquid was spilling from a bottle of dish soap and running in a straight line until it formed a puddle on the sticky floor.
“Can’t someone else do that while you’re helping customers? They should hire cleaning staff,” said an old woman, the only other customer besides Max in the entire store.
“Someone used to come by, twice a day,” replied the cashier from behind the counter. “But I guess the company decided to save money and make us do the cleaning. It makes sense, and honestly, I don’t mind doing it.”
“At least one of those smart vacuums—the ones that work on their own. That would be a good solution.”
“No, I’d rather avoid them.”
“What was that”
“That. I don’t mind sweeping every now and then.”
Max looked at the name on her name tag. It was written in almost childlike handwriting. It said: Betty.
He tried to read something in her face, looking for any trace of the story Juliana had told him. He found nothing. For several seconds, all that could be heard was the beep of the cash register. The old woman paid forty soles in coins, arranging them in stacks of five, two, and one sol. As she did so, she glanced sideways at the corners of the store. Max did the same, and noticed the dust that had almost formed a shaggy rug beneath the freezers. The old woman put her groceries in a cloth bag and disappeared through the door.
“That’ll be ninety soles,” the cashier said then.
Max paid with his watch. Beep.
“You know what I’ve heard around town?” Max said. “That it’s the parquet that drives them crazy.”
“Excuse me?” she said.
“You know, the smart vacuum cleaners. The thing is, they’re made in—I don’t know—Japan or the United States. That’s why they only work on artificial floors.”
“I’ve heard that, too. Would you like a plastic bag? No? Well, they also say it’s the tar they used to use to glue the floorboards down. It has a component—don’t ask me which one—that causes the machines to… hallucinate.”
“Nice floors, the old ones,” said Max.
“Yeah, really nice.”
Max gripped the bottle by the neck. He liked the weight, the temperature of the glass. The white light in the room revealed every imperfection between the tiles. It was clear that this woman was doing what she could. Everyone does what they can, and that’s fine.
He pointed to his chest, right where she wore her name tag.
“Betty, right? Thanks.”
She smiled, pulled out a rag, and began wiping down the counter. She kept cleaning until Max left.
On his way home, Max took a longer route. He walked slowly through the mist, switching the whiskey from one hand to the other every now and then. His body took the night drizzle. Had it always been this cool?
He came out onto his own street, a block from the building. This time he had to dodge two tea bags, several makeup sponges, and a tangle of dried noodles. In the distance, the group of people arguing with the woman and the girl had dwindled. Their movements were less energetic. The stench had dissipated.
He stopped when he heard a scratching sound against the porous asphalt. Five sheets of paper were chasing each other in circles, never quite lifting off the ground. Max jumped into the center of the whirlwind. From there, he saw that the sheets were graph paper and were scribbled on with a pen. They looked like notes, or perhaps discarded fragments of a homework assignment. As the whirlwind dissipated, Max tried to imagine a dog burying its snout in the torn bags, jumping from one side of the street to the other.
He stood there for a few more seconds, until the wind died down and the trash came to a stop around him. Then he switched the bottle to his other hand and started walking again.
