This is some more backstory for a novel I’m working on, The Edge of Space. There isn’t room in the novel for this conversation but I want to get to know the characters better, understand their relationships, find important points that will reveal or at least hint at their stories. The title is a reference to a suggestion I read in a book on screenwriting; if you have a character who isn’t very compassionate or social, have them do something nice as soon as they are introduced, like saving a cat that’s stuck in a tree.

No good deed goes unpunished. On the other hand, if you can take the pain you might find the end of the rainbow. I used to be like the leprechaun looking for the pot of gold. That didn’t work out so I settled for getting by and preparing for the worst. It was only a matter of time.

This story begins like so many, without a beginning. One thing after another took me from who I was three months ago to who I am today – that’s not right because I changed my life three years ago when I became Leo Flores. I used to be Raphael Gomez but that’s another story. I should start with the day I met Devon Chambers. 

I was taking a break and going to an Irish pub not far from home. I’d never been there before so I figured it was safe. It was 9:10 p.m. and the streets were dark but I was wearing a baseball cap and N95 mask – I love Covid. So the cameras everywhere were useless. I was standing on the median waiting for the pedestrian signal to finish crossing Foothill Boulevard (I don’t jaywalk) when this young, black guy exited the Irish pub and jogged across the eastbound lanes while watching for traffic. He stepped up next to me on the curb and looked around as if to get his bearings. He was taller than me and thin with an average face. Broad nose. Small eyes darting around made him look like a punk looking for some action, but he was wearing casual business attire. I knew he’d had a couple of drinks when he spoke to me as if we were pals. 

“Do you know where JPL is? It wasn’t dark when I got here and I’ve never been to Pasadena before. I parked my car …” He looked around and pointed towards Interstate 210 looming over us on concrete pylons. “I don’t actually work at JPL. I’m a contractor and I work over there, not too far, but I’m not sure where.”

I could tell he wasn’t trying to con me. “What’s the address?”

He thought about my question a moment before failing to give a complete response. “Two-something Hamilton Road –”

“Hampton Road. Just cross the westbound lanes when it’s safe and follow the sidewalk. You’ll get reoriented once you’re out of these bright lights. Day and night.”

He started to cross heavy westbound traffic on Foothill Boulevard but I took his elbow and stopped him. But there was nobody to stop the moron on one of those e-scooters who shot into the street in front of a bus. The driver was alert and hit the brakes but it was too late. The kid, who couldn’t have been more than sixteen, was thrown ten feet in front of the bus. The fool was probably already dead when the bus skidded to a stop on top of him. Then I made another critical decision that changed my life forever. I took out my phone and dialed nine-one-one. They picked up pretty quickly.

THIS IS NINE-ONE-ONE. WHAT IS THE NATURE OF THE EMERGENCY?

“A teenager just got run over by a bus at the corner of Foothill and Hampton Road. He isn’t moving.”

I could tell from the operator’s voice that she was black, had a high-school education, three kids, and a husband she tolerated because he had a bigger paycheck than her. The National Security Agency taught me how to read people from their verbal and electronic communications. And a whole lot more. She finished doing her job, calling for an ambulance, and got back to me.

“What is your name, sir?”

“John Doe.” 

I hung up and strolled across the street, tossing the burner phone in the nearest trash can. I didn’t have to worry about traffic because a couple of morons ran into each other and the intersection was gridlocked. I was ready for a beer, even a Guinness. I headed towards the bar, a decent place that had been remodeled recently, and this black kid suddenly appeared, out of breath and holding my old phone in his hand.

“You dropped your phone and it fell in the trash can. I guess you were pretty shook up too.”

I took the phone from him, wondering if he was the clumsiest tail ever or just a moron. “I didn’t drop it,” I said, then dropped it on the sidewalk and crushed it with my heavy boot. “Now I dropped it. Get lost before you get in trouble, kid.”

I stepped through the door without looking back and headed for an empty table in the darkest corner, removing my mask because I didn’t see any security cameras. It was pretty bright for an Irish pub. I sat down facing the door and this guy rushed into the bar, looking around as if expecting to meet someone. He spotted me and headed my way, almost colliding with the server. They arrive at the same time and he sat down uninvited. He was ruining my break and possibly blowing my cover. I had to get rid of him. 

“What’ll it be, gentlemen?” That was the server, an overweight white woman in her thirties, probably with a teenaged daughter she was trying to keep out of trouble.

“I’ll have a pint of Stella Artois. He’s leaving.” 

She turned to the black kid as if they were buddies and smiled real big, like she was happy to see him. “Hello again, Devon. Where’s Madison? You still drinking Guinness?”

This is why I don’t like people in general. There are too many unknowns. This guy was pals with the server, who wasn’t even attractive, just a woman who could stand to lose a few pounds. 

“You bet, Shirley. I think I’ve become Irish.” They laughed together and the server left. 

I had two options. I could either punch this dimwit who called himself Devon in the mouth and throw him out, or I could leave myself. Option one was off the table because that would be disturbing the peace and assault. I wanted a beer, so I compromised. That was my next missed opportunity.

It was silent until Shirley returned with our beers. Apparently, Devon had suddenly become mute or realized what an asshole he was. Before I could take a drink, he was acting like I’m his guest.

“Put it on my tab, Shirley.”

She nodded and left us alone. I would drink my beer and leave, no arguing about who would pay for a seven-dollar glass of beer. But I had to say something.

“I thought you’d never been to Pasadena before.”

He gulped his dark beer and shook his head in disbelief. “This was my first day on the job at JPL. Actually I’m a contractor and my coworker, actually she’s my boss, invited me out for a beer after we discovered that Voyager One has ended in failure. Believe me, I don’t become buddies with servers in bars but Madison is another story altogether.” He rolled his small eyes comically.

It was starting to make sense now. See why I don’t like strangers? Too many unknowns. I scanned the bar for anyone who might be watching us before relaxing a little.

“That the same Madison the server was referring to?”

He had another gulp of stout and described a woman who chewed gum and talked incessantly and did three or four things at once. Madison was younger then Devon and that annoyed him because of her unprofessional manner. She was also racially insensitive and oblivious to the feelings of the people around her unless they clearly stated their perspective. He hadn’t gotten a word in edgewise during the two hours they’d spent at the bar. And she drank like a fish while chewing gum, sticking it on the table when ranting. When he’d finally gotten her to understand that other people didn’t share her social blindness or anomalous cognitive function, she said that she got that a lot. I laughed out loud.

“What’s so funny?”

This was getting interesting. I whistled to get the bartender’s attention and he waved to Shirley, who nodded and the young man tending bar started pouring two more beers. 

“You like this chick. That’s why you notice her quirky behavior and have been complaining about her to a complete stranger for fifteen minutes. From the way you describe her, I don’t think it should be too hard to get in her pants.”

His head was shaking before I finished speaking. “Not a chance!”

“Not a chance of what?”

He stopped to think a moment while Shirley brought our beers. After listening to Devon go on about Madison, I uncharacteristically decided to pull a prank on him. Shirley set the glasses down and smiled at me the way servers do.

“Shirley, in your professional opinion as an amateur psychologist, do you think Devon is sweet on Madison?”

She laughed. “Oh yeh, but that’s not saying nothing. She’s the sweetest thing I ever met. Hell, I’m even sweet on her.” She looked at me and laughed again. “I’ll bet you’re even sweet on her and you never met her, that’s how she is. It’s in the stars.” That wasn’t the answer I had hoped for. 

Devon had come up with a response to my question during Shirley’s interlude. “If you think it’s so easy to get in Madison’s pants, why don’t you try? I’ll be glad to introduce you.”

These total strangers had put me on the defensive. They couldn’t have done a better job if they were trained operatives. But my opinion of the missing Madison had changed. I’ve met chicks like her and they are nothing but trouble with a capital T. 

“I’ll pass.”

Devon leaned forward and extended his hand. “I’m Devon Chambers.”

This would have been a good time to execute option two. I’d had a beer and should have been ready to get back to work but I didn’t do that. I took his hand but not too hard and shook it. 

“John Doe.”

Devon smiled sarcastically. “Yeh. I was wondering what kind of guy would call 911, toss his phone in the nearest trash can, go into a bar for a drink, then never stop watching the door and keeping an eye on the other patrons. John Doe would do that, so okay, good to meet you, John Doe. I apologize for my poor manners, following you in here, interrupting what was supposed to be respite from whatever you do.” He started to stand but I held his hand tightly and urged him to retake his seat.

“My name is Leo Flores.” The words slipped out before I had time to think about it.

Devon sat down, scoffed, and waved to Shirley, who nodded to the bartender.  “I don’t think you’re a spy or anything but just a guy who wants to remain under the radar. I feel the same but I can’t avoid being exposed to the NSA and their supercomputers because I’m trying to build a career.”

I finished my second beer and looked hard at Devon. I was trying to decipher if he was playing me. He was sincere. Shirley brought our beers and we both sipped them.

“The NSA and their AI programs couldn’t find Donald Duck’s ass with both hands. They collect everything about everyone but they don’t know how to analyze it. The data are compartmentalized and become the foundations for small domains of would-be tyrants. I’m preparing for when they get their head out of their ass and start to follow us in real time, like the Chinese.”

“That’s what I figured, but it must be lonely, going through life not knowing who might turn you in. I met a dude once, a friend of my roommate, who was actually wanted by the state police for robbery. You remind me of him. He never let his guard down, always watching for LEOs as he called the police, planning his escape to Mexico.”

“What happened?”  

“He didn’t make it to Mexico because the cops caught him but it wasn’t me who turned him in. He was caught on a security camera buying some beer at a Seven Eleven. They tracked him down and actually came to our apartment looking for him, asking where he lived. I didn’t know and neither did my roommate. But they found him. That was an eye-opening experience or me, man, seeing how the police can find you unless you disappear, like get out of the country. That guy was too slow.”

“But he was a criminal. Don’t you think he deserved to get caught, even if you weren’t willing to turn him in yourself. The state having such pervasive security relieved you of the responsibility of ratting out someone you knew.”

Devon sipped his beer as his head shook uncertainly. “Yeh, but I don’t know which is worse, having bad people wandering around or living in a police state where you’re under constant surveillance. For example, Madison and I discovered a potentially significant anomaly in Voyager One’s data. Best case scenario, a spacecraft that was launched almost fifty years ago failed when at the critical part of its mission; worst case, interstellar space isn’t what we thought it was. What if NASA buries the facts in a public relations message?”

This was sounding interesting. “Why would NASA want to cover up a failure? They’ve had plenty of them and they were investigated and the results released to the public.”

Devon took a long drink. “Madison doesn’t think there is anything wrong with Voyager One. At any rate, we’ll find out tomorrow when she and I will look at the telemetry and data more closely. She thinks it will take NASA a week to respond. We’re going to complete our own investigation – those are her words – and we’ll know the truth, again her words.”

“What do you think happened?”

Devon shook his head and emptied his engraved Guinness glass. “I’m crossing my fingers that it’s an equipment malfunction, something NASA’s engineers will fix the way they repaired Apollo 13 or the Hubble telescope.”

Shirley delivered two more beers and noticed that Devon was nervous. “What’s wrong, Devon? You look as white as me.” 

I interrupted to take the heat off Devon. “It was his first day on the job and he thinks he screwed up and may get fired. I was just telling him that it’s no big deal.”

Shirley picked up our empty glasses and waved her free hand dismissively. “If I had a dollar for every job where I made a mess my first week I’d be living in Beverly Hills.” 

When she’d left, Devon looked at me and quietly said, “Madison is already convinced, after seeing the data today, that Voyager One is working perfectly, that it has discovered … I don’t know how to say this, but she thinks the stars are only there for our entertainment. Is she crazy or what?!”

I sipped my cold beer and scanned the bar to see if anyone was listening before sharing my opinion. “It sounds like you have a week to find the truth before you have to worry about what NASA will do. This Madison chick sounds pretty sharp, maybe a little eccentric, but you’re off the hook. She’s your boss, right?”

Devon sat up straight and stared at me. “What are you preparing for?”

I sipped my beer and decided to be straightforward. “I worked for NSA five years as a security technician and analyst. I had access to all of their systems and I saw how convoluted their procedures are. That’s why a group of known terrorists could get on multiple commercial aircraft without being flagged. Their backgrounds were on file and their images available from airport security cameras, but no one was looking for them. But if someone with the authority to direct covert resources becomes interested in you, you can’t hide unless …” I shrugged rather than finishing my sentence.

He scoffed and sipped his Guinness stout. “You agree with Madison, don’t you? You believe that Voyager One’s anomalous data is significant. The worst-case scenario is something you’ve been preparing for, something so unexpected that it will have devastating effects on civilization. Right?”

I’d had this conversation with survivalists more than once. They were preparing for an apocalyptic event that they would overcome by force and save America, always led by a self-styled leader who portrayed himself as their savior. The conspiracy theorists were a more diverse community. They were aware of the many potential threats to their freedom but were overwhelmed by their own imaginations and thus incapable of taking action. I understood the logic of both positions but their rhetoric made me uneasy. Rather than being prepared for the unknown, both groups thought they knew where the threat was coming from. A police state like China didn’t occur overnight but took centuries to develop. The Chinese were willing servants by the time Mao took over. I had a different perspective. 

I scanned the bar for newcomers before answering. “Unforeseen events produce similar responses. An economic meltdown, global war, a presidential coup, a pandemic worse than Covid, severe drought, a natural disaster of biblical scale, have one thing in common. Mass hysteria.”

“Okay. I get it. You are prepared for an interlude of maybe ten years after an unforeseen calamity that disrupts civilization. You probably have a house in the country, some land, maybe enough canned food to last that long, and of course weapons to keep passersby from stealing your stash, but that doesn’t explain why you use burner phones and watch the door.” He took a swig from his stout and said through pursed lips, “You said that you worked for the NSA. Are they looking for you?”

I sipped my beer and thought about my answer. This conversation was getting too personal. On the other hand, Devon wasn’t a threat and, despite my desire to remain anonymous, I wanted to hear someone else’s opinion about some things. I sure wasn’t going to talk to those morons I’d met on the internet. I didn’t want to become so paranoid that it interfered with my primary source of income. I wasn’t the Unabomber. I finished my beer and waved to Shirley, who nodded to the bartender. 

“I was fired for violating the NSA’s code of conduct. No charges were filed.”

“Now that I think about it, I’ve never seen an interview with an ex-NSA employee on YouTube. There are plenty of retirees and former FBI and CIA agents sharing their opinion about every topic. They even run for public office with their service proudly proclaimed as proof of their patriotism. Did you sign some kind of nondisclosure agreement with the NSA, like a permanent gag order?”

I scoffed as our beers arrived. Shirley set down our beers and gave me a look that made me uncomfortable as she left. Devon noticed but didn’t say anything. I answered his ambiguous question.

“I signed the same nondisclosure form that every federal employee signs about classified information. It didn’t take long to figure out that NSA employees were held to a higher standard. My cover story was that I worked for the Department of the Interior. When I left the building on my last day, I was informed that the NSA’s uncompromising code of conduct didn’t end at the front door. That was three years ago.”

Devon took a drink and looked around nervously before asking, “Are you at liberty to tell me what got you fired?”

“I was stealing from the Mexican drug cartels. Instead of turning me over to the Department of Justice, NSA emptied my bank accounts and warned me that I was on their watch list. I couldn’t pay my rent when I left the building. They even deleted my bank accounts and my entire credit history. I was a persona non grata.”

Devon took a big drink of stout and shook his head in disbelief. “I guess you weren’t Leo back then. You started over but they must wonder where the old Leo disappeared to?”

“The secret to dropping below the radar is not disappearing. Give them false trails.”

“I guess you … can you tell me your real name?”

“Raphael Gomez is an IT security consultant living in Madrid. He steals from the wealthy using the capitalist system, pays his taxes, and is a law-abiding citizen. The NSA’s algorithms are watching him but he isn’t worth sending agents to verify his whereabouts.”

Devon looked at me curiously for a moment before responding. “I have to ask myself why you didn’t either punch me in the face or leave when I joined you uninvited. If I had to guess I’d say that you are curious about the Voyager One anomaly Madison and I discovered and … you are lonely.”

“I considered both options. I don’t think you’re going to run to the authorities because I haven’t broken any laws. You aren’t a threat. We met randomly so you weren’t tailing me because, like I said, I’m not an active target. You’re right, I am interested in the Voyager mission. What you discovered could lead to something no one has planned for. In my ten years with the NSA, nothing like this occurred.” He watched me until I continued, “Lonely is too strong a word.” I smiled awkwardly and added, “I think Madison would say that destiny brought us together.”

Devon waved to Shirley and finished his beer. “I’m beginning to see her point about the stars, astrology, all that superstitious nonsense. We met because some kid got killed –”

“He’s in ICU and is expected to recover.” 

Devon noticed my phone on the table and started to take his out of his hip pocket, but I stopped him with a head shake and a gesture. “This phone is secure. I built it myself.”

“It looks like a regular phone but, if it’s so secure, why do you use burners?”

“Reduce exposure. The NSA is always looking for backdoors. WhatsApp was penetrated years ago. It’s always just a matter of time, especially as quantum computers come online. They’re only good for breaking encryption.”

We finished the beers Shirley brought and talked about politics and the future of America. When it was time for me to get back to work I paid the tab, to Devon’s annoyance, and we left the bar together. The intersection was cleared and there was no sign of what had occurred earlier. I put my mask on and headed up Foothill Boulevard, but he grabbed my elbow.

“If you think you can trust me, maybe we can get together again for a couple of beers. You could meet Madison. That would be a lot of fun. What do you think?”

“I’ll be in touch.”

“How?”

“I cloned your phone while we were talking. If I can do that, imagine what the NSA can do? See you later.” 

I heard several expletives as I walked away. I stopped and gave Devon one last piece of advice. “Don’t jaywalk.”

He was pushing the pedestrian button as if sending Morse code as he answered, “Are you kidding? After what happened to that guy?”

This is a backstory for a book I’m working on. I’m experimenting with different approaches to writing a novel, including presenting it as a screenplay (to get to the point), better scene description, and making the characters sufficiently unique that dialogue tags are unnecessary. This is a first (and only) draft of this story …

DEAD END

Devon looked at the smiling white woman sitting next to him and wanted to take that wad of gum she had stuck to her keyboard and shove it down her throat. Madison was the worst coworker he’d ever had, always smiling and jumping around, never sitting still for more than a minute. She suddenly took the still-wet gum in her fingers and put it in her mouth, before turning to him to unleash another torrent of meaningless words wrapped around a piece of masticated chewing gum.

“You don’t say much, but that’s okay because it’s your first day on the job, trying to get the hang of it, so I’ll explain, although I’ve never had a supervisory position before and, by the way, I’ll write glowing performance reports as long as you don’t screw up.” 

Devon tried not to grimace at the way her mouth twisted into grotesque shapes as she spoke. He nodded and started to answer, but she cut him off.

“I guess I’m supposed to fill you in on our task, right?”

Devon opened his mouth but never got a chance to respond.

“We’re monitoring the Voyager One and Two missions, you know what those are right? Of course you do, so I’ll cut to the chase, we receive a daily signal, it takes that long to receive their telemetry because they are really far away and we don’t send any messages because they are running low on fuel, so we just check their system performance and look for anomalies. Got it?”

“Yeh, I got that part.”

“Great! Once a month we’ll receive a burst of data from their on-board magnetometers, plasma spectrometers, LECP, CRS and PWS systems, which we check for errors and store, letting the PIs know when it’s available. Got it?”

Devon’s head was shaking as he interrupted her train of thought. “What’s an LECP, CRS and PWS? Nobody told me about those instruments.”

Her jaws went into overdrive, chewing the gum for a moment, before it was withdrawn manually from her wide mouth defined by thin lips, and stuck back to the keyboard. He watched this operation in horror until her voice, a blend of hyperactive coke fiend and southern drawl continued with undiminished fervor.

“The LECP measures the energy of ions, electrons and how they change, you are a physicist right? Never mind, you’ll figure it out, the CRS measures cosmic rays in interstellar space, the PWS reports on electromagnetic wave interaction. They’re easy to find in the reports but don’t screw up or I’ll have to give you a poor performance evaluation. Got it?”

The gum disappeared between her yellowish but neatly aligned teeth as she smile-frowned at Devon.

“I know what you’re talking about, Madison. But I don’t have a user name yet. I can’t log on and read the data you’re describing. I’m sure I’ll get it once I can access the system.”

The gum, by now reduced to the consistency of gruel, was suddenly swallowed. “Didn’t the IT guy here at JPL set you up? I don’t control the system you know.”

Devon shook his head. “They said you were responsible for people within your group. I think that means you have to give me limited credentials so that I can perform my tightly constrained task, which apparently is limited to babysitting two aging satellites that have left the solar system.”

Madison laughed and pulled another stick of gum from a pack lying next to her keyboard. “Oh yeh, I forgot. My horoscope predicted that I would meet someone new today and make a mess of it, so I guess it was right again.”

She began typing on her keyboard as the new stick of gum was rapidly broken down by strong molars.

Intrigued, Devon ventured, “You believe in astrology? I wouldn’t have thought a physicist would be so gullible …” 

Devon watched in awe as her fingers continued deftly typing while her jaws focused on the chewing gum as she responded. “Sounds crazy right? But my mom predicted the day of my dad’s death in Afghanistan and she explained how it all worked and I’ve been hooked ever since, even though I know it’s a pseudoscience based on superstition, but it has never failed me but you know it may be a primitive scientific system but who knows, in a thousand years they’ll probably tell jokes about the standard model of physics right?”

Her fingers stopped typing and a login screen appeared on Devon’s monitor. His jaw dropped in surprise as he tried to answer her question while reading the default password she’d written in perfect script on a post-it note and stuck to the side of his monitor without his noticing. 

“I’m not sure what you’re talking about …” He had to look at the keyboard as he clumsily typed the long password. He could hear her jaws chewing the gum, slim fingers typing quickly, until he finally accessed the system, so confused that he didn’t change the password before the Voyager mission tool opened on his monitor. 

“You’ll probably be able to do all this in your sleep by next month, I’ll help you get up to speed.”

She was smiling at him as her fingers continued typing without her attention.

“Thanks,” he stammered.

The wad of gum was removed by her left hand, her right deftly typing, and smashed into her keyboard. Both hands became motionless, her smile transformed into a worried frown as she asked, “Are you Black?”

Devon shook his head in confusion. “What …?”

“I  don’t want to offend you by calling you Black if you’re actually African-American right?”

“I’m not Black if you mean like fried chicken, Pentecostal revival, hip hop, and all that. I think I’m just like you but with different ancestry, so I guess I’m African American. Why does it matter?”

The gum went back into her mouth as she sighed with relief. “Just checking. Believe me when I say that my supervisor asked about it and they were concerned, I don’t know why, that you weren’t … you know …” She grimaced and finished her thought in a hushed and embarrassed tone, “They didn’t want to hire you but you were the most-qualified applicant and I insisted that you would be fine so … well … it’ll be fine, I can tell that you’re a bright guy, by the way, did you enjoy your initial job appraisal?”

“What …?”

Madison pointed a long finger at Devon’s monitor and smiled like a proud mother. “You passed with flying colors, just like my horoscope predicted. I’ll bet your birthday is in early March right?”

Devon looked at the screen filled with rows of numbers, then at Madison’s smiling face, and nodded. “Didn’t you already know that from my personnel file?”

“I didn’t look I swear. See what I mean about ancient pseudoscientific theories?”

Devon relaxed and smiled at her as he nodded. “You’re going to have to tell me more about astrology, Madison.”

Devon tried to focus on the numbers that were reporting the location of Voyager One while she explained the importance of the constellations in their everyday lives. Astrology was the first science and it had been studied rigorously for more than four-thousand years in every civilization. The fact that astrologers from so many cultures used different constellations was proof to her that it was based on more than the apparent relationships between distant celestial objects. She stopped expectantly and waited for Devon to respond.

“If I play the lottery every day and win occasionally, I know it’s because there’s a probability of my winning now and then. But I don’t say it was because the moon was in alignment with Saturn twelve days after my birthday when I lose. See what I mean?”

“That’s an easy one, you don’t know if you are going to win so you use probability to describe your uncertainty because it gives you a nice narrative to explain why you lose most of the time but the fact is that the lottery isn’t deterministic, and neither is our life or the events that influence our decisions or us directly. For example, remember I said that I was going to meet someone today?”

“Sure and you knew you would because it was my first day on the job. That’s nothing but confirmation bias.”

Her head was shaking as her fingers kept typing, the gum waiting expectantly on the keyboard. “I didn’t tell you the entire horoscope. It’s more complicated than that, wanna hear it?”

“Sure.” Devon nodded without looking at her as he focused on the screen, which showed the history of Voyager One telemetry data over the last month.

“I was going to meet a tall, dark stranger – you are African American and over six feet – and he is going to introduce me to my future romantic partner. That’s intriguing isn’t it? Right?”

Devon looked at her in surprise “You got all that from a daily horoscope?”

“Yep but only because I’ve done a detailed work-up based on my entire life, every horoscope compared to subsequent events, and it is going to happen. I can’t wait to meet this guy, I hope it isn’t a woman because I’m not lesbian although I don’t have anything against gay people, I’m just not like that.” 

Her hand suddenly stopped typing and a finger shot towards Devon’s screen, pointing at the table of telemetry data. “Something’s wrong, did you screw up on your first day, Devon? I hope not because I was starting to get used to you.”

“I was going to mention that when you finished explaining how astrology told you about your future romantic life. I didn’t think it was an emergency because, like you said, we can’t do anything except check the data and notify the Voyager project manager. Was I wrong?”

Her finger withdrew and retrieved the chewing gum from the keyboard. “No problem but I’m glad you spotted it. I’ll put it in the daily report, which is usually just a couple of lines about the quality of the transmission, sometimes it gets messed with by cosmic rays or the sun’s magnetic field. This report will get their attention but you need to report it before me to get credit for the discovery because you noticed it first, but next time you see something anomalous report it immediately because NASA can get pretty picky when something goes wrong, looking for scapegoats, right?”

“I don’t know how to report anomalous telemetry data. I’ve only been on the job for an hour and there was no introduction to my job. I know that wasn’t your responsibility –”

Madison grimaced and the wad of gum was relocated to the keyboard. “Actually it was, yep I’m pretty sure I was supposed to have informed you of your responsibilities, we have a standard email for that but I didn’t know I was your supervisor until two-hours ago, but that’s no excuse I could have texted you. I hope they don’t fire me right?” 

Instead of looking concerned, she was grinning. The gum was popped back into her gaping maw and her fingers continued their deft typing as if nothing had happened. Devon searched the app for a tool to report anomalous data and finally located it while Madison continued typing between looking at the screen carefully. The reporting menu was difficult to navigate and required details he had to retrieve from the previous page but he eventually got all the data entered in the correct boxes and typed his summary.

TELEMETRY DATA FROM TODAY SUGGESTS THAT VOYGER ONE IS IN THE SAME LOCATION IT REPORTED YESTERDAY.

His report complete, he turned to Madison, who was working on the same screen he had just closed. He ventured a question since she didn’t seem to have trouble doing two or three things at once. “Did you find an anomaly too? By the way, what are you doing that requires so much work? I thought we were only doing the daily data check.”

The chewing gum wad was deftly removed from her mouth before she answered, never missing a keystroke. “I’m working on the six-month data download, but don’t worry I’ve got it covered. All systems reported anomalous data for the last twenty-four hours. The MAG data suggest that Voyager One has entered some kind of magnetic storm, PLS is off the scale, LECP is dead, CRS is oscillating wildly, and PWS has been constant for more than a day. These data are recorded for a few seconds per day and stored on digital tape before being sent in a burst every six months, that’s what I’ve been doing.”

“So I guess Voyager One has lost power?”

“Not a chance, just look at the battery output, it’s still at ten percent and should last through the mission’s lifetime, another ten years.” She finished typing and turned to Devon, the wad of gum returned to her mouth, being masticated like crazy. “I think Voyager I has flown the coop.”

“What does that mean?”

Her indifferent shrug suggested that her answer wouldn’t be scientific. “This bird has left the solar system and entered interstellar space. We can only speculate about that environment, what kind of cosmic ray soup filled with ions and electrons and maybe even unattached quarks and muons, maybe even some stray Higgs bosons, who knows, right?”

“So you’re saying that the instruments deployed on Voyager One weren’t designed for interstellar space and their operational parameters have been exceeded. That makes sense. What do we do now?”

Madison looked at the clock on her computer, smiled, and stood up. “We’re off the clock. Like you said, we’re just babysitting a couple of aging satellites, and besides it’ll take NASA at least a week to digest what you discovered, so let’s have a drink and get better acquainted.” 

She was at the door, waiting expectantly, so Devon logged off and joined her at the door. “What did you have in mind?

“Since you’re not Black how do you feel about an Irish pub? There’s one just around the corner and I developed a taste for Guinness since I found myself alone in this closet ten hours a week and it’s the closest bar.”

Devon grinned and encouraged her with a wave of his hand. “I’ve never had a Guinness.”

As she stepped into the brightly lit hallway, Madison turned and quipped, “I can’t wait to meet the man I’ve been waiting for all my life.”Devon laughed.

My God!

This was the most difficult book I’ve ever read, or even imagined. I thought it would be some kind of Horatio Alger story with a lot of eccentric characters. I was right about the second part. This long book (783 pp.) covers one day in the life of a man in his late thirties, and it isn’t an especially interesting day. Leopold Bloom is simply the instrument whereby the author introduced several writing techniques that collectively are called Post Modern. He invented this genre and, rather than introducing these techniques (e.g., stream-of-consciousness, allegorical writing, extreme third-person point of view, omniscient narration, flashbacks) in several works, he packed them all into this monstrous tome.

I can’t possibly write a review of this book, which is unnecessary anyway because it has become part of the literature curriculum in most colleges and universities. It has been analyzed, read between the lines, parodied, practically treated like a sacred scripture by literary analysts since it was written.

I’ll stick to what little I know, that is, what I read myself and what I thought about it. There is no plot, no protagonist, antagonist, conflict, nothing that belongs in a novel. There is no character development. Everyone is fixed, although they are an eccentric group. No epiphany. No denouement. Leopold Bloom, in addition to his primary function of letting James Joyce experiment with prose, is a tool for presenting the many woes of the Irish in the early twentieth century, mostly associated with the English presence on their island. These stories are presented through the eyes of working class people in Dublin.

Each of the eighteen chapters introduces another literary technique. Most of them are bad and have not been pursued by later writers I have come across. However, the author’s representation of stream of consciousness is breathtaking in detail. I’ve heard that the typical human has an attention span (when they’re not focusing) of about ten seconds; that’s about how long these characters (mostly Bloom) thoughts remain coherent. Joyce does this so realistically that I saw my own thoughts in his characters’ reflections. He also foretold what psychological research demonstrated fifty years later; men think about sex all the time.

I checked my comprehension by reading the chapter-by-chapter plot synopsis on Wikipedia after I finished a chapter. I didn’t miss much but I did reread a couple of sections where the metaphorical run-on prose lost me completely. Of course the writer of the Wikipedia page probably spent a semester studying this book.

This would have been an interesting novel if it had been two-hundred pages or so, but Joyce didn’t just go a bridge too far. He just kept going and going and going and going and going …

I have commented in previous review that I notice writer fatigue in most novels. There was no way to know if Joyce was burned out or not (he spent eight years writing Ulysses) because of the changing style. He probably was, which would explain the bizarre chapter where a visit to a birthing center becomes a medieval castle filled with knights and kings, ghosts … see what I mean?

I reviewed the first book written by Don DeLillo, White Noise, and the author’s style of exploring the thoughts of the main character intrigued me, so I read this book. Rather than unfolding over months, this story takes place in less than twenty-four hours, much of it in the back of a limousine. The narrative is third-person but focuses on the main character so there’s no confusion — no head hopping. However, the central character, a young (28 years) financial wizard, is as very different from the main character in White Noise, as you can imagine — in every way except one.

Several aspects of this novel bothered me: 1) I found the dialogue confusing, with what should be questions presented as statements, and incomplete sentences; 2) the actions of the central character (Eric) are inconsistent and make no sense, not even within the context of the personal and professional crises he is facing; 3) unlike the college professor in White Noise, the character’s own thoughts don’t explain his actions; 4) the journey across Manhattan is fraught with interruptions, as one would expect, but some of them are so wild that they appear to be tossed in to create (artificial) situations for Eric to repeat his previous behavior.

As for the grammar and punctuation, it’s difficult to comment on; however, the narrator speaks clearly, even if none of the characters (professionals with advanced degrees and working folk) seem capable of finishing a sentence. I also noticed the same general trend I have reported in other novels: there is a subtle shift after the halfway point, at which the erratic dialogue begins to straighten out, but only randomly. The only thing that made sense was the ending, but even that was flawed by Eric’s unexplained deteriorating cognitive function and wildly self-destructive behavior.

This story should have been told by Eric rather than a third-person narrator, who doesn’t appear to know his subject as well as the reader might have hoped. After all, it is a story about overlapping emotional crises and their manifestation in the actions of an apparently normal person.

Finally, I found this story depressing, even though it doesn’t portray anything like the misery explored by Russian or Chinese authors. Perhaps that was all the author wanted to communicate …

I recently heard the author talking on the radio and it piqued my curiosity, so I wanted to find out what he wrote that has people still trying to kill him after thirty years (he was recently stabbed in London). I figured it must be incredibly derogatory of Islam. I was disappointed.

This is a rather long novel (591 pages) that falls squarely in the literary fiction genre. It reads more like poetry than prose at times, and the author uses every literary trick to make it interesting to read — as a stimulating activity rather than a story with a plot and all that nonsense. His descriptions of even characters conveys who they are without them saying a word. You could call it hyper-metaphorical.

There is a core story here, about two men with similar backgrounds (Indian actors) who meet accidentally and become entwined (to say the least!) as they reconcile their pasts with the present. This story is less than half the book. Rushdie livened the story up with a fantasy twist that hides multiple levels of allegory (east-west, young-old, good-evil, life-death, etc), adding several separate threads that are more like independent stories; all of these pieces are tied together by one of the protagonists (or is he the antagonist?). The author leaves that question unanswered.

There is no attempt made to reconcile any of the fantasy with reality, so the reader can write their own backstory; I’m certain that has been done many times by literary critics, perhaps even Rushdie himself. Personally, I think he just wrote it and let the chips fall.

It’s difficult to critique the grammar and punctuation because the characters often speak in Indian/English slang (I had to look up so many words that it became like translating from Spanish). Also, to keep the pace going, dialogue is mostly within paragraphs and sometimes not even using quotation marks. Thoughts and words are intermixed in an assault of ideas and actions that conveys more than simple conversation. Truly masterful.

I don’t read novels like this in general because they don’t make any sense to me. There is no cause-and-effect, not even speculation about what’s going on — never mind the appearance of the narrator as some kind of deity who doesn’t reappear. Pieces of literary construction are thrown together haphazardly and the result is a mess; however, it is a rather pleasant morass of words and ideas if the reader doesn’t try to read between the lines.

To address my original reason for reading this novel, I think the people who want to kill Rushdie read between the lines and saw something that shocked them so badly that he became one of the protagonists (or are they both antagonists?) to them. To those who believe in magic and superstition, this book can mean almost anything.

I’ve tried not to fall into that wormhole in this review because …

I’m just a reading monkey.

This book review is going to be a little different. I have read several books in Spanish but I’ve always written my review in English because my Spanish is very poor. This time, however, I am writing the review in English and appending the Spanish translation. Anyone who reads this with some Spanish language skills will probably get a laugh out of it.

English.

This is a children’s story about an eleven-year old girl whose family escapes from the Dominican Republic during Trujillo’s reign of terror. It isn’t a biography but a condensation of many stories she heard from others.

The central character is enigmatic because I don’t know if her personality is intended or the result of the book being written by an adult. Anita is very mature and has quite a large vocabulary, but she also acts very naive about simple things. This could be character development as the story unfolds. Maybe she’s showing off her vocabulary. Still, it was disconcerting.

The story is straightforward so the appeal must come from Anita’s thoughts, which she doesn’t write in her diary until near the end, which leads to my only real complaint: the narrative is written in first-person, present tense, with past tense used for previous events; however, when Anita writes in her diary, she uses past tense. If she’s telling the story years later, with assistance from her diary, why would she use present tense? That works best for continuous action, not retelling a story. I’m probably just too picky, but it bothered me.

I was also confused about her relationship with several boys she had crushes on during the story. They seemed a lot younger when they were playing together than later in the story, when the boys acted mature. Since when do eleven-year-old boys act more mature than girls? Some of my confusion probably comes from my stumbling Spanish, but boys and girls are boys and girls, not men and women.

It is an old story (it occurs in 1961) that the author enlivens with a young narrator. The story focuses on Anita’s thoughts and feelings rather than historical events and this should make it appealing to young readers.

However, the mention of menstruation could get it banned in some states.

Traducción en español.

Esto es un cuento infantil sobre una niña de once años de quien familia se escapan de la República Dominicana durante el reinado de terror de Trujillo. No es autobiográfica pero compilación de historias de que la autora oída de muchas personas.

El carácter centro es enigmático porque no sé si su personalidad es deliberado o el resulto de que el libro estaba escrito por adulto. Anita es muy matura y use vocabulario grande pero actúa inocente sobre cosas simples. Esto podría la desarrollo carácter por la historia. Tal vez la autora o Anita esta mostrar su vocabulario. Sin embargo es desconcertante.

La historia es claro y sencillo, por lo tanto su atractivo tiene que origina de los conocimientos de Anita que ella no escriba en su diario hasta casi al final de que naturalmente lleva en mi solo reclamo real: la narración está escribir en el primera persona presente con el pasado usado para eventos anteriores; sin embargo, siempre que Anita escribe en su diario ella usa el pasado. Si ella está contando la historia después de muchos años, con ayuda de su diario, por qué usaría ella el presente? El presente funciona bien para acción continuado, pero no recuenta los eventos pasados. Yo estoy probablemente justo demasiado criticón pero eso me molestaba.

Yo estuve confundido también sobre su relaciones con varios niños con quien ella se estaba enamorando durante la historia. Ellos aparecerían mucho más joven cuando jugando con Anita que más tarde en la historia, cuando los niños están actuando matures. Desde cuando los niños de once años se comportan más maduro que niñas? Alguno de mi confusión probablemente se surge de mi español peor pero niños y niñas eran niños y niñas, no hombres y mujeres.

Este es una vieja historia (ocurre en 1961) que la autora le anima con una joven narrador. La historia se foca en los conocimientos de Anita y su sentimientos en vez de acontecimientos históricos y por lo tanto se debería estar a jóvenes lectores.

Sin embargo la mención de la menstruación podría prohibirlo en algunos estados.

I heard about this book on NPR. They were saying a movie was made of it, that it is about a toxic spill from a railroad. That’s been in the news lately so I read it. I watched the movie too on Netflix, but I’ll get to that.

The book won several literary awards, which usually means it is literary fiction, rather than action or drama. And it is. The narrator is first-person and all of their crazy thoughts about just about everything are portrayed and explored in numbing detail. That’s what made it interesting. Did you ever wonder if anyone else occasionally sees curious metaphors or analogues in everyday objects and events? Apparent the author does.

From his (the narrator) marriage to the evacuation because of the toxic cloud, and everything in between, nothing is spared close scrutiny, and not necessarily rational or even reasonable. For example, the return of students in the fall to the “College on the Hill” requires several pages to describe, and it is referred to later in the book.

As far as plot goes, there isn’t really one, although I got the impression that the author realized this and shoved an ending in, which was as incomplete as every other thought by the narrator. It would have been better without what was a very unsatisfactory finale. That isn’t important, however; what kept my attention was the narrative, exploration of Jack Gladney’s mind through his attempts to understand the world. He fails and I think this is where the title comes from.

Everything is white noise, in our minds, the outside world, movement through this world. Everything. And that’s probably why the book won awards, and why I recommend it as a fascinating examination of “what if’s” even if there are no satisfactory answers.

As for the movie, I don’t know why anyone would have tried to make a movie from this book. I watched the film and it bore little relation to what I read, except that I saw the movie first; the actor who plays Jack Gladney was perfect, in appearance, speech, mannerisms. Just excellent. Everything else about the film was a major disappointment.

Read it but don’t watch it!

As the front cover image shows, I picked this gem up from the bargain table at Barnes and Noble. It was published in 2020 by an author with a reputation of writing books for summer reading, which I assume means mindless entertainment. The mindless part is certainly true …

First, the writing is a little wordy and, like most of the books I’ve reviewed, it weakens after the halfway point. Typos and clumsy sentences increase but never become a problem for the reader. I just notice those kinds of things. But one thing that was noticeable was the author’s apparent recognition that she had rambled too long and had to wrap it up, as if it were Labor Day and she was only half finished.

I don’t think there is a plot per se, but rather a series of inconveniences, culminating in a convenient story worthy of national headlines. (The central character is a newspaper journalist between jobs.) The character meanders along like the hot summer weather in the Florida panhandle where the story takes place, doing all the things you might expect for a breezy summer read: finding romance, facing past relationships gone off the rails, working hard on the big story, solving a mysterious death through tenacity and brilliant insight.

The author must have recognized that the story was going nowhere, so a bogeyman and a hero were tossed in to create a sense of anxiety and welcome relief, even a tragic ending for the hero. It sounds great but it doesn’t work. Maybe no one notices when they’re reading a book on the porch on beach in Florida on a sultry summer day.

There was a lot of descriptions of flowers using names I didn’t recognize. That would probably appeal to the right crowd, like reading nineteenth century English novels (e.g. Pride and Prejudice). There certainly was a homey feeling to the story but it didn’t quite fit, and maybe that was the intent of the author — big city girl doesn’t fit into her small town roots.

But this girl decides that she can make her life just as challenging in NW Florida as in Atlanta or New York.

I can’t really recommend this book but, like the characters, neither is it egregious …

Another random read, picked up at the discount table at a chain bookstore.

First, my comments on readability. The grammar and punctuation were good, but as with every novel I’ve read, the overall structure deteriorated at the halfway point. Sentences became wordier and context was sometimes lost, so that I had to reread previous paragraphs to catch up. Maybe I’m just a poor reader.

The antagonist is identified early, so this is indeed a story about being outfoxed, a cat-and-mouse game with someone’s life at risk, whose life was the first surprise. The protagonist thinks he is smarter but he’s shown up repeatedly by his adversary. This was well done, especially because the villain is introduced through one thread. This is a bold method that could have been exploited more, but it nevertheless works. Unfortunately, if the hero is always losing, there has to be a big scene where they get lucky. That is how this ends, predictably but surprisingly unexpected.

I had the impression from the outset that the story was going to end in an explicit romantic scene. That was okay, but the intimacy was overdone in my opinion, pushed beyond the inevitable romantic conclusion that was apparently the real plot. I don’t know anything about the author, but this reads like it was written for a specific audience that likes romance mixed with mystery, although there wasn’t much mystery in the perpetrator of heinous crimes. The red herrings weren’t very convincing.

I was totally surprised by the ending, which says a lot about the skill the author used to disguise what was in plain site, if I had been looking for it. However, this cool surprise was irrelevant to the story, and at times made some of the scenes implausible (in retrospect). At the time, I was totally fooled.

This novel smoothly integrates several themes into a sometimes-compelling story that isn’t really a mystery or a romantic drama. Overall, it was okay for casual reading, but don’t expect to stay up late reading…