Shadows Live Under Seashells
"Conservative-minded speculative fiction and science fiction author. I did not sacrifice my liberties to defend my country only to see it destroyed from within. Ayn Rand was a visionary."
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Shadows Live Under Seashells by Allan J. Ashinoff
Sanctions: 6
Added by Michael E. Marotta on 8/27, 9:27am
Shadows Live Under Seashells Our most likely future is somewhere between Brave New World and 1984. It is clean and bright, rather than the post-industrial recycling center of cyberpunk, because an unofficial and unelected power center simply surpassed and usurped the inefficient nation states. They know what is best. Memory implants and omnipresent cybernetic personalities are only the most subtle of controls. In this 2084, humanity has been locked up in Domes, not only for the good of the planet, but for our own good as well.
Allan Ashinoff credits Ayn Rand, Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, and Jack London as literary influences. The first three are easy enough to see in the style, theme, and plot. But absent any wildlife, the last was clearly inspirational. Wildlife certainly exists, a whole heaping planetful; but people do not interact with animals, lest we damage their ecologies and harm their natural lifestyles. For their betterment (and our own), all humans live in a handful of huge Domes where the Administration watches over us. The Administration actually figured out some years before that bottling people up had little effect on the environment, but the situation was extremely convenient. In fact, it was the construction of the Domes that finally bankrupted the national governments which the Administration replaced.
Elliot Fintch is a member of the elite. He is called an “eductor” something more than a mere educator. He works for the Administration. Essentially, everyone on Earth really does. Elliot Fintch, however, is special. As a child, he was identified as COT: Capable of Thought. The Administration coddled him, educated him, trained and rewarded him, and gave him interesting work. He solves problems. But life is not perfect. And it gets worse.
No one is independent, not even an eductor. Elliot Fintch is constantly wary of entrapment by a secret agent or sycophantic citizen. Any chance comment could raise suspicions about his loyalty. Going off to work one morning, he does not know that his wife was arrested because of a careless phrase during yet another weary argument over the children they never had. Meanwhile, Elliot Fintch has been handed an intractable problem: murders on the Mars colony.
Ashinoff’s writing is clear, clean, and crisp. The book is easy to read and compelling in its unfolding narrative. While we enjoy some special viewpoints as the author’s audience, we follow Elliot Fintch on his voyage of discovery, along the land, across the water, and into outer space. For all of his instant access to all of the information in the world, Fintch has been sheltered. Even ordinary people living lawful careers within the context of the Administration prove to be puzzling to a man who only knew other bureaucrats his entire life. But Elliot is smart, dedicated, and neuronically enhanced. Eventually, he figures it out.
This novel stands on its own; but it also rests on a set of short stories, Fallacies of Vision, set closer to our own time. Both are available as Kindle downloads on Amazon. Not a Kindle person myself, I found it easy to put the software on my Macintosh and enjoy the reads. Ashinoff is clearly and consciously a political conservative. (We met on the “Galt’s Gulch Online” website of the Atlas Shrugged movie producers.) The opening story in Fallacies of Vision, “Erosion” won him undeserved condemnation from the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Posted 27 August 2013 - 07:00 PM
(69 Views)
Life on the Mars colonies of 2084 has been punctuated by occasional murders, bloody, gruesome and hideous. The Administration of Earth sends an “eductor” to solve the problem. As a child, Elliot Fintch was identified as “COT: Capable of Thought.” That gave him a privileged, middle class life, a nice apartment in the Phoenix Dome, an assigned wife, and meaningful work. He solves problems with intuition, insight, and flexible thinking not found in many other people. He enjoys his work.
He does not enjoy home life so much. He tries to love his wife of 25 years, but without children, home life has been lacking. Still, the artificial intelligences in his home, office, and car keep him from making mistakes by reminding him of the rules. Those same programs overheard the Fintches’ last argument, old and worn, nominally about nothing important yet coming back to their never having had children. The next morning, while Elliot is in the shower, his wife is removed, arrested for disloyalty. They tell him that she left of her own accord and filed for divorce. Sad as it leaves him, it was a long time coming. Flexible in his thinking, he adjusts as best he can while he wrestles with this new problem.
Allan J. Ashinoff’s dystopia is somewhere between Brave New World and 1984. In the middle third of the 21st century, the Administration came out of hiding to take over from the bankrupted nation states. Humanity was placed in huge Domes for the good of the planet. Now, diets are regulated; exercise is mandated. Public transportation might be by private vehicle for privileged people, but public it is nonetheless. Hopping into your own car to go cruising through the wilderness is unthinkable. You go where you are programmed to be, even if it is in the nominal privacy of a single cab, attended, as always, by a program that serves you on behalf of the Administration.
For those who fall aside by a chance comment or rash action, the Administration has invested special resources in reprogramming the old person into a new one. As Elliot Fintch rises off planet, his wife falls into ever lower status.
Ashinoff’s writing style is clear, concise, and lively. He invests a lot description and narration in the technology of the times. This is expected in the genre, and it does not detract. It is all very real and plausible given what we know we could accomplish today. Of course, as technology changes, people remain constant. And people – not technology - committed the murders on Mars.
This novel stands on its own; but it also rests on a set of short stories, Fallacies of Vision, set closer to our own time. Both are available as Kindle downloads on Amazon. (Shadows costs $4.99; Fallacies is 99 cents.) Not a Kindle person myself, I found it easy to put the software on my Macintosh and enjoy the reads. Ashinoff is clearly and consciously a political conservative. (We met on the “Galt’s Gulch” website of the Atlas Shrugged movie producers.) The opening story in Fallacies of Vision, “Erosion” won him undeserved condemnation from the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Posted 27 August 2013 - 11:14 AM
(140 Views)
The best of all possible worlds… At least that is what the progressives claimed when their hidden Administration finally bankrupted the national governments of Earth in the construction of huge Domes into which humanity was bottled up. This is the world of 2084. For about 60 years, everyone has known only a planned and monitored life of balanced nutrition, daily exercise, and public transportation within a sealed environment. Travel is possible for those who are assigned to it. Among them is Elliot Fintch: he has been assigned to Mars.
Fintch is an “eductor.” Identified as a child as being capable of thought (COT), he has been cared for, groomed, educated, transitioned, and placed. His assignments require the rare thinking that makes him valuable. But no one is irreplaceable and Fintch must be careful always to avoid any statement of disloyalty. He could be trapped by a secret agent of the Administration. He could be turned in by a watchful citizen. Nonetheless, he believes in his work because he knows nothing else.
He does not know that his wife was arrested for disloyalty while he was in the shower. Swept from the kitchen, she was gone. He was told that she left. Flexible in his thought patterns, Fintch adjusts to the new reality, though it leaves him unhappy.
His own problems must take second place (or less) to the challenge he has been given. The Mars colony has been the site of gruesome, seemingly causeless murders. The Administration is sending him because his special abilities for intuitive and insightful thinking are their hope.
From the huge complex of Domes that connect Phoenix with San Diego, by ship to Costa Rica, and underwater to Ecuador and then off-planet via Elevator, Elliot Fintch is confronted by people outside his experience. For a man who has had superior access to mountains of information, he is woefully inexperienced. All the people he knows are bureaucrats. Now he has to deal with people who (however law-abiding they may seem or be) are different – different from him; different from each other. But Fintch is intelligent and determined; and he never stops thinking.
This novel stands on its own; but it also rests on a set of short stories, Fallacies of Vision, set closer to our own time. Both are available as Kindle downloads on Amazon. (Shadows costs $4.99; Fallacies is 99 cents.) Not a Kindle person myself, I found it easy to put the software on my Macintosh and enjoy the reads. Ashinoff is clearly and consciously a political conservative. (We met on the “Galt’s Gulch” website of the Atlas Shrugged movie producers.) The opening story in Fallacies of Vision, “Erosion” won him undeserved condemnation from the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Posted 27 August 2013 - 11:38 AM
(86 Views)
If this goes on… If this does not change… If this changes…. According to John Campbell, science fiction is good fiction set convincingly in the future. (Alternate pasts such as steampunk and Rome Eternal do not change the essential requirements.) This future is located between Brave New World and 1984. It is the best that the progressives have to offer: nutritionally balanced for humans; and ecologically safe for wildlife. Our viewpoint character, Elliot Fintch, lives a privileged middle class life. Identified as a child as COT: Capable of Thought, he has been enhanced with a memory chip and is given interesting and challenging assignments. He is rising in his career, comfortable in his home, set in his routines.
But he needs to be careful. The Administration of 2084 does not tolerate resistance and certainly not rebellion. Any chance encounter could be with a secret agent of the Administration. Even another citizen could gain rewards by reporting a disloyal statement. Every home has an artificial intelligence program with a nice name that serves as your ever-helpful reminder of what to do right and what to avoid doing wrong. His office has another. They are everywhere.
This all came about when the Administration quietly and completely replaced the national governments which it helped to bankrupt with its Domes. Humanity has been bottled up since 2025. It is safer for people and better for the Earth.
Elliot Fintch reports to work to find a difficult problem on his desk: gruesome and seemingly causeless murders on Mars. But Fintch has other problems, as well. His wife left him that morning. He will be assigned a new one, likely younger, he knows, capable of having children, which he and his wife never did. He does not know that his wife was arrested for disloyalty while he was in the shower. Quickly, quietly, and efficiently, she was removed from the kitchen for a disloyal statement in yet another weary argument over the children they never had. They told him she walked out; in the wake of the argument, he resigned himself to the new reality. That is one of his strengths, why he has the job title “eductor” something far beyond an educator. He is flexible, adaptable, and intuitive. And he leads by serving.
For a man with privileged access to (almost) all of the information on Earth, and enhanced with a computer chip in his brain, Fintch has been sheltered. He knows only his own Dome (Phoenix). As he is shipped off to Mars, he meets people whose motives and motivations he finds difficult to understand. Mostly, they are as obedient as he is and for the same reasons, but their differing life experiences gave them perspectives he did not – cannot – anticipate. And so, as he goes from Phoenix, to Costa Rica, to Ecuador, and into outer space, and down to Mars, Elliot Fintch discovers his own limitations.
But Fintch is resourceful. He is focused and determined. He is smart. Step by step we see his world expand. Meanwhile, his wife’s world contracts. She is reprogrammed with a new identity. To achieve that, her previous self must be erased. It is the essential inhumanity of the self-proclaimed humanitarians that they only have your best interests at heart because they know best. That, of course, can only appeal to people even worse than Elliot Fintch. Fintch is innocently arrogant. He takes his position as his due and as his responsibility. Others are not so high minded.
Allan J. Ashinoff is a computer programmer. His writing reflects the certainty and clarity of that frame of mind. The book is easy to read as the narrative unfolds, carrying Elliot Fintch to experiences that only add to his puzzlement. But he spent a lifetime thinking in novel ways about undefined problems and he figures this one out, as well.
This novel stands on its own; but it also rests on a set of short stories, Fallacies of Vision, set closer to our own time. Both are available as Kindle downloads on Amazon. (Shadows costs $4.99; Fallacies is 99 cents.) Not a Kindle person myself, I found it easy to put the software on my Macintosh and enjoy the reads. Ashinoff is clearly and consciously a political conservative. (We met on the “Galt’s Gulch” website of the Atlas Shrugged movie producers.) The opening story in Fallacies of Vision, “Erosion” won him undeserved condemnation from the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Mike M.