Sense of Wonder: A Century of Science Fiction (555 page)

Despite this change in regulations, the quantity and quality of current critical publications attest that graphic novels are winning the battle for legitimacy. Danny Fingeroth’s sturdy and informative
The Rough Guide to Graphic Novels
(Rough Guides Ltd., 2008) includes an entire chapter devoted to resources for further exploration of graphic novels. Among the sources cited by Fingeroth is a must-read for literature courses: Scott McCloud’s
Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art
(HarperCollins Publishers, 1993). Other print resources cited by Fingeroth include Roger Sabin’s lavishly illustrated and well-researched
Comics, Comix and Graphic Novels: A History of Comic Art
(Phaidon, 1996), and Rocco Versaci’s analysis of key graphic novel creators including Gaiman, Spielgman, and Moore—
This Book Contains Graphic Language: Comics as Literature
(Continuum, 2007).
²⁵

As mentioned, Versaci’s text treats several key graphic novel creators. Fingeroth offers the following books focused on particular creators mentioned in this introduction: Will Eisner’s Will Eisner’s Talk Shop (Dark Horse, 2001), Joe McCabe’s Hanging Out with the Dream King: Interviews with Neil Gaiman and His Collaborators (Fantagraphics, 2005), George Khoury’s The Extraordinary Works of Alan Moore: The Indispensible Edition (TwoMorrows, 2007), and Timothy Callahan’s Grant Morrison: The Early Years (Sequart.com Books, 2007).26

Dr. Gene Kannenberg, Jr.’s comicsresearch.org represents an excellent, researched, and solid online source for researching the creators, content, and context of graphic novels.

* * * *

Notes

¹
Danny Fingeroth,
The Rough Guide to Graphic Novels
(NY: Rough Guides Ltd., 2008), p. 4.

²
ibid.

³
Umberto Eco,
The Role of the Reader: Explorations in the Semiotics of Texts
(Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1979), pp. 110–11.

⁴
Rough Guide
, p. 3.

⁵
Rough Guide
, p. 122.

⁶
Rough Guide
, pp. 16–17.

⁷
Bradford W. Wright,
Comic Book Nation: The Transformation of Youth Culture in America
(Baltimore: John Hopkins UP, 2001), p. 252.

⁸
Rough Guide
, p. 18.

⁹
Comic Book Nation
, p. 269.

¹⁰
Rough Guide
, p. 23.

¹¹
Roger Sabin,
Comics, Comix and Graphic Novels: A History of Comic Art
(London: Phaidon, 1996), pp. 137–38.

¹²
Rough Guide
, p. 270.

¹³
Rough Guide
, p. 219.

¹⁴
Rough Guide
, p. 76.

¹⁵
Rough Guide
, pp. 120–21.

¹⁶
Rough Guide
, p. 187.

¹⁷
Rough Guide
, p. 64.

¹⁸
Comics
, p. 231.

¹⁹
Rough Guide
, p. 64.

²⁰
Rough Guide
, p. 240.

²¹
Comics
, p. 227.

²²
Comics
, p. 232.

²³
Comics
, p. 168.

²⁴
Rough Guide
, p. 167.

²⁵
Rough Guide
, pp. 281–83.

²⁶
Rough Guide
, p. 284.

* * * *

Peter J. Ingrao is Clinical Assistant Professor of Humanities and American Literature at The University of Texas at Dallas where he teaches courses concerning the intersection of the humanities and sciences in such genres as science fiction, graphic novels, and utopia and dystopia. He has been nominated as a finalist for the President’s Teaching Excellence Award, and has presented material at such conferences as the Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Conference, The Southern Writers, Southern Writing Conference, SCMLA, ALA, and most recently SAMLA.

(1956– )

While SF writers nowadays are more likely to have a literary background than a scientific one, Joan Slonczewski is very much a working scientist. With a BA in biology from Bryn Mawr and a PhD in molecular biophysics and biochemistry from Yale, Slonczewski is a professor at Kenyon College in Ohio, where her recent research has examined how bacteria respond to environmental stress.

While still in grad school, Slonczewski published
Still Forms on Foxfield
(1980), a book about Quakers colonizing an inhabited alien planet. (Slonczewski is a Quaker.) Her second book,
A Door into Ocean
(1987) won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award; Slonczewski was the first woman to win the award.

She is married to Michael Barich, who teaches classics at Kenyon. They have two children.

Although she’s now published by Tor Books, I first came across Slonczewski’s work when I worked at Avon Books, which published
A Door into Ocean, The Wall Around Eden
(1989), and
Daughter of Elysium
(1993). We never met face to face, but when I started work on this book, she was one of the first people I contacted, to talk about biology in science fiction. Her response came in the form of this piece of hard SF problem-solving.

First published in
Analog
, August 1995

“The rat didn’t die.” Andra walked around the holostage. Before her, projected down from the geodesic dome, shone the planet’s image: Iota Pavonis Three, the first new world approved for settlement in over four centuries. As Andra walked around, the swirl of a mysterious continent peered out through a swathe of cloud. She stopped, leaning forward on her elbows to watch. What name of its own would the Free Fold Federation ultimately bestow on IP3, Andra wondered; such a lovely, terrifying world.

“Not the last time, the rat didn’t.” The eyespeaker was perched on her shoulder. It belonged to Skyhook, the sentient shuttle craft that would soon carry Andra from the study station down to land on the new world. A reasonable arrangement: The shuttle craft would carry the human xenobiologist through space for her field work, then she would carry his eye on the planet surface, as she did inside the station. “The rat only died down there the first eight times.”

“Until we got its `skin’ right.” The “skin” was a suit of nanoplast, containing billions of microscopic computers, designed to filter out all the local toxins—arsenic, lanthanides, bizarre pseudoalkaloids. All were found in local flora and fauna; inhaling them would kill a human within hours. In the old days, planets had been terraformed for human life, like Andra’s own home world Valedon. Today they would call that ecocide. Instead, millions of humans would be lifeshaped to live here on planet IP3, farming and building—the thought of it made her blood race.

“We got the skin right for the rat,” Skyhook’s eyespeaker pointed out. “But you’re notexactly a rat.”

From across the holostage, an amorphous blob of nanoplast raised a pseudopod. “Not
exactly
a rat,” came a voice from the nanoplast. It was the voice of Pelt, the skinsuit that would protect Andra on the alien planet surface. “Not exactly a rat—just about nine-tenths, I’d say. Your cell physiology is practically the same as a rat; why, you could even take organ grafts. Only a few developmental genes make the difference.”

Andra smiled. “Thank the Spirit for a few genes. Life would be so much less interesting.”

Pelt’s pseudopod wiggled. “The rat lived, and so will you. But our nanoservos completely jammed.” The microscopic nanoservos had swarmed into sample life forms from IP3 to test their chemical structure. But for some reason they could barely begin to send back data before they broke down. “Nobody cares about them.”

“Of course we care,” Andra said quickly. Pelt never let anyone value human life above that of sentient machines. “That’s why we cut short the analysis, until we can bring samples back to the station. That’s why we’re sending
me
.”

“
Us
,” he corrected.

“All right, enough already,” said Skyhook. “Why don’t we review our data one last time?”

“Very well.” A third sentient voice boomed out of the hexagonal panel in the dome directly overhead. It was the explorer station herself, Quantum. Quantum was considered female, the others male; Andra could never tell why, although sentients would laugh at any human who could not tell the difference. “Here are some microbial cells extracted from the soil by the last probe,” said Quantum.

The planet’s image dissolved. In its place appeared the highly magnified shapes of the microbes. The cells were round and somewhat flattened, rather like red blood cells. But if one looked closer, one could see that each flattened cell was actually pinched in straight through like a bagel.

“The toroid cell shape has never been observed on other planets,” said Quantum. “Otherwise, the cell’s structure is simple. No nuclear membranes surround the chromosomes; so, these cells are like bacteria,
prokaryotes
.”

Skyhook said, “The chromosome might be circular, too, as in bacteria.”

“Who knows?” said Pelt. “On Urulan, all the chromosomes are branched. It took us decades to do genetics there.”

“We just don’t know yet,” said Quantum. “All we know is, the cells contain DNA.”

“The usual double helix?” asked Skyhook. The double helix is a ladder of DNA nucleotide pairs, always adenine with thymine or guanine with cytosine, for the four different “letters” of the DNA code. When a cell divides to make two cells, the entire helix unzips, then fills in a complementary strand for each daughter cell.

“The nanoservos failed before they could tell for sure. But it does have all four nucleotides.”

Andra watched the magnified microbes as their images grew, their ring shapes filling out like bagel dough rising. “I’ll bet their chromosomes run right around the hole.”

At her shoulder Skyhook’s eyespeaker laughed. “That would be a neat trick.”

Quantum added, “We identified fifteen amino acids in its proteins, including the usual six.” All living things have evolved to use six amino acids in common, the ones that form during the birth of planets. “But three of the others are toxic—”

“Look,” exclaimed Andra. “The cell is starting to divide.” One of the bulging toroids had begun to pucker in, all along its circumference. The puckered line deepened into a furrow all the way around the cell. Along the inside of the “hole,” a second furrow deepened, eventually to meet the furrow from the outer rim.

“So that’s how the cell divides,” said Skyhook. “Not by pinching in across the hole; instead it slices through.”

“The better to toast it.”

At that Pelt’s pseudopod made a rude gesture. “Pinching the hole in wouldn’t make sense, if your chromosome encircles the hole; you’d pinch off half of it.”

Andra squinted and leaned forward on her elbows. “I say—that cell has
three
division furrows.”

“The daughter cells are dividing again already?” Skyhook suggested.

“No, it’s a third furrow in the same generation. All three furrows are meeting up in the middle.”

“That’s right,” boomed Quantum’s voice. “These cells divide in three, not two,” she explained. “Three daughter cells in each generation.”

Sure enough, the three daughter cells appeared, filling themselves out as they separated. Other cells too had puckered in by now, at various stages of division, and all made their daughters in triplets. “How would they divide their chromosomes to make three?” Andra wondered. “They must copy each DNA helix twice before dividing. Why would that have evolved?”

“Never mind the DNA,” said Pelt. “It’s those toxic amino acids you should worry about.”

“Not with you protecting me. The rat survived.”

Quantum said, “We’ve discussed every relevant point. We’ve established, based on all available data, that Andra’s chance of survival approaches one hundred percent.”

“Uncertainties remain,” Skyhook cautioned.

Andra stood back and spread her hands. “Of course we need more data—that’s why we’re going down.”

“All right,” said Skyhook. “Let’s go.”

“I’m ready.” Pelt’s pseudopod dissolved, and the nanoplast formed a perfect hemisphere.

Andra unhooked Skyhook’s eyespeaker from her shoulder. Then she walked back around the holostage to lift the hemisphere of Pelt onto her head. Pelt’s nanoplast began to melt slowly down over her black curls, leaving a thin transparent film of nanoprocessors covering her hair, her dark skin, and her black eyes. It formed a special breather over her nose and mouth. Everywhere the nanoplast would filter the air that reached her skin, keeping planetary dust out while letting oxygen through. The film covered the necklace of pink andradites around her neck, spreading down her shirt and trousers. She lifted each foot in turn to allow the complete enclosure. Now she would be safe from any chemical hazard she might encounter.

* * * *

In Skyhook’s viewport, the surface of planet IP3 expanded and rose to meet them. Numerous tests had established its physical parameters as habitable—gravity of nine-tenths g, temperatures not too extreme, oxygen sufficient and carbon dioxide low enough, water plentiful. The ozone layer could have been denser, but human colonists would have their eyes and skin lifeshaped for extra enzymes to keep their retina and chromosomes repaired.

At a distance the planet did not look remarkably different from Andra’s home world. A brilliant expanse of ocean met a mottled brown shore, rotating slowly down beneath the craft. Beyond, in the upper latitudes, rolled the blue-brown interior of a continent, broken only by a circle of mountains.

As Skyhook fell swiftly toward the land, curious patterns emerged. Long dark bands ran in parallel, in gently winding rows like a string picture. The lines were bands of blue vegetation; the probe had sent back footage of them, wide arching structures tall as trees. Each band alternated with a band of yellow, which gave way to the next band of blue. Over and over the same pattern repeated, ceasing only at the mountains.

“I’ve never seen patterns like that on uncolonized worlds,” Andra mused.

“They do look like garden rows,” Skyhook admitted. “Perhaps the native farmers will come out to greet us.”

If there were intelligent life forms, they had yet to invent radio. A year of monitoring the planet at every conceivable frequency had yielded nothing, not so much as a calculation of pi.

Skyhook landed gently in a field of dense vegetation. The wall of the cabin opened, the door pulling out into an arch of nanoplast. A shaft of brilliant light entered.

“All systems check,” crackled Quantum’s voice on the radio in her ear. “Go ahead.”

Andra gathered her field equipment and set Skyhook’s eye upon her shoulder again. Then she stepped outside.

The field was a riot of golden ringlets, like wedding bands strewn out. Her gaze followed the cascade of gold down to the edge of the field, where taller dark trunks arose in shallow curves, arching overhead. From the taller growth came a keening sound, perhaps some living thing singing, or perhaps the wind vibrating somehow through its foliage. “It’s beautiful,” she exclaimed at last.

Beneath the golden ringlets grew dense blue-brown vegetation, reaching to Andra’s waist. She bent closer for a look. “These look like plants, `phycoids.’ The ringlets might be flowers.”

“They could just as well be snakes ready to snap,” warned Skyhook. “Watch your step.”

She looked back at the shuttlecraft, planted in the field like a four-legged insect. Then she lifted her leg through the foliage, Pelt’s nanoplastic “skin” flexing easily. Immediately her foot snagged. She tried to pull out some of the growth, but found it surprisingly tough and had to cut it with a knife. “The leaves and stems are all looped,” she observed in surprise. “All looped, just like the `flowers;’ I’ll never get through this stuff.”

Pelt said, “They
are
phycoid. I detect products of photosynthesis.”

“They could be carnivorous plants,” Skyhook insisted.

Andra collected some more cuttings into her backpack. “I wish I could smell them,” she said wistfully. Pelt’s skin filtered out all volatile organics. She aimed her laser pen to dig one out by the roots. The phycoid came up, but nearby stems sparked and smoldered.

“Watch out!” squeaked the eyespeaker.

She winced. “Don’t deafen me; I’ll put it out.” She stamped the spot with her boots and sprinkled some water from her drinking jet. “This planet’s a fire trap.” The phycoid roots, she noted, were long twisted loops, tightly pressed together, but loops nonetheless. All the living structures seemed to be bagels squashed and stretched.

“Great Spirit, we’ve got company,” Skyhook exclaimed.

Andra looked up. She blinked her eyes. A herd of brown-striped truck tires were rolling slowly across the field. To get a closer look, she pressed through the phycoids, stopping every so often to extricate her feet from the looped foliage. She made about ten meters progress before stopping to catch her breath.

“No need to get too close,” Skyhook reminded her. His eye had telephoto.

“Yes, but I might pick up droppings, or some fallen hair or scales.”

Some of the rolling “tires” were heading toward her. Each one had several round cranberry-colored spots set in its “tread.” The “tread” was composed of suckers that stretched and extended to push in back, or pull in front. “They must be animal-like, `zoöids,’“ suggested Andra. “Those red things—could they be eyes?” She counted them, two, three, four in all, before the first came up again. Those eyes must be tough, not to mind getting squashed down.

“If these creatures are zoöids,” Pelt wanted to know, “how do they feed?”

Skyhook said, “Their suckers ingest the phycoids.”

Andra stopped again to pull out her foot. “They sure know how to travel,” she wryly observed. “No wonder they never evolved legs.” One four-eyed zoöid got excited, and took off with remarkable speed; then it suddenly reversed, heading backwards just as fast. These zoöids had no “backwards” or “forwards,” she thought.

Quantum radioed again. “Andra, how are you holding up? Is your breathing okay?”

She took a deep breath. “I think so.” Most of the rats had died from inhaling toxic dust. She resumed her attempt to make headway through the phycoids, and searched the ground for anything that looked like droppings. Overhead, she heard a strange whirring sound. A flock of little things were flying, their movements too fast for her to make out.

“Their wings are turning full around, like propellers,” Skyhook exclaimed in amazement. “Why, all these creatures are built of wheels, one way or another.”

“Sh,” said Andra. “A zoöid is coming up close.”

The creature rolled slowly over the phycoids, squashing the golden ringlets beneath it. Andra took a closer look. “There’s a smaller ring structure, just sitting inside the bagel hole. I’ll bet it’s a baby zoöid.” The clinging little one rolled over and over inside as its parent traveled. The parent did not seem to notice Andra at all; neither her shape nor her smell would resemble a native predator, she guessed.

The radio crackled again. “We must attempt contact,” Quantum reminded her. Any zoöid might be intelligent.