Today I read “The Cartesian Theater” by Robert Charles Wilson for our discussion group. That Facebook group is reading one story every Sunday from Science Fiction: The Best of the Year: 2007 edited by Rich Horton. I got a big kick out of “The Cartesian Theater” and wanted to hear it on audio. But when I went looking for an audiobook that included it, I couldn’t find one. Bummer.
My inner reading voice is nothing compared to the professional narrators who read audiobooks. I read “The Cartesian Theater” in Horton’s 2007 best-of-the-year anthology which I own in paperback. When I write about a story I like I want to help people find a copy to read. It’s always great when I can put a link to where it can be read or heard online. You can read the Horton anthology at Archive.org if you have set up a free account. You can read the Jonathan Strahan anthology for free if you subscribed to Kindle Unlimited. It’s $11.99 to buy that anthology for the Kindle. The one Wilson story collection shown above is a French edition. All those other editions will require tracking down used physical copies. For most people, this won’t be an easy story to find.
Most bookworms don’t read short stories, and short stories don’t make much money for publishers either. Short stories are a kind of training ground for novelists. Often when a writer becomes a success their short stories are collected, and even kept in print. And sometimes those collections have audiobook editions. If there was The Best of Robert Charles Wilson audiobook I would have bought it today. I would have also bought The Best of Charles Sheffield this week if it existed on audiobook. I did listen to my audiobook copy of The Best of Connie Willis twice this week to read “Even the Queen” and “Death on the Nile.” The narration was perfect for each, and I got so much more out of the story than when I just read them on paper.
The best narrators do voices for each character. That highlights the dramatic quality of stories that my inner voice doesn’t generate. But more than that, audiobooks are read much slower than my inner reading voice, sounding out every word, and that makes an enormous difference. When I read, I read too fast, often skipping words. I can’t help myself, I read too fast. I miss clues to what’s happening. Listening makes me pay attention to every word. And I’m very disciplined in my listening. If I miss something I hit the jump back button.
“The Cartesian Theater” is about a world where everyone lives on a guaranteed income and economic activity is driven by robots. People still make extra money, usually from creating something entertaining. (Picture everyone being a YouTuber or something like it.) In the story an anonymous rich person hires Lada Joshi to track down an elusive artist, Jafar Bloom, and offer to back a showing of his work with no strings attached. Joshi hires Toby Paczovski, an operative skilled finding people living on the dole who don’t want to be found. And then she had Toby find Philo Novembre, a retired philospher, to get him to attend the first showing of the “Cartesian Theater.” What Bloom has create is a device that proves something philosophical, something that science can’t prove. I don’t want to say too much.
Beside coming up with a nice gimmick for the premise of the story, Wilson creates an interesting setting, a setting that our world seems to be heading towards. AI and robots do most of the real work, pushing people onto the dole. The robots aren’t considered sentient. That’s the trouble with AI robots. If they ever become sentient we can’t make them our slaves. In Wilson’s society they seem to be on the cusp of awareness. Humans in this story also have a lot of smart technology that supplement their bodies. And in Wilson’s world, a certain amount of brain activity can be duplicated in machine. Toby’s grandfather is dead, but enough of his memories hang around so Toby can still talk to him. The whole story is a Cartesian theater. And it has a nice surprise ending I didn’t guess.
Is this story worth keeping in print? Should it be available for the Kindle and on Audible? I don’t know. Such publishing might be a money loser. Which short stories should be preserved? And which should we forget?
We also read “Georgia On My Mind” by Charles Sheffield which won the Hugo and Nebula awards for best novelette back in 1994. You’d think every award winner should be preserved. It is in a collection called Georgia On My Mind and Other Places which can be read on Archive.org or bought for the Kindle for $5.99. But no audiobook. It was originally published in the January 1993 issue of Analog.
I loved “Georgia On My Mind” even more than “The Cartesian Theater.” Sheffield uses a narrative structure that was common in the pulps before WWII, where a mystery is discovered in a far distant place on Earth. In this case New Zealand. The story is set in modern times. We seldom believe such mysteries are possible anymore. But in the old days, readers loved these setups where the story felt possible. In this case, in a rundown tool shed to an old farm house in a remote part of New Zealand, Bill Rigley finds pieces of Charles Babbage’s computer from the 19th century, along with old letters, and information about programming. The mystery is how did Babbage’s work get to New Zealand and why.
If you like a Weird Tales type of story, computers and computer history, and even a bit of recursive science fiction, then you should like “Georgia On My Mind.” I think Sheffield rush the story at the end. He should have kept the slow pace and followed through on the setup and made this story a novel. I dislike the title, but it fits the cutsy ending. However, I didn’t want a cutsy ending. Obviously, Sheffield didn’t want to write a whole novel, and wrapped up the story with a direct appeal to science fiction fans. I wanted a Weird Tales ending. Still, I got a big kick out of this story.
It’s sad to think these two stories will be forgotten. They just aren’t easy to find. I think what’s needed is for Audible to publish all the best-of-the-year anthologies, from 1939 to the present. That would put most great short SF in audiobook print. At least do the Asimov/Greenberg/Silverberg books covering 1939-1964. Then Wollheim from 1965 to 1990. The 14 Carr anthologies, and all the Gardner Dozois anthologies. Or get some young editor to create new anthologies for each year.
If Audible doesn’t want to keep best-of-the-year anthologies in print, I think they should at least put all the Hugo and Nebula winners and finalists in audiobook print. That would catch “Georgia on My Mind” but not “The Cartesian Theater.”
JWH
p.s. I haven’t been blogging as much lately. I’m just getting old and running out of energy. Finishing this short blog gave me a sense of accomplishment.
