Posted on 04/12/2007 10:53:09 AM PDT by pjd
The following is an old story (1974) but probably not very well-known. I came upon it recently, by chance, because of the upcoming release of the new movie 'Next' which is based on a Philip K. Dick short story called 'The Golden Man'.
Although I'm a big fan of PKD, I had not read The Golden Man and wanted to check it out before the movie opened. The few collections of PKD short stories I have did not contain The Golden Man, so I found a collection entitled The Golden Man that was published in 1980. This collection, of course, contained The Golden Man Shortstory.
Ok. where am I going with this?
At the end of the book, there are 'Story Notes' by Dick. One of the stories in the collection is called 'The Pre-Persons' and Dick presented this note in regard to that story:
"The Pre-Persons"
In this, the most recent of the stories in this collection, I incurred the absolute hate of Joanna Russ who wrote me the nastiest letter I've ever received; at one point she said she usually offered to beat up people (she didn't use the word "people") who expressed opinions such as this. I admit that this story amounts to special pleading, and I am sorry to offend those who disagree with me about abortion on demand. I also got some unsigned hate mail, some of it not from individuals but from organizations promoting abortion on demand. Well, I have always managed to offend people by what I write. Drugs, communism, and now an anti-abortion stand; I really know how to get myself into hot water. Sorry, people. But for the pre-persons' sake I am not sorry. I stand where I stand: "Hier steh' Ich; Ich kann nicht anders," as martin Luther is supposed to have said.
Of course, I can't reprint the story for you here, but I can tell you a little bit about the plot. The main foundation of the story is based on the arbitrariness of when a person becomes a person. Failing to see the difference between a person being inside the womb or outside opens up an unavoidable question. Since that choice is arbitrary, why not make it earlier or why not make it later. In this story, Congress decided that personhood should be a function of cognitive ability. They decided that the ability to do algebra was a reasonable test for cognitive ability and eventually set the age limit for postpartum abortion at 13 years.
Abortion trucks would be seen crusing through the neighborhoods, looking for strays (children under 13 without the proper 'We want our child' papers, or making special pick-ups to households where parent's decided they didn't want their children anymore.
I won't tell you any more, so as not to spoil the story, but it is a rather incredible story by one of my favorite sci-fi authors.
Sorry I miss you main point.
I guess I never thought about Golden Man and X-men since Golden Man was not a beneficial mutation to humankind as a whole.
I think the big thing that inspires X-men was the success of Peter Parker, a teen age super hero and so why not follow that up with a team of teenage super heroes.
Probably at the time there were lots of mutant stories in the SF magazines to draw inspiration from that were much more positive then Golden Man.
I think Baby is Three might be more of an inspiration, I think that’s the name of the story about a group of mutant children who form sort of a super-organism when they work together.
Drawing a blank on other good 20th Century American authors.
Guess that says something right there.
Willa Cather? Pearl S. Buck? Steinbeck.... T.S. Eliot, if he counts as ours. Hemingway, Faulkner, Richard Wright, Flannery O'Connor .... hmm. Yikes.
Graham Greene and Tolkien blow that crowd out of the water from across the pond, that's for sure.
Ray Bradbury. Yes, he's an LA liberal, but boy can he write a story. He also appropriated from Shakespeare what is perhaps the coolest title for a novel ever: Something Wicked This Way Comes.
I think I'll go over to my TV, wrap my hands around its grips, and get Mercerized.
In his notes regarding A Scanner Darkly, Dick had this to say about drugs:
Drug misuse is not a disease, it is a decision, like the decision to step out in front of a moving car. You would call that not a disease but an error in judgement. When a bunch of people begin to do it, it is a social error, a life-style. In this particular life-style the motto is "Be happy now because tomorrow you are dying," but the dying begins almost at once, and the happiness is a memory.
“This thread was supoposed to have an anti-abortion theme, but it apparently has gotten hyjacked by drugs. “
Who says we’re not still talking about abortion? Hard drugs and abortion-on-demand both boil down to the same thing - a coward’s way out of a serious difficulty. What I mean is this: Hard drug users are (in my personal experience) fleeing from a deep inner pain which they cannot identify, let alone alleviate; people who abort their kids are fleeing from the (supposedly) terrifying and burdensome responsibilities of parenthood.
I like PKD quite a bit.
Check out Harlan Ellison for another good 20th Century author.
This, and "Love Conquers All" by Fred Saberhagen, helped turn me from pro-choice, to pro-life... so very long ago. Much to remember...
His fiction is brilliant---his non-fiction is electric!
I remember when "Repent Harlequin..." was required reading in my eighth grade class.
I agree with you about how badly Hollywood butchers his stories. The the best one that actually tracked his story resonably well was Blade Runner. The short story was, Do androids dream of Electric Sheep?
I consider Ellison overrated, not least of all by himself.
Late SF writer Keith Laumer also has an anti abortion short story, though it’s not very subtle. He also has an anti socialism short story, also not too subtle.
He wrote some nice stories.
My problem with him is that he's so arrogant, and it comes off in his writing. A certain amount of what you might call arrogance is required in a writer, but Ellison's is utterly on display, always. It turns me off.
Mark Helprin qualifies, IMO, as a great American writer of the 20th century.
Which, of course, is L. Ron Hubbard and his E-meter.
Actually, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep was a full novel, not a short story. Also, the film and the novel differed greatly. The two written sequels to Blade Runner, authored by K.W. Jeter and authorized by the , stuck more closely to the screenplay and not to the novel upon which it was based.
It seems to me that this trilogy was simply madness put to paper and I found it interesting but when the Timothy Archer story came in, I was baffled.
Hell, I read Foucault's Pendulum By Umberto Eco and wasn't nearly as confused.
Just a small gripe about a great writer.
On a side note, Kurt Vonnegut Jr. died today. I know he is a left-winger but I enjoyed his writing.
Arioch7
I have to agree with you there, except for the first of the series The Divine Invasion which I enjoyed quite a bit. Was hoping the other two would be similar, but they each got increasingly weird.
I thought that Minority Report and Paycheck were pretty good adaptions of the short stories. Except, in Paycheck, they changed the ending quite a bit. However, most of the story was there.
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