"Cat Pictures Please"

Here's the winner of the 2016 Hugo for Best Short Story. In keeping with the flavour of the season, it features an AI. It's pretty good.

2 TED videos, on Storytelling and about Introverts

I recently saw two interesting TED Talks.

The first was by Andrew Stanton (director of such films as WALL-E) speaking about his guidelines for storytelling. The opening joke is superbly told. He spoils the rest a tad by glancing at the monitor for help once too often.

The other is by Phoebe Buffay Susan Cain, speaking about how society needs to make itself more comfortable for introverts. As an introvert, I agree, but not with all the reasons. There have been a few articles about introverts (especially the one by Jonathan Rauch linked to in this post) over the years which have already nailed the topic. The talk becomes too sentimental for my liking.

"One Serving Moon" - a story

A little story that I wrote last year. Thanks to Harish, George, Vinay, Aditya, and others for suggestions and criticisms.

No sooner had the car left to take its owner to his early morning tennis session that a buggy rolled to a halt outside the house. The driver, a pale and sweaty man, peered outside. He was blessed with a natural talent in looking like the kind of person you did not want appearing outside your house, especially early in the morning. This was fortunate for Kato, for it contributed to his successful career as legal summons executive (recently promoted and now on overseas assignment).
Kato was not a morning person himself, but he had a long list of people to confront that day. This town of plagiarists, copyright-violators, and inspiration-thugs slept late into the day and was most likely to be at home at dawn. It was also a good idea to let the young intern with him know that in this job, comforts such as a leisurely start to the day did not exist. But there were compensations: for instance, the satisfaction of personally delivering bad news to the doorsteps of reprobates.
"This seems to be the house of 'Singh, S', said Kato, looking around. "You got the papers, kid?"
Aftab, the intern, nodded. He pulled out some papers from a cream envelope, and appeared to be checking that he had everything. But he continued to fiddle with them, unwilling to step out.
Kato had seen this before. One of the perils of seniority was being saddled with namby-pambies, of having to "show them the ropes". Such phrases always made Kato feel like a master executioner. He found himself drifting into a daydream involving a pair of gallows and some unknotted nooses, but snapped himself out of it. It was the heat, he reminded himself. He longed for some tranquility instead of this noisy, sun-lit city.
"See, kid, it's just as they tell you in training. You walk up, you knock, you ask for the guy - in this case, Mr. Singh. You serve him the papers. If he has any questions, you tell him the answers are in them. If they press on, you point to the toll-free helpline number. If they begin to sob, you simply walk back, without leaving yourself vulnerable to an attack from the rear."
Yeah, the agency had got it down to a business process.
"I've heard other agents have had things thrown at them. Just last week..."
Kato cut in. "That happens, yes. But these war stories are often exaggerated. Get going kid, we got lots of other places to go to."
He watched Aftab reluctantly pull himself out of the buggy, and drag himself down the walkway past the gate, and to the front door. Kato looked at the print-out in his hand, trying to figure out the route to the next villain in fake-town.
Even before he could finish, he heard footsteps and looked up to see a relieved Aftab.
"Done already? Good start, mister."
"No, no", said Aftab, trying to catch his breath. He's fled back, thought Kato. There were no signs of blood, so perhaps whatever was thrown at him had missed its target.
"I couldn't deliver the notice - he wasn't there. Mr. Singh, I mean. Oh, he's not Mr. Singh. Gulzar sir has gone to play tennis. I mean he must be Mr. Singh, but he's not there."
The scaffolds, the blindfolds, the last meals...the images came flooding back into Kato's head. The guillotines and electric chairs patiently awaited their turn.
"Rubbish! What are you talking? - sober up, fella. Explain yourself."
Aftab was a roly-poly law school graduate whose fifteen-plus years of formal education had rendered him unskilled in presenting a cogent explanation of anything outside the syllabus. Yet he tried.
"Sir, what I am trying to say is like this. Gulzar sir lives in this house. I saw a photo of him inside. In the living room, behind the person who answered the door. That person who told me 'sir is not there, he has gone for tennis'."

The rest of the story continues (on page 3) below:

"One Serving Moon"

Can't access the document above? Download a pdf from here.

The 2008 Scientific Indian Story Contest - results

The results of this year's Scientific Indian Story Contest have been announced here. Unlike last time, I didn't win anything :-), but I did get an honourable mention.

Many congratulations to the winners and other selected participants.

I was able to send in a little story this time based on thinking about isolation and human beings. I don't read a lot of sci-fi, so I grope my way in the dark when it comes to such topics. Hopefully, the process and output has shown improvement since last time.

Selva, who's kind enough to organise this contest, has also collected some thoughts on what should be there in a creative science writer's toolkit.