Civilization doesn’t collapse;  it just fades away.  But just as the Church stepped in to provide some much-needed authority after the Western Roman Empire stopped pretending to be an empire, so a movement of “green freaks” steps in to take over.

That’s the premise of Metatropolis, a collection of five short stories by five science fiction authors.  The stories occur almost in chronological order.  Almost.  The first story actually takes place a little later in a city called Cascadiopolis.

Cascadiopolis, the creation of Jay Lake,  is barely recognizable as a city.  It appears to be little more than people camping in the woods.  Yet a billionaire living in what’s left of nearby Portland wants very much to infiltrate it to get his hands on its technology.  And yet Cascadiopolis is giving it away.

But the idea for Cascadiopolis actually comes from the resurrection of a city no one would expect to survive:  Detroit.  Tobias Bucknell tells how the suburbs of major cities have become “The Wilds,” law enforcement is outsourced to a company called Edgewater, and the American government is so irrelevant that it can’t even maintain the interstates.  But the greens of Detroit are gathering steam.  They seal off a section of a city, and, under cover of a staged riot, take over an abandoned skyscraper to convert it to a vertical farm.  Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the Motor City is going zero-footprint.

Elizabeth Bear continues the story of Detroit with a bike messenger reruited to help the movement spread.

So how well does this movement work?  Well enough for John Scalzi to set a story in New St. Louis about a slacker who gets a job tending the city’s genetically altered pigs.  This being Scalzi, who famously used fart humor in Agent to the Stars and The Android’s Dream, he amps the scatalogical humor up a notch.  Don’t worry.  It’s all to thwart an act of terrorism.

Karl Schroeder caps off the collection with the story of an arms inspector living in a world where these green, money-free cities have become a nation unto themselves.  But Schroeder’s radiation-hunting Ukrainian gets a glimpse of what’s next when he’s hired to go into a virtual world (think Second Life on steroids) to find a missing shipment of plutonium.

Metatropolis comes across as a loose future history that is both frightening and hopeful at the same time.  Beginning close enough to our own time, it suggests that our current civilization will simply fade rather than disappear in an apocalyptic war.  It also suggests the seeds for its replacement have already been sown.

My plans to quickly write my hit man novel fell apart in September when I realized I had other priorities competing for that time.  For starters, if you’re a parent and your child is in sports/band/drama, you need to go see them perform.  This is not optional, at least for me.  It’s a requirement, even when I’m told “You don’t have to come,”  Being a good parent comes first.  Period.  End of discussion.

But I’m also a student, and that requires time, especially programming classes.  Yes, twice in three weeks, I stayed up until the wee hours on a Sunday night trying to get a project done.  A two-week final project in .Net has been compressed to one week because….

Bouchercon and BigHugeCo.  Yes, enormous time sucks that I not only cannot blow off, I’m not willing to either.  So guess where the novel fits in.

“Well, gee, Jim, guess you’re just not dedicated enough.”

Every time I hear that, the person saying it is either a workaholic with a miserable home life or is still sweating over the same line at the beginning of Chapter 3 of a draft started on a computer that was not Y2K compliant when he bought it.  Look, how long does it take to get past “The night was dry, yet it was raining” anyway?  I’ve finished three manuscripts and five drafts.  Sold one, but let’s not discuss that clusterbuck, shall we?

Still, I did not adjust properly for life changes since I last finished a manuscript (which, incidentally, I’m stripping for parts).  I still gotta work.  I’m still a student.  I still have a family without whom everything else would be pointless.

So I emailed a friend of mine who, when her first novel came out, was working full time (and did so for many years afterward), was married, and even held a second job.  What did she do?

“If you’re not a morning person, I can’t help you,” she started.  Shortly after moving in together, Nita pointed out the awful truth about me:  Despite struggling with the alarm clock daily, I am a morning person.  With that in mind, my friend then  explained about getting up early to get the draft done.  That way, she could go about her day guilt free.

This is a hard change for me.  When I used to write for the helluvit, I wrote coming home from a first or second job.  I needed to blow off stress.  Who cared if I had to go to work at 8 the next morning? Dammit, the words will not be denied!

I was also in my early-to-mid thirties, not going to school, and childless.  Regular sleep hours were a polite suggestion.  I also seem to remember not being all that happy with my life then, so making stuff up was a terrific stress reliever.

So now the plan is to get up at 5 AM, work an hour, and hit the bus by 6:45, guilt free.  I started today.  How’d that work?

Er…  Another late Sunday/early Monday project.  Wrote that day on my lunch break.  Thanks to being completely exhausted from lack of sleep, I got to bed at 9:30 the next night and managed 7 1/2 hours.  Perfect for that 5 AM wakeup call.

Baby steps.  Gotta take baby steps.

A few years ago, I did the stupid writer’s trick known as NaNoWriMo.  That’s National Novel Writing Month to those of y0u allergic to acronyms.  That same year, John Rickards declared the first Saturday in November NaDruWriNi, or National Drunk Writing Night.  I think the name matching the acronym is actually a coincidence.  John had pounded down a few Jamies already when I first heard him say it.

Anyway, this year, I’m resurrecting the holiday.  Saturday night is National Drunk Writing Month.  Imbibe several pints/shots/bottles of your favorite beverage alcohol* and tap, tap, tap away at the keyboard.

Hey, how many pulp writers finished a novel in a weekend this way?

I didn’t ask how many good ones, just how many.

*I kid you not.  A distillers group twenty years ago requested newspapers to use that phrase instead of “alcoholic beverage.”  Personally, I prefer the politically correct term “booze.”

Maybe another six weeks or so and they’ll have reached the top floor.  They are already building out the lower stories to Fourth Street and installing the glass facade on below the tenth floor.

More posts at the My Town Mondays blog.

• Marillion should have a bigger American following.  They’re better (and less arrogant) than Oasis, less commecial than Coldplay, and about as good as Radiohead.  Hell, they sounded like Radiohead before Radiohead did.  Plus, they’ve got that great prog backlist with Fish as the lead singer.
• I could take the Tea Party Movement more seriously if they’d stop letting in the jackasses who say things like “Keep the government out of Medicaid!”  Um…  It’s a government program, dumbass.
• Likewise, the longer guys like Tim Pawlenty and and Bobby Jindahl are criticized by the GOP’s base as being “not conservative enough,” the faster the United States will become a one-party nation.  Lighten up, wingnuts.  You don’t have a monopoly on the truth, and you are being heard.  We’d just like you to quit screaming so we can hear what the other 80% of Americans have to say.  How about this?  The GOP jettisons the base and gets back to their real core principles, which, incidentally, bear little resemblance to the average wingnut’s manifesto.
• I like flying Delta so much better now that Cincinnati Airport is now a hub in name only.  I’ll like CVG even more when they get Air Tran, Jet Blue, or Southwest to take over Terminal C.
• Florida is a great place to be in October for those of us in the Midwest.  Even better in February.
• Adam Lambert will likely be the next David Bowie if he ever puts American Idol firmly in his rearview mirror.  Thanks for the start, Simon.  Now get out of the way.
• Why is it whenever the anti-gambling ads here in Ohio say “Fact!” they follow it up with a bald-faced lie every single time?  If opponents to Ohio casinos object to gambling on moral grounds, shouldn’t they also object to their own dishonesty on those same grounds?  Sure, it’s politics, but I’m used to candidates lying.  Those supporting issues should be held to a higher standard.
• I switched my loyalty to the Bengals about three years ago (after living in Cincinnati for fifteen years).  Great to see that finally pay off this year.  Still don’t regret using my Ocho Cinco shirt to clean the condo with last year.
• A couple of weeks ago at Starbucks, two Ohio State fans stood in line in front of me aghast that people in Cincinnati would root for anyone besides the Buckeyes.  “That’s cute,” one of them said.  “They think the (University of Cincinnati) Bearcats are going to a bowl game.”  His friend responded, “Yeah, no one will ever eclipse Ohio State.”  This week, Cincinnati is ranked 8th.  Ohio State?  17th.  And Cincinnati’s QB is a contender for the Heisman.  Monopoly’s over, kids, unless you want to lure Brian Kelly to Columbus.  Chances of that?  Slim, meet none; none, slim.
• Ford:  No government money, rated better than Honda and Toyota, still in business.  GM:  Took the government loan, did everything they planned to do before Wall Street nearly destroyed capitalism (and they aren’t done screwing themselves yet), put out a decent line of new cars.  Chrysler:  WTF?  Maybe Fiat will keep Jeep alive.  Someone always does.
• Winter sucks. It’s cold, wet, and dark.  Why couldn’t I have called myself “Sumner” or “Fall” instead?  “Spring” is too much like “Springer.”  Not happening.  Oh, well.  Too late now.
• Heard about the controversy surrounding the Chris Farley clip from Tommy Boy in the DirecTV ad?  People, get a freaking grip!  It’s a clip from a movie used in a commercial!  It’s not like they turned Farley into a meat puppet to dance around on stage during Saturday Night Live.  Another example of the dumbing down of America.
• Happy Halloween!

UPDATE:  Aw, are Buckeye fans upset Cincinnati is ahead in the polls?  Too friggin’ bad!

During development of Windows 7, Microsoft decided to try a novel approach:  Ask the manufacturers what Windows needed.  They listened.  They also listened to consumers.  The consumers told Microsoft to send the PC makers a message:

Enough with with the crapware already!

You know:  All those “helpful” products you can’t opt out of when you buy from Dell, HP, etc.  No, it’s not good enough to ship you a PC with Windows and whatever software you ordered (usually Office).  Oh, no!  They have to load Real Player and 20 gazillion Internet service setups and a ton of organization tools that serve to clutter up your desktop.  At least with Compaq fully digested by Hewlett-Packard, we’re no longer subjected to Compaq’s unusable attempts to foist a confusing, useless interface on us.  Apparently, Compaq believed you, gentle user, were too stupid to know what a Start button is for.

The last time I wiped my HP tower’s hard drive and did a clean install of everything, I had to restore from the backup disks.  That took about an hour.  I had to spend the next day uninstalling and deleting all the junk software and free add-ons I didn’t want to get the machine back to where I had it before the wipe.

The one that aggravates me is Real Player.  Manufacturers not only install it (I can ignore it if I have to), they make it the default media player.  Gee, thanks.  I love being forced to use Real’s crummy interface and endure its balky performance.  No, please, put it on there and make sure it doesn’t easily go away.  No Win Amp or Windows Media Player or iTunes for me, thanks.  Not when I can have such a fabulous fustercluck for free!

Oh, wait.  Winamp and iTunes are free, and Windows Media Player ships with the OS.  Um…

Out, Foul Real Player!  Out!  Out!

Look, PC manufacturers, it’s simple.  Just load the damn operating system (like Apple), don’t clutter my desktop with links to AOL and Yahoo and Gmail.  I don’t want to use Bing as my search engine (Yes, I know it’s Microsoft’s baby.)  I don’t want your help organizing my desktop or default weather or news or stock tickers that bog down my broadband connection.  Just put Windows on it and leave me alone until I have a warranty claim.

‘Kay?

Thx

Bye

Hell’s house band is AC/DC.

Heaven has the Rat Pack and Johnny Cash.

Does this mean the music’s cooler when you’re dead?

And what do people in Purgatory listen to?

Discuss.

Been traveling a lot lately.  Bcon in Indy last weekend.  Ocala, Florida for BigHugeCo this weekend.  It used to be I loved to travel.  But then where did I go?

Toronto.  New York.  Philadelphia.  San Francisco.  Chicago.  Places I not only love to visit, but places where I know people.

Indianapolis was great.  It’s only 90 minutes away, so I drove.  It was great to see people I hadn’t seen in years and reconnect with the writing community.  This week, I’m in Florida, which, for an Ohioan, is not a bad place to be in late October.  However, I’m not traveling alone, so no Sunday afternoon jaunt down to Orlando or Tampa to check out the sights.  No trip to the Kennedy Space Center.

Also, it’s been a while since I’ve traveled heavily.   Some things had changed.

• My coworker, who’s about my age, is single and wanted to close a bar.  Around midnight, I’m usually unable to stay awake.
• I can’t really write in hotel rooms anymore.
• It’s hard to be a part time college student and a traveling adult.
• I don’t drink as much as I used to.  A few beers, and I’m done.
• It used to be I could go on a trip for several days and not worry about who I was leaving behind.  The previous spouse and I were just that disengaged.  (Might explain the divorce.)  Now, I really don’t like being on the road without my wife, especially with a stepson.
• Airports simply annoy me.  Not flying.  I’ve learned to deal with flying.  I hate airports.  My coworker’s flying pattern is to get to the airport an hour ahead of the flight.  I don’t blame him.  Security is a hassle.  I always seem to end up on Delta, which I consider the airline from hell.
• Frankly, I’m living a different life now, one where home is a destination, not a place to sleep while I ponder where to go or what to do next.

It makes me regret not becoming a writer in my twenties.  Of course, I would have been a horrible writer in my twenties.  But in my twenties, I would not have cared if I had to sleep on friends’ couches, could stay out til 2 AM on a night when I needed to be at work the next morning, and had few obligations or responsibilities.

That’s also a big reason I gave up on standup.  When you’re young, naive, and a bit arrogant, sleeping in roach motels, drinking all night, and living by the seat of your pants don’t seem like problems.  I’d probably have lived out of a carry-on bag in those days.

I might have even done my road trip, though I doubt I’d have caused as much havoc as Jack Kerouac.

Once upon a time, the Little Miami Railroad, named for the river that it follows, was Cincinnati’s land passage to the rest of the world.  Starting downtown, the railway eventually reached Xenia, Ohio, where it connected with other lines stretching to Columbus, Dayton, and eventually, Toledo and Detroit.  The railway was eventually absorbed into the Pennsylvania Railroad, which became Penn Central, and eventually Conrail.  Conrail no longer exists, and it abandoned the line in the 1980’s before it was consumed by the two big East Coast rail companies, CSX and Norfolk Southern.

Now?  It’s mostly a bike trail, but you can see the bones of the old railway if, as I am, you’re inclined to spend a few sunny Sundays walking long sections of the trail.

A plaque near Foster, Ohio, a forgotten rail crossing on Old Route 3, tells the story of the railroad.

A rusted rail sign warns of trains that passed decades ago.

In Loveland, Ohio, the tracks that used to be flanked by greenspace now are greenspace.

This signal near Milford was left in place as the Little Miami Bike Trail was built over the old rail bed.  The trail also reuses the railroad’s old bridges.

The telegraph poles remain in place for long stretches, though the wires have long since been taken down.  One time, about 25 years ago, I learned the hard way that those wires on the poles still in use do not connect to the phone system.  They are strictly for railroad use.  In fact, they’re part of the original telegraph system.  Didn’t help when my car broke down near a small town rail depot.  Some of these poles, however, have not survived the years very well.