Shiny #3

It was a pleasure to discover Shiny, a magazine devoted to “young adult” stories, which I enjoy even if I’m no longer young by any standards but Methuselah’s.

What causes déjà vu and similar phenomena? In “The Future is Already Seen” by Katherine Sparrow, it’s presented as a time-slip brought on by a brain condition. The story is set in a stereotypical high school atmosphere, where nerds are nerds and barely inhabit the same universe with cheerleaders, who are expected to be mindless bimbos who think only of jocks and being popular. One of the things I liked most about this story is that it points out that both ends of the spectrum are real human beings, something more than their superficial images.

The story works well on two levels. One is Kami’s personal voyage of discovery, as she learns to question her unexamined assumptions about who she is and what she wants out of life. I felt like cheering her on as she gradually substituted thinking for her previous, mindless buying-in to the goals that other people expected her to want. Fortunate girl, to achieve self-awareness so young. Many never accomplish it.

The science-fictionish aspects of the story were intriguing enough to make me do a little research. Temporal lobe epilepsy is indeed often associated with déjà vu and similar effects, although there are probably other causes for those as well. Many artists and authors have had it, and it may have, in some way, sparked their creativity. It is not, however, the benign non-treatable condition that the story implies. If you have frequent symptoms like Kami’s, even without obvious seizures, a neurological exam would be highly recommended. As for the epilepsy/Alzheimer’s connection, I can’t help wishing it were true. I lost an aunt and my mother to Alzheimer’s; their younger sister didn’t have it but did have some form of epilepsy, so it sounded almost plausible.

Just for the record, the word “temporal” meaning “time-related” comes from the Latin word for time, while the identical-appearing but different word “temporal” as in “temporal lobe” comes from the Latin word for “temple” and refers to the location of that portion of the brain. I thought the merging of the two concepts was very clever.

How do you choose between following your personal dream and being with someone who’s very dear to you? In “Light on Water” by Lisa A. Koosis, Toby is faced with this difficult choice. She and boyfriend Everest live in a bio-dome, in a world where only those born with specific antibodies can survive outside. All her life Toby has yearned for the freedom of being outside, of experiencing the “real” world that she only knows from stories, passed down from her grandmother’s grandmother. But no one may leave the dome until they’ve passed the blood test, and they don’t get tested until they’re at least twenty-one. Everest put off his own test until Toby was old enough and promises to stay with her if they can’t leave together.

I didn’t enjoy this story as much as I could have, if I hadn’t had so many issues with the scientific technicalities of it. Why wait to the age of twenty-one for testing? Have they even tried to develop vaccinations or something? How long has this world been contaminated? Wouldn’t the virus outside have died off without hosts? Is it carried by critters that don’t die from it? Or does it only affect humans? If some members of a family have the antibody and some don’t, then inheritance isn’t certain, so will some of the babies born outside the dome die from the virus? Is that why Toby and Everest’s parents elected to stay in the dome, to be sure their children would live, or don’t they have the antibodies—in which case, how did their children come to be born with them? And the dome is so big—so many ecosystems enclosed within! That bespeaks a high level of technology; if they can manage artificial rainforests, deserts, and even a sea—just how big is this place anyway? All these thoughts kept intruding as I watched Toby waffling and finally making a painful decision.

“Some People’s Kids” by Sarah Totton is about Mindy, a teenage girl who is being exploited by her parents and her manager, Manny, because she can foretell the future—not her own, but everyone else’s. Mindy’s totally bored with the whole business and feels she’s being treated as a prisoner, so she escapes and joins forces with another girl, Genie, whom she meets on the street. As Mindy sees the situation:

“Manny says I should concentrate on the money I’m making. Like I can do anything with that. I’m too young to drive, chocolate is cheap, and I’m not allowed to date, even though I want to ask Brent out. He’s this total stallion from my high school. My former high school. My parents pulled me out of there as soon as I started to make prophecies. So now I can’t even look at what I can’t have.”

Prior to her escape, Mindy had told an especially annoying client that he should build an ass factory. To her amazement, he takes her seriously and starts a school for boorish behavior. Mindy learns from her friend, Jenny, that Brent has dropped out of school and joined the ass factory. She goes to check out the situation and manages to get even with her manager in the process.

I found the story entertaining and fun to read, if not particularly deep. It’s told with a flip and cynical voice, and relies heavily on variations of the word “ass” for humor.