Ceno-Taxi!

Hi,

Zipped right through the short sci-fi story Cenotaxis by Sean Williams. This is a supplemental short story set in his Astropolis series (kicked off with Saturn Returns). I'm glad it was short.

This was a "big idea" book, but I totally didn't get into it. The basic gist is that the protagonist from Saturn Returns has invaded Earth. Not to destroy it, but to take it over and use it as a rallying point for his larger plan. Standing in the way is a man named Jasper who claims to be God. They fight. Crazy stuff happens. The ending...is weird.

The book is clearly driving towards questions about God and who/what God is and there's some real interesting stuff there, but at the end I just lose the thread and went flying.

So yeah...only so-so.

later
Tom

Ceno-Taxi!

Hi,

Zipped right through the short sci-fi story Cenotaxis by Sean Williams. This is a supplemental short story set in his Astropolis series (kicked off with Saturn Returns). I'm glad it was short.

This was a "big idea" book, but I totally didn't get into it. The basic gist is that the protagonist from Saturn Returns has invaded Earth. Not to destroy it, but to take it over and use it as a rallying point for his larger plan. Standing in the way is a man named Jasper who claims to be God. They fight. Crazy stuff happens. The ending...is weird.

The book is clearly driving towards questions about God and who/what God is and there's some real interesting stuff there, but at the end I just lose the thread and went flying.

So yeah...only so-so.

later
Tom

My house is haunted

No, seriously.

A few weeks ago I came home and Annie said "I heard a doorbell this afternoon so I went to the door. No one was there. Then I remembered that we don't actually have a doorbell at our house. Not on the front or back door -- I checked. It was weird though, I could've sworn I heard it".

"Huh, auditory hallucination", I said.

"Guess so".

I thought nothing more about it.

This morning. The doorbell rang. So I went to the front door. No one was there. Of course not. We don't have a doorbell.

Totally creepy. I *knew* I wasn't hearing anything. So I informed Annie that our non-existent doorbell rang and went on with my day.

This evening, as I'm coming down from our room. The doorbell rings. This time, I'm not dumb enough to answer the door but my perplexity is immense.

Tonight, Annie and I are sitting at the table trying to figure out where the doorbell noise could possibly be coming from. Maybe one of the fire/CO alarms telling us to check batteries or that it's still functional? A toy/gadget still packed away in boxes?

Annie searches the hallway. "Hey, what's this?" she asks.

There, on the wall of our hallway, on the stairs going up is a nondescript white plastic box with a speaker grill. After several minutes we pry it loose from the mounting.

It's a doorbell chime. But we have no doorbell. Nor are there any connecting wires.

Then we get it. At some point the house did have doorbells -- wireless doorbells and this is the receiver unit. The doorbell sends out a frequency and the chimes would sound. We don't have those wireless doorbells anymore but someone else in our neighborhood does! Their doorbell is pushed, our chimes pick up the signal, and like Pavlov's dogs, we answer the door for a treat that isn't there.

We were very relieved when we figured this out. Then we replaced the chimes back into their bracket so that we might continue to be summoned by our spectral doorbell ringer.

"And they would've gotten away with it too, if it weren't for those meddling kids!"
Tom

My house is haunted

No, seriously.

A few weeks ago I came home and Annie said "I heard a doorbell this afternoon so I went to the door. No one was there. Then I remembered that we don't actually have a doorbell at our house. Not on the front or back door -- I checked. It was weird though, I could've sworn I heard it".

"Huh, auditory hallucination", I said.

"Guess so".

I thought nothing more about it.

This morning. The doorbell rang. So I went to the front door. No one was there. Of course not. We don't have a doorbell.

Totally creepy. I *knew* I wasn't hearing anything. So I informed Annie that our non-existent doorbell rang and went on with my day.

This evening, as I'm coming down from our room. The doorbell rings. This time, I'm not dumb enough to answer the door but my perplexity is immense.

Tonight, Annie and I are sitting at the table trying to figure out where the doorbell noise could possibly be coming from. Maybe one of the fire/CO alarms telling us to check batteries or that it's still functional? A toy/gadget still packed away in boxes?

Annie searches the hallway. "Hey, what's this?" she asks.

There, on the wall of our hallway, on the stairs going up is a nondescript white plastic box with a speaker grill. After several minutes we pry it loose from the mounting.

It's a doorbell chime. But we have no doorbell. Nor are there any connecting wires.

Then we get it. At some point the house did have doorbells -- wireless doorbells and this is the receiver unit. The doorbell sends out a frequency and the chimes would sound. We don't have those wireless doorbells anymore but someone else in our neighborhood does! Their doorbell is pushed, our chimes pick up the signal, and like Pavlov's dogs, we answer the door for a treat that isn't there.

We were very relieved when we figured this out. Then we replaced the chimes back into their bracket so that we might continue to be summoned by our spectral doorbell ringer.

"And they would've gotten away with it too, if it weren't for those meddling kids!"
Tom