Editorial – March 2026 : What Is It Good For?
Hello everyone
Editorials, as I have said in the past, are hard beasts to write if you want to use topical themes, even on a Science Fiction website such as ours. I wrote what follows a week or so ago but world-wide events have changed things recently. However, much of what I’ve written below is still pertinent and even more scary as other wars are now also breaking out hoping but probably not caring if they are getting media attention. Welcome to a scary world and hope you can keep your heads down.
Wars, unlike their fictional counterparts, tend to be complex affairs. The wrong intelligence about a country’s resilience and you have something akin to the Russia invasion of the Ukraine. In many respects, the start of any war is like a game of poker, working out the hands of opportunity and how much opposition from not only the country being assessed or by its allies and how they react. All of which is either a territory grab or even a religious persuasion or even the egos of countries leaders. A messy business and you have to wonder how this can have any world’s countries whose majority of populations just wants a quiet life dealing with their own problems.
None of which is helped by just how volatile man’s behaviour can be when the scale of what can be done can be changed. Even when wars are won, it is at a cost for both sides, not only in lives but resources and can quickly be over-turned by a winning dictator’s death and the cost of occupation stretching resources. Clearly, such leaders only tend to focus on the short term or figure that the long term will sort itself out in due course. Resentment is never seen as a problem when people can be imprisoned or killed for their beliefs. On the world stage, it makes other countries wary, especially when it comes to trade when you can’t trust co-operation. Oddly, a side effect of this is contact with countries with more, shall we say, liberal views will slowly get populations wanting similar freedoms which has to have an effect on restrictive political regimes. If anything, this tends to change things from the inside and any homeostasis will constantly be in flux. It’s hardly surprising that countries like China and North Korea become more singular with a desire to keep other countries cultures away from their own with varying degrees of success. Deep down, their leaders must surely realise it must eventually be a losing battle and rather than trying to keep it out, make some compromises to it. Evolution doesn’t happen with physical changes but also with societies. Those that tend to stagnate are also not likely to evolve. Something their originators never considered, just thinking the political regimes would last forever. Utopias always fail, something that Science Fiction has shown time and again because perfection is something to wish for not achieve.
What is really concerning is how the news media doesn’t like to be focused on any event, let alone wars, for too long before changing to a different subject and moved off the front page. Yes, there is a certain amount of understanding of this because it tends towards a groundhog day of repetition and readers want something else in their newsfeeds. Thing is, the relegation also ignores that events are still going on and those involved can continue doing whatever they were doing without media attention. The exception was covid, but mostly because it was affecting everyone for a while, still does but less fatally. It does say something about the news media and what they think of our attention span or we of ours come to that when people tend to prefer celebrity news instead. I don’t know how world-wise this is but warning viewers that some filmed news might be distressing to watch seems contradictory considering how much news is distressing or it wouldn’t be news.
If events change, anything that was previously in the news would be brought to the fore again. Escalation tends to have a higher profile than becoming peaceful, although peace negotiations that are going nowhere will get some recognition. Is it any surprise that nations’ leaders find they can manipulate media attention, especially from what they are really doing.
Although not everything can ever have full attention, a current status of events should never be forgotten, especially when it means people’s lives are at stake and they are more than numbers. Current news is important and unrest in countries needs to be heeded by their country’s leaders when they are in wars that should never have happened in the first place. The fact that it out-scaring Science Fiction equivalents shows it’s a hard lesson.
Just because something is not in the news, doesn’t mean it’s stopped.
Thank you, take care, good night and even short editorials have deep meaning.
Geoff Willmetts
editor: www.SFCrowsnest.info
A Zen thought: Deep thinking is for everyone, especially on a deadline.
What Qualities Does A Geek Have: Everyone can deep think, its not just for geeks.
The Reveal: Humans aren’t always nice.
Observation: Although google says both a dog’s bark and a cat’s meow does have a doppler effect, human ears can’t really detect the difference.
Observation: Tired of your mobile phone then there’s a good argument to go back to semaphore with modern devices. Still need the flag system and set times to look for messages sent directly to you. Messages can even be sent at night using luminous flags. All you need is a…er…crowsnest set in your roof to give you the needed height to see the next point for sending and receiving. It might not work in the pouring rain as too many people decide to stay inside. Messages get disrupted all the time. Even better, spam mail gets stopped at the first flag.
Observation: Having just moved up to fibre optic for phone and internet, everything should have worked fine after leaving it for a couple hours for the router to get its updates until you try putting in your router’s new password into your computer and get the message `No Internet, secured’. Having had a yap with my telephone provider and with their permission, if you have a similar problem and want to save time ringing them up, you might consider doing this. Get a thin cocktail stick or unfold a paperclip and press its tip in the reset hole for a timed 25 seconds and try again. If your computer has already had the password put in, you should get directly onto the Net. Then repeat the process, not doing the reset obviously, for all of your technology that needs a router password.
Observation: A puzzle for UK people and maybe other parts of the world. One of the advertising firms in the UK says no one likes funerals yet at some time, you do end up attending one, if not in spirit then certainly in body.
Observation: Now, going back to the 1970s ‘UFO’ TV series, we all know about the coloured panel in Straker’s office because Foster worked it out in the episode ‘Court-Martial’ and dived through it. Looking at one of photos of Gay Ellis removing her leggings in the opening episode and later, her own room also has a smaller but similar window. Whether it exists in all Moonbase’s personal rooms is hard to say, although there is one other room showing it. The real question is whether this is an emergency escape in the event of atmosphere breech.
Observation: Would you prefer a shorter answer with none of the detail?
There.
Short enough?
Feeling Stressed: Getting a fibre optic line and realising that your original line connection to your living room won’t work and you need to get a cordless phone unless you want to rely only on your mobile phone.
Submissions:-
If you think having free books to review isn’t enough, how about reading them months ahead of everyone? I mean real months. Beats a time machine. Some sites might pay you but we believe in honest reviews.
I did think that having a lot of text about submitting material to SFCrowsnest would attract those with a compulsion to read and understand things the geek way. The main problem with the Internet is that it tends to encourage less reading, so time to take a different approach. The original notes will be left on July2009 editorial although the links aren’t likely to work.
With your cover email, tell me something about yourself so I don’t work in a vacuum. The boss in the tower, also called Stephen Hunt, describes me as a ‘Dutch Uncle’ in that I’m good with advice and can explain when I see something that is wrong. Egos should be left at the door as I’m only interested in your talent and how to improve it.
Reviews:-
I always have a clarion call for new reviewers and if you have the yen to learn, you’ll quickly get the ropes if you’re never done it before but you must show me a sample, especially if you can follow my guidelines. We can usually get paper-based books in the UK but if you live abroad, then you might have to stick with ebooks. If you’ve picked a book we haven’t reviewed, then it stands a better chance of being used so use the SFC search engine to see first but I need to see how you would write for us.
The obvious qualification is a desire to read regularly and like to tell others about the book without giving away too many spoilers. The benefit is access to free books for the price of a review.
I want to give you the opportunity to get things right so look up the Review Guidelines link: https://www.sfcrowsnest.info/so-you-want-to-write-reviews-for-sfcrowsnest-what-you-need-to-know-by-geoff-willmetts/
Fiction:-
Although we can’t pay for submissions, what we do make up for is exposure. Only the Sci-Fi Channel gets more hits than us so it’s worthwhile getting us on your writer’s CV. Please avoid samplings from book’s you might be writing or have had in print elsewhere as I do check. New original work is best and whether I accept or reject, you will be told of any problems I see so you look your best and a grammar check that is equal to the pro-world. Even the boss finds me scarily accurate.
Flash or One-Page Fiction:-
Speaks for itself. The shortest fiction possible is also the toughest to write as no word must be wasted.
Link here for details: https://www.sfcrowsnest.info/one-page-stories-or-flash-fiction-submissions-instructions-by-gf-willmetts/
Short Stories:-
The definition of a short story is anything up to 30 pages and then it becomes a novella. Bear in mind you want other people to read it on-line, stay somewhere between 5-20 pages. At least digitally, you don’t have to go double-line as HTML will do that automatically but think about being concise. If you want to send an attachment with these, then ask first and send as a TXT file as it removes most tetchy virus codes.
Look up the Short Stories Link by linking here: https://www.sfcrowsnest.info/so-you-really-want-to-write-an-sf-story-an-update-by-gf-willmetts/
Finally:-
The worse problem I see any samples is poor grammar. Although I don’t want you to think I seek perfection, the less work I have to do, the easier it is to focus on other problems you might have. It will also serve you in good stead if you ever approach paper-based publishers because they will send back any bad grammar samples because it’s not worth their time.
Good grammar is the tool of any writer. Don’t just depend on what you remember doing at school. There are plenty of decent grammar books out there, so remind yourself of the rules. If you think there are far too many to remember, get the major ones right before moving to the next so it becomes second nature.
This link, www.sfcrowsnest.info/the-guide-to-better-grammar-from-the-harrowed-hand-of-gf-willmetts/ will show you the common problems.
To submit, use our email address by joining the spaces as shown here: letters @ SFcrowsnest.info and use the subject matter as to what you’re submitting.
If you have any pastimes that can be used to pass the time in captivity, let me know and we’ll see if it can be turned into an article.
Comments directly to reviews should still work as before.
Good luck
Geoff
