News from Eric G: Right Here Right Now
Songs are my Madelines. The “short, plump little cakes” open a flood of memories and emotion for Proust’s narrator, and music does the same for me. Even my earliest recollections are driven by a soundtrack.
So, when “Right Here Right Now” by Jesus Jones started playing over the public address system at job number three (I train dogs part-time for a major retail pet store chain), I was hit with a wave of nostalgia and melancholy.
Right here, right now
There is no other place I want to be
Right here, right now
Watching the world wake up from history
(Click to watch the video)
This song transports me to my first few years back in the United States after nearly eight years of military service, most of it a stone’s throw from the Grenze, the border between East and West Germany.
When Mike Edwards wrote Right Here, Right Now, he was inspired by the 1989 revolutions. He was born around the same time as me, and it seems like he felt the world shift under his feet too.
Perestroika and glasnost had given way to irrevocable change in Eastern Europe. There were strikes in Poland. The end of Ceaușescu in Romania. The Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia. The list of oppressive regimes that collapsed under their own weight or were overthrown by their citizens is too long to list. They were liberated from tyranny, while we saw the threat of nuclear war fade into memory.
The fall of the Berlin Wall was the big moment; the one that brought tears to my eyes. It came just a few months after I returned to the States. With the collapse of East Germany, the Cold War receded in our collective rearview mirrors.
By then, even the most dedicated hawks talked about a peace dividend. While the battle over how to spend that money was often bitter, it was an argument over where to redirect the money usually reserved for upping the ante on destroying the planet.
But what does this have to do with science fiction?
Science Fiction Without The Cold War
The Cold War had loomed over genre fiction for decades, and then it was gone.
A Canticle for Liebowitz couldn’t happen anymore.
Orwell’s 1984 went from cautionary tale to artifact of the past.
Tom Clancy’s Red Storm Rising (a fun book to read while stationed in the Fulda Gap, BTW) mutated from possible future to alternate history.
Starship Troopers’ allegory about a clash of civilizations was obsolete.
Star Trek’s goofy, optimistic future suddenly seemed just a little bit more possible.
Science fiction needed to change. It had to embrace a brighter world or find new different threats.
The Call Came from Inside The House
In 1991 cyberpunk was nearly a decade old, and it had already told us who the new enemies would be. Instead of a single evil empire, its pages were filled with powerful corporations, terrorists, class warfare, environmental disasters, and out-of-control technology.
It took the real world a few years to catch up, but by 1994, we had the World Trade Center Bombing, the siege at Waco, and the crime bill. In 1999, Glass-Steagall was completely overthrown, setting the stage for the giant corporations dominating our lives today. We didn’t lose Big Brother. He formed a holding company.
Science fiction found its new villains, and so did we.
Life finds a way.
Kobo Plus
Kindle Unlimited (KU) offers a wide selection of science fiction and fantasy. With a single subscription, you can read a metric diskload of great series. It’s streaming for ebooks.
But KU is all or nothing: if an author wants to put their ebook there, they can’t sell it outside of Amazon. So, it’s not a great deal for authors who want to make their books available anywhere else, including their own store.
Fortunately, Kobo has an alternative: Kobo Plus. You read with a single subscription and we retain control over our books. We can make our stories available there and still sell them wherever we want.
My books are on Kobo Plus, and I’ve joined a group of science fiction and fantasy promoting books there this month. Check them out here.
Non-Romantic Fantasy and Sci-Fi
The biggest book in the world right now is Rebecca Yarros’ Onyx Storm. It’s a romantic fantasy that’s breaking 20-year-old sales records! I’ve heard enough about it and the series that it’s part of that I picked up the first book a few days ago.
But I’m not so sure about romantic fantasy. If you’re still on the fence too, check out these books.
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Eric Goebelbecker
Trick of the Tale LLC
25 Veterans Plaza #5276
Bergenfield, NJ 07621-9998