{"id":2562,"date":"2013-08-20T08:00:44","date_gmt":"2013-08-20T13:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.revolutionsf.com\/revblogs\/geekcurmudgeon\/?p=2562"},"modified":"2013-08-20T08:05:41","modified_gmt":"2013-08-20T13:05:41","slug":"rayguns-over-texas-preview-chris-n-brown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.revolutionsf.com\/revblogs\/geekcurmudgeon\/2013\/08\/20\/rayguns-over-texas-preview-chris-n-brown\/","title":{"rendered":"Rayguns Over Texas preview: Chris N. Brown"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Cover<\/a>

Cover by Rocky Kelley<\/p><\/div>\n

As we barrel toward the August 29 premiere of\u00a0Rayguns Over Texas\u00a0<\/em><\/a>at\u00a0LoneStarCon 3<\/a>\u00a0(aka the 71st Annual World Science Fiction Convention) in San Antonio, I am presenting book excerpts, one contributor per day.<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s selection comes from Chris N. Brown<\/a>‘s\u00a0\u201cSovereign Wealth.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

In a near future of financial and\u00a0environmental collapse, businessmen\u00a0vie for influence in a rapidly changing\u00a0political arena. Chris N. Brown ventures\u00a0into the rarely employed economic\u00a0science fiction subgenre with this\u00a0disturbing and poignant vision.<\/p>\n

That night I got together with my buddies in Austin to watch the\u00a0vote. They had they\u2019re own idea of the pregame.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, no, I don\u2019t want to watch another one of your marionette\u00a0shows,\u201d I said as I plopped myself down on the sofa between Annie\u00a0and Chaz, in front of the big screen they had flashed on the wall.<\/p>\n

Vijay and Clarice were laughing already before I started bitching.\u00a0I looked at the scene on the screen. Retail surveillance from\u00a0the Kaufstra\u00dfe in Munich. People walking on their lunch breaks\u00a0or whatever, letting their earbuds and tablets and bluerings tell\u00a0them where to go and what to buy, waylaid, lured and consensually\u00a0hoodwinked by hundreds of ethereal proximity bots.<\/p>\n

\u201cSanta doesn\u2019t like it when you rig the Christmas lists,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re the ones in charge of the other 364 days,\u201d said Chaz.<\/p>\n

Green text, red arrows, and yellow highlights overlaid the scene,\u00a0revealing the matching algorithms at work.<\/p>\n

\u201cFucking data miners. You\u2019re why I have to clean my chips every
\nnight before I go to bed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re ambient advertisers, Tony,\u201d said Annie. \u201cWe match people\u00a0with the things they want in life. We don\u2019t need ethics lectures from\u00a0investment bankers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLook closely,\u201d said Vijay. \u201cThis new algorithm Clarice wrote and\u00a0Chaz tuned is amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cRight, but I came to watch it dissect the referendum,\u201d I said. \u201cAnd\u00a0to have some of Clarice\u2019s chicken masala estilo Jalisco.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI forgot,\u201d said Vijay. \u201cIt\u2019s Kush-Mex night.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chaz went for the mezcal.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just think it\u2019s nice to see we still have something on our Teutonic\u00a0overlords,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Frankfurters are the ones with our bonds,\u201d I said. \u201cNot the\u00a0Bavarians. And the pendulum always swings back through equilibrium.\u201d<\/p>\n

Annie spit out her drink. \u201cLast time I checked, the pendulum\u00a0came loose from its mooring and knocked over half the remaining\u00a0banks,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut we\u2019re still swinging,\u201d laughed Vijay.<\/p>\n

Vijay changed the channel, and the wallscreen quadrupled in\u00a0size. Vote tallies by precinct and network, detailed issue briefings in\u00a0video and text on each of the matters up for ballot, four channels of\u00a0color commentary from different orientations if you wanted it. The\u00a0votes were monthly, the democracy was direct, more or less, and the\u00a0exercise of the franchise was still optional.<\/p>\n

\u201cJeez, this is so much work,\u201d said Chaz. \u201cI liked it better when you\u00a0just showed up every few years and checked the box for Coke or Pepsi.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd had your life run by four-hundred and thirty-five self-aggrandizing geezers wearing identical suits?\u201d said Annie. \u201cTony\u2019s\u00a0right. We should be doing political work. Help make it easier for\u00a0people.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI guess the idea of a new Constitutional Convention is kind of cool,\u201d\u00a0said Chaz. \u201cI just find it kind of creepy the way it\u2019s like a combination\u00a0of a City Council livestream and America\u2019s Hot Talent.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was three years now since the Aftershock. The Aftershock was\u00a0the economic event that followed, by about eighteen months, the\u00a0event we had considered the greatest crash in American economic\u00a0history, when the big bubble on which the city on a hill had been built\u00a0collapsed like an Oklahoma fracking sinkhole. The Crash was bad,\u00a0but the Aftershock was what broke the political system, exposing\u00a0the varicose veins and clotted embolisms hiding under the pancake\u00a0makeup of the animatronic boneheads left as stewards of the republic\u00a0250-plus years after we buried the Founding Fathers. Once we pulled\u00a0the thread on Uncle Sam\u2019s sweater, he got naked in a hurry. Under\u00a0the new regime that assembled in the following two years of elections,\u00a0three fourths of the states petitioned for our social contract to be\u00a0rewritten, in a convention that would be conducted as an experiment\u00a0in network-based participatory democracy.<\/p>\n

Yes, we were kind of figuring it out as we went along.<\/p>\n

\n<\/blockquote>\n

Excerpts from \u201cSovereign Wealth\u201d \u00a9 2013 by Chris N. Brown.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As we barrel toward the August 29 premiere of\u00a0Rayguns Over Texas\u00a0at\u00a0LoneStarCon 3\u00a0(aka the 71st Annual World Science Fiction Convention) in San Antonio, I am presenting book excerpts, one contributor per day. Today\u2019s selection comes from Chris N. Brown‘s\u00a0\u201cSovereign Wealth.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-rayguns-over-texas"],"yoast_head":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n