Better than a Dog Anyhow: Stories of Darwin, by Stan Rice

Author Stan Rice has just published a set of short stories Better than a Dog Anyhow based on Charles Darwin. Rice wrote the Encyclopedia of Evolution and other popular books about evolution. He knows a lot of details about Darwin, and this collection of stories shows it.

Here is the Amazon description of the book: “The young Charles Darwin wants to believe in an orderly created world. But his experiences of the world—from the death of his mother, to the beautiful ravages of love, to the many exciting adventures during his trip around the world—disrupt this view. For Charles and Emma, his wife of four decades, religious faith has always been a point of quiet but loving contention. Five of these stories are fictionalized accounts of Darwin’s true biography. The others are imaginary stories: about Darwin’s Irish gardener who cannot understand why Darwin is so kind to him; a fantasy in which Darwin is reunited, via interlacing time lines, with his dead daughter Annie; and, what if Darwin, the father of evolution, had met Mendel, the father of genetics? In these stories, you will find a man whom you wish you could have known.”

Stars in the Daytime: Stories of Disruption, by Stan Rice, story 9. You Little Demon

Author Stan Rice has just published another collection of short stories: Stars in the Daytime: Stories of Disruption. Stan Rice is better known as a science writer, and scientific content and themes show up in most of his stories, including those in this collection.

Here is the author’s summary from Amazon: “You cannot see stars in the daytime, but they, like hidden reality, are always there. In these nine stories, Stan Rice asks, what if God appeared in the sky, with a message for Muslims? Can a theme park haunted castle help a young woman escape from genocide? What if an old greenhouse is the site of shifting timelines? What if a hotel burglar is actually a kindly man? What if a man discovers his girlfriend thinks of him as a teddy bear, then needs him? What happens if a demon from hell changes places with a human being on Earth? In one of the stories, Ruth meets Carmen.”

The stories in this collection are: When Pigs Fly; The Haunted Castle; Bleeding Earth, The Book of Ruth; The Lord Will Provide: Two Stories of Faith; Ursa Minor (all reviewed earlier); The Gentleman (not reviewed in my blogs); and You Little Demon (reviewed here).

It is a little known fact that, once every thousand years, a demon (living in Hell) gets a chance to visit the Earth. He has to return unless he can convince a human being to switch places with him. Then the demon gets to live on the good green Earth. The down side is that he becomes mortal. In this story, a demon almost gets to stay on the Earth, even though living in the country with a frumpy old wife, just before he dies of a heart attack.

There is a long literature of mortals visiting Hell, from Dante all the way to the recent bestseller Katabasis by R. F. Kuang. It is refreshing to see the plot go the other way.

Like Rice’s other books, this one gets me to ask questions that I did not know I wanted to ask. And it this story is very short, written with irrepressible humor.

Stars in the Daytime: Stories of Disruption, by Stan Rice, story 8. Ursa Minor

Author Stan Rice has just published another collection of short stories: Stars in the Daytime: Stories of Disruption. Stan Rice is better known as a science writer, and scientific content and themes show up in most of his stories, including those in this collection.

Here is the author’s summary from Amazon: “You cannot see stars in the daytime, but they, like hidden reality, are always there. In these nine stories, Stan Rice asks, what if God appeared in the sky, with a message for Muslims? Can a theme park haunted castle help a young woman escape from genocide? What if an old greenhouse is the site of shifting timelines? What if a hotel burglar is actually a kindly man? What if a man discovers his girlfriend thinks of him as a teddy bear, then needs him? What happens if a demon from hell changes places with a human being on Earth? In one of the stories, Ruth meets Carmen.”

 

The stories in this collection are: When Pigs Fly; The Haunted Castle; Bleeding Earth, The Book of Ruth, The Lord Will Provide: Two Stories of Faith (all reviewed earlier); The Old Burrill House (reviewed in my science blog (url); The Gentleman (not reviewed in my blogs); Ursa Minor (reviewed here); and You Little Demon (reviewed in the last essay in this series).

In Ursa Minor, Rice explores friendship vs. sexual love. The unnamed main character is helplessly dependent on the sexuality of his girlfriend, who acts as if she does not need him. Then he meets Ursa Minor, an old man, who is far less fortunate in love and life than he is, but seems to accept it. To the main character, Ursa is like a teddy bear (which is what ursa minor means), but then realizes that he himself is a teddy bear for the woman he adores. When she becomes terminally ill, they both realize that the teddy-bear kind of love, humble friendship, is more important than sex.

Stars in the Daytime: Stories of Disruption, by Stan Rice, story 6. The Lord Will Provide

Author Stan Rice has just published another collection of short stories: Stars in the Daytime: Stories of Disruption. Stan Rice is better known as a science writer, and scientific content and themes show up in most of his stories, including those in this collection.

Here is the author’s summary from Amazon: “You cannot see stars in the daytime, but they, like hidden reality, are always there. In these nine stories, Stan Rice asks, what if God appeared in the sky, with a message for Muslims? Can a theme park haunted castle help a young woman escape from genocide? What if an old greenhouse is the site of shifting timelines? What if a hotel burglar is actually a kindly man? What if a man discovers his girlfriend thinks of him as a teddy bear, then needs him? What happens if a demon from hell changes places with a human being on Earth? In one of the stories, Ruth meets Carmen.”

 

The stories in this collection are: When Pigs Fly; The Haunted Castle; Bleeding Earth, The Book of Ruth (all reviewed earlier); The Old Burrill House (reviewed in my science blog); The Lord Will Provide: Two Stories of Faith (reviewed here); The Gentleman; Ursa Minor; and You Little Demon (reviewed in later essays).

This story is actually two stories of faith gone wrong. In the first, a crazy religious man gives all his family’s money to a holy-roller preacher. But the man’s wife comes to the preacher to ask for the money back because her sick son will not survive without it. Even though to the preacher the highest form of religious experience is speaking in tongues, he realizes that mercy is more important than religious signs. In the appendix of the book, Rice explains that this story is true: the crazy man was his grandfather, and the sick child his father.

In the second story, a small fundamentalist congregation consists of just two people: an old man and his wife. The Bible forbids women to have any role in church other than to sing songs selected by the men, that is, the husband. The wife finally gets enough of it and leaves the church. In the appendix of the book, Rice says that this, also, is a true story.

These stories get inside the crazy mindset of fundamentalists. The old man would not attend any church that did not have what he considered a completely Biblical doctrine, and, after his wife left, was willing to drive fifty miles to the next nearest congregation of The True Church. His wife, meanwhile, just went around the corner to another church which was, as far as she could tell, just as good.

Stars in the Daytime: Stories of Disruption, by Stan Rice, story 4. The Book of Ruth

Author Stan Rice has just published another collection of short stories: Stars in the Daytime: Stories of Disruption. Stan Rice is better known as a science writer, and scientific content and themes show up in most of his stories, including those in this collection.

Here is the author’s summary from Amazon: “You cannot see stars in the daytime, but they, like hidden reality, are always there. In these nine stories, Stan Rice asks, what if God appeared in the sky, with a message for Muslims? Can a theme park haunted castle help a young woman escape from genocide? What if an old greenhouse is the site of shifting timelines? What if a hotel burglar is actually a kindly man? What if a man discovers his girlfriend thinks of him as a teddy bear, then needs him? What happens if a demon from hell changes places with a human being on Earth? In one of the stories, Ruth meets Carmen.”

 

The stories in this collection are: When Pigs Fly; The Haunted Castle; Bleeding Earth (all reviewed earlier); The Book of Ruth (reviewed here); The Old Burrill House (reviewed in my science blog; The Lord Will Provide: Two Stories of Faith; The Gentleman; Ursa Minor; and You Little Demon (reviewed in later essays).

This is a story right out of the Bible, about which Rice, who has written extensively about religion, knows a great deal. Ruth is a Moabitess woman. Moab is one of the tribes neighboring Israel, which considers itself God’s chosen people. She is the friend of Naomi the Jewish woman. They live as gleaners, by gathering the grains dropped on the ground after the harvesters have passed through the grain fields. Ruth is extremely worldly, while Naomi is very religious. Actually, this story is not straight out of the Bible, but is what happens when Ruth intersects with Bizet’s operatic character Carmen. Ruth knows what she wants and how to get it.

A religious wanderer, Mahlon, sees Ruth and falls in love with her. Ruth wants Mahlon to fight for her; when he hesitates, she sings Carmen’s song from the opera. When a violent farm worker threatens Ruth, Mahlon quickly defends her. The rich land owner, Boaz, drives Mahlon away and decides to protect both women by giving them work within his house. He then marries both of them. Of course, as you could guess, this was not the end of Mahlon.

The Bible makes it very clear that Israel, not Moab, was God’s chosen people. As a reader of this blog, you probably have your doubts about this. This story will make you doubt it even more.

In case you think the Bible is full of boring theology and regulations, you are wrong—the Bible has some dramatic stories, including the book of Ruth the spicy details of which you never hear in church. Put it together with the equally spicy story of Carmen, and you are in for a wild ride.

Stars in the Daytime: Stories of Disruption, by Stan Rice, story 3. Bleeding Earth

Author Stan Rice has just published another collection of short stories: Stars in the Daytime: Stories of Disruption. Stan Rice is better known as a science writer, and scientific content and themes show up in most of his stories, including those in this collection.

Here is the author’s summary from Amazon: “You cannot see stars in the daytime, but they, like hidden reality, are always there. In these nine stories, Stan Rice asks, what if God appeared in the sky, with a message for Muslims? Can a theme park haunted castle help a young woman escape from genocide? What if an old greenhouse is the site of shifting timelines? What if a hotel burglar is actually a kindly man? What if a man discovers his girlfriend thinks of him as a teddy bear, then needs him? What happens if a demon from hell changes places with a human being on Earth? In one of the stories, Ruth meets Carmen.”

The stories in this collection are: When Pigs Fly; The Haunted Castle (both reviewed earlier); Bleeding Earth (reviewed here); The Book of Ruth; The Old Burrill House; The Lord Will Provide: Two Stories of Faith; The Gentleman; Ursa Minor; and You Little Demon (reviewed in later essays).

Robb is an environmentalist who works at the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), a federal agency which is friendly to farmers, not to the environment. Robb meets DoAnna, who owns a large farm and does everything environmentally wrong. But she knows it and asks Robb for advice. He gives her more advice (such as “Get rid of your cows”) than she wants. But he nearly convinces her to be an eco-farmer until she catches him trespassing on her land to get runoff water samples to identify her farm as a major source of pollution. They had just started to be friends…

Robb loses his job even before DoAnna files a complaint about his trespassing. Depressed and sleepy, he parks his car at a rest stop and falls asleep. He awakens during a severe dust storm and finds DoAnna has prepared him a picnic lunch. She is now convinced he is right—our farms are blowing away in the wind—and she hires him as a full-time advisor on how to make her farm into an eco-farm. They soon become lovers.

Running an eco-farm turns out to be nightmarishly difficult, especially the way Robb and DoAnna do it. The project (raising hemp) fails. They have to start over—but how? They blame each other for what has happened. A summer storm brings on a mud-fight, which leaves them laughing and loving once again.

The point that is of interest to readers of this religion blog is that farming is not just a business. It is a stewardship. That is, the land (thus the farm) belong to God and we have to take care of it and keep it from dying. Farmers cannot do this alone unless everyone else supports them.

Stars in the Daytime: Stories of Disruption, by Stan Rice, story 1. When Pigs Fly

Author Stan Rice has just published another collection of short stories: Stars in the Daytime: Stories of Disruption. Stan Rice is better known as a science writer, and scientific content and themes show up in most of his stories, including those in this collection. But his fiction usually contains a lot of thought-provoking religion.

Here is the author’s summary from Amazon: “You cannot see stars in the daytime, but they, like hidden reality, are always there. In these nine stories, Stan Rice asks, what if God appeared in the sky, with a message for Muslims? Can a theme park haunted castle help a young woman escape from genocide? What if an old greenhouse is the site of shifting timelines? What if a hotel burglar is actually a kindly man? What if a man discovers his girlfriend thinks of him as a teddy bear, then needs him? What happens if a demon from hell changes places with a human being on Earth? In one of the stories, Ruth meets Carmen.”

 

The stories in this collection are: When Pigs Fly (reviewed here); The Haunted Castle; Bleeding Earth; The Book of Ruth; The Old Burrill House; The Lord Will Provide: Two Stories of Faith; The Gentleman; Ursa Minor; and You Little Demon (reviewed in later essays).

The first story, When Pigs Fly, is about an American woman (Wendy) who wandered away from her Muslim heritage (she was Wafa before). Then one day, God appeared in the sky. Only, unlike Rice’s novel Glass Cathedral, it was Al-lah, not the Christian God. God said he was going to kill reprobate former Muslims, but He was going to give Wafa an extra chance, since, He said, He just likes her. His only rule is to stay away from pork and pork products.

Wafa rejoins the mosque in which she grew up, in Oklahoma, and thinks she is obeying Al-lah. She has even dedicated her life to making the world better, by getting a college degree in biology. But in her biotechnology class she discovers that pig genes have been sliced into the DNA of almost all crop plants, and that she and all her fellow Muslims have been eating pork without realizing it. So, God killed all of them.

My science blog readers will be interested in the biotechnology by which pig genes are inserted into vegetables. But the question for my religious readers (this blog) is, would God ever do anything like this? Of course not, although a lot of religious people do not realize it. A relationship with God is different for each person, and is a whole life history, rather than a mindless following of one or a few rules. Christians, and Muslims, need to understand this.

Blood Brain Barrier: Stories from the Borderlands of Science, Story 9. Fresh Air

This collection of short stories by Stan Rice, who is also the author of nonfiction books of popular science and science novels, takes the reader to the frontier between science and worlds of the impossible (see his author website here). Readers of my science blog will appreciate the creative telling of scientifically impossible stories; readers of my religion blog will appreciate the question of whether, even if these things were possible, would they be good?

 

The stories in this collection are The Man Who Could Work Miracles, Light Apparel, Flow of Blood, Wisdom Builds Her House, Rock Bunnies, Entropy, Olga the Science Cat (all reviewed earlier), Doghouse (reviewed in my science blog), and Fresh Air.

This final story, Fresh Air, is the chemistry class you wish you had, the world (the whole world) as told from the viewpoint of an oxygen atom named Gould. Gould, who resembles a white man, is inherently selfish. He has a hunger to grab and keep every electron from every other atom that he can. He doesn’t feel good about his selfish nature, but he can’t do anything about it. When you get two oxygen atoms together, forming oxygen gas (O₂), they become almost criminal in their ruthlessness. Gould does not want this to happen.

Gould is bonded to a black carbon atom named Chedd, who is calm and loving. Chedd likes to form bonds, networks of atoms, even giant molecules. But right now Gould, Chedd, and Elsie (another oxygen atom, whom Gould loves even though he cannot see or touch her) form a molecule of carbon dioxide (CO₂). Get ready for the carbon dioxide molecule to get sucked into the process of photosynthesis and end up in the wood of a tree, hidden in the dark until one day the wood gets chopped by a human poet named Cosmo. Gould ends up in a fire.

The only way an oxygen atom in carbon dioxide can be freed from the carbon cycle is by becoming an oxygen radical and joining to an oxygen molecule, making ozone. This is what happens to Gould. The story ends when Gould, inside an ozone molecule, is floating high in the air protecting the planet from ultraviolet radiation.

There are, as in most Rice novels and stories, undercurrents of important issues. In this case, the oxygen atoms are white and greedy, while the carbon atoms are black and nice.