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Guest Blog from Tessa Miller

5/31/2014

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Here is the first of several guest blogs written by characters from The Marsco Dissident. I hope you enjoy this insight into Tessa; I imagine this coming from her just before Book I begins in Sac City, in the year 2092.





Tessa Miller, of The Marsco Dissident, guest blog


            Most people don’t know the frustrations of being ABD: All But Dissertation. Of being stuck at the extreme end (the precipice?) of a long, arduous scholarly task. So I’ve got my data collected, my review of previous research completed, and here I sit. The Integration of Computer Systems with Propulsion Optimization: A New Model. Fancy title, long bibliography, clear numbers crunched, blank screen in front of me, and nothing.

            I could speak of my dissertation for hours, of its importance to Marsco, to science and engineering in general, to my plebes, to my career.

            But you’d rather listen to me to talk about my father, Walter Miller, and probably (you’d think?) my former, Zot.

            Procrastination: putting the trivial before the significant.

            Or just shutting down. I’m good at that. Look at that pilot I hung with for far too long, partly to piss off Zot, and partly because everyone needs a companion. But I was shut down that whole time, drifting along, oblivious to all the warning signs of train wreck. You can’t break your heart a second time when you’re using Number 2 to put off dealing with Number 1.

            Why am I telling you this?

            So I don’t spill my guts about Walter and Zot, of course. I’m too controlled for that. Too emotionally detached. I have most people convinced I’m totally together. I’m the one without a hair out of place, my uniform impeccable, my exterior a spotless, polished veneer. My inner life? Turmoil replete with my ripped up guts I refuse to deal with.

            Then again, why not spill them?

            Walter C. Miller, Jr., PhD, Astro-engineer, co-designer of the Herriff-Miller’s that propel Marsco and those few Independent Shuttles that ply between the Moon and the Asteroid Belt. That Miller, he’s my father.

          You’d think that would help my career, except that he’s gone off the beaten Marsco track and become some sort of dissident. Not really a thorn in Marsco’s side. (He’s totally harmless, I’m sure.) But he’s not exactly a rose in a vase at its breakfast table either. He’s a questioner. More philosopher and historian than engineer now, even though back in his day, his theories garnered much praise.

            I should have visited him sooner, since he’s alone and widowed, but things got in my way. Ok, I let things get in my way.

            Zot was there a few times; he let me know that. Even out and out invited me to visit my own father at Walter’s grange near Sac City, that Sacramento, the former capital of the Continental Powers, Marsco’s last enemy, the last bastion of the Powers resistance. But, I refused to go. My excuse? Grading exams and continuing my dissertation research; used my status as an untenured prof at the Marsco Academy (where I’m an assistant professor of astro-engineering), pleaded that these were all vastly more important.

            Zot, Anthony “Zot” Grizotti. An ensign last I heard. (Which makes no sense: hibernation service doesn’t need officers, but there he is.) He’s an iceman, or a hibernation specialist, but not one on a routine Moon-to-Belt mission; no, he’s on some black mission for the Van Braun Center on Mars. Their ship, the Gagarin, is speeding towards Jupiter. Marsco’s first mission beyond the Asteroid Belt, first manned mission. Recon trip for Marsco, but why? For what?

          The crew manifest shows ample icing personnel without Zot. And he never signs any hiber reports, so his duties (even though he’s the sole officer among the hibermen) remain a mystery to me. If he’s in charge (an obvious conclusion), then why haven’t all those posted icing reports come out under his name? If he’s not in charge, what’s he doing on a four-year space flight that’s going beyond Marsco colonies within the Asteroid Belt all the way out to godforsaken Jupiter? What’s he doing?

            I’ve also checked the whole crew manifest: scientists, pilots and other flight crew. Some hot numbers, those gals on the Gagarin. And Zot, a brown-eyed and soulful iceman with a tale to tell and time to tell it, could put every gullible babe onboard into a swoon with his dark features. And if a swoon? But, Zot’s really not like that, all those rumors you hear of randy hibermen, taking advantage of whomever they wish once the crew’s iced.        

          Those two men aside, I do want to visit my father’s grange. Not to see Zot (who can’t possibly be there) and not really to see my father, Walter, either. I’m not seeking to bury the hatchet with him. A hatchet I put between us over Marsco.

          I miss his dogs. They’d be fun to see again. Io and Deimos. Mutts for sure, but loving.

            I have no siblings. No mother, either; she died several years back. At her funeral, when Zot and I were both plebes at the Academy, that’s when I first looked at Zot differently. That epiphany moment. Have loved him since, well, except I’ve stopped loving him now, too, because I don’t really love him anymore, not as much as I did once, so intensely and passionately. That kind of love someone doesn’t forget, except I have, or am forgetting it. And after having a relationship with Zot, rock-solid Zot, why was I with that space-jockey player who’s as sincere as mist and as consistent as smoke?

            Don’t ask.

            Shut down. Denial. Buttoned up. That’s me. And ever-truthful.

            Zot won’t be there.

            Walter will be. And his dogs.

            I have to go, if for my mother’s sake. It’s been three years since I’ve seen Walter. Long enough to forget Zot and return to my father’s place with some adult-daughter distance between us.

            I’m going by ground, too. High-speed bullet from Seattle to a Marsco Sector just north of Silicon. Then a local rust bucket from Marsco luxury to the Sac City Subsidiary. But it will be fine. I want to see how wrong my father is about Marsco. Want to see the transformation, positive transformation, that Marsco reports. Talk of denial. Walter denies all this Marsco advancement.

            I know it’s true. Marsco said so. Why would Marsco lie?

            What does it have to gain by being opaque? It’s always been transparent with its intentions since it seized power, I mean, gained power, reluctantly taking up political power to run the whole world after the Continental Wars devastated the Earth, the Moon colonies, and even some of the sites on Mars.

            It’s a Marsco world, and Marsco’s doing a fine job running it.

            And Zot on the Gagarin and Walter sequestered at his grange, they’ve taken themselves out of the Marsco world. If that’s really possible.

          Crazy. Insane. Enigmas both. Men! 



                                    *
The Marsco Dissident is available now on Amazon for e-readers only. It will be available in print on July 20, 2014. I hope you enjoy a copy in whichever format you prefer.

            


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Restarting at Long Last!

5/18/2014

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                       Restarting at long last!

            After a long hiatus, I’m re-launching my blog with a slightly different format. I intend to post twice monthly, one my own piece and one a guest-written piece. So, here is my first blog in ages.

            As many of you know, Southwest Minnesota State University has a yearly distinction, the conferring of the Cathy Cowan Award, an honor given to a faculty or staff member who has over five years of service and has demonstrated devotion to the campus and the community. I am this year’s recipient.

            With all due humility, here is the text of my acceptance. (For those who do not know, the mascot of Southwest is the Mustang. We are the Mustangs!)


Picture
             Cowan Award Thank You Speech
          SMSU Commencement, May 10, 2014

            President Gores, Distinguished Dignitaries and Guests, Parents and Family of our Graduates, Faculty and Staff, and today’s Graduates, thank you all for acknowledging me as this year’s Cowan Award Recipient. I am touched and honored more than I can say. 

            My thanks also to Marianne and Elaine, my wife and daughter, who have helped and encouraged me throughout my twenty-five years here. In fact, today marks forty years of my academic career, from high school teaching and college teaching in four states coast-to-coast and eventually to Southwest in 1989.

            I also want to thank my nominating team for their belief that I am worthy of this distinction, especially since I know all the other 11 Cowan Award recipients. I stand in awe among and with the pillars of this university. Thank you.

            But it is to you, our Esteemed Graduates, that I want to speak:

            A girl enters a wardrobe and finds herself in Narnia. A hobbit leaves his hole and ends up fighting dragons. Dr. Who enters his TARDIS and lands wherever the space-time continuum takes him. You entered Southwest years ago, and here you are today.

            These all seem different, but they are all in fact the same.

            Here’s how: Maybe you came right from high school or maybe as a transfer student. As a graduate of another college or a parent whose children just entered kindergarten, or even a high school student beginning your university career early. You might be someone who crossed a street, the state, a state line, or an ocean; it does not matter. At whatever stage of life you came from, you stepped out of your familiar world into a world you did not and could not truly imagine before.

            This excellent university has brought you to places as far from your previous lives as any magic doorway could. And it has helped make you a citizen of a broader world, a more thoughtful and deeply-concerned citizen, an inquisitive citizen.

            Oh, Southwest may have trained you for a job; perhaps you start next week. Or, it prepared you for graduate school, law or medical school, or to return to that family farm or a family business. Whatever and wherever, you return as a traveler from a foreign land. And as you move on from Southwest to the next stage of your lives, you do so with vision and ideas expanded from those you once had when you came. Savor this! Savor all of this!

            Wherever you land next and next and next, you go there transformed by your efforts, indeed, sometimes transformed in spite of your efforts. Savor that transformation! Be proud of it. As Thomas Paine reminds us: “The mind once enlightened cannot again become dark.”

            This dark world needs your enlightened citizenship.

            In her address at a commencement several years ago, J.K. Rowling stated, “We do not need magic to transform our world. We carry all the power we need inside ourselves already. We have the power to imagine better.”

             And so, Graduates, of whom we are so proud, as your amazing lives unfold, transform your world. Transform our world. Bring it your light. Imagine for us all a better world.

             And if in a year or ten or twenty-five, when you look back on the road you’ve just trod, let no one, including yourself, ever say, “You did too little with your life; you shone too dim; all because you dreamed too small.” Dream BIG with your lives and your loved ones, with your communities and your careers.

            Play BIG.

            And remember always, you are not Shetland ponies!

            You are Mustangs!

            Play BIG!

            Congratulations once again and thanks to all of you for allowing me this slice of your wonderful day.
                                                                                                        *

            If you are a longtime reader, thanks for looking once more at my blog. If you are new to the Eclectic Blog, welcome.

             At this point in my career, I am off for the summer and will teach only 66% next academic year. The following two academic years, I will teach 50% each year. At that point, I will fully retire. This change allows me to write and publish more. The Marsco Dissident, now available in e-download only, will be available in print this summer. (Details forthcoming.) Marsco Triumphant, Book II of the four-part Marsco Saga, will be available in print and e-download in December 2014. Watch for them.

             Thank you all for checking out my blog and for checking out my fiction. I will be posting a guest blog by Tessa Miller, one of the main characters in The Marsco Dissident, in about two weeks. She will be speaking of her frustrations with the Marsco world and her life just before she enters at the start of Chapter 1. I’m sure you’ll enjoy hearing from her. 

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    The Zarzana Eclectic Blog seeks to occasionally publish essays about assorted topics that would interest a wide reading audience.

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