OBLIVION SINS OF THE FATHER SERIES

He was made wordless by this vibrant, violent intellect that hid inside Grampa. Then, suddenly, Grampa was between them, arguing both sides with machinegun passion and lucidity, running an intellect so furious it appeared to be steam-driven.

OBLIVION SINS OF THE FATHER SERIES

Grampa had been in maintenance mode, running through a series of isometric stretching exercises in one corner while Sean and his father had it out. The first time Grampa had switched on in SeanвЂ™s presence - it was when Sean was trying out a prototype of Enemies of Art against his fatherвЂ™s own As All Right-Thinking People Know - it had scared Sean stupid. It drove SeanвЂ™s father bugfuck, and heвЂ™d inevitably have a displaced tantrum at Sean in the car on the way home.

Grampa made tea and conversation, both perfectly executed and without soul. Sean remembered visits before the old man was committed, he and his dutiful father visiting the impeccable apartment in the slate house in Kingston, Ontario. Grampa was switched off when Sean found him on the ward, which throbbed with a coleslaw of laser-light and videogames and fuck-pix and explosions and car-wrecks and fractals and atrocities. You can read the whole story online at Strange Horizons. So I did what I always do when I feel blocked: I went and saw a bunch of bad movies, which bored me to the point where I could write again - about boredom.ДЄ note for my folks: although this has parallels to my family - my grandfather just went into a home - this is by no means an indictment of my family, who are wonderful people. This story was written in a blind panic, terror inspired by a heinous writerвЂ™s block that had me chewing my toes at the prospect of not finishing a story while at the workshop. I heartily recommend this experience: I write my best stuff during that week (I wrote Craphound at Gipsicon вЂ™97).

We meet in a different city every summer, in a rented University dorm or schoolhouse, and write and critique our heads off. I wrote this while at Gipsicon вЂ™98, a writersвЂ™ retreat founded by my Clarion classmate, Janis OвЂ™Connor. This story, which I sold today, October 26, 1998, completes my AsimovвЂ™s hat-trick: three stories to AsimovвЂ™s in just over a year. YearвЂ™s Best Science Fiction 5, HarperPrism 2000, David G.

Oblivion sins of the father