On the basis (a) of Chris Jones’s call for blogs and (b) that this blog may well be better than my story ‘Rothschild’s Giraffe’, here goes. (It’s not so much a blog as a plea for redemption.)
The suggested timeline for The Singularity included one event that intrigued me very much viz. the resurrection of extinct animal species, and I suspected this topic would not find too much
favour (extinct animals vs. sex-bots? – I’m not a gambling man but I know where I’d lay my bot bet).
The obvious thing would be to go for the resurrection of Big Beasts, so to try and subvert that I asked a friend who is a Senior Curator at the Natural History Museum what he thought to be the drabbest, dullest, (most pointless?) thing to bring back from extinction. He suggested the Aldabra Brush Warbler, a Little Brown Job (LBJ) declared extinct in the early 1980s. He even showed me a preserved specimen, and it was indeed drab, dull, little, and brown. So that was the basis of my first draft – all the resources and effort expended, only to bring back a LBJ. (There was a twist to the tale in that the Artificial Intelligence responsible was working behind the scenes on a much more sinister and appalling project.)
Anyway, that draft was rubbish and I was told so, quite rightly and much more politely, by those kind enough to read and comment. So I rewrote the story, made the giraffe of the title a little
more of a feature (it never appeared in the first version), and counterpointed the vainglorious, fallible humans with the cold and calculating AI for which the end justifies the means.
I like the final result, especially the maladjusted and monstrously privileged Blanche, Duchess of Albuquerque, and whilst this has been said countless times before, if not for the Create 50
model the story would not have progressed beyond the first spavined draft.
Why Rothschild’s giraffe over the other sub-species of giraffe? Because I like the name, because it is my signature giraffe, and because it has the most ossicones.
Everyone should have a signature giraffe.
And the Aldabra Brush Warbler does make a very brief appearance in the final version of the story. It’s my tiny tribute to all the overlooked LBJ’s of the world. Nothing deserves extinction, even
if some things are patently more spectacular and compelling than others. That’s why ‘Jurassic Park’ is about dinosaurs, not warblers.
Finally, whilst behind-the-scenes at the museum, my friend showed me the rows and rows of drawers and cabinets being prepared to hold the specimens of all the extinct species within the
collection. All the loss: it’s heart breaking, relentless, and it’s happening now.
So…
Viva the LBJ’s!
Richie Brown.
Amazon Author Page // Twitter // Author
page (Singularity) // Author page (Twisted 50 vol 2)
Write a comment
Nick Yates (Saturday, 20 October 2018 23:26)
Great story Rich!
Christopher Stanley (Monday, 22 October 2018 21:20)
What Nick said. And I love your approach to this - pick a less-popular subject and then subvert it to find a story that feels fresh and original. One that no one else would dream of, let alone write. I like it and I think there's a lesson here for all of us who have, at one time or another, fallen into the trap of regurgitating tired old tropes. I don't think I ever read the Aldabra Brush Warbler draft but I think Rothschild's Giraffe has a nice ring to it...and it ain't a dinosaur! I look forward to revisiting your story in the anthology. Great blog - thanks for sharing.