Eric James Stone

(Well, it might, but you have no way of knowing.)

Since I have asthma, I tend to read news stories about scientific studies dealing with asthma. Today I saw this headline: “High-Fat Meal May Trigger Asthma.”

Since I do eat high-fat meals on occasion, I immediately read the news story. Based on the story, there is an obvious flaw in the scientific study. Let’s see if you can spot the flaw.

The study compared the lung inflammation in test subjects before and after a meal. The subjects were given either a low-fat meal or a high-fat meal. The low-fat meal was 13% fat. The high-fat meal was 50% fat. The low-fat meal was 200 calories. The high-fat meal was 1000 calories. Those who ate the high-fat meal had an increase in lung inflammation.

So, did you spot the flaw in the study?

That’s right: the high-fat meal had 5 times the calories of the low-fat meal.

How do the researchers know that it was the high fat content, rather than the high calorie count, that caused the increase in lung inflammation?  Answer: they don’t.  This experiment provides just as much support for the headline “High-Calorie Meal May Trigger Asthma.”

A properly designed experiment would have had the same calorie count for both the low-fat and high-fat meals, in order to eliminate calorie count as a variable.

Additionally, all the high-fat meals consisted of a hamburger and hash browns, and all the low-fat meals consisted of yogurt.  So there’s the possibility that beef or potato or some other particular ingredient of the high-fat meals causes inflammation, not the fat itself, and that a high-fat meal of bacon and eggs would not have caused inflammation. Or possibly yogurt has some property that suppresses inflammation, while a low-fat meal of pasta with tomato sauce would have caused inflammation.  The proper thing to do would have been to use at least two different high-fat and low-fat meals in order to reduce the possibility that something other than fat content was making the difference.

Note that I’m not saying that high fat content doesn’t cause lung inflammation. I’m just saying that this study is poorly designed and is therefore insufficient evidence for that conclusion.

I’ve been very lax about blogging things lately, so let me sum up:

• My story “Attitude Adjustment,” which appeared in Analog last year and will appear next month in Year’s Best SF 15, has been picked for translation by the Russian magazine ESLI. As apart of that deal, I obtained the electronic rights to my previous story that was translated into Russian, “The Ashes of His Fathers.” You can read it here (if you can read Russian): [HTML] [PDF]
• My story “An Early Ford Mustang” (née “Brad Decides to Be Early,” née “Early) has been bought by InterGalactic Medicine Show and will be published in the June issue (and will probably be an audio feature).
• My story “That Leviathan, Whom Thou Hast Made” will be in the September issue of Analog. If you want to be sure you get it, subscribe now.

Oh, wait, that’s not it.

I’m just partially deaf in one ear, that’s what it is.

(Waits for his family’s chorus of “You need Miracle-Ear!” to die down.  In-joke.)

Back when I was in law school, I noticed that I had trouble hearing my alarm clock with my left ear if my right ear was blocked (by, for example, a pillow). I went and had my hearing tested at a hearing aid store, and they told me it was probably just an excess build-up of wax.  I really didn’t feel like the people at that store took me seriously, and it kind of soured me on looking into the matter any further.

I tried some ear wax removal kits over the years, but never really saw much improvement.

But then again, with the exception of the alarm clock, I didn’t really notice that my hearing was different in my left ear from my right.  Stereo music still sounded stereo.  Sounds still sounded like they came from where they were coming from, rather than being biased toward the right.

However, there were times I had difficulty understanding what people said, especially soft-spoken women.  And sometimes I needed the TV volume higher than other people, and even on my own, I got in the habit of watching TV with subtitles turned on.

A couple of days ago, I finally had my hearing tested again, at Costco. Definitely no wax buildup, according to the guy who conducted my test.

Hearing in my right ear is within normal range.

But my left ear…

To interpret the chart for you, in my left ear I have normal hearing at frequencies below speech cues, mild loss for lower frequency speech cues, moderate loss for higher frequency speech cues, and borderline moderate/severe loss in the frequencies above speech cues (which is about where my alarm clock sounds).

I tried out a sample hearing aid set to boost the frequencies I have trouble with, and it was quite a noticeable improvement.  So even though I’ve been getting along fairly well without one, at some point in the future (especially if I feel the need to listen more closely to a soft-spoken woman) I will get a hearing aid.

It’s time once again for BYU’s science fiction and fantasy symposium: Life, the Universe, and Everything. Here’s my schedule:

Thursday, Feb. 11

• Noon: Mormons in Horror
  Believe it or not, there are active LDS who read, edit and write horror fiction.  What tensions do they see with their faith and culture and this genre?  How does their belief color what they find “really scary”?
  (Dan Wells, Eric Swedin, Michael R. Collings, Eric James Stone, Lee Allred (M))

Friday, Feb. 12

• Noon: Who influenced me as a writer?
  (Eric James Stone, Kathleen Dalton-Woodbury, Berin Stephens, Jake Black, Michael Young)
• 3:00 PM:  How to build aliens and fantastic (but believable) monsters
  (Helge Moulding, Roger White, Eric James Stone, Brian Hailes, Kathleen Dalton-Woodbury)

Saturday, Feb. 13

• 1:00 PM: SIGNING: Brandon Mull, Brandon Sanderson, Howard Tayler, Eric James Stone, Berin Stephens, Jake Black, Roger White, Lisa Mangum, Aleta Clegg, Mette Ivie Harrison, John Brown
• 5:00 PM: READING: Dan Wells / Eric James Stone
• 6:00 PM: How to write a good short story.  You have to be concise, clear, articulate, and still keep the reader’s interest.  What does a short story writer need to know/do to write a great short story?
  (Robert J Defendi, Suzanne Vincent, Eric James Stone, Kathleen Dalton-Woodbury, Brad R. Torgensen)

Whether or not you can nominate stories for the Nebula Award, I’m allowing free access to read my short story “The Robot Sorcerer” until the Nebula nomination period ends on February 15, 2010.  The story was originally published in the December 2008 issue of InterGalactic Medicine Show, and under the transition to the new Nebula Awards rules, it is eligible along with stories published in 2009.

Click here to read “The Robot Sorcerer.”

My story “Attitude Adjustment,” which was published in the September 2009 issue of Analog, has been selected for The Year’s Best SF #15, edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer.  This is the first time one of my stories has been chosen for one of the annual year’s-best anthologies, and I feel very honored.  The anthology should be out in May.

My car is officially totaled. I should find out in the next couple of days how much money I’ll get for it.

Woke up this morning with neck and shoulder pain.  Saw a doctor, who said I have “a classic case of whiplash.” He prescribed pain medication, muscle relaxant, and physical therapy, but said I was likely to make a full recovery in time. He also sent me to get my neck X-rayed just in case it was more than whiplash, but fortunately the X-ray results didn’t show anything abnormal.

So, while there’s some bad news, it’s definitely not as bad as it could have been.

At around 9:09:45 AM today I was involved in a car crash while on my way to work.

The following is reconstructed as best I can from my memory, the record in my GPS, and hearsay.

I was driving eastbound on 700 North in Lindon.  Approaching the intersection with State Street, I could see the light was red so I began slowing from 40 mph.  Before I reached the intersection, though, the light turned green.

Across State Street from me, several cars were facing west in the left turn lane, waiting to turn southbound on State Street.  There is no left turn signal for cars in that lane; they just get a normal green light and are supposed to yield to cars coming eastbound straight through the intersection. In the next lane, there were also cars waiting to proceed westbound straight through.

The driver of the first car in the left turn lane decided that there was enough time to turn left before I entered the intersection.  I felt he or she was cutting it a bit close, so I continued slowing.  My average speed over the final 8 seconds before entering the intersection was 26 mph, so I figure my speed when I entered was somewhat below that.

The first car finished its left turn and continued down State Street.

Meanwhile, the second car in the left turn lane, an SUV, had pulled into the intersection, but instead of stopping to let me continue through, the driver followed the previous car’s path.  Based on what the police officer later told me she said, she just didn’t see me until I was already in the intersection.

I slammed on my brakes.  My GPS shows me traveling 55 feet beyond the intersection at an average of 12 mph, but that did not actually happen.  Instead, I collided nearly head-on with the SUV and came to an almost instant stop in the intersection.

My airbag deployed, but I don’t think I actually hit it.  Instead, I think my seat-belt restrained me sufficiently.

After recovering from the shock of the collision, I tried to open my door and get out of the car before it blew up (I’m kidding–I wasn’t really concerned that it was going to blow up), but the door wouldn’t open more than a few inches.  So I continued to sit there for a minute.  I got out my phone and called my boss at 9:11 (interesting time, I just realized) to tell him I was going to be late.

A driver who had witnessed the accident came and asked if I was injured. I told him I didn’t think I was.

My next call was going to be 911, but either someone had already called the police, or else they spotted the accident while on patrol.  A police officer came over and asked if I was injured. I told him I didn’t think I was.  He asked for my license, registration, and proof of insurance.  I dug them out and gave them to him.

He asked me what had happened, and I told him.

As a sign of how shaken I still was, I mentioned that I didn’t think my door could open enough for me to get out of the car, and the police officer suggested that I could crawl to the passenger side and get out that way.  Normally, I would have been able to figure that out for myself.

Anyway, the police officer interviewed the driver of the other car and the witnesses and pretty much confirmed what I had told him.  He told me that his report would say I was not at fault and the other driver was.

Eventually both cars were towed, and I walked over to my office.

Here are pictures:

Basically, I’m very grateful that things weren’t worse, and that apparently nobody was seriously injured (although I’ve heard injuries sometimes show up later.) I should find out tomorrow whether my car was totaled or if it can be repaired.

My short story "Rejiggering the Thingamajig" (which happens to be my current favorite among my published stories) is now available in the January/February 2010 issue of Analog Science Fiction magazine.  The Orem Barnes & Noble had three copies when I checked.

The teleport terminal had not been built with tyrannosaurus sapiens in mind.

Resisting the urge to knock human-sized chairs about with her tail, Bokeerk squatted on the tile floor, folded the claws of her forelimbs together, and concentrated on her breathing.  Meditation would calm her nerves.  What should have been a two-minute waystop as she switched to a different teleport line had stretched to three hours, and being the only passenger in the terminal creeped her out.

The cheerful voice of the customer service AI roused Bokeerk from her trance.  "It is my pleasure to inform you that the cause of the technical difficulties in the galactic teleport network has been found."

Bokeerk perked up and rose on her hind legs, remembering just in time to duck her head so it wouldn’t bang the ceiling lamps.  "Please send me to Krawlak," she said.  It was unlikely that any of her eggs would hatch for another few days yet, but she was anxious to get home.

"It is with the utmost regret that I must tell you that will not be possible at this time," said the AI, with a tone of such abysmal sorrow that Bokeerk’s eyes could not help but moisten with sympathetic tears.  "I require assistance in repairing the problem."

Bokeerk lowered herself into a squat again.  "When will help get here?"  She looked at the time display on the digital assistant strapped to her left forelimb.  She had now been stranded for three hours and fifty-two minutes.

"I estimate a spaceship carrying a repair crew could be here within twelve years," said the AI.  Its voice seemed to have lost the customer service aspect.

"Twelve years?"  Bokeerk’s voice made the ceiling lamps tremble.

"Without the teleport network, repair crews are limited to slower-than-light travel.  However, I believe we can avoid such a long wait if you will assist me."

"I don’t know anything about repairing teleports," said Bokeerk.  "I illustrate children’s books.  I’m on my way home from the Galactic Children’s Book Fair."

Edmund Schubert, the editor of Orson Scott Card’s InterGalactic Medicine Show, called me the day before I left for the World Fantasy Convention to offer me a position as assistant editor. After thinking about it for a day, I accepted.  I’ll mainly be helping to read stories submitted to the magazine, choosing which to pass along to Edmund.

Since IGMS has been a very good market for me, I’m excited by the opportunity to work behind the scenes.

On returning from the convention, I found an acceptance letter from Analog for my novelette “That Leviathan, Whom Thou Hast Made.”  It’s the seventh story I’ve sold to Analog, and it’s the most Mormon (Mormonest?) story I’ve sold anywhere.  The main character is a Mormon branch president who must deal with the consequences of having alien members of his congregation—specifically gigantic plasma beings living inside the sun—who are part of a culture with different laws and traditions.

I’ve occasionally heard people say that Analog won’t buy stories with religious themes (unless they’re anti-religious), but that has not been my experience.