QSFer David Gerrold has a new queer sci-fi book out (Bi, Demi, Gay): Here There Be Lawyers.
Dar is a well-connected arbiter and Turtledome is comfortable enough. But the colony on Praxis requires his expertise in crafting a constitution—and he doesn’t really have a choice in the matter. Their objective is a bold one, and if they succeed, powerful interests and a highly lucrative, intergalactic economic system will be disrupted. Permanently. A world is at play, the stakes are high, and a corporate overlord will stop at nothing to protect its investment.
Get It At Amazon | B&N
Excerpt
Insight
The first mistake was law school.
Everything after that was consequences.
Luna
The defendants were a married couple, married quite recently. In fact, they were still on their honeymoon.
Good-looking pair. Sexy red-headed lady and a tall black man with a Scottish name. They were both middle-aged, but well-preserved and terribly well mannered—and unfortunately just wealthy enough to think that they were somehow exempt from the laws of the universe. Seems they’d ‘adopted’ a street orphan on Luna, then felt betrayed when he’d acted exactly like a street orphan.
Truth was, they’d railroaded the kid into an adoption, practically blackmailed the poor jerk—caught him on a purse-snatch, but instead of turning him in to the local constabulary, did a fast flim-flammery with a lot of legal-sounding doubletalk and convinced the idiot that he had no rights because he wasn’t a taxpayer, therefore they had the right to kill him unless he learned some manners pretty damn quick. They promised to teach him manners. Some joke. When was the last time anyone learned manners from blackmailers?
What they did instead was use the kid as a slave. They made him carry their luggage. Instead of wages, they gave him the benefit of their infinite wisdom. “Hothouse wisdom,” actually. A delicate bouquet of ideas, very pretty in a rigidly controlled environment, but not practical at all in the real world. The irony is that they brought him to Turtledome, one of the most rigidly controlled environments this side of Clavius. All that stands between us and vacuum is a triple-hull of polycarbon weave and a meter of magnetized water for shielding.
Of course none of their high-mounted philosophizing made much sense to the kid. They’d never missed a meal. He’d been sleeping in steam vents. They lectured him incessantly on manners and responsibility and his lack thereof—they repeatedly embarrassed him in public—and then they were astonished that he didn’t feel any loyalty to them. And after all they’d done for him.
Really, how stupid can you get? You don’t even train a puppy that way—why should it work on a human being?
I guess they thought they were being benevolent—but you don’t sit a starving chimpanzee down at a banquet table and then punish him because he doesn’t know which fork to use. This poor idiot wasn’t even capable of being responsible for himself, he was a street orphan! How could he be responsible to a family he hadn’t even chosen, for god’s sake, but had been blackmailed into? The poor kid was still operating at the level of hunger! They hadn’t even given him a hug and they expected manners and loyal devotion? Stupid, stupid!
Oh. My decision?
I put the kid into the empathy corps where he had a chance of learning some self-respect—that being the primary prerequisite to responsibility. And the dome would get some useful work out of him, cleaning up after tourists. Then I fined the would-be “parents” for keeping an unlicensed slave and sent them to Coventry.
Well, I couldn’t very well let them run around loose, could I? They had a bizarre sense of participation. Something about how if a community doesn’t meet the individual’s beliefs about how it should be run, then the individual has the right to disregard its authority. (Well, yes, rebellion in the face of injustice is justified, I wrote that essay in high school, but ever since they handed me a gavel, I don’t have a lot of patience for those who disrespect the authority of the court. And let me add this, despite my refusal to run, I was elected anyway.)
I guess that kind of stuff sounded real good when they preached it to each other in the privacy of their own bedroom, but it sure caused a lot of havoc to the people around them. I don’t think they’ll learn manners in Coventry, but they might learn something about cooperation.
And even if not, at least it’ll keep them out of trouble for a couple years.
It wasn’t a bad ruling. Grandpa upheld it.
Arbiters
I’m an arbiter.
There aren’t enough cases here to justify the expense of a full-time senior. Maybe in Clavius or Tycho City, but not here in Turtledome. Even Grandpa is only part time. The rest of us take turns, working the misdemeanors and Grandpa reviews everything, whether it’s appealed or not.
Once a week, he holds review. If there are no cases, he pits us against each other, tossing out hypothetical situations so we can argue the law. It keeps us on our toes.
Sometimes he takes a side and argues against us. If we can win the argument—which doesn’t happen often, sometimes he has a thumb on the scale—we get to sit on a higher-level case.
It’s not a reward. It’s a consequence.
Author Bio
David Gerrold’s work is known around the world. His novels and stories have been translated into more than a dozen languages. His TV scripts are estimated to have been seen by more than a billion viewers.
Gerrold’s prolific output includes stage shows, teleplays, film scripts, educational films, computer software, comic books, more than 50 novels and anthologies, and hundreds of articles, columns, and short stories.
He has worked on a dozen different TV series, including Star Trek, Land of the Lost, Twilight Zone, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Babylon 5, and Sliders. He is the author of Star Trek’s most popular episode “The Trouble With Tribbles.”
Many of his novels are classics of the science fiction genre, including The Man Who Folded Himself, the ultimate time travel story, and When HARLIE Was One, considered one of the most thoughtful tales of artificial intelligence ever written. His stunning novels on ecological invasion, A Matter For Men, A Day For Damnation, A Rage For Revenge, and A Season For Slaughter, have all been best sellers with a devoted fan following. His young adult series, The Dingilliad, traces the healing journey of a troubled family from Earth to a far-flung colony on another world. His Star Wolf series of novels about the psychological nature of interstellar war are in development as a television series.
A ten-time Hugo and Nebula award nominee, David Gerrold is also a recipient of the Skylark Award for Excellence in Imaginative Fiction, the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Horror, and the Forrest J. Ackerman lifetime achievement award.
In 1995, Gerrold shared the adventure of how he adopted his son in The Martian Child, a semi-autobiographical tale of a science fiction writer who adopts a little boy, only to discover he might be a Martian. The Martian Child won the science fiction triple crown: the Hugo, the Nebula, and the Locus. It was the basis for the 2007 film Martian Child starring John Cusack and Amanda Peet.
Gerrold’s greatest writing strengths are generally acknowledged to be his readable prose, his easy wit, his facility with action, the accuracy of his science, and the passions of his characters.
An accomplished lecturer and world traveler, he has made appearances all over the United States, England, Europe, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. His easy-going manner and disarming humor have made him a perennial favorite with audiences.
David Gerrold is the 2022 winner of the Robert A. Heinlein Award.