BLIT (short story)

Last updated
"BLIT"
Short story by David Langford
Country United Kingdom
Language English
Genre(s) Science fiction
Publication
Published in Interzone
Publication type Magazine
Publication date1988

"BLIT" (acronym of Berryman Logical Image Technique) is a 1988 science fiction short story by the British writer David Langford.

Contents

It takes place in a setting where highly dangerous types of images called "basilisks" (after the legendary reptile) have been discovered; these images contain patterns within them that exploit flaws in the structure of the human mind to produce a lethal reaction, effectively "crashing" the mind the way a computer program crashes when given data that it fails to process. [1] [2] [3]

Summary

The story is broken up into sections of narrative and expository sections on the nature of the "basilisks" or "BLITs" written in a pseudo-scientific style. The expository sections detail the accidental discovery of the "basilisks" at the "Cambridge IV" supercomputer facility, and attempts to give explanations for why the basilisks are so harmful to humans, including that they are "Gödelian 'spoilers', implicit programs which the human equipment cannot safely run", or that they produce neurochemical "memotoxins" in the human brain that cause it to die.

The narrative sections detail a young man named Robbo, a member of a racist, far-right terrorist organisation known as the "Albion Action Group", entering a majority-Asian area with a stencil and spray paint in order to spray a basilisk known as the "Parrot" on walls. He wears "shatter-goggles", which blur and distort his vision like a kaleidoscope, to avoid looking at the "Parrot". As he is approaching a gay pub to spray the "Parrot" onto a wall where those exiting will see it, he is caught by the police — and in the process accidentally kills four of them with the stencil.

Robbo is subsequently arrested and taken to the police station, where the police lament that they are unable to put him in prison because there are not yet any laws against spraying "basilisks" on walls; the officers compare it to the early days of computer hacking, when even disruption of international communications was only definable as "Illegal Use Of Electricity" — a fine of "sixty pee (pence)". They are unable to even arrest him for the deaths of the arresting officers; the only evidence of murder is the stencil, which obviously cannot be confirmed as a "basilisk" without killing anyone who looks at it. All they can do is fine him for spraying graffiti, so after beating the locations of all the "parrots" he painted out of him (disguised as a "fall down the stairs") they lock him in a holding cell to be released the next morning.

As Robbo sits alone in his cell, he thinks about the fact he cannot possibly be put away for his crimes and comes to the conclusion that, in the long run, he will be okay. He idly finds himself imagining the distorted image of the "Parrot" he has seen through his "shatter-goggles" — and realises that he has looked at the image through the goggles so many times that his brain is now able to "decode" it from the distorted fragments in his memory. The story ends with Robbo begging the police for alcohol and trying desperately not to imagine the "Parrot", but to no avail; just as the stencil cannot be confirmed as a murder weapon, the police cannot be accused of negligent homicide for failing to provide him with a means to erase his short-term memory. He is killed by its effects.

Themes

The story marked a departure from Langford's typically humorous storytelling style. [4] It also introduced the concept of the "basilisk" to science fiction literature. [5] This term was used within the story to identify highly dangerous types of images that contain patterns within them that exploit flaws in the structure of the human mind to produce a lethal reaction, effectively "crashing" the mind the way a computer program crashes when given data that it fails to process. [1] [2] [3] Basilisks are capable of crashing the human mind by triggering thoughts that the mind is physically or logically incapable of thinking. [6] [7] The image's name comes from the basilisk, a legendary reptile said to have the power to cause death with a single glance.

Release and sequels

"BLIT" was first published in the September-October 1988 issue of Interzone . It was republished in Interzone: The 4th Anthology (1989) and in a 2004 collection of Langford's works, Different Kinds of Darkness. [8] [9]

It has been followed by three sequel pieces, the first of which was released in 1990 as "What Happened at Cambridge IV". [10] The second sequel, "COMP.BASILISK FAQ", was first published in Nature in December 1999. It mentions William Gibson's Neuromancer (1984), Fred Hoyle's The Black Cloud (1957), J. B. Priestley's The Shapes of Sleep (1962), and Piers Anthony's Macroscope (1969) as containing a similar idea. [11]

The third sequel, "Different Kinds of Darkness", was published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in 2000. It is set in a post-apocalyptic world where BLIT images are everywhere, and millions have already been murdered by terrorist attacks utilizing them. Television and the internet have been outlawed due to the proliferation of BLIT images. In order to protect children, special chips have been planted in their brains that creates a subjective and artificial darkness (which the children call "type-two darkness") to obscure any possible BLIT image they may inadvertently look at. The main characters, all school children, form the "Shudder Club", where they take turns looking at an illicitly obtained non-lethal BLIT image to see how long they last, inadvertently vaccinating themselves against it. It won the Hugo Award for Best Short Story in 2001. [12]

Reception

Reception for the story has been positive and Susie Vrobel has written that "BLIT" has become well known for its use of fractal patterns. [13] Matthew Sanborn Smith reviewed "BLIT" for StarShipSofa in 2008. [14] John Clute noted that "Like the fractal caltrap it describes, David Langford's stunning "Blit" gives off a steely medusoid glare; and one is very glad the tale is so short". [15]

Cultural influence

Authors Ken MacLeod and Greg Egan both acknowledge the idea with a specific reference to Langford "the Langford visual hack" in The Cassini Division (1998) [16] and "the Langford Mind-Erasing Fractal Basilisk" in Permutation City (1994). [1] Charles Stross also refers to a type of magical ward known as the "Langford Death Parrot" in The Fuller Memorandum (2010) and "Basilisk attacks" with "Langford fractals" in Accelerando (2005). [17] [18] [19] Acknowledging these inspirations, The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction noted that this story has "proved mildly influential in sf circles". [20] "Basilisk hacks" that affect the mind of any transhuman who perceives them are a primary method of operation of the Exsurgent Virus in the science-fiction/horror role-playing game Eclipse Phase . [21]

The concept of "basilisk hack" has also been mentioned in scholarly literature, with Langford's story attributed as its origins. [22]

See also

Related Research Articles

A future history is a fictional history of the future used by authors of science fiction and other speculative fiction to construct a common background for stories. Sometimes the author publishes a timeline of events in the history, while other times the reader can reconstruct the order of the stories from information provided. The term can also be used to describe the subgenre of science fiction that uses this framework.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Sladek</span> American science fiction author (1937–2000)

John Thomas Sladek was an American science fiction author, known for his satirical and surreal novels.

<i>The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction</i> English language reference work

The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (SFE) is an English language reference work on science fiction, first published in 1979. It has won the Hugo, Locus and British SF Awards. Two print editions appeared in 1979 and 1993. A third, continuously revised, edition was published online from 2011; a change of web host was announced as the launch of a fourth edition in 2021.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Earth in science fiction</span>

The overwhelming majority of fiction is set on or features the Earth, as the only planet home to humans or known to have life. This also holds true of science fiction, despite perceptions to the contrary. Works that focus specifically on Earth may do so holistically, treating the planet as one semi-biological entity. Counterfactual depictions of the shape of the Earth, be it flat or hollow, are occasionally featured. A personified, living Earth appears in a handful of works. In works set in the far future, Earth can be a center of space-faring human civilization, or just one of many inhabited planets of a galactic empire, and sometimes destroyed by ecological disaster or nuclear war or otherwise forgotten or lost.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Weapons in science fiction</span> Use of fictitious futuristic weapons in the SciFi genre

Strange and exotic weapons are a recurring feature in science fiction. In some cases, weapons first introduced in science fiction have been made a reality; other science-fiction weapons remain purely fictional, and are often beyond the realms of known physical possibility.

<i>Theyd Rather Be Right</i> 1954 novel by Mark Clifton and Frank Riley

They'd Rather Be Right is a science fiction novel by American writers Mark Clifton and Frank Riley.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Langford</span> British writer, editor and critic

David Rowland Langford is a British author, editor, and critic, largely active within the science fiction field. He publishes the science-fiction fanzine and newsletter Ansible and holds the all-time record for most Hugo Awards, with a total of 29 wins.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Clute</span> Canadian sci-fi and fantasy literature critic (born 1940)

John Frederick Clute is a Canadian-born author and critic specializing in science fiction and fantasy literature who has lived in both England and the United States since 1969. He has been described as "an integral part of science fiction's history" and "perhaps the foremost reader-critic of science fiction in our time, and one of the best the genre has ever known." He was one of eight people who founded the English magazine Interzone in 1982.

<i>Interzone</i> (magazine) British fantasy and science fiction magazine

Interzone is a British fantasy and science fiction magazine. Published since 1982, Interzone is the eighth-longest-running English language science fiction magazine in history, and the longest-running British science fiction (SF) magazine. Stories published in Interzone have been finalists for the Hugo Awards and have won a Nebula Award and numerous British Science Fiction Awards.

David Pringle is a Scottish science fiction editor and critic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mind uploading in fiction</span> References of mind uploading in fiction

Mind uploading—transferring an individual's personality to a computer—appears in several works of fiction. It is distinct from the concept of transferring a consciousness from one human body to another. It is sometimes applied to a single person and other times to an entire society. Recurring themes in these stories include whether the computerized mind is truly conscious, and if so, whether identity is preserved. It is a common feature of the cyberpunk subgenre, sometimes taking the form of digital immortality.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Saturn in fiction</span> Depictions of the planet

Saturn has made appearances in fiction since the 1752 novel Micromégas by Voltaire. In the earliest depictions, it was portrayed as having a solid surface rather than its actual gaseous composition. In many of these works, the planet is inhabited by aliens that are usually portrayed as being more advanced than humans. In modern science fiction, the Saturnian atmosphere sometimes hosts floating settlements. The planet is occasionally visited by humans and its rings are sometimes mined for resources.

<i>Mythago Wood</i> 1984 fantasy novel by Robert Holdstock

Mythago Wood is a fantasy novel by British writer Robert Holdstock, published in the United Kingdom in 1984. Mythago Wood is set in Herefordshire, England, in and around a stand of ancient woodland, known as Ryhope Wood. The story involves the internally estranged members of the Huxley family, particularly Stephen Huxley, and his experiences with the enigmatic forest and its magical inhabitants. The conception began as a short story written for the 1979 Milford Writer's Workshop; a novella of the same name appeared in the September 1981 edition of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction.

In science fiction, a time viewer, temporal viewer, or chronoscope is a device that allows another point in time to be observed. The concept has appeared since the late 19th century, constituting a significant yet relatively obscure subgenre of time travel fiction and appearing in various media including literature, cinema, and television. Stories usually explain the technology by referencing cutting-edge science, though sometimes invoking the supernatural instead. Most commonly only the past can be observed, though occasionally time viewers capable of showing the future appear; these devices are sometimes limited in terms of what information about the future can be obtained. Other variations on the concept include being able to listen to the past but not view it.

A shaggy God story is a story in a minor science fiction genre that attempts to explain Biblical concepts with science fiction tropes. The term was coined by writer and critic Brian W. Aldiss in a pseudonymous column in the October 1965 issue of New Worlds. The term is a pun on the phrase shaggy dog story.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Immortality in fiction</span> Immortality applied as an element in works of fiction

Immortality is a common theme in fiction. The concept has been depicted since the Epic of Gilgamesh, the oldest known work of fiction. Originally appearing in the domain of mythology, it has later become a recurring element in the genres of horror, science fiction, and fantasy. For most of literary history, the dominant perspective has been that the desire for immortality is misguided, albeit strong; among the posited drawbacks are ennui, loneliness, and social stagnation. This view was challenged in the 20th century by writers such as George Bernard Shaw and Roger Zelazny. Immortality is commonly obtained either from supernatural entities or objects such as the Fountain of Youth or through biological or technological means such as brain transplants.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Steve Green (journalist)</span>

Steve Green is a former newspaper reporter (1978–84) turned freelance journalist, who has also written short fiction and poetry. He is an active member of the science fiction press and fan community.

Judith Clute is a Canadian painter, graphic designer, print-maker, and illustrator who has created cover art and illustrations for a number of well-known science fiction authors and magazines. Clute has British citizenship and works in London. She is also a tour guide with the Original London Walks.

Roko's basilisk is a thought experiment which states that an otherwise benevolent artificial superintelligence (AI) in the future would be incentivized to create a virtual reality simulation to torture anyone who knew of its potential existence but did not directly contribute to its advancement or development, in order to incentivize said advancement. It originated in a 2010 post at discussion board LessWrong, a technical forum focused on analytical rational enquiry. The thought experiment's name derives from the poster of the article (Roko) and the basilisk, a mythical creature capable of destroying enemies with its stare.

Inner space in the context of science fiction refers to works of psychological science fiction focusing on the internal, mental experiences. Works from this genre appeared as part of the emergence of the New Wave in science fiction in the 1960s.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Langford, David (2003-08-01). Up Through an Empty House of Stars. Wildside Press LLC. p. 228. ISBN   978-1-59224-055-5. When I planned a story about this kind of offbeat weapon, I started from the ... Oddly enough, that short story "Blit" (readable on the Infinity Plus SF web ...
  2. 1 2 Westfahl, Gary (2021). Science fiction literature through history : an encyclopedia. Santa Barbara, California. p. 232. ISBN   978-1-4408-6617-3. OCLC   1224044572. David Langford's Blit (1988) features images generated by fractals that drive people insane.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  3. 1 2 "Author Spotlight: David Langford". Lightspeed . 2012-05-22. Retrieved 2021-08-20.
  4. Ashley, Mike (2016-07-01). Science Fiction Rebels: The Story of the Science-Fiction Magazines from 1981 to 1990. Oxford University Press. p. 131. ISBN   978-1-78138-440-4.
  5. Singler, Beth (2018-02-26). "Roko's Basilisk or Pascal's? Thinking of Singularity Thought Experiments as Implicit Religion". Implicit Religion. 20 (3): 286. doi:10.1558/imre.35900. ISSN   1463-9955.
  6. Westfahl, Gary (2021). Science fiction literature through history : an encyclopedia. Santa Barbara, California. p. 232. ISBN   978-1-4408-6617-3. OCLC   1224044572. David Langford's Blit (1988) features images generated by fractals that drive people insane.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  7. "Author Spotlight: David Langford". Lightspeed Magazine. 2012-05-22. Retrieved 2021-08-20.
  8. Langford, David (2004). Different kinds of darkness : short stories. Holicong, Pa.: Cosmos Books. ISBN   1-59224-121-2. OCLC   55637740.
  9. Interzone, the 4th anthology : new science fiction and fantasy writing. John Clute, David Pringle, Simon Ounsley. London: New York. 1989. ISBN   0-671-69707-2. OCLC   22637126.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  10. Stableford, Brian (2006-09-06). Science Fact and Science Fiction: An Encyclopedia. Routledge. p. 98. ISBN   978-1-135-92374-7.
  11. Langford, David (December 1999). "Comp.basilisk Faq". Nature. 402 (6761): 465. Bibcode:1999Natur.402..465L. doi: 10.1038/44964 .
  12. "2001 Hugo Awards". The Hugo Awards. 26 July 2007. Retrieved 24 July 2023.
  13. Vrobel, Susie (2011-01-07). Fractal Time: Why A Watched Kettle Never Boils. World Scientific. p. 157. ISBN   978-981-4465-48-9.
  14. "Aural Delights No 51 Jeff VanderMeer". StarShipSofa. Archived from the original on 2011-04-28. Retrieved 2021-08-24.
  15. Clute, John (2016-11-24). Pardon This Intrusion. Orion Publishing Group. p. 239. ISBN   978-1-4732-1979-3.
  16. "What if ... the human brain could be hacked into?". Ansible.uk. Retrieved 5 March 2019.
  17. "Don't Look Now". ansible.uk. Retrieved 2021-08-25.
  18. SFFWorld (17 July 2010). "The Fuller Memorandum by Charles Stross – SFFWorld" . Retrieved 2021-08-25.
  19. "David Langford – Links to On-Line Writing". ansible.uk. Retrieved 2021-08-25.
  20. "Themes : Basilisks : SFE : Science Fiction Encyclopedia". www.sf-encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 2021-08-25.
  21. Blumenstein, Lars; Boyle, Rob; Cross, Brian; Graham, Dr Jack; Snead, John; Baugh, Bruce (2009-10-14). Eclipse Phase. InMediaRes Productions. p. 365. ISBN   978-1-934857-16-8.
  22. Singler, Beth (22 May 2018). "Roko's Basilisk or Pascal's? Thinking of Singularity Thought Experiments as Implicit Religion | Singler | Implicit Religion". Implicit Religion. 20 (3). doi:10.1558/imre.35900.

Sources