The Martian Child

David Gerrold is back from wherever he has been and updating his blog.

The trailer for The Martian Child movie has started showing up in theaters, as well as on YouTube, MartianChild.com, and IMDB. Other sites also have links to it. If you haven't seen it yet, the Apple site has it in multiple resolutions. Here's the link:

http://www.apple.com/trailers/newline/martianchild/

I don't tear up easily but were I more in touch with my feelings that would have gotten me a bit misty about the eyes. It's based on Gerrold's excellent book of the same name

On the day he moved in—officially moved in—Kathy told me she’d never seen him so happy. I asked her to remind him of that conversation he’d had with the counselor. “Remember when he said, ‘I don’t think God listens to my prayers.’ Tell him that sometimes it takes God a little while to make a miracle happen.”

Dennis moved in with a small battered suitcase, half full of worn-out hand-me-downs; and a large cardboard box, less than half full of pieces of broken toys. His entire life could be carried in one trip.

Unpacking his few belongings was painful. Everything was tattered. Everything was precious. A too-small T-shirt autographed by Luc Robitaille and Wayne Gretsky. A sad and faded, dirty-with-age, stuffed gingerbread man named Eric. A few photographs of a long-ago trip to the Los Angeles County Fair. The only evidence of a past. Not much evidence of a life though.

He had only a few pairs of underpants. Three of them had pockets sewn onto the front. “What’s this?” I asked.

“That’s for the buzzer. If I wet the bed, it buzzes and wakes me up.”

“We’re not going to do that here,” I said, tossing the underwear aside. “You won’t be wearing those again.” We put the T-shirts in one drawer, the shorts in another, and we were through unpacking.

“We can throw this out,” I said, holding up his small battered suitcase. It was pretty much falling apart.

“No,” he said firmly. “I’ll need it when I move out.”

“No, you won’t. You’re not moving out. This is it.”

“When I have to go back to Mars,” he said. He took the suitcase from me and put it into the closet.

Elsewhere on his blog

Writing is a celebration of our mutual humanity. A great story is almost always about that recognition of Self that exists in all of us. A great story tells the reader, "You are not alone." A great story gets you out of your head and into the world. A great story makes you think a little bit differently. A great story changes you.

If an author succeeds in doing that -- like Kurt Vonnegut and Theodore Sturgeon and Charles Dickens and Victor Hugo -- then thank him for doing that, because he got his job done.

Thanks David.