@ The Reef Tank: Arthur C. Clarke and the Grand Banks

I have a new guest post up at The Reef Tank blog: Arthur C. Clarke and The Grand Banks, which takes a look at how Arthur C. Clarke's scuba diving adventures off the coast of Australia and Sri Lanka influenced some of his fiction.

Tags:science fiction, marine biology

Did science fiction invent "genetic engineering"?

Jeff Prucher, editor of the Oxford English Dictionary's science fiction project (and author of Brave New Words) posted a list of "nine words you might think came from science but which are really from science fiction" on the Oxford University Press blog (hat tip SF Signal). Among them:

2. Genetic engineering. The other science that received its name from a science fiction story, in this case Jack Williamson’s novel Dragon's Island which was coincidentally published in the same year as “Liar!” The occupation of genetic engineer took a few more years to be named, this time by Poul Anderson.

I immediately thought "ooh interesting blog fodder", and did a bit more research.

It turns out that Williamson discussed Dragon's Island in a 2002 interview with Science Fiction Weekly:

I used to claim I'd been first to use the term genetic engineering, in my novel Dragon's Island, published in 1951, but now I understand that some scientist beat me by a couple of years.

Oops. So what's the real story?

One of the things that makes researching the use of scientific jargon difficult is that it's largely confined to technical publications, most of which aren't searchable beyond the title and abstract of the articles. If you are looking for a term that first came into use before the mid-1980s or so, it can be well nigh impossible.

However, the journal Science has made its archives searchable, way back to the first issues in the late 1800s (a serious treasure trove if you are interested in the history of American science). A quick search for the term "genetic engineering" before 1951 and I turned up the following article:

Stern C. "Selection and Eugenics" Science 26 August 1949 110: 201-208 [DOI: 10.1126/science.110.2852.201]

Human genetics concerns our own as well as future generations. Genetic counseling is largely devoted to individual problems, but the social implications of specific advice usually have not been disregarded. Eugenic thinking has always emphasized the well-being of mankind, even though much eugenic counseling was based on inadequate knowledge and has been harmful. In the future more knowledge will be gathered and will aid wise planning. Then genetic and eugenic counseling will become the foundation of human genetic engineering.

The article uses the term "genetic engineering" in the breeding sense, rather than the molecular biological sense - not surprising, since this was several years before Watson and Crick published the structure of DNA. At the time there was no scientific method available for modifying an individual's - or population's - genes other than zapping with X-rays or other mutagens or traditional selection and breeding methods.

Similar searches of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (back to 1915) and Nature (back to 1950) came up empty. So, while Williamson certainly isn't the first to use the phrase, it doesn't appear to have been in common usage.

And the idea of manipulating genetic material weren't new to Williamson either. The Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction Literature traced the the idea in pulp fiction to Clement Fézandie's first "Doctor Hackensaw" story (1921) and Norman L. Knight's "Crisis in Utopia" (1940), which used the term "tectogenesis."¹

Genetics and eugenics were hot topics in th 1930s and 1940s. The Nobel Prize awarded Hermann J Muller in 1946 likely raised both awareness of genetics and that X-rays and radiation could introduce heritable mutations among the general public. As Muller said in his Nobel Prize lecture:

We see then that production of mutations by radiation is a method, capable of being turned in various directions, both for the analysis of the germ plasm itself, and of the organism which is in a sense an outgrowth of that germ plasm. It is to be hoped that it may also, in certain fields, prove of increasing practical use in plant and animal improvement, in the service of man. So far as direct practical application in man himself is concerned, however, we are as yet a long way from practicing any intentional selection over our own germ plasm, although like most species we are already encumbered by countless undesirable mutations, from which no individual is immune.

By the time Williamson wrote Dragon's Island, the neither idea of intentional genetic manipulation or the term "genetic engineering" were new. He did, however, make the science entertaining, which is what science fiction does best.

1. "Tectogenesis" was the term used by Norman Knight and James Blish to mean the "direct, surgical, manipulation of chromosomes."

Tags:science fiction, genetic engineering, Jack Williamson

David Brin on Uplift

While David Brin has written many fine novels, I think the most interesting are those set in his "Uplift universe", in which "patron" species in the intergalactic civilization genetically modify non-sapient "client" species to bring them sapience. In this universe humans have uplifted and work side-by-side with chimpanzees and dolphins. (You can read two Uplift Universe short stories for free on Brin's web site.)

This week David Brin is guest blogging at George Dvorsky's Sentient Developments. Dvorsky is quite interested in ethical issues around the uplift of nonhuman animals, and has asked Brin to share his thoughts on whether this is something we should or even could do. In his first post, Brin does just that. He also writes a bit about why his take is different than that of The Island of Doctor Moreau or Planet of the Apes:

The notion that we would abuse or enslave such creatures has some deep metaphorical resonance -- and during a long transition they would not be our peers. But as a goal? A reason to create new beings? It really is kind of pathetic, as are the simplistic tales.

I wanted, instead, to explore what might happen if we took on such a challenge with the BEST of intentions! Wouldn't the new species have problems anyway? Problems that are much more subtle and interesting than mere oppression?

And it raises many questions as to what the situation might be like from the uplifted species' point-of-view, something Brin likes to explore:

I get to stretch my imagination, and the reader's, exploring what sapient dolphins or chimps might feel and think, under the pressure of such development, tugged between both the ancient instincts of their forebears and the new template being imposed upon them by their "patrons."

It's been many years since I read Startide Rising, and this makes me want to go back and read it again. Go read Brin's whole post!

Also, in a related post, Dvorsky suggests checking out the work of Sue Savage-Rumbaugh at the Great Ape Trust to learn more about the possible cultural issues of uplift:

Just to be clear, Sue is not an advocate of biological uplift, but the work that she does integrating bonobos into non-traditional living environments and in comprehending their language and culture speaks directly to this issue; there's a very fine line between cultural and biological uplift. For starters, check out the article, "Sue Savage-Rumbaugh on the welfare of apes in captivity." Also be sure to check out the work of the Great Ape Trust.

I have mixed feelings about some of Dvorsky's arguments about non-human animal culture, but I do think it's an interesting and important topic to consider. I'm looking forward to reading more posts by Brin at Sentient Developments this week.

Tags:science fiction, uplift, intelligence, David Brin

Alternative Evolution on Ratha's Island

Clare Bell is exploring a bit of alternative evolution set in the prehistoric world of Ratha, an intelligent self-aware cats. Her new novellette ". . . sends Ratha to a large island where evolution has taken a different course than on the mainland."

* SPOILER * The evolutionary twist is that the vertebrates on the island evolved from a fish that "walks on three pairs of fins." As you might imagine, that gives the island's creatures a bit of a leg up on vertebrates descended from lobed-fin fish like the fossil Tiktaalik (pictured at right). * SPOILER *

The story is also a bit of experimental modern story-telling in that it's being published sentence-by-sentence on Twitter. I think it's interesting to see how the limit of 140 characters for each sentence affects the flow of storytelling. It reads a bit choppy to me so far, but that may change as the story develops. I'm looking forward to the appearance of the alternatively evolved critters.

You can follow the story's progress on Twitter (RSS feed), or read the regularly updated log post at The Scratching Log. The blog post also has links to information about the paleontology behind the various animals in her story.

Bell's twitter feed also points to two interesting related sites: the Speculative Evolution forum and The World We Don't Live In blog.

Clare Bell's short story, "Bonechewer's Legacy" was recently published in Firebirds Soaring: An Anthology of Original Speculative Fiction. The fifth book her "Named" series, Ratha's Courage, was released last October.

Related Post: Ratha's Creatures



Image: Tiktaalik rosae drawing by ArthurWeasley on Wikipedia
Tags:science fiction, evolution, paleontology, Clare Bell, Ratha

The Tangled Bank Anthology: Submit Your Evolution Spec Fic

It is interesting to contemplate an entangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent on each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us.
~ On the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin, 1859

As most of you probably know, 2009 marks the 200th Anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth, and the 150th anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of Species. In celebration, Australian writer Chris Lynch is putting together an anthology of short speculative fiction and poetry. Here's the notice from his aptly named Tangled Bank Press:

It’s hard to overestimate the impact of Charles Darwin’s work on science and society — the theory of evolution has been described as the best idea anyone has ever had. Science fiction has been profoundly influenced: Gardner Dozois has gone so far as to say that science fiction began with The Origin of Species, by establishing an evolutionary sense of time that allowed science-fictional ideas to flourish. And yet Brian Stableford, in his entry on evolution in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, argues that “it is lamentably unfortunate that so few sf stories have deployed the theory in any reasonably rigorous fashion”.

H.G. Wells’s The Time Machine was a powerful late 19th century meditation on Darwin’s theory. More than a century later, Darwin’s theory remains socially controversial, despite an explosion of evidence and new ideas that build on Darwin’s insights. Why? What is it about evolution that refuses to catch the imagination of so many? What does evolution mean in the early 21st century? What will it mean in the future? The Tangled Bank is an attempt to answer these questions in an entertaining and thought-provoking way.

Explore the process of evolution in any of its forms. Breed us a story that engages the heart and the brain, a story that explores what evolution means to you, a story that evokes wonder or fear, laughter or despair. Take us on a voyage of discovery. Bring back specimens from old worlds, or new ones. Shine a light on dark corners. Illuminate what it means to be human, or inhuman. It could be a hard sf story, a contemporary tale of atheists and creationists, a magic realist story in Charles Darwin’s backyard, a myth of origin, a fairy tale, steampunk, cyberpunk, horror, new weird, old weird, or something entirely different.

Sounds right up my alley.

Contributions can be short fiction (1000-7500 words), poetry or artwork. If you are interested in submitting, check out the guidelines.

Tags:science fiction, biology, The Tangled Bank, evolution

The Family Tree

Sorry for my absence, dear readers. My dad passed away on February 28th, and I'm still getting myself back up to speed. If you are interested, you can follow the link to see some photos and some of my memories. I miss him very much.

I've spent more time in my childhood bedroom in the past few months than I have in many years. While most of my junk precious possessions were moved out long ago, I did find a variety of paperbacks - some I recognize as mine, others not so much. There was a really bad SF novel¹ that I'm sure my brother purchased (I refuse to take any responsibility for it, anyway).

I also came across my copy of Sheri Tepper's novel The Family Tree. It's actually one of the first SF novels I selected specifically because of its biological themes. There are actually two parallel plots: in a world very much like our present day, police officer Dora Henry investigates the murder of several geneticists, tries to figure out why rapidly growing trees and weeds seem to be taking over, while recovering from the breakup of her loveless marriage. The second plot takes place in a fantasy-like world, with royal families, limited technology, working magic, and sentient trees. There an unlikely band of travelers finds themselves on a quest that they believe will save the world. As you would expect, the two seemingly separate tales eventually become one.

"Dr. Winston was always getting himself in trouble with the boss, but he used to say every time he isolated a particular combination of genetic instructions and saw what the effect was, he'd filled in a bit of knowledge. [...] Winnie really opened our eyes to the possibilities. He was working on clusters, you see. Discrete genetic items that added up to more than the sum of the parts. One change in skull structure plus one change in hormonal tissue, plus or minus some other odds and ends, gave us horns on a pig. [...] Some brain modifications, other change in skull structure to make it curved instead of flat, and a change in throat and tongue structure should theoretically give us a sheepdog that could talk to the shepherd."
~ The Family Tree, Sheri S. Tepper, 1998

I have mixed feelings about the story. I found the fantasy part of the novel a bit too cute for my tastes, and the message - that man is destroying the environment and that genetic engineering may have long term consequences - a bit heavy handed.

If you've read Tepper's other novels, that environmental message shouldn't come as any surprise, since it's a recurring theme in her novels. As she told Locus in 1998:

''I happen to be obsessed by some subjects. There's the whole card of environmental issues, the extinction of species after species. To my mind, the expression of divinity is in variety, and the more variable the creation, the more variable the creatures that surround us, botanical and zoological, the more chance we have to learn and to see into life itself, nature itself. If we were just human beings, living in a spaceship, with an algae farm to give us food, we would not be moved to learn nearly as many things as we are moved by living on a world, surrounded by all kinds of variety. And when I see that variety being first decimated, and then halved – and I imagine in another hundred years it may be down by 90% and there'll be only 10% of what we had when I was a child – that makes me very sad, and very despairing, because we need variety. We came from that, we were born from that, it's our world, the world in which we became what we have become."

The science isn't described in much detail and I don't think it's particularly plausible. All that having been said, I did find most of it entertaining, an the way she brought the two story lines together was clever. It was definitely worth rereading.

1. The author writes in the postscript that the novel was rejected many times, and that it wasn't until he was famous that he found a publisher for it. I'm not at all surprised.

Tags:science fiction, biology

Alien Sex and Worlds: Philip Jose Farmer (1918-2009)

A lalitha's uterus contains ova, the genes of which are duplicated in the bodies of microscopic wrigglers formed in the giant salivary glands in a lalitha's mouth. These wrigglers - salivary ova - are continually released by the adult.

The adult lalitha pass genes by means of these invisible creatures; they infect each other as if the carriers of heredity were diseases. They cannot escape it; a kiss, a sneeze, a touch, will do it.
[...]
Meanwhile, the first wrigglers she is exposed to have made their way through the bloodstream, the intestinal tract, the skin, boring, floating, until they arrive at the uterus of the host.

There, the salivary ovum unites with the uterine ovum. Fusion of the two produces a zygote. At this point, fertilization is suspended. True, all genetic data needed to produce a new lalitha is provided. All except the genes for the specific features of the face of the baby. This data will be given by the male human lover of the lalitha.

Not, however, until the conjunction of two more events. These two must occur simultaneously. One is excitation by orgasm. The other is stimulation of the photokinetic nerves. One cannot take place without the other. Neither can the last two come about unless the first happens. Apparently, fusion of the two ova causes a chemical change in the lalitha which then makes her capable or orgasm and fully develops the photokinetic nerves.
[...]
The photokinetic nerves are the exclusive property of the lalitha. They run from the retina of the eye, along with the optic nerves, to the brain. But the photokinetic nerves descend to the spinal column and leave its base to enter the uterus. The uterus is not that of the human female. Do not even compare them. You might say that the lalitha uterus is the dark room of the womb. Where the photograph of the father's face is biologically developed.

~ The Lovers by Philip José Farmer

In 1952 a 34-year-old science fiction writer broke one of the genre's taboos: he wrote a story where not only a human and an alien fall in love, but they have sex (the female alien even has an orgasm!), and we get a description of alien reproduction. It seems pretty tame by today's standards, but it won Philip José Farmer a Hugo award for "Most Promising New Talent". The story was republished in novel form in 1961, and Farmer's career was off and running.

My introduction to Farmer was when I picked up the first Riverworld novel, To Your Scatted Bodies Go, at some time in the late 1980s. It's a great concept: somewhere, somehow, every adult human who ever lived - up until the mid-1980s if I recall correctly - is resurrected in young healthy bodies on a planet consisting of one long river and bit of shoreline. That meant that humans from any era could meet and interact - Sir Richard Burton, Mark Twain, Prince John, Hermann Göring, Lewis Carroll's real Alice and many other well-known figures share adventures along the river. I eventually read all five of the novels in the series, which pretty much burned me out on Farmer's writing.

I've read a number of his short works, and honestly, a lot of them don't do much for me. They often read like old-fashioned pulp fiction, only set in the future and with lots of sex. The future and sex I like, but the pulp fiction not so much. However, even though I don't count Farmer among my favorite authors, it's clear that he has left a lasting mark on the genre.

Farmer died on February 25 at the age of 91. Make he reawaken on a Riverworld!

There are links to more remembrances at the Official Philip Jose Farmer website.



Tags:Philip Jose Farmer, obituary

Help Needed: Can you identify this novel with a body-parts-for-sale plot line?

Mark Tushnet emailed me with a question I couldn't answer, and I'm hoping one of you kind readers might be able to help:

I'm trying to locate a novel I read, published in the last decade but not one of those on your list in that post, with the following plot line (it's a subordinate plot line to the main story): A person needing money sold a small body part, and prospered, but also found the sale altruistically satisfying. So, part by part, he sold off major body parts, to the point where he was reduced to a torso and head carried around by his close friend. In the end, a recipient of one of the body parts invents a technique for perfectly replacing lost body parts, so the donor is at the book's end restored to a full complement of body parts, mostly "artificial." (I use the story in teaching about legal regulation of risk -- students tend to think that there's something wrong about selling some body parts, although they disagree about where to draw the line, but don't have any objection to "selling" the risk to those same body parts at ordinary, risky jobs.)

The main story line probably had something to do with the "amputee's" friend, but he can't remember any other details. It's not any of the novels mentioned in this post.

If you think you can identify the story, you can email Mark at
mtushne (at) law (dot) harvard (dot) edu
or leave a comment below.

Tags:body parts, organ selling

Dickens, Disease and Bio-Christmas Carol

Imagine Charles Dicken's Christmas Carol in an alternate universe, where Scrooge is a PI and Bob Cratchett is his graduate student, and the spirits of Christmas Past, Present and Future are a developmental biologist, biochemist and evolutionary biology, respectively. You would probably get something very much like Vince LiCata's "A Bio-Christmas Carol". It made me smile.

Of course if you prefer a more serious discussion, you might be interested in the medical analysis of Scrooge by Lisa Sanders, M.D. She has diagnosed him with Lewy body disease.

Or you could simply read the original Dickens classic.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Tags:A Christmas Carol, biology

Greg Egan Idea Man

At Tor.com Jon Evans speculates on why Australian science fiction writer and computer programmer Greg Egan isn't a superstar. He says:

If you haven’t read any Egan, you so should. He takes the wildest frontiers of today’s science and turns them into truly brainbending speculative fiction that continually challenges the reader’s ideas of both reality and humanity. He’s also a terrific sentence-by-sentence writer.

Egan writes hard science fiction that is frequently based on mathematics, physics and computer science. For example, his short story "Wang's Carpets" involves the discovery of truly alien aliens that are living embodiments of Wang tiles.

Evans speculates that one reason Egan's writing doesn't enjoy more popularity is because his stories are actually too focused on complicated scientific ideas. It's hard to know how much of a role that has played in his writing career, but I do know it affected my interest in his novels. I've read a few of his short stories, including "Wang's Carpets" and "Border Guards", and enjoyed them, but I don't have a particular interest in quantum physics or mathematics, and his novels just didn't sound that appealing to me - at least not appealing enough to seek them out.

Now maybe I've been wrong - I really enjoyed Robert Charles Wilson's Spin, which seems to have some superficial similarities to Egan's Quarentine - and I'll probably give Egan's work a chance next time I run across it. But that points to another problem Evans points out: Egan's novels can be hard to find in bookstores and libraries. For example, the nearest library copy of his latest novel, Incandescance, is 60 miles away in the next county over. It's obviously not something I'd find by browsing the shelves.

It's nice, then, that a number of Egan's short works are available online. I've been downloading some of them for future reading, and discovered is that some of his stories are based on bioscience too. I haven't read them all so I don't really have anything to say about the actual science in them. All I can suggest is that you read them for yourselves. Here are a few links for your weekend reading pleasure:

• "The Moral Virologist" (1990)
  
• "The Vat: A Romantic Comedy" (1990)
• "The Demon's Passage" (1991)
• "The Extra" (1990)
  
• TAP (1995)
  

And it's not biological at all, but definitely read "Border Guards". It both has weird science and a very touching ending.

Tags:Greg Egan, biology

Living in a Pocket Biosphere

Mstislav, our most dedicated gardener now that Sledge rarely emerges from the Attic, has been tinkering with the carbon-dioxide balance, a dangerous but crucial sport. At six or seven hundred parts per million, the air in here is dreadful but sustains life. Regular jiggering of organic functions is needed to keep the ratio from ballooning to something deadly. To make a long story short, after an alarmingly high reading Mstislav discovered a mound of rotting mangrove fronds under a seemingly healthy hillock of wheatgrass—a camouflaged nightmare of poison-leaching compost. Endgame for us could be that simple, that foolish.
~ "Lostronaut" by Jonathan Lethem

Half of the oxygen in the air we breathe is produced by phytoplankton, tiny plants living in Earth's oceans. The plant life is crucial to maintaining the proper balance of gases in Earth's biosphere. It's only natural, then, that NASA has been trying to develop efficient bioregenerative life support systems that incorporate plants and bacteria for long term space settlements and space stations.

It's not an easy problem, though, either scientifically or politically, as NASA scientists pointed out back in 1997.

"If the current [funding] level is maintained, I would not expect to see a functional ground-based regenerative system for 10-15 years, or a space-rated system for 15-20 years," Finger said. "If a long-duration manned mission becomes a reality, then I would expect the budget to increase significantly for all aspects of life support research."

In addition to the reality of funding, doubts about the reliability of biological systems remain fixed in many people’s minds. Can a closed system recycle waste material quickly enough to renew vital resources? Will the reduced gravity environment of space affect the biological system in ways we cannot assess on Earth? What back-up life support must lunar or planetary colonies have if a plant-based system should fail? Above all, is the concept truly feasible?

"The challenges of designing a working bioregenerative life support system are gargantuan," Morris admitted. He noted that investigators will need to find ways to make such a system extraordinarily compact and energy-efficient. Physicochemical back-up systems add a slew of weight and energy requirements.

Browsing through the NASA web site, it doesn't look like there has been too much progress in the past ten years. The International Space Station (ISS) has a Plant Research Unit is being used to study the effects of microgravity on plant growth and reproduction . It's important research to determine the best plant strains and growth conditions for low gravity environments, but it's just one of the first steps in developing a self-sustaining environment. Science not Fiction has more about NASA's plant research.

But science fiction steps in where science has yet to go. Jonathan Letham's short story "Lostronaut", published in the November 17th issue of The New Yorker, is set on a space station orbiting Earth. The Chinese have planted mines below the station's orbit, preventing the astronauts from leaving the station or supplies from being delivered. They are completely dependent on the the slowly deteriorating systems, including the plant beds that provide them with oxygen and absorb excess carbon dioxide. Letham doesn't provide a lot of scientific details, but does give us a moving story of memory and love and death and life.

Read Jonathan Lethem's "Lostronaut"

For more technical information about plant research on the International Space Station, see "Factors Affecting the Utilization of the International Space Station for Research in the Biological and Physical Sciences" (2003)

Top Image: 39-inch closed glass Ecosphere in the Rose Center for Earth and Space, American Museum of Natural History. The sphere is a closed ecosystem containing small shrimp, bacteria and algae in salt water. Credit: me.

Bottom Image: Corn growing under red LED grow lights, which would be efficient for growing plants in space. Source: NASA.

Tags:science fiction, biosphere, ecology

2008 Holiday Gift Guide: Science Fiction Novels With A Bit of Biology

Tis the season and all that, so if you haven't finished your holiday gift shopping I thought I'd make a few suggestions.

I don't think it should surprise any of you that books are at the top of my list, both for giving and receiving. Here are a few recent science fiction novels with a bit of biology that I blogged about this year (note: all Amazon.com links are affiliate links):

Infected: A Novel by Scott Sigler (read the original post). Sigler's follow-up novel, Contagious, will be released in hardcover on December 30th.

Unwelcome Bodies ,a short story collection by Jennifer Pelland (read the original post).

Dr. Franklin's Island, a young adult novel by Ann Halam (read the original post).

Ratha's Courage is another young adult novel (read the original post). It's the long-awaited fifth book in Clare Bell's "The Named" series.

Dogs by Nancy Kress is (read the original post) is a biological warfare thriller.

Seeds of Change is an anthology featuring short stories by Tobias Buckell, Ken MacLeod, Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu, KD Wentworth, Jeremiah Tolbert, Jay Lake, Ted Kosmatka, Blake Charlton, Mark Budz and John Joseph Adams. (Read the original post)

Neuropath by R. Scott Bakker and Blindsight by Peter Watts may represent a new SF movement: neuropunk. (Read the original post)

Riders of the Storm is the latest novel set in Julie Czerneda's Clan Chronicles universe. (read the original post)

Paul McAuley's The Quiet War features engineering of both people and ecosystems.(Read the original post)

Invertebrata Enigmatica: Giant Spiders, Dangerous Insects, and Other Strange Invertebrates in Classic Science Fiction and Fantasy, edited by Chad Arment is a collection of SF short stories "involving strange invertebrates". I haven't read it - or blogged about it - but it sounds like fun.

And if none of those sound interesting, you might check out the Biology in Science Fiction bookstore, assembled by yours truly.

There are 2 days left to order from Amazon.com with free shipping and still have the package delivered by Christmas - three days if you are ordering from Amazon.co.uk - so you can even shop from the comfort of your own home. All Amazon.com links are affiliate links.