Category Archives: Writing

Observations, Sci-Fi, Writing, WTF

WTF Wednesday: The Hugo Debates

The Hugo Awards, one of the great awards of speculative fiction. Sure, most people outside of the speculative fiction circles have no idea what the Hugo Awards are, but inside those circles it’s like being anointed as one of the geek chosen. A look through the Hugo Awards nominees and winners will show you a list of people who have gone down in history as legends of the genre. And it usually operates fairly quietly in the background, known of but not much focused on.

Then, all of a sudden, this year there was buzz about it, something juicy was going on. For a genre that constantly wants to be legitimized, this is big news. After all, we’ve been the basement dwellers of the literary world for decades now and the sudden buzz about one of our big achievements was a sign some of us could come out into the light finally.

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Though some of us are too far gone

Except… that buzz was about how the Hugos were embroiled in a political debate on the validity of social commentary in science fiction. A group backing a “Sad Puppies” slate wanted to bring back golden age sci-fi and get rid of the “SJWs”. Of course, this sort of talk doesn’t go unnoticed and it immediately saw opposition from multiple directions. The debates were fierce, sometimes petty, and often contradictory. But, from the outside of the debate, the only thing you really could have gotten from it would be a single message:

“Science fiction traditionally hates social commentary.”

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This is why we can’t have nice things, people… Continue reading WTF Wednesday: The Hugo Debates →

Observations, Sci-Fi, Writing

Fermi Paradox 3 – Filter Ahead?

So for a while I’ve been talking about the Fermi Paradox and the different scenarios at play in what may have happened and what may be happening. Thinking about it in depth is a good practice for scifi writers because it makes minor changes to the general scifi space story. There’s a chance we could be the big dogs in the universe, there’s also a chance that there are a lot of alien civilizations out there but the effort of colonization is restrictive. Both of these present interesting concepts to work with, most of them setting up the idea that first contact would have us being the invaders (even if accidentally).

But it would be dishonest to discuss the Fermi Paradox without talking about the elephant in the room. There’s a chance that, not only does the Great Filter exist, but we haven’t run into it yet. I don’t subscribe to the theory much myself, for reasons I’ll list as we go, but the possibility is still quite real. For a lot of people this tends to be doom and gloom, but for me?

Well, it’s not like I’d survive it, so at least I could take some inspiration from the possibilities. Continue reading Fermi Paradox 3 – Filter Ahead? →

Miscellaneous, Observations, Sci-Fi, Writing

Fermi Paradox Part 2 – No Filter?

Recently I raised the idea of the Fermi Paradox and the possibility that the “Great Filter” might be behind us. In my view, that raises a lot of interesting questions that scifi writers could get a lot of mileage out of. The idea that life is so hard that it needs to have a great deal of luck to get to even our level is something that would greatly change the typical dynamic of most scifi stories to date. We could be a relatively rare form of life, maybe even among the first, that has achieved our level of intelligence.

But that does require that our specific circumstances are unique, which brings us back to the original premise. With a universe so complex and so ancient, you would have to imagine that our pattern of events isn’t completely out of the ordinary. It is entirely likely that most worlds in our universe have experienced at least one major extinction event once life has formed. And, while the easy assumption is that the Great Filter is when one of those extinction events can’t be recovered from (like what may have happened to ancient Mars or the like), we have to assume that surviving those events can’t be too unique either.

So… what kind of situation do we have if the Filter doesn’t exist? Continue reading Fermi Paradox Part 2 – No Filter? →

Mythology, Mythology World Tour, Writing

Mythology World Tour: Creatures of Central Africa

The Fantasy Genre has long been dominated by the religions and customs of countries touched on by the Crusades. While this makes sense, with the familiar image of a knight wandering foreign lands being key to the genre itself, there has been stagnation in recent times. As such, I’ve taken it upon myself to look into the cultures of the world and find fascinating details about other mythologies often overlooked by the genre we so love, going on a bit of a tour of world mythologies.

When we were last in Central Africa, I devoted a bit of time to some of the creation myths of the region. But once the world came into being, the reality of where they lived was sure to set in. As noted a couple times before and only half in jest, nature is the real master of Central Africa and Humans have really only found ways to out-maneuver it.

And, because mythology is often crafted by the things people are afraid of or have to explain to themselves over time, it was inevitable that a place with one of the greatest rain forests on the planet would give rise to stories of cryptids and beasts lurking in the darkness. In a place where you could easily be lost in the wilderness or attacked by creatures in the dead of the night, it is no surprise that one of the gods of death of the region, Tore, is known to take the form of a leopard to personally attack.

In fact, most creatures in the region have at least one of three traits: they’re either big, shapeshifters, or hungry… go figure. Continue reading Mythology World Tour: Creatures of Central Africa →

FICTION, Sci-Fi, Writing

World Building Pt. 3 – Presentation

World building is a difficult task. Speculative fiction opens up so many possibilities that any other genre wouldn’t offer, but there are challenges that present themselves in the process of doing it. First you have to make your snowflake, forming a complex structure from multiple questions building on top of a base element. Then, as you build it, you have to figure out just how far you can really take it before the audience tunes out. You get both of these right, you should have a pretty solid world to give to people. This groundwork is something you need to figure out before you start writing, because after that point you’re going to find that trying to keep track of it all in the process of moving forward is going to be harder to do. You don’t build your ship as it’s on the water, that’s never going to work in your favor.

Once you get that all constructed, however, there are still some things you’re going to want to keep in mind. Even though the world itself might be everything you want it to be, making people see that world and giving it to them in a way they can process is still a tricky situation. Presentation is, in itself, part of how you make that world come to life for the people who don’t have the advantage of seeing it as clearly as you do. A lot of this comes down to simply writing well, but there are still some things which are unique to speculative fiction because of that challenge of building a world mostly from scratch. You have to find a way to feed them that world, a bit at a time, and make sure it produces exactly the effect you want.

How do you present your world to that audience? How do you make them see it the way you do without getting in your own way? That can take some practice… Continue reading World Building Pt. 3 – Presentation →

Miscellaneous, Sci-Fi, Writing

The Fermi Paradox And You – 1 – Filter Behind Us?

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The universe, it’s vast, old, and full of interesting shit. We constantly gaze into the heavens and look for things no human has ever seen before. But with each passing year, more and more people begin to question whether or not we’re alone in the universe. Early on in our development we were fairly certain this was the case. After all, we thought the stars were just pinholes in the heavens, windows to the realm beyond, or even lanterns hung to keep our nights from being total darkness. But as time went on we became aware that we were much smaller in the cosmos than we believed.

It was inevitable that we would start to picture aliens being everywhere, even on planets in our solar system. There are countless stories about Martians from before the time we realized it was a barren wasteland. Even after discovering it was a big ball of rusty dust, we’ve had people who still insist that the world is still populated or was populated until very recently. After all, this clearly looks like a face (before you see the higher resolution pictures that prove it was just a shoddy camera).

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But as that search for extra terrestrial life continues, people have started to become more and more concerned about the Fermi Paradox – the idea that we may be alone in the universe and that, somehow, someway, life that should be plentiful just simply isn’t. Combined with our natural obsession with the Apocalypse (which, you’ll recall, also had a lot to do with being unable to see beyond ourselves) and I’ve seen a lot of people declare the great filter is out there and it’s going to get us.

So… is it? I don’t think so. Continue reading The Fermi Paradox And You – 1 – Filter Behind Us? →

Writing, WTF

The Paradox of Stephen King

As I write this blog there are a lot of times I reference the work of more successful people (because, let’s face it, I can’t talk about myself like that just yet). Often it’s with a lot of respect and reverence. I absolutely respect the likes of Tolkien, Asimov, Dick, Twain, Verne, Rowling, Fitzgerald… and this list might go on too long if I keep at that. On the other hand, there are some names I have such distaste for that I tend to not even mention them while quietly jabbing their direction.

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But there’s one name I reference a lot where I imagine some people would be a little confused about my stance. There’s a guy that I mention both with respect and with some seemingly harsh (but tongue-in-cheek) remarks. On the one hand, I mention his work ethic with great reverence and see him as a master of the genre that made him famous (and others). I’m a great fan of his work, especially the work outside of his usual genre. But then I will also point out that he might be out of his god damn mind. I know you’ve seen the title of this post, so we all know who I’m talking about…

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And one would have to wonder how I could suggest he’s a madman while following it up with “who I respect greatly”. Well, simply put, being a prolific writer and bonkers are not mutually exclusive (lucky for me). And, let’s face it, Stephen King proves it… Continue reading The Paradox of Stephen King →

FICTION, Sci-Fi, Writing

World Building Pt. 2 – Bend Don’t Break

Building a world from scratch can be difficult. As I said the last time, you’ll find that each detail needs to be woven into the world and into other details as you evolve from the central point. But, while this is the natural course of events, one has to remember that there are still some restrictions to just how far you can go.

Some time back I wrote about the fact that everything needs to be rooted in the real world on some level. It’s not that you should be restrained from letting your imagination go wild. But as you let that imagination run wild, there will be details that are going to need to be there for the sake of just making it feel like something people can relate to. A truly abstract world is not one that anyone will be able to recognize, understand, or become attached to. They may analyze it, deciphering it a bit at a time, but as they do they will inevitably do so by comparing it to the real world. No matter what you do, someone will try to tie it to the world they know – and that’s not a bad thing, just a natural one.

So the question is really… how far can you go before it starts to become unreasonable? Continue reading World Building Pt. 2 – Bend Don’t Break →

About me, Observations, Writing

Popular Science

My whole life I’ve been something of a nerd. I’ve been pretty honest about that on this blog. But the thing that I never quite talk about is just how much Issac Asimov impacted my life as a kid. No, not his fiction books, but his non-fiction.

You see, while everyone remembers Issac Asimov for his fictional works about robots and space, he was also quite accomplished as a non-fiction author who put together books about science. In fact, he wrote a few directed at kids and I loved the hell out of those things when I was younger. Other kids in my school would be drawn towards the likes of Goosebumps, I found myself sitting down with science books telling me about a world more fantastic than I thought could be possible – one we could touch. It was the work of Asimov and others like him that showed me things that I never thought possible. That’s what I’ll always really remember him for.

But to say I was one of the few would be an understatement. Like I said, most kids in my class were looking at the likes of Goosebumps and were a bit baffled by my interest in all things space, robots, and dinosaurs. You look at the way our society treats science and you could honestly say that was true of the whole country for a long time. But then, as the internet started to grow, something started to change. Suddenly science could become a meme and that meme would be awesome. Hell, look at this picture of Pluto and realize how many times you’ve likely seen it this week.

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But while this kind of enthusiasm has been spreading, a counter-opinion has been growing as of late as well. Essentially, I’ve heard far too many people say that fans of places like “I Fucking Love Science” aren’t, in fact, fans of science – just memes. Too often I hear these people complaining about this popularity of science and science fiction as being just an internet fad. Basically, it’s the more important version of the ridiculous “fake geek” argument that always crops up.

But, you know what? If we’re ever going to get off this rock, we need that fad. Continue reading Popular Science →

Miscellaneous, Sci-Fi, Writing, WTF

Good Sci-Fantasy vs Apologetics

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By now it’s likely no secret that I like a little peanut butter in my chocolate or vice-versa. If you’ve followed the blog, I write about Science Fiction and Fantasy almost interchangeably at length and I’m pretty adamant that Clarke’s Law is true. For those who don’t know what that means, any science sufficiently advanced is virtually indistinguishable from magic. It sums things up pretty well for me because the world’s worked that way forever. When we couldn’t understand lightning bolts, we thought gods did it, and certainly there are things in the universe today that we don’t understand which are still being attributed to higher powers.

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I’ll never tire of pointing this out

The rule’s a simple reminder that any time you go really advanced with your crazy Sci-Fi tropes you’re practically skipping into the realm of Fantasy. But the same is true in the other direction, something I’ve always held near and dear to my heart. If you were to take something truly magical and then approached it with science in mind, there’s a lot of it that just happens to click really well. Hell, I wrote whole books and countless tweets about the concept.

So Sci-Fantasy is, to me, a natural genre. A lot of people out there believe that you can’t really blend these two and that you end up ruining both in the effort to avoid choosing either. But from where I stand, science is fantastic to begin with, it may explain everything, but those explanations are wonderful in so many ways we never could have imagined. Don’t get me wrong, I still love some robots, but I can definitely see the allure of wanting to make some of the things from legends of old into something tangible.

Just one thing… Continue reading Good Sci-Fantasy vs Apologetics →