About me, Miscellaneous, WTF

Sidelined By Injury

After spending much of the last several years regularly updating this blog, it has been some time since I went a month with anything fewer than 5 entries. I love to ramble to the masses, after all, and make sure to post at least once a week whenever possible. So it would make sense, after this August came and went, that some people who have visited this blog would have one very important question to ask me:

“You dead?”

Fair question, my imaginary audience, but no. And, while I didn’t die, I can see why you would wonder. It is true, for several weeks now I have been effectively dead to the world. In fact, after frequently making jokes I was a zombie fueled only by caffeine and calypso music, I finally found myself for the first time completely unable to raise my corpse to the challenge. Having resolved to use the month of August to get ahead of several projects so that I could enter 2018 with a fresh start and renewed drive, I ended up with one of the greatest pains I had ever felt in my arm and found it difficult to do much of anything with it. Had I broken it in some freak accident? Was I suffering some sort of traumatic disease which was stripping the use of my arm from me? Did I tear the muscles in some dramatic fashion?

Nope, I just pissed off mother nature by working at a desk all day… Continue reading Sidelined By Injury →

Fantasy, Miscellaneous, Mythology, Observations

Monday Musing: Modern Mythology

As a speculative fiction writer, I spend a lot of time looking into the roots of mythology and the ways that our genres have evolved over time. It’s easy to see a straight line that can be drawn from the stories of our ancestors to the stories we tell today – especially in fantasy where some of the same elements remain in circulation. And  it’s certainly easy to see how some things we have today are derived from things that came from antiquity. Superheroes, though wrapped in contemporary trappings, are obviously comparable to the heroes of the ancient stories. In fact, frequently these heroes are so similar that you can slip those mythological characters into the mix and not have them seem out of place at all.

So it’s not too surprising that we often hear someone define comic books and fantasy stories as the “new mythology” that we create today. These statements, comparing the traits of the heroes of old to the stories of today, essentially say that today’s mostly secular culture has adopted superheroes to fill in the place that characters like Hercules had filled before. And this makes sense on many levels. It’s true that we make great productions about these heroes and that someday they’ll sit comfortably next to each other in the historical records of future generations. But one chief difference has always jumped out at me and makes it feel like the statement isn’t entirely accurate:

People thought the ancient stories were real, or at least plausible… Continue reading Monday Musing: Modern Mythology →

Agent of Argyre, Alterpedia, Alterpedia Historia, FICTION

Alterpedia Historia: The Great Wars

(I hate that I have to say this, but this is a fictional account of the history of a fictional world. I do not believe these things, nor should you, as I am making them up. If I receive any comments that I did not do my research into these events, you will be mocked.)

In the Agent of Argyre series of books, there is an organization called the Alter Control Task Force. Though ostensibly an organization for policing activities of the Alter race, an attempt to prevent an eventual race war, they are actually representatives of a city-state on the ocean: The Republic of Argyre.

The Republic of Argyre, an artificial island anchored to an oceanic ridge in the pacific, is a city-state established by Alters for the sake of harboring their kind and establishing a relationship with the mainstream human population. Despite being an artificial island and attached to no primary landmass, the city’s structure is capable of potentially supporting all 12 to 15 million active Alters on the planet.

How did a race of people who’ve lived in hiding for centuries manage to construct such a city? Why would they build their city in the middle of the ocean? Where did they get the resources for such a task? In the Alterpedia Historia, we will answer these questions and discover the history of the Alters. Today we address…

Continue reading Alterpedia Historia: The Great Wars →

Publishing, Writing

Patience

One of the interesting aspects of being a writer online is that you get to see a lot of other writers from all walks of life and philosophies. There are a lot of successful writers that everyone follows, of course, but beneath the big names you have a wide variety of people who have seen every level of success and have taken just as many roads to get there. And these people network a lot: having conversations and following each other on social media all the time. So one of the things you can really see if you follow enough people is how the writer community divides across certain lines. One of the lines I’ve noticed is pretty clear between three big schools of thought is just how likely your work is ever going to succeed.

The first school of thought you’ll find without much effort is the group that wants to cheer each other on. Being in a creative industry isn’t easy and a lot of people get discouraged, so there are people who will constantly be doing what they can to let you know you’re not alone. The second group, not pessimistic, will focus more on the grind of it all. These people will tell you can make it, but it’s uphill battle, it’s going to be exhausting, and you’re going to need a plan. Meanwhile, the third group is the one that says it’s basically pointless to try unless you get damn lucky or you’re supremely talented. And, of course, the people in the third group tend to think they’re among the chosen – even if the numbers don’t bear it out yet.

The third group is just a fact of life. I have a friend of mine who does script coverage who has had to deal with quite a few of them already in her young career. But one of the things I’ve noticed trending among several of these people lately is the idea that self-published authors were just too immature to follow the traditional publishing route. In their eyes, clearly, if your work was worthwhile then you would have gone to the publishers instead of trying to do it on your own. Either you weren’t confident enough in the work, were too arrogant to accept edits, or just weren’t patient enough to let the system do its work. According to this meme floating around, traditionally published works are better than self-published works by default. And at first I was just going to brush it off as their standard MO and not comment on it, but then a thought occurred to me:

Shitty books get published the traditional way all the time… Continue reading Patience →

About me, Miscellaneous, Observations, Publishing, Writing

Monday Musing: Ego And Restraint

Years ago, when people were still feeling out the eBook market, I had what we would call a “rough year” and made a couple rash decisions. The first was that I was going to self-publish a book because I’d seen numbers suggesting that my chances with and without a publisher were roughly about the same. This was during that hazy time back when the economy was crashing and no one was confident about anything – advances were down, advertising was shaky at best, and Amazon was starting to eat enough of the market to kill Borders (ironically thanks to a deal they made with Borders). So, of course, I wanted me a piece of that action.

But self-publishing lead to my second rash decision: I was going to start trying to promote myself – something that anyone who knows me can tell you was probably the bigger mistake of the two. My personality, in real life, is fairly conflict driven and yet introverted. For those of you doing the math, yeah, that generally means I’m my own worst enemy. So the idea of trying to be my own hype man is a bit like having Moriarty give the elevator pitch on Sherlock. Sure, he’s well aware of Holmes’ strengths, but he’s also invested in ruining the guy.

Still, I went about making content on a fairly regular basis by starting this blog. It wasn’t a vanity project as some critics have suggested, but an attempt to look like I know what I’m doing. Perhaps, with enough effort, I can find my audience and make those efforts worthwhile. And, despite everything, there is a benefit to the fact I second guess every move I make: I am constantly using this blog to do a self critique.

As such, I occasionally go back through old posts, old work, and old concepts to find new ways to hate on my younger self. It’s beneficial, despite how I make it sound, to take stock of what mistakes I made in the past and then learn from it. I know I’m not perfect (something we should all keep in mind), and that I have to constantly improve to progress. So I’m willing to give myself an honest performance evaluation every once in a while. There’s just one thing I tend to regret about these evaluations: I end up re-reading or remembering comments I’ve gotten on the internet.

This is a little dangerous, because part of me always wants to respond – and that would be a real mistake… Continue reading Monday Musing: Ego And Restraint →

Agent of Argyre, FICTION, Satire

Lifestyles of the Rich and Centaur

The Centaur, once a vital part of society, now relegated to the fringes of civilization due to circumstances beyond their control. Though one would suspect it were the fact they literally walk around as a half-horse who could be recognized from a distance, the truth is that the world has long ago abandoned a need for raw, natural horsepower. Though still appreciated by your lady friends, few tasks in this world truly require the work of a stallion anymore. Yes, while the horse is still sometimes used for a variety of tasks as a matter of tradition or for the simple joy of owning one of these magnificent beasts, few Centaur can appreciate the same status in today’s world. Why, it’s been generations since anyone would ride a Centaur in public without an exchange of money – particularly in seedy bars south of the border.

And because of this, the life of a privileged Centaur has become a dull and isolated existence. Generations of doing heavy lifting no other race could accomplish has managed to make your family quite wealthy, even comfortable. Certainly some Centaur still work, deep in some Gnome’s mine or on a Kappa’s cucumber farm. But such menial labor is no longer a part of your family’s life, things are good for you. Still, you yearn for something else, something is missing in your life. Being waited on hand and hoof has made your life terribly uneventful as you lounge your days away on the private Mediterranean property passed down through your family for generations. Your parents insists that this is merely a phase, but you know what lies in your hearts.

Fortunately, you are not the first bored person with too much money… Continue reading Lifestyles of the Rich and Centaur →

Fantasy, Mythology, Writing

Monday Musing: Recycled Lore

Speculative fiction, being that it is purely speculative, is an evolving set of genres. Science fiction and fantasy are generally meant to be fluid and will reflect the times they were made in quite often. And because of this a great many variations will appear within the genre for things that everyone happens to share. What are the differences between Orcs and Orks? How many kinds of vampires are there actually? How distantly related are Legolas and the Keebler Elves?

Sometimes these differences are pretty profound, other times they’re almost non-existent. But what I’ve found most often is that the differences are generally discouraged if a specific work has reached an iconic status. Vampires have had dozens, if not hundreds of variations over the years, but many of the traits which are accepted as “canon” were originated either within Bram Stoker’s Dracula or the movie adaptations to follow. This is strange, because it means the original source material, the folklore, is generally forgotten in favor of variations on a theme of Dracula. It’s because of this that I personally went out of my way to include several variations of vampire in my stories and bring back old bits of lore that are often forgotten – like the fact a vampire can’t cross certain materials without counting every grain in their path.

More accurate than we thought

The funny thing is that, in my world of sci-fantasy reinterpretations of the mythological as biological creatures, I’ve had a few run-ins with people who felt that I had somehow been “wrong” to change the lore. As one person said to me very early on, “I prefer my version”. It’s not the only feedback you get, but it’s one that you realize is quietly prevalent. Though some books and movies get away with it because they’re popular, if something has flaws, it will be immediately criticized for getting the lore “wrong”. Hell, at one point even I took part in doing this before realizing the flaw in my thinking.

Because, after all, cultures that stagnate will never decay… right? Continue reading Monday Musing: Recycled Lore →

Observations, Writing

Letting Moments Breathe

Over the years on this blog I’ve said some things I later came to second guess. It’s not so much that I lack confidence but I’m not a person who rejects evidence against my opinion just to soothe my ego (profound as that ego may be). I’ve long felt that writers need to be able to admit when they’re wrong so that they can take criticism and learn from their mistakes. So every once in a while, I have to question previously held opinions and see if maybe they were wrong. Sometimes, I review the opinion with the new evidence, find that the original opinion was right, and move on with my life, and other times I find that I missed something and needed to revise my stance.

One of the opinions that I’ve had to review in the last year was my stance on the 2016 reboot of Ghostbusters. For those who have been long time readers you may know that when the first cast photos were released I wrote that the direction of the film was probably for the best. I argued that Ghostbusters 2 (an “okay” movie) had shown that following the same characters again was probably a bad idea, that no one really wanted to make the third, and that no one was really serious about wanting to see a third either. In my estimation, at the time, a fresh start with a new direction was the way you could revitalize the franchise and that what I was seeing was an effort to breathe new life into an old property. But, over the course of the next year I started to hear things from behind the scenes that made me wonder if I’d missed something.

It got worse as the film released and I came to see the reviews. Though critics were generally positive towards it, the positive reviews were lukewarm. Time and again, I saw positive reviews that said the movie was average – “good” but not “great”. One article I read even stated that being average was a good thing, possibly even better than being a smash hit, because it paved the way for women to make more “okay” movies. Suddenly, thanks to information I’d learned over the year and the arrival of the reviews, I started to have a sinking feeling.

Some of the reviewers were a little nervous too

People I knew who were enthusiastic for the film started to lose interest and it just kind of fell off the radar. While some people were still excited about it, the reviews, the box office, and the general energy after release were clear: this wasn’t quite the big deal it should have been. So, I have to admit, I didn’t watch it right away. But now, two years after writing that post and a year after the film hit theaters, I have actually seen it and I have finally come to a conclusion:

The cast was good, but the script might have needed another look… Continue reading Letting Moments Breathe →

Miscellaneous, Mythology, Observations

The Evolution Of Mythology

The fantasy genre, for all of its common tropes created in the modern day, draws its roots from mythology the world over. Though rarely depicting the stories as they were originally, these mythologies have formed the backbone of what we use today to craft our fictional worlds of magic and supernatural creatures. And, the thing about it is, when you look at what’s in the fantasy works of today and then look into the origins of the creatures in the past, the differences can be stark. Even figures known to the mainstream population are somewhat different than what they’d originally been.

The Leprechaun is one of the easiest changes to point out to people. Their clothing, general demeanor, and place in the lore have changed dramatically overtime. And with the Leprechaun we even see how fast it can happen as the creatures themselves didn’t show up in the folklore until relatively recently in cultural terms. The root stories, the ones that inspired the wee folk in the first place, are actually so different that you would barely recognize them at first glance. But the Leprechaun is far from being the only one. For instance, did you know the word”Dobby” is actually another term for “Brounies“?

Which is why the clothes were a big deal

And one of the things you’ll realize when you look at it close for a while is that there are pretty specific evolutionary paths for some of these mythical creatures. Especially in Europe, a single effect becomes more and more obvious as many creatures of the past were somewhat more innocent in appearance and gradually became more inhuman. Essentially the old trope of “good is pretty” and “evil is ugly” started to become more common over time. Though some creatures have always been evil and ugly, even downright terrifying (looking at you, Celtic and Germanic folklore), other creatures were a lot less dangerous looking at first glance. And, now, those creatures tend to look like something fairly different.

Why did that happen? Well, there are different reasons for different places, but for Europe the answer is pretty simple: Christianity isn’t keen on ambiguity… Continue reading The Evolution Of Mythology →

Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Writing

Psychic Powered Plot Problems

1 Comment

Throughout speculative fiction of all genres, be it fantasy or sci-fi, we have certain tropes that are universal. There’s generally an ancient forgotten civilization, a more war-like race, some benevolent watcher species, and a species or individual with some sort of supernatural power. These supernatural powers have a variety of manifestations and uses, but some of the most common across all genres are powers of the mind. The ability to hypnotize, read minds, or see into the future are in almost all branches of these genres and will likely be there until the future they claimed to see finally comes to pass.

Cheerful as that may be

And why wouldn’t they be? The concept is fascinating on so many levels. We’ve even tried to see if it was possible in the real world, and found that it probably wasn’t (at least on this world). People still insist that they can do it though, often using cold reading techniques and research to try to fake the talent, and continue to keep the ability right on our collective minds. For every story where someone claims to be able to speak to the dead there are at least  a dozen or so real world people who are claiming to do exactly that. And as a result these concepts are an inexorable part of our culture and will be for some time to come (maybe even forever).

But on a writing level, there are problems presented with such powers, problems which often result in a whole other set of tropes that are used as a compromise. It wouldn’t take very much effort to find episodes of shows where the psychic cast member has somehow been stripped of their powers or are somehow nullified. The entire point of Minority Report, both the movie and the original story, was whether or not these perceptions should be trusted. And almost every one of the X-Men movies has found a way to completely remove Professor X’s powers from the equation.

So the question becomes: why do creators who give these characters powers feel compelled to get rid of them at the same time? Continue reading Psychic Powered Plot Problems →