I was discussing with friends on Facebook about how Zombies are more fantasy and are never really science fiction. Not putting down all the zombie movies, comics and books. In fact I enjoy them myself. In fact, as stated on an article on Cracked.com, there are very few movies that can’t be improved with the inclusion of a zombie horde. But I am not really planning on getting ready for the zombie apocalypse myself, unless some angry God decides to animate dead rotting creatures with no metabolism to speak of. I have guns in my house, and a sword, and a big fricken kukri knife honed to a razor edge. And I expect that, God forbid, they are never used, but if they are they will be used on living creatures. I think the problem is that a lot of people actually believe that zombies can rise from the dead due to some virus or disease. They probably think the same thing about werewolves and vampires. I disagree. I majored in biology before switching to geology, and then back to biology education before graduating in psychology.. And I then went back to school to take anatomy and physiology course for pre-nursing. And in none of those biology based classes was it ever mentioned that dead rotting bodies can come back to life with nonfunctional nervous or muscular systems because they are infected with some virus. They can’t digest what they eat because the digestive system doesn’t work. Their muscles won’t work because they can’t create, store or use ATP, and they also have a bit of a problem with calcium transport. Same with the nervous system. Now again, I am willing to suspend disbelief for the sake of the story, just as I am for giants and other too large creatures life flying dragons. But a good number of people in this country actually believe these supernatural creatures can be explained by scientific reasoning. Unfortunately that doesn’t work. I was talking to someone last week who was sure that rabies caused zombies. She said it stopped their hearts for two hours, and when they awoke they had an appetite for brains (a trope which came out of, well, I don’t know. Night of the Living Dead had them eat all of the human). I tried to explained that the brain would die, then went on to tell her that when everything rotted nothing would work. Her reply? Yeah, and then they rot and acted just like movie zombies. She didn’t hear a thing I said. I guess that shouldn’t surprise me, seeing as to the state of science education in this country.
Now prior to modern times most zombie tales revolved around Voodoo, some kind of magic or possession in which the victim might be dead, or could be something else, or some spell place on the dead, which was similar to bringing skeletons to life. I liked this explanation much better. I also write fantasy, and use the undead liberally. Now I suspend my own disbelief when I write fantasy. I don’t really think some angry Elder God will be waiting for me outside my house when I go to my car. Nor do I think a horde of skeletons is going to come out of the ground. But if, and this is a really big but if, undead exist, it will be due to some supernatural explanation, and not some impossible biological process. (Hey, I love Dritzz Do’Urden also, but I will be shocked, probably to death, if I ever see a jet black elf wielding double magical sabers outside of my house). The scientific explanation doesn’t hold water. If someone puts out a really good movie or book about a shambling horde of rotting bodies eating brains, and explains it as a virus, I will suspend disbelief and enjoy the story in the spirit in which it was written. But I won’t tell people after seeing or reading the work that, oh, that’s how it happens.
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All posts for the month August, 2012
This morning I received a tweet from someone I don’t know. It stated that The Hunger was written by Whitley Strieber, with a link to an Amazon page with that novel on it. I guessed that he was making reference to my novel The Hunger not being the only one with that title out there. I looked the guy up on Twitter and found a pattern of finding things that amuse him on the net and making sarcastic comments. In other words, a Troll. If that floats his boat, he’s welcome to the excitement of his life. But he also made a point. When I first wrote the novel back in 2006 I gave it the title Hunger, which was a reference both to the vampire hunger of the heroine, but also the hunger for drugs she had fought as a living addict. When I decided to put the book out on Amazon in December of 2011, I discovered that the title had already been used many times over, by Knut Hamsun and George Egerton, by Elise Blackwell, by Jack Shepherd and John R. Butterly, among others. I could have called the book The Vampire Massacres of Tampa, but that didn’t fit quite as well. So I added a The to the title and it became The Hunger, which didn’t seem to have as many other books named the same. But there were some, like the one written by Strieber, and another by Ciana Stone. I also titled a steampunk novel I just put on the net Daemon, which was the type of creature that terrorized the city and the name of the most powerful mage on the planet. Also discovered that the name has been done before. I have another novel I will probably put out next year titled Soulless, which is also the name of at least one horror novel already out there. But the name fits. I guess I could write a book called Ringworld, about a planet where everyone wears magic rings, but I don’t think I will.
We went over this topic with a lawyer at the Tallahassee Writer’s Association a month or so ago, and there is nothing illegal about using the same title over, and long as I don’t use a copyrighted character like Harry Potter or Conan. The same goes for movies. Years ago I was looking for a movie called Is Paris Burning?, by Orson Wells. The movie is about the allied liberation of Paris from the Germans, and Hitler ordering that the city be burned. Instead I found a movie about Gay men dying of Aids. Not really the movie I was looking for. Now this is kind of funny in an industry that mandates that every actor must have a completely different name from any other. But multiple movies can have the same name, just like books. It can get confusing, but the author’s name is also prominently displayed on every book, so there really is no reason someone would buy the wrong book. So I will just keep picking out the best names and go from there.
On 08/24/2012 I will be featured on a book blog, in fact the book blog of IndieAuthorAnonymous.
One piece of advice I have been hearing for awhile is to get in with the book bloggers if you want to get your work publicized. Good advice, and like so much such advice, it is easier said than done. Many of the sites I have checked out have required an ungodly number of reviews with an average of at least four stars. Kind of defeats the purpose of getting on their blog when your book already has to be doing well to get publicized. So far I have avoided the common strategy of asking friends and family to write reviews whether they actually read the books or not. I wanted reviews from readers, and though the books I write have sold some copies, probably sixty or so for The Deep Dark Well, most buyers do not return to the seller to post reviews. And reviews are the lifeblood of the independent publishing business. Other blogs are open to submissions, until you actually get on them and see that all the reviewers in your genre are too busy for more submissions. I’ve had one blogger contact me in the recent past with an offer to do a blog and review. I sent him a free copy of one of my books and answered his questionnaire, and haven’t heard anything since. Hopefully that just means he is backlogged and will work his way to me. But I really don’t know.
Just the other day was contacted on Twitter by IndieAuthorAnonymous, who offered to put one of my books on his blog. He stated that it was a new blog and didn’t have a lot of coverage yet. I replied that I was willing to take my publicity in small chunks at this time. Tomorrow (08/24/2012) he will feature The Deep Dark Well on his blog. I am very thankful and grateful for this opportunity. Getting a message out through the general background noise is difficult these days. I am in it for the long haul, and know that baby steps forward are at least steps forward. I am hoping that this exposure on IndieAuthorAnonymous’ blog will be another one of those steps, and this his following will also grow to his benefit and that of the authors he covers. Please follow his blog if you can. It will only take a few minutes, and maybe you will find a new favorite author out there, one who is writing and publishing books for the love of the genre they write in. So remember to check out the blog of IndieAuthorAnonymous
Will aliens have different senses than we have? If so, what form will they take? Our own senses seem to serve us well, the old vision, hearing, odor, sense of touch, and taste. I would suspect that they would serve aliens on other worlds just as well, but there could possibly be exceptions. The exceptions may be better suited to some really bizarre environments. They may not translate well into other environments. Let’s start with vision, probably the most important of our human senses. Not to say that people can’t survive without seeing, and can’t develop other senses to take over if necessary. But try to drive a car or fly an airplane without vision and you are in real trouble, if not dead. Now our vision operates within what we call the visible spectrum because it is what we see. On either side are the Ultraviolet and Infrared waves that we can’t see, though some other animals can see in them. Species from planets with more of either wave impacting their planet may also see more into those ranges of the spectrum. We have good color vision, better than most other animals, and very good discrimination, also better than the great majority of animals. Our motion detection and night vision aren’t as good, which seems to be the trade off we have made to have eyes that function really really well in the daytime. Infrared might serve us better at night if we had it, but in some situations is worse than useless, like in a heat filled environment where living creatures are not always the hottest things out there.
Now our sense of vision also serves us very well in environments other than the surface of the Earth. In the vacuum of space electromagnetic waves are still transmitted, and we can still see most things. We don’t see all the xrays, cosmic rays, ultraviolet and such, but we can work around that by developing devices to see those for us and translate them into something we can see. We can see through transparent substances that look out into hostile environments without problem, whether it is the vacuum of space or the crushing waters of the ocean depths. If the atmosphere is too opaque, such as a dense fog bank or permanent murky atmosphere we might have problems, but we can still develop things to let us see what’s there. There have been many representations of alien vision in the infrared or ultraviolet, one coming to mind is Predator. I really wasn’t impressed by the visual acuity shown, and would much prefer our own eyes in most cases.
What about other senses that might take the place of sight? There are some possibilities, all with weaknesses that, in my opinion, make them a much less effective in the long run, especially when the species gets into a space environment. Sonar is one possibility, where an organ is used to pick up sounds from the environment and interpret them. This was portrayed in the movie Pitch Black. Sonar might make a good substitute on a totally dark or murky atmosphered planet. However, it does have series drawbacks. Other sounds can mask the sounds the creature is interested in, like something it wants to eat or that wants to eat it. There is also the problem of the sound waves giving away the generating creature. It would be kind of hard to sneak up on something you are beaming continuous sound waves at. It gives new meaning to the saying “feeling the eyes of something on you.” Now maybe the sound could also be used as a stunning weapon, which brings in whole new possibilities. What about passive sonar? Only using the sounds generated around you as the means to locate. Works well with things that make noise. Not so well with the trunks of large plants or rocks. Chasing down a prey animal while running through a forest could lead to serious bodily harm. Radar is another possibility, if an organ could be developed that sent out radio waves to bounce off a target. Same limitations and problems as sonar though. In space sonar would be just about useless, as sound does not travel in a vacuum. Any space faring sonar race would have to develop devices that turn electromagnetic waves into sound so they could be interpreted by the creature. Radar using races would have the advantage of being able to use their sense in a vacuum, but the disadvantage of giving themselves away to whatever they’re trying to get a look at, if that thing has the ability to detect radio waves. If not then it is just as good as our kind of vision, and better in an obscuring atmosphere.
So if vision is so superior, will it be developed to the exclusion of any other kind of primary image sensing ability? Not a definite. Evolution works kind of randomly, with organisms surviving to reproduce due to their fitness or adaptation to the current conditions. Again, if in an environment where vision does not do a great deal for survival, then non vision techniques will predominate. Or if be chance sonar develops first and all animals that develop eyespots, the precursors of eyes, are eaten to extinction, then eyes will not develop and rule the world. But the eyes have it as far as overall utility goes, and I would expect that among intelligent space faring races, most would have eyes, at least two, since this helps with depth perception, which is a useful survival trait. I have seen some stories in which some modification of a single eye had depth perception, so that is not something that couldn’t happen. And more than two eyes is a distinct possibility, though I doubt the compound eyes of insects would dominate due to their lack of acuity and confusing visual pattern (they are more suited to picking up movement from a large visual field) but again not impossible. Later I will discuss the next major sense, hearing.
When I was a child I used to read a lot. Still do, though my tastes have changed just a little. But from the age of eight to fifteen I would read any piece of fantastic literature I could get my hands on. Comics were of course a favorite, and I would even read the letters to the editor in the back of each one. I remember one in particular in The Incredible Hulk. The writer commented on how it was impossible for the Hulk to pick up a castle and throw it at the army he was fighting. Not because he wasn’t strong enough. No, the Hulk was that powerful. Instead the writer, who was an engineering student at some major University, commented on how the structure itself would not hold together while lifted out of the ground by a pair of hands, no matter how over sized. The structure, which had been designed to sit on a large flat piece of ground, would fall apart, and the Hulk would find himself holding onto a couple of handfuls of stone while the castle fell in pieces on him and around him. And of course he would get even more pissed, but even the anger of the green beast couldn’t change the laws of physics. I also remember, though at a latter age, how Larry Niven fielded questions from engineering students about the properties of Scrinth, the marvelous substance that was the matrix of Ringworld. Someone had done the math and shown that it was impossible for a structure of any conceivable matter to hold together under the forces it had to endure. Niven had commented that it was almost impossible to come up with some high tech idea that someone couldn’t shoot down. Another famous example of a fan finding fault through factual analysis was the famous treatise on the power of the Death Star. You know, the moon sized station from Star Wars that could totally destroy Earth sized planets with a one second blast. This analysis has appeared in many places on the net, and the analyzer, who I think was a physics student, took into account the force of gravity, mass of the planet, and many other factors. Definitely something I couldn’t have done. He found that to totally destroy an Earth sized planet, meaning to blast it into pieces that did not fall back into a globe and form a new, if somewhat lifeless, planet, required half the energy produced by the sun for a year. The author made a remark about the capacitors of the Death Star, but plainly he was pointing out that such a weapon was impossible using any kind of tech as we understood it.
Now I try to make my work as technically factual as possible, as long as it doesn’t destroy a good story. I was trained in psychology, with a minor and some more in biology. I still know enough physics and chemistry to not make any huge errors, I hope. And some things I just put down to faith that we will solve insurmountable problems, at least problems for our current tech. I used inertial compensators in spaceships, with no idea how they would work, because they are necessary to advance the story. I figure that inertia would be converted to heat, so now I have another problem, like how to get rid of all that heat. I hand wave it away, because I figure that it will either be solved or not. But again I try to make whatever is factual in the story fit the known facts. No magical fifth or sixth fundamental forces of nature. Then I read the work of other authors, some of them doing quite well, and the responses of their readers, and wonder why I even bother. I might find the mistakes in the works of others, but the fans either do not or don’t care if they do.
A couple of years ago I was reading a series by a well known writer about an interstellar conflict started by turning a gas giant into a star. Now the technology used seemed a little over the top, but who can say it was not possible, moving a neutron star through a wormhole into the heart of the gas giant. Now I believe the result would have been to add the mass of the gas giant to the outside of the neutron star as a new layer of neutronium, but in the story the compression resulted in the gas giant sustaining fusion and becoming the life giving light to its moons. I guess it could happen. But the error that destroyed my suspension of belief was that the new gas giant/star, which now had a mass much greater than the star it orbited, was still orbiting that star. What I am sure would have happened is that solar system would have rearranged its orbits to compensate for the greater mass that now ruled the system. I wondered how many people actually caught that error, and how many cared who did. More recently I read a novel in which the premise was that colony ships had been sent to nearby stars because an asteroid was about to hit the Earth. Now from what I have read, most experts agree that once we have gotten interplanetary travel pretty much under control we will not have to worry about random rocks striking the Earth. We will detect them and we will move them. So it didn’t make sense that we would have interstellar travel, even sublight, and have to worry about a rock striking the Earth, especially if it gives us enough time to equip ten expeditions to other stars. Now I was surprised that a book would be based on such a poor premise, but I was even more surprised by some of the reviews of this book, in which readers said it was based on such a believable premise. I guess they don’t read the views of the experts on the future dangers of asteroid strikes.
Now all writers make mistakes. The physicists make errors with biology, the biologists with physics, and on and on. I try to make my work as accurate as possible within the constraints of the story. I will still use handwavium or unobtanium when necessary to move the story forward. I will not make people float off a world for no know reason, or fighters bank in vacuum, or G class stars go supernova as part of their natural evolution. I know I will make mistakes, and hope that my readers point them out in a non-obnoxious manner. But reading some of the things I have read, and seeing what is put on the screen, silver and small, makes me wonder if anyone really cares. I know that I do, and I will continue to try to make my stories make sense.
I write science fiction and fantasy, and may take a crack every once and a while at alternate history. From what I have been reading I may be casting the genre net too far. It is suggested that I concentrate on one small niche in one genre, at least to start. But I have a passion for all of these forms. I especially have a passion for the series I have developed in both science fiction and fantasy. I have ideas for a historical novel or two in the future, but those will have to wait. I do this because I love to make up worlds, characters and stories. Because I love the settings of the fantastic, and the opportunities they give me to show how people interact in such foreign environments. And how people as we know them might interact with people we can only imagine. I don’t so this for the money, though I do hope to make a living at it some day. And a couple of vacations to Hawaii would also be nice. But if that never comes my way I will still labor away at trying to perfect a craft that cannot be perfected.
The main reason I have written such a diverse portfolio of tales is I was chasing the dream of major publication. Tried hard science fiction, vampires, steampunk, high fantasy, more mystical scifi, all in an effort to find something that would catch. I have finally come to the conclusion that there is no such thing as a theme that will catch. And if there is already a popular one out there, it’s already too late to get on the bandwagon. And again, I write what I write because I have a passion for it.
Years ago my wife of the time suggested that I try my hand at writing romance. This was purely a suggestion about the money. I recently read that fifty percent of all fiction sold is Romance, and another twenty some percent is mystery. But I believe that the folks who write in these genres have a passion for them. They love sitting down and figuring out new takes on old forms. What unlikely lovers can they throw together to let passions ignite. Or in mystery, who can they kill in what bizarre means while introducing new red herrings into the mix. They are successful at them because they love the forms enough to work their magic. Now I can sit and dream for hours about some fantastic realm of fantasy or the future. I cannot see myself sitting for near that long trying to figure out how to stoke the excitement in my romance. I put some romance in my novels, where it fits, and where I think it will advance the story or the relationships of the characters. I don’t think I could plan an entire novel around the romance. Or the mystery.
Fantasy outsells science fiction by a large margin, but I have a passion for good scifi, so I try to write in that genre and hope that it is good. I respect people who write in other genres because of their love of it. They too are following their passion.
Matthew Mather is re-releasing his near future science fiction series Atopia this weekend as The Atopia Chronicles. This was originally released as a single long novel, then as a series of novellas. It is worth a look by anyone interested in Dystopian futures. This is basically the review I wrote at Amazon with a few changes. Atopia is the story of people caught up in a world of nanotech and virtual reality in which anything is possible. Reminiscent of the stories of John Brunner (Stand on Zanzibar and The Sheep Look Up), who won the Hugo for his look at futures where everything seems to work well, but things are quickly going to hell, Mather does a great job of transporting the reader into a world of everyday virtual reality. The characters take everything at face value, while the reader is left to wonder at the complete insanity of this strange world, much as people from the 19th Century would look at our world. The people seamlessly link with computers, giving them the ability to split parts of their personalities (splinters) off in order to be more than one place at a time, and multitask to an extreme. Some carry this beyond extremes, and don’t have enough central personality left to function as real people. Others pursue the potential of living in fantasy, or rent their own exploits out to audiences who pay for the privilege of being a champion surfer, or at least looking through the senses of one. In many ways the story seems to follow the trends of today’s society, where people engage in as many pleasurable activities as possible to avoid dealing with reality. In the novellas the great majority of people are not happy with their state in a world of shrinking resource. Virtual reality is seen as a means of keeping them happy while reducing resource expenditure. After all, if one can be satisfied with a virtual car, there is no need to mine and process ore and use energy to make a new one. Of course, Atlantis is not the only city to work on this process. There is another corporation out there, the enemy, that is willing to go to any lengths, including mass murder, to get rid of their competition.
The characters are very memorable, and each book in the series is written from the viewpoint of one of the main characters. There is the ex-military man who is in charge of security at the independent nation of Atlantis, the floating city which is the test bed for the new technologies. The stoned surfer who rents out his experiences to those without the skill or the nerve to do them on their own. The scientist who developed many of the techniques of the virtual world, and sees the premature release of them by a greedy corporation as the seeds of catastrophe. The assistant security chief, a man with a dark secret which spells disaster for the city. And the publicist who tries the system in the real world, and is cut off from it, becoming out of touch with everyone around her. All is set in a background world in which nations strike at each other through plausibly deniable weather events, and everything is on the edge of a major collapse that could lead to the death of billions.
I found Atopia to be a fascinating and entertaining series in which the author immersed me into another world. Not the world I want to live in, but one that is possibly in our future considering current scientific and societal trends. I highly recommend Matthew Mather’s series of Novellas. Get them while they’re hot. You won’t regret the minor investment.
