Guy Stewart's Blog, page 45

WRITING ADVICE: What Went RIGHT #50…With “Doctor to the Undead” (Submitted 1 times with 0 revision, sold to STUPEFYING STORIES Online August 28, 2021)

In September of 2007, I started this blog with a bit of writing advice. A little over a year later, I discovered how little I knew about writing after hearing children’s writer, Lin Oliver speak at a convention hosted by the Minnesota Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. Since then, I have shared (with their permission) and applied the writing wisdom of Lin Oliver, Jack McDevitt, Nathan Bransford, Mike Duran, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, SL Veihl, Bruce Bethke, Julie Czerneda and Lisa Cron. Together they write in genres broad and deep, and have acted as agents, editors, publishers, columnists, and teachers. Since then, I figured I’ve got enough publications now that I can share some of the things I did “right” and I’m busy sharing that with you.

While I don’t write full-time, nor do I make enough money with my writing to live off of it...neither do all professional writers...someone pays for and publishes ten percent of what I write. When I started this blog, that was NOT true, so I may have reached a point where my own advice is reasonably good. We shall see! Hemingway’s quote above will now remain unchanged as I work to increase my writing output and sales.

Faulkner once wrote, “The best fiction is far more true than any journalism.” And Tea Obreht thought that “The best fiction stays with you and changes you.” These are my goals…

With those last two sentences in mind, I’d like to announce my most recent published story!

After a long, long drought in which it didn’t seem I could sell my stories; nor could I (to be perfectly frank) GIVE them away, you can read my most recent story here:

http://stupefyingstories.blogspot.com/2021/08/doctor-to-undead-by-guy-stewart.html

This is one of “those stories”. There was NO blood-letting (pun intended), sweating, or weeping. I had the idea, set my fingers to the keyboard, and the story just poured out. When I was done, I had to tweak a few things – like I put in a couple more Easter Eggs for DRACULA fans, and I fiddled with the ending, but in fact, I was pretty much ready to submit about two hours after I was doing writing!

Sixteen hundred words of flash fiction, and there was complete story there. As well, it had back story and future story hanging in the first page and after the last page. This is how it started.

A friend of mine (and editor of Stupefying Stories (both online and on paper) and co-owner of Rampant Loon Press, and author of HEADCRASH, and inventor of…well, you get the idea!) was reporting from the hospital on his wife, who is struggling with metastatic breast cancer (for a blog entry on my OTHER blog, GUY’S GOTTA TALK ABOUT Breast Cancer & Alzheimer’s, you can go here…).

Normally, though he’s an ardent dog person, he also likes cats (we have that in common!) and posts pictures of cats. He was tired of cats and so posted the picture along with the comment, “In the meantime, I’ve grown tired of cat pics, so here’s a cute Halloween illo that I picked up with no clear idea of how I would use it. Maybe it will inspire you. Does someone feel like writing a story to match this art?”

It WAS funny, and I figured maybe I could play it for laughs. But after several minutes of noodling, I realized that the woman in the illustration was far more than she appeared to be. She was a doctor – a research doctor – working with blood. And she wasn’t just any doctor, she’d earned her degree the hard way and she’d earned it in the 21st Century. She’d placed herself at a research hospital not far from where I live…

So, what went RIGHT with this story?

Pretty much everything.

Genetics was my favorite class while doing my major in Biology, and I’ve followed the LEAPS forward since 1981 when I graduated – which was long before the completion of the Human Genome Project (“It remains the world's largest collaborative biological project. Planning started after the idea was picked up in 1984 by the US government, the project formally launched in 1990, and was declared complete on April 14, 2003. Level ‘complete genome’ was achieved in May 2021.”

I’m also fascinated by the idea of an artificial uterus. Lois McMaster Bujold, a local science fiction author with international fame, based her entire VORKOSIGAN SAGA on exactly two SF tropes. One has been used by (I’m guessing) almost every SF writer worth-their-salt, and that is some form of Faster Than Light drive. Bujold uses wormhole hopping, but her entire series is predicated on the colonization of a planet called Barrayar losing contact with Earth and presumed lost. It also lost its ability to travel through space. Honestly? That was pretty much a trope.

What she postulated though, was that the universe outside of Barrayar had invented the uterine replicator. The main character married and had a child by a major political figure. Then, the child was threatened and had to be placed in a replicator in order to save both him and his mother’s life…thus the entire series was born because of a technology we don’t currently have. At least not totally.

So, MY character is part of a team working to create a permanent, safe, and replicable blood supply. She and her co-worker are successful, and they go out to celebrate. But Dr. Zalissia is not Human…

At any rate, the story involved creating biological blood bags where not only could any Type be grown, it could be grown with no fear of contamination. (My brother-in-law died of liver failure because his life had been extended repeatedly as part of the University of Minnesota’s research into cures for AIDS. He was a hemophiliac and had contracted AIDS through tainted blood in a routine transfusion…)

I wrote the story with passion; I have something of a sense of humor (and I also have a thing for “chick-flicks”, and so I piled all of the above into this one little story.

Oh, and I twisted the end. Even her colleague Dr. Cramer didn’t see it coming.

Lucky for Dr. Zalissia; lucky for her people.

At any rate this was one of those rare moments where EVERYTHING worked just right and Bruce took the story a few hours later – NOT with an email acceptance, but a personal phone call!

Maybe the rest will be history. We’ll see. Red it and let me know what you think.

Image: https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ON40kGPEyII/YShoBghg1bI/AAAAAAAAEWw/lGr9aNIhqMsPlUmHJzU3Wk-Kuy0FIFSTgCPcBGAYYCw/w640-h626/AdobeStock_9191806.jpeg

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 511

Each Tuesday, rather than a POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY, I'd like to both challenge you and lend a helping hand. I generate more speculative and teen story ideas than I can ever use. My family rolls its collective eyes when I say, "Hang on a second! I just have to write down this idea..." Here, I'll include the initial inspiration (quote, website, podcast, etc) and then a thought or two that came to mind. These will simply be seeds -- plant, nurture, fertilize, chemically treat, irradiate, test or stress them as you see fit. I only ask if you let me know if anything comes of them.

H Trope: Alien Geometries – “Even the very body of a particularly squamous thing may exhibit this, though more often it shows up in architecture as physically-impossible buildings—occasionally sentient themselves.”
Current Event: http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2013/07/26/smart-homes-hack/

Xiaoyan Tahtawi shook her head and said, “Egypt hardly qualifies as the originators of architecture! They’ve only been building things for five thousand years! China is the true parent of the science!”

Murad Sūn harrumphed and said, “I am sorry to disappoint you, but the ‘Chinese Dynasties’ didn’t even begin until fifteen hundred years before the Common Era began.”

“I’m not talking about official dynasties! I am, however talking about Civilization.” Murad rolled his eyes, he could hear her tone of voice capitalizing the word and ascribing it solely to her forebears. While he was prepared to admit that Chinese architecture was impressive in its own ancient and pretty way, they had nothing like the Pyramids at Giza.

Of course, technically the Egyptians didn’t actually have them at this time, either. He said, “That’s beside the point!”

“This stupid class we’re taking is talking about the civilizing influence of architecture – how can the fact that the ancient Chinese built the Great Wall to protect their civilization...” Xiaoyan said.

Murad laughed, “Your ancestors built your Great Wall to keep the barbarians from stealing their food and women!”

“I wouldn’t call constructing tombs for dead old guys the pinnacle of an evolved intelligence.”

The stared silently down from the highest point of Jingshan at the Forbidden City. Their tour group was out running around the city today, leaving them behind – most of the group figured they were going to…Murad snorted. He wasn’t “that” kind of guy. Xiaoyan wasn’t his kind of girl, either. The thing he loved most about her was her razor-sharp mind and uncharacteristically Western way of speaking her mind. “Let’s walk over,” he said abruptly.

“What?”

“To the Forbidden City. Let’s go.”

“That’s reserved for the last day of the tour.”

He grabbed her hand and pulled her along, “Then they shouldn’t have put us up in this apartment and they shouldn’t have left us alone.”

She said, “They put us up here because it was cheap and they left us alone so that they could have something new to gossip about.” He thought for a moment that she was going to resist, but she said instead, “You’re right. Let’s for over there.”

They bounded down the steps to the first floor when Xiaoyan said, “Wait! What if they left someone behind to watch us?”

Murad paused and scowled. “You’re right. Come on.” He grabbed her hand. One of the other guys in the group had discovered a sub-basement when they were poking around the house. They weren’t technically supposed to go down there, but most of them had anyway. They’d come up with talking about stacks of covered furniture and an entire wall of books. “Who reads books anymore?” He said.

“Down into the library? There’s a door there?”

“I think so. Come on.” They rattled down the stairs and into the library. It was dark. Cool. It obviously smelled of books. Xiaoyan flipped on the lights and the room seemed to suddenly lean into them. She cussed in Chinese. Murad cussed in Arabic and they took a step backward to the stairs and were suddenly staring across the room, looking at the open basement door they’d just come down. The door closed.

“What...” Murad exclaimed.

“What did you do?”

“Nothing! You were with me! We walked down the stairs and into the library and now…”

“I know, idiot! I was here, too! Let’s get back upstairs before…”

There was a knock at the basement door across the room from them…

Names: ♀China, Egypt; ♂ Egypt, China
Image: https://cdn.britannica.com/40/11740-004-50816EB1/Boris-Karloff-Frankenstein-monster.jpg

WRITING ADVICE – Lisa Cron: WIRED FOR STORY Encore #1 - Start With A Specific POINT

Since 2008, I have taken the advice of a number of published writers (with their permission) and then applied the writing wisdom of Lin Oliver, Jack McDevitt, Nathan Bransford, Mike Duran, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, SL Veihl, Bruce Bethke, and Julie Czerneda to an analysis of my own writing. Together these people write in genres broad and deep, and have acted as agents, editors, publishers, columnists, and teachers.

I will say that Lisa Cron who has worked as a literary agent, TV producer, and story consultant for Warner Brothers, the William Morris Agency, and others has had the most profound effect on my writing. After reading her book, WIRED FOR STORY, I was overwhelmed by the information, so I distilled it down to 23 of the most important points she made. I ran this series in 2019 and 2020. It’s so important that I’m running it again. I expect I’ll be learning as much as you…

Action Plan : Start With A Specific POINT
As a reader, I’ll expect that the story will start making a very specific point – in the first sentence. Without actually thinking about it, I should wonder what I’m going to learn from it that will help me make it through the night. As the writer, I need to know what my point is before I begin writing. What am I saying about human nature? What inside intel am I giving my reader about how to best navigate this mortal coil?

So I’m going to look at a story I’ve been struggling with for some months now, the title is currently, “Lovely To Behold”.

It began as a response to an invitation given by Julie Czerneda for a collection of original stories that took place in one of the universes she’s created. It was supposed to be fun, exciting, and fill in small holes in the history she’d created.

I wrote a story, sent it off, and it was returned with regrets. Disappointed, I figured I could rewrite it for a universe that I’d created.

I’ve written eleven stories that take place in the skies of a puffy Jupiter-like planet called River. I have maps, societies, alien life forms – though in this universe, there are NO intelligent aliens. Humans have fractured into two societies. The Confluence of Humanity has given totally free reign for genetic manipulation of Humans in order to create them to fit environments and worlds.

The Empire of Man allows limited genetic engineering and bases legal Humanity and inclusion in Human society, on the percentage of deviation from Pure Human DNA – if you are 65% unaltered Human DNA, then you are Human…if you are less, then you are not. Both the Confluence and the Empire have colonized the skies of this giant world, and while there are always conflicts, they co-exist in relative peace.

I’ve written eleven stories in this universe, several through the eyes of a man who is a genetic descendant of Henrietta Lacks, an African American woman whose cancer cells are the source of the HeLa cell line, the first immortalized cell line and one of the most important cell lines in medical research. They were harvested both illegally and without her or her family’s knowledge. He is an eminently cloned body and an important source of DNA for a line of special investigators, soldiers, spies, and covert operatives. Three have been published.

The most recent story begins like this: “Even though the Ferris, YAN TIANJIN was supposed to have an all-night arrival and departure depot, at four-thirty am, its lights were still dim.”

If you notice, not only do I NOT make a very specific point, in the first sentence, there is no evidence in this story of a point so far, I haven’t offered anything that will help someone make it through the night. In fact, there’s no story here at all…I have failed this first test.

I have struggled to find out what my point is, though I thought I knew before I started writing. What am I saying about human nature? What inside intel am I giving my reader about how to best navigate this mortal coil?

Thus far, none.

So let me try again.

My point, succinctly: “How much can you lie about yourself and still remain your…self?”

Iggie wants to be a re-educator (those who need or want to change from one occupation to another – including from childhood to adulthood) has ID that will get him out of the two-bit parts store he owns in an out-of-the way, Confluence-controlled cloud Band in the skies of River. With it, he’ll be able to just squeak into a high-stakes university. But in this story, he’s doubting that he has the brain-power to pass the entrance assessment, so he’s trying to buy an illegal nootropic (“smart drugs and cognitive enhancers; drugs, supplements, and other substances that improve cognitive function, particularly executive functions, memory, creativity, or motivation, in healthy individuals.”)

His best friend, whose DNA has been profoundly manipulated, is also a young man who looks like a giant bratwurst with six limbs and has a wicked sense of humor, is opposed to everything false. He thinks Iggie should start low and climb high – going to a Confluan college, then becoming the best student he can be and forcing his way into an Imperial University.

But that first thing doesn’t even get mentioned until later; and even then, not clearly.

Have a succeeded by anyone else’s definition?

How about Charlie Jane Anders at io9? In her article, “How to write a killer first sentence for your science fiction story”, she says to start your story one of six ways: scene, conflict, mystery, narration (first or third person), a quote, or a puzzle.
I started with a scene – OK. Why is the story flat and uninteresting?

Conflict? I could move this scene to the beginning:

“You gonna buy something or just stand there drooling on the floor, AJ?” a voice said in Iggie’s ear.

Twisting away from the source and covering the side of his face, Iggie pinched his nostrils and said, “Shut up, Skunk.”

I’d have to do a lot of backtracking, but I COULD do it. Or I could just take off from that point and charge ahead, filling in backstory as I went.

William Gibson wrote: “The first line must convince me that it somehow embodies the entire unwritten text…Once that first line succeeds in selling me on the worthiness of some totality that in no way, at that point, actually exists, I can continue.” (https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/10/william-gibson-by-heart/382027/)

Angie Smibert at League of Extraordinary Writers writes, “That line shows the reader a peek at what your story is going to be about. It’s your chance to set the tone, voice, theme, setting, etc. Is it going to be high fantasy or poetic cyberpunk? Is it set in a world unlike ours? Is it ironic or whimsical? Think of that first line as your opening ‘we’re not in Kansas anymore’ salvo.” (http://leaguewriters.blogspot.com/2011/11/top-10-opening-lines-in-science-fiction.html)

So how about these as new opening lines? (Vote if you’d like!)

One) Simple solution: start with the SECOND sentence:

“He’d started out spying on the airlock, but perched on a cross-brace, Igaluk Abumayaleh-Jawai nodded off. He smiled, dreaming about university in the warm Band of the Nile.”

Two) Technically, this is four sentences, but seems short enough:

“Head down, he realized he’d walked halfway around the Docking Ring before noticing he was at the down-ramp to the Supermarket Level. His target, an information merchant’s shop wasn’t much farther and he started walking faster. His earphone chirped. Tapping it, he said, ‘What?’”

Three) Deeper into the current story (which, after reading portions of it again, I can clearly see is a MESS…):

“OK. Don’t. You don’t need any fancy nootropic to increase your retention of facts and speed up your neural processing to knit an information web,” said the Human-sized sausage with six limbs and six eyestalks.

Four) Even deeper into the story as it stands:

“You’re jealous because I’m Human and you’re not!”

“What?” Even though Agnew’s nose was tiny, he snorted and said, “Last I looked you’re only sixty point three-eight-four percent Pure Human DNA. In Imperial Belts and Bands, you’re no more Human than me.”

Five) I could keep doing this all day, but oddly, doing this exercise has helped clarify a few things. Last entry:

“I have a report here,” she tapped the external memory plaque on the side of her head, “That says you were seen in front of PHLECKSIZ PHACTS earlier today.” She stopped, looking at him.

It doesn’t mean anything just sitting there, but it’s an important point in the entire story…

Let me know what you think about the first sentences above. I would appreciate it if you’d just each one according to the following criteria:

1) Which one makes a specific point? (Cron)
2) Which one makes you wonder what you’re going to learn from it that will help you make it through the night? (Cron)3) Which one makes you wonder what inside intel about how to best navigate this mortal coil? (Cron)
4) I started my story with a scene, but should I have started it with a conflict, mystery, narration (first or third person), a quote, or a puzzle? (Anders)
5) Did any of those sentences convince you that it somehow embodies the entire story to follow? (Gibson)

Image: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/51ddbf8fe4b0bf85e2f4edd2/t/592c2f0b414fb5ddd3a1259d/1496067864402/BookImage.jpg?format=300w

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 510

Each Tuesday, rather than a POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY, I'd like to both challenge you and lend a helping hand. I generate more speculative and teen story ideas than I can ever use. My family rolls its collective eyes when I say, "Hang on a second! I just have to write down this idea..." Here, I'll include the initial inspiration (quote, website, podcast, etc) and then a thought or two that came to mind. These will simply be seeds -- plant, nurture, fertilize, chemically treat, irradiate, test or stress them as you see fit. I only ask if you let me know if anything comes of them.

F Trope: transmutation (reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmutation)
“Transmutation circle, a circle used to perform alchemy” I think I’m going to mine THIS idea in various ways for a while!
Current Event: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZjp32EiTzM

Alchemy is thought to have been the deepest roots of the science we know as chemistry. As such, it had its origins in many, many cultures – from Pharaonic and Hellenic Egypt, Eighth Century Arabia (the name “chemistry” comes from an Arabic word, al-kimia), Medieval and Renaissance Europe, India, and China – then matured into the science.

Ishaq ibn Musa and Meitreyi Nur Jehan are friends at Obama Middle School. Ishaq – who tries really hard to go by the nickname, IM – was skimming TreeFlicks (3D online streaming videos) when he downloaded a flik of a person drawing a transmutation circle.

He got the measurements and veeked – visually communicated – with Meity J and told her to meet him at a nearby playground after school...

Meity waited for Immy with her arms folded over her chest. It was cold today, even though it was late August. “So much for Anthropogenic Global Cooling,” she muttered. She veeked him again, but he wasn’t answering.

Suddenly someone behind her shouted, “Boo!”

Meity J turned around and said, “It’s not even close to Halloween yet Immy.”

He grunted and said, “Who spat in your bean curd?”

“No one! It’s just that I have a hundred things to do before school starts next Tuesday!”

“Like what? We’re just starting a new school. Nothing’s going to be different...”

“Except in high school, we might actually get to see a physical teacher!”

He grunted and put down a small plastic bucket. His jacket bulged in odd directions, as if he were carrying packages underneath. “That has about as much of a chance happening as me turning you into an oriole.”

“Orioles are extinct,” she said, irritated that he chose NOW to pick on her favorite extinct animal. “That was really mean of you.”

“What,” he said, straightening up, “If I told you I could turn a pigeon into an oriole?”

“I’d say, ‘fat lot of good that will do the species!’ You can’t repopulate a species with one bird, stupid!”

With a flourish, he reached under his jacket and pulled out a plastic box. Inside, something brilliantly orange and black squirmed. He said, “What if you had one male and one female?” He popped the top off and an oriole – the first one Meity J had seen since she was a kindergartner and her director had used query markers on colorful birds to lead the class to a discussion about ‘extinction’ – flew out. He removed another box. This one had a pigeon in it.

“What are you going to do with that thing?”

He grinned, set the box down and started clearing a circle on the concrete game square. “We’re going to make a transmutation square and start making orioles out of pigeons!”

Meity J scowled for a bit, then said…

Image: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/98/71/e5/9871e52bbc09c525af21b8f6471eab15.jpg

Slice of PIE: The Increasing Helplessness Caused By Anthropogenic Global Warming Is The REAL Danger To Humanity!!!

NOT using the Programme Guide of the 2020 World Science Fiction Convention, ConZEALAND (The First Virtual World Science Fiction Convention; to which I be unable to go (until I retire from education – which I now have!)), I WOULD jump off, jump on, rail against, and shamelessly agree with the BRIEF DESCRIPTION given in the pdf copy of the Program Guide. But not today. This explanation is reserved for when I dash “off topic”, sometimes reviewing movies, sometimes reviewing books, and other times taking up the spirit of a blog an old friend of mine used to keep called THE RANTING ROOM…

It used to be that a normal guy like me, along with his family, could DO something about pollution. We could throw stuff in our green carts and boxes to be recycled.

I got used to seeing, “Reduce. Reuse. Recycle.”

In the 1970s, as I was growing up, we had Earth Days. Entire schools would turn out to clean up waterways, pick up highways, and generally become better stewards of the Earth. We could do our part! We could help save the Earth – though no one ever, actually thought it was the EARTH that needed saving, but WE who needed saving.

At least some of us understood it that way…

I read Rachel Carson’s SILENT SPRING when I was fifteen. I did my part. As a classroom teacher, I ran off “overheads” https://i.redd.it/rwoqn01wlna71.jpg of 50 THINGS YOU CAN DO TO SAVE THE EARTH. https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/4...
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/2Mkwhe6LOBo/maxresdefault.jpg
https://api.getepic.com/utils/resize.jpg?jpg_quality=100&url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.getepic.com%2Fdrm%2F2%2F75182%2Fcover_large%402x.png&width=600
https://s18670.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/this-class-can-save-the-planet-400x400.jpg and worked to create students who could do their part to fight pollution.

And then, this happened: https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51PUuqcrldL._SX339_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg (it’s also clear that the “exemplary board leaders”, who are “the greatest minds in governance” hadn’t read the book, because they ignore the book’s advice.)

We, as a SPECIES were the only thing that stood between extinction and flourishing. It was clear then, that as a single member of the God Species, I was hopelessly helpless. There was NOTHING I could do to save the Earth. I couldn’t possibly speak for any kind of Accord with people in China or India or Uzbekistan or American Samoa…the ONLY people who could make the changes necessary to SAVE THE EARTH now were governments, multinational corporations, billionaire manufacturing companies, and of course the Mother of All Organizations, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

The IPCC “an intergovernmental body of the United Nations mandated to provide objective scientific information relevant to understanding human-induced climate change, its natural, political, and economic impacts and risks, and possible response options.” There are 195 members of the IPCC (see list here: https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2019/02/ipcc_members.pdf)

For me, the message is clear: “Buzz off, buster, and let the smart people (ie, politicians and scientists, both with numerous and impressive degrees and years of experience in handling BIG problems) save the world!”

If you want it in more inclusive language: “NACD Summit is the largest and most influential director’s forum in the world, attracting more than 3,600 professionals from across the globe…NACD Summit is where the greatest minds in governance convene to take on the most important issues facing today’s boardrooms, collectively discovering the future of exemplary board leadership.”

The invitation is quite clear: only “exemplary board leaders”, who are “the greatest minds in governance” need apply.

“You, puny normal person, can best serve by supporting the IPCC and other GOVERNMENTAL bodies without question and immediately, because they really KNOW what they’re doing because they are the greatest minds in governance…”

Is it any wonder that normal people are objecting to the government telling them what to do? It’s not just in the US (as certain congresspeople would like you to think). France is in turmoil over mandated COVID identification; China has lifted its ban on having more than two children – a third is now welcome (on a stage of impending scarcity, why has this move gone virtually unremarked by the exemplary board leaders and the greatest minds in governance? Even the scientific community has remained silent – when it’s clear that MORE mouths than ever before will clearly stress an already bending world. Australia, that “polite land down under” is experiencing social disruption (https://www.spectator.com.au/2020/06/lockdown-and-the-new-left-privilege/); and everywhere, there’s growing concern about what to do with your Tesla’s battery when it gives out (https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/05/millions-electric-cars-are-coming-what-happens-all-dead-batteries -- lots of ideas, but no real plan…) and the blades of broken windmills are ALSO a problem the new green economy hasn’t solved yet: https://www.azocleantech.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=1209.

Will they be? Well…there IS a solution to handle nuclear waste safely – but no one can execute the plan because too many transit points between the spent reactor cores and the storage facility standing empty while Humans argue about the danger of moving the cores…and they’ve been arguing for over 34 years with one administration telling everyone THEY had a plan…and then doing nothing about it…(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste_repository)
I hope the plans to deal with electric car batteries and windmill blades fare better than the plan to deal with spent nuclear fuel rods.

As well, the media and those very same exemplary government leaders, have forgotten to comment that the population of California has risen by over a six million in the past ten years; and Los Angeles gets 100% of its drinking water from the Colorado River – through a massive civil engineering project that is 242 miles (389 km) long (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_River_Aqueduct). Even so, the nation is shocked that fires break out in California – though RECORDS of wildfires have been kept since 1932, California became a state in 1850. The current claim is that the worst fires have happened ONLY since 2000. Hmmm…use the tool. It’s amazingly useful, yet no TV broadcast I’ve seen has used it. It puts California’s wildfires into historical perspective. Amazingly in perspective…

So, do I believe that the climate isn’t changing?
I DO believe Earth’s climate is changing. Ten thousand years ago, my desk would have been under a glacier nearly two kilometers thick. The glaciers melted and inundated the Earth. LIFE did not vanish. Humans may have become scarce, but life adapted.

Do I believe that the god-like powers of Humanity are destroying the planet and wreaking so much havoc on it that massive governmental intervention is the only possible solution to stop us from destroying the planet?
I do not believe that. It’s true, Humanity may vanish, but life will remain. Will there be suffering? Yes; but there is suffering in Washington DC, and Beijing, and on the French Riviera, and in Kabul, and in Tokyo (the wealthiest city on Earth) even today, as there has been since these cities were founded.

However, I especially do not believe that we can change our ways by decree of the “greatest minds in government” and the "exemplary board leaders" and the world's most BRILLIANT scientists...

Oh, I could certainly buy a Tesla to save the Earth! I could certainly make sure that scientists flew on jets to meet in the next Real IPCC World Accord Conference, because the Paris Accords were RUINED by stupid people!

But the only part of that sentence that makes any sense to me is “stupid people”, and board leaders, governments, and scientists are all made up of those very same "stupid people". There's one typing this essay, actually.

Image: https://www.compliancesigns.com/media/catalog/product/r/e/recycle-sign-nhb-14263_1000.gif

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 509

Each Tuesday, rather than a POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY, I'd like to both challenge you and lend a helping hand. I generate more speculative and teen story ideas than I can ever use. My family rolls its collective eyes when I say, "Hang on a second! I just have to write down this idea..." Here, I'll include the initial inspiration (quote, website, podcast, etc) and then a thought or two that came to mind. These will simply be seeds -- plant, nurture, fertilize, chemically treat, irradiate, test or stress them as you see fit. I only ask if you let me know if anything comes of them.

SF Trope: robots
Current Event: http://www.livescience.com/topics/robots/

“The Serpent In Eden, Nebraska”

Caleb Ogallala stared at the hole in the ground. “‘bout wide enough for me to get my arm down. Probably to my elbow,” he said. Looking up at his sister, Isabella Pearson nee Ogallala, he said, “You probably don’t believe I saw what I said I saw.”

Isabella – who went by Bell at SolaRobotics in the far, frozen northland of Winnipeg – said, “You’re my brother and I believe you saw what you thought you saw.”

“Not the same thing. You may be all of twenty-three and all I am is seventeen, but I know what I saw. It was a robot shaped like a snake and it dug this here hole.”

Bell winced at the Plainsism. She’d barely managed to ditch the weird accent after she did her undergrad work at the University of Minnesota. She’d finally got that accent right. Now she was struggling to fit in at her newly adopted home in Canada. She nodded, then squatted, “All right then. I apologize. You saw a robot shaped like a snake go down this hole.” She looked up at her brother. He didn’t seem as happy as he used to. Mom and Dad dying from MERS while she was away at college probably hadn’t helped with the mood. Not that their family laughed much. Salt-of-the-Earth Dad had called them...She shook off the melancholy image and shielded her eyes with her hand as she said, “First question is: has the county let the prairie dogs back in?”

His lips twitched in a smile. It was the first one since he’d picked her up at the skip-port in Ogallala, sixty klicks straight north of here. He said, “Not that I know of, but people ‘round here, they don’t much trust nobody’s government, even when it’s the Accordion Party.”

She stood and straightened up, “It’s the Accord Party.”

He shrugged then said, “It had your logo on it.”

“What?” she said, suddenly intent.

“The second letter of your name the round sun with black diamond eyes. It was on the snake head.”

Unexpectedly, Bell was cold despite the heat from the late morning sun…

Names: Nebraska, Nebraska ♀ ; Nebraska, Nebraska ♂ Image: https://mk0spaceflightnoa02a.kinstacdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/49956692363_f73a7a6a69_k.jpg

WRITING ADVICE: Creating Alien Aliens, Part 9: Aliens In OUR Solar System?

In September of 2007, I started this blog with a bit of writing advice. A little over a year later, I discovered how little I knew about writing after hearing children’s writer, Lin Oliver speak at a convention hosted by the Minnesota Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. Since then, I have shared (with their permission) and applied the writing wisdom of Lin Oliver, Jack McDevitt, Nathan Bransford, Mike Duran, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, SL Veihl, Bruce Bethke, and Julie Czerneda. Together they write in genres broad and deep, and have acted as agents, editors, publishers, columnists, and teachers. Since then, I figured I’ve got enough publications now that I can share some of the things I did “right”.

While I don’t write full-time, nor do I make enough money with my writing to live off of it...neither do all of the professional writers above...someone pays for and publishes ten percent of what I write. When I started this blog, that was NOT true, so I may have reached a point where my own advice is reasonably good. We shall see! Hemingway’s quote above will now remain unchanged as I work to increase my writing output and sales! As always, your comments are welcome!

Part 1: https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2020/01/slice-of-pie-creating-alien-aliens.html
Part 2: https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2020/02/slice-of-pie-creating-alien-aliens-part.html
Part 3: https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2020/02/slice-of-pie-creating-alien-aliens.html
Part 4: https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2020/04/slice-of-pie-creating-alien-aliens-part.html
Part 5: https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2020/09/writing-advice-creating-alien-aliens.html
Part 6: https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2021/02/writing-advice-creating-alien-aliens.html
Part 7: https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2021/04/writing-advice-creating-alien-aliens.html
Part 8: https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2021/05/writing-advice-creating-alien-aliens.html

There have been discussions regarding aliens in our own Solar System since before HG Wells penned WAR OF THE WORLDS in 1897. In that classic, the aliens are from Mars and though we conceivably have the same basis for life, DNA, we still don’t understand the aliens.

I might point out that the MARTIANS don’t understand alien life either!

Sarah Zettel postulates not only do Humans live in the clouds of Venus, but there was an ancient alien civilization on the surface…an now another set of aliens are looking for a new home…The Sabre Project of the short film, “Mindslaughter” has Humans terraforming Venus in a flash and discovering too late that the millipede-like aliens had not only an underground society, but had written records. There are of course, the series of Venusian adventures of ER Burroughs.

CS Lewis saw aliens on Perelandra and Malacandra (Venus and Mars to us), as wildly varied as life on Earth – but entirely different spiritually. Where Humanity had it’s Adam and Eve moment and FAILED the test, Mars passed it and Venus is on “the night before the exam”. AC Clarke had aliens on Mercury.

In fiction, Jupiter and its moons host alien life as well, as do Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto/Charon/et al. There are alien worlds likely beyond the edge of the Solar System and into the near-interstellar Oort Cloud.

So, what ABOUT alien life in the Solar System? What ABOUT us ignoring it because it doesn’t conform to what we’ve decided “alien life” should be. STAR WARS, STAR TREK, and most of the UFO (or now, officially, Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon, or UAPs) community are determined to believe that life out there is basically just like life here…except the fact is that, we haven’t even explored HERE to any extent and we’re already postulating Interstellar (or even Intergalactic!) Civilizations without even making an attempt at discovering life as we do/don’t know it right here.

We’re more-or-less sure that there are no detectable radio signals coming from any of the planets in the SS, except for ones we’re sending back ourselves. But, what about OTHER kinds of signals?

NO: I CATEGORICALLY REJECT TELEPATHIC POWERS AS ANYTHING BUT A PLOT DEVICE FOR STORIES THAT WON’T WORK WITHOUT IT…I’m (kinda) sorry, but I don’t allow my little kids to do it in the Alien Worlds class I teach (for recent article I wrote on it, go here: https://theworkandworksheetsofguystewart.blogspot.com/2020/11/ideas-for-how-to-teach-writing-class.html). I’m neither going to use it myself nor believe that the only way we’re be able to communicate with intelligent alien life is by certain people being able to “thought talk”… (Have you ever thought of how incredibly complex talking to another HUMAN would be telepathically? How would you keep your thoughts to yourself? Could they randomly go wandering around inside your head? And what language would people THINK in? STAR TREK’s “Devil In the Dark” came close to almost making it realistic when Spock telepathically tried to talk to the Mother Horta and only got searing waves of PAIN!)

Anyway, how about we see if we can contact aliens on Earth? How about ones that your local chapter of Save Whatever Animal You Want To routinely point out that are near-Human intelligence? Chimpanzees? What about communicating with Elephants? (If aliens like Vulcans, Endomorphs, Hutts, Heptapods – and all the other ones get to have capitalized names, then Dolphins, Chimpanzees, (both of which weren’t all that smart and needed our intervention to Uplift in David Brin’s Uplift novels…) Dogs, Cats, Elephants, and the rest some people believe are practically Human…should be our priority for communication.

But except for a few freaky Gorillas and Chimps and Dolphins whom we’ve taught pidgin forms of English, we honestly don’t CARE about communicating with them, not on any real level.

We want the Wookies! Show us the Andorians! Send us ET! Lemme talk to the Worm Aliens! Where is Optimus Prime? Maybe the Great Gazoo? Fine then, where’s Superman? One of the Lantern Corps aliens? OK, I’ll take the Pug…

But, no. I honestly don’t think we’re ready! We’re not even interested in talking to the aliens on Earth, and the Benevolent All-Mind sees that. Aliens from around the Solar System, Alpha Centauri A, the Near Stars, or the Orion Arm don’t seem interested in chatting with us…or even invading us for that matter! We’re left blinking wide-eyed and looking up to the night sky and wondering if Fermi was right: “In the summer of 1950 with fellow physicists Edward Teller, Herbert York, and Emil Konopinski, while walking to lunch, the men discussed recent UFO reports and the possibility of faster-than-light travel. The conversation moved on to other topics, until during lunch Fermi allegedly said suddenly, ‘But where is everybody?’”

Where, indeed. Perhaps, people, the aliens are right here in our zoos…

Sources:
Mercury – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_in_fiction
Venus – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_in_fiction
Mars – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_in_fiction
Jupiter and its Moons – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jupiter_in_fiction
Saturn and its Moons – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_in_fiction
Uranus and its Moons – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranus_in_fiction
Neptune and its Moons – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neptune_in_fiction
Trans-Neptunian Objects – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluto_in_fiction, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Neptunian_objects_in_fiction Image: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/30/91/a9/3091a970dc71d6747e6a562a5b79384f.jpg

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 508

Each Tuesday, rather than a POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY, I'd like to both challenge you and lend a helping hand. I generate more speculative and teen story ideas than I can ever use. My family rolls its collective eyes when I say, "Hang on a second! I just have to write down this idea..." Here, I'll include the initial inspiration (quote, website, podcast, etc.) and then a thought or two that came to mind. These will simply be seeds -- plant, nurture, fertilize, chemically treat, irradiate, test or stress them as you see fit. I only ask if you let me know if anything comes of them. Octavia Butler said, “SF doesn’t really mean anything at all, except that if you use science, you should use it correctly, and if you use your imagination to extend it beyond what we already know, you should do that intelligently.”

SF Trope: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AmusingAlien
Current Event: http://meninblack.wikia.com/wiki/Frank_the_Pug

Ri looked over at his Human handlers and said, “What’dyou think this is, WHEN THE TRIPODS CAME?”

Aradhya Morais shook her head, “Of course not. You’re not funny.”

Heitor Saigal managed to choke back a guffaw as the alien inflated its side-of-body sacks, something they’d come to recognize as his look of indignation.

Ri said, “I am very funny! Among my birth-moment peers, I am considered a real cut off!”

“You mean a ‘cut up’, don’t you?” said Aradhya after she snorted. Heitor was pretty sure she had no idea she did it. It had bugged him during their first months together, but as they’d been matched with [image error]by the command structures of both Humanity and its people.

“Humans have their metaphors, we have ours – only it’s not a metaphor.”

Heitor frowned, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“What it says. I am a ‘cut off’. A Big Mistake.” With that, Ri hurried ahead of them.

Aradhya had said “scuttle” more than once, because the aliens looked more like large crabs than anything else – though they looked like crabs as much as a chimpanzee looked like a Human. She leaned over to Heitor and said, “What do you suppose it means?”

Heitor shrugged, “Its an alien – we’ve only been hanging around each other for four weeks. What do you think it means?”

From around the corner,  bent the tube it used to whistle through and more-or-less speak its oddly accented English-Portugeuse patois and said, “It means exactly what it sounds like. My people sent a wasted life to be the Contact team to you Earth people…”

Names: ♀ India, Brazil; ♂ Brazil, India, Klingon is barely spoken correctly “qaPla” which is roughly “success” – but this isn’t Star Trek, so it is barely spoken “ri” which means, in Alien language, “a grave mistake”

Image: https://mk0spaceflightnoa02a.kinstacdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/49956692363_f73a7a6a69_k.jpg

WRITING ADVICE: Short Stories – Advice and Observation #10: Octavia Butler “& Me”

In this feature, I’ll be looking at “advice” for writing short stories – not from me, but from other short story writers. In speculative fiction, “short” has very carefully delineated categories: “The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America specifies word lengths for each category of its Nebula award categories by word count; Novel 40,000 words or over; Novella 17,500 to 39,999 words; Novelette 7,500 to 17,499 words; Short story under 7,500 words.”

I’m going to use advice from people who, in addition to writing novels, have also spent plenty of time “interning” with short stories. While most of them are speculative fiction writers, I’ll also be looking at plain, old, effective short story writers. The advice will be in the form of one or several quotes off of which I’ll jump and connect it with my own writing experience. While I don’t write full-time, nor do I make enough money with my writing to live off of it...neither do most of the professional writers...someone pays for and publishes ten percent of what I write. When I started this blog, that was NOT true, so I may have reached a point where my own advice is reasonably good. We shall see! Hemingway’s quote above will now remain unchanged as I work to increase my writing output and sales! As always, your comments are welcome!
Without further ado, short story observations by – with a few from myself…

“Her fresh approach to what some might consider a nonliterary genre framed serious and often controversial topics through a literary lens. Tackling subjects such as power, race, gender, sexuality, religion, economic and social status, the environment, and humanity, Butler combined the tropes of science fiction and fantasy with a tightly rendered and entertaining prose style.” – Natalie Russel, Assistant Curator of Literary Collections; The Huntington: Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens

“‘The one thing that I and my main characters never do when contemplating the future is to give up hope.’”(Huntington)

I have been writing like this ever since I started writing. In fact, I recently wrote about how I think that the point of view of much science fiction has change from generally positive futures, to darker, grimmer futures. Again, I wrote about it here: https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2021/07/possibly-irritating-essays-science.html

“For Butler, writing was first and foremost about telling a good story. Challenged by writer’s block and self-doubt, she kept at it, finding in renewed efforts the ultimate path to success. Butler’s relatable, flawed, passionate characters help us question ourselves and see our place in the world with more clarity.” (Huntington)

Maybe part of my problem lately is that my characters aren’t relatable. OK…I just thought of one character is so consistently unpleasant, I’m wondering what I created him out of. Oh, that’s right…I created him out of MYSELF. Hmmm, I think there may be both food for thought and a path back to where I usually am.

“Any optimism that Butler felt about her writing as she returned from Clarion evaporated as The Last Dangerous Visions—the book that was supposed to make her career—languished, and her subsequent stories accumulated rejection after rejection. At times she felt like the only thing that Clarion had gotten her was additional debt, as she struggled to pay back the loans she had undertaken from friends and family to attend the workshop in the first place. Her letters from this period to her Clarion friends evince a preoccupation with the sales side of the business: who is selling, who isn’t...” (Gerry Canavan, Octavia E. Butler)

WHOA! I SO GET THIS!!! It’s where I am right now. I haven’t sold anything for the past two years. I continually go back to “What am I doing wrong? Have I lost any modicum of skill or talent I’ve gained for the past forty years?” I was feeling stupid feeling that way, but I find here that Octavia Butler had similar pangs and misgivings.

“‘When I began writing science fiction,’ Butler once told an interviewer, ‘when I began reading, heck, I wasn't in any of this stuff I read. [. . . ] The only black people you found were occasional characters or characters who were so feeble-witted that they couldn't manage anything, anyway. I wrote myself in, since I'm me and I'm here and I'm writing.’ Butler’s act of writing herself in transformed the science fiction genre in ways that are still being felt today.”

While it’s impossible for me to feel this way, being a bofwhig (my personal acronym for “big, old, fat, white guy”) I had every advantage and opportunity presented to me, I CAN read, talk to people, and learn. A YA novel I wrote was based on behaviors and thoughts some of my students had at Cooper while I was teaching. For one of the drafts, I had a friend of my daughter’s, a son of Somalian immigrants and a poet in his own right, read the story and offer up excellent commentary and advice – virtually all of which I incorporated into the book (which was subbed by my agent 17 times, was in the top 25 of the old AMAZON novel-search contest, and garnered some interest). But the writing on certain walls never allowed it to be picked; though I’m hoping to learn more from a book I wrote about a year ago: https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2020/07/possibly-irritating-essay-its-mistake.html

“Writing for publication may be both the easiest and the hardest thing you’ll ever do. Learning the rules — if they can be called rules — is the easy part. Following them, turning them into regular habits, is an ongoing struggle.”

Here are the rules:

1. Read widely both the stuff you want to write and HOW to write better.

2. Writing is communication. You need other people to let you know whether you’re communicating what you think you are and whether you’re doing it in ways that are not only accessible and entertaining, but as compelling as you can make them.
3. Write. Write every day. Write whether you feel like writing or not.

4. Revise your writing until it’s as good as you can make it.

5. Submit your work for publication. First research the markets that interest you. Seek out and study the books or magazines of publishers to whom you want to sell.

6. Forget inspiration. Habit will help you finish and polish your stories. Inspiration won’t. Habit is persistence and practice.

7. Forget talent. If you have it, fine. Use it. If you don’t have it, it doesn’t matter. As habit is more dependable than inspiration, continued learning is more dependable than talent.

8. Don’t worry about imagination. You have all the imagination you need, and all the reading, journaling, writing, and learning you will be doing will stimulate it. Play with your ideas. Have fun with them.

9. Persist.

What does ANY of this have to do with me?

Octavia Butler is everything I’m not: a woman, black, famous, experienced, wise, and incredibly smart. All I have to fall back on is #9, which is to persist.

I KNOW I’ve written stuff good enough to get into ANALOG, STUPEFYING STORIES, CAST OF WONDERS, and other science fiction venues. I’m not being published right now, but maybe (MAYBE!) I’m in a learning phase. Maybe I’ve finally reached a point where I can either sink or start to swim like an Olympian (this is being written during the 2020 Summer Olympics Which Are Actually Being Held In 2021)!

There are amazing swimmers this year, and the first ever coed relay team ABSOLUTELY DISPLAYED HOW THE STRENGTHS OF MEN AND WOMEN CAN COMPLEMENT EACH OTHER! No shock there, but to see it so clearly displayed was incredible!

Once again, I’ve learned things I didn’t know I did that I may be learning better as I read and reread the advice, articles, and books of Octavia Butler.

References: http://media.huntington.org/uploadedfiles/Files/PDFs/Octavia_E_Butler_Gallery-Guide.pdf, https://pdfcoffee.com/conversations-with-octavia-butlerpdf-5-pdf-free.html, https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/j.ctt1hfr05s, https://www.writerswrite.co.za/octavia-e-butlers-writing-advice/, https://apilgriminnarnia.com/2018/03/26/rules-of-sf-writing/
Image: https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41JNnybcihL._SX331_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 507

Each Tuesday, rather than a POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY, I'd like to both challenge you and lend a helping hand. I generate more speculative and teen story ideas than I can ever use. My family rolls its collective eyes when I say, "Hang on a second! I just have to write down this idea..." Here, I'll include the initial inspiration (quote, website, podcast, etc.) and then a thought or two that came to mind. These will simply be seeds -- plant, nurture, fertilize, chemically treat, irradiate, test or stress them as you see fit. I only ask if you let me know if anything comes of them. Regarding horror, I found this insight in line with WIRED FOR STORY: “ We seek out…stories which give us a place to put our fears…Stories that frighten us or unsettle us - not just horror stories, but ones that make us uncomfortable or that strike a chord somewhere deep inside - give us the means to explore the things that scare us…” – Lou Morgan (The Guardian)

H Trope: The Adjectival Man
Current Event: http://ktla.com/2013/08/08/suspect-in-murder-of-fontana-father-commits-suicide/#axzz2dD6in844

Ajdin Paixão shook his head and said, “Are you sure we should be here?”

Magdalena Aggrawal made a face – as if she’d accidentally bitten into an orange that had been sitting on a warm shelf in a closed refrigerator for three weeks. “’course. You afraid?”

“Yes. Very.”

Magdalena – who did NOT go by “Maggie, Meg, or any other American abbreviation of my name” – shook her head. “What’s the worst thing that can happen?”

“The worst? It turns out that The Creeping Man is real and he’s mad at us for spying on his private life.”

Magdalena snorted. “It’s not like he can run us down. That’s why he’s called The Creeping Man.”

Ajdin glanced to either side then lifted his chin at the clean, dark lab in front of them. “It’s not like monsters usually inhabit science labs. They’re more associated with dungeons with dripping water and cobwebs.”

She snorted again, “This might as well be a dungeon. I don’t think I’ve seen a bar or restaurant since we started school.”

His voice lowered as he muttered, “Not like I haven’t tried...”

She slugged him just as the sound of a heavy object, like a refrigerator or a filing cabinet ground loudly across the plastic sealed concrete floor. Filing cabinets having gone extinct decades earlier – even their fossil-of-a-professor only had two in his office – that left only one of the lab’s six refrigerators. Magdalena whispered, “He lives under a refrigerator?”

“If you were The Creeping Man, where would you live?”

“In a penthouse apartment?”

“That would make Creeping really difficult, don’t you think?”

“Shut up!” she stood up, peering over the lab table, Ajdin mirroring her every move.

The Creeping Man saw them the instant they saw him. He was emerging from under a fridge which was tipped back as if it was glued to the trapdoor The Creeping Man held up with one hand. He squeaked a wet, gargled exclamation, lurching forward, releasing the trapdoor with the refrigerator attached to it.

It slammed down, cutting him in half, spattering blood and entrails and gore on to the refrigerator’s white surface and across the gray floor.

Magdalena screamed, “We killed him!” Ajdin stared then gagged as The Creeping Man – or rather half of him – began to creep across the lab’s floor toward them…

Names: ♀ Liechtenstein, Portugal; ♂ Bosnia/Herzegovina, India
Image: https://cdn.britannica.com/40/11740-004-50816EB1/Boris-Karloff-Frankenstein-monster.jpg