Chris Raiin's Blog, page 2

Let’s talk about aliens…

An FB friend asked (paraphrased), “In sci-fi, what is your take on aliens? One main school of thought is that alien life would be just that, alien. So bizarre as to be unintelligible to humanity.”

Call this a belief, but, despite claims by some scientific minds far smarter than my own, I don’t think alien life forms would be “unintelligible.” Vastly different and bizarre, certainly, but, “Nothing on earth or beyond it is closed to the power of man’s reason” (Ayn Rand, “Apollo 11” in The Voice of Reason, p. 176). It may take time—centuries—to understand, but the mysteries of our universe eventually yield to rational investigation, and this will include alien species. Of course, a great story could come from this initial state of non-understanding between humans and aliens. Just think of the movies Independence Day and Contact, let alone dozens of great scifi novels.

 When it comes to fiction, though, I respect the author who makes a genuine attempt to show a bizarre, nearly unintelligible alien species. Amy Thomson knocked it out of the park in The Color of Distance, in which the aliens spoke via their skin, which changed color to both display emotion and express thought. Orson Scott Card did a nice job with his Formics in The First Formic War trilogy. Humans’ inability to communicate with Formics led to war. The Formics, for their part, communicated telepathically, and, sensing no telepathic activity from humans, simply assumed that humans were a dumb animal species and acted accordingly, much like how humans disturb the habitats of animal species on Earth (but that’s another topic).

Ultimately, as a reader and writer, I need intelligible—even if bizarre—aliens. Eventually, Thomson’s human protagonist learned to speak with the aliens (I think she adapted her spacesuit to emit color). Card’s Formics and Humans, too, eventually learned to communicate and negotiate. For a writer to stick to the premise that alien species would simply and forever be “unintelligible” to humans would lead to a novel that, I think, very few readers would accept, let alone be able to appreciate. I don’t disparage a writer who wants to try it, and in fact, I’ll wish such writers good luck! Because they’ll need it.

On a final note, Card makes great points about writers developing alien species in his book, How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy. I’ll share two of them. First, Card says, “Whenever you invent an alien creature, you should invest a great deal of effort in determining why, in evolutionary terms, its unusual features would have developed” (p. 50). Second, he reminds writers that an alien species ought to be as culturally and politically diverse as our own. Nothing screams amateur more than writing about an alien species whose members are all warriors or all philosophers or all greedy.

Ultimately, stories in any genre are about humans. Even if all the characters are non-humans, the story itself deals with human themes for human readers. Making aliens intelligible, evolutionarily unique, and at least as diverse as human society creates beautiful, memorable science fiction.

I mentioned The Color of Distance and The First Formic War trilogy. What books featuring memorable aliens have you read? Why were they memorable? Thanks for reading!

How long does it take to create a fantasy world?

I’m part of a Scifi/Fantasy group on Facebook, and a group member and fellow SFF writer asked everyone, “Who has created their own fantasy world? And how long did it take you?”

“Has created”—as in, “has finished creating it”—is a key term for me here. Right now, I’m releasing a series of novelettes set in a fantasy world (watch the video trailer for Book 1 here). I’m putting honest effort into the project, but mostly it’s an exercise in unleashing creativity. In other words, instead of fully building the world, plot, and characters first, I’m building the world—novelette by novelette—as I go, seeing where my wild ideas take me…and where they take my young fictional hero. This is counter to most advice pro SFF writers give, but in terms of unleashing creativity, I’ve found it beneficial.

So to return to the question, building enough of the world for the first and second novelettes (I’ve written the first and will publish it soon; I’m writing the second now) took me a couple weeks of solid work. That timeframe has to do with the length of the stories, of course. After all, novelettes don’t require nearly as much world building as novels (generally speaking). The short time frame also has to do with the limited scope. Because I’m building the world as I go, I’ve decided to limit each novelette to one major setting. For example, the first novelette is set aboard an old ship in the ocean. (It is also set in a forest in our world, but standard real-world rules apply there, so I don’t count it as part of the world building, per se.) The second novelette is set on a small island. You can see the connection between the two settings (a ship sails to an island), which helps me build the world steadily—in other words, I’m not jumping between wildly different settings, like the deck of a sea ship to the heart of a dragon layer. There’s nothing wrong with such a wild leap, of course, but when you’re making up the world as you go, that kind of leap between settings and situations might lead to inconsistent world building.

So the point is, as I build the world, focusing on one particular, major setting at a time helps me shape essentials without getting mixed up. In my world, for example, I know the sky is red, stars are visible in daylight, ghosts exist but have limited ability to interact, and imagination—creative thought—can influence the world, but not necessarily save the protagonist (if he’s hungry, he can imagine himself full; but if he is wounded, he cannot imagine himself healed). These little rules develop according to the small plot and single major setting I work with when I outline, then write, each novelette. But as I go, I keep side notes about these “rules of the world” so that when I continue writing future novelettes, I can build the world consistently.

I guess the short answer to the question is it all depends. Not exactly a helpful answer, but I hope my comments have provided useful factors to consider.

Have you built a fantasy world before? What’s your favorite fantasy world in literature? Thanks for reading!

Finding scifi/fantasy heroes in Hellenistic bronze

This post featured in Stonecarving Weekly.

Attributed to Lysippos [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

I’m writing this from the cafeteria of the Getty Center, in Los Angeles, having just come from the Center’s new exhibit, Power & Pathos: Bronze Sculpture in the Hellenistic World. It contains my favorite piece of art ever: the Victorious Youth. Why is it my favorite? I’m not entirely sure. I find new answers every time I think about it. The title itself is inspiring, although the title was given it by its discoverers, and not by its creator. But Victorious Youth inspired me even before I learned its title. The bronze is life-sized and of a real young man who has just won recent athletic games. He probably comes from a small town of the Hellenistic world, and his fellow townspeople are crowning him with a modest, but honorable, laurel wreath. His raised hand gestures toward the laurel wreath, acknowledging his victory, perhaps proudly, but certainly quietly. Loud pride is often perceived as arrogance, but quiet pride tends to command respect. The bronze itself is “quiet.” Most bronzes I’ve seen focus on a twisting form, an exaggerated gesture (like the arm of an orator stretched out toward his audience), or the figure’s clothes. But Victorious Youth is tranquil. He stands comfortably, yet the stance displays his young, athletic build. He gestures, but as I said, it is a quiet gesture that acknowledges, without bragging about, his accomplishment. This is what I see, and it inspires my writing.

Hellenistic bronze sculptures offer much inspiration to the science fiction and fantasy writer. From them, we SFF writers can extrapolate and build heroes worthy of the worlds and adventures we create for them, and worthy of the readers who are willing to follow these heroes in their journey. Heroes of Ancient Greece—not the gods; I mean the flesh-and-blood human beings who lived, worked, triumphed, and thus inspired real bronze sculptures—speak of the best within humanity. For me, Ancient Greece represents the height of civilization in terms of thought, creativity, culture, and of course, philosophy. Often, this is what the scifi/fantasy writer strives to achieve—that is, he strives to create worlds and characters that reveal thought, creativity, culture, and philosophy different from today’s modern world.

This is not to say that our modern world is tragic or lacking. Certainly, our world has war, famine, disease, and poverty, but these—sadly—are nothing new. Still, our world, like Ancient Greece, is full of thought, creativity, culture, and philosophy—and some of it is actually great! We writers, as unassuming contributors to that greatness, seek to distill what we see of modern and ancient culture and create worlds of the future, past, or dimensionally-adjacent and bring it to readers in a way that entertains and influences their real, modern lives.

And that’s why it’s great to look back at ancient times and muse over the works of ancient artists, like those featured in this Getty exhibition. Every writer is unique and differs in terms of what inspires him. For me, Ancient Greece and the bronzes of the Hellenistic world awaken a sense of integrity, self-assuredness, and honesty, especially via the shameless and loving portrayal of naked mortals—men, women, and children who lived, thrived, and triumphed in, and because of, an ancient world that celebrated man and his brilliant body and mind. While I remember to give my fictional heroes flaws (it makes the story more interesting for the writer [me!] and the reader), I nevertheless enjoy building heroes based on the bronzes of the Hellenistic period, and especially based on what I see in these bronzes. After all, that is the real secret to art appreciation, especially for the writer: like it for what you think it says, and share your vision with readers.

Which pieces of art inspire you? Feel free to share a link to an artwork or exhibition in the comments. Thanks for reading!