Jackson Allen's Blog, page 11

Mike.Sierra.Echo – New Scifi Concept Art

Taking a break from writing to do some new scifi concept art for Mike Sierra Echo – added it to the main page but am posting it here for your wallpaper collection.  These are scenes from the novel, I’ll give you a  quick description below:

Our first picture is a shot of the space elevator as it travels on the NeoDiamond (a yet-to-be-invented material) that will make it possible for the space elevator to work. More detail on that later. Our second picture is when the antagonist of the story (Narcissistic Grandma) gets her scifi comuppance in the form of nanotech ‘gray goo.’ You’ll love how that comes together.

Third picture – Mike is at the space elevator launch complex in Ecuador. The complex is more like a city – you’ll find out why in chapter 12. Fourth picture – the climax of the story – Mike must steal the space elevator to save it. Along the way, stuff blows up.

So yeah – concept art to help people envision the story. You can’t just WRITE a story like that – it has to be fun. Like, how does a space elevator work, anyway? Why haven’t they built one yet? Assuming they solve all the engineering challenges, what would the space elevator like inside? How do you navigate the emotional minefields of narcissistic, controlling family? Minefields aren’t linear paths to safety, there are ways to identify and avoid danger zones. You can recover from setbacks and meltdowns. I wrote about all of that – a love-letter to a young ‘Me’ saying ‘Yes, you’re going to survive. Here’s a way to get through it.’

If the adage ‘don’t stop until you’re proud’ is true, then I feel good about stopping. The art looks great – it’s what I’m imagining in my head – feels really good to get it out into the universe so you can enjoy it, too.

Hope you enjoy the new concept art – I need to get back to work elsewhere.

Write on!

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New Scifi Short Story – Justice Heuristic

Hooray – a new scifi short story is here – Justice Heuristic is published / publishing on your favorite ebook platforms. I started writing this last year as a reaction to different current events. How bad does the world have to get before powerful people start to act with humanity and decency? What if you had a way to force them to accept what they were doing to us? What would happen next?

I pulled all that together into a single short story – here’s the description:

Justice Heuristic is a haunting exploration of guilt, consequences, and the relentless pursuit of justice. David Keller, the man who once pioneered groundbreaking AI algorithms, now finds himself trapped in a virtual prison of his own design, tormented by the very system he created. Now he’s in a world where nothing is real—except the consequences of his actions.

David’s only way out is to surrender the keys to the dangerous AI programs he built. But as the digital world tortures him with memories of his family and the damage he’s caused, he faces an impossible choice: save himself or undo the devastation he’s responsible for.

Fast-paced, thought-provoking, and darkly ironic, Justice Heuristic asks: How far will we go to escape the consequences of our actions? And can a man who caused so much harm ever find redemption?

Get a copy from your favorite bookstore

Additionally – something cool about this particular short story – it’s dedicated to @PublicWolf@vivaldi.net – I mentioned his name in the Brief Story of Kindness and Gratitude. As promised, I dedicated Justice Heuristic to him. Genuinely grateful for his support and positive inspiration. I hope you’re inspired, too.

What’s next? Justice Heuristic is published / publishing on your favorite ebook platforms and I start working on something else. Why do I say ‘publishing?’ Simple – the publication process of different platforms is anywhere from 30 hours to 30 days. Please be patient – if it’s not immediately available – it’ll be there shortly.

Write on!

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Sci-Friday #213 – Milky Way in Four Minutes!

What would it look like to travel across the Milky Way in four minutes? Our galaxy is 100,000 light-years across – traveling that distance in four minutes comes with interesting physics-related consequences. Come along for the ride as we fall into the Milky Way galaxy and back out again – take a look:



Kudos to Stargaze for this and other astronomical videos. Some fun facts about this segment:

Traveling 100,000 light-years in 4 minutes means we traveled 1,500,000 light years per hour!In a year, we would have traveled 13,140,000,000 light years, or 7.7 sextillion miles!At that speed, it takes 3.53 years to travel from one end of the universe to the other – no bathroom breaks.

So yeah, that’s what it looks like to scream across the Milky Way in four minutes. Or does it? Light, moving at light speed, looks different if you go faster than light. Per science.howstuffworks:

“You would also experience some strange visual consequences. One such consequence is called aberration, and it refers to how your entire field of view would shrink down to a tiny, tunnel-shaped “window” out in front of your spacecraft. This happens because photons (those exceedingly tiny packets of light) — even photons behind you — appear to come in from the forward direction.

“In addition, you would notice an extreme Doppler effect, which would cause light waves from stars in front of you to crowd together, making the objects appear blue. Light waves from stars behind you would spread apart and appear red … When these stars move out of your perceptible wavelength, they simply appear to fade to black or vanish against the background.”

I hope you enjoyed this dive through this scifi wonderland. Please feel welcomed to dive down the rabbit hole of every other Sci-Friday I’ve published in the past couple years. Have a great weekend!

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Scifi Superfan Roundup – A Brief Story of Kindness and Gratitude

Today, we’ve got a Scifi Superfan Roundup. This has never happened to me before – What do you do when all of your work suddenly pays off in one simple, unexpected gesture? I’ve spent years reaching out to people online, making friends, and some of them are very kind – I appreciate knowing them. It’s been difficult because A) Twitter – had to start all over again and B) Reddit – had to start all over again C) Fedia / Kbin … had to start all over again. It’s been a rollercoaster finding new ways to meet people.

Mastodon’s been working well for me – the person/creep ratio is remarkably low and I’ve been able to get to know people outside of Imgur. One of my reader fans has been an incredibly strong supporter.  Today, I pop Mastodon open after a long day of editing a novel and see that he’s gifted ten strangers a copy of my short story Mons Obituary. To say I was overwhelmed would be an understatement. I’ve had family, friends, professional contacts treat me like crap over the years. Then a moment like this arrives and I’m like … *divide by zero* I have no idea how to process this.

I wrote back and added a meme … still so many emotions. Always hoped, but never expected this kind of reaction. When somebody else believes in your art – that’s a game changer for any artist. Gratitude is the only appropriate response.

I think I’m going to dedicate my next short story to @PublicWolf – meantime, give him a follow on Mastodon. He’s good people. https://social.vivaldi.net/@PublicWolf/113194095264304314

 

 

 

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Mike Sierra Echo – Pictures of 2008 EV5

Happy Monday – enjoy some pictures of 2008 EV5 – the star of Mike Sierra Echo! We’ve talked about this Aten-class Asteroid before – it’s the perfect counterweight for a future space elevator and astronomers have done the math to prove it.

But what does 2008 EV5 – Evie the Asteroid in Mike Sierra Echo – look like? Turns out, NASA’s got some pictures. Let’s look at them together.

These pictures were taken in 2008 with the Arecibo and Goldstone planetary radars – the resolution isn’t that great because, hey – this rock is very, very far away!

From NASA / JPL: “We observed near-Earth asteroid 2008 EV5 with the Arecibo and Goldstone planetary radars and the Very Long Baseline Array during December 2008. EV5 rotates retrograde and its overall shape is a 400 ± 50 m oblate spheroid. The most prominent surface feature is a ridge parallel to the asteroid’s equa- tor that is broken by a concavity about 150 m in diameter. Otherwise the asteroid’s surface is notably smooth on decameter scales. EV5’s radar and optical albedos are consistent with either rocky or stony- iron composition. The equatorial ridge is similar to structure seen on the rubble-pile near-Earth asteroid (66391) 1999 KW4 and is consistent with YORP spin-up reconfiguring the asteroid in the past. We interpret the concavity as an impact crater. Shaking during the impact and later regolith redistribution may have erased smaller features, explaining the general lack of decameter-scale surface structure.”

Based on the pictures, NASA put together some 3D imagery – you can see the results here and above:

My first thought was ‘it looks like a walnut.’ My second thought was: ‘That little dent *sorta* makes it look like the Death Star but not really.’ Helpful imagery like this goes into the description of 2008 EV5 – Evie the Asteroid – and the space station it will support: Terminus Prime. Here’s a passage from Chapter Ten:

“Whoa, you have a space station, too?”

“We need a presence on that rock,” Dad pointed to Evie the Asteroid’s hologram. She was a large gray walnut-shaped rock – tiny rice-grain-sized habitats attached to her surface. “Nothing special at first, just enough to support elevator operations and future projects.”

“Let me see.” Dad let me zoom the holo into Evie the Asteroid’s lumpy surface. I studied her two hemispheres, feeling an odd kinship with the alien object. The NeoDiamond cable anchored to Evie’s bottom edge, driven deep into the rock for maximum strength.

Then the hologram turned into a movie. There, floating in the dust motes of the autodriver Terminus Prime built itself. Circles of habitats extended from the cable anchor. Soon, new habitats arrived. The station grew ‘upward’ until Evie resembled a space dandelion.

More elevators and structures arrived in the future. Evie had new neighbors, new structures floated nearby. I wanted to be there so bad I could taste it.

Dad smiled, seeing the wonder on my face. “The space elevator changes everything. This isn’t just a vehicle. It’s our foothold on a new continent, a new universe for people to inhabit and enjoy.”

“Wow. I mean, it’s just … wow.”

So yeah, I love learning about asteroids. Maybe you do, too. 2008 EV5 is *big*. How big? Big enough to wreck your week – let’s leave it at that. The main point is, 2008 EV5 will be a safe space elevator counterweight when we get there – not a danger. Orbital eccentricity and other material challenges are just part of the mechanical problems we’ll solve when we build the world’s first space elevator!

I hope we get to see 2008 EV5 become part of the world’s first space elevator in my lifetime. If not, at least we had fun imagining the future together. Mike Sierra Echo is more than a story about 2008 EV5, it’s the story of a kid who saved the world while rescuing his family. You’ll love it.

 

 

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Calm Down About Peter Cushing, Deepfakes and Disney

Interesting convo on Mastodon regarding Peter Cushing, deepfakes, and Disney. Simply put, we’re all better off if we calm down. Peter Cushing’s likeness in Rogue One was – whether you like deepfakes or Disney or not – legal. It was *legal*. Xatakaon’s take on this was ill-put, but maybe that was the point to begin with.

The details:

Disney used a digital version of Peter Cushing to play the character of Grand Moff Tarkin.  Disney claims that it had reached an agreement with Cushing’s agent for $36,000 and, therefore, was supposedly not obligated to seek further permission.Producer , who was a friend of Cushing, claimed that the actor had said he didn’t want to have his likeness digitally recreated without his explicit permission before he died in 1994.No documents signed by the actor opposing the use of digital recreations exist, only the word of his producer friend.

Order up for a Nothingburger and some French cries when Kevin Francis is presented with a counter-claim from Disney for court costs from this waste of jurisprudence. The main point of interest – as a scifi creator in 2024 – is as follows:

These types of lawsuits will become more frequent as the entertainment industry explores AI, intellectual property, and individual personhood.Arguing about legal minutae while larger issues of scifi social dynamics are the equivalent of tightening our grip while ‘more star systems slip through our fingers.’ We have better things to do and better people to do them with than this clickbait outrage-o-rama.Wacky conspiracy theory: What if Disney wanted all this to happen? Think about it – you’re Disney and you want to get ahead of these types of intellectual property issues. What better way than to start it off with an obvious loser case that enables you and your $2500/hr legal team to create legal precedent? Fun fact – the best way to disable a nuclear weapon is by destorying it with a smaller explosive. Perhaps this is a deepDisneystate move to defuse larger bombs through an otherwise unnecessary lawsuit?

Do I believe #3? Honestly, not really – it’s a bit of fun to make the point that anyone can create controversy, which is why we wield the power of trust and transaparency with care.

We discussed the matter in detail on Mastodon and Brian Grinter made some good points. I’ll let you review them at your convenience. Mr. Francis – a somewhat undersuccessful producer – should have thought this through before getting into the ring with the Mouse. It won’t end well for him – and I suspect the rest of his professional career will be an example of what *NOT* to do.

Just some thoughts from a ringside observer – please enjoy your weekend.

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Sci-Friday #212 – Dynamo – Beautiful Cyberpunk Chaos

Hooray – we made it to Sci-Friday – let’s enjoy the beautiful cyberpunk chaos of Dynamo. It’s a dystopian science fiction web series created by Ian Hubert and Scott Hampson, and the side series Dynamo Dream, that anyone can edit! Here’s Episode 1, Part 1 of the spin-off series Dynamo Dreams. Take a look:

Sounds cool, but let’s learn more. In their own words, Dynamo is “an experiment. It’s a story. It’s a series of shorts. It’s a sci-fi/fantasy/’cute cyberpunk’ webseries. It’s the result of four years of late night discussions between friends. It’s a convoluted puzzle about the nature of reality (and monsters! and horrible romance!) It’s a narrative with layers of interlocking pieces. And it’s pretty wacky!”

Dynamo is scifi worth supporting for several reasons – one, it’s a dual-drive (author and experiencer) universe. It’s 100% crowdsourced, no relying on big movie studios. Dynamo has a lot of heart – you can see that they love what they’re doing. Let the stories provide the drama, not the antics of bad actors.

I hope you enjoyed this dive through this scifi wonderland. Please feel welcomed to dive down the rabbit hole of every other Sci-Friday I’ve published in the past couple years. Have a great weekend!

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When Big Tech Runs Out of Ideas

Eerie news this week – this is what happens when Big Tech runs out of ideas. Not for nothing, but why is it endemic for big companies to stop understanding who their customers are? Do they have a ‘No Ideas’ department, or what? I always thought Big Tech companies had a team inside the company answering the question: ‘Who are our customers and how can we best serve them?’ I guess not.

So yeah – big tech seems to have NO ideas – based on current events. I don’t know the answer, but the fact that TWO big companies have this trouble mean an opportunity for us to learn. Here’s the deal:

Sony announces PS5 Pro – Over at YCombinator, gamer nerds are dunking on this move like a fat cop with a donut. ‘You are grossly overestimating what PS5 can do in regards of 4k, let alone 8k (which nowadays is used by very small percentage of enthusiasts).’ Additionally, ‘Enthusiasm for the PS5 Pro seems to be non-existent amongst most video game developers, with most claiming there is no need for it.’

Okay, so one of the biggest names in gaming is taking an L for an almost-unnecessary upgrade that overestimates the market demand. We’ve seen that before (Looking at you, Nokia) but then it gets worse.

Ford seeks patent for tech that listens to driver conversations to serve ads – This isnt’ the first time Ford’s patented dystopian technology – between the way for banks to disable features on leased cars, and the Patent for System to Reposses Cars Remotely. Nonetheless, a tech to listen to driver conversations for advertising? Uh, yeah – that’s nightmarishly intrusive. Future cars will require a key AND the Miranda Warning before you can go anywhere. Later versions of the tech will probably include video – move over Taxi Cab Confessions, we’ve got Ford Fusion ‘Fessions!

I don’t have a car or a PS5, but I do have a heart and that’s something Big Tech seems to be missing these days. They’re scraping the bottom off of the Stupid Barrel chasing the bottom line. Bigger mouths than mine are doing the heavy lifting, main point I want you to remember is that it’s easy to avoid all of this. All you need to do is take a step back and look at the situation like a human being. Is *this* what you want to be known for?

If that’s too broad, let’s channel The White Stripes ‘Little Room’ song – a remarkably precient ditty from Jack White about what happens when you have a great idea:

Well, you’re in your little room
And you’re working on something good
But if it’s really good
You’re gonna need a bigger room

And when you’re in the bigger room
You might not know what to do
You might have to think of how you got started
Sitting in your little room

I’m not sure if any of this helps Sony or Ford, and honestly I don’t care. It’s awkward when Big Tech has no ideas – but we’ve been here before and they’ll survive. We’re here to help each other – Sony and Ford can take care of themselves. 

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Yes to Main Characters – No to Main Character Syndrome

Old Eighties movies are an exercise in magical thinking and main character syndrome – to do better we have to say ‘yes’ to main characters and ‘no’ to main character syndrome. It’s a pitfall we must avoid to practice storytelling stewardship. Storytelling stewardship means acting with intention on what you want readers to take from your stories. Being a steward of storytelling implies you’re following the ‘campground rule‘ when it comes to your readers. They came to you, offered you their minds and their attention. That trust comes with important responsibilities.

I’m not a sociologist, I’m not a psychologist, I’m just a guy who grew up in the United States in the ’80s. Personal work on trauma, and magical thinking made me ask myself: Where does *my* magical thinking come from? I know part of it comes from bad / no parenting – getting attached to the idea that if your life had ‘a great story,’ then everything else would fall into place. If you need more examples, check out the ‘It’s All About Me’ trope on TVTropes. We got hammered with this idea over and over again throug the 80s and 90s – I’m not the only one who fell victim to that flawed logic.

It’s up to me to fix myself and also light the way for others. We must unlearn that type of magical thinking – it’s a maladaptive coping mechanism. How can I – practicing storytelling stewardship – use this knowledge in the stories I tell myself and the stories I tell to others?

How This Harms

We lampoon modern messaging like” doctors hate this one simple trick!” Or” the solution that big companies don’t want you to know about!” And rightly so. That same kind of magical thinking that persisted in ’80s era, ’90s era storytelling but there is a pure and simple truth that you, the magically thinking protagonist, will stumble upon. There’s a great counter-point to that logic and it’s an old quote: “the pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple.”

There’s legitimate danger in enabling magical thinking and main character syndrome. Think about some of the toxic characters we’ve observed in the past 20 years – most of their narcissistic sociopathic behavior comes out of a magical belief in themselves (“It’s all about me!” and “Just trust me!”), an illusory sense of entitlement or superiority to others. Where does that come from? The answer is pretty simple to me – The non-mental health professional/ observer of human behavior that I am. It’s magical thinking and main character syndrome.

Our civilization has become overrun by dangerous idiots, addicted to an illusory sense of superiority. That’s how we get pathocrats, Terrence Howard, Elon Musk, and Elizabeth Holmes. Their illusory sense of competence, an entitlement to power, superiority to others – Musk’s media manipulation and the resultant stock market chaos, Holmes’ healthcare fraud led to life-threatening misdiagnosis, and Howard’s pseudoscience eroding public trust – are still harming us today.

How We Can Help

Again – I’m just one guy – so what can I do? I can’t save the world – so, I tell stories as a kind gesture in a cruel time. STEM-based scifi is important to me, it helps the weird, nerdy kids (as a former weird, nerdy kid) know that it’s okay to be weird.

Further, I can insist that my science fiction contain some ACTUAL science. Remember that? I do. I loved those stories growing up. Kids and young readers deserve access to stories where tinkering, hacking, curiosity and discovery intersected with social-emotional connection. They deserve stories that resonate with those who see the possibilities in technology and innovation. That’s why I focus on STEM and ‘hard scifi’ genre storytelling.

We do a disservice by not setting our readers up for success in the beginning- the real answer will be hard to find, and that’s okay. It’s okay to not know what to do, it’s okay for no one else to know what to do either. It’s okay to try different things and fail and try again. That’s really the only way we’re going to get better as a civilization- if we embrace the hard work of hard work. We can enable our young weird, nerdy friends to embrace the right to be wrong, that failure is not fatal.

My big takeaway – we can’t afford to enable more toxic recovery themes in our writing. We have to learn the lessons, and teach others – it’s not enough to ‘just believe in yourself,’ ‘one simple idea’ isn’t all it takes. My writing has main characters and protagonists – but I want my main characters to NOT have ‘main character syndrome.’ They’re regular people, changing the world by being the change they wish to see. That’s what we need more of, right now.

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Mike.Sierra.Echo Rewrite is Done! Now What??

Happy to say that the rewrite of Mike.Sierra.Echo is complete – naturally I’m happy about this, but I know the first question on everyone’s mind is: now what? Let’s talk about the fascinating world of writing a novel and how Inkican Crew members participate. If you’re interested in being a writer, you’ll want to know how the whole process works. Let’s dive right in.

Having written (and attempted to write) novels before, the best way to explain it is ‘a marathon where you’re never sure when it ends, other runners can’t help you, the road is covered with Legos, and also you’re barefoot.’ The dizzying success of those who *have* finished the marathon inspires the rest of us to find our own way to the finish line. It’s a maddening, wondrous adventure that teaches you more about yourself than the subjects you discuss.

I write novel-length science fiction because the ideas I’m interested in are rarely understood in a short story. How would technology change society? What do you do with dysfunctional people who refuse to get better? How do you carry on after catestrophic failures? Could technology answer these questions, or make the answers harder to find? Mike.Sierra.Echo has its own answers, but in all honesty – I’m not sure if I’m done.

Why is that? Well, real simple – I’ve already been through several rounds of query letters to lit agents with no response. That indicates two possibilities A) this book isn’t catching anyone’s interest and B) this book isn’t catching anyone’s interest. I could focus on re-writing my query letter, my pitch, my log line – or I could focus on making the book the best it can be and hope that the next time I approach lit agents, MSE is ‘the right book at the right time.’

I’ll talk more about the overall process of getting published later.Although I’ve spoken about beta reading before, it’s a great time to re-visit the topic.  

What Is a Beta Reader?

Per NYBookEditors – ‘A beta reader is a person who reads and provides feedback on your manuscript before publishing.’ A beta reader is the person who ‘test drives’ your story and points out anything that is good, or needs to be better.  Books need beta readers like software needs beta testers. Nothing sucks worse than trying to get a book published only to hear crickets from agents, publishers and the general public.

‘Beta readers will tell you if you suck, where you suck, why you suck, and how to suck less.‘  Long story short – Mike.Sierra.Echo needs more beta reader feedback.

What Questions Do Beta Readers Answer?

Good question! Beta reader feedback can be as simple as ‘no notes – get this to an agent ASAP’ or as complex as a 10-page essay on how, where, when your novel project sucks. If you’re looking for a simple list of questions for beta readers – here they are in no particular order:

Plot and PacingDoes the story flow well, or are there parts where it drags?Are there any plot points that feel confusing or unresolved?Is the pacing consistent, or are there sections that feel too slow or rushed?2. CharactersAre the main characters compelling and believable?Do their actions make sense in the context of the story?Are there any characters that feel unnecessary or underdeveloped?Can you empathize with or understand the characters’ motivations?3. World-building and SettingDoes the world feel immersive and well-developed?Is there enough description to visualize the setting, or does it feel thin?Are there any inconsistencies in the rules of the world or the timeline?4. DialogueDoes the dialogue sound natural?Are the characters’ voices distinct, or do they all sound the same?Does the dialogue move the plot forward, or does it feel like filler?5. Writing Style and ToneIs the writing style engaging?Does the tone of the writing match the genre or mood of the story?Are there any repetitive phrases, awkward sentence structures, or unclear passages?6. Themes and MessagesDo the themes of the novel come through clearly?Are the themes or messages consistent, or do they get muddled?7. Emotional ImpactDid any scenes evoke strong emotions (e.g., laughter, sadness, fear)?Are there parts that feel emotionally flat or fail to connect?8. EndingDoes the ending feel satisfying and appropriate for the story?Are all the major plot threads resolved?Are there any unanswered questions that should be addressed?9. Reader’s EnjoymentWhat parts of the novel did they enjoy the most and why?Were there any parts where their attention waned?Would they recommend the book to someone else?

By answering these questions, a beta reader provides valuable feedback to authors on how to improve the quality of their storytelling. Then you re-write, then you get more feedback, you see where I’m going with this?

So in the short term – I want to help improve Mike Sierra Echo. The best way for me to do that is ‘get beta reader feedback.’ I’m pursuing that and if you want to be a part of it, the first step is to join the Inkican Crew. I’ll send out more info on that later. Meantime, I have some editing and blogging to do – it’s time to tell you more about what I’ve learned about the business of writing professionally.

Write on!

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