Steven Lyle Jordan's Blog, page 55

In time for the holidays

All of my currently available novels have been put back in Amazon’s Kindle Store and Barnes & Noble’s Nook Books.

A friendly (and capitalistic) reminder that Ebooks are great gifts for that reader on your list: Get them at the stores above, or buy them from me directly, save $1 on each, and send them to your friends via holiday email attachments!

Our electrons are standing by, 24-7-365, for your orders… act now!

The Kestral Voyages, and their Star Trek roots

The novels of The Kestral Voyages are my most popular stories, hands down; not only my best sellers, but earning more comments, reviews and requests for more stories than any other novels I’ve written to date.

It’s not hard to guess why: When I created the series, it was originally based on the Star Trek universe, a story idea I intended to pitch to Paramount as the next Trek series after Voyager.  Though I made changes to fit it into its own universe, it still has many similarities to the Trek universe that is still so popular with fans.

So, what happened?  Well, it’s like this…

Back when Star Trek: Voyager was about mid-way in its run, everyone was seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, and knew Paramount would soon have to start prepping a new Trek series to take over when Voyager was done.  One day, a report went out that Paramount was actually asking for fan input about what the next series should be.  The expected response from the Trek community was, naturally, incredible, and Paramount was quickly flooded with Trek premises.

Personally, I believe this to have been a PR smokescreen: I don’t believe for a moment that Paramount was going to leave it up to Trekkies to decide what the next show would be.  I’d bet that, by then, they already knew what they planned to do—many of the seeds of the new series were already in place on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine—and may have, at best, mined the many letters they received for additional elements or subplots to add to their established premise.

But at the time, it naturally served to get my juices flowing; and, like every good Trekkie, I started thinking about a new Trek series.  I quickly decided that my series would revolve around the rarely-seen Federation animal, the entrepreneur.  Despite the “we don’t use money in the Federation” mantra, we’d seen people making a living as freighter captains, bar owners, traders, restauranteurs, etc, all the way back in the original series, through Star Trek: The Next Generation (and episodes such as “The Outrageous Okonna”), and into Deep Space Nine.  You don’t work jobs like that for nothing.  Clearly, there was a story here, one the existing Trek shows and movies refused to tell.   And I wanted to tell it.

So I conceived of a freighter run by some ex-Starfleet personnel (the captain, at least) and some civilians, flying around Federation space and maybe beyond, doing commerce and occasionally getting into interesting adventures.  They wouldn’t be hanging around Federation ships or outposts, and mostly they’d be solving their own problems without Galaxy-class starships showing up to save their bacon from Klingons.  They’d be spending their time with the civilian populations, the established worlds and colonies, and occasionally making cargo runs into the newly-established frontier worlds… the kind of life that non-military, non-Starfleet people generally have.

I even went to the source for my main character.  Carolyn Kestral’s character was originally based on Captain Anne Gauvreau, from the Star Trek novel Prime Directive: Anne was an ex-Starfleet officer who decided to quit Starfleet when she didn’t like her advancement prospects (she was passed over for front-line starship commands she thought she deserved—Star Fleet seemed to be actively avoiding putting women in front-line command positions), and go into business for herself.  Gauvreau was sharp enough to recognize a bearded James T. Kirk, when he was on the run following a disaster on Talin IV, and willingly bent a few rules to get Kirk as close to Talin as possible so he could try to fix the wrong done there.

In a way, Kirk represented my next crewmember idea, another ex-Starfleet officer who had developed a dissatisfaction with the way Starfleet ran things, and decided to go civilian.  These characters could provide the Starfleet connection to the audience, a sort of conscience, occasionally debating Starfleet’s wisdom in certain areas, regularly doing things that they knew Starfleet would refuse, on principle or by law, to do.

The rest of the characters were up for grabs, but I was aiming for a small crew for this freighter, four or five people that would always be involved in the story action.  With that, I sketched up a premise that, I thought, would have made a great TV series.  But as I said, I didn’t believe Paramount would actually consider any outsider’s show idea; and by the time I’d developed this, the word was already out that Paramount was swimming under a deluge of mail that was only surpassed by the original “Save Star Trek” writing campaign that so changed history in 1968.

So I didn’t send it in.  Before we knew it, we were hearing stories about the upcoming show, Star Trek: Enterprise.  Another show about another military ship.  sigh.

So, I had this story premise, and a yen to use it.  I came up with a general story outline; but before I put down a word, it occurred to me that I’d never be able to publish the story, being based in Paramount’s Trek universe.  If I ever wanted to sell it, therefore, I’d have to make changes to remove the trademarked Trek elements and make it original.

Well, I reasoned, if I can’t have it be like Trek, I could at least make it… better.  That meant ditching some of the baggage that Trek had come to be known for, and injecting what I thought were elements of a much better, more believable and more interesting universe.  After all, Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek was created in the 1960s, a hybrid combination of the real science and physics we knew at the time, and the pseudo-science demanded of 1960s television narrative, further molded by budgetary limitations… Star Trek was hardly ideal, because it was a 1960s television production.  Being that I was writing in the 21st century for books, I didn’t have to be hobbled by those old TV tropes.

The first thing I addressed was the oft-ridiculed idea that all aliens were essentially humanoid, with very few exceptions; and that even on an initial meeting, almost all of them would be able to speak with the humans they encountered (in English, natch), see and hear the same things, eat the same foods, etc.  These aliens were generally presented as analogous to certain Earth nationalities, themselves caricatures of the peoples of reality.  Obviously this concept is great for television, but we can hardly expect to meet English-speaking humanoid aliens on every planet we visit.

Instead, I postulated a galaxy where humans had gone to many worlds and terraformed them to suit us.  I reasoned that many of those planets would not quite be capable of being turned into a human-standard world; so, humans would do the next best thing, altering themselves to fit the worlds.  Heavy-gravity worlds would see humans with augmented musculatures and bone structures, to handle the load… worlds with unusual chemicals in the air would see humans with altered lungs; worlds with varied light characteristics would see humans with adjusted eyes… etc.  In essence, all of them would be evolved from the human baseline, slightly different, but still essentially human.  This would mean that they’d still be able to speak the same language, eat the same foods (with a few dietary restrictions in some cases), breathe the same air, etc, and have a logical reason for it to be so.

I also decided to use a pet trope of mine: Humans whose ancestors had tampered with genetic manipulation before they were ready, resulting in offspring and their descendants who were jet-black in skin and albino-white in hair color.  These people, from any and all nationalities, would become known as “blacks” to the human population, and would in one fell swoop take away most of the animosity between Earth’s original races.  Since their parents were considered foolish to have meddled in genetic manipulation without being fully cognizant of their actions’ results, a stigma of ignorance followed blacks in the early days; but at the time of my stories, it was considered Old History and largely ignored or forgotten (much like the U.S. has moved on from its years of looking down upon certain immigrants who arrived on our shores, unprepared for life in the New World.)

After some additional thought, I decided that these people were descendents of the earliest Mars colonies, and that their efforts to genetically adjust themselves to Mars’ environment resulted in the “black” side effect.  Thereafter, my “blacks” were simply Martians, one more alteration from the human baseline and as instantly recognizable as many of the other augmented races.  More than the other augmented humans in my stories,  the black Martians would be my icon for the past days of racial hatred that the Human race had once embraced, and eventually seen sense and gotten over.

Already, I had a galaxy that made more sense than Trek’s TV-guided universe… and I liked it.  I ended up removing most of the aliens that were common to Star Trek, basically leaving me with a galaxy primarily consisting of baseline and augmented humans.  But I still had different worlds, different peoples, and plenty of potential stories for a freighter and the civilian population that they’d interact with.

One element I wrestled with was one that I personally don’t like, but that has become a mainstay of sci-fi literature and a major element of Trek: The warp drive.  Warp drive made it possible for ships in Star Trek to cross the galaxy as easily as we cross an ocean today; it brought exotic worlds to within a few TV-convenient minutes of each other, instead of a lot of unsatisfying years.  But because I’ve always doubted that it would work that way, I’ve never liked the conceit of warp drives. I liked the verisimilitude of either longer voyages, or worlds much closer together (or a more “realistic” way of traversing galactic distances, like the system I later developed for Verdant Skies).

But regardless of my likes, I knew the readers loved warp drives and all they implied, our future magic carpets to the stars, a Route 66 cosmos.  It was a scenario that Star Trek had made so commonplace that it was hard to imagine a space story without it, however crazy it was.  After much soul searching, I decided to leave in the warp drive, and just accept that that particular element of my sci-fi universe would make as little sense as everyone else’s.

After that, I put as much effort as I could into explaining how the civilian side of a galaxy-wide race of humans worked, from the inside of their freighter quarters to the outer aspects of politics and social systems as planets were terraformed and business was transacted.  I’d developed a universe that was aching to have stories told within it.

As it turned out, my new universe would share a number of similarities with the universe of Joss Whedon’s Firefly.  Especially ironic was that Firefly first aired while I was still working on the first story in my newly-formed universe.  After spending quite some time wondering how the hell Whedon had managed to tap into my private notes so clandestinely, I accepted our similarities as a classic example of two great minds thinking alike, and got back to work.  And even though Firefly was pulled off the air in no time, I never believed for a minute that it was due to a lack of quality or worldbuilding on the program’s fault, and could only have been a victim of television executives that couldn’t recognize a science fiction show without the recognizable elements made famous on shows like, yes, Star Trek.

My series was much more like Star Trek than Firefly was, so I reasoned (hoped) it would do better on the market.  Of course, Firefly became a cult hit, whereas my novels are barely known beyond a small but eager band of fans… so, you can’t just say Star Trek drives all success.  But in this case, if it hadn’t been for Star Trek, I probably would never have created The Kestral Voyages, nor enjoyed half the popularity I’ve experienced so far.

Logocracy: The next logical step in government

There was an interesting discussion on IO9 about a month ago, inspired by a post that sought to define a technocrat.  The discussion, begun by me, was in response to the notion that technocrats could create a “technocracy,” a technocrat-run government:

Though technocracy may not be capable of wholesale operation of an entire country—and I’m not so sure it would be much worse than the systems that operate today—it should at the very least be more of a part of existing political systems, more heavily factoring into some decisions. I’d go so far as to suggest it take an equal place in American government, placed beside the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches. (And maybe outright replace the Legislative branch.)

Presently our U.S. government consists of three branches, Executive, Legislative and Judicial.  Carefully designed by our Founding Fathers, the system was designed to allow laws to be created, but with a set of checks and balances in place to make sure no one group could completely dominate the government system.  They also designed the system to be evolving, as the country grew and attitudes changed.

The Democratic system designed by our Founding Fathers mostly works… but in the last century or so, it has increasingly fallen into a pattern of outside influence and internal corruption causing the wheels of government to come almost to a standstill.  Most of the seized wheels are in Congress, the House of Representatives and the Senate, whose members have increasingly been chosen according to who could wage the most successful media attacks on their competitors, and who make more of their decisions according to the wishes of wealthy lobbyists and their desires for comfortable retirement packages.

As well, the U.S. has become an increasingly populous, busy and complicated country, making the passage of laws and bills a much more intricate and involved process.  Congresspeople do not have the time (nor, apparently, the inclination) to properly analyze and consider the laws that pass in front of them; as a result, bad laws are passed, or bad riders are added to laws, going unnoticed by politicians and eventually doing damage and making the system of laws even more convoluted than they need to be.

This sounds, to me, like an area of government in need of serious evolution in order to remain viable.  And so, I proposed a system utilizing the full capacity of an invention originally created in wartime, which has served our government well for many years: The computer.

I suggested the replacement of the Legislative branch, specifically, the representatives in the House and the Senate, with a computer system, a logocratic system that would assume the voting role of the leaders of Congress.  A Congressional Computer (or CC) would be placed in the position of enacting laws for the country.  The computer would make up the new Logocrative branch of the government, taking its place alongside the Executive and Judicial branches.

To keep We The People connected, citizens would vote for the people who would supervise the state personnel who would collect and input data on each state’s conditions, resources, issues, needs, etc (data collectors and programmers, basically).  The data they collect and process would be input into the CC, which would then evaluate the data from each state against those of all other states and territories.  Then the CC, capable of analyzing that ocean of data better than any group of human politicians, would make the decisions and pass the laws for our country, much faster, much more fair and more impartial.

The administration of data collection and analysis would still be in The People’s hands to monitor and control by vote.  This means the dangers of lobbying, bribery and corruption would still be a risk; but with the proper checks and balances to allow public analysis of the data input to the CC, it would be much harder to get away with “cooking the books.”  And accuracy (or lack thereof) would directly impact the salaries, pensions and benefits of those in the data offices, who could be removed immediately if found to be underperforming by a set level.

And the President and the Judicial system would still be able to veto CC laws, much as they do Congressional laws, mostly based on whether the law was too far afield of the spirit of the union or did not properly address some issue that the CC’s programming was incapable of handling properly (such as the social or psychological impacts of a law, for instance).

Of the existing government branches that could potentially be replaced with a computer-based system, this strikes me as the most workable and providing the best improvement to the U.S. government system.  This new Logocratic system, with humans overseeing a computer-run process of analyzing data and making laws, could be the next logical step in the evolution of the U.S. government.

The next step could be to begin development of such a computer system, a Congressional Computer that could be tested against the performance of the existing legislative branch until the achievement of certain performance milestones indicated the CC could do the job better than the existing Congress; whereupon, the reins of voting would be transferred from the representatives to the CC in short order.

I would not expect an idea like this to not be controversial; indeed, it’s a very significant step in the improvement of the U.S. government, but it would seem on its face to go against the idea of government “Of the People, By the People and For the People.”  In fact, the application of a CC is merely an extension of the wealth of computers we use to run the country now; we’re simply giving the computers a higher role in the process, and still keeping it under our control.  That’s why I think that evaluating it against the existing Congress would be crucial to establishing that the CC could indeed do the job better than a building full of professional politicians.

A story based on these notions has been in my notes for quite some time… a shame that I may never write it, because I think it would make for some interesting reading.  I also saw no responses when I proposed this Logocratic system on IO9; so I wouldn’t mind hearing anyone’s opinion on the matter (consider this one of those rare times when it’s okay to discuss politics in polite company).

Rendezvous with Rama and Childhood’s End would make EPIC movies

Science fiction fans love to debate about which beloved SF books would make good movies… or which would make bad movies.  Among the books that fans usually seem to agree could not be made into good movies, two of my favorites inevitably come up, both by Arthur C. Clarke: Childhood’s End; and Rendezvous with Rama.  Whenever I hear this, I have to laugh.  Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey was developed from a “one-gag” short story (a weird monolith found on the Moon sends a message to the stars), but look what Stanley Kubrick did with that.  And no, we don’t need another Kubrick to do justice with Rama and Childhood.  All we need is a bit of imagination.

So, without further ado, here are some notes on how both books could be turned into fantastic movies.

The usual comments about both books are that, like 2001′s original story, so little actually happens in them, or that they are essentially “one-gag” stories… there’s not enough to hold an audience’s attention.   Let’s look at that, starting with Rendezvous with Rama.  In the book, a massive object enters the Solar System, and a team is sent to rendezvous with the object (hence, the title) for evaluation.  Upon reaching the object, designated Rama, they realize it is an artificial object, built by some unknown alien race, and they find a way to enter it.  They examine its interior as much as they can, before it shoots back out of the Solar System at speed.

Left at that, it doesn’t sound like much; but of course, the devil is in the details.  Exploring Rama reveals an environment well-suited for human occupation, a mystery in itself.  Numerous robots, in every size from dog to great whale, carry out autonomous maintenance and cleaning tasks throughout Rama, and seem to barely tolerate the human visitors in the way… some, in fact, appear to be fairly aggressive in the execution of their duties.  Rama is split down the middle by an equatorial “sea,” the far side seeming mostly industrial.  Rama has an incredible power source that not only creates powerful and unpredictable internal weather, but powers the mysterious propulsion system.  And as we discover these things about Rama, one of the exploration team breaks out a glider to fly over the far side, runs into some bad weather, and has an accident on the far side.  The team barely have time to recover him before Rama’s power source spins up, and the ship streaks onward to systems unknown.

So, we already have: A huge artificial craft with an unknown purpose; equally mysterious robots of every shape and size that can threaten or potentially kill the explorers; a man stranded alone in hostile territory; unpredictable and dangerous weather patterns; and a deadline to evacuate before they are taken to who-knows-where.  Add to that mix some more colorful explorers who can riff off of themselves, have arguments about the mission and about Rama, maybe someone who wants to stay behind, or someone who wants to bring parts of Rama back with them… and you have what sounds like a pretty cool movie to me.  Think a combination of Journey to the Center of the Earth and Prometheus.

So, how about Childhood’s End?  This is pointedly not an action movie like Rama could be; Childhood’s End is a high-concept mystery about humanity’s future.  The first mysteries concern the aliens that arrive on Earth, the Overlords: What are they, what do they want, and why won’t they show themselves?  Once those questions are answered, the audience is left with a new mystery: If they’re here to make sure humanity reaches some next stage of evolution… what’s going to happen?

As the mystery unfolds, some people begin to exhibit strange mental abilities, but they go relatively unnoticed as humanity begins to feel oppressed in spirit by the shepherding of the Overlords.  Also, a young man decides that, since astronautics has died off as a human activity, he wants to stow aboard an Overlord ship to see what’s out there.  Not only does he see incredible forms of life, some of which defy belief, but he also discovers that the Overlords are at an intellectual dead end, and are themselves being shepherded  by an Overmind.  Finally, the stowaway is returned to Earth to see the final result of humanity’s shepherding, the next stage in evolution that will catapult us well past the abilities of the Overlords and into an incredible future.

Childhood’s End presents mysteries to solve, revelations about human nature, fascinating insights into history, a wonderful study of powerful aliens that turn out to be inferior, in some ways, to humans, and an ultimate revelation about the next stage of human evolution.  The story has humans that work with the Overlords, rebel against them, try to learn from them, and ultimately marvel at humanity’s evolution alongside them.  I’d most closely compare this to Stanislaw Lem’s Solaris, in that both stories cover heavily intellectual and emotional storylines, feature an epic backdrop, and leave the reader/viewer to provide their own answers to some of the questions.

There, in a nutshell, is a set of guidelines for developing Rendezvous with Rama and Childhood’s End into movies.  I’d daresay any attempt to develop either movie would have to be powerful, since so many of their most iconic elements and concepts have already found their way to movies or television.  TV’s original attempt to develop Childhood’s End for television gave us 1983′s V (thereby proving that it truly is possible to turn a diamond into a lump of coal).

But the elements for some incredible movies are right there, ripe for the picking, given an excellent story treatment and enough dedication to a superior production to make it work.  I’d love to write those scripts, myself; I’d consider that a dream assignment, a chance to connect myself to a master’s works, and a way to show the world that those stories would make absolutely epic movies.

(Note: The cover for Childhood’s End is my own design, so don’t knock yourself out trying to find this edition in stores.  Being one of my all-time favorite novels, I created an ebook version for my collection, and created the ebook cover to go with it.)

Better than starships: Satellites

Physicist Stephen Hawking argues that Mankind must build starships and spread itself throughout the galaxy in order to survive, since Earth’s years are clearly finite.  Hawking has made this case many times, being convinced that even a smallish catastrophe (like a massive meteor strike) could render Earth uninhabitable for humans, and it could do so at any time.

I wouldn’t presume to contradict Hawking; in fact, I agree with his assessment of the fragility of our ecosystem and its prospects for long-term viability.  But when it comes to his opinion that we should leave Earth for our own survivability, I have another option. I don’t think we need to leave Earth; I believe we can stay longer, even through a catastrophe, if we apply proper husbandry to the Earth.  And we can do that if we move the bulk of our population into orbital satellites.

Hawking suggests that we essentially use what we can here on Earth, then pack up and abandon it… much like our nomadic ancestors would use up a region, hunting out its game and farming its land into sand, then move on.  He postulates either generation ships, or starships that can exceed the speed of light, to take us to distant planets in other star systems.  He assumes that we will be able to find such a planet or planets, Earth-similar bodies in the “Goldilocks” zone of habitability, ready for life but apparently without established life of its own, just waiting for us to arrive and plant our flags (and then, presumably, our figs).  This assumes a lot, to my mind, not the least of which is the idea that we have the right to take over planets with their own established life, much as we have occupied regions already occupied by other humans and creatures and pushed them out for our own purposes.

I say that with wiser husbandry, we can last much longer on our chosen range.  First in our agenda should be making Earth more sustainable for us, right now.  In much the same way as our agricultural ancestors learned to properly tend farmland, rotating crops and replenishing soils with needed nutrients, we can learn how to slow the process of turning our planet into a dustbowl.  We can better use resources, better avoid damage to the environment, and better make sure the environment is capable of being restored (and restoring itself) from our manipulations.

We could much better do that by moving the bulk of our population off of Earth, and into orbiting city-satellites like those touted by Gerard O’Neill’s book The High Frontier.  We are on the verge of learning enough about using available resources, recycling used resources and being more efficient in our energy and waste usage to be able to enclose our ecosystems almost completely, removing ourselves from the fragile environment around us.  Habitats orbiting in space can take full advantage of the wealth of solar energy pouring out around us to power themselves, and will have the opportunity to use centripetal force selectively, rotating in areas to provide simulated gravity where humans and other organisms need it, and maintaining gravity-free areas that can aid manufacturing and heavy machinery operation.  Freed of gravitic and geological constraints, we can design and build our satellites in any configuration we see fit, making sure they are organic and flexible enough to be modified as the population changes over time.

We will still need resources from Earth, of course; no orbital system should be assumed to be completely closed (at least, not for the foreseeable future).  But our new living arrangement will demand that we apply much more sensible and efficient practices in gathering what we need and using it wisely.  Small populations will remain on the ground, mostly tending to what equipment we use to collect raw resources and prepare them for shipment into space.  We will truly become Earth’s shepherds, tending our charge without doing damage to it, and making sure it will serve us through the future.

And what about the “smallish catastrophe?”  If something like a meteor strike or a major volcanic eruption (like the Yellowstone Caldera is expected to give us… well, any time now) occurs, the Earth will suffer from major physical and ecological damage that may take decades, centuries, or even longer to properly recover from.  But if we are mostly in orbit, we will be in a much better position to weather out such a catastrophe.  If we are living efficiently in space, we will hopefully be able to monitor the disaster and determine when and where it will be safe to return for supplies and resources.  A significant geologic disaster may upturn and reveal long-buried resources, making it easier to detect and collect them.  We may need to wear protective gear or take other survival steps where, in the past, we did not, but we will still have access to the resources of the planet that birthed us.

This would allow humankind to live much longer off of the Earth, giving it more time to prepare itself for the next stage of human exploration… for, assuming we live long enough, we will eventually see the Sun nova, then die, and we will have to leave the Solar System whether we like it or not.  Maybe before then, we will have moved some of our orbiting habitats to the outer planets, perhaps living off the resources of Jupiter’s or Saturn’s moons, or the asteroids, and extend our stay in the Solar System as long as possible before our forced eviction.

And most likely, we will have to stay in our self-contained homes, because—even if we figure out how to get them to other stars—it is still highly unlikely that we’ll find a planet conveniently similar to our biological needs to allow us to simply land and move in (and I’m not assuming terraforming an entire planet will ever really be an option).  More likely is that we’ll find planets with resources we can use to help sustain us, just as we will have used the Earth’s resources while staying in orbit; we will settle in orbit around those new worlds and begin the process of shepherding them.

This was the logic behind my worldbuilding of Verdant Skies and Verdant Pioneers; the major difference being, in the Verdant books I postulated a worldwide budgetary crisis that ended the City-Satellite project after only four of them had been built, and that the majority of Earth’s population remained down on Earth’s surface.  But the Verdant series also postulates that a way to travel the stars was found when a crisis demanded it, returning us to the goal of mankind’s being able to spread out among the stars and preserve its own future survivability.

Which way will Mankind go?  Off in starships to other worlds, as Hawking suggests?  Remaining in the Solar System in space habitats?  Or moving those habitats to other stars?  Only time will tell.

The best science fiction

There always seems to be discussion and debate about the various types of science fiction, and which is more popular, which is more serious, which is cooler, etc.  I have no problem saying, right up front, that whatever kind of science fiction you like—or whatever type of any genre, for that matter—is what you like, and there’s no need to rationalize or apologize for it to others.  (So, the next time the discussion comes up, I don’t want to have to separate the 2001 and Star Wars fans,  okay?  Groovy.)

That said, this is what I get the most out of from science fiction.

The entertainment media we consume (or produce) tells us a lot about ourselves; not just what we like, but what it means to us and what we get out of it.  Genres speak to particular tastes and interests, as each genre is a unique mixture of many interests, and their fans gravitate toward those particular mixtures.  Do you crave adventure, a simpler time and polarized morals?  A western might be just up your alley.  Are you into love and Elizabethan society?  Period romance speaks to you.  Do you love science and technology, curious about the future, and interested in what makes people unique?  Science fiction sounds right for you.

So we’re attracted to genres based on these mixtures of interests.  But there are further sub-interests that narrow our focus even more, and dictate whether we want to read stories about complex characters and deep psychological issues, or whether we just want a hero good at punching his way through a problem.

Science fiction has historically built on the overriding interests of science, technology and the future.  But from there, it’s mixed sub-interests like a blender set on frappe, giving us everything from Flash Gordon to Through a Scanner Darkly.  A lot of science fiction stories are very similar to stories in other genres, in which it feels like the science and technology tropes have essentially been bolted on: Alien is a traditional horror story set on a space ship; Star Wars is a farm boy-to-war hero’s journey story set in a galaxy far, far away.  Take away the SF trappings, and the story is still viable in another genre.

But my favorite kind of science fiction is the story that you’d have trouble telling in any other genre; a story like Solaris, in which the hero must deal with the unexpected and impossible presence of a person from his past, someone who forces him to deal with his strongest and most painful memories, and may even give him a chance at redemption; or Man Plus, about an astronaut who not only agrees to give up his former life, but a sizable part of his very humanity and perception of life, in order to explore a distant world.

These are both powerful stories that deal with deep concepts about individuals and humanity… but the stories wouldn’t be possible, or nearly as strong, if the science fiction trappings were removed.  The existence of the SF elements are what makes them such powerful stories… or what makes them stories at all.

This effect transcends what SF fans like to debate as “hard” vs “soft” science fiction, and which has more worth or popularity.  The fact is, a story can delve into these elements, whether it has a strong basis in realistic and realistically-extrapolated science, or whether it is based in a fantasy world of warp drives and ray guns.  In fact, some of the most powerful science fiction stories have been written for Star Trek, a decidedly “soft” version of television science fiction.

I happen to prefer the kind of science fiction story in which the science, technology and extrapolations of the future are very realistic—what I call Futurist Fiction—with a story that could not be as effectively told without those FF values.  I also happen to prefer writing those kind of stories, Sarcology, Verdant Skies and Verdant Pioneers being the best examples from my catalog.

On the other hand, I also love stories in which the science fiction trappings may not be as necessary to the plot, but the characters and their journeys are still strong and entertaining, such as in The Kestral Voyages books, Chasing the Light, Evoguía and As The Mirror Cracks.

Mundane stories—average people leading average lives, set in a world that happens to be in the future or on another planet—don’t interest me much, because the stories are very bland whether set in an SF framework or not.  (I’d give you an example, but right off, none are even coming to mind.)

I also have little interest in Star Wars- and New Star Trek-type stories, conflicts in intergalactic space, clear analogues for our own world wars or cold war conflicts.  I’ve simply gotten tired of space battles and war heroes, and would like to think we could do better in the future than shoot at each other to solve problems.  I’m much more interested in inner exploration.

There, in a nutshell, is what I want out of science fiction, and what I’d like to see produced for audiences.  Unfortunately—for me—my desires don’t seem to be in the majority, and the SF I’ve seen in media seems to be leaning much more heavily on space battles and alien conflicts, less on humanity and our future.

But that’s okay: There are a lot of writers out there, more every day, and many more of them share my views; it’s just a matter of giving them the opportunity to make their work accessible to fans like me.  That’s the real benefit to the democratization of media, the growth of variety that goes along with it.  And as long as the variety of science fiction grows, I should always be able to find some of what I consider the best science fiction.

Backing off

I’ve been noticeably bummed this past week: I keep reflecting on the fact that none of the promotional attempts I’ve made recently has had any success lately (and I mean as in zero success).  Every so often that particular hammer taps me on the skull, and I spend a few days sulking and brooding over the ego bruise it leaves.

Eventually, the bruise goes away, and I stop sulking.  But I’ve come to realize I specifically keep getting hit by that hammer because I spend way too much time around it.

It’s actually good that I’m realizing this now, because the holiday season is almost upon us, and I have good reason to stay away from that hammer and not ruin my fun this time of year.  Hopefully as well, staying away from that hammer will help me find other things to occupy my time and not make it obvious that I’m dancing around with one eye cocked at the spot where that hammer always comes down.

That means cutting back on Facebook.  (I needed to do that, anyway… terrible waste of time if you let it.)  Less time chronicling my activities online, so I have more time for… activities.  Less time thinking about redesigns of my books site (I’ve come to realize it’s not the design that’s keeping people from finding it).  Less time trying to recall bits and pieces of dreams to figure out if they’d make good book material.  Less time rehearsing my interview with Jon Stewart on The Daily Show.

And less time spent trying to figure out what blog subjects will attract more readers.

Overall, a backing off of the whole writing thing.  I don’t want this bruise to be permanent.

Another Hollywood presumption shattered

This bitingly sweet blog post by Flickfilosopher is just what the doctor ordered : It makes a point of breaking the news to Hollywood that the Female Protagonist is not box office poison, as evidenced by the roughly $430 million being grossed by Gravity, starring Sandra Bullock as the astronaut left stranded in space after an orbital disaster.

Not that you’d think Hollywood needed to be told this: Dating back perhaps to the first female protagonist to make box office gold in adventure or science fiction movies, Pam Grier (HA!  You thought I was gonna say Sigourney Weaver as Alien‘s Ripley, didn’t you?  Didn’t you?), and following the careers of women like Linda Hamilton, Milla Jovovich, Angelina Jolie, Jennifer Lawrence, Uma Thurman, Zoe Saldana and so many others, there should be no one in Hollywood with trepidations about putting a strong female in an action-adventure lead.

But it’s still a rare thing to see… and not just in Hollywood.  Movies worldwide have historically been more likely to cast a man in an action-adventure lead, and leave it to the women to be femme fatales, damsels in distress or comedy relief.  But as audiences slowly but surely convince Hollywood that they’ll go see Michelle Yeoh or Chloe Moritz kick ass just as fast as they’ll watch Jackie Chan or Vin Diesel, we should see a sea-change in adventure fare.

And it’s about time, too.  At the moment, many of our most famous male action-adventure heroes are getting pretty long in the tooth, to the point where they’re even parodying themselves as old men forced back into the fray and struggling to take out the bad guys while hobbling around on bad knees.  And the action hero genre has pretty much covered all the bases, leaving little room for those new and awesome moments that action movies thrive on.

But putting a female into some of those scenarios opens up a new set of variables… the differences between how men and women deal with problems… and give us an entirely new set of awesome moments.   Characters who aren’t afraid to take cues from a wider emotional range; who see options other than punching and shooting to solve a crisis.  In short, less testosterone-fueled stories, and moments when emotion and intelligence can naturally shine through.  The action-adventure genre desperately needs an infusion of female protagonists to keep it fresh.

I’ve applied female protagonists to Evoguía, the Kestral Voyages series, and to Sarcology.  In each case, the difference in perspective was refreshing, and made for a more interesting and wider variety of story options than from the traditionally male point of view.  And each has featured plenty of action and excitement, as well as more introspective moments and genuine emotional investment.  These have been my best novels, the Kestral series being the most popular by far.

Books, of course, tend to be further ahead of the curve than Hollywood, often helping to show it the way.  Hopefully, literary examples will stand with the latest box office numbers and convince the studios that they can afford to take female action-adventure leads seriously, and they won’t scare moviegoers into staying home.  If anything, a healthy infusion of newer characters and perspectives might convince more people to check them out… or, at least, slow the gradual shrinking of the ever-more-jaded theatre audience, and give us a reason to see movies on the big screen again.

Facebook: 10.4 percent of nothing

Let’s see… 10.4% of nothing is…

An article on Saturday’s Mashable illustrates the relative amount of traffic driven to publishers from various methods of social media, and makes it clear that Facebook sends more customers to publishers than any other social media combined.

Editor Neil Marr went so far as to say to his Facebook followers: “Trying to sell your book? Seems you’re at the right place.”

But once again, I’m presented with the incredible dichotomy between the realities for mainstream publishers and the realities for self-publishers… most notably, myself.

I’ve used Facebook to promote me and my books for the last few years.  At one time, I had a second FB page devoted exclusively to the books.  I used it by sharing FB posts and online articles related to the science and social issues that my books tend to discuss or highlight… sharing links to my blog posts about the same issues… and, of course, the occasional promotion, mention or excerpt presented about one of my books.  Honestly, I had fewer links to my books than I had links and shares to other material… I wasn’t a total shill.  At the same time, I mentioned many of the same article links, and links to my books, on my personal site, along with more personal material.

But I saw virtually no increase in traffic to my books site, or to third party ebook vendors, from my Facebook pages.  The problem was twofold: First, I knew very few people, so I never had a lot of traffic to my FB pages in the first place; and Second, it turned out that few of those visitors actually shared my posts with anyone else… it was always the same small group of people, viewing my pages, occasionally liking a post, but not spreading them around.

This is the most obvious problem with Facebook, as with most social media: It depends on being actively, aggressively shared to gain any kind of audience or exposure.  People who are already well-known are much more likely to be shared online, or even searched for; the rest of us obscure folk, not so much.  And if nobody finds your page, you’re essentially talking to an empty room (or hollow tube, as the case may be).

Facebook users are also walking a razor-edged line between promotion and spamming, a situation familiar to most online users.  Visitors brought their dislike of ads (that they didn’t specifically ask for) with them to Facebook, and even the most banal promotion of an author’s book is seen by many as “another stupid commercial.”  Too many of those, and a Facebook page is considered a “spamming page,” to be avoided at all costs.  But advertisement generally only works when it is widespread and pervasive.  How do you make ads widespread and pervasive, and keep from being considered a spammer?  I have no idea.

(Well, to be fair, I have one idea: Your ads need to be incredibly entertaining, so visitors do not consider them to be ads.  A well-crafted video, some really funny lines or a popular character or mascot (think Messin’ with Sasquatch commercials) can be highly enjoyed by viewers… whom you can only hope will then go and check out your products.  At least, they are more likely to share you with others, who might thereby discover your work.  So, apparently, the real definition of Spam is “ads that don’t make you laugh.”)

Facebook can also be good for information and advice; there are plenty of Facebook pages devoted to activities like writing, for example.  I’ve occasionally tried out a few of those, joining the group, then asking questions or venturing opinions about writing and self-publishing.  I recently tried that with a group I’d recently discovered, the Indie Author group.  I joined, hoping that I might catch some pearls of wisdom that would help me sell my books.  Unfortunately, it soon became clear to me that the advice I was getting was no different than advice I’d gotten from other sources over the years, which had not improved my selling ability at all.  (I say this not in criticism of the Indie Author group.  Maybe their advice works just fine for more mainstream authors, for very popular genres like romance, or for authors with deeper pockets or better networks of supporters—but I’d tried them all in the past, and had zero success from them.)  I continue to search for FB groups that can help me, or at least help me spread the word about my work, but so far, none of them has done me any good.

I haven’t written off Facebook yet… though, quite honestly, I can’t tell you why.  Based on the graph above, I think it’s pretty clear that there’s no point in relying on any other form of social media to help me sell books.  But if my results for Facebook, the most promising of social media promotional venues, continues to be so incredibly flatlined, I won’t be able to justify the time I waste on it trying to get it to work.  That’ll be a shame, because I really have no other affordable way to promote myself, and I’m not clever enough to come up with the next Messin’ with Sasquatch commercial.  And I’m not cute enough to draw sympathy from whining.

What could replace Star Trek?

Following up my lament upon the state of the new Star Trek movies, and my assertion that Star Trek, as a premise, has run its course… I’d like to continue the line of thought with the inevitable examination of what, if anything, would be a more modern premise to base our SF adventures and morality tales on.

To recap: The past Star Trek movies have been vague caricatures of the original franchise, with any and all common sense and intelligence leeched out of them and replaced with banal dialogue, mindless action and outright fantasy pretending to be science fiction (in much the same way a 6-year-old girl puts on a plastic mask and pretends to be Wonder Woman).

I contend that Star Trek‘s day has come and gone; it is no longer an adequate platform to present modern science fiction tales (as the last movies have more than perfectly demonstrated).  Star Trek is to modern day what Flash Gordon was to Star Trek’s first days on television.  The massive military-slash-scientific fleet, made up of air-breathing, English-speaking humanoid aliens from numerous star systems, operating like a Terran space navy (despite the participation of the aforementioned many other alien races) and promoting a future version of American Manifest Destiny… is a lot of twentieth century allegory and outright fantasies, many forced upon the program by the limitations of the commercial television medium and our knowledge of science and physics.  It has as much to do with modern reality, modern science and physics as Flash Gordon did in the late twentieth century.  Star Trek is overdue for a graceful retirement, and any attempts to prolong its working life will only succeed in looking more and more like Dino de Laurentis’ Flash Gordon remake of 1980.  (Haven’t seen it?  Consider yourself fortunate.)

It’s the twenty-first century, and we need a new flagship science fiction franchise to inspire millions of future writers, physicists and heroes.  What should it be like?

At this point, I feel I must admit that I’ve penned a number of books in the Kestral series, which was supposed to be my modern take on the Trek-style franchise.  The premise of the series had similarities to Trek, in that an overarching organization of planets existed, and a space-faring navy was in place to protect those planets.  But from there, most similarities ended, as the Kestral universe was not chock-full of humanoid alien races (besides humans, only one alien race was known).  Planets were terraformed to be habitable, as much as possible, and humans living on the rougher of those planets underwent genetic-level alteration to make their bodies more compatible with the terraformed environment.  This resulted in races of people, tailored to their home planet but all descended from humans; which, coincidentally, meant that most of them could breathe the same air and speak the same languages with similar sets of vocal cords, etc.

The stories were about regular people, trying to make a living (the main characters flew a freighter) and getting into adventures where they traveled.  They didn’t encounter exotic aliens and doomsday machines, but they did encounter planets that seemed to be sentient and fall into the middle of corporate espionage and brinksmanship.  The characters were very varied and interesting, much more than vague caricatures of Earth nationalities and races.  The series turned out to have a few more similarities to Firefly, another series that I’d contend would be a much better premise to base our modern SF and morality tales.

But using as your central characters the operators of a space freighter is only one option available.  Any number of “working-class” professions that generally involve a lot of traveling from place to place would work, including law enforcement (at a more limited scope than a navy), courier, detective, explorer, field scientist or engineer (of any discipline), troubleshooter, journalist, work specialist, trainer, etc.  A few of these would support a small cast of characters, allowing for further variety of storytelling.  Attaching them to an official organization would allow some of these to have access to all strata of life, not be limited to one or two groups… but being limited to certain strata, with only occasional exposure to other strata, could be interesting as well.  And maybe aliens are too far-fetched, but we could include robots, possibly with specialized abilities and unique perspectives on human life.

Star Trek was big on heady moral and political concepts, usually played out on an alien planet that stood in for some Earth nation or culture.  This can still be a major part of a modern SF program, provided the characters do not have to be exotic aliens; we know enough to understand when the strange green people with very traditionally-rigid family structures are supposed to be Japanese.  But we can also tell stories that don’t pertain to age-old nationalities and their (often stereotyped) customs and behaviors.  Make up some of your own… something that can provide a good contrast with another character’s traits and behaviors, giving you a more unique twist on the old morality tale.

Star Trek was also big on science, though much of it was trumped up or outright fantasy in order to heighten a story’s drama.  Today, we struggle with real scientific concepts related to energy production, human health, waste management, new chemicals and compounds, better transportation, the transfer of wealth, power or information, modifying or maintaining (and occasionally repairing) environments, etc.  Any of these can be a major part of a realistic SF story about humans dealing with the challenges and ramifications of these concepts.

In order for Star Trek to present these far-reaching concepts, they traveled a lot, all over the galaxy (and occasionally beyond) in mere minutes.  Today, we know “warp drive” isn’t likely to bring far-flung star systems within minutes (or even months) of each other, so maybe we need to think of a premise that allows for a wide-ranging environment, but without galaxy-spanning distances.  Firefly‘s setting was in a unique solar system, filled with many planets and moons terraformed for human habitation… not strictly realistic, but moreso than sailing back and forth among the stars.  Planets don’t have to be the only habitats in a science fiction show: Multiple locations on one planet can serve as very different environments.  As Man moves out into space, he might set up orbital habitats, or live in ships that stay spaceborne but remain near a planet or star.

There was also the question of travel between the stars.  The “warp drive” concept had the advantage of giving a television audience a visually familiar way to imagine ships flying from star to star as easily as yachts sail the ocean… but it had no basis in any reality we know or understand.  Though some scientists have come to suspect that a “warp drive” may, theoretically be possible, we still have no imaginable way to build and operate such a drive.  Realistically, we have to consider one of two possibilities: Either it is impossible to travel faster than light; or, if it is possible, we may need to devise a method other than using raw force to push us at trans-light speeds, or compressing time in a local bubble, to achieve it.

If we assume the former, we’d better come up with a more compact universe to tell our stories in.  If we assume the latter, our story universe can be significantly larger; but as there may be other ramifications to exotic means to travel faster than light, we may find many more tales to tell about the voyages themselves… to paraphrase an old motorcyclists’ motto, the stories won’t only be about the destination, but often, they’ll be about the journey.

What’s that… what about conflict, you ask?  Wasn’t a major aspect of Star Trek the battles against powerful alien foes, the Cold-War-esque conflicts against other star empires? 

Yes, it was.  Star Trek strongly reflected the attitudes of the Cold War, imperialist governments and the threat of nuclear armageddon of Earth’s twentieth century.  However, we are now in the twenty-first century, and the landscape of conflict has greatly changed.  H-bombs are no longer the concern; Improvised Explosive Devices are.  Wars are no longer fought on conveniently-isolated battlefields; they take place in occupied cities.  Gentlemen spies have been replaced by terrorists and jihadists.  And hackers in dark bunkers do as much damage to the enemy as any missile strike.

There is plenty of room for conflict in a modern SF premise, whether it takes place between groups, between factions, or between individuals.  The romantic notions of war are blinding us to a reality that we’ve done our best to ignore for decades… maybe it’s about time we opened our eyes to the real horror of war, and how conflict impacts individuals as opposed to anonymous hordes of starship crewmen.

At any rate, we have plenty of potential material here for a twenty-first century SF series; say, an engineer on a space habitat that tries to duplicate the many cultures of Earth; or a small team of scientists that assist groups trying to settle new and terraformed planets; or a robotic law enforcement field specialist who investigates strange cases on various worlds or space stations.  Any number of which could be a viable modern SF series to carry us into the next century.

Star Trek is so twentieth century.  Let’s build our twenty-first century series now.