Steven Lyle Jordan's Blog, page 7

Planetary: Perfect scifi-media mashup

Imagine a world in which most of our incredible fictional sci-fi, pulp and comic book characters were, in fact, real.  Where clever men actually created monsters and bred vampyres, terrorized from giant airships and steampunk submarines, utilized giant guns to launch themselves to the moon, solved incredible crimes, fought alien armies, developed superpowers and penetrated alternate dimensions.

Then imagine one group doing everything it can to hide those facts from the world, for its own selfish ends… opposed by another group doing what it can to bring those incredible secrets to light.

And you have the premise of Planetary.

Now imagine a science fiction fan who grew up on pulps and comic book superheroes, who loved Classics Illustrated and adores the sequential art format.  And you know why I’ve always had such a hard-on for this series.

[image error]Planetary, created by writer Warren Ellis and artist John Cassaday, existed in a unique fictional world of its own.  It centered around three mismatched adventurers with incredible powers who share a love of uncovering the mysterious and impossible, trying to document and reassemble the pieces of the secret world around them.

This comic was not, really, a superhero book; Planetary was really a science fiction comic, featuring sci-fi tropes from multiple eras and media types to create one overarching saga.  But superpowers are included in those sci-fi tropes, so yes, there were superpowered characters throughout Planetary.

And not just the default and ultimately boring power mixes, which is just one of the things that was so fascinating about the series.  The main character, Elijah Snow, for instance, had the power to freeze water… he didn’t run around covered in ice, or fire bolts of icicles at baddies, but he was capable of freezing living beings almost instantly, or condensing the water around him, turning a lethal gas, for instance, into a harmless snowfall.  He was also a master detective, trained by none other than Sherlock Holmes.

There was an uber-powerful character… not a musclebound man, but a woman, Jakita Wagner.  And the third man of the group, known as The Drummer, could probe information out of something, including digital data and even magic, merely by drumming on it with his drumsticks.

[image error]There was a fourth man, Ambrose Chase, a black man who (refreshingly, it seems) didn’t command lightning like so many other thinly-conceived black superheroes; instead, he could warp time and space, using his abilities to speed up or slow down realtime interactions, manipulate gravity and alter reality around him.  Ambrose was perhaps the most fascinating character of all, so it’s sad that he got so little exposure in the series; but he represents an important capstone at the beginning and end of the series, making him especially significant to the overall narrative.

Three things in particular made Planetary such a great series for me.  One was Ellis’ incredible characters, masterful dialogue and fascinating stories, creating an intricate mosaic that never grew tedious, silly or inconsistent… but was always strange.  To me, he stands as one of the best writers in comics today, more imaginative than most, capable of finding clever solutions to problems and unexpected consequences to characters’ abilities and actions that make his stories so much fun to read.

[image error]Two was Cassiday’s incredible art.  Cassiday’s style isn’t typical of superhero comics, maybe not as smooth or polished as some of the more popular artists’ styles on the major imprints.  But his layout and execution is strong, expressive, often intricate, and it fits the weirdness of Ellis’ premise to a T.  When combined with the understated but natural-looking palette of Laura Martin’s colors, the overall effect was a fantastic and unique atmosphere to the series.  The sense of normalcy in the art and colors helped communicate a greater excitement when major events or significant actions did occur; instead of the typical superhero comic, which can feel jaded at times by constant action, Planetary brought me in like a calm voyeur, to be properly surprised and amazed when something major did happen.

Three was the fantastic mix of characters and events that made up their secret world, courtesy of a multiverse of every possible reality that the series frequently accessed.  The Wildstorm imprint was a subsidiary of DC comics, and Planetary took advantage of the connection in paying homage to various DC superheroes, plus a journey through the multiverse to meet, and tussle with, various incarnations of the Batman, and an encounter with another Wildstorm team, The Authority.

[image error]And though some of the many characters in the overall series were well known to readers, most notably public-domain characters like Frankenstein, Sherlock Holmes and Dracula, others were thinly-disguised versions of characters from novels, pulps, movies and comic books, including Tarzan, the Lone Ranger, Doc Savage, Flash Gordon, James Bond, The Shadow, the Green Hornet, Nick Fury, the Justice League, the Fantastic Four and others. Some of these characters were drawn from the parallel realities of the multiverse, opening up an endless supply of character possibilities and forcing the imagination to run wild with the possibilities.

Put together, these characters made up a world of the weird and incredible, with world-altering stakes.  Much of the series was quietly intellectual and understated… which made its action, perhaps nothing compared to modern superhero action, but nonetheless all the more impressive for its brevity and punch.

The stories had a knack of challenging me to recall what fictional characters were being referenced to or homaged by Ellis’ depictions.  Some, like Axel Brass, a clear copy of Doc Savage, and John Stone, an homage to James Bond, were obvious.  Other stories suggested connections to the early SF of Wells and Verne, contemporaries of superheroes from the major comics imprints, legends from American history and Australian mythical lore.  Reading Planetary was never, ever boring.

[image error]On top of all that, Ellis made clever extrapolations, based on the potential of many of those sci-fi and comics characters and elements, and wove them into his tapestry.  Suddenly the potential for some of my favorite sci-fi and comics concepts to create hitherto-unexplored miracles—or nightmares—were there before me, concepts that typical comics either just missed… or maybe were deemed too much for the average reader to grasp.  It made the series so much more unpredictable, and therefore more exciting, than the average comic book, making over-the-top moments feel significant, never just another crazy scene before you turn the page for the next one.

As much as I enjoy a good superhero dust-up, science fiction is still my favorite genre, and SF-based comics and graphic novels will always be my preferred light entertainment.  Planetary perhaps comes closest to the perfect blend of comics and multi-genre sci-fi that I’ve ever read, from a creative team that helps it stand head and shoulders above the crowd.  It heads a very short list of high-quality science fiction comics and graphic novels, a list which would include the likes of Akira, The Incal, Martha Washington, Appleseed, American Flagg! and Watchmen, and precious little else.

It’s one of a very few series for which I, myself, have penned a potential story (and even drafted an illustrated version, should I ever get drunk enough to pick up a pen once more).  It remains a high water mark in sci-fi comics, a mark that will be very difficult to surpass.

M.A.N.T.I.S.? Yeah, I’d reboot that.

We’re in the midst of a superhero renaissance in movies and television.  And while Marvel and DC comics bring their well-known icons to the screen, lesser comics companies struggle to be noticed and freed from the chaff, putting their characters into production, hoping to become the next independent superhero success.

And as has become pretty obvious with the traditional superhero rosters, mostly born in the fifties and sixties, there just isn’t a lot of color there.  Some producers have responded by bringing existing black heroes to the screen (Black Panther), including some created during the infamous blaxploitation era (Luke Cage, Black Lightning), while others have taken white characters in lesser franchises and recast them as non-whites (The Umbrella Academy’s Ben and Allison Hargreeves).

[image error]Which makes this, I think, a perfect time to resurrect an independent superhero who graced the small screen for a brief time, but has so much renewed promise as a franchise today.  That superhero is the M.A.N.T.I.S..

The M.A.N.T.I.S. (not to be confused with the antennae’d female character from Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy) has a lot going for him, character-wise, that could translate to a hugely powerful and popular series.  The main character is Dr. Miles Hawkins, a rich, successful scientist of the type we don’t get to see nearly enough of in media… because he’s black.  (M.A.N.T.I.S. was originally billed as TV’s first prime-time African-American superhero.)  After being shot during a riot and paralysed from the waist-down, Hawkins secretly develops a powered exoskeleton that allows him to walk again, and he uses it and his other self-made inventions to fight crime and injustice in his city.  M.A.N.T.I.S. is the acronym for the exoskeleton he wears (“Mechanically Augmented Neuro Transmitter Interception System”), and so he becomes known as the M.A.N.T.I.S..

Dr. Hawkins is a great character and role model, originally played with quiet passion and intelligence by actor Carl Lumbly.  As a smart, savvy and successful black man, he has a lot going for him right there.  On top of that is the impact of overcoming a disabling injury—an issue that, in the original series, also carried racial overtones that make his self-recovery even more powerful on a psychological level.

[image error]Other trappings of the character evoked elements of Batman, including the wealth and knowledge to create his own tech (moreso than today’s Batman of the movies, who largely borrows his tech from his corporation’s engineers), a sleek flying car, an aide who helps him around by day and assists his activities as the M.A.N.T.I.S. from his hidden lab, and his designation as a vigilante operating outside the law.  There’s obviously a bit of Tony Stark/Iron Man in there as well, certainly less flambouyant but just as brilliant an inventor.

The original series went through a lot of ups and downs—mostly downs: Originally driven by the discovery of racial injustice in the city and the desire to help his friends in their time of need, the series was soon watered down by studio intervention and forced into more juvenile, “comic-book-y” stories; as well, most of the originally black characters were replaced with new characters played by white actors, taking away just about all of the racially-charged elements of the series.

[image error]But thanks to the exposure and success of modern productions like Luke Cage, Black Panther and Black Lightning, all showing a noticeably more enlightened ability to deal with racial issues without becoming shlocky, stereotypical or forced, a new M.A.N.T.I.S. series could follow in their footsteps and give us a great television or movie hero.  Hopefully some clever updating of the exoskeleton and technology will go along with some inspired writing and direction, and make it look really sharp.

I, personally, don’t believe that the character has to be limited to such an overridingly-Black setting and premise as Harlem or Wakanda or Freeland (“Freeland“?!?  Really, DC?); to me, that intentionally limits the character and suggests they can only exist/operate/be effective around other black people.  I think placing it in a more modern and diverse setting would be one of the things that would help set the series apart, to avoid its feeling exclusive or exclusionary.

M.A.N.T.I.S. also has a lot of a science fiction feel to it, which personally attracts me… and let’s face it, science fiction can always use more Black role models that don’t get killed halfway through the picture (looking right at you, Paul Winfield).  So it’s a modern setting, but with plenty of opportunities for high-tech hijinks, led by a disabled person of color… crass, I know, but it’s still a diversity win-win.

So, let’s unlimber those creative juices, sign up some of our fresh talent and get started on what could be the greatest independent superhero production since… uh…

[image error]

Y’know what?  Screw comparisons… let’s just make this one a runaway hit!

Plasma for trash

Many places are reaching a not-at-all-unexpected tipping point in their quest to rid themselves of the garbage they produce: Discovering that their trash is not as easily disposed of as they’d hoped.

[image error]My state of Maryland is just one of such places, where many counties put their trash through old-fashioned incinerators, while others ship it away, to generally be burned in someone else’s incinerator, or thrown into a landfill, or—maybe—actually recycled (which apparently happens a lot less than we’d like to think).

Unfortunately, the landfills are… well… filling up rapidly, or already full.  And despite the popularity and ubiquity of incinerators, operators are finally coming to grips with the incredible amount of toxic pollution emanating from them, forcing many operators to curtail or close operations.  Many landfills and incinerators are now responding to the excess load by refusing to accept trash from other regions that used to depend on them as a way to get rid of their trash.

So, when you can’t throw your trash into a field, you can’t burn it, and you can’t pay others to haul it away… what do you do?

There is one other way to deal with trash, though it doesn’t seem like a different way at all.  Because it’s burning it.  But with a twist: Essentially, burning it really hot.  As in, not at a few hundred degrees as in a traditional incinerator… but at a few thousand degrees, using modern methods.

Plasma has only fairly recently been recognized as an elemental state in its own right (alongside solid, liquid, fire and gas), but we’re already learning to take advantage of some of its attributes.  One of those advantages is that the high heat of plasma will more thoroughly burn waste, leaving fewer trace elements or pollutants behind.  This makes for a much cleaner waste stream.  And virtually nothing exposed to plasma won’t burn, especially the things we traditionally throw away.

[image error]Plasma-arc technology has been developed to incinerate organic and inorganic wastes in high-temperature streams.  The organic wastes, once burned, produce a synthetic gas that can be cleanly burned to run turbines for power.  And the inorganic wastes burn down to an aggregate (glassy bits of rock) useful for construction and roadbuilding.

Plasma-arc facilities are now running in the U.S., Europe and Asia, either as proof-of-concept plants or full profit-based operations.  The U.S. military is also beginning to use plasma-arc technology to dispose of waste in war zones and on naval vessels.  To date, they are proving their efficiency and clean operation, and refining their systems; other jurisdictions are beginning to take notice, and some are planning facilities of their own.

Although a zero-waste stream would obviously be preferable, it is hardly practical at this time, especially in crowded metropolitan areas.  In that case, every jurisdiction that produces trash (in other words, pretty much everywhere) should be looking at the establishment of local plasma plants, to dispose of their own trash and generate power from its disposal.  States like Maryland could build their own plasma-arc plants, using their own trash as fuel, and add to the energy available on the local power grid, solving at once the need to dispose of trash and the need to provide more power to a growing population.  (And fresh aggregate to patch up our roads wouldn’t hurt, either.)

Plasma-arc systems may develop to be scalable, so perhaps in time, it may be possible to create smaller plasma-arc trash-to-power plants to consume trash and generate closer-to-home local power.  Could they become home-based?  Far too early to say (at single-home points, solar and wind power, and even geothermal, would be safer and therefore preferable), but they could at least operate at neighborhood or small town scales.

We’ve reached one of those moments in history when the needs of today demand we replace the technology of the past with that of the future.  Plasma-arc waste burning is a process we can start to apply to our out-of-control trash problems now.

Instead of guns

Being someone who has an appreciation for science, technology and advancement, it frustrates me no end when I witness block-headedness and neanderthal thinking.  I see it in science fiction far too often, with books and movies that feature characters who deal with aliens exclusively by blowing them up (and box office profits soaring as a result).

And today, when America is in the throes of a lethal epidemic of gun violence, and the country can’t even admit to itself that the mere presence of guns in public hands is the root of the problem, I get just as frustrated.  It seems that the only people saying what needs to be said about guns in America are comedians like Jim Jeffries and Samantha Bee… everyone else is too damned timid to just admit that the guns are the problem and removing them is the only solution.

I mean, I get that people feel they need guns for protection.  But… dudes.  It’s the 21st frikkin’ century here.  We’ve harnessed the atom for power, seen other galaxies born seconds after the Big Bang, connected the world with instantaneous communications, sent and returned humans to the Moon and put thousands of times the computing power that got us to that Moon in each of our pockets.

[image error]And we, as a country, still believe that we need guns?  

That’s the textbook definition of block-headedness and neanderthal thinking, right there.

I mean, think about it.  Muskets were the epitome of defensive weapons when George Washington was alive.  And today, over two centuries later, we’re still using explosives to throw molded pieces of metal at each other in self-defense (and more often in offense).

But we know that there are other weapons to be had, both defensive and offensive… and other ways to protect ourselves… right now.  Fiction is full of heroes who use devices other than guns to protect people and stop bad guys, including (non-exploding) physical devices, chemical concoctions, illusions and misdirection, and even raw physical and mental prowess.

In real life, it’s clear our law enforcement divisions understand this: They don’t just arm their police with guns, they also outfit them with multiple devices, including pepper spray, tasers, shields (police cars are frequently good shields), gas and flash-bang grenades and batons, and they train them in hand-to-hand combat and strategies to bring down a perp.  Many of these tools, or variations of them, are also available to the public to carry and use.

[image error]If you caught the first season of the ABC TV series The Rookie, you saw proper use of most of these tools by rookie and veteran officers (in admittedly ideal situations), examples to be applauded for prime-time television.  Another personal favorite series of mine, Elementary, has featured Joan Watson (played by Lucy Liu) effectively using a non-lethal telescopic baton in self-defense.

And we should expect that arsenal to only improve over time.  As an example, while brute sonic devices like flash-bang grenades and sirens are employed to distract and disable perps today, some labs are experimenting with more tuned sonics to better distract and disable attackers, as well as the microwave devices recently deployed against American diplomats in some overseas embassies.  It is believed that devices like this can so thoroughly disorient an attacker as to make it difficult to see targets or aim weapons, and can even provide some level of muscular paralysis that will make it easier to disable and disarm them.  And these weapons may be capable of fine direction to limit the impact to others nearby.

[image error]Tasers are perhaps the most futuristic-seeming weapons available today, using electric charges tuned to disable muscular control in attackers… and it still amazes me that these devices haven’t become more widespread in this country.  Most of them are designed to fire wires with charged electrodes into an attacker, or to apply a charge when directly touched to an attacker.  But there might be other worthwhile configurations for this tool, including firing charged projectiles over longer distances, or quick-tuning charges according to the type of attack.  Presently tasers are fairly bulky devices, but we will probably see their size and portability improve as well, making them even easier to carry unobtrusively and deploy quickly.

As an alternative to throwing electric charges, some chemicals are potent enough to bring down a person almost instantly upon contact.  Perhaps small devices that inject upon contact or shoot small capsules of such chemicals will make it into the public’s arsenal of protective devices.

And even the fabric industry may play into future protective strategies.  Some companies are experimenting with ways to knit exotic materials, including kevlar, into fabrics that can be made into normal-looking coats and suits for everyday wear.  Presently the more well-heeled of us are buying the first of this exotic protective wear, but over time and perfection of the process, we should be able to buy clothing in our favorite styles manufactured with these fabrics.

[image error]Further down the road, I suppose we can talk about lasers: Still considered part of the sci-fi realm, lesser-powered lasers can already permanently blind an attacker.  However, they really haven’t been configured or intended to be used to do so.  Someday, that may change.  We’ve recently discovered certain light frequencies can operate directly on the nervous system, even non-visible light that penetrates the skin, and there may be the potential to provide quick disorientation or incapacitation that doesn’t involve blinding the attacker.  We may see tiny devices designed to be pointed at an attacker to flash a precise light pattern and/or frequency and bring them down effectively.

And even further: Force fields?  Well, I’m not holding my breath for that one.  But there may be technologies we cannot even imagine right now that may be available to us a few centuries down the line, some of which may be as effective as the iconic force fields of sci-fi television and movies.  Hey, who would have imagined a century ago that we’d be knitting bulletproof materials out of spider silk today?

Not only do we have a number of defensive devices at our disposal today, but the future of protective devices could be much more extensive, much more effective, and still be easily carried in a pocket, purse or holster.  When you look at such a considerable existing and future arsenal, the idea of carrying around such incredibly dangerous devices as guns seems increasingly ludicrous, and the national obsession with guns looks primitive and, considering its potential for misuse, increasingly pointless.

What’s that?… you say many of these tools are ineffective against guns?  Well, if there were no guns in America, they’d be fine for defensive protection… wouldn’t they?

But hey, don’t take my word for it… I’m only a writer, one of a long line of people who stop to think about the state of the world and its people, and who take the time to think of alternatives to the old ways of thinking.  Also someone who’s now old and tired enough to not really care if the rest of you want to just gun each other down and continue to ruin this country.

But understand that if you really, really think that the gun is the one thing that Americans have a right to own and use, as indiscriminately and dangerously as possible, then I have only one final thing to say to you:

Ook, ugh, ook.  Snort-guh, ook.  Mmeh, ooga ook.  Yabba dabba dook.  Boom.

I’m a writer… not an IP licensor

[image error]In the movie 1776—the dramatization of the first Continental Congress’ efforts to unite under the concept of independence—Congressman Thomas Jefferson delivers his draft of the Declaration of Independence to Congress; and as soon as it is read, the members of Congress begin castrating it to satisfy their personal desires.

As Jefferson quietly concedes to each edit, fellow Congressman John Adams gets increasingly agitated over the butchering of the document, and finally demands of Jefferson why he won’t speak up for his work.

Jefferson replies: “I had hoped the work would speak for itself.”

I thought of this classic scene as I read the posts of Kristine Kathryn Rusch, pointed out to me by author Sherri Mines after I officially capitulated on my long-term plan to be a profitable novel writer. Business Musings: Rethinking The Writing Business (in, so far, four parts) describe Kristine’s realization that the business of making money from stories has evolved over the years from a simple book publishing system to a modern process of breaking down the concepts and characters into components of intellectual property, or IP, and licensing the IP to content producers.  I quickly understood that my failure as a writer was the direct result of my adherence to an archaic selling methodology, and lack of understanding and application of this new licensing paradigm.

[image error]Unfortunately, knowing that doesn’t help me as much as it might help other creators.  Clearly, you have to be able to sell your IP to licensees.  And unfortunately, I’m no salesman… never have been.  Hello… shy, introverted writer here?  I’ve never been able to sell my books to publishers, so I self-published them all.  I tried to sell the idea of customers actually paying for my ebooks instead of jacking them, and I failed at that.  I tried to sell to readers the idea of reviewing the novels to draw more readers, and I failed at that.  Selling… yeah, not my long suit.

And I suppose I’d hoped to be Thomas Jefferson, who expected his great work to speak for itself.  I should have been clued in by the fact that it didn’t work that way for Jefferson, either; his Declaration of Independence was hacked up like busty blondes in a horror movie sleepover.

But I’d hoped that the people who could help me further my ambitions would find me, offer their expertise and make everything happen for both of us.  I’d hoped a John Adams would offer their application of the strengths I lack, and together we’d win the day.  Alas, that didn’t happen.  Although I managed to cultivate one contact in television circles, my own personal John Adams—in fact, an old friend who found me, years later, and tried to kindle a business partnership—between the two of us, we never managed to sell our shared IP to anyone.

And if I couldn’t manage to sell my IP with the help of a partner, I sure as hell wouldn’t be able to do it by myself.  I mean, I know my aptitudes and my limitations.  If someone had told me, 20 years ago, that instead of just writing books to sell, I’d be spending my time flitting between merchandisers, movie and TV producers, book and comic book companies and Gods know who else, trying to sell all of them on characters, concepts, story elements, packages, strategies, etc, etc… I’d’ve turned my back on the whole business and gone to work at Kinkos.  After all—to paraphrase from another venerable franchise—I’m a writer… not an IP licensor!

[image error]So, what now?  Well, the novels have already been pulled from distribution, since they have proven to be spectacularly unprofitable.  Will I try to repackage them as IP property, to resell in pieces to licensees?  It all depends on whether I can cultivate potential licensees.  But I confess to not being opimistic about that: Without luck, connections, a personal aptitude for salesmanship, or money, I don’t know how I’m going to break through that barrier.

And as it is, I’d probably need to develop brand new IP, since my existing IP—my science fiction novels—were obviously not good enough to impress.

All in all, not terribly promising prospects for me and my desire to profit from entertaining an audience.  Where can I go from here?  Right now… beats me.  Unlike a certain ship’s doctor, I don’t know that I’m going to fix this with thermal concrete, farming skills or a right cross.

We put humans on the Moon 50 years ago

July 20, 2019 marks the 50 year anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission landing the first men on the Moon.

The very first time a member of the human race stepped onto another planet besides the one on which it was born.

The only sentient life form on Earth that has developed the technological ability to leave its planetary home, travel through space, visit another planetary body, and return safely.

[image error]The only other heavenly body besides the Earth that has had members of the human race standing upon it.  Perhaps—who knows?—perhaps the only heavenly body that has been visited by a sentient life form from another heavenly body.

Just take a moment to dwell on that.  And dwell on the fact that July 20 should be an international holiday celebrating that.

There are two websites you can visit to relive the experience of the Apollo 11 mission.  One is We Choose The Moon, created 10 years ago to simulate the mission… originally in realtime, and now as excerpts of the iconic moments (requires Flash on your computer to play).  The other is The First Men on the Moon, a newer site (and a Webby Award winner) to enjoy the entire mission.

Or, I guess you can warm up your VCR to rewatch your cherished copy of Capricorn One.

Yes, it frankly amazes me that, according to polls, between 6% and 20% of Americans, 25% of Britons, and 28% of Russians surveyed believe that the Apollo Moon landings were faked (Wikipedia).  Perhaps it shouldn’t surprise me, given how much public trust in government had been eroded over the years, especially during the 1960s and 70s, giving rise to the incredible industry of conspiracy theories and distrust in science and scientists (ironically, a distrust sown primarily by the same government officials that the public claims to distrust).

So pervasive have these conspiracy theories been that frequent efforts have been made to prove to the public that the Moon landings actually happened.  Numerous television programs have been dedicated to the subject, including an episode of the popular series Mythbusters and a new series by the Science Channel, Truth Behind the Moon Landing.  I wonder, sometimes, if these Apollo hoaxers also believe there are tiny beings operating the inside their cellphones, or a secret organization with detailed dossiers of every American…

Personally, I have a hard time understanding why we entertain such notions with legitimate efforts to dispute them; anyone that far out of touch won’t be convinced by a television show, of all things.  Let luddites be luddites… let them fret over the skin color of mermaids, while the rest of us get on with reality.

[image error]We put humans on the Moon 50 years ago.  In fact, we did it six times between 1969 and 1972.  Twelve men walked on the Moon during the Apollo program.  No human achievement is greater than this.

Don’t believe it happened?

I don’t much care, luddite.

LiveWire is a bit… short

I honestly wish I could get worked up for Harley Davidson’s new electric motorcycle, the 2020 LiveWire.  Not, mind you, because I have a particular love of H-D; not that I hate them either, I’ve just never been a fan of the company’s loud, rumbly, 20th century outlaw aesthetic.  But because I’d like to see electrics get over their mostly-battery-faulted growing pains and become mainstay vehicles on American roads.

Alas, the LiveWire def won’t be the vehicle to accomplish that.  To begin with, it’s too early in its own development (even after 6 years’ work since conception), so it’s got a truly prototype price tag at just 200 bucks under $30,000.  As others have pointed out, I could buy a Tesla 3 with that coin.  Or I could get a Goldwing and pocket about 10 grand.

[image error]Charging here would take so long that I’d be ticketed…

Secondly, for a motorcycle company whose renown is for bikes that riders will take on long trips, cruising the roads and highways and maybe crossing a few state lines, the LiveWire will only cover about 95 miles on the highway before requiring an almost-1-hour recharge (or 40 minutes for an 80% recharge for another 75 miles or so.  Whoosh).  Hardly something you’ll be doing long-distance traveling on… though you’d spend so much time on the road you’ll think you’ve been riding for days.

Or maybe you’re a sport-type rider.  Well, LiveWire is clearly designed to be a sporty ride, not a cruiser.  But all that road-carving will only cost you more battery drain and, therefore, fewer miles before you’re coasting up to the charging station.

[image error]Now that was a pretty bike.

Finally, there’s the look of the bike.  Full confession, here: I was a big fan of H-D’s V-rod when it came out, and if-if-if, I might’ve bought one back in the day.  And I honestly feel like the LiveWire isn’t horrible-looking.  But it’s no V-rod.  It has some interesting looks, and I think they did a decent job figuring out what to do with a non-V-twin-looking motor and battery casing to make them look not-quite-ugly.  But then you get to the tiny dashboard that literally looks like H-D bought a chinese knock-off cellphone and screwed it to the handlebars.  Tres disappoint.

[image error]That’s a dashboard?

I think the worst part is, I understand it’s not a bad ride… peppy, flicky, comfy, all that.  But at 30 grand and only enough juice to get you just around town—once—I have a hard time imagining who’s going to be buying these, showing them off to friends, and sending those friends down to the H-D dealership to demand more.  That strategy didn’t work with Buell, and there are too many choices of vehicles out there (even in the electric market) to make LiveWire that desireable.  And Harley has yet to demonstrate that they’ve got the right stuff for a new generation of riders, as their base customers are getting very long in the tooth.

I think there’s a great future for electric vehicles, with four or two wheels.  Sooner or later, the battery charging and capacity problems will be licked, and we’ll see the venerable internal combustion engine finally replaced by the electric motor.

But that replacement fleet won’t be led by the LiveWire.  I’m not even sure the LiveWire will earn a place anywhere in the fleet.

Mopping up

Now that the painful, humiliating, devastating, rage-inducing, go-high-my-@$$, soul-crushing disappointment from my 20+ year effort in novel writing has—somewhat—passed, I’m still trying to figure out what to do next, especially in my desire to eventually finance my retirement and be able to afford better in my golden years than day trips to North Beach and splurge lunches at Applebees.

I was hoping that writing will still figure into my future efforts… just because I don’t know what else I’ll have to rely on as I get older.  Getting through 18 novels, plus this blog, should be enough to convince people that I can write.  But I need a different product than ebook novels, which are too easy to steal and too hard to profit from.

Some people I know have suggested podcasting on occasion (they say I have a great voice for broadcasting), but tend to leave out the critical component… podcasting about what?  I mean, to garner a podcasting audience, you must be considered enough of an authority on something that people will recommend you to others and spread your word; and I couldn’t even get people to do that about my novels.  So podcasting doesn’t sound that promising for me, unless there’s some compelling subject that I can present myself as one of few authorities on and really impress a base.  Article writing carries the same challenge, and I don’t know yet if that’s something I can manage.

Whatever I choose, I need a way to monetize it.  Through the comments of my last post, Sherri Mines provided a link to a Kris Rusch article, which explained that my problem has been in trying to apply the wrong product-profit methods to my practice: The article suggested that, instead of trying to sell products on a 1-to-1 basis, the better approach to selling content is licensing it.

The real point to licensing is to convince someone that you can provide a valuable product, and get them to pay you in advance for it, guaranteeing your income up-front.  Then you deliver your product as arranged, and they do whatever they do with it to recoup their costs and gain profit.  To be clear, there is nothing newfangled about this method; it’s as old as the twentieth century.  The traditional book publishing system works this way, for example… so does television programming.

Thing is, I’d hoped to be able to jump past those old systems by selling products directly to customers; but it seems that, even after 20-plus years of effort and promotion of modern digital networks and paradigms, in a new century, that idea is still not ready for prime time.  I went the high road… and got swept at the knees.

There is a newer form of licensing, however: Represented by services like Patreon, content creators can collect subscriptions from their actual followers, and send their content directly to them.  This cuts out the components like publishers and television networks, who do the distribution of your content after you provide it; but it also means the creator trades the hard work of convincing a publisher or network to licence their product for the equally hard task of gathering enough subscribers to provide a decent direct income stream.  For those of us who are not accomplished sellers or marketers, neither path is easy.

[image error]And again, I have to have compelling-enough content to make people want to subscribe, license, whatever.  Maybe I can develop said compelling content.  Or maybe I look back at the novels I wrote—that never sold well—and have legitimate doubts that I can develop anything compelling enough to monetize.

So, what’s a way-too-soon future retiree to do?  Beats the heck outta me… I’m still debating just deleting all my novels, finding a nice janitorial associate’s job and developing a taste for wrestling, celebrity endorsements, pop music and sitcoms.  (Which will hopefully end my life early enough to make all this fretting pretty pointless.)

But on days when I’m actually thinking straight—not many, I freely admit—I am trying to find a way to get through this professional dilemma.  Any useful thoughts or connections would be welcome, since I have doubts I’ll come up with anything on my own.  Beyond brushing up on my mopping skillset, that is.

Pwned

My last post discussed society and the future, and how they depend on agreement in order to progress and thrive.  I’ve been thinking about this because so many of the individual functions of society depend on agreement; and among the most major of those functions is buying and selling.

The basis of the agreement is obvious: Exchanging of goods, services or monetary compensation is expected to be equal and fair on both sides.  Sometimes the equality of the transaction is obvious, but oftimes that equality is complicated by intangibles, like the “expertise” of a producer or the complications in providing the service (a rush job, an unusual delivery, etc).

Sometimes those intangibles are deliberately hidden from the other party, to obscure the real value of the transaction.  Sometimes the imbalance of the transaction was obvious, but one party was forced into accepting or participating in the unfair transaction out of necessity or duress.  If such unfair transactions continued long enough or with enough unsatisfied participants, reparations would be demanded… sometimes with violent results… and often a new transaction relationship would evolve from that.

The relatively modern introduction of digital content represents the most recent disruption of the old paradigms in buying, selling and agreement.  Like its most immediate predecessor, television and radio content, the new type of content, coupled with a new delivery system, created a disconnect in the ability to sell content on a 1-to-1 basis.  And like over-the-air content, digital content needs to patch that disconnect in order to be profitable.

With television and radio, the earliest solution became selling to a third party, advertisers, in exchange for access to a supposedly captive audience through which to promote their products.  Later, when content could be encrypted or placed inside encrypted delivery systems (like cable), it was possible to sell access to content either on a 1-to-1 basis or via access to channels carrying that content, and barriers were put in place to make circumvention of those systems generally too difficult to bother with.

But thus far, digital content has had limited success in the same channel- or encryption-based content restrictions.  At heart has been the ease of replication: In most cases, any digital content that is made available to one party can then be duplicated and redistributed over the internet.  And creating barriers to this unauthorized replication of content has proven largely unworkable or impossible.

As the digital revolution began, aspiring writers saw an opportunity to create novels that they would be able to distribute outside of the traditional bookstore and library systems, breaking through the glass ceiling of “established authors” created and maintained by an exclusive and walled-off industry.  These independent authors set out crafting and distributing written products, with the hope that word would spread and result in a steady stream of product and income, making both parties happy in the new digital marketplace of buying and selling by agreement.

But to put it simply, that’s not how it worked out.  The potential customers disagreed on the value of the digital products; using famously flawed logic, they compared digital novels to content like television shows that they claimed “cost nothing” (they refused to acknowledge that advertisers were paying for the content, since they disliked advertising disrupting their entertainment, and wished that they, too, would go away); just as flawed was the attempted connection between the content and its medium, suggesting that it was impossible to put a value on “electrons” and therefore should be considered free.  And since it was easy enough to find content to download for free, customers never fully acknowledged the need to pay for digital content or its actual value as a product.

Interestingly, a new form of business sprang up around the digital content model, the digital distributor: Similar to cable companies, the DD presented themselves as content “aggregators” and allowed a customer to pay a subscription fee for access to any content in their system.  Unfortunately, there was nothing linking the DD to the sources of their content, nor preventing them from obtaining whatever content they want; resulting in hordes of content redistributed to subscribers, but with no compensation going back to the content’s originators.

This left the independent content creator with no fair or reliable channels to sell their content, no support from the customer end of the market, and no way to improve the situation short of spending large sums on legal actuators and investigators in a futile attempt to control the digital distribution system… bring law to the lawless west.

Which, finally, exhaustingly, brings me to my situation.

[image error]I’ve known over the years that some of my books had ended up on the occasional illicit distribution channel—known as “pirating” my books.  It’s been the way of the world with ebooks since their invention, and it was a regular source of irritation… that itch I couldn’t scratch.  But when I recently discovered that essentially all of my novels existed on multiple illegal DD networks, with no way of removing them, nor suing for compensation for my distributed works, that itch graduated to a proverbial knife in my back.  Worse, I discovered that many of the people who regularly encouraged me to write new material were frequenting those same networks, and encouraging others to use them… the equivalent of my own familiar, friendly customers holding the blades.  And gleefully twisting.

So, what I have to show for over 20 years of work, trying to develop a supplementary income for my impending rerirememt years, is… knives in the back from the very customers who I thought were on my side.  A total breakdown of the buyer-seller agreement: I have been turned into a sucker serving the tyrannical customer, a slave to the market massahs.  You know what they say: Fool me once, shame on me; fool me 18 times…

In short (too late), I’ve been thoroughly pwned.  And… well, you will hopefully not be too incredibly surprised to discover that I’m kinda tired of stepping, fetching and bleeding for other people’s gratification.

I’ve therefore finally declared an end to the whole 20-plus-year independent novelist for profit project.  The long-institutionalized breakdown of the buyer-seller agreement over digital content has turned me, the content creator, into the victim of an unbalanced system, praying for a balance that will never come; and that’s a role I no longer intend to play.  I have managed to learn a thing or two about writing over the years; maybe I can work out another type of writing that will pay off in the future.  But it looks like novel writing, the format that I enjoyed so much as a reader and writer, won’t be it.

Since the point of my blog has been the promotion of the novels, I’m weighing my options here, too.  I’ve never received significant approval or support over the opinions expressed in this blog, whether about science, science fiction or SF-related entertainment; so it’s not as if the blog represents a notable voice in public discourse, and it’s fair to say that it would not be missed.  So I’ll be considering rebuilding, repurposing or shuttering it.  My future, now lacking a retirement fallback, is now that much more uncertain; and that uncertainty will impact the interest and investment I have in the rest of society’s activities, and my desire to contribute to them through commentary and opinion.

But whatever.  I’m making these decisions according to what works best for me, informed by my total failure and humiliation at the hands of a skewed market, and a lack of fairness between me—a guy who just wanted to make some money by entertaining people—and a public that only wanted to take my work without giving me due compensation for it.  I will now go find something else to do… hopefully something that will provide a better experience than trying to win fair treatment from novel-stealers and back-stabbers over the internet.

One thing I think we can all agree on: I stand a better chance of fair treatment doing almost anything else.

Future by agreement… or not

I don’t remember a lot about my college years.  (Which is probably a good thing.  If I spent much time thinking about those days, I’d probably wake up with nausea and cold sweats.  Every.  Single.  Night.)

One thing I do remember is a Sociology class that I took during one quarter, built around the idea that a successful society is built around agreement.  Agreement turns a loose band of families and households into communities, and communities into countries.  Agreement transcends numbers, differences, resources and knowledge, bringing people and plans together and creating stability, understanding and progress.  To this day, I’m convinced that was one of the three most important college classes I’ve ever taken.

[image error]This simple but unassailable concept described my childhood in the civil-service-supported American melting pot of Montgomery County, Maryland.  It was also, I realized, the foundation behind the Star Trek concept of IDIC—Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations—the idea of bringing diverse peoples together to inspire the best of human development.

It was also made clear to me that lack of agreement informs most conflicts in fiction.  And although plenty of popular stories revolve around protagonists and antagonists—people on opposite sides of agreements—physically duking it out until someone comes out on top, it occurred to me that my personal favorite stories centered around groups of people working together in agreement to solve problems.  My own stories, in fact, generally mirrored this philosophy.

But, to me, it goes much further than fiction and stories: I am firmly convinced that societies built around agreement have been central to all periods of real progress and advancement in human history; and that all periods of human decline have happened during periods when agreement between groups has broken down.

Presently the world is enmeshed in conflicts, squabbles and tug-of-wars that are textbook examples of disagreements; and it can be said that other than a shining decade that took us to the Moon, there has been little advancement in the world outside of scientific accomplishments (the scientific community being one of the few entities in this world of humans that manages to rise above petty politics and avows agreement at all times and all costs).

[image error]This might not seem important to some; but I stress that, if disagreement continues to control the world, the world will not be able to come together to solve its most pressing problems.  Indeed, as climate change and global warming have evolved from theory and conjecture to global certainty in the eyes of the majority, a continued lack of global agreement still prevents the world from taking clear and concrete steps to curtail and minimize the damage.

And even in the face of continued disagreement, even at the precipice, some people have the audacity to believe the human race will somehow progress into a positive future.  I’ve demonstrated that audacity myself, in the past.  But after so many years’ watching the total breakdown of communication and agreement over even the most neutral and clear-cut of issues, I’ve lost that audacity.

But perhaps, in time, these feelings will blow over.  After all, they often have, over millennia of human development, and often after the absolute worst of periods, when it seemed society, community, even simple agreement, was forever impossible.  In the darkest of circumstances, in the aftermath of the worst disasters, we have often managed to find common ground, and used that as a base to reconstruct stabiliy and lay the foundations for the future.  The best of us have stepped forward, offering the olive branch and the voice of reason, and coaxed disperate peoples to the negotiating tables.  And those of us who were too tired after trials and difficulties, finally stood up and agreed that now was the time to find a better way, together.  And as the saying goes, it’s darkest before the dawn.  Perhaps our dawn is soon approaching.

When the dawn finally arrives, perhaps everyone will look at the previous darkness and wonder how we allowed things to get so bad… as we often do.  Maybe we’ll agree to never let it get that bad again… again, as we do.  Perhaps we’ll agree that we don’t treat our neighbors well enough… that we don’t share our resources equally… that we all must share the reponsibility for our world’s ecological state… and that we never solved anything by blowing each other up.  We’ll agree that we can work together and do better.

And maybe we’ll see a significant period of progress and advancement, maybe not soon, but eventually.  Perhaps we are simply the ones unlucky enough to be living in one of those dark, disagreeable ages, and won’t live long enough to see the agreeable dawn.

Perhaps we’ll do something incredibly stupid, and ensure that we’ll see no more dawns.  Or nature will take it upon itself to bring that assurance to us, ending our misery in any one of a dozen fast or slow ways.  Or perhaps we’ll all just agree that we’re doomed, and wait for the end to take us… the death of humanity, by mutual agreement.

I imagine that, during the dark days of yesteryear, it was always hard to predict the dawn, and often as hard to believe the dawn would come at all.  That belief that we will all soon see the light comes hard to me, right now; and the desire to wait it out comes even harder on some days.  For myself, I’m just wondering how long I have before the match burns down to my fingers.  I’m wondering how long we all have.

But I think we’d all agree that it’s gonna be close.