Daniel M. Bensen's Blog, page 101
August 10, 2014
69 Unreliable Narrators with Jeff Stanley
http://www.thekingdomsofevil.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/70Jeff.mp3
I’m back with Jeff Stanley, author of The Windows of my Soul I Throw Wide Open, whose narrator is an emulation of Alexander the Great. Also, he’s crazy.
It got more and more fun the crazier he got
The first person present tense
New Frontiers, where the aliens are extremely not anthropomorphic
I don’t have to work on it, other than the words
An ecumenical purgatory
Let’s put on our pretentious monocles and talks about moral relativism
A race of aliens that’s inherently evil: Kren of the Mitchengai
Am I just a flesh and blood robot?
The ability to act outside your own best interests.
August 7, 2014
On Miniscule Volant Anthropomorpha
A gentleman naturalist is surprised to discover a colony of fairies on his summer estates. The fairies are friends with a local girl who is less pleasantly surprised to discover her friends are being popped into jars of formaldehyde.
You know, on second thought. Why not reverse those genders? There were plenty of Lady (rather than gentleman) naturalists such as Mary Anning, and plenty of men with reason to traipse about in the woods, befriending fairies. The naturalist’s foil could be a gameskeeper or even a poacher, of one of the many underclasses (Irish? Gypsy?) of Victorian society.
But I don’t know. Victorian England has been done to death. Who else has a fairy mythology? I could set this in the Pryor mountains (Wyoming/Montana) and make this a frontier story. That would be fun. Or in middle-Europe, where interesting political things are happening. Some thematic resonance there with the lives of “little people” (peasants) being disrupted by industrialization.
What do you guys think? Are there other legends of tiny people that would make a better backdrop for this story?
~~~
Thanks to Melissa Walshe for inspiring this one.
August 5, 2014
One week to Loncon3!
A week from today I’m flying to London to go to Loncon3!
This will be my first convention ever and I have no idea what to expect. I’m already excited about the panels, some of them chaired by my heroes, others by friends who’ve appeared on the podcast.
But other than go to those panels…what am I in for?
If I find out, I’ll let you know.
August 3, 2014
68 Clashing Cultures with Tex Thompson
http://www.thekingdomsofevil.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/69TexAugust-4.mp3
One more  time with Arianne “Tex” Thompson, author of One Night in Sixes, available for purchase right now!
North Korea’s France-by-way-of-Russia uniforms
We think it’s better because that’s how we’ve always done it
Bulgarian light switches (superior) electrical sockets (inferior! Inferior I tell you!)
You’ve lost the luxury of discernment
No, nothing, I just really like the above quote. Take a look at that again.
Japan, exporting its culture like a beast
Successfully exporting your culture is finding people who are willing to pay for it
I said something dumb about the Anglosphere being a “strong attractor,” but what I should have said was the rich get richer
More people speak English as a foreign than as a native language
A YA novel about Bulgarian teenagers by my buddy Emil Minchev
Globalization is increasingly not Americanization
The bad guys in Red Dawn switch from our good friends in China to the vile (and economically irrelevant) North Korea
The illegal panda violence in World of Warcraft (wasn’t really illegal. Sorry, Tex)
It’s getting to be weird for there to be a movie that’s totally white people
August 2, 2014
New Frontiers Works Referenced
In case you were curious…
Education (i.e. works referenced)
Dr. Tatiana’s Sex Advice to All Creation: The Definitive Guide to the Evolutionary Biology of Sex by Olivia Judson
Savages by Joe Kane
Human Behavioral Biology by Robert Sapolsky (Spring 2010)
The Art of Seduction by Robert Greene
The Red Queen Matt Ridley
The Better Angels of our Nature by Steven Pinker
Debt: The First 5,000 Years by David Graeber
1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created by Charles C. Mann
My Secret Garden by Nancy Friday
Confessions of a Sociopath by M.E. Thomas
Embracing Defeat by John W. Dower
Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex by Mary Roach
Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism by Muhammad Yunus
What is it Like to be a Bat? by Thomas Nagel
One Thousand White Women by Jim Fergus
Kinds of Minds by Daniel Dennett
Inspiration
War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells
Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky
Distraction by Bruce Sterling
The Jennifer Morgue by Charles Stross
The Other End of Time by Frederick Pohl
The Spy Who Came In from the Cold by John le Carré
Sundiver by David Brin
Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch
Abaddon’s Gate by James S.A. Corey
A Fire upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge
Painted Ladies by Robert B. Parker
August 1, 2014
What did Louis and Clark discover?
This week on Science Fiction Theater!
Louis and Clark set out on their mission expecting to find predatory mastadons in the West. What if they did?
Well, the easiest answer would be they weren’t predatory mastadons (what a stupid idea), but s North American Pleistocene megafauna like sabretoothed cats and ground sloths. Just say the natives didn’t wipe them out. But then, what DID the natives do with them?
July 27, 2014
67 Tradition and Modernity with Tex Thompson
http://www.thekingdomsofevil.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/68TexJuly-28.mp3
Today I’m talking again with Arianne “Tex” Thompson, author of One Night in Sixes, available for purchase right now!
We talk about the story’s characters. And gender-bending.
It’s not just about changing their gender, it’s about changing their lived experience.
New Frontiers and its sexcapades.
It’s when you’re doing something that scares the hell out of you, that’s the sign you’re doing something worthwhile.
Tex says “pants” Look everyone! She said pants!
The World’s Other Side (Gondwana)
The world runs on culture magic
War through cultural assimilation
My project about the Ottoman empire
Local tradition versus global best practice
Bulgarian sky-scrapers and Emirati sky-scrapers, which is more “Western”? Which is more technically advanced?
The superbus!
Bulgarian is the superior language!
July 20, 2014
66 Creating Cultures with Tex Thompson
http://www.thekingdomsofevil.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/67Texlate-July.mp3
Today I’m talking with Arianne “Tex” Thompson, author of One Night in Sixes! Consume it, minions!
We talk about creating the many (many!) distinct cultures that grace Tex’s new book, including among them Cowboys, Indians, and Fishmen.
Everyone who’s anyone has taken a walk on the amphibious side.
… let’s try that again
It’s Call of Cthulhu meets Howdy Doody
Perfect.
Tolkien, Wheel of Time, Sword of Shannara, and all this stuff
Tolkien and C.S.Lewis and all these great folks
We’ve had Europe around for thousands of years!
What if people told European history like they told Native American history?
They used every part of the duck?
It’s vague what Gondwana is or where the Gondwanans come from.
It’s sad to see people equate “being advanced” with “being European”
One Night in Sixes: it’s more than just adobe and cow skulls.
July 13, 2014
65 Layered Personalities with Jeff Stanley
http://www.thekingdomsofevil.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/65Jeff.mp3
We’re talking about the book Jeff wrote, The Windows of my Soul I Throw Wide Open. It’s a book being repped by Jennie Goloboy of Red Sofa Literary about how memory, genetics, actions, and interests go together to make a person. Also…
The bulk of the novel is him slowly going insane.
How does one become an actual person?
Nobody does things because they’re evil.
I thought it would be cool to have an insane good guy.
July 6, 2014
64 Historical Research with E.C. Ambrose
http://www.thekingdomsofevil.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/64Elaine.mp3
I’m back with E.C. Ambrose, talking about her new book, Elisha Magus and the research that not only informs the series, but got it started in the first place. Also…
The whole thing began with research.
For me a book usually begins with a person in a place with a problem.
What kind of problems would this kind of person face?
The Society for Creative Anachronism
My own historical fantasy book.
I am a huge fan of the Mongols
Jack Rutherford’s Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World
The Secret History of the Mongols (pdf)
The Sons and the Spears trope from the lives of Genghis Khan and Khan Kubrat (not Khan Asparukh, who was Kubrat’s son)
The sausage is actually delicious
Barbarian Empires of the Steppes
Also, because I cannot get enough of Mongols…
A fantastic excuse for travelling to England
Old Hall, a good place to think medieval thoughts
The International Congress of Medieval Studies
Bulgarian kneading tubs (called noshtvi, by the way)
Bilbo Baggins’ Bathrobe episode 1 and 2
If you can get an object that is specific enough to the time and place, you can open up the entire world.
