Daniel M. Bensen's Blog, page 107
March 30, 2014
50 Manga on Kickstarter with Phuong Pham
This week I’m talking to Phuong, an editor at Digital Manga, Inc. We’re talking about Kickstarter, yaoi, hentai, and then …
Triton of the Sea, Unico, and Atomcat
You don’t want to end up too short
Osamu Tezuka, author of Astroboy and the God of Manga
Takarazuka (and kabuki and noh)
Westerns based on samurai movies
Furi Kuri said “niisan” although come to think of it, I think it was actually “sempai”
You might remember my friend Emil
Itadakimasu and ohayou
Nande ya nen (I said “Nande yo ne” because I don’t speak the heathen drawl of western Japan)
50 Science and science fiction with Turbofanatic
I’m talking this week with Turbofanatic (who you may remember from Singularity and King and her awesome comics Aphelion and Deltavengers).
Nobody cares where the heat’s going. Nobody’s going to die if I write a bad comic.
Writing a Matlab program
The 707 can do a barrel roll, but please don’t
Why should you be accurate in science fiction?
Gravity and Armageddon, which totally belong in the same sentence
Coats‘s rule of storytelling #19: Coincidences to get characters into trouble are great; coincidences to get them out of it are cheating.
There’s a fine line between being lazy and being efficient
50 Where the heat goes 1/2
I’m talking this week with Turbofanatic (who you may remember from Singularity and King and her awesome comics Aphelion and Deltavengers).
Nobody cares where the heat’s going. Nobody’s going to die if I write a bad comic.
Writing a Matlab program
The 707 can do a barrel roll, but please don’t
Why should you be accurate in science fiction?
Gravity and Armageddon, which totally belong in the same sentence
Coats‘s rule of storytelling #19: Coincidences to get characters into trouble are great; coincidences to get them out of it are cheating.
There’s a fine line between being lazy and being efficient
50 Where the heat goes
I’m talking this week with Turbofanatic (who you may remember from Singularity and King and her awesome comics Aphelion and Deltavengers).
Nobody cares where the heat’s going. Nobody’s going to die if I write a bad comic.
Writing a Matlab program
The 707 can do a barrel roll, but please don’t
Why should you be accurate in science fiction?
Gravity and Armageddon, which totally belong in the same sentence
Coats‘s rule of storytelling #19: Coincidences to get characters into trouble are great; coincidences to get them out of it are cheating.
There’s a fine line between being lazy and being efficient
March 27, 2014
Wheel in the Sky 3
Candegar had as hard a time trying to get paid out of the company as keeping the spittle out of his face.
“Just pay me what I’m owed for the last month,” he found himself saying for the fifth time.
The regiment’s paymaster was a fat chinless man who only stepped off his wagon to piss and argue terms of contract and Candegar’s didn’t say a thing about flitting off to who knows where on a whim.
“This regiment pays wages on a tour by tour basis, son.” he peppered Candegar’s face with a fresh hail of saliva. “And you don’t get paid till the bitter end, squire.”
The jab bit him and stung all the worse because of the pain blooming behind his eyes. At first he’d been happy enough to get Voidcleaver’s voice out of his head, but ever since Saria had silenced the dagger, there had been a hollow tightness in Candegar’s chest, the seed of desperate addiction.
“Look,” he said, “I fought for this company, killed and nearly died for it. I saved men’s lives, too.”
“”Well if you’re such a hero,” said the paymaster, “I’m sure you won’t be needing any money corrupting your soul.”
Candegar opened his mouth to protest, but the paymaster’s eyes slid up and away from him. Hooves clopped behind him and Candegar turned to see Saria.
The Aristo had discarded her finery for practical, if ostentatiously elegant, riding clothes. A pair of good horses bobbed their heads absently behind her as she aimed her vieled face at Candegar.
“You’ve had enough time for play,” she said. “Come with me now, squire.”
Candegar’s jaw clenched. Bad enough this bitch had his balls in her fist, yanking him out of his regiment and his life as easily as she’d bought those horses. At least he wasn’t going without his payment.
“One moment, lady,” he said, and turned back to the paymaster, pulling at the strap around his neck as he did so.
“You know what this is?” he raised the scintillating mass of Voidcleaver into the light. “You were more right than you knew when you called me a hero.”
“A Hero’s Blade.” The paymaster staggered backward as if from a plague rat. “You’ve been infected with Heroism this whole time? If the Krypteria finds out—”
“It will be your thumbs in the screws, not mine.”
“Come, squire,” called lady Saria, “I won’t tell you again.”
Candegar grabbed Voidcleaver’s handle and pointed the green-black blade at the paymaster. “Give me. My money.”
Thus it was that Candegar left his mercenary career with a full month’s wage plus hazard pay.
“That was well done,” said Saria. “They can’t tell anyone you were infected by a Power without drawing the Krypteria’s attention. And I’m pleased you think you will live long enough in my service to spend that money.” Red lights flashed in her veil. “It shows optimism.”
March 25, 2014
Singularity and King 7
Dan: No nifty godlike gadgets, just good old-fashioned pogroms of scientists and science-literate people.
Michael: Making the catastrophe a man-made one gives the story an Us vs. Them dynamic but would we still keep the broken environment? Are the computer systems still breaking down? It might introduce a modern industrialism wrecking the environment theme.
But I’d say the powers-that-be still can’t fix those problems without rebooting the system or some such and resetting the physical laws and that would be Against Uchronian Law. The Krypteia would be the most obvious enforcers of that status quo. That would also lend itself more easily to revolutions and palace coups.
Dan: I like Sarah’s notion of systems evolving away from user-friendliness over time as the more selfish reproducers proliferated. These systems are so deeply rooted and powerful that they look like nature, but they aren’t. They’re a governing body that doesn’t necessarily have the best interests of people at heart. “Irrelevant” systems (like gravity) are ignored and break down or go feral. AIs fight with each other over resources, leaving humans in the crossfire.
Ooh ooh, remember seelie and unseelie fae? Perhaps there are forces within the environmental systems that still find humans appealing (some atavism of their ancestral programming, perhaps) but they are steadily loosing to the more competitive “unseelie” AIs who don’t give a damn about humans.
Turbo:
Here’s something interesting, my early inputs were about the question of whether or not people built technology to make the world more like a “fairytale” and what the issues with that would be. I think you guys have hit upon one of those issues. That is, bizarre emergent phenomena that reproduces itself will emerge from any complex system, and world spanning narrative hypertech ecologies certainly count.
Since this was a fantasy LARP world, would some of the original settlers have hoped for a permanent low tech existence? Did someone cause this cataclysm on purpose? There are luddites today, why not the future? The emperor could genuinely believe that removing the tech interdict will drive them back into chaos.
But feral technology is running rampant, the unseelie court is growing stronger, weather AIs are forgetting what to do.
Chaos is coming, whether we like it or not.
March 22, 2014
49 Godbillies 2/2
I’m talking again with illustrator Daniel Heard about how to stop your world-building from getting out-of-control.
An excellent example of that problem! New Frontiers
La Malinche (she was Nahua, not Mayan, sorry)
It’s not necessarily bad to make an encyclopedia for your made-up world
My conversation with Simon Roy about text versus comics
Sex with a rain of gold
You could separately google the Enlightenment and Apollo, versus the Romantic movement, Dionysus, and Lovecraft. Or you could just look at this thing.
The universe is incomprehensibly awful
Charles Stross’s Laundry books
The book about alien prostitutes
Oh my God, what if I’ve forgotten how to write?
Sidelines, by my hero, Lois McMaster Bujold
Writer’s block is a sign that you’ve made a mistake in your previous chapter.
What if this character was the bad-guy?
Just start writing. It may take you somewhere completely different.
Godbillies 2/2
I’m talking again with illustrator Daniel Heard about how to stop your world-building from getting out-of-control.
An excellent example of that problem! New Frontiers
La Malinche (she was Nahua, not Mayan, sorry)
It’s not necessarily bad to make an encyclopedia for your made-up world
My conversation with Simon Roy about text versus comics
Sex with a rain of gold
You could separately google the Enlightenment and Apollo, versus the Romantic movement, Dionysus, and Lovecraft. Or you could just look at this thing.
The universe is incomprehensibly awful
Charles Stross’s Laundry books
The book about alien prostitutes
Oh my God, what if I’ve forgotten how to write?
Sidelines, by my hero, Lois McMaster Bujold
Writer’s block is a sign that you’ve made a mistake in your previous chapter.
What if this character was the bad-guy?
Just start writing. It may take you somewhere completely different.
March 20, 2014
Wheel in the Sky 2
The road rose and fell over brown sun-blasted hills and valleys. The heat cast a mirage waist high that hid low objects in the shimmer despite the thick covering of dust over the asphalt.
“Halt!” The sergeant called.
Down at the bottom of the shallow valley, Candegar could see the tattered banners of a squat carriage with its tall rubber tires. From that distance, he recognised the dark brown splotches of dried blood across the white sides of the carriage. One of the white horses lay dead, still hitched in its place with a short javelin protruding obscenely from its neck. The others must have been long gone along with the raiders that had left their dead strewn alongside what remained of the ducal lancers.
“Halberds and skirmish line!” the sergeant bellowed while he carefully stowed his field glass in its leather-bound case. The order was carried out with professional celerity. Short composite bows came out of their quivers and arrows were nocked while other men upturned their polearms so that their business ends pointed upward.
Candegar was among those who moved to the fore, all the while strapping splinted bracers over steel-backed gloves. He replaced his hat with a garish red bandanna and a simple steel helm that protected him nearly to his earlobes.
You don’t need that junk. I cannot understand why you would weigh yourself down with blacksmithery when I would deal with these bandits quickly enough. Then you wouldn’t sweat so much and I wouldn’t have to stew in here.
Candegar did not answer. They’d had this conversation before. Voidcleaver wasn’t happy about being packed in cloth and shoved down Candegar’s shirt, but even that little protection might mean death at the accusing finger of a Krypteria agent.
As quickly as it had been ordered, the company were armed and ready. A small forest of steel glinted in the apogeal sun while a force of twenty limbered up their arms for sword and hatchet work. Candegar took a long drink from his bottle gourd and waited, all the while keeping his attention on the abandoned carriage ahead.
The order forward was matched by a loud blat from the trumpeter. A steady marching cadence welled up from the drummer and the company moved as one. The skirmishers started forward at a run and were soon well ahead of the main force. If attacked, they could return double quick to the safety of the halberdiers. Candegar drew a short sword with simple crossguard and a clip point. His left hand unsheathed a broad dagger in the assassin’s grip and then unclipped a small buckler from his sword scabbard. Finally, it came up into the boxer’s guard.
This is a damn waste of energy.
Candegar agreed. On both sides of the road there was nothing but low scrub and the occasional gnarled tree. A tree line began some four hundred metres east. If the raiders were there at all, they would not think to return just to challenge these veterans. Still, the next hilltop and its stone tower were not far from the butchery in the road and men become veterans because they are cautious when daring is unnecessary. There was no guarantee that there weren’t any raiders lying in wait.
They were nearly upon the scene when a lancer stumbled out from behind the carriage. His armour and oval shield blazed like chrome steel and he drew his sabre with practiced economy. His crested helmet was dented nastily in one side and his white breeches had been soiled in another man’s blood. With the war cry of his House, he charged the skirmishers as if he were still mounted on a charger.
The slinger next to Candegar swung once, twice and let the lead bullet fly faster than an arrow. It cracked on the lancer’s shield, leaving a black mark on the mirror polish.
Ugh. Ranged weapons. Just draw me and kill everyone.
“The knees next time.” Candegar chastised. “Now we might have to kill him.”
The lancer slashed once and again, eyes wild, charging this man and that one while they parried and fell back and others surrounded him.
The blow to the head had been a severe one. While the lancer’s strength was still with him, his skill had suffered greatly. Candegar stopped a slash using his dagger near the lancer’s hilt and smashed his sword pommel into the man’s neck. He slumped to the floor with a groan but at least he would be taken alive.
Aha. What’s that I smell? Aside from your sweat that is.
Candegar brought his fist to his mouth and made an interrogative “hm?”
Powers. Little ones, but a fair pack of them. And all of them flitting about that carriage.
They turned to the sound of large clockwork locks being opened in sequence. The carriage doors swung outward to reveal a tall and slender young lady. Fine lace and filigree covered her from head to toe. Red and blue text menus and information charts flashed down her veil.
“An Aristo,” said Candegar.
Well of course she—
The voice of the dagger cut off abruptly as the young woman turned to Candegar. “You there” she called. “You will escort me to my Father’s estate. He will pay handsomely for my safe return.”
“I—” Candegar mastered himself and did not step back from the sorcery. Did not ask “how did you silence my demon?” Such a question might get him killed. Instead he asked what was expected of him. “We have taken you hostage, lady. You are to come with us.”
“Oh no,” she descended from the carriage and the other soldiers backed away. Placing a hand on his chest, directly over the illegal cursed dagger, the Aristo whispered. “I’m afraid the situation is quite the reverse.”
By Dan, Michael, and Turbo. For a behind the scenes look at where this story’s coming from, see here.
Sexy Sophonts interview
Scifi Ideas just posted an interview (with illustrations!) about New Frontiers.
New Frontiers is a science fiction novel I recently finished and it does something I haven’t seen before, which explore how aliens can be irrational.
Irrationality (meaning a tendency for a person to do things not in line with their goals) is a big part of human life, and a lot of it comes from our instincts, and a lot of those instincts come from sex. We don’t make the same sort of decisions about sex that we do about tax reform, and its reasonable to assume that aliens won’t either.
But how exactly might aliens be irrational? It depends on what kind of sex they have, of course.
I designed the five species of New Frontiers from the reproductive system up, with nods to some of the odder sex lives of real-life organisms…
Check out the complete interview
