Daniel M. Bensen's Blog, page 118
July 21, 2013
Podcast 19: Martian Law (2/3) Characters
Once again, Simon Roy, Memo Kosemen, and me, Daniel Bensen have ganged up to construct a story based on H.G. Wells’s War of the Worlds.
We’ve discussed the worldbuilding of the Martian timeline. Now on to characterization.
Also:
Caribbean syncretic religions
Agent of Byzantium by Harry Turtledove
Extreme cultural relativism
All the kids are into steampunk these days
Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld
July 19, 2013
Manic Panic!
If you were confused by the last blog entry, no, I wasn’t compelled to write it by brain parasites, but by cool fellow author Melissa Walshe of Between the Lightning Bug and the Lightning. The following is my response to her response to this article by Laurie Penny about the Manic Pixie Dream Girl. I personally find the trope annoying, but Melissa convinced me MPDGs are more than just annoying: they are a threat to our very way of life.
The good thing about writing books as opposed to making movies and TV shows is that your characters don’t look like anything. Or rather they look however the reader imagines. TV shows don’t have the luxury of depending on their audiences to visualize their actors, however, so they have to cast people who look a certain way. And because they want to make money and they cater to a bunch of damn dirty apes, casting directors will pick someone attractive 9 times out to 10 (and number 10 will be an ugly, scary man). If you’re an unattractive woman, you will probably not appear on my TV. You might, however, appear in my book (and then I’ll imagine you as pretty because I’m a dirty ape too).
The problem is that while actors can just stand around looking pretty, your main character in a book (and okay, in a good movie, too) has to do something. And when we think of active main characters, we often jump to the male gender, which have to be proactive and assertive, otherwise they come across as boring and wimpy (I got around that problem in Tyrannosaur Queen by making EVERYONE assertive and bashing them off each other). Couple that with the fact that more female readers are willing to read books only about men than male readers are willing to read books only about women, and you get a glut of male heroes in fantasy and science fiction.
This hearkens back to professional female gender rolls of the 70s and 80s, when people thought that women had to act like men in order to be taken seriously in the workplace. There is such a thing as professional and nonsexual feminine, just as there is non-sexual masculine. We just need to find it.
But who care about non-sexual anything, amirite? Certainly all of my books have some gooshing going on all the time, but even in the bedroom (or a Maastrichtian floodplain under the gaze of the moon and a couple passing Quetzalcoatlus or, you know, wherever) I can’t seem to escape those pesky gender roles. And that’s because of evolution and game theory. Strap yourselves in now.
There ought to be a philosophical or game-theory phrase to describe this situation: Two people are interacting, both have their own interests and abilities to bring to bear on the interaction. It would be objectively more romantically efficient for A to approach B and say: “hello, I am attracted to you and would like to begin a sexual relationship with you. Here is my history, experience, a list of my fetishes, and my emotional baggage. How about it?” But then of course the other party might decline, and we can’t have that now can we? What we get instead is a situation where both sides try to manipulate the other in order to gain advantage thereby. Which brings us back to the Manic Pixie Dream Girl.
Penny (the ex-Manic Pixie Dream Girl) may have decided that the advantages to being a MPDG (attracting sexual partners, getting favors from people wishing to be sexual partners) are outweighed by the disadvantages (being dismissed as stupid, being manic all the time, which must be exhausting, maybe she isn’t attracted to men who are attracted to MPDG, or maybe she has a committed romantic partner already). So while it’s easy for you and I to point at her and say “she shouldn’t act like to get attention, and men shouldn’t respond to her the way they do” objectively, she made a rational decision. She DOES want attention (as do we all) and some men DO act that way. Now, I would be interested in what makes men attracted to MPDGs (or are they? Maybe the MPDG market comes from other women, or from men who aren’t sexually interested in MPDGs, but are interested for some other reason. Fashion advice? Morbid curiosity?).
But the elephant in the room here is that (sorry) men are sexually attracted to any vaguely woman-shaped animal, mineral, or vegetable they can find. Prop a woman in front of a camera, and men will enjoy looking at her, no matter what she says or does. Of course if you want your art to be taken seriously (and not rejected by your hetero-female audience) you can’t just pin up a swimsuit model and call it a day. You have to make this woman-creature DO something, and it has to be something that is interesting to people of both genders. A MPDG, I argue, is successful not only because the hetero male audience enjoys imagining that she’s their girlfriend, but because the female audience enjoys imagining that she is THEY. While half the audience things “yeah, I bet it would be easy to trick an idiot like that into bed,” the other half is thinking “yeah, I bet if people recognized me as a unique and creative free spirit, they would stop thinking I’m an idiot.”
Men aren’t wired to find a woman’s actions sexy in the way women are for men. Of course I can’t go out and impregnate a never-ending cavalcade of beautiful nameless bimbos because (a) those don’t exist (b) society would revile me for it and (c) I might feel, like, bad about my actions, or something. Wish fulfillment fantasy removes those impediments, but fortunately, I can’t just plug my computer into my crotch and write “Burly Space Pirates Plunder the Planet Venusian Vixens Yet Again” because I want my audience to be larger than lonely teenage boys. Also, I think it’s a bad idea to remove agency from people, even in fiction. Those poor Venusian Vixens’ interests won’t be served by surrendering to the lusty embrace of Captain Thrustarr, however much fun it might seem at the time…
Hm. Maybe I’m on to a book idea after all.
High five, Melissa! Now our blogs are twinsies!
July 18, 2013
Hilarious gender-specific sci-fi
If you’re a boy, I think you’ll be awesomely blown away by my story idea: Burly Space Pirates Plunder the Seductronians Yet Again (by Rodger Bearman)
“Captain, we’re receiving a transmission from the planet Seductron IX.”
“By the moons of Neptune, not another paternity suit!”
Those poor Seductronians’ interests won’t be served by surrendering to the lusty embrace of Captain Thrustarr, however much fun it might seem at the time.
If you’re a girl, you should tenderly squeal at The Embrace of the Nurturing Warrior (by Laurabell Willowing)
Mbarr looked down at her, lavender sunlight scintillating off his iridescent eyes. Muscles moved under his tunic as he brought a paw up to Lucy’s face.
“Star of my Heart,” he rumbled, delicate fingers extended from their powerful claw-sheaths to stroke her jaw. “You are aware of the depths of my feeling for you?”
Lucy swallowed. “I am.”
And you know of the Nparth Ritual? The cataclysmic sundering of my soul jewel can only happen once. and only one female may carry my heartshard lest I die.
“Oh, Mbarr,” she said. ”I will guard your heartshard with every breath I take.”
“Excuse me?” He said, “You? Wow. Look, I’m sorry, but Star, but you don’t even have an ovipositor.”
Can two souls find each other, even if tab A doesn’t fit into slot B?
~~~
See what’s in store for you if I can’t make a living with my current projects? Only with your support can we make sure that I don’t write the stories above.
Naw, I’m just joshing. This post is a pre-response to my buddy Melissa’s blog post, which you can find here if you want a more nuanced version of the social critique I made with sex-jokes.
July 16, 2013
Martian Law: Background
Early picture of a Martian
What if the War of the Worlds had actually happened? What would the world look like now, more than a century after the Martian invasion?
We’ll be going into this question in more detail in my podcast on the 15th. Until then, here’s some speculation:
Timeline
Martian space travel develops in the 1800s as part of an effort to bring more valuable water and oxygen to the planet’s surface for industrial purposes (in the same way some people want to mine the moon for helium 3). The earth invasion is a small side-project in this larger enterprise.
1877—channels observed on Mars
1894—launch of First Martian Invasion (10 ships) (see war of the worlds)
A private venture composed of Martians from only one nation. (not included in the second invasion)
1924—Second Martian invasion
The next time they come, they do not try to live here, but enslave us to mine resources.
A consortium of seven Martian nations sets up orbital platforms and a base on the moon, from which they bombard the earth with rocks.
Different Martian powers carve Earth into administrative regions
1950s—Martian Colonization
Sterile habitations are erected for the Martians, and steps are taken to develop drugs that will protect them from Earth’s bacteria.
Resource exploitation
Slave trade
1950s—Humans are taken as slaves to work on the Moon, then the orbital stations around Earth, then the trawlers between Mars and Earth, then Mars orbit/moons, then Mars itself.
On the moon and in space, humans must be educated to survive and not endanger others. They must be highly skilled.
Clandestine communications via radio among space humans
Human population falls as food growth/distribution systems are disrupted
Martians appoint governing bodies
1960s—Organized space human rebellions. Several ships lost or diverted. Slaves freed. Lunar habitat outgassed, another survives but the Martians inside are killed. This becomes the famous Other Moon Base.
Vicious crackdown on slaves in Martian-controlled habitats and ships. Other Moon Base retaken. Rebels are killed or scatter.
Human reprisals, more deaths, lost ships. Pirate attacks by ex-revolutionaries.
Martians Co-opt bureaucracy of pre-existing human governments to act as go-betweens
1980s—Martian/human intermediates evolve into the de facto governments of the human-lead states.
Humans removed from Martian orbit and moons. This is impossible in Earth space, as too many humans work there, but strict segregation laws and security are enforced. The Intolerable Decade.
1940s-1990s Martian Cold War
Several wars conducted between Martian states by human proxies on Earth
1991—Planned human uprising prevented by out gassing an entire space habitat. Living chambers in other places outgassed. Rumors of New Other Moon Base.
Protest-suicides by humans. Other systems are sabotaged by kamikaze humans. Ever worse attacks by pirates.
1991-93—Second Martian crackdown.
Second crackdown halted by Martian-lead coup on the Moon. Governments on Mars expelled from lunar affairs. Lunar Republic founded.
Exploration of outer solar system brings in water from asteroids and comets
1993—Water mining of Earth ceases
Martian colonial interest in Earth decreases
1994—Coup on Earth orbit stations and on most of the Earth/Mars transport ships. Republic of Independent Vessels founded.
Human-led independence and self-governance movements
1995—Mars/Space war. Attempts by Mars to retake lost ships and habitats. RIV and LR claim victory with the aid of human Spacewalkers.
Humans granted suffrage in RIV and LR.
1999—Martian colonial power mostly pulls out
2000-2010s—Many dictatorships, theocracies, and kleptocracies
2010—RIV and LR are recognized by governments on Earth and on Mars, and serve as a model for human/Martian cooperation.
Tension is caused by the actions of the Moon-men, terrorist descendants of the old revolutionaries in the fabled New Other Moon Base.
The original discussion of the idea
Map of Mars
Continents of Mars
Martian races
Martian religions
Martian economic blocks
Tune in next week for more exciting developments in Martian Law!
July 13, 2013
Podcast 18: Martian Law (1/3) Worldbuilding
For the first time together, we have Simon Roy, Memo Kosemen, and me, Daniel Bensen. I’ve talked with Simon and Memo separately, but today we’ve ganged up to talk about worldbuilding and to, you know, build a world.
It all goes back to a conversation I had with Memo back in 2009 and the wild speculation that resulted. Actually it goes back to a book called War of the Worlds, but nobody’s heard of that, I’m sure.
Themes discussed include:
The Balkans
The former Soviet Union
The Caucasus
The British Empire’s ethnic division funtimes
Proxies in the Cold War
Crazy Nationalist Mythology
Religious Martians who make pilgrimage to Mount Olympus or the Head Rock. You know the one I’m talking about.
The War Nerd on post-colonial Africa
Planet of Adventure! By Jack Vance.
Fallen Stars
And what conversation about post-colonial oppression would be complete without Slobodan Milošević and Robert Mugabe?
July 8, 2013
Rough Draft
For those of you who were wondering, this is what the earliest version the rough draft/outline for my next chapter of New Frontiers looks like. It’s based on random snippets of action or dialogue held together by my previous outline, re-arranged based on what I think needs to happen next and what occurred to me while I was walking around and around the park. Enjoy 
Chapter 9
so are we really in danger from radiation poisoning i ask.
not really plamen translates for pwhapm. even unregulated replication error should be easy enough to fix if you just download your…oh. i suppose you cant. well celular automata…but you don t hv ae a baseline on record do you.
ripples pass down thesclerites from head to tailtip. how good are you with brain transplants?
my heart is sinking hopefully not yet from tissue damage.
it will be fine sighs jorge. i helped bubba breed the software personalities we used to run our body modification machines. if the oonkhs can provide us with the hardware i can synthesize antiradiation drugs.
which means we have to go.
go where pwhapm extends his head to peer around the deserted street. we re in themiddle of the trackless wilderness. even your wheeled tools are gone.
we don t need a car. i point. see that office building? that s where the oonkh s live.
are you ure? i ve never navigated by sight before.
jorge plamen and i share a look.
trust me bwana i say. we go thataway.
Yyy
i could die out here in the bush
it s not that uncivilized
he was talking about the whole planet
describe city
Reading is a ridiculous pass-time.
xxx
SEDUCE JORGE?
Zehra is all over Jorge, which means Jorge must know something
you call us warlike. that is because the only people who have survived are the ones who kill outsiders
Xxx
SEDUCE JORGE in sewer bunker
having sex with another man is nothing like having sex with an alien.
i mean how could it be. i could i have been so stupid as to think it could be.
obviously jorge is human. he looks and smells and feels a hell of a lot more like something to have sex with than any elephant squid or coral christmas tree. what s happening isn’t the clinical by the book inducement of pleasure i learned in kink training. it s the exact opposite body overrides the mind.
and i get really. really angry.
now this is fun
jorge s palm closes over my fist the twenty microfingers pressing like pencil tips against my skin. come on. he pulls me irrisitably to his narrow sleek chest. fight me.
do you know how my ansestors used to find wives? we killed their husbands and kidnapped them. count yourself fortunate i do not think you are a threat to me.
seeing jorge naked isn’t much of a shock. it isn’t as if he walks around in three piece suits after all.
but i do notice him more than usual as he flows across the room muscles pulling and pushing under his skin. his physiche isn’t weightlifter or even swimmer. it s more like stretched gymnast.
or spider.
i shudder.
at least he didn’t make any modifications to his junk.
that i can see anyway.
he only wears
Xxx
MEETS YAMASHITA AT APARTMENT BUILDING WITH MILITARY CORDON
When someone puts up a do not cross sign, you tend not to cross it, even if its printed on tissue paper.
Xxx
TALKING WITH OONKHS
Help us. It isn’t in our remit to help the sibjects of our studies. Then don’t you want to interview some people? It’ll be just…super informative. They’re called Amzonenses—
I’m sorry, Harry. It’s too dangerous.
Look, we’ve enjoyed our time together. Maybe we could work something out. Are you familiar with the term adoption?
How about adoption for Plamen? And Zehra?
Of course, the more the …
the technology liaison strokes her husband pet who trails off into silence. “ I’m sorry, we don’t feel comfortable sharing our craft with so many strange sentients. You’re one thing, Harry, we know you.
In the biblical sense,” grins Jorge.
But these other human creatures, fine as I’m sure they are, cannot accompany us all the way back to the frontier town.
But Liaison—
My word on this is final.
Damn, I bonded with the wrong oonkh. Or Zehra bonded with the wrong species
Xxx
the crisis is over
the crisis…the war…has already begun
unfortunate fact of your astropolitical situation, unfortunate for all of us, is that your species is so weak.
If you were strong, we could persue a policy of mutual deterance, promising to obliterate each other if we being armed conflict. Unfortunately, you possess no weapon that could possibly be considered a threat to us, and the reverse is far from true. We could smash you in a heartbeat in a fair fight. Which creates an incentive for you to make the fight unfair by attacking us first. However, knowing as we do that this incentive exists for you, we would be wise to launch a preemptive strike against you, and so on. The stable equilibrium here is a war that would drive the human species extinct. And indeed such has been the rule for most of the low-tech species encountered by the Light Cone. We all work, and must work constantly, to prevent the seeds of war from taking root until such time as your species has reached technological parity with the Light Cone.
We want to avoid a hobbsian trap here
so help us.
we would like to but you re just one uncontacted species among dozens. we don t have the budget to bail you out.
Xxx
FIGURES OUT WHAT JORGE MUST WANT
Crystal ball
Xxx
We’re getting a ride with some missionaries
Moores: Hello, Harry.
July 7, 2013
Podcast 17: Write more good! (3/3)
This podcast was recorded at a workshop I did with Kalin Nenov of the Human Library on the mechanics and conventions of writing genre fiction. In this part of the workshop I talked about how to make a good story or a good scene.
You should:
Control the reader’s emotions (make it exciting)
Make the reader sympathize with the characters. And develop the character if you’re particularly cool.
Make the characters do things that make sense for them (don’t lead them) and maintain the internal logic of your world.
Make progress in the plot.
Be deep. The scene reinforces the theme or main message of the book.
Also:
And Victorian Porn!
Also exposition?
Thus ends our humble workshop. Next week get ready for some more fun with Simon Roy and Memo Kosemen (at the same time!)
July 3, 2013
Wazzup Pitches?
Note: this is a repost of a journal entry I made on deviantart. It’s updated, but check the original for the great comments.
Writing excuses had a really cool line: think of the pitch for your story before you start writing. If you can’t think of a good, short pitch, there might be something wrong with the way you’re thinking about the story.
And given my trouble with The World’s Other Side (“A terrorist falls in love”? “Aborigines conquered the world”? “A language teacher comes to terms with the primitive culture of English-speaking Christians”?) I tend to believe the Writing Excuses people are onto something.
So here are the projects currently on my horizon, more or less in order of completeness.
Groom of the Tyrannosaur Queen “The greatest warrior in a savage world steals a weapon, and discovers the weapon is a woman from the future.” Conan the Barbarian meets Battlestar Galactica, more or less literally.
New Frontiers “When a high-level alien investor dies on Earth, an inter-species sex-worker must find the real murderer to prevent the enslavement of humanity.” David Brin channels Alfred Kinsey.
Martian Law “Being an ongoing chronicle of the life and work of Percival Q. Singh, heir to the wonders and troubles born of a century of Martian domination, and our best hope to prevent another war of the worlds.”
Charming Lies: “A spy and enchanter for the Ottoman sultan uncovers a nest of rebels and a magical artifact of frightening power.” James bond kills people with his mind and works for the Sultan.
Router: “A party of investors, scientists, and adventurers bushwhack their way through an alien world.” the Louis and Clark of speculative biology
Voyage of Discovery: “Baldomir, apprentice to the Rhomanian Strategos, flees Stamboli just ahead of the Chorazmian cannon. He runs so far, in fact, that he discovers a New Continent.”
Emil Jadid (New World): “Space exploration is foolish and against rational self- interest. That is how the greatest discovery in history was made by irrational fools.” Emirate astronauts discover a wormhole leading to new lands and incalculable wealth.
Zoo of Peoples: “Applied social theory has saved humanity a dozen times. But is perfect social engineering worth the cost of social experimentation?”
The Loftkith: “Beware. The skies above the superconductor fungus are not safe for lone travelers.” Also, GM human radios.
The Wild Far East: “Kusawara Hayauchi only wanted to deliver his cattle to the Yankijin and drink his Bakerosu’s salary away, but then a woman fleeing a burning pueblo stumbles into his camp and dumps a problematic papoose into his lap.” Magic instantaneous communication and a Japanese West Coast.
Boldly go: These are the voyages of the Pinnace Sagadahoc. Her mission: to explore the strange Old World, to seek out allies and partners in arms. To fearlessly tread lands no Abenaki has seen.
Kill the Angels: “A crypto-atheist plots the assassination of a powerful local angel.”
Birthing Ghosts: “The ghost of a recently departed king attempts to stop the outbreak of civil war in his kingdom, while magicians work to blur the line between the Living, the Dead, and the Divine.” AKA The Heike Monogatari, but fun.
Those who Can’t: “A hilarious practical joke strands a professional wizard in a foreign country, where to survive he must teach his secrets to others.” A Wizard of Earthsea meets Community.
Cog Work: “The upstart Romans think themselves a match for Arshak, Mechanic of Parthia? Well, let them come, and learn as other have to bow before the awesome clockwork armies of the Mechanism!”
TeslaPunk:”More coal to the flywheels, Sasha! We must have the Death Beam charged before the agents of the Moon Kremlin arrive!”
My name is Zmey: “A peace corps volunteer in Bulgaria runs afoul of the local mythology.” Turns out lizard-people have been controlling us since before history. Who knew? Also romance.
Cytopolis: “A girl stumbles into a library where strings of words make people, machines, and monsters.” If Niel Gaiman studied biochemistry.
Evil Eye: “A family moves to the big city, where they find the powerful Evil Eye works somewhat differently from back in the village.”
Let us eat them: “A democratic revolution wracks a kingdom where aristocrats gain power through cannibalism.”
Whew. Which ones sound the most promising? Let’s seem some comments, people
June 30, 2013
Podcast 16: Write more good! (2/3)
This podcast was recorded at a workshop I did with Kalin Nenov of the Human Library on the mechanics and conventions of writing genre fiction. Continuing our discussion on words to avoid, we talk about:
to be: including continuous tenses and passive voice
Exclamation points, italics, and elipses (see L.Ron Hubbard and his exclamation points!)
Began, start, finish, end (also a discussion of the Bulgarian complete and incomplete aspects)
Which was, that was
Then
As the Great and Powerful Kenny Endo says: “If you make a mistake and you do it intentionally, it isn’t a mistake, it’s style.”
June 28, 2013
American Nation-States
What would North America look like if, for whatever reason, it had developed indigenous nation-states rather than federal states of colonists?
See the rest of my guest post at Alternate History Weekly Update.
American Nation-states
