Daniel M. Bensen's Blog, page 45
August 14, 2018
Tyrannosaur Queen: Worldcon promo
Hello everyone! I’m here in lovely San Jose, enjoying a splendid worldcon, and I want to spread the love. Until the end of worldcon, my time travel romance Groom of the Tyrannosaur Queen is free on Amazon. Now go lop off the heads of some slavers while I figure out how to get a coffee in this town.
August 10, 2018
The Goose’s Wing
“What man-made machine will ever achieve the complete perfection of even the goose’s wing?”
– Abbas ibn Firnas
It’s the 1050th anniversary of the invention of the hang-glider, and Andalusian peace activist Tariq ait Fortun falls into the talons of terrorists.
“The Goose’s Wing” is available now in the Tales from Alternate History 2 anthology.
Interested in the world of “The Goose’s Wing”? Here are my world-building notes.
Hang-gliders (the first glimmerings of the idea)
The Era of the Kite and Rocket (some serious world-building)
The Goose’s Wing: Materials and Design (even more serious world-building)
The Goose’s Wing: Early uses of gliders (I got some help from the alternatehistory.com)
Kiteworld (A map! My first real althist map by none other than Bruce Munro)
and more
August 9, 2018
Tales from Alternate Earths 2
I am pleased to announce that the new Tales from Alternate Earths anthology is out! In it you’ll find alternate history stories about such subjects as the 21st-century secession of New England from the British Empire, the voyage of Christopher Columbus’s little brother Bartholomew, and my own treatment of a world in which hang-gliders were invented in the 9th century. I also wrote the foreword, which I think is pretty good.
Lovers of alternate history, maps(!), and good stories in general may find the book at goodreads and amazon.
Centuries Unlimited Beta Readers?
Tomorrow’s my last work day before my vacation, which means it’s time to send The Centuries Unlimited to beta readers. If you would like to read a time travel/noir family saga about trust and flying gangsters, please tell me to add you to my list 
August 4, 2018
July 25, 2018
Bulgarian words for try
Sorry I don’t have much for this week’s Wonderful Awful ideas. Just four Bulgarian words that might all be translated as English “try.”
Opitvam se (опитвам се) is related to pitam (I ask). As in opitah se da pobedya, “I tried to win.” Literally “I tested myself to win.” This is the basic one, and it carries the connotation that you don’t know if you’ll succeed, but you might.
Macha se da (Мъча се да) is from macha (I torture). As in macha se da sglobya igrachka. “I try to assemble the toy.” Literally “I torture myself to assemble the toy.” This one implies that you do not succeed because the task is so impossible.
Probvam se (Пробвам се) is from proba (a probe). As in probvam drehi. “I try on clothes.” Literally “I probe clothes.” This one is for trying out or trying on unknown things such as clothes or new apps on your phone.
Staraya se (Старая се) might be from star (old)? I’m not sure. As in staraya se da ucha dobre. “I try to learn.” Literally “I age myself to learn well.” This one implies futility, like Sisyphus with his rock or “I try and I try, but nobody ever appreciates me.”
So go forth, my friends, and try!
July 19, 2018
Save us from the Whale
“People need a way to stave off the constant possibility that common understanding may break down.”
— N.J. Enfield, How We Talk
Royal tangs wobbled serenely between the softly undulating tentacles of sea anemones. Bubbles rose in a shimmering curtain. The filter hummed. I watched the tropical fish in their tank and tried to control my breathing.
“Waffles?” I said. “The ambassador is running late because of your waffles?”
Lucas turned red. “I did ask him to find a source of malt for the batter, yes.”
“I don’t know what either of those words mean,” I flung up my hands. “And I don’t care. You stupid boys and your stupid Western Cooking projects!”
“He really liked my waffles,” said Lucas, immodestly.
I looked back at the fish, which failed to soothe me. “Translator?” I said in Chinese. “Estimated arrival time for Ambassador Wang?”
“34 minutes,” answered the bumble-bee-sized robot.
“Estimated arrival time for the representative of the Monumental Chamber of Commerce?”
“Zero minutes.”
The doorbell buzzed.
“Miss?” came the voice of the doorman. “There’s a…a giant…uh…a sort of giant…”
“Yes, yes, send him up.” I turned to Lucas and said in English. “Okay, so we stall him.”
“Oh,” Lucas looked at the floor. “We.”
“Yes!”
“I was just going to serve you lunch. Orata al cartoccio and mousse au chocolat.”
“Translator?”
“Sea bream to the paper bag,” supplied the little robot, “and foam at the chocolate.”
“Sounds delicious,” I said, “but I need you in your capacity as biologist, Lucas. I don’t even know what a Monumental looks like.” I thought back to the briefing Lucas had sent me the week before. “Some kind of whale? Some kind of hippo?”
He wobbled his head. “You’re thinking of the word ‘whippomorpha.’ Yes, the Architects of Stable Monuments evolved from stem-whippomorphs. That’s the clade that includes everything that evolved from the most recent common ancestor of both whales and hippos, but left no descendants on our version of Earth. The Monumental Earth experienced an Ice Age during the Eocene…”
I looked at the rising floor readout of the elevator. “Will he be poisoned by fish in a bag and chocolate?”
“No.”
I thought back to other diplomatic/biological faux pas of the past. “Will his sweat poison us?”
“No.”
“Will he fit through the door?”
“Um,” said Lucas, and the elevator opened.
A sound rolled into the lobby of the United Nations Embassy to the Convention of Sapient Species, part scream, part rumble, part didgeridoo.
“Let me immediately go away from this very small coffin, otherwise I will put you monkeys in a hole and cover you with a pile of manure!” said the translator.
The forward half of the representative of the Monumental Chamber of Commerce flopped out of the elevator and hit the floor with a crack and a thud. He did not look much like a hippo or a whale. He looked like a sausage in a roller-skate.
A sausage with whiskers and ears at one end and a flat beaver-like tail at the other, now visible as the enormous creature paddled into the lobby on four limbs that could have been hooves, hands, or flippers. He was wrapped in some sort of tough, transparent plastic and three pairs of wheels lined his belly, like the castors on an easy chair. He smelled like clay and sea water.
Another didgeridoo blare, which the translator rendered as. “I apologize. My calling out was caused by discomfort of the body. I will not let it affect my judgement. I am (untranslatable), who are you?”
I introduced myself and Lucas, and said, “Translator, flag name of interlocutor and assign temporary translation as ‘digeridoo.’ Confirm?”
“Confirmed.”
“Band I go with see your wife!” trumpeted Didgeridoo.
“Clarify?” I asked, making another promise to myself that I would murder our current translation coder as soon as I found someone who could replace him.
“I want you to show me your husband.”
“Lucas? What’s he talking about? What are the mating habits of Monumentals?”
“Uh,” he said. “Oh! Polyandrus! High-ranking females have a harem of husbands — usually brothers or first cousins — who they send out to do things for them.”
“Translator, flag word ‘husband’ in present Monumental language and reassign translation to ‘leader.'” I wanted for confirmation and addressed our guest. “Should I take you to our leader?”
“Yes.” Didgeridoo opened his mouth, displaying peg-like teeth. I assumed that was a sign of impatience. “I know you are abnormal of custom, but with female strangers, conversation me very much uncomfortable.”
“Lucas?” I said.
“Right, the public sphere is males doing business with each other in the name of their wives, which means” he glanced at me, “it might help to tell Didgeridoo that I’m your husband?”
Digeridoo’s broad ears swiveled toward Lucas. “Him? This stinky male is your husband?” They flattened against Didgeridoo’s skull. “I am sorry, I believe your other brothers are more fragrant, but their skills are lower. I am very with pleasure you have introduced me to your dear wife. New topic: our meeting. Where is it?”
I looked down at him, taking up half the space in the lobby, and thought of the conference room with its table and chairs. “Why, our meeting is right here.”
The ears jerked back toward me and with a squeal of little wheels, Digeridoo rolled onto his back and squirmed like a playful kitten. “I am very happy because you speak with me. Even if you are not my wife, you respect me.” He rolled back over, and panted for a moment before addressing Lucas. “New topic: I will relax. I how is it climb in northeast side furniture?”
We looked into the northeastern corner of the room, which was entirely occupied by the fish tank.
“Clarification,” I said. “You want to lie down on the couch?” I pointed at the couch next to Didgeridoo.
Didgeridoo didn’t track my finger with his ears, but the translator rumble-squeaked something and he gaped, wiggling. “I don’t want to tell you that you are not correct. You
stretched your hoof in the direction of a dry object. It doesn’t have roots. I am pointing
to the furniture in the northeast corner of the room. It smells like fish. I like it. However, it is very high from the ground. I do not know how to climb in.”
“It’s a fish tank,” I said. “It isn’t furniture. It isn’t for sitting in,” I said.
Digeridoo flipped back over onto his back. “I feel very disappointed and not comfortable.
Please don’t talk to me.”
Lucas looked at the huge sophont. “I think you intimidate him.”
I sighed. “So you talk to him. Tell him I’m sorry we don’t have a suitable place for him to rest, but we would be happy to serve him lunch while we wait for the ambassador.”
I resisted tapping my feet while Lucas relayed the message and Digeridoo flipped back over, wheels screeching across the floor.
“What kind of food did you make fermented for me?” Wrinkled nostrils opened and snuffled between Digeridoo’s ears. “I want to confirm that the food is not your nauseating smell’s source.”
I groaned and Lucas sniffed his fingers. “I smell chocolate and baked fish.”
Digeridoo flattened his ears and slapped his tail on the floor. “The fish has been fired in a kiln! Clarify that you put the fish in a kiln, and now you have smeared the ashes of the fish on your flippers? Don’t you know that my wife writes letters to the Pyramid of the River Delta, which is filled with Gleaming Specks of Mica? No, you have to know! You are making a lot of damn pyramids on this damn Salmon Festival!”
Lucas looked at me with panic in his eyes.
“Uh. No. That was…a terrible accident,” I said. “No baked fish.” Then, before Digeridoo could show me his belly again, “tell him, Lucas.”
“It was a mistake?” he said.
“And go get the chocolate mousse and the sample toy pyramid.”
“Just a moment, sir.” Lucas ducked through the door into the embassy.
I smiled awkwardly at Digeridoo, who wriggled awkwardly back at me.
“What sample toy pyramid?” called Lucas from the back rooms.
“The one we had manufactured on Earth,” I called back. “It’s a decoration for the Monumentals’ equivalent of New Year’s. It’s shaped like a pyramid!”
Lucas rushed back into the foyer with three small plastic glasses, spoons, and Monumental toy pyramid, which looked like the Antikathera Mechanism had mated with a Rubix Cube.
Digeridoo sniffed, running his whiskers over Lucas’s out-thrust hands. “What is this bitter grass paste? I will take the toy pyramid of the day of the salmon.”
He delicately grabbed the pyramid between his front teeth and rolled over onto his side, curling around the toy and prodding at it with whiskers, tongue, tail, and all four limbs.
“I told you to cook something that wouldn’t poison him,” I hissed at Lucas.
“I did!” he said. “There’s nothing in his biochemistry that should have a problem with sea bream or chocolate. Nothing in the literature said Monumentals were mortally offended by cooked fish!”
“Maybe it’s only the Monumentals whose wives write letters to the Pyramid of the Mica Delta.” I said.
Lucas nodded glumly. “We’re going to need to do a lot more cultural research if we want to make these people’s Christmas ornaments for them.”
“I am very satisfied so far,” said Digeridoo. “Just now give me some mud.”
“Um,” said Lucas. “Clarify?”
“Mud!” hooted Digeridoo. “Dark mud! Silt! Soft mud! Loose mud! [unassigned word]! Clay and water and organic granules! I smell the mud in the water tank in the room’s northeast corner. Please give me some mud, so that I can test the toy you made for me. Is the toy effective?”
“The specifications didn’t say it needed to work in mud,” I said. “No, never mind, don’t roll over.”
I looked at the fish tank, and sand that covered its floor. I pictured that sand in the pyramid toys many tiny gears. “Lucas, Digeridoo your mouse. Tell him that’s the mud he wants. And don’t you roll over at me, either.”
Lucas sniffed, pulled his lower lip back in, and gave the Monumental his chocolate mousse.
“Bitter grass,” mumbled Digeridoo. “I am unhappy because of this smell.”
So was I at the squelching noises.
“However, it is apparent that the toy in normal conditions operates well. I am very
happy because your species meets our lowest standards of manufacture. We eat,
then we discuss price.”
“Eat?” said Lucas.
“Yes!” said Digeridoo. “Food is negotiation prerequisite condition.”
Lucas looked at me.
“Translator,” I asked, “when will the ambassador arrive?”
“In 10 minutes.”
I turned and looked at the fish tank.
July 18, 2018
Complain to the Armenian priest
I’m putting the finishing touches on The Sultan’s Enchanter right now, including adding in some salty Bulgarian idioms. These include what I am loosely translating as “so I should open some jam for you?” (kompot da li ti otvorya?) and “you can take your complaint to the Armenian priest” (oplachi se na armenskiya pop).
But where does that Armenian priest come from? According to this website, he comes from the Orthodox Christian internecine conflicts of the Ottoman era!
So the Ottomans were Muslim, but they allowed other religious organizations to continue under supervision of the Sultan. The first Christian church to gain official Ottoman recognition was the Greek Orthodox church, with the Patriarch of Constantinople being just one among many of the Sultan’s high-level officials. The problem is that orthodox churches are autocephalic, meaning that non-Greek-speaking congregations like the Armenians and the Bulgarians didn’t recognize the authority of the Greek Patriarch. The Armenians got their own patriarch in the 1400s, and they lobbied for the Bulgarians to get one too in the 1500s. Before that, Bulgarians technically came under jurisdiction of the Greek Orthodox bureaucracy, which treated them poorly. Anyone who complained was invited to take their complaints to “the Armenian priest,” meaning the Armenian patriarch, but the Greek bureaucrats who coined the phrase didn’t recognize the Armenian patriarchate, so they called the Armenian patriarch a “priest.” People gotta people.
The Wind from the West
The wind from the west
Makes me stop and take the time
To look up and smile.
July 15, 2018
Ottoman Clothing
I wrote a line last week in The Sultan’s Enchanter: ”
“The man’s beard was long and tangled, cap and shoes missing, without vest or sash over his stained shirt and breeches.”
Oh. My. Blob, but that sentence took a lot of research. What would a disheveled 1520s Bulgarian merchant look like? What would he be wearing or not wearing? How would I translate those words from the perspective of another Bulgarian-speaker? How would I translate those words from the perspective of a Turkish speaker? I spent the last two weeks on the problem, and this is what I got:
Bulgarian Ottoman-era clothing (early 1500s, Thracian region)
Elek (from Turkish yelek) = a vest (sleeveless, woolen, usually red or green, worn over a riza)
Kalpak (from Turkish kalpak) = a cap (conical, sheepskin, usually black)
Pafti (from Turkish pafta)= belt buckles (palm-sized, circular or comma-shaped, metal. Always in pairs.)
Poturi (from Turkish potur) = breeches (usually black, woolen homespun, held up by a drawstring, baggy and gathered in at the knees)
Poyas (from Russian poyasok, a belt)= a sash (wool, usually black)
Prestilka (lit. “shrink-feminine”) = an apron (woolen, usually red, tied behind the back, extending from waist to ankles, worn over a sukman)
Riza (from Greek chreiázo, “I need it”) = a shirt (cotton, white, long sleeved, extending from neck to waist, worn under a woman’s sukman or a man’s elek)
Sukman = a dress (sleeveless, woolen homespun, usually red, low cut, extending to ankles, worn over shirt)
Tsarvuli (from Greek tsaroúchia)= sandals (mocassin-like, made of calf-leather)
Zabradka (lit. “for-chin-feminine”)= a headscarf (worn by both Muslim and Christian women)
Turkish Ottoman-Era clothing (1520s, Istanbul region)
Başörtüsü (lit. “head-cover”)= a headscarf (worn by both Muslim and Christian women)
Börk = a janissary hat (black velvet band topped by a green wool broadcloth band, with a rectangle of white felt rising above the head and folded in a “tail” down the back to the neck)
Çizme = boots (knee high, leather)
Entari = a caftan (rather like a gown with sleeves down to the elbow or wrist, ankle-length, fitted at the waist, worn by men and women over gömlek. Longer than a zıbın.)
Ferace = an over-coat (worn outside by women over hırka or entari. Unfitted, hanging from throat to ankles)
Gömlek = a shirt (sheer silk, cotton, or linen. Flowing, long, full sleeves, draping from shoulders to to mid-calf or ankle like a shift or chemise. Worn by men and women under entari, hırka, or zıbın)
Hırka = a coat (light, worn by women, knee-length, buttoned from bust to waist, leaving skirts open)
Kalpak = a cap (conical, felt, often red)
Kaşıklık = a spoon-holder (a half-pipe of wood rounded at one end and plated in metal, worn in janissaries’ hats, symbolizes solidarity, may also hold feathers for ceremonial occasions)
Kuşak = a belt (worn by men and women, buckled around the waist)
Mintan = a short jacket (long sleeves, covering only the ribs, worn by men over a gömlek)
Pafta (from Persian bāfte) = a buckle
Potur = breeches (baggy, gathered at the knees)
Şalvar = pants (baggy, gathered at the ankles. The term in the 16th century was probably çakşır or don, but şalvar is the modern term for this kind garment.)
Sarık = a turban
Yelek = a vest (hip-length, worn by the poor)
Yemeni = a shoe (leather, light weight)
Zıbın = a jacket (hip-length, fitted, worn by men or women over a gömlek. Shorter than an entari.)
Most of this information comes from narodninosii.bg for Bulgarians (Thracian region) and http://www.issendai.com/16thcenturyistanbul/ for Ottomans. If I’ve made any mistakes, please let me know.
