Jacob Foxx's Blog, page 57

Science Fiction in the Year 2015

This is an important year for science fiction. It is the year Marty McFly and Doc Brown traveled to from 1985 in the DeLorean time machine. There were hoverboards, self-drying clothes, flying cars, giant 3D advertising, instant news, and instant pizza. Most miraculously, the Cubs won the World Series. Unfortunately, few of these things have become reality. The special year makes many of us look back at all the great ideas and worlds of science fiction and pine for the good old days.

Along with the nostalgic journey through the good old days comes the cliché “they don’t make them like they used to.” Sci-fi fans are critical of the decline in quality and originality in modern science fiction. Among the critics is The Atlantic’s Noah Berlatsky. He argues science fiction has given up on imagining new worlds and has instead focused on improving or re-branding old new worlds. We’ve been force-fed a parade of sequels, prequels, and remakes. Science fiction movies have become less about the future and more about reliving fond memories of the previous century.

When it comes to movies, Berlatsky is absolutely right. Hollywood seems disinterested in new ideas, preferring to repackage and extend established franchises. The classic franchise Star Trek was rebooted in 2007, but with nothing new to offer. The new movies reset the series timeline, allowing them to retell the same stories in a slightly different way.

The other blockbusters all have familiar titles. Rather than show us something new, Hollywood decided to do remakes of RoboCop, Godzilla, and Planet of the Apes. Alongside the remakes came a parade of movies based on comic book characters, all created decades ago. These movies aren’t about the future nor do they ask the basic sci-fi question “what if?” They are journeys into sci-fi’s past, using CGI to bring our favorite old movies and characters to life. For a genre that prides itself on originality and innovative thinking, it seems it is now content to refine existing inventions.

What is coming up in 2015? Retreads (Fantastic Four, Terminator: Genisys, Jurassic World, Poltergeist, Mad Max) and sequels (Star Wars, The Avengers). To find something original, you need to dig into the realm of independent or foreign films. Even then, it is difficult to find anything of quality.

There are exceptions of course, but not many. The biggest standout is the dystopian trilogy The Hunger Games. The franchise is worth billions and presents a compelling dystopian vision of the future. Berlatsky wasn’t impressed however, calling the franchise a “stagnant dystopia” that borrows liberally from 1984

Suzanne Collins’ best seller may not be particularly innovative but it is a little harsh to call it stagnant. When Berlatsky says “new worlds” he probably means new themes and technologies, not just new stories. That is hardly a reasonable standard. It’s not easy to come up with a fully-original theme, especially in a genre that is now over a century old.

It isn’t just nostalgia that is driving Hollywood to look back to the previous century for source material, it is also the result of progress. The real world has caught up to 20th century science fiction. Technology has produced some of those innovations, turning sci-fi ideas to reality. Most Americans are fully immersed in technology every day, making it far less extraordinary than it was just a few decades ago. To impress the audience, sci-fi producers and authors will have to reach farther into the future to find new technologies for their “what if” stories.

Since we cannot rely on Hollywood to move past their current business model, it is authors that will have to be the innovators. The best science fiction books of the past few years has been diverse and original. As for its quality, everyone must judge that for themselves. The most successful subgenre is dystopian fiction including The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins and Divergent by Veronica Roth. While not as technically innovative, they have captured the imaginations of millions.

Another popular subgenre is zombie fiction. The horror staple crossed over from fantasy to sci-fi as an apocalyptic virus, leaving the survivors to cope with the throngs of undead. Max Brook’s World War Z set the standard, followed by The Walking Dead graphic novels. The horror version played on the cannibalism taboo, fear of the dead, and the inability to discern friend from enemy. The modern zombie imports those fears but also plays on our fears of a catastrophic disease outbreak in the era of globalization, biological warfare, and terrorism.

Older sci-fi tended toward adventures in space with hopeful visions of the world of tomorrow. These are probably what Berlatsky wants to see.  These days, Science fiction has largely become about regress, not progress. Movies like Elysium, After Earth, Oblivion, Divergent, The Hunger Games, and Interstellar are giving us futures, they just aren’t pleasant. Instead filmmakers and authors see a world in decline with grave problems ahead.

There might be a slight shift back toward the traditional optimism of sci-fi, thanks to the success of Guardians of the Galaxy. Although the movie was as much fantasy as it was sci-fi, it closely resembled a classic space opera. Still, the superhero, dystopian, and post-apocalyptic movies are bound to continue relying on precedent movies.

As for the literary side, it is impossible to predict the next big thing. All one can do is blindly guess. Here are my blind guesses: As long as there is uncertainty and fear about the future, the dystopian and post-apocalyptic novels will continue to be popular. As much as I love zombies, I think the demand for the flesh-eaters will probably recede. The success of The Martian and the movies Guardians of the Galaxy and Gravity suggest their might be a growing appetite for space operas.

In the new year, I am looking forward to The Martian movie, Jurassic World, and of course, Star Wars Episode VII. Two are sequels of great franchises but look interesting. I am particularly interested in Chappie, a movie about an autonomous robot. Directed by Neill Blomkamp (District 9), starring Hugh Jackman and Sigourney Weaver, it could be the surprise of 2015.

For books, it is Armada by Ernest Cline, The Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi, and Darknet by Matthew Mather. All three are unique, outside the box stories that critics like Berlatsky would enjoy. Publishers don’t announce release dates as far in advance as movie production companies do, so their could be many more interesting titles coming out 2015. We will have to see.

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Review: The Heretic by Lucas Bale

The future isn’t so bright in Lucas Bale’s The Heretic. A brutal new regime rules humanity called the Magistratus. The mysterious regime leaves most in poverty spread across dozens of worlds. But revolution is coming. Smart, gritty, and well-written, The Heretic is the best space opera I’ve read in a while.

The protagonist, Shepherd, is a smuggler on his way to the remote planet of Herse where he is to make a delivery to an unknown client. Herse is a cold, sparsely populated world on the edge of colonized space. As he arrives, the local government begins exterminating a small religious sect that challenges its authority. Shepherd reluctantly finds himself entangled with the tiny sect and its leader, a man known only as the Preacher. The Preacher promises them freedom from the oppressive Magistratus government that dominates the human race.

Herse is reminiscent of a failed state, with an impoverished population brutally oppressed by a tiny and advanced elite. Some may be disappointed to read about farming villages when there are supposed to be spaceships and all sorts of neat futuristic gadgets. I for one appreciated the stark realism of Bale’s future.

There have been numerous dark times in human history where our civilization regressed for decades, sometimes centuries at a time. The Heretic‘s future has some continued technological advancement but also appalling inequality. It is really not much different than the contemporary status of humanity. A middle class American family earns $50,000 in annual income yet nearly half the world’s population earns less than $1,000 a year. In addition, over two billion people on Earth live under some form of tyranny.

The Preacher is part of a growing religious movement that intends to defy the secular Magistratus. The Preacher claims they’ve been lied to about their past, in an effort to keep them docile and subservient. They aren’t really religious fanatics but rather a non-secular group living in an era when all organized religion is banned. They wish to reconnect with their past, one that valued freedom and knowledge.

It is interesting to read another story that emphasizes the role of religious liberty in the struggle for political freedom (Shameless Plug: my own novel, The Fifth World, has a similar theme). America’s Founding Fathers saw it much the same way, which is why protections of religious liberty were codified in the First Amendment. Most stories about rebelling against oppression tend to shy away from the importance of religion due to its divisive and controversial nature. The general trend is to place organized religion behind the evil totalitarian state, similar to the theocracies of Iran and Saudi Arabia. It is difficult for many in the modern era to see religion as playing any role in liberation.

It is ironic considering that most oppressive regimes of the past century were nonreligious: Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, Soviet Union, Chinese Communist Party, and Khmer Rouge.

One should expect science fiction to be a little hostile towards religion. For most of human history, religion has been at odds with science. While the tension has receded lately, it is a common theme to place religious zealots as the antagonists at odds with rational men of science. Naturally most protagonists in science fiction are rational beings who are guided by scientific reasoning. Bale decided to reverse their common roles, placing secular authorities as the antagonists, and religious factions as the protagonist.

Unfortunately, the conflict between secular authority and religious freedom is not explained fully. One gets the impression it will be at the center of the conflict as the series continues. The Magistratus bans all organized religion, censors information, and ensures all individuals are monitored and tracked by a device inside their bodies. Its dominion shares a lot in common with the Soviet Union, which took power upon the collapse of Czarist Russia.

Parts of the novel are strikingly familiar. The story structure is similar to Star Wars Episode IV and Firefly. There are definitely the beginnings of a hero’s journey. The key difference is that the protagonist is the Han Solo character (Shepherd) rather than the Luke Skywalker character (a small boy named Jordi). The Preacher fulfills the role of Obi-Wan Kenobi. Shepherd has a close attachment to his ship, similar to Firefly’s Malcolm Reynolds. Bale included several drawings of the ship. There is a resemblance to the Serenity.

The demise of Earth is the result of numerous man-made catastrophes including global warming. Post-apocalyptic movies have been using the climate change disaster for a while. The self-inflicted apocalypse clashes with the Preacher’s idealized conception of human rights. Why should people be free? Last time they were at least partially free they killed a whole planet. How the truth about Earth factors into their revolution is unclear.

Herse is also the name of a mortal woman who defied the goddess Athena. As punishment, she was driven insane until she committed suicide. The symbolism doesn’t bode well for the rebellion.

When I finished the novel I was a bit disappointed. The Heretic does not reveal enough of the full story arc, leaving a lot for the sequel. It is like Star Wars Episode IV ending right after the heroes escape from the Death Star. Shepherd doesn’t make the full turn from antihero to hero. His support of the religious sect is largely done because he is being blackmailed. There is also no glimpse of the antagonist, or the Darth Vader. The leaders of the new government, known as the Consuls, do not make an appearance in this book.

The Heretic is a decent start to what could be a great series. There is a much larger conflict on the horizon but you don’t get to see much of it yet. The resemblance to Star Wars also makes a bit predictable but I doubt that will bother readers. There are a lot of novels that resemble Star Wars.

Overall, The Heretic is definitely worth picking up. It is smart, exciting, and well-written, especially for a self-published novel. Lucas Bale definitely has something.

 

This review is also posted at http://www.prescientscifi.com.

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Review: Ark Royal by Christopher Nuttall

With Ark Royal, what you see is what you get. There’s a giant spaceship on the cover with a couple starfighters blasting away over some alien planet. Inside there are mass drivers, plasma cannons, rail guns, nuclear missiles, alien spaceships, and all sorts of other cool stuff. It reads like a classic Hollywood war movie before Vietnam changed the genre. Those who love military sci-fi will enjoy it. For those who don’t, it will probably bore you.

In the future, humanity has mastered FTL travel and colonized dozens of worlds. Out of nowhere, a mysterious alien fleet invades bringing about humanity’s first interstellar and inter-species war. Enter the Ark Royal, an aging warship with a drunken captain, misfit crew, and a date with the scrap-heap. The war changes its fate, putting it at the vanguard of a new human offensive against the alien invaders.

The military technology, tactics, and explanations in the book are well-researched, and well executed. The combat in particular felt realistic and balanced. Some military sci-fi tends to portray war like its just a video game: highly individualistic, always exciting, over-romanticized, and fair. War is none of these things, regardless of the time and place.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Nuttall has a Navy background. The details concerning the military bureaucracy, war journalists, and the challenges of leadership are compelling. The action itself is exciting and fairly easy to follow. It is beginning of a series and ends at a good point that should make fans eager for Book 2 (entitled Nelson’s Touch).

I enjoy military sci-fi but don’t like it when authors dilute the tragic realities of war to appeal to wider audiences. War is horrible and should be depicted as such, even in young adult fiction. Unfortunately, Ark Royal waters down the more devastating aspects of warfare to the point where its was difficult to take it seriously.

The characters were fairly one-dimensional and approach their duties in a very disconnected manner. Their internal monologues were mostly objective analysis rather than their inner emotions. The depiction of female officers in the Royal Navy of the future was less than flattering. The only significant female character flung herself at her commanding officer like a scene from a porno.

The writing style is simple and straightforward. The narration has a colloquial style that is very accessible. For younger readers it is perfect. Older readers may get bored of the repetition, limited vocabulary, and lack of character development. There is a fair amount of infodumping as well, which slowed the story down. Nuttall also left behind some spelling and grammatical errors.

The military science fiction market is fairly large and is forgiving of stylistic shortcomings, which is why Ark Royal has done well. It has a significant fan base, no doubt about it. It is pure military sci-fi without the artsy embellishments or dark emotional interludes. It is objective and impersonal, detailing the events and tactics rather than the human experiences. While this book really wasn’t for me, I can understand its appeal. There are plenty of readers that will enjoy Ark Royal and the sequels.

3 Stars

J

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Review: The Martian by Andy Weir

The Martian is one of the great success stories of self-publishing. Author Andy Weir self-published the novel in 2012 and after two years of outstanding sales online, Crown Publishing Group bought the rights in 2014. Not only that, Hollywood is going to turn it into a movie, which will be directed by the legendary Ridley Scott and star Matt Damon. Andy Weir’s experience in self-publishing is compelling proof that the publishing industry is entering a new era. If you write a great novel, you can publish it yourself and it will find its audience.

The Martian is best described as Apollo 13 meets Castaway. Astronaut Mark Watney is part of a manned mission to Mars. He is accidentally left behind after a major storm forced NASA to abort the mission and return the astronauts to their ship. His crew and all of Earth think he is dead. He must find a way to let them know he is alive and stay that way long enough to be rescued.

The novel is incredibly detailed and very realistic. It is in the tradition of Apollo 13, Gravity, and Red Planet. Weir must’ve did a tremendous amount of research not only on NASA technology but also the technical problems one would face if left marooned on Mars. It is perfect for hard science fiction fans.  It is also refreshing to read a book that does not take place decades or centuries in the future. Weir doesn’t work to build fantastic technologies but instead builds a story around existing technology for what I like to call a contemporary innovation thriller.

For those without a science or engineering background, the technical explanations weigh down the story. It isn’t info-dumping but it isn’t all that exciting either. It got a little tiresome for me near the end. Watney’s isolation also limits character development. There is almost no dialogue and not very many internal monologues. Weir mixes in some chapter involving NASA and Watney’s crew but the bulk of the novel is diary entries from Watney’s mission log. Still, it is hard not to like the guy. Watney is funny and brilliant. Unfortunately, the entries are predominantly dry facts and explanations. He rarely expresses any feelings of anxiety, fear, depression, or any other feelings one would expect from total isolation. In fact, he has the same plucky positive attitude in the end as he does in the beginning. Nearly all of the other characters are stoic, expressing very little emotion or response despite their incredible circumstances.

For those more interested in human drama, this book will be pretty boring. I don’t know if Weir took the manuscript to publishers before self-publishing but I am willing to bet most would not be interested in something that reads like a technical manual at times. Often Hollywood and traditional publishers are reluctant to take on stories without human drama or rather the type that fits nicely into their moviemaking model. Most of them do not have technical backgrounds after all. It is an unfortunate reality of the modern entertainment industry.

Despite its shortcomings in the drama department, I believe there is a thirst for high-tech, realistic stories about space travel. The success of Gravity and The Martian strongly suggests Americans are hungry to take on contemporary challenges and suggests strong support for space exploration. Sadly, we’ve cut funding to NASA, placing the prospects of a manned mission to Mars in peril. A new unifying scientific goal could also help the recent skepticism regarding our government’s competence. Whether it is the CDC’s response to the Ebola virus, the nonsense at the VA, or the illegal targeting of journalists and political groups, Americans have lost their faith in their leadership to get anything right. The space program could change that. Apollo 13 and the shuttle disasters aside, the US space program made tremendous historical achievements. We all know the cliche: “if they can put a man on the moon why can’t they (blank)?”

In a way, The Martian takes on the lack of confidence in bureaucratic institutions. Watney manages to survive on Mars completely on his own, improvising virtually every task needed to keep him alive. NASA meanwhile struggles with bureaucratic red tape and their well-known aversion to taking risks or anything that would make them look bad in the public. In most cases, it is individual initiative on the part of astronauts and engineers on the ground that allows them to triumph. NASA deserves plenty of credit as well but there are obvious instances of mistakes or basic ass-covering.

Self-publishing allows such stories to break through and reach their targeted audience. Andy Weir’s The Martian is a triumph of self-publishing and the great potential of e-books and POD services. Where traditional publishers may not take a risk on such a specialized novel, self-publishing allows the market to decide. I am glad Andy Weir went forward with publishing it himself. It is an excellent read.

4 Stars.

J

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The Ultimate Green Energy: Breakthroughs in Fusion Technology

Anyone who has played SimCity knows fusion is the ultimate power source. It has the potential to produce enormous amounts of electricity with limited radioactive byproducts and no emissions. Scientists have known about fusion for decades but have struggled to make any breakthroughs until recently. Two news releases suggests we could be on the verge of mastering the ultimate green energy source.

The first story comes from one of the most mysterious research centers in the world: The Skunk Works. Lockheed’s Advanced Development Programs department was behind the most advanced warplanes of the 20th and 21st centuries, including the U-2 Spyplane, SR-71 Blackbird, the F-117 stealth fighter, and the formidable F-22 Raptor. Their newest project, the high beta fusion reactor, could become the newest standard energy source for the military and civilian world.

Fusion is the opposite of nuclear fission. Rather than split heavy atoms, fusion combines two lightweight atoms by hurdling them at each other at extreme speeds. The reaction produces more energy than fission but, more importantly, it produces almost no radioactive waste. In addition, the waste produced from nuclear fusion decays at a much faster rate: a few decades rather than thousands of years. The fuel needed for a fusion reaction is also much safer, cheaper, and easier to find. Instead of using dangerously radioactive uranium or plutonium, the high beta fusion reactor uses deuterium and tritium, both isotopes of hydrogen. Deuterium is found in sea water while tritium can be extracted from lithium.

Skunk Works is not the only program developing fusion power but it is the only one close to developing a compact fusion reactor. Rather than be housed in massive power plants, the compact fusion reactor could be used to power ships and larger vehicles, as well as eventually become a smaller, more manageable power source. The main advantage of a smaller reactor is the ability to build and test it faster than its larger counterparts. More testing means more opportunities to problem-solve and make the necessary breakthroughs to bring the technology to market. Scientists at Skunk Works believe they can build a working prototype within five years.

The challenge in making fusion a viable technology has been creating a reaction that generates more energy than it takes to get the process going. It takes tremendous amounts of energy to initiate a fusion reaction. The lightweight atoms have to be traveling at extreme speeds in order to cause a reaction. The atoms inevitably become plasma which is difficult to control.The most advanced type of reaction is the magnetic confinement fusion reaction, including the tokamak and the stellerator. Both use magnetic fields to confine plasma and direct it in the right direction, namely a collision course.

Another approach uses lasers to crush a tiny quantity of frozen hydrogen lasting a few tens of billionths of a second to heat and compress it. Sandia Labs in New Mexico believes they’ve made a breakthrough using a hybrid of the Tokamak and laser approach. Called the Z Machine, the Sandia experiments have overcome some of the technological hurdles standing in the way of fusion power. It is not clear how close they are to a prototype power plant.

Why is fusion the ultimate green energy source? As mentioned above, it produces no emissions and only limited amounts of radioactive material. The risk of meltdown is tiny, with danger only to immediate personnel and not surrounding cities and towns. While technically non-renewable, the amount of deuterium and tritium found in nature is enough to last us an extremely long time. Fusion has several advantages over other alternative energy sources as well. It has a higher production potential than solar or wind energy. Its production is also not reliant on its location or any external factors. Solar panels need to be in places with lots of sunlight to be optimally efficient. Wind power only works in regions with significant wind.

The main drawbacks to fusion power are its high cost and the technical sophistication needed to build, operate, and maintain the power plant. However, these are the same challenges nuclear fission faced in the 1940s and 1950s, yet many countries now use it. Still, development of fusion will take time. It is possible the Skunk Works are a bit optimistic in their five year timeline, but there is reason to believe they could build a prototype faster than other approaches. A more modest timeline for the technology is perhaps twenty to thirty years. That means we could see the end of fossil fuels by 2034! For that reason, everyone should take a very serious interest in fusion technology.

J

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Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam Trilogy Coming to HBO

For years HBO has been on the forefront of combining drama with softcore porn. Their original programming tries to involve sex as many ways as possible, sometimes tastefully other times not so much. Given its extensive experience in drama and sex, HBO was the ideal choice to launch a series based on Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam trilogy. The post-apocalyptic series has plenty of adult content that requires a team that can present it without coming off like smut-peddlers.

HBO was the first to portray the once secretive sex industry through shows like G-String Divas and Real Sex. These late night shows were both honest and graphic. While not always tasteful, HBO deserves a lot of credit for trying to be realistic in its portrayal of modern life, including the dirty parts that are inappropriate for polite conversation.

Before, there was a clear dividing line between “after dark” content and prime time drama. In recent years that line has blurred. HBO has been guilty of slipping in some softcore porn into its prime time programming. The practice led to the following parody (the sketch has some pretty explicit language). For example, the award-winning Game of Thrones is based on the George R.R. Martin series, which includes plenty of graphic scenes. Yet it wasn’t enough for producers. A few additional sex scenes were added in the first season. I haven’t read the second or third books but I get the impression HBO has continued the practive past season 1. I’m not saying Game of Thrones is porn but there are scenes that get dangerously close to the line.

After dark content can also be funny as demonstrated by the shows Girls and Hung. In these shows HBO avoids the porn moniker by including jokes and something that resembles thoughtful social commentary. There was a time when it was brave to talk about sex publicly. That time has long passed. Mainstream entertainment in America is saturated with naughty things. There is no longer anything brave, novel, or vaguely interesting about these shows.

HBO can do drama and it can do sex, but the MaddAddam trilogy may present a unique challenge. The novels have some pretty disturbing stuff, some of which is pretty illegal. It is one thing to show medieval era sex, promiscuous yuppies and prostitutes. It is another to portray pedophilia, rape, and bio-engineered humans doing it like animals.

Fortunately, the project is being entrusted to Darren Aronofsky. Aronofsky’s works include Black Swan and Requiem for a Dream. Atwood’s classic work is right up his alley. The question is whether HBO can restrain itself from adding extra scenes. There is a distinct possibility HBO will screw Atwood’s work up, turning what is a masterpiece into a low-brow series about perversion.

Whether it is in mainstream movies, TV dramas, commercials, magazine ads, or the internet, sex is everywhere. It is the easiest way to get attention for anyone in the entertainment industry. No plot? Don’t worry just cast Megan Fox or Rosie Huntington-Whitley (Transformers). Have nothing important to say? Then name your show Girls and make it about your sex life. Ratings falling on your crime drama? Cast a twenty-something model to be the new district attorney (Law and Order).

It is the inevitable dive to the lowest common denominator (LCD). No genre is guiltless. Fantasy in particular ramps up the eye candy in order to gain a wider audience for its vampire, werewolf, demon-fighting, and witchcraft shows. They don’t throw in softcore scenes but only because the FCC won’t allow it.

Science fiction is the only genre that can at least argue it does not dive to the LCD. Firefly, Doctor Who, X-Files, Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis, Fringe, Alphas and The Walking Dead are not guilty of either adding gratuitous nudity or resorting to twenty-something actresses who can’t act. There are a few that do use the LCD formula but they don’t have the ridiculously obsessed fandoms as those mentioned above.

The genre has a different gender problem: a lack of diversity. As much as I love Star Trek: The Next Generation, one could not help but notice that the two top female crew members were the ship’s counselor and doctor (However, both over 30 during show). There were no captains, commanders, engineers, security or science officers. There was Tasha Yar but she was conveniently killed off. Star Wars notoriously had only one major female character in Episodes IV through VI. While there’s been an explosion of female protagonists and female authors in fantasy, science fiction lags behind.

Rather than exploit the female form, science fiction tends to ignore it.

Hopefully the new MaddAddam project will change that. It is predominantly science fiction with a particular focus on evolutionary theory, genetic engineering, and environmental decay. As long as Aronofsky and HBO don’t get fixated on the dirty parts, I think the show will be a success.

J

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Graphene Shows Promise as Material of the Future

Science fiction has invented all sorts of materials for the future in an effort to get around the physical limitations of current technologies. Star Trek gave us fictional substances like tritanium, dilithium, and transparent aluminum. Recently, scientists believe they may have discovered a real super material. It is called graphene and it has many people excited.

Graphene is carbon sheets only one atom thick. They are arranged in a hexagonal lattice structure similar to that pictured above. This rare structure gives it amazing properties. It is incredibly strong (believed to be 100 times stronger than steel), nearly transparent, and an excellent conductor of heat and electricity. Even more interesting is that it will self-repair when exposed to carbon atoms, whether in pure form or in hydrocarbons.

Yes, believe it or not, there could be such a thing as “self-regenerating molecular armor” (line from Transformers).

Scientists working with the new material believe it could have many practical applications. Its transparent quality makes it ideal for display screens. Imagine a cellphone screen that cannot crack or can bend without breaking. It could also be used in solar panels due to its strength, electrical conductivity, and transparent properties. Its conductivity also allows it to be used in circuits and transistors. According to Wikipedia: For integrated circuits, graphene has a high carrier mobility, as well as low noise, allowing it to be used as the channel in a field-effect transistor. I’m not sure what that means but it sounds exciting.

The other exciting part is the prevalence of the raw material needed to make graphene. All you need is carbon. Carbon is cheaper than almost all other equivalent metal such as copper, iron, gold, aluminum, or titanium. As far as I know, the production process does not emit any kind of pollution or toxic waste. It certainly doesn’t have a carbon footprint. If it emitted any carbon, producers would certainly want to recapture it and use it! Carbon emitters would have incentive to capture and store the carbon their processes emit, then sell it to graphene producers.

How is it that simple carbon can have such incredible properties? After all, we’ve used carbon for a long time in pencils and charcoal, neither of which are strong or transparent.

The key is the hexagonal sheet structure. Graphene doesn’t occur in nature but scientists have long been aware of its theoretical potential. The challenge was devising a process that could produce graphene from normal carbon. In 2004, scientists finally found a way, producing the first known quantity of graphene. Since then there’s been a rush of research done to develop commercial and industrial applications, as well as scale-up production.

If researchers are correct, graphene could boost solar panels to near 100 percent efficiency, providing the breakthrough necessary to make solar power a viable replacement for fossil fuels. It could dramatically improve computer processor performance and decrease the reliance on other metals such as copper. Then there’s its strength. Graphene is insanely strong and lightweight. If developers are able to scale-up production, we could see graphene used as a construction material or used for vehicle chassis and aircraft.

Who knows, it might make a good armor plating for tanks and battlemechs.

These innovations will take years, even decades. Graphene is still difficult to produce. Graphene could be the transparent aluminum of the future, or it might end up being another exotic material too expensive for practical use. Fortunately, companies, universities, and investors are all very interested in graphene and are funding its development. Who knows, we might see whales at Sea World behind a graphene window soon. Your next computer or cellphone could have graphene components.

J

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Indie Publishing Brings a little Democracy to the Elitist Publishing Industry

The internet changed how people get their music; now it has changed how people get their books. Every year e-reader and ebook sales rise while brick-and-mortar bookstores close. The ebook revolution has also opened up new opportunities for indie publishers and authors. Publishing costs are dropping rapidly, allowing smaller presses to compete with the bigger publishers. The once elitist, oligarchical publishing industry is transforming into an open, egalitarian marketplace.

It started with the music industry. In the late 1990s, the internet allowed consumers to share high-quality recordings via computer and later through cell phones and iPods. The big record companies fought furiously to end the practice of music sharing but failed. In the end, they had to adapt. Today, start-up record labels are able to sell their music on iTunes and other retailers at low cost.

The big publishers had the same iron-grip on the book market. A group of five or six giant publishers dominated, largely because it was so difficult to be profitable selling books. Publishers lose money on most of their books, hoping that a few bestsellers will cover those losses and get them to profitability. Unless a manuscript came from an already famous author, a publisher was taking a serious risk. Normally, the publisher purchases a book from an author, do some editing, slap a cover on it, and print thousands of copies to be distributed to thousands of bookstores across the country. Before a single book is sold, the publisher is in the hole hoping the sales revenue covers its cost.

A publisher can make money as long as it has a giant catalog improving their chances of one of their products becoming a bestseller. Otherwise, they needed deep pockets to cover their short-term losses from bad books.

That was the old way. The ebook and print-on-demand (POD) services has reduced publishing costs dramatically, making it easier to turn a profit. There are no printing or distribution costs for an ebook. E-commerce has also made POD services a viable option. Today, millions do their shopping online. Publishers can now sit back and wait for online orders to determine how many need to be printed. No more books sitting in warehouses unsold.

Indie publishers are taking full advantage. They now control a majority of the book market share. The days of the publishing oligarchy dominating the marketplace are over.

The changes have benefited authors as well. The old career track for an aspiring author was a long and difficult one with a very small chance of success. To get a book published, an author had to send their manuscript to literary agents and hopefully gain representation from one of them. Publishers almost never read a manuscript unless it comes from a literary agent’s hands. Even then, an author’s chances were slim. There’s always been smaller indie publishers but the odds of getting your book to the bestseller list through them was close to nil. There was also the self-publishing route but it was almost certain to fail. One would have to pay to have thousands of books printed then go to bookstores one-by-one in hopes they’d shelf it.

Unless you got  a big publisher to buy your book, you weren’t going to do well. Authors tell stories of getting their first few manuscripts rejected before finally getting through years later. That is years of work with zero income to show for it. Suffice to say most working class writers couldn’t afford to spend that kind of time writing a book without earning something. Only those dedicated to the profession or those with enough leisure time could afford to write novels.

Their time is over. Every year more sales are going to indie published or self-published titles, and every year more authors are making a living selling their books through indie publishers. More authors means more opportunities to get your manuscript read and acquired.

Nowhere has indie publishing been more successful than in genre fiction. If you look at the top 100 science fiction & fantasy bestsellers on Amazon, you will find many are from small presses or are self-published. For example, Hugh Howey’s Wool became a bestseller despite being self-published with no advertising or marketing whatsoever.

If you go to http://www.authorearnings.com you’ll see an even clearer picture of the revolution taking place in publishing. I am not 100 percent sure if the data at Author Earnings is accurate but based on my own experience I think it is. Check out some of their reports and you’ll see a number of things stand out.

On Amazon, 80 percent of the bestsellers come from indie publishers or are self-published. For the Barnes & Noble Nook, it is 72 percent of bestsellers. The big publishers still have a firm grasp on printed books, whether hardcover or paperback. Yet ebook sales represents a growing share of the overall book market.

Competition is almost always a good thing. With more publishers come more books, more choices for consumers, and more opportunities for new authors to earn a living doing what they love.

Some publishing experts argue that the trend is to the detriment of literature. Without the wise gatekeepers, the market is going to be flooded with inferior books, drowning out the quality ones. They have little faith in the marketplace or readers to recognize quality literature. For the snobby elitist, the impressive sale numbers mentioned above don’t matter. It is all about what the literary aristocracy think is superior literature. Only the worthy should get published.

Like any other marketplace, quality inevitably rises to the top. Anyone who has read Wool, will tell you it is an excellent sci-fi novel. After reading many of the bestsellers from indie/self-published sources, I think most belong at the top. Like anything else, there are exceptions but that was true before the internet revolution.

Looks like the big publishers will just have to get over it. The publishing world is now much more egalitarian and competitive. It is a golden age for indie publishers, authors, and readers. May it last a thousand years.

J

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Review: Othella by Therin Knite

Othella is an exciting, violent, and “snarky” novel with a dark playfulness to it. With a nonlinear format, amoral characters, and plenty of gratuitous violence, it reads like it could be a Quentin Tarantino screenplay. While it isn’t Pulp Fiction it is an impressive novel by young indie author Therin Knite.

The novel centers around the city of Arcadia Heights, which is actually a giant research center dedicated to saving humanity from its predicted downfall. A series of catastrophes are tearing what remains of the civilized world apart. Quentin is spokesman for the Arcadia Heights program but lacks enthusiasm, seeing his job as merely delaying the end. Yet he still works to protect it from any outside threat. Marco Salt is a high-profile CEO who fears the worse after his daughter disappears inside Arcadia Heights. Georgette McClain is an investigative journalist dedicated to discovering what is going on behind the Heights’ veil of secrecy. The three narrators collide in a showdown that could decide the future of the world.

The self-published novel impressed me from the start. It doesn’t suffer from the usual stylistic issues of self-published works. I had zero problems absorbing Knite’s prose. It is clean, descriptive, and flows very well using first-person, present tense – like The Hunger Games. There is no info-dumping dropped on readers, a common problem with speculative fiction writers. Knite also uses a nonlinear format, jumping back and forth in the storyline. Despite the perils involved with the complicated format, Knite executed it well.

The story starts off like a young adult thriller with some sci-fi elements but then takes a gritty, violent turn. The setting is an apocalyptic future, where humanity is reaching its end. There are no more heroes, no hope. There aren’t many books dedicated to such brutal realism. The three narrators are deeply cynical, caring little for the people around them. They seem to accept the end of the world as inevitable, which makes their motivations a little fuzzy. If you think the world is ending, why bother with anything?

Arcadia Heights is sold as the salvation of humanity. It is a giant think tank with the specific purpose of developing the breakthroughs necessary to save the world. Quentin works for the program but is ambivalent about its prospects. His motivation is more personal: a commitment to his business partner, a man who successfully uploaded his consciousness onto a computer within the Heights. It is friendship that keeps him going.

Marco is a sympathetic character at first but as the story progresses he becomes cold and vicious. He comes to believe his daughter is dead and only desires revenge. He is the CEO of a company called South Sydian, yet seems to have Navy SEAL-like skills when he is chased by Quentin’s henchmen.

Georgette is the most impressive character although definitely not the most likable. She seems like a sociopath right from the start, lacking concern for the people involved in her stories. The world and all the people in it don’t matter to her at all. All she wants is glory and professional recognition for her greatness. There is nothing she won’t do to get the story.

There really wasn’t anything redeeming about any of the narrators. In comparison, Tarantino’s films have the ability to make you like some of the characters with a lot of thoughtful, even philosophical conversations between the low-life personalities. Knite managed to put together some intense exchanges but many came off as fairly conventional good guy/bad guy posturing, taunting, and sarcasm. I think this is what Knite means, when she says her writing includes a lot of “snark.” She overused it in a few chapters with some pretty cheesy lines.

Like Tarantino, Knite utilizes plenty of violence, gore, with a few bits of gratuitous nudity. What makes it unique is that it is the female character, Georgette, that is preoccupied with her own body, willing to use her physical attractiveness to her advantage. While she can play the typical saucy seductress well, her body has numerous scars from her time as an investigative journalist. Towards the end of the novel I was hoping there would be some redeeming quality to such a strong character. Perhaps it happens in the next book.

There were parts I enjoyed and certainly appreciate the superior writing but this kind of literary style isn’t one of my favorites. The action is exciting and got me to stay up and finish the book but in the end I was hoping for a little more substance behind the violence and gore.

Even so, I’m curious where Knite intends to take the series.

J

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Review: The Giver by Lois Lowry

I didn’t have the opportunity to read The Giver in school but am told many teachers assign it to their students. Instead, I read it as an adult finishing it a day before going to see the movie. After finishing it off in three days, I have to say it is a fantastic read and perfect for young adult audiences. Unfortunately, the movie is far weaker. Moviegoers who haven’t read the book will enjoy it but most everyone else will not.

On the surface, it is a typical dystopian novel with similarities to A Brave New World and Fahrenheit 451. Humanity survives a great cataclysm and reorganizes itself around the concept of Sameness. Nobody knows what happened or what life was like prior to Sameness. The main character Jonas, is selected to be the new Receiver of Memories, the one citizen permitted to learn everything. As he learns more he feels he’s been betrayed all his life. Not only that, he becomes frustrated at the conformity around him, and the inability of his family and friends to see the world as it truly is. He becomes so outraged, he desires to rebel and destroy it.

Sameness is exactly how it sounds. Society becomes uniform and heavily regimented, with numerous rules governing behavior. All children are born to surrogate mothers, raised in a uniformed upbringing system, and fed some kind of Prozac. Everyone lives in identical homes, identical neighborhoods, and are assigned jobs at age twelve. Families are required to talk about their feelings and dreams every morning. It is implied the Community closely monitor these discussions looking for signs of anti-social tendencies.

Then there are the more disturbing social policies, including compulsory euthanasia, population control, state-organized families, and the suppression of information. Citizens are strongly encouraged to use precise language to help hide the truth. For example, people are not killed, they are “released.”

The foundational belief of Sameness is that people are incapable of living peacefully with one another. The Community Elders concluded that the great cataclysm was the result of innate human weakness, our emotions. If left unchecked, our passions inevitably result in horrific atrocities. They believe the Community must restrain these emotional forces or eliminate them entirely. Without uniformity and pharmaceuticals there will be war, famine, poverty, pain, and despair.

The key distinction from other dystopian novels is that it is told from a child’s perspective, Jonas. Jonas’s defiance is analogous to teenage rebellion rather than a citizen defying an oppressive political order. It is normal to strictly control the behavior of a child, even medicate them against their will. It is also normal to tell children lies about the world. All of us reach a point between childhood and adulthood where we learn the truth about the world, especially the flaws of our parents, authority figures, etc. We learn that life isn’t fair, the bad guys aren’t always defeated or punished, there is undeserved pain and suffering in the world, and that it is the fault of the adults, i.e. our parents.

The use of color as a metaphor was an excellent and timely element. Early in the novel it is revealed no one in the Community can see color. During Jonas’s training as Receiver of Memories he begins to see color for the first time. This idea was also used in the movie Pleasantville. The ability to see color is a metaphor for the human capacity to truly feel and experience the world around him.

It is very common for teenagers to feel they experience the world differently than their parents. The changeover from black and white to color television is one of the significant technological achievements that separated Generation X from their parents and grandparents. While their parents experienced their lives without color, sometimes without picture, the new generation experienced everything. Today, kids watch high definition television, go to see 3D movies, carry computers in their pockets, and can access any video at any time with a simple wi fi connection.

Among the most insidious forms of control in the Community was the control of language. All citizens of the Community are strongly encouraged to use what they call “precise language” or “precise words.” When Jonas asks his parents if they love him, they recoil at his use of the word love. It is an antiquated word, referencing strong emotional feelings that people are no longer able to experience (thanks to the Prozac). In reality, his use of the word love was precise. Precise language is just a euphemism for acceptable language.

It immediately made me think of political correctness today. Some words are considered incorrect, whether they are technically accurate or not. Using the wrong words publicly can have serious consequences or are presented as evidence of one’s ill nature or intent. Jonas’s parents believe, like some believe today, that bad words can cause bad feelings, thoughts that can lead to bad actions. The belief is so strong, college campuses often impose penalties on students for using inappropriate language.

Lowry persuasively presents the tradeoff being imposed on the people. By constraining the human experience, people become blind to a part of the world. There is almost no crime or poverty in the Community, but the state commits murder on a regular basis. Children are kept safe but infants who fail to meet Community specifications are discarded like the weak or sickly newborns of Sparta. There is no poverty but there is also no art, no music, and no sex. The Prozac-like drug makes sure the natural desire for these things is suppressed.

Anyone who has been on Prozac or any psychoactive drug knows about this tradeoff. While it may eliminate depression and anxiety it will also eliminate more pleasurable feelings along with it. The feeling while on the drug has been described to me as “being a zombie.” There is a numbness that many find unbearable.

Unfortunately, the movie fixates solely on the physical pleasures that have been deprived. The main conflict in the movie has more to do with sexual rebellion than anything else. The Prozac-like drug suppresses sexual desire, which the Community calls “stirrings.” The novel does not explore sexual rebellion, only hints at it, placing it within the larger construct of teen rebellion. The characters are only 12 after all. Hollywood decided that was too boring and decided to add a sexual component, making the main characters 18 years old instead. This robs the story of the coming of age theme and replaces it with a much more conventional forbidden teenage love story. Instead of A Brave New World, we get Twilight.

Jeff Bridges does a solid job as the titular character, and Jonas’s teacher. Unfortunately the reworked ending made his character feel one-dimensional, obsessed with love. Meryl Streep was thrown in as the Head of the Elders, and forced to read numerous bad lines, none of which are in the book.  It should be a federal crime to misuse the brilliant Streep in such ways.

Usually the book is better than the movie, but in this case it wasn’t even close. By changing the characters’ age, the central conflict, and the ending, Hollywood robbed the story of a lot of its unique qualities, turning it into a cookie-cutter dystopian love story.

Book gets 5 Stars, the move gets 3.5 stars.

J

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