Guest Post: On Science Fiction Fascinations by S. Spencer Baker
I’ve been fascinated with science fiction since I was about four years old, even though I’m fairly sure that I didn’t know it was called science fiction in those days. There were puppet shows on TV like Supercar and Fireball XL5, and I dimly remember another show that had flying saucers like wobbling spinning tops that docked with a space station, but I’ve never seen that one again so I might have dreamt it — it was all in monochrome and a long time ago. Then Doctor Who hit the tiny screen with a theme tune that could only have been made by aliens — and nasty aliens at that. UFOs and bad robots seemed to be everywhere back then. I personally discovered a planet in 1964. I wrote an entire project about it, a huge scrapbook of cut-out pictures from magazines and hand lettered descriptions of this amazing new planet that I’d discovered in the school library called Pluto. It was a really great project, the best I’d ever done. My teacher called me a moron and sent me weeping like a baby to the back of the class. I was secretly pleased when Pluto lost its planetary status a couple of years ago. Serves it right. Bad planet. Then came Star Trek and I was enraptured. We had, on our televisions (in colour), a black and white representation of what it would look like to be on a spaceship travelling through the stars. To this day, if you want to make me happy, sit me in a cinema and project the view from the Enterprise as it slices its way through the galaxy. Watch those stars zoom past. Tiny points of light that are entire solar systems flying by and out of sight. Pure bliss. Of course when I was a kid, I wasn’t able to articulate exactly what it was about science fiction that entranced me. I did know that it wasn’t the aliens. Daleks were scary as hell and cybermen were just clumsy precursors of stormtroopers, but neither were that interesting. Whatever aliens Kirk and Spock had to battle with in their styrofoam sets were all pretty useless in the end — after all, we managed to defeat them all inside 45 minutes, right? I have to give the Borg a nod. They were really cool but they weren’t really very alien except in their social structure. They did give us Seven Of Nine though, so they will forever hold a special place in all young heterosexual male hearts. But no, it wasn’t the aliens that held my interest. It wasn’t the weapons either. Nuclear-ionised-plasma, mega-warp-reverse-polarity, pulse-phase-modulated photon-this and electro-that are simply a writer’s way of getting themselves out of a problem they deliberately created in order to put tension into the narrative and keep everyone glued to their seats. If the future is to be about technology (and I sincerely hope that it is) then the weapons side of future tech is the least constructive and most boring. No, what fascinated me then and fascinates me still today is first, the idea that the future holds the solutions to today’s problems (I admit this may be weak-minded of me) and second, that one day we will get the hell off this tiny, stinking, life-infested, doomed rock and get out to the stars. Yes. Ever since I was old enough to understand that we were on a planet, I’ve wanted to get off it. As far as I’m concerned, this is a perfectly natural response. After all, if you lived on an island all your life, and could see another land over the sea, are you telling me you’re not going to go there? You aren’t going to walk down the track every day and look over the water to a huge lump of rock and not think ‘I wonder what’s over there?’ Of course you are. You’ll invent technology that floats and you’ll go there. Then you’ll look out at the horizon and think ‘I wonder if there’s anywhere out there that’s better than this place?’ And until you’ve gone to wherever you think ‘out there’ is and found out if it’s better, you will never be able to rest. That’s just the way human beings are made. If we weren’t made that way we would never have left Africa and we would have died out like 99% of all the species on earth that ever existed. We are genetically programmed to be curious. It’s a survival characteristic. Get over it. We have to go. Not only in order to survive (because only an idiot would expect life on Earth to last forever) but because we’re made that way. —————————————————– About Slabscape: Reset: Take the most sophisticated A.I. designed mind that has ever existed, encase it in over fifty million cubic kilometres of diamond nano-rods and send it off on a twenty-thousand-year odyssey towards the centre of the galaxy. Then screw it all up by allowing thirty-two million humans to go along for the ride… About the author: S.Spencer Baker (1956~2106) fled formal education and family at the age of seventeen and refused to ever return to either. He spent a subjectively interminable, but retrospectively finite amount of time learning how to exploit the intellectual property of others until he re-remembered that his childhood obsession was to create his own intellectual property and get other people to exploit it on his behalf. Somewhere around the beginning of that seriously weird century that began inauspiciously in 2001 he started creating the not-at-all-weird universe of Slabscape. By 2011 he had published his first science fiction novel; Slabscape:Reset – a webback (being backed up by information, back-stories, glossaries and complete irrelevancies in an online resource at http://slabscapedia.com). By 2020 he had published several more novels and short stories in the series, including Slabscape:Dammit, Slabscape:Reboot and a compendium of the first three books along with a contemporary text dump of the ever-expanding Slabscapedia entitled; Slabscape:Thank Dice That’s Over
Guest Post: Writing Fear in Appleton by J. Stephen Howard
Dear Brave and Steadfast Reader, Writing the horror novel, Fear in Appleton, was a grueling yet enjoyable process that took me over three years to complete. During that time, the book went through several drafts, including one where Michael Garrett, Stephen King’s first editor as credited in King’s On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, provided input. The idea that sparked Fear in Appleton was: What if the reader could follow the journey a person takes from madness to death to becoming a ghost? Then, if the reader were given a front seat to the hauntings occurring thereafter, it would make for an exciting, creepy roller coaster ride. Adding to the fun, I thought: What if someone who was afraid of everything in life, with a million phobias, could flip that around as a ghost doing all the scaring? Thus, Professor Terrence Crawford, a self-absorbed creative writing teacher with a fragile ego, was born. Naturally, since he was a writer, he’d want to narrate his ghost stories. I realized that with a ghost narrator, I needed a warm, live body as a vehicle for typing up his exploits. It made sense to make Professor Crawford’s old boss, the English department head named Professor Starkley, that vehicle. So Crawford, after pushing people over the edge, would float back to Appleton College to induce Starkley to record his escapades. As a big fan of edgy HBO shows like “True Blood” and “The Sopranos,” I began to imagine these hauntings as separate episodes that shared some connective tissue. However, I needed a way to link them. That linking agent, Angela Lacey, who was Professor Crawford’s obsession in life, became his opponent. But first, she had to become aware of his supernatural presence. I made Crawford’s victims varied to give the sense of a ghost haunting an entire town. He could be anywhere floating around, trying to sniff out the fears of the populace. Yet, even as an incredibly powerful supernatural force, a residue of his humanity remained, and as a result, he couldn’t keep away from Angela. At this point in the novel, the stories go from the victims being varied and having nothing in common with each other to involving Angela in some way. Finally, to send the roller coaster ride to its conclusion, I needed to get the ghost out of the English department and onto the campus for one last showdown. The character of Wesley sprang organically from the novel’s writing process. It just seemed like, after hopping around inside the minds of various victims, the ghost finally found the perfect host for his devilish purposes. Then, as for the heroine Angela, she required something from the past, something clouding her present and causing her to fear life. It made sense to give her this burden so there could be a final battle between the ghost and her. I had a great time writing this novel, and it’s gratifying to see it published on Amazon/Kindle. I hope you’ll download a copy and post a review after reading it. With forums such as this one, reading and writing don’t have to be mutually exclusive or isolating. Let’s keep the communication channels open so the ghosts and other things that go bump in the night won’t keep us under the covers. Sincerely, J. Stephen Howard You can learn more about Fear in Appleton here or on Facebook. The book is available on Amazon.
Guest Post: Sword and Sorcery — Why “Man vs Man” is less effective than “Man vs Supernatural” by S. E. Lindberg
Fantasy readers and movie-goers maintain an expectation that protagonists will battle supernatural forces. Those forces may manifest in humans (“bad guys”); however, when the supernatural element is diluted (or superficially offered in clichéd, familiar forms so that the protagonist literally battles a man) then expectations are not met. Consumers become disappointed. The lack luster reception of this year’s movie, Conan the Barbarian, is a good example of this expectation being unsatisfied. Of course, Man vs. Supernatural conflict is ubiquitous across fantasy. Most recognizable of Supernatural antagonists may be Tolkien’s bodiless Sauron. Nearly three decades before Sauron stalked bookshelves and haunted rings, Conan creator Robert Ervin Howard originated the Sword & Sorcery genre by writing action-packed shorts exploring Man vs. Supernatural. Sword & Sorcery was coined by author Fritz Leiber years after REH passed, but as he suggested the name he also clarified the role of the supernatural: I feel more certain than ever that this field should be called the sword-and-sorcery story. This accurately describes the points of culture-level and supernatural element and also immediately distinguishes it from the cloak-and-sword (historical adventure) story—and (quite incidentally) from the cloak-and-dagger (international espionage) story… (Fritz Leiber, Amra, 1961) But it was Lin Carter who may have best defined Sword and Sorcery in his introduction to his Flashing Sword series (Carter, with L. Sprague de Camp, posthumously co-authored several Conan tales): We call a story Sword & Sorcery when it is an action tale, derived from the traditions of the pulp magazine adventure story, set in a land or age or world of the author’s invention—a milieu in which magic actually works and the gods are real—and a story, moreover, which pits a stalwart warrior in direct conflict with the forces of supernatural evil. (Lin Carter, Flashing Swords I, 1973) REH wrote twenty-one Conan tales, and no human antagonist persisted across them. Each story had bad guys/creatures/etc., but they were overt proxies for greater supernatural evils. Hence, the conflict was Conan (the Man) vs. Supernatural. One reason the 1982 Conan the Barbarian movie obtained better reception than the 2011 version can be explained by analyzing the core conflicts. In the 1982 version, Conan fought the serpent cult of Set led by Thusla Doom. But the movie was not about Conan vs. Thulsa Doom. Thulsa was just a representative for his serpentine god, and Conan was continuously fighting other representatives of Set, including a giant snake. In fact, Thulsa arguably was not even human since he transformed into a serpent! On the other hand, the 2011 reboot pits Conan against the evil Khalar Zym. Khalar, a man, spends his entire life re-assembling the purportedly sorcerous Mask of Acheron (infused with enough magic to transform the wielder into a god and ruler of the world). But repairing the mask appeared inconsequential in that it did not provide Khalar with any powers, nor did it transform him into a mythical creature. The expected climax was a battle between Conan and the god Acheron, but instead viewers were treated to a magic-less melee between Conan and the man Khalar. Were you disappointed in the recent Conan movie? —————————————————– About the author: Looking for bloody action with genuine supernatural elements? Then I invite you to read my newly published novel Lords of Dyscrasia (click for excerpts). Enjoy the Underworld! Early Review: ForeWord Clarion Reviews, 5 Stars for Lords of Dyscrasia! “…Outside of the works of Poe and Lovecraft, there are few, if any, novels comparable to [Lords of Dyscrasia]… Beowulf comes to mind both for its epic quality and bloody action… The pace is nearly breathless… Lindberg, who also created more than 50 illustrations and the cover for this book, makes the majority of current popular fantasy fiction read like recipes by comparison. Lords of Dyscrasia is highly recommended, though not for the faint of heart.” Lords of Dyscrasia is currently available in ePub and Paperbacks everywhere!
Guest Post: 1978 by Robert Louis Smith
I don’t remember much about 1978; I was only in fifth grade. Much of what I do remember is spotty, like the fact that our TV set was a bulky piece of oak furniture with a bulbous gray screen in the middle. Back then, there were no remote controls, no cable or satellite television, and we got exactly three channels. We selected among them by turning a big silver dial on the front of the set, just above the shiny, gold fabric speaker covers. My dad always made one of the kids get up to turn the dial when he wanted to look for a different show. I remember other things from that long ago year, too. Like rotary-dial telephones, bell-bottom jeans (they always got caught in my bike chain), disco music, and my fifth grade library period with Mrs. Smith. I really wasn’t much of a student in those years, and, sadly, I made frequent trips to the principal’s office. In 1978, there were few concerns about protecting a child’s privacy. Whenever one’s name was called for a trip to the office, the announcement came over the school’s antiquated intercom system, and to the sadistic delight of virtually every child in the building. Those of us unlucky enough to have drawn the principal’s ire were always called directly by name, for all to bear witness. These were somber affairs (I recognize it now as an effective form of intimidation). I remember these instances as utterly terrifying because, back then, a call to the principal’s office meant only one thing: swats. And I must have gotten more than any kid in the whole school. I was such an unruly kid, in fact, that no one could ever figure out how Mrs. Smith, our withered, osteoporotic library teacher, always kept me so thoroughly leashed. Mrs. Smith had curly, snow-white hair, pointy silver-rimmed spectacles, and shuffled along with a wooden cane. For a grade school librarian of the 1970’s, she was straight out of central casting. She wore a different color polyester pantsuit every day of the week, and she rarely uttered a kind word. The walls of her library (which also doubled as the school cafeteria) were lined with children’s books from ceiling to floor. Our job was to peruse the titles, choose one quickly, then shut up and read for an hour. For many of the children in my class, this was the longest, most miserable period of the day. For me, it was wonderful. The truth is that Mrs. Smith never had to say a word to me. I could’ve sat at that formica-covered table reading all day. Many, many golden nuggets lay hidden among the collection of dusty spines on those public school shelves: Encyclopedia Brown, The Hardy Boys, and Johnny Tremaine are among the titles I remember consuming that year. But these were not destined to stay with me like another I spotted one rainy afternoon. Though I found the title and cover of this new discovery quite strange, it intrigued me. Soon, I found myself mesmerized by a book that I would read over and over throughout the years of my life, and one that I remain fond of more than three decades later. It was called The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, by C.S. Lewis, and it was the best introduction to the modern fantasy genre that a rambunctious, imaginative kid could ever hope for. For weeks, my mind danced with thoughts of fawns, Turkish delight, talking beavers, and creatures turned to stone by an evil white witch. A few years later, following the suggestion of a friend, I picked up a copy of the strange cousin to that Narnia tale, and began a new love affair with Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. These are the books that shaped my impression of what a fantasy story should be. Quite a high watermark. Over the years, I strayed from these tales, experimenting with new authors and genres. I even tried to recapture some of the magic by reading countless other fantasy tales (many of which I now regard as knock-offs). But like any true love, my heart always led back to Narnia and Middle Earth. Somewhere in the middle of all this — perhaps around the age of twelve — I decided the course my life would take. I was going to be a writer. I wrote my first story in junior high, completing most of it during my English class while the other, more disciplined students fastidiously worked on whatever assignment the teacher had given that day. My debut story was about an old woman who captures the boy living next door to her, locks him in a pit, terrifies him, and later reveals that his whole life has been a sham, and that she is his real mother. I’ve no doubt that the story was just awful, but for me, it seemed somehow powerful. I wanted to get really good at the writing thing and give it a shot. In time, perhaps thankfully, cooler heads prevailed. I turned out to be a capable student, after all, and eventually followed a long path that led me to medical school, and then into cardiology. Even so, I never abandoned the notion that someday I would write. When the time for me came, it was with those impactful memories of Narnia and Middle Earth still swirling in my head, and with hopes that I could create something wonderful, but not just another knock-off of those great writers of yore. This is how Antiquitas Lost was born. Please understand that I have no illusions of greatness. For a variety of reasons, the writings of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien will not be — cannot be — duplicated. And I really am no different than thousands of other fantasy writers who have aspired to create something as big as those novels were. I realize this very well. I only hope that, if you have the opportunity to make your way
Guest Post: The Polarization of Genre Fiction by David Chandler
(Don’t forget to enter here for a chance to win one of three sets of David Chandler’s books.) When I was maybe ten years old I asked myself whether I preferred science fiction novels or fantasy novels. My eventual decision was that I should prefer SF, since some day I might live on the moon, while I knew I was never going to see a real dragon. Don’t judge. It was the seventies, and we had a space program back then. It was a weighty decision that took all of a lazy summer afternoon lying in a hammock in my back yard, listening to the swelling mechanical sound of the crickets all around me. When I’d made up my mind, I nodded quite seriously to myself, and got back to the important business of reading. Books were everything to me back then (they still are, but in a different way). I read everything I could get my hands on, anything remotely related to genre. I tried for a couple of days to stick to just science fiction, but by the end of that summer I had probably read all of Thomas Covenant and C.S. Lewis and re-read the Hobbit, too. You see, back then, despite my ten year old dilemma, there was no real need to make a choice. You could have your fantasy and your science fiction and Stephen King and the more promising mysteries your mom checked out of the library, too. You could have weird conspiracy books like the Illuminatus Trilogy, and bizarre hybrids like A Princess of Mars. The big distinction between “genre” and “mainstream” was the only dividing line. I had no interest in reading about alcoholic college professors contemplating their failed marriages. I wanted adventure, and flashing swords (light-sabers or cavalry sabers, it was all the same) and desperate chases across dead sea bottoms on distant planets. I wanted every story anyone wanted to tell. So why, in the 21st century, is that kind of broad reading no longer possible? Genre readers have split into camps. Science fiction fans, especially those “hard SF” types, turn up their noses at anything resembling a magic sword… though variable swords with monomolecular blades are just fine. And the devotees of Low Fantasy (who can tell you, at length, the difference between their genre and Swords and Sorcery) laugh and point fingers at those “skiffy” types who need a graphic calculator to make sense of their favorite books. Don’t even get me started on what the horror enthusiasts think of you. It isn’t very nice. But good God, why? Why, when we’re already marginalized by the mainstream, disrespected by the press, and treated like overgrown children because we enjoy the sense of wonder, do we divide ourselves even further? Why do we feel such a need to stratify our own in-group? Part of the reason is that, well, we won. Nerd Culture is suddenly cool (well, sort of) and we don’t have to hide our fandom anymore. But in the process we lost something. We used to be members of a despised but unified subculture, a secret society who shared common interests. Now we’re the same as fans of Country and Western music, or Metalheads, or Foodies. The wider culture has come to accept a little more weirdness and that’s a good thing… but it means we aren’t special anymore. It means when we run into each other in chat rooms or at conventions, we don’t automatically know we’re among the like-minded. A rabid Star Trek fan you meet online could also be your school’s head cheerleader, for goodness’ sake. So there’s no need for solidarity, and, as a result, we don’t stick together. But another part of the problem is that the subgenres have become too robust. Fandoms, like species, diverge as they evolve. There was a time when Science Fiction was about bug-eyed monsters and starships, and that made sense to someone who was into elves and dragons. As the genres grew more sophisticated, though, they became less alike. Now science fiction is about singularities and server farms, while fantasy is concerned more with Vikings and complicated magic systems. Even worse, fantasy has evolved to become more character-driven and generational, while science fiction has become the new Literature of Ideas and Naturalistic, borrowing from Post-Modernism while fantasy subsumed Magical Realism. That’s hardly something to complain about. Genre books today are a lot more sophisticated and enjoyable for a graying audience than they were thirty years ago. The genres have grown up. My father’s favorite joke used to be that the Golden Age of science fiction was thirteen. That’s not true anymore. But it does make it difficult for the subgenres to cross-pollinate. Which is, in the end, why this kind of polarization is a problem. The great genre writers of previous generations saw no real distinction between science fiction and fantasy. They were modes, tropes that you employed because they fit a given story better, but they were happy to jump from one genre to another without worrying what their fans might think. Even a great of hard sf like Larry Niven would occasionally delve into fantasy (though usually with a smirk), while an incredible fantasy writer like Glen Cook could spend decades noodling on science fiction empire stories. That just doesn’t happen anymore. Richard K. Morgan and Terry Pratchett keep trying. And they’re really good at it… but the fans greet their efforts with a polite nod and a pat on the back at best. And that really is a problem. Both science fiction and fantasy grew from the fertile soil of planetary romance (I’m simplifying history, I know, but the point is valid)—John Carter of Mars gave us both Conan the Cimmerian and Flash Gordon, and they begat all the heroes and villains we love today regardless of what side of the aisle we choose. When we specialize our interests, though, we lose that link to the past. We also lose the more
Guest Post: Smackdown: Pangrelor vs. Middle Earth by Robert Louis Smith
(I first must apologize to Mr. Smith for the lateness of this post. The email containing the guest post below got buried, which has happened far more times than I think is fair. This will be resolved ASAP.) ——————————————————- In 1954, J.R.R. Tolkien published the first of a breathtaking series of books that would go on to become some of the most influential novels of the 20th century. As anyone who has ever read The Lord of the Rings knows, Tolkien’s books are so imaginative and unexpectedly powerful that his fantastic tale still captures our imaginations more than a half century after its original publication. These stories gave birth to the modern fantasy genre, and it is perhaps inevitable that so many contemporary fantasy books replicate aspects of Tolkien’s writings. So pervasive is Tolkien’s influence that the English Dictionary offers a word for it: Tolkienesque. Perhaps this is why we see so many fantasy tales that feature elves, dwarves, wizards, magic rings, and magic swords. The presence of these features is, in many ways, what we have come to expect from a modern fantasy novel. But over the course of 57 years, these constructs of classical Northern European (or Tolkienesque) fantasy fiction have been imitated to the point of monotony. In tome after tome, we see elves and dwarves wielding magical swords or speaking in Northern European conlangs (fictional languages) as they follow some particular heroic quest. And let’s be honest. Although there are many wonderful and imaginative novels that feature these elements, no one has done it as well as Mr. Tolkien. When I sat down to write Antiquitas Lost, I promised myself there would be no magic rings, magic swords, elves or dwarves. A major goal was to create a fantasy novel where the creatures and setting were fresh. Pangrelor, the fantasy world described in Antiquitas Lost, is envisioned as a pre-industrial, medieval society with beautiful artistic accomplishments set in a savage and magical natural environment — the Renaissance meets the Pleistocene, with magical beings and crypto-zoological creatures. Devoid of elves and dwarves, Pangrelor is inhabited largely by creatures that we are familiar with, but different from the usual fantasy fare — gargoyles, Bigfoot creatures, Neanderthal types, Atlanteans and dinosaurs, to name a few. These differences give Pangrelor a much different feel from Middle Earth and the countless, adherent worlds that have followed. Hopefully the reader will find this refreshing. Over time, I have come to think of Antiquitas Lost as more of a “North American” tale, with many references to new world mythologies, as well as a hint of Native American influence. Although Antiquitas Lost is not immune to Mr. Tolkien’s sweeping influence, it is unique in many ways. When you take your first journey to Pangrelor, it is my sincere hope that you will experience a hint of the joy that accompanied your maiden voyage to Middle Earth, and that you will connect in a meaningful way with this unprecedented new cast of characters as you explore an altogether unique fantasy destination. ———————————————————————————— Robert Louis Smith, author of Antiquitas Lost: The Last of the Shamalans, has numerous degrees, including psychology (B.A.), applied microbiology (B.S.), anaerobic microbiology (M.Sc.), and a Medical Doctorate (M.D.). He serves as an interventional cardiologist at the Oklahoma Heart Institute. He is married and the father of two young children. He began writing Antiquitas Lost in 2003 while studying atTulane University in New Orleans. For more information please visit http://www.antiquitaslost.com/ and follow the author on Facebook and Twitter