Linnea Sinclair: Romantic SF is not a contradiction in terms.

Just discovered Linnea Sinclair and I heartily recommend this author. I just finished her first book "Finders Keepers." Hard SF with more than a touch of romance, space opera, whatever you want to call it, it's a good, fun read. I'm ordering the rest of her books.

Linnea's website: http://www.linneasinclair.com/

The Sci Fi Military Paradigm

A few days ago Linnea Sinclair, author of a series of hard SF romances, (no that's not a paradox) posed this question on the FFandP loop:

Why is the Navy the model for Science Fiction military, not the Air Force ?

I thought about this for a while and came up with the following (non exhaustive) reasons:

1. Long distances = long transit times, logically requiring self-sufficient craft with long linger times, i.e. ships. You can't explore while doing a flyover.

2. Early SF writers, notably E. E. Smith, Heinlein, Asimov, etc., grew up in an era when Naval power was supreme and airplanes had severely limited range. The paradigm stuck.

3. SF writers tend to think of space as the equivalent of the unexplored earth in the age of sail, hence ships. Which is sort of like #1

4. Space, like the ocean, is vast and mostly empty. Important events occur at choke points where adversaries have a compelling interest. (Planetary orbit, Jump points -- Trafalgar, the Tsushima straits.) Forces must go there and stay to project power. Navy business, not Air Force.


5. Ships with crews and long voyages afford more dramatic possibilities.

6. The Navy is neater. (Apologies to all my AFROTC buddies and the USMC)

The earliest writer to envision a believable galaxy spanning civilization was E. E. "Doc" Smith. His 'Lensmen' series inspired the likes of George Lucas and Babylon 5's creator (whose name I can't remember.) It also inspired the very first video game, 'Spacewar,' in which 2 ships try to shoot each other while maneuvering around a star. With gravity. They inspired me too, and I'm sure a whole lot of others.

Well, the point is Smith envisioned huge fleets of ships fighting in 3 dimensional space, (anyone remember the "Cone of Battle?") and such was his influence that the paradigm stuck.

Much SF (notably David Drake's Honor Harrington series) borrows unasamedly from C. S. Forester's Horatio Hornblower, and the fighting concepts of the age of sail. Others come all the way up to WWII, or as game designer Frank Chadwick commented, "Jutland or Trafalgar with a touch of Midway for spice."

And that brings up the question, with all we know now about string theory, the physics of hyperspace, the alternate world hypothesis and multi dimensional math, what should the model for Science Fiction military be?

Well the answer is obvious. The Navy, of course. It's neater!

I welcome all comments that are fit to print.

Adventures with Tom(Tom)

You'd think a guy who spent his whole career working with the most advanced computer technology would have embraced this concept years ago. Well, I finally did it, this weekend I bought a GPS unit. Deep in Lancaster county, the seductive female voice and the little green arrow brought us safely to our hotel, then found us a restaurant and a gas station. At the end of a long day of shopping and eating (mostly eating) we were on our way back after dinner with friends (Turn Left One Quarter Mile Ahead) when my wife asked me if there was a Dunkin Dounuts nearby. "Why?" I queried. She wanted a cup of coffee to top off the day, and we both like DD coffee. I didn't know, of course, so I consulted the little green arrow and, whadaya know? There was a DD, just 5.6 miles away! Little did we know that this simple request would result in our first "Adventure With Tom(Tom)"

We set out hopeful and full of joy, the thing had never steered us (no pun intended) wrong. In case you have never been in Lancaster County, PA you probably don't know that most of the county is Amish Farms. The Amish do not use modern appliances, machinery or...electricity. So, once off the main commercial highways the night is black. Not dark, black. Pitch black. Stick your head in a bucket black. Especially on a moonless night. Even so, we started out ok. About half way through the journey to DD: (2.3 miles to go) it told me "Turn Left Onto Sligo Road") So I did. Only it didn't look like a road. It looked like a farm track leading to someone's barn. Nevertheless, loyally following the little green arrow, I doggedly kept on, avoiding the ruts, steering around the potholes. The road dipped into a hollow and the fences on either side seemed to slowly close in on us. Civilization was a faint glow on the horizon.

That's when it occured to me.

This was one of those places where people disappear. You know, the place where aliens come down in their flyers and take you up, car and all, to the mother ship hovering overhead. But if that happened I knew what I would do. I would throw my new GPS unit out the window. When the searchers finally got there they would find it, the little green arrow bravely pointing straight up.

I gotta learn how to program this thing.

Theme

An on line colleague, Estelle Harte, has posed an excellent question: what is theme? I suggest you read her blog before continuing here, she has posed some very cogent questions concerning theme. (See link at right) But feel free to eat the ice cream cone starting from the bottom if you like.

The concept of theme is something I have trouble with too. My idea of telling a story is to, well, tell the story. Let other people worry about what your theme is. My contention is that most of us don't consciously know what our story theme is until after we've completed enough of it to have an idea where it is all going. I know I certainly don't. That revelation may come at the concept stage, or the outline, or not until much, if not all, of it is written. Or even when you do the dreaded synopsis.

I remember reading a story about an SF writer, I believe it was Robert Heinlein, who once attended a lecture about one of his books. After the presenter had finished Heinlein (or whoever it was) spoke to him and objected saying, "I'm the author, and that's not what I meant at all!"

To which the presenter replied, "What makes you think you know what your story is about?"

How's that for a shocker? Do we really know what our stories are about, or does everyone see something completely different? A complex story has many different threads, and, like Luke Skywalker in the cave, which one we think is important/compelling/interesting depends on who we are and what we bring with us.

We all know you can read a YA and get something completely different from it as an adult than the intended audience does. I may read a technothriller for the tech, you may read it for the thrill, someone else may read it for the political stuff or the ongoing romance between the protagonists. Which is the 'real' story.

Recently at GLVWG (Greater Lehigh Valley Writers Group) we had a local storyteller, Charles Kiernan, in for a talk about verbal storytelling and how it relates to writing. One of the interesting things he emphasized was, 'mutual creating.' (He had a better phrase, but I can't remember it.) The essence was that the audience, in our case the reader, enters into the story, and creates the scenes and actions in their imagination, and that too much detail (more for the written word, less for verbal storytelling) spoils the process and also spoils the story.

Well the obvious conclusion is that everyone is creating their own story as they read.

And that means they're creating their own theme too!

Oy.

I think I've come full circle.

Leave a message at the beep.

2 Renees 2

Today one of those non coincidence coincidences happened. At a meeting of... well, I'd better not name the organization...too many prying eyes. Anyway at this...meeting...there were two women named Renee. Now, you have to understand, Renee is not the most popular girl's name in the USA...ever. The year these women were born...but I'm getting ahead of myself. Don't get me wrong, they are both nice ladies, despite having been born in...there I go again. OK, back to the story. When One asked Two...I'm calling them Renee One and Renee Two to avoid confusion, you see. When One asked Two how she got her name Two said...get this...her mother got it from a novel she was reading. Imagine that? From a novel! Heh, heh. Anyway, One says, "So did my mom." Then she named the novel, it was...no wait, I can't tell you that, it would give away the year. Can't be too careful these days. So Two says, "So did my mom! When were you born?" and One says, "In 19..." No, wait I can't tell you that, security is really tight. Anyway Two say, "So was I!" Anyway, to make a long story short, it turns out One and Two were born in the same year, only a few months apart, in the same city! And there they were, together at a meeting of...sorry, I keep forgetting I can't tell you that.

Now I have to ask you, is that coincidence? Of course it isn't! It's a conspiracy!

And that’s why you have to keep this quiet, if they found out...well, I mean, you know.

Must have been one helluva book, though.

Bart

The Vision of Persistence

A very wise woman once told me, well, actually she told the whole class, but I was there so she told me too: “Many of you can write better than I do, but you won’t be published because you won’t be persistent enough.”

The last five days have passed in a fog. I caught a bad virus infection late last week, what we used to call a head cold. You know, that muzzy, stuffy, hot, headachy, stupid feeling? I didn't have enough functioning brain cells to write, or read, or even watch TV. And since you don't actually need functioning brain cells to watch TV, I must have been in brain cell deficit most of the time. In any case, Tuesday night at about eleven PM, I felt it break. You know the feeling, when the force of the illness is no longer on top of you; you are on top of it. It wasn't over, by any means, but I could feel it receding. The enemy was in flight.

That's how it feels when I overcome a block in my writing. I don't mean 'Writer's Block,' I'm not sure I actually believe in that. No, it's when I just don't know where to go with a story, and I think back to what that very wise woman said. Persist. That's it. Keep on keepin' on. So I do. I sit down (see 'application' blog) and start somewhere, almost anywhere. It may be another story, or another part of the same story, or maybe I'll flesh out part of an outline or a character sketch. Or go to my favorite writing place and scribble away as best I can. I do something. It may take days for it to 'break,' but eventually it does. And when it does, it is usually a dam burst that has me wondering where all the words are coming from. Where the ideas were all this time. It's as if a whole different world inside my story opens up, one that was there all the time, but I just hadn't seen yet. Like a vision. A vision of persistence.

It's not genius; it's perseverance.

Then I realized it is exactly like that virus. I take vitamin C and zinc, and lots of fluids and that helps, but…but…it is my immune system, persistent, consistent, hacking away at the virus day after day that eventually beats the enemy. And that's how I beat the block; persistent, consistent hacking away at it till it breaks. So here's the moral of the story:

Think like a leukocyte.

Bart

Animal Stuff

I love the country. Odd thing for a Brooklyn boy, but I’ve always loved the rural places. Anyway, over the course of several lifetimes I’ve seen some odd animal happenings.

Ever seen a duck land on water? They literally water ski in, using their webbed feet like skis. I’ve seen a duck get embarrassed when it tried to land on a frozen creek, and tumbled a** over teakettle down the ice. He (it was a drake) got up, looked around as if to say, “I wanted to do that.” But there were no other ducks close by to impress, so he shook himself off, preened a bit, and waddled off.

I saw a squirrel laugh when the cat that was chasing it got whacked by a car. There were a lot of squirrels and cats where I lived in Brooklyn. Don’t ask me how I knew it was laughing, I just knew.

I once had a ferret named Noodles. She liked to hide in furniture and nip people’s ankles. Funny thing, she only bit women. Never drew blood, though; I think she was just showing them who the alpha female was.

Noodles nailed a flying squirrel that had gotten in one night. The thing moved so fast I would have sworn there were three of them cavorting around our living room. Noodles waited under the sofa, then dashed out and grabbed the thing as it went past. Only one flying squirrel.

I’ve seen groundhogs play tricks on each other. One was sitting up eating some berries, when another walked up and shoved him. They squabbled for a bit then both went back to eating the berries. Like two kids in a playground. I know, I know, it was some kind of dominance display, but as I was watching it sure looked like a trick. I swear the second groundhog had a gleam in his eye just before he shoved the first one. I could tell what he was going to do before he did it.

Cats. Some will fawn all over you if you leave them alone for too long, some will turn their backs and pointedly ignore you. For days.

Smiling. Sometimes you can tell an animal is smiling, even though they don’t actually smile. I once worked in (shudder) New Jersey. The place was miles from any ponds or lakes, but every year a pair of ducks would nest in the shrubbery in front of the building. Remember, no pond. When it rained real hard, the parking lot would, of course, have puddles on it, no more than half-an-inch deep. The ducks would waddle out from their refuge in the greenery and plop down in the puddles, in the rain. They would happily sit there for hours.

I swear those ducks were smiling.

Bart