MARTIAN HOLIDAY 111: Stepan of Burroughs

On a well-settled Mars, the five major city Council regimes struggle to meld into a stable, working government. Embracing an official Unified Faith In Humanity, the Councils are teetering on the verge of pogrom directed against Christians, Molesters, Jews, Rapists, Buddhists, Murderers, Muslims, Thieves, Hindu, Embezzlers and Artificial Humans – anyone who threatens the official Faith and the consolidating power of the Councils. It makes good sense, right – get rid of religion and Human divisiveness on a societal level will disappear? An instrument of such a pogrom might just be a Roman holiday...To see the rest of the chapters, go to SCIENCE FICTION: Martian Holiday on the right and scroll to the bottom for the first story. If you’d like to read it from beginning to end (70,000+ words as of now), drop me a line and I’ll send you the unedited version.

Stepan Izmaylova leaned on the door. It didn’t budge. He set the stick down, found the seams of the door then ran his fingers up and down. Nothing happened. He pressed the center of the door. Nothing happened. Stretching his arms, he ran his palms over wall beyond the door. His fingers caught on a square, raised slightly from the wall, about waist height. Scowling, he turned his light on it. “There’s a switch here!”

“Don’t touch it! Come on back up, Master!” QuinnAH, a blue, artificial Human boy who’d joined Stepan several days earlier.

Stepan leaning back as he looked up at the light, Quinn’s head hanging over, looking down. Then he pressed the switch.

When he woke up, he was flat on his back, staring  up at the same square of light, minus Quinn’s head. He took an experimental breath, held it, and coughed from the dust in the air. From that, he figured he wasn’t hurt – at least not obviously. He stood up, picked up his flashlight and played it around the room he’d opened. He gasped.

A surface pressure suit, deflated but with the helmet attached, lay on the floor, sleeve with the glove sealed on stretched toward where he stood. Taking a step forward, he examined the suit more carefully, noting that it wasn’t lying exactly flat. It was lumpy as if it had something inside of it. He knelt down, slowly reaching out his hand. He thought of the thousands of horror movies he’d watched during his teen years. After a terrified night under the covers when the scene with a farmer sprawled in the corner of a room, empty, dark blood crusted sockets where his eyes had been staring sightlessly at the camera had come up in the two-hundred-year-old masterpiece of horror, THE BIRDS; no horror film had ever bothered him again. He knew this for certain because he had tried watching everything from zombies to alien creatures devouring colonists. Virtually every one had elicited nothing but laughter from him.

This wasn’t any different. Even when he realized that he could clearly feel bones in the flaccid parts of the suit. “Someone died in this suit,” he said to the still air. He stepped to the side of the suit and put down the flashlight. Gently sliding his hands under it, he turned it carefully over.

The former occupant’s other hand, inside its glove, was underneath. It had clearly clutched an oddly shaped object. Stepan scowled, picked up the flashlight and examined it without touching it.

The main part of the object had once been a rectangular piece of glass. It had been broken in half, one side with smooth, rounded edges, the other jagged. The glass was scratched and pitted, old most likely, and embedded with sand or some other kind of grit. A coil of dull metal about fifty centimeters long was attached to the corner of the glass, then twisted so that it ran across the top of the rectangle. It made a clear U-turn, then ended in a broken end, as if it had been bent several times before being snapped off.

Stepan touched it, but nothing happened. He looked around the room and stood up, moving deeper into the room. It turned out to be an airlock, most likely set in the base of the Dome and opening to the surface of Mars beyond.

It was a secret airlock.

“For what?” He turned back to look at the suit on the floor, making the obvious deduction – someone had found the odd object outside and brought it back into the airlock. After cycling through, it fell – or the person died somehow and collapsed on the floor. The body had decomposed down to a skeleton inside the suit. Decades for certain; possibly longer than that up to a hundred years. He looked down at the suit. This could have been one of the original colonists for all he knew. They lived long lives, the last one dying some seven years ago at the very ripe old age of one hundred and fifty-three. The question remained. He knelt to study the artifact again, went back into the airlock, and opened one of the storage compartments. Inside was a box of specimen bags, usually used for geological samples. He took one, shook it out, and returned, picking up the glass and wire object – ‘glasses’ he dubbed them, ‘cyclops glasses’, he decided finally – into the bag. He gently tied the top and stepped out of the airlock, debating whether or not to close it.

He looked up and called, “Quinn?”

He wasn’t expecting Quinn to have been joined by four other heads, peering down at him, silhouettes in the brilliant light from above.

Image:https://media.recovery.org/wp-content/uploads/recovery-shutter280148666-man-watching-sunrise-over-city-640x300.jpg

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 323

Each Tuesday, rather than a POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY, I'd like to both challenge you and lend a helping hand. I generate more speculative and teen story ideas than I can ever use. My family rolls its collective eyes when I say, "Hang on a second! I just have to write down this idea..." Here, I'll include the initial inspiration (quote, website, podcast, etc.) and then a thought or two that came to mind. These will simply be seeds -- plant, nurture, fertilize, chemically treat, irradiate, test or stress them as you see fit. I only ask if you let me know if anything comes of them. Regarding Fantasy, this insight was startling: “I see the fantasy genre as an ever-shifting metaphor for life in this world, an innocuous medium that allows the author to examine difficult, even controversial, subjects with impunity. Honor, religion, politics, nobility, integrity, greed—we’ve an endless list of ideals to be dissected and explored. And maybe learned from.” – Melissa McPhail.

F Trope: black magic

Current Event: “In many popular video games, such as Final Fantasy, white and black magic is simply used to distinguish between healing/defensive spells (such as a "cure") and offensive/elemental spells (such as "fire") respectively, and does not carry an inherent good or evil connotation.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_magic)

Pastor Kim Dong Shik made a face and said, “I don’t dislike the game. I dislike the redefinition.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” said Martin Caine. A couple other boys from the youth group stood behind him, nodding.

Pastor Kim took a breath, but Trevor Mena cut him off, “You sure you’re not just trying to get us to stop playing a game you think is evil or something dumb like that?”

The pastor bit his lower lip for a moment then said, “Define ‘black magic’ for me.”

The third boy, Aagaard Zorilla said, “That’s easy – black magic is what you use to defend your characters from attack.”

“As opposed to what kind of magic?”

“White magic, of course!” said Trevor.

“Yeah, when you want to attack, you use black magic.”

“Or if you want to summon any of the elementals like earth, air, fire or water.”

Pastor Kim nodded. “So do you think that’s been the definition all along?”

All three boys looked puzzled. Finally Aagaard said, “That’s always been the definition I’ve used.”

“Care to hear a more…historical definition?”

All three rolled their eyes.

Pastor Kim laughed and nodded, saying, “Oh, I get it! Anything that’s older than you isn’t important anymore!” Even though Trevor and Aagaard laughed, Martin found himself stepping back. Pastor Kim smiled sadly then said, “So you don’t think I’m important anymore?”

The smile on the faces of two of the boys disappeared. Martin’s grew as he said, “Too bad you’re one of the only ones who noticed.” His voice had dropped an octave and his skin, instead of flushing red like a blush, was flushing black as if the toxins from pasturella pestis had flooded his blood vessels.

The pastor’s eyes bugged a bit, but Martin made a face. The old-fashioned “holy man” was supposed to run away, terrified of the spell the mage had cast over Martin a few weeks ago. The mage – a college professor Martin had heard speak at his sister’s college one night – had assured him that old-fashioned christianity wasn’t relevant, let alone imbued with the kind of power mages controlled.

When Martin had mentioned his pastor was pretty cool, the professor had laughed and asked if he wanted to be truly empowered – granted power great enough to make any old christian drop to their knees in quaking fear. Martin had shrugged and said, “Sure.”

At the moment, his chest swelled and he felt taller than he’d ever felt before. He seemed to be able to look over Aagaard and Trevor and down on Pastor Kim.

But instead of cowering, Pastor Kim…

Names: South Korean, American, Uruguayan

Image: http://www.skyscrapernews.com/images/pics/6255CaernarfonCastle_pic1.jpg

Slice of PIE: How Can I Make My Stories Sing If I’m Tone Deaf?

NOT using the panel discussions of the most recent World Science Fiction Convention in Finland, I will NOT jump off, jump on, rail against, and shamelessly agree with the BRIEF DESCRIPTION given in the pdf copy of the Program Guide. Today, I’ll start with notes I took from the Minnesota Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators Fall Conference.

While the focus of the conference was “Make Your Stories Sing”, I was looking for a solution to my problem of writing INCONSISTENTLY.

I don’t mean having a time to write regularly. I don’t mean having an instrument and place to do my writing. I have both of those. I mean that I’ve published stories in the biggest markets in my chosen field – CRICKET/CICADA, for children’s writing; ANALOG Science Fiction & Fact for my SF writing; even THE WRITER (online) – but I don’t get published CONSISTENTLY.

The statistics back me up.

CRICKET/CICADA – Total submissions since 1990: 44; Total publications: 4; Total submissions since FIRST publication: 40 (It’s my thought that I’ve been blacklisted since my fourth publication, but I have no proof and no evidence…just a feeling based on “what I did”.)

ANALOG – Total submissions since 1990: 42 ; Total publications: 5; Total submissions since FIRST publication: 20

ANALOG has numerous subs before 1990, but I didn’t keep much in the way of records, so I won’t count those.

I posed the problem to the most recent winner of the Newbery Award winner. In case you don’t know: “The Newbery [is] considered the…most prestigious award for children's literature in the United States. Many bookstores and libraries have Newbery sections; popular television shows interview the winners; textbooks include lists of Newbery winners, and many master's and doctoral theses are written about them.”

Not only was she the keynote speaker, during the Q&A after her talk, I was able to pose my question: “I’ve been published in the big markets, but I have not been consistently published in the big markets. Do you write consistently well – and if you DO, how do you do it?”

She told me it was a good question, then offered a quote attributed to Ernest Hemingway, “The first draft of anything is shit.” [If you are a quote National Socialist like I am, here’s a discussion of the attribution: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/09/20/draft/]

It's only a part of a quote, usually taken out of context. When you find it IN context, the particular line is bracketed by precursor statements and a sort of coda: “Don’t get discouraged because there’s a lot of mechanical work to writing. There is, and you can’t get out of it. I rewrote the first part of A Farewell to Arms at least fifty times. You’ve got to work it over. The first draft of anything is shit. When you first start to write you get all the kick and the reader gets none, but after you learn to work it’s your object to convey everything to the reader so that he remembers it not as a story he had read but something that happened to himself.”

Given Hemingway's is somehow a truism that applies to the art of revision, Ms. Barnhill continued, “The secret of consistency is revision.”

Hmmm…she should know because she taught high school English in Oregon, then 7^th grade English in Minnesota where she taught her class to call her Princess Barnhill. She probably also taught them to not hand in first drafts and to do lots of draft. While she lived in Oregon, she’d written a mystery novel, sending it out to agents. When she DID get a response, the agent told her that she’d written the wrong book…

Set free from that book, she restarted writing something different and after having the image of a kid in a car holding a drawing tablet on his lap on his way to (of all places) rural Iowa, she felt compelled “to write a place for him to belong”. The result was THE MOSTLY TRUE STORY OF JACK.

Now granting the importance of revision, what did she mean by it? She answered with an anecdote and an appalling practice she committed when she first started writing (she has since come back to her senses – possibly after her husband nearly lost his mind…or something like that…)

The anecdote: When she and her husband worked for the US Forestry Service in Oregon, they were surveying the damage created by a huge blowdown. Another park Ranger was assigned to work with him. His first name was Vic and I have NO idea what I wrote for his last name except this: “Stanscliskie”. At any rate, overwhelmed by the damage, she and her husband had no idea where or how to start. Vic said, “Take the worst part of the trail and make it the best.”

Since that time, Ms. Barnhill has adapted that advice to her writing. The practice she committed however, seems wildly reckless, (though from our really brief time in the session, it seems to somehow mesh nicely with her description of how her principals viewed her as a teacher: “…impertinent. And impatient. And insubordinate. And I had a difficult time holding my tongue.”)

She'd applied Vic's theory of of rebuilding trails to the practice of writing by clicking SELECT ALL -> DELETE -> and then REWROTE THE WHOLE THING FROM MEMORY method of revision.

Since those days, however, she has revised her revision methodology (so-to-speak) to writing long-hand first drafts and then enter them into the computer. She notes that cursive writing or longhand stimulates both sides of the brain (http://www.twosidesna.org/US/2014/03/31/handwriting-helps-the-brain-function/, using actual research references: http://mashable.com/2015/01/19/handwriting-brain-benefits/#hPB0q.o2TsqI) and it’s been effective for her work.

Obviously effective, as she’s won the Newbery award as well as the World Fantasy Award, and she's been nominated for several others.

The takeaway here seems pretty clear, even to me: Take the worst part of the trail and make it the best.

The Site: https://minnesota.scbwi.org/events/2017-mn-scbwi-conference/

Image: https://www.dx-revision.com/wp-content/uploads/posts/revised-revision-logo-font.jpg

LOVE IN A TIME OF ALIEN INVASION -- Chapter 71

On Earth, there are three Triads intending to integrate not only the three peoples and stop the war that threatens to break loose and slaughter Humans and devastate their world; but to stop the war that consumes Kiiote economy and Yown’Hoo moral fiber. All three intelligences hover on the edge of extinction. The merger of Human-Kiiote-Yown’Hoo into a van der Walls Society might not only save all three – but become something not even they could predict. Something entirely new...

The young experimental Triads are made up of the smallest primate tribe of Humans – Oscar and Xiomara; the smallest canine pack of Kiiote – six, pack leaders Qap and Xurf; and the smallest camelid herd of Yown’Hoo – a prime eleven, Dao-hi the Herd mother. On nursery farms and ranches away from the TC cities, Humans have tended young Yown’Hoo and Kiiote in secret for decades, allowing the two, warring people to reproduce and grow far from their home worlds.

“We had nearly fallen into stagnation when we encountered the Kiiote.”

“And we into internecine war when we encountered the Yown’Hoo.”

 “Yown’Hoo and Kiiote have been defending themselves for a thousand revolutions of our Sun.”

 “Together, we might do something none of us alone might have done…a destiny that included Yown’Hoo, Kiiote, and Human.” (2/19/2015)

After taking the biggest risk I’d ever taken in almost seventeen years of life, I held up my hands and remarkably, Herd, Pack, and the other half of the Tribe – Xiomara – shut up.

I took a deep breath, held it, then said, “Someone’s been on our tail since we left the Dome. We need to search our clothes and bags,” I looked at GURion, “And you need to scan everyone one of us – naked.” I waited for Xio to protest. The Yown’Hoo and Kiiote didn’t usually wear body covering.

I didn’t expect Dao-hi, Herd Mother, to say, “The Human Master will scan us with our tentacles all extended.” The Herd jerked as if they’d been shocked. I guess they had been. The entire group shuddered and swung their heads a little. Males in the herd did combat with their thick, heavy heads – their brains were deep in the heart of their ribcage, in pretty much the same place as a Human heart. Seeing two Herd males banging their heads together was impressive. But they almost always kept their tentacles sheathed. They treated them the way Humans treated their genitals – covered ninety-nine percent of the time. Because when the tentacles of Herd members touched, they were able to pass crude memories via chemicals modified by the sensory experiences of an individual. The practice of Herds appearing to “shun” a member was at first attributed to mental illness in the shunned person. Then some sort of disease. Humans finally settled on the person chased out as a sort of “scapegoat”. When Humans realized that the “scapegoats” were actually incredibly brave explorers, they had no idea what to do.

The Kiiote seemed to collapse like marionettes with their strings cut. When they did that, microscopic “nerve flowers” opened at the tips of individual hairs clustered in certain patches of fur. They touched similar nerves in other members of the Pack. It wasn’t telepathy. A Pack literally shared thoughts. The collective minds of the Pack were able to think at a level far beyond that of individual minds.

 I swallowed then said, “Somebody knows where we are. Once we’re clean, we exit the tunnel and then meet up with it again west of the city of Foley. We can move faster overland – and anyone following us will figure we’ve kept on through the tunnel because it’s the easy route.” I looked around at everyone, finally turning to face Retired.

He grunted and said, “Sounds like a plan.” He pointed at Xio and said, “You. Back to the room.”

“Why start with me?” she exclaimed.

Retired looked at me and lifted his chin a bit. I took a deep breath and said, “He’s starting with you because…” I thought a moment, then said, “Would you want a Kiiote licking you from head to toe…”

She slugged me, snarling, “Fine.” She looked at Retired, adding, “Let’s go. Test me to see if I have some sort of tracking device in my head or something.” Qap and Xin belched with laughter, the rest of the Pack doing the same, though they sounded more like hiccoughs.

Retired rolled his eyes, pointed at the Pack Leaders and said, “Qap, Xin, you’re next.” They shut up. “Dao-hi, send Lan-mai-ti on ahead to see what we’re getting ourselves into.” The Herd Mother snapped a surreptitious tentacle which didn’t leave the sheath and the small Yown’Hoo scurried off into the darkness. He pointed at me and said, “Right after our glorious new leader.”

I gulped, my insides responding in an unexpected way. I can only explain it as a surge of excitement. Xio shot me a smirk as she headed back for the rooms. I deflected the sudden surge of excitement by saying, “Why both searching us. It’s obviously Great Uncle Rion!”

Everyone stopped moving. GURion turned to me. I thought he was going to smack me for being impertinent. Instead, he nodded, “A wise precaution, though I can assure you that I could know if I carried a tracker. A long-placed subroutine in my programming routinely seeks out foreign devices, analyzes them, then destroys them.”

Scowling, I said, “What if it’s not foreign?”

GURion held my look for a long time until it finally inclined its head and said, “Wiser than I had dared hope for.” He looked at Retired, nodded, and said, “Scan me first, then I can help do the others.”

Retired lifted his chin to Xio and said, “You want him to do your scanning?”

Her lips thinned. I knew the answer before she said, it in a soft voice, “Yes, please.”

“Come on, Data. Let’s get this over with so we can start moving. Then you do Xio and I’ll do Oscar the Great.”

I thought I’d found my voice when I started to say, “Let’s get moving.” It didn’t come out strong at all, and I’m pretty sure no one was impressed when my voice chose that moment to crack into a falsetto and then back to tenor. Shaking my head, I muttered, “Whatever.” I’m pretty sure Xurf burped, and if I’d been close enough, I’d have kicked him. As it was, I wrapped my arms around my chest and tried thinking about how cold I’d be when Retired searched me for tracking devices.

Then I thought about who might be tracking us, and my pounding pulse slowed down and I felt cold with fear.

                                                                                      

Image: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/Rhll_wire_rope.jpg

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 322

Each Tuesday, rather than a POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY, I'd like to both challenge you and lend a helping hand. I generate more speculative and teen story ideas than I can ever use. My family rolls its collective eyes when I say, "Hang on a second! I just have to write down this idea..." Here, I'll include the initial inspiration (quote, website, podcast, etc) and then a thought or two that came to mind. These will simply be seeds -- plant, nurture, fertilize, chemically treat, irradiate, test or stress them as you see fit. I only ask if you let me know if anything comes of them.

SF Trope: Dystopia Is Hard

Current Event: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/28/us-korea-north-pyongyang-idUSBRE96R0BB20130728

Adéla Stoica hung her head. She’d practiced abject submission just like all the other teenagers in the Orientation Class did. Beside her, Enio Cassar did the same thing.

What the Master before them didn’t see was Adéla open her eyes and shoot a sideways glance.

This time she beat Enio to the punch and could barely hold in the giggle that bubbled up inside of her when he opened his eyes an instant later. They were supposed to be contemplating the worthlessness of their own lives in submission to the Great Cause. She sighed – an acceptable sound – because the Masters of the Great Cause thought they’d beaten everyone down.

Standing before the class, Master Farkas scowled at her. He said to the class in Esperanto, the Language of Submission, “Estas bone ke vi kontempli vian propran senvaloreco ĉiutage, kaj konsideru la grandecon de la Lando anstataŭe.”

This time Enio sighed. It was the motto of the regime, “It is good that you contemplate your own worthlessness every day, and consider the greatness of the Country instead.” The education of the youth after fourteen years of the Society of the Great Cause was predictable. Master Farkas continued, “It should make you feel the weight of that responsibility so deeply that your spirit groans with the burden of it. It is only through sacrifice to society that the individual might live best. It is only through society that all wisdom, all knowledge and all discovery might be directed by the National Science Foundation. Through that wisdom, humanity might live again in the luxury to which it had become accustomed.”

Enio muttered, “Ai mund të marrë zbetë e tij idiot horseshit gojën dhe të fus atë deri gomar e tij, ku ai erdhi nga." Like everyone else at the camp, their mother language was the one they cursed and made love in; Esperanto was the language they learned to mock in; English was the language everyone could communicate across ethnic walls in. Of course, there were to BE no ethnic walls because the Great Cause united all of North America into one Cause – the betterment of humanity.

It was too bad Master Farkas was also a linguist from the Old Order. His gaze arrested Enio and he said in the same language, “Merrni ass tuaj i dobët këtu lart tani, ju mut pak.” Enio’s eyes bulged as Master Farkas added, “Your girlfriend can come up here, too.”

“She’s not my girlfriend,” Enio blurted.

Adéla elbowed him and they stood their ground. The line behind theirs shoved them forward and the lines in front of them opened up. She looked at them and said, “Cowards.” But none of them looked the slightest bit afraid. They looked bored. Like they wanted something interesting to happen; kill the mold growing on their lives of dull sameness. Like jackals. When Master Farkas looked up at them though, their faces transformed to slack idiocy then morphed into hanging heads.

He gestured to them and led them out of the classroom, his white lab coat flapping behind him. Two other technicians wearing the shorter, lower-ranked blue lab coats went into the classroom to take his place. Leading them down a half dozen short flights of stairs, he stopped at a metal door and used his passkey to unlock it. Pushing it open, Adéla and Enio could see that a huge screen covered one wall and that a face filled the screen, looking at them. Master Farkas grabbed Enio’s arm and shoved him into the room. Enio sighed and walked in. “I can’t believe you’re doing this…” The door slammed ponderously.

He touched Adéla’s shoulder and said, “You’re next.”

She knew exactly what was coming and shook her head, remembering the really fascinating books she’d read as a precocious two year old. First she grabbed her older brother’s copy of THE HUNGER GAMES and read it, then the other six sequels. She fell in love with Scott Westerfeld’s UGLIES books. Devoured Haddix’s  THE HIDDEN. Every dystopian book she could find from HG Well’s TIME MACHINE to the seven LAST SURVIVORS books; she read and cherished in her heart.

Then the Great Cause overtook the countries of North America – and her life had been tedious boredom ever since...

Names: ♀ Czech, Romania ; ♂Albania, Malta

Image: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqijVmnQBTjL23utjsUgeyNyV-djZ-OxeK2X2b0RgEMiwVFmZMk2TXaIGfS5pGs48TC8OHr_cL7nSg3BU_nh-YDoxBDCl7wMI8bsfEa8hAtP_1WgeSr1sAnf40_gf02N8DVs458yr19vmj/s320/wotw_villain.jpg

                                                                       

Image: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b1/3,2,1_blast-off!_(15871161250).jpg/511px-3,2,1_blast-off!_(15871161250).jpg

POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY: Does Science Fiction or Fantasy PROMOTE The Boring Viewpoint Character?

Using the Programme Guide of the World Science Fiction Convention in Helsinki Finland in August 2017 (to which I will be unable to go (until I retire from education)), I will jump off, jump on, rail against, and shamelessly agree with the BRIEF DESCRIPTION given in the pdf copy of the Programme Guide. The link is provided below…

The Appeal of the Bland Protagonist: Many popular books and series feature a fairly bland protagonist. The panelist discuss why bland protagonists are popular, how they inform reader identification with the protagonist, and what they like and don't like about it! Also, is it difficult to write bland protagonists?

Kari Sperring: fantasy writer

Caroline Stevermer: fantasy (YA) writer

Robert Silverberg: Ah! Ah! Ah! What I would have given to meet this writer in person! I read his books when I was a KID! (As an adult, I found a copy of REVOLT ON ALPHA C with its “original” Scholastic Book Club cover…)

Angus Watson: fantasy writer

Is there a reason all of the participants in this group write fantasy? Is it an unconscious bias indicating that fantasy stories are more likely to have bland characters than science fiction stories are?

Hmmm…because the first SF character I thought of was Miles Vorkosigan (Lois McMaster Bujold’s SF Universe hero). He’s absolutely NOT bland and while I’m certain I can’t get into his head and “feel like” a well-born aristocratic dwarf…I love the character. Lemme think…I’ve been reading widely lately, so what about Ada Palmer’s Mycroft Canner? A serial torturer/murderer is hardly bland, though in TOO LIKE THE LIGHTNING, he is very bland.

I read a very old Star Trek novel – the main character is NOT bland there, either. Hmmm…Paul Atreides in DUNE? Not bland. Ah! I have one, Toshio Ishikarwa in STARTIDE RISING is bland; normal, and not at all sure of himself. Mackenzie Connor WANTS to be bland, a salmon biologist, but she is anything but. Nope, she doesn’t count. Lessa of PERN? Nope, she’s queen of the planet in all but title.

OK – let’s look at fantasy. I don’t read much (almost always under the direct supervision of my daughter!), but based on what I have read, let’s have a go at it. Starting with the obvious: Harry Potter. Bland? Yup, even though he lives under the stairs, he’s the teased, abused, dreary, weary, whiny kid who lives in all of us. The Pevensie Kids – same thing. Granted, they live during the London Blitz of WWII, but so did a lot of others who didn’t slip into a wardrobe to find a magical land.

Let’s get more serious: Thomas Covenant, anti-hero in Stephen R. Donaldson’s remarkable THE CHRONICLES OF THOMAS COVENANT, UNBELIEVER, other than the fact that he’s a leper, he’s basically a normal, jerk of a guy. Bilbo and Frodo Baggins? “Normal”, uh…hobbits… who are neither heroes nor great – and in fact, Frodo was so close to destroying Middle Earth that only the fact that his boring valet saved his life kept Frodo from blowing all the hard work they’d done up to that point. After that, my fantasy memory gets pretty sketchy – PERDIDO STREET STATION I read ten years ago; Jonathan Stroud’s BARTIMAEUS books were grand, you can hardly call a demon “bland”, but Nathaniel himself is unremarkable in his world.

So – what’s the takeaway here?

Couple of things – fantasy main characters are average Mayras and Miguels. Science fiction main characters are superhuman Katniss’ and Peetas.

Also, based on the current and continuing popularity of fantasy, the bland protagonist is the choice of Twenty-first Century men and women. The superhuman has mostly lost its appeal except in certain cases.

Master Silverberg mashed fantasy and science fiction together when he created the MAJIPOOR CHRONICLES – a huge planet colonized by numerous alien races and Humans…which has technology either so advanced it’s indistinguishable from magic, or medieval technology of castles, kings, and knights. However, as I reflect on it, the viewpoint character, Valentine is both a bland and a superhuman character. China Miéville does the same thing in PERDIDO STREET STATION – mixing fantasy and steampunk technology. Isaac Dan der Grimnebulin is a dull and boring scientist in the city of New Crobuzon…who also does magic.

Creating boring characters?

Easy peasy – because us writers as a group are pretty boring! So, if I want to write fantasy, I start with a boring person. If I write science fiction, I need a superhuman (a transhuman, I suppose).

Sheesh…this explains ALL KINDS OF TROUBLE I’VE BEEN HAVING LATELY! My SF protags have all been normal people, boring people…now I have to go back and look at what it is I’ve had published recently – but right off the bat, the main character in my most recent ANALOG story is a Mayan princess…

Program Book: https://sites.grenadine.co/sites/worldcon75/en/w75/schedule

Image: https://i.pinimg.com/564x/8a/8a/96/8a8a966bdb748f71ddc1e7969dd03350.jpg

MARTIAN HOLIDAY 110: DaneelAH & Company in Burroughs

On a well-settled Mars, the five major city Council regimes struggle to meld into a stable, working government. Embracing an official Unified Faith In Humanity, the Councils are teetering on the verge of pogrom directed against Christians, Molesters, Jews, Rapists, Buddhists, Murderers, Muslims, Thieves, Hindu, Embezzlers and Artificial Humans – anyone who threatens the official Faith and the consolidating power of the Councils. It makes good sense, right – get rid of religion and Human divisiveness on a societal level will disappear? An instrument of such a pogrom might just be a Roman holiday...To see the rest of the chapters and I’m sorry, but a number of them got deleted from the blog – go to SCIENCE FICTION: Martian Holiday on the right and scroll to the bottom for the first story. They are HanAH, the security expert (m); DaneelAH, xenoarchaeologist (m); AzAH, language expert (f); MishAH, pattern recognition (f).

After grabbing the Artificial Human boy, she released him into HanAH’s tender embrace – a solid grip on the boy’s upper arm. “Are you an agent of Paolo Marcillon?”

“Who?”

“Paolo – an underground Christian agitator who’s wanted for sedition and terroristic actions.”

“No! I ain’t heard a no Polo! I work with the Rim Preacher!”

DaneelAH stepped up, gesturing HanAH to release the boy. Squatting down, he took the boy by both shoulders and said, “Your master…former master!” he said when the boy’s shoulders tensed. He loosened his grip. “Your former master is a Christian?”

The boy twisted free and DaneelAH let him go. HanAH and MishAH were close by. He glanced at them then shook his torso. “I guess, ‘cept I don’t know what that means. Zactly. I just know he natural born, but he ain’t like all the others. He’s good. All them others is bad.”

"Not every natural born is bad," DaneelAH muttered, looking down at the blue boy.

"Yeah. Stepan ain't. He's just sorta like a babe out where I live. But he do have connections in the HOD,” said the boy.

"The HOD?" HanAH said. “And you’re rather free with a Natural Born’s name.” He scowled down at the boy.

"Stepan calls me Quinn. If he do it, he don’t mind if I do.” He shrugged and continued, “Yeah, we was in the Home Owner's District. We were there 'cause he had to meet with some old guy." He shrugged. "That was weird. They chased him out 'cause he wasn't someone they expected him to be."

"What's that supposed to mean?" AzAH said.

"When we was there, they kept calling him somebody named ‘Natan Wallach.’"

The vat mates looked to each other, then down at the boy, stunned. DaneelAH finally managed, "Can you take us to your preacher friend?"

He shrugged again, “Sure. He be happy to see more of us at his roof farm.” He looked up at them, scowling, “Why do you want to see him?” His gaze narrowed to suspicion, “You gonna do something to him? ‘Cuz if that’s what you’re plannin’, I’ll make sure something happens to you – now, on our way there, or after you hurt him. He’s my…” he paused. “He’s my pastor. You mess with him and you mess with me.”

For an instant, the four vat mates looked at each other, tempted to laugh. Then Quinn stomped on HanAH’s instep. He drew back to strike the boy, but before DaneelAH could grab his wrist, the boy dropped to the floor, scampered between MishAH’s legs, biting her ankle; he swept his leg under AzAH, making his stumble and before he could move, DaneelAH found the boy holding a shard of glass against his anterior trial artery.

“If I push this just hard enough,” he said without any trace of a burr or street-talk, “You’ll bleed to death in five minutes.”

DaneelAH was careful not to move a muscle as he said, “We have no interest in hurting your pastor nor of exposing him. We want to find out if he knows where we can contact a man named Paolo Marcillon, who is also a Christian…”

“You mean like my pastor?”

DaneelAH raised an eyebrow. “You believe that your pastor is one of those?” He lowered his voice, “That’s illegal you know.”

The boy pricked DaneelAH’s foot, making him yelp as AzAH said, “Quit teasing him!”

Quinn stood up and said, “So being one of these Christian things is illegal?”

“Yes, it is,” said HanAH gruffly. “And being a Christian inti is more illegal, still! So don’t go getting ideas!”

MishAH smiled and said, “I think he’s just gone way past getting ideas, brother.”

HanAH grunted as Quinn said, “So, you guys Christians, too?”

“I’m not,” said HanAH.

MishAH and AzAH looked at each other and said, “Undecided,” in unison.

Quinn looked up at DaneelAH, “You ain’t sayin’ much, mister.”

“I’m not a ‘mister’, I’m a heyou!” He twisted his mouth to one side, sighed and said, “I suppose I may nearly be one.”

“Yeah,” said Quinn matter-of-factly, “I’m mostly pretty close, too.”

The sisters laughed. Quinn bristled which made them laugh harder. Finally AzAH said, “No disrespect meant, young Quinn.”

“Disrespect taken!”

MishAH said, “It’s just that you sound like we do when we talk about these Christians. We never meant to attach ourselves to one – and now we find we’re entangled with two.”

“I ain’t never seen no one named like you said, that Paul Oh. Stepan never said nothin’ about him, neither.”

“Who’s Stepan?” HanAH said.

“That ain’t important no more.”

“Why?” DaneelAH said.

“‘Cause he gone be dead if you don’t come with me.”

“What?”

“A monster in the warehouse done eat him!” and with that blurt, Quinn broke down, weeping.

Image: http://img11.deviantart.net/c3c5/i/2009/067/9/3/dr__manhattan_by_theknightinhell.png

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 321

Each Tuesday, rather than a POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY, I'd like to both challenge you and lend a helping hand. I generate more speculative and teen story ideas than I can ever use. My family rolls its collective eyes when I say, "Hang on a second! I just have to write down this idea..." Here, I'll include the initial inspiration (quote, website, podcast, etc.) and then a thought or two that came to mind. These will simply be seeds -- plant, nurture, fertilize, chemically treat, irradiate, test or stress them as you see fit. I only ask if you let me know if anything comes of them.

H Trope: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BatOutOfHell

Current Event: http://news.sciencemag.org/plants-animals/2015/05/bats-open-wide-focus-their-ultrasonic-beams, http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2015/01/150108-bats-animals-science-echolocation-israel/

Antonia Dobre said, “Vampires are imaginary and, to tell the truth, were overdone once second after Bram Stoker published DRACULA and someone else started a vampire story.”

Mihai Barbu said, “It doesn’t matter if I agree or disagree, I want you to tell me how many times in the last month someone has asked you if you ever seen a ‘real’ vampire as soon as they find out you grew up in the Transylvanian Mountains.”

“No.”

Mihai busted out laughing, “See?”

“See what? That people who aren’t from Romania are idiots?”

He frowned, touched her arm and said, “Hey, Tonia, what’s wrong?”

She jerked her arm away, slapping his hand at the same time, “Don’t touch me!”

Mihai hooked his foot around the leg of a nearby chair, pulling it toward them. “Standing in the middle of the Transylvania Youth Hostel is no way to work out our problems.”

“I don’t have problems!”

“Not you!” he said, “Your disposition is always this sunny.” He snagged another chair and gestured for her to have a seat.”

She glare at him and finally cracked a sickly smile, dropping down on the chair.

“What’s wrong?” asked Mihai, sitting down.

She threw up her hands, than rotated one palm up. There was a bandage on it. “I got bit.”

“By what?”

She gave him an exasperated look, “A bat – what else?”

He shrugged, “A goat?”

That surprised a laugh from her. Then she grew serious again. “Really. The bat’s got to be sick.”

“Why’s that?”

“I’m not speaking or hearing right.”

Mihai suddenly realized that he hadn’t actually heard her speak the last two words. He’d read her lips as he did when his airline mechanic father had him working with him under the jet engines of at the airport. At the same time though, the hairs  on the back of his neck had perked up – just like they did when the sonar security scanner swept over him when he was being scanned before going into the same airport. He said, “Are you speaking ultrasonically?”

“I…” she stopped, eyes brimming, then managed, “I think so…”

Names: ♀ + ♂ Romania

Image: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2-arXKTiwzTybeiZ-IjR8P9j_aP2vqKXJulRCqqk_e42EoyXriDrQffp-dV_b96wQqLf5Y-M9XYpYkS4Lpz0PJvQcjGfHXS3M8QSPWCq9l9UURqlah0AR2TAlNeS4yX_NR2arOLIZVuY/s1600/2212_1025142570.jpg

WRITING ADVICE: Can This Story Be SAVED? #16: “A Time To Heal”/"The Body of Man, Given For You" (Submitted 9 Times Since 2013)

In September of 2007, I started this blog with a bit of writing advice. A little over a year later, I discovered how little I knew about writing after hearing children’s writer, In April of 2014, I figured I’d gotten enough publications that I could share some of the things I did “right”. I’ll keep that up, but I’m running out of pro-published stories. I don’t write full-time, nor do I make enough money with my writing to live off of it, but someone pays for and publishes ten percent of what I write. Hemingway’s quote above will remain unchanged as I work to increase my writing output and sales, but I’m adding this new series of posts because I want to carefully look at what I’ve done WRONG and see if I can fix it. As always, your comments are welcome!

ANALOG Tag Line:

Would you be willing to give up your life for something you weren’t sure you believed in?

Elevator Pitch (What Did I Think I Was Trying To Say?)

Noah Bemisemagak ran from a horrible incident he’d precipitated as a teacher to an interstellar situation that’s not that different from the one he’d fled.

Opening Line:

“No one ever bothered to ask.”

Onward:

“Going to the Shabe Captain’s lavish dinner party was the only way Noah Bemisemagak could leave behind the Guru Suicides and the Humans and Sentients who obsessed over them. His path to Mars, interstellar space, danger, and martyrdom led first through this dinner party. He closed his eyes. If Earth Government had given him a choice between the party and leading a group of extreme biker teens on a first contact mission with aliens who looked like Hallucigenians on steroids while he drove a wheelchair, he’d have taken the wheelchair and the teenagers. They hadn’t.

“Nowhere in his application to Shabe-Human Contact and Debt Reduction – SHuCADRe, the Cadre for short – did it bother to ask if he enjoyed parties. He didn’t.

"In briefs on the bed of his two-room suite, he snorted. No sane adult would have given him the chance to work with teens, bikes, and wheelchairs.  Four of his students had killed themselves jumping from the upper levels of the Minneapolis-St Paul Vertical Village with badly home-made hang gliders. He was the guru who’d written the query markers leading to their unguided experiment. His poor judgment was common knowledge. That the kids had hacked into the query marker trail of a student who had the skills and support necessary to do all of those things successfully was much less well known. Nine years after the event, no one bothered asking. That may have been because the middle seven of those years, he’d been drunk or stoned.”

What Was I Trying To Say?

If only I’d done the tag line and elevator pitch BEFORE I wrote the story, I might not have had so much trouble reigning it in. In fact, I think I’m going to go do that for my current work in progress right now…

The Rest of the Story:

Noah does WAY too much after this point – he runs into a survivor from his past and her guardian, he’s introduced to a BUNCH of weird aliens, meets a good kid named Dale who is WAY more than he appears to be, a political situation where an Iroquois Republic and First Nations Vertical Village wants to secede from Earth and have its own representation in the Unity, the beginnings of the United Faith In Humanity pogroms, the four Divisions of Earth’s united government, fractures in the Shabe (aliens to whom Earth owes a deep debt), interstellar politics, religion – Human and alien (and my main character is a Christian), the tenets of the United Faith in Humanity, introduce a new aphorism: “‘Never read into an alien, Human intent or purpose.’”, Noah gets lost, meets objections to his work at the Voyageurs Gray Wolf Institute, “just happens” to see the kid being kidnapped (did I mention the kid was in a wheelchair???), nine pages before the end of this “story” we come to the mystery, introduces ANOTHER key concept of the alien associations Humans find themselves in: “As you are Sentient-but-not-Sane, the ritual practices laid out by our beliefs are safe from exposure to public judgment or censure as no Sentient member of the Unity would take anything you told them to be truth. Your observations of our worship service may instructive and allow you to lead the evolution of your people into Sentience.”, he witnesses an alien communion service after sacrificing his own body in place of the original handicapped victim, saves her life and is promoted to Sentience by the aliens, almost gets arrested for kidnapping the former student, the Shabe Reformation, and finally – how does all of this connect together…and finds out Dale is a major in the Combined Forces of Earth assigned to ALL of the issues above…

End Analysis:

This is a blueprint for a series of novels, so there’s NOTHING that can be done to save this story because it’s three or four novels; prequels to my novel, OUT OF THE DEBTOR STARS (which I will soon submit to Baen Books…where it will stay for a year) while I look for another agent.

Can This Story Be Saved?

In a word, “No.” It’s not a story.

“But…”

It can be broken into novels and I can tell just the one story without all the rest wrapped around it. I like Noah. I like Dale. I can slim it down to that simple story and Noah’s meeting with the weird alien Ybrayith. We’ll see if I do.

Image: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/9f/22/3b/9f223b1e57a36e14db3eb13715fbe3f9.jpg

LOVE IN A TIME OF ALIEN INVASION Chapter 70

On Earth, there are three Triads intending to integrate not only the three peoples and stop the war that threatens to break loose and slaughter Humans and devastate their world; but to stop the war that consumes Kiiote economy and Yown’Hoo moral fiber. All three intelligences hover on the edge of extinction. The merger of Human-Kiiote-Yown’Hoo into a van der Walls Society might not only save all three – but become something not even they could predict. Something entirely new...

The young experimental Triads are made up of the smallest primate tribe of Humans – Oscar and Xiomara; the smallest canine pack of Kiiote – six, pack leaders Qap and Xurf; and the smallest camelid herd of Yown’Hoo – a prime eleven, Dao-hi the Herd mother. On nursery farms and ranches away from the TC cities, Humans have tended young Yown’Hoo and Kiiote in secret for decades, allowing the two, warring people to reproduce and grow far from their home worlds.

“We had nearly fallen into stagnation when we encountered the Kiiote.”

“And we into internecine war when we encountered the Yown’Hoo.”

 “Yown’Hoo and Kiiote have been defending themselves for a thousand revolutions of our Sun.”

 “Together, we might do something none of us alone might have done…a destiny that included Yown’Hoo, Kiiote, and Human.” (2/19/2015)

Before they started their war, both the Yown’Hoo and the Kiiote had explored the galaxy and knew that all it was, was the Kiiote, the Yown’Hoo…and Humans. [AUTHOR’S NOTE: THERE ARE ALSO THE TCH – A FRIGID-FORM, CRYSTALLINE HIVE MIND; AND THE BAHWOOH, THE REMANT OF A BALLOON INTELLIGENCE THAT ONCE RULED THE MILKY WAY BUT COLLAPSED FOR MYSTERIOUS REASONS AND INHABITS ONLY MASSIVE BROWN DWARF STARS] Some whack-a-doodles on the home worlds decided that it was their manifest destiny to get rid of the inferior Other and the mutual feeling spawned their war.

We’re just an afterthought because Earth was the perfect place for both of them to reproduce. Plus they got smart babysitters into the deal so they could continue to fight and make new soldiers.

I know. It sounds sick, but I can’t judge, either. As far as I can see, it’s what Humans did to the Korean peninsula two hundred years ago.

We had to fix this; not just the aliens, but Humans as well. Humans have a long, long history of hatred and persecution. Usually the ones persecuting were certain they were right. They once thought they had a god on their side. Then they had science on their side. Both belief systems led us to the brink of war or directly into one.

All three of us had to learn how to get along. We had to change the future or it would just be more of the past. I stopped my charge north to wait for the Triad, its guardians and its teachers.

By the time they caught up, I was in my right mind again. Maybe I’d been OK all along. But now I think I knew where I was going.

I was gonna lead.

Retired caught up to me first. I stuck out my arm and said, “You were right, Sir.” He pushed against my arm. I shoved back.

He grunted, then said, “Very well, Boy. Let’s see what you’re made of.”

Herd, Pack, and the other half of my Tribe trundled down the tunnel and came to a stop. Retired stepped behind me as I turned to face them.

“What is happening?” said Qap.

“I think it’s time I start doing what I was made to do,” I said. Stupidly, my voice chose that moment to crack. I cleared my throat, knowing that I was blushing furiously and glad for the dimness of the tunnel lamps. “Sorry. Listen, we’re the North American Triad – GURion isn’t and neither is Retired. We are. So, I’m going to try my hand at leading.” Before anyone could protest, I raised my voice over the Yown’Hoo whistles and yips from the Kiiote. “No, I’m not going to do anything stupid! We’ve got a long trip. I think we need to pass leadership back and forth.”

“What are you babbling about?” said Xio.

“You and me. We can lead,” I gestured between us.

“Why?” she pointed to Retired. “He knows more than all of us together! Why would I want to follow you?”

I couldn’t help it. I looked back at him. His face was still; as if it had been carved from obsidian. I looked back to Xio, glared and said, “It’s time.” Then I locked gazes with her. She put one of her incredibly tough fists on her hip. I almost gulped, but stopped myself. Then I said, “Because Retired is going to die before we do and we’ll have to think for ourselves. So – you can do what I’m going to suggest, or you can give up on me before I even get a chance to be a failure.” I glared. After a few heartbeats, her fist uncurled and her hand fell to her side. Qap’s form softened and even though she didn’t revert to her four-legged form, she relaxed the two-legged one – a Kiiote sign of suspicious resignation.

I looked at Dao-hi. After a moment, her tentacles slid from their grooves alongside her neck, the tips pointing at me. She was giving me temporary authority over the Herd. I nodded and said, “Here’s what I think: I was reviewing our route north. I think we go to the surface outside of Monticello,” that was the site of the only nuclear power plant on central North America to be purposely destroyed by the Kiiote. “We head straight north into the national wildlife refuge.”

“But that’s…” Retired began. I turned to glare at him. His eyes widened and he lifted his chin then nodded.

“I continued, “…because staying here is the obvious route to take. I have no doubt that our movements are being tracked…”

The rest of the Triad burst out with angry growls, shouts, and whistles. I held up my hands and remarkably, they shut up. “Someone’s been on our tail since we left the Dome. We need to search our clothes and bags,” I looked at GURion, “And you need to scan everyone one of us – naked. They know where we are. Once we’re clean, we exit the tunnel and then meet up with it again west of the city of Foley. We can move faster overland – and anyone following us will figure we’ve kept on through the tunnel because it’s the easy route.” I looked around at everyone, finally turning to face Retired.

He grunted and said, “Let’s get moving, ‘Car. I’ll take point and GURion can follow all of us,” he looked to me, and waited.

I nodded, adding, “How far is the next overnight spot?”

“Ten kilometers. If we move it, we’ll make it there in seven hours. Then we can rest, then strip and redress and head for the surface.” He set off. A moment later, I set off after him; the rest of the Triad close behind.

                                                                                      

Image: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/Rhll_wire_rope.jpg