Terrain of the Heart: Landscapes that Influence Story
The geographical setting of a SFF story can be just as vital a part of the worldbuilding as culture and languages. What real-world landscapes have inspired memorable fantastical settings? Who are the modern authors working in unique ways with landscape, and how does it affect their stories?
Russell Kirkpatrick: Author of fantasy and atlases, several novels in which the main characters are geographers
Fran Wilde: Author, Nebula and various other awards for novels, short fiction, and non-fiction
Yugen Yashima: Author and award winner in various speculative fiction genres
Max Gladstone: Writer, award-nominated of fantasy and speculative fiction
Must have been some discussion! Gladstone has created several worlds and appears to be best known for several novels about LAWYERS in a detailed, fantastic universe. Fran Wilde has created worlds both fantastic and alien. Yugen Yashima has written several award-winning stories in Japanese SF publications. Kirkpatrick fantasy in which the main characters are geographers with powers.
Of all the universes I have created, only one has a place strange enough to have become a character in its own right. That is the puffy gas giant River.
The skies of River (probably title of the novel I’ll be writing in that world), are both banded and diverse. I’ve even created a nursery rhyme that describes how the clouds behave: Belts blow east, and Bands are calm/Zones flee west, away from dawn.
River has a fractured, segregated society marginally held together by the harvest of Helium 3 (“Much speculation has been made over the possibility of helium-3 as a future energy source. Unlike most nuclear fission reactions, the fusion of helium-3 atoms releases large amounts of energy without causing the surrounding material to become radioactive…the temperatures required to achieve helium-3 fusion reactions are much higher than in traditional fusion reactions and the process may unavoidably create other reactions that themselves would cause the surrounding material to become radioactive. The abundance of helium-3 is thought to be greater on the Moon than on Earth, having been embedded in the upper layer of regolith by the solar wind over billions of years, though still lower in abundance than in the Solar System's gas giants.”
With the technical problems solved, H3 is the fuel of choice and harvested from the atmosphere of River (where it’s even more abundant than in a standard Jovian atmosphere) as well as easier to mine. There are NO aliens in this universe – though that effect has been ameliorated by one of the two major governments, both of which own and defend a stake in the skies of River.
The Empire of Man maintains the purity of original Human DNA, eschewing biological engineering for materials engineering. In the Empire, one is considered Human if their DNA is more than a 65% match with the Human DNA as recorded from the Human Genome Project, which is a sort of…bible…for defining Humanity.
In the Confluence of Humanity, that’s absurd. Human DNA is so complex it can be manipulated and combined with genes from other Earth organisms to adapt Humanity to virtually any environment. On River that have – there are Humans of every shape, size, and temperament. According those in the Empire, they might as well BE aliens.
Yugen Yashima: Author and award winner in various speculative fiction genres
Max Gladstone: Writer, award-nominated of fantasy and speculative fiction
Must have been some discussion! Gladstone has created several worlds and appears to be best known for several novels about LAWYERS in a detailed, fantastic universe. Fran Wilde has created worlds both fantastic and alien. Yugen Yashima has written several award-winning stories in Japanese SF publications. Kirkpatrick fantasy in which the main characters are geographers with powers.
Of all the universes I have created, only one has a place strange enough to have become a character in its own right. That is the puffy gas giant River.
The skies of River (probably title of the novel I’ll be writing in that world), are both banded and diverse. I’ve even created a nursery rhyme that describes how the clouds behave: Belts blow east, and Bands are calm/Zones flee west, away from dawn.
River has a fractured, segregated society marginally held together by the harvest of Helium 3 (“Much speculation has been made over the possibility of helium-3 as a future energy source. Unlike most nuclear fission reactions, the fusion of helium-3 atoms releases large amounts of energy without causing the surrounding material to become radioactive…the temperatures required to achieve helium-3 fusion reactions are much higher than in traditional fusion reactions and the process may unavoidably create other reactions that themselves would cause the surrounding material to become radioactive. The abundance of helium-3 is thought to be greater on the Moon than on Earth, having been embedded in the upper layer of regolith by the solar wind over billions of years, though still lower in abundance than in the Solar System's gas giants.”
With the technical problems solved, H3 is the fuel of choice and harvested from the atmosphere of River (where it’s even more abundant than in a standard Jovian atmosphere) as well as easier to mine. There are NO aliens in this universe – though that effect has been ameliorated by one of the two major governments, both of which own and defend a stake in the skies of River.
The Empire of Man maintains the purity of original Human DNA, eschewing biological engineering for materials engineering. In the Empire, one is considered Human if their DNA is more than a 65% match with the Human DNA as recorded from the Human Genome Project, which is a sort of…bible…for defining Humanity.
In the Confluence of Humanity, that’s absurd. Human DNA is so complex it can be manipulated and combined with genes from other Earth organisms to adapt Humanity to virtually any environment. On River that have – there are Humans of every shape, size, and temperament. According those in the Empire, they might as well BE aliens.
So the Bands and Zones of River belong to the two nations and the conflict, while not constant, is constantly challenged. As there is no surface, the Confluence has tweaked a lifeform in River’s atmosphere called a cloudwhale. As large as an American state, they contain cities, farms, and industry.
The cities of the Empire are technological marvels and make use of gravity modification to conquer the skies of River.
Not only has outright war disappeared, cracks in the philosophies foundational to both cultures have begun to erode and recombine in unique ways…
I’ve written eleven stories in this universe, two have been published. I’m going to attempt a story in the skies again as soon as I’m done with the Aster Theilen Sequence of MARTIAN HOLIDAY.
One thing I’ve learned – in order to explore the alien, a reader needs a firm foundation in the Human. Both of the published stories had clearly Human characters – one Imperial and one Confluan – through whom we see the story. As I think on the other stories I’ve written, they’re much less character-driven. I let the idea take over. How I need to focus a “character-driven” story has always been a mystery to me. I suppose as far as novels go, the VORKOSIGAN stories of Lois McMaster Bujold and the FOREIGNER series of CJ Cherryh, and the short series by Julie Czerneda – the CLAN CHRONICLES, the SPECIES IMPERATIVE (my personal favorite) cycle, and the WEBSHIFTERS books are also character driven: Sira and Morgan, Mackenzie Connor, and Esen-Alit-Quar drive their stories…
In the two I sold, the youngster Igaluk Abumayaleh-Jawai, (aka Iggie), and the “pirate” Johnny Ferocious; are very clearly people whose lives are changed. Not necessarily by River, but without the world of River, they would never have happened. Gordon Oyeyemi was a Nigerian soldier whose body cells turned out to have the Henrietta Lacks Quality (HLQ) in that they were infinitely cloneable. In the Skies of River, he and his clone brother Irog – who is a genetically engineered manta ray fifteen kilometers across who has a bubble inside that is a small-scale medical clinic. Gordon had NO idea his brother had been cloned until they were paired and sent into a tense situation that only they could survive – an Imperial Heir has had her brain transplanted into a gengineered body and has vanished into the depths of River…
Maybe my future with these worlds will be to develop those two or three characters and THEN introduce the world through their lives.
Anyway, rather than the sciencey stuff, I need to work on the RELATIONSHIPS of the characters to their surroundings and how they grow more…um…Human.
Resource: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium-3
Program Book: https://sites.grenadine.co/sites/conzealand/en/conzealand/schedule
Image: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/bd/df/17/bddf178db4c8957b57e11e476919fabc.jpg
The cities of the Empire are technological marvels and make use of gravity modification to conquer the skies of River.
Not only has outright war disappeared, cracks in the philosophies foundational to both cultures have begun to erode and recombine in unique ways…
I’ve written eleven stories in this universe, two have been published. I’m going to attempt a story in the skies again as soon as I’m done with the Aster Theilen Sequence of MARTIAN HOLIDAY.
One thing I’ve learned – in order to explore the alien, a reader needs a firm foundation in the Human. Both of the published stories had clearly Human characters – one Imperial and one Confluan – through whom we see the story. As I think on the other stories I’ve written, they’re much less character-driven. I let the idea take over. How I need to focus a “character-driven” story has always been a mystery to me. I suppose as far as novels go, the VORKOSIGAN stories of Lois McMaster Bujold and the FOREIGNER series of CJ Cherryh, and the short series by Julie Czerneda – the CLAN CHRONICLES, the SPECIES IMPERATIVE (my personal favorite) cycle, and the WEBSHIFTERS books are also character driven: Sira and Morgan, Mackenzie Connor, and Esen-Alit-Quar drive their stories…
In the two I sold, the youngster Igaluk Abumayaleh-Jawai, (aka Iggie), and the “pirate” Johnny Ferocious; are very clearly people whose lives are changed. Not necessarily by River, but without the world of River, they would never have happened. Gordon Oyeyemi was a Nigerian soldier whose body cells turned out to have the Henrietta Lacks Quality (HLQ) in that they were infinitely cloneable. In the Skies of River, he and his clone brother Irog – who is a genetically engineered manta ray fifteen kilometers across who has a bubble inside that is a small-scale medical clinic. Gordon had NO idea his brother had been cloned until they were paired and sent into a tense situation that only they could survive – an Imperial Heir has had her brain transplanted into a gengineered body and has vanished into the depths of River…
Maybe my future with these worlds will be to develop those two or three characters and THEN introduce the world through their lives.
Anyway, rather than the sciencey stuff, I need to work on the RELATIONSHIPS of the characters to their surroundings and how they grow more…um…Human.
Resource: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium-3
Program Book: https://sites.grenadine.co/sites/conzealand/en/conzealand/schedule
Image: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/bd/df/17/bddf178db4c8957b57e11e476919fabc.jpg
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