Could be some useful terms here...

Into the pan with you!

A wee writing exercise

Here’s a writing tip I’ve been nurturing for a while now:  never, ever take your Writer Mittens off.

Of course you bring your A-Game with your stories and novels.  Anyone with a blog or something similar will try to make the sentences coherent and representative of their skill.  What I’ve been making an effort to do is apply my skills to comments and other “ephemeral” strings of words in this online world.

Unless you’ve fallen into some red-hot online tirade against the most witless of internet trolls (and I hope you’re better than that), take a moment to watch your sentence structure.  Build the suspense of the comment.  Rather than call the president “an idiot”, open your thesaurus and try “dribbling buffoon”.

This may be overly complicated if you’re posting using only your thumbs while hunkering in your cubicle so the boss doesn’t see you, but otherwise, I find it a fun little exercise to help keep the writing cardio in top form.

(Why don’t you try it right now?  I’m always keen to read comments here.) 

(But you can’t use “dribbling buffoon”.  Dig deeper.)

I've got a ways to go yet to achieve this...

A little selling

A woman stumbles through the dimensional bubble to stand on an alternate Earth facing her alternate twin self.  Together, these sisters born of different worlds gallop into a wild odyssey of adventures across a prairie full of perils in a desperate race to stop a war.

Intrigued?

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The eternal debate

Mr. Tom Gauld totally gets it.

It IS English, you thickwit...

A resounding trumpet toot and bow of respect to the TV show "Salvation"!

Why?

For years, movies and TV have run this scene:

Scientist explains the situation, the solution, the problem in words of more than one syllable.

The person or persons receiving this explanation now grunts and says "In English, doc!"  With enough condescension dripping on his tone to make clear what he thinks of anyone who fills their brain with so much weird knowledge.

I grind my teeth every time this exchange occurs.

The rough, tough "everyman" never comes across as apologetic for not keeping up with the information.  The script is strictly pandering to the cheeto-covered viewers at home who have accidentally tuned into the show instead of "Dancing with Bachelor Pawn-brokers".

Over and over I wish the nerd-scientist would just snort and hand the Everyman Hero a dictionary.  "It is English, Sparky.  Try to keep up with the class."

ANYWAY...

Last night on "Salvation", this scene came up twice...but didn't.

1)  A technical explanation prompted "Could you translate that for the layman?"

2)  A high-powered explanation prompted "I don't speak tech..." with a quirky smile.

A perfectly respectful exchange.  You're the expert.  I'm not.  Could you somehow make it plain to me?

In a world where ignorance is running amuck, we need a little more respect for actual nerds and science.

Creative Journey - Ballard Street

Every year? Well, it's description discussion time again...

Follow me, if you will, to an invitation to supper at someone’s home.  I sit down at the table and I begin to drool in delight as the host brings out a big circular pizza platter.  Mmm...pizza!  I have a momentary concern about what toppings the host might have chosen, but, hey - pizza is pizza.  As long as it’s not some kale and kumquat on gluten-free...never mind.  

To my surprise, the host places a triangular piece of flat pizza bread on my plate.  By the sheen catching the light, a splash of oil was added in the baking.  My nose detects a whiff of, in all likelihood, a sprinkle of some pre-mixed “Italian Seasoning” dashed over the surface.

But nothing else.  Not one topping one would associate with “pizza”.

Seeming to anticipate my puzzlement, the host jumps in with an earnest and exuberant explanation.  “I think food is a team effort between chef and eater.  I don’t want my efforts to get in the way of your experience.  Take a bite of the crust and imagine all the marvellous pizzas you’ve eaten.  Remember the wonderful homemade sausage you once bought at a farmer’s market.  Let your memory glide over that smooth, top-shelf mozzarella cheese you loved on a trip to Little Italy.  Dream on that rich, thick sauce they make at your favourite pasta place.”  He sits back, beaming with anticipation, urging me with eyes and body language to...  “Eat!  Eat!”

I pick up the slice of bread.  It’s kinda limp, so I have to bring in my second hand.  I have a bite.  I follow the host’s advice and recall all the glories of pizzas-past.  My imagination is more than sufficient to the task.  

All these memories do, however, is starkly highlight that all I am currently chewing is a mouthful of vaguely seasoned baked bread.  All this talk of imagination and memories is doing is making me ravenous and grumpy.  All I’m thinking about is how soon I can politely leave and where I can score a decent real pizza on the way home.

AND that is lengthy analogy of how too many writers out there currently craft their “stories”.  They refuse to waste words on describing a spaceship because readers have seen Star Wars or Star Trek and will just fill in the blank canvas.  They try really hard to justify a total lack of character description because it will “spoil the reader’s immersion.”

What a pile of horseshit.

This nothing but lazy, hack excuse-making.  They would be better served transferring the creativity used in making these stiff rationalizations into their actual wordsmithing.

If any of this held any water at all, then why do people go to movies?  If these halfwit “rules of writing” had validity, we’d all be keenly anticipating this summer’s radio play blockbusters.  No panoramic vistas of glorious scenery harshing our buzz.  No bulging beefcake heroic actor or svelte sexy villain spoiling our immersion.  Nothing but our own imagination doing all the work!

A great writer is a tour guide.  They know how much detail, how many facts, what serving of setting to provide to you for your visit and then they know when to shut up and let you drink in the moment.  A good book is team effort between author’s words and reader’s imagination.

These slack-jawed scribblers think “team” means, well, making a thin flat of bread and calling it a pizza.

Character substitution

My tastes in film run to the fantastical.  And when those types of movies turn epic, with aliens invading or asteroids on a collision course or a zombie plague spreading, the plot visits the White House.  Well, these movies are often made in the USA and, arguably, a lead responder to a global threat would be the White House.

Even in less fantastic movies, where the international danger is rooted in reality, if no actual protagonists are in the government, there will still be scenes informing the audience with how the White House is reacting.

In the last few months, I’ve rewatched some old favourites.  When the President is briefed on the Bad Thing, when a table of uniforms and top people assemble for strategy, when the nuclear option is considered, these films and shows are giving me a new level of horror and chills.  I’m swapping out the characters and replacing them with President Drumpf and his Capering Gang of Incompetents.

If you want an anus-clenching experience, watch anything with the Oval Office and substitute Drumpf making the hard decision while advisors debate which is the best choice.  It’ll breath a whole new dynamic of terrible excitement into your movie choices.

Saturn Run review

Saturn Run
by John Sandford & Ctien
G.P. Putnam's Sons
2015

In Saturn Run, we are taken to the Earth of fifty years from now.  One small aspect of this future is the advance in pharmaceuticals.  In moments of ultra stress, citizens are not hesitant to use a pill or shot to "smooth out".  There are still side effects, but nowhere near as harsh as we suffer today.  This sort of moment only appears a handful of times in the plot, but...the whole book feels like it has been "smoothed out".
What I mean is that the author(s) apparently were unable or unwilling to describe any messy emotions.  A few characters are possessed of hot tempers and become angry, but it is nothing but "telling" instead of "showing".  It's like a sock puppet show where the feature character declaims "Grr, I am mad".  Characters are mostly reasonable and pleasant thru out the story.  A sex fling starts to take root and becomes an actual relationship with tangled emotions.  Just as we're wondering how these characters will sort it all out, the author(s) use a deus ex machina to extricate themselves from this gooey mush stuff.  And in the aftershocks, where a well-written book would take us thru the heart ache and depression, the character reaches for that aforementioned drug and smooooths out.  The novel returns to blandsville.  Whew, that was close.  We couldn't have any undue excitement with our characters.  No arguments, no jealousies, no wild guffaws, no narrow-minded biases...just all pleasant and reasonable.

I have to stop now to reverse this negative stance.  The science adventure aspect of the book carried the weight of the plot well enough.  If semi-hard science fiction is your love, then you'll enjoy this aspect.  But, as with all too many modern books, Saturn Run needed to be 500 pages long like I need a couple of extra earlobes.  A couple-three decades ago, it would have been more like 200 pages and been an enjoyable afternoon's read.  I've read books like this in my life and felt my time well spent.  When I have to spend 500 page worth of time, I want a lot more bang for my investment.

In short, it is a good idea and well-thought out race across the solar system.  After 500 pages, though, I felt like I'd walked to Saturn and back.

I want to endorse Saturn Run, but I can't.  Despite what I've written so far, neither can I condemn it as a stinkburger.  If you have buckets of free time to spend, and space travel science is your passion, then go for it.  I'll have pretty much forgotten most of it by the end of the week.

Oh.  I consider myself, at best, only a reservist in the grammar army.  Still, I can't ignore the way the authors hosed the book down with colons and semi-colons.  They must have gotten a helluva bulk deal and then had to use them before they hit their expiration date.  I've never seen colons used in the spots these guys use them.  Ever.  It looked pretty stupid, most of the time.

So, a straight up the center not-good, not-bad for Saturn Run.

Landing on the Moon

A LETTER OF COMMENDATION FOR THE “MOON LANDING IS A HOAX” CONSPIRACY BELIEVER

You all are under-appreciated.  Nobody seems to truly understand the rigidity of your concentration, the intensity of your focus and the depth of your expertise.

Before Apollo 11 launched, and certainly after July 20th when photos and information flooded the media, you know who kept a dark and glittering on eye on events?  The USSR.  You can bet your last nickel that the KGB analysts, the Soviet space scientists that put the first rockets into orbit, and any number of expert eyeballs, examined those public photos and published documents long into the night.  To deflate this American victory in the Space Race would be a triumph of unimaginable proportions.  

(We’d be remiss if we failed to include Communist China and other forces in the 1970’s who’d enjoy making the USA look stupid.  Their experts no doubt took a gander at the same material.)

Apparently nothing was ever found for nothing was ever reported.  The years ticked by.

It wasn’t until you and your co-believers examined those same public photos, checked the same public records and studied the same space mission blueprints that the truth came to light.  Only your combination of genius and expertise could see the fluttering flags, the misplaced shadows and truly understand the lethal impossibility of such a space flight.

So, foil hat off to you for cracking a problem that exists for nobody but you!  Thanks for keeping the eye on the prize and not being distracted by your mother coming into your basement to do laundry!  Your revelations give the world a dull headache behind the left eye, but by golly, it’s a world that’s well informed!

It is irresistible

The Dark Forest book review

The Dark Forest

by Cixin Liu

translated by Joel Martinsen

China:  2008

(English: 2015)

On a personal note, my glee has me beyond the moon and past the stars.  For many months, my reading enjoyment has been like a long road trip where I end up sleeping on friends’ musty old couches, in tents on the cold ground (with a nasty root digging at me) and in skeevy motels with saggy busted spring beds.  One star experience after one star experience.  I tell you, my morale dropped to dangerous lows.  Where could a fellow find a decent book??  I was becoming certain no modern author could write a coherent page of prose.

Well, finally a quality hotel with a firm, king-size mattress, fresh sheets and fluffy pillows!  Lovely.

The Dark Forest is a book by acclaimed Chinese SF author, Cixin Liu.  A rich, well-written, well-thought out, well-researched book of science fiction.  As is my wont, I’m not going to delve into the plot.  There are any number of synopses available at the click of a keyboard and they can reap your ire for careless spoilers.

After innumerable books with clumsy, or zero, description of the world and characters, I revelled in the vivid writing.  The first chapter is done from the viewpoint of an ant crawling about its business.  Magnificent stuff.  Whether an alpine meadow or the Louvre or geostationary orbit, Mr. Cixin put me in the scene with real people.

The hearty endorsement on the cover by the esteemed David Brin forewarned me that I would need to bring my brain to this party.  Cutting edge astrophysics, futuristic thinking, alien psychologies, and sprawling interstellar philosophies all kept my brain doing calisthenics with a happy huffing and puffing.  It hasn’t been exercised like this in a long while.

I don’t know how to portion out the different stylistics of the writing.  How much is the “Chinese Method”, how much is Mr. Cixin’s personal style and how much is down to the translating of Mr. Martinsen?  Anyhow, the book moves in a different tempo than I’m used to.  Not unpleasant, just another requirement of the exercise regime.

Speaking of the Chinese origins, I did have some struggle to keep the Chinese names straight.  I had nearly succumbed to crying in confusion with a few early scenes until I finally read the supplied footnotes.  I felt quite silly for not reading them immediately.  “Xiao” and “lao” are honorifics sort of in the price range of “uncle” or “sir”.  NOW I understood there weren’t four or five characters bouncing out and in the scene, but only two, with one sometimes being called “Murray Lindsay” and sometimes “Uncle Murray”.  So, a piece of advice:  read the footnotes when they come up!

As a side note, the novel is far more international in aspect than I expected.  It keeps coming back to China, but the characters and references roam the countries of the Earth and beyond.  Nearly as many Western references exist as Asian and Chinese.

The most unfortunate fact was that this is Book #2 in a trilogy comprised of The Three Body Problem, The Dark Forest and Death’s End.  Nowhere, and I mean nowhere, in the edition I have was there any mention that I had picked up book #2.  This is not any fault of Mr. Cixin.  This is a sloppy and possibly unsavoury action by the publisher.

This gave me a weird vibe as I read.  Various significant acts and personal details coming from the antagonists didn’t cause nearly enough commotion in the plot.  “These (aliens) managed to inflict this stupendous (action) on Earth and all humanity, but everyone treats it like a regrettable rain shower at the beach??”  Now I know that lack of reaction is because these acts and details all happened in book #1!  Everyone got it out of their system (I assume) back then.

BUT, the cool flip side of this is my reading was not impeded significantly.  Other than a puzzled annoyance hitting here and there, I fell into no gaping plot holes of utter confusion.  For me, The Dark Forest read almost like a standalone novel.  Well done, I say.

The plot itself is dark, but does not descend to the relentlessly grim tone that amateur writers believe makes their work “serious”.  Even with the dire events and harrowing moments compounding with the accumulating pages, somehow I stayed on my feet.  Like some sort of “Rocky” script, the story left me wobbling on my pins, black, blue and bloody, but still…feisty.  Determined.  After I catch my breath and wait for the spinning to stop, I will continue on to the third volume.  Knowing what I know, I regret I won’t be backtracking to the first book.

"Dauntless" review

Dauntless by Jack Campbell.  2006
leading into the Lost Fleet series.

I did enjoy this first book, in a scarf-up-junk-food, wiping-orange-powder-off my fingers sort of way.  The premise is a nifty twist on the "Sleeper Wakes"/"Buck Rogers" idea of a hero from the past coming to whip the flaccid future folk into shape.  It's a stretch, and a bit of a cliche, but I accepted it without qualm.  Absorbing the situation, the characters, the forces in contention kept me engrossed as the story crackled along.

I finished book #1 here and then discovered another seven to go in the "Lost Fleet" series.  This did not please me.  One bag of junk food is a treat.  Consuming a total of eight made me queasy just contemplating the idea.

The basic plot is full of jumps and twists and derring-do.  Conceiving challenges for his hero and then creating a clever solution is Campbell's strong suit.  So, kudos there.

His weaknesses, though, become repetitive and tiresome.  For openers, there are no descriptions.  I literally have no idea what any of the characters look like, nor is any sense of environment provided.  There's not even such ultra-bland indicators as "She was a beautiful woman" or "He was handsome."  Nothing.  Stick figures engaged in a minimalist "Etch-a-Sketch" world.  (When one character was described as wearing a star sapphire ring, such a spark of focussed colour nearly blew me out of my chair)

The writing is also basic in structure and uninspired with vocabulary.  He is stuck in a "telling instead of showing" rut.  Telling instead of showing gets the information across, but it makes for humdrum, hard to keep eyes open, reading.

The puzzle-cracking and problem-beating kept me going into book after book.  I was just invested enough in the hero and the predicament to want to see it resolved.  It's also a rude marketing decision to have each book stop almost literally in mid-sentence.  Not so bad now, coming in well after the entire series is published, where I can just pick the next one and keep going.  If I had read this back in 2006, forget it.  I wouldn't have bothered with ever looking for the next one to appear.

I did stop at the end of book #6.  Officially there are eight in the series, but all the plot points I had been following actually wrapped up at the end of #6.  More problems were looming for Our Hero, but I jumped off the train at this station.  Done and glad to be done.

I've ramped up my criticism a bit high here.  I think because I'm frustrated with the waste of potential. Mr. Campbell has the skills to craft a decent book, but I suspect (based on the tonne of books published) he has chosen the regrettable path of speed over quality.  He could aspire to being a noteworthy chef, but instead has chosen to be a fast-food burger flipper.

I've read worse books/series, but I still am unable to recommend this effort.

No mercy...

YIKES...that's harsh!

The Snobs Rise Again

The The Handmaid's Tale (Margaret Atwood) appearing on the teevee has once again (for the umpteenth time) prompted the tedious debate of whether the book is "science fiction".

I can't sigh heavily enough.  I can't roll my eyes hard enough.

Denying that The Handmaid's Tale is science fiction is nothing but an elitist marketing ploy to avoid the "stigma" of the label.  Any other debate is nothing but pompous obfuscation.  The publishers simple want money out of the people who only know the genre by the fun, but low-calorie, low-nutrition, movies like Star Wars.  That is "science fiction" to those people.

People who do read science fiction place the title in the genre without a second thought.  (But most agree that the book doesn't generate much voltage on the imagination power meter.)

A good book is a good book.  Choosing one should be like ice cream.

"This is tasty ice cream!"
"Oh, what flavour is it?"
"Chocolate."
"Oh, I prefer strawberry, myself."

Nobody says "Euww...only the dregs of the geeks eat chocolate!"  Nobody sneers a condescending sneer at someone eating butter pecan.

That's how it should be with books.  If the quality is there, the flavour is irrelevant and a personal choice.

It's a beautiful dream, but it will never happen.  The snobs will only recant when a "Handmaid's Tale Convention" announced, featuring hundreds of fans dressed in homemade costumes lining up for admittance.

The Fizzle of the Iron Fist

My thoughts on Netflix’s Marvel’s Iron Fist can be captured in two key elements.

To whit:

These two images of the hero.  I will grant that no real human can match the doodling imagination of a talented artist.  That’s a given.  However, Netflix didn’t even try.  That’s not Iron Fist.  That’s “Mid-level Management Fist”.  That’s “Captain Cubicle Drone”.  That’s “Law Intern Lad” on his lunch break.  

I know Netflix has a strange phobia about costumes in their superhero productions, but come on.  Once or twice in the series the actor wore a black muscle-shirt sort of thing.  Still fully normal gym wear, but possessing more…authority than a rumpled suit and tie.  

Speaking of gym wear, the opening credits featured an acceptable animation of a figure doing kung fu spins and moves.  Acceptable except this animated figure wore workout sweats!  They can’t even imbue a cartoon with some fire.

My point is, this bland image of “Iron Fist” standing there like a schlub sums up the series all too well.  I have to admit, it is straight up truth in advertising.  A more dynamic visual would have given false impressions.  I should have paid attention that the product is just what appears on the label.

The second element is more subtle.  In the comic book origins of Iron Fist, Danny Rand goes from orphaned kid to master of the martial arts, possessing the power of Shou Lao the Undying Dragon, in ten years.  The Netflix Danny Rand requires fifteen years to attain the same level of mastery.  One charges and goes hellbent for leather.  The other meanders and moseys.

All the Netflix superhero series suffer from ten episodes worth of plot stretched to fill thirteen.  This formula really hurts the lethargic Iron Fist.  The formula took the other series from “edge of my seat” to sitting back with impatience.  In Iron Fist, it went from sitting back to “trying to stay awake”.

But, I’m still keen to see The Defenders (apparently done in eight episodes!)

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Sunshine - Robin McKinley

“Sunshine” by Robin McKinley

I have to give “Sunshine” a seemingly wishy-washy 3 starts out of 5.  The good stuff is marvellous.  The good is then tarnished by wholly correctable muck.  The good parts show McKinley to most definitely possess the writing skills, which makes the thick, clumsy parts all the more irritating.  My mind clenches in trying to work the puzzle.  Does she have a harsh allergy to rewriting?  Are her beta readers nothing but bootlickers, providing no useful suggestions?

The heroine shines and sparkles like the title suggests.  The menacing horror crackles and hisses.  The alternate reality is engaging and intriguing.  It’s all good, edge-of-the-seat stuff.

Except when it’s not.  It’s such a writing ping pong game of “great vs thick”.

When McKinley describes a vampire or a bucolic lake or a bakery, she’s fantastic.  Apparently, though, describing humans and workaday things is boring (or something).  We are only given the sketchiest hint of what the hero Sunshine looks like at the literal halfway point of the novel!  Describing the hero is difficult when the book is written in first person point of view, but that doesn’t mean the author is excused from the task.  Putting that aside, it doesn’t explain the lack of description for the supporting cast.  It’s a world populated by stick people wearing name tags.

She never lumbers us with explanations about this world where humans compete with the Other (supernatural entities).  She slips tantalizing bits of slang and expletive into dialogue that let the reader know this is not our Earth, but an Earth with an alternate history.  Excellent and succinct!  Well done!

But that praise is cut short by myriad info dumps, often provided in the worst places.  Tension-filled moments are buried like they were hit by an avalanche of soggy futons.  The hero Sunshine will go off on a rambling inner monologue for paragraph after paragraph to clue the reader in.  (for example, in the middle of a not-quite police interrogation, one of their comments sends her off on mental alarm mode, with an explanation for the alarm and the cultural historical examples of people who suffered from this condition…and by the time Sunshine stops and we leave her mental babbling, I’m surprised she doesn’t have to wake the cops up in order to continue the conversation.  I’d certainly lost track of where the hell we were.)

Avoiding the dreaded info dump is perhaps the biggest challenge for a writer of SF&F, but you gotta try.  Again, it’s obvious McKinley has the chops to do avoid long-winded upchucks, so I can only assume she couldn’t be bothered to try.

There are a sprinkling of thumb tacks that annoyed me.  How often must I be told Sunshine bakes the best cinnamon rolls in the world?  I think I got the idea after the first dozen times in the narrative.  (the book is so stuffed with cutesy bakery references, McKInley must have written the book in her favourite coffee shop-bakery.) It’s amusing that the cops refer to their humourless, strict boss as the “goddess of pain”, but when Sunshine finally meets this person face to face, it’s time for an actual name.

Equally, there are brilliant moments.  These are harder to describe without spoiling plot moments.  In a major crisis, Sunshine receives a bit of support and aid for her struggle.  The source of the support and aid had been neatly foreshadowed thru the book.  No further clarification required. It clicked neatly into the moment.  By this time in the book, sadly, I was wincing, wondering if this would be left alone to be twinkling elegant or would it trigger another two-page Sunshine commentary.

The book ends up being worthwhile to read, but it is a salad of the garden fresh mixed with the unripe sour on a bed of the crisp blended with some questionably limp.

Grammar rules!

Believe in the magic of the words

Or vice versa