Burning Zeppelin Experience

Burning Anticipation

2011-12-07T11:50:00.000-08:00

When I was a kid, I read Dragon Magazine.

I read it a lot.

One of my favorite parts of Dragon Magazine was the fiction. For years - and possibly up until the magazine finally bit the bucket, and was resurrected, and bit the bucket again (I think?) - Dragon featured Dungeons & Dragons-esque short stories. Some of them were explicitly set in D&D universes, others were set in universes that could be D&D, but weren't. Some of them were stand-alones, some of them were parts of serialized epics.

My favorites were a series by Greg Keyes. Fool Wolf was a thief, a liar, and a ne'er-do-well saddled with a dangerous spirit bound into his ribcage by is irresponsible, drunken father. Cast out from his people for crimes committed by the spirit, Fool Wolf wanders a Sword & Sorcery world, looking for adventure, women, money, and the opportunity to rid himself of his unwelcome guest.

For a long time, the tales of Fool Wolf lived in the basement of my brain, occasionally twitching, winking, and throwing iterations up into my higher brain. Certain phrases - "tattoos of singular blackness," "mansion of bone" - stuck in my head.

Then I discovered the collection: Hounds of Ash and Other Tales of Fool Wolf. Time passed, and eventually I made it mine.

I can't wait to read this book. I'll definitely post a review when I have.

Burning Myths, Flying Knives

2011-12-05T10:54:00.000-08:00

Check it out: Escape Pod's blog has just published a post exploding the myth of the deadly flying knife.

I'll admit it - I don't know enough about physics to judge this particular post on the merits of its accuracy. However, I do know enough about the modern fantastic cannon to recall Vlad Taltos's entertaining description of thrown knives as a diversionary tactic; they flinch at the flying bit of pointy steel and miss the larger and more dangerous piece of not-so-flying steel headed for their guts. Or, more frequently, the fact that Vlad is headed for the hills.

Now, I'm much more of a creator of fantasies than speculation, even when I write in a science fictional mode, so I'm quite likely to give my heroes an explicitly magical "get out of physics free" card (I'm looking at you Exalted). I'm about as likely to set up my setting with an alternate physics - Heroic Physics, let's call it - in which throwing knives, swinging off chandeliers, or, say, running on the tops of trees are all possible for anyone.

That said, I like to be specific about where and when I depart from reality. I'd rather sit down to write a story thinking "this story will be set in a setting with general background of Heroic Physics, in which this, that, and the other thing are possible, and characters possessed of certain abilities will depart further in these specific ways" than just make mistakes. In that way, articles like this one are very useful.

However, I also have no problems with departing from reality in this way, when it's done clearly, consistently, and carefully. This is a sentiment it doesn't seem like the author of this article shares with me - she calls throwing knives in general "silly" and "cliched." Different strokes and all that. I can bring my throwing knives along when we visit a world that features Heroic Physics and leave them at home when we visit a world with Conventional Physics. It's all good.

NoNoWriMo

2011-12-01T18:06:00.000-08:00

I don't really want to dwell on it, but I didn't win NaNo this year. Rat and Starling made it to about 36k, and that's where I died.

Did I say died? I meant came down with the first (and therefore, by definition, worst) sinus infection of my entire pitiful life. I'm still blowing horrifying crap out of my nose once in a while. But I certainly wished I was dead, for a while there.

In the end, despite being very nearly out of commission for a week, I might have been able to finish NaNo. Unfortunately, for the last three days, there has been time to do any three of the following things: go to work, finish my grading - which I didn't get to while I was dying of General NIoD (Nose Infection of Doom) - sleep, and NaNo. Sleep has to happen - whenever I don't sleep the Abigail gets really weird and for some reason and we fight all the time - as does going to work and finishing my grading if I want to stay employed. Something had to give, and what gave was NaNo.

I still didn't get more than three hours of sleep last night. Fucking grading.

Anyway, as I wrote above, I don't want to dwell on the negatives. There's always next year, after all. For now, I will content myself with another year of effort and the fact that there are now thirty-six thousand more words in the world, written by me, that I may someday come back to and make less sucky.

And that, 50k or no 50k, is still an achievement.

Broken Robots, Burning Zeppelins

2011-11-27T10:19:00.000-08:00

A... year ago, was it? A year agoish, I played a silly free flash game online. K.O.L.M. Recently, I played the sequel, K.O.L.M. 2. Both games are short, powerful, and incredibly atmospheric, and I recommend them to anyone and everyone, even people who don't normally go in for silly free flash games online.

The premise of K.O.L.M. is that you are a broken robot in a system of underground caves. After an unknown period of time, the voice of your mother prods you into action. You begin by crawling across the floor, the screen a blurry mess, until you find a pair of replacement eyes. Soon you also acquire replacement legs, a gun, the ability to jump, a more powerful gun, the ability to jump even higher, the ability to swim in water, and then in acid, and so on. K.O.L.M. 2 builds on its predecessor with sad little robot's quest to reunite with his father and his sister.

Gameplay focuses on the acquisition of new bits for the little robot. Often you are presented with a puzzle that you just can't solve until you find something that adds some new functionality to the robot. The overall effect is very satisfying - there's nothing quite like watching a puzzle that previously stumped you fall before the awesome might of your new laser or swimming capability - though there are a few moments of frustration.

The game very quickly establishes that something is a bit... off-kilter. I know from passive-agressive mothers, and this mother definitely fits the bill. Definitely much more GLaDOS than Ma Ingalls. The format of the game is classic side-scroller, but instead of the usual smooth transition from frame to frame, each "zone" is a view from a security camera. In addition to being, frankly, just a bit weird, it allows the game to zoom unexpectedly in and out. Trust me - it's hard to explain, but the effect is extremely creepy. Between the mother's creepy dialogue and the weird atmosphere, the game sucks you in very effectively. For best results, play at night. Alone.

I will concede that K.O.L.M. 2 is somewhat weaker than its predecessor. The gameplay introduces two new wrinkles: sunlight pouring in from holes in the ceiling which can harm or even destroy the little robot and, later, the robot and his human sister (now now, that would be telling) cooperating to solve puzzles that the robot couldn't solve on his own. However, the game is much shorter and much more... is linear the right word? Both games are linear, but the first game seemed to have a lot more problem solving and atmospheric wandering, while the second game seemed much more straightforward. Both games - and the third game that I fervently hope for - are certainly worth playing.

I believe that video games are fiction, but I don't normally talk about them because I don't normally play them. The K.O.L.M.s would make a great introduction for someone who doesn't believe. Both games tell a beautiful, sad, and creepy tale that I was very pleased to be a part of.

The Myth They Tell in Vandakar

2011-11-16T12:15:00.000-08:00

This is the myth they tell in Vandakar – called the Godless City – that ancient and mist-shrouded place where the streets turn in upon themselves and spiral down into the earth, where wicked secrets can be bought and sold for coin and deed:

Five gods stood together at the dawn of time. Four of them were content to divide the world between them, but one stood apart. He declared himself the king of all the gods, and his name was MAN.

The gods strove against each other, and though MAN was stronger than the others, they combined their might against him and defeated him. They decided to sunder MAN into many parts and scatter him across the face of the earth so that could never again seek to set himself above his siblings. Thus were the races of men born.

Each of the gods cursed the new race in turn.

SHA, who is worshipped in the East as Miryama of the Dawn and the Lady of Spring, cursed mankind with Lust. She divided us into male and female and set out hearts and loins to long for each other. She clouded our thoughts with desire and gave us Jealousy, Gluttony, and Greed

ZAR, who is worshipped in the North as the Summerlord and the Burning Eye of Heaven, cursed mankind with rage. He set our hearts against each other, fanning the flames of Ambition and Revenge.

NOR, who is worshipped in the West as Unuyanu and the Shining One, cursed mankind with Pride. He whispers to us of what we were, and what we might one day be, and so we rise above ourselves so that our hopes are always dashed, and we destroy what we love most.

Last, and most terrible, was KAI, who is worshipped in the South as the Pale Lady, the Queen of Ravens, and the Nameless One. She cursed mankind with death, striking us down before we could come into the fullness of our power and challenge the dominion of the gods.

The discerning know that the gods hate mankind for the arrogance of MAN. They hate us, and so they have crafted the world to destroy us. They fear us, for each of us could one day rise to the power that was once MAN's.

Some chose to worship the gods, hoping that by prayer and sacrifice they can prove their submission. They want to convince the gods that we have learned our lesson, and thus earn MAN’s restoration. Others dedicate themselves to one god, hoping to cast off their birthright as part of MAN and pass totally into that god’s power, becoming a part of that god after death.

Others chose to defy the gods.

Those who defy SHA are the Ascetics. They deny the desires of the flesh, and so achieve mastery of it. They are powerful warriors, striding across the field of battle with skin like plates of iron and muscles like the roots of trees. They are mighty, but they are not the most mighty.

Those who defy ZAR are the Menders. They cast out rage and fill their hearts with peace, learning to accept the world they see. In the power of their peace, they can still violence in the hearts of others and unmake the consequences of violence. They can heal even the most grievous wounds with a touch. Many dismiss them, for peace does not lend itself to rash and overt action, but the Menders are mighty. And yet, they are not the most mighty.

Those who defy NOR are the Adepts. They break their own minds with humiliation and service and until they cast out the poison of pride within themselves, and thus they achieve mastery of the mind. They can pick secrets from the minds of their enemies and plant false thoughts. They can walk unseen among crowds, hiding themselves from the pride-addled minds of the masses. Though they are mighty, they are not the most mighty.

Those who defy KAI are those who defy death. They are the Necromancers, practitioners of the Dark Art. The dead rise to serve them and the living flee before them. They craft eternal bodies to house their spirits and persist forever, growing more powerful with every passing century. They are the Necromancers and they are the most mighty of those who defy the gods.

That is the myth they tell in Vandakar, the City of the Dead.

• • •

And now, back to NaNo.

Now THAT Was a NaNo Post

2011-11-16T08:07:00.000-08:00

Sweet mother of lizards, that was a NaNo post. Was that even mildly coherent? Does it actually mean anything?

I'm tempted to take it down, but... nah. Let's just leave it there. It will stand as a testament of what NaNo does to a body.

For those of you who read it - and maybe even gleaned some meaning out of it? Maybe? - I offer sincere apologies. Hopefully you at least had a laugh.

Watch this space for a review of my latest literary conquest, The Curse of Chalion.

Happy Accidents

2011-11-15T13:40:00.000-08:00

I am happy to report that at the end of yesterday (Day 14) of National Novel Writing Month I had 23,945 words - a little more than six hundred words ahead of schedule. Over the course of Day 14, I came up from a significant deficit, writing a little more than four thousand words in a single day. As a result, the last thing I want to do is write - which is why I'm blogging - and the last thing I want to blog about is writing.

So, instead, I'll blog about minis.

But when I blog about minis, I'm really blogging about writing.

When I first got into wargames, I was disappointed to discover that most games use plastic minis instead of metal. There is something deeply satisfying about metal minis. They have a powerful 'clunk' when they hit the table. It's kind of like Go - in ancient Japan, Go boards were designed to produce a satisfying sound when pieces were placed, making the game a full audiovisual experience - but with more death.

Later, after I started playing Warmachine and Hordes and actually had a chance to work with metal, I was happy to discover that most games use plastic minis. Metal is a pain in the ass to work with. It's heavy, so glue isn't enough and you have to pin stuff in place. Pinning stuff in place means drilling holes, in metal, which is also, unfortunately, hard to drill in.

Because, you know, it's metal.

As a result, if you're inexperienced - like I am - the result is often a little hit-or-miss. You aren't quite sure what a model is going to look like until you're done. If a pin settles in oddly, or a piece doesn't quite fit right, you could end up with nearly any kind of pose, from the totally awesome to the... kind of strange. Sometimes you need to work with what you've got, adapting a weirdly assembled model so it will turn out as well as possible.

Plastic, by the way, is much easier to work with. Glue usually does the trick. On the rare occasion that you have to pin it or adjust the shape of a piece, plastic cuts and drills like a dream.

The trick is to be open to happy accidents. A happy accident, as my 6th grade teacher taught me, is when something in art turns out differently than you expected, but in a way you can still work with. You don't see a lot of happy accidents in writing, but in visual art - including, yes, making minis - you see them a lot more often. I've got a metal Ravagore (horrible flame-spitting monster) that will end up in a really awesome pose, all because I was willing to change my plans after a series of drastic failures.

Anyway, it seems to me that NaNo is a lot like a metal model - oddly shaped chunks of narrative falling out of your brain as fast as you can squeeze them out of your fingers (wow, I'm sorry for that metaphor already). Later, when you have time, you can go back over your creation with a more critical, discerning eye, fitting the pieces together into something beautiful.

So be open to happy accidents. Look out for the weird bits of beauty your brain spits out when you aren't looking.

Speaking of which, I'd probably better get back to writing. Tell then...

Na Na NaNo, Na Na NaNo

2011-11-01T10:33:00.000-07:00

Yeah yeah yeah, go write.

In other words, it's November, and November means National Novel Writing Month. That means that I won't be blogging a lot this month, but I will be writing like the shit. If you still want to hang out, find me on the NaNoWriMo site. I go by Burning Zeppelin. Friend me. We'll chat. We'll bug each other about wordcount. We'll meet up and slave over hot computers together.

Yeah yeah yeah, go write.

So Sick of Sad, Special Sorcerers

2011-10-20T13:25:00.000-07:00

I'm pretty sure there's something wrong with me. No normal person should like alliteration this much.

In the world of things that I'm getting kind of sick of, I'm starting to develop a mad-on for, as the title says, sad, special, and oppressed magic users. They're a common - and, I will admit, sometimes incredibly well-written - trope. The most recent stand-out example is Sharon Shinn's Twelve Houses series, but the subgenre is full of a wealth of excellent and not-so excellent works.

Before I continue, let me explain exactly what I'm talking about.

A lot of modern fantasy takes an approach to magic that mirrors the X-Men. Magic is (usually) an inborn trait, something that either can't be repressed forever or can't be repressed without serious consequences for the mage. Mages are not a ruling class - rather, they are a hated minority. Their magical powers are only enough to help them survive, sometimes, with effort and great sacrifice.

I have a problem with this scenario. If you have a world where people periodically arise with special powers, I can't think of any reason that they would not ascend to roles of leadership. I mean, a lot of people hate fat-cat bankers born with silver spoons in their mouth, but these folks have been unseated in precious few parts of the world. Power (and talent, skill, and luck) may attract envy and animosity, but it also tends to attract more power. The best stories (The Twelve Houses again, is a good example of this) provide a good explanation: magic has limitations that its enemies know how to exploit, magicians have nemeses with their own, less objectionable power, ancient magician-kings were overthrown (which explains why they are so hated and no one will work for them), or whatever. A lot of the rank-and-file of this trope, however, never bothers with a justification.

Beyond that problem, though, I'm getting a little sick of it.

Perhaps it's over-exposure. This trope seems to have become very popular in fantasy since I was first exposed to it. Perhaps, though, it's something else. I wonder if I haven't grown out of it. As an adolescent, I was very caught up in being special. I worried that I wasn't special enough. I wanted to be assured of my uniqueness and value. I felt that the people who didn't recognize how wonderful I was were either right - which would have been terrible - or wrong, in which case they were oppressing me.

As an adult, I've realized that I don't really care about being special anymore. I'm content to be pretty average in a lot of ways. I have a purpose in life - several, in fact - and I'm happy to be used by them. I don't need to stand out in the eyes of any but the people who know me and appreciate what I bring to them and the world. Perhaps that's why the shine has worn off the story of the magic few.

Finally - and this is probably also part of my growing up - I think that there's something distressing elitist about the myth of the magic few. Let's look at this critically. Imagine that you actually lived in this world: there are a class of people, chosen at random, with magic powers. They can burn you alive with a gesture, invade your memories by looking at you hard, or bend your mind with a glance. There's nothing you can do to stop these people from taking what you own, coercing your obedience, engineering your humiliation, or ending your life. Remember that these people weren't chosen by a higher power with your best interests at heart. They aren't the best, the kindest, or the wisest. Some of them are great people and some of them are jerks. Their power is inherent, so there's nothing you can do to join them, ever.

You can't stop them, you can't compare to them, you can't join them, they don't deserve what they have, and they could be anyone.

Scary? Depressing? Both? Remind you too much of the real world?

Yeah, me too.

I feel that the story of the oppressed sorcerer is founded in the assumption that you are one of the special ones. But special has to equal rare, or it wouldn't be special anymore. Assume that you're a farmer caught in arcane crossfire, watching her home burn; assume that you're a merchant who just gave away goods worth a year of overhead thanks to a magician's charm; assume that you're a twelve year old girl who just caught a magician's eye - the equation changes. You start to think that maybe there needs to be some way to control these people. Maybe you even think that if the best solution you can think of is to put them in the ground, then maybe it's ok. Maybe it's the least of all available evils.

Now, all of this isn't to say that I don't ever want to read this kind of story again. What I'm looking for is a story that takes a more nuanced approach. I want the story to have a is well-built setting, of course, one that answers all the questions I raised above, but I also want it to provide multiple points of view on the problem of magic. Let's have the usual rag-tag band of heroic magicians and their hangers-on, but let's also have mage-hunters with legitimate grievances, people who have suffered at the hands of the "special few." Let's have a resolution that amounts to more than "the magic people should be free to do whatever they want, but don't worry - all the magic people who have been main characters are great."

When you find it, let me know.

Zeppelin Therapy

2011-10-17T11:41:00.000-07:00

So, as you know, I have a wife, the Abigail. You may also know that my wife is a drama therapist. What you probably don't know is that the Abigail is involved in planning this year's National Association of Drama Therapists conference.

Awesome, I know.

Anyway, I wrote a guest post on their blog talking about Five Things Drama Therapists Might Not Know About Being Partnered to a Drama Therapist. If you think drama therapy sounds interesting - it's really neat, take it from me - you might find the post interesting.

Till next time.

Only the Tiny Plastic Dead...

2011-10-07T12:04:00.000-07:00

Have seen the end of tiny plastic war.

A powerful quote from tiny plastic George Santayana.

At the end of the last school year I finally did it, something I've been tempted to do ever since high school.

I finally started playing wargames; specifically, Warhammer 40k and Warmachine.

I know, I know. I'm a story nerd - a filthy narrativist - who writes novels and plays sensitive, character-focused roleplaying games. What am I doing leading tiny plastic soldiers to their tiny plastic deaths on a not-so-tiny plastic battlefield?

The appeal is threefold.

Firstly, I need more hobbies that help me make friends. I've been quite isolated and lonely ever since I first moved to the San Francisco Bay Area. Don't get all stressed at me, non-wargaming-friends-what-read-this, I know you exist. I just don't have very many of you. I agree that the old saw that writing is a "solitary art" is simply wrong, especially in the era of crit groups, web forums, the Internet, and NaNoWriM. Believe it nor not, some really high quality nerds play wargames, smart guys who like to think tactically and blend compassionate sportsmanship with a competitive edge. Nerds who like to shoot the shit, drink a beer, slaughter their foes, and talk about the newest Star Trek movie.

In other words - more casual friends, exactly what I need.

Secondly, there's a really fantastic secret world of art and creativity associated with these games. Seriously - you have no idea how awesome some of these things are until you've seen them. You'd never guess that some of the most hardened, beardiest nerds are creating tiny plastic masterpieces on their tiny plastic canvases. I'm nowhere near an expert in the art of modifying and painting soldiers, but I'm enjoying the process.

Finally, a lot of wargame worlds are very well-developed, with fascinating visual and thematic bits that I now have the opportunity to steal and transform. I've already had some good ideas that were inspired by the fiction and "fluff" of the games I've started to play.

Anyway, I'm having a good time. If you play 40k or Warmahordes and are in (or visit) the San Francisco Bay Area, drop me a line. I'd love to hear from you and meet up to play a game or three.

The Subtle, Sinister Side of Sexism in Speculative Stories

2011-10-06T12:03:00.001-07:00

Six S's sequentially! Seventy supplemental... uh... points!

First of all, have a fascinating article about sexual dimorphism in the world of WoW from Wired.

Also, check out this picture from the oft-hillarious, sometimes disturbing, and rarely safe for work Boobs Don't Work That Way:

Arguing about the portrayal of men and women in fantasy (especially on the internet) is something of a hobby of mine. In fact, I've gotten a little sick of discussing this, so I'm writing this post in part so whenever this comes up I can simply post a link and say "see this - this is what I think."

First of all, I will the first, second, third, and last to admit that I appreciate fantasy chicks. The Chainmail Bikini has a place of honor in my heart, alongside the Naked Powerful Evil Queen (the Abigail loves to mock me about this one), Swords of Unusual Size, and Extremely Flash Magic.

That said, you need to watch what you're doing. Fill your story (or video game, or movie, or RPG book, or whatever) with half-naked women and you are sending an extremely powerful message: this work is intended to excite and titillate the men in the audience. Women who like women may glean some enjoyment if they can get past the discomfort of seeing their own gender blatantly and unfairly sexualized. Women (and men) who like men need not apply.

This is not a message that I intend to send with anything I create. It's also not a message I like to see in anything I consume.

"But Mark," I hear you say, "you just said that you're a fan of chainmail bikinis and wicked sorceress-queens lounging nakedly on thrones of skulls!" I hear you say it through the Internet. It's a new app I just bought, and it's awesome.

Ahem.

The thing is, there's nothing wrong with sexualized fiction. Mighty thews and heaving bosoms have been with us for as long as there has been writing; check out an accurate translation of the Song of Solomon if you don't believe me. The trick is to consider what message you are sending with your work. Are you excluding someone? Are you only giving eye-candy to a segment of your audience? If the answer is yes, you need to deal with it.

This is where the chart I posted at the start of this post comes in. It may be intended as a bit of tongue-in-cheek commentary, but I think it's actually useful as a guide for balanced titillation. What you need to do is this:

Decide where on the X-Axis your story is going to fall. Is your work Realistic? Heroically Idealized? Sexualized? A combination of the two (for example: largely Heroically Idealized but with a few sexy bits that slip over into Sexualized or largely Realistic but with a Heroically Idealized climax scene).
Keep yourself in that category for both male and female characters. Period.

I mean it with step two. That's where the magic happens. Balance between the depiction of the sexes is what sends the message "this work is for everyone to enjoy!" For every man covered in grime and sweat I want to see a woman who hasn't had a bath since she set out from Caer Amithar a fortnight ago. For every heaving bosom I want to see a mighty thew. For every levitating breast I want to see a buttock of a tautness that defies the durability of human flesh. And no fair skimping on the narration - you must describe everything with an equal degree of loving, sexy, titillating detail. If you aren't up for appealing to everyone in your audience, aim for the left side of the diagram and leave the sexy stuff to the professionals.

And by the way, you should probably take some of those examples with a grain of salt. I'm not into guys, so I'm not sure what actually qualifies as the equivalent of a heaving bosom or levitating breast. Do some research with your female-favoring friends of the male and female persuasion.

There is one more objection I hear a lot, usually from people who make more of their money in one or another artistic industry. "Mark," I hear them say (through the app), "the thing is, people who like to look at guys are used to this sort of thing and they'll buy our art anyway; people who like to look at girls (specifically, male people who like to look at girls) won't."

To this I say: grow the hell up.

Artists - quit being lazy wimps. You want to change the world with your work? Take a stand. The days of fantastic fiction being the purview of men and men alone are long gone - and good riddance to them. Don't hide behind the need to make money. I guarantee you that you can find a way to make a statement you can actually be proud of and also make a buck, if you try.

And all the girl-looking-at-male-people out there - guys, we can do better. I guarantee you that photons bouncing off words describing buff guys (or even - and I know this can be hard to believe - pictures) won't do you any harm. They don't cause eczema, hair loss, or cancer. Everybody else has had to look at what you like for centuries, and they're all fine. You'll live.

Before I go, I want to hear from you. Who does a good job of balancing appeal for those who like boys and those who like girls? What are some works of fantastic fiction that pass the Zeppelin Test?

For You, a Token of My Esteem

2011-10-06T06:19:00.000-07:00

With this, I'd like to thank all of you who wrote such wonderful, supportive things on my last post. If only I'd been more able/willing to reach out over the summer, when terrible things were actually happening, as opposed to now, in the winter, when it's all gradually receding into the past.

Nevertheless, it's comforting to read your good wishes. Thank you.

Alas, Poor Audience

2011-10-05T13:33:00.000-07:00

So, from the rather... arctic response to my last post, I guess that I have lost whatever audience I once had. I suppose that it's only fair. I did disappear for an entire summer.

So, update time.

Obviously, the summer was not the orgy of writing and blogging that I hoped it would be. I was rather put off my game in the last week, after school ended. You might have read about it in the news - remember how an airplane crashed on the East Coast, killing the pilot, his wife, their teenage daughter, and her friend?

Those were my aunt, uncle, and cousin.

My grandfather - the husband of the woman whose daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughter were killed - died a much less remarkable death three weeks later.

Nothing about the catastrophes that befell my family actually prevented me from writing, but it made it a lot easier to retreat into somewhat less complicated pass-times like sleeping, hanging out with the Abigail, and painting tiny plastic spacemen (TPSMs for short). The fact that I ended up flying back and forth between here and the East Coast four times (half of them for funerals), getting a DVT in my leg in the process, didn't help any.

I wish I could report that I eventually rose to the challenge, like one of those guys who wins a Double NaNo despite having twins, losing his job, and being hit by a bicycle messenger carrying a duffel bag full of contraband weasels.

But, nah, I painted TPSMs and slept.

The Abigail tells me that it was ok - that I had the grieving process that I had to have - but I still feel like I dropped the ball. Or, to be somewhat more fair to myself, there was this totally awesome ball that I could have picked up, but instead I let it lie there. Is that ok? Sure. But it's not exceptional, and exceptional is what I want to be.

What am I working on right now?

Despite the creatively lame summer, I did manage to produce several short story ideas that I am currently attempting to realize in a rather slow and lazy way. I am also gearing up for National Novel Writing Month; I've picked my novel and am currently gathering my notes and preparing for war. I have decided to take advantage of the somewhat less formal NaNoEdMo to complete one of this summer's neglected projects: getting Knights of the Land fully re-written and ready to shop around with agents.

As for this blog, well, I plant to pick up where I left off. The blogging will commence anew, with new and better posts, more frequent and more interesting links, and cooler creative prompts! The universe is the limit at the new and improved (read: same thing, just more enthusiastic) Burning Zeppelin Experience!

*Cue fireworks; a teenage demon appears, prods me with her pitchfork and says "back to grading you heinous slacker!"*

A Question

2011-09-29T07:51:00.000-07:00

What would have happened if someone had buried a dead pet - say a dog or a lizard - in Narnia at the moments when the Lion's song still reverberated in the earth?

Also, I'm baaa-aaack.

No More Teachers!

2011-06-16T08:48:00.000-07:00

In honor of today being the last day of school, have a creative prompt. Tell me the story of a character with an imaginary and unlikely academic specialty - an ethnomycologist or a cryptomusicologist or something. Bonus points for convincing me that the specialty is actually real.

I Yet Live

2011-06-14T10:54:00.000-07:00

It's been a while and I want to throw up a post to let you all know that I - and the Burning Zeppelin Experience, and the Abigail, and Jabberwock the lizard - am still alive. The school year is ending - my last day is Friday - and as a result I'm exhausted, burned out, and singularly uncreative. Thank the Gods of Chaos for my new Warhammer 40k hobby; if I wasn't painting minis right now, I'd probably have become completely uncreative. If last year's pattern repeats itself, I will be back to my writing, posting, novel-editing, rejection-letter-collecting, the Abigail-referencing self in the second week after the school year ends.

Until then, have some links:

Don't worry, the CDC is prepared for a zombie apocalypse.
Tanith Lee does it again over at Fantasy Magazine.
Ever wanted to know how dinosaurs have sex? Now you do.

Enjoy.

Resurrection!

2011-05-25T08:50:00.000-07:00

My Donors Choose page is live. It lives!

Our turtles are awaiting your largesse.

Until next time, the Burning Zeppelin is wondering if anyone else thinks that "largesse" sounds like it should mean a female large.

Afterlife

2011-05-24T09:54:00.000-07:00

So, yesterday I posted asking for dollars to help fund my class turtles.

It turns out that the project hasn't gone live yet. Apparently it takes a day or two for my project to get past the review process.

I'll throw up another post when the project does go live. Many apologies.

In Another Life

2011-05-23T14:17:00.000-07:00

In my other life, I'm a science teacher. I teach seventh grade science in an Oakland middle school. Whenever I'm not posting, writing, or sleeping, that's pretty much why. It's rough, living two professional lives, but I think it's worth it.

Anyway, I have classroom turtles, but their habitat is less than ideal. One particular problem: it stinks. I need a better filter to keep their water clean. Unfortunately, I don't have the three hundred dollars it takes to buy a better filter. If you know anything about California schools - and Oakland in particular - you won't be surprised when I tell you that my school hasn't got the money, either.

However, you do.

Not you individually (probably), but all of you - all my readers - probably have three hundred dollars to spare. I wrote in an earlier post that I probably have between twenty and thirty readers. That means that if all of you donate a little more than ten dollars, that's my filter. That's my turtles. My students get to have living creatures in their life sciences classroom, rather than just dead things.

If you're interested in donating, here's my Donor's Choose page. You can also use that page to keep track of my other projects, which you can continue to donate to, if you are so inclined.

Thanks from me, and all my kids, and Benjamin and Shelley (the turtles), too.

In a Hole in the Ground, There Lived a Neanderthal

2011-05-10T10:32:00.000-07:00

So, I've been watching Walking with Cavemen with my kids as a way to keep some science learning going, despite the disruptions of the testing weeks. We finally made it to the section about Neanderthal Man, the much maligned failed evolutionary offshoot of humanity (though, interestingly enough, there are signs that even as it was dying out, Neanderthal man was mating into the lines that would eventually produce modern humans). As we were watching, something occurred to me:

Neanderthals are hobbits.

Short? Check.
Stocky? Check.
Omnivorous? Check.
Tough as all hell? Check.
Cave-dwelling? Check.
Essentially human in the ways they think and act? Check.

I can easily see how, if Neanderthal Man had not died out, they might have cleaned up in much the same way as the humans they coexisted with. Their musculoskeletal system would have slimmed down and their brains continued to advance as their ecological niche increasingly selected for smarts rather than brawn. They could easily have stayed short and tough when compared to humans. Why develop an easy-going disposition? Why not?

Anyway, just a weird little thought that occured to me, and I'm eager to hear what you think of it (hence the creative prompt tag).

Awesomesauce or Avoid-at-all-costs?

2011-05-09T10:31:00.000-07:00

So, first of all, I am reviewing all the comments and rebuttals to my assertions about self-publishing - as well as a great conversation with friends Gavin and Kindli (and their adorable son, who didn't say much) - and... I'm gradually revising my opinion. There is a longer post in the works, certainly, but today is not the day for that.

Today is the day for this.

The Abigail sent me the link. Rosebud: the Magazine for People who Enjoy Good Writing is holding a contest. The Fourth Biennial Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Award for Imaginative Fiction. The winner gets $1k and publication in Rosebud. Four runners-up get $100 and publication in Rosebud. The losers get squat, but are considered for publication. There's also a determined lack of funny business when it comes to the contract, which is nice.

That's the upside. The downside is that there is a $10 reading fee. The downside is also that, as I am given to believe, most contests - especially those that require a reading fee - are, well, scams.

So where am I on this one? On the one hand, one hundred to one thousand dollars (well, $90 to $990, really), publication, and a feather in my cap. If I lose the contest but win publication, I still stand to net $20. On the other hand, Yog's Law.

I'm probably going to enter. After all, it's only $10, and the potential rewards are quite solid. There is, however, a matter of principle to consider; I'm not going to put my name - and therefore, my tiny professional endorsement - in a crooked hat, even if it's a cheap crooked hat. I'm curious to hear your thoughts on the matter. Is the Fourth Biennial Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Award for Imaginative Fiction a scam? I'll also be emailing the illustrious, august, inimitable Mur Lafferty on this matter. In case you don't listen to I Should Be Writing, I'll let you know what she says.

Incidentally, Rosebud Magazine also charges a one dollar "handling fee" for ordinary submissions. I haven't been doing this for very long, but I have yet to encounter another magazine that charges money to submit work. This seems like a strike against Rosebud. Again, however, it's only one dollar, so it's a very small strike.

Until next time, remember that money flows towards the Zeppelin... or at least, it should.

Why Not Self Publish?

2011-05-04T11:55:00.000-07:00

In the comments to a recent post, a gentleman named Greg Christopher said:

"You are a fool for not self publishing. You would have money by now.
Sorry for the tough love, but you seem to be needlessly hurting yourself."

Now, we are not enemies of tough love here at the Zeppelin, and I'm not writing this post to shame or criticize anyone, but when I started to respond in the comments I ended up writing a post, so here it goes.

The thing is is that self-publishing a novel is basically a full-time job. Once you're done writing the novel, you need to do all the work of editing - and that includes finding people who are qualified to help you who are not yourself, since by the time you are done with your novel, you're going to need an outside perspective. Then you're going to need cover art and layout, which you probably don't know how to do yourself. Editors cost money, artists cost money, and layout experts cost money.

Then, you're going to need to settle down to some serious self-promotion. As a self-published author, you need to do everything yourself. If you want to get your book into a bookstore, you are going to need to go to that bookstore, get a meeting with that buyer, talk up your book, and hope she buys it. And if she doesn't, you just wasted time and gas money that you may or may not have to spare. Forget about getting your book into stores in another part of your state, let alone another part of the country.

On the other hand, with an agent and publisher backing you up, you've got somebody to do all that for you, and you don't pay for any of it, at least not directly. You pay in a cut of what your novel makes; if your novel doesn't sell, you don't pay.

On the third hand, e-publication is always a possibility. The self-promotion here is a bit less travel-intensive, since you can use the internet, but still takes a lot of time and energy. You need to email, post, pimp, and produce free content like a demon if you want to get anywhere. You need to do all the work of a publishing agency's marketing machine, all by your lonesome. Abigail Hilton, among others, has managed it, but I'm not sure how.

Now, that said, I'm mostly talking about short stories here, not novels. So, where is the benefit in traditionally publishing short stories?

Blogs (like this one) are good for building a base of fans. I suppose I could start releasing my stories for free here to build up a base for the eventual self-release of my novel. Again, though, we're talking a lot of work. I've been keeping this blog fairly regularly for about two years now, and I've got maybe thirty readers - probably more like twenty. The thing is, I don't need to reach you already - unless I lose you, I've got you. If I posted tomorrow with a sample chapter of my self-published e-reader friendly novel, I predict that most of you would read it.

There are other problems with self-publishing short stories on my blog. Let's say I just up and posted The Dead of Tetra Manna, a story I've been having a hard time finding a market for. For that post to net me new readers - which is what I'd need to do to use this blog as a platform to build my writing career - someone would need to read that story, like it, and then pass it along to a friend. That friend would then need to read the story and not only like it, but like it well enough to become a regular reader him or herself. This could happen - it probably has happened - but it isn't likely. There are too many intermediary steps between post and follower during which the signal can be lost. How many times have you heard, read, or heard of something interesting, thought to yourself "I should follow that dude's blog," and then failed to follow through? That's why after two years of fairly steady blogging, I'm still at only about thirty readers.

Compare this to The Dead of Tetra Manna finding a place in a traditional, online, or podcast magazine. Nearly every reader or listener is not already someone who follows my blog. Let's say Podcastle bought The Dead of Tetra Manna. Podcastle has at least several thousand listeners (possibly more), almost none of which already know who I am. If even one percent of them become followers of my blog, I'm golden.

I have data to back this up. When the Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine bought The Invisible Kingdom, my blog experienced the single largest boost since the Abigail started reading and my readership went from "zero" to "one." I started with about ten readers and ended with the thirty or so I have today, a 300% increase.

Add to this the fact that most magazines won't take a short story that has been posted for free, but you can always post something for free after it's been published, after a suitable delay, and you see why it's important to pursue external publication for short pieces. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that seeking external publication for short fiction is an important step in building the base for successful self-publishing.

Finally, podcasts.

Well done podcast magazines, braided anthologies, and novels attract a lot of attention very quickly. I could, in theory, begin a series of podcast stories or create a podcast version of Knights of the Land. I have frequently mention the excellent Guild of the Cowry Catchers, and I have listened to, enjoyed (and in some cases, posted about and reviewed, many others). I have great reverence for podcasters. I am not ready to be one.

In my other life (note that I didn't write "day job") I am a middle school science teacher. Teaching middle school isn't a job. It isn't even a career. Three jobs, two careers, and membership in a secret assassin clan just barely begins to scrape the surface of how much physical, mental, and emotional work this is. Physical, mental, and emotional giants like Chris Lester of Metamor City can manage teaching and podcasting at the same time - and even he's trailed off lately - but I know my limits. Perhaps there will be a day that I can teach all day, podcast all night, sleep while I drive, and write while I sleep. Until I figure out how to do that and not die (or, alternately, get better at teaching so it takes less of my time), though, podcasting is not for me.

So, where does all that leave me?

Hopefully, right where I am.

I know who I am and what I want. I am not a Mur Lafferty or an Abigail Hilton. I don't, at this point in my life, have that kind of drive or organization, and I don't want to be a full time writer. I have a more than full time career that I love. What I want is to keep slogging away, working on novels, writing short stories, and building my base. Some day, when I attract the attention of an agent and a publisher, I can pare off some of the time I already have for writing - weekends, vacations, the entire freakin' summer - for book tours and hardcore marketing. The rest of the time I can balance between the work I love and the work I also love.

I hope this post isn't too long or too vehement, but I spend a lot of time consuming I Should Be Writing, Dave Thompson's livejournal, and other writerly outlets. Being an ~~loud~~ opinionated person, I can't help but want to comment. And what is the Internet for if not conversation?

Well, porn. Conversation and porn.

Until next time, the Zeppelin lives and lets live, and you should, too.

Progress?

2011-05-03T10:10:00.001-07:00

I am singularly ill-suited to proctoring tests. If I'm not totally engaged with a cerebral task, I hate sitting still - I'm probably more than a little ADHD - and proctoring isn't engaging or cerebral, and it barely counts as a task. It's the worst and most "bastard-love-child-of-babysitting-and-being-a-prison-guard" part of teaching. It doesn't help that I was out sick yesterday, my sub was apparently awful, and one of the power sockets died in the night, causing the turtle tank to be without filtration for about eight hours. Anyone who has ever kept red-eared sliders can tell you how much of a problem that is.

Seriously, if there are creatures that produce more poop than red-eared sliders, I don't want to know about it.

Anyway, the combination of state tests, whining children, and pooping turtles puts me in a mind to talk about rejection letters, so that's what I'm going to do.

Right before I began my teaching career, I began a project to see if I could acquire fifty (or more!) rejection letters over the course of a year. The logic is that I can't make them buy my story, but I can make them give me a rejection letter, and as long as I'm getting rejections, I'm sending out stories, and as long as I'm sending out stories, I'm working on my craft, putting myself out there, and making a sale more likely. Abruptly developing a career put a serious crimp in this plan, and I've only managed to net one acceptance and ten rejections, but that's eleven brand new steps into writing, so I'm not complaining.

For a while there, I was also posting the rejection letters with the serial numbers filed off. I stopped doing that when I read some horror stories about publishers taking offense. It was harmless, fun post fodder - I wasn't offended by the rejection letters; in fact, I only ever commented about how polite and helpful my rejectors were - but it wasn't worth risking my writing career over.

I recently got an incredibly classy rejection letter - my tenth! - from Abyss & Apex. The jist of it was this: "your story is well written and made it all the way through the slush process to reach my desk, but it isn't to my liking; good luck placing it elsewhere and do try again with something new."

Over the course of my...

[Time to walk around the room and gaze balefully - but also encouragingly? - at students]

Over the course of my writing career so far, I've noticed an overall pattern to my rejection letters. There are fits and starts, leaps forward and leaps back, but the story goes something like this:

Form rejection, signed by the editor but with no indication that it is from an actual editor, or even an actual human being.
Rejection with encouragement and commentary, signed by an editor.
The "good story, but not to my taste" rejection, from an editor.

I wonder, is this progress? I have the feeling that it is.

In step one, I was clearly getting rejected by slush readers. In step two, I was reaching editors, who rejected my stories because of quality issues. Now, in step three, I'm reaching editors who can't find anything "wrong" with my writing - they just didn't like the story.

This means that instead of writing mediocre stories, I'm writing good stories and sending them to the wrong magazines, or the right magazines on the wrong days, or the right magazines at the same day as someone whose stories was even better.

Clearly, even if this means something it doesn't mean a heck of a lot.

I also shouldn't take this to mean that I'm entitled to any particular kind of...

[Stop whispering to each other! This is a state test - do you want to get your butt suspended?]

I also shouldn't take this to mean that I'm entitled to any particular kind of rejection letter. Just because I feel like I'm mostly in step three doesn't mean that I'm not going to get a form rejection once in a while. If I get all discouraged (or worse, grumpy) when I do, then it's going to crimp my style.

What it does mean is that I'm making progress, and that's never a bad thing.

That's a pretty positive conclusion for a post that started with turtle poop, don't you think?

Varmints

2011-04-12T11:49:00.000-07:00

Just a quick post today. I recently stumbled (I was googling "lizard men" for no discernable reason, if you must know) upon Creaturespot, a blog full of pictures of creatures, contributed by a large and (I believe) shifting cast of fantasy concept artists. There are computer generated images, scanned artwork, and photographs of sculptures. Some artists post works in progress as well. Here and there are even images you might recognize from video games and the covers of books.

I just finished reading the back-posts, and it's great fun. I can recommend the site without reservation, and it might even appear on our blogroll soon.

Until next time, watch out for the rare Zeppelinsaurus.

Viva Las Zeppelin

2011-04-11T11:17:00.000-07:00

So, if you're wondering why I fell off the grid this weekend, this is why. Recently (as referenced previously), I completed the PACT, an extremely big deal teacher assessment that determines my fate as a teacher forever. The Abigail was incredibly supportive throughout this process. Friday, however, was her crowning achievement. I rushed home, believing that I was going to take the Abigail to a doctor's appointment (since the untimely death of her car, we've had to do that a lot). Almost as soon as I arrived, the Abigail gave me this:

Once upon a time there was a young wizard. And this young wizard wanted very badly to teach children how to be wizards too. He knew that very often, the children of the gnomes, the dwarves and other unpopular races weren’t taught how to use magic very well, or sometimes not at all. He was passionate about making sure that everyone got to learn magic.

The young wizard spent nearly two years teaching children how to use magic. He inspired them daily with the wonder of it. But perhaps the most important wonder of all was how much the young wizard loved the children he taught. Whether they were humans, gnomes, or even elves, the magic of the young wizard’s love made them greater than they had been before.

But one day the young wizard was confronted by an old, grouchy wizard.

“What are you doing teaching those children? You don’t have a permit!” said the old wizard. The old wizard went on to tell him that he thought there should be a law against wizards without permits teaching magic to children.

The young wizard had known that a permit was required, but such was his passion and his love that he had not cared. He wanted to teach right now. But he understood that people like the old wizard cared about things like permits, and that it might someday affect his ability to teach magic to children. So, he decided to get a permit.

The young wizard spent months trying to get his permit. It was an absurd process. He was forced to demonstrate how he could use his magic to jump through a series of flaming hoops in the sky.

“What does this have to do with teaching magic to children?” asked the young wizard.

“You’ll understand when you’re older,” the old wizard replied.

Next, the young wizard had to write in great detail about how he had jumped through these hoops. He had to cite his sources in enormous, yellowing books of ancient magic theory that had nothing to do with what he was teaching the children.

“What does this have to do with teaching magic to children?” asked the young wizard.

“Be quiet if you want to pass the test,” the old wizard replied.

Finally, the young wizard had to teach the children how to do a special magic task, determining what was inside a chicken with their powers. Then, he showed the other wizards how he did it.

“But I’ve been doing this for two years!” the young wizard complained.

“They shouldn’t let young wizards teach until they know how to write about it!” the old wizard replied.

Finally, after months and months of work, the young wizard sent his work off to be graded by the magic examiners. And he was able to rest.

But now the young wizard was tired. He had no energy to teach the children anymore. While he still loved them very much, his passion was diminished by his difficult, absurd task. The young wizard was afraid that the magic of his love was weakened by his exhaustion, and by all the magic he had used to jump through those burning hoops.

Now, the young wizard had a wife, who was also very wise. His wife knew a different kind of magic. She saw that the young wizard was suffering, and she knew what she had to do. While the young wizard was at work, his wife prepared a special spell. One day when he came home, she was ready.

“I’ve packed you a bag,” she told him. “Make sure I have all the right robes and supplies. We’re flying away tonight, in about half an hour. We’ll be back in plenty of time for you to teach your children on Monday.”

And the young wizard fed his pet dragon, packed his books and papers, and prepared for his mysterious journey.

When the young wizard and his wife were preparing to fly away, the young wizard asked his wife again: “Where are we going?”

Then she smiled. “We’re going to a magic land where no matter what you do, nobody but but me will ever find out. We’re going to the magic land of Vegas.”

So, that's where I was this weekend. There was no doctor's appointment; there was, however, a supershuttle. And tickets. To Vegas.

The Abigail is the best wife ever.

Latin name: Unicornis

2011-04-06T13:54:00.000-07:00

You know what doesn't get enough attention? Unicorns.

Maybe it's just me - I watched The Last Unicorn so many times I'm surprised I can't recite the thing from memory - but I remember when unicorns were all over the place. The wicked and selfish hunted for them, the virtuous basked in their presence. I read short stories about unicorns and books that featured unicorns, and I generally thought they were pretty awesome.

Then, it all seemed to dry up.

The problem seems to be twofold. Firstly, along with talking horses and magical soulmates, unicorns have been relegated to "girl" books. This is silly, because like talking horses and magical soulmates there is nothing inherently gendered about unicorns.

Unless you're talking about a given unicorn's particular gender, or something. I mean, I guess there are boy unicorns and girl unicorns - otherwise where would baby unicorns come from? Unless unicorns reproduce parthenogenetically. Do you think they reproduce through spores? Budding? Ew. Or do they just get pregnant? And if so, do they have to have mock sex, like the so-called lesbian lizards (link is safe, I swear)?

Right. Back on topic.

So half the problem is clearly sexism. If unicorns are girl stuff, and girl stuff is unworthy, then unicorns are unworthy and don't get into mainstream fantasy. This is clearly bullshit, but it explains more than it doesn't.

Before I explain the second thing that seems to me to have driven unicorns out of modern fantasy (and, obviously, into the sea), I need to explain what it is that makes unicorns quite so cool.

In addition to being great big horses with horns (because almost everything is cooler with horns), unicorns represent virtue and purity as active, almost aggressive. This is not virtue that gets despoiled - this is virtue that stabs you in the face if you mess with it. This is virtue as a force of nature. This is why Dan Lacey's paintings of a naked Barack Obama astride a unicorn made perfect sense to me, and were such an internet sensation.

It sometimes seems to me that modern fantasy has lost interest in virtue. We like antiheroes, non-heroes, villains, and complications. We like to watch our heroes suffer, compromise, and fail. We don't want Frodo and Sam, whose love and friendship saved the world while armies clashed needlessly outside the Black Gate. We don't want Thomas Covenant, who laughed god's evil brother to death. Or, at least, we don't want them quite as much as I do. We want things more like the work of Brandon Sanderson (which I like, by the way), in which cleverness, alliance, and skill at arms (or magic, or geometry, or whatever) win the day.

Though, as the Abigail pointed out in conversation, this may also be a gendered issue. The Abigail was able to list several recent fantasy novels marketed for women and girls in which virtue (or love, or some other positive passion) is the defining engine of victory.

Anyway, I want more unicorns, more friendship, and more evil gods laughed to death in my fantasy. I like it when virtue lifts up its head (or lowers its horn) and takes action. If you do, too, let me know in the comments.

And by the way, if you agree that there isn't enough about unicorns out there, then the Abigail tells me to recommend Rampant by Diana Peterfreund and Zombies vs Unicorns, an anthology. I have read neither of these (yet), but the Abigail has and I trust her judgement.

Until next time, the Zeppelin is hoping that if it's careful enough when talking about books it hasn't read yet Diane Duane might someday forgive it.

Arise and Go Get McDonalds

2011-04-01T10:15:00.000-07:00

I the comments to this failed creative prompt post, one of my new readers requested something related to the content of earlier editions of D&D. While I'm still failing to think of anything related to 3.5e and earlier D&D, here's something spinning of the D&D franchise as a whole:

Tell me about resurrection.

The rules are (or at least seem to be) exactly the same as D&D. For the right price, a sufficiently powerful spellcaster (and there is no shortage of those) can bring the dead back to life. The dead person must agree to be brought back, which means that good people who lived full lives and have gone on to whatever reward awaits them are usually fine with staying dead, bad people are eager to escape, and heroes usually come back, but might take death as an excuse to retire from the whole painful, messy business. Being brought back to life costs you something, but it's something you can regain with time and rest.

I want to hear about the deeper consequences of this idea. What kinds of cultural and artistic quirks would develop, given this "technology?" Basically, I want to hear what you come up with when you attack the idea of fantasy resurrection with the rigor usually reserved for science fiction. Bonus points for truly original ideas. You get docked points for falling back on tired old standbies, though if the idea has legs it'll still walk.

Go.

The Direction of the Zeppelin

2011-03-30T08:51:00.000-07:00

After the some of the discussion of blogs on the latest I Should be Writing podcast, I've been thinking about making a minor course correction for the Burning Zeppelin, and I wanted to give my reader(s) a chance to comment.

In her podcast, the inestimable Mur Lafferty comments that, in that they are a platform, blogs should be about the author as well as her work. In other words, I shouldn't just post about stories, ideas, my takes on writing, and so on, but also about my life, my day, and the thousands of small victories and challenges that make me (and my writing) who (and what) I (and it) am (are?).

On the other hand, the Burning Zeppelin Experience was founded to explore a certain kind of fiction in literary, visual, and experiential (that is, roleplaying) form. I don't want to stray too far from my roots here.

Full disclosure here: in my other existence, I have what I think is a pretty interesting life. I'm a teacher in an inner city school and my wife, the Abigail, is a counselor who specializes in trauma, especially bullied and traumatized kids. I have strong, and in some cases iconoclastic, opinions about widely varied issues, and I'm not afraid to speak my mind about them (or, get up at a ridiculous hour and campaign about them). If I open the Burning Zeppelin Experience up to posts about my real life, you aren't going to be deluged by "my sandwich was great today; how about yours?" posts.

I don't eat many sandwiches, anyway.

So, what do you think? Do you want to read about my other life as a teacher, husband, friend, and dude? Or shall we keep it strictly professional here on the Burning Zeppelin Experience? Your comments have the power to influence me this way or that, so don't be shy. Comment away!

INS of the Father

2011-03-29T07:03:00.000-07:00

As you probably already know, my friend Nathan has his own bog, Mirrorshards, where he posts a daily 100 word story.

If you don't already read Mirrorshards (dude, what's wrong with you?) you don't know that today's piece is particularly clever. Check it out.

Dugger

2011-03-25T08:41:00.000-07:00

Back when he lived in Palo Alto, my friend Ben (originally a high school friend of the Abigail's) used to throw awesome cheese parties. These parties were so named (by me) because Ben has excellent taste in cheese. He loved to share his expertise, and would bring excellent cheeses to all parties, making them all into awesome cheese parties.

Ben moved to DC and took his cheese with him. I miss Ben.

Incidentally, you can find Ben here, doing surreal photocomics that I can't recommend heartily enough.

But I digress.

The point of this story was that it was at one such awesome cheese party that I first saw Digger on someone else's computer. That was back at the dawn of Digger when it was still a paysite, which is probably why it took me five more years to start reading the comic for myself. I did, however, eventually start reading Digger, and I've never regretted it.

Digger, by Ursula Vernon (whose other work can be found at the eponymously named ursulavernon.com), tells the story of an extremely lost wombat named (oddly enough) Digger who finds herself embroiled in an epochs-old conflict between god and demon, priest and hyena, oracular slug and fierce shrew highwaywoman.

Everything about comic is excellent: the art is creepy and fantastical, the setting is deeply weird and subtly explicated, and all of its inhabitants are wonderfully eccentric and fully realized people (even if some of them are hyena people). The character of Digger herself is really what carries the comic, however. In this brave little wombat, Vernon combines cynicism and idealism, compassion and pragmatism, and genre-savvy and dimensionality in a way that is uniquely endearing and compelling.

I'm also partial to hyena people, myself.

Despite being a webcomic about talking animal people, Digger is also surprisingly deep. It deals with issues of culture and ethics as well as even larger issues of fate, faith, and freedom, with surprising depth. And that's not "surprising for a comic about talking animal people," that's "surprising, period." I've had shallower from philosophy courses in college.

You may have noticed the past tense in this post's title. Not only is that because I am scorchingly, unbearably clever; it's also because Digger is over. Like all good things, it finally came to its conclusion. It's sad, sweet, and strange conclusion.

The entirety of Digger is still up for you to read, however, and I recommend you do it. Now.

Until next time, remember tunnel 17, and remember Ed.

This Just Zeppelin!

2011-03-22T20:56:00.000-07:00

AKA: Blatant Zeppelin-Mongering

You may recall that some time ago I posted my review of Brandon Sanderson's excellent Mistborn series? You may have also heard that Sanderson is working with Crafty Games to produce a Mistborn roleplaying game. However, if you aren't listening to the excellent (relatively) new Ace of Geeks podcast, you probably haven't heard this (the news is also available at Crafty Games' website, along with other information, I'm sure).

If you've ever wondered how many links I can fit into a single paragraph, now you know.

Anyway, if you don't want to follow the link and listen to the entire episode (which is understandable, since Ace of Geeks follows the "meander at length about awesome stuff" model of podcasting, so if what you're after is the news I'm talking about you'll probably be frustrated), the news is this: the Mistborn RPG will use the FATE system originally popularized by Evil Hat's Spirit of the Century.

And you thought I was done with links.

This is excellent news. I don't know anything about Crafty Games, except that they are the makers of SpyCraft and FantasyCraft, both games I know absolutely nothing about. What I do know a lot about is FATE. I've read and loved a lot of games based on FATE, including Legends of Anglerre, for which I've written my own setting. FATE is an excellent system, one I think is particularly suited to the world of Mistborn.

In any case, my level of anticipation for this game just, ah, gained a level. I'm really eager to get my paws on this thing and run the heck out of it.

Before I depart for the evening, I'd like to throw a shout-out at Ace of Geeks. This is an extremely solid podcast, full of cleverness and fun. The hosts are both my kind of people: clever, smart, open-minded, socially conscious, and extremely nerdy. They have the most important quality of all podcasts: fun. Not that they're fun to listen to - which they are - but that they're clearly having so much fun podcasting. It really rubs off. One of the hosts, Mike, also plays D&D with me at the local Borders. I really enjoy Ace of Geeks, and I'm willing to bet you will, too.

If you are an obsessive archive-trawler (like me), be warned: the early episodes, before the Aces bought new microphones, are a bit... rough. I found some of them very hard to listen to. If you are less deaf - or less commuting in an increasingly loud car that probably needs a tune-up - than I, you might very well have no difficulties. Anyway, the most recent episode is completely audible at all times. I look forward to watching this podcast continue to grow and improve, as all things do.

And that's it for tonight. Until next time, folks, how exactly does one mong a zeppelin?

Creative Prompt, Take II

2011-03-17T17:03:00.000-07:00

Ok, I guess the D&D fans aren't out there.

Instead, give me this, somewhat more generically fantastic thing:

Tell me the story of a world in which a god associated with a generally malevolent phenomenon is viewed as a benevolent force. The more negative the phenomenon, the more genuine the god's benevolence, the more points you win. The who, what, where, when, why, and how are entirely up to you.

Go?

Please?

Creative Prompt, 4th Edition

2011-03-15T07:08:00.000-07:00

To all my D&D fans (I know you're out there):

Tell me about the Astral Chaos.

Tell me about the Elemental Sea.

Go.

A-NO-nymous

2011-03-12T10:40:00.000-08:00

It's common wisdom - as I understand it - that what every writer needs is a good crit group, full of people who don't know you, don't care about you, and are perfectly willing to tear your work to shreds, sparing not a thought for your feelings. The internet is great for this sort of thing, as are groups that meet in coffee shops. Don't show your work to your friends and family, because they'll be too kind to you. Presumably, also, be wary of becoming friends with your anonymous crit group, lest they start to love you and also begin sparing your feelings.

Honestly, I call bullshit.

First of all, there are stories like the one mentioned in a recent episode of I Should Be Writing: crit groups turned mutual appreciation societies. I've heard of this happening again and again, both online and in real life. It seems to me that there is a powerful tendency in writer's groups to develop toxic social norms. Real criticism is unsafe and frowned upon; only bland positive feedback is permitted.

Secondly, there's my personal experience. My alpha reader is the Abigail, a former English major and avid consumer of short and long science fiction and fantasy (well, mostly fantasy). My alpha and a half reader (in that he lives across the Internet and usually doesn't get to my work until after the Abigail has had a crack at it) is Nathaniel Lee, of Mirrorshards. My beta readers are the aspiring writers of the Escape Artists' writer's forum (it's hidden on their regular forum - you need to message a moderator to join). Of the three, only the folks at EA even resemble an anonymous and disinterested group. Most importantly, I have had no difficulty getting cutting negative feedback from the Abigail and Nathan when it's appropriate.

I know that single exceptions don't actually disprove established rules, so I'm going to provide the mechanism by which my system works:

Because most people are basically nice, only someone who really cares about you will tell you when you suck. Getting someone to tell you when you suck is even harder when they know that you are going to get a turn telling them that they suck. This is how mutual appreciation societies form - everyone is afraid to be the one to give negative feedback because they don't want to be the first to receive negative feedback. Norms form (as they will) until negativity is outlawed.
Not all feedback is created equal. With all due respect to my beta readers, I usually get the best and most useful feedback from Nathan and the Abigail. They are both intelligent, tasteful, talented, and beautiful (well, the Abigail anyway) (Nathan - imagine me sticking my tongue out at you). I know them, I trust them, and they tend to have more useful and specific things to say.
I've found it especially true that people who get me get my work and people who don't, don't. When the point of a story is obscure or poorly communicated, people who understand me are more likely to understand what I'm going for and help me draw it out. People who don't understand me are more likely to completely miss the point and give me feedback that sends me in the wrong direction. I'll concede that an audience who can miss the point this way is important, because I need to know if my point is that hard to get... but when it comes to getting me back on track, it's the people who know me who can lead the way.
Finally, and relatedly, relationship is key. Readers who know me and know what I find interesting can make much more cutting and perceptive comments. The Abigail knows when I'm shying away from a decision I'm excited about but afraid my audience won't get. Nathan isn't afraid to point out when I'm being too nice to my characters. In my experience, this insight is priceless.

Now is the time on the Burning Zeppelin Experience when I undermine my own point with concessions to the very thing I'm railing against.

Firstly, I do believe that there is a time and a place for an anonymous crit group. It is incredibly useful to have a group of people, hooked in to some kind of feedback mechanism, who can let you know what an audience is going to make of your work. After all, not everyone is going to be as intelligent, tasteful, talented, and beautiful as the Abigail (and Nathan). Not everyone is going to know me as well, either.

Secondly, I also know that I have lucked the heck out. I'm married to a former English major, with whom I share a love of fantastic fiction and roleplaying games (in fact, I'd better wrap this post up so I can finish planning our next Exalted session...). I have a college buddy who is a talented writer, but in such a way that he is my complementary inverse (rather than being so different we have nothing to say to each other or so similar we share all the same foibles). Not everyone is going to be so fortunate.

That said...

I can't help but set myself up against the common wisdom. I think that alpha and beta readers who understand you, care about you, and relate to your work are absolutely indispensable, much more so than an anonymous or distant crit group.

Until next time, remember, that Zeppelin stands alone.

Funk Over?

2011-03-10T08:54:00.000-08:00

So, I was going to post last night, but I hadn't had a chance to work on anything for Trump III: The High Priestess. I was too busy working on The Corpse-Eater in Love, the first of two story ideas I've had in the last two days (the second hasn't got a title yet, or I'd tease you with that, too).

Yeah.

I think the funk might be over. Rather than depress myself anew over this, I'm going to suspend this little blog project until the next time I need an artificial creativity structure. Don't worry, I won't forget.

This brief interlude is brought to you by love-struck ghouls, magical brain parasites, and the color zeppelin.

The Zeppelin Bureau

2011-03-08T08:43:00.000-08:00

Last night, despite PACTing, teaching, job and budget woes, the Abigail and I went to see a movie. Specifically, we went to see "The Adjustment Bureau", a new film featuring the talents of Matt Damon and a wide variety of other entertainment industry personalities that I, philistine that I am, don't know from Adam. The movie tells that story of David Norris, a Senate hopeful whose chances are dashed by a single bad choice coming home to roost. The Adjustment Team is also a short story by Phillip K. Dick (the full text of the original story is available here).

I don't want to write too much. So much of this story rests in the suspense, in the starts and stops of the central unlikely and ill-fated romance that I'm genuinely afraid of spoiling it for you. I will tease you by saying that "The Adjustment Bureau" reminded me of In Nomine, Demon: the Fallen, and Exalted's Sidereals, all of which it added to and compared to favorably.

I will say this: I recommend this movie without reservation.

I will also say this: The creators of this movie do things with the use of space, light, color, and camera angle that make me keenly aware of the limitations of the written word. They literally took my breath away. I got it back, but it was close there.

I will finally say this: "The Adjustment Bureau" defines and redefines the idea of a Burning Zeppelin Experience.

So, go see "The Adjustment Bureau."

Until next time, folks, the Zeppelin would like to remind you that everything is going according to plan.

Presenting: Thetis

2011-03-02T09:42:00.000-08:00

As part of my continued efforts to turn off the funk, I now bring you Thetis, a world of nautical high fantasy. Based on part on some ideas provided by the Abigail and partly on some ideas of my own creation, Thetis is a world of ancient mysteries, seafaring mutants, and crazy alchemists. I think you'll enjoy it.

Oh, and the Abigail - follow that link! It leads to an improved and updated version of the document I emailed you last night.

Also, a pdf. Thanks Google Docs!

Anyway, I can hear you saying: "dude, why are you giving us an RPG setting for Trump One: the Magician?" You sound annoyed, confused, and a little congested. You might be coming down with something, and should try to get some sleep tonight to see if you can kick it.

I have two reasons.

Firstly, Thetis has several themes in common with the Magician: mystery, exploration, and the struggle to balance (or conquer) the occult with the rational. Of course, Thetis also has the aforementioned seafaring mutants. I'm pretty sure there aren't any seafaring mutants in the Magician.

Secondly, Thetis uses an adaptation of Cubicle 7's Legends of Anglerre (itself an adaptation of Evil Hat's FATE system, which first hit the market as Spirit of the Century), making it a drift rather than a purely original creation. There is something about the art of drifting and hacking that has always reminded me of the Magician, a kind of arcane virtuosity. To drift and hack, you manipulate obscure variables, pulling some themes forward into the light and pushing others back into the shadow.

As above, so below; as the themes, so the dice.

I'm going to take that as my cue to wish you adieu. Until next time, folks, sing it with me: "hey, ho, the wind and the Zeppelin!"

We Wished You a Merry Zeppelin

2011-02-23T14:57:00.001-08:00

The day before yesterday I wrote to recommend Chris Lester's wonderful Metamor City. Today - it must be karma - Lester posted the final chapters of his A Lightbringer Carol. The novella ended as powerfully as it began, and then some, with a conclusion that I won't spoil for you (not even you, Jon - long story).

Before I move on, I wanted to pass on to you something that occurred to me this morning: if you're new to Metamor City, it's my opinion that you should not begin with A Lightbringer Carol. The novella is wonderful, but full effect depends on prior knowledge of the main character and his relationships. I recommend that you go back and listent to the earlier episodes - especially those tagged "Janus" - to really get the impact of the events of this story.

Of course, once you've done that, you'll probably end up listening to the rest of the series. That's my evil plan.

Anyway, that's enough of me for now. Until next time, always remember to look both ways before you cross the zeppelin.

Actually, you know what? Just don't cross the zeppelin. It's safer that way.

Turn Off the Funk, Part One: The Fool

2011-02-22T10:56:00.000-08:00

As I promised last week, content! This week's card is The Fool, and this week's content is a little flash, by me, for you.

The Fool’s Errand
By Mark L.S. Stone

“This is ridiculous,” Jeff said.

Frank shrugged. They both heard what might have been low laughter, but might have been the sound of pigeons taking wing.

“Seriously, what the fuck?

Frank shrugged again and gulped down the last of his coffee. He tossed the empty paper cup aside and started dragging the two unconscious, tied-together men into the back of the police car.

“You gonna help out or what?”

Jeff put his own cup on top of the squad car end grabbed one end of the bundled perps.

“Since when,” Jeff huffed, “do we have a superhero?”

“He’s not a superhero,” Frank replied. “He’s a masked vigilante.”

“Same fucking difference.”

Somewhere in the distance, a little dog yapped.

The two cops finished wrestling the unconscious men into the back of the squad car.

“It’s not going to do any good, anyway. These guys will wake up and deny everything.”

Frank shook his head. “Nope. They’ll confess. Always do.”

Frank slid into the squad car and turned the ignition. As the engine hummed to life, Jeff paused to retrieve his coffee. For a moment Jeff thought he saw someone standing across the street.
He was tall and slender, with wind-tossed blond hair and a long-nosed harlequin mask covering the upper part of his face He had a rose in one hand. A small white dog crouched at his side.

Jeff blinked, and the man was gone. Jeff shook his head and got into the passenger seat.

“What are they calling this guy?” Jeff asked.

“The Fool,” Frank replied.

“The Fool, huh? Well, fuck me.”

Metamor City (Belatedly) Takes on Christmas...

2011-02-21T11:25:00.001-08:00

... and the Burning Zeppelin Experience (belatedly) reviews it.

First of all, what is Metamor City? A braided anthology podcast of short stories, novellas, and full-on novels set in a post-industrial fantasy, a world of sword and sorcery all grown up. From the very first episode we are introduced to a universe where vampires, elves, communist psychics, and people transformed by an ancient curse that still lingers on the city live side by side, and become embroiled in corporate intrigues, police dramas, and occult investigations. Some of the stories are produced in the traditional single-reader style, but many of the stories and all of the novels are full-cast audio productions, complete with sound effects and music. The production values are incredibly high, on par with anything else I've heard on the internet and better than most.

Metamor City's writing is also very good. In my highly amateur opinion, Chris Lester is a promising up-and-comer; like yours truly, he's got some work to do to hone his craft to professional levels, but he's definitely fun to listen to in the meantime. His stories are fun, his characters are compelling, and the world they live in is incredibly deep, dense, and dynamic (as well as other good words beginning with the letter "d").

Another interesting thing to consider about Metamor City is the "braided" in "braided anthology." Not all the stories here are by Chris Lester! So far, the podcast has run at least one story by others in the podcast community - as well as a story that Chris Lester wrote for another podcast - and promises to run more stories set in Metamor City (in fact, I've got an idea I've been kicking around my head and might eventually get to writing down and sending to Lester... eventually). It isn't that a Metamor City listener needs or wants a break from Lester's writing, but the change of style and perspective is definitely refreshing, and brings a lot to the podcast.

One warning: Metamor City is not for the faint of earbuds. There's a definite adult spin to many of the stories. The inhabitants of Metamor City have sex, use foul language, and end up in some extremely unpleasant and disturbing situations. There are scenes that some people will call pornographic, and at least two stories (one a Metamor City story written by a contributor) are openly fantasy erotica. Lester does a very good job of making the degree of explicit content clear in the intro, so the self-censoring can go to town. Nonetheless, I don't recommend Metamor City to anyone who would be bothered by writers getting sex in their fantasy, or fantasy in their sex.

I was going somewhere with all this: the recent production of Chris Lester's A Lightbringer Carol, a Metamor City novella that began shortly after Christmas and continues to this day (alas, due to slow release rather than length). I'm singling A Lightbringer Carol out for special attention because it showcases Lester's talent for making the old and tired new and fresh. I had begun to think that A Christmas Carol - never the closest to my heart, Jew that I am - had lost all power to effect me. I've seen the movie version(s), and the muppet movie version, and listened to the Escape Pod version, and all in all, it was beginning to yawn me. But Chris Lester, with his modern fantasy tale of a hard-bitten and hard-boiled inter-dimensional priest-cop learning the true meaning of Christmas has managed to really touch me. I've listened to Stave One, Stave Two, Stave Three, and I'm eagerly awaiting Stave Four.

And you should be, as well.

Until next time, folks, watch out for vampire street gangs and remember that implantable amulets are definitely the way to go.

The Transition is Complete

2011-02-15T17:15:00.000-08:00

I have (finally) figured out how to change the ownership of this blog, such that I, Mark L.S. Stone is its owner and operator, as opposed to my former identity, Mark Simmons. At last, I can post without logging in and out. Also, your comments will now be emailed to my new email address - you guys are going to comment lots, right?

Right?

Ahem. Anyway.

One of the things done by my podcasting idol (as in idol who podcasts, not idol in podcasting, because in case you haven't noticed this is definitely not a podcast) Mur Lafferty of I Should Be Writing fame is the self-critical update. It's been a while since I've told me adoring fan(s) where I'm at, so here we go.

Thus far, this has been a very good year for writing - and by "year" I mean "school year." I've actually managed to revise one story to the point that I'm ready to send it out, write another - one I'm really proud of - from scratch, earn two rejection letters, and actually get a story published in an awesome podcast magazine. I hope to see more of the same, but that's not actually the best news I've got to report.

The best news is that the Abigail and I have talked, and we have decided that we can afford for me to write full time in the summers, as opposed to teaching summer school to make ends meet. This year might be a sad exception, but that is a shape to my life that I could definitely enjoy. It also means that I may soon be facing the challenges of full time professional writing for months at a time; I'll be sure to blog all about it.

Now, on to the less good news.

Personally, I'm in a bit of a deep blue funk right now. Ah, screw it - I'm full on depressed. My life and lifestyle aren't in danger, but it's definitely put me off my game, in teaching, writing, and relationship (sorry, Abby!). I haven't written anything worth the electrons since the end of January.

Ah, well, the funk will pass. In the meantime, I'm throwing myself into this particular wall as often as possible. I may not achieve much of anything until the funk is over, but at least I'll be writing.

This brings me to my last point, my newest mad idea. Partly inspired by my own desire to climb out of my funk, partly inspired by the Abigail's fascination with 365 Blog phenomenon, and partly inspired by Matthew McFarland's brilliant Mage: the Awakening supplement Key to the Supernal Tarot (and my own long-standing fascination with Tarot), I am taking on a challenge, to last from now until my funk ends. Every week, I will post something inspired by the Major Arcana of the Tarot. In order, from the Fool to the World. I don't know if they're going to be roleplaying ideas or written content, short stories or character or location sketches. All I know is that they're going be based on the Tarot and they're going to come out once a week.

Wish me luck.

Until next time, if you can't bring on the funk, at least bring on the zeppelin.

Check it Out!

2011-01-24T08:30:00.000-08:00

My story The Invisible Kingdom has been published in The Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine. People! Who I don't already know! Experiencing my story! It's ridiculous. And there's album art and voices and music and sound effects and everything.

Direct link here.

I can't recommend the Dunesteef enough (after all, they publish such fine works of fiction). I'm very proud of myself (as the Abigail keeps on reminding me I should be), and eager to see where continuing to send out my fiction takes me.

It's Time to Face the Facts

2011-01-23T17:06:00.000-08:00

I still like D&D.

I thought my love affair with D&D ended after college, when I wished it farewell in one last fling (Sarah's WoW-inspired D&D campaign) and then threw myself fully into the more narrative games I have always preferred. My brief experimentation with True20 (Blue Rose) seemed to cement it. The world of d20s and D&D, of races and classes and levels, was no longer for me. The birth of 4e was the last nail in the coffin. The D&D I had really come into my own with - 3rd Edition and 3.5 - was gone.

As it turns out, it didn't last.

First, there were the Indie Guys on the various podcasts I listen to, who sang 4th Edition's praises as a fundamentally well-written, highly focused game. Then there was my own dry streak, when finding time to play and people to play with became extraordinarily hard. And then, out of my own curiosity, I became the recipient of a bequest of 4th edition D&D books. I joined a Dark Sun D&D game down in the peninsula, and shortly thereafter left it and joined another one that meets at my local Borders (woo hoo!). Now I've got an Amazon wishlist full of most every book they've released so far - a fair number of which I own - and it's time to admit that maybe this isn't as over as I thought it was.

What's the appeal?

This really is a very well designed game. It's very focused on a linear, have adventures and grow in power game model. It's also focused on maximizing every player's fun at every moment. Gone are the days of mages and priests benefiting from an entire chapter of rules, all for them. Now everyone has cool powers that let them enjoy the spotlight for their brief moment.

For the kind of playing I truly prefer - narrative and emotion-based storytelling - none of this is an asset. However, I have discovered that I really do enjoy 4e D&D as a tactical minis combat game, and if you don't mind having your tactical minis game interrupted by high fantasy adventure (or your high fantasy adventure spiced up with the occasional tactical minis game), D&D can produce a genuinely enjoyable experience. You banter, you deal with NPCs, you solve puzzles, and then you kick ass - wash, rinse, and repeat in whatever order you see fit. It's not gonna be high art, but it could be high adventure, and sometimes that's all you need.

I know 4th Edition D&D takes a lot of flack in some roleplaying circles. It gets accused of being too easy to play, too high-powered, too much like a computer RPG (*cough* World of Warcraft *cough*), and designed to sell books rather than to promote a genuine creative experience. To this I say: *thbthbthbt*! Ease of play is an advantage, power level is relative, and I don't care if the design sells books because the design is fun! Far more fun (do I dare I say it?) than 2nd or 3rd editions ever were (guess I do).

So, if you're looking for me on a Tuesday night, you can find me at the Stonestown Galleria Borders, kicking ass and taking names as Alexander the slightly mad summoner psion. The game I'm in is full, but what we've got here is a growing community of gamers, and I'm sure we'll find somewhere to put you.

Until next time, remember: Move, Minor, Standard, and flanking is your friend.

'Cause It's Cool

2011-01-11T10:16:00.000-08:00

I realized belatedly that I might have overstated my point in my last post, so I wanted to make something clear. There's nothing wrong with including something in your story simply because it's cool. I am a full supporter of stories that include cool things.

What I'm against is writing words just because the words are cool.

What's the distinction?

Something that's in your story has a place. It is thought out, considered, and connected to other story elements. It exists to serve the story - sometimes, simply by being cool.

Words that just happen to occupy the same page as your story are not connected. They simply exist, for their own sake rather than for the story's sake. They are selfish, disruptive, and parasitical. They take up space without contributing anything, not matter how cool they are.

For all my pontificating, I don't pretend to always know the difference between the two. Cool but parasitical words can be very good at masquerading as cool stuff. I am still a wannabe, after all. Though, I am swift to point out, I firmly believe that even when I am an actuallyis I'll still need editors and good friends to help me figure it out.

War on BAUF

2011-01-10T13:15:00.000-08:00

Hard to admit I fought the war on BAUF

My hands were tied and the phone was... BAUFed.

Ahem...

BAUF is an acronym of my own devising for a thing that I would like to see eradicated, or at the very least reduced: Business As Usual Fantasy. I'm sure you've heard me ranting about BAUF before, when it comes to fantasy species, and the prevalence of BAUF themes was my main criticism in a recent podcast novel review.

Now let us define our terms: what us BAUF?

In my opinion, the fantasy genre is plagued by a tendency to include fantasy elements for their own sake, rather than because they serve the story or contribute to the setting. It's the kind of logic that leads to elves somewhere in the world - it's a fantasy, after all - even if there are no elves or elvish works in the story itself. Worse, this is the kind of lack of thought that leads to the presence of elves even when the elves add nothing to the story.

For a relevant counter-example, check out science fiction. In science fiction, story elements are generally well-considered and weighed out, included because of what they add, not simply because it's science fiction. Space ships are usually only present in science fiction stories that need space ships - because the story takes place on an alien planet, or the social and economic effects of space travel help drive the plot, or whatever - and are absent from stories that don't. There are warlike cat-people-aliens in Larry Niven's Known Space - a seminal work of science fiction - but there aren't warlike cat-people-aliens in Carl Sagan's Contact. That's because Carl Sagan and Larry Niven both thought long and hard about what was needed to drive their stories and only included those elements that were needful.

Just to be clear, I've got nothing against orcs and dwarves, dragons and spellcasters, when they are necessary to the story. I've even gotten over my elf rage (mostly). I'm even writing a novel that includes elves as a major plot and setting piece. What I have a beef with is the practice of including these elements when they are totally extraneous. Business As Usual Fantasy. Fantasy elements that are included for no reason other than that they are expected.

So, I've explained what I mean by BAUF. But what, you ask, is the problem?

The problem with BAUF is that it's fat, pure and simple. Although I'm not always good at it - just ask everyone who critiqued The Dead of Tetra Manna in its earliest incarnations - I believe that slim and focused writing is a virtue in and of itself. Unnecessary and extraneous elements don't belong in a tightly written narrative. Readers shouldn't be distracted by stuff that doesn't need to be there. Everything you include takes attention away from everything else you include, so include as little as possible (without rendering your story completely sparse) and spend your narrative energy on what matters.

Let's keep it positive - I don't want to condemn specific works as BAUF here. Rather, let's take a little while to talk about a couple of works that are definitely not just Business As Usual.

The Guild of the Cowry Catchers (and The Prophet of Panamindorah, which I have never spelled correctly the first attempt), both excellent podcast novels by Abigail Hilton. The world of Panamindorah (I got it right!) is completely free of BAUF, and quite compelling besides.
N.K. Jemisin's The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms is exactly what I'm talking about when I ask for tightly written fantasy that only includes what it needs and excludes what it doesn't. In addition to being a tightly-written novel, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms takes place in a truly unique setting that is lean, mean, and evocative.

I'd love to see more examples of BAUF-free fantasy in the comments.

Until next time, folks, remember: go not to the elves for council, for they will say both yes and "zeppelin!"

Frickin' elves.

Free (From) Agency

2011-01-04T13:31:00.000-08:00

I've been listening to the Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine a lot lately. The podcast is distinguished in two ways: firstly, they do professional quality full-cast audio productions that are really fun to listen to, and secondly, they are still a relatively small and young non-professional market, which means that goons like me stand a snowball's chance of getting published there. Most of my other podcasts are single reader and professional or near-professional, which makes the Dunesteef a welcome change of pace.

As a sub-professional market, the Dunesteef also publishes a lot of stuff by relatively inexperienced writers, which has given me the opportunity to notice something interesting. Many writers - myself included - siaplt a fondness for what I call the "Agency Hook." While the Agency Hook is a venerable tradition and has spawned numerous popular books and television shows, there are problems with it, and reasons that inexperienced writers find it so attractive.

I can hear you asking me: dude, what the hell are you talking about?

The Agency Hook works like this: the main character(s) are operatives of some organization who sends them out to do its bidding. The characters might be cops, soldiers, FBI agents, part of a secret cult, or members of some shadowy and clandestine bureau. Almost invariably, there are problems of organizational politics, bureaucratic incompetence, and secret agendas. Famous examples of the Agency Hook include Mission Impossible, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., The Avengers, and many other spy shows and movies.

The advantages of the Agency Hook are manifold. The agency at issue can provide numerous premises; want your characters to go anywhere, do anything? The agency sent them! Need a complication? From agency politics and antagonistic superiors to simple disorganization and stupidity, the possibilities are nearly endless.

So, then, what's the problem?

In the hands of an inexperienced writer (or, for that matter, someone who just made a mistake), the Agency Hook can have the side effect of deprotagonizing the protagonists (which is never a good idea). Put bluntly, (in my opinion), when a main character is only doing what he does for someone else's reasons, what you have on your hands is a dead fish of a story. Characters are good when they take charge of their destinies and make both interesting decisions and interesting mistakes (or, alternately, dramatically fail to take charge of their destinies, which is itself an interesting mistake).

In my mind, the best way to make sure you're using the Agency Hook and not the Agency Crutch is to carefully examine your story. Is your character personally, deeply, passionately involved in what he does, or is he only doing it because it's orders? Does your character have a unique style that shines through the narrative, or is he simply falling into the role of Yet Another [Insert Organization Here] Agent (or - and this is harder to spot - Yet Another Archetypically Styled [Insert Organization Here] Agent. Spooky FBI Dude, anyone)?

I've kind of moved away from the Agency Hook these days - not because it's universally bad, but because it doesn't really interest me right now. I'm finding it more interesting to explore character who act wholly on their passions and experiences rather than being tangled in an organization that dictates their actions. That said, I still engage with the Agency Hook - anyone who's ever run or played a White Wolf game, especially the old World of Darkness, plays with the Agency Hook - so I'm definitely not condemning it. I'm just saying that it has its flaws, and you should remain cognizant of them.

That's all for now. Until next time, remember that orders are orders, and if you've got a problem with that you should take it up with the boss.

New Year's Cleaning

2011-01-02T03:20:00.000-08:00

I'll probably reflect on the writing of 2010 at some point, but we here at the Burning Zeppelin Experience have never been bound by standards of punctuality, how have we? What I want to write about this year is writerly organization.

You see, I was recently lucky enough to buy myself a new computer (a MacBook, by the way, which means that we will see the return of the •, which is remarkably hard to type on a PC, you know). As I was (slowly, laboriously, via flash drive) migrating stuff from my old computer(s), I realized that my computer organization system sucks. My professional stuff is pretty well sequestered in an island of stability, but the rest of it my hard drive is a welter of miscategorized files, enormous folders filled with trash, and folders called simply "Sort."

In fact, in one place I even have a folder called "Desktop Stuff" inside a folder called "To Sort" and that one inside another folder called "Sort."

Considering my recent discovery that I am actually more of an outliner than I thought I was, I decided that it might be a good idea to bring some method to this madness. After all, if I'm going to be writing outline after outline, it might be prudent to have some place to put all these files.

After some thought (and a conversation with the Abigail), I came up with a system that goes something like this:

Fiction

Flash and Flitter
Short

Notes
In Progress
Completed
Hiatus

Novel
- Notes
- In Progress
- Completed
- Hiatus
Well

There's also a somewhat better organized place for all my gaming stuff - including the games I'm trying to write - but that's neither here nor there. What does all this mean? Well, Flash and Flitter is for flashfiction, flitterfiction, and perhaps even the occasional microfic or drabble. You don't need much more categorization in there; if you can't finish a flash piece in one sit down or need to keep extensive notes, you're probably doing something wrong, as that's kind of the point. Short and Novel are, unsurprisingly, for short stories and novels. Within each of those folders I have a place to keep a story when it's just a collection of notes, when I'm actually working on it, when it's done, and when it's on hiatus. For organizational purposes, each story that gets beyond the "single word document of notes" stage will get a folder of its own for storing outlines, successive versions, dumpster files (more on those some other day) and notes.

The Well, on the other hand, is an idea I've alluded to before (there, though, I called it the threshing floor). Basically, this is the place where ideas go to die and be reborn. When a character study fully fails to produce something I'm going to use, when a cosmology turns out to be nothing more than so much high concept gibberish, or whatever, this is the folder I'll dump it in. Maybe once in a while I'll clean it out and get rid of the stuff that I deem totally useless, but it's not like my new machine has any lack of storage. After all, you never know when something is going to turn out to be useful later.

Well, I hope this was useful for you all. I'm going to bed.

And by the way, I've decided to name my new computer Bright Itempas, because after one gray computer, one black computer, and one navy blue computer, this dude's whiteness is intolerable. Also, you should be reading N. K. Jemisin's The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms. Why? Because it's good. I'll review it later.

Until next time, remember who you are, hold on to yourself, and see it through.

Creative Prompt Me This, Batman!

2010-12-02T13:09:00.000-08:00

Actually, this post has nothing to do with Batman and everything to do with awesome.

Comment me (or, you know, if you're Nathan, you'll probably up and drabble all over me) with something inspired by the article, either it's actual subject or some of the weird stuff said by the clearly elated scientists.

NaNoWriMo//oMirWoNaN

2010-11-30T13:15:00.000-08:00

And you thought I was done with obscure titles...

In case you couldn't guess, the theme for today is reflecting on National Novel Writing Month. As I off-handedly predicted some time ago, I didn't win. The Fool's Errand came in at 18,307 words. Distant and no cigar. I mean, in theory, I could have pulled an all-nighter last night (and an all-dayer, followed by an until-midnighter) and maybe managed it, but it wouldn't have been any fun and it wouldn't have been fair to my kids, colleagues, or principal (the Abigail would probably have been ok with it). However, as always, I come away with some important lessons.

Most strikingly, I have realized that I can't write a novel that I don't believe in. Weird, huh? I wonder if there's anyone else in the world suffering from this bizarre disability.

Facetiousness aside, I have also realized, in light of the last three years of NaNo, that the best way to tell if I really believe in a novel is whether or not I have passed through five or six versions, dicked around with several kinds of notes and setting bibles, and switched beginnings and point of view schemes several times. In 2008, I didn't finish Ghostly Tam Lin, because I didn't really believe in it and it was a brand new project. In 2009, I finished What Sacred Games One: Heaven and Earth, which was the newest version of an idea I'd been kicking around for about five years and for which I had exhaustive mental notes and an abortive first draft. And now, in 2010, I didn't finish The Fool's Errand, another brand new project which I think is neat but - in retrospect - don't really believe in either (though, as the Abigail pointed out, I definitely had more faith in The Fool's Errand than I ever did in Ghostly Tam Lin). Stepping outside of NaNo, I was finally able to finish Knights of the Land under similar circumstances.

I hear you asking yourself: "So, what's the big deal? Mark is good at finishing stuff that he's dicked around with for years? But seriously, who isn't? I mean, finishing stuff is admirable, but how is that really useful?" Clearly I have magic powers, since I can read your thoughts in such detail.

What's useful about this realization is the secondary realization: I am much less of a discovery writer than I thought I was. Discovery writers make it up as they go along. That's how I write... the first time. The second time I attack a project, however, I'm building off the ruins of the first attempt. And the third time, I'm building off the ruins of the second. Periodically I break the structure down and build something only vaguely similar out of the same bricks, and then build on the new structure with subsequent iterations. And so on, until completion.

Essentially (and this is the Cliff's Notes version), I am using drafts as outlines. Which means that I'm more of an outliner than I thought I was. More importantly, this means that maybe if I try actually writing an outline with my ideas, rather than a series of abortive drafts, I could shave many drafts - and possibly many years - off my creative process.

Of course, I still need a way to figure out which ideas I am sufficiently passionate about to make them worth my while... but I'll tackle this one problem at a time.

So, I don't win a NaNo crown this year. Instead, I take home the good start to a novel that I might finish some day and some hard earned lessons. While victory would have been nice, I can't really ask for more.

Show Me...

2010-11-23T10:30:00.000-08:00

Weapons-grade nonsense.

This phrase just popped into my head last night, and I'm curious to hear what you make of it.

Go.

Zeppelin at Avadon Hill

2010-11-22T17:14:00.000-08:00

Another not-a-NaNoWriMo-post. Isn't this fun? It has nothing to do with the fact that I'm probably not going to in NaNo this year... nothing at all.

After Mur Lafferty's interview with P.G. Holyfield, I decided that I should finally suck it up and check out Murder at Avedon Hill. The news that Murder at Avadon Hill was published as a real live book (much like Shadowmagic, which I reviewed last time I posted) I just finished listening to the podcast version of the novel, and my final impression is of a deeply fascinating, deeply flawed book, one that I am very glad I got the chance to experience and you should definitely consider checking out.

First of all, the basics. Murder at Avedon Hill takes place in the world of Caern, a fantasy world distinguished by one of its pantheon's unique habits. The world's gods - the Children of Az, a paternal creator-deity - are periodically born into mortal bodies, to live out mortal lives and die mortal deaths. This is pretty much the Children of Az's only way of influencing events in Caern, as Az has (say that ten times fast) forbidden them from visiting the world in person, ever since the after-effects of divine tourism turned the walls between the worlds into swiss cheese and nearly destroyed Caern. Most of the world's supernatural stuff can be traced back to either something that crept into the world through one of these holes or the after-effects of a Child of Az's life as a mortal.

Against this backdrop, we have Avedon Hill, a small town that survives by guarding pass between two of Caern's major nations: Yew and Grozh (Dragon snot? Yew, Grozh!). We also have Gretta Platt, Lord Avedon's beautiful house-mistress (that's a secretary and bookkeeper, you filthy-minded weirdo). Unfortunately for Gretta (and everyone else), Gretta is killed in the prologue and her body nearly drained of blood, throwing Avedon Hill into all kinds of chaos.

Into this Cuisinart of greed, lust, and deception walk Arames Kragen, a martial-arts-wielding psychic advisor, and his valet, Arrin, who is actually a prince of the nation of Yew. All Arames and Arrin want is to use the pass that Avedon Hill guards to continue into Grozh for a conference, but what they get is a murder mystery.

In tone, Murder at Avedon Hill resembles the medieval monk mysteries of Ellis Peters and the like, with the addition of familiar fantasy elements like elves, dwarves, magic-wielding priests, shapechangers, glowing rocks, and magic potions made of moths (your guess is as good as mine).

I really enjoyed Murder at Avedon Hill - and I'll get to the good stuff soon - but I think it's flaws bear closer scrutiny. Murder at Avedon Hill is based on notes from P.G. Holyfield's attempt to create a module for BioWare's Neverwinter Nights, an interactive D&D-based game that was, for its time, incredibly versatile. Murder at Avedon Hill's characters have all weathered the transition from D&D clone to novel fairly well, but I don't think the same can be said for the world of Caern. As I've said before, translating roleplaying into writing isn't always easy.

My problem with Caern is, ultimately, that the world has a lot of unnecessary nods to the D&D basics. There are dwarves and elves and monks and magic and even half-orcs, and it all behaves more or less as you'd expect it to. There are no surprises in the setting, just things that Holyfield doesn't bother to tell you upfront. Worse, many of these things don't really matter to the story. Elves and dwarves exist - and we hear all about them - but we don't actually get to meet any (well, one character is a half-dwarf, but it doesn't end up mattering to the story). The story's half-orc could just as easily have been a big, bluff dude known for a short temper. The setting's one truly unique and fascinating setting element - the gods and the aftereffects of their lives as mortals - gets buried in a wave of business-as-usual fantasy.

The writing itself has a few notable flaws as well. Perhaps its a side-effect of the story's past in D&D and video games - and perhaps it's not - but Holyfield's lovingly detailed blow-by-blow narrations of the story's combats are a little too much for me. I love a good battle, but I don't need fight scenes that stretch on for entire chapters. The mystery itself is also a little bit clumsy. I enjoy mysteries that come down to human motivations, and I get frustrated by mysteries that fall back on madness and irrationality. Unfortunately, Murder at Avedon Hill proves to be the latter. There were also a few awkward and frequently repeated constructions - "he shook his head from side to side," for example (as if anyone ever shook their head up and down as opposed to simply "nodding") - but I'm sure Holyfield or his editor caught those before the creation of the print edition.

Finally, Holyfield doesn't write the mystery as tightly as he should. Mysteries are hard to write because they must written so tightly. Magic, on the other hand, is usually quite sloppy. Unless you're Brandon Sanderson, magic can easily become an excuse for stuff to happen, and stuff just happening is the antithesis of a tightly written mystery. Alas, I don't feel that Holyfield rises to the challenge of mixing magic and mystery in Murder at Avedon Hill. The final solution of the mystery depends upon unique and unforeshadowed magical phenomenon, making the final explication a bit of a cheat.

But I did say that I ultimately enjoyed the novel, didn't I? Enough of the negative, let's get positive!

First of all, as I mentioned above, I really enjoyed the Children of Az and their earthly (Caernly?) day-tripping. I like the themes of ordinary humans (and dwarves and elves and half-orcs, I guess...) struggling against vast, uncaring, and disruptive powers. Although it wasn't as strong a theme as I would have liked, I enjoyed that a great deal of Caern's supernatural stuff came from the Children and their misadventures. Also in the world of setting, I enjoyed the well-done and realistic blending of religion and politics in Holyfield's portrayal of Caern's various organizations and how they have dealt with the legacy of the Children of Az.

More importantly, I enjoyed Holyfield's characters and their relationships. Murder at Avedon Hill hits a few personal high notes of mine: complex love triangles, smug mentors and eager students, complex antiheroes, and characters who want something done or a secret revealed but can't bring themselves to do it themselves thanks to their prior commitments and are forced to manipulate others to do it for them.I found the love triangle particularly fascinating, for all that it was merely a footnote in the larger story. The relationship between Arames (smug mentor) and Arrin was much more central and equally enjoyable.

In closing, I think that Murder at Avedon Hill is something you should check out for all its flaws. I also recommend considering checking out the print edition - I know I am. I'm curious to see which of the traits I believed to be flaws Holyfield and his editors chose to change and which they chose to leave alone.

Until next time, remember: the tunnels beneath your city are always more extensive than you think they are, monk!

Shadowzeppelin

2010-11-20T23:48:00.000-08:00

Yeah, I know I said a NaNoWriMo update was coming next. I lied.

Back when I was first getting into podcasts, the Abigail recommended I check out Shadowmagic by John Lenahan, a magician and comedian as well as a novelist. The podcast, by the way, is still available here and here. Lenahan's website describes Shadowmagic as "a rip roaring fun fantasy adventure," but really the book is much more. It's a story of facing the wonder and peril of magic, which is really the magic and peril of adulthood. Shadowmagic is a coming of age novel set against a backdrop of misunderstood prophecies, immortal feuds and dudes getting their hands hacked off.

Really, what's not to love?

Anyway, I am delighted to let you know that John Lenahan has grasped the golden ring of real life publication. Shadowmagic is now available in print! You can buy it at John Lenahan's website. And because John Lenahan is awesome, he has made certain that the ebook editions of Shadowmagic are actually cheaper than the real-life versions (a revolutionary idea, I know). The kindle version is only about $3, and a variety of ebook platforms from outside the U.S. are supported, off a link from Lenahan's website.

I really cannot recommend Shadowmagic enough. We are talking about top-notch plotting, pacing, character development, and world building here. Lenahan has a firm grasp of how to weave character defining events and choices together with the story's fantastic elements. Those fantastic elements are also incredibly well-chosen. Lenahan's Tir na Nog is lush and evocative, but there's no fat to cut. Every detail is relevant - necessary, even - and feeds back into those same character defining events and choices that make the book so compelling.

But wait, there's one last thing you should know! Although I don't want to take any (paying) business away from Lenahan, I also recommend his podcast readings. Lenahan is an excellent reader for his work and is part of why I enjoyed his books so much.

Well, what are you waiting for? Go buy Shadowmagic!

We'll be back next week with some reflections on NaNo. Promise. Honest.

Sanderson, In Person

2010-11-11T10:57:00.000-08:00

The Abigail and I just got back from a Brandon Sanderson signing at Borderlands Books. The occasion? The release of The Way of Kings, the first book in Sanderson's new Stormlight Archive series. And boy. Are my legs. Tired.

Actually, that's from our epic quest for Dynamo Donuts. We must have walked for almost an hour. But I digress.

Anyway, I was struck by several things about Brandon Sanderson. Firstly, he's awesome, extremely intelligent, and filled to the brim with geek-charisma and artistic integrity. I know I am verging on dangerous levels of fanboyism here, but I really do think that he and I would be friends, if the circumstances of our lives made that even remotely possible. Secondly, he is a great speaker, and did a good job entertaining his audience (especially once the lemonade showed up - Borderlands in-joke). Finally, Sanderson is a really good writer.

I know it's odd for me to say this after hearing Sanderson speak, as opposed to after, say, reading his books. Sanderson, however, is a rare find, a writer who can talk about his process without sounding pompous, incomprehensible, or both (I'm one of the last, I'm afraid).

Sanderson turns out to be somewhere between a discovery writer and an outliner. For the uninitiated, discovery writers (like myself) are those who prefer to begin with some characters, a premise, and see where things go. Outliners, on the other hand, like to know where they're going before they set out, something they accomplish with (you guessed it) outlines. Also for the uninitiated, discovery writers and outliners are sometimes quite argumentative, as though there were a "right" way to write.

Also for the uninitiated: go. The secrets of Hatanku are not for you. Come back when the elders have judged you a woman grown, and not before.

Anyway, Sanderson says that what he likes to do is start with a rough outline and character notes, but keep an open mind about how his understanding of the story might change. Sanderson's approach really drove home for me that there are very few "pure" discovery writers or outliners. Most of us are somewhere along a continuum, outlining and note writing a little, letting creativity take us here it will a lot (or vice versa).

I was also (possibly most) impressed by Sanderson's dedication to research and verisimilitude in character. The Abigail says that she read somewhere that Sanderson is a Mormon (oh, look, there's confirmation), but when he writes atheists (as he did in Mistborn), he does extensive research about atheist point of views, up to and including spending time on atheist message boards. He goes on similar question quests when writing anyone whose point of view differs significantly from his own. You've got to respect someone who goes to that much trouble to make sure his characters have valid points of view. Love or hate Sanderson's characterizations, there are no straw men in his worlds.

But most of all, I liked Sanderson's style. He's clearly smart, creative, and likes engaging with his fans. I will definitely keep an eye out for more opportunities to meet him in person.

Hopefully by then I'll have finished Sanderson's new book, the one the Abigail and I bought at Borderlands. I mean, seriously, have you seen this thing? Hatanku's hoary hemipenes, it's a doorstop!

Tune in next time for reflections on NaNoWriMo and 100% less hemipenes.

One Shot Kill II: The Collective

2010-09-19T13:10:00.000-07:00

I don't think I've spent a lot of time bitching about how little I get to play. If I did, this blog wouldn't be "a fantasist's blog," it'd be "a fantasist's unending stream of bile." And nobody wants to read that. However, suffice it to say that I don't get to play much and it does bug me.

I've decided to do something about it.

If you are in the San Francisco Bay Area and within the sound of my blog, come check out my newest project, the One Shot Collective. The goal is to create a community of grown-up roleplayers who contribute time and resources to helping each other get their game on, in the form of monthly (specifically the first Sunday of every month) one shots.

I'm open to the possibility of a longer term campaign emerging out of this, but... let's just say I'm not holding my breath.

Come play.

Lady Burn

2010-09-16T13:11:00.000-07:00

Ah... the Creative Prompt Post. It's the new Lame-Ass Link Post. Fun to make and quick to write. The only reason I'm still able to post on school days, even now that it is autumn. Oh, how I love thee.

Today's post is inspired by this and this (these entries are clean, but the blog is not always safe for work - be forewarned), posts deconstructing the trope of the iconic super hero costume by re-imagining Dazzler as a Lady Gaga-esque woman of many daring costumes.

And, you know, super powers.

Riff off that, my faithful reader(s). Comment with your tales of super heroes who wear many odd costumes and not just the one.

Gutters & Goblins, Zeppelins & Zombies

2010-09-11T10:31:00.000-07:00

I don't know where this is coming from, but I've been thinking about how some fantasy settings - especially D&D clones and subsettings - like to orbit some central monster. The most famous such game is Tunnels & Trolls, in which, at least at the time that I played it, trolls really were the big, scary monster. There's also Ravenloft, which is sometimes described as "D&D with vampires."

So, amuse me. Take a fantasy setting, wrap it around a less common monster, and tell me what you get. I'm looking for something that, like Ravenloft, is thematically coherent. That means no fair just saying "it's like bog-standard D&D fantasy except everyone's really scared of owlbears." You've got to write about why the thing you pick is important and the consequences of that choice.

Alliterating titles are purely optional.

Go.

Burning Down Town

2010-09-10T15:57:00.000-07:00

Upon receiving a kindle (review post to come) as a wedding present (thanks Uncle Steve!), I immediately began downloading every free things I could get my cheap-ass paws on (Mrs. The Abigail, on the other hand, has proven more inclined to use her kindle to download a huge number of free first chapters). This (of course) led me to the work of the illustrious (and prolific) Cory Doctorow.

(I like parentheses - don't you?)

Anyway, I've been wanting to read Doctorow's Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town for a long time, but I am cursed with two conflicting traits: poverty and an inability to read extendedly off computer screens without causing tiny, but surprisingly heavy, gnomes slam-dancing drunkenly in my temples. A pdf version of Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town has languished unread on my hard drive for about two years. But no more! With the kindle, both my poverty and my inability to read pdfs extendedly have been conquered, and the experience of reading Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town is mine at last!

Honestly, it was kind of an anti-climax.

Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town isn't a bad book. It begins well enough, with classically Doctorowian descriptions of mesh networks and house renovation that left me feeling like the book had made me smarter already, an entirely pleasant experience. The main character, A - he answers to any male name beginning with that letter - is the son of a mountain and a washing machine. His brothers B, C, D, E, F, and G are, respectively, a precognitive, an island (he takes after their father), a murderous little shit, and a set of nesting humans. That last is about as gross as it sounds, but the characters themselves are kind of endearing. As A struggles to integrate himself in normalcy, start writing his story, help a neighborhood punk named Kurt blanket the neighborhood in free wireless, and get to know his neighbors - including an attractively plump girl called Mimi who has wings and her sadistic boyfriend - the novel's themes emerge. We have the healing and life-enhancing power of community versus the modern trend towards stagnation and the appealing idea that information technology can be a part of the solution. We have geeks and freaks - Alan and his family, Mimi and her wings - struggling to be a part of everybody else's world. We have a post-cyberpunk universe in which middle aged computer dudes are struggling to maintain relevancy and realize the punkish dreams of their youth and big business is less a looming villain and more just another bunch of people trying to do their best to get by and make things better. It's a promising start.

The only critique I will level at the main body of the book is that A's strangeness is a bit content-free. His family includes a washing machine and her husband the mountain, a man who can see the future, an immortal zombie sociopath, an island, and three guys who live one inside the other, he was raised by golems and talks his father by spelunking. As for A himself... he grows back lost body parts like a lizard and is a bit of a nerd. Nearer to the end, when another character tells A that he's the weirdest person she's ever met and she'd rather take her chances with her teenager-seducing girlfriend beating room-mate, it falls a bit flat. She's never even seen him regenerate lost bits.

Things fall apart near the end, however [SPOILER ALERT], when A's confrontation with his murderous brother comes to a head. The plot's coherency begins to disintegrate under pressure, with scenes that seem oddly out of place and some strange pacing decisions. Doctorow starts experimenting with interesting (or at least unobjectionable) narrative techniques, such as a neat little poetic repetitions/parentheses thing and metafictional tangents that parallel real life. These ideas would be great... except that they're entirely out of place and dangerously jarring in a novel that up till then has followed a pretty basic plot/flashback counterplot structure.

The ending is the biggest betrayal of the beginning's promise. I don't know which pit of Doctorow's soul still holds the geek self-hatred we all grapple with, but the damned thing crawls up and poops all over the final chapter. The book closes with A fleeing alongside his winged girlfriend, leaving his two remaining brothers to kill each other, leaving his house and all his possessions in flames, and leaving his friend Kurt to continue their free wireless project, alone. The last scene is A and Mimi living in pseudo-marital bliss on A's brother the island, recreating the isolation of A's youth. Even more than the closing chapters' general incoherence, this conclusion was extremely disappointing. It's no use trying to live in the real world if you're a weirdo, kids. The best you can do is try, suffer, screw up, and eventually flee back to your crazy family, abandoning your projects and friends. If you're lucky, you'll bring your cute winged girlfriend home with you.

It's better than Joss Whedon, who keeps his self-hatred on a leash and regularly lets it poop on entire seasons of his television shows, but it's still really frustrating.

This is not to say that Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town isn't worth reading. I enjoyed the journey a great deal, even if the destination was a bit of a downer. I was particularly fascinated by Mimi's relationship with her former boyriend, an abusive whack-job named Krishnah. In order to maintain her life as a run-of-the-mill club-goer, she regularly lets him cut off her endlessly-growing, endlessly-regenerating wings. The parallel to extraordinary people who let themselves be trapped in relationships with the ordinary and spiteful, who continually push them back and tie them down, make them safe and "normal," and abuse them whenever their true selves break through, is heartbreaking.

Unfortunately, the book isn't really about Mimi and Krishnah, or Alan and his family, or free wireless meshworks. Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town isn't really about any coherent thing. For all the beautiful novels it could have been, it remains merely the entertaining but mediocre novel that it actually is.

Burning Matrimony Experience

2010-08-15T16:00:00.000-07:00

As of this moment - this very instant 4:00 PM on August 15th - my wedding is starting. That's right, soon the Abigail will be Mrs. The Abigail (you can expect me to use this from time to time, like a dork). The Abigail and I are going to stand under the chuppah and promise to always play with each other, to always support each other in the things we do out in the world, and to never imagine that we know each other fully, so that we are always open to each others' endless mystery.

Heavy stuff, I know.

We've been living together for a long time (five years!) and dating for about a year longer than that. In a sense, nothing is going to change. Life will go on, much the same, only with prettier rings.

And also, everything is going to change.

The biggest thing is, I just can't believe my luck. I get to marry a hot gamer chick! Me! And she'll sleep in my bed every night and let me run her Exalted (among other things).

Today is the day. Now is the moment. Wish me luck.

Burning Creation Experience

2010-08-09T11:52:00.000-07:00

As the zeppelin takes a gentle left, you will see that we are now flying over Creation. Never a particularly stable place, Creation has recently taken a turn for the worse. As you can see, the East is burning, the North is practically lifeless, the Southern deserts have been replaced by fields of ash, and the Western Islands have been rearranged into a geometrically pleasing configuration. That, I think, is really the best touch. In the center we have the once-Blessed Isle, now surmounted by a cloud of nigh-impenetrable darkness. Try not to look too closely - we get complaints.

The newest Exalted supplement, Return of the Scarlet Empress, details the rise of Creation's demon empress and the fall of everyone else. In it, White Wolf's Exalted line continues to surprise me - first they made me like location books, and now they have convinced me to buy and like a bundle of adventure paths. What's next?

Ok, first a quick summary. If you know anything about Exalted, you know that the core of the setting begins with the disappearance of the Scarlet Empress. Big Red has been holding the fractious Realm of the Dragon-Blooded together with cunning, brutality, and singular dedication ever since the fall of the last Dragon-Blooded empire, the Shogunate. The Dragon-Blooded of the Shogunate - also known as Terrestrial Exalted - were the ones to overthrow their rightful masters, the Solar and Lunar Exalted, at the urging of their secretive viziers, the Sidereal Exalted. The Exalted are humans elevated to demigod status by the gods so that they could, at the dawn of time, help the gods overthrow their makers, the Primordials. Some Primordials died in the fighting, and their slowly dissolving ghosts have created the Underworld, the powerful ghostly monarchs called the Deathlords, and their servants, corrupted Exalts called the Abyssal Exalted. Other Primordials surrendered, becoming the twisted and vicious Yozis, and have since snagged their own servants, also corrupted exalts, called the Infernal Exalted.

Next time, on backwards histories: Japan surrendered on August 14th, 1945...

Anyway, it has been long-suggested that the reason the Scarlet Empress disappeared is that she finally reached too far in her quest for power and got herself kidnapped by the Ebon Dragon, one of the more unpleasant Yozis. Return of the Scarlet Empress takes that implication and runs with it, providing plot possibilities for the eventuality of the Empress's return. Her goal: to turn Creation into hell so that her masters can escape back into the world. To this end, she really tears shit up.

The book itself is divided into seven chapters detailing the progress of the Reclamation (of Creation, by the Yozis) in the Blessed Isle, each of the four outer regions of Creation, and other realms of existence (heaven, hell, the underworld, etc.), and a final chapter that details the final showdown between the Ebon Dragon and the forces of good, assuming that the players haven't thwarted his plans long ago.

In general, the supplement is very good, though somewhat uneven. Chapter One: The Cursed Isle, for example, is extremely well-done. The writer takes a very high-level approach, explaining in broad strokes how the Ebon Dragon's plans are likely to proceed given the most probable eventualities. For details, like Storyteller character game statistics and details about how various military and political organizations function, the book references other Exalted supplements and leaves it at that. The end result feels like an essay on the destruction of the Realm, which a knowledgeable Storyteller could easily detail where necessary to create a compelling chronicle. The second chapter, which details the same process in the Eastern sector of Creation, is similarly written.

Unfortunately, the chapters on the North and South aren't quite as good. Both of these chapters read more like minutely detailed adventure paths. Creative players and character-driven Storytellers will quickly go "off the map" or simply find the plot ideas inapplicable. This doesn't mean that the chapters are useless, but the useful ideas are buried in paragraphs of much chancier stuff.

Let me give you a practical example. In the chapter on the Blessed Isle, we are given a section about the final stages of the Reclamation, in which the Empress corrupts the Sword of Creation (enormous feng-shui powered cannon) so that her infernal masters can use it. This section gives a variety of options for character involvement, explaining how any kind of character might get involved, and then gives us several options for the speed at which the corruption proceeds. On the other hand, we have a section in the chapter on the South entitled "The Akuma Who Loved Me" (I don't know why, but many of the section headings are riffs off the titles of spy and heist movies) which introduces the character of Raia, a hopelessly enslaved Terrestrial Exalt who seduces one of the characters and uses the connection to manipulate the player's characters.

The former is a broad treatment of a series of events that anyone could get involved in, but the individual characters' hooks are up to the Storyteller. The latter is a narrow plot thread that only applies to characters whose players who are willing to roleplay romantic (or at least sexual) situations, are willing to fall for Raia's story and aren't already exclusively romantically involved, and for whom a romance with a secret villain would be an interesting challenge. I can tell you right off the bat that for the various Exalted characters I've played, this storyline would only be interesting - maybe interesting - for one of them.

The final chapters, however, pick up the pace and become much more interesting. Chapter Six: Other Realms of Existence provides a wide variety of plot ideas for characters who are primarily involved in one of Creation's other settings: Heaven, Hell, the Underworld, or the outer chaos of the Wyld. Some of these suggestions are merely interesting (I can take or leave the Empress as the 14th Deathlord) while others are brilliant (go on, tell me that the section on the Righteous Dead didn't send shivers up your spine). Chapter seven makes an excellent capstone on the book and lives up to its title: Endgame. I don't want to spoil this chapter for you, so that's all I'm going to say.

All in all, I would recommend the purchase, with the caveat that it doesn't do your chronicle-building work for you. The relevant sections for your chronicle are going to be either well-writtenly vague or overly specific, and you're going to have to do a lot of the statting, writing, and narrative shuffling yourself. What the book does do a good job of is providing interesting ideas for where to go and what to do, as well as a realistic treatment of how a divided and chaotic Creation would fare against the relatively organized might of Hell.

Finally, I'm going to add that I would love to see similar books for Creation's other Enemies. Return of the Scarlet Empress is good, but I'd also buy Rise of the Deathlords (for the forces of death) and The Second Crusade (for the forces of chaos).

And if any White Wolf dudes are reading this... I work cheap.

Menace Mechanic Madness

2010-08-05T17:04:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've created a straight-up roleplaying post, hasn't it? Well, here's a thought I had today at the gym that I think some of you might find useful.

In pretty much every game, the developers find it useful to present your character with a trait that goes up or down to reflect how much and what kind of shit your character is in. Whether it's Hit Points, Health, Sanity, or Humanity (which go down) or Stress Tracks, Damage, or Banality (which go up), the idea is to create a sense of tension by making real, on the character sheet, the fact that BAD THINGS ARE HAPPENING TO YOU.

I even once played a game that used marbles.

This is in all ways laudable. I don't know about you, but the act of erasing or filling in a dot or a box or a number on my character sheet does in fact drive home that things are changing. Watching that number rise or fall, those boxes or dots show up or go away, can be very tense.

I'm going to call this idea a Menace Mechanic. That is, it's a mechanic for tracking threats to your character's continued health, sanity, or existence: menaces.

The only problem is that most menace mechanics don't provide a lot of room for customization. The game decides what menaces to measure, whether it's how close your character is to dying, how long it will be before he betrays his people to the crude sun-worshipers overrunning the land, or how close she is to forgetting her beautiful secret faerie nature. There's rarely any room for you to formally determine exactly where the fault-lines in your character's personality are. The Abigail and I often find ourselves discussing her characters' weaknesses, where and how they could go bad, and then leaving it at that. I get to incorporate these personality problems into the story, but I rarely get any mechanical support (unless, of course, I find a way to incorporate the character's issues into an existing menace mechanic).

Now, this isn't always a problem. I'm not the kind of designer who thinks that you always need to write a system for every thing that's going to happen in your game. That said, if you don't write a system for it it's not definitely going to happen, and sometimes that's sad.

So, what follows is a customizable Menace Mechanic that can probably be adapted to any system that tracks mental and spiritual menaces.

* * *

The first thing you need to do is give your character's Menace a name that sums up what it is, what it means, and why it's bad. Some ideas that spring to mind: Anger Management Issues, Cold-Hearted, Desire to Give Up Human Foibles and Become a Robot Chick (actually ran a game for one of those once).

Then you need to pick a number of intermediary steps - we'll call them Milestones - that lie between a theoretical ideal state (I embrace my human flaws and love my meaty flesh!) and some kind of theoretical fallen state (Love is illogical). The number of steps probably varies based on the kind of game you're already playing and how you want the Custom Menace system to fit in with everything else. If you're using Custom Menace in place of Humanity or Morality, for example, you probably want to identify ten states (Menace 1 through 10). In other systems you might be happier with five, or even three.

Two probably won't work, though.

You should also figure out if Menace is going to rise or fall. Again, you should probably make this compatible with the rest of the game. If Menace is replacing or coexisting with White Wolf's Morality, for example, you probably want Menace 10 to be good and Menace 0 to be bad.

For each Menace Milestone, you need to pick one or two acts that could constitute a breaking point. In other words, something the character could do that might cause them to slip further down that slope towards robot-hood (or whatever). If a character performs an act that would be unacceptable for her current level of Menace, some kind of dice roll is in order to see if the character loses (or gains) Menace. The exact kind of dice roll is, again, a choice you need to make based on the rules of the game you're adding this system to.

So, for example:

Menace: Become a Robot-Chick.

10: Make any decision based on logic rather than emotion, sacrifice a relationship for any reason.
9: Damage a relationship for any reason, pass up an opportunity for physical gratification
8: Add or implant technological devices to your body
7: Damage a relationship because it is logically expedient
6: Sacrifice a relationship because it is logically expedient
5: Harm another human being because it is logically expedient, replace a damaged body part with a technological prosthesis
4: Sacrifice (end) a relationship because it is logically expedient, break your sworn word because it is logically expedient
3: Betray a close friendship because it is logically expedient, replace a perfectly good body part with a technological prosthesis
2: Alter your body with technology in such a way that you can no longer enjoy a common form of physical gratification
1: Sacrifice your essential humanity for robot-hood

This example is for a character that the Abigail played in White Wolf's Exalted. In keeping with the general themes of the system, I have chosen to have this Menace run from 10 to 1.

* * *

I'm unlikely to ever get to actually use this system, since the Abigail gets grumpy when I add system to games (she prefers to subtract system from game), but I'm curious to hear what you may think of it, and what you may some day make of it.

Burning Update Experience: Solid Suck

2010-08-04T20:10:00.000-07:00

So, it turns out that I won't be attending the podcaster pub night. The Abigail and I double-scheduled the evening with celebrating her last client. If you were looking forward to seeing me, I'm sorry to disappoint, but probably I'm the most disappointed of the lot.

Anyway, it'll happen again. Next time, hopefully.

Comic Depression

2010-08-04T10:19:00.000-07:00

For the longest time - about as long as I can remember being aware of the art form - I have wanted to be a part of the team that writes a webcomic. The first reason is pure arrogance: I often want to do things right that I see done wrong. Actually, this can get really frustrating when I experience something that has maybe, the smallest seed of quality and I find myself obsessing over how I'd do it, and how I'd make it good. A lot of webcomics... well, they're clearly written by artists who think they can write, rather than writers who think they can draw (the latter, when I have to choose between the two, is the one that I prefer).

The second reason is that I love dialog, I love character development, and I love plots. While I have a good visual imagination and like deciding on the appearances of things, it isn't my favorite thing to do. Frankly, I get stressed out trying to figure out how often to reincorporate so-and-so's appearance, such-and-such's smell, the fact that what's-her-bucket has a pet weasel-hawk.

So basically, writing a webcomic means that I get to do just all the fun stuff and none of the less fun stuff? And also it's serialized, long-running, and full of potential? What's not to love? You'll notice that I don't want to get a job in the comics industry, and that' because I do like writing descriptions. I'd feel incomplete if all I did was plot character arcs and write dialog. But, as a project, as something to do (along with everything else I do) it'd be... glorious.

Despite my rather arrogant and cynical description of the webcomicist's art above, I do read a number of truly wonderful webcomics:

Collar6: It's ridiculous, it's absurdly kinky, and the setting seems like an absurd mix of a modern version of Exalted and a bondage fantasy... but I like it. Take from that what you may.
Digger: The comic's own tagline says it best: "a wombat, a dead god, a most peculiar epic." I remember wanting to read this one back when it was on a pay site, and how happy I was when it finally went free.
Drowtales: I've been meaning to write a longer ode to this comic, which actually has done a great deal to cure my elf rage. Seriously.
Girl Genius: Does anyone not read Girl Genius? Really?
Keychain of Creation: Like ORder of the Stick, but younger and for Exalted.
MythAdventures: The team behind Girl Genius, bringing Robert Aspirin's creation to the screen. Top quality stuff.
Order of the Stick: Rich Burlew's gently mocking presentation of a D&D-themed fantasy world is practically required reading for fantasy gamers everywhere. This story manages to oscillate perfectly between humor and drama, with real characters, really developing, in a hillarious and absurd world.

Unfortunately, I have never made the acquaintance of my opposite number - an artist with lots of time on his or her hands, eager to bring my mindchilds to life.

But some day. Someday...

Burning Update Experience: Clearing Out the Bullpen

2010-08-03T16:15:00.000-07:00

My browser has a folder labeled "BZE Bullpen." This is where I keep all the links I want to eventually pass on to you. Well, the BZE Bullpen is too damned full, and it's time to pass those links that can be passed on without lengthy comment (that is, an entire post), all at once, so I can finally be free of them.

Here goes nothing.

* * *

Check out this horrifying new bastardization of our art: personalized teen books. Actually, I'm probably being unfair here. I had a book like that when I was younger, and I cherished it for years. I think my dad made it with the printer at home and had it bound somewhere. My imaginary friends were even in it!

I think I was seven at the time.

Enough said.

Oh, I guess if it gets kids reading it's all to the good. I guess.

* * *

Also in the world of vague outrage, if you want to buy anything from Peter S. Beagle do it from here. Apparently some kind of publishing SNAFU means that he isn't getting money from some of his work published through other channels. And besides, authors almost always make more money when they sell their stuff directly, and we all want Mr. Beagle to be rich, don't we?

* * *

In more awesome news, check out this (in no particular order):

Summer camps that emulate Camp Halfblood from Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson and the Olympians. Damnit, where were the camps like that when I as a kid?
The Other Side blog muses about using experience points to get gamerlings to practice their writing skills. As a gamer, a teacher, and a one-day-to-be-dad, I approve of this tactic.
Tongue in cheek (in heel?) GURPS rules for high heels.
Black Gate's Goth Chick has higher hopes for the American remake of Let The Right One In (which I saw recently, and loved) than I do.
This new offering from game designer John Wick looks awesome.
This short story that recently aired on PodCastle was awesome.
As was this story from EscapePod. More importantly, Steve's send-off at the end was... well... that's how I try to live my life. Beautiful. Thanks, Steve.
And this story from the Drabblecast.
This Deviant Artist has created some fascinating and clever anatomical diagrams of imaginary creatures. It tickled my fancy, and might tickle yours. Warning: I think some of those images aren't 100% safe for work.
J.J. Abrams is making a movie of Boilerplate! Steampunk awesome ftw!
And finally, if you're ever personally responsible for personally managing our first contact with an alien species, well... check it out.

* * *

That just about does it. The BZE Bullpen is now a little slimmer, and everything that doesn't really demand a longer post is cleaned out. Enjoy the links.

And last but not least, I'll be going to the podcaster pub night this Thursday (August 5th) to meet Chris Lester, Abigail Hilton, J. Daniel Sawyer, and Kitty Nic'Iaian. Well, actually just Chris Lester and Abigail Hilton. I mean, I'm going to meat Sawyer and Nic'Iaian, but I've never read their works and don't know them from trolls. That'll probably change after the pub night.

Anyway, you should go, too, to also meet these wonderful people who make podcasts. Not to meet me, though. If anyone there has heard of little old blog-writing me - except Abigail Hilton, whose written a guest post here - I'll probably pass out from shock. The event details are here, on the Metamor City blog.

That's it for now. Burn on.

Burning Guest Post Experience: Abbie Hilton and Persistent Worldbuilding

2010-07-14T19:53:00.000-07:00

It is my great pleasure to introduce Abbie Hilton, author of The Guild of the Cowry Catchers. Abbie does such a great job introducing herself, that I'm going to leave it at that, save for linkifying a few of her words.

Read on. Enjoy.

* * *

Hi! I'm Abbie Hilton from The Guild of the Cowry Catchers podcast, and Mark asked me to do a guest post for Burning Zeppelin. My current podcast is a dark, nautical fantasy about pirates and banned books and unusual interpersonal relationships. I try to do some interesting things with gender roles and sexuality as well as ship fights and blood in the scuppers. The books are set in a pre-industrial world called Panamindorah, populated with creatures called shelts, as well as some species of talking animal. Shelts are derivatives of fauns. They have the two legs and tail of some type of animal and look like humans from the waist up. In addition, they share certain traits with their animal counterparts. In some cases, shelts and their animals have diverged in their lifestyles and evolution, while in other cases they live in symbiotic (or parasitic) relationships. In some instances, a shelt or animal species is extinct, leaving the surviving half with no counterpart. The only human-looking creatures in Panamindorah are shape shifters whose true form is a dragon. They were so powerful and long-lived that they became a menace. In the distant past, the shelts and animals of Panamindorah rallied and killed nearly all of them. The few that remain keep a low profile. There is magic in Panamindorah, but it appears so rarely that the reader may forget it exists.

I've podcast another, unrelated series set in this world called The Prophet of Panamindorah. I've got a third series, Walk Upon High, that I've not yet released.

Mark wanted me to talk about the phenomena of a persistent fantasy world in which an author continues to work through multiple stories over multiple years. I created Panamindorah when I was about 16 and I'm now 33, so it's been around for over half my life. It was my second created world. For each new series, I move to a different part of the world at a different point in time, and I've written a number of short stories in addition to the epics. I'm the sort of writer who doesn't know what happened until she writes it. Consequently, creating all these stories gives the world a sense of history and texture that it might lack if I'd only outlined the surrounding story-scape. I also like to use ideas from actual human history in my books, and since I haven't published anything, I'm able to go back into the stories and tweak minor details so that everything remains consistent. This is changing now that I've podcast them. I've yet to decide whether that's a good thing.

Writing in the same world does have disadvantages. I've grown over time, and my world has grown with me. Prophet had a more simplistic world view than Cowry Catchers because Prophet is the work of my adolescence and Cowry Catchers is the work of my adulthood. However, it's still the same world with connecting storylines and overlapping character timelines. Walk Upon High is the story that connects Cowry Catchers and Prophet. I need to re-write it, since its plot and that of Cowry Catchers are currently mutually exclusive.

These are tangles you run into when you keep writing in the same world, but for me the benefits are worth the trade-ff. I'm more interested in plot and character than in world-building. With Panamindorah, the hard part is done, and it has been test-driven for basic flaws of logic. If I want something a little alien, I can easily find a remote corner of the world or a distant point in time where everything feels new again. It's fun and interesting to imagine how the events in the stories might be passed down in the world itself - how they might be embellished into legends or myths or even deformed out of all recognition. Staying in the same world allows me to build that kind of scaffolding.

As much as I love Panamindorah, I did not make conscious plans to camp in it forever. If I find a story I can't tell there, I'll go tell it somewhere else. However, Panamindorah has a lot of elasticity. I'm sure I'll wander to other places, but I suspect I'll still be returning to this world and its stories decades from now. As fun as a new friend can be, there's no substitute for someone who's known you your whole life.

* * *

As I said when I first asked Abbie to do this guest post, I find the idea of writing in a persistent world a little alien. I'm the fantasy worldbuilding equivalent of Pa Ingalls, always driven to discover what new world lies beyond the next wrinkle of my gray matter. I hope Abbie's writing has helped you see a little of the other side.

And, in case I haven't said it enough, check out Abbie's stuff! Of all the many, many podcasts in my stable right now, The Guild of the Cowry Catchers is the one I look forward to most, and I listen to a lot of great podcasts, so that's saying a lot.

So, thanks again, Abbie Hilton. And the rest of you...

You know, I really need a sendoff that doesn't make me want to throw up. A topic for another day. Goodnight, folks.

And In This Corner

2010-07-08T13:07:00.000-07:00

According to the New York Times, there are forces at work to make jousting the next extreme sport.

Jousting.

The world is a strange, strange place. I love it. Also, I desperately need to get myself to one of these jousting tournaments. It doesn't sounds like my scene - partly severed penises and all - but I've got to go, if only so I can say I've been.

Jousting. Wow.

Riki Tiki Byakhee

2010-07-07T10:50:00.000-07:00

I don't often write about the Drabblecast because... well... I have no reason. I just don't. Probably I should.

Today, I listened to Episode 170, Part One of Sarah Monette and Elizabeth Bear's Mongoose. And, woah. Woah woah woah woah woah.

Woah.

Let me break it down for you: in a grim and gritty space opera future, monsters with the common names of Lewis Carroll creatures (and the scientific names of scientific garbledy-gook) will plague our space ships and space stations. Only with tamed monsters called Cheshires - for their ability to selective phase their bodies in and out of our universe to varying degrees - can heroic exterminators hunt these things down. You see, it starts with small ones, but then the bigger ones come to get them, and then come the biggest... It's Lovecraft meets Carroll (with a bit of Kipling thrown in for good measure) meets Star Trek, plus grit. It's beautiful.

I love it. It's got grit and fancy in equal measure, just like real life. I firmly believe that if we lived under the constant threat of being eaten by terrible creatures from beyond space and time, the first thing we'd do is make up silly nicknames for them. It's the human way.

If everything I've said isn't enough to get you to listen to the episode, consider this: I listened to it twice. In a row. Just 'cause. I can't wait for the second half.

Check it out.

In and Out of Whack

2010-07-06T22:50:00.000-07:00

It's not often that I abandon a book part way through. I am the sort of reader who develops a deep connection to characters and a need to know what comes next, and it takes a truly bad book-match to shake me off.

That's why I was surprised when The Wayfarer Redemption (by Australian author Sara Douglass) and I didn't work out. I'd been admiring the series for a long time before finally beginning the to read it; Sara Douglass really lucked out with some gorgeous cover art. The Wayfarer Redemption also came highly recommended by my father, an inveterate connoisseur of fantasy literature. To be fair, my dad did eventually note some of the series' flaws. He was able to finish the first trilogy, however, while I find myself fleeing without quite finishing the first book.

The Wayfarer Redemption is the first book of a trilogy, which is itself the first trilogy in a series of two trilogies. The series is plagued by some globetrotting weirdness. In Australia the first trilogy is called The Axis Trilogy and the first book is called BattleAxe, but in America the two trilogies are combined into a six-book series called The Wayfarer Redemption (actually the name of the second trilogy in the series), and BattleAxe loses its name.

Anyway.

The Wayfarer Redemption orbits a man named Axis, the BattleAxe (general) of an organization called the Axe-Wielders, the military arm of the Seneschal, the leadership organization of the Way of Axe and Plough, the dominant religion of a region called Achar (in one breath!). The Way of Axe and Plough follows the dictates of a god called Artor, who teaches that all forests are home to dark and unnatural creatures, called the Forbidden, and that the only good nature is subjugated nature. Forests must be cut into fields and the fields ploughed to produce grain, and the grain fed to humans, so they can produce more humans, who can cut down more forests, plough more fields, and plant more grain. Etcetera. Axis is the bastard son of Rivkah, the king's sister. As far as anyone knows, Rivkah died giving birth to Axis, which is part of why Axis's trueborn half brother Borneheld resents him. The other part of the reason is that Borneheld has a parallel post as the WarLord of the secular army.

Also coming into the story is Faraday, a beautiful young noblewoman, and a few other people, but those are details you don't need right now.

Anyway, this trio starts a tragic trajectory towards.... uh... doom. Axis and Faraday fall instantly in love, shortly after Faraday is betrothed to Borneheld. Axis discovers that he is a magic destiny baby and the Forbidden aren't so bad, Faraday discovers that she has to marry Borneheld to keep him off Axis's back. In some ways, it's a rather typical fantasy plot, but that doesn't bother me much.

What bothers me is the sense that the narrator's moral sense is totally out of sync with mine to the point that I don't feel I can trust her to do justice by the characters I've grown fond of. This story has a very involved narrator, clearly expressing an idea of who is right and who's wrong, who's justified and who's not. For example(s):

Borneheld is destined to die at Axis's hand, in a fight over Faraday, who only married him to keep him from venting his frustration on Axis, the younger half-brother whose birth killed their mother. Let me repeat this: Farady knows that she loves Axis and is only marrying Borneheld, and is lying to him about how satisfied she is with their marriage, in order to manipulate him. You know, if that was my life, I'd have frustration to vent, too.
Borneheld is considered culpable for his father's personality. Faraday is told by a magical being - basically a goddess - that Borneheld's line deserves to die with him, as far as I can tell, because his father was a jerk.
I have no problem with Rivkah cheating on her husband - it was an arranged and pretty dysfunctional relationship - but it bothers me that Rivkah's preoccupation with her second son at the expense of any real concern for her first son is treated as normal and laudable. It's certainly a realistic character choice for Rivkah to have more affection for the child born of love than the child born of circumstance, but this is not the trait of a good, loving individual. It's a flaw.
The big villain is the result of an ill-omened union between an Avar and an Icarii, the magical horned and winged people who the humans pushed out to make way for their own civilization. Despite the fact that they are aware of this possibility in prophecy, the Avar and the Icarii regularly hold Beltaine-style free love parties and expect the women to abort any children conceived this way. And it's the Acharites (humans) who are viewed as foolish and selfish.

Ultimately, The Wayfarer Redemption is an ecofantasy (something I really ought to write a post about some day), but not one that I can really appreciate. It's simply too morally flat. In Knights of the Land (see what I did there: the title changed) I focus on the difficulty of living in harmony with nature. The Knights are vilified for what they demand, and in the past they have alienated potential allies by demanding too much. In The Wayfarer Redemption, ordinary humans are the worst monsters of all, while the two races who do live in harmony can do no wrong.

That's not to say that there's nothing good about The Wayfarer Redemption. Axis's gradual realization that he's on the wrong side is well done, with the character's gradual slide out of one faith and into another portrayed realistically and interestingly. Farady has a similar arc. This particular storyline reminds me of some of the best parts of The Guild of the Cowry Catchers. Despite its moral flatness, the setting is interesting and detailed, with a great deal of history and possibility.

In the end, however, it's not a book I can finish. It's not personal, but I just don't trust Sara Douglass enough to continue to let her occupy any of my headspace. She's written a very involved narrator, one with clear ideas of right and wrong, and those ideas are so at odds with mine that I just can't continue. It's not that I don't like to see good people making bad choices and bad things happening to good people; that is the meat and bread of storytelling. It's just that I don't want to continue reading a story where the narrator's sense of right and wrong - of who's a victim, who's a hero, who's a villain, and who deserves what's coming to them - is so at odds with mine.

It makes me too angry, and it makes me too sad.

* * *

Today I just have the one question: am I a wimp or a crazy person, or has this ever happened to you?

Zeppelin... Zeppelin... Zeppelin...

2010-07-02T09:50:00.000-07:00

It's an echo. Get it?

Well, they can't all be winners.

My friend Rebecca recently introduced me to a wonderful new online phenomenon, Echo Bazaar! For the uninitiated, Echo Bazaar is a twitter-linked, browser-based online game. It's structured like a limited MMO. You go on missions, improve your character's capabilities, acquire items that you need to achieve your goals, and so on. There are things you want - money, admiration, contacts within various organizations - and there are things to avoid - getting wounded, going crazy from nightmares, scandal - and the game is quite typical in many ways. It's limited in that you don't run into other characters while exploring the setting - the interface is too primitive for that. There are certain advantages you can't get without engaging in various social activities with other players.

Two things, however, set Echo Bazaar apart from anything else I've experienced before: style and substance.

Echo Bazaar is more than just another fantasy adventure story, it's a surreal, mysterious, comedy-horror Victoriana explosion. Echo Bazaar is set in the world of Fallen London. It's like this: at some point in the mid 1800s, London is stolen by bats and dragged underground, where it still exists as Fallen London, in close proximity to Hell (which has an embassy to the city) and a mysterious entity/location called the Bazaar, a place where anything and everything is for sale. Mysteries abound: why was London stolen? What were the four cities to precede it and what happened to them? Where are all the foxes, anyway?

The second part is touched on in these three posts on the Failbetter Games blog. Basically, Echo Bazaar is remarkably freeform for a browser game. The writers of this piece of fiction designed it to have many and multiple branching paths and places where you can define your character's personality and backstory. How you define your character - the choices you make - influence which stories you have access to, which continue to define your character, and so on.

Basically, this thing runs itself the same way I run tabletop RPGs, and that's awesome.

I recommend this game with no reservations. It's based on Twitter, and a Twitter account is all you need to play. You're automatically connected to anyone you follow. Friend me at ElectricPaladin and I'll give you a tour.

Politics, Politics, and Politics

2010-07-01T10:32:00.000-07:00

I'm currently engaged in a fascinating discussion of art, politics, and horror over here on the Pseudopod section of the Escape Artists forums. In case you didn't already know, I'm the erudite (and handsome!) ElectricPaladin.

The discussion gyrates madly around a recent Pseudopod story, Set Down This, by Lavie Tidhar. Set Down This is the testament of an ordinary person who finds that he has become obsessed with the brief encounter between two men, an unnamed American pilot who fires a missile at and kills a group of Iraqis, and one of those Iraqis. The horror comes from the narrator's inability to escape his obsession and the terrifying ease with which human lives can be erased by modern technology. The creepiness of the "hillarious military YouTube videos" culture - the narrator's brother is a part of this world, which is how the narrator was exposed to the video in the first place - is an added bit of surreal and disturbing.

In a lot of ways, Set Down This isn't a great story. It's kind of a non-story, in that nothing happens, characters do not develop, and the world does not change. It's more a reflection or a character study than a story. If you like that kind of thing, you'll probably just think Set Down This is pure brilliance; if you don't, you'll probably find it a little frustrating. The story is redeemed, however, by excellent craft and a truly disturbing exploration of the subject matter. I'm not a big fan of non-stories, and I found Set Down This striking and interesting.

Anyway, the discussion: what I find really disturbing about the discussion is that Set Down This is being called political.

Political!

What is political about pointing out that war is bad? How is it political to acknowledge that the people who die in war are people, not faceless foreign devils? Is it particularly leftist of me to feel sorry for the people who get blown up, maimed, mangled, and killed across the sea? Since when is it political to say that war has consequences for everyone from soldiers to civilians, from the families of those who are killed to those who just watch the deaths on YouTube?

Now, in order to favor the war, do you have to pretend that it's a good thing? Do you have to imagine that the people who die don't exist, or that they aren't people? Is it now impossible for us to acknowledge that we sometimes do things that are bad in pursuit of a greater good?

I'm not in favor of the war in Iraq, but that's neither here nor there. I'm definitely a leftist - in fact, I'm kind of a Communist - but that's also neither here nor there. Do the people who favor this war really believe that admitting that war is bad is a leftist political statement?

Because that scares the crap out of me.

More to the point, the story is being criticized by a forumite who complains that he comes to Pseudopod to be "entertained."

I'd argue that the power of literature - especially fantastic literature - is it's ability to simultaneously entertain and do so much more. When you read, watch, and/or listen to a story you are entertained and transported. You live another life and learn how to emphasize with someone completely different. This expands you, enhances you, and has the power to change the world.

... I feel better now.

Anyway, if you want to join in the discussion, I'd be glad to have you. Otherwise, stay tuned. Up next, an intro to the craze that's sweeping the internet, Echo Bazaar, and then a guest post by the brilliant brain behind The Guild of the Cowry Catchers and The Prophet of Panamindorah (I can never seem to spell that right on the first try), Abigail Hilton.

Robots, Sex, and Rock n' Roll

2010-06-26T22:33:00.000-07:00

This tidbit comes to me from a neat blog that I follow, The Githyanki Diaspora, an exploration of gaming and fantasy that parallels my own. The author is Judd (the librarian), once one of the terrifying trio called the Sons of Kryos (now, alas, defunct).

Anyway, it's a music video, and it's also science fiction. I'd say it fails to establish a Burning Zeppelin Experience, mostly because narrative-wise, it's all style and no substance. That said, it illustrates a fascinating little world. I wish there were more to it.

Enjoy:

Well, the question is, what would you have done to add more narrative - more burn - to this bit of fic? And does it really need more narrative after all, or is it something beautiful and compelling just the way it is?

Zeppelins in the Mist(born)

2010-06-25T10:16:00.000-07:00

That's neat, but I'm still not one hundred percent happy with it. Maybe I should move on over to Wordpress or something. Hm...

Anyway, I didn't crack open Blogger today to bitch about the new formats. I did what I did for one purpose and one purpose alone: to write about Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn Trilogy, which I recently (finally) finished.

I was introduced to Mistborn 1: The Final Empire by one of my colleagues at a school semisecret santa event (he gave me the first book of the Mistborn Trilogy and Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower, I gave him noise-cancelling headphones to help deal with his new baby). Of course, being a first year teacher, I took the book home and didn't touch it for weeks.

When I finally did crack the cover, I was instantly enchanted. The Final Empire does an excellent job of immediately pulling the reader into the world with compelling characters, an immediately dynamic story, and a unique setting. I finished The Final Empire in about a month. The Abigail picked it up shortly thereafter and devoured it, finishing The Final Empire before I had made much headway in The Well of Ascension, stole it from me, and then went on to finish The Hero of Ages, the last book of the series, while I was still working on book two.

The Abigail is almost as busy as I was, so this is definitely a mark of approval. She's also finished Sanderson's Elantris and is currently working on Warbreaker.

The series gets even better as it goes on. Sanderson is a master of the reveal. He uses no cheap tricks ("and then he told them his plan") and no content-free revelations (*ahem* Lost *ahem*). Every revelation is a moment of perfectly broken tension, advancing the story and challenging the characters and their relationships. Sanderson is also good at creating characters who are very real, very three-dimensional, and nonetheless interact interestingly with larger themes and archetypes. Vin grapples with her role as a knife in the dark while her lover struggles to balance Elend the man with Elend the king.

I also need to praise Sanderson for the most creative use of what Diana Wynne Jones called "Gnomic Utterances" (see The Tough Guide to Fantasyland). Every chapter in the Mistborn Trilogy begins with an in-character writing by someone in the setting. In many fantasy novels (including at least one that I wrote) these chapter headers are mostly a waste of space, but not so in the Mistborn Trilogy. Each chapter header adds something to the story. In some cases, the big reveal of the novel is who, exactly, these writings come from in the first place.

What's most interesting about the Mistborn Trilogy is that we get to see Sanderson developing as a writer. The Final Empire was the first novel he wrote (though not the first he got published), and it suffers in places. After reading the first book, I was willing to class Sanderson as an apt inheritor of Robert Jordan's legacy: a talented writer who crafts good stories and adequate characters. By the time I finished The Hero of Ages I knew Sanderson was something much more: a truly brilliant author I have a lot to learn from, and one of my new favorites.

What's this? All style and no substance? What kind of blog review is this?

The Mistborn Trilogy tells the story of Vin, a thief on the streets of Luthadel, the capital city of the Final Empire, which sits astride a dying world of ash-choked skies and brutal monarchy. The ruler of the world is, aptly enough, the Lord Ruler, an immortal and (apparently) indestructible incarnate god. A class of lords and ladies, descended from the Lord Ruler's allies, hold dominion over the skaa, a slave class descended from the Lord Ruler's enemies. While a significant community of skaa thieves survive in the big cities, only one man dares oppose the Lord Ruler: Kelsier, the Survivor of Hathsin, the only man to ever escape the Lord Ruler's brutal mining operation.

As the plot is an unnatural (but awesome) hybrid of epic fantasy, urban heist, and kung-fu, the setting is a weird mix of Victoriana, epic fantasy, and alchemy. The people of the Final Empire carry pocket-watches and wear waistcoats or gowns. They have an understanding of industry, economy, and political theory that resembles 1800s Europe. At the same time, they carry swords and dueling canes and the Lord Ruler's military, the mysterious koloss, are monsters out of fantasy.

The setting's magic (which I've written of before) is a mix of all the elements above, and then some. Allomancy relies on ingesting and burning metals to produce a set of very specific effects, which combines alchemy and industrialization. Feruchemy, on the other hand... ah, but that would be telling.

In any case, I recommend the Mistborn Trilogy on all cylinders. Go forth and read.

Burning Service Announcement

2010-06-24T15:30:00.000-07:00

Blogger has recently enhanced its platform with a number of fascinating features. There's only one problem: the format used by the Burning Zeppelin Experience is so old that it doesn't have access to any of these features.

Lame.

So, there are going to be some changes here. The nightmare-inducing header will remain the same until I can hire an artist to create a burning zeppelin that is somehow cute, but the colors, fonts, and arrangement of the gadgets may fluctuate wildly in the coming week or so while I settle on a new theme, new layout, and tweak the colors.

Thanks for your patience. Keep on burning.

White Wolf Through the Decades

2010-06-24T09:49:00.000-07:00

This is a post for the White Wolf fans out there. The rest of you can probably just ditch. Tomorrow's post, I promise, will have nothing to do with White Wolf.

If you've been following White Wolf's new lines, you've probably already heard about New Wave Requiem, A Vampire: the Requiem supplement that takes on the blood, sex, glitz, and corruption of America's 1980s. Well, a couple of days ago, the Abigail and I decided to pass the time by deciding when in the last few decades to set the rest of the new White Wolf canon.

The rules were simple; each game gets a decade and no game can share a decade. This has a resulted in a few less-than-perfect pairings, but I think we did a good job optimizing. By the way, I can't recall which ideas were the Abigail's and which were mine, so I'm going to just present the whole thing as our idea.

* * *

1920s - Werewolf: the Howling 20s

This one is almost a joke, but there's something to be said for werewolves, with their overwhelming dark and violent passions, attempting to navigate the postwar enthusiasm of the 1920s. This was an era of mixed mores, with a high society that combined some conservative values with growing social liberalism. All those passions, barely contained, are going to spawn lots of spirits, and for the Uratha, more spirits means more problems.

For other values of "spirits," the 1920s were also the decades of prohibition. With prohibition came organized crime, which is a world I imagine the werewolves would take to very well, Iron Masters, Storm Lords, and Ivory Claws especially.

In the meantime, America was significantly less urbanized in the 1920s, with numerous small towns and rural communities for the less citified tribes to play in.

There are definitely other good matches for Werewolf: the Forsaken. Werewolves and the noir 50s, for example, would match pretty well. However, only the 1920s provide the fascinating mix of propriety, passion, crime, and abundant rural settings

1930s - Promethean: Wasteland

In my opinion, the 1930s are the perfect historical setting for Promethean: the Created. The entirety of America was infected, sick unto death with depression and drought. Promethean drifters would find themselves entirely at home among the numerous ordinary humans forced to leave homes that don't belong to them anymore and farms reduced to so much dust. In fact, a great deal of the hobo culture that the writers of Promethean drew on to create promethean culture was born at this time, which leads us to ask another fascinating question: what were the prometheans like before they adopted hobo culture?

There are clues in the books, of course, but it would be neat to see it laid out.

The 1930s force prometheans to answer difficult questions as they search for humanity. What's the point of becoming human in a place and time when humans survive by living like animals or sitting, inhumanly aloof, with their surviving fortunes? What is the best way to use your promethean powers to help the people around you without turning them against you, and should you even try? Is the dustbowl all your fault?

1940s - Geist: Ghosts of Europe

World War II is a great setting for Geist: the Sin Eaters. The 1940s were an era of death for the whole world. Young men (and some young women) left home to fight and die on foreign soil. Living humans made themselves into monsters, and - the metaphysics of the World of Darkness dictate - made monsters of the ghosts of their victims. Whole peoples were wiped out by a madman's vision. And war has secondary victims as well: many die of disease, industrial accident, and heartbreak.

All that passion, all those principles, mingling with the spirits of the unjustly dead, spawning a generation of geists eager for hosts, eager to return to the world before it's too late to stop - or encourage - the slaughter.

I know this is a good pairing because I already have character concepts. One of the Bound's geist is a waterlogged shade of a sailor who died and was never recovered. He travels back and forth between the killing fields of Europe and the cities and towns of America, bringing ghosts home to their families so they can have a chance of moving on. A Jewish partisan, escaped from a death camp, is haunted by a black cloud that smells of burning human flesh, speaks in a cacophony of screaming voices, and urges him to find men and women wearing the twisted cross of the Nazi regime and hurt them. He's not sure he wants to resist.

It sends chills up and down my spine. I want to run this so bad I can taste it.

1950s - Hunter: Noir

The paranoia and conservativeness of the 1950s are make it fertile ground for Hunter: the Reckoning stories. This was an era of intrigue and shameful secrets. Hunters can be loyal Americans hunting down red spies who are also vampires and witches... or red spies, eager to do their best for the Motherland, who stumble into a conspiracy of monsters in the government they are supposed to be infiltrating. Private detectives ply their trade on rain slicked streets - and somehow, it's always night - and enter the vigil when they discover that a client's daughter isn't dead, but she isn't alive, either.

As you can see, I think applying a noir feel - not just a neo-noir feel, which you can do quite easily in any World of Darkness game, but a real, genuine, temporally accurate noir feel - would be great.

This is also an interesting time in Hunter's secret histories. This is when the scattered scholars who accidentally helped create the Nazi party would gather to become the Loyalists of Thule. This is when Null Mysteriis were only a decade old, still feeling their way into the World of Darkness. We'd also get to see compacts and conspiracies to replace the Long Night, Network Zero, and the Union, who either didn't exist yet or weren't formally organized... and we'd get hints of why these organizations don't exist in the modern World of Darkness.

It would be awesome. I'd set it in D.C.

1960s - Awakening Aquarius

The 1960s in America would be a fascinating time to be a mage. The humans thought they were close to achieving universal enlightenment... and maybe they were right. The Free Council would revel in an environment of psychodelic experimentation and social exploration. The Guardians of the Veil and the Seers of the Throne would find this time period very challenging, though for different reasons. All the other orders would have to deal with an influx of new recruits with a very different idea of what magic means and what they should do with. How would the Mysterium deal with undisciplined hippies who come to their order with a genuine love of learning and no respect for authority? Would the Silver Ladder find itself divided between reactionary social conservatives and serious but reform-minded young politicians? Would some Guardians break away, certain that the Age of Aquarius means the advent of the Hieromagus and the end of the Fallen World? Mages aren't immune to racism, so how does their society react to the civil rights struggles of the 60s?

I don't know, but I'd love to find out.

The 60s were a time of social upheaval and cultural transformation. It's a time when many segments of humanity started reaching towards Truth - towards the Supernal - and I can see great stories coming from mages finding themselves caught up in that rush.

1970s - Changeling Nights

And to bring us full circle, we're back to another pairing that's almost a joke. Changelings often come back from Arcadia looking ridiculous and frightening... and disco is ridiculous and frightening. It's a match made in Philadelphia.

More seriously, I see a lot of opportunities in the drug, dance, and club cultures of the 1970s for changelings to explore, discover, and destroy themselves. The fey have always loved music, and the 1970s were an area defined by its music. It's all the more fitting that it be an aggressively modern form of music. Between the Watergate scandal and the Jim Jones mass suicide, the 70s were an era of corruption and madness. It was also an era of economic and scientific growth and opportunity. Corrruption, madness, and opportunity - that's Changeling, right there.

* * *

I hope you enjoyed my efforts to shoehorn White Wolf's games into the last few decades. Please feel free to comment.

And if you happen to be a White Wolf developer, well... I've worked for you before, and I could always use more work. You know where to find me.

Beyond the Black Gate

2010-06-23T11:30:00.000-07:00

Check this out: The Weird of Ironspell by John R. Fultz (with an illustration by Alex Sheikman, creator of the awesome ROBOTIKA), a piece of original fiction available on Black Gate, a fantasy magazine that rejected one of my stories a while back.

The Weird of Ironspell is a great example of short fiction: a thrilling narrative that evokes a larger story without having to go into all the details and emotionally real characters presented in very few words. More particularly, the story's conclusion is an entirely emotional experience... but I'll let you read it yourself to figure out exactly which emotion trumps what.

What are you waiting for? When I say short story, I mean short. You have no excuse not to follow the link above.

Go ahead.

I'll wait.

Burning Into Showbiz II

2010-06-22T11:00:00.000-07:00

Remember a ways back when I posted to let you know that Escape Pod's Union Dues series (by Jeffrey DeRego) was being considered for translation to television? Escape Pod put out the call for fans of Union Dues, television, and superheroes to send in letters about why super hero shows generally failed and how to make one that succeeded. I never got response to my letter, though I assume that it was read (after all, I rarely get comments on these posts and I assume that they get read and you exist, perhaps even in plural).

Anyway, the important thing is that the process has moved forward somewhat. Union Dues has a new and spiffier website. The website isn't finished yet, and no products are available, but it looks like the marketing machine will soon be underway.

It's exciting to be living at a time when a series of short stories, released for free on a podcast, will be making their way to actual television. All hail the new media!

Live Long and What Now?

2010-06-21T17:52:00.000-07:00

There are crazies, and there are crazies, and there are people even I'm moved to mock and shun. VHEMT goes beyond that last category and enters the world of movements I find myself actually despising. Seriously. Get this:

"VHEMT (pronounced vehement) is a movement not an organization. It's a movement advanced by people who care about life on planet Earth. We're not just a bunch of misanthropes and anti-social, Malthusian misfits, taking morbid delight whenever disaster strikes humans. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Voluntary human extinction is the humanitarian alternative to human disasters.
We don't carry on about how the human race has shown itself to be a greedy, amoral parasite on the once-healthy face of this planet. That type of negativity offers no solution to the inexorable horrors which human activity is causing.
Rather, The Movement presents an encouraging alternative to the callous exploitation and wholesale destruction of Earth's ecology.
As VHEMT Volunteers know, the hopeful alternative to the extinction of millions of species of plants and animals is the voluntary extinction of one species: Homo sapiens... us.
Each time another one of us decides to not add another one of us to the burgeoning billions already squatting on this ravaged planet, another ray of hope shines through the gloom.
When every human chooses to stop breeding, Earth's biosphere will be allowed to return to its former glory, and all remaining creatures will be free to live, die, evolve (if they believe in evolution), and will perhaps pass away, as so many of Nature's “experiments” have done throughout the eons.

It's going to take all of us going."

Let's start with VHEMT's "arguments," which boil down to a list of varyingly clever straw men, which they predictably line up and knock down. Then let's carry on to their failure to engage with the logical conclusions of their philosophy: why not kill people, support disease and murder, if you despite humanity and want it to cease? Why propose humanitarian action and when the continued existence and comfort of humanity is counter to your goals? If there's anything I frown on more than depressingly nihilistic, rhetoric-poor, spinelessly genocidal whackjobs, it's halfassed depressingly nihilistic, rhetoric-poor, spinelessly genocidal whackjobs. Come on, people! I've seen more enthusiastic and better-argued evil in poorly written pulp novels. I know you can do better!

This brings me to my final point. What do we do with things who disturb and frighten us? We make art about it!

Creative prompt: you know the conventions of modern/urban fantasy. Take a good long look at these VHEMT folks, maybe even peruse their website (linked above) and tell me what they're really about.

Androids and Tigers and Bears

2010-06-17T11:36:00.000-07:00

I know the whole rewritten classics thing is getting big, but this? This? This?

This looks kind of neat, actually. I'll have to read it and then let you know. If any of you read it first, be sure to let me know. It's the circle of life.

Calls from Inside the Zeppelin

2010-06-14T22:18:00.000-07:00

Pseudopod's inimitable host Alasdair Stuart (whose name isn't really spelled the way you expect it to be spelled, is it) is fond of saying that one of his favorite moments in horror is when you realize that the calls are coming from inside the house. By this, (I am fairly certain) he means the moment that you see, undeniably, that things are really, truly, desperately wrong. It's also the moment that the child comes into the light and you see that the blood on her shirt isn't hers, the heartbeat after the lights turn on and you see that the furniture has changed position, when his hood comes down and you see that there is no face underneath, and - to borrow another classical example - when the beautiful hitchhiker's mother says "I'm sorry, but our daughter died ten years ago."

The latest Psuedopod, The Mother and the Worm by Tim W. Burke revels in the approach to this principle that I find most compelling: it's not the calls that are coming from inside the house, it's the bad ideas that are coming from inside you. It's not the world that's wrong, it's you that are wrong, and you are going to have to deal with the consequences of your choices. Forever. The horror I love is the moment that it really sinks in that the blood on your shirt isn't yours, when the lights go down and you know when they come up again either you or she will be dead, when the hood comes up to shadow your face for your last time, and when you look at your victim and say "I'm sorry" and realize that you don't really mean it, not anymore, and maybe you never did. I don't know if the main character of The Mother and the Worm has really had that moment yet - this is the second story in what looks like a series of shorts - but I'm watching, and I have seen how his choices have damned and entangled him , and it's brilliant.

There are other examples of this moment in creative content I'm consuming right now. In Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn II: The Well of Ascension (warning: spoiler), there's a moment where "God," the voice in Zane's head, tells him that he isn't crazy, the voice is a real thing, not a delusion, and all his bad choices and misery are his own fault. In the world of rolyeplaying, anyone who's ever read or played a White Wolf game - especially either of the vampires, but the same is true for any of the new line of games as well - can see that the entire system is bent around creating that moment for the characters and the players. I could beat myself up and think of more, but I think I've made my point.

To get a little broader and step beyond mere linkcraft I want to describe what it is about this moment that I find so sad, beautiful, and haunting.

Ultimately, what it's about is a sense of transaction, something I've written about before. There's a sense in which many great stories live in the gulf between what someone wants, the price he is willing to pay for it, and what it actually costs. The moment of "the bad ideas are coming from inside my brain" kind of horror is about looking back at the price you paid and seeing that it wasn't really worth it, but now there's nothing you can do. Or, it's about putting a character in a situation where he pays a price he can't bear without knowing what he's doing, and then forcing him to see and suffer the undeserved consequences. Or, finally, it's about portraying a character seeing the cost, and finding worthwhile, but portraying it in such a way that the audience can't help but be appalled. In the end, however, it's always about price.

Frankly, there's often something beautifully protagonizing about this moment, and that's also part of why I - a fan of protagonists - love it so.

* * *

Where have you seen good examples of "the bad ideas are coming from you" in fiction?
What is the horror moment that most turns your metaphorical crank? Where does horror live for you?

Cowry Catchers! Cowry Catchers Cowry Catchers!

2010-06-03T12:04:00.000-07:00

Is back! My commute is complete again!

Ghost Ghost Ghost Placenta!

2010-05-28T13:55:00.000-07:00

I've got this story idea kicking around my head and I want to know what you think of it. Here we go:

The basic premise of magic in the setting is this: there are two branches of magic, both of them deeply intertwined, but with one of them clearly superior to the other. The first is known as "Foundation," and is basically training in psychic powers. The Foundation is normally quite weak and inflexible, but can be an important asset nonetheless. With the Foundation, a magician can move small objects with his mind, exert some control over his own biological processes, and communicate with others telepathically. The greater your skill in the Foundation, the more open you are to the Foundation's power; a master of the Foundation can be killed with the Foundation's powers alone, but the most he can do to a normal human is give him a headache or some bad dreams. Most importantly, anyone can study the Foundation, and many do. It isn't at all unlikely to come across a simple farmer who can calm his sheep by concentrating at them or talk to his sons and daughters over great distances.

The second branch of magic is dependent upon something called the Fetch, and understanding the Fetch requires a little understanding of the world's mythology. In this world, the only real difference between living and unliving matter is the presence of a soul. Souls come from a mysterious place beyond the world, and are largely immune to magical interference.

Now, when you were still inside your mother's body, you had two bodies connected by a narrow cord - you and your placenta (your placenta and you; two pals, together again!). In this world, your placenta had its own soul, its own animating spark. When you were born, that spark died and returned to wherever it came. Are placental souls only used to usher new life into the world? If it's lucky, will it get to be person next time? Are placental souls working off some crime? Nobody knows, and it isn't really important to the story. What is important is that if your mother keeps a part of the placenta or umbilical cord, preserving it, and performs a small ritual worshiping the placental soul, then the soul might stick around, becoming an invisible and intangible familiar spirit, a Fetch.

With the help of a Fetch, you can do real magic. Rains of fire, bolts of lightning, prophecies and curses; the world is your (magical) oyster. The more you worship your Fetch, the more and more expensive sacrifices you make for its well-being, the more powerful it becomes, and the more powerful you become. Learning to use the Foundation also helps, as you are better able to communicate with your Fetch.

Of course, the downside is that your disembodied twin isn't necessarily a good person. In fact, lacking a body means that it lacks basic human feelings. A well-treated Fetch linked to a basically moral person will learn to ape that person's morals, possibly without really understanding them, but a bastard's Fetch will quickly grow into a real sociopath.

By the way, wacky and gross as it is, the whole ghost placenta thing reflects some real world beliefs (by the way, that article is really neat and you should read it). Go figure.

Before I leave it at a "well, what do you think?" I'd like to give you an idea of where I'm going with my particular story. For that, I need to give you one more piece of mythology.

In magical circles, identical twins are considered bad luck, because they share a placenta, and therefore, a Fetch. They can also use each other's Fetch-tokens (the dried umbilical cord that lets you access your Fetch's powers). This spiritual mingling creates a bit of cultural panic, and there are lots of stories of identical twins fighting over their shared Fetch, killing each other for the Fetch-token when one of them loses hers, driving their Fetches mad with their rivalries, and generally fucking shit up.

However, for the unscrupulous, the birth of identical twins is a huge opportunity. You see, if you murder one of the twins at birth - usually the weaker twin, since before modern medicine one twin was almost always smaller and sicklier - keep a strip of its flesh, braid it with the surviving twin's umbilical token, and perform a worship ritual that names the placental ghost and the dead twin as one being, you can coax the two spirits into becoming one uberFetch, a must-have for evil Emperors everywhere!

This piece of dark magic is the heart of my story, and from here it flows pretty naturally. An evil king (frustrated because he was born during a civil dispute in his country and the midwife didn't have time to keep a piece of the afterbirth, thus dooming him to a life without magic, a disadvantageous marriage to the princess of a neighboring backwater, and a life of obscurity) is blessed with twins and tries to go through with the Evil Ritual of the UberFetch (tm). His wife, the princess of the neighboring less magical kingdom he was forced to marry, balks and spirits the doomed twin away with his own umbilical token.

I think you can see where this is going. The queen is imprisoned on some trumped-up charge, the evil king raises his son evil until he's powerful enough to murder parliament and the two of them can live high on the hog and plan an invasion of the kingdom that disinherited Dad for not being magical enough to inherit his father's magocracy. The land is blighted by oppressive laws demanding that everyone worship the evil twin's Fetch, which increases its power significantly.

In the meanwhile, the good twin grows up to become a freedom fighter, drawing on the same Fetch for power, until the brothers are drawn into a climactic confrontation that certainly can't be evited (because it's, you know, inevitable... I'll be here all week; try to deal).

The real lifeblood of the story, though is good and evil. Is dad evil because he wanted to kill an infant for power? Is bro evil because he wants to take the power he still has and lead his nation to martial greatness? Is Our Hero good because he wants peace and freedom? Most importantly, can he teach his shared Fetch to favor his point of view, because in the final battle, the Fetch's favor is what's going to decide who wins and who loses.

What the story is really about is philosophy, good and evil, and how to distinguish between them intellectually. When you lack a body - as the Fetch does - to give you a gut "good" and "bad" feeling when you think about helping or hurting people, what do good and evil mean, if anything?

The story is also about family, especially the ambitious, controlling, and dysfunctional kind that Our Hero will find himself thrust into. One thing I'm considering is that nobody in the story really wants to kill any of the other major actors. Now that he's too grown up to kill for power, Evil Dad doesn't really want to murder his son. He just wants to rule the world through his son(s) and punish the people who humiliated him; is that really so bad? Evil Brother actually kind of likes the idea of having a twin. Imprisoned Mom is just kind of pitiful and terrified that her sons are going to kill each other. She loves both of them fiercely even though she's alienated from one of them and hasn't seen the other since he was an infant.

* * *

I'm going to post some questions below. These are the questions I really want answered, though of course, I'm eager to read whatever you might want to write.

Where's the suck? What potential pitfalls (or pratfalls) am I missing in this concept?
What are some of the other potential consequences for this magical system? I've already got that magic is a very female thing, that mothers and midwives decide who to give magic to, but what else might happen?
What possibilities do you see in the plot? I've asked you where the suck might be hiding, but I also want to hear where you see the cool.

* * *

By the way, because I want to write this some day, I'm going to repost the Creative Commons license I use for this blog. That is, just a reminder: you can repost anything you want, as long as you give me credit and don't try to sell it, but please don't take my idea. I like it and want to use it someday. I want to be able to use this blog to talk about my creative process, but I don't want to get scooped because of it. If my ramblings here today have inspired you, just drop me a line and we'll hash it out, make sure your idea and mine aren't too close together. I'm not claiming to be the owner of placenta ghost magic, as I linked above, that's a thought as old as human civilization.

So, just a reminder:

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

This is For the Abigail...

2010-05-26T15:20:00.000-07:00

Who's having a hard day.

"But Mommy, I just want to see what's in there!"

"It's not safe," Jean Ponds insisted, clutching the fork to her breast. Her son had been only seconds away from inserting it into the wall socket. She wondered if her heart would ever start hammering. She knew the current wasn't enough to seriously injure Thomas, but still...

"Charlie at school says it doesn't hurt. Charlie at school says it just tickles!"

Jean put her hands on her hips. "Now, Thomas Robert Ponds, what have I told you about believing silly things your friends at school tell you? Just because some boy at school tells you it's so doesn't mean it's so, you know that!"

"I know," Thomas kicked at the floor with his shoe and wouldn't meet his mother's eyes.

After sending Thomas to his room - minus his fork - Jean made a note to make a call this evening. Mr. Hume ought to know what his son was up to.

If you're one of those silly folks who need to "context," check out my last post. Otherwise, enjoy.

Lost Lost

2010-05-25T11:56:00.000-07:00

Since many other bloggers I read are taking some time to comment on the Lost finale, I figure I may as well jump on that boat. Lost bookended a very interesting time in my life - my post-college, pre-career struggles - and has been a very important show to me. I've enjoyed this show a lot, and the finale was striking.

Unlike Lost, my blog doesn't thrive on suspense, so I'm going to put you out of whatever misery you might be in and tell you right off the bat: I liked the Lost finale. I thought it was a fitting conclusion to a great series, and I'm happy to have watched.

Of course, that doesn't mean I have nothing to say about it.

If you haven't seen the Lost finale yet, now might be a good time to stop reading...

* * *

In my opinion, the finale of Lost had to do three things to be successful. Firstly, it had to resolve mysteries. Not all the mysteries, of course, but at least a few of them. Enough. A significant portion of Lost's following want to know the truth of the Island, of the sideways-world, of Jacob and Smoke Monster, and so on. Secondly, the Lost finale had to resolve plot threads. No story is complete without doors closing. Finally, the Lost finale had to bring character arcs to satisfying conclusions. We had to see the characters grow, change, and complete their growth as new and stronger people. For me, at least, this is the meat and potatoes of fiction.

For easier reading, I'm going to divide these three imperatives up and tackle them one at a time. Watch me go.

Resolution Mysteriis

If you get that, you're as big a nerd as I am.

With regards to this imperative, the Lost finale failed, though not spectacularly. While a great deal of important information was revealed in the closing moments of the series, most of the revelations were "content free." By that, I mean that the show failed to take a stand on what the most important things actually were, instead cloaking the truth in profound-sounding... well... bullshit. I don't want to hear that "the light" is "everything good." I want something a little more juicy. Is it God? A conduit to God? The fire brought to us by Prometheus? Some other legend the writers of Lost want to mine, mangle, or invent? Similarly, Smoke Monster's "absolute evil" was meaningless. Why is he absolutely evil? What is he? Is he an angry ghost? An angry god? A giant lizard?

Ok, probably not that last one.

On the other hand, the choice not to answer the series's many (many, many) ancillary questions is a fine one. I don't really need to know why Walt is special, why Dharma brought polar bears, or why Desmond is the radiation-proof man. Some mysteries can stay mysteries.

For me, the Lost finale failed to resolve its mysteries because it failed to resolve its most important mysteries satisfyingly, instead falling back on bland explanations that failed to add anything to the story.

All Good Plots...

Here, Lost did a reasonably good job. By the end of the series, all the doors that need to be closed are closed. The Island is saved, Smoke Monster is vanquished, and all is right with the world. There are a lot of things we don't ever find out - the legacy of the show's mid-series fuzziness - but they are all things I can live without knowing.

I'll also grant that the final episode threw me some curveballs that I loved. Hurley as the new Jacob, with Ben as his second? Brilliant! Killing the Island to render Smoke Monster mortal so that Kate could kill him, then putting the Island's butt-plug back in to revive it? Wonderful!

The only thing I wish the finale had give me more of was a sense of how the survivors' lives worked out in the end. How did Claire and Kate negotiate co-parenting Aaron (and did they, as the Abigail suggest, eventually... you know... get it on)? Did Desmond in fact die in bed as an ancient gentleman surrounded by a horde of radiation-proof grandchildren? How the hell did Richard integrate himself with the modern world? However, I respect the writers' choices. A story has to end some time, and that means somewhere, something has to go unsaid.

Ultimately, I don't have much to say about this imperative because there isn't much to say. The stories ended, most of them with panache. Moving on.

Ending with Character

My opinion on this imperative is longer, more complicated, and intensely spoilery, so read on at your own risk.

I actually liked the sideways-world-is-heaven's-antechamber angle because I enjoyed the opportunity to see the characters resolving their issues in a way that their lives had made impossible in the real world. Especially in the case of characters like Ben, where the character simultaneously resolved his issues in the real world - in Ben's case, actually becoming the kind of man for whom life as a benevolent schoolteacher is the resolution and absolution he needs - and in the alternate world. The way the two lives, so different, gradually intersected and melded was generally well-paced and compelling.

I am also a goober. I liked seeing Boone and Shannon again. I liked Hurley's reaction to Anna-Lucia. I liked Desmond as a hardened reality terrorist. I liked that the relationship that recalled Kate's memory was her friendship with Claire and love of Aaron. I was amused at the ecumenical yet compelling vision of the afterlife that Lost presented in its final moments.

Where's the bad? For some characters, the emotional resolution of the sideways world was working against some seriously poor decisions earlier in the series, and a two and a half hour finale can only do so much against more than one hundred hours of story. For those characters, the afterlife redemption angle fell flat. Jack, for example, has bored me for a long time, and in the final episode he rang only slightly truer. Sayid's emotional and narrative boat sailed long ago, and his awkward "Nadia is my unrequited love except wow Shannon is cute" plot, conflicting wildly with his content-free evil infection, failed to do anything but annoy me.

I will also concede, as some friends have pointed out, that the struggles and victories of the sideways world fell flat against the reality of... well... it's unreality. And, there's not much I can say to that. I liked the sideways world plot, but I do agree that giving it a touch of unreality rendered it a little cheap.

So Lost's emotional conclusions were part win and part fail. In the end, however, they were mostly win.

* * *

My theory to wrap up the Island plot? The Island is the axis mundi, the Eliadian pillar of creation, the place where divinity descends and man's prayers ascend. With the pillar broken, the world is in serious peril, because the relationship between the material and the divine will fall entirely out of whack.

Of course - and again, this is Eliade - the divine is perilous. It's dangerous to touch the light at the heart of the world. That's why the stations are all so dangerous, that's why only Desmond can survive in the heart of the Island, and that's why the Smoke Monster was born when someone who was unclean and unchosen came to the axis mundi with hate in his (unconscious) heart.

Better than the "bright light" at the heart of the Island, right?

In my version of Lost, Shannon didn't die until much later, completely eclipsing Nadia, and making Sayid's infection a lot more significant. Also in my version, Jack wasn't a wooden stand-in of an actor playing a boring character. And Hurley got the girl in real life. And there was more Vincent. As almost always, with anything I didn't write, there are things I'd do differently.

Clearly they should have hired the Abigail and I to write their show for them, but I'm digressing. In my mind, Lost's finale was a more than adequate conclusion to a show I have enjoyed, and will miss.

So Sue Me

2010-05-18T13:50:00.001-07:00

I don't know where all this interest in the Mary Sue phenomenon is suddenly coming from. Clearly everyone in the world of fantastic fiction is reading this blog (... and not commenting... and masking their presence from Google Analytics... and... ah, whatever). Anyway, Marie Brennan, author of the brain-tickling Driftwood stories (and other things that I haven't experienced myself), has weighed in as well in a recent Science Fiction & Fantasy Novelists (.com) post.

Brennan's take? Basically, the concept of a Mary Sue is complicated and definitely smells of misogynistic prejudice, but it's a bad idea to write a character who alienates and bores your audience. I won't repeat Brennan's argument here, though. What you really should do is read it for yourself.

Maybe I should start a podcast. People listen to podcasts...

Re: Sue, 2

2010-05-12T19:04:00.000-07:00

My friend Jon (currently staying the week with the Abigail and I) just pointed out this neat Salon article about the Mary Sue phenomenon. Salon's main point? Mary Sueism is bad because it's self-indulgent and therefore alienating to the reader. Writing is about communication, and you don't want to leave the reader feeling like an outsider to your self-congratulatory story.

In case you haven't noticed, I think it's a neat article, agree with it, and think you should read it, too.

Interestingly, the article points out several iterations of Sue I hadn't thought of, including "blameless survivor of vicious divorce Sue" and "balding and middle aged yet irresistibly sexy Sue." The latter I've always had some sympathy for - being male and therefore perhaps one day doomed to male pattern baldness - but the former has always annoyed me. I even saw it in an otherwise nifty Escape Pod story once.

Anyway, I will leave you with these thoughts and an article to read, for now.

In Offense of Sues

2010-05-11T10:49:00.000-07:00

Other potential titles for this post could include "Defining my Terms, Bitch" or more aggressively, "Why I Hate Mary Sue." The first, however, is either mildly offensive or an in-joke, depending on how long you've known me in real life ("substantiate your data, bitch!") and the second really is too aggressive. I'm going to use Miss Haitch's post as a jumping-off point, but I really have nothing against her (him? zhe? dog? hooray for the internet!) and actually find a lot of the post's points interesting and compelling.

In said post, Miss Haitch comes to the defense of the oft-hated Mary Sue. Her argument is that the very idea of a Mary Sue is misogynistic. The title is less frequently applied to male characters than to female (true) and can imply that outrageously awesome women are an unrealistic rarity (also true). She also talks about how a culture of bullying and shaming surrounds the idea of Mary Sue, something I - who have ~~almost~~ never written fanfiction - know nothing about; I have to admit, though, that it sounds plausible. She closes with a description of the awesome characters in her real life and how they could be summarized and dismissed as "Sues."

And oddly, that's where she loses me.

What I think Miss Haitch is missing is that there is a literary dimension to Mary Sue being a bad thing. You can't just something bad and redefine it as something good, however problematic the bad thing might be. Mary Sues aren't just misunderstood but awesome, female characters. They are characters who are so awesome as to be flat, whose overwrought greatness deforms the world around them, whose bright light conceals the fact that they are as complex and nuanced as a lightbulb... and about as hollow.

Rather than heap on the hate, I'm going to go ahead and actually define my term (bitch). In the land of the Burning Zeppelin, what is a Mary Sue?

For me, a Sue is a character who is perfect and special to the point that it hurts my ability to suspend disbelief and enjoy the story. Such characters are distinguished by their flawlessness, a degree of style-violating absurdity, and the moral flatness of their surroundings.

A Mary Sue Has No Flaws

Flaws make a character interesting. Mistakes are generally more fascinating than mishaps. Mary Sues have neither. Either they always make the right decision, or their mistakes always turn out

to be good decisions in disguise. He never leaves his cell phone on when sneaking into the alien sky city. She never forgets to lock her car door. He can't remember the last time he misplaced something important. She's never let a friend down in her life. When he developes an irrational dislike for someone, it's always for bad guys (more on that later).

What this really comes down to is that Mary Sues are emotionally and narratively flat, and therefore, meaningless. They don't have inner struggles. Their passions don't overwhelm their good sense - except when it makes them romantic and striking, and then, it always turns out for the best. Mary Sues don't make moral choices, they just exist.

A Mary Sue Breaks His Universe

This point is a little roundabout, so bear with me (rar!)

In roleplaying, we have a term that is related to "Mary Sue": Unique and Beautiful Snowflake (UBS for short). UBSs are distinguished by being special, unique, and entirely one-of-a-kind, and violating the rules of their setting to do so. The first magic user after a thousand years of mundanity, the only man to do magic in a world of wizard-chicks, the orc who wants to civilize his people and bring them into a brighter future, the woman who does that special kind of magic no one else can do, the vampire with a conscience and a soul (ok, maybe that last isn't a UBS any more - there's enough of that dude to start a baseball league). Almost all Mary Sues are Unique and Beautiful Snowflakes, but not all Unique and Beautiful Snowflakes are Mary Sues. The juncture of the two - the place where a UBS can be awesome and a Sue never is - is where this concept lives.

Those Unique and Beautiful concepts I listed above? They're all awesome. They may break the rules of their settings, but if they do so in a way that is in line with their setting's general themes, they do so in a way that produces an excellent story. The first good orc, the last male mage, the only X-mancer... in the right world, these people could be awesome. In fact, several of the blurbs above are inspired by highly successful novels that I've loved. The key phrase above, however is "if they do so in a way that is in line with their setting's general themes." If they don't, they're not just UBSs, they're Sues.

Mary Sues have cinematic good luck and don't make mistakes in worlds of grit and sorrow. Mary Sues have special epic talents in worlds with unbreakable rules. Mary Sues have fluttering capes and hair in worlds without wind. They don't stand out because they're awesome... they stand out because they don't fit.

A Mary Sue is Morally Flat

This concept is related to the two above, but surpasses them. To explain it, I'm going to quote myself:

"In these books, everyone who opposes Yelena and her interests turns out to be an utterly despicable person with a taste for rape, domination, torture, rape, murder, and rape (note the repetition of 'rape'). With one exception, everyone who takes a disliking for Yelena turns out to be in league with the villains."

Real people have erring moral senses. We like people who turn out to be bad for us and we fail to hit it off with people who turn out to be great, decent, wonderful folks. We have characters from our complicated pasts and things we hate about ourselves that we project onto people around us, making them players in our own private psychodramas. It's not bad, it's just human.

Not so with Sues. When a Sue dislikes someone, it's because she's a bad, bad, bad woman. When someone dislikes a Sue, it's because he's a bad, bad, bad man.

The phenomenon goes deeper, however.

Mary Sues live in a world devoid of moral complexity. For a Sue, the choices are always easy - in fact, they aren't choices at all - and the Sue is always right. A Sue's opponents are always bad, his allies are always good, and you can always tell the difference between them.

Usually because of how they react to the Sue.

In conclusion, a Mary Sue is a character of singular moral flatness who violates the stylistic underpinnings of his world. He's always right, he never makes choices, and compared to the rest of his world, he just doesn't make sense.

For me, a Sue is always indicative of lazy or immature writing. It's easy to slap a bunch of good qualities together with some nominal flaws, give it a name, and cut it loose. It's much harder - and much more rewarding - to make someone who is real, flawed, interesting, and sympathetic. It's much harder - and much more interesting - to write your main character making terrible mistakes and maintain the audience's sympathy. In general, it's a good idea to reject everything that makes a Sue a Sue and write something good and interesting.

And Haitch? I don't think your friend, your sister, or your girlfriend are Sues. They sound like good people to me; they certainly don't violate the stylistic underpinnings of the world I live in. So nothing personal, ok?

* * *

I'm not going to follow this up with provocative questions because I think I've probably been provocative enough. I'm just going to close with this: I LIKE COMMENTS. If you're out there reading this, I promise I'll even respond.

[bear image courtesy of Peter Macdonald; like my blog, it's all Creative Commons and stuff]

Burning Limitations

2010-04-23T17:58:00.001-07:00

In a recent (sorry, friendslocked) post, a friend of mine wrote about her limits as a roleplayer: the things she never wants to have happen to her characters or in her games, no questions asked. Her limits, quite reasonably, include:

Having a PC raped.
Having a PC tortured, explicitly, on-screen.
Having the PC's actions lead to a child's death (when the child is someone narratively important and personified - she has no problem with her PC's committing genocide or xenocide, for example, when the populations she wipes out only include children in the abstract).
Explicit sexual content.

That's just the blacklist. She also has a list of things she wants used only with extreme consideration, such as her character becoming pregnant.

I find all of this eminently reasonable. It's good and important to know where your limits are in game. Otherwise, you're sure to discover them at a bad moment, such as the middle of a session when something happens and suddenly you're somewhere between retching and feeling like maybe not coming back next week.

Now, the weird thing is, my limits work very differently. No matter how I look at them, they all come down to the same central principle:

Let me play the game I signed on for.

Don't take away the power, situation, or setting element that makes my character cool. Don't impose new powers, situations, or setting elements on him until the game's style twists away from what I'm interested in. Don't traumatize him until he isn't the person I made anymore. Don't kill off the NPCs I want h

im to interact with. Don't kill him.

That said, you can do any of those things with my permission. Having my character change and grow is part of what I signed on for, after all. Change my character's powers if it adds to his story, traumatize him if it forces him to develop, kill of NPCs whose deaths will force him to grow, kill him if it puts a suitably dramatic cap on his narrative, just make sure I'm ok with it. Rape, torture, infanticide... I have a hard time imagining many characters whose stories would be enhanced by events this extreme, but they aren't off the table for me.

Lest this seem like a fake limit, I want to be clear - I am a real control freak about this. If you take away the game I signed on for, I will be unhappy about it, I will let you know, and I will expect you to do something about it. My limits are just as firm as others, they just lie in what I've come to see as a kind of odd place. I suppose it's because I'm a writer and I approach game as a writer. My character is my story, and while I'm ok with my character's story being dynamic, as good roleplaying must be, there's a point where I stop having fun.

I have my limits.

What are yours?

Headline: Ashpocalypse

2010-04-18T09:38:00.001-07:00

Europe becomes the Final Empire. Waistcoats and pocketwatches come back into style as ash falls from the sky. American fantasy author Brandon Sanderson declines to comment. Will an immortal emperor rise from Iceland to declare himself the Lord Ruler of all the Earth? Only time will tell.

In the meantime, if you're reading this from airport wireless somewhere in Europe, you have my sympathies.

And if you're in the mood, I have a creative prompt to help you pass the time...

Write me something topical, something relevant; write me the ashpocalypse! The comments button is yours.

Matt Memorial Mmmm... Blog

2010-04-13T19:02:00.000-07:00

On Thursday, March 25th, my friend Matthew Brown passed away unexpectedly. He was 25 years old. As far as anyone can tell, a lifetime of diabetes other chronic conditions finally caught up with him.

I'm about as ok about it as anyone can be. Matt's friends and family have drawn together remarkably well, given the circumstances. Matt had a funeral for his family - I couldn't attend because it was at the same time as Passover - and also a geek-themed memorial for his friends, most of him knew him as a player, GM, and World of Warcraft denizen.

Matt and I didn't have exactly the same tastes in game. Matt had a wider hack-and-slash, beer-and-pretzels streak than I do (I am a filthy narrativist). However, the man knew how to run a good game, and I'd like to devote today's post to a few of the things Matt taught me that I want to remember.

Everyone is a Star: Matt had an ability to make everyone at the table feel like their character was the star of the show. His Changeling: the Dreaming chronicle, Dreams of Rebirth, featured an incredibly varied cast of characters. We had a frighteningly bitter Unseelie Baron, his lovestruck pooka spymistress, a traumatized scout, a timelost sorceress, and the most vicious 12 year old terrorist you ever met. Somehow, each and every one of us would describe the game as "my game"; in truth, it was our game. I believe that Matt did this by combining careful preparation (as the Abigail has noted, "he remembered things about my character's backstory that I had forgotten"), a feeling for his fellow players that can only be summed up as love, and quick wits. It made for a stellar gaming experience, and it's something to emulate.
There is No Drama: "Do not try to prevent the drama - that's impossible. Instead, try to remember the truth: there is no drama, only people." Drama didn't happen in Matt's gaming groups. People had issues, and people - led by Matt's love and patience - solved them. I wish I'd known how to do that in college.
Always Room for One More: I've alluded to this before, but Matt was a kind, giving, accepting, and most importantly, inclusive person. I can be a real snob sometimes, but Matt wasn't. As far as I could tell, you liked what you liked - you played the way you played - and whether or not Matt wanted to play with you, that was still just fine.

In closing, I want to share this: at Matt's memorial, we divided up his spoils - his gaming books, his games, his toys - so that they would go to homes with people who would enjoy them in good health for years to come. I was conflicted about it at first, but it was what Matt's family wanted, and in the end, I think it was a good idea. I'm not ashamed to say that I ended up going home with a lot of stuff that I am going to enjoy, and every time I do, I'm going to think about Matt. Every time I struggle to live up to my best - to his best - I'm going to remember him.

Anyway, among the things Matt gave me are everything I need to start playing D&D 4th Edition.

I've been wanting a low-pressure beer-and-pretzels game for a while now.

Plus Or Minus a Few Zeppelins

2010-04-08T20:34:00.000-07:00

I just finished reading Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn: The Final Empire and am happily embedded in chapter one of Mistborn: The Well of Ascension. It's spring break - one of the appealing things about being a teacher in my other life - so I get to read. I have nothing but good things to say about Sanderson: he has a neat and distinctive narrative voice, excellent craft, a really well-made website (the dude knows how to accessorize), and a firm grasp of the finer points of world building. It's that last that I'd like to talk about today (expect a full fledged Burning Zeppelin review to come later).

After reading Mistborn: The Final Empire I have created a model of worldbuilding for fantasy novels. Within this model, the creation of a setting's magic can be summed up as either subtractive or additive. They probably each have their merits, but I've also come to realize that I far prefer additive magic.

It works like this. For subtractive magic world building, assume that magic exists and can do anything. Then, begin making subtractions and limitations. This kind of magic is hard to do, that kind of magic requires a costly sacrifice, only this nation knows how to do the other kind, and a this and that are impossible, and so on. If you keep it up long enough, you eventually have a pretty good magic system for your setting, full of (carefully limited) possibility. Some books and games that seem to have used this method include the White Wolf canon, especially Mage (both iterations), and, well, most every fantasy novel ever written.

For example, in Steven Brust's Dragaera, you can return the dead to full and normal life, but it's pricey, only has a one-in-three chance of working, and doesn't work if the corpse is more than three days dead. Other kinds of magic are similar: you can basically do whatever you want, but some things are harder than others.

Unsurprisingly, additive magic is the opposite: instead, you start with the assumption that magic doesn't do anything - that it doesn't exist - and add capabilities one at a time. Examples of this approach are fewer and further between than the more popular subtractive approach.

I'm willing to grant that the subtractive approach has its strengths. It's much easier to create a sense of infinite possibilities if the possibilities really are (nearly) infinite. If you want magic to seem a vast and incomprehensible mystery that your characters will only scratch the surface of, subtractive magic is the way to go.

However, the additive approach has several notable strengths as well: it tends to produce magic systems that are tighter, more easily understood, and easier to handle narratively. Most importantly, additive magic is often more thematic than subtractive magic because the entire system can more easily be designed with a single thought in mind.

Case in point: Sanderson's magic in the Mistborn trilogy. There are two competing forms of magic: Allomancy and Feruchemy, each of them well defined and (I imagine, anyway) best described through the additive approach. Both kinds of magic are dependent upon metal (Allomancers swallow it, Feruchemists wear it) which adds scarcity-driven tension to the novels' general grittiness; if an Allomancer runs out of metals or someone makes off with a Feruchemist's metal bracelets, the magician is out of luck. Both forms of magic are dependent upon which metals the magician uses, which provides a nifty pacing guide. As the story progresses and the characters learn more about their world, they discover more metals and use them to do things they thought were impossible before. In the end, however, there are only so many metals, and so many capabilities the characters can tap.

Finally - and now I'm speaking from Sanderson's own notes to the series rather than pulling stuff out of my butt - because most Allomancers can only use one metal, the initial group of characters are easily brought together because of their disparate specialties. In addition to being an interesting way of tying characters of vastly (and hilariously) different personalities into the same story, it also adds to the "magical heist film" feel Sanderson was going for. Like the international criminals of Ocean's 11 or The Italian Job, each of Sanderson's thieves has their own specialty, and only by working together can they achieve their goals.

A brief disclaimer: I have no idea how Sanderson actually writes. If he deigns to visit my humble zeppelin, I'd be tickled pink. If he actually comments and lets me know, I'd probably be tickled purple. You know, deeper than pink.

Right, then. Anyhow... let's bring it all home: how have I interacted with this model of world building?

I'm sad to say that until now I have mostly used the subtractive method out of sheer habit, even in some stories which - in retrospect - might have benefited from the additive method. For example, in Knights of the Land (the current working title of the rewrite of what was once A Knight of the Land - more on that in a later post) all magic involves tapping into the living earth. Some people, like the titular Knights, do it organically as part of their role as the land's protectors, while other forces, like the Mountain-Killing Crown, rip power out of the earth in a way that's bad for everyone. However, despite the fact that all magic has a unified source, I haven't done much to give all magic a unified feel. Knights can use the power of the land to enhance their bodies, heal, and divine. Land-draining machines can unnaturally extend your life, make you invulnerable, throw fire at people, make your fields fertile (at the expense of your neighbors') and blow up mountains... and that's just the relics I mention in the novel. There's no indication that the relics are limited. I have to do some serious digging and decide if I want to apply my new insight... or let sleeping novels lie. On the one hand, it's a pretty big change to make so late in the process, but on the other hand, I am in the middle of a rewrite...

However, I have been fascinated by the additive approach for longer than I've given it a name. I've mostly expressed this through RPG.net "Setting Riff" posts, but now I'm wondering if I shouldn't go back through some of those posts and see which might have story potential. The one where I flip our society's ideas of "male" and "female" magic to create a world where only men can heal and divine and only women can throw fireballs and such is probably still a branch of subtractive magic, since I'm still limiting infinity, but what about the world where all magic is illusion? That might, as they say, have legs...

Anyway, I recommend that you all check out Sanderson's Mistborn trilogy, because they're awesome, and that way you'll have more comments to make when I finally do get around to posting a review. And you should all also think about the possibilities of additive and subtractive approaches to magic. I'll post some food for thought below.

* * *

Where have you read what you now think was probably subtractive magic? This will likely be a long list.
Where else have you read what you now think was probably additive magic?
What do you think I should do with Knights of the Land?

Vampires Part I

2010-03-27T19:16:00.000-07:00

I have vampires on the brain. Vampires! Clearly I should see a doctor about that.

Anyway, last night the Abigail and I were reflecting on the preponderance of biblical symbolism in vampire stories, from the White Wolf canons to This is My Blood (which, by the way, looks awesome). In the end, the Abigail gave me a challenge: create an origin for vampires in a modern setting that doesn't involve biblical characters. Here is what I have created:

Vampirism is a taint. It enters the blood through the practice of keeping other humans in bondage through fear and violence. Out-breeding and gaps in the practice that last a generation or two are enough to clear the taint from a line, but if tainted lines hold slaves for generations and breed among themselves, eventually the taint reaches critical mass and explodes into a curse. In life, those who bear the curse of vampirism seem completely normal; after death, however, they rise. For their bloodthirsty ways they are saddled with a hunger for blood. For their practice of dominating others, they are blessed with the need and the power to continue their domination.

Worse, once the taint becomes a curse, innocents can also be made into vampires. Anyone transformed in this way is instinctively obedient to the vampire who made her until that vampire is killed, when she becomes a free agent.

Of course, the largest group of vampires in America are the scions of old Southern families that held Africans in bondage for centuries, though some California farmers who keep undocumented immigrants in near-slavery might be getting close to the change. Older families include a particularly bloodthirsty line that rose in South America and inspired the Aztecs to constant warfare to feed their hunger, several once-noble families in Eastern and Western Europe, and a clan of bloodsuckers in the middle east who claim to be the world's first vampires.

This is a creative prompt, so comment away. What would you do with this concept? Where would you take it? What characters, storylines, and themes jump out and, well...

Bite you?

Love Among the Same Old Powerful Girls

2010-03-24T20:13:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I worry that the Burning Zeppelin Experience is turning into the Burning Podcastle Review Experience. Ah, well; it's something to blog about, and I can't listen to the host asking me to blog about the podcast without being moved eventually. I'm not made of stone, you know. Let me know in comments, though, if you find this trend useful, diverting, or completely boring.

Earlier today, I had the pleasure to listen to Love Among the Talus by Elizabeth Bear. In many ways, it's a brilliant story: extremely well-written and in a very striking voice, with neat characters, excellent pacing, and set in an interesting world. Despite having very little actual sex, it's an extremely sexy story, lush and sensuous and full if simmering tension. However, it's also flawed in two ways that I found particularly worth talking about.

A while ago I wrote about being scooped. My thesis: if you discover that someone else has written something that you want to write, write it anyway. Humanity has been telling stories for so long that it's pretty much a fool's errand to write something totally new. The point isn't to write it, it's to write it well, or to bring a new perspective to an old story. Old is the new new. Or the old new. Or the new old. Or something.

For all that is was generally brilliant, Love Among the Talus managed to be predictable in a bad way. The main character was a powerful girl in trying times, suspended between her treacherous mother, her overlord's son, and the handsome bandit prince who wants to carry her away and give her freedom. She finds her balance by... well, I'll try not spoil anything, but let's just say that a secondary character I thought was interesting dies in a way I found cheap and she doesn't marry anyone. For all the love in the title, there's actually very little love in the story; just a lot of murder.

I'm all for powerful female characters making their own way. It's a neat story, but we've come to a place where there's a way to tell that story that's interesting and a way to tell it that's kind of boring. For me, the powerful girl has developed as much potential for staleness as sword-wielding iron-thewed Conan He-Men.

The second weakness of Love Among the Talus is right there in the name. One of the central characters of Love Among the Talus are the Talus. They're these sort of enormous rocky land-whales who the locals have trained to eat ores and poop metal. While this is really neat (I'm totally going to steal them for my next Exalted game) they don't actually do anything. In my opinion, all the wordcount the author uses to describe the Talus, their beautiful singing, and their rocky hides could probably have been better spent.

But don't shy away. Love Among the Talus is definitely worth listening to, and not just in a train-wreck way. As I wrote above, it's a beautiful, sexy, well-paced little tale, and lots of fun.

Just not perfect.

Like this blog.

Which is why you should comment and tell me if you like podcastle reviews or not.

* * *

Ok, I admit it. That was a pretty weak full-circle.

Santa Monica by Night

2010-03-23T19:08:00.000-07:00

Check this out: some dude in the UK has started a blog for his Vampire: the Requiem game set in Santa Monica. In addition to the hilarious mistakes he's likely to make (Some Dude in the UK, if you're reading this, I mean it with all fondness - I'm sure my games set in England are equally absurd), this blog affords us with a rare opportunity to observe someone else's game from the ground up, watching it grow, shrink, evolve, and overcome challenges. I'm not going to add it to my blogroll - it's a little too focused for that - but I'm certainly going to keep an eye on it.

Sooner or later I'm going to have to stop tiny little linkposts. They're fun and easy, which is sometimes all I can manage, but I have to admit that they're a little boring. Hopefully I'll be able to scare up the time and energy to deliver more original content soon.

A is For Awesome

2010-03-22T21:58:00.001-07:00

This just made my day. Thanks Jon and the Abigail!

A is probably my favorite.

If You Won't Be You

2010-03-21T11:38:00.000-07:00

I've had a scene living in my head for a while now. The context doesn't matter - the details of the story refuse to be resolved into anything coherent - but the moment remains the same:

One character is a shape shifter with identity issues. Over the course of the story so far, he's lost track of a great deal of who he is. The other is his last friend, and he's dying slowly - wounded, poisoned, sick, or all three - behind enemy lines. The shapeshifter turns to his friend and says "if you won't be you anymore, can I be you?" The dying friend chokes out a final yes, and the shapechanger takes his friend's form, his memories, and a portion of his loves and passions and builds a new self out of them.

I don't know what comes before this moment. Why is the shapechanger blessed and cursed with his power? Why is the friend dying? What is the larger shape of the plot, and how does it relate to the friend's death and the shapeshifter's situation? I also don't know what comes after, but I can imagine the amusing complications, as the shapeshifter deals with his friends family and lovers and no one knows how to deal with anyone else anymore, all against the backdrop of whatever else is going on.

It would be pretty cool... but I don't know what to do with it. The rest of the story - if there is a rest - is buried under some piece of inner detritus.

Well, they say if you love something set it free, so I'm finally cutting this scene loose. Go free into the internet, little idea. If it's meant to be, you'll come back to me some day.

Also, if you folks have any comments I'd love to hear them. Treat this as a creative prompt: what do you think comes before and after?

Room For One More

2010-03-20T11:19:00.001-07:00

Russ Bailey, Livejournal's Emprint, RPGnet's Baileywolf, and White Wolf developer extraordinaire has just started Fantasy Heartbreaker: Games For People Who Care Too Much. The blog will bounce around gaming topics. We can expect house rules for D&D one day, tales from the heady days of Vampire: the Masquerade on another, and snippets of Bailey's own design projects on a third. In a few of the small posts already up, Bailey has opined on such varied topics as TSR's code of ethics, the nature of a core class, and why despite the push for streamlined games and perfect systems, the most "broken" games are the ones that have brought in the most new players over the years, among others.

So give Fantasy Heartbreaker a look, a read, and maybe a follow. I will.

Link Orgy! On Fire! In a Zeppelin!

2010-03-04T17:31:00.000-08:00

On his blog, author Joshua Palmatier (creator of The Skewed Throne and its sequels) has just hosted a post by Juliet McKenna, author of Blood in the Water. Juliet takes advantage of her sudden rise to blogdom (or perhaps it's not a rise - I can't actually get to her website through my school's firewall, so for all I know she's got blogs in her blogs so she can blog while she blogs - for all I know, it's a descent; maybe she podcasts) to talk about girls - and feminism - in fantasy.

I'm really not proud of that last sentence. Not the sentiment - that's ok - it's just a big, ugly sentence. I'd never let myself get away with crap like that in a story.

Anyway, I like girls in fantasy, I like feminism in fantasy, and I like the way Juliet McKenna puts it. So, if you won't take it from me, take it from someone who's actually published and follow the link to Juliet's post.

Evil Mermaids Fuck Yeah!

2010-03-03T17:37:00.000-08:00

The Mermaid's Tea Party by Samantha Henderson, the latest PodCastle was absolutely brilliant. It had everything it needed and more: pirates, mermaids, evil, stories, and most of all, a heaping dose of fuck yeah. I won't say anything else to spoil the wonder except this: listen to this story before it's too late.

I'm not sure what too late would actually look like. Maybe before you forget? Before you die? I'll get back to you on that.

In the meantime, listen.

The Plitone Zeppelin Experience

2010-03-02T13:05:00.000-08:00

I just finished The Plitone Revisionist, a science fiction podcast novel by Paul S. Jenkins, and finally - more than a year after the first time I listened to the first episode - I'm ready to review it. This review is a long time coming and, I hope, will interest my audience as much as it interests me.

In the final arithmetic, I give The Plitone Revisionist two out of five possible stars. It definitely had its moments of true and genuine enjoyability, but towards the I end I found myself listening more out of a grudging desire to find out what happened next and a writerly fascination with the author's errors. This was a story in deep need of editing. There's definitely a good novel inside The Plitone Revisionist, but unfortunately it's not the novel I listened to.

Well, we're all writers here. Where did Jenkins go wrong?

I feel that his first mistake was in not having - or at least communicating - a clear idea of what kind of novel he wanted to write. On the one hand, we have a kind of trashy, kind of glitzy, kind of sexy over-the-top cyberpunk space opera. There are villains named Garter Grudnt (pronounced "grunt") and unwitting accomplices named Joley Jordan, and horny pansexual teenage suburbanites just itching to get swept up in the action. In the first scene, the main character is arrested, impounded, and rescued by a man who uses super technology to temporarily mind-control her into his willing sex slave, at least until she heroically (and hillariously escapes).

Now, this is all well and good. I have no problem with glitzy, trashy, over-the-top cyperpunk flavored space opera with silly names and improbable plots. The pulp is strong with this one, and that's great.

The problem is that Jenkins turns around and expects us to take other parts of the story very seriously. The main drive of the plot is a murderous and economically complex conspiracy and the characters deal with some very real emotional fallout of their choices. Unfortunately, it all rings a little hollow.

Now, this kind of thing can be done well. I... um... can't think of any examples off the top of my head (if you can, tell me in comments), but I'm sure it's true. You can start with something glitzy and trashy and over-the-top and take it somewhere the audience doesn't expect, dragging them sideways into a story far more serious than they realized they were signing on for. Jenkins doesn't quite pull it off, though. Every time I was just about to get sucked back into the emotional reality of the story, the reflexively dastardly Garter Grudnt showed up and twirled his (proverbial) mustache and threw me right back into pulpland again.

The second problem is far more serious. The Plitone Revisionist is infected by a bad case of tell-don't-show. The characters spend long scenes contemplating their emotional problems rather than acting on them - or at least talking about them with other people, which is less exciting but still dynamic. As a result, the story seems extremely slow, especially the latter chapters. I make it a point to give every one of my characters someone they can talk to about their feelings so that when I have an emotion that can't be acted on it can at least be talked out.

Would I listen to The Plitone Revisionist again? Certainly not. Would I listen to it the first time if I knew what it was like? Probably not. Do I regret the time I spent listening to it? No, I don't think I do. There were some awesome moments, some thrilling plot twists, and some really neat, sexy scenes, and I definitely don't want the time I spent on it back.

But I'm back in the market for a podcast novel again - preferably something either finished or with a huge archive - and I'm hoping for something better this time.

I'm Sorry, Sir, But You're Going to Have to Come With Me...

2010-02-23T08:40:00.000-08:00

That's a violation of Moff's Law, sir.

Moff's Law (as described on the Racialicious blog) was born here, on i09. Moff's Law is the brainchild of Grand Moff Bastard, an io9 poster. You should read the post yourself, but I shall summarize it thusly:

"If you aren't interested in deeply analyzing a piece of art, stay the hell out of conversations analyzing art. Sharing thoughts to the effect of "don't share your thoughts" is stupid, rude, and hypocritical."

I will add that insisting "it's just art, you're over-analyzing it" is a way of shutting down discourse, which I consider the greatest intellectual sin. It's invariably a rank attempt to stop a debate the lawbreaker doesn't think he can win.

I mean, seriously, have you ever heard someone say "I agree that X has some complicated racial themes and maybe isn't as well thought-out as it could be... but why are we bothering to talk about it?"

No.

It's always someone who thinks that things are just fine the way they are, but rather than argue their actual point they're trying to shut down the conversation, which is sneaky, stupid, and doesn't contribute to the discourse.

Well, that's all done. Now that Moff's Law has been passed we can finally prosecute (and persecute!) these people, confiscating their computers and fining them one million internets each.

What do you mean "it doesn't work that way?"