Worldbuilding Wednesday 5/15/19: States of Confusion (The American Heartland)


Not a lot seems to happen in the American Heartland, even in the U.S.A. of an alternate world. The exception is the world of Star Trek, where Captain James T. Kirk (remember the T stands for Tiberius) is stated in canon to have been born in “a small town in Iowa.” When the series was cancelled and Trekkies started to become a thing in the 1970s, one small town proclaimed itself to be that very one! The evidence is above. Note also that Kirk is an Aries, the first sign of the zodiac and the one most associated with leadership! **

Kirk’s past was not shown on the original Star Trek series, but in the new movie franchise, he is shown as a young man racing through the cornfields as giant starships under construction loom in the background. The impression given is that the state is now vitally important to mankind’s future.

Need some names for Midwest states that might have been?

 

Imaginary U.S. States, The American Heartland

Oklahoma

Oklanitha

Osloroma

Aklahopa

Okkuola

Elkahoya

Iklawoma

Ondahoca

 Nebraska

Sheveska

Neyaska

Nebrastrud

Nebrahull

Netrohart

Megoska

Neyaska

 Iowa

Oula

Iobru

Ioma

Aiwa

Oewa

Iorha

Iochra

 Kansas

Chansas

Kansam

Keddakh

Kanthas

Kansaber

Kefrel

Kamkes

** This was actor William Shatner’s birthday.

Being a Dog [Reading Challenge 2019]

Being a Dog

by Alexandra Horowitz
New York, Scribner, 2016

[Challenge # 9: A book with a dog on the cover.]

Since I enjoyed Alexandra Horowitz’s first book, Inside a Dog, for its insights into the canines we share our lives with, I picked up Being a Dog: Following the Dog into a World of Smell for more of the same. It didn’t disappoint, but I did find it slightly less endearing and more overwritten than the previous book. I still enjoyed it, however. It’s about the physics of how dogs smell, how dogs are trained to use that sense to find or track, and how people — including the author — can also their noses to smell as well, for example as in the perfume and wine industries.

The people/dogs connection didn’t dovetail 100%, but it was fascinating. My favorite parts of the book were when the author visited a training center for sniffing dogs and we got to see how they eased into rescue and detective work starting at puppyhood.

What I did find annoying about the book was the Sunday magazine tone. I don’t think we really needed to know exactly what the various experts were wearing and how they presented themselves to ingest what they were telling us. The focus should have been on the dogs.

For human beings, the book did bring a valid point. We really don’t smell the world as a dog does. Every once in a while during the day a distinctive smell reaches us and we take note: wood burning, fresh baked cinnamon rolls, someone’s bad breath. But most of the time we don’t notice, because it is not necessary for our survival. Our olfactory systems too shut down a smell we are in the constant present of. But when we train ourselves to sniff at random times, it’s surprising how much we can sense. Almost as interesting as the dog training parts were the people training parts. As it turns out humans don’t have a vocabulary to describe smells, partly because, like the description of colors, it’s very subjective.

Now I find myself sniffing at random times throughout the day, just to see what’s out there.

Lick It Up

Don’t you hate when that happens?

The Geek Feminist Revolution [Review]

The Geek Feminist Revolution

by Kameron Hurley
Tor, 2016

Kameron Hurley is one of a new generation of feminist SFF writers who began to publish in the 2010s, when social media began is phase of near-ubiquitousness, a cornucopia of hype, much of a geek-related. By geek I mean SFF in its many media — games, fanfic, fiction, movies, and reviews of those media. It’s a situation similar to the old Pohl Anderson story the “Man Who Ate the World” where manufacturing has become so cheap and widespread citizens must consume a certain amount of goods every day so the system doesn’t collapse. (The problem in the story comes from a man who is driven to consume too much, causing power blackouts.) I think we are living in that kind of world today, where media of all sorts is constantly clamoring for our consumption and being publicized and touted by other consumers, making yet more media.

But Hurley navigates this web with ease. Her essays, of which this is a collection, are about the intersection of feminism with this riotous tumult, ranging from Anita Sarkeesian and Gamergate to the Sad Puppys/Hugo Awards debacle of 2015. There is also much written about the depiction of women in media, and the issues that come with being an outspoken women in media. And make no mistake, in 2019 media depictions of women are still problematic in many ways.

Her essays are very readable and move along breezily, influenced by her advertising work. Her most tweeted and linked essay, “We Have Always Fought,” which one a Hugo award, discusses the role of women in war, giving lie to the notion we were just passive homebodies waiting at home to be raped or the menfolk to come home. There is so much SFF fiction written even today that still shoves women into a passive role, not to mention the books that are still out there written in previous years that are still being read. It is food for thought and I think every SFF writer should read it.

The essays referring to recent events in the SFF world are worth reading also if you have only a tangential memory of them. Time passes at lightspeed on the internets and it’s easy to forget or overlook; these events are also referred to in the present which also happens at lightspeed, so they were a good overview of the situation(s).

Hurley also writes about the art of writing itself, and the decisions to inculcate, or not inculcate, the attitudes of  The Biz. Frankly I’d say. And these are worth reading also.

She does get a too personal and drumbeating at times, particularly in an essay where she mentions a grandmother living under the Nazis (my dad killed Nazis) and an abusive relationship when younger (my ex-husband tried to kill me) that, though meant well, might not resonate with everyone. It depends on one’s age; the author is at least 20 years younger than I. On the other hand, an essay about being hospitalized in a coma, and awakening to find one is suffering from diabetes, is a very good indictment of the American Health System and an unspoken commentary on the nature of American work, where one must keep a job, no matter how vile, to ensure health insurance simply for one’s survival.

The writer also has interesting things to say about 2015’s Mad Max: Fury Road movie and its feminist aspect. I am reading Richard Morgan’s problematic grimdark fantasy The Cold Commands now and I would dearly love to hear what this author says about that. I think it’s so patently offensive and overly trope-twisting it’s hilarious, but like feminist author Suzy McKee Charnas’ Walk to the Ends of The World, which is anti-female grimdark as harsh it comes, might it mean something more?

Hurley also writes about her fascination with woman as strong, silent loner characters, like the male protagonist of the 1980s movies she grew up on, the Bruce Willises and Patrick Swayzes. It’s something I don’t personally relate to, yet she makes a case for them, and I enjoyed getting a secret peak into her character fetish, as it were.

Five stars and recommended.

 

Alternative Truths III: Endgame Released

My short story “Gold and Ivory” appears at the end of this marvelous collection!

 

 

Alternative Truths III: Endgame is the final volume in the best-selling Alternative Truths series from B Cubed Press. Edited by Bob Brown and Jess Faraday, Endgame features 30 of today’s best writers and political thinkers taking a look forward at possible outcomes of our political decisions.

Humor and satire reign supreme in this collection.  If you want to laugh, read Jim Wright’s “Bathroom Breakdown,” a side-splitting vision of Donald J. Trump at his best or follow the antics of a beleaguered Attorney General in Debora Godfrey’s work, “No Excuses” as he tries to convince the President that he has tried and convicted Hillary Clinton.

This collection has visions of a better world as well. In Paula Hammond’s “Fortunate Son,” we explore what kind of man Donald Trump might have become had he answered his country’s call and served alongside his fellow Americans in the Vietnam War.

Most of all Endgame will make you think, with thought-provoking essays by the likes of David Gerrold and Adam-Troy Castro as they seek to share their understanding of how this happened and what do will we do.

A significant portion of the proceeds of this book are donated to the ACLU of Washington to honor and support their unending quest for the freedom of the American people to express themselves.

The book is available in print and electronic media from Amazon.com.

ISBN-13: 978-1-949476-05-7
Electronic ISBN-13: 978-1-949476-06-4

The book is priced at $5.99 for ebook and $12.25 for print. The book is published by B Cubed Press and can be followed on Twitter @BCUBEDBOB.

Worldbuilding Wednesday 5/8/19: More Steampunk Novels

For all my fooling around with steampunk slang, clothing, and book titles, I doubt I’ll ever write one.

Why?

I don’t like the Victorian Age that much

Oh, I’ve tried to like it. I had an older sibling who was infatuated with Victorian decor, china, and 1980s Victorian revival fashions. I liked them from an aesthetic viewpoint. They were pretty and feminine and nostalgic. For a while all the blouses I wore had to be cotton or linen, and ironed by hand with starch or sizing. I liked flouncy, flowing skirts and delicate jewelry, too. But, they really didn’t fit my lifestyle, which was all about activity and getting dirty. I didn’t like feeling like a shy virginal flower either. My nature is more direct. They didn’t fit with who I was. I can admire the delicacy and prettiness of a china tea service, but even for home decor it doesn’t fit me. I like the bold, natural colors of Mexico and things that look handmade. I like natural wood and nature motifs and real leather. It’s something that says home to me.

Actual Victorian women’s fashions, the kind you’d see in a museum, bring to mind psychic and physical pain. I’ll never forget a passage from one of the Little House on the Prairie books where Laura is annoyed with her goody-goody older sister Mary because Mary sleeps in a corset and Laura can’t, because she likes to be able to breathe. Now, I know there are corset revisionists out there who say corseting isn’t really all that bad, you just have to get one that’s properly fitted, yadda yadda yadda. But the truth is, they were made to keep upper and middle-class women inactive and on display. Working women, like these lady’s servants, used corsets to support their bosoms but did not lace themselves so tight they could not work. Tiny waists indicated that a wife or daughter need not lift a finger. That was for the peons.

The heaviness of Victorian clothing repulsed me also. I grew up in hot, humid New Jersey where even shorts and a tube top failed to keep one cool in the August heat. To be corseted and wrapped in multiple petticoats, sleeves, and layers was a thing that sounded like torture. Even if the world was a little cooler back then and the dwelling rooms higher and more airy.

I also hated the waste of it all. As a child I read in an animal book that many species of birds almost went extinct because they were shot for their feathers which were used for lady’s hats. Tiger skins, beaver pelts, elephant ivory, scrimshaw… all this Victorian frippery was evidence of the wholesale slaughter like the nature was a never-ending fountain of riches. And let’s not even go into British, Dutch, German, and French colonization of Africa, India, and other places and the colonizers’ treatment of native peoples, which often received “scientific” justification from the nascent field of genetics.

And of course, there’s the wholesale pollution of rivers, air, and cities because of industrialization and the burning of coal. London in particular suffered from horrendous sulphor fogs which persisted even into the 1950s.

I couldn’t even start reading The Difference Engine, one of the books that started Steampunk on its way, because the first chapter was about the proverbial hooker with a heart of gold. That’s one trope I was tired of even when it came out.

But… who knows. Perhaps I might write some dystopian Steampunk story in the future, something horrendous and disturbing.

Need some ideas for yourself? Here’s a list of more randomly generated titles.

 

More Steampunk Novels


Gears of Beguilement

An Affair of Soulless Spectacle

The Affair of the Brass Parasol

The Bronze Homunculous

The Partisan Turbines

Black Sparks

Whispernought

The Recollections of a Pallid Gentleman

The Eurhythmic Breath of Angels

An Incident of Wondrous Scandal

The Alloy Runner

The Compass Thief

Skycloister

A Scoundrel of Queer Rebellion

Chemical Paradise

The Girl in the Pallid Cameo

A Steam-Driven Mirror

Livingstone’s Cigar

The Pneumatic Throne

Vacuum Cloud

The Tick-Tock Hunter

The Turbines of Phantasm

At the Wireless Circus

The Steam-Driven Summer

The Warlord’s Compass

Sinister Doings

The Hell…? Someone please tell me what this is.

Worldbuilding Wednesday: 5/1/19: Deadly Snakes

 

In Vonda McIntyre’s novel Dreamsnake a herpetologist/healer (also, rather creatively, named Snake) on a post-apocalyptic Earth relies on Mist, an albino cobra, Sand, a rattlesnake, and Grass, an alien creature that resembles a snake, to cure the patients she meets. By feeding them different chemical concoctions, their venom becomes a means of healing rather than death.

In real life, venomous snakes are some of the most feared creatures known. As many as 94,000 people per year die worldwide because of snakebite. Most are located in rural areas where they do not have access to modern medical facilities where antivenom is available. In Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill movie duology, his assassins are named after snakes: Cottonmouth, Copperhead, Diamondback, Black Mamba, and California Mountain Snake, the latter species entirely fictional. (I suppose he might have meant the California Mountain Kingsnake, a look-alike for the very poisonous Coral Snake, and gotten confused. )

In the market for a deadly fictional snake of your own? Here’s a list of randomly generated made-up species.

Deadly Snakes

Sapreek

Gabravang

Copperdink

Urukrait

Malasaka

Golden Keelsnake

Red-faced Constrictor

Urucolo

Tragabra

Golden Kranet

Shadowblink

Cosaille

Tapajah

Bloodfisher

Marmulesse

Gully Assassin

Yellow-spotted Krait

 Blue Groundskeeper

Swamp Mamba

Tragoon

Blind Habu

Wangasaka

Vinemaster

Stonelevee

Gammazin

Grayspit

White-eared Python

Snub-nosed Sandlurker

Yellow-ringed Asp

Green Anaskin

Mud Viper

Bonecracker

Birdlurk

Amphisda

Dreamsnakes

A selection of covers for Vonda McIntyre’s dystopic SF novel Dreamsnake.
RIP Vonda.

Worldbuilding Wednesday 4/24/19: Madeline L’Engle

Author Madeleine L’Engle wrote a heckuvalotta novels. In addition to the Wrinkle in Time (or the Kairos series as she called it) books pictured above, she also wrote a second generation series about the same family, plus the Chronos series about the Austin family, the Katherine Forrester series, and the Camilla Dickinson series. One thing all of these books have in common is the mystical nature of their titles. (Read my reviews of A Wrinkle in Time and A Swiftly Tilting Planet.)

If the author had written more, or had some stashed away in a safety deposit box, they might sound like these, courtesy of random generation, and open for use.

 

Unwritten Madeleine L’Engle Novels

An Irrational Miracle

A Patient Stitch in Fate

A Shadow Comes Striding

Small Greens

A Cloud in the Window

Take a Breath for Treading

An Empty Knot of Knowledge

A Pocket of Wisdom

Elder Waters

The Dragon in the Parlor

The Patient Sphinx

Empty Places in a Young Heart

An Oddly Watching Interface

Grooves in the Water

The Joyful Hemisphere

Small Patterns of Creation

A Breeze through the Palace

Watching Whispers