On diversity in fiction, part 2: Case study

In this second part of my brief exploration of diversity in media, I put my money where my mouth is, examining my own works as proof that I live up to my own standard. For each of my “major” settings (which have—or will have—multiple books), I look at the characters through the lens of the diverse, and I explain why I made the choices I did.

Obviously, as this post concerns deep introspection of my writing, it will have spoilers. If you want to read any of the works I describe, check out my Patreon for more information.

Otherworld

Otherworld is my most developed setting. Its premise is that a team of archaeologists take their students to Mexico on a dig in the summer of 2019. They uncover a lost pyramid deep in the middle of nowhere, and it is conveniently aligned so that a hole in the domed top allows the sun to shine directly down on the summer solstice. After a storm drives them away, a subset of the dig team returns to watch the astronomical event, and they are transported to another planet populated by the descendants of a group of Paleo-Indians who left the Americas near the end of the Ice Age. The following 22 stories (so far!) describe the world, its inhabitants, and the unique challenges it creates for the protagonists.

The dig is organized by an American university (Arizona, to be specific) in modern times. Thus, it is diverse out of necessity: political pressure ensures that women are well-represented. Thus, of the 11 who travel to the Otherworld, 5 are women. Two are non-white. Ramón is a Mexican freshman who was offered a place on the team in exchange for being an extra translator. Damonte, I’ll admit, did begin in my mind as the “token black character”. But then, as I delved deeper into the story, I reimagined him as aware of that. He cultivated the image, if only because he thought it was funny when he didn’t act like he “should”.

In a way, Otherworld shows both sides of what I’ve been saying. The diversity is by force, but within the context of the story; for me, it developed mostly naturally. The characters from Earth are normal people. They live in our world. Ashley is a feminist, and she comes out as bi in the sixth story (Situational Awareness). But that’s not because I was pressured by the LGBT community, or because a producer told me I had to include a non-straight character. No, I thought that was the best direction to go. And while she does let it begin to overpower her thoughts, that’s her reaction to finally being among people who let her express her true self.

On the other side of the galaxy, things are a bit different. The Otherworld’s people are not like us, except insofar as they are human. They have different views, and much of the conflict comes from this kind of cultural impedance mismatch. The natives are descended from indigenous Americans of millennia ago, long before the Conquest. They see race in a different light. Those who look the most unlike themselves (Jeff, Ayla, Jenn, and, to a lesser extent, Sara) are viewed as something else. As the natives only have their own histories for guidance, they interpret blond and red hair on white skin the only way they know how, which becomes another main source of trouble.

Nocturne

Nocturne continues to by, in my opinion, the best novel I’ve ever written. I do have ideas for a sequel or two, but those won’t come for a few years. Until then, I only have a single book to extrapolate from, but here goes.

Basically, Nocturne is an allegory for race relations in the US in 2016. That was the backdrop for its writing, and it was largely my intent from the start. The story’s kingdom of Velin is home to three races: the fairly normal skyborn; the almost Aryan dayborn; and the pale-skinned, black-haired nightborn. These subdivisions, however, are not hereditary. In that, they more closely match other intrinsic factors such as orientation. The nightborn are most reviled, owing to their inherent magical abilities of stealth and secrecy.

The protagonist of the story, Shade, is unique in possessing both the abilities and appearance of the nightborn, but also the magics of the dayborn, all of which are associated with light, life, and heat. Thus, he is a kind of fulcrum character, a center point on the spectrum, and his mission is one of moderation. He wants to stop the endless strife of the races by showing that they can unite. (This, by the way, mirrors my own belief in the folly of partisan polarization.)

Beyond his realm, however, others exist, and these offer more “traditional” concepts of race. The southern land of Duravi, for instance, is well-known to Shade’s people; it’s a kind of Africa analogue. Distant Fernicia is a fairly generic Orient mostly based on China. The Northlands are home to, in essence, Vikings. But none of these play much of a role.

Nor do sex and gender. Velin is mostly blind to those by design—I wanted to focus most on the race aspect. So Kellis, the secondary protagonist, is a female police investigator, and she is not special for that. She is treated no differently, for good or ill, than her male counterparts. Others she meets do remark that she is a woman, because that’s what they see, but even the most radical feminist shouldn’t find fault in my portrayal of her. Her worst sin might be using a dinner date to lure a suspect into an interrogation.

Endless Forms

The Endless Forms series is my paranormal detective thriller playground. It’s got Bigfoot, werewolves, and all sorts of unnatural phenomena. (The second entry, the forthcoming The Beast Within, even has an oblique reference to Otherworld, one of the few times I’ve done that.) Our star here is Cam Weir, who just so happens to be a straight, white man from just outside Atlanta.

Nothing about the premise requires that. Indeed, for the first half of the initial novel, The Shape of Things, he’s almost the only white character in evidence. Investigating the paranormal in Atlanta requires being in Atlanta, and the inner city is very diverse. It was when I spent a summer night in 1996 riding around as my mom tried to find an all-night tattoo parlor (don’t ask), and everything I’ve seen points to it only becoming more so in the decades since.

Thus, I see Endless Forms as a good illustration of what I mean by “natural” diversity, at least as far as race is concerned. Cam’s white, but his neighbor Darrell isn’t, and neither really cares. They’ll joke about it, but that’s as far as it goes, because they’re friends. The psychic he goes to for advice has a mixed ancestry he can’t place (Cajun and Caribbean, mostly), but that’s his problem, and he doesn’t hold it against her. If anything, the biggest culture clash comes from this Southern boy traveling to Boston.

Men and women alike see the spooky ghosts and other creatures Cam hunts. The friends he meets on his Bigfoot chase are all men, but that’s because they’re bros. It happens. Other applications of diversity haven’t come up yet, but I’ll take them as they come.

Orphans of the Stars

My child-focused sci-fi/space opera series Orphans of the Stars again follows this rule. Sixteen young people are stranded on a ship, and 9 of them are boys. Random samples can be like that. Most are white or Asian, while one is of Middle Eastern descent, but the story takes place about 500 years in the future, where race just isn’t that big a deal. (That’s basically what I was referring to in the last post: space colonies in this setting, while still horrendously expensive, are cheap enough that a sufficiently motivated group can create their own.)

Issues of sexuality are also background information, but that comes from the characters. They’re children. With only a few exceptions, they’re not even that old. (Their ages range from 9-16 at the start of the story.) Some of them have all the hormonal problems of teens, but it just isn’t important for them, not when survival is at stake. Whether you like that boy on the bridge or the girl down in engineering doesn’t matter much when you just learned your parents are dead. Hanna, the oldest and most mature of the girls onboard the ship, is bicurious, but that’s about as far as the story needs to go.

Then again, these are children. The difference between boys and girls is stark in their eyes. As their eyes are the ones through which the story unfolds, that means I write about their feelings on the matter—Tori, for instance, has an irrational dislike of boys, and she lets that show. But they all recognize the difficult situation they face, so such distinctions naturally fade into the background. Nobody is chauvinist enough to say Mika, a 14-year-old girl, isn’t fit to be an engineer. And if the command crew is largely male, that’s only because they were the ones who took the seats. Except for those just mentioned, most of the girls are younger, or they just don’t like being in space to begin with.

Occupation Trilogy

The Occupation Trilogy is a newer, more epic fantasy series I’ve been working on this year. The first novel, Shadows Before the Sun, is about two-thirds done, so I’ll probably release it sometime in 2019. But I can already say a little about the world from a diversity standpoint.

Mostly, the premise is thus: a colonial power similar to 18th-century Britain has taken over a distant land, and some of the locals are not too happy about it. A generation ago, the kingdom of Laurea invaded their home; the war of conquest lasted six years. They imposed their politics, government, religion, and very way of life on the natives of Ihnet. Most of all, they outlawed magic, because the religious teachings of Laurea forbid it.

This, then, has all the hallmarks of colonialism, and you probably know what that means for diversity. The series has two main races, the invaders and the natives. They view the world through different lenses. Ihnet’s women fought with magic alongside the men; Laurea sees the martial solely as the domain of men. Racial politics are vital to the story, and I choose each character’s race (and ancestry, as there are many of mixed descent) with care.

But this isn’t a series meant to make progressives happy. There are good guys and bad guys on both sides, and not all of them are guys. Men are overrepresented among the characters of Laurea, but that is because of the nature of colonization: many are ex-soldiers who settled down in this new land, took native brides (not always willingly), and started their lives anew.

On the contrary, the Occupation Trilogy mostly concerns itself with the very real factors of society. Whose side are you on? Are you with us, or against us? Both the occupying force of Laurea and the resistance of Ihnet believe there can be no middle ground, no compromise. All other problems are secondary to that, though this may change as the series progresses.

Others

My other works either aren’t as fleshed out, or just don’t offer the same depth of worldbuilding. Thus, I’ll treat them here in much less detail.

Hidden Hills: This series, beginning with Lair of the Wizards, is set in a generic quasi-Renaissance fantasy land. As it is fairly small in scope at present, issues of diversity aren’t really important to the narrative. The culture is late feudal, so the treatment and disposition of women can come up, but really not.
The Linear Cycle: This one’s post-apocalyptic. One of the premises of the genre is that the traditional divisions of society break down out of necessity. Other than that, there’s not a lot of room to delve into such matters, if only because the action is first and foremost.
Heirs of Divinity: One of these days, I’ll release this one. Until then, know that it’s set in 1737, and I endeavored to make that time as realistic as possible. It’s a little more liberal than the real thing, but the story otherwise follows real history, with all its attendant foibles, wherever it can.
Gateway: This one starts with The Soulstone Sorcerer, which I’ll put out next year. It’s a typical RPG fantasy world combined with modern Colorado. Much like Otherworld, the diversity comes from the Earth characters, while the secondary world follows its own rules.
Before I Wake, Fallen, Modern Minds: These don’t have enough characterization to even worry about diversity. In most cases, the characters of any specific story are just about interchangeable.

Conclusion

In this post, I hope I have explained my reasoning, my argument for a more natural sort of diversity in fiction. In every case, I strive to write what feels right. I don’t set out to solve the world’s problems, or empower a generation, or anything of the sort. My characters, I believe, should be those who best fit the story, the world, they inhabit. Whether or not that matches another person’s idea of diversity never plays into my decision. The story is bigger than me, bigger than my prejudices. I would like to believe that others feel the same about both my works and their own.

On diversity in fiction, part 1: Opinions

No matter where you go in the world today, diversity is a word on everyone’s lips. Love it or hate it, the concept has, thanks to a particularly vocal segment of society, become a fact of modern life. And that has spilled over into fiction of all sorts. After all, stories are ever a reflection of an author’s worldview, so it stands to reason that something so prominent finds its way into anything we write.

In this two-part post, I’d like to offer my opinions on diversity as it pertains to fiction in various sorts of media. That includes the written word, video games, movies, television, and even theater. Anywhere a story must be written, it seems that the writer must take diversity into account, and I feel there are right and wrong ways to go about that.

For this part, I merely want to speak what I believe. In the following entry, which I will post next week, I will then look at my own efforts as a kind of case study for what I feel to be the most appropriate method of dealing with the concept.

Definitions

First off, let me define what I mean by diversity. In this context, I refer to people, or rather characters, who show visible differences in what might be termed intrinsic factors. These are the divisions we’re most familiar with, the ones most evident in appearance or association, and those that are hardest—if not entirely impossible—to change. Race, sex, religion, national origin, culture, and sexual orientation are some of the most common. (Gender, as it exists in a social context, has become a bit more involved, but it works essentially the same way for our purposes here.)

Nothing in a fictional work should, in my opinion, give a reader, viewer, or player the impression that the author sees those who vary from the norm in a negative light. (Unless, of course, that is the true purpose of the work, as in extremist literature of all sorts.) The purpose of fiction is to create a story. Thus, the best authors leave their biases at the door, so to speak.

The fictional world—the secondary world, as some call it—can have its own biases, and those may be different from our primary world. In that case, it is the writer’s responsibility to explain those differences, those biases, in a way the is both entertaining and enlightening. If there is to be a message, then let it stand on its own merit. That goes for diversity as well as its lack.

The use of force

And this, I feel, is where so much modern media has gone astray. Too often, we see authors and screenwriters “force” diversity where it detracts from the story being told. As Hollywood has become far too fond of reboots and reimaginings, we can watch this unfold on a daily basis. In only the past year, I’ve seen reboots and story concepts that, for diversity’s sake, promise to change a character’s race (Buffy the Vampire Slayer), sex (the oft-rumored “female James Bond”), gender (Supergirl), and orientation (Star Trek).

My question is a simple one, yet one that would likely lead to my firing if I worked at one of these studios: who wins? If the object is to show that women/people of color/LGBT/whoever can be protagonists, then shoving them into roles defined by someone who is one of straight, white, or male can only be considered a failure. If your argument is that marginalized groups deserve their own heroes, then make them some heroes. Don’t try to remold preexisting heroes into a more diverse image for the sake of diversity. That, to use a term these people like, is no different from cultural appropriation.

The problem, as I see it, boils down to polarization. One side wants to see more diversity, and they’ll stop at nothing to achieve that goal. But those who don’t seek diversity in and of itself are then pushed to the other side, lumped in with white supremacists, homophobes, etc., for no reason other than they are not sufficiently progressive. Conversely, they then become shunned by those same elements for being too progressive. And the gap only continues to widen.

A better approach

Instead of this increasing bifurcation of society, I think a far better approach, at least regarding the creation of fiction, can be had by writing in a natural, organic fashion. Instead of forcing diversity, keeping quotas of minorities and the like, look at the story as a whole, the world it creates.

For fiction set in the real world of the present, this is almost too easy. We have demographics at our fingertips, so it’s not too hard to make a story that is both diverse and true to life. Historical fiction needs a little bit more work, but some common sense can tell you that it’d be silly for, say, Thor or Achilles to be black, or Guan Yu to be white. (Sexuality, especially in ancient times, is a whole different ballgame, particularly once you leave the familiar Christian West.)

Constructed worlds bring their own rules. In fantasy, you can make a case for just about anything. The men of Middle-Earth are white, if only because they are explicitly contrasted with the southern Haradrim. Brian McClellan’s Powder Mage series has a race of “savages” that, upon further inspection, are not African in appearance, but…ginger. Female warriors abound in literature—Brienne of Tarth (Game of Thrones) is the example most pertinent for TV audiences. Non-heterosexual relationships aren’t at all uncommon. And a good author lets all that fade into the background unless it’s absolutely pivotal to the story.

That doesn’t even get into the possibility that other races might have differing notions of what constitutes diversity, or different intrinsic factors. One can easily imagine polyamorous elves, matriarchal orcs, or shapeshifters to whom the very concepts of race and gender are nonsensical. A fictional world with multiple races and sub-races might have an incredibly complex system of lineage and rights, but equally plausible is the idea that diversity plays by different rules. If there are beast-men living in the next country over, then why are we so worried about skin color?

Science fiction set in the future brings its own baggage. Although I do love The Expanse (except for the very depressing Persepolis Rising), this is a case where I feel it breaks the rule of organic diversity. As far as I can tell, seven books have produced one stable, monogamous, straight couple for a major character: Duarte, the current villain! Race is also hopelessly muddled (one of the series’ main points, to be fair), and the whole thing sometimes comes off as an experiment in throwing as many diversity-friendly adjectives as possible into a character. “Oh,” I can imagine the authors saying, “we don’t have a half-Asian transgender character yet. Let’s get right on that.”

In the future, we can imagine the boundaries of the present falling down. But it’s no less a stretch to imagine them rising back up. As humanity expands its reach—and especially if it expands into space—communities might become more monolithic, rather than more diverse. If anyone can found a space colony, why wouldn’t a group experiment with a “pure” society? Human nature tends towards mild xenophobia. We like being with people who look like us, talk like us, believe the way we do. That’s why we’ve created echo chambers on the Internet, and it’s why you shouldn’t feel bad positing, say, a Nazi colony on Mars. (Now, I wouldn’t want to read about that, much less write about it, but you do you.) On the other hand, liberalism, multiculturalism, and globalism are on the upswing right now, and projecting that into the future seems like the safer bet.

Conclusion

Whatever your genre, whatever your medium, diversity should not be a goal in itself. Instead, natural storytelling should create diversity where it is needed, where it is expected. New York City and San Francisco today don’t have the same demographics as 13th-century London or 1st-century Palestine. Rather than attempt to check all the boxes, think about what characters would be where. Put them where they belong, rather than where society wants them to be.

Now, if the purpose of the story is to tell of a character or group’s struggle against adversity because of their intrinsic properties, then that’s okay. Slaves in the antebellum South are going to be black, no question. Medieval women will have a harder time than their modern counterparts, and a story focusing on them can certainly have a higher female:male ratio. A story that focuses on the X% doesn’t have to follow statistics.

Really, a story for the general populace doesn’t, either. Diversity is fine. There’s nothing inherently wrong with a master spy who happens to be a woman. There’s no reason why a superhero can’t be black, or trans, or whatever descriptor you want to give them. But you shouldn’t tout that as an accomplishment. Because it’s not.

It’s just who they are.

Summer Reading List 2018 – finale

Labor Day is here, and the Summer Reading List Challenge is over. Did you read 3 books this summer? I did. Actually, I read more than that, but I specifically wrote that you can’t count your own, which disqualifies most of my reading material. Here’s my third entry.

Literature

Title: From the Earth to the Moon
Author: Jules Verne
Genre: Literature/science fiction
Year: 1865

Verne is often described as the first true science fiction author, and for good reason. Yet I’ve never actually read any of his works. I watched Journey to the Center of the Earth in elementary school (can’t tell you which one, but it was in 1993), and that’s about it. So I thought this would be a good time to fill that void in my knowledge, and what better way than with the original space trip?

Well, it’s not that simple. In fact, From the Earth to the Moon doesn’t actually involve any space travel. The whole story of this novel is about the buildup. It’s a nicely fantastical premise: a bunch of Yankee artillery aficionados are sad because the Civil War is over. They think there’s nothing left for them to do, since all the world’s at peace. (Little did they know…) So the president of their gun club—sounds like the NRA, if you ask me—gets the bright idea to build the world’s largest cannon, with the goal of sending a shot to the moon.

That’s not exactly plausible, but it is fun. There’s no deep characterization here, or subplots or scheming, because the book’s just too short for that. What we do have is a lengthy description of the effect our dear gunman’s announcement has on America. For what it’s worth, Verne seems remarkably prescient, which makes me wonder just how much the Apollo Program looked to this book for ideas a hundred years later. The builders choose Florida for their launch site, thanks to its latitude and lack of urbanization. They use aluminum to build their projectile, because weight matters. And the mission even ends up with three astronauts, exactly the same as Apollo 8.

All told, it’s a nice read. If there’s any downside (besides the part where From the Earth to the Moon never gets to the moon), it has to be the sometimes jarring shift between humorous dialogue and dry scientific exposition. Because the author goes into excruciating detail about the construction of the cannon, the orbit of the moon, Civil War weaponry, and anything else that tickles his fancy. At times, it reads like Tom Clancy playing Kerbal Space Program. But it was worth the time, and I think I’ll have to go back for the sequel. I’m pretty sure it won’t be nearly as grounded in reality, but science fiction has always shared a nebulous border with fantasy.

End of the line

So that’s the list this year. The Core, From Tyndale to Madison, and From the Earth to the Moon. A great epic fantasy, a biased history of religious freedom, and one of the first sci-fi novels. Could’ve been better, I’ll admit, but there’s always next year.

Release: The Eye’s Mind, Part 2 (Modern Minds 2)

Back in April, I posted the first in a new series of short stories set in the 1920s. Called “Modern Minds”, it deals with psychic abilities of a lower key than is common in television and movies. This is the continuation of that story.

Cast out of her home, Jessie seeks answers to the mystery of her mind, her sight. To find them, she travels farther than she has ever gone, far away from all she knows. What she discovers will open her eyes to a world she never knew existed.

Head on over to my Patreon to pick it up. All it takes is a pledge of $3 a month. That’s not too much, is it? If you like it, check out my other stories, and keep watching for future entries in Modern Minds.

From the memory vault: Atlanta 2012

Growing up, I never really “got” gaming, not in the RPG sense. That only started to click in my head once I began looking into D&D and other games like it, which wasn’t until the early to mid 2000s. The first time I bought an RPG book was in 2006: d20 Modern. I saw it at the bookstore, thought it looked interesting (it had stats for modern weapons, among other things), and had the extra money, so why not? Although I didn’t buy it there; I instead ordered it from Amazon, because that was quite a bit cheaper, and not nearly as socially awkward.

It’s hard to believe that this happened when I was 22, and I’m now closing in on 35. It’s even harder to believe that the first idea I had for a campaign of my own, inspired by what I read in the d20 Modern handbook, is set in a time closer to then than now.

I’m bored and not very inspired, so that’s what this post is for. This is my chance to throw out an idea that came to me before I ever started writing fiction. I called it “Atlanta 2012”, and you’re about to see why.

The premise

Back in those halcyon days of 2006, we didn’t have to worry about the polarization of discourse, or social media privacy, or ISIS, or anything like that. We had the political turmoil of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, of course, and the violations of civil liberties in the wake of 9/11, but nothing like today. Thus, such troubles hadn’t seeped down into fiction yet, or into the mind of a young man whose head was already too full.

One thing that did interest me then was all the hubbub about the Mayan doomsday prophecy. If you’ll recall, the world didn’t end in December 2012, but far too many people thought it did, because they couldn’t fathom the idea of a calendar running out. Never mind that we were only a few years removed from the Y2K hysteria, which boiled down to the exact same problem. No, they were convinced the apocalypse was coming, and that the Mayans knew it down to the day.

The d20 Modern system, for those who don’t know, was an attempt at making a present-day adaptation of 3rd Edition D&D. (This was before 4E and Pathfinder, when everyone was making supplements, thanks to the OGL.) It wasn’t exactly the same, but it was pretty close. I don’t remember all the specifics now, but some that stick out are the wealth system—skill checks instead of tracking currency—and the horribly low damage that most guns did. If I did a game set in the present now, I’d probably use GURPS or something like that, but I was young, and I didn’t have the same resources at my disposal. This was what I had to work with.

These two threads tie in together, because they form the two sides of my campaign idea. The setting would be 2012, starting a few months before the presumed doomsday. I chose Atlanta as the “base” city because it was close enough that I knew a little about it, but far enough away that it wouldn’t be obvious I was doing a “hometown” RPG. Plus, it’s big, really big. There’s a lot of places to hide, a lot of gaps where stories can go. (For the same reason, I’ve used it as the main character’s effective base camp in my Endless Forms paranormal novel series.) The six years between play time and game time would give my players—my brother and a couple of my stepdad’s nephews were who I originally intended, as I would be the GM—the chance to play as either upgraded versions of themselves or fictitious contemporaries. And such a short time gap meant that technology wouldn’t change too much…except that I didn’t predict Facebook and ubiquitous smartphones, but you can’t win ’em all.

So, the game would take place in Atlanta, starting mere months before the end of the world. And that would be the first big storyline. My imagination had the players hunting down clues as to the nature of the apocalyptic event, culminating in a trip into the jungles of Guatamala and the Yucatan. Since you can’t very well stop time, the big day would come and go, so Act I was a bit of a forced Bad Ending. But my idea was that the players wouldn’t know that yet. The effects would only show up later.

In the d20 Modern handbook, there are a few setting sketches. The authors never went into any great detail, because they expected you to buy worldbooks to fill those in. (I don’t think they ever wrote them, though.) Basically, you had a generic “real world” setting, one where psionic stuff was prevalent, and “Urban Arcana”. That last was the key, because it was described as not much more than “D&D in our world”. You could have orcs on a subway, or trolls walking down Peachtree (or Broadway, but I was using Atlanta, remember). You could have magic, even. There weren’t fixed ways of using it, but the leveling system of 3E meant that your modern-day hero could take a wizard level if he wanted—and if you had the book—and there’s your spells.

Putting it all together, that was the outline I devised. Part 1 was a detective mystery, with the players hunting down clues as to the nature of the apocalypse, then coming into contact with a shadowy organization that wanted to bring it about. Then, when the designated day arrived, Bad Things would happen. The superficial victory hides the greater threat emerging: magic, fantasy, mythology. The world would slowly open up to the supernatural, in all its myriad forms. The latter half of the campaign, then, is all about that. I don’t go in for horror, but I thought I might be able to mix it in a little, especially when the players first confronted something obviously inhuman. My plans never got to mind flayers and beholders and the like, but that’s because I eventually gave up on the whole thing.

In a sense, however, I didn’t. A lot of what made Atlanta 2012 actually went into Endless Forms. The same city is the focus. Instead of a team of investigators, I’ve just got one, but he is still investigating. There’s no overt magic, but supernatural creatures lurk everywhere. So, while I did abandon the RPG campaign, the story seed went into hibernation, sprouting a decade later. Funny how that works.

Amazon: Taking a break

In the past two years, I’ve posted quite a bit of my work on Amazon through their KDP program. That’s great. It really is. I won’t say I’ve been all that successful with it, but I have seen a modest number of sales here and there. Even better is the newer paperback option. I prefer physical books, and I truly love holding one bearing my name in my own two hands. That’s a wonderful feeling, probably the closest I’ll ever get to holding a child of my own.

Today, I had planned to release my novel Innocence Reborn in paperback. But I won’t. Why? Because I’m taking a break from KDP for a while. I don’t know if Innocence Reborn is ready for the platform, and it’s just too much trouble changing things around to fit their requirements. I’ve had no end of problems adjusting margins, for example, because LuaTeX (the engine I use to create print-ready PDFs) doesn’t play nice with whatever Amazon uses to measure. Thus, my “0.75 inch” margin—the minimum required for a book of the intended size—is somehow smaller than the “0.750000 inch” that they ask for.

On top of that, I have yet to get the print cover looking the way I want. In every case thus far (Before I Wake, Nocturne, The Linear Cycle, and The Shape of Things) the end result comes out too dark. Granted, I’ve used black backgrounds for three of those, and a dark red for The Linear Cycle, but…I’m no artist. I’m not a designer. I really don’t know what’s going on, nor do I know how to ask for help, let alone whether anyone would bother giving it.

This isn’t permanent. I fully intend to come back to the platform, but I really feel like I need a break from the hassle. Let me write. That’s all I ask. Then, once I’m done with the writing (and the editing, the re-editing, the re-re-editing…), I’ll worry about print-friendly cover art, half-title pages, and things like that.

Summer Reading List 2018 – halfway point

Summer has reached its height. The temperatures are awful, the storms are coming fast and furious, and it’s a good time to just sit inside, turn that AC on high, and read.

Back at Memorial Day, I announced the 2018 version of the Summer Reading List Challenge. Your task: 3 books read by Labor Day. As of today, you have 32 days remaining, so how are you doing?

Although I’m writing this on July 19, the two weeks between then and now won’t see me finishing a third book for the challenge. There’s just too much else to do. But that’s okay. I’ve got 2 so far:

Fiction

Title: The Core
Author: Peter V. Brett
Genre: Fiction/fantasy
Year: 2017

This is the final part of the five-book Demon Cycle that started way back when with The Warded Man. I’ve followed along through the whole thing, and I have this to say about the series as a whole: the worldbuilding is excellent. Here we have what’s basically a distant post-apocalyptic setting. Demons come up out of the ground every night, preying on humans, keeping them corralled into a handful of cities and numerous small villages. There’s magic, war, sex, violence, and pretty much everything you’d want out of an epic fantasy saga.

Well, this book cranks everything up to 11. That’s really the only way to put it. And it works, for the most part. The worst complaint I’ve heard about the Demon Cycle is the author’s use of dialect, which some found confusing or even incomprehensible. As someone who is used to Southern and Appalachian speech, it never bothered me one bit. Instead, I was more annoyed by the fanboy-like fawning over a certain group of people, the sometimes blatant Mary Sue nature of quite a few characters, and the Mass Effect 3 ending.

Other than that, it was a fun read, a fun journey. I won’t say The Core is the best book I’ve ever read, and at over 700 pages, it’s a pretty big investment, but this one was worth it. I love worldbuilding, I love interesting settings, and I love cinematic action. Going by that standard, this book’s got it all.

Nonfiction

Title: From Tyndale to Madison
Author: Michael Farris
Genre: Nonfiction/history
Year: 2007

One of the requirements of the Summer Reading List challenge is a nonfiction book. My choice for this year is a fairly obscure work I got from…somewhere, entitled From Tyndale to Madison. Its goal is to link William Tyndale’s 16th-century attempt to translate the Bible into English with the concept of freedom of religion expressed in the 1st Amendment.

Well, it pretty much fails at that. I have nothing against Christianity per se, or indeed Christian authors, but this book is a case where an author looked at a topic from a biased angle and, wonder of wonders, came to a biased conclusion. The historical parts of the book, a series of cases where the established English (and later Colonial) church used its power to suppress lesser sects, work just fine. They’re informative even for someone like me, someone who has researched the period to some slight degree.

Where I take issue is the notion that these nonconformists were the sole reason why the Founding Fathers made sure to include the free exercise of religion (or the lack of such) into our country’s second most important document. The author tries to prove that this had nothing to do with the Enlightenment, the single most pivotal era in the history of science, philosophy, and rationality. He also dismisses the very well established evidence that many of those who founded the US, who were responsible for ensuring that Christianity in any guise would not reign supreme, were deists.

Yeah, that doesn’t exactly work. Even in its own text, the “debunking” fails. The colonial laws of tolerance the author so often quotes as being the precursors to the Bill of Rights invariably continue to outlaw deism, atheism, and other non-Christian philosophies. If, as his theory supposes, these were what Madison and the others of his time were trying for, then they failed miserably. And it’s a good thing they did.

So I wouldn’t recommend this book to anyone. The history parts are fine, but it’s blatantly obvious that the author has an agenda, and he’s willing to distort the evidence to confirm it. Leave that to Fox News. We don’t need it in our books.

Coming up

There’s still a #3. I haven’t decided what it’ll be just yet, but I’ve got a few ideas. I do want to read something a little older, maybe even a classic. The box I have yet to check is “a genre you don’t normally write”, so fantasy won’t cut it. Probably not sci-fi, either, unless I go for something a little…out of the ordinary. I’ll tell you around Labor Day, or you can follow me on the Fediverse (using Mastodon, Pleroma, or whatever your favorite platform): @mikey@toot.love. Keep reading!

Release: The Dark Continent (A Bridge Between Worlds 4)

Halfway across the bridge now, and we’re still going strong.

For Damonte, crossing the bridge between worlds was like going back in time. Choosing not to return home was one of the hardest sacrifices he had ever made. But it might be for the best. Here in this world, among a different sort of people, he has a chance. A chance to make a difference, a chance to right a wrong. A chance not only to be free, but to truly understand what freedom means.

The Otherworld series remains exclusive to my Patreon, and you can pick up this installment, as well as the rest of the story, for a pledge of only a few dollars a month.

A Bridge Between Worlds continues with Part 5, “The Lessons Learned”, coming September 25. Check back for more info, and remember to keep reading!

Future past: computers

Today, computers are ubiquitous. They’re so common that many people simply can’t function without them, and they’ve been around long enough that most can’t remember a time when they didn’t have them. (I straddle the boundary on this one. I can remember my early childhood, when I didn’t know about computers—except for game consoles, which don’t really count—but those days are very hazy.)

If the steam engine was the invention that began the Industrial Revolution, then the programmable, multi-purpose device I’m using to write this post started the Information Revolution. Because that’s really what it is. That’s the era we’re living in.

But did it have to turn out that way? Is there a way to have computers (of any sort) before the 1940s? Did we have to wait for Turing and the like? Or is there a way for an author to build a plausible timeline that gives us the defining invention of our day in a day long past? Let’s see what we can see.

Intro

Defining exactly what we mean by “computer” is a difficult task fraught with peril, so I’ll keep it simple. For the purposes of this post, a computer is an automated, programmable machine that can calculate, tabulate, or otherwise process arbitrary data. It doesn’t have to have a keyboard, a CPU, or an operating system. You just have to be able to tell it what to do and know that it will indeed do what you ask.

By that definition, of course, the first true computers came about around World War II. At first, they were mostly used for military and government purposes, later filtering down into education, commerce, and the public. Now, after a lifetime, we have them everywhere, to the point where some people think they have too much influence over our daily lives. That’s evolution, but the invention of the first computers was a revolution.

Theory

We think of computers as electronic, digital, binary. In a more abstract sense, though, a computer is nothing more than a machine. A very, very complex machine, to be sure, but a machine nonetheless. Its purpose is to execute a series of steps, in the manner of a mathematical algorithm, on a set of input data. The result is then output to the user, but the exact means is not important. Today, it’s 3D graphics and cutesy animations. Twenty years ago, it was more likely to be a string of text in a terminal window, while the generation before that might have settled for a printout or paper tape. In all these cases, the end result is the same: the computer operates on your input to give you output. That’s all there is to it.

The key to making computers, well, compute is their programmability. Without a way to give the machine a new set of instructions to follow, you have a single-purpose device. Those are nice, and they can be quite useful (think of, for example, an ASIC cryptocurrency miner: it can’t do anything else, but its one function can more than pay for itself), but they lack the necessary ingredient to take computing to the next level. They can’t expand to fill new roles, new niches.

How a computer gets its programs, how they’re created, and what operations are available are all implementation details, as they say. Old code might be written in Fortran, stored on ancient reel-to-reel tape. The newest JavaScript framework might exist only as bits stored in the nebulous “cloud”. But they, as well as everything in between, have one thing in common: they’re Turing complete. They can all perform a specific set of actions proven to be the universal building blocks of computing. (You can find simulated computers that have only a single available instruction, but that instruction can construct anything you can think of.)

Basically, the minimum requirements for Turing completeness are changing values in memory and branching. Obviously, these imply actually having memory (or other storage) and a means of diverting the flow of execution. Again, implementation details. As long as you can do those, you can do just about anything.

Practice

You may be surprised to note that Alan Turing was the one who worked all that out. Quite a few others made their mark on computing, as well. George Boole (1815-64) gave us the fundamentals of computer logic (hence why we refer to true/false values as boolean). Charles Babbage (1791-1871) designed the precursors to programmable computers, while Ada Lovelace (1815-52) used those designs to create what is considered to be the first program. The Jacquard loom, named after Joseph Marie Jacquard (1752-1834), was a practical display of programming that influenced the first computers. And the list goes on.

Earlier precursors aren’t hard to find. Jacquard’s loom was a refinement of older machines that attempted to automate weaving by feeding a pattern into the loom that would allow it to move the threads in a predetermined way. Pascal and Leibniz worked on calculators. Napier and Oughtred made what might be termed analog computing devices. The oldest object that we can call a computer by even the loosest definition, however, dates back much farther, all the way to classical Greece: the Antikythera mechanism.

So computers aren’t necessarily a product of the modern age. Maybe digital electronics are, because transistors and integrated circuits require serious precision and fine tooling. But you don’t need an ENIAC to change the world, much less a Mac. Something on the level of Babbage’s machines (if he ever finished them, which he didn’t particularly like to do) could trigger an earlier Information Age. Even nothing more than a fast way to multiply, divide, and find square roots—the kind of thing a pocket calculator can do instantly—would advance mathematics, and thus most of the sciences.

But can it be done? Well, maybe. Programmable automatons date back about a thousand years. True computing machines probably need at least Renaissance-era tech, mostly for gearing and the like. To put it simply: if you can make a clock that keeps good time, you’ve got all you need to make a rudimentary computer. On the other hand, something like a “hydraulic” computer (using water instead of electricity or mechanical power) might be doable even earlier, assuming you can find a way to program it.

For something Turing complete, rather than a custom-built analog solver like the Antikythera mechanism, things get a bit harder. Not impossible, mind you, but very difficult. A linear set of steps is fairly easy, but when you start adding in branches and loops (a loop is nothing more than a branch that goes back to an earlier location), you need to add in memory, not to mention all the infrastructure for it, like an instruction pointer.

If you want digital computers, or anything that does any sort of work in parallel, then you’ll probably also need a clock source for synchronization. Thus, you may have another hard “gate” on the timeline, because water clocks and hourglasses probably won’t cut it. Again, gears are the bare minimum.

Output may be able to go on the same medium as input. If it can, great! You can do a lot more that way, since you’d be able to feed the result of one program into another, a bit like what functional programmers call composition. That’s also the way to bring about compilers and other programs whose results are their own set of instructions. Of course, this requires a medium that can be both read and written with relative ease by machines. Punched cards and paper tape are the historical early choices there, with disks, memory, and magnetic tape all coming much later.

Thus, creating the tools looks to be the hardest part about bringing computation into the past. And it really is. The leaps of logic that Turing and Boole made were not special, not miraculous. There’s nothing saying an earlier mathematician couldn’t discover the same foundations of computer science. They’d have to have the need, that’s all. Well, the need and the framework. Algebra is a necessity, for instance, and you’d also want number theory, set theory, and a few others.

All in all, computers are a modern invention, but they’re a modern invention with enough precursors that we could plausibly shift their creation back in time a couple of centuries without stretching believability. You won’t get an iPhone in the Enlightenment, but the most basic tasks of computation are just barely possible in 1800. Or, for that matter, 1400. Even if using a computer for fun takes until our day, the more serious efforts it speeds up might be worth the comparatively massive cost in engineering and research.

But only if they had a reason to make the things in the first place. We had World War II. An alt-history could do the same with, say, the Thirty Years’ War or the American Revolution. Necessity is the mother of invention, so it’s said, so what could make someone need a computer? That’s a question best left to the creator of a setting, which is you.

On the weather

It’s hot right now. Maybe not where you live, maybe not when you’re reading this, but today, for me, is a hot, steamy day on the edge of summer. There’s a slight chance of thunderstorms; I can see them on the local radar, and I’d give them 50-50 odds of getting here before they die down for the day.

Weather is an important part of our lives. Unless you live in an underground bunker or a climate-controlled habitat dome (Fallout and Surviving Mars fans can speak up here), you have to deal with it on a daily basis. Some of humanity’s first attempts at controlling the future were purely for the weather: winds, tides, rains, and storms. We go to great lengths to forecast it, and it’s so ingrained in our culture that the most generic icebreaker we have is “How about that weather?”

For storytelling purposes, weather is mostly background information. You don’t even have to put it in, really; it’s assumed to be a sunny day (or clear night) unless stated otherwise. But a little bit of inclement weather can serve a purpose, if thrown in at the right time.

Have you ever seen the rain

Rain, of course, is the most obvious type of “bad” weather. We associate rainy days with dreariness, lethargy, and sadness. Harder rains can cause flooding, while a mere drizzle does nothing but annoy.

But that’s a bit biased. In temperate regions (like most of the US and Europe), rain can fall at any time throughout the year. Warm and cold fronts bring rain, and tropical cyclones can produce massive amounts. That’s how weather works around here. In tropical regions, however, you’re more likely to have distinct wet and dry seasons. The wet season, often what would be “winter”, can see daily showers and light thunderstorms. In contrast, the dry season is, well, dry. Some places, even in rainforests, can go months without even a trace of rainfall. Out-of-season rain is an event for these locales, and it’s usually caused by a storm—in fantasy, there might even be ulterior motives.

Most of all, rain sets a tone for a scene. A rainy day is…blah. You don’t want to go outside. All you want to do is either sleep or stare out the window. That’s a great time for introspection, dialogue, and all the hallmarks of what TV writers call the “bottle” episode. Your characters are stuck together, so now’s the time to let it all out.

The thunder rolls

Beyond rain, we have the thunderstorm. (Okay, some storms don’t have rainfall, or they have the virga phenomenon, where the rain evaporates before it reaches the ground. Bear with me here.) Storms produce lighting, which then creates thunder. Larger ones can drop hail, ranging from tiny pellets to softball-sized chunks of ice. Depending on where you—or your characters—live, tornadoes are also a possibility.

A thunderstorm represents violence, the fury of nature. It’s a good time for characters to wonder if the world is mad at them specifically. The aftermath brings a chance to spot and repair damage, as some severe thunderstorms and tornadoes can destroy houses, knock down trees and power lines, etc. A few, alas, are even deadly. (I used a killer storm in Written in Black and White, for instance.) If you can’t find a story in the tornado outbreaks that struck Joplin, Missouri or Ringgold, Georgia, a few years ago, then I don’t know what to tell you.

Lightning also kills, though that’s rarer. In fantasy settings, especially those with active deities, that might also provide a bit of a hook. For the sci-fi side of the coin, consider the more extreme storms that could occur on other worlds. I don’t just mean the Great Red Spot here; Earthlike planets with thicker atmospheres, for example, would certainly have stronger winds in their storms.

Let it snow

I’m a kid at heart, so snow is obviously my favorite sort of inclement weather. It’s got all the same downsides as rain, but add to those the cold, the lack of traction on icy roads, and sheer weight. Then again, it also gives us snowball fights, snowmen, sledding, skiing, and so on. For children, snow is fun. For the working man, it’s terrible. A perfect dichotomy, if you ask me.

Heavier snowfalls do the same thing as heavy rains and severe storms: keep people inside. (Sometimes, it keeps them inside for far too long. Look at, say, the Donner Party.) But where a thunderstorm usually lasts only an hour or two at most, the aftermath of a blizzard can stick around for a week or more. In places that don’t often see large amounts of snow (like Tennessee in 1993), that causes massive headaches for the populace. Set in older days, before technology allowed us to store over a week of food without trouble, you have an even bigger problem. A two-foot blanket of snow in a place that wasn’t expecting it could be the prelude to a disaster. And speaking of disasters…

The weather outside is frightful

Some of our most destructive disasters stem from the weather. Tornado outbreaks strike across the Great Plains in the US and Canada, sometimes also creeping into the American Southeast. I know those all too well: one 2011 twister touched down less than a mile from my house. Hurricanes and tropical storms, not as common in Europe or on the West Coast, strike the eastern US fairly often. We all remember Katrina and the others from the wild 2005 season, but every portion of the coast has a tale from Andrew, Hugo, Camille, Opal, Rita, or one of the many other retired names on the NHC list.

A true weather disaster is a story in itself, but it can also provide the impetus or backdrop for a story. The storm might be on the periphery, but it will affect the characters even from a great distance. News reports trickle in, loved ones may ask for help—you get the idea. All you have to do is turn on the TV or check the Internet to see what happens when a natural disaster strikes.

And that really goes for anything to do with the weather. We’ve got sites and channels dedicated to nothing else. You can’t miss it. The hard part is figuring out how to integrate it with your story. The first question to ask there has to be: do you need to? Maybe it’s enough to say that it was a cloudy day, or that rain was striking the roof.

If that’s not the case, and you do need a storm to spice things up, think about what they do in real life. They bring people together, either physically (because it’s too dangerous to be outside) or emotionally (every major disaster brings out the charitable contributions). They can destroy homes, change lives. But they can also be a time to shine. We can always find the hero who threw himself atop his kids so the tornado would take him instead, or the boater who made six trips to the houses of flood victims, or whatever you’re looking for.

Or it might just be a little rain. That wouldn’t hurt.