Operation Wedding

We are now in the wind-down phase of Operation Wedding. The cake has been distributed, the honeymoon is done and the photos are coming in. I therefore thought I would put some of them up as I am too emotion exhausted to think clearly.

Chris's Crystal Ball

What might the near future look like? I’ve just come back from a few greenhouse gas mitigation and alternative energy conferences with my head buzzing, so here is at least my glimpse of part of it. . .

Well, the pressure is certainly on the energy infrastructure. Latest international Energy Agency forecasts show that to achieve an energy mix that might stabilize CO2 emissions there needs to be an increasing use of both renewables – particularly bioenergy – and nuclear power (even if renewables and nuclear grew exponentially, they will still remain a minor part of the overall energy mix because of the fossil thirst of countries like China and India – at least for this century). Research is powering ahead, and the number of patents is stacking up. The summary of how many of these plants needs to be built every year is a little bit frightening. The next twenty years will see the increasingly rapid implementation of this new generation of energy installations, from the small local scale right up to the big regional plants.

No matter how advanced electric vehicles become, there will still be a huge requirement for liquid transport fuels – there is no such thing as an electric plane or electric spaceship (or electric super-tanker for that matter). And in any case, unless electricity supply becomes much more efficient, then electric vehicles will never be as efficient as hybrids in terms of the whole emissions life cycle (coal based electricity into an electric car emits more CO2 than petroleum).

A LOT more of the Earth will be converted into cropland, further accelerating a steepening conversion of natural systems to agriculture that has been happening for a few centuries now. Much of this will be grown for energy production.

Third generation biosystems such as algae will expand rapidly over the next fifty years, converting sunlight into fuels without necessarily displacing arable land or competing with food crops – and there will be heaps of this. Hundreds of thousands of hectares, yielding everything from high-protein cattle feeds to bio-derived transport fuels. A drive through the countryside will feature not only the almost ubiquitous wind-turbines, but also the vivid green of broad-scale algae ponds or bioreactors marching into the distance. These will almost certainly be sited on marginal land – there will be too much need to preserve the highly productive land for other uses.

Building codes will tighten considerably as regulators realize the massive gains from building energy efficiency, and how much money they can save by reducing energy consumption rather than building new energy infrastructure. I suspect that as designs are optimized for energy efficiency, the tall buildings of the future are going to start looking a little the same – the way all modern cars follow the same optimized wind-tunnel designs.

This is just one slice of crystal-gazing – the part related to energy. I would be disappointed if I wasn’t wrong – after all, I’m still waiting for the aliens to give us viable fusion technology:)

Anyone else got any interesting crystal gazing? How about some punts on the coming revolution in medical technology? Cloning? Robotics? Artificial Intelligence? Is it really possible to replicate human sentience? Or is our grey-matter quantum computer and emotion vortex a one-of-a-kind natural achievement?

Alien Holidays

Something that often doesn't happen in science fiction is holidays, yet most of us arrange our lives around major times when you do certain things partly because you've always done them and partly because that's what people do at that time of year. It gets really weird when something like Christmas, which blends a whole bunch of winter solstice festival traditions into the Christian message, and has since kind of spilled out into a month or so that encompasses a bunch of things that are mostly based on the pagan festivals... Er, where was I? Oh, yeah.

It gets really weird when Christmas, in its form as a predominantly northern hemisphere winter festival, gets transplanted more or less intact to the southern hemisphere, with all the midwinter traditional trappings attached. Of course, that's exactly what I grew up with, so I never saw anything odd about fake pine trees and fake snow or the big fat guy in the red suit with all the fur everywhere being right in the middle of summer. In fact, since I moved to the US, I've been consistently weirded out, every year, by the novelty of Christmas in winter.

Then there's the holidays I simply don't 'get' because they were never part of the Australian tradition, like Thanksgiving, and the ones I miss because they're not part of the US tradition.

Now imagine all those traditions on a space station with no seasons at all. Or a planet where the year just plain doesn't match our calendar. How weird is that going to get? (Hint: 'very'). How about praying to Mecca when the direction you'd need to face would put have you kneeling on the wall? (Okay, not so hard if there's no gravity, but the prayer mat would have to be stuck on, then moved each time because the relative positions would keep changing)

Of course, people will adapt. They'll adjust their traditions a bit, put Santa in red board shorts and thongs (the footwear. The thought of a big fat guy in thong underwear is just...EW), and the absurdities of singing about snow and ice and all when it's hot enough to cook eggs on the pavement just won't occur to them because that's how it's always been. Maybe some of the people will have scales and be a bit bewildered about the way these soft-skinned mammals do things, but hey, it's kind of fun anyway, and we can get drunk on their booze and they get drunk on ours, so let's party! (This does rather assume that the aliens in question met a group of Australian or similarly-minded explorers, whose sole criteria for 'is people' is 'shares the booze').

Or maybe it will go the other way, and people will jealously guard their traditions and refuse to change one iota no matter what. I'm not sure I know anyone who's that rigid, but it's happened in the past, so it can certainly happen again. Actually, my money (and I come from a land where they'll cheerfully bet on two flies crawling up a wall) is on 'yes', and 'everything in between'. One thing history tells you, quite loudly if you don't stick your fingers in your ears and go 'neener neener neener I'm not listening' is that if it can be done, it will be done, usually with some kind of sexual fetish attached.

What do you think future holidays will be like? The only answer I don't think is legit is that they won't exist. They will, because marking certain times as "special" is part of how we personally distinguish the passage of time. It's never 'four Novembers back', it's 'Thanksgiving four years ago'.

Misery

As I write this, here at the foot of the lovely Rockies, there is a layer of ice on everything outside. I haven’t been able to spend any significant time outside because driving is iffy on a sheet of ice, and walking risks losing vital parts of your anatomy, like your nose.

It would seem this is the ideal situation for a writer. After all, there’s nothing else to do...
Weirdly, it’s not translating that way. I pace. I stare at the computer. I find truly bizarre home improvement projects to do.

It is my belief that humans aren’t made to be confined. I’m about ready to go out and hunt a mammoth.

And that’s part of the issue. I have a perfectly good beginning for a novel and I want to write it. It’s due at the publisher’s anyway. So... why aren’t I writing?

Because humans are contrary. Or... wait, I don’t know about humans, but I am. My desire for walking outside translates itself to being assaulted by countless stories, in – I think – an attempt to escape.

All of a sudden, in my head, I have a young woman walking downtown Denver while the city is closed by a major blizzard. She’s kidnaped by an elf troop on magical horses mincing and glittering its way through ice-bound sixteenth street mall and forced to be midwife to their queen. There is a feel of glitter and brocade and shabbiness and a sleigh that shines gold and silver. The rest is still in head because I’m NOT writing it till novel is done.

Then there is the little girl who knocks at the door and carries an injured baby dragon. It’s too cold to throw them back out into the snow. What do you do?

And what do you do when your baby dragon eats glitter and you have to take him to the vet? Does the vet know dragons exist?

So – what do you suggest I do, other than gluing my butt to the chair – which I’ve been doing, but doesn’t keep my mind from wondering? What do you do when physically confined? Does it bother you? (I confess to a perverse impulse to throw it all to the winds and go watch Galaxy Quest for the hundredth time.) Save me from myself. Tell me how to vacate my mind of this silly stuff, so I can work.

Confessions of a TV series addict.

Okay, I admit it, I'm a TV series addict. Especially, if they are spec fic based. If you are into lists, here's a site with the 10 worst SF series ever. See if you agree. It is a bit hard to know because some of these have never made it out to Australia. And, while I do trawl sites looking for interesting TV series, I won't buy one that's bad just to see how bad it is. I'm not that far gone ... Not unless it gets to Ed Wood stage ... gasp, I am almost that far gone.

I guess you can tell by the illustration that I think one of the all time best TV series was Firefly. Go, Joss Whedon. I really enjoyed Buffy, found Angel took itself too seriously and thought Dollhouse was only just getting into its stride at the end of the first series. The problem with Dollhouse was that it was too hard to connect with the female protagonist because she changed each episode (she was a Doll who assumed a new personality for clients). It wasn't until we started to see the workings of the Dollhouse that the show lifted a notch.

Back in the entertainment desert that was TV before we had VHS and then DVDs, there was always Doctor Who. For me the quintessential Doctor Who has to be Tom Baker and his companion would have to be Leela, the girl in the leather bikini who liked to resolve disputes with her knife. And then there was Blake's 7. Oh dear, I thought Servalan, the evil super sexy Supreme Commander was luscious. For all those teenage boys who grew up in the 70s, here she is. Give me an intelligent, powerful woman any day. And there were so few in those days.

OK, time for confessions. What were your favourite TV shows growing up?

For me, Bewitched in the 60s. I wanted to grow up to be Samantha.

70s -- Doctor Who with Tom Baker and Blake's 7.

80s --Gee, I can't think of a spec fic TV series in the 80s. I discovered The Young Ones, but they were absurdist rather than spec fic.

90s -- it would have to be Absolutely Fabulous (not really spec fic) and Red Dwarf.

I didn't discover Buffy until about 2 years ago, which meant I could buy the whole series and pig-out watching it one episode after the other.

What are your favourite TV series and why?

Murder by numbers

I've just been involved in playing one of these murder games (you know, where everyone plays a part and the amusement value is largely determined by how willing you and your friends are to assume another persona and enter into the spirit of things. For a novelist and a people watcher it was just as entertaining watching the real reactions to people finding out they were serial adulterers, cheats, thieves, and murderers. Plenty of motive ;-). The writing too was interesting - it's not an easy task to write accessibly and provide real motives and red herrings. To my mind this one failed in certain respects - firstly there were too many motives and no logical pattern of elimination, and the red herrings were strait dead ends with no relation to the story, but what it failed at most IMO was clearly establishing enough differentiated characters - they were rather featureless, which made getting into them difficult. It's a tricky thing to do, and it has to be done with very few cues.
So here are a few characters they used - Law firm partner - serial philanderer
environmental activist - bunny hugger
Police investigator - rather obtuse

Now how would suggest they cue people in. What props would you recommmend (I am curious)

Sunday Morning Mish-Mash

Last night I was lamenting the fact I had no idea what to blog about today. I've spent this week butting heads with a short story that doesn't want to be short. It wants to be a novel. Worse, it is dictating itself to me and refused to be corralled into anything manageable. I finally gave up and wrote about 5k on it and then did a general outline. Hopefully it will now murmur quietly in the back of my head while I finish the current projects on the front 50 burners. The problem, though, is the story kept me from figuring out what to do for MGC.

Thank goodness -- in oh so many ways -- for the internet. I got up this morning and began surfing the blogs I generally follow and found topic overload. So, with your indulgence, I'll link to a few, comment on a few and, hopefully, make a bit of sense.

On the Harlequin/Harlequin Horizon/DellArte Press ongoing debacle, agent Kristen Nelson comments not only on Mystery Writers of America (MWA) issuing a statement regarding the removal of Harlequin from its list of approved publishers, but also on her own thoughts and comments to Harlequin editors about this new venture of theirs. Check out her blog for MWA's full comment.

By now, you've probably figured out that one of my favorite blogs is Smart Bitches, Trashy Books. Friday's post entitled HuffPo Disses Romance, Stupid-to-Solar-Power Conversion to Come was guaranteed to grab my caffeine deprived attention this morning. Basically, Alan Eisner's column for the Huffington Post dissing the romance genre for taking the romance out of, well, romance, had the Bitches up in arms. It seems Eisner went to his local library, checked out 10 romance novels and decided "The true disservice that the "romance" genre does is that it sucks all the oxygen out of the room." There's more, but you get the drift...he doesn't like it or what it does to literature, real life, etc., etc., etc. SB Sarah, on the other hand, doesn't mince words about her feelings for his column or his method of coming to his conclusion: "I had higher hopes for HuffPo’s book section but wow, they were dashed against the rocky shores of sweeping generalization and people who don’t know diddly squat talking out their asses. I mean, how else am I to judge the entire offering of a diverse selection of writers discussing all things book except by judging the whole on a limited and asinine sample, right? Right! Of course!"

Marjorie M. Liu has a great post about how writers need a routine. Check it out.

As for the future of publishing, a nail was hammered into the coffin with the closure of Borders UK. The reading public is changing how it wants to buy books -- both dead tree versions and e-versions. It's time the publishers and booksellers quit trying to hold onto old models and adapt to new technologies and new marketing plans. If not, we're going to see more and more headlines announcing failures such as Borders UK.

J. A. Konrath announced his 2010 Ebook Predictions on Tuesday. Among them are Amazon adopting Epub standard format, more publishers getting savvy to e-publishing, print versions packaged with e-versions of books and author exclusivity contracts. If he is right on even half his predictions, I think we'll see the industry start to claw its way out of the hole it's in now. At least I hope so.

Finally, the most eye-catching headline this week, for me at least, was from Dr. Syntax -- What Publishing Needs More Of: Failure. Admit it, that would make you read on. It did me. Basically, the post was about the "failure" of Rick Moody's experiment to write and post in Twitter-sized snippets a story over a three day period. The project apparently brought out a lot of negative comments and brought up the issue of whether or not Twitter can be an effective tool for book promotion. Dr. Syntax comments:

Maybe the Moody project was a failure. If so, my reaction is: HOORAY! What we need in publishing today is much more failure. The one thing people in the industry can agree on is that the current methods of doing business are showing diminishing returns. The only way we're going to arrive at new methods is by trying dozens, scores, hundreds of new ways of reaching readers, building awareness, and ultimately selling content. Of course, some, probably most of these won't work, but it's through large-scale, repeated failure that we're going to find out what succeeds. As Clay Shirky puts it, "Failure is free, high-quality research, offering direct evidence of what works and what doesn't."

So, what do you think? Does the industry need to try out new, possibly strange, methods and have a few failures along the way? What about the e-publishing predictions? Agree or disagree. Do you have a writing routine and, if so, what is it?