tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-91279974934360893652024-03-15T20:06:56.186-05:00Joseph Dooley FictionA writer's blog focused on science fiction and fantasyJoseph Dooleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07666206705317908951noreply@blogger.comBlogger140125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9127997493436089365.post-66105761406810778842021-07-28T13:53:00.001-05:002021-07-28T13:54:21.439-05:00State of publishing, 2021<p>It was January 2018. I'd been sitting on the idea for <a href=https://www.amazon.com/Tendrils-Moon-Joseph-Dooley-ebook/dp/B07F5BYJPJ target=_blank><i>Tendrils to the Moon</i></a> for a year. The divided reactions to <i>The Last Jedi</i> sent up a mushroom cloud of a signal that a large and growing market wasn't being served by mainstream entertainment. And I was in the middle of reading David V Stewart's <a href=https://www.amazon.com/Needle-Complete-Eternal-Dream-Book-ebook/dp/B07MWCQL8Q target=_blank><i>Needle Ash</i></a> series, which proved to this neophyte there was quality writing coming out of self-publishing. The dam penning up my creativity burst, and I blasted out my debut novel in 5 months.
<p>Back then, it felt like self-publishing vs. tradpub was an open question on which reasonable minds could differ. My lack of success in getting an agent in the aughts and my eagerness to get my writing in people's hands all but guaranteed I would self-publish. For a while part of me kept an open mind about going the tradpub route in the future. My mind is closed now. All the evidence I've seen since I started writing again has pushed me closer to regarding self-publishing as the default.
<p>Including this account I saw on Twitter:
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<p>After tradpub lost its monopoly on the printing press at the turn of the century, its <i>raison d'être</i> has been quality control. Self-publishing is full of snake oil salesmen and greasy-haired televangelists, so it goes. Best to leave it to professionals to filter out the trash so readers won't be swindled out of their money. This would be fine if it was true.
<p>If you know where and how to look, self-published books are on par with traditionally published books in terms of production value. As for <a href=https://josephdooleyfiction.blogspot.com/2021/07/give-people-what-they-want.html target=_blank>giving readers what they want</a>, self-published books have a clear edge. There are few impediments in the flow of information between a self-published writer and his audience. His success depends on satisfying one person: the customer. He doesn't have to please a dozen Manhattanites with niche sensibilities first.
<p>The tradpub environment was stifling enough before last year. I would characterize what the industry is going through now, evidenced above, as a moral panic. There are two ways to react to panic: mobilize resources to meet the threat, or do nothing. Tradpub mobilized. Agents and editors poured resources into a dubious cause when they should have been focusing on putting good books in readers' hands.
<p>I don't see it getting better anytime soon. Changes in acquisitions processes tend to reflect in new books hitting the shelves at least 12 to 18 months later, so the damage won't be fully felt until 2022.
<p>Two fantasy books that I'm currently neck-deep in on Kindle Vella are Stewart's <i><a href=https://www.amazon.com/The-Bright-Children/dp/B097QCLFSP/ target=_blank>The Bright Children</a></i> and TJ Marquis's <a href=https://www.amazon.com/kindle-vella/story/B098ZQ4FMH target=_blank><i>Children of Asha</i></a>. Both feature young female protagonists. Not to put too fine a point on it, the authors are neither young nor female. Nor do the settings resemble anything anyone has experienced in the real world. And I couldn't care less because that's the point of fantasy. Imagination is your only qualification. I recommend these books for your entertainment and the enrichment of your life.
<p>If sci-fi is your preferred flavor, check out <i><a href=https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07ZXGCN49 target=_blank>Seeds of Calamity</i></a> and <i><a href=https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07F5BYJPJ target=_blank>Tendrils to the Moon</i></a>. You can find extended previews for each <a href=https://josephdooleyfiction.blogspot.com/2019/11/first-4-chapters-of-seeds-of-calamity.html target=_blank>here</a> and <a href=https://josephdooleyfiction.blogspot.com/2018/07/first-3-chapters-of-tendrils-to-moon.html target=_blank>here</a>. As always, let me know what you think in the comments. I'll get back to you as soon as I'm able.
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Joseph Dooleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07666206705317908951noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9127997493436089365.post-90041119332528364582021-07-19T11:33:00.000-05:002021-07-19T11:33:38.813-05:00The dreaded lunar "wobble"
<p>This one's for the nerds.
<p>Corporate media's <a href=https://www.cbsnews.com/news/nasa-wobble-moon-orbit-record-flooding-earth-sea-level-rise-climate-change/ target=_blank>fear porn</a> about a "wobble" in the Moon's orbit exacerbating sea level rise leaves the reader in the dark as to what the "wobble" even is and why it would result in higher tides. Not even the <a href=https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/study-projects-a-surge-in-coastal-flooding-starting-in-2030s target=_blank>NASA article</a> on which the report is based provides a clear description of the mechanics involved. I did the research these hacks neglected to do so you, the news consumer, are informed and knowledgeable about the near-invisible reality of the nature of God's created order.
<p>The technical term for the "wobble" is nodal precession. Before I can explain what that is, I have to first explain that Earth revolves around the Sun on what's called the plane of the ecliptic. All major bodies of the solar system more or less revolve around the Sun on the plane of the ecliptic. Earth tilts 23.4 degrees relative to this plane, which results in seasonal variance in the length of days and the weather. The variance is more intense the farther from the equator you live.
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<p>Earth's equator is perpendicular to this tilt and follows the direction of Earth's daily spin. The Moon does not revolve around Earth over Earth's equator. It revolves more or less around Earth on the plane of the ecliptic. That "more or less" is plus or minus 5 degrees. Over an 18-year period, the Moon's orbit over Earth rotates like an off-center spinning top so that the highest latitude on Earth that it directly passes over falls within a 10-degree range, or about 700 miles.
<p>At the lower extreme, called minor lunar standstill, the farthest north the Moon goes is Mexico City. At the upper extreme 9 years later, called major lunar standstill, the farthest north the Moon goes is Orlando, Florida. This is the phase of the Moon's "wobbling" orbit that the fearmongering is about.
<p>Finally we can talk about tides. The Moon is 70% responsible for tides (the Sun being the other 30%). The Moon traversing higher latitudes on Earth means those higher latitudes will experience higher high tides.
<p>How much higher? Wait for it… … … … 1.9 inches. Unless you live at sea level, there's nothing to worry about.
<p>If this talk about orbital mechanics tickles your fancy, I recommend my debut novel <a href=https://www.amazon.com/Tendrils-Moon-Joseph-Dooley-ebook/dp/B07F5BYJPJ/ target=_blank><i>Tendrils to the Moon</I></a>. You can find an extended preview <a href=https://josephdooleyfiction.blogspot.com/2018/07/first-3-chapters-of-tendrils-to-moon.html target=_blank>here</a>.
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<br><p>By the way, if you haven't tried Kindle Vella yet, score 200 free tokens <a href=https://www.amazon.com/kindle-vella target=_blank>here</a> and show these indie authors some love:
<ul><li><i>The Perils of Sasha Reed</i> by Rawle Nyanzi
<li><i>Children of Asha</i> by TJ Marquis
<li><i>The Bright Children</i> by David V Stewart
<li><i>Raalfarinoor</i> by Donald Jacob Uitvulgt
</ul>
<p>As always, let me know what you think in the comments. I'll reply back as soon as I can.
Joseph Dooleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07666206705317908951noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9127997493436089365.post-84405886884950152822021-07-13T11:06:00.003-05:002021-07-13T11:06:54.592-05:00Richard Branson the astronaut?<p>Richard Branson has always been a daredevil. His sailing and ballooning adventures have been ingrained in the public consciousness for so long that you can find parodies of him from way back in <a href=https://imdb.com/title/tt0343135/ target=_blank>2004</a>. He isn't just a rich thrill-seeker. He wants to do great things. There's no greater why than "because it's there" (credit to George Mallory).
<p>Modeled after the X-series rocket plane famous for Chuck Yeager's sound barrier-breaking flight in 1947, Branson's <i>Unity</i> drop-launched from its mothership and shot to an altitude of 53.5 miles before gliding back down to Earth on Sunday. According to the FAA, which marks the boundary of space at 50 miles up, Branson's an astronaut now. Next year he'll start charging people $250,000 for the same experience.
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<p>While the flight was a technical success, investors sold the hype. The <a href=https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/12/virgin-galactic-shares-rise-after-successful-branson-flight-paves-wave-for-space-tourism-industry.html target=_blank>stock sale</a> that immediately followed did not go as planned. As of this writing, Virgin Galactic's market cap has fallen 20% since trading opened on Monday.
<p>Next week it'll be <a href=https://josephdooleyfiction.blogspot.com/2021/06/bezoss-unexciting-stunt.html target=_blank>Jeff Bezos's turn</a>. The founder and former CEO of Amazon will fly in the New Shepard crew capsule in the nose of a reusable rocket launched from West Texas. After reaching a marginally higher altitude than Branson's <i>Unity</i>, the crew capsule will separate from the rocket and descend back to the desert via parachutes. Bezos's company, Blue Origin, has yet to take reservations for commercial flights.
<p>With all due respect, these personal breakthroughs into suborbital space are sideshows to the main event. Artemis 1 is still on for November, and <a href=https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-northrop-grumman-finalize-moon-outpost-living-quarters-contract target=_blank>NASA just awarded the Lunar Gateway contract to Northrup Grumman</a> for a cool billion dollars. Skeptical as I am of the long-term prospects of the Moon, it's obvious the powers that be are looking at Artemis to gauge our readiness for Mars. In that respect, I'm keen on Artemis succeeding.
<p>It's unclear at this point what purpose Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin serve in the interests of space exploration. Sailing the Atlantic, which Branson has done, or climbing Everest requires skill, stamina, and willpower that few people have. Branson and Bezos exhibit those traits in building their aerospace companies from the ground up. But that's not what they're selling. They're selling <i>rides</i>. Frankly a day pass to Six Flags is a better deal.
<p>Early in my book <a href=https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07F5BYJPJ target=_blank><i>Tendrils to the Moon</i></a>, billionaire Wayne Sheridan is confronted by his colleagues who want to stay in Earth orbit rather than press on to the Moon. Bit by the comfort bug, they became complacent and lazy. His contempt for the proposed change of plans is palpable, and you the reader are supposed to side with him. People don't risk life and limb to settle for half-measures. They want to do something fantastic, something that'll stretch them physically and mentally. Sheridan's decision to take his crew and forge ahead on his own is both his finest moment and the seed of his downfall.
<p>If that interests you, you can find an extended preview of <i>Tendrils to the Moon</I> <a href=https://josephdooleyfiction.blogspot.com/2018/07/first-3-chapters-of-tendrils-to-moon.html target=_blank>here</a>. As always, let me know what you think in the comments. I'll reply back as soon as I can.
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Joseph Dooleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07666206705317908951noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9127997493436089365.post-26890581000553782872021-07-11T14:50:00.000-05:002021-07-11T14:50:45.981-05:00Primordial fun<blockquote>"Today it's shocking to see [planetary romance] delivered with not even a hint of snark or irony." –Jeffro Johnson, <i>Appendix N</i></blockquote>
<p>I'll be honest. When I read the preview for Alexander Hellene's <i><a href=https://www.amazon.com/Last-Ancestor-Swordbringer-Book-ebook/dp/B07XMHL997 target=_blank>The Last Ancestor</a></i> over a year ago, I passed on it. At the time it didn't seem like my kind of book. Now, looking back, I wonder what I could have been thinking. This is <i>exactly</i> my kind of book.
<p><a href=https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSU_YRlIkTjkoUUz2sVRiwMNs5IDh1-cdvwjqkXjSRAi-lbrBN7Mw_G804XEVrZfXToW5GU7TbHTCkc7uHLQ8rX4uFgOEONevcHHK__xLLr9Kd-WL6C4gzQu9_JZYqmvNbSn8zvaqc62pP/s0/tla.png target=_blank><img align=right width=300 style="margin-left:5px" src=https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSU_YRlIkTjkoUUz2sVRiwMNs5IDh1-cdvwjqkXjSRAi-lbrBN7Mw_G804XEVrZfXToW5GU7TbHTCkc7uHLQ8rX4uFgOEONevcHHK__xLLr9Kd-WL6C4gzQu9_JZYqmvNbSn8zvaqc62pP/s0/tla.png></a>The story is set in the near future, not many years after a large group of Christians have settled on a new planet, fleeing persecution on Earth. They settle near a huge city inhabited by what they call Growlers, who are aggressive and war-like. An uneasy ceasefire exists between the two races, a tense, long-term standoff that has real-world parallels. Garret, whose dad died in battle against the Growlers, befriends one of them, called Ghryxa, by saving him from one of the planet's many dangerous unintelligent animals. This unlikely pair finds themselves thrust in the middle of a plot to resume open war between the races, with one side intending to obliterate the other once and for all.
<p>Hellene accomplishes a lot within <i>TLA</i>'s pages. I led with the quote from Jeffro Johnson because this book is in the grand old tradition of sword and planet epitomized by Edgar Rice Burroughs' Barsoom and Amtor series. While there's more gunplay in <i>TLA</i>, the long stretches of running, hiding, sneaking, and fighting maintain a chivalrous tone, for Garret rarely goes on offense with the overwhelming violence he's capable of. Throughout, his youthful pep and optimism lighten what is otherwise a fraught and perilous story. Ghryxa, who's ostracized from his kind for being "soft," also has a chip on his shoulder. They know they're in over their heads getting involved with high-ranking figures such as a princess and a bishop, but they hang in there because of their infectious can-do patriotism and the moral support that boys being forged into men lend each other.
<p>The setting and characters are uniquely suited to frame the conflict between the humans and the Growlers as a religious war as much as a war of incompatible nations forced to live near each other. The book is frank about its religious dimension, but it never resorts to prosylitization. Rather the old-fashioned heroic and nationalistic sentiments that motivate the characters are folded seamlessly into the faith they believe it's their duty to uphold. Hellene reinforces this every chapter by starting with a written excerpt of Garret's dad's video diaries, intended to impart fatherly life lessons and wisdom.
<p>The ways Hellene uses the Christian principles of selfless love and living witness to initiate the central conflict and resolve it are brilliant. He deftly transposes the threat of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the Growlers' Ancestor worship up until the very end. I won't give the ending away, but it's refreshing to see characters be rewarded for doing the right thing, even when doom seems about to befall them.
<p>In short, <i>The Last Ancestor</i> is fresh, fun science fiction brewed from a cocktail of primordial elements, among which muscular Christianity prominently stands out. I recommend it.
Joseph Dooleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07666206705317908951noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9127997493436089365.post-58552999630625794642021-07-06T21:35:00.002-05:002021-07-06T21:36:12.109-05:00Give the people what they want
<p>Not a day goes by without a corporate-sponsored artist publicly spitting on his forebears, maligning swaths of his audience for imagined slights, or forfeiting the stewardship of a classic IP by producing some current-year parody. Surely there's a divine hand in so many people remaining plugged in to the Pop Cult after these repeated insults to fans' taste and character. Men will grumble and joke about Lucasfilm renaming Boba Fett's ship because of political correctness, then plop down $8 a month to catch new episodes of <i>The Mandalorian</i> so they can talk about it at the water cooler. Never in the history of the world has there been such diversity of entertainment, and this is what people choose.
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The state of affairs in the arts is the clearest sign of the degeneracy of the culture, which seems to be rushing headlong to a date with judgment. <a href=https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans%201%3A18-32&version=NIV target=_blank>"God gave them over,"</a> etc., etc. How did we get here? Robert Bork, in <i>Slouching Towards Gomorrah</i>, attempted to give an answer:
<blockquote>It may be in the nature of intellectuals to oppose, but prior to the closing decades of the eighteenth century, open opposition was often not safe and certainly not prudent. Schumpeter makes the point that prior to the Enlightenment intellectuals were few in number and dependent upon the support of the Church or some great patron: "the typical intellectual did not relish the idea of the stake which still awaited the heretic." They preferred honors and comfort which could be had only from "princes, temporal or spiritual." What freed them was the invention of the printing press and the rise of the bourgeoisie, which enabled intellectuals to find support from a new patron, the mass audience. Schumpeter places the decline of the importance of the individual patron in the last quarter of the eighteenth century. James Gardner, art editor for the <i>National Review</i>, says that artists began to direct their anger at the bourgeois state three generations after the French Revolution. The modern universities, foundations, museums, etc. have provided patrons for tens of thousands of disaffected intellectuals. Perhaps, then, intellectuals were always potentially hostile to the social order in which they lived but were held in check by self-interest until the public relieved them of their dependence on private patrons and the bourgeois state lost the will to suppress.</blockquote>
<p>Bork doesn't spell it out—he doesn't need to—that art made for mass consumption is wholly different from the weird sadomasochistic art funded by government grants and endowments. The former gains nothing from ridiculing the bourgeois morality the proletariat recognizes as the social glue that prevents a descent into anarchy. While early pop novelists like Charles Dickens routinely took the bourgeoisie to task, it was usually for not living up to their moral standards, which were recognized as good for everyone.
<p>If it can be said art as entertainment still retains a sense of morality, albeit disconnected from its Christian and Greco-Roman roots—which I do—what precipitated the creative class's heel turn when they began to subsist on government grants and endowments? The mode of funding their art may be different, but the same social class foots the bill. You could blame it on the change from a hereditary aristocracy to a merchant/manager aristocracy <i>if</i> the social attitudes of those people were different. From where I sit there isn't much difference except in how they got their money.
<p>The simplest answer is the social attitudes of the patrons changed. They became more aligned with the aggrieved intellectuals and artists instead of the other way around. Instead of being proud of their ancestors who they inherited from, or of the cultural climate that afforded them the opportunity to succeed, they feel shame. The bourgeoisie with their money fund the counterculture; however, by their morality they personify that which the counterculture sneers at. Charles Murray observed this strange duality in <i>Coming Apart</i>:
<blockquote>The hollow elite is as dysfunctional in its way as the new lower class is in its way. Personally and as families, its members are successful. But they have abdicated their responsibility to set and promulgate standards.</blockquote>
<p>The dirty little secret Murray avoided saying is this: The reason the elite don't promulgate moral standards is they don't think the proletariat are smart enough or capable enough to live like they do. They think life lived rightly is the result of self-mastery (a la Ben Franklin), not of devotion to God. The art they fund reflects what little hope they have for that secular model to save humanity. In other words, the art fulfills its purpose; it delivers the intended message to the intended audience. How odd that the art the privileged bourgeoisie identify with would be dark and cynical while the art the oppressed proletariat identify with would be aspirational and uplifting!
<p>That is, aspirational and uplifting on its good days, which the most massive of mass entertainments are having a lot fewer of lately. Bourgeois disaffection has infiltrated pop art and is in the process of transforming it for a new audience. The reason you don't like it is you're not supposed to like it. And that's okay. But you're going to have to get your entertainment elsewhere.
<p>Brian Niemeier calls the future funding model of art <a href=https://brianniemeier.com/2020/06/neo-patronage/ target=_blank>neo-patronage</a>. It's the sensible alternative to rolling the dice with corporate-sponsored fare. A patronized artist is a grateful artist and will respond to his audience. This is the way.
<p>As always, let me know what you think in the comments. If you like science fiction, check out my books <i><a href=https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07ZXGCN49 target=_blank>Seeds of Calamity</i></a> and <i><a href=https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07F5BYJPJ target=_blank>Tendrils to the Moon</i></a>. You can find extended previews for each <a href=https://josephdooleyfiction.blogspot.com/2019/11/first-4-chapters-of-seeds-of-calamity.html target=_blank>here</a> and <a href=https://josephdooleyfiction.blogspot.com/2018/07/first-3-chapters-of-tendrils-to-moon.html target=_blank>here</a>.Joseph Dooleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07666206705317908951noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9127997493436089365.post-66824362872802854512021-07-02T13:03:00.003-05:002021-07-02T13:13:30.601-05:00Civic dissonance<p>Today I was hoping to bring you a review of Alexander Hellene's <i><a href=https://www.amazon.com/Last-Ancestor-Swordbringer-Book-ebook/dp/B07XMHL997 target=_blank>The Last Ancestor</a></i>, but that'll have to wait because I'm not finished reading it. So I'll talk about another book that's been gnawing at me over the years: <i>The City & the City</i> by China Miéville.
<p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNWAtRred_3T7RwzSA8ryV063uFR7KJiAGPw38SthGU_wcPruc0L2R1dphJTgO-kXjez9Kgx9SBkQoBnGPoSQt1sqJ-_ebHHAwQa2aPVsM_J0qjQlc-6YjDfCMN50NyphVan3qvGhDutWN/s0/4703581.jpg"><img align=right width=280 style ="margin-left:5px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNWAtRred_3T7RwzSA8ryV063uFR7KJiAGPw38SthGU_wcPruc0L2R1dphJTgO-kXjez9Kgx9SBkQoBnGPoSQt1sqJ-_ebHHAwQa2aPVsM_J0qjQlc-6YjDfCMN50NyphVan3qvGhDutWN/s0/4703581.jpg"/></a><i>The City & the City</i> is a police procedural/murder mystery with one of the most imaginative settings I've ever encountered. The story takes place in a city that exists simultaneously in two different countries. There's nothing supernatural going on here. People living in different countries under different laws and speaking different languages walk on the same sidewalks and drive on the same roads, but they act and think like the other side isn't there.
<p>Any interaction with the other side is termed a "breach." It's so taboo that there's a shadowy police force endowed with fearsome power that prosecutes it. You have to pass through a "border" in a special part of the city to cross to the other side. The separateness is so well-kept that characters don't even blink at the irony of going across town to pass through the border only to return to the same neighborhood, just to deliver a package or question someone in relation to a crime investigation.
<p>If you've spent any time in a city, you know how confining it can be. Space is at a premium and much of life is lived on the street. Over time you develop a sort of tunnel vision, an emotional distance from the teeming masses of humanity you encounter when walking to work or to the store. It's hard not to rub shoulders with other cultures day to day, but if you keep your head down and move along most of the time no one will bother you. Being ignored and ignoring others isn't rude; it's actually considered polite.
<p>If social trust is the inverse of diversity (as Robert Putnam and other sociologists have found), and there is literally nowhere for anyone to relocate to, what is to be done to avoid conflict over who owns the public sphere? In Miéville's setting, the solution is more realistic than you think. People are good at pretending what's in front of their eyes doesn't exist, especially when the consequences of not pretending could hurt them. Fear is an effective palliative for cognitive dissonance.
<p>The origins of the arrangement are a mystery in the book, but I thought it probable the two countries had very specific, meaningful claims to the land the city stands on, and were on the brink of war. A deal was brokered for the countries to divorce from each other <i>psychologically</i>. It would have made sense to install an overwhelming external power to check the natural desire among the denizens to fight.
<p>Had that power not been installed, various organizations unequipped to enforce the psychological conditioning would have been thrust into that role. The disorganized, shambolic effort would have resulted in people on both sides continuing to publicly accept what their senses told them was true. They'd inevitably act on it with violence, which above all else the power brokers wanted to avoid.
<p>It's a brilliant premise, and Miéville executes it with aplomb.
<p>As always, let me know what you think in the comments. If you like science fiction, check out my books <i><a href=https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07ZXGCN49 target=_blank>Seeds of Calamity</i></a> and <i><a href=https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07F5BYJPJ target=_blank>Tendrils to the Moon</i></a>. You can find extended previews for each <a href=https://josephdooleyfiction.blogspot.com/2019/11/first-4-chapters-of-seeds-of-calamity.html target=_blank>here</a> and <a href=https://josephdooleyfiction.blogspot.com/2018/07/first-3-chapters-of-tendrils-to-moon.html target=_blank>here</a>.
<center><img src=https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-XKEDBOhBINxcg7iW-K8o-G2gHPbewcINnAqeJcNa1smniPBtIlr5qe6mXaNufei34VZyfgpvqeLUQ0iH8_CStkA7nQ0RTzOsM4Kr_idb2MvW-nypZWh1yCfH_WoXmxDofHHzNTYj7wnN/s1600/1573476612772597-0.png width=400></center>Joseph Dooleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07666206705317908951noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9127997493436089365.post-84429256157359365982021-06-29T16:26:00.000-05:002021-06-29T16:26:10.216-05:00The anti-Western<p>I've written in this space before how <a href=https://josephdooleyfiction.blogspot.com/2020/04/die-hard-and-heroism.html target=_blank><i>Die Hard</i></a> works as a meta-level defense of the masculine American hero, with its tacit ridicule of McClane's doubters and naysayers in corporate sleazeball Harry Ellis and Deputy Police Chief Dwayne T Robinson. <a href=https://josephdooleyfiction.blogspot.com/2021/05/total-recall-appreciation-post.html target=_blank><i>Total Recall</i></a> does something similar… both formally in its male fantasy plot, and informally during the pivotal pill scene with Dr. Edgemar. The evidence supporting Dr. Edgemar's argument that Quaid dreamed everything after going under at Rekall is rock-solid, but you the viewer reject it because the adventure you're on is too fun to not believe in, real world be damned.
<p>Westerns on TV and the big screen featured the kinds of heros <i>Die Hard</i> extolled, but the genre suffered a mortal blow in the late '60s and '70s when a darkening of public thought retinged American history with cynicism and shame. The revisionist Western, featuring <a href=https://josephdooleyfiction.blogspot.com/2021/06/morally-gray-heros.html target=_blank>morally gray heros</a>, became <i>de rigueur</i>.
<p>If anyone was going to revive the Western, it would have been Clint Eastwood, star of Sergio Leonne's Dollars trilogy and other Western classics like <i>Two Mules for Sister Sarah</i>, <i>The Outlaw Josey Wales</i>, and my personal favorite, <i>Pale Rider</i>. Spoiler alert: He did not.
<blockquote><p>"We would have been far better off not to have accepted trash like this piece of inferior work… I can't think of one good thing to say about it. Except maybe, get rid of it FAST." –Sonia Chernus, screenwriter of <i>The Outlaw Josey Wales</i></a></blockquote>
<p><i>Unforgiven</i> won the Academy Award for Best Picture and is hailed by many as the best Western of all time. It's supposedly so good that it's the reason no one has tried to make a Western in 30 years (except for the vastly more entertaining <i>Tombstone</i>). That's wrong. No one has tried to make a Western since <i>Unforgiven</i> because <i>Unforgiven</i> systematically deconstructed and destroyed the genre. As film critic <a href=http://www.tcm.com/this-month/article/80140%7C0/Unforgiven.html target=_blank>Jason Hellerman</a> says, "what we saw made us not want to look back for a long time."
<p>If <i>Die Hard</i> and <i>Total Recall</i> tried to revive or at least venerate heroism and escapism, <i>Unforgiven</i> shoots them in the back and stomps them into the mud. It's brutal, nihilistic, and joyless. The "hero," an assassin who abandons his young children, would be the villain in any other movie. (He even has a <a href=https://villains.fandom.com/wiki/William_Munny target=_blank>Villains wiki page</a>.) The "villain," a sheriff protecting a Wyoming town from assassins, would be the hero in any other movie. The inversion is masterfully executed, but I hesitate to call it "good."
<blockquote>
<p>Daggett: "I'll see you in hell, William Munny."
<p>Munny: "Yeah." [shoots Daggett in the head]
</blockquote>
<p>An example of how this movie deconstructs the Western is its portrayal of "saloon girls." What some women did to keep food on the table in the Old West was rarely hinted at in Hays Code–era Hollywood, to the extent the hero could flirt with a prostitute and a child who happened to be watching would be none the wiser. <i>Unforgiven</i> is not so politic and duly earns its Restricted rating in the very first scene by showing a man butcher a prostitute's face because she laughed when she saw his penis.
<p>If that doesn't sound like typical Western fare, that's because it's not. The point of that scene (in addition to initiate the plot) is to hit the viewer between the eyes with the vulgarity of the Old West. It's a comment less about the Old West and more about the genre that artfully obscured the vulgar and profane to tell you a story, maybe even a wholesome story about men with moral fiber. Put another way, those stories were lies. This, here, is unvarnished truth. Get it?
<p><a href=https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHWNVv5GpfJptln0h040gqG6KhapTMXEcXfTyhsDS5yxrkvYCR5My4IujWcJ199wz5TKW8YoQEQyMcQR3A5fDhEEAUubJjgQWq_3GfYVdQ2cQPYiz4LrzEAjOao_GM72F1uijHKE5qGV7d/s320/djofzjuwwaibydo.jpg target=_blank><img src=https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHWNVv5GpfJptln0h040gqG6KhapTMXEcXfTyhsDS5yxrkvYCR5My4IujWcJ199wz5TKW8YoQEQyMcQR3A5fDhEEAUubJjgQWq_3GfYVdQ2cQPYiz4LrzEAjOao_GM72F1uijHKE5qGV7d/s320/djofzjuwwaibydo.jpg align=right style="margin-left:5px" width=260></a>As if Eastwood's intent wasn't clear enough, there's a character called Beauchamp, a writer of pulp Western novels, who is portrayed as a coward who lives vicariously through his heros, who sugar-coats and glorifies violence. The sheriff takes him under his wing to teach him how the West <i>really</i> is: lawless, amoral, unheroic. Even the way gunfights play out comes down to dumb luck. You see? Everything is meaningless!
<p>It's ironic when a fan of this movie talks about this movie with any kind of reverence <i>when the movie all but screams that it doesn't want to be revered</i>. This person might even say his favorite scene is when Eastwood's Bill Munny shoots up a saloon to avenge his friend. It's a great gunfight, and it stands out as the only time the ostensible hero lets morality direct his actions. The same gunfight with same set-up would have a bigger impact in a true Western.
<p>It took chutzpah for Eastwood to make <i>Unforgiven</i>, an indictment of the genre that made him famous. I'd hold it against him personally if he didn't have oodles of good will stored up from everything else he's acted in and directed. But for those whom the Western is near and dear, I wouldn't be surprised if he's still unforgiven.
<p>As always, let me know what you think in the comments. If you like science fiction, check out my books <i><a href=https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07ZXGCN49 target=_blank>Seeds of Calamity</i></a> and <i><a href=https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07F5BYJPJ target=_blank>Tendrils to the Moon</i></a>. You can find extended previews for each <a href=https://josephdooleyfiction.blogspot.com/2019/11/first-4-chapters-of-seeds-of-calamity.html target=_blank>here</a> and <a href=https://josephdooleyfiction.blogspot.com/2018/07/first-3-chapters-of-tendrils-to-moon.html target=_blank>here</a>.
<center><img src=https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-XKEDBOhBINxcg7iW-K8o-G2gHPbewcINnAqeJcNa1smniPBtIlr5qe6mXaNufei34VZyfgpvqeLUQ0iH8_CStkA7nQ0RTzOsM4Kr_idb2MvW-nypZWh1yCfH_WoXmxDofHHzNTYj7wnN/s1600/1573476612772597-0.png width=400></center>Joseph Dooleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07666206705317908951noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9127997493436089365.post-48815216309195224472021-06-24T08:48:00.000-05:002021-06-24T08:48:50.483-05:00Morally gray heros?
<p>One of my readers told me he thought the villain of <i>Tendrils to the Moon</i> was the good guy until he was almost through with the book. That confusion was not my intention, but I can see why it happened:
<ul><li><i>Tendrils</i> has two lead characters, and neither consistently exhibits villainous or heroic behavior. (<a href=https://josephdooleyfiction.blogspot.com/2020/03/embrace-tropes-in-your-writing.html target=_blank>Tropes</a> would have served me well here, to communicate to the reader how to feel about the characters.)
<li>During the drafting phase, I understood who the villain was long before I settled on a character for the hero. The tortured choices the villain makes drive the conflict. This resulted in the villain having a stronger presence until well into the second act.</ul>
<p>Theoretically the story is a corruption arc for the villian and a redemption arc for the hero, and they're pushed into conflict by the villain's choices. I could have executed the latter a lot better, because it's not clear what Col. Montgomery Ames (U.S. Air Force–retired) needs redemption from, if anything. Writing that book was a learning experience, but I'm glad people who've read it enjoyed it, even if I do rank my second book higher.
<p>The occasion for this is <a href=https://yakovmerkin.com/2021/06/03/let-heroes-stay-heroes/ target=_blank>Yakov Merkin's post</a> about the disconcerting trend of morally gray heros in fiction. Here's a highlight:
<blockquote><p>What’s important is seeing the hero we like face down these challenges, come to the edge of falling to them, but then finding a way to get through. The hero refuses to betray his friends even under intense pressure. The hero refuses to let himself return to being a merciless conqueror when the opportunity presents itself. Consciously deciding to stay a hero. Physical threats don’t give you that sort of opportunity, most of the time.
<p>
And before anyone gets the wrong idea, I’m not saying a hero needs to be a literal boy scout. Batman’s policy of never killing his many murderous foes is idiotic and not heroic. There are times when a truly good hero must take harsh action against evil in order to protect the innocent. Don’t mistake that for a falling into darkness.
</blockquote>
<p>The moral-graying of heros is a symptom of <a href=https://josephdooleyfiction.blogspot.com/2021/06/hobbit-sex.html target=_blank>naturalist</a> and deconstructionist movements to eschew artistic representations of the ideal. In the real world people are complex and do good or bad for a million different reasons. You're drawn to the villain because he's not simply evil; he got to be this way. You often hear how <i>interesting</i> a villain is, like Killmonger in <i>Black Panther</i>. The audience expects there's a reason this person turned bad. (This is so prevalent, it's now considered subversive to have the villain just <i>be</i> the villain.)
<p>The flip side of that is the audience's assumption that all people start out good, or at least okay. Thus the hero's backstory doesn't have as much juice as the villain's. To give the hero's role weight to at least counter the villain's presence in the story, the writer morally shades the hero.
<p>The problem with that? Moral shading diminishes the most powerful emotion an audience can feel: catharsis; the triumph of good over evil. Look at what Zack Snyder tried to do with Superman, perhaps the most idealized hero in American culture. Snyder transplanted him into a darkly shaded setting and narrative. The result? Superman doesn't feel like a hero.
<p>What we can learn from Snyder's failure is you can't have your cake and eat it too. Some characters, like classic heros and villains, can't be moral-grayed without creating dissonance in the audience. If we want better heros, we're going to have to cut down on the moral-graying.
<p>Side bar: I'm no Batman aficionado, but the no-kill principle is indeed idiotic. And I thought the tongue-in-cheek "I won't kill you, but I don't have to save you" line in <i>Batman Begins</i> acknowledged it as such, until the sequel showed Batman refusing to kill the Joker while the Joker was on a murder spree. Why are we even fighting if we're morally opposed to <a href=https://josephdooleyfiction.blogspot.com/2020/05/kill-bad-guy.html target=_blank>killing the bad guy</a> in defense of innocents?
<p>As always, let me know what you think in the comments. If you like science fiction, check out my books <i><a href=https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07ZXGCN49 target=_blank>Seeds of Calamity</i></a> and <i><a href=https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07F5BYJPJ target=_blank>Tendrils to the Moon</i></a>. You can find extended previews for each <a href=https://josephdooleyfiction.blogspot.com/2019/11/first-4-chapters-of-seeds-of-calamity.html target=_blank>here</a> and <a href=https://josephdooleyfiction.blogspot.com/2018/07/first-3-chapters-of-tendrils-to-moon.html target=_blank>here</a>.
<center><img src=https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJEO_67r8aRDAHtvrid8Kkd5xeaO0E7fcD0oJA9tN9PXRx82Z7_4IYFpJiZZjwETMwRnWjnteZNTkTTwJFIxUnq_bPpIcCHdcFxIWYJhmWZuqpj9UYF8rj7g_hwH10fho1-Wjwf4BtJX_L/s0/IMG_20201110_130409.jpg width=400></center>Joseph Dooleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07666206705317908951noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9127997493436089365.post-25523091590996685612021-06-21T22:02:00.000-05:002021-06-21T22:02:56.865-05:00End of the line
<p>The fledgeling Marvel Television Universe will not get physical media releases. This is my shocked face. <a href=https://comicbook.com/marvel/news/marvel-studios-wandavision-falcon-and-winter-soldier-blu-rays/ target=_blank>ComicBook.com</a> has the story, if you're interested. I want to key in on what Marvel Studios frontman Kevin Feige said when the physical media question was put to him in January:
<blockquote>The truth is, I don't know. That's a good question for which I will look for the answer. I don't know. You can pay a very low fee per month and have access to something that you can put it on your TV whenever you want!</blockquote>
<p>At the risk of sounding obtuse, you can watch a DVD whenever you want, and you don't have to pay Disney+ or an Internet service provider a monthly fee. But that's not in Disney's interest. They want recurring, predictable income. For the cost of producing an episode of TV per week and the occasional 2-hour special, they're getting it.
<p>Don't get me wrong. This doesn't affect me in the slightest. Anything shiny Hollywood produces these days has to be really special to demand my time.
<p>However, on a macro level, it's hard to deny we're at a turning point. If old Hollywood is going to <a href=https://josephdooleyfiction.blogspot.com/2021/05/will-streaming-save-hollywood.html target=_blank>make streaming work</a>, it will be at consumers' expense. With everything going to streaming, it won't make sense to mass-produce Blu-rays and DVDs anymore. Why sell people the means of bypassing your cash cow? Likewise for Blu-ray and DVD players. <a href=https://www.zdnet.com/article/the-end-of-blu-ray/ target=_blank>In 2019 Samsung stopped releasing new Blu-ray players for the U.S. market.</a>
<p>I hesitate to tie this in to Klaus Schwab's Great Reset, but this pivot to streaming would be nothing less if it was being deliberately implemented with that agenda in mind. Imagine everything in your life is single-use like the plastic cups you put in a Keurig. You will own nothing. Your viewing habits will be monitored and new content will be curated for you to ensure you meet your consumption target. You'll gobble up the latest disposable offerings, forgetful of past iterations of the IP after they're digitally erased from the 'Net. (Hackers or a computer virus will serve as a scapegoat early on, when pretenses have to be upheld.) The past won't be so much rewritten as overwritten. It's always year zero to the cult of the new.
<p>The past is worth preserving. If you haven't started building your library yet, start now. The future depends on it.
<p>As always, let me know what you think in the comments. If you like science fiction, check out my books <i><a href=https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07ZXGCN49 target=_blank>Seeds of Calamity</i></a> and <i><a href=https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07F5BYJPJ target=_blank>Tendrils to the Moon</i></a>. You can find extended previews for each <a href=https://josephdooleyfiction.blogspot.com/2019/11/first-4-chapters-of-seeds-of-calamity.html target=_blank>here</a> and <a href=https://josephdooleyfiction.blogspot.com/2018/07/first-3-chapters-of-tendrils-to-moon.html target=_blank>here</a>.
<center><img src=https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-XKEDBOhBINxcg7iW-K8o-G2gHPbewcINnAqeJcNa1smniPBtIlr5qe6mXaNufei34VZyfgpvqeLUQ0iH8_CStkA7nQ0RTzOsM4Kr_idb2MvW-nypZWh1yCfH_WoXmxDofHHzNTYj7wnN/s1600/1573476612772597-0.png width=400></center>
Joseph Dooleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07666206705317908951noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9127997493436089365.post-48142981939697339222021-06-18T10:55:00.005-05:002021-07-13T09:47:07.665-05:00Bezos's unexciting stunt<p>When Jeff Bezos was soundly beaten by Elon Musk to be NASA's partner in getting back to the Moon, Bezos pivoted to space tourism as the future of his aerospace company. He recently auctioned off a seat on Blue Origin's first commercial flight <a href=https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/jun/12/jeff-bezos-space-auction-28m-spare-seat-blue-origin target=_blank>for $28 million</a>.
<p>To be clear, that's $28 million for a 10-minute flight, 3 minutes of which you could argue occurs in "space." The identity of the winning bidder remains a secret, but I'd be shocked if it wasn't someone who used the publicity to hawk something like plant-based meat to the public. "It's the future of meat!"
<blockquote><p>Bezos, who will step down as Amazon’s chief executive officer 15 days before the flight, posted on Instagram: “Ever since I was five years old, I’ve dreamed of traveling to space. On July 20th, I will take that journey with my brother. The greatest adventure, with my best friend.”
<p>The trip comes amid increasing competition between the some of the world’s wealthiest men. Blue Origin is vying with Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies and the Richard Branson-backed Virgin Galactic Holdings to offer trips to space.</blockquote>
<p>Bezos may be out of Branson's league, but he can't go toe to toe with Musk, who combines the wealth of the former with the charisma of the latter. I've been critical of Musk's Twitter shenanigans and his reliance on subsidies to keep Tesla and SolarCity afloat, but <a href=https://josephdooleyfiction.blogspot.com/2021/04/earthbound-and-moribund.html target=_blank>he has moxy</a>, and you need that to send men into space (in addition to billions of dollars). He also understands what dogged the space program after Apollo: a lack of excitement. More than all of SpaceX's innovation in the field of VTOL rockets, the "Starman" stunt renewed many people's interest in space exploration.
<p>Bezos's sub-orbital stunt is 10 years too late, and he doesn't have the charisma to make it interesting. Personally reaching space before Musk pales in comparison to what Musk will accomplish in the next 3 years. Feel free to look past this nothingburger to Artemis 1, an unmanned version of Apollo 8, which will be as much a test of NASA's wildly overpriced SLS rocket as of the Orion spacecraft. Or you can watch <a href=https://josephdooleyfiction.blogspot.com/2021/04/is-space-race-back-on.html target=_blank>Russia's future space partner</a> build their own space station in low Earth orbit.
<center>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p dir="ltr" lang="en" xml:lang="en">The launch of <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/China?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#China</a>’s first manned mission to its <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/space?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#space</a> station. It’s pretty incredible what humans can do. The rocket’s chief designer told me after so much work, she was sad to see it go... but ‘thrilled’ that for 10 key minutes ‘it did its duty’.<br/>This was my view.<a href="https://twitter.com/NBCNews?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@NBCNews</a> <a href="https://t.co/ofDNV8XXU5">pic.twitter.com/ofDNV8XXU5</a></p>
— Janis Mackey Frayer (@janisfrayer) <a href="https://twitter.com/janisfrayer/status/1405358000303489025?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 17, 2021</a></blockquote><script async="" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p dir="ltr" lang="en" xml:lang="en">WATCH: China’s Shenzhou 12 docking to Tiangong Space Station Core Cabin Module<br/><br/><a href="https://t.co/mvi82lyKEI">pic.twitter.com/mvi82lyKEI</a></p>
— ASB News / MILITARY〽️ (@ASBMilitary) <a href="https://twitter.com/ASBMilitary/status/1405457697584074755?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 17, 2021</a></blockquote><script async="" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
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<p>As always, let me know what you think in the comments. If you like science fiction, check out my books <i><a href=https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07ZXGCN49 target=_blank>Seeds of Calamity</i></a> and <i><a href=https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07F5BYJPJ target=_blank>Tendrils to the Moon</i></a>. You can find extended previews for each <a href=https://josephdooleyfiction.blogspot.com/2019/11/first-4-chapters-of-seeds-of-calamity.html target=_blank>here</a> and <a href=https://josephdooleyfiction.blogspot.com/2018/07/first-3-chapters-of-tendrils-to-moon.html target=_blank>here</a>.Joseph Dooleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07666206705317908951noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9127997493436089365.post-31450911131327023842021-06-15T15:13:00.005-05:002021-06-15T15:14:12.541-05:00Addicted to success
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<p>The creators of many successful IPs are surprised by their success. Their product, borne from a labor of love, appeals to more people than they thought possible. Sales boom. The creators, whose production team started small, scale up operations to meet demand, and launch sequels, spin-offs, crossover products, etc.
<p>Eventually they reach their commercial ceiling, or they release back-to-back mediocre products. A regression to the mean occurs. The creators face having to scale back down to align with this more realistic demand (i.e., lay people off). Or, they reason, they can fudge the essence of the IP to "broaden the appeal."
<p>Essential to any IP's identity is what it <a href=https://josephdooleyfiction.blogspot.com/2020/06/exclusivity-in-chess.html target=_blank><i>excludes</i></a>. "Broadening the appeal" is to remove what is distinct and special. John Anderson is more right than he knows. Whatever you like about an over-the-hill IP, subsequent iterations that "broaden the appeal" will, at best, still have that content, but bury it under a bunch of crap. The watered-down product may boost sales, but it doesn't cohere like it used to. The original consumer base splinters and the hardcore enthusiasts check out.
<p>This is how most IPs enter what David V Stewart calls the <a href=https://www.brianniemeier.com/2019/09/the-corporate-ip-death-cycle.html target=_blank>corporate IP death cycle</a>. Their most creative and productive days behind them, the creators or license holders become more concerned with sustaining the largesse they built up to maximize profits. There's little of the creator left in them, for they've become addicted to success.
<p>If you've been following E3, as <a href=https://bradfordcwalker.blogspot.com/2021/06/my-life-as-gamer-round-three-fight.html target=_blank>Bradford C Walker</a> and <a href=https://tjmarquis.wordpress.com/2021/06/15/dont-settle-for-perpetual-disappointment/ target=_blank>T J Marquis</a> have, you may be struck by the lack of diverse offerings from the gaming industry. That's because most creators with a big enough presence to present at E3 are well past the initial expansion supported by a singular, well-executed idea. They have organizations to run, and organizations tend to stifle creativity.
<p>"Where's the next [x]?" is a common refrain you hear in dissident circles yearning for quality entertainment that isn't in its fifth or sixth title. The answer is it's being lovingly crafted by someone you've never heard of in their parents' basement. That's the nature of surprises. You don't see them coming.
<p>As always, let me know what you think in the comments. If you like science fiction, check out my books <i><a href=https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07ZXGCN49 target=_blank>Seeds of Calamity</i></a> and <i><a href=https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07F5BYJPJ target=_blank>Tendrils to the Moon</i></a>. You can find extended previews for each <a href=https://josephdooleyfiction.blogspot.com/2019/11/first-4-chapters-of-seeds-of-calamity.html target=_blank>here</a> and <a href=https://josephdooleyfiction.blogspot.com/2018/07/first-3-chapters-of-tendrils-to-moon.html target=_blank>here</a>.Joseph Dooleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07666206705317908951noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9127997493436089365.post-25756669809861774192021-06-11T22:05:00.000-05:002021-06-11T22:07:38.604-05:00Managing the flow of information
<p>One of the reasons I hated <i>Tenet</i>, the movie that flopped last summer at the height of the epidemic and <a href=https://chicagofilmscene.com/what-the-tenet-flop-means-for-movies-moving-forward/ target=_blank>failed</a> to save old Hollywood, was the obscurity of its action. Some of this could have been fixed with better acting, editing, sound mixing, and musical scoring. But most of it owes to the central conceit of the movie, that people and things can pass through a portal and invert their passage through time.
<blockquote><p>The Protagonist: "The cause comes before effect."<p>Laura: "No. That's just the way we see time."</blockquote>
<p>Leave it to Christopher Nolan to make a $200 million action movie that reverses the order of cause and effect. The result is action that's impossible to understand, a muddle that doesn't make sense until it ends—or starts, whatever.
<p>I've thought about that movie and what I can learn from it a lot since last summer. These big-budget blockbusters have no equal in terms of production value, but their scripts, whether written by committee or by one man, consistently fall short. <i>Tenet</i> doesn't work because of the fatal flaw of reverse chronology. Nolan's so devoted to the concept he withholds information until after you needed it. The action, instead of thrilling, is confounding like a Rubik's cube and similarly lacking in kinetic energy.
<p>That's not to say I don't make these kinds of mistakes. A writing skill I've yet to master is managing the flow of information to the reader. That's giving the reader what he needs before he needs it. No more, no less. It sounds simple, but you can get really mixed up writing a scene with just two people, each one trying to deceive the other. I was working on a book years ago, which I never finished, that had a scene just like that. I must have written 10 versions of that scene. I couldn't keep straight what the two men knew, what they were pretending to know, and what they didn't know.
<p>My go-to tactic to manage the flow of information is to hide it from the POV character. This can be achieved through simple ignorance or deception by other characters. That necessitates a reason for the POV character's ignorance, such as he's new in town, or young and naive. In the case of deception—well, people lie for all kinds of reasons. If you can link that reason to a unique facet of the setting, you're doing well.
<p><i>The Martian</i> by Mike Weir is many things. What I admire about it is the amount of information Mike Weir includes without being boring. The choices he made for the main character's personality, the narrative structure, and all the screw-ups and surprises facilitated the exposition. That information was essential to the book's plot and tone, which created a vicarious feeling of working side-by-side with NASA engineers on a high-stakes space mission.
<p>It's wild thinking about the general lack of information in the pre-Internet era. Remember when you had to look things up in an encyclopedia? Now I can find the answer to any question that pops into my head in seconds. That we can instantly satisfy our curiosity about any topic under the Sun caps our imaginations a bit. When Michael Crichton wrote <i>Timeline</i>, he counted on the fact that you couldn't see through his <a href=https://josephdooleyfiction.blogspot.com/2020/03/michael-crichtons-quantum-deception.html target=_blank>quantum deception</a> without doctarate-level research. If he wrote that today, would he take the same risk with the facts, knowing we could fact-check him on the spot? If not, we would have been deprived of what I regard as his best book.
<p>With so much information at hand, it takes as much time to discern <a href=https://josephdooleyfiction.blogspot.com/2020/04/womens-books-are-for-women.html target=_blank>what's important</a> as it does to discern what's true. The book I'm writing now has stonemasonry in it. I know nothing about stonemasonry, but the Internet knows everything. I don't have time to become conversant in stonemasonry or a hundred other topics my book touches on. I don't want to regurgitate every fact about stonemasonry to show the reader the stonemasons in my book are the real deal, either. What a writer does is show the basic knowledge of what's necessary for the scene to unfold—to know what's important—and discard the rest.
<p>As always, let me know what you think in the comments. If you like science fiction, check out my books <i><a href=https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07ZXGCN49 target=_blank>Seeds of Calamity</i></a> and <i><a href=https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07F5BYJPJ target=_blank>Tendrils to the Moon</i></a>. You can find extended previews for each <a href=https://josephdooleyfiction.blogspot.com/2019/11/first-4-chapters-of-seeds-of-calamity.html target=_blank>here</a> and <a href=https://josephdooleyfiction.blogspot.com/2018/07/first-3-chapters-of-tendrils-to-moon.html target=_blank>here</a>.
<center><img src=https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-XKEDBOhBINxcg7iW-K8o-G2gHPbewcINnAqeJcNa1smniPBtIlr5qe6mXaNufei34VZyfgpvqeLUQ0iH8_CStkA7nQ0RTzOsM4Kr_idb2MvW-nypZWh1yCfH_WoXmxDofHHzNTYj7wnN/s1600/1573476612772597-0.png width=400></center>Joseph Dooleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07666206705317908951noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9127997493436089365.post-81137846419605514412021-06-08T15:51:00.001-05:002021-06-08T15:51:30.376-05:00The upside of restrictive formats
<p><a href=https://dvspress.com target=_blank>David V Stewart</a>, always a great source for thoughtful content and commentary, dropped a video yesterday explaining how the format switch from vinyl record to CD in the '80s resulted in a decline in album quality. If you're like me, and music is something you love but know little about, David's video is worth a watch.
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<p>In summary, albums on vinyl were limited to two 23-minute sides. Often you would listen to one side of a record, encouraging continuity and/or contrast among the songs that composed that side. CDs, on the other hand, can hold nearly 80 minutes of music. When listening to a CD, you can use the skip buttons to hear your favorite songs.
<p>As with most new trends, the downside of CDs wouldn't be felt until years later. As a rival to vinyl, cassette tapes owned the '80s and didn't begin to fade until the early '90s. David notes around that time bands and their producers started to stuff their albums with filler to make them longer, because why leave "wasted" space on an 80-minute CD? The end result was albums with watered-down quality. Metallica's <i>Load</i> famously boasted 78 minutes and 59 seconds of music, which was probably 30 minutes too long.
<p><a href=https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJrI9-_KfUZtGrbCTVf6TyZQHjptEwQQSFBAu7qnYmAL6RA1X0bFQ-9VMb56rTUUbtebSL2eFx3imfIbFUwgSBLafiTFptDzw8JXGzycYZtrWbCKyzPso4ur-3hNbK6Y-UzoEtCs5VqvJ9/s0/load.png><img align=right width=300 src=https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJrI9-_KfUZtGrbCTVf6TyZQHjptEwQQSFBAu7qnYmAL6RA1X0bFQ-9VMb56rTUUbtebSL2eFx3imfIbFUwgSBLafiTFptDzw8JXGzycYZtrWbCKyzPso4ur-3hNbK6Y-UzoEtCs5VqvJ9/s0/load.png style="margin-left:5px"></a>The constraints of the vinyl record used to force bands and their producers to tighten up the songwriting and select the best material from a recording session. The CD does not impose that kind of discipline.
<p>Look at the top-selling and top-rated albums during vinyl's heyday. Led Zeppelin I, II, III, and IV were all under 45 minutes. <i>Dark Side of the Moon</i>? Forty-three minutes. (My favorite Pink Floyd album is <i>Wish You Were Here</i>, at 44 minutes.) <i>Pet Sounds</i> was a paltry 35 minutes. Michael Jackson's <i>Thriller</i> and <i>Back in Black</i> both clocked in at 42 minutes. You hardly ever hear anyone complain these albums are too short. What they are is <i>good</i>.
<p>As I said in an <a href=https://josephdooleyfiction.blogspot.com/2021/04/brevity-is-soul-of-wit.html target=_blank>earlier post</a>, time is an essential constraint of any media. Because media formats evolved quickly and shed material boundaries (books to ebooks, albums to iTunes, movies and TV to Internet streaming), creators have the freedom to put out entertainment of any length they want.
<p>As with any new freedom, it's easily abused. Excesses in books, music, and movies prove by the blessing of hard boundaries. It's better to err on the side of being too short, leaving the audience wanting more, than too long, and overstaying your welcome. Assume the listener (or reader, in my case) has something marginally less important to do than pay attention to your very best effort. That will keep your quality up.
<p>Aside: Cassette tapes, at 30 minutes per side, matched well with vinyl records at the cost of lower quality. When I was little, my dad had more cassette tapes than any other format. He would listen to the A side on his way to work and the B side on his way home, then switch the tapes that night. When I turned 16 and he gave me his car, one of the first things I did was burn my CDs to tapes so I could listen to them on the road. It wasn't until the summer after I turned 17 that I realized installing a CD player in the dashboard was an option. All my friends and I had CD players installed in our cars in the span of a few months. Best Buy doesn't offer that service anymore, and I doubt it ever will again.
<p>As always, let me know what you think in the comments. If you like science fiction, check out my books <i><a href=https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07ZXGCN49 target=_blank>Seeds of Calamity</i></a> and <i><a href=https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07F5BYJPJ target=_blank>Tendrils to the Moon</i></a>. You can find extended previews for each <a href=https://josephdooleyfiction.blogspot.com/2019/11/first-4-chapters-of-seeds-of-calamity.html target=_blank>here</a> and <a href=https://josephdooleyfiction.blogspot.com/2018/07/first-3-chapters-of-tendrils-to-moon.html target=_blank>here</a>.
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Joseph Dooleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07666206705317908951noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9127997493436089365.post-83412233190657467612021-06-06T07:23:00.004-05:002021-06-06T18:16:31.081-05:00Vindication<p>It seems like a long, long time ago that Worldcon banned <a href=https://delarroz.com/ target=_blank>Jon del Arroz</a> for "racist and bullying behavior," an intentionally vague catch-all term for everything outside the Death Cult's influence. Despite living in a cynical age, many people are credulous when it comes to this kind of thing. All it takes is an accusation and the court of public opinion will skip the trial and go straight to the sentencing. Cultural incentives favor consent by silence. To object has the feel of declaring war, for control based on falsehood faces an existential threat from the truth.
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<p>The very public and humiliating announcement was no straightforward case of disassociation. (People are free to choose who they want to be around. That's a fundamental human right.) It was a de facto fatwa placed on Jon's livelihood. Nowadays you don't have to behead someone to be rid of them. You just have to coordinate a consensus among the commissars that any who choose to transact with a "racist and bullying" person is guilty by association. Effectively starving that person to death.
<p>It goes without saying the charges were without merit. Rather than sit down and mutter to himself in the shadows to which he'd been banished, Jon fought back and defended his good name. It took over 3 years of wrangling in the California court system, but he finally got a retraction and an apology.
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<p>Worldcon also ponied up $4,000 in damages, a paltry sum compared to the lost book sales that come from wrecking an up-and-coming writer's career.
<p>We call this vindication. If I were <a href=https://deadline.com/2021/02/mandalorian-gina-carano-lucas-film-responds-to-controversial-statement-1234691898/ target=_blank>Gina Carano</a>, I'd have my lawyers draft suit against Lucasfilm immediately. Their charge against her, "social media posts denigrating people based on their cultural and religious identities," is similarly bogus.
<p>The Wild West has the reputation, among modernity's supposed moral betters, of being violent and uncivilized. What will future generations say about the slanderous social media culture of 2021? At least in the Wild West men had recourse via fists or guns when others defamed their character. This encouraged grudging respect among rivals. Nowadays there are hardly any consequences. Slander and libel are notoriously difficult to prove in American civil courts. Not coincidentally, they are the Death Cult's go-to weapons in crushing their enemies.
<p>Thanks to Jon, maybe they'll think twice before pulling that trigger.
<p>As always, let me know what you think in the comments. If you like science fiction, check out my books <i><a href=https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07ZXGCN49 target=_blank>Seeds of Calamity</i></a> and <i><a href=https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07F5BYJPJ target=_blank>Tendrils to the Moon</i></a>. You can find extended previews for each <a href=https://josephdooleyfiction.blogspot.com/2019/11/first-4-chapters-of-seeds-of-calamity.html target=_blank>here</a> and <a href=https://josephdooleyfiction.blogspot.com/2018/07/first-3-chapters-of-tendrils-to-moon.html target=_blank>here</a>.
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<p><b>UPDATE:</b> Jon takes a well-deserved victory lap:
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Joseph Dooleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07666206705317908951noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9127997493436089365.post-77119217378411025042021-06-03T15:11:00.001-05:002021-06-05T06:52:03.309-05:00Hobbit sex<p><a href=https://twitter.com/FlakeyAnthony/status/1395157840717770758?s=19 target=_blank>A Twitter mutual</a> brought to my attention a 1958 essay by Murray Rothbard about naturalism, or realism, in modern literature. It's one of the most succinct and pertinent articles written about its subject matter that I've read, right up there with C S Lewis's <i>The Abolition of Man</i>.
<p>But first, a quote from George R R Martin, to give fuller context to Rothbard's observation.
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<p>Martin's stock and trade is "humanizing" his characters by shining a light on their most intimate, often illicit, activities. Tolkien, a devout Catholic, leaves it to our imaginations what hobbits do in the bedroom. I wouldn't categorize the writing style as asexual or celibate, but rather chaste in the sense that sex is best undertaken within the frame of conjugal love as part of God's created order.
<p>In answer to Martin's challenge, I find it almost too easy to imagine hobbits falling in love, getting married, and having lots of baby hobbits. They're farmers, and <a href=https://nypost.com/2019/10/08/farmers-get-it-on-more-than-any-other-profession-study/ target=_blank>farmers get it on more than any other profession</a>.
<p>But let's get back to this preoccupation with representing sex in detail in fiction. It's indicative of a certain type of writing that leaves no privacy to the characters or to the reader, that relies on carnal impropriety to pivot the story this way or that. It's been known a long time that man is fallen and, left to his own devices, perverts God's order. Why then has this writing style become more popular since Tolkien's heyday?
<p>Rothbard writes (click to enlarge):
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<a href=https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkgL0W8radUGjkm0pBM8OC5zkZcRstuotezuPp_sZFkcWodaG4EvslycNWHgMglXNBrcDd-5ThXb4pxG0C7kg12qgjh6LATurIwY6k5ZCARpqFjIi3K0TTHcokrL9jKBKJiuADI8e94smN/s0/Screenshot_2021-06-03-11-55-15-1.png><img src=https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkgL0W8radUGjkm0pBM8OC5zkZcRstuotezuPp_sZFkcWodaG4EvslycNWHgMglXNBrcDd-5ThXb4pxG0C7kg12qgjh6LATurIwY6k5ZCARpqFjIi3K0TTHcokrL9jKBKJiuADI8e94smN/s0/Screenshot_2021-06-03-11-55-15-1.png width=275></a>
<a href=https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQAjTh5UBNBYYhU9VVZGs1s47frqttqbJJrYaH13uEyv1nxhq6En9usZ8QtHgkg376YSCmok6j7jCsDHEN5LBEgLgczA8s1xT_tCddTTOOjmHX6nNftXrw_Jb4liTT8yNWJknTNWd-Zw2h/s0/Screenshot_2021-06-02-20-38-43-1.png><img src=https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQAjTh5UBNBYYhU9VVZGs1s47frqttqbJJrYaH13uEyv1nxhq6En9usZ8QtHgkg376YSCmok6j7jCsDHEN5LBEgLgczA8s1xT_tCddTTOOjmHX6nNftXrw_Jb4liTT8yNWJknTNWd-Zw2h/s0/Screenshot_2021-06-02-20-38-43-1.png width=275></a>
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<p>By employing this rationale, the GRRMs of the world absolve themselves of responsibility for the contents of their books. "Are people, especially those in power, not depraved?" they argue. "If so, you have no reason to object. I'm just writing to reflect reality."
<p>Not so fast. One of the most underrated responsibilities of the writer is to choose what to put in and what to leave out of his book. Chekhov's gun dictates that every story element should contribute something to the story. If you fail to discriminate what goes in your book on large scale, everything will come out looking muddy and meaningless.
<p>For the sake of argument, let's say Middle-Earth appeared to Tolkien's imagination fully formed, hobbit sex and all. He left that part out, preserving the characters' nobility in a tale of epic moral scope. As difficult it is for Martin to imagine hobbits having sex, can you imagine how absurd it would be to read about how Sam ravaged Rosy Cotton after years of pent-up longing?
<p>Those who have waited to be inspired to write a book know that's not how it works. The writer <i>creates</i> what goes on the page. It's hard enough work to not take credit, whether the audience loves or hates it.
<p>Rothbard continues:
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<a href=https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiApcD5E6b7ZOOnYoTABCreZwdU8jRjkISKODxpyUqRKbRxXYmwiSX5MZMcUkEfYpruSc7ZJRAXvDVe1DMi6jRWinAHwAFqXyPirnHms7EUnDqUnApuTTSaq2e1T2nrOlafzYKmWpKe_KcH/s0/Screenshot_2021-06-03-13-42-36-1.png><img src=https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiApcD5E6b7ZOOnYoTABCreZwdU8jRjkISKODxpyUqRKbRxXYmwiSX5MZMcUkEfYpruSc7ZJRAXvDVe1DMi6jRWinAHwAFqXyPirnHms7EUnDqUnApuTTSaq2e1T2nrOlafzYKmWpKe_KcH/s0/Screenshot_2021-06-03-13-42-36-1.png width=275></a>
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<p>The fact of the matter is Martin writes about sex because he wants to write about sex, and he'd rather you not treat him like a guy who likes to write about sex. So he employs a red herring, detracting from Tolkien because the latter, to his credit, didn't write about sex.
<p>I suspect the reason we have more popular writers like Martin and fewer popular writers like Tolkien today is because atheists and secularists subverted the art landscape and reshaped readers' expectations. There's no time like the present to reverse that trend. I encourage you to patronize indie creators listed or otherwise engage their work, as they have engaged mine.
<p>As always, let me know what you think in the comments. If you like science fiction, check out my books <i><a href=https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07ZXGCN49 target=_blank>Seeds of Calamity</i></a> and <i><a href=https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07F5BYJPJ target=_blank>Tendrils to the Moon</i></a>. You can find extended previews for each <a href=https://josephdooleyfiction.blogspot.com/2019/11/first-4-chapters-of-seeds-of-calamity.html target=_blank>here</a> and <a href=https://josephdooleyfiction.blogspot.com/2018/07/first-3-chapters-of-tendrils-to-moon.html target=_blank>here</a>.
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Joseph Dooleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07666206705317908951noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9127997493436089365.post-32441090656202139112021-05-27T19:42:00.001-05:002021-05-27T19:43:59.210-05:00Will streaming save Hollywood?<p>These are tumultuous times for the entertainment industry. Not wanting to be outdone by tradpub's contraction from the Big Five to the Big Four, Hollywood is heralding its demise with the announcement of two huge mergers in the last 2 weeks.
<p>First, AT&T merged WarnerMedia (i.e., HBO Max) with Discovery and spun it off, effectively washing its hands of show business. Then Amazon (Prime Video), the fourth-largest company in the world, bought MGM.
<p>With 200 million Prime subscribers, a (blasphemous) <i>Lord of the Rings</i> series on the way, and a newly acquired library and IP list that includes Stargate, Rocky, Robocop, and James Bond, Amazon is poised to become a major player in the streaming wars. It's hard not to see them rocketing to top-dog status. None of their competitors have the ability to lure viewers with free 2-day shipping of everything you can buy under the Sun.
<center><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgm1v2j48ztSbf4VEwg-ZijWFrNVD_sNLosTUvpd-kd-aYicTAcghOd9tUl7cbjPQplnmEuRH2DCbd1W4cqSncRPwr50uPciZs4hjpgb_szIcPTdUHS_zJPFKBQfdKThyphenhyphenVS8xptTEN2Ymx/s0/imgonline-com-ua-twotoone-inzPpAHEDHrT.jpg"><img width="560" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgm1v2j48ztSbf4VEwg-ZijWFrNVD_sNLosTUvpd-kd-aYicTAcghOd9tUl7cbjPQplnmEuRH2DCbd1W4cqSncRPwr50uPciZs4hjpgb_szIcPTdUHS_zJPFKBQfdKThyphenhyphenVS8xptTEN2Ymx/s0/imgonline-com-ua-twotoone-inzPpAHEDHrT.jpg"/></a></center>
<p>Expect more consolidations and acquisitions over the next year or so. It wouldn't surprise me if one or both of the little fish on this chart get gobbled up. ViacomCBS's mismanagement of Star Trek is the ultimate cautionary tale, and the company's contraction is already underway after it sold Simon & Schuster to Penguin Random House. Meanwhile, WarnerMedia's decisionmaking in the last 10 years has been less reliable than a coin toss.
<p>The <a href=https://apnews.com/article/amazon-mgm-deal-6c8df317d3088280161f38d29fe7ab37 target=_blank>AP article</a> about MGM's sale to Amazon contains this nugget:
<blockquote><p>
Sucharita Kodali, an e-commerce analyst at Forrester Research Inc., said streaming companies need shows people can’t watch elsewhere in order to stand out and be competitive.
<p>
“There is an arms race to get what you can while the window is open,” she said.
</blockquote>
<p>The highest-profile casualty of this arms race was the theater business, which as you know received a mortal wound last year. The studios chose not to resuscitate it and started pushing new movies on their streaming platforms, backed by a phalanx of legacy content. Think how much more justified that monthly subscription fee becomes if studios stop selling DVDs and Blu-Rays. Would you put it past them?
<p>Tell me if this sounds familiar: "Back in my day, Best Buy had rack after rack of every movie and album. Now there's nothing but Star Wars, Marvel, Beyonce, and Taylor Swift." I have to go to Half Price Books or Amazon if I want anything that came out before 2015 and/or that didn't gross $800 million.
<p>This is one reason among many <a href=https://josephdooleyfiction.blogspot.com/2021/04/your-hill-to-defend.html target=_blank>you should be assembling a physical media library</a>. Because the corporations are looking forward to the day they will shut off your at-will access to entertainment and start charging you for it. It's the only way they can survive.
<p>Don't subsidize this anti-consumerist agenda. Reject the mainstream and patronize indie creators instead. Get in on the ground floor of the next big thing. You have a choice.
<p>As always, let me know what you think in the comments. If you like science fiction, check out my books <i><a href=https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07ZXGCN49 target=_blank>Seeds of Calamity</i></a> and <i><a href=https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07F5BYJPJ target=_blank>Tendrils to the Moon</i></a>. You can find extended previews for each <a href=https://josephdooleyfiction.blogspot.com/2019/11/first-4-chapters-of-seeds-of-calamity.html target=_blank>here</a> and <a href=https://josephdooleyfiction.blogspot.com/2018/07/first-3-chapters-of-tendrils-to-moon.html target=_blank>here</a>.
<center><img src=https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-XKEDBOhBINxcg7iW-K8o-G2gHPbewcINnAqeJcNa1smniPBtIlr5qe6mXaNufei34VZyfgpvqeLUQ0iH8_CStkA7nQ0RTzOsM4Kr_idb2MvW-nypZWh1yCfH_WoXmxDofHHzNTYj7wnN/s1600/1573476612772597-0.png width=400></center>Joseph Dooleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07666206705317908951noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9127997493436089365.post-10425132653939496682021-05-25T16:34:00.000-05:002021-05-25T16:34:36.596-05:00 The problem of air<p>The reason you're seeing inflation is that a lot of money is going into consumers' pockets without a commensurate increase in production. That's what happens when you pay people to stay home, as has been happening on Earth for almost a year now. The ostensible reason for these payments is a problem that will face off-world colonists more directly: the problem of air. Air is a common resource, and as the tragedy of the commons illustrates, common resources suffer from lack of stewardship. This is especially true where societies lack social cohesion, like the United States.
<p>Our answer to the tragedy of the commons has been private ownership or appointing someone with authority to direct private resources to address public needs (e.g., a government official). On Earth, privatizing air is unthinkable. But we've seen air stewardship quickly become a thing, and not just because people want to avoid crossing the authorities. Cultural practices have sprung up surprisingly quickly to pressure people into self-regulating what they breathe into the air.
<p>While pathogens floating through the air now dominates the public consciousness on Earth, I can only imagine how it will dominate decisionmaking in off-world colonies. Colonies will have to be hermetically sealed to keep out the vacuum of space. Air will have to be shared, oxygen continuously pumped in as carbon dioxide is scrubbed out. Sick people will have to wait out their illness in quarantine. Since air will be classed as a good that is the product of someone's labor, whether that be public or private, the very act of breathing will be an economic transaction.
<p>Meaning, unlike post-2020 Earth, it will not be possible to pay people to stay at home, at least not at first. You will have to produce <i>something</i> to earn your air. To paraphrase Paul, <a href=https://biblehub.com/2_thessalonians/3-10.htm target=_blank>if anyone will not work, neither will he breathe</a>.
<p>Anyone leaving Earth with ideas that they'll be free to do as they please away from <i>all those people</i> are gravely mistaken. On the freedom scale, they'll fall somewhere between an enlisted soldier deployed overseas and a convict doing time in a max security prison. For what reason would anyone leave Earth? I think of the Pilgrims who crossed the Atlantic fleeing religious persecution. The compact they signed while anchored off Cape Cod, pledging "all due submission and obedience" to the colony, approximates what I imagine the first wave of off-world colonies will look like.
<p>Social cohesion and the putting of others before self will be paramount. Contemporary notions of autonomy and expressive individualism will be shunned. If cohesion fails, or the colony fails, it will devolve into a <a href=https://josephdooleyfiction.blogspot.com/2021/04/dont-drink-kool-aid.html target=_blank>cult of unreason</a> because running away won't be an option.
<p>The first wave's children and grandchildren will pose the greatest internal threat to the colony's longevity. They didn't sign up to live like this and may come to resent colony life. Defections should be kept to a minimum if succeeding generations are fulfilled and have a sense of progress towards a worthy goal. This is the social importance of faith, but it's also how faith becomes a tool of manipulation.
<p>As always, let me know what you think in the comments. If lunar colonization interests you, check out my book <i><a href=https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07F5BYJPJ target=_blank>Tendrils to the Moon</i></a>. You can find an extended preview for it <a href=https://josephdooleyfiction.blogspot.com/2018/07/first-3-chapters-of-tendrils-to-moon.html target=_blank>here</a>.
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Joseph Dooleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07666206705317908951noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9127997493436089365.post-91752259607909621782021-05-24T12:15:00.002-05:002021-06-05T06:59:23.118-05:00Total Recall appreciation post<p>As a youngster growing up without cable, it was a special occasion when a new movie found its way onto network TV. Over the years I compiled a decent-sized collection of heavily edited action-adventure movies. My tape of <i>Total Recall</i> featured in a rotation that included <i>Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade</i>, <i>Tremors</i>, <i><a href=https://josephdooleyfiction.blogspot.com/2020/04/die-hard-and-heroism.html target=_blank>Die Hard</a></i>, <i>Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country</i>, and <i>Tango and Cash</i>. Between 1997 and '98 my parents signed us up for cable and Internet. With those new leisure time offerings and my burgeoning interest in video games and books, my tape collection was all but forgotten.
<p>Until this past week I hadn't seen <i>Total Recall</i> in over 20 years, maybe 25. My memory of the story was fuzzy, but some parts stood out as clear as if I'd been there: the buggy female disguise, the conjoined twin/psychic, the famous pill scene, and Sharon Stone in a leotard.
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<p>As I watched <i>Total Recall</i> with fresh eyes, I was gobsmacked. Clocking in at just under 2 hours, the pacing is perfect, leaving not a single minute for your mind to wander, but at the same time not overwhelming you with exposition. The diversity of content on offer boggles the mind, and none of it feels forced or out of place. There are enough ideas for five movies here, and they cohere marvelously. Let's run through them:
<ul><li>
Futuristic Earth society<li>
Memory implants ("Your brain will not know the difference, or your money back.")
<li>Agents, double agents, and triple agents<li>
Advanced Martian colony<li>
An evil dictator depriving citizens air<li>
Psychic mutants<li>
Ancient alien reactor designed to terraform the atmosphere</ul>
<P>
Add to all that Arnold Schwarzenegger doing Arnold Schwarzenegger things, Paul Verhoeven's unique take on violence, and Jerry Goldsmith composing the score, and you have arguably the best science fiction movie of all time. It's an entertainment masterpiece!
<p>I won't get into whether the fantastical plot is the very simulation Arnold's Quaid character paid Rekall to implant in his memory. That's a fun conversation with no right or wrong answer. What's clear from the movie's opening scenes is Quaid's reason for going to Rekall is a nagging feeling that a lot of men can relate to. "I feel like I was made for something more than this," he tells his wife. "I want to do something with my life, to be somebody." Perhaps you think this line is ironic coming from someone who looks like Arnold and who's married to someone who looks like Sharon Stone. I think it just goes to show you even men who "have it all" have fantasies of being the hero.
<p>
So, much like <i>Die Hard</i> which came out 2 years earlier, <i>Total Recall</i> is a full-throated apologia for heroism in a world that devalues the untamed virtues of men. They simply don't make movies like this anymore. They will again if I have anything to say about it.
<p>As always, let me know what you think in the comments. If you like sci-fi, check out my books <i><a href=https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07ZXGCN49 target=_blank>Seeds of Calamity</i></a> and <i><a href=https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07F5BYJPJ target=_blank>Tendrils to the Moon</i></a>. You can find extended previews for each <a href=https://josephdooleyfiction.blogspot.com/2019/11/first-4-chapters-of-seeds-of-calamity.html target=_blank>here</a> and <a href=https://josephdooleyfiction.blogspot.com/2018/07/first-3-chapters-of-tendrils-to-moon.html target=_blank>here</a>.
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Joseph Dooleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07666206705317908951noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9127997493436089365.post-11369262674135986882021-05-19T17:25:00.001-05:002021-06-05T07:01:57.175-05:00What killed the pulps<p><a href=https://biblehub.com/ecclesiastes/7-10.htm target=_blank>King Solomon said it's foolish to long for the old days</a>, but I say it's doubly foolish to idolize the present. The fact of the matter is we have made mistakes and our world is worse because of them. <a href=https://josephdooleyfiction.blogspot.com/2020/05/is-it-really-boomers-fault.html target=_blank>My running hypothesis</a> is the Boomers were the first generation to be raised in the epistemological shift after the two world wars and the Great Depression. The theology of the reconstructed man spread like a virus in the '60s. By the '70s the foundation was completely unearthed and was beginning to erode. The cultural superstructure that stood upon it would come next.
<p>Not by accident, art was among the first endeavors to experience the decline. (See <a href=https://josephdooleyfiction.blogspot.com/2020/05/relativism-sucks.html target=_blank>"Relativism sucks"</a>) The effects of this colonization are examined in part by Jeffro Johnson in his terrific book, <a href=https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MUB7WS6 target=_blank><i>Appendix N</i></a>:
<blockquote><p>Back during World War II, C. S. Lewis wrote in <i>The Abolition of Man</i>, "We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst." From a cultural standpoint, we've been laughing and sneering for a <i>long</i> time. These now utterly predictable mutilations of classic adventure fiction are a direct result of decades of this sort of mentality. And what are the scriptwriters and directors laughing at when they foist these revisions on us?
<p>...
<p>Of course, the best days of this type of story [planetary romance] are long gone by now. It was practically ubiquitous up through the sixties, but today it's shocking to see it delivered with not even a hint of snark or irony. Mentioning the very idea of this sort of thing in mixed company is liable to produce a whole raft of negative responses. We live for the most part in a culture where people are primed to turn up their noses at this sort of thing.
</blockquote>
<p>Pulp fiction that comprised the bulk of Gary Gygax's literary influences, no matter how popular, was anathema to the new regime. It could not be published anymore without the publisher paying a steep social cost. New art had to portray man as his own creation, with "modern" values. Old values are unevolved, unrefined, illiberal, and other euphemisms for "bad."
<p>As if trying to prove his point, negative reviewers of Johnson's book predictably attack it on ideological grounds. They're not just "turning up their noses"; they're murdering the past with slander.
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<p>To be sure, good science fiction and fantasy stories continued to be written after the '60s, but the tide, as they say, was going out. A big reason <i>Star Wars</i>, released in 1977, was a smash hit was it mimicked popular entertainment that wasn't yet a distant memory for its target audience.
<p>There was another factor in the sharp decline of Burroughs-style planetary romance, and it coincides so well with the '60s revolution that it's easy to miss. I'm talking about the Apollo 11 Moon landing. This moment became so stamped in the public consciousness that people were unwilling to entertain the unrealistic aesthetics of a setting like Barsoom or the planets in Lewis's Space Trilogy.
<p>No two properties illustrate this dichotomy better than the movie adaptations for <i>A Princess of Mars</i> (2012's <i>John Carter</i>) and <i>The Martian</i> 3 years later. The former you know is an epic, swashbuckling adventure where the hero saves the world and gets the girl. The latter is basically <i>Robinson Crusoe</i> on Mars, a nuts and bolts survival story where bagging your poop and counting calories were plot elements. One of these movies flopped. The other was a hit and received Best Picture nominations.
<p>I'm not saying <i>The Martian</i> or its movie adaptation sucks. I liked the book very much. I'm saying it owes its popularity to being a product of its time. It leverages what the audience knows about the limitations of space travel, the forbidding environment of Mars, and man's overreliance on technology. Those things weren't commonly understood a hundred years ago. Alien races, a breathable atmosphere, and jumping around like the Incredible Hulk all seemed plausible.
<P>Which leads me to infer two things about the science fiction market:
<ol><li>People's imagination is inversely correlated with their knowledge.
<li>People really don't hunger for heroes like they used to.</ol>
<p>As always, let me know what you think in the comments. If you like sci-fi, check out my books <i><a href=https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07ZXGCN49 target=_blank>Seeds of Calamity</i></a> and <i><a href=https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07F5BYJPJ target=_blank>Tendrils to the Moon</i></a>. You can find extended previews for each <a href=https://josephdooleyfiction.blogspot.com/2019/11/first-4-chapters-of-seeds-of-calamity.html target=_blank>here</a> and <a href=https://josephdooleyfiction.blogspot.com/2018/07/first-3-chapters-of-tendrils-to-moon.html target=_blank>here</a>.
<center><img src=https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-XKEDBOhBINxcg7iW-K8o-G2gHPbewcINnAqeJcNa1smniPBtIlr5qe6mXaNufei34VZyfgpvqeLUQ0iH8_CStkA7nQ0RTzOsM4Kr_idb2MvW-nypZWh1yCfH_WoXmxDofHHzNTYj7wnN/s1600/1573476612772597-0.png width=330></center>Joseph Dooleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07666206705317908951noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9127997493436089365.post-13373036032373195432021-05-18T13:28:00.003-05:002021-06-05T07:33:16.501-05:00The thief of Philippi<center><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZnWzI-fRs-TXH8-ukvJM8VDsrU_Vas8EeOJ99zsDB2YxvqUJmx28SFYU84k-LVp5s4tMKVe_oCNAO_bLLDeWWCfMeyUku4WtA92Bac8G2Jp98uc04TWiZO6hbLuKXgQ0cloiOaAl6WZOH/s0/picture-3.png"><img width=550 src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZnWzI-fRs-TXH8-ukvJM8VDsrU_Vas8EeOJ99zsDB2YxvqUJmx28SFYU84k-LVp5s4tMKVe_oCNAO_bLLDeWWCfMeyUku4WtA92Bac8G2Jp98uc04TWiZO6hbLuKXgQ0cloiOaAl6WZOH/s0/picture-3.png"/></a></center>
<i>
<p>I wrote this dramatization of Acts 16:25-31 on the eve of my baptism 8 years ago. I had been studying the Bible for 6 months, and had long since made the decision to be baptized. But I didn't feel a sense of urgency to go through with it. When I wrote this, the eternal and inescapable truth of the gospel clicked for me emotionally. The next day I became a Christian.</i>
<p>As I was awaiting trial, on the third night of my internment in Philippi, the jailer added two men to our number. I discerned through the lamplight their clothes were of foreign origin and stained with blood, their faces cut and bruised. Clearly they had committed some heinous crime, for the jailer took them straight to the innermost cell, out of the prisoners’ sight, and fastened their feet in the stocks.
</p><p>“What are you in for?” I called out after the jailer had left.
</p><p>“We have committed the crime of turning a slave-girl’s heart against the chains of the oppressor,” one of them said.
</p><p>“You have a funny way of talking. Where are you from, anyhow?”
</p><p>“We recognize the sovereignty of no earthly kingdom, but if you must know, Silas and I hail from Antioch in Syria.”
</p><p>“And who are you?”
</p><p>“Paul, your humble servant.”
</p><p>“You’re a long way from home, Paul.”
</p><p>“Home is where the Spirit guides us.”
</p><p>The prisoners whistled and jeered. “What are you in here for, really?” I asked.
</p><p>“Theft. And you?”
</p><p>“Theft also,” I said. “I was accused of stealing an ivory statue, dedicated to Apollo, god of the sun. What did you steal?”
</p><p>“As I said before, we stole a slave-girl’s heart from this world and committed it to salvation in Christ Jesus our savior in eternity.”
</p><p>“Who is this Christ Jesus?”
</p><p>“He is the Son of the one true God and the forgiver of all sins.”
</p><p>Upon hearing this, my eagerness for conversation with these newcomers waned. All my life I had watched the strong trample the weak, all in the name of this god or that. The world’s ways proved there was no such thing as sin. Who were these men but petty salesmen trying to profit from the divine favor of yet another jealous, conniving deity?
</p><p>“Are you still awake, friend?” Paul said.
</p><p>“I’m awake. I just don’t feel like talking, that’s all.”
</p><p>“Then hear what I have to say. Silas and I have been walking through the city, preaching the Word of God and the loving sacrifice of Christ Jesus, by whose blood we are saved from this world. A slave-girl followed us for three days, shouting after us, ‘These men are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you a way of salvation.’ She wanted—”
</p><p>I snickered. “She was right, you know.”
</p><p>“About what?”
</p><p>“You who choose slavery and brag about it make the worst spokesmen for freedom. Is it not hypocritical to offer salvation by this ‘Jesus’ on the one hand and servitude to God on the other?”
</p><p>“That is an interesting question, coming from a thief locked in a prison cell.”
</p><p>My cheeks burned at the slight. “What did you say?”
</p><p>“We serve the master we fix our eyes on. Servitude to your lust for other people’s wealth has worked out well for you, clearly. Forgive me for not seeing straightaway the success of your criminal career. It is difficult to discern in this darkness.”
</p><p>I reached through the bars of my cell, imagining wringing this fool’s neck. “What does your imprisonment tell you about <i>your</i> servitude?” I spat.
</p><p>“What is this prison to me but one of infinite trials I would have had to endure anyway? What is this particular suffering but the temporary convergence of changing circumstances?”
</p><p>There was a pause. Paul continued, “The slave-girl wanted freedom from her masters. God can give her that, but <i>not on condition of her acceptance of Christ Jesus</i>. Where would it end? For, though she would not admit it before, she is bound by more than her earthly masters. Just as you are bound by more than your prison cell. Just as I am bound by more than these chains.”
</p><p>The prison went quiet. My foolish mouth searched desperately for something to say, but words escaped me.
</p><p>Faced with Paul’s blunt analysis of the inadequacy of my decisions, I slumped to the floor and wept. Whom did I serve? To what was my life oriented? These questions rattled inside my mind, confines I now considered worse than any prison cell I had occupied.
</p><p>Suddenly the ground began to shake. I heard it in the stonemasonry first, in the jostling between the loosed stones. Then the ground began to heave. Dust fell from above and clogged my eyes and throat. Wiping away tears, I was astonished to find my prison door hanging open.
</p><p>After the shaking had stopped, I walked through the door. I saw the other prisoners doing the same. We looked at each other in disbelief. We were free! We cheered and headed for the outer door. However, Paul and Silas, emerging from the innermost cell, caught up to us and told us to wait.
</p><p>“Don’t go,” Silas said.
</p><p>“What?!” I whispered, incredulous. “The jailer will be here any moment! We have to leave now!”
</p><p>“Don’t go,” Paul echoed his companion. “Hide in the shadows and wait.”
</p><p>I looked at the other prisoners, hoping they would see this for the folly that it was. But they looked hesitant and uncertain. They had fallen under the strangers’ spell!
</p><p>“What are you up to?” I demanded, sticking my finger in Paul’s face. “Why are you refusing to let these men go free?”
</p><p>Paul smiled and touched my shoulder. “Friend, it is I who should be asking you, why would you let these men exchange one prison for another?”
</p><p>Understanding blinded me like the dawn. In my mind’s eye I saw two prisons. One looked just like the one I was standing in now, where men waited for death to consume them, hungry and haggard. The other was larger, brighter, but just as lonely and just as hopeless.
</p><p>It doesn’t matter, I realized. The real prison was my mind and my soul, conformed to my propensity to sin.
</p><p>I looked at the prisoners and saw the same truth in their faces.
</p><p>“All right,” I said. I led the other prisoners into the shadows of one of the opened cells. Paul and Silas retreated to the other side of the prison.
</p><p>Yawning, the jailer threw open the outer door and stumbled into the prison. He started when he saw the empty cells.
</p><p>“By Jupiter!” he cried out, unsheathing his sword. I watched with alarm as he turned in our direction. His eyes passed over me as if I were invisible. Then, he lifted up his arms and positioned the tip of the blade between the plates of his armor.
</p><p>“So simple a task to keep watch through the night, yet I have failed even in that,” he cried, distraught. “I would rather die than endure this dishonor!”
</p><p>“Stop!” Paul’s voice boomed from the prison’s bowels.
</p><p>The jailer looked around, eyes wide with terror. He dropped into a defensive stance. “Where are you? Show yourself, you devils!”
</p><p>“Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.”
</p><p>Paul and Silas stepped out of the shadows. The prisoners and I did the same. A sudden and dramatic change came over the jailer. He dropped his sword and fell to his knees before Paul and Silas, clutching their tarttered robes.
</p><p>“Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”
</p><p>Silas lay his hand on the jailer’s head. “Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved.”
</p><p>“I believe,” the jailer said in a tremulous voice.
</p><p>Overwhelmed, I fell to my knees beside the jailer. “I believe.”</p>
<i>
<p>As always, let me know what you think in the comments. If you like sci-fi, check out my books </i><a href=https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07ZXGCN49 target=_blank>Seeds of Calamity<i></a> and </i><a href=https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07F5BYJPJ target=_blank>Tendrils to the Moon<i></a>. You can find extended previews for each <a href=https://josephdooleyfiction.blogspot.com/2019/11/first-4-chapters-of-seeds-of-calamity.html target=_blank>here</a> and <a href=https://josephdooleyfiction.blogspot.com/2018/07/first-3-chapters-of-tendrils-to-moon.html target=_blank>here</a>.
<center><img src=https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-XKEDBOhBINxcg7iW-K8o-G2gHPbewcINnAqeJcNa1smniPBtIlr5qe6mXaNufei34VZyfgpvqeLUQ0iH8_CStkA7nQ0RTzOsM4Kr_idb2MvW-nypZWh1yCfH_WoXmxDofHHzNTYj7wnN/s1600/1573476612772597-0.png width=330></center></i>
Joseph Dooleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07666206705317908951noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9127997493436089365.post-33809439562569277022021-05-11T14:27:00.002-05:002021-05-11T14:27:55.105-05:00Time skips
<p><img src=https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKYyM2Y_sfLc-j4vDbO8raN84Yx265NDs37TJElUHwvf2_uPg_Q7q2V_2dE5YQllu2G7aT9jV9TD9imNxT8ADz-R6JKRS4d8cMoWhdM7cTu0D2rQr3HqyxMxV68gZxbu1T82fmi20-3iwv/s0/im-159769.jpeg width=250 align=right style="margin-left:5px">In both of my books, the part of the story I had the most trouble executing was the time skip. They were challenging because I had set up tension and couldn't resolve it until certain conditions some distance in the timeline were met. This was the result of me not really knowing what I was doing and/or being a poor outliner. Regardless, winding up my characters and leaving them in the lurch did not sit well with me, and I felt like I couldn't just cut to the resolution without giving readers narrative whiplash.
<p>For <i>Tendrils to the Moon</i>, I tried to mitigate the problem with filler content, showing the colonists' progress in building a communal lunar habitat. The downside is you can cut many of the scenes from chapters 8 and 9 and you wouldn't hurt continuity.
<p>I handled the problem better with <i>Seeds of Calamity</i>, employing pharmaceuticals as a plot device to make time whip past for the hero. This also involved some structural reworking of the second act that set me back over a month. I have no regrets, though, because it paid off. Despite a huge 5-week gap bookended by events that span mere days, the story doesn't slow down at all.
<p>David V Stewart used a time dilation device in <i><a href=https://www.amazon.com/Water-Awakening-David-V-Stewart-ebook/dp/B071G49GH9>The Water of Awakening</a></i>, where the heroine enters a sort of magical realm where time outside passes very quickly. This allows for the people and places she encountered on her journey to be quite advanced in their respective conflicts as she's headed home. Time dilation is also used to great effect in <i>Interstellar</i>, where the hero's proximity to a black hole creates a situation where he and his kids are practically the same age. The scene where he watches them grow up in a series of video diaries is a tearjerker.
<p>I recently finished reading <i>Seveneves</i>, which involves a whopping 5,000-year time skip. I liked this book a lot, but this time skip I believe is impossible to pull off. None of the characters or plot tension carry over from the book's first two acts. There are strong narrative connections to what happened before, but they serve less the story than Neal Stephenson's worldbuilding exercise. There's a bagful of kernels of a whole 'nother book in that third act, which is a shame because it would have made a terrific duology, with the first two acts standing on their own. Putting it all in one book may have been a business decision, not an artistic one.
<p>Good time skip execution synchronizes with the human experience and focuses on what stands out from characters' routines. The difference between any given hour or month is arbitrary, but days, weeks, and years have an inherent structure. A day in the field looks different than a day at the office. A week in the mountains looks different than a week at home. A year in Okinawa looks different than a year stateside. If a plot has enough interesting beats, it'll condense the mundane, and the reader won't even notice the stretches where nothing's happening.
<p>Among the many things the Harry Potter books do really well, this is one of them. Can you imagine what those books would look like if JK Rowling hadn't skipped over days, weeks, or sometimes months in the course of a year at Hogwarts? It would have bored children to tears.
<p>In a fictional space setting, which I've used twice now, you can throw out most human experience of time. It does not apply. Outlining may be more important to pace out the building of tension because the environment imposes an entirely different set of constraints.
<p>As always, let me know what you think in the comments. If you like sci-fi, check out <i><a href=https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07ZXGCN49 target=_blank>Seeds of Calamity</i></a> and <i><a href=https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07F5BYJPJ target=_blank>Tendrils to the Moon</i></a>. You can find extended previews for each <a href=https://josephdooleyfiction.blogspot.com/2019/11/first-4-chapters-of-seeds-of-calamity.html target=_blank>here</a> and <a href=https://josephdooleyfiction.blogspot.com/2018/07/first-3-chapters-of-tendrils-to-moon.html target=_blank>here</a>.
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Joseph Dooleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07666206705317908951noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9127997493436089365.post-60274002229786731532021-05-07T11:13:00.000-05:002021-05-07T11:14:33.545-05:00The competition for authority
<p>When you hear cancel culture apologists say "It's just a song" or "It's just a statue," understand that works both ways. If it's <i>just</i> a song, why the uproar in the first place?
<p>The cancel mob chooses its targets to make the public's compromise, and eventual capitulation, as painless as possible. They want the authority to issue decrees, authority which can only be granted by public consent. The idea is to convince people they're consenting to something small, when in fact they're consenting to being controlled. Have you noticed the ubiquitous statement about "more work to be done" is attached to every announced compromise? It's another way of saying the mob's next maneuvers are to be determined.
<p>The object of the mob's wrath is irrelevant, so a debate on the merits of whether something is "bad" also is irrelevant. When someone makes a factual claim in the form of an accusation, just say "I don't believe you." It disarms them of their claim to authority.
<p>In the long run, I expect the University of Texas to capitulate to activists calling the <a href=https://www.texastribune.org/2021/05/04/eyes-of-texas-ut-austin/ target=_blank>alma mater racist</a>. The only reason they haven't yet is many rich alumni have put their foot down and said the alma mater is not racist. The presence of a competing truth claim, backed by money, has left UT in limbo. The administrators are waiting for either side to relinquish their claim. This is narrative warfare's version of cold war. Who can bear the social costs of their claim longer will win. If, or when, UT gives up its alma mater, it will admit that it is a racist institution that requires works of redemption to be saved. The activists will dictate what those works look like.
<p>Universities are notoriously weak. Against individuals the mob is hit and miss. Comic book artist Jeffrey Scott Campbell clapped back against people who criticized his drawings on ideological grounds. The hysteria he generated by disagreeing with the grounds for criticism was something to behold. Denied authority over Campbell's artistic style, Kevin Norman posted a lengthy thread justifying himself.
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<p>
As silly as cutting off people over so small a thing looks, I believe no one is above this sentiment. There's nothing in our nature that compels us to share space with people we disagree with. I don't mean minor disagreements; I mean the kind of disagreement where one person calls the other a bigot. No friendship or union can withstand that level of enmity. When that happens, it's practical to retreat to opposite corners. Free men must be allowed to associate with whom they want.
<p>Where options proliferate in a large, competitive space, the sorting is easy. Campbell draws his comic books and readers buy them or they don't. If someone doesn't like him, there are other artists to patronize. Where options are limited in a small, noncompetitive space, pray for God's mercy and His glory to be revealed to all.
<p>As always, let me know what you think in the comments. If you like sci-fi, check out my books <i><a href=https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07ZXGCN49 target=_blank>Seeds of Calamity</i></a> and <i><a href=https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07F5BYJPJ target=_blank>Tendrils to the Moon</i></a>. You can find extended previews for each <a href=https://josephdooleyfiction.blogspot.com/2019/11/first-4-chapters-of-seeds-of-calamity.html target=_blank>here</a> and <a href=https://josephdooleyfiction.blogspot.com/2018/07/first-3-chapters-of-tendrils-to-moon.html target=_blank>here</a>.
<center><img src=https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-XKEDBOhBINxcg7iW-K8o-G2gHPbewcINnAqeJcNa1smniPBtIlr5qe6mXaNufei34VZyfgpvqeLUQ0iH8_CStkA7nQ0RTzOsM4Kr_idb2MvW-nypZWh1yCfH_WoXmxDofHHzNTYj7wnN/s1600/1573476612772597-0.png width=330></center>Joseph Dooleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07666206705317908951noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9127997493436089365.post-80199453987541723582021-05-04T08:06:00.002-05:002021-06-05T07:31:21.538-05:00Authors, moral purity, and freedom of association<p>I never met someone who read a Philip Roth novel, let alone liked one. But I've never been to cocktail party on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, either. Roth wrote neurotic, self-absorbed books steeped in the post-war era's listlessness and secular disfunction. As with many books that fly high on the back of the temporal zeitgeist, his aged terribly.
<p><i><a href=https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/04/behind-the-new-york-times-blake-bailey-bombshell target=_blank>Vanity Fair</a></i> reports on a rape scandal embroiling Roth's biographer, his publisher, and <i>The New York Times</i>. Anyone with passing knowledge of the way the <i>Times</i> functions as cheerleader for academia and the literati shouldn't be surprised.
<blockquote><p>
Last week The New York Times advanced upon allegations of sexual harassment and assault in The Times-Picayune/New Orleans Advocate and the Los Angeles Times against Philip Roth biographer Blake Bailey with an account from Valentina Rice, a 47-year-old publishing executive who alleges Bailey raped her in 2015 while they were both staying at the home of Times book critic Dwight Garner. The story raised eyebrows, and not just because W.W. Norton, Bailey’s publisher, had halted the shipping of the long-awaited book in response to the allegations leveled against the author by Rice and several former students (Bailey denies any wrongdoing).
<p>
It was particularly striking that one of the alleged sexual assaults took place at the home of one of the most prominent book critics in America, one employed by the very paper disclosing the previously unreported accusation. All of which came after weeks of its copious—and often, though not always, glowing—coverage leading up to Bailey’s release. The Times’ level of promotion wasn’t unusual for a book positioned as a serious literary biography—and especially one about the late Roth, who represents a kind of fantasy of what it meant to belong to a certain generation of American male novelists—but the paper’s own scoop inevitably raised questions of who knew what and when.
</blockquote>
<p>If this excerpt of <i>Portnoy's Complaint</i>'s Wikipedia entry is anything to go by, I firmly reject what it means to belong to Roth's generation of American male novelists:
<blockquote><p>
Roth had begun work on Portnoy's Complaint in 1967, before publication of his novel When She Was Good that year. The piece had its genesis in a satirical monologue Roth had written to accompany a slide show proposed for inclusion in the risqué revue Oh! Calcutta! that would focus on the sexual organs of the rich and famous.
<p>
While the slide show would never come to fruition, Roth found part of the accompanying monologue about masturbation salvageable. Roth re-fashioned the material for the novel and sold a chapter of the book, entitled "Whacking Off", to Partisan Review. Progress on the novel was slow because Roth was suffering from writer's block relating to his ex-wife, Margaret Martinson, and the unpleasant notion that any royalties generated by the novel would have to be split equally with her. In May 1968, Martinson was killed in a car crash in Central Park. Roth's writer's block lifted and, following Martinson's funeral, he traveled to the Yaddo literary retreat to complete the manuscript.
</blockquote>
<p>This is what passes for erudite entertainment to the gatekeepers of popular entertainment, at least at the time. Protective of its legacy, the <i>NYT</i> spares no expense boosting Roth and acolytes like Bailey with gusto.
<p>One of the hundreds of people who bought the book before the ban hammer dropped took to Twitter to ask whether it was permissible to read it.
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<p>Start with asking why you're reading the book in the first place. If it's because you want to ingratiate yourself to a certain crowd, spare yourself. That world is leaving Roth behind.
<p>As for the issue of whether you should engage in commerce with someone who did something bad, this is one of the great quandaries of our time, isn't it? If you're looking for a writer who passes a moral purity test, stop looking. He doesn't exist. To read anything, you <i>must</i> reconcile yourself to reading the works of sinners, including yours truly. <a href=https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Corinthians+5&version=NIV&interface=amp target=_blank>On this, as usual Paul had a wise take</a>:
<blockquote>I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people—not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world. But now I am writing to you that you must not associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or slanderer, a drunkard or swindler. Do not even eat with such people.</blockquote>
<p>The key difference being a brother in Christ has heard the gospel and assented to its teachings. He knows better yet continues to live in sin, wilfully opposing the truth. I would say if Bailey shows wilful opposition to what he knows is right, as opposed to the occasional moral failings of a man whose flesh predisposes him to sin, it's permissible to refuse to read him on those grounds.
<p>On the other hand, <a href=https://josephdooleyfiction.blogspot.com/2020/06/insurgents-at-hachette.html target=_blank>we saw "she who must not be named"</a> almost lose her book deal because of her studied observation of the immutability of sex. Her defense of her stance was definitely wilful. People with a different epistemological view of reality were justified in refusing to engage in commerce with her.
<p>That doesn't mean I think they're right or that I don't want their minds to change. All it means is they appropriately applied their conscience in accordance with what they believe, as I also reserve the right to do.
<p>As always, let me know what you think in the comments. If you like sci-fi that is most assuredly not like Philip Roth, check out my books <i><a href=https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07ZXGCN49 target=_blank>Seeds of Calamity</i></a> and <i><a href=https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07F5BYJPJ target=_blank>Tendrils to the Moon</i></a>. You can find extended previews for each <a href=https://josephdooleyfiction.blogspot.com/2019/11/first-4-chapters-of-seeds-of-calamity.html target=_blank>here</a> and <a href=https://josephdooleyfiction.blogspot.com/2018/07/first-3-chapters-of-tendrils-to-moon.html target=_blank>here</a>.
<center><img src=https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-XKEDBOhBINxcg7iW-K8o-G2gHPbewcINnAqeJcNa1smniPBtIlr5qe6mXaNufei34VZyfgpvqeLUQ0iH8_CStkA7nQ0RTzOsM4Kr_idb2MvW-nypZWh1yCfH_WoXmxDofHHzNTYj7wnN/s1600/1573476612772597-0.png width=330></center>Joseph Dooleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07666206705317908951noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9127997493436089365.post-89793395287130055062021-04-28T14:02:00.002-05:002021-06-05T06:48:38.886-05:00The death of imagination
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<p>This unscientific survey and the reponses remind me of Plato's allegory of the cave. In the allegory, people are chained up in a cave, facing a wall on which are projected the shadows of objects passing between a fire and the wall. The people cannot see the objects themselves, only their shadows. Plato used this allegory to explain there is a reality <i>truer</i> than what we perceive, and this reality consists of theoretical forms. (For the CliffsNotes version, watch <i>The Matrix</i>.)
<p>The allegory is useful in a semantic/linguistic context. When I say "dog," you may imagine a hundred different breeds of dog, all of which would be correct. Lassie and Cujo are both dogs. But in our shared language, there's a theoretical dog that all those dogs are particular instances of.
<p>When I tried it, I was surprised how long it took me to see anything. When I'm writing, I envision spaceships joined by a latticework of human-sized hamster tubes, mining colonies on the slopes of a Martian volcano, an island city situated in the middle of a crescent-shaped bay. Something as simple as an apple should be child's play! But all I saw at first was the dark red of the backs of my eyelids. I didn't get a clear picture of the apple until I imagined picking one up and eating it. Touch and taste are unique properties of an apple, so that helped.
<p>In <i>Theaetetus</i>, Socrates says "the mind in itself is its own instrument for contemplating the common terms that apply to everything." In other words, knowledge is the ability to intuit universals from a set of particulars. What does it say about people if they can barely recall the shadows of the real objects they cannot see? How does that bode for their capacity to perceive universal truths?
<p>The armchair psychologist in me says being surrounded by hypervisual media causes the other senses as well as the imagination to dull. I live as if that's true, and limit my kids' screen time accordingly.
<p>By the way, 400 years after Plato, <a href=https://biblehub.com/colossians/2.htm target=_blank>Paul wrote to the church in Colossae</a>:
<blockquote>Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ.</blockquote>
...and <a href=https://biblehub.com/hebrews/10.htm target=_blank>the author of the letter to the Hebrews wrote</a>:
<blockquote>The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming—not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship.</blockquote>
<p>As always, let me know what you think in the comments. If you like sci-fi, check out my books <i><a href=https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07ZXGCN49 target=_blank>Seeds of Calamity</i></a> and <i><a href=https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07F5BYJPJ target=_blank>Tendrils to the Moon</i></a>. You can find extended previews for each <a href=https://josephdooleyfiction.blogspot.com/2019/11/first-4-chapters-of-seeds-of-calamity.html target=_blank>here</a> and <a href=https://josephdooleyfiction.blogspot.com/2018/07/first-3-chapters-of-tendrils-to-moon.html target=_blank>here</a>.
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Joseph Dooleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07666206705317908951noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9127997493436089365.post-44348297836319542962021-04-26T14:33:00.000-05:002021-04-26T14:33:27.012-05:00Earthbound and moribund
<p><a href=https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/musk-mars-bunch-people-will-probably-die-its-glorious-adventure target=_blank>You love to hear it.</a>
<blockquote><p>Musk, apparently already dubbing himself reigning emperor of the red planet, said that Mars wouldn't just be an “escape hatch for rich people.”
<p>
“It's going to be uncomfortable and you probably won’t have good food, and all these things, you know,” he said. He noted that colonizing Mars would be “dangerous... uncomfortable... a long journey, you might not come back alive, but it's a glorious adventure and it'll be an amazing experience.”
<p>
He added: “If an arduous and dangerous journey where you might not come back alive, but it's a glorious adventure, sounds appealing, Mars is the place. That's the ad for Mars.”
<p>
Despite this, Musk didn't think he would have any trouble finding volunteers. “Honestly, a bunch of people probably will die in the beginning. It's tough sledging over there, you know. We don't make anyone go,” he added about a colonization project that doesn't really even exist. “It's volunteers only.”
</blockquote>
<p>Musk is the rare billionaire whose billions haven't made him more cautious. He couldn't have pitched it any better unless he was Heinlein writing the ad that kicks off the plot of <i>Glory Road</i>: "ARE YOU A COWARD? This is not for you. We badly need a brave man." There's not a red-blooded man alive who doesn't get a thrill thinking about being on that crew.
<p>The effeminate, finger-wagging tone of the writer couldn't be more off-putting. We would have made nothing of ourselves or this world without smart, fit, motivated young men doing the bidding of visionaries and egomaniacs. The post-war liberal consensus drove man's rudimentary nature into hiding, and we act surprised when it surfaces and manifests in unapproved ways. Young men will search far and wide for the camaraderie and sense of accomplishment that forges strangers into brothers. This is a worthy application of that effort.
<blockquote>"Space exploration has always been plagued by naysayers who insist that every problem here on earth must be solved before we even think of leaving." –<a href=https://deanbradley.net/ target=_blank>Dean Bradley</a></blockquote>
<p>It's interesting how people who advocate pouring trillions of dollars into failed government programs to lift people out of poverty morph into penny-pinching cynics when it comes to space exploration.
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<p>Mr. Neanevu's use of "human race" here betrays a mistaken (or perhaps totalitarian) sense of collective destiny for all people. As if subgroups of people never broke the bonds to their land, their nation, their country, to strike out on their own! <a href=https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%2012&version=NIV target=_blank>Such was God's call to Abraham, and he obeyed.</a> This is a recurring theme in the travels and travails of man, as old as history.
<p>I suspect a genuine myopia underlies Mr. Nwanevu's tweet, a myopia shared by many whose minds boggle at the costs and challenges of space exploration. In which case, it's helpful to review recent history.
<p>How easy it is to forget that the Industrial Revolution began a sustained period of rapid technical achievement that continues today. A lucky boy who may have witnessed the Wright brothers' first powered flight in North Carolina would have watched Neil Armstrong walking on the Moon 67 years later. In the same span of time streaming TV shows and movies replaced the radio drama as the go-to home entertainment medium. Who could have known at the time the changes that were coming? Our finite minds cannot fathom how technology will advance.
<p>One of the biggest costs of space exploration is getting astronauts and their gear into space. Thanks to reusable rockets, those costs are going way, way down. Bigger savings can be squeezed from 3D printers, which are rapidly becoming more sophisticated. In-situ resource utilization will be key to a sustainable colony on Mars. Instead of waiting 6 months for a prefabbed part to ship from Earth, you can download the blueprint via satellite and build it from the raw materials you pulled out of the ground in less than a day.
<p>
That's not science fiction. That's real tech we can deploy today. Tomorrow, who knows?
<p>Let me know what you think in the comments. If you like sci-fi, check out my books <i><a href=https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07ZXGCN49 target=_blank>Seeds of Calamity</i></a> and <i><a href=https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07F5BYJPJ target=_blank>Tendrils to the Moon</i></a>. You can find extended previews for each <a href=https://josephdooleyfiction.blogspot.com/2019/11/first-4-chapters-of-seeds-of-calamity.html target=_blank>here</a> and <a href=https://josephdooleyfiction.blogspot.com/2018/07/first-3-chapters-of-tendrils-to-moon.html target=_blank>here</a>.
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Joseph Dooleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07666206705317908951noreply@blogger.com0