phywriter.com|Prone to occasional grandiloquence

The second installment of my homage to classic SF author Keith Laumer is now featured in the June edition over at Digital Dragon magazine.

I placed a story with Digital Dragon magazine last year called Blessed Are the Peacemakers about a former space marine named Tenerife who has just started a new career with the Terran Diplomatic Corp. It’s now a year later and Digital Dragon magazine asked me if I’d consider sending them another story. It occurred to me that there are a total of eight beatitudes, so I wrote a new Tenerife story called Blessed Are the Persecuted. However, while last year’s story came in at an economical 2250 words, this one is triple that word-count. Due to the length of this story, I pitched the idea of splitting this one in half, and they agreed. Therefore, Part 1 is running now in June, and the triumphant conclusion will appear in July.

If last year’s Tenerife story was my Star Wars, this year’s is my Empire Strikes Back. It’s longer, bolder, darker, and deals with more weighty issues. In this story, we meet some familiar faces, and introduce new ones, including a complex alien race called the Garconne, who… well, you’ll see:

“After the Klakx, I understand the Garçonne are quite peaceable.”
“Oh, they are, as far as we know. The question is ‘why?’ They have no standing military that we can see.”
“Maybe they’re standing somewhere else.”
Phlagg laughed. “Where do I begin?” He started ticking things off on his fingers. “The Garçonne are shorter than we are. They’re apparently gentle beings who excel at cuisine, the arts, and making colorful, ingenious devices with their slim, nimble fingers. They don’t have hair on their heads the way we do. Instead, they’re covered head-to-toe with a fine, downy fur. They have an subtle sense of humor and the most interesting lavender eyes.”
Tenerife raised an eyebrow. “Lavender?”
Phlagg blushed. “Whatever. Purpleish, yeah.”
Tenerife crossed his arms and shook his head. “I still don’t get it. Militarily-speaking, the Garçonne sound remarkably unremarkable. I wonder what Rache’s real interest is?”
Phlagg couldn’t resist a knowing smile, almost as if he’d been waiting to deliver a punchline. “It’s a matter of the sexes.” He paused for effect. “All three of them.”

I hope you enjoy Part 1 of the story, and I’d love to hear from you if you like (or hate!) it.

This is the first scene of the first day of my NaNo2k4 project, The Sky Pirate. Do I find dialogue fun or not? You be the judge!

“It was a moonlit night, and magic was in the air,” whispered Eggplant nervously as he crouched behind the barrels with the others.

“Ssh,” said Bola, trying to look around under the canvas awning that stretched over them on the dock.

“He speaks in the third person when he is nervous,” explained Eggplant of himself, helpfully.

“He’s going to get his tongue pinned to the dock if he keeps making noise, isn’t that right, Coop,” murmured Bola, drawing a wicked big knife to demonstrate her point Read the rest of this entry »

How do I know when I have the right name? When it just… fits.

My WIP, The Adventures of the Sky Pirate, is a hybrid swashbuckling / steampunk / space opera, some of which takes place on a planet that is not Earth but was inhabited by people from Earth. Therefore, some names are familiar to an Anglo reader, and some are new. That gives me freedom to alternately crib from names that fly around me and make up my own. Add to that names based on local color ala Mike Resnick’s space Tall Tales, and you get a nice mishmash of names which are familiar, new, and flat-out exotic.

For instance, the characters on my swashbuckling privateer crew sport a rogue’s gallery of colorful names; Cooper Flynn (Capt), Clarissa McDougall (Flynn’s fiery love interest), Mr. Horatio Pitt (First Officer), Deena Prentiss (Dr, Mr. Pitt’s estranged wife), Cleric Mathen Vaneras (Van-air-es, converted assassin), Bola (Amazon merc and weapons expert), Eggplant (navigator, not his real name), Chain (mechanical genius who keeps the ship in the air), Tuy Meklanek (advisor to the Crown), The Barracuda (legendary assassin), Mr. Humble (sailor, his real last name, if a smidge ironic), Lt. Gillings (Lieutenant, duh, heh), Blind Bart (a once-clumsy navigator who has earned his unfortunate nickname), and the colorful Friar of Briar Island (Long John Silver-ish sometime privateer / sometime pirate). Piro and Miro are father and son servants for The Friar of Briar Island, and the Friar’s Champion is a short, slim, and utterly lethal fellow named Mok Moire. There’s a mysterious figure named Felo who is not of that world, and whose form is variable.

Each character’s name came to me in their own fashion. I’ve labored for days over some of them, and others, like Eggplant’s nickname, dripped straight from my fingertips to the page.
I have a love / hate relationship with names and naming. I hate doing it, and love it when it works out. And it always works out, sooner or later.

But there’s the rub. Some names come to me instantly, while others have taken weeks or months to correctly cobble together.

I was watching the guilty-pleasure film Twister again last night. I’m a sucker for misfit teams, and this team is right up there with the one from Sneakers. I went along for the ride, again, as Bill, former twister-hunter, tries to settle down and be a staid-but-dependable weatherman. But everyone knows that his heart (and art) is in being outside in-country sussing out where the next big one will hit based as much on chutzpah and seasoned feel as on observation and actual meteorology.

That’s how I feel about coming up with names; it is equal parts art and craft, with a healthy dollop of luck thrown in for seasoning.

And, yes, you just /know/ you’ve got the right one when you hit it. It’s like striking a tuning fork and feeling the tone resonating in your belly, in your very bones.

Katie Weiland was kind (or reckless) enough to interview me for the AuthorCulture blog. She asked fun questions, and I replied with what may be considered provocative answers.

In the interview, I talk about the genesis of Ray Gun Revival magazine and my “Adventures of the Sky Pirate” serial novel, as well as the challenges of writing a serial novel, the importance of writing out your million words of dreck, thoughts about the fine line between piracy and obscurity, and the vision I predict for for the future of the publishing industry.

AC: The publishing industry is daily growing more and more digital—something you’ve tapped into with RGR. What do you visualize for the future of the industry?

JC: There was a time that you had to go to a music hall or church or listen to the radio to hear music. The invention of vinyl albums changed that by allowing common people to collect and keep their own collection of music. It was that way for decades. However, today, the vinyl record is a largely historical technology. Few current works are pressed and released, and the only people who continue to seek them out are hardcore fans.

As strange as it sounds, I think we’ll see books as we know them today go the way of the vinyl album; something that was once venerable and ubiquitous that has been bypassed by technology and finally exists only as a rare occasion product. I’m a little surprised that well-meaning government types haven’t already passed regulations to prohibit dead-tree books for the sake of preserving the environment or something.

But necessity if the mother of invention, and I think we’ll see development of as many different kinds of inexpensive digital reading devices tomorrow as we saw portable music players yesterday. I think new generations of readers used to reading content with multiple levels of metadata will find actual paper documents both flat and quaint.

Thanks to Katie and AuthorCulture for the interview, and please do let me know what you think!

First, Jesus is my Lord. I say that clearly and easily. The Jesus of the Bible is more than just a sage or a wise man, he is the living Son of the living God, and has literally changed my life for the better. He is as heroic a historic character as there is in all recorded literature, and I like a good hero.

Second, I understand the impulse to defend the one I serve. I completely understand the reason for creating the group. Which leads me to the next point.

Third, I think Jesus himself is in no way damaged by those words. He either is Lord or he isn’t, and nothing on Facebook will change that either way.

Furthermore, I think strong-arm censorship helps no one. I’d rather show somebody a better way than tell them they can’t do something. I know my own reaction when somebody tells me I can’t do something.

Finally, I think the better way to honor Jesus if you believe in him is to act Christ-like, which has more to do with demonstrating grace than telling people what they shouldn’t do. I have a theory that if one engages in a habit that is bad for them, the closer that one gets to the living God, the more they will want to live according to God’s design.

As Christians, we were left with the Great Commandment (love God and your neighbor as yourself) and the Great Commission (be active making disciples – mentorship is a one-on-one proposition, it is long and slow and entirely unsuited to dramatic Facebook proclamations, however, it is the only method I know which helps a person make the transition from Jesus-hater to Jesus-lover if they have an open mind and are willing for Jesus to make himself real to them. I have faith there is a better way. We should always been looking for it).

Copy and paste the list (including links) of speculative fiction ‘zines below to your blog or website (include this informative introduction as well). Add your ‘zine (and link). Any ‘zine of any size and format that publishes speculative fiction of any kind can take part. Let other people, especially people publishing ‘zines, know about the meme. And help publicize Support Our ‘Zines Day by linking back to: http://damiengwalter.wordpress.com/sozd/

Asmiov’s science fiction

Analog science fiction and fact

Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction

Ray Gun Revival magazine

MindFlights

Digital Dragon magazine

“Blessed Are the Peacemakers,” an homage to Keith Laumer’s ‘Retief’ character, is the featured story in today’s issue of Digital Dragon magazine:
http://www.digitaldragonmagazine.net/

A former space marine is caught between his principles and his duty as he juggles working for an old enemy while trying to forge a crucial treaty with a ferocious alien race.

With this story, I tried to write something that was both fully Science Fiction and fully Christian. I like how it turned out. Thanks again to Tim Ambrose and Randy Streu for letting me play in their playground.

Stick around for the author’s bio at the end. I had some fun with it.
http://www.digitaldragonmagazine.net…eacemakers.php

Get your space opera fix with Issue #53!

61 pages

Alone at AX-1 by Swapna Kishore
A mutant runaway code is destroying mining stations in the Belt. As Jerry, manager of stationhead AX-1, races against time to understand the attack algorithm and protect his stations, he has to grapple with problems that go beyond understanding technical issues.

Thieves ‘ Honor: Episode Eight – Endgame, Part One by Keanan Brand

Baxter made a good meal.

He and Jill ate well on the remote space station, but he always made too much food. By now, they were the only two remaining. Kumquats,tube sirloin, and real hydro tomatoes; the guys in Houston said they didn’t eat so well. That was before their signal went dead. Now it was him, and her, and the kumquats.

No one knows where the space monkeys came from, with their luminescent fur and swirling eyes. Their saucer docked and they gained entrance without setting off the electroalarms. That was the first of many mysteries.

Jill went to investigate, but Baxter stayed behind to mind his chili.

Jill hadn’t returned by lunchtime, so Baxter went looking for her after rinsing his favorite ladle.

He turned a corner and saw a crowd of them fighting over something on the floor. They seemed glad to be able to stretch all their many limbs. They were kind of funny.

One of them saw Baxter and produced a cheesy plastic ray gun in an awkward simian paw. Its aim was not effective, pointing the weapon at Baxter’s head, but melting the “You are here” display in middle of the corridor instead.

“That was rude,” muttered Baxter. He darted forward and wrested the weapon from its hairy grasp, and stepped back.

“Take that, you damned dirty… monkey,” he said, and pulled the trigger.

Turns out, their teeth were more effective than their aim. They leapt forward and ate the gun. Startled, he turned to run.

Baxter made a good meal.

This month, Overlord Paul Christian Glenn—the silent, crafty one of the galactic trinity—unleashes a bold new design for Ray Gun Revival magazine. Get a taste of the best space opera pulp adventure here in Issue #52!

43 pages
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