The World According To...

Image: Russ Seidel

Authors create their own worlds. It's the job, right? We create the setting, the people, the situations. Sometimes it's completely based on the real world (Liane Moriarty's Big Little Lies), sometimes it's partially based on reality (Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale), and sometimes it's many light years to the left of reality (Frank Herbert's Dune).

As authors of Parallels: Felix Was Here, we created our own universes. Now suppose you were allowed to bring such a creation to life (and not just in a film or at an amusement park like DisneyWorld's Avatar)? What changes would you make? Here are my top three:

Image: Lauro Roger McAllister

1. A Four Day Work Week

I live in the US. I don't have a job, but I do have two children, one in 9th grade, one in 7th, and I am exhausted. I don't think I can get through three-and-a-half more years on this schedule. We get up at 5 or 6 a.m. because classes start at 7:20 a.m. (No, that is not a typo.) After school, there is an avalanche of homework, doctor's appointments, instrument lessons, instrument practice, play rehearsals, and on and on. It's a race to get out the door in the morning and a race to beat the clock to get to bed at a reasonable hour. (And we lose both of those races at a rate of near 50%.) Getting a Ph.D. and working full-time as a math professor was not this stressful, I swear. (All the time, unfortunately.)

A four-day work week may never happen in this country, but it does exist in the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Ireland, and Germany.

2. A Sleep Machine

Image: ALT1040

Did I mention my never-ending exhaustion? Let's fix that sucker once and for all, shall we? I'd like a machine in which I could program my desired hours of sleep, plug in, and get those 8 (or 9 or 10) hours of happy, happy dreamtime--guaranteed.

I know, I know, this already exists as Ambien, Lunesta, and other medications, but Rosanne Barr is a cautionary tale on why one shouldn't mix writing (tweet, tweet) with drugs. Enough said.

(I suspect cats have their own internal sleep machines already. Lucky fur balls.)

3. Beam Me Up, or rather, Beam Me Away

Image: Andrew

How cool would it be to have a means for instantaneous teleportation? Forget airport security lines, lost luggage, or even forgotten homework. What if you could go anywhere at any time in just seconds? What a world that would be!

I suppose it would have to come with certain regulations. We can't all zip over to Disney's Expedition Everest roller coaster after school (or Times Square for New Year's Eve, or the beach for lunch hour). But it sure would come in handy, if say, you were in the path of a natural disaster like fire, flood, or hurricane.

Image: Ars Electronica: Cinematic Rendering in Deep Space

The technical side of instantaneous teleportation could have some nifty side effects. Consider the idea of breaking down a human body into particles and then reassembling them. On one hand, there is the fear of mistakes, an idea Micheal Crichton used in Timeline. But what about fixing things in the body? What if such a teleportation machine could be used to instantaneously heal a broken bone, remove a tumor, or rewrite your genes to ferret out certain illnesses? Doctors would go nuts! (But surgeons would have to kiss their scalpels goodbye.)

And then there's the other stuff. The trucking/railroad/air transport industry of moving goods would go the way of the dinosaur. Reduced fossil fuel use would help the environment. Maybe we could transport our garbage to the center of the sun! And imagine storage. What if you could put all your clutter into the equivalent of a data cloud? OMG! No more stacks and stacks of plastic bins filling our garages and basements!

Of course, this is the part of the story where something horrible happens. Let's not forget Stephen King's The Jaunt.

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What things would you come up with for a better universe? What horrible/wonderful consequences might arise from them? Where would you go if instantaneous transformation was possible?

My Top Five Faves of Speculative Fiction on Netflix

Image: By Netflix (Netflix Media Center) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

It's addicting. It steals your sleep. It makes you stay up at least an hour past your bedtime even though you swore up and down you'd stop. What am I talking about? Netflix. And its lure is growing stronger all the time with new, original programming. Here are my top five shows that fall into the category of speculative fiction:

#5 The 100

Based on the books by Kass Morgan, there are currently 4 seasons available and a 5th to come. This mash-up of sci-fi meets fantasy follows a group of older teens as they are kicked out of the orbiting space station they were born on to go back down to earth. Their mission? To see if the old green and blue ball is habitable after humanity let loose with nuclear weapons about a hundred years previously.

The first season grabbed me with constant nail-biting tension and some curve balls. Unlike a lot of YA stories, the parents of these kids aren't dead (yet), but stuck up in the space station while the kids try to adjust to earth. The influence these separated groups have (or don't) on each other is fascinating. Plus, if you think the scariest thing the kids deal with is growing their own food or finding mutated animals, think again. I don't want to get into spoilers, but they aren't alone...

___________

Image: Dan Belanescu

Watch the first episode of Black Mirror, if you dare.

#4 Black Mirror

The Twilight Zone meets the technological age in this series, which includes 19 separate episodes spread over 4 seasons. The first one, The National Anthem, had me hooked, jaw on floor in complete disbelief. It was probably the most psychologically disturbing thing I've seen on television, period (closely followed by renting Deliverance).

On the other end of the spectrum, San Junipero is one of the most beautiful love stories I've seen. Other episodes, like The Entire History of You and Black Museum, are fiendishly clever stories.

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Image: The New Croton Dam, By Acroterion (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

A (digital) bus crash off this bridge is featured in The OA

#3 The OA

This eight episode series follows the extremely odd life of Prairie Johnson. She reemerges into her adopted parents' lives seven years after disappearing. Previously blind, she can now see, but she won't talk about where she's been. Instead, she becomes the leader of a band of misfits who get together to learn a routine that might be described as Garth Fagan dance combined with high speed tai chi. It all has a higher purpose though.

I loved this show's stunning visuals and creepy mood.

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Amazon.com: Funko Pop Stranger Things Eleven with Eggos

After watching Stranger Things, this is what my daughter wants for her birthday.

#2 Stranger Things

The strangest thing about this series is that after watching the first half of the first episode, I got so bored, I quit watching. Then all the hype finally convinced me to give it another go and what a ride! If I hadn't, I would have missed the upside-down, Joyce's Christmas lights, Dustin's lisp, and Eggo waffles.

Not only does Stranger Things serve up a heaping dose of 80s nostalgia, but it borrows from all the movies I loved as a kid. Does telekinetic Eleven's bleeding nose remind you of someone? Of course! While the girl in Stephen King's Firestarter had the power of telekinesis and pyrokinesis, it was her dad who got a bloody nose whenever he used his mind to control someone. You can also find the influence of Poltergeist, Alien, and a host of other popular movies from that era.

This show is completely bonkers and so, so fun. There's two seasons (17 episodes) to relish and if your pining for season three, you're not alone.

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Image: Karl-Ludwig Poggemann

#1 Dark

Because Dark and Stranger Things feature a missing boy in their opening episode, it's natural to compare them. But missing child aside, these are quite different shows. While Stranger Things has its scary moments, there is a campy vibe that lets you know your favorite characters may be put through the wringer (or become invaded by soul-sucking worms from another dimension), but chances are, they will emerge victorious.

So why would I put this show above Stranger Things? The title says it all. Dark is, well, very dark. You don't know what's going to happen. There is no feeling that things are going to turn out all right in the end. The cinematography is so gorgeous. There are long overhead shots of a lush, green forest in every show and this deep cave nestled in a hillside that just begs you to enter, but promises you'll be terrified with every step. The characters are extremely realistic in their flaws, but even as they do terrible things, part of you sympathizes with their plight.

Luckily for me, there is a season two in the works.

__________

Have you watched any of these shows? Do you have recommendations for my next Netflix addiction? How much sleep have you lost binge-watching?

Asking Questions and Generating Ideas

Writers want to tell an interesting and engaging story.  This isn’t an easy task, either.  We’re each one out of thousands of story-tellers, and it seems every possible idea has been done in some form or another.  This can make writing our own stories seem daunting.  Even futile.  I should know, because I’ve struggled with this insecurity before.

Speculative fiction gives us the advantage of opening up the possibilities.  The universe is vast.  There are so many things to see and do that humans have yet to discover, and this is an exciting fact.  This doesn’t mean, however, that the story ideas always come easily.  They frequently don’t.  There are, however, plenty of ways to defeat writers block.  I’ve used these methods myself.

Next time you’re watching a film, ask yourself questions. 

How could things have happened differently?  What if a character missed their flight and couldn’t make it to the important meeting?  What if the protagonist saw through the antagonist’s lies and decided to try to beat them at their own game.  Asking these kinds of questions regarding stories you love help get you thinking like a writer.  Plus, the urge you may occasionally feel to yell at the screen when a character does something stupid can be harnessed for good use.  That’s a great thing, if you ask me.

You can also ask friends to give you tidbits of plot.  Ask one friend for a character or two.  Ask another for a setting.  Ask a third to give you an inciting incident to kick the story into motion.  Ask someone else for another incident to send events into a new and interesting direction.  Use these things to create a story idea.

Here’s an example of what I’m talking about.

Character #1: Female, age 35, doctor

Character #2: Male, age 20, mechanic

Setting: spaceship, passenger liner, carrying 20,000 people, currently in orbit around Earth

Inciting Incident: A bizarre space anomaly is spotted, and it’s heading straight for Earth.

From this setup, questions naturally arise.  How should they respond to seeing the anomaly?  What is it?  What will happen if it reaches Earth?  Will the world be destroyed, or will it be changed in some strange way?  Should the spaceship stay and try to help if things go awry?  Should they flee to protect the 20,000 people onboard?  The story could go in so many different directions.  What role will our main characters play in all this?  They won’t be the ones making the final decision about whether the ship stays or goes, but they’ll certainly have plenty to do when trouble strikes.

The idea may ultimately be terrible.  It might also be brilliant.  In either case, it’ll get your brain thinking creatively, and that’s the most important part of all this.

At the Heart of What If?

by Alex J. Cavanaugh 

Parallel universes explore the what if – what if one or more elements was different that our own world. But if you think about it, all speculative fiction is about the what if. It’s exploring a place unlike our own, transporting the reader to a world of possibilities.

This type of writing appeals to both writer and reader on many levels.

For the writer:

Fun to brainstorm. We can just start listing all sorts of crazy what ifs.

No limits. This is about things that aren’t real. Not yet and maybe never. We can go as far as we envision.

We become Creator. All writers do, but we can take it a step farther with a whole new world.

For the reader:

The chance to escape reality. When the news and troubles of the world overwhelm, nothing is more satisfying than retreating away from reality.

Struggles easier to handle. The troubles of this world can overwhelm us. But present those same struggles in a speculative fiction setting, and they are easier to handle and understand. We can process them better.

Encourages imagination. The same imagination that created the story flows into the reader and he envisions the world beyond the book. He’ll create his own stories.

What if takes us to a place beyond this world. And that’s a good thing. After all, all of the advancements and inventions of this world came from that simple question – what if?

Alex J. Cavanaugh

http://alexjcavanaugh.com/

http://www.insecurewriterssupportgroup.com/

http://whatarethekargrandes.com/

http://twitter.com/AlexJCavanaugh    

- Alex J. Cavanaugh has a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree and works in web design, graphics, and technical editing. A fan of all things science fiction, his interests range from books and movies to music and games. Online he is the Ninja Captain and founder of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group. He’s the author of Amazon Best-Sellers CassaStar, CassaFire, CassaStorm, and Dragon of the Stars. The author lives in the Carolinas with his wife.

X is for . . .

X-Files! This is one of the most successful speculative fiction, or science fiction, TV and movie franchises ever.

The X-Files debuted on September 10, 1993 and would run for nine seasons, spawn two major motion pictures, and make a comeback to television in 2016 with a six-episode season.

Created by Chris Carter, the show starred David Duchovny as true believer Agent Fox Mulder, a man haunted by the abduction of his sister under extremely odd circumstances. He’s relegated to the bowels of the FBI, investigating cases involving paranormal phenomena.

But Mulder’s plain brilliant, so the powers that be send in no-nonsense, skeptic and M.D. holding, Dana Scully, played by Gillian Anderson, to debunk Mulder’s nonsense and get him back to “real” cases.

Despite being quite attractive, the pair somehow manages to make it through several seasons before becoming romantically involved. Good thing because love between a show's stars can destroy a series quicker than an alien ray gun. (Anyone remember Moonlighting?)

The X-Files kept audiences coming back for more with a continuing conspiracy involving an alien takeover of Earth and the evil Smoking Man in addition to stand-alone Monster-of-the-Week episodes.

One such episode, Season Four’s Home, was so disturbing that the FOX Network did not rerun it. Ever.

Are you an X-Files fan? Have a favorite Monster-of-the-Week Episode?

If you'd like to learn about the science behind The X-Files, please visit my other blog: www.tamaranarayan.com.

S = Sunrise

S is for Sunrise

Did you know that clean air is the main ingredient in brightly colored sunrises and sunsets? Or that ordinary sunlight is composed of a spectrum of colors that grade from violets and blues at one end to oranges and reds on the other. Did you know that if not for the fact that the human eye is more sensitive to blue light than to violet, the clear daytime sky would appear violet instead of blue.

I found this article most interesting. I hope you do too!

The Colors of Sunset & Twilight

by Stephen F. Corfidi

Stephen F. Corfidi's article explains where the colors of a sunrise or sunset come from and in a way easy to understand. Please follow the link to read more.

http://www.spc.noaa.gov/publications/corfidi/sunset/

A sunrise is something the inhabitants of Ever-Ton haven't seen in years.

Yolanda Renée © 2015

Ever-Ton

Yolanda Renée

Excerpt:

Homemade flowers, along with wiry trees, lined the broken cobbled streets. Ever-Ton, the biggest dome-covered metropolis in the Himalayas, had lost its luster. Workers used to keep it clean; now they worked on building the resources for the new world. The dome, once translucent, now looked like a mud-covered window. I'd never experienced the sun's rays, breathed air that wasn't manufactured or tasted water from a spring.

Donning sunglasses against the artificial sunlight, I hurried to NWAO headquarters to find a crowd waiting to take the tour of the latest and most modern spacecraft, named Sunrise.

***

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O = Other Worlds

Do you love alternate realities or other worlds?

As a young reader, I couldn't get enough of them, although they looked something like this:

And now they look more like this:

Source

In The Mirror People (my contribution to the Parallels anthology), my other world looks like this:

The concept started out as an idea: What if it was someone's job to mimic their reflection? I sat down to write and these words glared back from the computer screen:

Every day I stare into the eyes of a cold-blooded murderer.

Well THAT wasn't a direction I'd considered going. Regardless, I had to see who this narrator was and what was going to happen to him. Jak appeared on the page and I have to say, he's one of the best characters I've ever had the privilege of transcribing. (I say transcribing because our journey together didn't feel like writing. He told me his story, no reservations.) What if two dimensions were actually dependent on one another, but only one side was aware of the relationship?

Yeah, bend your brain around that one, eh?

Do you have a favorite dual reality story?

(Remember, comment and be entered to win one of 10 copies of Parallels.)

M=Memories

The idea of memories making us who we are has been featured a lot in science fiction.  The film Dark City features characters who have new memories implanted night after night, and their alien overlords watch them to see how they behave.  Memories are occasionally blocked by trauma or by mysterious agents that want to keep crucial information contained.

Memories are powerful.  We learn from past experiences.  We’re informed by them in the decisions we make.  When memories are altered or blocked, what kind of impact does it have on who we are?  Can you ever truly control someone by controlling their memories?

My short story “Felix Was Here” deals a lot with memories. Resurfacing memories are the catalyst for all that happens.  And, as it turns out, she’s not the only person who’s struggled with this.

The following excerpt from the story finds Betty speaking to someone who understands her plight.

*     *     *

Image courtesy of endiku at morguefile.com.

“What happened that night?” Betty persisted.

Simon sighed. “It was bad. The man didn’t just have an episode. He broke down entirely. No matter how much Verity and I tried to talk him down, it seemed as though he didn’t hear us. He kept talking over us both. He went on and on about his brother Tommy, even though there’s no evidence he ever had a brother at all. He kept saying ‘They sent him to war! They sent him to die in a war we’re not supposed to know about! They used tricks and drugs to make me forget. To make us all forget.’ It sounded ludicrous at the time.”

She drew in a sharp breath. “At the time?”

*     *     *

Don’t forget!

Every comment gives you a chance to win one of ten copies of Parallels: Felix Was Here!

H = Horror

Do you love that rush of adrenaline when facing something truly terrifying?

Horror is at the heart of any good story, but especially speculative fiction. Today we (Hart Johnson and Crystal Collier) invite you to vote for the more horrifying monster in the comments for your chance to win Parallels: Felix Was Here.

HART'S HORROR 

Or rather Cecily's, in The Seventeen.

The Seventeen is not a story of monsters, but the horror Cecily feels is real. It is the horror of lack of control. She is a peon-level employee for a large pharmaceutical company and while she can protest if something isn't right, in the end she just has to do what she is told. I don't want to give too much of the story away, but let's just say there is a point at which Cecily feels truly horrified at what is happening, and more specifically, at her lack of power to do anything about it.

I like horror you can't see, but of the creatures, Cthulu is the one.

CRYSTAL'S HORROR

My favorite horror creatures is the banshee. (So much so that I based a character in another novel off her.) This version of the banshee may not appear too intimidating, but the true horror is psychological, for to hear a banshee crying means you will die within 24 hours. You spend those last 24 hours watching for death and never knowing how it will take you.

True horror to me is the anticipation of something horrible, something beneath the surface and sinister--like Jak's mirror image in The Mirror People. He lives on the reverse side of the mirror and is tied to a serial killer. If Jak doesn't mimic his mirror self completely, which means killing people, he will cease to exist.

Of these creatures, which do you find more terrifying? Cthulu from the deep, or Banshee, herald of your demise?

Don't forget, every comment you leave is a chance you have to win one of ten copies of Parallels: Felix Was Here.

G = Gore

G IS FOR PRESIDENT AL GORE

The alternate history affecting the story, Ever-Ton, in the IWSG Anthology Parallels: Felix Was Here, was the election of Al Gore for President in the year 2000.

The setting is the year 2050. The world has changed and the inhabitants are leaving. 

Photo Copyright

Ever-Ton

Yolanda RenÉe

Excerpt:

The line seemed to stretch on forever but moved fast. Several people in wheelchairs, children with disabilities, and worried parents talked in hushed tones as the line moved forward. A lovely woman in a wheelchair pointed to the picture of former President Al Gore on the wall behind the counter. "I wonder if he knows how many people he saved."

I smiled, and said, "I believe he does. I really do."

She nodded. "I do, too."

In the 1970s, scientists had warned of the dangers of global warming, but nothing happened until the year 2000. President Al Gore couldn't get the legislation passed that would curb the dangers caused by fossil fuel, but he found the funding for the New World Aeronautical Organization - NWAO. They began the search for a New Earth.

Terrifying storms, devastating droughts, and unimaginable diseases took the earth to the levels of an apocalypse that no one foresaw, not even President Gore. The building of survival units in the highest mountains became a top priority.

Now, in 2050, the world's atmosphere had grown toxic. The city of Ever-Ton, meaning Everlasting Mountain, sat high in the Himalayas. We were the largest and last community of survivors trying to leave earth.

***

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C = Cheese

Okay, okay, what does cheese have to do with speculative fiction, you ask. Bear with me for a moment.

C is also for Crystal. (A word I'm particularly fond of.)

In Napoleon Dynamite, the crystals are a mystical element that will power a time travel device. They're a symbol of magic. (Hey, does that mean I'm a symbol of magic? Score!)

Life is full of symbolism.

What is the first thing you think of when someone says, "Cheese!"?

Source

That's pretty much it for me too. Actually, my picture is more like this:

Cheese is a symbol (like crystals). For me, it means something so much more than food or smiles. It represents the true essence of happiness. This last picture is my special needs brother, the happiest, most loving person I've ever known. And yes, he was obsessed with cheese. It's because of him I insist that:

Cheese is the best food on the planet. Cheese=happiness. Cheese makes the world go round.

Symbols are all around us in life and thus all throughout literature. They're a subtext that conveys greater meaning in everyday life. In THE MIRROR PEOPLE, the mirror is a symbol, an element meant to make us question the inner demons we face. Symbolically, are we like Jak, trapped by his twin identity, or are we the type of people who define our own worlds--like my brother?

Due to symbolism, cheese is my happy place.

What's your cheese?

(Remember, every comment is a chance to win a copy of Parallels.)