July 3, 2013

Thinking Around the Periphery

By The Sector M

So, I watched World War Z recently.  I’m a fan of Max Brooks and the epistolary tale he created about life during (and after) the zombie apocalypse.  This big-budget  summer blockbuster starring Brad Pitt really only has the name in common with the book, however. While I’m not a huge fan of the zombie genre in general, I went in with an open mind. I wasn’t expecting Shakespeare or Joss Whedon, just a visually stimulating romp through zombie-infested cities.  Even with what could be considered modest-to-low expectations, I did not care for the movie overall. There were far too many coincidences that bothered me, too many things that seemed to ring false.

Don’t worry, this isn’t a movie review, but there’s some spoilage ahead both for World War Z and Star Trek: Into Darkness. If you are allergic to spoilers, and haven’t seen these movies, you should ‘opt out’ now. Consider yourself forewarned.

world-war-z-bb

Not to be confused with the book, World War Z.

Okay, continuing on…there is one sequence in WWZ that takes place in Jerusalem. It was the breaking point for me. The Israeli government has erected an incredibly tall, seemingly unassailable wall to keep out the zombie swarm. When I say ‘swarm,’ I mean it. The zombies on the other side of the wall look like an overturned anthill or something from A Song of Ice And Fire. The Israelis even have armed helicopters running air patrol around the edge of the wall.

It wasn’t that a young Muslim girl singing over the PA was apparently loud enough to draw the zombies en masse (especially when there are a bunch of helicopters nearby). It wasn’t the zombies piling on top of one another (in what was certainly a concerted effort) to scale the gigantic wall in two minutes that was the breaking point either. No, it was the fact that there were zero guards up on the top of the wall keeping an eye out. When zombies start coming over the wall, everyone is surprised. You would think that if the Israelis were so intent on building this gigantic fortification, that it might look like something from a prison with watchtowers every hundred feet or so.  Nope, the zombies get all the way to the top and start pouring over, catching everyone flat-footed.

url-15

Really? Really?

That scene felt incredibly contrived when I saw it. It felt like that the various screenwriters attached to the project had needed the zombies to get over that wall because A.) It would make a striking visual and B.) Brad Pitt could make a daring escape. I answered my own question, and I didn’t like it.

Q: Why didn’t the Israelis have people on the wall to prevent something like from happening?

A: Because the story wouldn’t have worked if they did.

Of course, every fiction writer lives in the world of convenient contrivances, and I’m no exception. Fiction needs contrivances or else the story might be believable but bland. Say the Doctor lands the TARDIS and finds immediately that he’s in a dangerous situation. If he just said, “Forget it, I’m outta here!” slammed the door and got away, the episode would be extremely short and not very interesting. So, oftentimes the Doctor must stay where he is, or can’t get back to the TARDIS, or there’s something to keep him in the thick of things. I’m pretty forgiving of these contrivances because I see how necessary they are. So long as the justification for the Doctor hanging around (when he should just leave) is acceptable, I can suspend my disbelief long enough share in his adventure.

matt_smith_doctor__1215943c

I write a blog now. Blogs are cool.

It’s when that justification is weak or too jagged a pill to take that the wheels start to come off of a story. So, it’s that justification that holds things in place around the periphery. Think of a story, or even a specific scene in a book, movie, etc. as a trampoline. The black bouncy part is the scene/story itself while the justifications are like the springs that keep it all in place.  In the case of World War Z, it feels like not enough thought was given to the periphery of that particular scene, and so my suspension of disbelief came crashing down just like I had hopped on a trampoline with only a fifth of its springs.

Let me give you another example, also from a movie. In Star Trek: Into Darkness, there is a scene that really irked me. Kirk and Khan must get from the Enterprise over to the enemy dreadnought, Vengeance.  Conveniently the transporter system is down, but the Enterprise is damaged, so I give them a bit of a pass there. So, Kirk and Khan decide to physically launch themselves across to the other ship using spacesuits. There’s a debris field between the two ships that they have to navigate through to make things interesting. Okay, I’ll bite. The hatch that they have to hit at incredibly high speeds on the Vengeance is extremely small.  Um, sure, a small thermal exhaust port right below the main port. Got it.

Scotty, meanwhile, has infiltrated the enemy ship, and it’s his job to open the hatch when the two space jumpers get close. The controls to open the hatch are in a long, narrow bay with a high ceiling. Here’s the odd thing, though – the hatch is just a hatch, not an airlock. Opening the hatch will decompress that entire large compartment.

Wait, what?

when-someone-say-that-meme-sucks_gp_740720

How my face looked at the time. Maybe I just needed a Snickers.

On a starship wouldn’t you want all of your exits to be airlocks? What purpose does that bay even serve if the whole thing can be decompressed at the touch of a button? Could it be a cargo loading bay, where things either can or must be loaded/unloaded under vacuum? No, the hatch is barely big enough for two men to fit through at the same time. So, why is the hatch even there then? Once again, I answered my own questions.

Q: Why isn’t that hatch an airlock?

A: Because Kirk and Khan would smash into the inside door if it was.

Q: Why is that hatch so small?

A: To artificially inflate the drama of the scene.

Q: Why is the room so long and narrow?

A: So Kirk and Khan have enough room to skid to a halt.

The whole scene unraveled for me right there in the theatre.  My best guess is that the writers came up with the idea for a cool action scene and didn’t spare much on all those elements surrounding it. Once again, a trampoline without springs. Unfortunately, this is a trend I see in movies more and more these days.

trampoline-meme-generator-it-s-all-fun-and-games-until-the-trampoline-breaks-94ed0f

Yeah, in more ways than one.

So, where I am going with all this? This is a plea to fiction writers to think around the peripheries of their stories, the parts that are sitting just outside of the spotlight. I know fiction writers out there already have their hands full creating compelling characters, coming up with exciting storylines and so forth. Even still, please don’t forget to at least give the edges of your stories a once over, maybe even spend some quality time making sure the springs are secure before attempting a backflip.

Can you over-justify a scene? Can you make the springs so big that the black bouncy part is the size of a trashcan lid? Of course you can, but I would much rather be accused of putting far too much thought into something than not enough.

__________________________________________________

Do me a favor, okay? Subscribe to my newsletter for more news, updates, and information on Sector M’s current and upcoming projects!

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , | posted in General Stuff, Uncategorized

June 26, 2013

Scalability

By The Sector M

One of the hardest things about writing sci-fi (IMHO) is handling the technology. All too often the real world will catch up to science fiction levels in just years rather than centuries.  I may write about such things as invisibility fields or nanotechnology when all the while they may be just around the corner. Just do a google search for either of those, and the tech in the pages of a sci-fi novel may not seem so far off.

Even though we don’t have flying cars (yet), I am continually surprised at the things that modern scientific research discovers every day.  I mean, in the next few years, we might actually have found the Higgs-Boson particle or developed hand-held energy weapons, personally cloned organs, powered exoskeletons and life-extending treatments and/or drugs – all things that previously existed only in theory and imagination.

padd

Okay, Star Trek, we’re looking in your direction.

So what’s a lowly sci-fi writer to do to make sure that actual technology doesn’t exceed the set pieces that he creates? It might be a peek behind the curtain, but I’ll share with you one of the techniques I use on a pretty regular basis.

Scalability.

Let me give you an example of when this was not used. In the novelization of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, we get a few scenes that do not appear in the movie. Consequently, we get to know some of the scientists aboard space station Regula 1. As it turns out two of the scientists are game designers, and they have just completed work on their latest video game, Boojum Hunt. It was supposedly the largest video game ever (by 23rd century standards) in terms of how much computer memory it occupied. It was so large that the computer mainframe of the space station only barely contained it.

Any guesses how at much space it took up? 60 Megabytes.  Megabytes with an ‘M.’ Yeah, it’s safe to say that modern technology blew that one completely out of the water. At the time of the novel’s release, 60MB might have seemed unthinkably enormous, but nowadays not so much.

Flash Drive

This flash drive holds 32 gigabytes.

Consider this, though − what if the novel had just said that the game was the “largest video game ever created,” and left it at that? Chances are someone reading it today would scale their expectations up to whatever the norm is currently. The same goes for someone reading it twenty years from now.

That’s scalability. It’s presenting a concept without the parameters that will eventually invalidate it. That way, it scales up to whatever the reader expects it to be. Certainly  Boojum Hunt’s claim would have held up without that troublesome measurement to sink it.  So, this idea can be applied to practically any claim we put on sci-fi set-piece technology. Saying, “A warship of the highest magnitude,” tells you everything you need to know in only a few words in the same way that saying, “She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen,” can describe a character.  It’s a bit of ‘smoke and mirrors’ to handle it that way, and you do wind up speaking in superlatives quite a bit, but it works.

Social_Marketing_See_Behind_Curtain_Transparency

Hey, no peeking behind the curtain…ah, okay, just this once.

So what happens when you need to put some sort of real-world perspectives on your tech? Well, you can do that. Hard science fiction does it all the time, but they run the risk of being shown up by the onward march of human ingenuity and understanding.  For the sake of argument, let’s say that you have to put something down for one of your gadgets.

Here’s what I would do: I would figure out the modern measurement equivalent and then either quintuple or sextuple the order of magnitude.  I ran into a situation like this in The Backwards Mask when I had to give an indication of how large a particular hard drive was aboard the Hornet.  I didn’t want to make the same mistakes as Boojum Hunt, so I first thought of how large the ‘Canary Drive’ was in 21st century terms. I’m used to thinking of gigabytes (109 bits) in the here and now, so I then kicked it up to yottabytes (1024 bits). BTW, a single yottabyte equals a quadrillion (1,000,000,000,000,000) gigabytes.

original

That’s a big Twinkie.

As astronomical as that number may seem, there may come a day when devices store hundreds of yottabytes of information, and it’s no big deal anymore. They might look at my description of the Canary Drive and laugh to themselves at my short-sightedness.  Well, I think I’ve bought myself a few decades before that happens. If folks are still reading my book in 30 to 40 years, I still call that a win.

So, what’s the upshot of all this? I consider scalability an important tool in my writer’s toolbox. You can use it to bring technology up to the reader’s level of understanding (truly state-of-the-art) so it doesn’t get overrun by actual science quite as easily.  Of course no science fiction is bulletproof, but scalability at least allows it wear to Kevlar.

__________________________________________________

Do me a favor, okay? Subscribe to my newsletter for more news, updates, and information on Sector M’s current and upcoming projects!

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Sci-fi Stuff

June 20, 2013

My Favorite Mistakes

By The Sector M

Some writers are naturally able to edit their own stuff. I envy those who fall into that category. Me? Not so much. Oh, I do okay to catch the majority of the boneheaded mistakes I make on a regular basis, but invariably there are some that slip past me. Many times I know what I meant to say, so I’ll confidently breeze past an error without seeing it. It might as well have a Klingon cloaking device strapped to it.

This can instantly undermine what credibility you have if people know you’re a writer.  They’ll read an email, blog post or something you did on the fly and think, “Wait, this guy’s an author? Are you sure? Shouldn’t he know better than to make mistakes like that? Shouldn’t his stuff be perfect?”

Klingon_Bird-of-Prey

He pressed SEND! Maltz, disengage cloaking device!

Truth is, I’m not a very clean typist as my editor, Beth, is all too aware. I routinely look over things I’ve written (including posts on this very blog) and find mistakes that have eluded me. Well, I’m a big proponent of knowing your weaknesses as well as your strengths. So, I put together this list of the Top 4 mistakes that  keep cropping up with me.

I mean, admitting you have a problem is the first step to recovery, right? Right?

1.) Missing “To” on the Infinitive

Two little keystrokes. Just two. T−O. Yet when they are missing, it can really foul up your sentence when your infinitive isn’t properly introduced by “to.” This is apparently my favorite-ist of favorite mistakes, since I make it more often than any other. I can’t tell you how many I corrected in my original manuscript of “The Backwards Mask.”  There are likely a few that made it past the filters, despite all my best efforts.

william-shakespeare-portrait11

__be or not __ be.

2.) Dropped Word

Similar to mistake number 1, I will drop a key word from the sentence.  The word “not” seems to be a popular one (particularly when the sentence hinges on that one word), but I don’t limit myself just to that. Oh, no…quite the contrary. I’ll go back and look at something I wrote and find something like this:

“With speed fueled by desperation, he spun around to find the glaring red eyes of a staring back at him from the darkness.”

So…is it a vampire? A Decepticon? A guy in dire need of Visine? What?

picard-riker-double-facepalm

Bad writer, no cookie.

3.) Repeated Word

Not content to leave words out, sometimes I put extra words in that don’t need to be there. Sometimes this comes from a line break temporarily fooling me into thinking I haven’t already typed it. I wish that was the case every single time. Nope. I merrily add in an extra “the” at random intervals along with “their” and “from.”  Sometimes it’s just a word I apparently liked so much I thought it needed to go in twice. You know, for emphasis.

Department-of-redundancy-department

Repeaters gonna repeat.

4.) Switching Gears Mid-sentence

Sometimes I pause in the middle of a sentence to think about what I’m really trying to get across in it. I’d like to think that I’m like Socrates in this regard (who would stop and stand in place for hours or days at time while thinking), but chances are that I’m really just second-guessing myself—the literary equivalent of changing horses mid-stream.  When I come out of my ponderings, sometimes the second part doesn’t quite match up with first part.  I tried to recreate this phenomenon here, but it just didn’t work. You’ll know it when you see it, though I hope they are all fixed by the time you read something of mine. *fingers crossed*

MV5BMTM3MjI5NDI3Ml5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwNjU4MzcyNA@@._V1._SX640_SY432_

In your own little world again, I see. Excellent!

Wow, two Trek references + Shakespeare + Socrates just in pictures alone? That has to be a personal fanboy/nerd best for me. In any case, these are my favorite mistakes…but, you know, not in a Sheryl Crow kind of way.

I put it to you – all my fellow authors out there − what are your favorite mistakes?

__________________________________________________

Do me a favor, okay? Subscribe to my newsletter for more news, updates, and information on Sector M’s current and upcoming projects!

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , | posted in Silly Me, Uncategorized

June 12, 2013

Backwards Compatible – Part 2: Just a Few Hurdles

By The Sector M

When we last left off, our author was tasked with reigniting a milieu that had long since grown cold. We also secretly switched his coffee with new Folger’s crystals. Let see what happens (particularly since he doesn’t even drink coffee)!

Okay, so there were some immediate challenges facing me on this project, which I will outline here in a conveniently numbered format.

1.) Lack of Clear Direction

When we started, all we had to go on was the name (The Backwards Mask) and the existing cover art in black and white. There was no indication of where the storyline was going from the second book or how Paul Brunette intended to wrap up the trilogy.

After much debate and back and forth, Marc and I decided to create the new story as he put it “out of whole cloth.” I scoured the setting books and the two novels to figure out the core of the third story. In many ways it was harder than writing one from scratch. I needed to write a novel that was, if you’ll forgive the term, backwards compatible with the other books. At the same time, the series had been fallow for over a decade. While you could still find the first two novels in used book stores, Amazon and eBay, they weren’t readily available. That meant that the third story would need to complete the trilogy AND work well as a standalone story.

So how does one go about doing that?

Any which way you can

Whoah, thanks for the assist, Philo and Clyde!

2.) Literary Baggage

Since I was stepping in after two novels, I inherited characters and storylines that were not my own. It was not unlike a comic book author who takes over a title after the previous writer’s run. You want to tell your story, but you don’t want to break faith with what has gone before too much, even if it’s terribly inconvenient. Sure, you can wave the ‘retcon’ wand around if you want, but that can work against you if you give your readers too much of a disconnect.

Much of the crew of the aboard RCS Hornet did not have given names. Instead, they were known by their taccode, or callsign. Even though it was part of the property, the excessive use of callsigns felt a little artificial to me, and seemed like a throwback to Top Gun.  I understand that many pilots in the armed forces (in real life) do use their monikers in place of their real names, but this wasn’t just limited to pilots. Practically every character involved with the Reformation Coalition had to have one, seemingly from the highest commanding officer to the professors at the academy. Did the janitors and the mailmen have them in the Coalition as well? When a character’s mother, a politician or someone outside of the military addresses them, did they use their callsign then as well?

Negative, Ghostrider. Clearly, I would have to fill in the blanks in some places, and explain away things that didn’t make sense in others. In short, I needed to write my way around certain elements to get free and clear to tell my story.

baggage_claim-660x420

What do you mean Whizbang and Bonzo have no real names? Seriously?

3.) Inconsistent Background Material

Besides all of the story elements, characters and history that I had to account for in the third installment, I had to contend with something else. The novels were not entirely consistent with the game books of the setting. There was some definite rule bending when it came to ships and how they operated. Even the game books varied at times from the ‘classic’ canon of the rest of the Traveller universe.

Worse yet, the game books themselves were not consistent with each other. One of the New Era books couldn’t decide who the Empress of Solee was (the leader of the bad guys) within its own pages. Was she an ex-naval officer who used her expertise to overthrow a planetary government and crown herself Queen, or had she been born a noble, inherited her throne by nefarious means, but had no real military expertise whatsoever?

There was also a ship named the Ashtabula, which was pretty much like the Enterprise in Star Trek (any of the non-Scott Bakula ones at any rate). In one place it said that there were only two people alive who had served aboard the ship before she disappeared. In another place it mentions that one of the intelligence types attached to the government (who was still alive) had once served aboard her. And on…and on…

This left me on shaky ground. I couldn’t trust the previous novels to be entirely faithful to the setting, and I couldn’t trust the setting to be faithful to itself.

150463353649_rimqPmdb_l

But then…how do you know?

Once I had a solid look at the wall I was expected scale, it suddenly seemed much taller than I had originally thought.

But this was me…not giving up. *Cue the 80s inspirational power chords.*

[Check out the Backwards Mask on Kindle.]

__________________________________________________

Do me a favor, okay? Subscribe to my newsletter for more news, updates, and information on Sector M’s current and upcoming projects!

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in Backwards Compatible, Uncategorized

June 4, 2013

Why I Love Villains

By The Sector M

Okay, I’ll go ahead and say it—I love villains. Most of the time, I find villains far more compelling than the heroes who face them. To clarify—before anyone goes there—I’m talking strictly about fiction here, and not the real world.

My interest in the bad guys goes way back to my earliest childhood. The first truly awe-inspiring villain I discovered as a kid was (surprise of surprises) Darth Vader. He was a mystery behind that all-too familiar mask of his, with that raspy respirator, hissing and sighing to announce his presence. He instantly commanded respect from those who served him, and brooked no sharp tongue. (I find your lack of faith disturbing!)  Vader was just cool, from the way he walked to his deep basso James Earl Jones voice. Like some Black Knight out of legend, he was powerful, strong and—if you’ll forgive the pun—a force to be reckoned with.

You, um, might say that I was more than a little inspired by him.  Just a bit…

Sith_04LIT

That’s me as a Sith Lord.
No, really, that’s me in there.

Vader started a trend with me. I found as I grew up that I seemed to gravitate towards the villains in the various cartoons I watched as a kid. (A notable exception is Transformers, where I liked the good guys better overall.) Take for instance COBRA from G.I. Joe. They get all the sharp-looking  vehicles, armor, and suits. Most of them wear ninja-esque balaclavas or use masks to hide their faces. Compare that to the Joes, who look like a bunch of regular people. Boring. The only one on the good side who had that level of panache was Snakes Eyes, and let’s face it—he should have been on COBRA’s side. Come on, his name is Snake Eyes for crying out loud!

Unfortunately, for all their style, COBRA wasn’t very competent.  Your average Viper can’t hit the broad side of an aircraft carrier, but then again, neither can any member of the Joe team. In fact, all of them in that franchise seem pretty incapable of basic marksmanship. Be that as it may, even though COBRA is constantly thwarted in their diabolical schemes, they look great while losing.

Especially the Baroness. Ahem…

CobraLogo-500x500

Cooooooo-braaaaaaa!

It took me a while to figure out what it was about the likes of Boba Fett, Skeletor, Storm Shadow, and Magneto that really called to me. Yeah, they were enigmatic and looked imposing, but it was more than that. It was because villains don’t play by the rules, or more to the point, they play by their own rules. One of the reasons they are so powerful is because they are not constrained like the rest of us. They operate by their own code. They’re rebels, they’re renegades. They are the ones who break from the pack and do what they want, when they want. And, you know, there’s something very attractive about that idea.

When I discovered James Bond films, I found another deep well of villainy. Bond villains are a special breed. While they are all too eager to tell Bond about their master plan, and tend to have a predilection for Nehru jackets, they are all very smart (though not all that wise). Many of them are doctors, scientists, secret agents, and the like. Intelligence is something that I think all great villains share. Moriarty, Lex Luthor, Brainiac, Doctor Doom, Voldemort, Dracula, Sauron, Ozymandias, Roy Batty, HAL-9000—geniuses all. And let’s not forget one of the most brilliant villains of all time…

Wreath of KhanII

Come on, you know you wanna yell it out!

When it comes to a villain’s role in a literary sense, I think this old saying about sums it up: “It is the presence of the wolf, not his absence, which makes the deer strong and fast.” There is a symbiotic relationship that exists between heroes and villains. A hero is often defined by his nemesis, and vice versa.

Do me a favor—think about the last few movies, books, comics, stories, etc. that you found particularly powerful or moving. Now think of the villain of each one. Chances are they had a particularly memorable and/or potent opponent playing opposite the protagonist. Villains can make or break a story.  Even in those tales where the heroes are up against nature, society, or even their own natures, it is the obstacles they must overcome, the hardships they have to endure, that really make you empathize with them.

Villains are great at forging that pathos between the reader/viewer and the hero. Why? Villains are engines for conflict. Without some sort of conflict, you don’t have much of a story. That’s also why antagonists can be, and often are, much cooler/lethal/stronger/smarter/more awesome than the protagonist.  They have to be…or rather they need to be.

Sherlock-Holmes-and-Moriarty

Can you imagine one without the other?

If you didn’t have an incredibly competent, seemingly unbeatable opponent for the protagonist to face off against, victory would seem hollow and meaningless. When our heroic lead manages to succeed, even when all hope seems lost, it feels so much more satisfying, right?

We as humans love underdogs, the ones who bravely soldier on against impossible odds. We love to see underdogs succeed even when all conventional wisdom says they should fail. So, the greater the villain, the greater the sense of achievement when our hero emerges triumphant in the end.

And that is why I love villains. At once they represent power, mystery, intelligence, style, and the crucible in which heroes are made.

Oh, and the maniacal laugh. Definitely the laugh.

__________________________________________________

Do me a favor, okay? Subscribe to my newsletter for more news, updates, and information on Sector M’s current and upcoming projects!

2 Comments   |  tags: , , , , | posted in General Stuff, Uncategorized

May 28, 2013

Sci-fi’s Strongest Heroine?

By The Sector M

Female characters in science fiction have come a long way since the pulp-era days. No longer are they always the cliché ‘maiden in distress’ or merely a means to have a love interest in the story.  Oh, there’s still quite a lot of that goes on, but it’s not quite so omnipresent throughout the genre anymore.

Speaking as an author, I love strong female characters (both reading and writing them). I feel privileged to live in a generation of great sci-fi heroines. We’re talking names such as Nyota Uhura (past and present), Ellen Ripley, Katie Sackoff’s Starbuck, Katniss Everdeen, Honor Harrington, Buffy Anne Summers (or practically any female character from Joss Whedon’s brain), Dr. Dana Scully, Sarah Connor, Susan Ivanova…the list goes on and on.

947010_517880768248241_141481184_n

OOOH YEEEAH…
*said in the Kool-Aid Man voice.*

These are the ladies who don’t need anyone to make them powerful, because they are already.  Helen Reddy songs would not be out of place blasting in the background as they go about saving civilization, humankind or the universe.

In this author’s humble opinion, there is one leading lady who takes the crown of strongest sci-fi heroine, and, wow, talk about a tough choice! But if I had to pick just one it would be…(drum roll)…Trinity from The Matrix.

jumpkick288

Hear me roar…and soar, apparently.

Note that this is the Trinity from the first Matrix movie, not the ones that followed. Sure, she was cool in those too…in the same way that Connor McLeod was also cool in Highlander 2: The Quickening. Cool, but just not the same. For the sake of this post, forget that the Reloaded and Revolutions movies ever existed. I do.

Here are the top three reasons I think this, along with the stereotype that Trinity shatters with a ‘bullet time’ slow-motion jump kick.

1.) She Looks Like She Can (And Will) Kick Your Butt

5-the-matrix-trinity-dodge-this_thumb

Dodge this.

The first scene in The Matrix shows her taking out several SWAT team guys with martial arts moves that border on anime. I remember the first time I saw this in theatre. I was completely sold on the character’s capacity to kick butt.  Carrie-Anne Moss was in incredible physical shape in that role, and she completely owned the physical stunts necessary to convince us of Trinity’s formidable hand-to-hand skills.

Have you noticed in the movies how many times we see a rather diminutive female character going toe-to-toe in a fistfight with goons more than twice her size and weight? Yet she wades through tons of them as though they were nothing. Does that really seem believable to you? Most of the time it looks pretty forced, leaving many of us thinking um, what? With Trinity, her combat abilities don’t seem out of place at all. Once you know that she can bend the Matrix, it makes even more sense that she can go through even highly trained special ops-types without breaking a sweat.

2.) Not Just Another Pretty Face

trinity-matrix

Whoah…

Carrie-Anne Moss (and thus Trinity) is beautiful, no doubt about it. At no time in the film, however, was she so glammed out that she no longer fit the role. Trinity comes from a dark and hard world, one where she risks her life on a daily basis to fight a system that has enslaved humanity without its knowledge.  If she couldn’t pull her own weight on missions, she wouldn’t have survived for so long. In that sense, she doesn’t suffer from “Bond Girl” syndrome, where her usefulness and contribution to the story are just skin deep.  Quite the opposite, in fact − she’s integral to the story.

Also, Trinity is uber competent at what she does. Even after Ted “Theodore” Logan came along to become the Kwisatz Haderach, she remains one of Zion’s elite operators.  When Neo goes in to rescue Morpheus, who’s the other half of the assault team, in what was surely a suicide mission, the one he could not have done it without? Sorry, rhetorical question.

3.) Her Femininity Doesn’t Clash

tumblr_mi6ln1hZb01qmwg3ao1_500

Trinity à la Nagle.

Okay, ladies, here’s a question for all of you. Does it feel like some female characters are stripped of their femininity when they are put in what would be traditionally considered a ‘man’s’ role? It’s almost as if the idea of a woman who knows how to mix it up in a brawl or a firefight can’t be considered womanly.

I disagree with that idea, of course. More than that, I disagree with the underlying assumption that puissance at arms is something uniquely masculine, or (more to the point) not feminine. While The Rules would not approve of ladies who know how to field strip an M-16, set explosives or do anything else a Navy SEAL might be trained in…I do. For me, femininity and masculinity are not about what you do, but who you are.

In the case of Trinity, she is very much a woman. At no time does she come off as mannish or butch, and she doesn’t need to adopt the caricature of male persona to be brave in the face of nearly impossible odds, or to fight for her cause or for those she loves. She doesn’t have to give up one to have the other, and I love her for that.

So that’s how I see it. Of course, I’m a guy, so me going on about all this might be comical to some of the ladies out there. Let’s just remember that this is an opinion piece, after all.

What do you think?

__________________________________________________

Do me a favor, okay? Subscribe to my newsletter for more news, updates, and information on Sector M’s current and upcoming projects!

7 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in Sci-fi Stuff, Uncategorized

May 21, 2013

Backwards Compatible – Part 1: Genesis

By The Sector M

You knew it was coming…the inevitable post about my novel. This is, in fact, the first in a series of posts explaining how my novel came about.  The road from its inception to execution was a long and twisting one.

Well, let’s start at the beginning.

header-1161698270

No caption required, really.

In the mid-90s, Games Designers’ Workshop (hitherto referred to as GDW) launched their expansion to the popular Traveller RPG universe, entitled “Traveller: The New Era.” Unlike previous milieus of the game, which centered around a massive star-spanning Empire, this one was post-apocalyptic. Now I’m not talking your run-of-the-mill Mad Max/Tina Turner post apocalypse. No, this was devastation on an interstellar scale.

In the time period of The New Era, the great Empire is toast, laid waste thanks to an insidious, self-aware computer virus that makes Skynet look shy and retiring by comparison. The virus (appropriately named “Virus”) has ravaged the Empire and its citizens, leaving trillions dead in sector after sector of smashed and ruined worlds.

skynet

Geez, I’m bad, but not that bad.

Yet not all hope is lost. There are little islands of civilization among the vast ocean of cemetery worlds and boneyards that struggle to recover in the wake of the worst calamity in all of human history. It’s an uphill climb for the survivors to avoid a descent into barbarism and darkness. If that weren’t enough, Virus is still out there, waiting to finish what it started. Civilization itself hangs by a very thin thread.

Pretty bleak stuff, huh? Well, many fans of Traveller thought the same thing, including yours truly. The epic scope of the previous settings shrank dramatically. Instead of focusing on an empire of 11,000 star systems, the new setting introduced the Reformation Coalition, a small polity with a little over 20. It was a controversial move and one that would divide fans of the ‘classic’ Traveller universe from those of the New Era to this day.

sci-fi-post-apocalyptic-28081_942730_1492542

Welcome to the new age, to the new age.
I’m radioactive, radioactive.

To promote this new setting, GDW added a trilogy of science fiction novels to their lineup to explore the setting in detail.  Paul Brunette was chosen to tackle this project. He produced The Death of Wisdom and To Dream of Chaos. Before the third novel − The Backwards Mask − could be commissioned, however, GDW went out of business. The New Era trilogy went into limbo.

Years passed, until I happened to meet Marc Miller (the creator of the Traveller universe) at a convention. At the time I was working as a writer for a game company. Though I was just a fan, Marc took the time out of his busy schedule to sit and talk with me. There was a great richness to the Traveller universe that I felt lent itself to fiction, and Marc agreed. After the convention, we started an email dialogue where we discussed possible Traveller fiction ideas. It was during this time that Marc dusted off the unfinished TNE trilogy and offered me the chance to write the third installment.

Of course, I jumped at it.

[Check out the Backwards Mask on Kindle.]

__________________________________________________

Do me a favor, okay? Subscribe to my newsletter for more news, updates, and information on Sector M’s current and upcoming projects!

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in Backwards Compatible, Uncategorized

May 15, 2013

My Origin Story

By The Sector M

So, how did it all start for me? What’s my origin story? Sadly it does not involve radioactive spiders or being launched from Krypton as it exploded. At least, I’m pretty sure it doesn’t.

The following is a look at how I became a storyteller. Note that I use the word ‘storyteller’ instead of ‘author.’ As you’ll see, I was telling stories before I ever started writing them down. Parts of this are shamelessly cannibalized from the ‘About’ section of my website and this blog.

So, I grew up in a pretty small town rural Texas. I often describe it as being a lot like The Dukes of Hazzard, though with far fewer car chases. I was an only child. Though I had plenty of cousins who were like brothers and sisters (and still are to this day), I was often in need of ways to entertain myself. Television of the ’80s played a big part of my childhood. Sure, many of the shows like The A-Team and Knight Rider really don’t hold up all that well when you watch them now (even if they have very hummable theme songs), but they were fertile soil for my young imagination. It also sowed the seeds of my eventual fanboy-dom.

A-Team_logo_2

Try to be in a bad mood while humming it.
Go on, try it.

Both of my parents were big fans of Star Trek. Some of my earliest memories of watching TV include scenes of Kirk, Spock, and Scotty arrayed in their bright ’60s uniforms. I think the Enterprise (1701) started me on my life-long love of ships. I was pretty young when I started creating stories in my head. Sure, most kids make up stories at that age, but I found that I built up a repertoire of stories that I could recite consistently and on command. And, well, I never really stopped after that.

Many of those early forays included cartoon characters from the ’80s teaming up to go on adventures together. (The tale of Optimus Prime and Rick Hunter teaming up to defeat the mechanized legions of Mumm-Ra springs to mind.)

optimus_prime

Mumm-Ra must be stopped…no matter the cost.

I also found my love of reading at an early age, which was the gateway drug into writing stories. In 2nd Grade, I wrote a story in the form of a Twilight Zone episode entitled “Identity Crisis.” When I read it to the class I did my best impression of Rod Serling speaking the intro, complete with the intense eyebrows.

tumblr_mcel510Mbu1r0zmy0o1_1280

Not bad for a total n00b.

Even back then, I knew that the fantastical side of fiction was what really called to me. It wasn’t that I found real life boring. No, it was largely the creative canvas that fiction afforded me. If I wanted the colors of the rainbow arranged in a different order than they appeared in the sky, no problem. Say I wanted the Pacific War fought with dragons launched from giant turtles instead of aircraft carriers. Done. Not even the sky was the limit. I could take reality and reshape it as I saw fit.

Since that time, the thrill I get from creating worlds and writing fiction has never left me.

Sure, I could go into my years at school, which led to college, and my eventual writing career, but all of that is mundane, the kind of stuff they skip in the comics or at the beginning of a movie.

Without a doubt, those early influences put my life on its current trajectory. While I didn’t uncover a powerful alien artifact or find that I’m a latent telepath, I did discover a deep and abiding love of stories, characters, and far away horizons.

That love is a big part of who I am today.

True story.

__________________________________________________

Do me a favor, okay? Subscribe to my newsletter for more news, updates, and information on Sector M’s current and upcoming projects!

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , , , , | posted in Uncategorized

May 14, 2013

Why Sci-fi?

By The Sector M

Speculative fiction is my ‘thing.’

Fantasy, horror and sci-fi constitute the big three in my book.  They make up a disproportionately large segment of what I love to read, write and watch on TV and movies.  They resonate with the kind of headspace I seem to occupy most of the time. I lovelovelove all three, however, sci-fi is my favorite.  I can say with all certainty that it’s what I love to write more than anything else.

Why is that? Why do starships, aliens and planets trump elves, magic swords and dragons…or blasphemous books, tentacles and the shrieking, ineffable void?

There are a few reasons for this, which I will explain here (the top three, at any rate).  Now realize that this isn’t a case for why sci-fi is better than fantasy or horror, merely why I’m drawn to it as a genre.

1.) Just a Spoonful of Sugar

It’s amazing the amount of social commentary science fiction can pull off without the ruffled feathers you would get if you talked about the same thing in ‘real life.’ In that way, science fiction is an excellent way to talk about something without really talking about it.

Think about it, we can talk about religion, politics, man’s inhumanity to man and the horror and/or necessity of war – all things that can make people truly uncomfortable − if we couch it in a futuristic setting.  It somehow insulates us from the pricklier bits of what the story is trying to get across.

More than that, it’s a way for us to step back from our daily lives and look at some of the problems that surround us today. Even if the story takes said issue/problem/social inequity out of context, we still come away with a (hopefully) new perspective.

A prime example of this is the original series Star Trek episode, “Let This Be Your Last Battlefield.” It starred Frank Gorshin, known for his role as the Riddler opposite Adam West as Batman.  Frank’s character, Commissioner Bele, is tracking a fugitive, Lokai. Bele believes that Lokai and his kind are of an ‘obviously inferior breed.’ Why? Bele’s face is white on the left side and black on the right. Lokai’s color scheme is the reverse. To human eyes, the two aliens look just alike, but this difference of appearance is responsible for incredible amounts of destruction and social upheaval on their home planet of Cheron.

Okay, so the message isn’t exactly subtle; it makes its point with a jackhammer. Even so, it speaks directly to the racial division and strife that was rampant in the 1960s. Do you think that any straight-laced TV show of that time could’ve talked about that issue so openly? Likely not.

STLastBattle

Okay, Frank, we get it.

2.) Possible Futures vs. Alternate Worlds

Most science fiction takes place in the future.  This might seem like stating the blatantly obvious, but there’s something to that. It takes place in the future − our future.

Usually sci-fi stories use the timeline of our real world as a foundation, or at the very least they don’t do away with it completely. Yes, there are always exceptions, such as Star Wars, but I’m talking in general.

For me, the most engaging science fiction stories are the ones that feel like I could jump in my time-travelling DeLorean or blue police box, dial it forward to the proper year and boom, I’m right there in the thick of things. I don’t have to reimagine the world from scratch, I just have to fill in the missing years between when I’m reading the book and the time period of the story.

Consequently, sci-fi feels very organic. It shows you possible futures rather than a completely alternate world that is separate and apart from the one we live in. In this way, sci-fi calls to me a bit more than the fantasy genre. Only in rare cases, such as Lord of the Rings or Conan, is a fantasy story presented as a sort of lost ‘pre-history’ to our world.

So, even though sci-fi takes flight just like other types of fiction, it does so by using us as a springboard.

planet-of-the-apes-statue-of-liberty-blu-ray-disc-screencap-hd-1080p-05

Lady Liberty — the sci-fi landmark of choice.

3.) The More Things Change

The humans populating science fiction universes are a lot like us. Even if they live hundreds or thousands of years in the future, they are still understandable to those of us in this time.  Sure, future generations may have figured out a lot of things that we haven’t, such as FTL travel, overcoming disease and hunger, etc. They may even have co-ed showers because gender roles are no big deal anymore.

But they haven’t figured it all out. Most of the time they still have to contend with greed, arrogance, anger, jealousy, hatred, betrayal, war and host of other things that are problematic for us today. Maybe they go to a job but don’t like their boss, or they grapple with the fundamental questions of our existence and place in the universe. They may have access to a host of technological toys that we don’t, but seldom are they that much more advanced than we are right now.

There are reasons for that, of course. The most obvious is that science fiction is written by authors who are relatively contemporary to us. I choose to think of it in a different way, though. I like to think that the inhabitants of the future are like us because that allows us to project ourselves in their place.  If only we had the same training and access to technology, we might be able to trade places with them.

I think that feeling is essential in creating that sense of place in any good science fiction story. I’m convinced that it’s a big part of what draws us into that universe, and keeps us there.

a_025HicksApone

Some things change.
Marines don’t.

Well, there you have it, folks. I could go on and on, but those are the things that give science fiction a special place in my heart. Of the three branches of speculative fiction, it’s the one that seems the most inclusive to the reader just as we are.

I’m sure that purists of fantasy and horror are even now lining up to point out the flaws in my reasoning. Do you agree with me, disagree or are you just sort of ‘meh’ about the whole deal?

Leave me a comment and let me know what you think.

__________________________________________________

Do me a favor, okay? Subscribe to my newsletter for more news, updates, and information on Sector M’s current and upcoming projects!

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Sci-fi Stuff, Uncategorized

May 14, 2013

Not Another Author’s Blog!

By The Sector M

Oh no! It’s another author’s blog!

I bet he’s going to pontificate ad nauseum  about his ‘craft’ and why everything he does is high art…yeah, as if it’s Shakespeare or Hemingway or something. I bet he’s even going to try to plug his novel at every turn, and try to get us to “Like” him on Facebook, follow him on Twitter and all that.

So typical.

Gaaah! Why did this have to happen? It’s the end of the world as we know it, and Lenny Bruce is not afraid! Dogs and cats living together…mass hysteria.

 Noooooooooooooooooo!

luke_skywalker_noooo

Yep, pretty much…

Yeah, that’s my reaction to a lot of author blogs as well. I’ve read quite a few of them in my time. Some are informative, while others are preachy. Some seem little more than an outlet for the author in question’s ego—sort of a platform to say ‘here’s why I’m so cool. Bask in my wisdom!’

Well, as it happens I am an author and this is my blog. I will try to learn from my experiences and make this particular blog worth the reading.  A few things right off…

What This Blog IS:

If you’re visiting me here, you probably have some passing interest in my work. This is my way to try and connect with you, the reader, outside of a short story, novella or novel. Each post will explore some topic that is of interest to me, and (I hope) to you as well.

Yes, I will talk about my writing process at times. I will also recommend that you read my novels and connect with me on social media. You are welcome to listen to my suggestions, or not. There’s no pressure here. This isn’t a dealership for used cars; it’s a platform where I can share my stories/ideas/thoughts with you.

Could I go the hard sales route, as so many often do? Sure, if I saw my readers and fans as nothing more than a market for a product, I’m sure my eyes would spin with dollar signs like in the cartoons.

If you read one of my stories, you are sharing something highly personal from me to you. Each of my stories holds a special place in my heart. They mean something to me, or I would have never bothered to write them in the first place. That you might read something of mine—and perhaps come back for more—makes you far more to me than just a series of wallets waiting to be exploited.

But I digress…

What This Blog IS NOT:

This blog is not a soapbox for my political or religious views. I may offer social commentary at times, but not because I’m trying to sell you on any particular ideology. Likely it’s because it relates to something I’m writing. What can I say?  I like to explore anthropological themes in my stories, and you can’t do that without kicking over a few rocks and seeing what lives underneath them. (Figuratively speaking, of course.)

I should also point out that these posts are not for my own aggrandizement. I’m not fishing for compliments here or hoping you’ll stroke my ego. I would appreciate it if we could keep things positive, but if you have something to say, say it. If you honestly disagree with something I’ve said or written, then I welcome any verbal riposte you have to offer. Just be sure to bring you’re “A” game when you do.

One last thing, I’m a big proponent of Socrates and his idea that ‘the only real knowledge is in knowing that you know nothing.’ I don’t claim to be the absolute authority on anything, and I have little patience for people who do. I believe that there’s always room for improvement no matter how good you are (or think you are) at something. I approach writing and life from that perspective.

So, that’s what I’m offering here at the Sector M blog.

Do we have an accord?

We do?

Well then, drink up, me hearties…yo ho!

jollyroger

Yarr…n’ stuff.

__________________________________________________

Do me a favor, okay? Subscribe to my newsletter for more news, updates, and information on Sector M’s current and upcoming projects!

1 Comment   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in General Stuff, Uncategorized