Fantasist's Scroll

Been a lot of talk about extrasolar planets lately…

In the past week, Space.com has reported about both a “giant Earth” and two Neptune-sized planets being found. So, there’s been a lot of talk about voyages to other planets and finding other Earths lately. I think we’ll eventually go, but it’ll be in generation ships and things on Earth will have to get really desperate first. After all, that would be a “one-way” trip.
That’s nice and all, but I think they’re missing the boat in some ways. I mean, why not inhabitable moons? According to Space.com, they could very well exist. In fact, I speculated on that quite some time ago and I even got a physist to back me up! A very nice man by the name of Sheridan Simon, who’s also done work for Lawrence Watt-Evans, did up a whole planetary system for me. I actually based it around Tau Ceti, which he said was a good choice, actually, since it’s very similar to our own star. Anyway, he did up a whole system for me. I ought to scan it and make it available on-line… Well, we’ll see about that, but it is an interesting line of thought for science-fiction, isn’t it?
Read the articles, think, then write! Go on!

Well, I’m making a bit.

After a couple of exchanges on the Conlang List this week, I realized that I’m growing as a person, and a writer. As the reference to conlanging suggests, I’ve been thinking about created languages again. I was originall inspired by an article in the Dragon Magazine in the days of my youth. It was a very simplistic article aimed at a simple person, namely me and my kind. It was followed by another article which was much more linguistically challenging and completely over my head. That was almost 20 years ago. Just three years ago, that second article was still over my head.
But, then I started reading. I read the conlang list and several groups on Yahoo. I read LangMaker.com and The Metaverse. More importantly, I got several books on linguistics and read them, too. I reread that article which had flummoxed me so many years ago this weekend and the whole damn thing made sense. I’m finally ready to start conlanging again after 20 years.

Look out, Johnny, here I come!

That is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange aeons even death may die.

Ah, if only Lovecraft could live on in that eternal life beyond death. But, alas, he cannot and we have only his tremendous body of work to keep us company. Never the less, knowing that it is his birthday, I feel compeled to mention it.

Also, the Vancouver Gaming Guild is celebrating H. P. Lovecraft’s birthday with a convention! So, if you’re in the area, why not check it out?

At least for the Eastern seaboard.

According to this article on MSN.com, the end is coming to the Eastern United States in the form of a tidal wave. At least, it might be coming. Sometime in the next 200 years, or so.
Apparently, there’s a volcanic island out there that has a big chunk of rock that might break off at the next eruption which should cause a tidal wave that would devistate the Eastern shores of North America. Yeah, a lot of suppositions there. But, it might happen.

In any case, it would make for an interesting story! Hey, it’s Friday, go write it this weekend!

“Who lives in a pineapple under the sea?”

Well, not the characters from this story on Wired News! But, it’s still an interesting article about deep-sea life. Life so strange, in fact, that it almost seems like it came from an alien planet. Imagine, creatures capable of consuming prey larger than their own body! Or, strange, glowing, flowery jellyfish that are self-illuminating. Or, even a type of previously unknown, worm-like life. Well, it’s all there at the bottom of the ocean.
One of the reasons that I’m posting this is that someone on a created culture list has been asking about the many forms of life. In fact, he was lamenting that he knew so very little about biology that he was afraid that his vision was too limited. I think about that every time I read an article like this. No matter what I can come up with, nature has beaten me to the punch.

Hope it inspires y’all a bit.

Okay, how can this be fun?

Easy, when it’s the Earth Impact Effects Program! This webpage calculates the damage that a hypothetical impact object would inflict on the Earth. Frankly, the physics have always been beyond me, but it looks cool. In a total annihilation sort of way, that is.
Seriously, I’m one of those geeky writer guys who always wants to know this kind of stuff, so I figured that I’m not the only one!

It’s Friday, go have fun blowing up the Earth!

Okay, now here’s a couple that I’m looking forward to getting…

The first two are game books: Serpent Kingdoms, which is a D&D supplement about reptilian races and D20 Future, which is, well, a D20 supplement for futuristic gaming. I’m looking forward to that second one, in particular, for all the cool Star Frontiers information that they’ve included. Star Frontiers was a great little science-fiction game that TSR put out back in the 80’s. It was smart, slick space-opera and it was really, really fun. So, back a couple of weeks ago when I read that Wizards of the Coast was putting all that info into the new D20 game, was really excited. Too bad that it isn’t due out until September! Luckily, Serpent Kingdoms is due out later this month.
So is my third reading list book, Iron Council, which is the third book set in the world of New Crobuzon. A very different and innovative fantasy series by an acclaimed author. It’s really a very interesting world filled with magical creatures, but not any elves! (Hooray!) This one seems to be set back in the city of New Crobuzon itself and promises to be a good one. (Okay, who am I kidding? I’m a drooling fanboy who would worship almost anything China Miéville would put out. There, are you happy?)

So, it looks like I’ll have more reading to do!

Wondered where we’ve been this Summer?

Well, besides changing jobs, I’ve been reading. One of the books I read was The Chanur Saga, though I didn’t read it all at once. This is actually an “omnibus” of the first three books in the Chanur series. There are, to my knowlege, two more. Now, I have to admit, this is not my “usual” kind of book. I like science-fiction, but I often have trouble with female writers because they focus on things that don’t often interest me. (In otherwords, they write romance novels in space or fantasy settings!) But, my wife read these and really liked them, so I gave it a shot. Boy, am I glad I did!
More along the lines of a “space opera” in the fact that the author, C. J. Cherryh, didn’t focus on the hard-science aspects of the Chanur universe, but instead on the “people”, mainly aliens, who live there. The story through out the three books in the “omnibus” follow the discovery of humanity by the Compact, which include a lionlike race called the hani. The Chanur are a clan of hani who have a trading spaceship who take in a castaway human, who’s lost in Compact space. Along the way, we meet the mahendo’sat, the stsho, the chi, the t’cha, the knnn, and the kif, who are all members of the Compact and have their own ideas about what to do with humanity. The kif are the bad guys, generally, but each race has their own goals regarding this newly discovered race. All in all it’s fairly interesting and entertaining.
One of the things I like the best is that Ms. Cherryh uses language and language barriers effectively and realisticlly in her work. We’ve got a bunch of races with various languages among them all trying to work together, and take advantage of each other, without having too many misunderstandings. At times, it makes for very entertaining reading! And, it provides quite a bit of food for thought for my own work in this regard.
Very well done and I look forward to reading the next two in the series!