Diary of a Network Geek

Simple.

Follow these eight rules from IO9. No, really, just follow their Eight Unstoppable Rules for Writing Killer Short Stories.

Now, ‘scuse me while I go write something.

Why am I not participating in Galaxiki after my initial enthusiasm?

I have to admit, when I first read about it and started getting involved, Galaxiki, the “fictional galaxy that anyone can edit”, seemed like a great idea. Two things ruined it for me, though.

First, the guy who started Galaxiki is using his own, custom, home-grown wiki software to run the site. That would be fine, if everything on the wiki software worked and was documented. Sadly, when I was trying to get involved with this project, the software was very much under development and very poorly documented. At least, when compared to something like MediaWiki, which runs the Wikipedia. So, as much as I tried to help on the back end of things, I was frustrated at every turn and quickly gave up.

Secondly, there was one Rule for the project that kept me from wanting to participate.
Specifically, Rule Number Three:

3. No sun, no Earth, no humans
Remember that Galaxiki is not the milky way (in fact NGC1300 is a galaxy far, far away…), our Earth is not located in this galaxy and it’s too far away for us humans to reach it. But you may describe Earth-like planets and human-like species looking and behaving exactly like humans, but don’t call them “humans” and remember that their home planet is not “Earth”.

In all my personal, science-fiction scenarios, humans came from Earth. All my story ideas started with colonists leaving Earth. If I were to follow the Rules of Galaxiki, none of my pet projects would ever be used. I suppose there’s nothing wrong with that, per se, but it did undercut my initial enthusiasm and, combined with the first problem, helped me to lose virtually all interest in the project.

So, you may be asking yourself, why I’m mentioning it.
Well, my own personal issues aside, it’s still a pretty cool idea and an interesting project. Also, I get a weekly newsletter from Galaxiki and, I have to admit, I find myself thinking about adopting a star system and creating a world, race, civilization and so on, just for the fun of it. I mean, it’s not like I’m writing a lot of fiction and getting paid, so I might as well write something fictional, even if it’s not a coherent story. At least it would be creative and fun and good practice, right?

Well, anyway, if you haven’t looked at Galaxiki lately, there have been improvements and it’s worth another look. So, why not check it out?

Late last week, I finished Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman.

I’ve never read anything by Grossman, but, as this is his first novel, that shouldn’t be surprising. I’m sure he’ll have more out soon, though, if this is any example of his work.
Soon I Will Be Invincible is the latest in a growing new sub-genre of literature; the superhero novel. Granted, George R. R. Martin has been doing this with his Wild Cards series for quite some time, but, for whatever reason, it just didn’t seem to grow beyond his anthologies, until recently. I would be very impressed if any of the recent additions to the genre are better than this. It really is quite good.

The story opens with a chapter from the point of view of Doctor Impossible, imprisoned super-genius and super-villain. He gives us a quick look at his world, both inside and outside of prison. I think the immediacy of starting out a book about larger-than-life heroes from the point of view of their chief villain really helped draw the reader into the story. At least, it drew me in a bit more. As a writer, though, I found it slightly hard to suspend my disbelief reading from the point of view of a genius. Theoretically, the character speaking is infinitely more intelligent than I am, and most people, for that matter, but I’m fairly certain that, as clever as he is, the author is not, in fact, an evil genius. So, how do you write a character more intelligent than you? And, Dr. Impossible is writing from jail. Hello? How much of a genius can he be if he got caught, right? Well, I think I laughed out loud when he made the same comment. Then, of course, he goes on to explain how that worked.

The chapters alternated point of view between Dr. Impossible and the more-or-less heroine, Fatale. Fatale is a female cyborg recruited to join the Champions, greatest super-team of the moment. Or, more precisely, the New Champions, who are the latest incarnation of the group that defeated Dr. Impossible the last time. But, she’s recruited to help find CoreFire, the World’s Greatest Hero, who’s gone missing. While she and the other New Champions are trying to solve that riddle, Dr. Impossible breaks out of prison and starts on his latest nefarious scheme to dominate the Earth.

Yeah, I know, it all sounds a little over the top, but, honestly? It’s not when you’re reading it. It really reads about like you’d expect the average super-hero comic book to read, if it didn’t have any pictures. It even has all the twists and turns and secret lives that the better comic books have. It even has secret government programs, forgotten past lives, and murky origins. And, not just in the form of Fatale’s past work for the NSA, who also, allegedly, made her.
Naturally, a lot of the time is spent looking closely at the normally hidden life of Dr. Impossible. Actually, based on the title, I’d have almost expected even more of a focus than there was. Besides, villains are almost always more interesting than the heroes anyway.

All in all, Soon I Will Be Invincible was a good book. It delivered everything that it promised and then some. I like Old Man’s War better, but, I would certainly recommend Soon I Will Be Invincible to anyone looking for a good, quick read that’s not the usual fare. Well worth the money I spent.

I read Old Man’s War by John Scalzi this weekend.

I’m still reading Soon I Will Be Invincible, but, Friday, I got a free newsletter from Tor Books and it included a link to Old Man’s War as an ebook.  Naturally, I dropped everything to read it.  And, am I ever glad that I did!
John Scalzi is one of those authors that I’ve been hearing about the past year or two as being one of the new faces to watch in science-fiction, and, after reading Old Man’s War, I can see why.  On the surface, this is an old-fashioned colonization/space-war book in the vein of Heinlein or Niven, but with something else, too, that reminded me of Joe Haldeman at his peak.  This is truly great work and I’m sure I’ll be buying more of Mr. Scalzi’s books very, very shortly.

The story follows one seventy-five-year-old man, John Perry, who’s lost his wife of more than fourty years as he joins the Colonial Defense Forces so that he can get a new lease on life, literally.  Apparently, the only way for citizens of non-Third-World countries to colonize space, and take advantage of some slightly secretive, possibly shady, physical rejuvenation program, is to sign up for the military.  The story follows Perry as he leaves the planet, gets his new body and life, and sees the galaxy as a soldier in the Colonial Defense Force.  From there on out, Mr. Scalzi shows us a well-thought-out universe that, frankly, is rather hostile to humans.  He also gives us a compelling story of mankind’s place in that universe and how we might evolve, live and fight in the future.
He also writes a ripping yarn.

I cannot recommend Old Man’s War enough.  I don’t want to go into too much detail on this, so I don’t ruin it for you, readers, but, if you like science-fiction, you owe it to yourself to get this book and read it.

I used to want to be an Author.

Back when I thought being an Author was about writing and helping other write, that was what I wanted to do. But, it turns out, being an Author only has a passing acquaintance with writing. It’s apparently become a political thing that’s all about belonging to the right organizations and knowing the right people and taking the right positions on things that, frankly, don’t seem to matter that much to me.

See, back in the day, I aspired to meeting the requirements for the SFWA. (That’s the Science-Fiction and Fantasy Writer’s Association.) And, then, of course, joining. Honestly? The requirements aren’t that much for someone who’s really giving it the serious attention it deserves. But, now, I’m starting to question the benefits of membership.
It used to be that being a member meant access to a grievance committee, a legal defense fund, an emergency medical fund, a regular membership journal, and a certain level of legitimacy. Now, well, it seems like membership is more of a hassle. In the past year, there’s been several big, political brouhahas over copyright and its defense. The latest has been about the dissolution and recreation of a committee that, well, doesn’t seem to be working very well. (You can read about that on several blogs, including some blogs of people who served on the committee to fix the broken committee.) So, it seems like a lot of people think it’s about, well, politics.
Now, granted, copyright issues can be very, very important to a writer, but, it seems they’re even more important to an Author. See, back when I thought the pinnacle of existence was being a member of SFWA, I cared more about writing than whether or not I’ve sufficiently protected my work from theoretical “epirates”, or, in the same vein, made it sufficiently free that the Founding Fathers would be pleased. But, what seems to get lost in all this discussion of rights and freedom and copyright and assorted other politics is the whole purpose of writing in the first place.
Apparently, one of the only reasons people see to join the SFWA is for the Emergency Medical Fund. Well, as I’ll post about tomorrow, I think I’d be better off just working a part-time job that has good medical benefits.

I started writing because I wanted to tell good stories to people who wanted to read them.
It doesn’t seem like much, to me. It’s a small ambition. I don’t need to carry a political agenda or have an opinion about an organization to which I do not belong. I just want to write stories that people want to read. It doesn’t seem very ambitious, really, does it?

I think Will Shetterly had it right when he wrote that he’d rather be a writer than an Author. I’ll leave the politics to the professionals and just go try to write a good story instead.

Well, anything to get geeks moving, I guess.

So, is there a Tolkien/Lord of the Rings geek in your life that needs to get out and exercise? No, that’s not a trick question! Then get them to Walk to Rivendell!

As both a literature geek and someone who needs to get exercising, I have to admit, this challenge actually appealed to me a bit. Originally, it was meant for a semi-promotional tie-in to the opening of Return of the King, back in 2003, but there’s no reason not to do it now. Or, as the Boing Boing article suggests, do it in reverse and walk home with the hobbits. Seriously, it’s kind of fun, a motivator to get started doing something healthy, and puts those “ancient” modes of transportation into perspective.
Also, if you’re an iPod owner, you can get the Lord of the Rings Trilogy Soundtrack CDs, then rip them for your walking workouts, to help get you into the spirit of things.

“It was a dark and stormy night…”

This is National Novel Writing Month.
Or, if you’re one of the cool kids, NaNoWriMo. In case you’re new to it, the idea, in a nutshell, is to write a book in thirty days or less. Or finish that monster that you’ve always meant to get around to again. Either way, the goal is a completed novel by the end of the month. Frankly, it seems impossible to me, but the guy who puts this on every year is also the author of No Plot? No Problem!: A Low-Stress, High-Velocity Guide to Writing a Novel in 30 Days, so, maybe, just maybe it’s possible to accomlish.

Not sure how far I’ll get this year, but, well, I might as well give it another try!

I should write this up for my writing blog…

You all are probably familiar with Wikipedia, the most famous wiki. But, there are other wikis out there for various other special interests. As someone who loves science-fiction, this particular wiki caught my attention. It’s called Galaxiki and it’s an open wiki meant to catalog a fictional galaxy. For the “price” of setting up a free account, you can setup and design your own solar system. If you want to support the project, you can “buy” a solar system, which is sets aside a star that only you can edit, and, frankly, is just a cute way of making a donation.
Though there’s not much to see on it, I have a personal Galaxiki home page. Hopefully, more will follow soon!

In any case, the sci-fi geek in me thought this was a cool site, so I thought I’d share.

NaNoWriMo will soon be upon us!

Golly, I feel rather like Linus announcing the immanent arrival of the Great Pumpkin. Well, misunderstood genius aside, as you, dear reader, can tell from my sidebar, NaNoWriMo is fast approaching. In just a few short weeks, hopeful authors will be scribbling away furiously, or typing, or whatever, trying to crank out 50,000 words, or more, in a month, or less. If that shapes up into an actual novel with a discernible plot, then they will have done better than anticipated. But, that’s not even the point.

For many of us who revere the written word, actually producing it ourselves can be a daunting task. We stare at the blank page, paper or electronic, while beads of stress-induced perspiration well up on our collective foreheads and begin that slow, maddening descent down our angst-ridden faces. NaNoWriMo, however, is about producing. Perhaps not in a stress-free environment, but at least producing in great quantity that often frightening of all art forms, the story. It can be about anything, really, as long as we actually write. The product is the goal, not the quality. In fact, NaNoWriMo’s founder, Chris Baty, encourages participants to set aside their internal critic and simply produce without hardly a concern for content or quality at all. Theoretically, it can be a liberating experience, if you can manage it.

As you all may remember, I came no where near the goal last year, but I did manage to produce more writing in a single month than I had all year. Also, I had a major project at work. And, what I thought at the time was just a nasty cough turned out to be, well, cancer. Surely, that’s enough to excuse last year’s dismal performance.
In any case, it’s a new year and I’ll make a new effort. In fact, I even have the shadow of an idea for a plot…
But, I’ll save that for November, when NaNoWriMo actually begins.

Late Friday night, I finished reading Spook Country by William Gibson.

Even though Spook Country follows the trend that Pattern Recognition started, taking Gibson further away from science-fiction, I still loved it. For that matter, I loved Pattern Recognition when I read that. Both books take place in the recent past, and share some characters and invented, Gibsonian organizations. (In fact, while Googling some things in the book, I found two websites that “create” a proto-magazine from both books, called Node.)
Gibson’s latest work takes us through a twisting landscape populated with former spies, current criminal families, GPS-programming gurus, and assorted other mystery-men of action. Not to mention a mysterious shipping container, Cuban folk religion and governmental shennanigans. The result is pure Gibson and highly entertaining.

The MacGuffin, the thing that drives the story, is a mysterious shipping container and its equally mysterious contents. Everyone seems to be looking for this container, or trying to figure out why someone is looking for it. Along the way to finding it, which eventually happens, Gibson takes the reader on a tour of pop culture and through a winding maze of artistic landscapes that are so avant garde that they still seem like low-grade science-fiction. One of the things I like so well about Gibson’s recent work is how true it all rings to me. Now, I’m far from being tapped into the art world, but I am fairly tapped into the tech world and when he describes tech, Gibson is very accurate, very real. Yet, somehow, he doesn’t seem to date himself too much either. That’s a real trick when you’re dealing with tech. And, as always, his characters are just strange enough to seem real, like people I might have met once. One of his two main characters, Hollis Henry, former “singer in an early-nineties cult band” The Curfew who’s trying her hand at journalism, put me in mind of a friend of mine who’s an artist now, but used to be the lead singer in a punk band called Culturcide. And, well, I’ve known assorted esoteric hackers of all stripes, not to mention former Special Forces guys, and I’ve even met a former CIA field agent, who was a friend of my father’s.

Oh, and, eventually, Gibson does reveal what’s in the shipping container, but you’ll have to read the book to find out what it is.