ChessieCon

We spent the Friday through Sunday noon after Thanksgiving at ChessieCon in Timonium (just north of Baltimore). I'm thankful for its location, so that we can drive there and back easily; if it required a flight or a long drive, we probably wouldn't go on a holiday weekend. The author guest of honor was Sarah Pinsker, and the musical guest was S. J. Tucker. In addition to her concert, I attended performances by Cade Tinney (who sang a song from the STEVEN UNIVERSE animated series with heart-wrenching beauty) and filk veteran Roberta Rogow. Highly impressed with Roberta Rogow's historical and SF filk, I bought two of her albums in the dealers' room. I especially like her "Schindler's List." And this piece, which she always closes with:

Fact and Fiction

I appeared on two panels, about "The Care and Feeding of Critique Groups" and STEVEN UNIVERSE. My contribution to the discussion of critique groups came from belonging to an online group of around fifteen people, who interact by e-mail. Weekly critique slots are available, and members who want feedback can send their work to the group after reserving a slot. In practice, only a few either submit or critique regularly; many of the fifteen or sixteen members seldom participate, and there's no requirement or penalty. The typical experience described by other panelists was more often with face-to-face groups of fewer people. We talked about the logistics of organizing a critique group, how to give useful feedback, and the importance of the authors in a group being at about the same level of development.

If you haven't watched the STEVEN UNIVERSE series, you'd be amazed at the depth of emotion embodied in what looks, at first glance, like a humorous superhero cartoon for kids. Steven is fourteen-year-old boy (who looks younger, and there's a plot reason why) living with the Crystal Gems, three feminine-identified aliens who fought with Steven's no-longer-present mother in a long-ago rebellion against the Homeworld Gems, who intended to use Earth as an incubator (thereby destroying all life on the planet). Steven is half Gem and half human. His human father remains involved in his life, but it's the Gems who have to protect Steven and teach him to use his nascent powers. They live in Beach City in the state of Delmarva; their home is an alternate version of Earth, the prehistoric Gem War apparently having knocked the planet's history off the course our primary world followed. The panel naturally spent a lot of time on gender issues, a central focus of the show, but there was much more to discuss. One of the series' dominant themes is reconciliation and redemption. We decided Steven's main "superpower" is empathy. Though still a child and far from perfect, he tries very hard to heal even the most unprepossessing "monsters." The very cartoonish art style belies the underlying seriousness of this animated Intimate Adventure program, so its complexities sneak up on the viewer. Do give it a try. The individual episodes are only about twelve minutes long after the commercials are stripped off. Be warned of "continuity lockout" after the first few episodes; the story really needs to be viewed in order.

My husband, Les, also appeared on two panels, one on submarines in science fiction and one on the phenomenon of high-tech magic, fantasy with scientific underpinnings or science so advanced it looks like magic. We attended another panel on submarines, a slide show presentation on real underwater craft of the nineteenth century (and a bit about Jules Verne's Nautilus). One session that delved particularly deeply into its topic tackled the challenge of creating realistic characters with PTSD. There was also a panel on "Writing Outside the Lines," about constructing characters unlike oneself (in gender, race, etc.), a complex and contentious issue.

Les and I participated in the group author signing and had fun talking to people, even though we didn't sell any copies of our books.

ChessieCon is highly book-oriented with lots of sessions slanted toward writers. It also has a full music track. If you live in or near Maryland, do consider joining us some year.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Becoming Alien

At ICFA, I picked up an old issue of ANALOG from the freebie table. It included a review of BECOMING ALIEN (1988), by Rebecca Ore. Thanks to the miracle of the Internet, it was easy to find secondhand copies of this paperback. It's an unusual, thought-provoking first contact story.

As the novel begins, the narrator, Tom, lives with his drug-manufacturing older brother, Warren, in rural Virginia. When a spaceship crashes nearby, Tom rescues the sole survivor, with his brother's grudging consent. The alien, whom Tom calls "Alpha," is essentially a quasi-humanoid, marsupial bat who lives mostly on blood and milk. (There's no vampire activity in the book, though.) Although unable to learn each other's languages, the two of them become friends of a sort and develop a crude form of communication. Unfortunately, Warren remains suspicious of Alpha and fearful that the alien's people will show up. He eventually shoots and more-or-less accidentally kills Alpha. When Tom is eighteen, the aliens do land in search of their lost comrades. By then, Warren has been imprisoned for drug-dealing and, because he raves about aliens, declared criminally insane. Learning that the dead ET wanted Tom to take his place as a cadet at their Federation's Academy, to be trained as a translator and diplomat, the visitors offer Tom that position. The alternative is to have his memory wiped, since civilized beings (unlike the people of Earth) don't kill sapients. Having nothing left for him at home, he agrees to go. At this point, about one-sixth of the way through the book, the real adventure begins.

In addition to the species evolved from bats, Tom finds himself surrounded mainly by birdlike and bearlike people. He also meets a few races outwardly similar to Earth humans. To all of them, he's a "primitive" and probably a xenophobe, judging from the way aliens are depicted in Earth media. As the title of the novel implies, in this environment HE is the alien. He discovers that to be considered civilized, he has to learn Karst, the lingua franca of the Federation. If he refuses or proves incapable, he'll be confined to a reservation with other primitives. So of course he accepts the surgical implants that enable him to learn the language. The process is fast but not automatic or instantaneous; he still has to study, a detail that feels more realistic than the universal translator or instant language mastery often seen in film and fiction. He finds it very disturbing when, early in the procedure, his ability to speak English has to be suppressed for a while. Although we're given almost no Karst vocabulary, the text conveys the impression of an alien language by showing alternate or parenthetical translations for many of the words in sentences that represent Karst dialogue.

Tom gets a new name, Red Clay, and has to learn new customs and body language. Among the bat people, for instance, nodding signifies anger. Beyond cultural variations like those he might find on Earth, different species perceive the universe through different senses, such as the bat people's perception of ultrasound and polarized light. Also, the bat folk bond by singing into each other's throats. Tom's thrill at traveling among the stars and meeting exotic creatures is soon overshadowed by the disorientation of total strangeness. His adjustment difficulties go deeper than getting used to odd furniture, clothing, and food. (How a species can get nourishment from plants or animals that evolved on a different planet is finessed without explanation, as in most SF.) Early in his adjustment, he feels physically sick at the sight of a particular ET. He reflects at one point, "How do dogs stand it, that never see another dog all their lives? I felt like a smart puppy dragged into a world of super-intelligent bats and bears." His mentors worry that he might "xenofreak," a possibility that feels very real. Tom manages to resist falling into that irrational behavior, but a human-appearing female he meets does succumb, failing her orientation. She views all the aliens as "monsters," including Tom despite his outward similarity to her. Later, a biologically fully human female is repelled by his body hair and beard growth. And the aliens aren't totally free of xenophobia among themselves. Avian sapients refer to mammals as "hairy lactating monsters." Moreover, the delicate issue of different species smelling "wrong" to each other is directly confronted. I've never come across another work of fiction that focuses so intensely and believably on the problems a human immigrant would have with fitting into a society of even the most intelligent and benign aliens. Yet he does form close friendships with his bird roommate and a few of the bat people.

The last lines of the book declare, "So we're all Mind together? I don't know if it is true, but I can believe it right now." This novel vividly portrays how hard it would be to maintain the ideal of IDIC while struggling with deep-rooted instincts. There's no romance in this story (except for a hint near the end) but plenty of Intimate Adventure.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Patriotism and Robert A. Heinlein

A version of this was submitted this week to
The Heinlein Centennial Reader A Call for Articles and Essays
about Heinlein's Life & Work
http://www.heinleinsociety.org/

I'll be going to the Robert Heinlein Centennial convention in
Kansas City over the July 7, 2007 weekend. They've put me on 6
panels in two days. So I've been preparing some handouts and
thinking about the topics.

Meanwhile, one of the Sime~Gen fans (Midge Baker) announced
she's a Robert Heinlein fan -- imagine that -- and gave me a URL
I'd like to share with you.

It is ever so gratifying to discover that some of my all time
favorite authors have fans who also like Sime~Gen and my other
work. And that happens quite a lot. Maybe I've done something
right.

You may note that my first novel, a Sime~Gen novel titled House
of Zeor which first came out from Doubleday in hardcover then
had numerous mass market paperback and translation reprints,
plus an Omnibus reprint, was dedicated to Robert Heinlein.

After a lifetime of reading his work, I first met Robert at the
World Science Fiction Convention in Kansas City in 1976 when I
was on an autographing tour for my non-fiction book Star Trek
Lives! about why fans like Star Trek. They held the first
Worldcon Blood Drive at that convention, and donating blood was
the only way to get RAH's autograph.

As it happened, I was disqualified from blood donation at the
time, but he built in a dodge to get around the requirement. If
you stood in line at the Bloodmobile, and were turned down, you
got a heart-pin that was your ticket to stand in line at the
autographing.

So I did both stand-in-lines (long ones) and got my heart-pin
which I still wear, and finally got to the desk where he was
signing books. Instead of asking for his autograph, I gave him
House of Zeor autographed to him by me.

He later called me and made some very encouraging remarks. So I
sent him my second novel, Unto Zeor, Forever and he called me
again asking if I was a medical doctor (which I'm not) because
I'd portrayed the essence of that profession with remarkable
realism.

Later still, he invited me and my family to visit him in his
home, a visit where my children (just the right age) got
autographed copies of his juveniles which they treasure to this
day.

There's a reason for that dedication of my first novel -- and it
wasn't to get an invitation to Robert Heinlein's house.
Sime~Gen and almost all of my work falls into the category I've
named Intimate Adventure
http://www.simegen.com/jl/intimateadventure.html
for more detail.

Romance and Intimacy (which aren't necessarily the same thing)
are both about Relationship -- about me vs. other with the focus
on Other.

Romance and Intimacy both create the binding force that holds
society and civilization together -- the bonds between
individuals which then extend to children, ancestors, extended
family, tribe, city, nation, etc.

It is this fundamental binding force of civilization that Robert
Heinlein writes about with such moving conviction that it became
one of the core drivers of my own fiction.

I became a science fiction writer very much because of Robert A.
Heinlein's vision of what humanity could and should be -- our
highest calling -- the counter entropic force in the universe,
the organizing force.

I first discovered his novels in the library in the early 1950's
-- or more accurately, my mother discovered them for even his
juveniles were shelved not in the children's library but in the
adult library to which I didn't qualify for a card. So my
mother sneaked me books way above my grade level. So I
did learn everything I needed to know about life from those
early juveniles.

One of the most important things I learned was the reason for
Patriotism and for Good Manners in any society containing
humans.

Here's the URL where you can find Robert A. Heinlein's speech on
the nature of Patriotism on Jerry Pournelle's website (which is
worth exploring).

http://www.jerrypournelle.com/archives2/archives2mail/mail212.html#RAH

That reason is survival. Pure and simple. Human societies that
fail to engender patriotism and good manners become extinct.
Heinlein held that "women and children first" = Patriotism.
That no society can survive if it doesn't reproduce. In that
endeavor males are expendable; women and children are not.
It's not that women CAN'T fight -- it's that society can't
afford it. If it comes down to a woman defending her children,
the warriors have failed. (but the attacker is going to be very
very sorry!)

In Sime~Gen, the channels don't fight because the Householding
that doesn't put "channels & Donors first" doesn't survive, even
though the channels are the most powerful combatants.
Heinlein had a reverence and respect for the POWER of womanhood
that went bone marrow deep - beyond words.

Heinlein's vision of the reason why viable human societies
produce Warriors is very deeply ingrained in my concept of
"Intimate Adventure."

Intimate Adventure replaces the "action" in Action/Adventure
with Intimacy -- so it becomes Intimate/Adventure.
In Intimate Adventure the Warrior's courage is needed on the
field of Intimacy, as well as the field of physical battle.
The Warrior's ability to give wholly of himself in service of
the Group -- to hold nothing back -- is rooted in personal bonds
of all kinds. The first personal bond that begins this process
is infant to care-giver (child to mother).

Through life, an individual forms hundreds of such bonds with
varying degrees of Intimacy -- and eventually, finds a mate and
raises children.

Romance is that activated state just prior to forming a mating
bond -- and the process of forming that bond.

What attracts a woman to any man is that man's untapped ability
to form such a bond at the deepest, most intimate level -- the
level where "what does she see in him?" and "what does he see in
her?" are clear and self-evident.

Women seek Men who will put them first in "women and children
first" -- a man who will stand between danger and the survival
of the group.

That ability to stand between danger and the survival of the
group is based on that network of bonds formed with individuals
of the group, the ancestors' sacrifices, and the vision of the
accomplishments of the progeny. So deeply steeped in Heinlein's work,
I wrote House of Zeor to portray a "Group" that would be worthy
of the kind of Patriotic Warrior Heinlein wrote about, the
Householdings that exist to prevent the extinction of the human species.

Robert Heinlein advocated "Pay It Forward" -- so I'm paying his
legacy forward by teaching the Intimate Adventure style of
writing on simegen.com.


Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.simegen.com/jl/

Raine-ing Praises (on Magic Lost, Trouble Found)

I try to compete with Rowena Cherry's unparalled abilities for puns and turns of phrase and always feel I fall short (could be the differences in our heights as well...).

Be that as it may, Raine-ing Praises today is all about Raine Benares. She is a fictional character in Lisa Shearin's MAGIC LOST, TROUBLE FOUND, a rip-roaring good fantasy novel that's also Shearin's debut book:

My name is Raine Benares. I'm a seeker. The people who hire me are usually happy when I find things. But some things are better left unfound...

The book has elves, it has goblins, it has sorcerers and sorceresses (sorceri?). It has smugglers and thieves and magic spells. It even has a strong romantic subplot--yay!

Not only is the book a terrific fun read, but Shearin's query letter to literary agent Kristin Nelson has obtained almost cult-status, as it's been quoted as one of the best queries around:

http://pubrants.blogspot.com/2006/08/queriesan-inside-scoop-lisa-shearins.html

What if you suddenly have a largely unknown, potentially unlimited power? What if that power just might eat your soul for breakfast, lunch and dinner? What if every magical mobster and sicko sorcerer in town wants that power? And what if you can't get rid of it?

I had the pleasure of reading MAGIC LOST in ARC (Advanced Review Copy) form months back. I've been anxiously awaiting its release ever since so I could tell you all about it. Go buy this book. It's fun, fast-paced, kick-ass, snarky, beautifully written and exciting. And there's a sequel.

What this has to do with alien romances and what this has to do with exploring my recent theme of love across (or did I say beyond?) boundaries, is that MAGIC LOST is populated by every non-human paranormal being you could think of. How they relate-or don't--what their issues are, what their prejudices are, and what their loves, fears and failing are become underlying themes in this book.

Now, of course, you can read it just for fun. I highly recommend reading just for fun because it's not one of those angst-y, esoteric doom-and-gloom speculative fiction tomes that preach and lecture and make you feel miserable at book's end. It's a freakin' fun book. But the characters and their relationships form a huge part of the book's engine. If you want to see Intimate Adventure at work, you'll see it here. I hope you'll enjoy it as much as I have.


~Linnea


PS - FYI, I've reworked my website and added some new things to the Intergalactic Bar & Grille-including a chance to win free t-shirts! Check out my revamped website: www.linneasinclair.com

Intimate Adventure

Linnea defined Intimate Adventure very well:

You'll find my view at
http://www.simegen.com/jl/intimateadventure.html

Linnea Sinclaire wrote MAY 21 2007:
------------
What does it take to push beyond those boundaries? What does it take to tell your parents, your village, your society to take a hike, get lost, leave me alone and let me love? What does it take to risk it all, to throw away everything that has heretofore defined you as a person? What does it take to open your heart, fully expecting rejection?

What kind of person is that?
-----------------
That is a hero on the road to Intimate Adventure, that's what kind of person that is.
It takes more courage to be emotionally honest (especially with yourself about WHO and maybe WHAT you are) than it does to be physically honest -- to admit mistakes, wrong-doing, or bad judgement, or to impose your idea of right upon others by your mighty sword.
--------------
Kimber An commented on Linnea's blog entry of Monday May 21, 2007:

I wondered what would drive a girl to do something she knows will get her killed if she's caught? My thought is that her home life must be so devoid of love and joy that when she finds it somewhere else, she grabs it for all she's worth. All human beings need love.

I wondered why would it be the death penalty for a girl to fall in love with someone? My thought on that is that a girl represents an unused sexual object. Men are terrified of being rejected by those they want to have sex with. Most men develop the courage to cope. In some societies and individuals, they don't. Rather than risk rejection, the girl's basic human right to choose her own sexual partner is taken from her. Like a non-sentient animal, she's not allowed control over her own body. To say nothing of her heart. This is rape, but some people dress it up in a religion or whatever.

---------------------

Kimber An has the makings of a field-changing author! (not just writer; AUTHOR).

This is the kind of thinking we all need to be doing on so many levels.

Deep inside what Kimber An has said here lies the key to World Peace.

And that really has nothing whatever to do with sexuality or choosing a mate. It has to do with taking an idea (such as Linnea tossed out for discussion) and turning it over, inside out, analyzing Linnea's idea and synthesizing it with other bits acquired elsewhere, to create another idea.

Science Fiction is the Literature of Ideas.

Science is nothing more than the organization of knowledge that's been verified by cross-checking (peer review journals being an example). Ideas can't just sit there. They get organized, rearranged, strangely juxtaposed, and turned upside down.

Fiction is all about finding the invisible shape of things that lies within the interlaced and overlapping fog of tiny ideas and facts. We swim in a sea of trivia, bits and pieces and shards and pebbles of nothing much all clumped around and thus hiding nuggets of Infinite Joy.

The writer's job is to pare away the dross and expose that underlying, intrinsic, meaningful pattern of true joy. That is, generally speaking, what art is for, what artists do.

The universe is such that the bits of dull matter and negative energies (which includes most acts people tag as evil) we swim in are attracted to the bright Joy, clump around Joy, cling to it and disguise it -- not destroy, disguise. As a result, it's very easy to live your life convinced the world is nothing but angst, boredom, overbearing men, and pointless toil because that's what you see on the surface.

It takes the penetrating gaze of the mystic to spot the hidden Joys. And then it takes the Artist to portray that Hidden Joy emerging from hiding in such a way that ordinary people can go out and about their lives and actually SEE Joy they never knew was there.

From there, it's possible for the oridinary person to internalize and experience that Joy for themselves.

That's why we read Romance Novels -- in any sub-genre. We know that our lives can be changed if we can SEE what's really there rather than the husks of dullness and negativity accreted around our joys.

Finding the right mate is only one of those many Joys in life, but let's look a little closer at what Kimber An has said.

Now why would a girl (woman even, maybe) be willing to risk her very life for something different than she has right now? How terrible does it have to be for you to prefer death to continuing?

That might be the wrong question.

It isn't how bad conditions are here and now that drives people to risk death. It's how GOOD they think it MIGHT (fantasy-romance?) be elsewhere.

Look at the Mexican and Hispanic illegal immigrants -- they come seeking a BETTER life, not fleeing the life they have. If the USA weren't their northern neighbor, dangling all that forbidden fruit before them on TV signals, would they be flooding north?

But look at Iraq - it's bleeding population to every surrounding country, people walking out with what they can carry, desperate for a place to live that isn't exploding all the time.

But though they are refugees, they aren't moving because conditions are horrid where they are.

They are moving because they believe conditions are better WHERE THEY ARE GOING.

If the other countries were in the same or worse shape, they wouldn't move.

They are trying to "get away from" horrid conditions -- and that means being able to imagine that conditions are better where they are going. Look at all those still sitting in the mud. They're the ones who can't imagine conditions are better elsewhere.

Look at those who are sticking it out in Iraq, (likewise the Balkans, Northern Ireland, various African countries, Darfur comes to mind). Horrid conditions don't make them move. Why? Things will get better here by and by, and then things will be horrid "there" (wherever there might be) eventually. Home is always better. For some people.

Some people can imagine the Joy hidden within the layers of angst in their current position. Sometimes that Joy isn't really there -- but people are more motivated by imagination than by facts.

People are more sensitive to LURES than to GOADS.

It's a psychological principle. You get people to alter behavior faster by offering rewards, not punishments. Even works with dogs.

Confidence Operators use that principle.

So women denied the right to choose their own mate won't leave, won't murder the power-mad whip-wielder, won't murder the unwanted husband or legally licensed rapist, and won't strike against the system.

Why? Because conditions are horrid in the marriage system? No. Because they can't see that it's BETTER anywhere else, or how any other system might work better. "All men are the same."

However, because of TV, photos, the internet, tourist travel, telephone etc. etc., women the world over are being exposed to other ways of looking at the problem, other solutions, places where things work better, where they can imagine it's better, where they can imagine Joy exposed to their sight.

And so the world is changing. That change is causing a backlash against "Western Civilization." There are those who are striking out hard against freedom to choose, even to choose wrongly.

But make no mistake. In the animal -- birds, squirrels, dogs even -- it's always the female who gets to choose the mate.

Just watch in your yard or in the park at this time of year and you'll see female birds rejecting randy males, just flittering away before they can mount. And the poor male has to sit there and watch her fly away. (saw this the other day and felt so sorry for that piteously drooping male bird -- then he went after a different female.)

Human civilization will swing back to accomodate this pattern because it's inherent.

So as SF writers, we should be wondering what would happen if some Alien Species landed on the UN Plaza and offered women something BETTER. What if so many women left Earth that it put the species in danger?

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

http://www.simegen.com/jl/