Pregnant Males

Do you follow THE ORVILLE? This TV series begins as an affectionate parody of STAR TREK (even the uniforms look similar) but—as far as I can tell from reading about it and watching the first few episodes—gradually becomes more serious. One alien officer, who lives on board with his mate, belongs to an all-male species. In the second episode, he lays an egg, which hatches in the third episode. I'm not sure why he refuses to take a break from brooding the egg; doesn't his mate help? And what about an artificial incubator? Anyway, the baby turns out to be female, a rare abnormality in this species, for which the standard remedy is an immediate sex-change operation. The serious ramifications of this problem mesh incongruously with the premise of an all-male, oviparous species, which the writers apparently introduced in accordance with what the TV Tropes site calls "the Rule of Funny." In fact, an all-male species that reproduces by itself couldn't exist. The sex that produces ova is, by definition, female. To lay eggs, people of the species portrayed in THE ORVILLE would have to be either female (reproducing by parthenogenesis) or hermaphroditic. Members of an all-male species would have to breed with females of some closely related species (as some all-female types of fish can be fertilized by males of different but not too dissimilar species).

The vintage sitcom MORK AND MINDY gets away with the pregnant alien male motif by presenting it in a funny context with no attempt at a biological rationale. Mork not only becomes pregnant, he gives birth to a "baby" who looks like an old man and, conforming to the life cycle of Mork's species, ages backward.

Octavia Butler described her classic work "Bloodchild" as her "pregnant man story." Technically, the human men don't get pregnant, though. They serve as hosts for the eggs of the centipede-like aliens who've allowed the Terran colonists to settle on their planet. When the larvae hatch, the mother removes them from the host's body before they start to eat their way out—usually.

The TV program ALIEN NATION offers a serious portrayal of how a seahorse-like humanoid male pregnancy could work. The Newcomer aliens have three sexes, including a variant type of male who penetrates the female to catalyze her fertility in some unspecified process before the father inseminates her in the "usual" way. The embryo begins to develop in the female's uterus. Part-way through the pregnancy, the fetus is transferred (in a pool of water) from the female to the male, where it grows in a pouch on the man's abdomen. The baby comes out when the pouch splits open in the course of labor.

Here's a page of speculation about how a single-sex species (female) could work in terms of Earth biology:

Single-Sex Species

In Joanna Russ's classic story "When It Changed," members of the all-female population reproduce by combining ova from two different women.

In isogamy, displayed by some life-forms such as algae and fungi, all gametes have the same size and morphology and so can be considered of the "same sex," which can't technically be labeled either male or female:

Isogamy

Some Earth organisms switch reproductive methods in alternate generations between sexual and asexual reproduction (e.g., budding).

The heroine of Megan Lindholm's CLOVEN HOOVES falls in love with a satyr she thinks of as Pan. This highly unusual novel starts out as, apparently, fantasy, in which at first we can't even be sure the paranormal encounters are happening outside the heroine's mind. Eventually, however, the story becomes SF, when the satyr reveals that he belongs to an all-male species whose members reproduce by implanting clones of themselves into human women through sexual intercourse. Thus, when the heroine gives birth to her satyr baby son, he isn't biologically related to her at all.

The occasional birth of females among the alien race on THE ORVILLE suggests a possibility for the evolution of their alleged all-male species. Maybe they once reproduced alternately sexually (through ordinary mating between male and female) and asexually (by cloning). Maybe some genetic disorder caused the conception of females to cease except in rare cases. Asexual reproduction became the only remaining viable means of perpetuating the species and came to be considered the only normal way. So when the male character in that series lays an egg, he's producing a clone of himself.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Reviews 46 - The Private Eye Genre Progresses

Reviews 46

The Private Eye Genre Progresses 

Reviews have not been indexed, but you may find most of these posts by searching this blog for keyword Review.

In Reviews 45, we looked at the 14 book series, DESTROYERMEN by Taylor Anderson -- an exercise in the technology of weaponry and strategy and tactics of global warfare.  It has a few engrossing characters, and a couple of solidly developed Relationships -- but the plot has nothing much to do with who these people are or what they think about each other.  Romance fans will find little of interest, and a lot of boring wordage in huge blocks of exposition.

For that very reason, Romance writers need to study why Destroyermen is such a huge Best Seller in its genre.

Today, we'll look at a related problem for Science Fiction Romance writers -- the Private Eye, or Private Investigator (gumshoe) genre.

Military Science Fiction, and alternate Universes, time-travel Science Fiction is an all-time favorite of mine.  But I also thrill to a good Detective novel, Police Procedural, and anti-procedural (the rogue private eye who solves the crime but ruins the court case).

The Private Investigator novel hinges and two elements -- 1) the personality of the PI Character, 2) the intricate puzzle of the Mystery to be solved.

How-done-it; Who-done-it -- every subgenera or mystery is intimately related to Science Fiction in that Science is all about solving the mysteries of existence, how things work, and whether it makes a difference who you are.

Both mystery and Science Fiction are about learning something that will let you understand what is really going on.

Both mystery and Science Fiction are about posing the question in a way that will let you solve the problem, and understand what is happening.

Mystery is about "who-done-it" in that Mystery focuses on a criminal who made something strange happen, and forced the investigator to pose questions to answer.

The TV Series NCIS is an excellent example of detailed Characterization, with characters grouped into a cooperative team, an ensemble TV Series.  Netflix, CBS All Access

https://www.amazon.com/Destinys-Child/dp/B07GJX1VZ2/

Which Character is the lead character for you, your MC, depends on what you think is important in life in the world.  All the Characters have ever-changing love-interests (or at least sex), but each brings a different expertise to question formulation.

For science fiction romance writers, Abby, the forensics specialist (fantasy character in that she does the work of a wide-array of different specialists), or possibly Ducky, the pathologist.

Finding out what the strange, oddball, components of the clues really are is a big part of unraveling a mystery.  Then the field people have to go talk to, interrogate, and background check the people involved, and then use Emotional Intelligence (in later episodes, Ducky becomes their profiler) to formulate questions about motives.

Watching this series is painless, breezy, and pretty mindless, as they repeat the same mysteries endlessly.  From season to season, they find ways to put each member of the team in jeopardy -- even threatened with being held to account for breaking rules.

Romance Genre is about this exact same mystery-solving process but applied to the Other -- the Love At First Sight, or the Love Hidden In Improbable Person.  Sometimes love surfaces as hate-at-first-sight, and that is a great mystery to solve.

So science, and romance, are warp and woof of the same cloth.  It is all Mystery.

Today, we have the advent of the Cozy Mystery -- revolving around ongoing, intimate relationships (which may or may not be romantic or sexual), with less blood on the floors, violence, threat to life-and-limb, and more inquisitive use of Emotional Intelligence.

To solve the mystery of how a crime was pulled off, a Private Investigator has to use tools that are a) unavailable to law enforcement, and b) available to the average reader of the genre.

In other words, the PI is the MacGyver of the Mystery Genre - the amateur who repurposes everyday tools to make things happen that the reader wants to see happen.

In Romance, the reader wants to see the Couple actually resolve their conflicts and get together as a team.

In Reviews 45, we noted how the Destroyermen novels slide through the gory details of forming improbable alliances among humans and non-humans.  This is the wish-fulfillment fantasy element used "off the nose" to help deliver the payload of WINNING to the military science fiction fan.

Then there is the PI, the Private Eye, who is a loner -- like the soldier of fortune.  Not a team player.  Not facile at forming relationships.  In the TV Series, NCIS, we have our Gunny, Gibbs-the-team-leader who does not want a promotion.  He has the knack of knowing everything, and being where he is needed -- these are the Talents of the Gunnery Sergeant in Military Science Fiction.

A Sergeant is a bright, talented, well schooled enlisted officer -- not a college grad, usually. College grads are commissioned officers.

Gibbs has been married, widowed, and multiply divorced -- he has found a spot in life that suits him fine, but still takes deep interest in women.

So to make the wide, TV audience who loves Procedurals (NCIS has to make court-cases, not just fix things as a Superhero Vigilante might), find NCIS a go-to-favorite, they had to explore and develop the Characters and play each Character for all the possible Relationships in their lives.

Likewise, to create an ongoing, long-series PI Character for a Best Selling Series, you have to take the readership into account.  A TV Series is expensive and thus has to appeal to a broader audience than a book, which is pretty cheap to publish relative to any video presentation.

One wonderful example of the narrow focus, PI Series parallel to Destroyermen, is DEV HASKELL - PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR.

The Dev Haskell series is par-boiled, not hard-boiled, PI genre.  There is a lot of physical threat, a lot of fist-beatings, shootings, injuries, blood on the floor, gangsters who play for keeps, Crime Bosses to be reckoned with, and a loner PI, Dev Haskell, who shares a hole-in-the-wall office with a down-at-the-heels lawyer.

The Characterization is colorful, but just stereotyped enough to be worth studying for genre structure.

Dev Haskell is an "anthology series" -- like Darkover or Star Trek -- which can be read in any order.  But it's more fun in published order.

It is also easy to drop into the series without having read books set previously in the timeline.

So to complete the genre study of how the Private Eye genre is converging via Cozy Mystery toward the Science Fiction Romance Genre, download (or free on KindleUnlimited) the boxed set of books 8-14 of Dev Haskell - Private Investigator by Mike Faricy

https://www.amazon.com/Dev-Haskell-Box-Set-8-14-ebook/dp/B07FN3HSW6/

These are very short novels, each solving a mystery, but getting the PI embroiled in the underworld politics of his city.  In many ways, you will find similarities to Jim Butcher's Dresden Files Series (another favorite of mine!), keeping in mind it was briefly a TV Series, has graphic novels, comics, and many fans.


https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00O3HD47C/ref=series_rw_dp_sw

Note what dimension of reality these very best selling series leave out -- solve the mystery of why Romance is left OUT of these very best, best sellers, why the Characters bounce randomly from relationship to relationship.  It's a mystery.  Solve it.  Then write the solution as a Romance.

Do it well, find a good marketer for it, and you might found a new Genre.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Malice Actually

In a recent article for vox dot com, Constance Grady wrote that, "In book publishing, the onus for fact-checking is on the author. That creates problems."

https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/1/15/18182634/jill-abramson-merchants-of-truth-fact-checking-controversy

Scandal ensued.

Compare the fact-checking problems there, with the "fact checking" issues discussed by legal bloggers
Alan L. Friel,  Linda A. Goldstein,  Amy Ralph Mudge and Randal M. Shaheen  writing for the law firm Baker & Hostetler LLP  about Olivia de Havilland's unsuccessful complaint about a mini-series that allegedly deliberately portrayed Olivia de Havilland as the kind of person Olivia de Havilland despised and spent a professional life-time NOT being.

https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=610d48da-8b16-47e9-9b91-0043c40d182a&utm_source=lexology+daily+newsfeed&utm_medium=html+email+-+body+-+general+section&utm_campaign=lexology+subscriber+daily+feed&utm_content=lexology+daily+newsfeed+2019-01-31&utm_term=

The problem with writing in America is that authors are legally responsible for what they write.

The problem with being written about in America is that libel laws are often trumped by the First Amendment, and would-be plaintiffs who are public figures have to be able to prove "actual malice" on the part of the author.

Those who sympathize with creators of "historical dramas", might argue that it is dramatically necessary to turn a real, living public figure into a scandal monger or whatever else advances the plot for the sake of telling the story succinctly and with as few characters as possible.

Those who have more European attitudes to respect for the feelings and reputations of historical and public figures --and historical accuracy-- might deplore authorial laziness and lack of creativity in resorting to character assassination, when they could have added a fictional villainess.

 The Kelly Warner legal blog has an eye-opener of an explanation of  DEFAMATION.in the United States.

http://kellywarnerlaw.com/us-defamation-laws/

Bookmark this, because different States have different statutes about libel and defamation, and Kelly Warner has links to every one of them.

Note also, not only are politicians, celebrities, authors, sports figures etc "public figures", but teachers are, too.

Kelly Warner also has a highly alarming and entertaining article explaining ACTUAL MALICE.

http://kellywarnerlaw.com/what-is-actual-malice/

However, since authors also advertise, and as the Baker & Hostetler LLP lawyers point out, advertisers cannot hide behind creative license and freedom of expression if they stretch the truth when advertising.

Gonzago E. Mon, writing for Kelley Drye and Warren LLP discusses the "Dumpster Fyre of Advertising Issues";

https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=bb3ce673-3a21-4011-967b-4047176efbbf

The most important take-away for authors  from this cluster of issues may be that  social media postings --of a promotional nature-- are subject to advertising laws, so must be truthful.  And not malicious..

All the best,
Rowena Cherry

Yokai Among Us

If you're looking for unusual, non-European creatures to use as fictional characters, check out the yokai of Japan. This word, often translated "demon," is a broad term covering all sorts of spirits and supernatural beings, not only malevolent, scary entities but also mischievous and benevolent ones. In the animistic world-view of traditional Japanese culture, almost anything can be a spirit or become imbued with one. Human-made inanimate objects a century or more older can become animated (tsukumogami). If you don't treat your personal possessions with respect, they may come to life and take revenge. There are yokai animals, plants, natural phenomena, and personifications of abstract qualities. There's a yokai that looks like a walking paper umbrella and another that blocks travelers' paths in the form of a wall. There's even one that flips your pillow in the night. One of my favorites, the akaname, exists for the sole purpose of cleaning bathrooms. In some versions, failing to keep your bathroom clean will incur its wrath. The shiro uneri is an overused dishtowel, reduced to a dirty rag, that comes to life and attacks servants. Both of these legends, obviously, act as cautionary tales to warn against neglectful housekeeping. There are also legends of more conventionally frightening spirits, such as the ghosts of women who've died in childbirth and demonic wolves that chase people on lonely roads. Japanese folklore is highly eclectic, including not only yokai from centuries-old tradition but also monsters from urban legends that have sprung up within recent decades and even individual writers' original creations incorporated into popular lore. If we lived in the universe of this belief system, we'd have yokai thronging around us almost everywhere.

Some of the best-known creatures often found in fiction, anime, and manga: Kappa, water monsters, often depicted as resembling turtles, that try to drag victims under and drown or devour them; kappa love cucumbers, and you can defeat them by tricking them into spilling water from the bowl-shaped depressions on their heads. Kitsune, which literally means "fox" but also refers to supernatural fox spirits, seductive and often very powerful. Tanuki, likewise a real animal, the "raccoon dog," and also supernatural shapeshifting tanuki with trickster habits. Tengu, crow-like humanoids sometimes rumored to spirit people away.

Here's the general Wikipedia page about yokai:

Yokai

A Wikipedia list of many different yokai and other creatures from Japanese folklore:

Legendary Creatures from Japan

And here's a comprehensive, illustrated website on the subject:

Yokai.com

For an informative, lively, in-depth reference work, see THE BOOK OF YOKAI, by Michael Dylan Foster.

The Studio Ghibli animated movie SPIRITED AWAY, brought to the U.S. market by Disney, showcases a wide variety of yokai.

My recently published light paranormal romance novella, "Yokai Magic," features a talking spirit cat in a contemporary American setting, along with a small menagerie of other yokai:

Yokai Magic

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Reviews 45 - Military Science Fiction and Mystery Genre

Reviews 45

Military Science Fiction and Mystery Genre

by

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Reviews have not been indexed yet, but I talk about many books within the general writing craft discussions, examples of good (and not so good) techniques.

Technique is also genre-specific, so now let's look at some excellent books, series that are examples of a very focused, disciplined technique.

I've discussed Taylor Anderson's Destroyermen Series many times so some of you have thought about this one before.  Destroyermen has a couple of love stories, an awareness of why men fight wars.  The theme is that men fight wars to protect family, to establish safe places to raise children -- but in Taylor Anderson's Alternate Universe planet-earth-with-odd-aliens (some not human; some humans from other time-lines), the women fight, too.

The Destroyermen of the series title are from something closely resembling the reader's Earth, WWII, South Pacific Theater.  Nevertheless, without serious objection, without sexual harassment, these Destroy Crewmen and Officers, simply accept women as combatants.

The focus love-story is between a head Nurse, a woman with grit and determination not cultivated by our WWII era culture, and an officer.

In the novel, River of Bones (Book 13),

she's still pregnant, and aboard ships of war being in active combat.  The situation could happen only in an alternate universe.

Very few words in Devil's Due (Book 12), and in River of Bones,  are devoted to the love relationship that created the pregnancy.  All the Characters the point-of-view shifts among (and there are many) are wholly focused on fighting to exterminate an Enemy.

The Enemy (not human) starts out as having the mentality of vermin, or children, and fighting in shapeless swarms without strategy.  At first, in the series, it makes perfect sense to fight to exterminate vermin that are biologically wired to murder all other creatures (and eat them, even humans).

The point of view shifting is not tracking the story of how people feel about each other, or how their feelings direct their decision-making.  The point of view shifts to give the reader information about the strategy and tactics of allied and opposed forces in a huge war conducted in several theaters at once, all interlinked with politics related to the various planetary origins of the factions.

It is a very complex tapestry, very closely resembling the kind of story-canvas you find in Interstellar or Galactic War novels, as well as in horse-and-sword Fantasy Novels about who will be King (and who won't).

The war In River of Bones progresses as alliances shift, and the vermin exhibit the ability to learn after making an alliance with some Japanese from WWII Earth.  The vermin raise a generation of soldiers that is able to fight in formation, hold a line, and change plans on the fly as well as invent, copy or perfect or adapt new weapons.

The humans begin to realize this shift among the vermin, understanding the Enemy as people, and begin to win over some of them as allies.  The humans from our WWII South Pacific have not yet hatched the idea that the war can be settled without exterminating an entire species.  They are too busy trying to survive to think philosophically.

All of this happens in the context of an entire Earth globe divided into geographic factions pitted against each other.  By the novels, Devil's Due and River of Bones, the series begins to look like a Star Trek episode where humans are being tested by Aliens deliberately collecting specimens and prodding them into fighting each other.  The "real enemy" has not yet made an appearance.

Here is the author's website:
http://taylorandersonauthor.com/

It is a perfect example of marketing to a very narrow, very specific, readership, specifying exactly what the Destroyermen Series delivers -- and it is not Romance, or Happily Ever After.  It is grim defiance in the face of overwhelming odds, pockmarked with moments of triumph, and graphic moments of bloody battlefields littered with corpses.

It is fantasy in that the various factions, some not human, adopt USA-American values without resistance, examination, or thought.  Once shown a value in operation, they ALL admire it and emulate it -- or reject it and become The Enemy.

It is science fiction in that given a world with almost no technology, these Destroyermen spark an entire industrial revolution using the everyday know-how of enlisted crew.  The aliens they show technology to have among them enough geniuses to take everything up several decades and keep innovating.

Of course, since it is a war, the applications of technology are all to guns and ways to deliver explosions at a distance (aircraft, missiles, depth charges).

Just as in the Star Trek episode about the Gorn, they make everything for modern industry out of resources just discovered and easily available.

None of that background makes any more sense than Love At First Sight, and Irresistible Hunk leading to Happily Ever After does to the readership this series is aimed at.

This "makes sense" issue is what we've discussed in such detail in so many posts here.  What makes sense to one group of readers is nonsense to another --- as a writer, you need a theory (or just a thesis) about why one group understands and another does not.

Closely examine (count words, look at vocabulary and use of jargon, count sentence lengths, paragraph lengths), the sections of the Destroyermen novels that describe weaponry and combat.  Compare exactly to the sections of Romance novels that describe foreplay and sex.

I would suggest you read up on recent papers on Emotional Intelligence.  Then compare the Characters in this series with the facts on Emotional Intelligence.  It seems to me, the thesis behind Military Science Fiction (or the Action Genre in general) is that Emotional Intelligence is a fatal flaw in human nature.

To puzzle out what you think, read the Destroyermen Series - or part of it, and a lot of the reviews posted on Amazon and blogs.  The audience that devours these novels rejects Romance genre.  Figure out why, write Romance FOR this readership.

Next time we'll look at Private Eye Mystery series where it seems more progress has been made.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

The Dirty Cloud and the Environmental Cost Of Piracy

Everyone who seems to matter decries fossil fuels (coal, oil, gas. nuclear), but not a lot of mention is made of what is used to generate the electricity that powers those clean electric cars, and that powers those data centers.

It's estimated that, if a certain data center emits 8 grams of carbon dioxide per "active" user per day, that might mean that a tech titan emits 8 billion grams of carbon dioxide every day.

That --allegedly-- is 9,000 tonnes per day, or well over 3 million tonnes per year of excess carbon dioxide.

https://thetrichordist.com/2019/01/18/guest-post-mtp-podcast-why-artists-should-care-about-data-center-lobbying/
 
A "normal" internet user is defined as someone who watches sixty minutes worth per day of user-generated content (aka often pirated) on a certain tubey site, carries out twenty-five searches per day, and uses a proprietary email account.

https://musictechpolicy.com/2018/12/18/carbon-clouds-should-artists-ask-why-arent-google-amazon-and-facebook-in-the-green-new-deal/
 
Greenpeace has information about the dirty cloud.
 https://www.greenpeace.org/archive-international/Global/international/publications/climate/2011/Cool%20IT/dirty-data-report-greenpeace.pdf

Facebook and Twitter appear to be the dirtiest   (see page 7 of 38); Greenpeace awards Twitter straight Fs.

According to an article published on IP lawfirm Dilworth's site, sea levels have risen 8 inches over the last hundred years, and carbon dioxide levels have risen from approximately 300 ppm in 1950 to approximately 400 ppm in late 2018.
https://www.dilworthip.com/rising-carbon-dioxide-capture-patent-trends/
 
Data centers allegedly use 140 billion kilowatt hours per year, and are powered by 51 coal plants.

Maybe, "information" isn't "free" after all.

All the best,

Rowena Cherry

Portal Fantasies

If you stepped through a portal into a magical realm and had to choose whether to stay there permanently or live permanently in this world with no chance of revisiting the other one, what would you do?

Doubtless the choice would depend on the nature of that other realm and your happiness or unhappiness in this one, plus the presence or absence of vital relationships in your current life. Seanan McGuire's "Wayward Children" series, so far comprising EVERY HEART A DOORWAY, DOWN AMONG THE STICKS AND BONES, BENEATH THE SUGAR SKY, and IN AN ABSENT DREAM, centers on a boarding school for children and teenagers (mostly the latter) who have returned to mundane reality after living in other worlds. EVERY HEART A DOORWAY takes place at the school, founded and run by a woman who visited such a realm in her own childhood, and the subsequent novels tell the stories of various individual students. Their parents think the facility is an institution for "troubled" youth, but in fact it's a refuge for those who no longer feel at home in this world and yearn to go back to their true "homes." Only in this place can they speak the truth of their experiences without being considered mentally ill. Whether wardrobe, looking glass, rabbit hole, cyclone, enchanted picture, or whatever, most portals open only once. Some travelers find their doors again, but that happens rarely. For those who make the transit multiple times, such as the protagonist of IN AN ABSENT DREAM, there's always a final trip. The heroine of that novel faces a deadline; by the time she turns eighteen, she must make an irrevocable choice.

Of course, this premise inevitably brings Narnia to mind. The characters in EVERY HEART A DOORWAY discuss that series at one point, remarking on how the children get to visit Narnia several times, through a different portal on each occasion. One of the characters says C. S. Lewis didn't know what he was talking about; he might have heard rumors about children traveling to other worlds and just decided to develop the concept for his own narrative purposes. "That's what authors do, they make [stuff] up." In THE LAST BATTLE, all the "Friends of Narnia" get to stay there at last—except for Susan, who has managed to convince herself that their adventures were only games they'd played in childhood. (In one of his letters, Lewis says Susan may have eventually gotten back to Narnia in her own way.) Visitors to Narnia, however, don't control when they go there and return to Earth; they cross between universes by the will of Aslan. Even in THE SILVER CHAIR, when Eustace and Jill ask to be taken to Narnia, Aslan says they wouldn't have called on him unless he'd first been calling them.

In THE LIGHT BETWEEN WORLDS, by Laura E. Weymouth, three children are transported from their backyard bomb shelter in World War II to an enchanted country ruled by a lordly stag. As in Lewis's stories (and unlike in most of the alternate worlds mentioned in McGuire's series), the characters return home at the moment they left, so their parents never know they were gone. Several years later, in the postwar period, one girl remains obsessed with getting back to the magical realm, while her sister simply wants to move on with her ordinary life.

Claire, the heroine of Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series, faces a similar dilemma, in her case dealing with time travel rather than cross-dimensional travel. When she finds herself pregnant just before the battle of Culloden, she chooses to return to the twentieth century and her first husband for the unborn baby's sake. Twenty years later, when her circumstances have changed, she ultimately decides to return permanently to the eighteenth century and the love of her life in that era. Her first trip through the stone circle happens by accident, while the other two result from her own choices.

If I had the chance to visit Narnia during one of its peaceful periods and meet Aslan, I would, but only for a visit, not to stay. On the other hand, if I'd been offered such an opportunity between the ages of about eight and sixteen, I would have joyfully leaped at it and remained in the magical realm permanently. From my own experience and what I've read, it's not uncommon for a young fan of fantasy and/or SF to have a strong feeling that "there must be a place where I belong, but it's not here." Indeed, that's probably an important factor in making us fans in the first place.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

How To Use Tarot And Astrology In Science Fiction Part 4 - Explore Solutions New To Reader

How To Use Tarot And Astrology In Science Fiction

Part 4

Explore Solutions New To Reader 

The previous entries in this series are:

Tarot:
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2017/10/index-to-posts-about-or-involving-tarot.html

Astrology:
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/03/pausing-for-you-to-catch-up-with-me_30.html

Part 1
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2018/12/how-to-use-tarot-and-astrology-in.html

Part 2
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2018/12/how-to-use-tarot-astrology-in-science.html

Part 3
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2019/01/how-to-use-tarot-and-astrology-in.html

Last week we looked at copyright, DRM and phone repair as it intersects the Law.

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2019/01/copyright-drm-and-phone-repair.html

And that raised the esoteric aspects of "ownership."

Oddly enough, "ownership" is deeply related to the "Happily Ever After" and perhaps a core issue in the problem of people not believing in the "Happily Ever After."

We've discussed the HEA ending in terms of the Pluto transits in life, testing, transformation, destruction, rebuilding, major relocation or profession changes.  Mars is "war" -- Pluto is "transformation."

We experience Pluto transits as "destruction" -- which it usually coincides with because structures we have built in our lives (tangible and intangible), stand strong and prevent us from moving in a new direction.

Pluto represents "thinking outside the box" in the simple fact that we build boxes around ourselves, houses to be comfortable inside of, protected from the shapeless, fluid, wild, smashing waves of change outside our "house."

The mind is a "house" -- and through early years, we build ourselves boxes, nice strong shipping containers, and even brick walled storehouses, to rely on for protection.

To get outside those boxes, we have to smash through a wall we neglected to put a door into when building it strong.

We have to think the unthinkable. 

We have to face "the unknown" which we hid from as children, building walls around our minds.

Humans value conformity and busily spend childhood building the same walls as their teachers, parents, playmates have so they can all get the same answers to questions -- and "pass the test" in the school of hard knocks.

Science is organized human knowledge.  Science Fiction is "What if ..." and "If only ..." and "If this goes on ..."  --- science fiction is about what does not (yet) exist, what is not (yet) known, but mostly about what is not yet "organized."

Science Fiction novels don't work well as entertainment when the author doesn't know how and why human knowledge got organized in the first place.

A science fiction writer must know some science, and be keeping up with the most recent breakthroughs and farfetched theories on the outskirts of scientific thought.  But the most indispensable knowledge a writer can have is of the organizing principle around which our marvelously successful science is built.

The premise that carries a science fiction novel to the top of the charts, to "classic" status, usually involves challenging one of those core organizing principles.

For example, "no physical object can travel faster than light" is a principle, and most science fiction set in a galaxy spanning civilization postulate one or another way around that limitation.  In the 1940's, Edward E. Smith, Ph.D., wrote the Lensman Series which postulated FTL drive based on the ability to cancel out "mass" and thus "inertia" -- many UFO reports cite objects moving in speedy zig-zags that indicate they've got some inertia cancelling ability.

That's how you get out of the box.  Find a firmly believed limitation that is an unconscious assumption among your target readership, and smash a doorway through that wall in their mind with a "What if Science is Wrong ... again?"

What do the Characters in your built world know that your readers don't know?

Our entire world-spanning Civilization in the 21st Century is an outgrowth of Ancient Hellenistic Greek thought - Aristotle, Plato, etc. - and centuries and centuries later, Roger Bacon and the method of proving "knowledge" creating "science."

The Hellenistic civilization grew out of Egyptian Civilization, and there is cultural continuity behind some of that.  Assyrians and other Middle Eastern peoples flourished and collapsed, wave after wave.  None of the people who lived in those times knew they "lived in those times."  Chances are you don't view your life as "those times" either -- the millennia long waves of civilizations aren't apparent to those living inside them.

The science fiction writer's job is to make the current wave apparent to those living inside it by SHOWING (not telling) that wave from outside.

That's what Gene Roddenberry did by staunchly insisting on including Spock in the bridge crew.

One way to gain the perspective on our current state of civilization is to read this book, or to read about it (or its sources), and think hard.

https://www.amazon.com/1177-B-C-Civilization-Collapsed-Turning-ebook/dp/B013VPYYGQ/


That sketches the very-long-view of human doings.  Thinking hard about this view, you can see that we will look just as "primitive" to the future civilization that will (no doubt about it, climate change won't kill us ALL) that will grow out of the shards of our current life.

What survives the destruction of our mental (and physical) boxes?

What does it mean to "think outside the box?"

It means to absorb and internalize "the unknown" (and perhaps unknowable under current conditions).  What has to change in us to shift the unknowable to the merely unknown?

What grand wisdom has survived from Hellenistic Civilization?  We have some art and some literature, but what principles do we live by (what walls do we build in our minds) based on ideas codified by Aristotle but originating far earlier?

One such idea is the "either/or" principle, or the zero-sum-game.  The idea that material reality consists of mutually exclusive states - a thing is, or it is-not.

All computer architecture is based on this -- the 0's and 1's -- on/off switches in combination.  And now, such massive amounts of on/off switches can generate what we term "Artificial Intelligence."  Just how artificial is it?

We look at our reality, and we see a pie to be sliced -- a whole that is a certain size.  If I get some, that part is a part that you can't have.  Mine!  Ownership.  If I own a piece of the finite pie, you don't own it.  And you can't make that pie bigger.  Your piece plus my piece add up to a Constant, the whole pie.  That is the zero sum.  I win; you lose.  No two ways about it.

That is the box we live in, and the box science fiction romance writers have to think outside of, in order to argue readers into suspending disbelief of the Happily Ever After Ending.

Earth is a single planet, not getting any bigger.  In fact, available land is shrinking as the sea level rises, so we'll have to live under water again.

But astronomers are looking at an "expanding universe."

Particle physics and the newest mathematics are describing packets of energy of which matter is composed -- and those energy packets are neither here not there.

"Here" and "there" no longer are so sharply defined you can think of them as either/or --- either you are here in class on time, or you are not here.  Right?
You can't be both here and not-here at a given time.

Or can you?

The Hellenistic Civilization built that either/or box for us, and we're still trying to live inside it.  That could be the reason so many people just can't accept the "Happily Ever After" ending to the story of the life of a couple.

Civilizations rise and fall, but they don't "live happily ever after."

There is not stability long-range.  We are certain of that because of archeology, paleontology, and historic record.

So either there exists stability, or there does not exist stability –– can't have it both ways.  Or can you?

As we have noted, the laws of physics as they apply to subatomic particles are a little different than the laws of physics engineers use to build a bridge or a cracking plant.

Does "happiness" require "stability" and impenetrable walls surrounding what you "own" in order to protect you from the turbulence outside?

Is unchanging stability the necessary condition for human happiness?  Is life either "happiness" or "misery?"  Is the chaos outside our either/or world the source of all threat, all misery, all terror?

If your readers see "happily ever after" as a static situation boxed into protected space they "own" and thus "control," then the solution new to them that you can present and explore might be, "How Can A Couple Enjoy Chaos, Surprise, and meet Uncertainty with Zest, Verve, and Joy?"

The general reader resorts to Tarot and Astrology as tools that can "foretell the future" -- but they can't.  These tools reveal just how dependent your future is on your emotional attitude toward the unknown.  They are built around a notion of reality older than Egypt, one which puts the either/or notion of reality into a special case category -- like physics puts Kepler's Laws.

Fear of the Unknown makes the Unknown fearsome.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Controlled Digital Lawlessness

"CDL" is an acronym for "Controlled Digital Lending", and the trouble with CDL is, it is controlled and run by persons who have absolutely no right to copy, publish, or distribute copyrighted works to the public.

The Authors Guild is taking it very seriously, saying, "We must stop this Controlled Digital Lending nonsense in its tracks," and "...for those books not yet available in ebook format, CDL usurps that market before the author has even had a chance..."

https://www.authorsguild.org/industry-advocacy/controlled-digital-lending-is-neither-controlled-nor-legal/

One of the problem organizations is Internet Archive's "Open Library", which is starting to refuse to remove copyright infringing books from its collection, when authors request a takedown. Allegedly, Internet Archive is citing CDL as a justification for their alleged piracy.

If you object to CDL, sign here. https://form.jotform.com/90035152846151

As good example of usurpation of a book by a living author is described by Matt Enis who gives the Librarian perspective on "CDL". Apparently, this topical book was loaned out 27,000 times, which is 27,000 sales the author could not make. The CDL folks see this demand as making their case for digital lending without the permission of a copyright owner!

https://www.libraryjournal.com/?detailStory=181115ControlledDigitalLending

Sixty-four people have signed a document --a white paper-- putting forward their plan to normalize and legalize digital lending. Much to his credit, Matt Enis points out, that there is no first sale lending right for digital copies under copyright law, and that because of the effect of digital lending on sales, recent best sellers are not good candidates (for permissionless scanning, copying, and unauthorized lending.)

What is a "white paper", and can anyone write one?
https://coschedule.com/blog/how-to-write-white-papers-templates-examples/

Apparently, a "white paper" is someone's opinion on the way things ought to be, and the more people who sign it, the greater its perceived authority. It's not law, but activists would like to cite their white paper as proof of legitimacy.

One has to be careful of weasel words like "white paper". Parse advertisements some time. You cannot escape them, so you might as well amuse yourself by looking for the loopholes.

For instance, "scientifically tested" does not mean "scientifically proven".
" #1 dentist approved..." is a case where lack of punctuation creates ambiguity. Does "Number 1" describe the prestige of one particular dentist, or does "Number 1" refer to the product and "dentist-approved" is an additional adjective describing the product?

It's not just American authors who take issue with CDL.

Porter Anderson, writing for Publishing Perspectives reports that the UK's Society Of Authors is also up in arms about unauthorized lending out of California.

https://publishingperspectives.com/2019/01/copyright-battle-internet-archives-open-library-authors-guild-society-of-authors/

The British authors' society has given the Internet Archive until February 1st, 2019 to take down UK authors' works, and to prevent its inventory of ebooks from being loaned to readers in the UK.

By contrast, and speaking of lawlessness in high places, Justin Trudeau just appointed an alleged piracy enthusiast as Canada's Attorney General.

https://thetrichordist.com/2019/01/14/pro-piracy-law-professor-appointed-justice-minister-of-canada-attorney-general/

Canada's top lawman says that "current normative structures" (or, our laws and morality) "ought to be adapted" (ie, changed) "to reflect..." (his own liberal)  "understanding of the impulse to share..."  He is talking about music in this context, but what he means is that piracy ought to be considered lawful and normal, because piracy is popular.

If CDL cannot be stopped, at least there ought to be PLR. That's Public Lending Right, and it means that every time a book or ebook is loaned out by a library, its author receives a small royalty.

All the best,

Rowena Cherry

Writer Emergency Pack

One of my Christmas presents was a clever little item called the Writer Emergency Pack. It's a deck of cards with prompts to help a stuck fiction writer get unstuck. The pack includes brief instructions for a group storytelling game using the cards, but it seems mainly intended for individuals. It comprises two numbered sets of cards. The first presents a one-sentence suggestion with an illustrative sketch, while the corresponding number in the second half of the deck elaborates with further details. Although I haven't actively used this product yet, I find reading the prompts fun in itself.

The story sparks aren't random ideas such as "Throw your heroine off a cliff," which was sort of what I expected. (That would have been fun, too, though.) They're more serious and of more general application. Some examples: What if your story were changed to a different genre? Talk it out. (What would the protagonist and antagonist say if they had an honest discussion?) Stop talking. (How would the characters handle not being able to communicate verbally? This hint reminds me of the BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER episode when the whole town was magically silenced.) Kill the hero. (If the hero died at this point, what would happen next? Who would carry on?) Imposter. (Some character is not what he or she seems.) An apparent blessing turns out to be a curse. Take away your hero's allies and other support. Bring on the zombies (which could mean any type of mindless horde). The explanatory note cards briefly explore the ramifications of the proposed twists.

If I did apply the cards to a writing project, as a devoted outliner I would probably find it more helpful in the planning phase than the first draft.

The deck is sold on this Amazon page:

Writer Emergency Pack

By the way, my first new e-book in quite a while (as opposed to re-releases) has just been published by the Wild Rose Press. "Yokai Magic" is a light paranormal romance novella featuring an enchanted Japanese scroll and a cat spirit:

Yokai Magic

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Copyright, DRM, and Phone Repair

Copyright, DRM, 

and Phone Repair 

Back in October, 2018, things changed that most people didn't know needed changing.

Changes like this one are the substance of science fiction futurology, as the business of fiction writing is to take you on an adventure into a world that does not exist and propose solutions to problems you think you don't have.  The solutions that are most interesting are the ones you (as a reader) are certain would not work.

The writer's duty is to make you think about why you are so certain the solution would not work.  In the process, you may generate a solution to a real and current problem that will work.

In other words, fiction writers prompt you to make the world a better place.

The problem that needed solving was about the right to repair devices you own -- which contain or run on software you only license.

Software, and intellectual property such as fictional stories, come under copyright law -- and that law has had to be changed to keep pace with electronic media.  When the xerox copier was introduced to libraries, the uproar over copyright was intense, furious, adamant and heated.  Look where we are today with copy/paste.

So, today, companies tried to keep you leashed tightly to their own repair shops and prevent tinkering with your devices by yourself or an independent repair shop of your choice.

Repairing stuff has been a profession for thousands of years -- they tried to un-invent it.

The law may be challenged in court, reversed, modified, struck down, or just repealed and replaced.  The fight over "you didn't build that" and therefore you don't own or control that, is raging globally.

So read and ponder this as it pertains to self-publishing novels:

https://www.dailydot.com/debug/right-to-repair-iphone-hack/

-------quote---------

Advocates for the right to repair movement have cause to celebrate this weekend. New rules, which go into effect on Sunday, will allow consumers to legally hack the software on their own devices to repair them.

The new rules will allow consumers and repair shops not affiliated with brands to break DRM, or Digital Rights Management, which previously sought to prevent the copying and distribution of media and technology. Large corporations backed DRM, saying it was necessary to protect consumers and fight copyright infringement, according to Electronic Frontier Foundation.

The DCMA, or the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998, sought to criminalize any attempts to bypass locks placed on devices, even if the attempt was made in an effort to repair or maintain it. The issue was primarily in the inability to repair a device that had already been bought and paid for. Instead, DRM forced consumers to take broken devices to specific repairers, stifling competition and monopolizing the market. DRM is “implemented by embedding code that prevents copying, specifies a time period in which the content can be accessed, or limits the number of devices the media can be installed on,” according to TechTarget.

The new rules proposed by the Library of Congress and U.S. Copyright Office will change that, allowing owners of smartphones, cars, tractors, smart home appliances, and a number of other devices to maintain their own property.

---------end quote------

"...maintain their own property."  -- "own?"

What does it mean to OWN something?  The esoteric and mystical ramifications of ownership are enormous.  Most people think ownership is a simple thing.  Children understand MINE at two years old.

Who is entitled to what for their creative work?  For any work, just the labor of moving one thing from one place to another place, we consider we have a right to be paid a living wage.

Do we?

And in what fundamental way will AI and all this automation change our "rights?"

Note this legal thrust includes cars and tractors.  Everything runs on chips now.

What will that imply about ownership in the future?

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

SCOTUS To Rule On F-Bomb Use

Let's dive straight into the gutter. Can you call your clothing and lifestyle "FUCT" (for trademark purposes)?  For that matter, is it decent to name your restaurant "PHO KEENE"?

Could you get around dirty-word bans on vanity vehicle license plates by using the Roman numerals IV (which sounds like For...) to announce your favorite extramarital activity?

Legal bloggers John Crittenden,   Bobby Ghajar and Rose Kautz writing for Cooley LLP look forward to the US Supreme Court hearing oral arguments as to whether or not the USPTO (United States Patent and Trademark Office) may refuse to grant a trademark for "FUCT", simply because it sounds vulgar.

Original article
https://www.cooley.com/news/insight/2019/2019-08-scotus-to-decide-if-ban-on-scandalous-trademarks-is-unconstitutional

Lexology link
https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=344eb724-448c-494d-8fc9-a0990ed791b1&utm_source=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed&utm_medium=HTML+email+-+Body+-+General+section&utm_campaign=Lexology+subscriber+daily+feed&utm_content=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed+2019-01-10&utm_term=

The Court will hear the case in April, and rule in June.

Adding to the flying smut, Jeff Greenbaum  blogging for Frankfurt Kurnit Klein and Selz PC asks broadmindedly, Is It a "Pho Keene" Great Name Or Is It Offensive?

https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=aee1e987-d850-428a-8212-d56ec7ba3a16&utm_source=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed&utm_medium=HTML+email+-+Body+-+General+section&utm_campaign=Lexology+subscriber+daily+feed&utm_content=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed+2019-01-09&utm_term=

Original article  (with illustrations!)
https://advertisinglaw.fkks.com/post/102fctc/is-it-a-pho-keene-great-name-or-is-it-offensive

(Where does one draw the line, when there is a perfectly wonderful tourist destination in Thailand called phuket ?)

For the World Trademark Review, Adam Bobker  pens a comprehensive summary of some of the most interesting goings on, including fake Dyson hair dryers (which can ruin your hair and your day and maybe burn down the house), hologram marks, mary jane in plain packaging, and a "poop shaped" carrying case which Louis Vuitton finds offensive... probably because they call it Pooey Puitton.

Lexology link

https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=0cf9f2f4-ade4-41f8-9b95-a69e67674aae&utm_source=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed&utm_medium=HTML+email+-+Body+-+General+section&utm_campaign=Lexology+subscriber+daily+feed&utm_content=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed+2019-01-10&utm_term=

Original link
https://www.worldtrademarkreview.com/anti-counterfeiting/sweden-allows-hologram-marks-plain-packaging-design-gets-thumbs-and-dyson

Finally, loosely concerned with fakery, rip offs, copyright infringement, and the point of view that "Copyright is Censorship", Chris Castle has a go at the E.F.F.ing people who take lobbying too far.

https://musictechpolicy.com/2019/01/12/europarl_en-explains-article-13-and-googles-fake-lobbying/

All the best, and in the best possible taste.....

Rowena Cherry

PS... if you did not "get" the IV-word, try "IVnick8"   Total red herring. SCOTUS isn't concerned with that.

Robots in the Home

More new developments in household robotics:

Are Domestic Robots the Way of the Future?

One problem foregrounded by this article is people's expectation for robots to look humanoid, versus the optimal shape for efficiently performing their functions. A real-world autonomous floor cleaner, after all, doesn't take the form of "a humanoid robot with arms" able to "push a vacuum cleaner." A related problem is that our household environments, unlike factories, are designed to be interacted with by human beings rather than non-humanoid machines. Research by scientists at Cornell University has been trying "to balance our need to be able to relate ­emotionally to robots with making them genuinely useful."

Dave Coplin, CEO of The Envisioners, promotes the concept of "social robotics":

Domestic Robots Are Coming in 2019

He advocates "trying to imbue emotion into communication between humans and robots," as, for example, training robots to understand human facial expressions. He even takes the rather surprising position that the household robot of the future, rather than a "slave" or "master," should be "a companion and peer to the family.” According to Coplin, the better the communication between us and our intelligent machines, the more efficiently they will work for us. Potential problems need to be solved, however, such as the difficulty of a robot's learning to navigate a house designed for human inhabitants, as mentioned above. Security of data may also pose problems, because the robot of the future will need access to lots of personal information in order to do its job.

In Robert Heinlein's THE DOOR INTO SUMMER, the engineer narrator begins by creating single-task robots that sound a bit like the equivalent of Roombas. Later, he invents multi-purpose robotic domestic servants with more humanoid-like shapes, because they have to be almost as versatile as human workers. We're still a long way from the android grandmother in one of Ray Bradbury's classic stories, but robots are being designed to help with elder care in Japan. According to the article cited above, some potential customers want robots that may offer "companionship" by listening to their troubles or keeping pets company while owners are out. Now, if the robot could walk the dog, too, that would really be useful. The January NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC mentions medical robots that can draw blood, take vital signs, and even shift bedridden patients. One snag with such machines: To have the power to lift objects of significant weight, not to mention human adults, a robot has to be inconveniently heavy (as well as expensive).

On the subject of balancing usefulness with the need for relating emotionally: In Suzette Haden Elgin's poem "Too Human by Half," an elderly woman grows so attached to her lifelike household robot that she can't bear to replace it when it starts to malfunction. "Replace JANE? . . . Just because she's getting OLD?" Therefore, when the company launches its next model, "they made every one of the units look exactly like a broom."

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Reviews 44 - Marked by Benedict Jacka

Reviews 44

Marked

by

Benedict Jacka

In the How To Use Tarot And Astrology In Science Fiction series, Part 3

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2019/01/how-to-use-tarot-and-astrology-in.html
we touched on the alternate universe premise being explored by mathematicians and quantum physics enthusiasts.

Combining Science with Fantasy, mixing genres, works best when you know both theories.

As I mentioned, James Blish (author of the first published STAR TREK novel, SPOCK MUST DIE) explored the alternate futures, parallel universes stacked like strips of film, in JACK OF EAGLES.

STAR TREK did alternate realities in the 1960's TV series, and it has continued to be explored in the movies and revived series.

Quantum Leap, the TV Series, used alternate universes spun off at decision points as a "vehicle" -- never explaining the physics, just saying the main character is a physicist.  I hated that part of the TV Series -- I wanted to know the PHYSICS, because that's the most interesting part of the quantum leaping concept (becoming in charge of another person's life).

Marion Zimmer Bradley used the decision point generating futures theory in her Darkover Series where an ESP talent is foretelling futures, not THE future.

Now Benedict Jacka has once again used this premise for his main Character in a long (and deservedly popular) Series of novels from ACE.

Here is MARKED, #9 in the Series:

https://www.amazon.com/Marked-Alex-Verus-Novel-Book-ebook/dp/B075HY1KXR/

Previous novels in the series haven't really focused on ROMANCE -- but this one actually pivots on the psychological dynamics behind Romance and the Soul Mate concept.

The female lead Character has a dissociated (evil twin) locked away in an astral plane dungeon, and the evil twin gets out, wreaks havoc, and must be put away for good.

On page 299 of 310, the key phrase, "I love you," solves the problem.

It is said because of the male lead character's analysis of the personality of the "good" half of the female lead Character.

That analysis is astute.  The psychology of split personality is well and solidly (and scientifically) depicted.  The resolution is plausible.

This novel, and the whole series, is highly recommended reading.  It is FANTASY universe, and about law enforcement entangled with politics.  The main male lead character gets a (thankless) job in low level law enforcement and through many novels, rises to the top of the political power structure (where he decidedly does not want to be).

A complex, rich, multifaceted fantasy world with the male lead Character's only "power" the ability to "see" a short way into the futures splitting off as people toy with, and then decide on a course of action.  Just thinking about doing something generates timelines!  Fascinating premise.

The physics behind this premise is never explained, which frustrates me.  The interesting thing is that this readership is assumed to know all about the alternating and ever fragmenting reality-streams generated merely by human intension.

Very highly recommended series!

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Beware Body Language... And Easy Gifting

Pundits on news and opinion networks seem particularly fond of analysing the body language of British royal family members, and of Prime Minister Theresa May as she shakes hands or has her forearm seized by powerful European politicians, and of President Trump and those with whom he meets in front of the cameras.

Who has the upper hand? Who is lying? Who is passively aggressive? Who is sending off subtle signals? This is all good stuff to fill a five minute TV segment, and it is also wonderful material to weave subtly into our romance stories to show (not tell).

For the Persuasive Litigator blog, Dr. Ken Broda-Bahm blogs on behalf of the law firm Holland & Hart LLP about reading too much into body language. It's so good, this writer is bookmarking it. One would not want to perpetuate the occasional canard.

https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=ef350588-0b7b-486c-9a91-2ce9f8df5674&utm_source=lexology+daily+newsfeed&utm_medium=html+email+-+body+-+general+section&utm_campaign=lexology+subscriber+daily+feed&utm_content=lexology+daily+newsfeed+2019-01-03&utm_term=

If the above-mentioned website asks you to create an account and log in, please look for the textlink to "read the original".

Here is a link to the original:
https://www.persuasivelitigator.com/2018/12/beware-of-nonverbal-pseudoscience.html#page=1

Maybe a very long tie is the sartorial equivalent of a diminutive man driving a Ferrari. And maybe it isn't!

Angela Hoy has compiled a fascinating list of whispers and warnings for followers of Writers Weekly.

https://writersweekly.com/whispers-and-warnings/01-02-2019

For those who have not yet used their supermarket-bought Christmas gift cards, there is a particular matter of concern.

And now, this writer has a plane to catch.

Happy New Year!

Rowena Cherry

New Year Customs

Happy New Year!

Do you eat black-eyed peas for luck on New Year's Day? Although my grandmother, who grew up in rural North Carolina, often cooked black-eyed peas, she never mentioned this tradition. Weirdly, I heard of it only after getting married, even though my husband was a "Navy brat" whose family didn't settle in Virginia until he was about twelve. Some cooks include a coin in the pot, with the person who finds the coin getting extra luck. My husband doesn't do that. Nor does he follow the additional custom of eating collard greens along with the peas. Peas symbolize prosperity, and the greens represent money. Another superstition mandates eating exactly 365 peas, a separate portion of luck for each day of the year. (Who counts out 365 peas for each serving at the table? And in leap years, do they add one more?) Lentils, similarly, are sometimes said to bring prosperity because they represent coins. There's an Italian sweet pastry that should be eaten at New Year's to ensure a sweet year. All these arise from sympathetic magic, of course, the concept that apparent resemblances have real-world effects.

Scottish tradition includes the belief that the "first footer"—the first person to cross the threshold of your home after midnight on New Year's Eve—should be a dark-haired man. A woman or a non-dark-haired person as first footer brings bad luck rather than good.

Here's a list of New Year's superstitions, mainly things you should avoid doing on the first day of the year:

New Year's Superstitions

Don't cry on that day, or you'll have sadness all year—okay. But don't wash the dishes or the laundry? Those are new to me.

Another common belief is that you shouldn't begin the year owing any debt. Excellent advice, but most of us have little hope of fulfilling that condition, what with all the credit card charges for holiday gifts and festivities.

My parents had a tradition of taking down the Christmas tree on New Year's Day. Several decades ago I joyfully abandoned this exhausting and depressing habit. I don't start un-decorating until Epiphany (January 6, the end of the "twelve days of Christmas").

Aside from the traditional kiss at midnight, do you follow any particular customs to inaugurate the New Year?

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

How To Use Tarot And Astrology In Science Fiction Part 3 - Suspend Reader Disbelief

How To Use Tarot And Astrology In Science Fiction

Part 3

Suspend Reader Disbelief 

Previous posts in this discussion:
Tarot:
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2017/10/index-to-posts-about-or-involving-tarot.html

Astrology:
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/03/pausing-for-you-to-catch-up-with-me_30.html

Part 1
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2018/12/how-to-use-tarot-and-astrology-in.html

Part 2
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2018/12/how-to-use-tarot-astrology-in-science.html

And now in Part 3, we'll look at UFO reports, which are (oddly) lumped in with the "Paranormal" (which includes ghosts).

In ordinary consciousness, people go about their business never giving a thought to ghosts, telepathy, teleportation, prophecy, or kidnapping by UFO.

So when they do turn their attention to such occult phenomena, it is like peering into a compartment where you keep ridiculous ideas, a toy box of concepts to push around into new patterns just for fun.

Most readers of Romance or any of the Fantasy (even Science Fiction) genres don't "take it seriously."  So as a writer, you don't have to work hard to attain "suspension of disbelief."

However, if you're writing a book to be published as non-fiction about such phenomena, you have to hammer away incessantly at convincing people that their toys are real.  It's part of the appeal of the Christmas Classic, The Nutcracker where toys come alive.

Tarot and Astrology, as they are mass-marketed for profit, are regarded like toys by most people.  These toys produce fun stuff, but they don't mean anything and don't have to be taken into account when living your day to day existence.

Romance is like that (until you do experience it for real).  The "for real" experience is like the toys in the toy box coming alive, an astonishing moment suspended outside of time.

In psychology, that moment is called "cognitive dissonance" -- and that experience of reassessing what is and is-not real is the essence of the fiction writer's craft.

To work across the boundary between the real and the inside of the toy box, the writer must study both fiction and  non-fiction.

The New Year's fare in Newspapers is peppered with "psychics" making predictions about the coming year (and other linear prognosticators doing "if this goes on.")  Tarot and Astrology get featured, as they sometimes do for Halloween (see my Halloween Tarot/Vampire story, "False Prophecy" in: Through The Moon Gate (and other tales of vampirism)

https://www.amazon.com/Through-Vampirism-Jacqueline-Lichtenberg-Collected-ebook/dp/B004MPRUZM/

In August (the silly season) newspapers carry stories about UFOs.  When people are bored (because Congress isn't in season, all their friends at work are on vacation so projects stall, the kids are home going stir crazy), they open their toy box of ideas and get lost in playing with them.  It's amusing and refreshing.

Non-fiction about UFO visits to Earth, about Astronauts sightings, other credible witnesses, photos (which we disbelieve more so now than ever), occupy that part of the mind.

I've been a UFO-NUT since grammar school when I found that section in the library and had my Mom take the books out so I could read them.  I never believed any of it, but could construct a world where it was true, "...they are watching us!"

Then I met a couple people (at different times) who told of their own abduction by a UFO.  Very convincing, especially since they weren't giving speeches about it for money or writing books, or being paid by a newspaper, etc. No profit motive, just a disturbance in life.

I have friends who follow the UFO reports, so one time I was at a speech where the guy was selling a book on the topic, and spent over an hour presenting "evidence" for the validity and verification, the credibility of witnesses, etc. -- pounding away at trying to prove (to an audience of true believers) that UFOs are real.

So afterwards, I listened to everyone reinforcing their true-belief, buying the autographed book, and treating the author as if he were important.

I waited for most to leave, then asked him why, if his case actually convinced him, he is still trying to convince people.  If these visitations are real, then accept that and move on to the next logical step -- or to debating what that step should be.  If it's true, act as if it's true.  If it's not true, shut up.

I've never before or since seen such a totally flummoxed speaker.

He simply had no answer, and as far as I could tell, had never considered that option -- assuming what he knows to be true is in fact true, and going to the next step.

So, I'm still a wide-open question on UFOs in general, kidnappings in particular.  It seems to be the reason these people write these "non-fiction" books is to make money. There's more profit in manufactured or exaggerated evidence and sincere insistence on the impossible than there is in the truth.

And that gives you a formula for a hot-hot-hot Romance Character, a UFOLOGIST who doesn't know he doesn't believe what he's peddling.

To write such a story, you need a theory of reality built by ripping items from the headlines - using newspaper stories widely believed as if they are fact.

And you need a theory of existence that explains how and why Tarot and Astrology work, how they are related to each other, and what Aliens From Outer Space have to do with that.

Astronomy and Astrophysics are barreling toward Astrology and Tarot (yes, Tarot is more like Astrophysics, if you look aslant the right way).

Here's a TOY BOX item for you:

https://www.quantamagazine.org/why-the-many-worlds-interpretation-of-quantum-mechanics-has-many-problems-20181018/

Subtitle of that article:
The idea that the universe splits into multiple realities with every measurement has become an increasingly popular proposed solution to the mysteries of quantum mechanics. But this “many-worlds interpretation” is incoherent, Philip Ball argues in this adapted excerpt from his new book Beyond Weird.

Tarot is all about decision points in life, and what you USE of your interior, spiritual, innate or learned skills and resources to navigate the white-water-rapids of life's decision points.  This article discusses the new mathematical and quantum physics view of multiple universes -- which has been a staple of science fiction since before JACK OF EAGLES by James Blish (author of the first STAR TREK novel published, SPOCK MUST DIE):

https://www.amazon.com/Jack-of-Eagles/dp/0380611503/

Today, people believe in science even without understanding all that hard stuff.  Science has produced usable results (smartphones for one), so people believe in human interference with the cyclical climate surges (glaciations followed by polar melts over millions of years) because it is settled science.

With the setting aside of religion in most organized forms, humans search for things to believe in.  UFOs, Romance, Science, multiple universes, all have their share of true believers.

To write science fiction romance of the caliber of James Blish's JACK OF EAGLES, you need to grab and incorporate a bit of speculative science and weld it to a bit of speculative occultism, then build your entire world selecting every detail to symbolize or illustrate that composite element.

Psychics have long predicted, in the New Year's Prediction issues of the papers, that this year Aliens will arrive, reveal themselves, or that we will get a signal from outer space proving there are people out there.

So, to get your readers to suspend their disbelief, you must accept your belief in your fictional world as real.

STAR TREK the original series, (all cardboard sets and flat colored backdrop paintings) as popular and gripping because the actors were able to treat what they were doing as REAL (even when it was using a salt shaker to detect an Alien's state of health).

Writing is a performing art.

Accept the reality of your fictional world, your specific blend of the Esoteric and the Scientific, and sidestep reader disbelief.

Your readers believe in Romance, and believe in Science, and some believe in UFOs (at least during August).

Accept what they believe as actually real.  Don't be like the UFO lecturer and be unable to understand what is implied if the belief is real.  Accept the reality, and plot onwards through the next action, and the next.

Your characters have to implement their decisions out of the unconscious assumption that these elements are real.

So, suppose your Character is to meet up with (or be kidnapped by) a UFO alien.

What is this Alien?

Use widely believed science to answer that question.

We are now (with orbital telescopes) discovering the size of our Universe,

https://www.cnet.com/news/hyperion-is-an-ancient-cosmic-beast-formed-2-3b-years-after-big-bang/

Another outlet, Gizmodo, (probably working off the same publicist's press release) gives more depth, pointing out Hyperion's relationship to the supercluster Earth is in, Laniakea.

https://gizmodo.com/trying-understand-the-size-of-this-new-space-discovery-1829824870

I discussed Laniakea here:
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2018/02/theme-worldbuilding-integration-part-18.html

For decades, science fiction has been speculating about parallel universes (and anti-matter ones -- do read the STEN series).

Here are entries where I discuss the STEN SERIES.

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/05/theme-plot-integration-part-8-use-of-co.html

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/05/theme-plot-integration-part-9-use-of-co.html

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/05/theme-plot-integration-part-10-use-of.html

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/06/theme-character-integration-part-1-what.html

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/06/acquiring-new-techniques-part-1-pun.html

So what sort of Alien arrives by UFO (yes, I do love both THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL and STARMAN), and kidnaps a human?

Once you determine what sort of alien, you should be able to derive why he would do such a thing.

Keeping in mind the size of the Universe we are now exploring by reading energy particles that are billions of years old, and keeping in mind all the new science produced from putting humans in weightlessness on space stations (showing how humans can't survive a trip to Mars or living there - we are gravity dependent and cosmic-ray sensitive), think hard about an Alien poking around Earth.

If we can't go to their planet (because settled science says so), then how could they come here?

Your readers keep their UFO knowledge in their toy boxes.   Make them take that knowledge out of the toy category.

How are we going to go visit Aliens who lived billions of years ago, and will be long dead by the time we get there?

Look around at current science headlines.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2018/10/18/this-is-how-we-know-there-are-two-trillion-galaxies-in-the-universe/#570035995a67

And look at what Forbes has been reporting on Artificial Intelligence

https://www.forbes.com/insights-intelai/ai-issue-2/

Forbes -- a financial organ -- talking about the size of reality and the nature of consciousness, intelligence, and robots as tools.

If we can create Artificial Intelligence, we can begin to determine if intelligence is related to the Soul -- and therefore what makes a Soul Mate.

Before we get to such spiritual questions, it is very likely we'll be sending AI entities to Mars and/or Venus - maybe to explore, to send back resources, to terraform, to build a habitat humans can live in.

Remember, with the nailing of the Higgs Boson, we are starting to get a handle on mass, weight, and perhaps one day, artificial gravity so we can take our fragile bodies out to the stars.

One might expect "Aliens" to haul their habitat around with them, too, but likewise to send ahead a wave of Artificial Intelligence -- not just robots programmed to do things, or remotely controlled as we try to do, but AI that can learn, think, reason, conclude and act.

Perhaps an AI explorer was sent out as an ordinary Intelligence, but along the way somehow acquired a Soul?

Perhaps your Main Character is kidnapped by an Alien AI with a Soul, and the experiments described in so many UFO books are actually an investigation into whether humans have Soul, and if so what Soul might be, where it comes from, and how it can be lost.

Or perhaps the UFO denizens are just trying to find Soul Mates?

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com