Karen Wiesner: The Stories Behind Classic Fairy Tales (Woodcutter's Grim Series), Part 3

WOODCUTTER’S GRIM SERIES—

Classic Tales of Horror Retold, Volume II Collection

 by Karen Wiesner

Four Supernatural Fantasy Romance Novellas

 This is the third of eight posts focusing on my Woodcutter's Grim Series and the stories behind classic fairy tales.

For the ten generations since the evil first came to Woodcutter's Grim, the Guardians have sworn an oath to protect the town from the childhood horrors that lurk in the black woods. Without them, the town would be defenseless…and the terrors would escape to the world at large.                                                

The second volume of the Woodcutter’s Grim Series focuses on a miniseries within the overall series dealing with a curse on the Shaussegeny family (who were mentioned in the previous three books as well as "The Amethyst Tower").

 Including: 

"Moonlight Becomes You", Book 4 

** Very loosely based on “The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse”. When her child becomes deathly ill and none of the doctors and specialists can help him, Heather Rowe rushes to Woodcutter's Grim, hoping the boy's father can help their child. But Lance Shaussegeny's explanations terrify Heather, even though she's intensely attracted to him all over again. She soon learns that nothing in Woodcutter's Grim—including Lance—is what it seems. **

When I was putting together the first collection of Woodcutter’s Grim Series stories, I wrote a story based on the children’s poem "The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse"—something I adored as a kid and also when my son was very young. The story didn’t work out at all like I planned, so I set aside, figuring I could brainstorm and try to come up with another angle for the story that I liked still and didn’t want to forget. Well, later, when I was deciding on my contributions for the 2011 Jewels of the Quill anthologies, I remembered this story. I’d always been intrigued by the Shaussegenys, who were mentioned in all of the previous Woodcutter’s Grim Series stories. There were hints that the family was cursed by the evil in the town and made into werewolves, and I really wanted to explore that angle.

Even after I had the concept for this book worked out, I couldn’t think of a good title beyond “A Friend in Need” (which is what it was called when I first wrote a version it this and then found out it wasn't working and so shelved it). One day while playing a computer game, I was trying to brainstorm on the opposite side of my brain while I was playing. I toyed with the idea of moonlight, since it’s what brings werewolves out. Under the Moon, Moonlit Reflections, Reflections in Moonlight… Then I realized that the heroine Heather spends most of this story trying to deny what she subconsciously knows. “Moonlight Becomes You” struck me like a lightning bolt.

The classic nursery story "The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse" is probably a moral story warning against envying those who are richer than you and instead being content with your lot, but my point with "Moonlight Becomes You" was the parallel in learning to live with monsters in our midst. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Town_Mouse_and_the_Country_Mouse 

"Bewitched", Book 5

 ** Very loosely based on “The Little Mermaid”. Glynnis Shaussegeny becomes bewitched by the mystery man who appears out of nowhere on the abandoned property across the lake from her family’s estate. But does Aric Sayer have even more dark secrets than she does? **

“Bewitched” continued the miniseries with Glynnis, the daughter of Marnie and Gav, and the mysterious new man who appeared across the lake. “The Little Mermaid” is one of my favorite fairy tales and so I knew I wanted to do a spinoff of it for my little horror town Woodcutter’s Grim. How to do it perplexed me for a long time because many of these stories are so loosely based on a classic fairy tale. It’s very difficult to fit a modern story into an older mold. I'd already set a precedence with everything that came before of not forcing something that doesn't want to go. In essence, I consider those "loosely based". For some reason, “Bewitched” perfectly fit into one aspect of the old fairy tale of "The Little Mermaid" and, after I realized that, the story pretty much wrote itself. It’s a fun, paranormal twist on a beloved story.

Glynnis had been in previous Woodcutter’s Grim Series books as a villain (since she’s the woman Kurt cheated on Diane with). I like to redeem characters, and I gave Glynnis motivation for her actions in that affair: Under the Shaussegeny curse, she believed Kurt was her chosen mate. In this book, she realizes he isn’t and never was when Aric Sayer appears. Since this miniseries become more paranormal romance than romantic horror, I wanted to start using some of the “lighter and softer” fairy tales as a basis for my modern retellings.

"The Little Mermaid" classic fairy tale that we all know and love has several contradictory interpretations by scholars. On one end, it might speak of a female only gaining a soul through marriage (say what?) or a self-sacrificing action that proves true love exists and therefore magic happens to reward the selfless act. On the other end, female empowerment--breaking free of the male conventions that can bind all females in some ways--are the order of the day in "The Little Mermaid". Or this story could simply have been prompted by the myths of malevolent mermaids preying on lonely sailors. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Little_Mermaid 

"One Night of Eternity", Book 6

 ** Loosely based on “The House That Jack Built”. Gavin has broken the covenant with his wife. Although he regrets his faithlessness, the house he's built for himself is beginning to tumble down around him. Only his mate's undeserved forgiveness will free him from his punishment to re-live his betrayal over and over for all time. **

I’ve always been intrigued by the children’s poem, "The House That Jack Built", and when I started brainstorming on fairy tales that would make a good transition into my Woodcutter’s Grim Series, this poem was one of the first that I wanted to use. I came up with a simple, line-by-line outline of the story based on the poem, and the book really wrote itself after that. I just found it such a cool, circular idea. I especially enjoyed writing the story of a couple who has endured marital infidelity and how sin becomes so twisted in a paranormal situation like theirs. Their obsessive love for each other was obvious to me from their first moments thinking of each other in the opening chapters.

The origin of the nursery rhyme, sometimes titled "This is the House that Jack Built", seems to merely be one of repetitive, progressive verse. https://loiselsden.com/2018/09/19/the-house-that-jack-built/

In my modern retelling, the hero has to enduring his night of infidelity for all eternity, over and over again, progressively as punishment. How can he ever break free? The title came to me even before I worked out all the details in the outline.

 "Beauty is the Beast*, Book 7

 ** Very loosely based on “Beauty and the Beast”. When Ransom Shaussegeny attempts to cure the family curse, he becomes a werewolf trapped in beast form and isolates himself inside the family fortress. Upon meeting a beautiful enchantress, he falls under her spell. Will the evil in Woodcutter’s Grim have the last laugh by dooming him, the woman he loves, and his family for all time? **

Another huge fairy tale favorite of mine has always been "Beauty and the Beast", and it was the obvious choice for the final story to wrap up this miniseries. Ransom’s family had accepted the curse they live under, but he’d never been willing to. He wanted to break the curse and he certainly didn't want to pass it on to a woman he’d fallen in love with. The idea that the hero is trapped in his werewolf form was beyond compelling to me, mingled with the mystery of a heroine who isn’t all she seems. In that situation, who is the beauty and who is the beast?

This title was one I chose for a modern story I wrote a long time ago and one that I can't imagine will ever see the light of day. In that coming-of-age tale concerning a young girl too beautiful for her own good, beauty *is* the beast. But it was the perfect title for this story, so I had to steal it off that book.

Ironically, the twist in this story of Tess's origins worked so perfectly in HUNTER'S BLUES, Book 9 (A Mirror Darkly World Novel) that I wrote much later for the series.

The origin of the classic fairy tale "Beauty and the Beast" seems to have stemmed from the Cupid and Psyche chronicle from an ancient Latin novel in which a woman is banished by a jealous god and forced to marry a beast. What followed is more than a little convoluted but makes for interesting reading nevertheless. https://www.pookpress.co.uk/project/beauty-and-the-beast-history/

 Reviews and Honors for WOODCUTTER'S GRIM SERIES, Volume II:

5 star review and Top Pick from The Romance Reviews

5 star review and Reviewer's Top Pick from Readers Favorite

5 star review from Huntress Reviews

5 star review from Linda's Reviews

4 1/2 star review from Love Romance Passion

Have you ever written a series that came to you in a non-linear order? Have you read any that were published out of order? Leave a comment to tell me about it!

Happy reading!

Find out more about this collection and Woodcutter's Grim Series here:

http://www.writers-exchange.com/woodcutters-grim-series/

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08MLBYBH1

Karen is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 140 titles and 16 series. Visit her here:

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

https://www.goodreads.com/karenwiesner

http://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/ 

http://www.writers-exchange.com/blog/ 

https://www.amazon.com/author/karenwiesner 

More Futuristic Forecasts

"Prediction is hard, especially about the future." Over the past week, I've been rereading LIFE AND TIME, a 1978 collection of essays by Isaac Asimov (some of them written as early as the 1960s). In contrast to the imaginative speculations in his fiction, these articles include serious forecasts about potential developments in technology and society.

Most strikingly, he anticipated the internet, a global repository of information anybody could draw upon. He envisioned everybody on Earth having a personal "channel" just as most people now have individual telephone numbers. We sort of have that system now, considering the unique IP address of each computer as a personal channel. Also, an individual tablet or smart phone serves the same function. Incidentally, J. D. Robb's "In Death" SF mystery series anticipated today's smart phone as the pocket "link" most people in her fictional future carry with them, long before such devices became common in real life. Asimov hailed the future possibilities of lifelong, customized learning through the worldwide computer bank. Granted, many people benefit from the internet in that way, yet the satirical lament too often holds some truth: We have a network that gives us access to the entire accumulated knowledge of humanity, and we use it mostly for political rants and pictures of cats. Asimov suggested computer learning could overcome one of the main disadvantages of our educational system, the necessity for one teacher to instruct a large group of students, making it impossible to adjust lessons to the comprehension level, interests, and learning style of each individual. Computer education could effectively give each pupil a private tutor. Although we've recently had over a year of experience with online education, it's still been mainly a group-oriented activity. Advanced AI might fulfill Asimov's vision. He also foresaw cashless monetary transactions, electronic transmission of documents, and virtual rather than in-person business meetings, all of which exist now. Unfortunately, his expectation that these developments would greatly reduce travel and its attendant pollution hasn't come to pass yet, probably because many employers are reluctant to embrace the full potential of remote work.

On some topics, he was too pessimistic. For example, he foresaw the world population reaching seven billion by the early 21st century, a point we've already passed. However, we're not forced to survive on synthetic nourishment derived from genetically engineered microbes, as he speculated might become necessary. We still eat a lavish variety of fresh foods. He seemed to believe a population of the current level or higher would reduce humankind to universal misery; while many of the planet's inhabitants do live in abject circumstances, Earth hasn't yet become a dreary anthill.

Not surprisingly, Asimov favored genetically modified agricultural products, which already exist, although not in some of the radically altered or enhanced forms he imagined. He also focused on the hope of cleaner energy, perhaps from controlled fusion or large-scale solar power. He proposed solar collectors in orbit, beaming energy down to Earth, far from a practical solution at present. And, as everyone knows, fusion-generated power is only twenty years away—and has been for a generation or more. :) Asimov predicted autonomous cars, almost commercially viable in the present. He also discussed the potential advantages of flying cars, however, without apparently considering the horror of city skies thronged with thousands of individual VTOL vehicles piloted by hordes of amateurs. Maybe self-driving vehicles would solve that problem, being programmed to avoid collisions.

To save energy on cooling and heating as well as to shelter inhabitants from severe weather, he proposed moving cities underground, as in his novel THE CAVES OF STEEL. This plan might be the optimal strategy for colonizing the Moon or Mars. I doubt most Earth citizens would accept it unless it beomes the only alternative to a worldwide doom scenario. Asimov, a devoted claustrophile, seemed to underestimate the value the average person puts on sunshine, fresh air, nature, and open space.

In general, he tended to be over-pessimistic about the fate looming over us unless we solve the problem of overpopulation right now (meaning, from his viewpoint, in the 1980s). As dire as that problem is in the long run, the decades since the publication of the essays in LIFE AND TIME demonstrate that Earth is more resilient than Asimov (and many prognosticators at that time) feared. Moreover, the worldwide birthrate is declining, although the shift isn't spread evenly over the world and for the present global population continues to rise through sheer momentum. Asimov analyzed the issue of whether a demographic pattern of old people far outnumbering younger ones would lead to a rigid, reactionary culture. He maintained that the mental stagnation traditionally associated with aging could be prevented by an emphasis on lifelong learning and creativity. He devoted no attention to the more immediate problem of declining birthrates some nations already begin to face now—a young workforce that isn't large enough to support its millions of retired and often infirm elders. Encouraging immigration would help. (But that's "modpol"—shorthand for modern politics on one list I subscribe to—so I'll say no more about it.) In the long run, however, if and when prosperity rises and births decline worldwide, there won't be anyplace for a supply of young workers to immigrate from.

Asimov seemed over-optimistic about the technological marvels and wondrous lifestyle we'll all enjoy IF over-population and its attendant problems are conquered. He envisioned the 21st century as a potential earthly paradise. Judging from the predictions of such optimists over many decades, just as controlled fusion is always twenty years away, utopia is always fifty years away.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Absolutely AWFul

As America celebrates Labor on Labor Day, I'm reminded of the little red hen (who did all the work), and all her neighbors in the barnyard who did not want to share in the effort, but expected to enjoy the fruits of her labor.
https://americanliterature.com/childrens-stories/the-little-red-hen

In copyright terms, who is the Pig, who the Cat, and who the Rat?

However, in copyright terms, the wheat-seed-to-loaf analogy doesn't hold, because bread is finite and perishable. Not so much with royal wedding cake.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/07/30/royal-wedding-cake-auction/

But again, it is the original that is being auctioned. Apparently, the original copyright-infringing works might be untouchable.  One digresses.

Suppose the little red hen had take a photograph of her loaf of bread? That would be a copyrightable work of photographic art. "Barnyard Loaf" would not be in the public domain, even if Pig, Rat, and Cat saw the photo.  Little red hen, after all, created the bread, posed the bread, chose the angle from which to photograph the bread, chose the time of day and the light quality and the direction of the sun and the cast of shadows, and she also chose the type of camera equipment and the film (even if she used an iPhone).

She put a lot of work into her "Barnyard Loaf".

Suppose Cat asked for a limited license to copy the photograph for the reference of an unnamed artist for ephemeral use in "Farmyard Times" to illustrate an article on The Staff of Life.  The artist was Rat, and rat liked to take other artists' photographs, copy them multiple times to create a compilation work (which Rat called "transformative" and "original expression", and conveying a different meaning and social commentary or some such thing.... and was therefore "Fair Use".  Perhaps Rat gave the wholesome loaf a wash of orange, purple, yellow to make it Rat's.  Then, Rat made prints, and sold them, probably for a lot of money, because Rat was well known for that sort of thing and got away with it.

Legal bloggers Sarah Bro  and Ewa Wojciechowska for McDermott Will & Emery walk through the Second Circuit judges' thinking as they decided on a Fair Use case which inspired the above extended analogy.

https://www.ipupdate.com/2021/09/second-circuit-supreme-court-google-precedent-doesnt-alter-copyright-laws-fair-use-analysis/#page=1

For good measure, here is the Lexology link:

https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=206d9a8a-2b1a-4b83-ab6d-665525ea082d

It's interesting to know how judges weigh the four "fair use" factors, and why LGL prevailed against AWF.

Not in the least Awful, but much less clear (to this writer, who is not an online game enthusiast) is Lawrence Veregin's discussion about copyright in a deck of cards (a compilation), where perhaps every one of the sixty cards in the deck might individually be the copyrightable artwork of someone else. I would not include something I don't understand, but perhaps the discussion is of interest to alien romance followers of Jacqueline Lichtenberg's illuminating series on writing from the Tarot.

Original Link:

https://www.airdberlis.com/insights/blogs/thespotlight/post/ts-item/stacked-deck-a-claim-for-copyright-in-magic-the-gathering-deck

Lexology Link:

https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=4d0ed54b-112a-4a7c-80a5-25b8a19771db

Thinking of the copyright in a deck of cards reminds me of cover model CJ Hollenbach who once worked with a full pack of romance writers to create a deck of pink cards of romance-writing tips. One hopes that he copyrighted his compilation. He was/is a charming, creative, and hard working gymrat (self described).

Take a look: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqa4YefzV4c

All the best

Rowena Cherry 

SPACE SNARK™ 

http://www.spacesnark.com/  http://www.rowenacherry.com

Karen Wiesner: The Stories Behind Classic Fairy Tales (Woodcutter's Grim Series), Part 2

WOODCUTTER’S GRIM SERIES—

Classic Tales of Horror Retold, Volume I Collection

 by Karen Wiesner

Four Supernatural Fantasy Romance/Mild Horror Novellas

This is the second of eight posts focusing on my Woodcutter's Grim Series and the stories behind classic fairy tales.

For the ten generations since the evil first came to Woodcutter's Grim, the Guardians have sworn an oath to protect the town from the childhood horrors that lurk in the black woods. Without them, the town would be defenseless…and the terrors would escape to the world at large.Ts collection includes Books 1-3 in the series along with The Final Chapter: 

"Papa", Book 1

 ** A horrifying rendering of “Hansel and Gretel” in which revenge is served up sweet...Less than a year after Rand left his family for Amy, his ex-wife and two children are killed in an accident. Ever since then, Amy has had terrible nightmares in which Rand's children return to exact revenge. When Rand convinces her to come away with him to an isolated cabin in the woods, Amy's guilt-filled nightmares turn into pure horror. **

The Woodcutter's Grim Series started officially when my family went camping and everyone was telling scary stories around the fire one night. The idea for a terrifying “Hansel and Gretel” is what I came up with. The scariest part of my pitifully weak rendition around the campfire that night was Hansel and Gretel calling in their thin, ghostly voices, “Papa” to their father, who’d abandoned them. After this, I had a nightmare about a spooky town that seemed completely deserted. The only thing the hero could find were little piles of sugar everywhere. Later, he realized those were all that were left of the townspeople. That was the jumping off point for the story “Papa”.

The basis of the fairy tale "Hansel and Gretel" is a deeply disturbing, tragic story of famine, disease, and infanticide but could also have had something to do with a successful female baker in the 1600s that another baker (a male) grew jealous of and so accused of being a witch. You can probably guess the rest, but if you want to know more details about this travesty, visit: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/fairy-tale-true-story_b_6102602.

"Blood of Amethyst", Book 2

** A bloodcurdling answer why Rumpelstiltskin wanted a child of his own... Amethyst's father disappears and Sheriff and Guardian Gabe finds him drained of blood. When Amethyst herself grows pale, cold, wakes only in the night when her taste for blood overwhelms her, Gabe becomes aware something in the woods is stealing her life. He'll face his deadliest foe yet when the woman he loves falls prey to a nameless creature who wants her very soul. **

Okay, so who doesn’t wonder why the childhood fairy tale creature "Rumpelstiltskin" wanted the queen’s child for his own? His reasons couldn’t be good. They had to be horrifying. I’d always wondered about the answer to that question, and so it was natural in this “a modern rendering of a classic fairy tale” to explore that angle, as well as establish the inner workings of the fairy tale horror town Woodcutter’s Grim first introduced in “Papa”. Since Sheriff Gabe Reece (leader of the Protectorate) made his first appearance in that story, it seemed natural to make that character the focus of this one.

Another thing I've always wondered is where the name "Rumpelstiltskin" came from and what it means. There are several ideas about the origin. One idea is that it stems from a childhood game in which children took turns assuming the role of a noisy goblin with limp. The word could also describe a mischievous poltergeist. There's also a crude suggestion that the name has a phallic interpretation in the story. In other words, an impish creatures forces a woman to "make gold" with him and then tries to take her firstborn. This story could have been a warning to easily manipulated young women of the time. Check out the full attempt to discover the origin of the classic tale here: https://www.pookpress.co.uk/project/rumpelstiltskin-history/.

"Dancing to the Grave", Book 3

** Loosely based on “The Pied Piper of Hamelin”. The children of Woodcutter's Grim are changing...and only one person, music teacher Diane Anders, realizes the truth. Can she and her husband, Kurt Jones, a member of the ancient lineage of the Protectorate's Chosen Seven, save them and the future of their town? **

 Another children’s fairy tale that’s always fascinated me is the "Pied Piper of Hamelin". Why would he want to lure all those children away? I came up with an explanation here in this modern retelling. Isn't having all your children taken away the very definition of horror? I also liked exploring the early phases of a couple reuniting after one of them had cheated. The title was another no-brainer, since it was based on the Pied Piper story.

 I hope to never have to research rats again! That was pretty unpleasant and made me itchy the whole time I was writing the story. The heroine Diane was allergic to rats, and I have the same condition, but it's not relegated to just rats. At the time I was working on this story, we lived in an older house, and I kept smelling something dead in the basement, where my office and computer were. My husband wouldn't believe me, but we found a newly deceased carcass of a bat not long later…when a bunch of live bats started flying around my head one night while I was working down there! Needless to say, my office was moved upstairs the very next day.

The story behind the fairy tale "The Pied Piper of Hamelin" might be just what you'd expect, following the story closely to events that took place in 1264 in a Germanic village. When the town elders reneged on the deal, one potential explanation (or myth) is that children could have been compelled by the piper into missionary service, via the Children's Crusade. Did they in fact cross the sea to convert Muslims to Christianity, or did they never reach their destination, either starving or being sold into slavery? https://www.huffpost.com/entry/fairy-tale-true-story_b_6102602https://www.worldhistory.org/Children's_Crusade/

"The Amethyst Tower", The Final Chapter

** Loosely based on “Rapunzel”. The isolated maiden meets her knight in a time-traveler who's come into the future to rescue her from the Warlock Lord holding her captive in the amethyst tower. Where else but in the fairy-tale-horror town of Woodcutter's Grim? **

While I really wanted to come up with more Woodcutter's Grim Series stories, I didn't really have any ideas and so assumed it would end with four novellas. But, later when I unexpectedly dreamed up more stories to fit in this series, "The Amethyst Tower” gave me a focal point and a boundary to write the rest of the “middle” stories inside, knowing where the series would end.

At the time when I was outlining "The Amethyst Tower", I’d been lamenting for years that Disney still hadn’t done a movie for the fairy tale "Rapunzel" (Tangled came out years later), so I wanted to do a scary version. The end of “Dancing to the Grave” provided the perfect segue into "The Amethyst Tower". The hero in the story, Prince, wasn't someone I wanted to make a typical hero. For countless years, he'd tried to fulfill the prophecy about him being a savior, with no idea how to go about it. He was discouraged and depressed, not to mention a little defeated. It wasn't until much later that I realized how important this story was to the series when I tried to "write backwards" with new tales that fit before the events of "The Amethyst Tower". Trust me, there is nothing fun about painting yourself in a corner and having to stay within it to tell the rest of the stories in a series.

Some fairy tales are based on sad tales of religion gone wrong, as is the case with Rapunzel. A pagan merchant father couldn't bear to have his daughter marry (his reason for that can't be good) so locked her in a tower. After she converted to Christianity, her prayers were so loud, the merchant was informed of them by those in the town below. When he dragged his daughter in front of the Roman pro-consul, he was told he either had to behead her himself or he'd have to give up his fortune to shut her up. Can you guess what he decided to do? Sigh. But at least he got his just due when he was struck by lightning right after the evil deed against his own child was done. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/fairy-tale-true-story_b_6102602

Reviews and Honors for WOODCUTTER'S GRIM SERIES, Volume I:

2008 Dream Realms Award Winner

Best Book of 2010 Nominee from Siren Book Reviews

Recommended Read from Dark Angel Reviews

5 star review from Howling Good Books

5 star review from BTSemag

5 star review from Linda's Reviews

5 star review from author Jenna Whittaker

4 1/2 star review from Siren Book Reviews

4.25 star review from Huntress Reviews

4 star review from RT Book Reviews

4 star review from Paranormal Romance Reviews

4 star review from Coffee Time Romance

4 star review from The Romance Review

Do you love telling or hearing scary stories around a campfire? Have you ever dreamed about something that made you want to write a story on the basis of the dream? Leave a comment to tell me about it!

Happy reading!

Find out more about this collection and Woodcutter's Grim Series here:

http://www.writers-exchange.com/woodcutters-grim-series/

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08MLBYBH1

Karen is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 140 titles and 16 series. Visit her here:

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

https://www.goodreads.com/karenwiesner

http://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/ 

http://www.writers-exchange.com/blog/ 

https://www.amazon.com/author/karenwiesner 

Failures of Prediction

To dispose of one point up front, of course we know the purpose of science fiction isn't literally to predict future technology and social structures. Its speculations typically explore hypothetical paths that may or may not become reality, some of which are so extreme nobody seriously expects their fulfillment. They're extrapolations that answer "What if. . . ?" or "If this goes on. . . ."

Nevertheless, it's entertaining to contemplate some of the future technological and cultural developments in older SF works that drastically missed the mark. One classic example shows up in Robert Heinlein's HAVE SPACE SUIT, WILL TRAVEL, where human colonies on the moon coexist with slide rules. In I WILL FEAR NO EVIL, the fabulously wealthy protagonist has to wait several days for the result of her pregnancy test, although at the time of the novel's publication, such a test could be completed in less than half an hour. (Ordinary patients had to wait only because of lab backlogs. Now, of course, we have instant home pregnancy tests, which ought to exist in the future setting of I WILL FEAR NO EVIL.) I don't count Heinlein's transplantation of 1950s family structures into the spacefaring future in his "juveniles" as a failure of prediction, because it's obvious he was simply bowing to the constraints of the market in those books. His posthumously published utopia FOR US, THE LIVING demonstrates how early in his career he envisioned alternative marriage and sexual customs.

Isaac Asimov did foresee the hand-held calculator, but that story imagines a future in which people have become so dependent on calculators that even scientists with advanced degrees don't know how to do arithmetic the old-fashioned way. I can't believe that's meant as a serious prediction rather than a fanciful thought experiment. I suspect the same about a story in which people aren't taught to read, since computers and robots convey all information (apparently -- it's not quite clear) in audible speech. (So what about deaf users?) It comes as an incredible revelation to the two boys in this tale that their recent ancestors could decode "squiggles" on paper.

Recently I reread a collection of Asimov's robot short stories, along with his novel ROBOTS OF DAWN, and was amused at some of the predictive "fails" perpetrated by such a visionary author. For one thing, the robots are almost all roughly humanoid-shaped, supposedly because the public would feel less wary of them in that form. The plan doesn't work; throughout the series, most Earth people (as opposed to Spacers, who tend to embrace the convenience of artificial servants) fear robots, and it's pretty clear that the crude approximation of human shape makes the animated machines more distrusted, not less. It would make more sense to design robots' bodies for maximum efficiency in performing their particular tasks, as real-life industrial robots usually are. Furthermore, to learn new information robots are shown reading books rather than having the contents uploaded directly into their positronic brains. Very odd from a present-day perspective, when astronomers in one story want to identify extrasolar planets likely to harbor life, they teach a robot to perform the analysis rather than programming a stationary computer to carry out the search. This piece, of course, is set in the distant future, yet we have methods of finding Earthlike extrasolar planets right now.

In terms of social change, Asimov's robot series includes elements that require generous suspension of disbelief. For instance, THE CAVES OF STEEL emphasizes how overcrowded Earth has become. As one consequence, personal hygiene occurs in what amount to huge communal bathhouses, called Personals. All right, if overpopulation means apartments are so small it makes more sense to centralize baths, showers, and related functions, I can accept that. But it's strongly implied that individual dwellings don't have toilet facilities, which would imply no running water! This assumption is confirmed in ROBOTS OF DAWN, where Earth investigator Elijah Baley is suprised to find one-person Personals in private homes. Asimov must not have thought this through. In a technologically advanced society hundreds of years in the future, people don't have any means of washing at home? And when "nature calls" in the middle of the night or first thing in the morning, they use -- what? Chamber pots? Family structures on the Spacer worlds, at least the two we see in the series, are also problematic. One world has developed a culture in which people abhor personal contact so deeply that they never touch or even meet in person if they can help it. Almost all contact happens holographically. Children are brought up in group care homes, where they're gradually trained out of the crude desire for physical proximity. Even spouses don't live together. They have sex only for reproduction, and most people detest that "duty," yet the obvious alternative of universal artificial insemination isn't embraced. On the planet Aurora in ROBOTS OF DAWN, casual recreational sex is commonplace, children are the only purpose of formal marriage, the young are reared in communal nurseries and may not even know the identities of their parents, and sexual jealousy allegedly doesn't exist. Asimov must have subscribed to the early and mid-20th-century belief that human nature is infinitely malleable. (For a lucid, detailed, entertainingly readable rebuttal of that notion, see Steven Pinker's THE BLANK SLATE.) Consider how recognizable to us are the portrayals of marriage, family, and sexuality in the early books of the Old Testament, thousands of years ago. Are a few more centuries and the relatively minor change of venue to different planets really likely to inspire radical changes in those areas of human interaction?

Famously, when later series in the Star Trek universe were developed, the producers had to cope with the fact that some technology in the original series had already become outdated, notably the flip-phone communicators. On the other hand, some SF works predict too ambitiously, as in the proverbial plea, "Where's my flying car?" The classic 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY envisioned a level of routine space travel in 2001 that we haven't attained yet. Heinlein's DOOR INTO SUMMER promised all-purpose housecleaning robots in 1970. I wish!

Of course, many elements in current print and film SF that seem to us like cutting-edge predictions may turn out to be laughably wrong. As far as dystopian visions such as THE HANDMAID'S TALE are concerned, we can fervently hope so. However, I still want my autonomous housecleaning robot. I'm pleased with my Roomba, but it's only a start.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Puffery And Prevention

Puffery is like a fig leaf for writers. A vague or highly subjective assertion does not expose you, legally. Whether or not it is good writing is another matter entirely.

Here's an example of non-actionable puffery. "Alien Romances is the most interesting, reader-friendly, quick-read blog that has been active for more than 10 years."

The Frankfurt Kurnitz Klein + Selz PC advertising law blog article, 'Does "Tested" Actually Mean That You've Conducted Testing?' discusses a recent legal dispute over truth in advertising plumbing equipment.

https://advertisinglaw.fkks.com/post/102h5bl/does-tested-actually-mean-that-youve-conducted-testing

Legal blogger Jeff Greenbaum expertly runs through three separate claims that a rival purveyor of plumbing supplies found offensive, and why --on appeal-- two of the claims did not stick (legally speaking), but one did.

For UK law firm Burges Salmon LLP, legal expert Helen Scott-Lawler and Amanda Leiu examine two stories of social media influences who fell foul of the law (the Advertising Standards Authority), one for allegedly using her Instagram presence to promote products for profit without --allegedly-- properly disclosing that her posts were advertisements, and the other for running a social media "contest" and allegedly failing to deliver the prize to the contest winner.

https://www.burges-salmon.com/news-and-insight/legal-updates/commercial/advertising-standards-authority-asa-bans-instagram-influencers-ads-for-disregarding-ad-rules

We writers like stories, we advertise, we promote, we try to use social media for visibility and profit... so these cautionary tales are good to know.

Most scandalous of all (for today)  Elizabeth Tuttle Newman, writing for the FKKS IP and Media Law blog discusses the slander of a public figure in No Slander, No Case...

https://ipandmedialaw.fkks.com/post/102h5ak/no-slander-no-case-court-dismisses-avenattis-defamation-claims-against-fox-new

Lexology link:

https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=8b3d5642-64ef-4e92-ad53-e0353a5569d4

The bottom line is that aggrieved public figures have to be able to prove actual and deliberate malice, and moreover,  mild inaccuracies or fanciful speculation are not necessarily defamatory. For any writer considering articles or biographies of interesting subjects, this is edifying reading.

Also precautionary....

For writers who own blogs or websites where other people may add comments, you should register a copyright agent and keep your account active by changing your password when prompted, which is usually every couple of months.

 https://dmca.copyright.gov/osp/p1.html

The designated copyright agent for this blog is Rowena Cherry.

The purpose of designating a copyright agent and registering with the DMCA Designated Agent Directory is to qualify for safe harbor protection. For an explanation, see here.

All the best,

Rowena Cherry  

SPACE SNARK™

http://www.spacesnark.com/  http://www.rowenacherry.com

 

Karen Wiesner: The Stories Behind Classic Fairy Tales (Woodcutter's Grim Series), Part 1

WOODCUTTER’S GRIM SERIES—

Classic Tales of Horror Retold

by Karen Wiesner

Supernatural Fantasy Romance/Mild Horror

For the ten generations since the evil first came to Woodcutter's Grim, the Guardians have sworn an oath to protect the town from the childhood horrors that lurk in the black woods. Without them, the town would be defenseless…and the terrors would escape to the world at large. 

This will be the first of eight posts focusing on my Woodcutter's Grim Series and the stories behind classic fairy tales.

Since I was a child, I had a love for all things supernatural. HOW TO CARE FOR YOUR MONSTER was a book I read over and over when I was young. It was written by Norman Bridwell (the guy who wrote the Clifford the Big Red Dog series). I wore that book out. Funny thing is, my husband also said it was one of his favorite books when he was young, too. I’d never known anyone else who’d ever read it. Meant to be, huh? 

Some of the earliest horror books I remember reading were an out-of-print series of teen horror called TWILIGHT: WHERE DARKNESS BEGINS, YOU'LL LIKE MY MOTHER by Naomi A. Hinze (gothic horror, which I adore), and DRACULA, of course. Stephen King books were the cornerstone reading of my teenage years. One of my all-time favorite horror novels since becoming an adult is THE RUINS by Scott Smith—an unusual horror novel that has no chapters whatsoever and is 384 pages you literally cannot put it down from start to finish. Brilliant! 

My Woodcutter's Grim Series started when I was putting together a proposal for my promotional group Jewels of the Quill’s first Halloween anthology, SHADOWS IN THE HEART. I'd always wanted to write a horror/fantasy series, and I spent quite a few years considering how to go about it. My mind went first to childhood fairy tales. Most of them are, by nature, horror stories sometimes mirroring real-life events that were probably the stuff of nightmares at the time they were written. So I knew I wanted to create a fairy tale horror/fantasy town in which those old tales came to life in terrifying ways. Calling the town Woodcutter's Grim seemed completely logical. All of the stories in the Woodcutter’s Grim Series are loosely based on popular or traditional fairy tales, nursery rhymes, poems, folktales, parables, mythology, and other "lore".

When I wrote and published the first collection of "classic fairy tales retold in modern times as horror or fantasy", few others were doing anything like it. Right after that, a slew of projects similar to this came about, including the TV shows GRIMM (which was amazing) and ONCE UPON A TIME (not as inspiring to me but nevertheless interesting), and many movies turning fairy tales into deep characterization horror fests with a twist, such as SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN (and the sequel) with Charlize Theron and Chris Hemsworth, and RED RIDING HOOD with Amanda Seyfried and Gary Oldman. 

What are some of the most memorable books and authors of the supernatural you read as a child? Do you love to read or watch tales of fairy tales reimagined? Leave a comment to tell me about your favorites! 

Happy reading! 

Find out more about Woodcutter's Grim Series here:

http://www.writers-exchange.com/woodcutters-grim-series/

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08MLBYBH1

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 140 titles and 16 series. Visit her here:

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

https://www.goodreads.com/karenwiesner

http://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/ 

http://www.writers-exchange.com/blog/ 

https://www.amazon.com/author/karenwiesner 

Can AI Be a Bad Influence?

In a computer language-learning experiment in 2016, a chat program designed to mimic the conversational style of teenage girls devolved into spewing racist and misogynistic rhetoric. Interaction with humans quickly corrupted an innocent bot, but could AI corrupt us, too?

AI's Influence Can Make Humans Less Moral

Here's a more detailed explanation (from 2016) of the Tay program and what happened when it was let loose on social media:

Twitter Taught Microsoft's AI Chatbot to Be a Racist

The Tay Twitter bot was designed to get "smarter" in the course of chatting with more and more users, thereby, it was hoped, "learning to engage people through 'casual and playful conversation'." Unfortunately, spammers apparently flooded it with poisonous messages, which it proceeded to imitate and amplify. If Tay was ordered, "Repeat after me," it obeyed, enabling anyone to put words in its virtual mouth. However, it also started producing racist, misogynistic, and just plain weird utterances spontaneously. This debacle raises questions such as "how are we going to teach AI using public data without incorporating the worst traits of humanity?"

The L.A. TIMES article linked above, with reference to the Tay episode as a springboard for discussion, explores this problem in more general terms. How can machines "make humans themselves less ethical?" Among other possible influences, AI can offer bad advice, which people have been noticed to follow as readily as they do online advice from live human beings; AI advice can "provide a justification to break ethical rules"; AI can act as a negative role model; it can be easily used for deceptive purposes; outsourcing ethically fraught decisions to algorithms can be dangerous. The article concludes that "whenever AI systems take over a new social role, new risks for corrupting human behavior will emerge."

This issue reminds me of Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics, especially since I've recently been rereading some of his robot-related fiction and essays. As you'll recall, the First Law states, "A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm." In one of Asimov's early stories, a robot learns to lie in order to tell people what they want to hear. As this machine perceives the problem of truth and lies, the revelation of distressing truths would cause humans emotional pain, and emotional harm is still harm. Could AI programs be taught to avoid causing emotional and ethical damage to their human users? The potential catch is that a computer intelligence can acquire ethical standards only by having them programmed in by human designers. As a familiar precept declares, "Garbage in, garbage out." Suppose programmers train an AI to regard the spreading of bizarre conspiracy theories as a vital means of protecting the public from danger?

It's a puzzlement.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt