Unabashed

In a conversation today about science fiction movies, a person I was talking with challenged me on the “realism” in scifi movies. And of course I kind of had to shake my head. To me, scifi is realistic. It’s the modern action movie that’s traipsed over into the category of I-can-no-longer-suspend-my-disbelief-to-believe-this-is-possible.

SciFi movies are futuristic, meaning they take place in the future, meaning that a lot of the things that happen in them might actually be possible one day. But now let’s look at some modern-day action movies. You can pretty much name the lame at this point: XXX, The Fast and the Furious, or, here’s a good example: Charlie’s Angels. Are you telling me that’s a realistic representation of what three female cops look like, and that they can leap twenty feet into the air while dodging bullets, spinning, and then jettison themselves out a window and take out six armed, burly, lethal guards before ever touching the ground? It seems to me that futuristic SciFi is much more realistic than that. Case in point: Pitch Black. A space ship crash lands on an alien planet full of a particularly horrible breed of life that, given the planet’s situation, it makes perfect sense for them to have evolved into. Their ship requires fuel, their people rely on guns and sharp objects for self defense, they are easily cleaved by claws and seemingly delectable by the local dominant species. To me, I guess that all just makes perfect sense, given the fact that we can’t prove it wrong. Unfortunately, we can prove all too easily that Cameron Diaz cannot leap tall buildings in a single bound. Granted, she does look awfully cute dancing around in her panties, but…I’m losing focus here. You tell me, are SciFi movies more realistic than action movies?

written by Matt Mitchell \\ tags: action, charlie's angels, Movies, pitch black, science fiction, scifi, scific, vs

While I’m thinking about it, I’ve had dreams before that have ended up being incorporated into various stories I’ve written. For instance, one morning I woke up with a clear line in my head, which may not make any sense to you (it didn’t to my wife), but nevertheless I liked it and I thought it was funny so I adapted it. The line was this:

“Being the first ith, he was Irmth. His name was Irmth the Eleventh.”

As it happened I was embroiled in the writing of a scifi comedy about a space-traveling zydeco accordion player named Joe Remeleaux Redmill. Irmth became the bad guy for that story, and it’s one of those humorous SciFic pieces I told you I’d really like to find a home for.

The way it finally worked out was: Irmth belonged to a race that was the result of a genome abnormality in an entirely other race, the name of which is inconsequential at this point. Irmth and his kind were called “Shifts” by those they were spun off from, and were shunned despite their evident superior evolutionary state. Irmth was the eleventh Shift to have evolved, though there are many thousands in the universe now. Shifts were art-loving Methuselahs who lived millions of years. They were born with duplex personalities and referred to themselves using 1st person plural pronouns (we, us, our). They speak with two voices and, in the bulbous, gelatinous, transparent midriff of their bodies, which is usually tinted green or blue or brown and inside of which can be seen their organs and various floating detritus, had a second face, though their physiology was otherwise more or less human in appearance. They were usually phenomenally rich, intelligent, and deviant (though not sexually, not having the necessary equipment). Irmth himself was the first Shift of a separate branch called Ith. The only difference between a normal Shift and an Ith was that an Ith was much taller. Irmth specifically enjoys cocktails, sometimes delivered intravenously, technology and information, and music. He has organized numerous events throughout the Universe, some of which were so successful that they never stopped. Irmth scours the Galaxy, looking for musical talent to feature at his events, and is currently organizing and promoting an event in the Hypersholean system called “Music Horizon,” which promises to be a never-ending event and boasts five generation seven Posi-Tek SubSpaceWoofter Platforms, release 5ZR11.32.99, AKA the GalactiBlaster, which essentially turns a moon or planet into a speaker. When Irmth hears music he likes, he usually leaves his card, which is the model of simplicity:

Being the first ith, he was Irmth.
His name was Irmth the Eleventh.

written by Matt Mitchell \\ tags: galactiblaster, ideas, irmth, ith, science fiction, scifi, scific, shift, stories, story, writing

Internet pal and fellow writer Ken McConnell’s debut story, “The Renoke,” is up at SpaceWesterns.com. It’s a nicely creepy story and it’s science fiction; you can’t get much better than that.

written by Matt Mitchell \\ tags: free, free read, Ken McConnell, science fiction, scifi, scific, spacewesterns.com, story

Someone should put together an anthology of humorous science fiction. Maybe even make it a tribute to Douglas Adams, the man who proved that humor and scific was possible. It’s been almost 30 years since the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was first published, and Adams remains the only successful author of humorous SciFic that I know of. It’s a genre that needs some attention, I think. I say this, of course, because I sometimes write funny SciFic, and I need a market to sell my stories to. There are some markets that say they’d like to have it, but either they don’t really want it or the usual applies: “this story just wasn’t right for us.”

Whether humorous SciFic is being written now I don’t know, I only know that the only SciFic that seems to be enjoying any success in the market isn’t written with humor being the first intent. Some say that it’s been done, to which I would counter by saying hasn’t everything? I’ve heard it said before that there are no original stories left to write, that we only substitute new characters into stories that, to one degree or another, have already been done at one time before. Humorous science fiction is something I would like to read, so, I think it hasn’t been done enough.

I’ve even thought about doing an anthology myself, except for all the problems related to that, the two most pivotal being: I don’t have the time to do it, and I’m not an editor. The only thing I could really contribute is that I know what I like to read, and sometimes that jives with what other people like to read, too. But then I would still have the problem of placing my own stories, since, you know, it wouldn’t be a good idea to put my own story in the anthology I was “editing.” That would just be wrong and smack of amateurism, like when someone builds a website for fiction and when you visit it all the stories you see are written by the same person. That’s one of the best ways to ensure your work never gets read.

Would it be better to self-publish an anthology than a book you’ve written yourself? I don’t know. I know that indie writing doesn’t get much respect these days, primarily due to the fact that at least 90% of what’s ever been self-published in the history of indie writing has been manure. With an anthology you’d have to get submissions, but I don’t really think that would be a problem. You always hear editors bemoaning the sheer numbers of subs in their slush piles. The plus would be that you could use CreateSpace, and thereby sell your anthology on Amazon and to Kindle readers. The only publicity you’d get would be what you could put together yourself on the web. Very few reviews, very little marketing, all could add up to very few sales. And if your reason for doing an anthology is sales, well, you probably should have known in the first place that it wasn’t going to make you rich. If your reason for doing an anthology is because you want to see more of a certain type of story that’s not getting much attention, then maybe. Maybe.

This is no call for subs, by the way. This is just me pondering possibilities on my blog, public forum that it is. Feedback is welcome, as usual.

written by Matt Mitchell \\ tags: amazon, Anthology, createspace, douglas adams, indie, kindle, science fiction, scifi, scific, short story, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Tribute, writer, writers

Just put the finishing touches on a new short story, SciFi with a hint of horror. I have to say I’m pretty excited about it, too. The preliminary idea I had a couple of years ago, one of those story bones I wrote down, saved the file and looked at every now and then to see if the spark was there yet. The spark arrived Friday, and today it’s done. Three drafts, 3k words, three days. Once it started flowing it was on, there was nothing I could do but write it down; it was one of those periods when you realize again why you write, why you tell stories, because you know it’s good, you feel it, it just sings to you. One of those stories you have no choice but to write. Sure, sometimes there’s filler stories, the ones you struggle through because you had an idea that just talked, but when they sing, boy, that’s a great feeling. It makes me think sometimes it might be what heroin is like (I’m not joking), because when the story sings to me and I’m flying through the writing… it just doesn’t get much better. I don’t know if it’s endorphins or serotonin or just old-fashioned adrenaline, but it is an undeniably exhilarating experience. Intoxicating. It makes me want another one. And the greatest part of it is it still comes; every once in a while I get that lightning in a bottle sensation that is just as good as the first one, and that’s something I hear even heroin can’t do for you. The last story I wrote under similar sensations is in publication now; I’m hoping this one will be too, and soon. It’s one of those that, when you put it in the envelope and you have just the right publisher picked out and you send it off, you can’t imagine how they could possibly say no. They will, of course, and that’s why the rejection hurts so bad sometimes–because this is the work of life, the stuff of dreams, the fabric of your imagination, and you know it’s good and right, but sometimes others just don’t see it, or for some reason pass on it. So you pick another publisher and eventually, if you do it enough times, you get that other high from writing: acceptance. Validation. Success.

The story itself is one I’ve wanted to write for a long time: a zombie story. It’s titled Planet Zombie, and it’s about priest/medic on a exploration mission through the Milky Way, who just happens to drop in on a planet where everything dies, where nothing lives, and yet the body remains animated. He knows his soul is gone. His heart stops beating, he isn’t affected by the cold of the planet’s surface, nor the radiation, nor the choking gaseous atmosphere. He feels his soul slip away, feels his death, and knows that God has abandoned him. My wife read it and said it was good, but gross (she didn’t like the part where the geologist is sitting on the floor eating his own fingers). It’s a new take on an old genre, which is something that publishers say they like to get. Go ahead and pencil me in for my Nebula; it’s a lock.

written by Matt Mitchell \\ tags: , horror, Planet Zombie, science fiction, scifi, short story, Zombie

Okay; who else is excited about this? I’m getting free e-books in my email, free artwork, and, if you read the fine print in those emails or visit Tor.com nowadays you get this little message:

Something new is coming.

For days I’ve been watching this site. What’s it going to be? Is it going to redefine the SciFi presence on the web (something that is in dire need of redefining, if you ask me)? I’m tantalized beyond words. I am ready, Tor.

Make the internet better for us.

written by Matt Mitchell \\ tags: science fiction, scifi, scific, Tor