Post #227 August 31 2020 “Alien Languages or What’s Not to Tell?” Any time a science fiction writer creates an alien world, he has to deal with the idea of an alien language. Wikipedia calls this ‘xenolinguistics,” truly a field of study without a field. The Wikipedia article goes on to say: “A formal description of an alien language in science fiction may have been pioneered by Percy Greg's Martian language (he called it "Martial") in his 1880 novel Across the Zodiac,[1] although already the 17th century book The Man in the Moone describes the language of the Lunars, consisting "not so much of words and letters as tunes and strange sounds", which is in turn predated by other invented languages in fictional societies, e.g., in Thomas More's Utopia.” In my own recent works such as The Farpool, I have created a language called Seomish (the planet is called Seome). Here’s what I said about the language in the Appendix to this story: “Seomish is designed phonetically to carry well in a water medium. Hard, clicking consonants are common. The ‘p’ or ‘puh’ sound, made by violent expulsion of air is also common. Modulation of the voice stream, particularly at high frequencies (sounding much like a human whistle) produces the characteristic “wheeee” sound, which is a root of many words. Translation from Seomish to human languages like English requires some inspired speculation, since so many Seomish phrases seem to be little more than grunts or groans, modulated in frequency and duration. “Most Seomish words are grouped according to several characteristics: (1) Who is speaking (the personal); (2) who is being spoken to (the indicative); (3) state of mind of the speaker (the conditional); (4) the kel-standing of the conversants (the intimant). “Each classification has a set of characteristic pre-consonants, to indicate the nature of the coming words, etc. Thus: 1. k’, kee, t’ 2. tch, g, j, oot 3. m’, p’, puh’ (both anger, dislike, distaste, etc), sh, sz (both joyful) 4. each kel identifies itself with a unique set of capitalized consonants, like a vocal coat of arms. Example: t’milee, or CHE’oray…Seomish versus Timily or Chory…English.” Indeed, I’ve even got a small vocabulary of Seomish words. One entry is below: VISHTU: One of the oldest customs of the Seomish, the vishtu or companionship roam, is very much in the traditions of Ke’shoo and typically involves two people although there is no set number. Roams can last anywhere from a few minutes to a few days, even longer, with the average being a few hours. Debate and talk is usually discouraged during the roam in order to let the physical beauty of the landscape work its magic. Often a prelude to some intense, emotionally draining activity, such as sexual intercourse, the fine points and protocol of a roam are learned by Seomish at an early age. A writer who deals in alien languages has several things to watch out for. Here are five: 1. The alien language, whether Seomish, Klingon or Tralfamodorean, has to sound alien without being alien. That is, a truly alien language might be something so bizarre as to defy comprehension. Think of how bees communicate in the hive, using wiggles and scents. A truly alien tongue could be so alien no Earthly reader could ever understand it. So the writer must walk a fine line, between alien ‘sounding’ and actually being truly alien. Of course, there are a variety of ways to do this 2. One of my favorite techniques is to use the alien word or phrase in a context where its meaning is clear. Or even better, tell the reader what the word means. “This device is called the ot’lum, or lifeship.” Alternatively, use an index somewhere in your book. In The Farpool, I did both of these. 3. A little goes a long way. Use alien words sparingly. Use them enough to give the reader a sense that this truly is an alien world. Overuse makes it hard for the reader to understand what’s going on or follow the narrative line. Most of your sentences should be readily understandable English. Insert an alien word every few sentences or every few paragraphs. Your reader’s imagination, along with your descriptions, will do the rest. Sometimes, I have intentionally used awkward sentence constructions to convey alienness as well. Again, don’t overdo it. 4. Don’t write a treatise on linguistics, unless that’s part of the story. I developed some guidelines for language and vocabulary for myself, so I would be consistent in how I portrayed the language. My Seomish characters are intelligent marine creatures; they communicate through grunts, clicks, whistles, squeaks and honks. I even developed a device called an echopod to have a ready-made translation device available for my human characters. I evolved the concept into a translator and encyclopedia, so that my human visitors could receive translated words and also more detailed explanations of things if they desired. The concept worked out pretty well. 5. Don’t be afraid to let the reader do a little work. In other words, you really don’t have to translate everything. Leave a little to the reader’s imagination. Intentionally leave some words or phrases untranslated or explained. Isn’t that real life? There are phrases in German and Spanish and many languages that don’t translate well or even at all into English…and vice versa. I’m pretty sure alien languages will be the same. As long as you don’t do this a lot, your reader will get the gist of the idea and still be able to follow the story, especially if you set the context and the dialogue the right way…the narrative thread will still be there for the reader to hold on to. Remember, truly alien languages will likely be so different from our languages that we may never fully understand what they’re saying. The aliens may not even vocalize their language. It could be based on scent, touch, dance or some weird combination. Look around you at our own natural world and see how other creatures communicate. I can’t imagine alien languages would ever be any less bizarre to us. Next week, The Word Shed will take a one-week hiatus for the Labor Day holiday. The next post to The Word Shed comes on September 14, 2020. See you then and have a great holiday. Phil B.

Post #226 August 24 2020 “Aliens on Earth: Re-starting an Existing Series” In about a year or so, I will be restarting my series The Farpool Stories, with a new title… The Farpool: Plague. I’m planning on doing at least 3 more stories, including this one. Here’s the basic plot: Much of Humanity has been lost to a plague; Amphibs have deliberately infected Man (ostensible motive: to stop Man’s destruction of their ocean habitat) but Amphibs survive and inherit most of human civilization, including leadership roles in many fields. Story largely told by Seomish/human Amphib historian Likto klu kel:Om’t. Plague made by Ponkti biowar scientists in effort to make Amphibs and Seomish (Ponkti) masters of Urku (Earth) and to stop destruction of Earth’s oceans by over-development. Plague obtained by Komik ka kel: Ponk’et by traveling through Farpool back to time before Seome was destroyed and obtaining mah’jeet toxin, which he later modifies and injects into a virus genome he has cultured. Komik wants to get rid of Notwater people and make Urku and its oceans safe for Amphibs and unmodified Seomish (especially Ponkti). Komik will work with renegade Chinese biowar scientists. Komik is himself Amphib, descended from Lektereenah For those of you who have read some of the later titles in The Farpool Stories, the reappearance on Earth of creatures called Amphibs should come as no surprise. They are the descendants of the original Seomish who emigrated to Earth’s oceans through the Farpool when their home world of Seome was threatened by a supernova of their sun. The Amphibs are hybrids, modified to survive both in Earth’s oceans and on land. As such, they are shunned by both the original emigrants and by land-dwellers like you and me. Their motive (at least the motive of renegade scientist Komik ka (see above) is to carve out a survivable niche on Earth for Amphibs to make their own way. You can see the possibilities for conflict here. Here are a few notes I made on Amphibs: 1. Appearance and physiology Amphib stands for amphibious. The conicthyosis procedure creates an amphibious, bipedal terrestrial vertebrate form, with two legs, two arms, etc. However, the amphib retains some characteristics of an amphibious creature. An amphib has gill sacs in slightly protruding pouches under its arms. It has skin that supports cutaneous respiration and must be kept moist at all times. There is some residual webbing between fingers and toes. There are some additional skin folds around the eyes and an extra protective layer of tissue inside the eye socket, to help the Amphib protect its eyes when submerged. Amphib eyes are notable for long periods of staring and fixation, as amphibians do not exhibit saccadic eye movements, but must ‘fix’ an object in their visual field to activate cognitive circuits to analyze and respond properly to the stimulus. Amphibs also have electroreceptors in their skin, which allows them to sense and locate objects nearby when they are submerged, by alteration of existent electrical fields. 2. Social organization (families and other hierarchies) Amphibs converted through conicthyosis generally retain the social structures of their previous form. Converted from land-dwellers, like humans, amphibs typically associate in small groups, like tribes or clans, not necessarily biologically related. Some critics refer to these social groups as ‘gangs.’ Converted from more fish-like or icthyotic forms, amphibs retain social organization common to fish, i.e. schools, pods and similar familial groupings. Often these social structures are matrilineal in nature. Amphibs with a Seomish heritage cluster in groups reminiscent of small kels. In general, amphibs are socially gregarious people. They collaborate and live together in small groups, previously known formally among anthropologists as clutches, troops, or bands. One term coming into common use among anthropologists now is a social grouping called a clik. 3. Beliefs and values Amphibs are strongly family or clan oriented. Human hybrid Amphibs retain many of the beliefs of their formerly human past. Marine (Seomish) hybrid Amphibs retain beliefs from their icthyotic past. That said, there are some beliefs and values unique to Amphibs. Amphibs are by nature environmentally conscious and acutely aware of the connectedness of all life, land and sea. They are also aware that they are a created people (they revere Dr. Josey Holland as a sort of ‘goddess’) and they believe that their creation and the coming of their Seomish cousins through the Farpool in 2115 was divinely inspired. As such, they take part of their creation story from the Seomish and part from Human myths. In general, Amphibs have a ‘network’ view of life. Their belief in a central creator is disappearing and they view the web of life as their main metaphor, with each Amphib morally and ethically responsible for doing their part to maintain the web and do nothing to damage it. When Amphibs refer to The Web, this is what they are referring to. Sometimes, they adapt the Seomish word for God (Shooki) as a stand-in for the Web. Many Amphib beliefs resemble Buddhist beliefs, especially their beliefs in First Things (Buddhist ‘Noble Truths’) and their belief in a cycle of life. Their beliefs center around a feeling of ‘Oneness’ or unity with the Web of Life. There are also elements of Gaian belief in how Amphibs think about their world. Amphib followers of Gaianism state that the term is based both on the felt connection and scientific understanding of the biosphere, which is given the name Gaia. The namesake primordial deity from Greek mythology is the mother of all beings, both god and animal, born from her union with the sky (Uranus) and the sea (Pontus). Gaians believe that naming the biosphere Gaia helps encourage practitioners and others to see the living planet as an organism with an intrinsic personality that expresses itself through evolution. Gaianism's philosophy stems from James Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis, which proposes that organisms interact with their surroundings on earth to form a more complex and self-regulating system that contributes to maintaining the conditions for life on the planet.[3] Gaia can be understood as a super-organism made of organisms, as multi-cellular life can be understood as a super-organism at a smaller scale. With a strong connection between Gaia beliefs and their own beliefs, Amphibs promote similar ethical practices. To wit: Amphibs typically approach their philosophy with the perspective that you should honor the earth, reduce or soften the their impact on the earth, and to be respectful of all life on earth. The latter perspective is extended to all forms of life such as plant, animal, or human, and followers will often try to maintain a close relationship with the planet in order to strive toward world peace, maintain global homeostasis and find inner fulfillment. There is an offshoot belief among some Seomish Amphibs that the sea people should work toward developing and perfecting the Farpool so as to return to Seome in a time earlier (before the ak’loosh) and work to prevent their sun from detonating in supernova. This belief would require them have the technology and the will to ally themselves with the Umans of the 32nd century to defeat the Coethi who so damaged Sigma Albeth B with starballs that it went supernova. This is the most desirable end state for all Seomish amphibs (called Kel’vik’t, meaning to ‘go against the current’) but Human amphibs don’t share this longing and so conflict arises among Amphibs over this matter. There is also a variant of Amphib belief that wishes to encourage other suitable marine life forms (like cetaceans) to undergo conicthyosis and become amphibs as well. Were this belief to become common and the technology to accomplish it perfected, there could be people walking the Earth who had once been dolphins, whales, etc. Not many Amphibs really want this to happen though. 4. What they like They like the feeling of going from the world of land and air to the world of the sea, and cruising just below the water’s surface. The Amphib saying for this is ‘sliding.’ Often, Amphib children and even adults can be found in the open ocean, simply breaching the surface like whales and ‘sliding’ back into the water. These groups are called by Human anthropologists and biologists ‘sliders.’ This is a well-loved and popular social activity for many Amphib cliks. Other terms related to Amphib breaching behaviors are porpoising, wave-riding, spotting. 5. What they don’t like Noisy surface craft or aircraft nearby their cliks. Any kind of human-created underwater disturbance. Amphibs think of the oceans as their territory, even though they can operate on land as well. They uniformly don’t like submersibles of any type and have sometimes taken to attacking submarines in groups. Amphibs from a Seomish background are especially sensitive to certain noises, owing to their racial memory of the Uman wavemaker on Seome (the Time Twister). In re-starting this series, I find myself deep in the world of creating believable aliens. This is something all sf writers face at some point. There are as many ideas on how to do this as there are practitioners, but the following are some of my ideas…things a would-be sf alien-creator should consider…. 1. Develop a background…a history of the aliens. You’ve seen some of my work above. Believe me, there is a whole appendix (at the end of many of The Farpool Stories) that details Seomish history and how they came to be. As the author, ask yourself this: how did your aliens get to this point (at which the story begins)? When you can answer this, you’re ready to create and portray realistic aliens in a real story. 2. What is the basic conflict? In my abbreviated plot summary above, the basic conflict is between Amphibs and everybody else. They are hybrids of two worlds—human and Seomish—and are shunned by both. One renegade Amphib scientist thinks he has a way of resolving this conflict…by killing off the humans. You can imagine that his intended targets would likely object. Here’s the basic conflict of the story. 3. How do (or would) the aliens resolve this conflict? Whatever you decide, make sure it’s consistent with the nature of your aliens…which means you need to understand their basic nature well. One additional point: choose a specific person (in my case, a specific Amphib) to carry and personalize the story. This makes it easier to use all your bag of storytelling tricks. 4. How do your aliens interact with humans? Again, pick a specific person to bring this interaction right down to the personal, emotional level. Your readers will find it easier to identify with actual individuals who embody the conflicts and tensions inherent in your story. 5. Pay attention to the basic science (or biology) of your aliens. The Seomish people are marine, water-breathing people. Think dolphin-like people. As the name suggests, Amphibs can live on land or in the water. Because of these basic facts, I’ve had to make numerous allowances to be able to advance the story. For example, how would intelligent, fish-like people move about on land, when the story requires it? I solved this problem by having the Seomish develop something I call a mobilitor, a sort of enclosed exoskeleton that encapsulates a Seomish water-breather and gives them decent mobility on the land. When I found it necessary in the story for the Seomish to be able to move about on land, I couldn’t just ignore their marine origins. I had to give them a technological solution. Creating believable aliens can be demanding and rewarding, because it gives you as the author a way to comment on humans and the human condition in a unique way. I hope this rather long blog post will help you in any similar future endeavors. The next post to The Word Shed comes on August 31. See you then. Phil B.

Post #225 August 17 2020 “Writing the What-if? Historical Novel” Alternate history novels, sometimes called what-if historical novels, are always great fun. My next novel, The Eureka Gambit, will be this type of story. I’ve written three already: The Eyeball Conspiracy, The Peking Incident and Final Victory. In fact, the book description for Final Victory reads like this: In August 1945, the U.S. used two atomic bombs against Japan. But a third bomb was also built. What if a special ops team from Japan and the Soviet Union had managed to steal the third bomb? Japanese leaders wanted to end the war, but not on America’s terms. To get better terms, a plan is developed to seize the third bomb and threaten San Francisco with it. The story of the Imperial Japanese plan for Final Victory ranges from Tokyo to Tinian Island, Moscow to Alaska, from Los Alamos to a stolen B-29 winging its way toward the City by the Bay. Only Army counter-intelligence agent Colonel Wade Brogan can stop the plan. The top practitioners of this form of storytelling—writers like Harry Turtledove (How Few Remain and many others), Philip K. Dick (The Man in the High Castle), Robert Harris (Fatherland)—are some of our best-loved storytellers. So, what makes for a good alternate history novel? Below, I detail four observations about this genre that writers thinking of wading in should consider. 1. Do your homework. Do the basic research. Don’t write about a certain time or certain events and try to change them for the story, or try to introduce a new factor, without knowing pretty solidly what actually happened. This should go without saying. Nothing destroys an alt-history story faster than obvious factual errors. 2. Select a good pivot point. By pivot point, I mean a place in time where your story diverges from the historical record. Think of it as a sort of hinge. In my three published alt-history novels mentioned above, all three deal with some type of atomic bomb terror that could have happened if events had transpired just a slightly different way. The book description above for Final Victory explains just what had to happen to make my revised story work. 3. Ensure that your alteration could lead to something dramatic or even catastrophic if it had actually happened. This is just good storytelling. Don’t introduce changes only to have Aunt Martha’s pet Pekingese die a few days earlier as a result. Only Aunt Martha would care. Your proposed alterations to history have to lead to something bad, or momentous or earth-shaking. 4. Plot plausibility. Could what you’re changing have actually happened? Don’t forget to connect the factual, historical dots. Think of my above premise for Final Victory. What if I had introduced Martians landing on Earth at the same time? In and of itself, that’s an okay factor, but it completely changes the story. It also makes the story harder to take seriously. The author Charlie Jane Enders has provided us with a nice list that should be considered by anyone trying to work in this vein: The 10 worst mistakes that writers of alt-history often make. This comes from the website gizmodo.com. 10. Failing to bring it up to the present. 9. Not recognizing that some historical developments were probably inevitable. 8. Ignoring historical factors that were important at the time, even if they aren't important to your story. 7. Not accounting for even the most obvious ripples from one big change 6. Concentrating too much on the one changed event, instead of all the events that led up to it. 5. Mixing up urban legends with actual history 4. Assuming that nothing will change besides your one big alteration — or that everything will 3. Making the story go where you want it to go, instead of where your altered history will support 2. Explaining too much 1. Forgetting to tell a good story Developing and bringing off a good alt-history tale takes work. A lot of work. For an author, who loves history, the preparation can be its own intrinsic reward. And if the story comes out well, it can be thought-provoking and memorable as well as entertaining, which should be the goal of every practitioner. Study the masters—there are many—to learn how they go about their craft. Alt-history is a rich literary vein. Properly mined and executed, you may just come up with a few gold nuggets nobody’s ever thought of before…a tale that has readers scratching their heads and saying, “Wow! I never thought about that before.” The next post to The Word Shed comes on August 24, 2020. See you then. Phil B.

Post #224 August 10 2020 “Johnny Winger and the End of a Series” Early this year, I began a new series called Quantum Troopers Return, starring an old character of mine named Johnny Winger. I described the series this way: Colonel Johnny Winger, now a Para-Human Swarm Entity or angel, returns with UN Quantum Corps, a quirky nanobot named ANAD and the quantum troopers of 1st Nanospace Battalion to fight the criminal cartel Red Harmony and try to defeat their nefarious, illegal and highly profitable efforts to spread unlicensed fabs, rogue DNA and bad nano both around the world and off Earth. As of this writing, the end of this series is near. I have completed 8 of the planned 10 episodes and have uploaded 6 of them online. The last of the series will be uploaded this November. I intend for this to be Johnny Winger’s swan song. Winger (let’s call him JW, though I don’t think he would appreciate that) appears in 6 novels (Tales of the Quantum Corps), some 22 episodes of Quantum Troopers and now 10 episodes of Quantum Troopers Return. I have mixed feelings about saying goodbye though I think it is the right thing to do. Any creator of series characters and stories faces the same dilemma. I always conceived of JW as a sort of latter-day Tom Swift Jr, without the blond crewcut and the white bread aphorisms. Tom Swift Jr was a creature of American literature from the 50s and 60s. JW was a creature of the 90s and early 21st century. I always envisioned him as a man of action, perhaps more action that thought. I imagined him as a dedicated quantum trooper, possessed of a keen sense of mission, though not quite a Boy Scout. I dropped bits and pieces of his background into the stories: born on a ranch in Colorado, mom dying in a car crash at a young age, his Dad a sort of frustrated tinkerer-inventor, suffering post-accident depression. To get away from ranch and small-town life, he signed up with United Nations Quantum Corps and the rest of history. It turned out that JW was a natural atomgrabber, highly skilled by nature at maneuvering around in the world of atoms and molecules. Later in the series Quantum Troopers, I have JW suffering disassembly by rogue enemy nanobot swarms and being reconstructed as an angel, a para-human swarm entity, a role he plays in my last series. But now I feel it’s time to have JW drift off into the sunset. One decision that every series writer faces is whether to have his main character grow and/or change during the series, and by how much. There are good points on either side of this argument. If he does evolve and grow or change, that may well keep readers more interested in how he turns out. What challenges will he face and how will he meet them? On the other hand, keeping the main character more or less static (like Tom Swift) means his personality and behaviors are more predictable, and that can be comforting to many readers as well. It’s a judgment call. Continuity in a series is important, if the characters are continuing as they are in my stories. This means the writer needs to keep a ‘bible’ of notes about the characters. More than once, I’ve written about a character only to discover that I actually killed him off several episodes earlier (or even in a previous series). That’s embarrassing. I also faced the obvious problem of having to continue to create ever-more complicated plots, settings and challenges for JW and his troopers, a difficulty which has made ending my twenty-year love affair with JW a little easier. Continuity is important, even critical (ask television series writers about that) and attending to it helps keep things straight and more important, believable, for the reader. Is there any future for Johnny Winger? Not in any way that I can foresee, and certainly in any way as a main character. My next effort is an alternate-history novel to be called The Eureka Gambit. After that, I hope to return to the world of The Farpool Stories. JW doesn’t appear in any of these. Therefore, I must say adieu to JW. Johnny Winger…R.I.P. The next post to The Word Shed comes on August 17. See you then. Phil B.

Post #223 August 3 2020 “Titles and Toilet Paper” Since the coronavirus pandemic began this spring, toilet paper has been on the minds of many of us. Think of the product titles—Charmin, Cottonelle, Angel Soft—and what the titles convey to a buyer. Softness, tenderness, ease of use, warmth. Book titles have some of the same attributes…not that books should be confused with toilet paper. Titling a book is an art but it’s something that can be learned. For my money, any book title should be able to achieve three primary ends (pun intended): 1. Capture the essence of the story 2. Intrigue the buyer 3. Appeal to some unspoken or interior need of the buyer Let’s use titles of three of my books published online to see how well I met these needs. The books in question are Final Victory, The Farpool and Monument. Let’s examine each one in turn Final Victory. Well, this has a martial tone to it, implying military things and battles and soldiers. That does capture the essence of this story, which is about a Japanese attempt to steal an atom bomb and threaten San Francisco toward the end of World War II, to get better terms for ending the war. Would this intrigue you as a buyer? Possibly. I like titles that are short, pithy and a bit unexpected, even a play on words. The word ‘victory’ implies a successful conclusion to a military campaign and the word ‘final’ is self-explanatory, implying an ending to such a campaign. The title gives the sense of some kind of ultimate resolution to a conflict. What might this title appeal to in a buyer? Perhaps a need for a satisfactory resolution to some problem or conflict. Perhaps a need to confront someone or some thing that prevents you from achieving a goal. In fact, in historical terms, the term ‘final victory’ was a part of the Japanese military calculations to draw the U.S. and allies into some kind of endgame battle that would result in a Japanese victory. The Farpool. This title does a better job, I feel, of intriguing a buyer. Just what is a farpool? It’s a play on words, for in this science fiction story, the farpool is a whirlpool in the ocean that is linked to a wormhole, enabling travel across vast interstellar distances. Think of a whirlpool that sends you far away. I always liked this play on words. The title directly captures the story for this device is central to the plot. As for buyer appeal, I hope that a prospective book buyer would find this title appealing to some desire to see exotic new places, distant places, different places. The word ‘far’ certainly implies distance, great lengths of time and space, things a long way from us. Monument. This is my latest sf novel about a future architect who can build and alter entire worlds, but whose own ego causes problems that threaten the future of mankind. In and of itself, it seems a fairly innocuous title. Think of what the word means: a structure erected as a memorial or as something of significance and special interest. The word (to me) captures the story since it deals with an ego-driven architect whose greatest desire is some kind of legacy project that will proclaim his genius down through the ages. Think of the pharaohs and the pyramids. I think this title captures the essence of the story well. Does it intrigue a buyer? Perhaps the title could be faulted on this attribute for the word itself seems fairly bland and innocuous. Maybe I could have played with the title a bit, using something Monument of Dreams or Fallen Monument or Broken Monument or something like that. But I like the direct power of a single-word title, if the word is well chosen. What would this title appeal to? Perhaps it might appeal to a buyer’s unstated need to make a difference in life. A need to do something or create something lasting…that’s a very deeply-seated human need. A need to let the world know I was here and I counted for something. Or not. I think you can get carried away with pseudo pop marketing psychology in all this. Choosing a good book title is important, for it and the cover are usually what attracts a reader in the first place. Give it some thought. Try out different words and combinations. Somewhere out there is the right title for your book. You’ll know it when it comes rolling off your lips. The next post to The Word Shed comes on August 10. See you then. Phil B.