Worldcon Blog Supplemental—Wednesday

On Wednesday I flew to San Antonio for Worldcon, the big science fiction convention.  I made a point of seeing The Alamo as my first tourist site. 

It contains memorabilia such as Davy Crockett’s leather wallet, and also his long gun, including two powder horns!  They do not allow photographs inside, and they ask men to remove their hats.  I approve of the formality.  The interior walls must not be touched, and they still show names and initials carved into them from that period. 

This view shows more detail of the architecture, as well as one of the grottos up front. 

This grotto has Davy Crockett’s name carved in it, but this is acknowledged to have been done by someone else. 

And what would The Alamo be without cactus?  I touched the side of one of the thorns, and I’m sure if I had touched the point, my finger would have bled. 

The Alamo is easy to find—near Crockett Street and Alamo Plaza. 

Below is a historic church, on the way to and from The Alamo, which preserves the old mission style. 

Here’s a building near the City Hall that shows the beautiful old architecture. 

This building really is as red as the picture shows—no retouching. 

More sightseeing to come, along with reports on the convention.  

Wedding Drone Groom Hit

I think it was at Norweson that I attended a session on the private use of drones.  It’s fairly easy to attach a camera.  This one was used for wedding photos, with mixed results. 

I think they should get a set of free pictures.  What do you think? 

Movie Review: Europa Report

Putting the science back in science fiction movies.  That’s Europa Report. 

In the near future, water has been discovered on Europa, a moon of Jupiter.  A privately-financed mission goes to investigate and hopefully find life.  But before they even reach their goal, accidents happen, and communications are cut off.  The result is “found footage” which people on the ground present to us with some explanation, but they mostly let the footage speak for itself. 

Space is dangerous.  As the footage plays out, it becomes obvious someone has died, and the rest puzzle about how to break the news.  That sets us up for the spacewalk:  This is no common walk on a shuttle mission.  Simple repair work turns treacherous, and it’s like a blow to the gut to see how fragile human life is when trapped in spacesuits in the vacuum of space millions of miles from any help. 

The team lands safely on the ice of Europa, barely.  Having missed their landing spot with the most promising place to find liquid water beneath, Dr. Katya Petrovna (Karolina Wydra) is determined to walk across the ice and work her experiments.  Out of direct line of sight from their craft, the radiation from Jupiter is growing.  She is convinced if she goes a little farther, she may find what their mission is all about—evidence of life.  Will she risk it? 

Europa Report is a lean, spare movie about space exploration.  This is no Star Trek or Star Wars, where people can lounge around inside their spaceships.  And it is scientifically accurate, with the science an integral part of the plot, instead of being used as a form of magic when a crisis happens.  To the contrary, the science causes the crises:  Space is filled with radiation.  Metal freezes to metal in space.  Hydrazine is corrosive.  You have to go back to 2001: A Space Odyssey or The Andromeda Strain for a similar movie, but this is done with modern filmmaking panache. 

The entire cast is outstanding, especially Sharlto Copley as Corrigan, the man who constantly sends messages to his little boy about this great adventure.  And we’re right with Wydra as Dr. Petrovna as she risks it all for scientific discovery.  And Anamaria Marinca as Rosa Dasque shows great determination as the astronaut who explains the footage, giving us hope that some of them make it back.  But the universe cares little about adventure, science, or determination.  It can run these over without looking back.  In the end, the movie poses the question, “Compared to the breadth of knowledge yet to be known, what does your life actually matter?” 

This is easily the best science fiction movie so far this year, especially when compared to overblown entries with gigantic budgets and forgettable characters and stories.   

NASA Map of Killer Asteroids

NASA has released its map of 1,400 killer asteroids—that is, asteroids that could possibly strike the Earth. 

 NASA

In reality, none of these are on a path to strike the Earth.  They pass somewhat close, and they would have to have their orbits disturbed to hit us. 

It’s actually kind of pretty.  It reminds me of the Spirograph designs I used to make as a child. 

photo by Kannanshanmugam

 shanmugamstudio,Kollam

H.G. Wells and Copyright

When reimagining a novel, such as my The War of theWorlds and Fairies, it’s important to make sure the older work is copyright free.  This is true even though over 95% of the words are mine, and very few words are from the original. Knowing that a novel was written before 1900 is not enough.  Since I didn’t want to do all the work of writing a novel and then have it turn out to be illegal, I consulted the H.G. Wells Society in England. 

Library of the London School of Economics and Political Science

H.G. Wells around 1890 

They are authoritative, and they say that any works of Wells printed before December 31, 1922 is public domain in the U.S.  The War of the Worlds was published in 1898, so it’s free to use. 

(In the United Kingdom, his works remain under copyright until December 31, 2016, but it would take incredible speed to have my work accepted, published, and then distributed in the U.K. before then, so that’s not a problem.) 

While on this subject, I believed the rumor that Star Trek: The Next Generation got in big trouble for using the Sherlock Holmes characters without permission.  The Arthur Conan Doyle estate still owns the rights until 2023, so don’t touch. 

public domain

Yes, Arthur Conan Doyle looked like Watson

but that is another story

But the wacko website io9 has revealed there was no trouble.  Paramount had permission from the Conan Doyle estate, for lotsa lotsa money. 

Back to H.G. Wells.  The only novel of his published after 1922 that I have some knowledge of is Things to Come.  I never read the book, but I watched the movie that was made back in 1936.  It predicted a Second World War that would last for decades and leave the world in a kind of feudalism.  Then it would be up to the scientists to lead us to a kind of utopia.  It’s the sort of movie whose predictions of the future were amazingly wrong, and the special effects were not special, but which still fascinates. 

The movie is in glorious black and white

PNWA Writers Conference

On Thursday, I arrived at the Pacific Northwest Writers Conference in SeaTac, Washington.  Believe it or not, the city was named after the airport, not the other way around.  The valet parking (which I’m too cheap to use) was very creative.  Notice the SUV is parked on the sidewalk. 

License plate cropped off on purpose 

The real takeaway from that afternoon’s sessions is that Amazon.com is publishing e-versions of short stories.  Their program is called Kindle Singles, and they accept stories 5,000 to 30,000 words long.  So if you’re interested, go to amazon.com/kindlesingles and submit. 

The conference had a good variety of people.  At one lunch, I sat at the table of a very straightforward-looking young man who was from Fort Lewis and who had served in Afghanistan.  To my surprise, instead of writing about his time there, he writes young adult and urban fantasy.  Also at the table was a young woman from a small town in Idaho.  She said she successfully pitched to several agents. 

Which leads me to the main events.  Most of us came to the conference to pitch to agents and editors.  The lines for pitching looked like this: 

We would each get four minutes to pitch to an agent or editor.  That’s right, only four minutes.  As I sat among a group waiting for the doors to the first pitch session to open, I encouraged a nervous young woman named Halie Fewkes, who had just graduated from college.  The actual pitch to summarize a novel should last just one minute, and the rest of the time is answering the professional’s questions.  She was already aware of the ideal length of a pitch, and she liked knowing she should relax more about it. 

At the end of each four minute session, a bell would ring.  That’s right, a BELL.  It was like being back in school.  The first agent I wanted to pitch to took longer than four minutes talking to the person before me, but that was all right.  I pitched to three agents, and each time it took less than four minutes.  That’s all it takes, if you know what you’re doing. 

So two of them asked me to send in sample pages.  The other one said the genre of my Tica Manus new adult science fiction story was not right for her, but it could be for another person at her agency.  She invited me to send sample pages to that agent with her recommendation. 

Successful in those Friday pitches, many of us relaxed and enjoyed the Saturday banquet.  Two friendly aspiring writers at my table were Rosalie and Ina. 

They also announced the winners of the literary contest for the conference.  Participants sent in their entries ahead of time.  Hundreds of entries poured in for the various categories.  The winner of the Young Adult category was none other than Halie Fewkes! 

CONGRATULATIONS, HALIE!

Research is Where You Find It

A scene in my novel The War of the Worlds and Fairies involves a fairy and a pixie demonstrating épée practice—épées are thicker than foils, with a triangular cross section.  Then I remembered a girl in the youth group at my church who wore a shirt indicating she was part of a local fencing group. 

public domain

So I asked the assistant pastor if he could point me in the direction of that girl.  He knew who she was, but added that a young woman who spent time with the youth group was actually more involved with fencing.  So I asked the woman if she fenced, and she said no. 

Seeing the puzzled look on my face, she added that she had fenced a few years ago.  But she said her father knew more about it. 

I know her father better than I know her, so I went and asked him about it.  He immediately brought up the subject of épées, and added the story of how a Russian fencing master was at the place where he practiced.  This Russian master would barely move his torso, just move around with his feet as he fended off attacks, then get in a hit with a quick, short move. 

So I was within one degree of separation of some surprisingly handy knowledge, but it just took a few steps to find it.  Although I gave him a few pages describing the scene, I don’t know if anything will come of it since the fairy and pixie are flying during their practice, no footwork involved.  But if you need to do some research, ask around.  

Beta Reader – J E Oneil

I originally would look at J E Oneil’s blog because of her etymology studies.  More recently, I took her up on being a beta reader. 

I think she did a good job on my 121,000 word manuscript, The War of the Worlds and Fairies.  She pointed out some typos (I didn’t know the British actually spelled the word “aluminum” differently) and a few unclear sentences.  There were no comments where I thought she just didn’t get the plot or characters. 

So you might take a look at her website, and if you get a good feeling, see if she has time to go over your manuscript.   

1812: The Navy’s War

Last year I started reading 1812: The Navy’s War by George C. Daughan as part of the war's bicentennial.  It’s a fantastically detailed book on the events that led up to, and every major battle of the war. 

The title derives from the fact that though British Canadian forces easily defeated American forces two, three, or four times their size on land, at sea our puny Navy inflicted incredible defeats on the mighty British Fleet.  The difference was in leadership: Our Navy leaders were seasoned veterans of the undeclared Naval war with France, and of dealing with Barbary pirates in North Africa.  The Army leaders were largely incompetent or cowards, some in place simply because of political connections. 

One of the major issues leading to the war was impressment:  the British practice of boarding American ships and taking any crew aboard they deemed to actually belong to the British Navy.  British sailors often deserted for the U.S. Navy because of the horrible way they were treated by British officers, compared to the relatively civilized conditions in our Navy.  Along the way, the British would sometimes grab U.S. citizens. 

Partway through the war, the British planned to take over huge swaths of America, so that part of the war became a second War for Independence. 

1812: The Navy’s War is a gripping read that fills in this part of American history, and will delight anyone who enjoys reading in detail about the old sailing ships.