It's quite apparent that with the launch of a whole series of space telescopes, like Hubble, that astronomy has entered a new golden age. With these telescopes, we're able to see things never seen before: large exo-planets in orbit around nearby stars, black holes dominating the center of galaxies, and even light modifications in background radiation that hint of mysterious structures that may have existed before the Big Bang.
These discoveries provide grist for the SF writer's mill. Take, for example, the discovery of a new class of planets: large, icy, Super-Earths some ten times the size of our terrestrial planet. These planets, apparently plentiful, orbit many stars in distant orbits, well away from what we consider the zone of life--a zone where the star's heat warms ice into water.
We have discovered, however, that in some places, the tidal forces of nearby planets, and perhaps even the gravity of the planet itself is capable of heating ice and turning it into liquid oceans that may well hold life. Thus these large, plentiful, icy Super-Earths may be stages for a whole range of life adapted to quite different environments than our own. Imagine marine life; imagine heavy planet marine life developing intelligence and working with technology. What civilizations would be created by these creatures? What form of interaction would they desire, if any, with us? See http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0812/17life/ "Looking for extraterrestrial life in all the right places."
As I said, grist for the SF writer's mill.
Another such example is the discovery of something that may be a pre-existing structure from a universe that existed before the Big Bang, or perhaps a structure from the Multiverse (if such a place exists). What settings would such structures create?
Such discoveries seem to multiply with each astronomical satellite launched into orbit. This golden age of astronomy may well lead to a golden age of science fiction as well. That's my hope, and I hope to tap into some of these amazing ideas.
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Science Fiction Isn't About the Future
A couple of weeks back I purchased a copy of Phillip K. Dick's Five Novels of the 1960s & 1970s, a compilation of five of Dick's novels put together by the Modern Library Association.
I began reading the first novel in the edition, Martian Time-Slip, and it reinforced to me the old critical stance that science fiction is a genre that isn't about the future. It's about the present.
Dick's novel, while set in a future Martian colony, isn't about that future. It's about the America of the 1960s. The themes that Dick deals with here are the questions raised then: self-worth tied to career/economic competence, education as disguised propaganda, the corruption of society engendered by money and power.
It's a powerful vision of a world I grew up in, and it reminds me about some of the worst and best of things living in that time forty-plus years ago.
The Martian setting simply allows Dick a blank canvas with which to contruct these themes, a setting that he can manipulate at his pleasure and without concerns about accuracy and historicity. He can paint on this canvas what he will.
Yet there is enough difference between the America of the 1960s and the America of the late 2000s that we can clearly see that what Dick has created is his own vision of the 1960s, with his characters, their world, and their destinies laid out according to his understanding of the problems of American life. His insights are brilliant, even if some of them are now out of date.
It's this datedness that makes it possible to see the role that the present plays in any attempt to portray a future in science fiction. There's no way we can ever anticipate more than a fraction of the future, and if, like H.G. Wells, we guess at some things--poison gas, heat rays, tanks, and weapons of mass destruction--we are probably more fortunate than prescient.
Instead of trying to master the crystal ball as writers of SF, we ought to be turning the lense of that ball on what we know of the world today, so our fiction can capture those important ideas and themes that are worth illuminating today, and leave the future for those who will inhabit it. If they read our works in that far-flung future, it won't be for telling them what we guessed at then, but for what we knew about our own time and place today, a past that they'd like to recapture or at least understand, as we want to understand the world of Wells and Dick.
I began reading the first novel in the edition, Martian Time-Slip, and it reinforced to me the old critical stance that science fiction is a genre that isn't about the future. It's about the present.
Dick's novel, while set in a future Martian colony, isn't about that future. It's about the America of the 1960s. The themes that Dick deals with here are the questions raised then: self-worth tied to career/economic competence, education as disguised propaganda, the corruption of society engendered by money and power.
It's a powerful vision of a world I grew up in, and it reminds me about some of the worst and best of things living in that time forty-plus years ago.
The Martian setting simply allows Dick a blank canvas with which to contruct these themes, a setting that he can manipulate at his pleasure and without concerns about accuracy and historicity. He can paint on this canvas what he will.
Yet there is enough difference between the America of the 1960s and the America of the late 2000s that we can clearly see that what Dick has created is his own vision of the 1960s, with his characters, their world, and their destinies laid out according to his understanding of the problems of American life. His insights are brilliant, even if some of them are now out of date.
It's this datedness that makes it possible to see the role that the present plays in any attempt to portray a future in science fiction. There's no way we can ever anticipate more than a fraction of the future, and if, like H.G. Wells, we guess at some things--poison gas, heat rays, tanks, and weapons of mass destruction--we are probably more fortunate than prescient.
Instead of trying to master the crystal ball as writers of SF, we ought to be turning the lense of that ball on what we know of the world today, so our fiction can capture those important ideas and themes that are worth illuminating today, and leave the future for those who will inhabit it. If they read our works in that far-flung future, it won't be for telling them what we guessed at then, but for what we knew about our own time and place today, a past that they'd like to recapture or at least understand, as we want to understand the world of Wells and Dick.
Saturday, December 6, 2008
Twilight Writer's Internet Strategy
The Twilight series has really taken off and moved its author, Stephenie Meyers, from major YA to adult genre status.
The Twilight books are huge in my 7th grade classes, another Harry Potter-like craze, especially for my female students. I even have boys reading this book. Students line up in the class library to check out the book as soon as its returned. The other books in the series are just as hot.
But this success didn't happen instantly. This L.A. Times article below explains Meyers' use of the internet to improve her profile among readers. It's a good example of a marketing strategy that might benefit other writers.
Meyers begain blogging early in her career and responded to the questions of interested readers and writers. She appeared on their blogs, and encouraged them to participate in the emerging Twilight mania. In one case, she encouraged the development of a Twilight lexicon online.
As Meyers produced more books in the series, she continued her strategy and her fan base grew. Now she's huge in Y.A. and has launched a new adult genre book.
Check out and LA Times article about her success at: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/movies/la-et-twilightnet29-2008nov29,0,5711081.story
Or go to her website at http://www.stepheniemeyers.com/ to see it in action.
The Twilight books are huge in my 7th grade classes, another Harry Potter-like craze, especially for my female students. I even have boys reading this book. Students line up in the class library to check out the book as soon as its returned. The other books in the series are just as hot.
But this success didn't happen instantly. This L.A. Times article below explains Meyers' use of the internet to improve her profile among readers. It's a good example of a marketing strategy that might benefit other writers.
Meyers begain blogging early in her career and responded to the questions of interested readers and writers. She appeared on their blogs, and encouraged them to participate in the emerging Twilight mania. In one case, she encouraged the development of a Twilight lexicon online.
As Meyers produced more books in the series, she continued her strategy and her fan base grew. Now she's huge in Y.A. and has launched a new adult genre book.
Check out and LA Times article about her success at: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/movies/la-et-twilightnet29-2008nov29,0,5711081.story
Or go to her website at http://www.stepheniemeyers.com/ to see it in action.
Saturday, November 22, 2008
The Reading Teacher
As a language arts teacher, I'm required by the state of Florida to train to teach reading, too. That's a great job for me, because if there's anything I enjoy as much as writing, it's reading good writing.
The two skills are intertwined for me. That's not always the case, though. I love music of all kinds, am devoted to hearing it, but can't make any. I don't even have a shower-quality voice.
But reading is something I love to do as much as writing. It was my introduction to writing. I became a reader in the 6th grade, when I was introduced to a series of historical fiction books about early England. Vikings marauding, Anglo-Saxons battling against Britons, it was fascinating stuff for me. Then I gravitated towards golden age Science Fiction. I read book after book during study hall instead of doing class work and homework, and whenever I went to the library, I found an out-of-way carousel where I could read quietly.
One day, when I reading a particularly bad book, I thought: "I can write one better than this." That was the beginning of my writing.
Today, it's a highlight of my week when I can get to a bookstore and roam the shelves, looking for the new and unread books, and occasionally rediscovering an old reading treasure. I tell myself it's to keep my classroom library updated, and I do buy books for my students then. But most of the books are for me.
In any case, I'm delighted to teach reading. This means taking what amounts to a master's level course in reading theory and practice, and I've been occupied with that task for the last three years. Now I'm close to graduation and am taking the final course in the demonstration of skills.
One reading skill I've learned to teach is reading fluency. That's the art of reading aloud, a wonderful skill to entertain others that my students are acquiring. You can see an example of me teaching a class on a hectic, pre-Thanksgiving Friday. It's a gifted class, and there's a lot of hubub from these fun-to-teach students.
The skill I'm teaching is surprizingly easy and common sense: repeated reading. By practicing the reading of difficult passages, one can improve on his or her reading fluency and master these hard-to-read passages. But you'd be surprized at how few people actually try to practice before they read. My students definitely don't. But by the end of the year, I hope to show them that practicing these passages, they can read just about anything in a skillful way.
The passage we're reading is from a novel we just read, H. G. Wells' War of the Worlds, an excellent and challenging work of science fiction.
The two skills are intertwined for me. That's not always the case, though. I love music of all kinds, am devoted to hearing it, but can't make any. I don't even have a shower-quality voice.
But reading is something I love to do as much as writing. It was my introduction to writing. I became a reader in the 6th grade, when I was introduced to a series of historical fiction books about early England. Vikings marauding, Anglo-Saxons battling against Britons, it was fascinating stuff for me. Then I gravitated towards golden age Science Fiction. I read book after book during study hall instead of doing class work and homework, and whenever I went to the library, I found an out-of-way carousel where I could read quietly.
One day, when I reading a particularly bad book, I thought: "I can write one better than this." That was the beginning of my writing.
Today, it's a highlight of my week when I can get to a bookstore and roam the shelves, looking for the new and unread books, and occasionally rediscovering an old reading treasure. I tell myself it's to keep my classroom library updated, and I do buy books for my students then. But most of the books are for me.
In any case, I'm delighted to teach reading. This means taking what amounts to a master's level course in reading theory and practice, and I've been occupied with that task for the last three years. Now I'm close to graduation and am taking the final course in the demonstration of skills.
One reading skill I've learned to teach is reading fluency. That's the art of reading aloud, a wonderful skill to entertain others that my students are acquiring. You can see an example of me teaching a class on a hectic, pre-Thanksgiving Friday. It's a gifted class, and there's a lot of hubub from these fun-to-teach students.
The skill I'm teaching is surprizingly easy and common sense: repeated reading. By practicing the reading of difficult passages, one can improve on his or her reading fluency and master these hard-to-read passages. But you'd be surprized at how few people actually try to practice before they read. My students definitely don't. But by the end of the year, I hope to show them that practicing these passages, they can read just about anything in a skillful way.
The passage we're reading is from a novel we just read, H. G. Wells' War of the Worlds, an excellent and challenging work of science fiction.
Forward
Now that AOL has dropped my blogs, I'm moving here to Blogspot to continue. My reason for writing this blog is to document my progress to have my stories and novels published, and to write about my career as a language arts teacher.
I hope you enjoy what you read and invite your comments and questions. Now, let's begin.
I hope you enjoy what you read and invite your comments and questions. Now, let's begin.
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