Category Archives: Science Fiction

Happy Birthday, Jules Verne!

He’s looking good, for a 193-year-old.

That’s the thing about great writers of the past, they still speak to us. In a sense, they live forever.

Would you expect there’d be an active fan club devoted to you, in a foreign country, 116 years after your death? In Verne’s case, there are several. The one I’m most familiar with is the North American Jules Verne Society.

A couple of months ago, I mentioned the NAJVS is sponsoring an anthology of short fiction, the first of those it’s ever done. The working title for the anthology is Extraordinary Visions: Stories Inspired by Jules Verne. I’m fortunate enough to be part of the editing team.

That call for submissions is still active and NAJVS will be accepting stories (and artwork) until April 30. For more details, click here.

So far, we’ve received some good story submissions. However, we could use more stories based on the full range of Verne’s oeuvre. To start creative fluids coursing through your veins, allow me to mention that Jules Verne wrote about:

  • A 35-day balloon trip over Africa (Five Weeks in a Balloon)
  • A voyage to the North Pole with a mutiny, an ice palace, and a volcano (The Adventures of Captain Hatteras)
  • A hike many miles underground, encountering a subterranean ocean and prehistoric animals (Journey to the Center of the Earth)
  • A journey to the Moon aboard a projectile launched from a cannon (From the Earth to the Moon)
  • A globe-girdling quest for a lost father, knowing only his geographic latitude (In Search of the Castaways)
  • A trek across Russia by courier who can’t see where he’s going (Michael Strogoff)
  • A comet slicing off a chunk of the Earth, with people and animals still on it (Off on a Comet)
  • A family living underground for a decade (The Child of the Cavern)
  • Two men using their halves of an inheritance to establish rival utopian cities (The Begum’s Fortune)
  • A steam-powered mechanical elephant marching across India (The Steam House)
  • A ship-sized helicopter operated by a mad scientist (Robur the Conqueror)
  • An attempt to alter the Earth’s axis (The Purchase of the North Pole)
  • A mysterious Count in a Transylvanian castle, that might have inspired Bram Stoker’s Dracula (The Carpathian Castle)
  • A man-made, propeller-driven island (Propeller Island)
  • A vehicle that operates on land, on and beneath the water, and in the air (Master of the World)
  • A plan to flood the Sahara Desert to create an inland sea in North Africa (Invasion of the Sea)
  • A description of Paris nearly 100 years in Verne’s future. (Paris in the Twentieth Century)

Oh, yeah. Verne also wrote a book about a submarine (Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea). In fact, the above list is way, way incomplete.

Still, something on that list should nudge a neuron in your noggin, move your muse to murmuring, and cause you to commence clacking on your keyboard.

Today, his birthday, is a fine day to channel your inner Verne. Allow him to inspire you to write a great story, or create a cover image. Send it in. Eagerly waiting to read your tale or view your art is a group of NAJVS editors, who happen to include—

Poseidon’s Scribe

February 8, 2021Permalink

9 SciFi Predictions for 2021

I know, I know, when I used a crystal ball two years ago, my predictions didn’t pan out. Then when I read tea leaves last year, my prognostications were in error. But you can believe me this year. I’m using SciFi tarot cards to predict what will happen in 2021.

The cards can’t possibly be wrong. Here are my predictions for science fiction books in the year 2021:

  • Disease Stories. Inspired by the COVID-19 virus, there will be stories of even deadlier diseases, perhaps intelligent diseases. I see stories of pandemics, extreme isolation, and how characters deal with mass death.
  • Rebirth. I foresee stories of characters getting back to normal after pandemics, stories about the rebirth of society.
  • Private Space Exploration. Inspired by Space-X, stories of space travel will involve companies, not governments.
  • Humor. There will be a surge in funny scifi, mainly because we can all use it right now.
  • Artificial Intelligence. Writers in 2021 will continue to explore this topic as they have for decades, but with greater urgency as computer scientists get closer and closer to developing Artificial General Intelligence, and perhaps Artificial Super Intelligence.
  • Anti-Capitalism. I predict there will be stories pointing out, in fictional form, the deficiencies of capitalism. Anti-capitalist themes may only form the backdrop of the story, but they will be there.
  • China. In 2021, I see an uptick in scifi books involving China in some way. Some will be written by Chinese authors, and some stories will be set in China.
  • Fewer Aliens. Alien tales are out in 2021. Of the few that will be published, they will involve communication only, not visitations, let alone abductions or invasions.
  • Urban Scifi. Paralleling the urban fantasy subgenre, we’ll see a lot of scifi books in 2021 that start out in a modern-day city setting, and go from there.

Personal Predictions

Here are three other prophesies for 2021, but these involve me in some way:

  • The Seastead Chronicles, my collection of short stories about the future history of seasteading, will be published in 2021.
  • The North American Jules Verne Society will publish its first anthology of short stories, (working title: Extraordinary Visions: Stories Inspired by Jules Verne) all inspired by Jules Verne, in 2021, and I’ll be on the editorial team. You can write a story for it. Click here for details.
  • Pole to Pole Publishing will put out an anthology of reprinted military science fiction short stories in 2021, titled Re-Enlist. I’ll serve as co-editor of this one. Stay tuned to this blog for more details.

In late December of 2021, I’ll post my assessment of the above predictions, and you’ll see there’s no better reader of tarot cards than—

Poseidon’s Scribe

December 27, 2020Permalink

Looking Back, My 2020 Predictions Assessed

My dream of a career as a prognosticator has gone seriously awry…again. At the end of last year, using tea leaves, I made several predictions about the direction of science fiction in 2020. Let’s see how I did.

  • Prediction: SciFi will become more political in this U.S. election year [2020]. With the citizenry becoming increasingly partisan, authors will show their political biases and opinions in their stories. Stories will increasingly be either left/liberal or right/conservative.
    • Assessment: I saw no real evidence of this.  
  • Prediction: With the decline and death of the dystopia will come the birth of a more hopeful and positive future. We’ll see more stories of civilizations rising from the ashes of past global destruction.
    • Assessment: I’m not sure about the hopeful and positive part, but there were some post-apocalyptic novels in 2020, like The Book of Koli by M.R. Carey and The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson.
  • Prediction: Despite the risk of paradox, authors will give us more time-traveling protagonists heading off to the past or future. Most of these time travel stories will involve romance to some degree.
    • Assessment: I didn’t see a lot of time travel novels, but two scifi time travel movies got released this year: Tenet, and Bill & Ted Face the Music.
  • Prediction: Climate Fiction, or CliFi, will remain a strong sub-genre, with authors exploring humanity’s influence on the Earth’s climate. I predict most such stories will either deal with human attempts to fix the climate before a catastrophe or will take place after a climate catastrophe.
    • Assessment: I was right about CliFi remaining strong, as evidenced by The New Wilderness by Diane Cook, The Relentless Moon by Mary Robinette Kowal, and Eden by Tim Lebbon.
  • Prediction: More protagonists and other major characters will be part of the LGBTQ spectrum. Within these fictional worlds, the cisgendered characters will respect and admire the LGBTQ main characters, not ostracize or mistreat them. Other related works will continue to take place in transhuman, post-gender worlds.
    • Assessment: Admittedly, this was an easy call anyone could have made, and I was right. Examples include Finna by Nino Cipri, Unconquerable Sun by Kate Elliott, and The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson.
  • Prediction: SciFi authors will continue to explore various subtleties and nuances of the Strong Female character in 2020.
    • Assessment: This was another easy prediction, and I was right again. I would say more than half the scifi novels of 2020 featured Strong Female protagonists. In fact, Goldilocks by Laura Lam features a ship with an all-female crew.
  • Prediction: With the completion of the triple trilogy “Skywalker Saga” in 2019, authors will pen stories reacting to all things Star Wars. In 2020, I anticipate stories satirizing and otherwise mocking aspects of the George Lucas-created franchise, and probably other SciFi fantasies trying to fill the void by launching Star Wars variants.
    • Assessment: Wrong. I saw no evidence of this.
  • Prediction: Authors in 2020 will weave tales comporting with Afrofuturism 2.0 and Astro-blackness. Audience reaction to the 2018 film Black Panther demonstrated a strong enthusiasm for works merging the themes of the African Diaspora with high technology.
    • Assessment: Wrong. I saw no evidence of this.
  • Prediction: I see some Boomer Lit SciFi in 2020 examining baby boomer themes. This will include stories with older protagonists, as well as stories with strong 1960s nostalgic references.
    • Assessment: Wrong. I saw no evidence of this.

Maybe I used the wrong brand of tea. Be sure to read next week’s post, where you’ll see spot-on predictions about the scifi you’ll be reading in 2021, all high-quality prophesies by—

Poseidon’s Scribe

December 20, 2020Permalink

Call for Submissions — an Upcoming Anthology

What an opportunity for you fellow writers! The North American Jules Verne Society is sponsoring its first anthology of new fiction, and the group wants to see a story (and artwork) from you.

The anthology is titled Extraordinary Visions: Stories Inspired by Jules Verne. NAJVS is looking for fictional short stories inspired by the works of Jules Verne. Your submission can be an original story; it can be a reprint. It can be set in any time or place. It can use characters from Verne’s tales (they’re all in the public domain) or you can make up your own.

In addition, the Society is seeking illustrators to come up with the cover image for the anthology and also some internal images to go with each story.

You can find out all the details here.

I have the honor of being a member of the editorial team working on this anthology, and I’m looking forward to reading your story.

So, get writing, Jules Verne fans! I know you can create a story that will absolutely thrill—

Poseidon’s Scribe

December 13, 2020Permalink

20,000 Reasons This is the Perfect Holiday Gift

Still looking for gift ideas for the holidays? You’ve surfed to the right site. If someone on your list is a fan of science fiction, submarines, steampunk, or just plain adventure, I’ve got the perfect gift you can give.

It’s called 20,000 Leagues Remembered. This isn’t the Jules Verne classic (though that would make a fine accompanying gift). This is an anthology of new stories written by today’s authors, all in commemoration of Verne’s masterwork.

Inside, your recipient will find adventure, mystery, exotic locales, danger, excitement, wonder, and some humor. It’s the kind of gift that earns you multiple thanks—once when the gift is received, once after its read, and time after time after it gets re-read. How thoughtful and perceptive of you!

Moreover, it’s easy to get. You can order the ebook or paperback version (or both) from multiple sources, including Amazon, Apple ibooks, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo.

Fun fact: this year, 2020, marks 150 years since Verne had his undersea adventure novel published. There’s still time for you to get the book in this sesquicentennial year.

Oh, yeah—this could be the perfect gift to give yourself, too!

Suggesting great gift ideas is just one more service provided to you for free by—

Poseidon’s Scribe

December 6, 2020Permalink

Filby’s Question

To begin the world anew, you get three books. Which do you choose? That’s Filby’s question. Let’s explore it.

At the end of the movie The Time Machine (1960), David Filby discovers his friend George has departed in his time machine, again. Filby says to the housekeeper, “He’s gone back to the future, to begin a new world. But it’s not like George to go off without a plan. He must have taken something with him. Is anything missing?”

Credit to https://filmfreedonia.com

Mrs. Watchett replies, “Nothing…” and then sees a blank space on a bookshelf. “Except three books.” Filby asks, “Which three?” Mrs. Watchett replies, “I don’t know. Is it important?”

“Oh, I suppose not,” Filby answers. “Only…which three books would you have taken?”

There’s an interesting question. If you were headed to a place where people had no knowledge of civilization, where you had to start from scratch, what books would you take?

At this point, you may be thinking the premise of the question is so unlikely that it’s not worth thinking about. True, you won’t be travelling through time to restart civilization with only three books.

However, there are many similar—and more likely—scenarios in which you might need to make such a choice. Our civilization could collapse economically, militarily, through natural disaster, or some other way. You might be the one who saves the three most useful books needed to start up again.

Besides, it’s the thought process that’s important, not the specific problem. It’s good to know how to prioritize things when resources are highly constrained.

Therefore, to return to Filby’s question, here are some book topics to consider:

  • Technology. You could bring a book about how things are made, how things work.
  • Literature. You might bring the complete works of Shakespeare, or the works of Homer. One of those books would help your civilization understand what it is to be human.
  • Culture. Maybe you’d take sheet music of our greatest composers, or books with pictures of timeless art and sculpture, if only to preserve them.
  • Governance. You could bring a copy of the U.S. Constitution or a book about various forms of government.
  • Religion. The Bible, Torah, or Quran. When starting a civilization, the spiritual side is important.
  • Philosophy. You could pick a single philosopher or a general book on the subject. Philosophers consider the biggest questions of all.
  • Survival. Perhaps a camping handbook or some other manual about survival techniques, growing and preparing food, etc.
  • Science. Maybe you’d need an up-to-date science reference so your civilization can avoid rediscovering things.
  • History. If you bring a history book, maybe this new civilization can learn from our mistakes.

There are certainly some categories I’ve missed. Even if you restrict your choices to the categories above, the limit of three books is frustrating. No matter which three books you choose, you’ll wish you’d brought others.

As for me, I think I’d bring one book on technology, a second on survival, and the third on systems of governance. I sure wish my time machine had room for more books!

With all the time in the world, I’m—

Poseidon’s Scribe

November 8, 2020Permalink

Is Science Ruining SciFi?

Fantasy fiction writers have an advantage over science fiction writers—no scientist will come along and say the fantasy writer depicted her dragons incorrectly or that she botched a description of werewolves.

But scifi relies on facts about a field that’s frequently upending previous conclusions, so new scientific discoveries can invalidate your fiction at any time.

Still, do those discoveries render the affected novel unreadable? That is, just because your story, written before 2006, discusses the ‘planet’ Pluto, does the body’s new designation as a ‘dwarf planet’ make your novel passé, or so retro as to be unworthy of reading?

The pair writing under the name James S.A. Corey wrote an open letter to NASA about such an occurrence. Their novel Leviathan Wakes portrayed a human population on the asteroid Ceres as being so desperate for water that they obtained it from Saturn’s rings.

In 2015, a NASA mission to Ceres showed that it has plenty of water, easily enough for the millions of people living there in the novel.

Oops.

Does that mean nobody should read Leviathan Wakes or watch The Expanse?

In my opinion, it doesn’t mean that at all. As Corey points out in their letter, there’s a supportive feedback mechanism at work, a mutual admiration society. SciFi writers respect scientists, follow every discovery, and cheer them on. For their part, many scientists were inspired to pursue their passion by science fiction writers.

Many scifi short stories and novels will not endure; their fate will be to gather dust and remain unread. But, that’s not because scientific discoveries rendered them obsolete. It’s because those stories aren’t good fiction.

In other words, classic scifi becomes classic because of its high quality, not because it anticipates new advances in knowledge.

To take my favorite novel as an example, Jules Verne strove to keep Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea as accurate as the known science of 1870 would permit. Today, however, we know:

  • A riveted steel submarine could not safely dive as deeply as the Nautilus;
  • A sodium/mercury battery would not propel a submarine at fifty knots (without taking up its entire internal volume);
  • No spot in the ocean is 16,000 meters deep;
  • Sharks do not need to turn upside down just prior to attacking;

…among many other errors. Does that mean you can’t read and enjoy the novel today? Of course you can.

Editors should do their best to provide footnotes or forwards that state where subsequent discoveries have made parts of a fictional work implausible. However, even if they don’t, most readers don’t turn to fiction for the latest scientific facts. Readers understand that scifi authors use the best-known science of their time…and then sometimes stretch that for the sake of a great story.

Science doesn’t ruin scifi. If anything, they reciprocally support each other. In that conclusion, I think James S.A. Corey would agree with—

Poseidon’s Scribe

October 18, 2020Permalink

What a Party!

Three days after the party and I’m still recovering. No, not really. It was a Facebook party to celebrate the launch of the anthology 20,000 Leagues Remembered. No music, no dancing, relatively few drinks.

We held it last Thursday night, the first Facebook party I ever attended, and I was one of the two hosts. We had 32 attendees, including both co-editors (Kelly A. Harmon and me), and 7 of our 16 authors.

Much credit goes to those authors, who kept things interesting by posting fun facts about themselves and their stories. I heard feedback from one attendee who said the author bios were the best part of the party.

We gave away prizes, some randomly based on numbers of comments and shares, and some based on correctly answering trivia questions. Prize winners got to choose from among Pole to Pole Publishing’s collection of anthologies.

Prior to the party, I’d been thinking about the wide variety of settings for the anthology’s stories, and made a map of all of them. I posted the map during the party and people seemed to like it. One party-goer said all anthologies should make similar maps!

One of my daughters is particularly talented with 3D printing and has printed models from my various stories before, pictured here, here, here, here, and here. Recently, she made a near-replica of the submarine pictured on our anthology’s cover. I’m to blame for the poor paint job, but still. Kinda cool.

If you missed the party, you can still enjoy the retrospective here.

Grand Prize Still Up for Grabs!

Also, a grand prize is still available! Here’s how you can earn it, simply by posting book reviews during the month of August 2020. Post your reviews of 20,000 Leagues Remembered and any other anthology from the Pole to Pole Publishing archives on Amazon, Goodreads, Barnes & Noble, your blog, and any other online public forum. Email Pole to Pole Publishing at submissions(‘at’ symbol)poletopolepublishing.com with the URLs of your reviews. Each posted review at each public site earns you 1 point, but reviews of 20,000 Leagues Remembered earn 2 points each. (The co-editors of that anthology reserve the right to judge what constitutes a legitimate review.)

If you post the most reviews during the month of August, you’ll win…wait for it…3 (yes, three) books of your choice from Pole to Pole Publishing, in either ebook or paperback format.

I’d like to win that prize myself, but, <heavy sigh> one of the few people in the world who isn’t eligible for it is—

Poseidon’s Scribe

August 9, 2020Permalink

It’s a Party, and You’re Invited!

Just as Jules Verne’s Nautilus traveled all over the world, we’re throwing a world-wide party. It’s on Thursday August 6th, from 8:00 PM to 9:30 PM EDT and it’s on Facebook.

We’re doing this to celebrate the launch of the new anthology 20,000 Leagues Remembered. Published on the 150th anniversary of Jules Verne’s masterwork, this book contains new stories by 16 modern authors, all paying tribute to Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, that classic proto-steampunk novel of undersea adventure.

At the party, you can meet the editors and the authors of the stories and ask all the questions you want. Best of all, you can win prizes!

You’re invited! Everyone is. Now, of course, you’re wondering how to attend. Just follow these steps:

  1. Create a Facebook account if you don’t already have one.
  2. Send a friend request to me.
  3. If you don’t receive a party invitation within a day or two, send me a message to prompt me.
  4. Once you get the invitation, accept it.
  5. Share info about the party with your friends.
  6. Log into Facebook at the right date and time and join the fun.

(If anyone knows a simpler way to invite the whole world to a Facebook event, let me know in the comments to this blogpost.)

You’ve waited 150 years for this sesquicentennial celebration. It would be a shame to miss it. After all, the bicentennial won’t be until June 2070, and that’s a long time from now.

See you at the party! You’ve been cordially invited by—

Poseidon’s Scribe

July 26, 2020Permalink

Guest Post—Jason J. McCuiston

Remember when I interviewed author Jason J. McCuiston? You’ll be glad to know he has a story, “At Strange Depths” in the anthology 20,000 Leagues Remembered. And now he’s just had a novel published.

Today, I turn over the reins of this blog to Jason, and here’s his guest post:

Project Notebook: An Origin Story

In the summer of 1947, months before something fell to Earth near Roswell, New Mexico, the skies above the Pacific Northwest were alive with strange lights and unearthly phenomena. I know this because the Travel Channel’s Mysteries at the Museum told me so. In fact, according to Don Wildman and crew, less than a week passed between the infamous Maury Island Incident and the Kenneth Arnold sighting above Mt. Rainier which introduced the phrase “flying saucer” into the American zeitgeist.

That connection or coincidence was the spark that led to my novel, Project Notebook. The spark, but not the fuel. The origins of this story may go back to 1947, but they also reach farther back into my own history than a late-night binge-watch in early 2017.

Jason J. McCuiston

Like most kids who grew up on action, sci-fi/fantasy, and horror in the 1980s, I was instantly hooked on Chris Carter’s The X-Files when it debuted on Fox in 1993. Aside from having a twenty-year-old’s crush on Gillian Anderson, I loved the conspiracy-theory/dark fantasy vibe of the show. And though I never became more than a casual interloper into the world of ufology, I’ve kept an open mind on the topic and have always found it fascinating.

A decade later, after watching the stunning HBO adaptation of Band of Brothers in 2001, I read not only Stephen E. Ambrose’s book, but also the excellent biography of Major Dick Winters, Biggest Brother by Larry Alexander. These volumes gave me an insight into the Greatest Generation, as well as a glimpse of what my own grandfather, the late Master Sergeant Darius E. McCuiston, U.S. Army, had faced in WWII. While writing Project Notebook, I soon realized that the main character, Captain El Summers is a synthesis of Winters and my Papaw.

In 2006, I found myself in a new life in Knoxville, Tennessee. Part of this new life was my weekly gaming group. We were playing the d20:Modern role-playing game at that time. Wizards of the Coast had just released the Dark Matter supplement for d20:Modern, a campaign setting that leaned heavily into the conspiracy-theory/dark fantasy/darker sci-fi atmosphere of The X-Files. That’s when it occurred to me that the first people most likely to be tapped by the U.S. Government to investigate rumors and reports of UFO’s and aliens would be battle-hardened vets of The Big Two.

So I launched a campaign based on this premise.

Sadly, the game tanked after one session, but the premise hung around in the back of my mind for over a decade. And in the summer of 2017—after two years struggling to break in as a “pro” writer and several nights watching Mysteries at the Museum—I decided to throw that premise at the page and see if it stuck. After writing the first draft of what eventually became Chapter One of Project Notebook, I posted it to a Facebook writing group for feedback. Naturally, it drew a troll quicker than a goat on a bridge. After this individual lambasted my abilities and concepts, I thanked him for his opinion, and sat down to write this story. As much out of spite as anything else.

Writing is about passion, no matter where that passion comes from. Remember that.

I’m honestly glad that troll got under my skin. Being more interested in fantasy than sci-fi and in the eleventh century than the twentieth, I may have never written this story otherwise. I may have never learned so much about the era of my grandparents. I may have never delved so deeply into the lore of ufology. I may have never created these characters for whom I have developed an amazing fondness in the ensuing years of revisions and edits.

I can only hope that you will find El, Red, Olivia, and Bill as endearing should you decide to follow their adventures in Project Notebook.

Jason J. McCuiston

Thanks, Jason. I know my readers will seek you out on Facebook and Twitter. Then they’ll buy your book on Amazon.

Poseidon’s Scribe

July 1, 2020Permalink