Tag Archives: Ray Bradbury

The Other Ink—Tattoos in Fiction

Do one or more tattoos adorn your skin? About a third of Americans can say yes. How many tattooed fictional characters can you name? Today, I’ll discuss the use of tattoos in fiction, and mention how and where I’ve used tattoos in my own writing.  

Examples

I remembered only two tattooed characters in the books I’ve read. Queequeg, in Moby-Dick by Herman Melville, bore tattoos of mystical symbols theorizing about heaven and earth.

Mr. Dark, in The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury, sported tattoos over most of his body. They seemed to move, and to depict stories—tales which form the book. Disney used that notion of moving, story-telling tattoos in the movie Moana.

I need to read more. My memory of tattooed characters ended there and didn’t scratch the skin’s surface. This post by Dan Sheehan and this one by Marjorie M. Liu cited many more interesting examples.

Uses

As they do with real people, tattoos reveal aspects about fictional characters. The placement and art of the tattoo tell the reader facts about the character in an immediate and visual way. You may also infer things by clothing, but people change their clothes, not their tattoos. Tattoos make a permanent statement. This post by June Gervais provides great advice for writers regarding the uses and correct terminology of tattooing.

Seastead Tattoos

In my book, The Seastead Chronicles, tattoos play a role, and appear in three varieties—bioluminescent, full-body skin dyeing, and forehead tattoos.

Bioluminescent Tattoos

In the story “A Green Isle in the Sea,” I show minor characters possessing tattoos that glow. Moreover, characters can turn them on and off like flashlights or, more appropriately, like some deep-sea creatures. A handy feature if power fails and the seastead loses all lighting.

I know a type of bioluminescent tattoo exists today, but it requires black light (ultraviolet) to see, doesn’t glow in the dark, and can’t be turned on and off.

Full-Body Skin Dyeing

Starting with “First Flow of the Tide” and continuing in later stories, I make use of full-body skin dyeing. Adherents of the Oceanism religion may undergo a practice called Immersion, as a way of affirming devotion. During Immersion, skin over the entire body gets permanently dyed in some water-related color like blue or green or a mix. Not only does this demonstrate fealty to Oceanism, it also hides the character’s born race, at least regarding the trait of skin color.

Forehead Tattoos

Another aspect of Oceanism’s Immersion ceremony involves tattooing the image of a sea creature on the forehead. Many choose the five-armed starfish, a symbol of Oceanism itself. However, believers may opt for any sea creature, and that choice often tells something about the character.

What Now?

Did I put you in the mood to get a tattoo? If so, let me know what you get. Did I inspire you to write about a tattooed character? If so, tell me about that. As for me, I’ll never reveal where my tattoo is, the one bearing the title—

Poseidon’s Scribe

July 13, 2025Permalink Leave a comment

How do the Two Chronicles Compare?

Seventy-five years ago, Doubleday published Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles (TMC). One month ago, Pole to Pole Publishing released my book, The Seastead Chronicles (TSC). A comparison of similarities and differences follow.

Similarities

Both books (1) contain the word “Chronicles” in their titles, (2) concern colonization, (3) belong in the science fiction genre, and (4) could be classified as fix-ups. I’m hard pressed to think of more similarities. On to the differences.

Creative Intent

Bradbury wrote all the short stories for TMC separately, with no intent of combining them. A publisher suggested the Chronicles idea to him. Bradbury then revised the stories to fit better, and added bridging narratives to form a consistent overall story.

I wrote a seastead short story with no initial plan to write more. After that, my muse suggested other stories and the notion of combining them took over. For that reason, TSC stories required no revision, and no bridging material to get them to mesh. Rather than calling it a fix-up novel, you could call TSC a “short story cycle.”

Plot Structure

Bradbury ordered his stories in a logical sequence and divided them into three sections, each occurring over specific designated years. Stories in the first part concerned exploration and initial contact with Martians, the second part with colonization and war, and the third part with the aftermath of what’s happened to humans on Earth and to Martians on Mars.

Although stories in The Seastead Chronicles appear in sequential order, I didn’t group them into parts, nor mention any specific years. The early stories depict initial seasteads and the search for seabed resources. The middle stories show the spread of aquastates and war between them as colonization proceeds. Later stories portray the blossoming of a new, oceanic culture.

Themes

Any discussion of story themes becomes subjective, since readers interpret tales in individual ways. Bradbury explored many deep themes in TMC, but overall I believe he intended a comparison of the colonization of Mars to the 19th Century conquest of indigenous people in the American West. The stories promote living in harmony with nature and suggest that those who don’t do so end up destroying nature and themselves.

For TSC, readers can draw their own conclusions. However, I intended to focus on humanity’s creative impulses, rather than its destructive ones. Though moving to a new environment introduces dangers, it also promotes new ways of thinking. From those, new cultures can arise, including fresh art, music, language, and religious beliefs. If you’re looking for real-life parallels, consider that all historical colonization efforts have changed the colonizers as they adapted to their new home.

Style

Bradbury wrote in a poetic, lyrical style, rich in imagery and metaphor. You can tell he loved the sound and rhythm of words. Few science fiction authors of his time wrote that way, so his prose stands out. By contrast, I’d characterize mine as plain and unadorned. I strive to make my sentences descriptive and easy to read.

Influences

The Wikipedia article on TMC lists several people whose works inspired Bradbury, including Edgar Rice Burroughs, Sherwood Anderson, and John Steinbeck. Editor Walter Bradbury (no relation) at Doubleday gave him the idea of combining his Martian-themed short stories into a single book.

For TSC, my influences start with Andrew Gudgel, who heard about seasteads and mentioned them to me. As general science fiction influences, I’d cite Jules Verne, Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke, and Ray Bradbury.

Final Thoughts

In this brief blogpost, I’ve missed some similarities and differences. To perform your own comparison, you’ll have to read both books and decide for yourself. Don’t take the word of—

Poseidon’s Scribe

July 6, 2025Permalink Leave a comment

If Authors Named Football Teams

Teams in the National Football League received their names in various ways, but most don’t derive from literary references.

The Baltimore Ravens stand out as a sole exception. Taken from the mysterious talking bird of the Edgar Allan Poe poem, that team name epitomizes the city where Poe lived.

What works for Baltimore might work for other NFL cities as well. Let’s find out what could happen if they left team-naming up to fiction writers.

Arizona

The Cardinals would become the Arizona Thrillers. Adventure author Clive Cussler lived in Arizona.

Atlanta

Replacing the Falcons are the Atlanta Argonauts, named for Rick Riordan’s book The Mark of Athena, which is set in Atlanta and features a trireme named Argo II. 

Buffalo

Writers would cross out the name Bills and write in the Buffalo Rangers. Writer Fran Striker, creator of the Lone Ranger, was born in and lived in Buffalo.

Carolina

In place of the Panthers, this team becomes the Carolina Crawdads. Delia Owens’ Where the Crawdads Sing is set in North Carolina.

Chicago

Writers need something fiercer than Bears. Instead, meet the Chicago Tyrannosaurs. Author Michael Crichton, born in Chicago, wrote Jurassic Park.

Cincinnati

Let’s replace Bengals with the Cincinnati Werewolves. Kim Harrison wrote The Hollows series, which is set in Cincinnati and contains werewolves.

Cleveland

Fiction writers could come up with a better name than Browns. How about the Cleveland Hellcats? Marie Vibbert, born and living in Cleveland, authored Galactic Hellcats.

Dallas

How ‘bout something other than them Cowboys? Writers would substitute the Dallas Vampires, since Charlaine Harris, who lives in Texas, wrote Living Dead in Dallas, which is set in Dallas.

Denver

For writers, the name Broncos won’t do. They’d choose the Denver Doomsdays, since Connie Willis was born in Denver and wrote Doomsday Book.

Detroit

Rather than Lions as a team name, writers would select the Detroit Wheels. Arthur Hailey’s novel Wheels was set in Detroit.

Green Bay

Could fiction writers surpass the name Packers? I think so. How about the Green Bay Starshooters? Not only does author Jason Mancheski live in Green Bay, but his book Shoot for the Stars is about the city’s football team.

Houston

Rather than Texans, writers might opt for the Houston Battleships, since author Daniel da Cruz penned The Ayes of Texas, a novel set partly in Houston.

Indianapolis

For this football city, fiction writers would replace Colts with the Indianapolis Titans (sorry, Nashville). The name is more appropriate here because Kurt Vonnegut, author of The Sirens of Titan, was born in Indianapolis.

Jacksonville

Writers might replace Jaguars with the Jacksonville Alligators. Diana K. Kanoy wrote She Swims with Alligators. Though not fiction, it is set in Florida.

Kansas City

For authors, this one’s obvious. Leave the name Chiefs aside and substitute the Kansas City Twisters. L. Frank Baum’s book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, with its introductory tornado, is set in Kansas.

Las Vegas

Here, writers might swap the name Raiders with the Las Vegas Miners, to honor Mark Twain’s book, Roughing It, a partly true tale of silver mining in the Territory of Nevada.

Los Angeles

The City of Angels hosts two NFL teams. Writers would retreat from the name Chargers and forge ahead with the Los Angeles Demons. After all, William Peter Blatty lived near LA and wrote The Exorcist.

Los Angeles

Rather than the Rams, the other LA team should be renamed the Los Angeles Martians. Ray Bradbury lived much of his life near LA and authored The Martian Chronicles.

Miami

Writers would choose a harder-hitting name than Dolphins. How about the Miami Punchers? Elmore Leonard’s Rum Punch is set in Miami.

Minnesota

Some residents of the North Star State might prefer the Vikings, but writers would call that team the Minnesota Wobegons. Lake Wobegon Days, by Garrison Keillor, is set in Minnesota.

New England

Since the Patriots were named for a region, rather than a specific state or city, that gives writers some latitude to re-name the team the New England Cthulhus. Rhode Island is part of New England, and author H.P. Lovecraft, creator of the Cthulhu Mythos, was born and lived there.  

New Orleans

Here, writers would replace the name Saints with the New Orleans Steamboaters. Mark Twain’s Life on the Mississippi, includes descriptions of New Orleans.

New York

With two teams in New York City, let’s go alphabetically and rename the Giants first. Writers might choose the New York Atlases, since author Ayn Rand, who wrote Atlas Shrugged, lived in NYC.

New York

As for the Jets, the New York Bombardiers seems appropriate. Joseph Heller was born and lived in NYC, and wrote Catch-22, about WWII bombardiers.

Philadelphia

The literary crowd wouldn’t go for Eagles, and might instead select a name requiring a change in the team’s colors—the Philadelphia Purple Riders. Having gone to college in Philadelphia, Zane Grey wrote Riders of the Purple Sage.

Pittsburgh

The other Pennsylvania team needs a name change from the Steelers. Writers would call it the Pittsburgh Furies. Stephen King’s novel Christine is set in Pittsburgh and involves a Plymouth Fury.

San Francisco

In replacing the 49ers name, writers would go for the San Francisco Wolfdogs in honor of Jack London’s White Fang. London was born in San Francisco.

Seattle

Ditch the Seahawks name. Authors have a better one in mind. They’d like the Seattle Boneshakers. This honors Cherie Priest, whose novel Boneshaker: A Novel of the Clockwork Century is set in Seattle.

Tampa Bay

This team wouldn’t be the Buccaneers any more after writers got their blue pens out. They’d rename the team the Tampa Bay Cannoneers. After all, Jules Verne had his characters build a gigantic cannon near Tampa in his novel From the Earth to the Moon.

Tennessee

Earlier, I stole the name Titans from Tennessee and gave it to Indianapolis. Writers would rename this team the Tennessee Devils. Jaden Terrell’s novel Racing the Devil is set in Nashville.

Washington

Some in the District want to change the name from the Commanders anyway. If they let writers pick, they might come up with the Washington Scorpions. Lisa Howorth’s novel Summerlings is set in D.C. and involves scorpions.

There. I’ve done the hard part. Others can come up with team logos, uniform designs, and characteristic colors. If any NFL teams desire a name makeover based on literary references, feel free to contact—

Poseidon’s Scribe

January 5, 2025Permalink

Write With Fervor

You long to write stories like the ones you enjoy reading, but doubt you could. Writing seems tedious and you think you lack the required expertise. You just know you’d get bored and disillusioned after a few pages. The late author Ray Bradbury offered some advice that might help you.

In his 2001 lecture at The Sixth Annual Writer’s Symposium by the Sea, sponsored by Point Loma Nazarene University, he provided great tips about writing, including these two gems:

  • Make a list of ten things you love, madly, and write about them. Make a list of ten things you hate, and write about killing them. Make a list of the ten things you fear, and write about them.
  • Don’t write self-consciously, commercially, what will sell. Find the deep stuff, your inner self. Don’t ask what will sell. Ask who am I?

Exercise

First, you’ll be jotting down three lists of ten items each—things you love, things you hate, and things you fear. No one else will see these lists. Think of ten as a minimum number. Bradbury chose ten to prod you to think beyond the first few easy ones. You’ll be stretching to reach ten, and that’s the point. He’s trying to get you to dive down to your essence, your core.

Given that introduction, I suggest you do the exercise now. Really. Now. Stop reading this and generate your three lists of ten each. I’ll wait until you finish.

Intermission

After the Exercise

All done? Good. You’ve got lists of things you love, things you hate, and things you fear. For every item on all three lists, you feel some level of passion. Positive feelings of adoration accompany each item on the ‘love list.’ Feelings of anger boil up in response to those on the ‘hate list,’ and feelings of dread ooze out of those on the ‘fear list.’

The lists, then, provide two things you’ll need—subjects to write about, and feelings to sustain you while writing.

Subjects

As a fiction writer, you don’t have to write about the exact objects of love, hate, and fear you listed. Perhaps it’s better if you don’t. Use a stand-in, a metaphor, something to represent one or more of the specific things listed.

Say you wrote ‘my spouse’ on the list of things you love, and decided to write on that topic. I’m suggesting you shouldn’t write about your own spouse, but rather write about a character’s love for that character’s spouse. Readers won’t know it’s really your own spouse—they’ll just note the tenderness with which you convey the love.

Caution

I offer a quick note about the list of things you hate. Don’t turn your writing into an angry manifesto. The list should serve as a catalyst for writing, not a prelude to violent action. Take out your vengeance on fictional characters only.

Feelings

The real power of Bradbury’s advice comes from the intense emotions you feel about every item on each list. Those emotions should make it easier (1) to write ‘in the flow,’ (2) to know, at any point, what to write next, (3) to stay enthused about the project until completion, and (4) to infuse your writing with spirit. Your strong feelings about the subject will pass through to readers.

Digging Deep

The other piece of Bradbury’s advice really nails it. “Find the deep stuff, your inner self. Don’t ask what will sell. Ask who am I?” By listing things you love, hate, and fear, you’re getting at your essence, your basic humanity, your soul. Write from out of that core, and your words will ring true. They’ll shine.

Writing from the heart, with fervor, gives you a better chance of reaching readers, too, especially those who care about the same things, readers whose own love/hate/fear lists—if they made them—would reveal some commonality with yours.

Thanks to Ray Bradbury, you’ve got the tools you need. Your lists have fired the coals of an inner boiler. That high-pressure boiler powers a potent writing machine—you. The steam is up, the throttle is open. Go! Nobody can stop you now, least of all—

Poseidon’s Scribe

May 5, 2024Permalink

Your 3 Distinguishing Words

Using computers, you can measure peoples’ writing. You can compare recent bestsellers to books that didn’t sell well.

One man with interests in numerical analysis and literature tried just that. Ben Blatt wrote Nabokov’s Favorite Word Is Mauve: What the Numbers Reveal About the Classics, Bestsellers, and Our Own Writing. Megan Gambino interviewed him in this post.

Blatt analyzed books by many bestselling authors of the 19th and 20th Centuries, looking for patterns of word usage. He compared the practices used by these authors to the practices recommended in writing classes (and in blogs about writing, like mine). Among his findings are the following:

  • Advice: Keep your opening sentences short.
    • Finding: True. The bestselling books start with short sentences more often than not.
  • Advice: Don’t open with the weather.
    • Finding: False. Many bestselling books do.
  • Advice: Shun adverbs.
    • Finding: True. The bestselling books tend to include fewer adverbs.

He also set out to discover whether American authors write in a ‘louder’ manner than British authors. That is, do American author cause their characters to yell and scream more than British authors cause their characters to do? That answer is yes.

I found one aspect of Blatt’s research of particular interest. He analyzed what words some authors used more than others. For Jane Austen, the words civility, fancying, and imprudence showed up a lot. John Updike used rimmed, prick, and f**ked more than most. As you can guess from the title of Blatt’s book, Vladimir Nabokov favored the word mauve. Nabokov associated numbers, letters, and sounds with colors, a symptom of synesthesia. Blatt found Ray Bradbury used spice and smell words more than most.

These findings intrigued me. If someone performed a numerical analysis of my own published works, what would that reveal? What words do I use more frequently than other writers do? If you’re a writer, are you curious about that aspect of your own work?

If someone crunched the numbers for your writing and told you your three distinguishing words, what would these words say about you? Nabokov’s mauve pointed to his synesthesia. Bradbury’s spices brought him back to the smells of his grandmother’s pantry. If you knew your distinguishing words, would they surprise you? Delight you? Disgust you?

After knowing them, would you own them and seek to use them more in future stories, or disavow them and expunge them from your vocabulary?

One thing’s certain. Considering just my blogposts alone, my two most distinguishing words must be—

Poseidon’s Scribe

March 12, 2023Permalink

The Ray Bradbury Challenge

“Write a short story every week. It’s not possible to write 52 bad short stories in a row.” – Ray Bradbury

Bradbury said that in 2001 at The Sixth Annual Writer’s Symposium by the Sea, sponsored by Point Loma Nazarene University. Let’s call it the Ray Bradbury Challenge. (The first part, I mean, not the challenge to see how many bad short stories you can write in a row.)

Would you take that challenge? Could you write one short story every week for a year?

The challenge is part of the larger context of his talk. It’s worth watching the whole 55-minute video. His speech included great pieces of writing advice, and I’ll address those in a future post.

Bradbury thought it best for most beginning writers to start with short stories, rather than novels. (How I wish I’d done that when I started out!) He reasoned that the short story form trains you to focus on one idea, to compact your words. Moreover, every week you’ll complete a finished product, a tangible output.

It might seem a daunting challenge, but let’s break it down. Typical short stories run 1000 to 7500 words. That’s an average of 150 to 1100 words per day, though you’d more likely write a first draft at high speed and spend the rest of the week editing it.

By contrast, the NaNoWriMo challenge drives you to an intense burst of activity for one month (November), during which you must average almost 1700 words per day. Ideally, the end product is a 50,000-word novel, but in most cases, it’s an unpublishable one.

Bradbury’s challenge helps you form the daily habit of writing. It allows for—even expects—that you’ll enjoy concentrated, focused bouts of feverish, unconstrained flow, followed by periods of calm, dispassionate editing and revision to round out the week.

Moreover, his challenge grants frequent glows of happiness, satisfaction, accomplishment. Each week you affirm you’re a writer.

Think about the probabilities implied by his challenge. You’ll write no fewer than 1 good story out of 52. If you spent each year writing a novel instead, how long might it take before you wrote a good one?

Some might object that readers don’t read short stories, and publishers prefer novels. Perhaps, but you could do what Ray Bradbury did and publish themed collections of related short stories—so called ‘fixup novels,’ as he did with The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man, and others.

Consider accepting Bradbury’s Challenge. You could write one short story a week for a year, couldn’t you? Even if 51 of those stories turn out to be terrible, you’ll have spent time learning the craft and discovering your voice. And you’ll have at least one good story to submit for publication.

I know, I know. You’re asking if I, Poseidon’s Scribe, am so willing to foist a challenge on others, would I be willing to accept it myself? Maybe I will set aside a year to do that sometime. Right now, I’m working on two novels. I’ve already written over eighty short stories, and had three dozen of them published. Though the writing took many years, I could claim I accomplished the Bradbury Challenge in slow motion.

If you do accept and complete the Bradbury Challenge, remember that all credit goes to the late Ray Bradbury, not to—

Poseidon’s Scribe

July 3, 2022Permalink

Jules Verne Found Alive!

French author Jules Gabriel Verne, born on this date in 1828, has been found alive at the age of 192. Reports of his death at age 77 in 1905, and accounts of his subsequent burial, apparently were in error.

Remarkable though it may seem, there is simply no other way to explain the large number of people, still today, who’ve undergone life-changing experiences after contact with Verne. This list includes people who became:

  • Astronauts or astronomers after reading From the Earth to the Moon;
  • Submariners, undersea explorers, or naval architects after reading Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea;
  • Geologists, spelunkers, or cavers after reading Journey to the Center of the Earth;
  • World travelers or circumnavigators after reading Around the World in Eighty Days; and
  • Engineers, scientists, or fiction writers after reading any of Verne’s works.
Monument to Verne at the Jardin des Plantes in Nantes

I can see you’re not buying it. Okay, Skeptic, there’s an entire Wikipedia page devoted to the Cultural Influence of Jules Verne. It lists the following people who claim to have been inspired to pursue their profession by Verne: astronaut William Anders, undersea explorer Robert Ballard, undersea explorer William Beebe, astronaut Frank Borman, polar explorer Richard E. Byrd, speleologist Norbert Casteret, undersea explorer Jacques Cousteau, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, rocketry innovator Robert Goddard, cosmonaut Georgi Grechko, roboticist David Hanson, astronomer Edwin Hubble, submarine designer Simon Lake, astronaut Jim Lovell, French General Hubert Lyautey, inventor Guglielmo Marconi, speleologist Édouard-Alfred Martel, explorer Fridtjof Nansen, rocketry innovator Hermann Oberth, aviation pioneer Alberto Santos-Dumont, polar explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton, aviation pioneer Igor Sikorsky, rocketry innovator Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, and rocketry innovator Wernher von Braun.

There’s a similarly long list of authors who drew inspiration from Verne. Ray Bradbury said, “We are all, in one way or another, the children of Jules Verne.”

There exists a group known as the North American Jules Verne Society. Seriously, are you likely to have an active fan club on a different continent 192 years after your birth?

Yes, Verne is still alive, if not in body, at least in spirit. Very much in spirit.

Cover image for 20,000 Leagues Remembered

You, too, can join the list of those who’ve been influenced by Verne. You can write a short story and submit it for inclusion in the upcoming anthology 20,000 Leagues Remembered. I’m co-editing it, along with Kelly A. Harmon of Pole to Pole Publishing. It’s scheduled to be published on the 150th anniversary of the publication of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea this coming June. Here you can see the cover image we’ve selected. For more information, and to submit your story, click here.

Happy 192nd Birthday, Jules, wherever you are. Today, in raising a toast to you with a glass of French wine, countless Verne fans around the world will be joining—

Poseidon’s Scribe

February 8, 2020Permalink

Writing Inside the Box

The problem with life is there are too many constraints. There are too many limits, too little money, too few resources, and never enough time. And that’s the good news.

Good news? Lest you think me crazy, I’ll explain.

A wonderful blog post by James Clear inspired this post, and I encourage you to read Clear’s article, too.

If Theodore Geisel (Dr. Seuss) could constrain himself to write a children’s book using only fifty different words and come up with Green Eggs and Ham, then constraints may help you as well.

As discussed in Clear’s post, constraints (whether self-imposed or not) force you to think creatively, to find unusual ways to get things done within the limits.

As a fiction writer, you’re always imposing constraints on your characters, particularly the hero of your stories. Your protagonist is always racing against the clock, striving to get out of some trap, fighting to get free of a bad relationship, or otherwise burdened by severe limitations. With the usual options denied, your hero must become inventive in coming up with ways to resolve problems.

What about you? While writing your story, do you face constraints? Yes. I’m sure you have a word limit, even if only a vague one.

Other constraints include the tone of the narrative (once you’ve chosen that, you shouldn’t deviate), genre norms, a desire to stay away from stereotypical characters, character speaking style, the story’s Point of View, etc. Other constraints you might choose for yourself include vocabulary limits like Dr. Seuss’ story, an upper limit on readability index, a dislike of certain words or phrases, and thousands of other possibilities.

Perhaps the most constraining limit of all for any writer is time. You never know how much time you really have and you can’t buy more of it. You can’t take an infinite number of years to finish your story.

As one extreme example, consider the way Ray Bradbury wrote Fahrenheit 451. With two small children at home, he sought a quiet place to write. At the library, he could rent a typewriter, but had to feed it a dime every half-hour. That would be a dollar every half-hour today. They say ‘time is money’ but imagine feeding money into your laptop all the time. No wonder Fahrenheit 451 is a rather short novel.

Constraints, whether imposed by the universe or by you, force you to optimize, maximize, and prioritize. They force you to choose some things and forego others. They force you to think beyond the normal, to consider bizarre alternatives, and to invent new methods.

Perhaps there’s no use complaining about constraints, then. We all face them. Just maybe, they’re bringing out your most creative impulses. Instead of complaining, accept them. Face them. Figure out ways to deal with them.

I’ve accepted the box I’m writing in, but it’s uncomfortable and my joints stiffened up. Now I’m stuck. I hope someone can reach in and help—

                                                Poseidon’s Scribe

January 27, 2019Permalink

What’s Silkpunk?

You thought this blog-post was the last word on the various ‘punk’ subgenres? Wrong. Meet the new member of the punk family: Silkpunk.

Author Ken Liu invented the term Silkpunk to describe the genre of his latest novel, The Grace of Kings. In this post, he defined silkpunk as “…a blend of science fiction and fantasy…[drawing] inspiration from classical East Asian antiquity. My novel is filled with technologies like soaring battle kites that lift duelists into the air, bamboo-and-silk airships propelled by giant feathered oars, underwater boats that swim like whales driven by primitive steam engines, and tunnel-digging machines enhanced with herbal lore.”

This newest member of the Punk Family is unlike the others in that it’s not represented by a power source or engine type. Perhaps, though, in a metaphorical way, it is. The Silk Road was a trade network from China to Europe that empowered China.

Congratulations to Mr. Liu for coming up with the term Silkpunk. However, with all due modesty, I must say, stories of that type are not new. My own story, “The Sea-Wagon of Yantai” belongs in that genre as well.

In my tale, it’s 206 B.C. and China is torn by warring dynasties. A young warrior, Lau, receives orders to verify the legend of a magic wagon that can cross rivers while remaining unseen. He encounters Ning, the wagon-maker in the seaside village of Yantai. Ning has constructed an unusual wagon that can submerge, travel along the bottom of the Bay of Bohai, and surface in safety—the world’s first practical submarine. Ning enjoys the peace and beauty of his undersea excursions; he won’t allow the military to seize his wagon or learn its secrets. Lau must bring the valuable weapon back to his superior. In the hands of these two men rest the future of the submarine, as an instrument of war or exploration.

My story was inspired by vague references I’d read about someone inventing a submarine in China around 200 B.C. A second inspiration for my story was Ray Bradbury’s tale, “The Flying Machine.” One of his lesser-known works, it’s a wonderful short story, and would certainly qualify as silkpunk, with its kite-like bamboo flying machine with paper wings.

Another silkpunk story that predates the invention of the subgenre’s name is “On the Path,” by fellow author Kelly A. Harmon. Within it, Tan is a farmer, following the path, when the seal on his soul-powered plow bursts, releasing all ghosts from its reincarnation engine. The ghosts flee to Tan’s tangerine groves, reveling in their freedom. One of the souls is Tan’s deceased uncle, Lau Weng, and Tan must offer hospitality. Souls laboring in the reincarnation engines grow more solid as they work off their past lives’ debts and prepare to be born again. Freed from the engine, Lau Weng and his ghostly compatriots rely on Tan and his wife Heng to support them. Caught between death and re-birth, Lau Weng will do anything to remain alive. Tan is honor-bound to provide hospitality, but must feed his family, too, and he can do nothing to stop Lau Weng. Everything changes once Lau Weng takes over Heng’s body.

Thanks to Ken Liu (and others), silkpunk may well catch on in popularity in North America and Europe. Here are four reasons why:

  1. Like steampunk, silkpunk comes ready made with its own aesthetic, with fascinating clothing for costumes, and a characteristic look for gadgets, etc.
  2. Silkpunk is a completely new world, ripe and wide open for writers and readers to explore.
  3. To Western readers, silkpunk will seem exotic and enthralling.
  4. For Western readers, silkpunk represents a chance to learn about new cultures and different philosophies.

Will Silkpunk someday rival Steampunk in popularity? I don’t know. I’m a writer. If you want a psychic, don’t call—

Poseidon’s Scribe

March 4, 2018Permalink

Dear Ray Bradbury

I just had to write to thank you, thank you, for the great times, the pleasures of reading your work.  There’s no sense letting a little thing like your death in 2012 prevent me from expressing my gratitude, is there?

220px-Ray_Bradbury_(1975)_-cropped-Sorry, I haven’t read all your books and stories.  I’ve read less of your canon than I have of Jules Verne’s, Isaac Asimov’s, or Robert Heinlein’s.  But, oh, the few of your books I digested left lifelong mental imprints:  Something Wicked This Way Comes, Fahrenheit 451, Dandelion Wine, The Illustrated Man, Now and Forever, and The Martian Chronicles.  In high school, I read your short story, “The Flying Machine,” and my recollections of it inspired my story, “The Sea-Wagon of Yantai,” written decades later.

At one point, you declared you wrote fantasy, not science fiction.  In my view you blended the two.  You made science sound like fantasy.

Moreover, your flowing style of writing contrasted with that of the hard-science fiction writers.  Their stories conveyed a love of machines, of science.  Yours proclaimed a love of word imagery, of the magic of English, of poetic prose.

The authors of hard science fiction told me tales of technical detail.  You sang me stories of marvel and wonder.

I guess I’m trying to say that I write more like those other guys, but wish I could write like you.

On occasion, you related a particular memory from when you were about twelve.  At a carnival, one of the performers known as Mr. Electrico touched an electrical sword to your nose which made your hair stand out.  You claimed he told you, “Live forever!”

In a very real sense, Mr. Bradbury, you will.  Thanks again.

                                                            Poseidon’s Scribe

December 22, 2013Permalink