Tag Archives: The Seastead Chronicles

Does Your Fiction Book Need a Glossary? Does Mine?

Ever read a work of fiction and wish it included a glossary of the book’s unusual terms and names? Or do you think of glossaries as useless wastes?

In General

More common in nonfiction, glossaries sometimes appear in science fiction and fantasy books, to help readers orient to the unfamiliar world of a novel bristling with strange words and numerous proper nouns.  

Daniel J. Tortora posted a nice discussion of glossaries giving you everything you need to know.

Your Context-Free Slang Word Quiz

My new book, The Seastead Chronicles, lacks a glossary. I hope readers can pick up terms from context, without needing a reference section.

Readers might discern the meanings of many words even without context. For example, can you guess what the following seasteading slang words from my book might mean?

Here’s your list: blub-blub, blubbing, ebb-tide, flotz and jetz, fluke, kelpee, pelagic, squido, steader, tidal, and up-bubble. 

In the book, character actions and dialogue provide context as they use these terms. Even if you couldn’t guess meanings without reading the stories, you’d deduce them without pondering too hard.

While creating the world of my book, I assumed characters would create new slang as they moved to live in ocean-based cities. That seemed likely, since the phenomenon occurs whenever people relocate and settle in a new environment.

Quiz Answers

Ready to find out how well you did at guessing the meanings of my fictional seastead slang? Below, I’ve provided a part of the glossary that doesn’t appear in The Seastead Chronicles. I bet you came close, even without context, to the correct meanings for many of them.

Word/Phrase             Meaning

Blub-blub                   yada yada

Blubbing                    kidding, joking

Ebb-tide                     disappointing

Flotz and Jetz           nonsense (from flotsam and jetsam)

Fluke                          swear word/oath

Kelpee                       kelp tea

Pelagic                       out/away, as in “I’m going pelagic”

Squido                       crazy

Steader                      a resident of a seastead, also Seasteader

Tidal                           popular, viral

Up-bubble                 positive, enthusiastic

Grading Yourself

If you couldn’t guess many slang term meanings, I blame myself. I didn’t give you any background material, but readers of The Seastead Chronicles have all the context needed.

I think the book works well without a glossary, but that’s the biased opinion of—

Poseidon’s Scribe

June 15, 2025Permalink Leave a comment

Cycling Through the World of Short Stories

What do you call a book-length collection of short stories? An anthology, a fix-up novel, or a short story cycle? Let’s explore the terms and see which applies to my recent book.

Definitions

For an anthology, a compiler or editor groups stories, poems, plays, or songs together. Often, they share a common theme, but the pieces need not have been written by the same author.

In a fix-up novel, individual short stories by the same author appear in the same novel. The author may have written them with no thought of grouping them later, so may have to alter (fix them up) to get them to fit well together.

When an author writes short stories intending to combine them later, we call that a short story cycle. In these books, each chapter stands alone as its own story, but fits with the others to tell a larger story.

What About The Seastead Chronicles?

My recent book contains short stories, all written by me. They all involve seasteads—permanent dwellings located at sea. When I began writing them, I did so out of fascination with the concept, hoping to get them published separately. As I wrote more, I dreamed about publishing them together. I began to visualize overall themes and an encompassing story arc. Therefore, I’d classify the book as a short story cycle.

I intended to tell the story of humankind moving to a new home, the sea. People have moved to new places before, and it changed them. When early humans spread across the world tens of thousands of years ago, they settled in various spots and developed different languages and cultures. When European-Americans spread to the western part of the American continent, they created new music and distinct ways of living.

In The Seastead Chronicles, I aimed to tell that story of how, when humans settle in a new place to change it, it also changes them. However, unlike the 19th Century conquering of the West, and unlike Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles, those who settled the oceans would not displace people or any sentient beings.

Some might think people who live in the oceans would kill and eat all the fish and other sea creatures. I didn’t see it that way. Modern economics negates the idea of hunting down and killing the last dodo. All animal species benefit if they serve some economic benefit to people, either as a food source, a tourist attraction, a sacred animal, or something else. People strive to preserve valuable animals and prevent their extinction.

Through my stories, I meant to convey the story of colonization, from tentative early attempts, the declaration of owned ocean sectors, the adverse reactions of land countries, the search for seabed mineral resources, the disputes and wars over territory, and the creation of a new culture with its own art, music, and religion.

Completing the Cycle

I’m working on novels now, and later books in the Seastead Chronicles series will take that form. Prior to this, I wrote short stories. I rarely wrote them in the same world or with the same characters as earlier stories. They each stood alone. But while writing the seastead tales, I came to regard them as related and part of a larger whole.

Moreover, I’ve created a world to explore. Each aquastate (nation in the ocean) comes with its own culture, resources, form of government, relations with neighboring aquastates, etc. Each gets populated by people from different land nations, with different motivations. That world gives me plenty of room for my imagination to craft stories of varying lengths, from short stories through novellas to novels.

For now, we begin exploring this world with The Seastead Chronicles, a short story cycle by—

Poseidon’s Scribe

June 1, 2025Permalink Leave a comment

Launch of The Seastead Chronicles

My newest science fiction book, The Seastead Chronicles, launched today. You can purchase the ebook version on Amazon, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords and soon at Apple Books.

The Seastead Chronicles takes you through the 21st century struggle to colonize the seas, to carve oceans into nations, and to build cities on and under the water.

Spanning decades of time and several generations, these fifteen tales include the early efforts to construct sustainable seasteads, the hostile reaction of land nations, and the scramble for seabed resources. After the pioneers come the settlers, who battle over territory and then form a new, ocean-based culture with fresh music and a new religion.

Seasteads are permanent dwellings located in (what are now) international waters. The word combines “sea” and “homestead.” In my book, seasteads form the cities that comprise “aquastates”—nations in the ocean. Not all seasteads stay put. Some move around, and one (an aquastate by itself) wanders the world. Aquastate borders sometimes change through disputes, or even conflicts, as land borders do.

The stories all take place in this world, our world of the near future, but each follows different characters as they grapple with the challenges of living at sea. As always when humans do something or go someplace new, they bring what’s best and worst about humanity with them.

A huge thank-you goes to Pole to Pole Publishing for accepting this book and for believing in it.

Today, you can only purchase the ebook version. The publisher should release a paperback version soon, and I’ll let you know about that in a future blogpost.

Get ready, readers, for The Seastead Chronicles, by—

Poseidon’s Scribe

May 17, 2025Permalink Leave a comment

Afternoon with Authors

I participated in an Afternoon with Authors event today at the Leaves Bakery & Books store in Fort Worth, Texas.

From left to right in the photo are Megan Dawn, Fabiana Elisa Martínez, Amanda Russell, and me. I learned a lot from listening to them discuss the writing process. Each of us, of course, does things in a different way.

We discussed our individual writing rituals, the reason we started writing, our writing influences, our preference for outlining or free discovery, the reasons humans like stories, and the ways we hope our stories affect our readers.

Each of us read some of our work. I read the beginning of my short story “Its Tender Metal Hand” from the new anthology Spring into Scifi (2025 Edition) by Cloaked Press.

I wish to thank, not only those fellow authors, but also the staff at Leaves Bakery & Books, and those who attended the event.

Announcement

My next book, The Seastead Chronicles, is scheduled to launch on May 17. Stay tuned to this blog for further details from—

Poseidon’s Scribe

May 5, 2025Permalink 2 Comments

Writing Performance Review for 2024

My boss chews me out this time every year. He’s ornery, demanding, harsh, and knows me too well. He’s me.

The Scorecard

Time to assess my writing for 2024. As in past years, I’m using The Writer’s Performance Review scorecard by book coach, Jennie Nash.

To use this scorecard, you rank each attribute from one to five. One = below expectations. Two = partially meets expectations. Three = meets expectations. Four = exceeds expectations. Five = far exceeds expectations.

You’re comparing actual performance during the year to expected performance. If you performed as expected, you’d give yourself a three. If you scored three in all twenty attributes, you’d get 60.

My 2024 Performance and 2025 Plan for Improvement

As my assessment turned out, I got a 62. Mostly 3s, but also one 5, six 4s, four 2s, and one 1.

That 1 rating applies to “goal orientation” and I’ll do more in 2025 to set and meet numeric goals, though I’m mindful of the dangers of becoming too data-driven.

I’ve also committed to some corrective actions in the areas rated as 2:
•   Organization and Planning – I’ll use the Pomodoro method with more consistency to manage my time.
•   Genre Knowledge – I’ll read more books in my genre, study the common attributes of those books, and learn about the most popular authors.
•  Target Audience Knowledge – I’ll write a blogpost about who I think my ideal readers are and how that knowledge could improve my writing, then implement what I’ve learned.
•  Strategic Thinking – I’ll seek influencers, if any, of my target audience, and find ways to connect with that audience.

Writing Accomplishments in 2024

As for writing accomplishments this year, I:
•   made good progress on the third draft of novel number one;
•  finished the first draft of novel number two;
•  finished co-editing a critique group anthology, Ain’t Our First Rodeo, (with three of my stories) and got it published;
•  completed two rounds of edits on my upcoming short story collection, The Seastead Chronicles, and am hoping for its publication early in 2025;
•  wrote and published 48 blogposts (so far);
•  got a short story accepted for another anthology to be published in 2025;
•  wrote an article for a club magazine;
•  made good progress on the first draft of a mostly factual travel book;
•  finished compiling my late father’s collection of over 900 vignettes and got them printed in two volumes for private distribution; and
•   wrote nine poems for personal enjoyment.

Most employers and employees keep annual performance assessments private. I display mine to the world as a service to other writers. May all of us who scribble words have a successful 2025. That’s the New Year’s wish of—

Poseidon’s Scribe

December 15, 2024Permalink

Writing Performance Review for 2023

Few people look forward to performance reviews, and I’m not one of them. As an upside, I’m my own boss. Downside—I’m my own harshest critic.

Time to assess my writing for 2023. As in past years, I’m using The Writer’s Performance Review scorecard by book coach, Jennie Nash.

This year, I examined the rating descriptions in greater detail and it resulted in a lower score than in previous years. For each attribute, you rank from one to five. One = below expectations. Two = partially meets expectations. Three = meets expectations. Four = exceeds expectations. Five = far exceeds expectations.

It’s a comparison of actual performance during the year to expected performance. Based on that, a score of three isn’t bad. It means you’re doing what you expected to do. If you scored three in all twenty attributes, you’d get 60.

As my assessment turned out, I did get a 60. Mostly 3s, but also one 5, four 4s, four 2s, and one 1.

That 1 rating applies to “strategic thinking,” and I’ll do more in 2024 to discover the influencers of my genre by checking out podcasts and Youtube videos by reviewers and authors.

I’ve also committed to some corrective actions in the areas rated as 2:

  • Organization and Planning – I’ll use the Pomodoro method to manage my time.
  • Goal Orientation – I’ll follow the Stephen Covey method of setting large goals, then breaking them down into smaller goals, and weekly tasks.
  • Genre Knowledge – I’ll read more books in my genre.
  • Target Audience Knowledge – I’ll spend some time listing characteristics of my ‘ideal reader.’ That’s how I get to know my fictional characters better, so it might work for readers.

As for writing accomplishments this year:

  • My story “Turned Off” got published in The Science Fiction Tarot. 
  • I finished the second draft of one novel, and
  • I made good progress on the first draft of another novel
  • I completed another round of edits on my upcoming short story collection, The Seastead Chronicles, and am hoping for its publication in 2024.

    Most employers and employees keep annual performance assessments private. As both employer and employee, I display mine to the world as a service to other writers.

    May all of us who scribble words have a successful 2024. That’s the New Year’s wish of—

    Poseidon’s Scribe

    December 17, 2023Permalink

    8 (+2) Science Fiction Predictions for 2022

    Yes, it’s true, not all of my previous year’s predictions have proven accurate. But some have. Rest assured, though. I’ve abandoned the flawed methods I used back then. Those crystal balls, tea leaves and tarot cards are for amateurs.

    I spent all of 2021 working on a special astrological chart for science fiction literature. After all, it’s only natural to turn to the stars for scifi trends, right? Here are my predictions for 2022:

    • Games and Virtual Reality. This recent trend will continue in 2022 as authors explore the landscape of these settings. Moreover, readers will enjoy the escapism aspect of these stories.
    • UFOs/UAPs. As the government promises to release data on UFOs or Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, scifi authors will capitalize on the public’s interest in these sightings.
    • Pandemic. After predicting this last year, I realize I was a year ahead of myself (it happens, in this prognostication biz). 2022 will be the year for pandemic scifi. Expect bizarre diseases with weird symptoms.
    • Post-pandemic. As we emerge from the COVID-19 Pandemic, scifi writers will give us tales of humanity returning to normal after devastating pandemic diseases.
    • Private space exploration and tourism. Another example of me misreading the tarot cards. It wasn’t 2021, but will be 2022 when we read scifi novels featuring billionaire-funded space travel, both for tourism and exploration.
    • Humor. We’ll see a welcome surge in funny scifi, just in time to meet the public’s need for a lighter mood.
    • CliFi.  Many readers and scifi writers share concerns about climate change, which will inspire new novels about how humanity copes.
    • AI. Artificial Intelligence will continue to prompt the scifi of 2022 as it has for years now. I predict stories involving the whole spectrum of AI, from specialized AI capable of one type of task, to general AI similar to human intelligence, all the way to superintelligence.

    Personal Predictions

    As a bonus, here are two prophesies involving me:

    • The North American Jules Verne Society will publish its first anthology of short stories, titled Extraordinary Visions: Stories Inspired by Jules Verne. I’m on the editorial team.
    • My collection of short stories about the future history of seasteading, titled The Seastead Chronicles, will be published in 2022.

    A year from now, you’ll be amazed at how such accurate predictions were even possible. You’ll be begging for a copy of my secret scifi astrology chart and the instructions for using it. You’ll be kicking yourself for having ever doubted—

    Poseidon’s Scribe

    December 26, 2021Permalink

    Looking Back, My 2021 Predictions Assessed

    Another year, another set of (mostly) failed predictions. You’d think I’d give this up! At the end of 2020, I used special tarot cards to make predictions about science fiction books to appear in 2021. Let’s see how those prophecies panned out.

    • Prediction: 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.
      • Assessment: I didn’t see a lot of such books, but The End of Men by Christina Sweeney-Baird is about a virus that kills only men.
    • Prediction: Rebirth. I foresee stories of characters getting back to normal after pandemics, stories about the rebirth of society.
      • Assessment: Perhaps my prediction for this was a year early. The Past is Red by Catherynne M. Valente is about rebirth of civilization after climate change and pollution, not disease.
    • Prediction: Private Space Exploration. Inspired by Space-X, stories of space travel will involve companies, not governments.
      • Assessment: I saw no real evidence of this.
    • Prediction: Humor. There will be a surge in funny scifi, mainly because we can all use it right now.
      • Assessment: I saw no real evidence of this.
    • Prediction: 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.
      • Assessment: Got this one right! Check out A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers, and Fugitive Telemetry by Martha Wells.
    • Prediction: 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.
      • Assessment: I give myself partial credit here. The Past is Red by Catherynne M. Valente concerns the aftermath of a polluted, flooded future Earth after capitalism has run amok.
    • Prediction: 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.
      • Assessment: Again, I think I earned partial credit. Sinopticon, edited by Xueting Christine Ni was an anthology of Chinese scifi short stories. The anthology was published in 2021 and contained stories dating from 1993-2021.
    • Prediction: 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.
      • Assessment: Sheesh. I couldn’t have been more wrong. If anything, scifi was awash with aliens in 2021. All these novels contained them: Shards of Earth by Adrian Tchaikovsky, The Last Watch by J.S. Dewes, The Saints of Salvation by Peter F. Hamilton, To Sleep in a Sea of Stars by Christopher Paolini, A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine, and Jack Four by Neal Asher.
    • Prediction: 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.
      • Assessment: For the most part, I got this wrong. Most scifi in 2021 was set in the future. One exception was The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi which begins in modern-day New York City.

    Personal Predictions

    I also included a set of prophesies about my own writing and editing. I managed to get them all wrong.

    • Prediction: The Seastead Chronicles, my collection of short stories about the future history of seasteading, will be published in 2021.
      • Assessment: Not 2021, but next year, I hope.
    • Prediction: 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.
      • Assessment: Not 2021, but 2022 for sure.
    • Prediction: 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.
      • Assessment: Regrettably, Pole to Pole Publishing had to abandon this one. Won’t be happening.

    Though I’ve failed to make accurate predictions using tarot cards, tea leaves, and a crystal ball in the past three years, don’t think I’m giving up. I’ve been working all year to perfect astrological prediction techniques. Watch this space for next week’s blog, where I reveal the truth about scifi literature in 2022.

    Let’s just forget about my past failures, shall we? Starting now, you can believe all future predictions made by—

    Poseidon’s Scribe

    December 19, 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