The War of the Worlds - Steven R. Southard (Poseidon's Scribe)

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The SF Obsolescence Problem

No matter how much a science fiction writer keeps up with science, the writer’s stories will go obsolete.

As science advances, our understanding of the universe changes. A spherical earth replaced a flat one. A sun-centered solar system replaced an earth-centered one. Birds replaced reptiles as closer descendants of dinosaurs. Continental drift replaced an unchanging map.

SF stories based on outdated science seem backward, passe, naïve. Yet we still read them. Why?

When Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, she may have thought the technology to animate dead human tissue lay in the near future since Luigi Galvani had caused frog legs to twitch with jolts of electricity. Two centuries later, we still can’t animate dead humans. How silly it seems to have ever thought it possible at the dawn of the 19^th Century. Yet we still enjoy Shelley’s novel today.

Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days astounded his reading audience at such a short duration for a globe-circling trip. Today, astronauts orbit the planet in just over eighty minutes. How quaint to think of an eighty-day circumnavigation as short. Yet we still enjoy Verne’s novel today.

H.G. Wells’ story The War of the Worlds gave us invaders from Mars. Today we can’t imagine fearing an attack from inhabitants of that planet. How pathetic to think people once swallowed that premise. Yet we still enjoy Wells’ novel today.

Why do we readers find these outdated, naïve, obsolete books—and others like them—still readable? Because science fiction isn’t only about science.

SF, like all fiction, is about one thing—the human condition.

True, readers of SF prefer stories in which authors adhere to the science at the time of writing. But as decades pass, readers know the progress of science may render a work of fiction obsolete. They forgive all of that for the sake of a good story.

They want to read about human characters struggling to achieve a goal, to win a prize, to survive. To live means to suffer, but also to strive against and despite that suffering. The struggle reveals the human qualities of bravery, ingenuity, perseverance, loyalty, love, and others. These timeless truths persist no matter how much science morphs our understanding of the cosmos.

As essayist James Wallace Harris stated in this post, “It’s the story, stupid.” Author Michael Sapenoff put it this way: “So while the language itself remains outdated, the ideas are not.”

You may shake your head, chuckle, or even sneer at the obsolete notions in SF stories, ideas since debunked or overturned by later discoveries. But remember, while looking down your nose, science fiction is more about the fiction than the science.

I encourage you to suspend your scientific skepticism and just enjoy the tale, follow the spinning of the yarn. Set aside the transitory and obsolete parts and appreciate the unchanging, permanent parts.

Maybe, in the end, the SF obsolescence problem isn’t a problem after all, for you or for—

Poseidon’s Scribe

February 19, 2023Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Chessiecon Turkey Award, Second Worst Place

Every year, the science fiction conference Chessiecon offers an award, called the Chessiecon Turkey Award. The idea is to write the “worst possible opening to the worst possible SF/F novel (n)ever written.” It’s a SciFi version of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction contest.

I submitted an entry this year for the first time. As I was leaving the con, one of the Turkey Award judges told me I’d won second worst place! I couldn’t believe it.

Before I unveil my entry, please have all children at least exit the room, or preferably, the solar system. This entry is suggestive, racy, and risqué, but not necessarily in that order. Are all the kiddies gone? Good.

With apologies to H.G. Wells, here’s what I submitted:

“No one would have conceived in the last months of 2018 that this world was being debauched obscenely by protuberances straighter than man’s, as thoroughly as a man with a proctoscope might sodomize the prurient lechers in a tub of water. Yet across the gulf of space, inter-sexuals fast and cool and un-prophylactic regarded this earth with lascivious eyes, and Roly and Shirley spewed from their glands against us.”

Hmmm. I guess you’d have to call that novel Whore of the Worlds, or something. Good thing for humanity that nobody wrote that book. Ever.

Pictured below is the prize I won for getting second worst place. You guessed correctly; it’s the Flickin’ Chicken game, rated for ages six and above. My wife says I might be mentally old enough to play it next year. Yay!

On the package it says it’s “The Go Anywhere Game,” which is handy, because I won’t need a passport anymore.

It is my high dishonor to accept this “award.” I’d like to take this opportunity to blame all the people who helped me along the way, including my parents, my teachers, and H.G. Wells.

To all those who said, “Steve, don’t enter that bad-writing contest; you’re not immature or unskilled enough,” I say, “nyah, nyah, nyah-nyah, nyah. I am too. Thphthph.”

Besides, you doubters, who’s got a firm grasp of his Flickin’ Chicken now? I’ll tell you who, it’s—

Poseidon’s Scribe

November 27, 2018Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Happy Birthday, H.G. Wells!

Science Fiction pioneer H.G. Wells was born September 21, 1866, 150 years ago. Although he died in 1946, his works live on and inspire us today.

The novels of his I’ve read include The Time Machine, The Island of Dr. Moreau, The Invisible Man, The War of the Worlds, The First Men in the Moon, and The Sea Lady. Most of those remain classics today.

As readers of my blog know, my main author-crush is with Jules Verne, but Wells gave us several archetypal story themes and ideas that Verne did not explore.

The two authors approached their writing differently, too. Verne strove for scientific plausibility and accuracy, but Wells concentrated on telling a good story and gave only a passing nod to the science.

After Verne read The First Men in the Moon, which includes an anti-gravity substance named cavorite, he wrote, “I sent my characters to the moon with gunpowder, a thing one may see every day. Where does M. Wells find his cavorite? Let him show it to me!”

Despite my preference for Verne’s stories, I have to say, “Lighten up, Jules. If a scientist does invent an anti-gravity mechanism, your criticism will look antiquated. Further, you knew your gunpowder cannons couldn’t really launch men to the moon when you wrote From the Earth to the Moon, so you’re not a paragon of accuracy, yourself.”

As discussed by Steven R. Boyett, this dichotomy between scientific exactitude and telling a good story with a smattering of sciency stuff persists today in the arguments between hard and soft science fiction.

Returning to Wells, you do have to overlook his personal life and philosophy as you read his books. A believer in socialism, anti-Semitism, and eugenics, he also led a sex life that was, well, complicated. Fortunately, his early, less philosophical works don’t give hints of any of this.

My readers know that Wells’ The War of the Worlds inspired my own story, “After the Martians,” so I owe him a great debt.

So, happy birthday, Herbert George Wells! Your legacy is looking great after all these years. Your works remain classics today, read and enjoyed by millions, including—

Poseidon’s Scribe

September 25, 2016Poseidon's ScribePermalink

After the Martians—the Story Behind the Story

It’s the question readers ask authors most often: “Where do you get your ideas?” I’ve blogged about that before, but today I’ll reveal the birth of the idea behind my just-launched book, “After the Martians.”

It wasn’t my idea at all.

My friend, fellow author, and critique group partner, Andy Gudgel, thought of the idea. Heaven knows where he got it. At one of our critique group meetings, he mentioned he’d like to write a sequel to H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds, but his story would deal with the aftermath, with dead Martians lying around, but also their technology. After all, the tripod fighting machines would be still standing where they stopped. The assembly machines would be intact and stationary near the landing sites of the Martian projectiles. Even a few flying machines might be available.

Andy’s idea was that humans would then use these weapons in a very different version of World War I.

This notion captivated me, and I urged him to write the story. Each time he sent us manuscripts of other tales, I’d ask him about the Martian story. “This one’s good, Andy,” I’d say, “but when are you going to give us that War of the Worlds sequel?”

Then at one December meeting, (at which we exchange little gifts to each other), I unwrapped his gift to me, and there were all his notes, and his copy of H.G. Wells’ novel. A note stated he was giving his story idea to me. I should write the tale, since he would not likely ever get around to it.

Wow! That could be the greatest gift one writer could give to another.

I say ‘could be’ because of an emotionally painful event that happened to me some twenty years earlier. At that time, I belonged to a different writing critique group. One other group member had written more than half of his novel. As I recall, it involved a modern-day (well, mid-1990s) nuclear attack on the United States.

Sadly, this writer died young. He had not completed writing that novel, let alone sent it to any agents or publishers.

His wife wrote to me to say how much her husband had appreciated my critiques of his work, and said he’d wanted me to finish, and seek publication of, his novel.

With a heavy heart, I had to decline the offer, but found it gut-twisting to tell his widow that. To write a story, I must have passion about it and care deeply about it and about the characters. I just didn’t feel that way in this case. Moreover, even if I’d had that enthusiasm, I would have had to rewrite large portions of the other writer’s novel to make it mine, and would have felt terrible about not honoring the deceased writer’s wishes exactly, or not living up to his hopes.

In the case of Andy’s WotW sequel, he hadn’t started writing yet. He’d compiled some notes and a rough outline, but I decided to take the story in a different direction than he’d planned. I didn’t feel badly about that, since he hadn’t begun the actual writing and my passion drove me toward the story that became “After the Martians.”

That’s the story behind the story written by—

Poseidon’s Scribe

May 15, 2016Poseidon's ScribePermalink

World War One—After the Martians

One century ago, war raged across Europe. They called it the Great War then. The year 2018 will mark a hundred years since the ending of that massive conflict. Today I thought we’d examine an alternate history scenario. How might WW I have been different if H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds had really occurred in 1901? My recently launched book, “After the Martians,” explores this scenario.

First, some background. In 1815, the Congress of Vienna created a sustainable peace across Europe. Half a century later, that peace had frayed. Five nations then dominated the mainland continent and vied with each other for supremacy—Austria, Denmark, France, Russia, and Germany (under Prussian leadership).

Otto_Fürst_von_Bismarck — Chancellor Otto von Bismarck

Enter Otto von Bismarck, Chancellor of Germany, who combined the ‘balance of power’ concept with a pragmatic or ‘realpolitik’ approach to foreign policy. He ensured Germany maintained a changing web of alliances with two of the other powers, while engineering a series of short wars designed to unite and strengthen the German states while weakening enemies. After each war, he’d shift the alliances, always maintaining three on his side against two on the other.

This strategy sustained a workable balance until Bismarck’s resignation in 1890, after which he predicted, “One day the great European War will come out of some damned foolish thing in the Balkans.”

After that time, the European powers armed themselves against each other and tensions increased—the so-called “powder keg.” Without any minor wars to relieve this tension, the strain increased such that even a small event could trigger a major war. That’s what Bismarck had foreseen.

So far, that’s an interpretation of how things actually happened. Let’s insert a fictional twist. Assume the attack of The War of the Worlds really occurred, in 1901. In H.G. Wells’ novel, the Martians only invaded Great Britain, but it makes no sense for a superior alien race to restrict their assault to just one country, so we’ll suppose the Martians spread their forces more widely across the globe.

In time, the Earth’s bacteria sickened and killed the alien aggressors, but only after they’d wiped out a significant portion of the world’s population. Human weaponry of 1901 had been almost useless against the Martians, so our war machines lay in ruin. However, the aliens had left behind their tripod fighting machines, heat rays, “black smoke” poison gas, and some flying machines.

The nations of Europe, then, would have faced two choices. Stunned by the devastation of the Martian War and fearful of another attack from that planet, they could have joined forces and combined their energies to prepare for another assault by a common enemy. Or they could have examined the advanced Martian military technology and used it to refill the powder keg.

After the Martians assumes, as backstory, that the latter occurred. I postulate that the same triggering event—the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand—lit the fuse and set off the Great War.

Using the weaponry of Mars, WW I would have gone quite differently. Trenches would be useless against one hundred foot tall walking tripods with heat rays. Each side would have gone underground, using the Martian “assembly machines” to construct huge subterranean bunkers with hidden surface entrances.

Moreover, the heat rays and black smoke would have killed off the plant and animal life on every battlefield. There would have been vast areas of bare dirt. The combatants would have spared only the mountainous zones, since it would have been difficult to maneuver the tall three-legged fighting machines on sloped ground.

This is the (alternate) reality faced by my character Johnny Branch in my new book. As you mark the centennial of the real WW I, consider reading “After the Martians,” by—

Poseidon’s Scribe

May 8, 2016Poseidon's ScribePermalink

H.G. Wells’ Fighting Machines — After the Martians

My upcoming story, “After the Martians”—to be released this month—features the fighting machines, or tripods, of H.G. Wells’ book The War of the Worlds. In that book, the Martians assembled the machines after their arrival on Earth, and they caused considerable destruction. At the end of the novel, the Martians all died from our terrestrial bacteria.

“After the Martians” takes place in the world of Wells’ story, but sixteen years have passed since the alien attack. In my tale, humans make use of the Martian technology, especially the fighting machines, to fight World War I.

Wells depicted a fighting machine as being three-legged and about one hundred feet tall. He did not describe the carapace or main body of the machine, except to say that several flexible tentacles protruded from it. Two of these tentacles held a box with a lens from which shot the devastating heat ray. The tripod’s other weapon was a poisonous black gas.

Such a machine would have terrified the readers of 1897. Since then, the tripod from The War of the Worlds has become a science fiction icon, inspiring the walking weapons of Star Wars, the AT-AT and AT-ST. Combining huge size with the human attribute of walking somehow adds to the horror.

In The War of the Worlds, we see the fighting machines from the inferior vantage point of puny human victims on the ground. In “After the Martians,” I take readers inside the carapace as human pilots control the alien machines to battle other tripods.

I enlisted the aid of a close acquaintance to make a wonderful 3D printed version of the fighting machine. (Frequent readers will recall my 3D printed Ring of Gyges from my story “Ripper’s Ring.”) For the tripod, she used a Printrbot brand printer, the Simple (Maker) Edition, and PLA filament.

The .stl files you need to print the fighting machine yourself are on the Thingiverse site, and the design is by FuzzySadist (William Myers). I added the wire tentacles, and painted the machine to be generally consistent with my story’s description.

Very soon, I’ll give you details on how you can get your own copy of “After the Martians,” by—

Poseidon’s Scribe

May 1, 2016Poseidon's ScribePermalink