The Big Idea: David Quantick
Posted on August 25, 2022 Posted by Athena Scalzi 1 Comment
You have to hand it to David Quantick: He took a wild idea, and then, as the kids used to say, let his fingers do the walking (on the keyboard. I’m sorry. I will stop with the puns now). In this Big Idea, learn how the author finally got the idea for Ricky’s Hand out of his head, and onto the pages.
DAVID QUANTICK:
It was the oldest idea I had, but it wouldn’t go away. Like a zombie that was also an idea, the thing that should have died years ago along with all the other unsuccesful ideas for books and scripts was still out there, occasionally rearing up at me and trying to sink its teeth into my throat. But where the other ideas eventually retreated back into the basement, hissing themselves back into vapour, this one refused to go away: one day a man wakes up with someone else’s hand.
I liked the idea, which may have been inspired by me waking up with a hangover and looking at my hand like it was an interloper, but I didn’t know what to do next. If it wasn’t the hero’s hand, whose was it (I didn’t know)? Why was it someone else’s hand (no idea)? How is having someone else’s hand a story (it isn’t)? And so on. So the years went by and I left the idea alone. I wrote comedy scripts for British TV and novels that nobody wanted to publish and more scripts but the idea kept coming back, one eye rolling around on its cheek I pitched it to a British scifi comic book, and even wrote a synopsis, but they turned it down. It was time to take a hint, and I would have done but by now my books were being published and some of them were science fiction or horror or even both.
It occurred to me that the idea might have finally found its time so I started planning it. This time, with the experience of both acceptance and rejection, I felt almost confident that I could make a decent story of it. I worked out whose hand it was. I worked out why it was someone else’s hand. And I realised what the story might be. Best of all, I had evolved a technique to help me write: pretending the novel was by someone else, which seems apt for the subject of this book.
I’d written my first published novel, All My Colors, as a tribute to Richard Bachman, Stephen King’s seedier alter ego, even setting it in a King-appropriate 1970s. It had worked, and my attempts to pastiche “Bachman” and his era had freed me mentally to be more psychotic and tasteless as a writer. This time round, I decided my main character, the guy with someone else’s hand, would be based in Florida, a state I’d visited a few times, and he’d be a paparazzo in South Beach. Once this setting had been decided on, the next step was clear: my favourite author of Florida fiction is Carl Hiassen – Hiassen even sharing this book’s obsession with messed-up limbs. So the new book would be racy and comedic like a Carl Hiassen novel, with bursts of sick violence and dark laughs.
I had a world, I had a story, and now all I needed was a title. Most of my books take their names from song titles – All My Colors, Night Train, Sparks, Go West and even The Mule (maybe the only novel named after a drum solo) – so I thought of songs about hands. The obvious candidate was Fad Gadget’s astonishing early electro horror 45, Ricky’s Hand, about a man who loses a hand in an industrial accident. If I called my protagonist Ricky…
Everything was in place. The actual writing, which took about three months, was intense and seemingly relentless: it was as if I could only cope with the insanity of the story by not thinking about it as I hammered out the chapters. And then, a few weeks later, it was done. An idea that I’d had in my mid-20s had somehow survived until the next millennium, crept up behind me, and infiltrated my brains (or brainzzz).
Ricky’s Hand, boys and girls. I hope you like it.
Ricky’s Hand: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | IndieBound
Visit the author’s site. Follow him on Twitter.
GeForce Now: A Review
Posted on August 24, 2022 Posted by John Scalzi 9 Comments
In my writeup the other day about not getting a new computer (or, more accurately, about ordering one and then cancelling the order because of supply chain issues), I mentioned that in lieu of getting a ginchy new computer with a top-of-the-line graphics card, I got a subscription to the GeForce Now streaming service, which would allow me to play games on my current computer as if I had a shiny new graphics card, for $99 for six months, instead of the few thousand dollars a fully-specced-out new computer would cost right now. Was this a smart choice? So far, yes.
A little more detail about the GeForce Now service: It’s run by Nvidia, a company most famous for its computer graphics cards, which allow for the complex visuals of current PC gaming. The current Nvidia line-up is its RTX 30×0 series, from the relatively modest 3050s to the behemoth 3090s, the latter of which is larger than some actual computers. Among the things these cards do is “ray-tracing,” which allows for more realistic lighting effects in games, making it look like light is actually bouncing around in the game rather than just offering flat illumination.
Up until very recently the 30×0 series has been difficult and expensive to get hold of, not only because of the supply chain issues that have plagued the world over the last couple of years, but also because GPUs (the processors that run graphics cards) are really efficient for cryptocurrency mining. Wannabe Bitcoin barons have been snapping graphics cards of all kinds and driving prices to ridiculous levels.
The good news is, crypto crashed, which means prices have come down considerably recently. The bad news is, these cards are still really expensive: On Amazon right this second, a top-of-the-line RTX 3090 is $1,740, or, about the same as you would pay for an entire new Mac Air with the M2 chip in it. Naturally, this also means that buying a computer with an 30×0 card in it is commensurately expensive, even with dropping card prices.
So Nvidia apparently thought: Hey, if our graphics cards are hard to find and expensive, why don’t we just rent them to people, relatively cheaply? Thus, the GeForce Now service. For $99 every six months (or $20/month if you bill monthly), they set you up with access to a virtual gaming rig rocking an RTX 3080. You get all the benefits of the ray tracing and improved graphics, but those graphics are streamed into your computer rather than being native on it; it all takes place in the nebulous “cloud.” What you need to bring: A fast internet connection and the actual games, the latter being a significant differentiator from other streaming services, many of which include game access as part of their package.
I already have a lot of PC games via Steam, which integrates with the GeForce Now service, and my internet speed… well, it’s just barely fast enough for 1080p, 60 frames-per-second streaming off the GeForce Now servers. So I thought it was worth giving it a shot. I signed on, downloaded the PC application, connected it to my Steam account and fired it all up. After a couple of days of intermittent gaming, here are my thoughts.
1. GeForce Now does what it promises: Gives me next-generation game graphics on my current, two-generations-past computer, without the expense of buying a whole new graphics card and the rig to go around it. I fired up Cyberpunk 2077 (current-generation AAA game with ray tracing built in), Cult of the Lamb (current-gen indie game with cute but not complicated graphics) and Half-Life 2 (old game with graphics impressive for its day but now kind of clunky). All of them streamed from the virtual rig instantly, without complaint, and (in the case of HL2) with all my key bindings and preferences already in place because my Steam account had that information, and shared it with GeForce Now. It was a pretty seamless experience.
2. Seamless but not perfect — although that has less to do with the GeForce Now service than it does with my own Internet connection. My rural internet connection is 40mbps/sec down in theory — in practice it’s between 25 and 40 depending which second you poll it, and the speed is affected by whether someone is downstairs watching Netflix while I’m upstairs playing a graphics-intensive game. That being the case, from time to time I experienced stutter and warnings that my internet was slow, and that slowness was in danger of affecting my gameplay.
Again, that’s a me problem and not a GeForce Now problem, so I’m not holding that against the service. Also, as a practical matter these stutters did not have a huge impact on my game play. They were brief enough, and also I’m playing solo games, not massively multiplayer online games where every millisecond counts to avoid being sniped by a 13-year-old gamer who does nothing else with his time. For how I roll, this is not a real issue.
This also means that while theoretically I am able to stream games at 1440p or even at 4k resolutions, at framerates up to 120fps, again, as a practical matter, I’m at 1080p/60fps. I don’t find this to be a problem — 1080p is detailed enough for casual gaming and again I’m not playing games where every millisecond matters — but if you’re considering GeForce Now and have a less than perfect internet connection like me, it’s something to consider.
3. Also something to consider: While GeForce Now supports a large number of my games on Steam, it doesn’t support them all. It gives me access to 88 out of my over 400 purchased games, with the emphasis being on more recent and/or more popular games. My understanding is that GeForce Now is adding support for new and classic games as it goes along, so it’s likely that more games will show up in my queue eventually.
But again, it’s worth being aware that not every game is available to stream, and as I understand it, in some cases, what’s available to stream depends on it being in one particular store: Some games available through Steam are not available via the Epic Games Store, and vice versa. Also, there are some companies who just don’t offer their games regardless; Bethesda, which publishes some of my favorites like Dishonored and Deathloop, doesn’t, although they once did. So that is another thing to be aware of: Just because a game is currently on GeForce Now doesn’t mean it will always be.
So far, this reality is fine for me. I have 400 games but I don’t play most of them (I am, like many people, a victim of Steam Sale Syndrome, in which I buy older games at deeply discounted prices and then never actually get around to downloading them, much less playing them), and the older and/or indie games that GeForce Now doesn’t support I can download and play on my current computer. The graphics card I have (an Nvidia GTX 1080ti) plays them just fine. Newer, more graphics-intensive AAA games not on the GeForce Now service may eventually become something I have to consider (I suspect I would buy any Deathloop sequel or DLC regardless of its availability on GeForce Now), but I’ll worry about that later.
4. When games are supported on GeForce Now, firing them up is really easy. On Sunday I bought Cult of the Lamb on Steam; it was immediately available on GeForce Now for me to play. I didn’t have to download the game onto my actual computer (and haven’t so far). The instance of it I’m playing is on the GeForce Now servers. I’m digging it.
5. What I’m also digging: The fact that, since GeForce Now is a streaming service and all the processing is done on its side of things, the games themselves can be ported into any computer, including tablets and phones. As an example of this, here’s the frankly delightful spectacle of Cyberpunk 2077 on a Chromebook:
Am I going to play Cyberpunk 2077 on the Chromebook? No, because among other things my preferred keyboard control scheme requires a number pad. But I could. There will be other games I probably will play on my Chromebook, whilst I am traveling, just because I can now. Or on my other laptop, or on the M1 Mac Mini I have downstairs in the music studio. Or on my TV! There’s apparently an LG widget for GeForce Now. How about that. The portability of this service is a big plus in my book.
6. I should note that I got the GeForce Now RTX 3080 subscription plan, which is the service’s most expensive, which aside from the 3080 gaming gives me priority access to the service (I don’t have to wait in a queue for an available rig) and the ability to play for eight hours straight before the service punts me out. I don’t expect that I will in fact game for eight hours straight, because I am old and also have a job, but even if I did I could immediately sign back in and keep going. But, look, $99 for six months (so, $200 a year) isn’t cheap or practical for everyone. There are less costly plans, including one that is free (that one will make you queue, limits you to an hour, and doesn’t offer top-of-the-line graphics). If you’re curious about the service, you can check out one of those first.
Would I recommend the GeForce Now service? If you have a fast internet connection and don’t mind that some games aren’t available, then, sure. I’ve been well satisfied with it so far, and it’s doing what I want it to do: Act as a stop-gap current-generation gaming solution until such time as I decide to splash out again on a new gaming/desktop computer. And yes, I will eventually buy a new desktop computer, and when I do I will get a top-line graphics card in it, because as it turns out, those things are handy for other things besides gaming and destroying the planet by mining crypto. Now, however, I feel less internal pressure to get something immediately. That’s good for my wallet, and for getting a computer that’s right for me, not just what’s available.
For all those reasons, GeForce Now seems like a decent value for me, right now. It might be the same for other folks as well.
— JS
The Big Idea: Dan Koboldt
Posted on August 24, 2022 Posted by Athena Scalzi 6 Comments
Heists! Dan Koboldt has been thinking about them — strictly for fictional purposes, honest! — and in this Big Idea for Silver Queendom, Koboldt gets into the nitty-gritty of what makes them work.
DAN KOBOLDT:
I love a good heist movie. It probably says something about me that my favorite film genre involves cleverly stealing something that’s worth a lot of money. Whether it’s another installment in a long-running franchise like Mission Impossible and Ocean’s Eleven, or a one-off job like Ronin or The Italian Job, I’m down for it. Imagine my delight when I recently found one on Netflix I hadn’t seen: a Gene Hackman film with the dead-on title The Heist. We truly live in a golden age of entertainment.
A few years ago, I decided I wanted to write a heist book. When I thought about my favorite heist stories from film, television, and books, and I realized that they all a few key things in common. Much like romance, mystery, and other genres, the heist story has a number of recognizable tropes. However, it seems to me that all great heists boil down to four key ingredients:
- The Score
It starts with the big score, obviously. Gene Hackman is a classic actor and his character goes after a classic prize: gold bars. Gold is heavy, which makes for some complications, but you can’t argue with the market value. Other favorite scores include jewelry (Reservoir Dogs), priceless artwork (Entrapment), incriminating evidence (The Inside Man), or the plans for the Death Star (Rogue One). Whatever the score, it’s usually something life-changing.
Of course, it bears mentioning that things which are extremely valuable tend to be well-protected. It’s why celebrities have bodyguards and bank vaults aren’t made of balsa wood. So a big score often has an opportunity window. Maybe it’s being moved from one secure facility to another. With high-end art, often a piece becomes vulnerable when it goes out for restoration or a special exhibition. From a storytelling perspective, an opportunity window is a useful element because it adds urgency. When something about the window changes, the stakes can get even higher.
- The Crew
Arguably the best part of any heist is motley collection of characters who are necessary to pull off the job. It often starts with the mastermind, who’s often the protagonist of the story. He or she is usually an experienced con artist, excellent at the grift and a total mess in their personal lives. Danny Ocean is a great example. There’s usually a facilitator – often the mastermind’s number two — who brings all the right people and equipment together. Other members of the crew usually have specialized skills – safe cracking, hacking, demolitions, etc. – required for the heist in question. Recruiting the necessary talent is often a major plot point. Seeing them work in their element is absolutely my jam.
- The Pressure
Great heist stories with compelling characters usually give us a deeper reason for the heist. We’ll make this big score and then we can retire is always a popular motivation. I guess that once you start dabbling in the criminal life, it’s hard to get out. Revenge is another common reason for trying to steal something. Usually, that means your big score is your enemy’s big loss. Yet I really like stories where an otherwise sympathetic criminal is forced to pull a heist by someone with leverage over them – blackmail, debt, or good old-fashioned threats of violence.
- The Escape
Okay, this is the part most people love about a good heist movie. The dash for freedom with treasure in hand. Cut to the chase! It could be a high-speed boat chase or Mini Coopers zipping through subway tunnels. All you need is a great driver and a souped-up vehicle of some kind. It had better be fast, because the heat is coming just around the corner.
Then again, one of my favorite escape scenes doesn’t involve speed at all. It’s in The Thomas Crown Affair (1999), when the master thief disappears into a crowd of body doubles all dressed the same and carrying identical briefcases. Clever getaway plans are usually a good idea, because your adversaries probably have a fast vehicle, too.
The Twist
I could have gone ahead and written a heist book that hit those four notes. But this is the Big Idea, not the Regular Idea. Nothing amps up a story like a good plot twist. So here’s mine: my book is an epic fantasy heist. Think crossbows instead of guns. Fast horses instead of fast cars. Dirt roads instead of subway tunnels. No one needs a burner phone because phones haven’t been invented (neither has electricity). The fantasy heist is almost becoming a subgenre itself. Six of Crows (Leigh Bardugo) and The Lies of Locke Lamora (Scott Lynch) are two of my favorite examples. I knew it could be done. All I needed was a supremely valuable thing that someone would want to steal in a society that hadn’t yet discovered gunpowder.
Naturally, I went with alcohol. Not just ordinary booze, but a magic-imbued wine with highly coveted hallucinogenic properties. Imperial dreamwine. Ounce for ounce, it’s the most precious substance in the Old Queendom. Never duplicated, never stolen. If you boosted a shipment and got away clean, you’d be set for life. But as my characters find out, there’s a good reason that no one has managed to steal imperial dreamwine.
Silver Queendom: Amazon|Barnes & Noble|Indiebound
More New Music: “8/22/22 (Perseus Galaxy Cluster)”
Posted on August 22, 2022 Posted by John Scalzi 23 Comments
NASA’s Exoplanets Twitter account posted this yesterday:
And I was all, huh, I wonder if I can make some music out of that.
The answer is: Apparently! Although I didn’t end up using the original audio file. What I did was make a MIDI file out of the original audio, quantize it for time and key, and use that for several individual tracks, time-stretching the information to 16, 32 and 64 bars, and then putting various voices and effects on the tracks. And then adding drums. As one does.
I mentioned all this to Athena, and she was, all “so, you sampled a black hole.” And, well. Yes! Sort of. I’m a science fiction author, I’m allowed.
The resulting track is a) short, and b) asymmetrical. It’s not a song; it’s a musical composition. And — this is a real surprise, I know — it’s pretty noisy. Once again, it’ll be up on music services in the next few days, but right now here is the only place to hear it. I hope you like it.
(Update, 8/24/22: It’s now up on the major music services, including Spotify, TIDAL and YouTube/YouTube Music)
— JS
(Not) Getting a New Computer
Posted on August 22, 2022 Posted by John Scalzi 54 Comments
My desktop computer has been slowing down a bit recently, and my graphics card is now several years old and questionable for a number of new games I wanted to play, and my C drive recently informed me it had only 5GB of space left on it. So I made the decision a couple of weeks ago to get a brand new, top-of-the-line desktop computer, and since I have neither the interest, or, frankly, competence, to build my own (I’ve tried it before, it ended… poorly) I went ahead and ordered it from Alienware (i.e., Dell). They took my money and told me it would be out for delivery by the 18th of this month.
Then on the 20th (i.e., after the 18th), I got an email informing me that the computer would be delayed until well into September, which is to say, more than a month after I had placed the order. I went to Dell’s site to see where we were in the production of the computer, and it turns out they haven’t even begun assembling it yet, i.e., there was no computer, yet, and no one had put in the labor to make it. The only actual thing that had happened at this point was Dell charging my credit card.
I had no real confidence that Dell would actually make the new delivery date, and by this time I was asking myself if I really wanted to spend as much money as I had laid down. After much soul-searching, and reminding myself how much the church renovation was costing us, the answer, it turns out, was “no.”
I canceled the order for the new computer and decided to make do with what I had.
So what to do with this older, slower, fuller computer? Well:
1. I purged the C drive of a whole bunch of memory-gobbling programs I had downloaded but either never used, or were obsolete versions of programs I did use. Lo and behold, a third of my C drive suddenly became free, which is more than enough space for my current needs and purposes.
2. I did the same to my D drive, which is mostly Steam Games, punting off the games that I hadn’t played in a year and/or opened up, played for a little while, and then never played again. Deleting them isn’t a problem these days since my settings for the games are stored with Steam, so if I reload them later, all my configurations will be ready to go.
One side effect of all the purging on both drives: The computer accesses the remaining programs faster. I especially notice this with Photoshop.
3. That doesn’t solve my older graphics card problem, however. My current computer is a compact chassis, and I’m not 100% sure that it will fit the current generation of graphics card, or that the motherboard will work with them even if I did make one fit. And anyway, as stated earlier, I am hilariously not competent in building/fixing computers.
So for that, I punted: rather than trying to buy a current-level graphics card, I’m renting one. Which is to say I got a GeForce Now RTX 3080 account, which allows me to stream a significant portion of the games I own on Steam with all the graphical bells and whistles, including ray tracing. There are some limits — my Internet account is only barely fast enough for it, which means I’m streaming games at 1080p rather than in full 4k glory — but at the moment it’s good enough. Also, because it’s streaming I’m not bound only to my desktop to play games anymore. I briefly played one of my games on my Chromebook last night, which, conceptually, was delightful. I’ll do a longer review of the GeForce Now service once I’ve lived with it for a bit, but so far I am not at all displeased.
Will I eventually get a shiny new computer? Of course. Computers don’t last forever, and there’s only so far purging one’s storage will go. Also, I am a nerd and I like shiny new toys. But at the moment I am feeling relatively smug that I got most of what I wanted out of a new computer, not for thousands of dollars, but for $99 (the cost of the 6-month GeForce Now subscription) and a couple of hours on a Sunday, clearing out unused programs. That seems like a reasonable compromise for now.
— JS
Charlie Points Us All Toward the Weekend
Posted on August 19, 2022 Posted by John Scalzi 9 Comments
“It’s this direction.”
Well, thank you, Charlie, for your help in this critical mission. You are indeed a good dog.
— JS
The Big Idea: R.R. Virdi
Posted on August 18, 2022 Posted by Athena Scalzi 5 Comments
All legends have an origin. Author R.R. Virdi tells us a bit about how stories change, shift, and adapt over time in the Big Idea for his newest novel, The First Binding.
R.R. VIRDI:
Something I wanted to tackle with The First Binding is the nature of stories: how they’re created, how they travel, change their shape, and evolve. Along with this, how words and names in stories change as well. Ari, the protagonist, is the main vehicle for this. We’re shown his life, past and present, and how his legendary (or villainy) reputation has come to be. Some by luck, bits by truths, and some through lies. But his stories and rumors have never held their shape.
How can any story do so over a thousand miles, told over time, and by countless tongues?
A real life example that inspired the word, Satan. We all know it as another name for the Christian Devil. But did you know the word originally comes from Arabic and Hindi, and it is said as, Shaitaan in the latter, Shaitan in the former. The most notable example of this in modern SFF is The Wheel of Time where it is used as another name for the primary antagonist of the series, The Dark One. Over time and travel, and no amount of western tongues probably being unable to pronounce it right, the word became Satan—soon synonymous with Lucifer.
This theme is something that will play out in Tales of Tremaine (the series) as names are traded, misremembered, mispronounced, and twisted over time and distance. Something that happens to Ari over the course of his life, and something he has seen happened to others. It’s part of how stories change and reputations are created. And it’s a very real thing that has happened time and time again throughout our own worldly history.
So I went in very aware of this and wanted to use this as part of the world building in how stories change shape and so do names and facts over time. So keen-eyed readers (and re-readers) will find many more secrets and things hidden the more attention they give to the story, and the stories within stories.
At first, this only applied to Ari as I figured he would be the best lens and focal point to show this with, but as the world grew, and as did my research, I realized they couldn’t be separate.
People are informed and shaped by the stories they’re exposed to, and no story begins or shapes itself in a vacuum. They all borrow, life, and mirror many others. Some steal and twist to serve new cultures or environments better, or with more familiar and relatable characters.
One example of this that I found in my Indo-European research is the analogs between Indra vs. Vritra (from the Indian epic, the Mahabharata,) and another god from another pantheon with a similar story.
You tell me.
Indra is a storm god who fights Vritra, the three-headed serpent or dragon (his mantles and attributions change in retellings, also an important theme I tackle). Vritra is responsible for holding back waters (rivers) and keeping them from flowing, but functionally he serves more as an obstacle for the hero to have someone to defeat.
The storm god uses his club, a proto-hammer, imbued with all the powers of a thunderbolt (sound familiar?) to slay the monster. Vritra has historically been related often to Jormungandr of Norse mythology. And if this myth predates that, well, who’s Indra’s later counterpart?
Not so hard to figure it’s another storm god with a club-like weapon famous for having thunderbolt attributions, albeit his most magical gift might be his lustrous blonde locks, at least as far as the silver screen’s concerned. The original Thor had red hair, for anyone who cares. But, hey, another way stories evolve, character’s change and take on new features and manners, right?
Tales of Tremaine was created to also showcase how real world stories, and those in this world, have all gone through this process, and how one person’s story can be scaled up to legendary, and how any legend can be brought back down to the personal.
How they grow, and how they can go wrong. And through it all, the idea that one person’s story can be an epic—IS an epic, and that they are also susceptible to rumors. Those things that can get out of control, and maybe sometimes add cool bits to legend and lore, but all the while, are affecting a real life living person.
I’m sure everyone’s had a rumor spread about them or shared in close circles. They can hurt, they can get out of control, and they can grow very malicious and untrue—usually both of those things and faster than people can realize.
Ari is no stranger to those, and neither are any of us. It’s a part of our history as a species. All stories borrow, lift, steal, twist and reshape things as we wish to see them (for good or bad), or have frame of mind to understand them.
So, this is the story of stories, and how they’re never all we think they are. They are always more. And separate fact from fiction in them is difficult, but it can be fun.
Ari learns this over the course of his life as he tries to understand the stories of others, those he and his own—his place in the world, and the ones he’s crafted, whether out of hubris or a young man’s games, or to protect himself from dangers he has little other defenses for.
Hard living has taught him this, and will keep teaching him, that one of the greatest disservices anyone can do to another is not learning their whole and truest story. To judge them only by what we’ve heard or wish to see, not what the truth is. And it’s happened to him.
And I daresay it’s probably happened to many of us.
The First Binding: Amazon | Barnes and Noble | Indiebound | Powell’s
Visit the author’s website. Follow him on Twitter or Instagram.
The Big Idea: Kate Heartfield
Posted on August 17, 2022 Posted by Athena Scalzi 3 Comments
Author Kate Heartfield brings us an original story based in the wildly popular videogame series Assassin’s Creed universe. Come along as she unwinds the history of her newest novel, The Magus Conspiracy.
KATE HEARTFIELD:
Queen Victoria survived eight attempts on her life over the course of her reign, by seven assassins (one guy tried twice). Alexander II of Russia wasn’t as lucky – he dodged several attempts, but they got him eventually. It’s hard to think of a head of state of their era who didn’t get very close to an assassin, or a would-be assassin, at least once.
The latter half of the 19th century in Europe was an age of knives and bombs and ideologies. The widespread revolutions of 1848 mostly failed to overturn governments, but they shaped the rest of the century nonetheless. The next decades saw an evolution of communism, anarchism, and liberal nationalism – and a pushback from authoritarianism.
All of this was in my mind as I set about writing a novel about a brotherhood of assassins in that time and place. The Magus Conspiracy is set in the universe of the Assassin’s Creed videogames, with their opposing factions: the Brotherhood of Assassins, which fights for individual freedom, and the Templar Order, which fights for control so the Templars can shape what they see as a better world.
I wanted this novel to be satisfying for fans of the Assassin’s Creed games and to respect what I love about that universe, but to also be accessible and interesting for readers who have never played one.
And while I definitely wanted the novel to feel just as immersive in its own right as parkour on beautifully re-created rooftops, and just as exciting as a successful stealth mission, I was also eager to dig into the games’ philosophical underpinnings in fiction. (My first degree was in international and comparative political science, which may explain why I am that kind of nerd.)
The real history of the 19th century has a lot of parallels to our own time (and influences on our own time), but it’s also remote enough now that it offers us a way to examine how political violence does or doesn’t lead to more political freedom.
Assassinations in particular can have wide and unpredictable consequences (the most famous example probably being the assassination of Franz Ferdinand in 1914.) Setting aside the ethical question of whether or when it can be right to take a life, the strategic calculation is seldom simple. And frequently, assassins’ goals may encompass more than just removing an individual from the world.
Take, for a more recent example, the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich in 1942 in Prague. Heydrich was a high-ranking Nazi, and one of the main organizers of the Holocaust. He was one of the most utterly evil mass murderers in human history, and history sheds no tears for him.
It would have been completely unsurprising for Heydrich to be assassinated by anyone in Prague at any moment (assuming they could manage it) simply out of retribution or a sense of justice. And that desire for retribution did factor into the plan mounted by the Czechoslovakian government in exile. But it also wanted to demonstrate the strength of its country’s opposition to the Nazis, as a signal to the Allies. It wasn’t just about fighting the war with Germany; it was also about what the peace would look like afterward. The Special Operations Executive in Britain helped train two assassins. The resistance on the ground wasn’t sure whether the assassination would be worth the inevitable reprisals.
And when Heydrich succumbed to a lingering death after a grenade attack on his car, the Nazis’ vengeance on thousands of innocent people was indeed terrible. Was it worth it, to change the geopolitical landscape? Was it worth it, to show the world that Nazis were not beyond the people’s reach?
The axiom in Assassin’s Creed that “nothing is true and everything is permitted” suggests that consequences make a better guide to ethical decision making than a set of universal rules created by people, who are themselves fallible. But the consequences of assassinations can be difficult to weigh.
Assassinations and attempted assassinations in the 19th century also had consequences beyond the rather satisfying one of reminding powerful imperial tyrants of their own mortality. Governments often responded by regressing to illiberalism and developing that century’s version of a war on terrorism.
So as I considered how to weave the real events of history into an Assassin’s Creed story, the first question in my mind was what strategic purpose many of these assassinations might have served, and who might have been behind them – and whether they made any mistakes.
I said on Twitter the other day, in response to a great Cory Doctorow post about how Tim Powers constructs secret history, that my own approach to building a narrative out of historical events sometimes feels like a corkboard with photos and string. I look for connections and try to build a narrative that feels inevitable, so that by the end of it, the reader feels like of course there was a secret Brotherhood of Assassins and a secret Order of Templars behind these events; it just makes sense.
I love stories like this because they’re entertaining, but I also think one important thing historical fiction does is remind us that we are always building stories out of events. The way I just told the story of the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich may not be the way someone else would tell it. They might emphasize different things, ascribe different motivations.
Unlike some characters in the Assassin’s Creed universe, we have no way of visiting the past to learn from it. We only have stories, which are, among other things, a way of asking questions.
Assassin’s Creed: The Magus Conspiracy: Amazon | Barnes and Noble | Indiebound | Powells
Visit the author’s website. Follow Kate on Twitter and Instagram.
Oh, Right, Governance
Posted on August 16, 2022 Posted by John Scalzi 26 Comments
I’ve noted before that I am posting less about politics these days, primarily because I find it largely enervating, and there are only so many ways to say “The current GOP is a white supremacist authoritarian cult who threw away any pretense at seriousness to grovel at the feet of an actual seditious criminal” before one starts to sound like a broken record. That said, for people who have an interest in actual governance, today wasn’t a bad day: President Biden got to sign into law the Inflation Reduction Act, which is actually mostly a climate and medical care bill, but, sure, call it the Inflation Reduction Act if you like, why not.
The act, now law, actually gets us a reasonable distance to meeting our climate remediation goals (knocks on wood) and helps shave down drug prescription and other medical costs, mostly for seniors. It covers a lot of ground, raises revenues to pay for the plans, and generally is a decent bill that does things as well as can be done when one entire party won’t vote for anything the other party proposed even if it were to build a golden shrine to Ronald Reagan on a national park land leased for its oil rights.
Is it a perfect bill? Not at all — Joe Manchin, who you see at left in the photo, and who was given the honor of the signing pen by Biden — made sure there were some oil and gas giveaways, and Krysten Sinema made sure very rich people continued to get a tax carveout on investments. Lots of stuff I would have been okay with was tossed over the side, and the whole thing in general is substantially smaller than it was when first proposed. From my point of view it could have been better, if, for example, the Democrats had had 52 senators and not 50.
But they didn’t have 52 senators, they had 50, and perfect is the enemy of good, and sometimes, if you can get half a loaf, you take half a loaf, because half a loaf is better than nothing. Then you find a way to stretch that loaf into something closer to what you might have originally wanted. Climate folks, for example, say that the bill just passed has the potential to achieve 90% of the climate goals of the original Build Back Better proposals, which, if accurate, seems a pretty good deal, all things considered. “I get everything I want or I set it all on fire” is not actually a good way to govern.
It also means that at this point Biden has done an actually pretty good job of carrying out his campaign goals, in terms of the legislation that’s gotten through Congress. He’s done a very poor job of communicating that fact to this point, because none of this legislation is really what you’d call sexy; it’s mostly blandly practical at best, and also, it’s debatable whether people actually want to hear about it. Biden was voted into office as much if not more to deny Trump a second term than anything else. But when you add up everything that’s gotten through Congress to be signed into law, well. Turns out Biden’s been pretty effective when no one’s been paying attention. Who knew?
What would be nice is if this actually turned into momentum for the Democrats keeping control of Congress; midterm elections rarely favor the party in power, and the GOP in particular has been busy trying to stack the House with gerrymandered districts. The Democrats will need every advantage they can get to hold that side of the Hill. Whether actual effective governance will be heard over the noise of criminal investigations of the former president (for starters) is what we get to find out. Remember to vote, folks.
But if the GOP does take the Hill, wholly or partially, and the brakes are applied to Biden’s legislative plans, he’s got these things done. We’re closer to not baking in our own juices over the next few decades, and we’ll keep some folks from not having to choose between rent, food or medications. It’s not nothing. In fact, it’s a lot of something. It’s not everything, but it’s more than I would have counted on even a couple of months ago. And it’s worth noting, and remembering when it’s time to cast your ballot.
— JS
Why I Like Making Music
Posted on August 14, 2022 Posted by John Scalzi 25 Comments
Mostly, it’s because I’m not good at it.
This is not me fishing for compliments. I am aware I can fiddle about and get something out of my equipment that is musical, and that it isn’t completely awful. What I mean is that my level of technical competence with the programs and instruments I own is relatively low, and that I am in the process of learning how to use it all, and every time I do, I’m learning something, and my baseline level of competency and proficiency goes up a bit. The learning part of this process is fun for me, as much, and at this point, possibly more than, the music that comes out of it.
And yet you have an entire album of music! Yes, well, and a) that album is crafted from loops made by others, not music I created myself, b) on software from nearly 20 years ago. While I have nothing against creating music from loops (I mean, obviously), it’s a different skill than creating music from instruments, which is what I’m mostly working on now, and the skill I learned using that software in the early 2000s does not entirely transfer to today’s music-producing software. When I picked things up again a couple of years ago, in many ways it was starting again from square one.
My learning curve on music has been relatively slow — we’re talking over years — for a number of reasons, mostly involving time, and how relatively little of it I have for it, but also because of personal inertia (I would have more time if I stopped faffing about on Twitter), and because the joy I have in learning new skills is also counterbalanced by the aggravation of having to learn new skills when all I wanna do is just make music, man. Sometimes the latter wins out over the former and I just stay upstairs rather than descending to my subterranean lair to compose (the music room is in my basement). But I have been making an effort to actually use all the expensive musical stuff I bought rather than just let it sit around. When I do I remember why I bought it in the first place.
The real trap of increasing competence in any hobby, mind you, is that the further you go along, the more you realize just how much more you have to go. I have all these really nifty musical toys that promise that you can use them without having to know music theory, for example, and while they are correct — up to a point — when I use them, at least, what I end up realizing is, yeah, actually, sooner or later if I want to get where I’d like to be with music, I’m probably gonna have to learn fucking music theory. I’m not 15 and have scads of time just to do nothing but play guitar or keyboards until I figure it all out on my own. At my age, learning music theory is the short cut! I hate that. Also, I am seriously considering keyboard and guitar lessons, with an actual person.
Aside from the pleasure of learning things, and it is a pleasure, the other thing I like about music is that it’s almost certainly never going to be anything more than a hobby. I’m 53 and the number of musicians who have debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 at that late age is pretty low. I think it’s Christopher Lee (who had a heavy metal Christmas song enter the charts when he was 91), and then… yeah. Let’s just say my expectations for my music are realistic. No stadium tours, no Grammys, no platinum albums. Just me in the basement, occasionally putting something together for myself.
Which is fine! I mean, I do have goals for my music. I’d like to eventually put together a whole album’s worth of music I’d consider good outside the “faffing about” rubric, one that I could play for my actual musician friends and have them be, like, “yeah, that’s not bad at all.” That seems achievable, eventually. Anything else will be a bonus, and unlikely to be something I’ll be giving up the day job for. Which, again, fine. I have a day job. Letting hobbies be hobbies is a thing we occasionally forget is allowed. We don’t have to, in fact, monetize every enthusiasm we have.
Anyway: Music! Fun! Good for my brain! Unlikely to lead to a new career at this late stage! I’ll occasionally pop new music up here when I feel like it. Listen to it or don’t, it’s all groovy either way. I’m mostly doing it for me. I’m not good at it. But I’m enjoying getting incrementally better as I go along.
— JS
New Music From Me: “8/13/22 (They Were Not Aware They Had Become Ghosts)”
Posted on August 13, 2022 Posted by John Scalzi 15 Comments
More fiddling about with my DAW and musical equipment. This one is noisy and saturated and the drums have more echo on them than is perhaps wise, but I kinda like it, which is why I’m sharing it. I suspect this is may be an early draft of something else (which is to say I’m thinking about whether or not I can put some lyrics to it), but in the meantime, here, enjoy.
— JS
Your Weekend Cat
Posted on August 13, 2022 Posted by John Scalzi 13 Comments
I had the Midjourney AI art generator give me a few pictures of a cat in a library, in the style of Gustav Klimt. This was my favorite, both for the absolutely unimpressed expression but also because in the cat’s “fur” you can see hints of books and bookshelves, which is actually quite clever for an artist without actual sentience. It was worth sharing on this slow summer weekend, so here it is. Enjoy the rest of your weekend. Maybe read a book.
— JS
Love Death + Robots Renewed For Season 4
Posted on August 12, 2022 Posted by John Scalzi 9 Comments
Netflix announced it on its Twitter feed (and presumably elsewhere):
Of course I’m thrilled about that and for the whole team at Blur, the production company who makes LD+R for Netflix.
Before anyone asks, at this particular point there’s very little I know and even less that I could tell you about the status of things for season four; Blur and Netflix like keeping their cards close to their chest when it comes to news. I’m just happy that something I’ve been involved with, and have admired well outside my own involvement, gets to keep going. Any show getting a fourth season in the streaming era is an increasingly rare event. I’m glad LD+R has pulled it off, and I’m looking forward to seeing where the series goes next.
— JS
New Books and ARCs, 8/12/22
Posted on August 12, 2022 Posted by John Scalzi 8 Comments
For your delight, a very fine stack of New Books and ARCs that have come to the Scalzi Compound. What’s shaking your tree here? Share in the comments!
— JS
The Kaiju Preservation Society a Finalist for the Dragon Award
Posted on August 11, 2022 Posted by John Scalzi 13 Comments
And, well, that’s pretty damn cool. Here’s the whole ballot of finalists, and at the bottom of that I’ll put in a link so you can go vote for whomever you like.
1. Best Science Fiction Novel
Leviathan Falls by James S.A. Corey
The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi
Goliath: A Novel by Tochi Onyebuchi
You Sexy Thing by Cat Rambo
Shards of Earth by Adrian Tchaikovsky
2. Best Fantasy Novel (Including Paranormal)
Age of Ash by Daniel Abraham
Moon Witch, Spider King by Marlon James
Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki
Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher
Book of Night by Holly Black
Jade Legacy by Fonda Lee
3. Best Young Adult / Middle Grade Novel
Gallant by V.E. Schwab
Akata Woman by Nnedi Okorafor
A Dark and Starless Forest by Sarah Hollowell
A Snake Falls to Earth by Darcie Little Badger
Redemptor by Jordan Ifueko
Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao
4. Best Military Science Fiction or Fantasy Novel
The Shattered Skies by John Birmingham
A Call to Insurrection by David Weber, Timothy Zahn, Thomas Pope
Citadel by Marko Kloos
Backyard Starship by J.N. Chaney, Terry Maggert
Against All Odds by Jeffery H. Haskell
Resolute by Jack Campbell
5. Best Alternate History Novel
She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan
Invisible Sun by Charles Stross
The Silver Bullets of Annie Oakley by Mercedes Lackey
When Women Were Dragons by Kelly Barnhill
The King’s Daughter by Vonda N. McIntyre
1637: Dr. Gribbleflotz and the Soul of Stoner by Kerryn Offord, Rick Boatright
6. Best Media Tie-In Novel
Star Wars: The Fallen Star by Claudia Gray
Star Wars: Thrawn Ascendancy: Lesser Evil by Timothy Zahn
Star Trek: Coda: Oblivion’s Gate by David Mack
Star Trek: Picard: Rogue Elements by John Jackson Miller
Halo: Divine Wind by Troy Denning
7. Best Horror Novel
The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix
The Book of Accidents by Chuck Wendig
The Death of Jane Lawrence by Caitlin Starling
My Heart Is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones
Hide by Kiersten White
Revelatory by Daryl Gregory
8. Best Comic Book
Devil’s Reign by Chip Zdarsky, Marco Checchetto
King Conan by Jason Aaron, Mahmud Asrar
Immortal X-Men by Kieron Gillen, Mark Brooks
Step by Bloody Step by Simon Spurrier, Matías Bergara
Twig by Skottie Young, Kyle Strahm
Nightwing by Tom Taylor, Bruno Redondo
9. Best Graphic Novel
Geiger by Geoff Johns, Gary Frank
Bitter Root Volume 3 by David F. Walker, Chuck Brown, Sanford Greene, Sofie Dodgson
Dune: House Atreides Volume 2 by Brian Herbert, Kevin J. Anderson, Dev Pramanik
Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons by Kelly Sue DeConnick, Phil Jimenez
Monstress, Volume 6: The Vow by Marjorie Liu, Sana Takeda
Saga by Brian K. Vaughan, Fiona Staples
10. Best Science Fiction or Fantasy TV Series
Stranger Things, Netflix
The Expanse, Amazon
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Paramount+
Wheel of Time, Amazon
For All Mankind, Apple TV+
Halo, Paramount+
The Boys, Amazon
11. Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Movie
Dune by Denis Villeneuve
Spider-Man: No Way Home by Jon Watts
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness by Sam Raimi
Ghostbusters: Afterlife by Jason Reitman
The Adam Project by Shawn Levy
Free Guy by Shawn Levy
12. Best Science Fiction or Fantasy PC / Console Game
Elden Ring, Bandai Namco Entertainment
Metroid Dread, Nintendo
Destiny 2: The Witch Queen, Bungie
Age of Empires IV, Xbox Game Studios
Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate – Daemonhunters, Frontier Foundry
Lost Ark, Amazon Games
13. Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Mobile Game
Diablo Immortal, Blizzard
Pokémon UNITE, The Pokémon Company
Baba Is You, Hempuli
Townscaper, Oskar Stålberg
Alien: Isolation, Sega
World of Demons, PlatinumGames
14. Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Board Game
Ark Nova, Capstone Games
Cascadia, Alderac Entertainment Group
Return to Dark Tower, Restoration Games
7 Wonders Architects, Asmodee
Alien: Fate of the Nostromo, Ravensburger
Star Wars Outer Rim: Unfinished Business, Fantasy Flight Games
15. Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Miniatures / Collectible Card / Role-Playing Game
The One Ring, Second Edition, Free League Publishing
Thirsty Sword Lesbians, Evil Hat Productions
Root: The RPG, Magpie Games
Magic: The Gathering, Dungeons & Dragons: Adventures in the Forgotten Realms, Wizards of the Coast
The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game – Revised Core Set, Fantasy Flight Games
Magic: The Gathering, Innistrad: Crimson Vow, Wizards of the Coast
Neat!
Here’s the link to the Dragon Awards site, which itself features a link to how to register and vote in the awards. If you’d like to vote for Kaiju, nifty! If you’d prefer to vote for something else in my category, that’s cool too, they’re all very fine work and I’d be fine with any one of those works getting the nod. And if you nominated Kaiju for the Dragon Awards, thank you! I’m really pleased.
— JS
Some Thoughts on AI Art
Posted on August 11, 2022 Posted by John Scalzi 16 Comments
First, this one is called “Deep in your heart there is a sunlight so hot that it makes you love people. That’s why you love people,” and its inspiration is a little poem my daughter wrote on her sixth birthday. I gave the whole poem to the AI art generator Midjourney as a prompt, and this is one of the things it came up with. It’s certainly evocative.
Since Midjourney, Dall-E and other AI art generators have come online, there’s been a bit of a freakout from actual artists/illustrators about what this means for their livelihoods. While my own prognostication skills are dubious at best, and I would never tell anyone not to be concerned about the creative sector they work in when new technology surfaces, in my experience of using several of these AI art generators over the last few weeks, I’m not sure I see them replacing human illustrators to any great extent any time soon. This is for several reasons:
1. Specificity and intentionality: One can prompt an AI art generator in the direction one wants them to go, but ultimately you get what you get with them, unless you really want to devote a lot of time to art directing the thing. It’s still easier to communicate what you want to an actual human and get an exact result, than to go through 25 iterations of an idea and hope the AI finally gets what you want, without messing up anything else.
2. Detail: Most of the images I get out of AI art generators are of a level that I would call “cool rough draft,” which is to say, there’s enough there that you see where it’s going, but the detail level isn’t there, and what detail is there is wonky. This is most notable with human facial features, and shapes of distinct animals and other natural objects. If I were wanting to make the image above into an actual piece of art, I’d hand it over to an artist to get it to a level I would considered finished. I think at this point AI art generation is a handy way to sketch ideas and concepts, and for someone like me would make it easier to let an actual artist know some of what I was thinking. But the handoff to an actual artist would still need to take place.
3. Sameness: Having played with several AI generators now, I can say it seems each has what I would call a “house style.” Midjourney, which is the one I’ve played with the most, has a distinctly “arty” and “moody” style that I think I would call Emo DeviantArt. I like it! But I also know, barring very specific instruction, what I’m going to get out of Midjourney when I give it a prompt. Which means even two weeks in I’m getting the feeling I know its default bag of tricks. Humans also have their own styles, to be sure, but also more flexibility. Human work feels, how to put it, less programmatic.
AI will get better at generating art — the amount to which it is better now, at effectively its second generation, from its first generation, is a really actually impressive — but I suspect it’s going to keep bumping up on these problems, because “AI” isn’t actually intelligent in way a human is, which will continue to give humans an advantage on generating art other humans actually want.
What I suspect is going to happen is that human artists will start incorporating AI art generation into their tool box, and that very rapidly; if AI can, for example, quickly generate a background cloudscape that is consistent with that artist’s style and intent, which that artist can then tweak to suit their needs, why wouldn’t they do that? Saves time and the final work is still under the direction of a human brain. Likewise, in the next generation of artists will be some who can’t draw to save their lives but who are maestros of prompting art generators to give them things that no one else can get out of those generators.
And for people like me, who have very little visual art talent, these AI art generators will let us play a bit and perhaps will spur creativity in other directions. I’ve already created some images that I want to write stories for, or which have at least have ideas popping into my head. Will anything come of those? Maybe, maybe not, but it’s nice to feel the creative ferment they help create.
So, no, I don’t suspect AI art generation is the end of human artistry. It’s another tool we can use, and I think it will be interesting to see what happens with it as we go along.
— JS
The Big Idea: Robin C. M. Duncan
Posted on August 10, 2022 Posted by Athena Scalzi 5 Comments
Writers often use what they experience in their lives in their fiction; for Robin C.M. Duncan, a particular medical issue gave him an insight that informed his novel The Mandroid Murders. What was it and how did it have an impact on the writing? Read on.
ROBIN C. M. DUNCAN:
I began writing my novel The Mandroid Murders in 2016, with the emergence of my main characters from a “Writing Excuses” writing prompt about a dead-drop from three different viewpoints. The novel’s main theme materialised from recent changes I observed in my behaviour, but I could not have known then how that choice of theme presaged a traumatic personal event.
The interface between humans and their technology has defined the development of Humankind, and its impact on the Earth, for millennia. From rocks to rockets to microprocessors, tool use remains humanity’s driving force. The question of how far and where that might take us has exercised Science Fiction writers for over a hundred years, but my interest is less about how those tools affect the world (a dire and depressing subject), but how their use affects the user, and the user’s much older and more spiritual interface with the physical realm.
As human tools have become increasingly complex, arguably, the scope of their impact on the psyche has increased. Recent research demonstrating a dramatic reduction in attention spans appears to have been debunked, but I believe there is still ample proof that our smartphones do disrupt our relationship with the physical world. I believe this simply because that is what those devices are designed to do, to insinuate themselves between us and whatever is in front of us, be it a person across a dinner table, the physical book we are reading, or yes, even our TV or computer screen.
This infiltration of our psyche is achieved by tactile, auditory and visual means, sometimes all three at once, and each time we succumb to the lure, we receive the reward of a screen free of little red notification dots, and a smack of dopamine from the app in question. However, this is at the cost of our physical interactions, our social relations, our attention spans (I would continue to argue), and our sleep. But, what if our consciousness became part of the machine itself, with all physical filters and barriers removed? What impact might there be then on the human psyche and our ability to interact with the real world; how might any given consciousness react when physical accountability is removed?
As the title of my novel suggests, androids play a big part in my vision of Earth in 2099. These droids (proprietary name, syRen®) are somewhat Asimovian, operating broadly under his laws of robotics, although supplemented by technical bureaucracy, and with what I call pseudo-AI, not “full” AI. While Virtual Reality enables humans to see through android eyes, and experience their actions, Androicon develops technology to put human consciousness into an android, enabling a human to operate it. Because that’s bound to be a good idea, right?
The story follows the trail of Gregor Callan, a quadriplegic, who volunteers to participate in Androicon’s testing of their new tech. Callan was paralysed in a terra-forming accident. Synaptic Mapping (the tech in question) enables him to experience the physical freedom that most of us take for granted, but when the link to his body is severed, Callan finds he is no longer accountable to his physical form. There are signs that he was unbalanced even before his original accident, but the chip on his virtual shoulder is given freedom to roam, and the consequences are less than optimal, shall we say: private detective Quirk is called in to find Callan and stop him.
Callan’s viewpoint is one of increasing dissociation with the world and the people around him. He is in a desperate situation to begin with, but, on escaping his damaged body, finds that he needs something else to cling to, an imperative beyond mere physical survival. The course that Callan’s psyche draws him down has severe implications for the settlement of Lunaville. The story is not intended as an exploration of what it means to be human, but more what it means to be accountable to society. How would an individual behave if that accountability was withdrawn, if—in their mind at least—it evaporated? To some extent we are in The Invisible Man territory here, although there are limitations on the antagonist’s ability to roam at will through an unsuspecting population, all the while becoming increasingly more detached from it. But how does this relate to my own traumatic event?
In April 2021 I had my first COVID vaccination. Shortly afterwards, I began to lose sensation in my hands and feet, and my mobility decreased alarmingly quickly. I was admitted to hospital in June. At the point of treatment starting I could not support my own bodyweight, nor feel much of anything from feet to knees, in the groin, rear and stomach, in my hands and or in my mouth. I was diagnosed with Guillain Barré Syndrome*. In a nutshell, the immune system attacks the nervous system, destroying the nerves. It’s a very treatable condition if caught early enough, but the effects are unbelievably scary. Thankfully, I improved immediately upon treatment starting, and have since regained 95% of mobility and nerve function (Stoopid feets!). I feel very fortunate: some are far more debilitated, can be completely paralysed; the condition can be fatal. The care I had, and still have, from Britain’s National Health Service is amazing, and I will be forever grateful to live in a country with a public healthcare system.
Okay, I did not go “the full Callan”, but this event put a great deal in perspective for me, and afforded me a lot of time to consider how I interface with the world. I was, quite literally, able to feel the grass beneath my feet again. Hours of physio strengthened my ability to walk effectively, I regained stamina, I felt in touch with the world again. What it must be to lose that connection permanently does not bear thinking about. My episode reminded me how important it is for us to treasure our connection to the physical world, which is doing its best to nurture us, despite Humankind’s persistent depredation of our one and only home, in the name of narrowminded corporate objectives (another theme of my novel). So, remember to feel the grass beneath your feet, to treasure your loved-ones, to marvel at and respect the world around you; do not take these things for granted. They are all finite.
*Sometime later, after a relapse in October 2021, my diagnosis was updated to one of Chronic Inflammatory Demyelinating Polyneuropathy (CIDP), a chronic form of GBS.
The Mandroid Murders: Amazon|Barnes & Noble
Trying Out A New Recipe: Chocolate Chip Zucchini Bread
Posted on August 9, 2022 Posted by Athena Scalzi 42 Comments
My grandma keeps giving me zucchinis from her garden the size of toddlers, so I’ve been trying out zucchini recipes lately! Recently, I tried Dessert For Two’s Chocolate Chip Zucchini Bread. I’ve been following this food blogger for a couple years now, but never tried out anything by her, so I was excited to give this one a shot.
For the ingredients, I’d say everything is pretty standard, the only things you may not really have on hand is nutmeg and chocolate chips, and of course the zucchini.
Everything started out really well. I mixed together the butter, sugar, and honey:
Then I added the eggs, and it was time to squeeze the water out of the zucchini.
I’ve never handled zucchini before, so I thought that paper towels would be enough. It was not.
After the zucchini immediately soaked the paper towels, the paper towel busted open and my zucchini threatened to fall into the sink.
I tried the method again with way more paper towels, and the same thing happened. I figured that that was good enough, and put the zucchini into the batter (it was not good enough). I also added the cinnamon, baking soda, salt, and nutmeg.
My batter ended up looking like this:
I’d never made zucchini bread before, but even I could tell that something was not right.
At this point, I thought for sure it was so liquid-y because I didn’t squeeze enough water out of the zucchini. But there’s no way that the water in the zucchini alone could do this much damage, right?
I knew I couldn’t put it in the oven like this. So I tried to strain it. HORRIBLE IDEA.
As you can see, tons of batter fell out in my attempt to separate it from the liquid. I transferred what was left of the batter into the loaf pan, which ended up getting a bunch of batter on my floor as I carried it from the sink (I am not the brightest).
I threw it in the oven in frustration and hoped for the best.
I did not get the best.
I could not figure out how I had fucked this up so badly. I sat there and contemplated for awhile, looked over the recipe again and again, and couldn’t determine what went wrong.
So, I decided to retry, and this time, I was going to squeeze ALL THE WATER OUT.
The first couple steps went just as swimmingly as the first time around, and this time I got a clean kitchen towel instead of paper towels to wring these bitch ass zucchini shreds out.
I added the zucchini in, and then added in cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, baking soda, and… flour.
My hand stopped as it scooped the measuring cup into the flour. I had forgotten the flour in the first loaf. Two whole cups of it.
I felt so silly, but relieved to know that it was such a fixable error. Finally, I had some good-looking batter!
(I took a picture of the batter before I added the chocolate chips, but you can see them in the loaf pan.)
(I also took a picture of the batter in the loaf pan before I added the chocolate chips on top, but you can see them when it comes out.)
I did it! Apparently flour makes a world of difference.
I still had some zucchini left, so I decided to make another loaf, since the first one hadn’t turned out.
As you can see, the batter looks exactly the same.
But for some reason, it came out looking a little odd. I didn’t put chocolate chips all over the top of this one, so I figured maybe that was why it looked off.
I let it cool for a while, and saw the top collapsed. I cut into it, only to find that it wasn’t baked through.
I was miffed. Why did it turn out different when I had made it the exact same way? I just repeated the exact same process that gave me a good loaf, so what had happened here? I threw it away and called it quits on bread making for the night.
As for the loaf the did turn out, I thought it was kind of meh. It was on the dry side, and just not as good as zucchini bread I’ve had in the past. But it was good enough with butter spread on it, at least.
All in all, it’s not the worst baking failure I’ve ever had.
Do you like zucchini? How about in bread form? Do you have a good recipe for it? Let me know in the comments, and have a great day!
-AMS
The Big Idea: Naseem Jamnia
Posted on August 9, 2022 Posted by Athena Scalzi 2 Comments
When the odds are stacked against you, life can feel pretty overwhelming. Author Naseem Jamnia gives us a look into a world with a protagonist who has more than their fair share of hardships. Follow along in their Big Idea for their newest novel, The Bruising of Qilwa.
NASEEM JAMNIA:
I frequently rant about the need for New Adult as an age group in books. Not because I don’t think current millennial experiences are worth having in the adult section—I do—but because in the U.S. and certain other parts of the world, adolescents move into emerging adulthood after high school and into their 20s, trying to navigate the world as people who are technically adults but don’t necessarily always feel like one, what with the instability of the job market, the housing market, the economy as a whole, and figuring out whether marriage and family and all that works for them. Having a category of books that point to those ideas as a central concern is helpful.
But maybe this is less about New Adult and more about being a millennial.
The Bruising of Qilwa is a deeply millennial book. It’s set in a secondary world, but it’s about a 30-year-old refugee healer who is stretched thin working at a too-busy clinic for too-little pay, being a caregiver to their brother and the orphan they find on the streets (let alone their elderly mother, with whom they often clash), fighting the government’s medical racism against fellow refugees, solving the mysteries of a magical plague—and oh, by the way, the orphan they find needs to be magically trained lest she hurts those around her, and their brother is trying to medically transition but needs the main character to create the spell to do so.
So sure, The Bruising of Qilwa is a secondary world fantasy, but I wrote it from a place of millennial exhaustion, and it shows.
The main crux of the novella came from a question I’ve been asking myself as a child to Iranian immigrants: what does it mean to be oppressed when you were once an oppressor? The main character, Firuz, is a refugee to the city-state of Qilwa, but they’re a member of a Persian-inspired ethnic group that colonized Qilwa centuries ago, and I wanted to explore this dynamic. This is a complex question, and I spend my author’s afterword on it in the book. But I really didn’t give enough credit to how much my generation’s struggles informed the course The Bruising of Qilwa takes.
I was born in 1991; I turn 31 a week after Qilwa hits shelves. In my lifetime, I’ve seen the rise of home WiFi and the downfall of dial-up; I was on MySpace and knew Facebook when you had to be invited; I got my first smart phone in my third year of college. I remember the fears around Y2K and the joys of snap bracelets and how my hometown Chicago’s Bean looked before it was sanded smooth. But I also sat sobbing on a couch in November 2016 and made the decision to leave my neuroscience PhD program to write full-time, because even though any marginalized person can tell you the US has never been kind to us, I knew it was going to get much, much worse.
I hate that we’ve been proven right almost every day since then, culminating (thus far) in the June 24th Supreme Court decision.
I started writing The Bruising of Qilwa not in response to any of the crises we’ve faced in recent years—it wasn’t in response to anything at all. Or so I thought: in the interim time between originally drafting the book and it coming out, our society has gone through COVID (which disproportionately affects Black and brown people), locked Latine children in cages, granted white Ukrainian migrants asylum while brown and Black ones are not, claimed outrage at more incidents of police brutality against Black people without meaningful change, refused to prevent continued mass shootings, allowed increased murders of trans people (particularly Black trans women), pushed through anti-queer and anti-trans legislation especially targeting children, ignored worsening effects of the climate crisis—
How could that not have, on some level, impacted my writing?
I say The Bruising of Qilwa is a deeply millennial novella because I am constantly worrying about all of these problems and feel helpless to address them, and Firuz often feels the same way. When they finally manage to move their family out of the migrant slums after the first year they’re in Qilwa, Firuz feels nagging guilt at all the migrants they left behind. As Firuz works long hours and starves themself to make sure their family is fed, they feel crushing anxiety about the migrants who die in food riots, whose children don’t have access to education, whose only advocate is a single standing free clinic fighting a government trying to crack down on who has access to affordable healthcare. Firuz’s exhaustion is on every page of The Bruising of Qilwa; their desire to be a good caregiver to their brother, a good teacher to their ward, a good clinician to their patients, and a good assistant to their mentor at the clinic all battle for space.
I, too, am tired. I don’t have the good reasons Firuz does, but maybe I needed to give Firuz all of those reasons in order to justify my own constant anxiety. Maybe the only way I could explain why so many millennials are disillusioned and jaded and frustrated was by creating a protagonist who tries so hard but never feels enough because of the systems in place against them. Maybe the only way I could process the garbage dumpster fire our world continues to be was to create a magical one that has it bad in other (but related) ways.
But for all the tragedy and difficulty that unspools in its pages, The Bruising of Qilwa ends on a hopeful note. And maybe that’s something else I had to give myself and others, too: a chance that we can make things better, even if it’s slow. Even if it feels impossible. Even without magic, I have to hope that, like Firuz, we can all help make things better for the most marginalized of us.
The Bruising of Qilwa: Amazon|Barnes & Noble|IndieBound|Powell’s
Read an excerpt here. Visit the author’s site. Follow them on Twitter or Instagram.
Sunset, 8/8/22
Posted on August 8, 2022 Posted by John Scalzi 10 Comments
We get some good ones out here in the Midwest. Note the prismatic action at the top of the cumulonimbus, by the way.
— JS
Whatever Everyone Else is Saying