Doc tells a good tale

Doc Rampage tells a heartwarming story of a boy, his dog, and his cut-anything shears.  Go read.

What Else Does Every Fantasy Writer Need to Know about Quantum Physics?

Not everyone understood the technical issues discussed in last week's post.  I apologize for that, and if there are any specific questions, I'd be happy to answer them.  But the most important question I was asked was: "What's your point?"  So you don't like it when fantasy writers don't understand quantum physics.  Does that really have much effect on the fantasy people write?

That's a fair point, and for writers of pseudo-medieval or other pre-industrial fantasy, the topic of quantum physics probably doesn't come up much.  For those writing modern fantasy, however, it seems to come up a great deal.  And there, I find it particularly egregious, as it's often used to explain or justify the existence of magic.  Usually, it is in the form of a wise wizard or scholar-type character saying something along the lines of "Science has proven . . ."  Such as "Science has proven that the mind shapes reality."  Or "Science has proven that there are an infinite number of worlds." This bugs me.  Partly because I have a problem with the authoritative phrase "Science has proven" unless it's followed by "that this theory is accurate enough for now."  Science is all about testing theories, and confirming that those theories work, at least within the boundaries of the experiment.  No scientific theory is absolute, and even well-founded, well-tested, effective theories are subject to revision.  Newtonian mechanics is a great theory, describing everything from bridges, to cars, to the orbits of the planets.  But once you start to approach the speed of light, it begins to fall apart.  Einsteinian special relativity is also a great theory, but who knows where and how it might break down.  It hasn't been around even as long as Newtonian mechanics had been by the time we started discovering the flaws.

But laying aside the problems with the phrase "Science has proven," when it's followed by something that's either flat-out wrong, or a fringe theory, or even a respectable, but hardly universal, interpretation, I find it incredibly jarring.  I have a hard time respecting the character who says it, as he's just shown that he's either ignorant, or lying by presenting his preferred theory as fact (another of my pet peeves).  Given that the author often wants us to accept this character as the voice of authority, that can make for difficult reading.

And the real question is why.  Why does the author believe that magic needs a justification?  Or alternate worlds, for that matter?  I'd be perfectly happy to suspend my disbelief, and accept the existence of either of those.  Trying to justify their existence is not just unnecessary, but can do a great deal to ruin the mystery and wonder of them in the first place (like Lucas's midichlorians did in the first episode of the Star Wars prequels--discussed in the link).  Some things it's best to leave unexplained.

What every fantasy writer needs to know about quantum physics

Do fantasy writers need to know anything about quantum physics? At last year's World Fantasy, I attended a panel on magic systems, where the topic of quantum physics came up, and I realized that there are a number of misconceptions about quantum physics that can affect how people write fantasy.

I have a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering, which in itself doesn’t qualify me to talk about quantum physics, but I did my thesis research on superconducting quantum computation.  In other words, I investigated ways to use superconductors to make a computer based on quantum states.  I was always more of an experimentalist than a theorist, so I’ll be the first to admit that there’s a lot that I don’t understand, but I can at least talk about the basics.

The first thing to realize is that quantum physics is counterintuitive.  It doesn’t work the way we expect, because it doesn’t work the way that we observe the world to be in our daily experience.  The way that we interact with the world is not on a quantum level (at least as far as we can observe it), and therefore quantum physics seems strange and mysterious to us.  Sometimes quantum physics is cited as proof that the universe is magical, or that human consciousness is special, et cetera.  In reality, quantum physics is proof only that the universe is strange and mysterious to our experience.  It may also be magical; human consciousness may be special.  In my admittedly anecdotal experience, different scientists believe different things about the whole metaphysics of the universe, but that is usually based on reasons other than their knowledge of quantum physics.

Rather than focusing on the wave particle duality, or the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, or quantum entanglement, or any of a hundred other strange things about quantum physics, I’ll focus on the fundamental issue that causes so much consternation and so many interpretations.

In quantum physics, it’s possible to have a superposition of states.  For example, imagine that you have two metal plates.  You can place charge on one, which affects charge on the other, and you have a capacitor, which there’s really nothing quantum about.  However, suppose that instead of millions of electrons, you have a charge of one electron, which you place on one plate.  If you place your electron on the first plate, your system is in one state, let’s call it state 0.  If you place your electron on the second plate, your system is in state 1.  So what happens if you place your electron on both plates?

Wait a second, you say.  It’s only one electron, you can only place it on a single plate.  And here’s where quantum physics gets strange.  In quantum physics, you can place your electron on both plates.  In this case, it’s called a superposition of states, because it’s in both state 0 and state 1.  However, when you measure the superposition, it collapses.  It becomes either state 0 or state 1, not both.  Wait, you say again.  If every time you measure it, it’s only in one or the other state, how do you know that it’s ever in a superposition of states?  We can tell because of certain measurements which can characterize the state as a superposition rather than one or the other, but that would require more detail than I can give here.  You can read here for more information. 

The bottom line is that the system is in both states until you measure it, and then it becomes one.  Which one it becomes when measured is a matter of statistics.  The weight of each state in the superposition can vary—it can be equal amounts of state 0 and state 1, mostly 0 with a little 1, or vice versa.  When it is measured, the chance of finding it in one state or another is dependent on the weighting of each state.  If the superposition is weighted to 75% of state 1 and 25% of state 0, there is a 3 in 4 chance of measuring it in state 1 and a 1 in 4 chance of measuring it in state 0.

And this is one of the fundamental issues with quantum physics.  What does it mean that the superposition collapses when you measure it?  There are a number of explanations.

The Copenhagen interpretation says that observation is what causes it to collapse.  This is sometimes interpreted as proof that consciousness is real, that there is something special about people, since their observation causes a real, physical change to a system, but the Copenhagen interpretation was never meant to encompass such philosophical considerations.  Instead, it was proposed as an empirical explanation.  That quantum superpositions collapse when they are observed is what happens, and the reasons behind it are not a concern of the interpretation.  The idea that it’s our conscious knowledge that causes it to collapse is actually called the von Neumann/Wigner interpretation, which doesn’t have that much of a following. The most popular idea as to the reason for the collapse is decoherence, which I’ll discuss more in a moment.

Another interpretation, especially popular among sci fi and fantasy writers, is the “many worlds” interpretation.  This is much more popular in fiction than in physics, although it does have its adherents among physicists.  The many worlds theory states simply that the quantum superposition does not collapse.  It’s still in a superposition, only now, so are you.  There are now two of you, one of which observes the system in state 0, the other of which observes the system in state 1.  Now this concept, of coexisting worlds based on coexisting quantum states is often merged with the idea of alternate dimensions with alternate timelines—despite the fact that there’s no dimensional element to the many worlds theory.  The many worlds would co-exist in the same space and time.  The other issue with many worlds, at least as it corresponds to alternate timelines, is that events which change history are, for the most part, not quantum.  They’re on the large scale compared to quantum physics.  Physicists would say they’re based on classical physics.  It’s hard to see how the state of an atom would affect whether Booth shot Lincoln, for example.  Oh, it’s not impossible that if there was a change in a large enough number of atomic states that would have an effect, but it would have to be a huge number in aggregate, meaning that alternate history events would be very low probability events.  In a many worlds interpretation, that would not mean it didn’t exist, but it would be a very small weight in the superposition.   In an infinite number of worlds, most of them would be indistinguishable from our own.

Adherents of either interpretation are familiar with the concept of decoherence.  That’s the idea that any time you measure a system, you introduce noise into it.  This noise determines how quickly the superposition collapses, or decoheres.  This means that noise can be controlled for, feedback decreased, and coherence times lengthened.  If you can get quantum states to last longer despite interacting with them, you can do things with them.  Now measuring a state without collapsing it may be out of the question, but you can probably manipulate it, which allows you to do quantum computation with it—which was my field.  Decoherence works.  You can test in the lab how long it takes a quantum state to decohere, and increase it or decrease it, according to how much noise you couple into the system.  That doesn’t necessarily mean that there’s nothing to the other interpretations—you still can’t measure a state without collapsing it, which is the question the interpretations were dealing with in the first place—but in recent years, physics has focused on the mechanism causing them to collapse.

What does all this mean for the fantasy writer?  Should he stay away from alternate worlds, decry the existence of consciousness as a force which can influence systems, and the like?  No, of course not.  The fun of fantasy is that you can play with reality, rather than abide by it.  But many writers, when they want their characters to justify the existence of magic or the supernatural or alternate worlds, appeal to quantum physics as proof of the soul or multiple worlds.  These appeals are hardly necessary, and in fact can be quite damaging to the suspension of disbelief for those who know something about quantum physics. 

I used the Wikipedia article on the interpretation of quantum physics to review, and as a starting point, for writing this.

And I'm back

It's been a while since I've blogged anything.  I've been very busy writing, but that's really more of an excuse than anything else.  I found time to play Mass Effect 3, after all.  By the way, ME3 is a good game, so far, but I hear that the ending is really disappointing. Fortunately, Bioware will be producing a free Extended Cut DLC with an improved ending (although word is they're not backing down on the "artistic vision").  I figure they're calling it a free DLC because they don't want to call it a "patch to fix the sucky ending."

Anyway, I figured that since my wife started blogging again, I ought to do the same.  She has had some stories come out recently, so be sure to read them.  As for myself, I expect to have something coming out later this summer.  I'll post more about it when we're closer.

Meanwhile, I'll try to keep up more of a regular presence on this blog.

More surprising stories

Once again, I'm going to talk about twist endings that worked.  Once again, there'll be spoilers, so I'll add some space.

.

.

.

The Steel Throne -- Technically, I guessed this one before I reached the end.  However, the twist only occurred to me in the last few paragraphs, which actually made this story better.  If I hadn't guessed it, I might have considered this a bait-and-switch story, which in a sense, it was.  A dilemma is presented, but a solution is apparent, and the entire story seems to be moving toward that solution, although an internal debate occurs about whether the solution is right (not whether it will work, but whether it is morally correct).  Then, bam!, another solution comes out of nowhere.  Except that it wasn't out of nowhere.  The pieces were there from the beginning, it just didn't occur to me, or probably most other readers, until it actually happened, since it wasn't the solution the story seemed to be heading toward.  Sometimes something like this works, sometimes it doesn't.  This time it worked.

Newfangled -- This one has the advantage of being long and complex (two of my suggestions for making the twist more surprising).  This allowed it to keep me guessing all through the story, and not to see the resolution until it was already done.  In a way, it's not really a twist ending, so much as a satisfying, if unexpected, resolution.  Overall, it's definitely worth reading.

Unpredictable stories

Last week, I talked about how to make stories unpredictable.  This week, I want to talk about some stories that did it right and really surprised me.  I didn't warn you last time, but this time, you should know that there will be spoilers.  So let's include some spoiler space.

.

.

.

What I'm going to be talking about are short stories that really surprised me, moving away from the predictable to something different.  Like most things, your mileage may vary, but here are some short stories that surprised me, and why:

Saviors - This one's twist probably should have been easy to see coming, but I didn't see it at all.  Why? Because it so violated the cultural norm, was so far out of what's acceptable, that it wasn't obvious to my normal way of thinking.  (Don't think that this story's twist hasn't been done.  It has.  However, it still hasn't lost its ability to shock, especially when you don't expect a character to accept it easily.)

Cold cuts - This one surprised me by leading me to think that the choices were different than they actually were.  It was in essence a third way story, where the choices you see aren't the only ones.  The fact that the other choice was particularly gruesome helped to make it unexpected.  Of course, there were some deceptive things done in the story, and I find those sorts of things annoying.  You shouldn't have to lie to surprise your readers.

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Monkey - This one used an unreliable narrator to make its twist.  But it wasn't really the reliability of the narrator that created the surprise, but the insanity.  Which just goes to show that crazy people are unpredictable.

I wanted to show various ways to make a story unpredictable, but I'm not sure I've succeeded.  All three of these stories actually had the same device, at root--shock.  People behaving in brutal ways, well outside the limits of what society accepts, which is what allowed them to surprise me, since I didn't think the authors would go there.  I may have only succeeded in proving that I'm a little naive.  I'll try to come up with other examples next time.

Avoiding Predictability

I'll admit.  I find most fantasy and science fiction short stories rather predictable.   This is especially a problem with shorter stories.  The issue is that these sorts of stories (flash fiction stories, generally 1,000 words or less) are generally expected to have a twist ending, a surprise that you're not supposed to see coming.  However, if you expect that it'll end in a twist, you can usually figure out what it is the moment you understand the premise of the story.  For example, let's suppose you're reading a story about a student who failed his drug test, but it's vague what the drug test is. It's because he's not taking the intelligence boosting drug his school requires.  Or how about a man wondering whether to tell his wife that she's actually a replacement, with his dead wife's memories downloaded. It turns out he's a replacement too.  Or how about a guardian being assigned an unspecified task by his superiors concerning his charge?  He's supposed to kill her, because he's not guarding her, he's guarding everyone else from her.  (I'll admit, that last one's mine.  I never said that I was immune.)  The thing is, for each of these (including mine), anyone with a modicum of genre-savvy could predict the ending well before getting to it.  All the examples are from Daily Science Fiction, but I don't mean to pick on them.  They're  convenient because I read most of their stories, and the stories are usually very short, which, as I mentioned earlier, makes them harder to make unpredictable.

Why?  What makes these stories predictable?  First, people expect a twist.  It's a standard trope of the genre, and because people expect it, they're on the lookout for it.  Second, shorter stories are simpler stories.  There's usually a single science fiction or fantasy element that's being explored, so readers know where to expect the twist from.  Third, writers learn to set up their twist early in the story.  Usually by the first couple of paragraphs, it's already been telegraphed.  The reason for this is that readers will complain if the twist comes out of nowhere.  They have to be allowed the chance to guess it, so it's expected that there will be hints of it in the beginning.  So they now know where to look for the clues to the twist.  And if they do that, there's a good chance that they will find it.

Can you frustrate these expectations and make your story really surprising?  If I really knew how, I'd be a better writer.  But here are some dos and don'ts that have occurred to me:

1. Don't rely on word ambiguity for your twist.  "Guardian" or "drug test" are words where a little thought can reveal alternative, but equally valid, meanings.  If your reader is looking for a twist, he'll pick up on those words, and be able to figure it out.
2. Don't put all your clues in one place.  You need clues.  If your twist comes completely out of left field, your reader will feel cheated.  But if you put everything in one place, it will be easy for them to figure out.
3. Do write stories without a twist ending.  Not every flash fiction story needs a twist ending.  As long as you can tell a good story, you can feel free not to try to surprise your reader.  Of course, if he's expecting a twist, that in itself may surprise him.
4. Do make your stories more complex.  If there's one premise or concept, then of course there's a limited number of ways for the story to go.  Throw in more ideas, more science fiction or fantasy, or both.  This will open up many more permutations and possibilities.
5. Do write longer stories.  Longer stories are harder to predict.  More concepts come into play, there are more plot points and more complexity.  Of course, it's possible to write a simple long story, but even in that case, a twist is more of a surprise, since you've had longer to lure your reader into a false sense of security.
6. Don't rely on a straightforward reversal for your twist.  Want the innocent victim your monster is hunting to turn out to be an even worse monster?  It's been done.  Want a girl to have cybersex behind her boyfriend's back, only to learn that he's the one on the other end? That's also been done.  The reversal twist is a common technique, and has been done so often that it's hard to fool an alert reader with it.  The simple reversal is too obvious a possibility to be overlooked, especially in flash fiction stories which often have just two significant characters.  But more subtle reversals still work.

Top Ten List

I've never been in a top ten list before, so I was happy to see that "Her Majesty's Guardian" has appeared in the editors' top ten list of Daily Science Fiction stories at Diabolical Plots (scroll to the bottom--almost).  Now, each of three editors had their own top ten list, and "Her Majesty's Guardian" only made one of them, but it still makes  me happy, as that makes my story one of 30 or so out of more than 250 stories to be recognized.  Thanks, folks, and thanks to Michele and Jonathan for accepting my story at Daily Science Fiction.

Hours in a day

There are a lot of hours in a day.  That's something that isn't so obvious when you commute over an hour each way to work, stay there for eight or nine hours, and come home and spend time with your family, and maybe squeeze in two hours for writing before going to bed.  But when you have a day to yourself, like I did this Saturday, you can get a lot done.

So you generally spend most of it watching television or playing games, because frankly, you've already planned what work you're going to do based on the old time allotments, and you simply don't have enough to fill those hours.  What I really should have done is gotten some short story submissions in.  Of course, the problem is that many of the places I would like to submit are closed, so I'm waiting for them to open rather than sending them off to other places.

Superhero movies

In preparation for the Avengers movie coming out this year, my wife and I have been watching all the "prequels"--the Marvel superhero origin movies for the Avenger characters.  A number of them have come out the past few years.  I thought it might be helpful to rate them in order from best to worst, at least as Kristin and I see them.

1. Thor  -- Thanks to an intricate plot and a complex villain, Thor was my wife's favorite. It didn't hurt that it was heavy on fantasy, and Kristin's a fantasy author.
2. Iron Man -- Tony Stark's not a very likable character, but at least he's trying to be a better person.  He sort of succeeds in this one.
3. Captain America -- Kristin was originally reluctant to see this one, worried that it might be too jingoistic for a Canadian.  Ultimately, she thought it was all right.  I thought it was fun, but Captain America isn't really one of my favorite superheroes.
4. Iron Man 2 -- And Tony backslides, into being even more of a jerk than before.  Kristin hasn't seen this one yet, so I haven't gotten her opinion.
5. The Hulk -- The least of the movies.  Part of the problem was that while the others were origin stories, The Hulk showed the origin of the main character in the opening credits.  It also suffered from stiff acting and fake-looking special effects.

So, that's our thoughts so far.  Hopefully, the Avengers will be closer to Thor and Iron Man than the Hulk.

To be or not to be

While revising my novel these past couple of weeks, I've come to realize just how badly high school English damaged my writing technique. A parade of English teachers impressed upon me the importance of using the active, rather than the passive, voice. The active voice was always good, while the passive voice always bad. So far, not so bad. Stephen King agrees. But they went farther. Some teachers I had went so far as to mark up every time I used the word to be, whether it was passive voice or not. (Ironically, science papers were supposed to be entirely passive voice.) As a result, I'd developed a pathological aversion to the word "to be." Looking over my novel, which was first written ten years ago, I've come to see just how problematic this aversion was. Some of my writing was ridiculously convoluted just to avoid the words "was" or "were." A lot of my revision has been killing these overly contrived evasions and just rehabilitating the word "to be." So, for other writers recovering from high school English, here are three reasons to embrace "to be".

1. Sometimes things just are. Compare "She was angry" to "She felt angry."  The first is a stronger statement, more definite and clear.  When I was trying to avoid "to be," I used equivalent words, words like "seem" or "feel" or "become" or "appear."  These are useful and sometimes necessary words, but they're weak words.  When something is, say that it is, don't try to weasel around it.
2. A whole tense depends on "to be."  The imperfect tense, where we say "He was coming," as opposed to "He came" or "He did come," needs "to be" as a helper.  Imperfect is a useful tense, conveying incomplete past action, and I needed it to write a book in the past tense.  Without "to be" there's no imperfect tense, and it's a shame when that's gone.
3. Passive voice is sometimes the right voice.  I'll admit, new authors often write in passive voice when they need to use active.  It can make writing timid and weak.  But the reason it does that is not the voice itself, but the subject of your voice.  We tend to use passive voice when things are happening to our characters, as opposed to when they are doing things.  That's what it's for: passive voice puts the emphasis on the object of the action, rather than the subject.  When our heroes stop doing things and things happen to them instead, then our writing is weak and timid, no matter what voice we use.  There are times when things do happen to our characters, and passive voice is perfectly good for keeping the focus on them even when they're not active, but if the characters are inactive too long, active voice won't save the story.

Why the iPhone needs a hard reboot button

My iPhone died the other day. When I took it out of my pocket I noticed that it was hot, but when I tried pressing the home button, nothing happened. I tried the power button, I tried holding down the power button, but still nothing. Then I tried plugging it in, in case the battery had run down. Still nothing. No sound, no screen, no indication besides its heat to let me know it was anything but plastic and glass.

Finally, I plugged it into my computer and started up iTunes, which recognized that the phone was there, but wasn't able to do anything with it. It hung backing it up, and it hung canceling the backup. There's an Apple store near where I work, and I considered taking it to them, but I didn't want to ask for help until I had at least rebooted the darn thing. The problem was that there was no way to reboot it. I suspected it had simply hung, and was now unresponsive. You could use the power button to turn it off, but first you had to hold it down, then it would prompt you to swipe the screen to shut it down, and as I mentioned, there was no response when I hit the power button. I couldn't even take the battery out, since the iPhone doesn't give you access to it.

Ultimately, I had to let the battery run down. When I charged it back up, it was fine. But this has convinced me that the iPhone really needs a hard reset.

World Fantasy Convention: Day 4

I honestly thought it had been only a week since my last post, but novel revisions create a time distortion field, and it's really been two. To be honest, Kristin and I didn't do much Con related on our fourth day. We didn't go to any panels or readings. We did go to the banquet, which was held on the last day. The food was so-so, but Connie Willis gave a very funny toast. There were awards too. A number of our friends were nominated, but I don't think any of them won. They were robbed, of course. I can say this with absolute confidence, despite not having read any of the nominated books or stories.

Afterward, we went to the beach. Kristin's Clarion West class was staying at a beach house, and we went to visit them. We took advantage of the California weather to wander along the beach while we were there.

Kristin on the San Diego beach.

Afterward, we had dinner with them, then went back to the hotel, where the final con party was. We hung out there as well, mostly with Kristin's Clarion West class. So we saw a lot of them.

After that, we went to bed. We were exhausted, and I had my flight home the next day.  Kristin also had a flight, though she was going to San Francisco to visit her sister.

Overall, it was great fun.

World Fantasy Convention: Days 2-3

I expected to have a lot to say about the rest of World Fantasy.  But it can be summed up fairly quickly: I went to panels, I went to parties, I met interesting people.  I talked to John O'Neill and the Black Gate crew again, which is always fun.  I hung out with friends, and with Kristin's friends.  More Kristin's friends than mine, actually, as she knows more of the regular Con-goers than I do (which is only natural, as she's been going to Cons longer than I have).

That said, let's try to hit the high points.

In terms of panels, the most interesting one I went to was on the role of character stupidity in genre fiction.  I felt that this was somewhat one-sided, as the arguments of the panelists boiled down to "your characters shouldn't be stupid."  But I felt this was unfair.  The real issue with characters, especially in horror movies, is that they don't know that they're in horror movies.  Much of their stupidity stems from this fact.  People, all the time, will go downstairs, alone, unarmed, in their underwear even, to check out a strange noise because they think the dog knocked over something or something toppled over, and they won't be expecting someone to be lurking there.  If they knew they were in a horror movie, or a suspense movie, they wouldn't do that, but they don't know.  That's not stupidity, it's just ignorance.

The most interesting party was the pajama party, which was a release party of N.K. Jemisin's new book, The Kingdom of Gods.  You were supposed to wear your pajamas, and there were kids' games like Hungry, Hungry Hippos and Operation, and there was liquor in sippy cups.  The book supposedly has a god of childhood in it, hence the theme.  It was fun.  We went, but didn't wear our pajamas, since we were going to the aforementioned panel on stupidity later.

One thing we enjoyed was the sun.  San Diego in the fall is nice--the temperatures in the 70s, rather than the 50s, like it is here in Boston.

World Fantasy Convention: Day 1

Yesterday was the first day of the World Fantasy Convention.  To be honest, I didn't have too much con stuff to do, but I figured I'd tell you about it anyway.

I arrived at San Diego yesterday around 1 pm, and immediately made my way to the hotel, the Town and Country Resort, where the World Fantasy Convention is being held this year.  Kristin had already flown out the day before to spend some time with her Clarion West class.  I arrived at about 1:45 pm, only to be told that the room wouldn't be ready until 3 pm, so I went and registered for the convention and got lunch before I could check in.  This might have been a mistake.  As part of registration, I picked up my "book bag"--a big bag of free books every participant gets.  It's about twenty pounds of books that is not a lot of fun to carry around.  (I've since gone through the books, and separated the books I'm interested in reading from the ones I'm not, so it's now a more manageable weight.)  Once I was able to check into the hotel room, I settled in to wait for Kristin.

Kristin arrived around five, and after some time together, we went to get dinner, and finally to the main event of the con, at least as far as we were concerned: Kristin's first ever con panel: "Magic and Metaphysics."  The main idea being, "How do you design a believable magic system?  Why is it important?"  Kristin's already written about it, but it was fun to see her talk it out with some other big name authors: Ted Chiang, Mark Teppo, and Peter Orullian.  Of course, the panel, like most con panels, tended to stray off topic, mostly discussing whether there really is any such thing as magic, and when they did get asked the question I was really interested in, they didn't seem to understand it.  The question, as it was asked, was "Is it more important to define the magic system when it is the protagonists using magic?"  The way I would have phrased it would have been: "How do you use a defined magic system in order to show the reader what the limits of your characters are, so it's clear what situations and conflicts are actually a challenge?"  There's more to the question, of course, but I hate it when people asking questions of panels talk and talk rather than just asking a question.  Instead of addressing the question, the panel (and the audience) talked about quantum physics, in ways that made me, with my Ph.D. in quantum computation, cringe from time to time.

Kristin was much better than the others at staying on topic, by the way.  But you could tell that she was jet-lagged.  So afterward, we went to bed.

So, really, we didn't do much con-related stuff yesterday.  Hopefully there'll be more con stuff to report after today.

2011 World Fantasy Convention

Kristin and I will be going to the World Fantasy Convention in San Diego next week.  If you've seen Kristin's blog, you already know that she's going to be on a panel this convention.  It's one of the panels I thought sounded most interesting, on the metaphysics of magic, at 10 pm on Thursday evening.  As I'm arriving on Thursday afternoon, I suspect that I'll probably be badly jetlagged.  Which won't stop me from going.

I applied to participate as well, although I indicated a preference for giving a reading.  That may have been a mistake (there appear to be fewer slots for readings than for panels), as I wasn't scheduled.  That's disappointing, but since I did an unofficial reading at the last World Fantasy Convention, I guess I can't be too jealous of Kristin.

In any case, I expect it will be a fun convention, and I'm looking forward to it.  If you're going to be there, let me know.  And do go to Kristin's panel.

Kindle Fire Battery Life

I've read some of the information available on the Kindle Fire, and I've come to the conclusion that the Kindle will live or die by its battery life.  This is because the Fire is placed directly at the high end of the Kindle line.  Since the Kindles are e-ink screens, with little in the way of interaction, they have a battery life of days and weeks.  With an LCD screen and a touch sensor, as well as a browser and video playback, the Kindle Fire will not be able to compete with them.  However, if it does not have at least the battery life for a full day of reading, then it will fail to successfully live up to its market niche.

From what I'm hearing right now, the Kindle will have enough juice for 8 hours of continuous reading (slightly less for watching video).  That is what I consider the absolute minimum.  If it fails to live up to that duration, then it will soon find itself going the way of other fancy, but less than useful, gadgets.

This has not stopped me from adding the Kindle Fire to my wish list, of course.  If anyone's interested in giving me one for Christmas, I'd be happy to test out the battery life for you and report it here.

Story now online

I announced last week that my story, "Her Majesty's Guardian," was out.  That was the e-mail version, which you received if you're subscribed to Daily Science Fiction.  Yesterday, it went up on the Daily Science Fiction website.  Now everyone can read it here. 

"Her Majesty's Guardian" is now out!

My short story, "Her Majesty's Guardian," is being sent out to Daily Science Fiction's e-mail list today.  It'll be appearing on the website in about a week.  Here's a small taste:

"The Council's vote was unanimous," Duke Richard said. He looked ridiculous in a bright yellow doublet. The color would make anyone look foolish, as the other old men seated around the table proved, but its gaiety was especially jarring against Richard's habitual dark expression. "You know your duty, Guardian."

 

Alric, in his customary black, stood out like a crow among canaries. He wanted to protest further, but he had no arguments left after the last hour's debate. More arguing would only convince them to give his task to someone else, and he couldn't do that to her. He felt a heavy weight settle on his chest as he bowed to the Duke. "I will do as you command, Your Grace. But I will never forgive myself." Or you.

 I hope you enjoy the story.  If you're interested in other stories I've published, here's a quick list:

• The Office of Second Chances -- Published in Coach's Midnight Diner: The Back from the Dead Edition (2009) (Kindle Edition)
• The Hunter of Shades -- Published in Residential Aliens (July 2007)
• A Stranger in the Library -- Published in Aoife's Kiss (December 2008)

My wife, Kristin, also writes science fiction and fantasies.  You may also be interested in her stories.

Writing vs. Blogging

I've been looking over my most recent blog posts, and I'm worried that my blogging skills have atrophied.  Once upon a time I wrote three posts a day, every day, generally on political topics.  Then I got a real job, started writing fiction seriously, got in a serious relationship, and got married, in that order.  My blogging dropped off to once a month or so.  I decided, fairly recently, to try to blog more regularly, and now I'm writing a post once a week.  But my blogging has taken a hit.  I don't think I'm as good a blogger anymore.  I'm not, however, a worse writer.  I'm pretty sure that I'm a better writer.  But the skills involved in blogging and in writing are different enough that I can be good at one and not the other.

There are several reasons for that:

• Blogging is shorter.  When I write, I'm generally writing a story on the order of 8,000 words, or a novel on the order of 80,000.  For a blog post, 800 words is long.  My tendency to write longer does not help me write the succinct posts that blogging requires.
• Blogging has little, if any, chance for revision.  My fiction has a rigorous, four revision process.  A blog post may get a quick once over.  I'm used to pushing through to the end of a story, then going back and making sure I get all the details right.  One of the most important parts of that revision process is waiting.  I can't go back and revise something right after I've finished.  I have to wait some time, typically weeks, to get some distance from it, before I can look at it with fresh eyes.  I can't do that with blog posts.  I might be able to give it an hour or two, but that's all the distance I can manage before it publishes.
• Blogging has a different purpose.  This one's so obvious that it's easy to overlook.  In a story, I'm focusing on things like plot, characterization, and description.  In blogging, I'm writing about facts and opinions, often in bulleted lists like this one.  In a story I'm making things up; in a blog post, I need to get facts straight.  Oh, they aren't entirely orthogonal endeavors.  I need to get facts straight in stories too, when it comes to the real world parts.  Blogging can often benefit from detailed description, and even a clear plot structure.  Overall, though, they do have different purposes, and require different types of writing to meet those goals.

Since I don't intend to stop blogging, I'm trying to get better at it, or at least recover my atrophied skills.  That requires blogging more, but I don't want to blog so much that I don't have time for other things--such as fiction writing.  Still, I'll be making an effort to pick up the pace of my blogging.