Readercon

A week ago, Kristin and I went to Readercon.  Readercon is only the second Writer's convention that I've gone to, and the first with a genre focus.  It was also the first convention that I went to with Kristin, and where we decided to start dating three years ago.  As such, it's an important convention for us.

Readercon is a convention with a focus on the literary side of speculative fiction.  It's less fan focused that writer focused, and discusses topics such as culture, historical influences, and why we all hate paranormal romance (unless we happen to be writers of it).  It's not really a very how-to con, but it's still interesting.  The best panel we went to was on world-building and culture, and how to make them realistic.  The writers mentioned a few ideas, but there was a limit to what could be covered in an hour.

But mainly, it's a place to meet new people, especially writers and editors, and have interesting conversations.

But then, that's what most conventions are like.  Later this year, we'll be going to Worldcon and World Fantasy.

Backpacking

Kristin and I went on a three-day backpacking a couple of weekends ago.  For those of you who may be even less outdoorsy than me, backpacking is different from camping, in that it entails carrying all your supplies with you, over miles of mountain trails.  We went to NH, just north of Berlin, and hiked along the Mill Brook Trail, the Kilkenny Ridge Trail, and the Unknown Pond Trail.  In truth, it was not a particularly difficult hike, but it's probably the limit of what we're capable of, given our current physical fitness.  It had its moments, but I came away pretty badly bruised (I slipped in the mud and broke my fall on a jagged, pointy rock).

But, despite the exhausting nature of the trip, there were some beautiful views.

The view from the Roger's Ledge.

Unknown Pond

Overall, I'd do it again, but not until this bruise goes away.

Swordsmanship and computer games

Medieval European swordsmanship has the advantage of a number of contemporary training manuals, and recently there's been something of a revival as people have been attempting to recreate the techniques depicted in the manuals.  Another recent development is the explosion of motion sensors in video game systems, as evidenced by the Nintendo Wii, Playstation Move, and Xbox Kinect. Naturally, sword games are a great fit for these systems, as they naturally have a lot of movement.  Unfortunately, realistic swordplay, based on reconstructed techniques, is much harder to find.  That's something I'd be very interested in playing.

Me and Neal Stephenson, apparently.  Neal has gotten behind Clang, a Kickstarter project to develop a computer game based on incorporating Medieval sword fighting techniques.  Kickstarter, if you're not familiar with it, is a way to raise money for creative projects.  People pledge money and, if you reach your minimum funding goal, everyone's credit card is charged for their pledge, and the project receives the money.  Unfortunately, with only three days to go, Clang is still short of their goal by $70,000. I'd hate to see this project fail, but I've already pledged as much as I reasonably can.  So instead I get to pester other people into giving.

So, if you're at all interested in Medieval swordsmanship or computer games, take a look, and consider pledging.

Review of John Carter

I finally got around to watching John Carter last week.  It's time in the theater was awfully brief, and I didn't get around to seeing it before it was gone.

A lot of people, particularly fans of Edgar Rice Burroughs's Mars series, really liked the movie.  Others thought it should have been truer to the books.  Most folks who appreciated ERB seemed to like the movie, however.  The general viewing audience, however, appears to have been less enthusiastic, and the movie failed at the box office so fast that I didn't get a chance to see it.

So what did I think?  I've read the first couple John Carter novels (actually titled A Princess of Mars and The Gods of Mars), and overall I liked them.  I was not, however, particularly impressed with them.  The first novel was rather episodic, and only came together at the end.  The second also had an episodic feel, though there was more of a driving narrative.  Neither really grabbed hold of me as I was reading them.

Perhaps as a consequence, I didn't find the movie as entertaining as the other reviewers had. The beginning, which had very little resemblance to the book, felt particularly weak.  The movie broke from the book in other ways, but I think one advantage of doing so was that it was able to give the narrative more cohesion and drive. But it was still not enough cohesion and drive.  The journey to the River Iss, in particular, and the discovery of the chamber with the map of the solar system, seemed particularly random, and a bit too convenient.  

The action was fun, but felt even less realistic than other action movies.  Of course, this is partly the fault of ERB, who postulated that an Earthman would be super-humanMartian on Mars, which gave the action scenes a superhero feel.  Since, however, the genre was not superhero, it didn't work as well.  Besides, the way John Carter fought seemed to involve more swinging his sword in great slashing arcs and using his superior strength than any real swordsmanship.  In the books, at least, John Carter was a capable swordsman.

There were quite a few places in the movie where I lost track of what was going on, and why they were doing what they were doing.  I'd like to think that I was paying attention, and am at least as capable as following a movie as the average movie goer, so I suspect that some fault for that lies with the filmmaker.

Overall, I don't regret watching it.  I may even watch it again, just to try to figure out the plot in the sections I didn't follow last time.  But while I've seen worse (at least it's better than "Cowboys and Aliens," as Kristin remarked to me afterward), I'd hoped for better.

Camping conveniences

Kristin and I went camping this past weekend.  We pitched a tent, cooked a meal over coals (and then figured out that it takes forever to cook anything over coals, and instead broke out the gas stove), and climbed a mountain, and eventually managed to climb down the mountain.  It got me thinking about some of the conveniences that modern backpackers have that would not have been available in any of that fantasy fiction I write and read.

1. Lightweight, warm, and waterproof clothing.  Getting one of three was possible.  Maybe two of three.  But all three?  If it existed at all, you couldn't afford it.
2. Comfortable backpack. As far as I can tell, the Romans used a sturdy forked stick which rested on the shoulder, and suspended their pack from the forked end.  Illustrations from the crusades show a backpack consisting of a shapeless sack with shoulder straps.  Overall, not as comfortable as today's form-fitting aerated backpacks.
3. Matches. Have you ever tried to start a fire with flint and steel?  It's not as easy as fantasy fiction makes it sound.
4. A camp stove.  Recent experience suggests that it takes a really long time to cook anything on a wood fire or hot coals.
5. Well-preserved food. There were ways of preserving food: smoking, salting.  You could make bread (sort-of) that lasted a while.  None of it tasted good.
6. Insect repellent. I'm still itching from a variety of bug bites.  I can only imagine what it'd be like if I hadn't used bug repellent.
7. Sunscreen. This might not have been as big a deal.  Most people spent a lot of their time outdoors, and were likely pretty well tanned.  And you can always wear long sleeves and hats if you weren't.  But see above for the lack of lightweight clothing.
8. Well-marked trail.  There were actually such trails.  They were called roads.  The lack of a Park Service meant that any other trail you found couldn't be trusted to lead where you wanted it to, to be safe and manageable, or to always be well marked and easy to follow.  Most folks stuck to trails they knew well.

And I'm sure I'm missing more.  These are just the things I was glad we had during this trip.

Conditum Paradoxum

As I mentioned last week, I have a book coming out soon, and I've been spending some time thinking about the release party. Of course I'll have a release party. We'll probably do something local, for friends whom I can guilt into buying my book. In addition, we'll probably do something at some of the local cons: Readercon and/or Boskone, if we can. One question we've been pondering is what we can do to make it distinctive and original. Well, my book has Romans in it, so what can be more distinctive than Ancient Roman food? To that end, Kristin and I have been taking a close look at some Ancient Roman recipes, and trying to see what we can make. First up, conditum paradoxum, or paradoxically spiced wine. The recipe is from Apicius, who describes it thus:

Conditum paradoxum: conditi paradoxi compositio: mellis pondo XV in aeneum vas mittuntur, praemissi[s] vini sextariis duobus, ut in cocturam mellis vinum decoquas. Quod igni lento et aridis lignis calefactum, commotum ferula dum coquitur, si effervere coeperit, vini rore compescitur, praeter quod subtracto igni in se redit. Cum perfrixerit, rursus accenditur. Hoc secundo ac tertio fiet, ac tum demum remotum a foco postridie despumatur. Tum [mittis] piperis uncias IV iam triti, masticis scripulos II, folii et croci dragmas singulas, dactylorum ossibus torridis quinque, isdemque dactylis vino mollitis, intercedente prius suffusione vini de suo modo ac numero, ut tritura lenis habeatur. His omnibus paratis supermittis vini lenis sextarios XVIII. Carbones perfecto aderunt duo milia.

In English, with modern measurements:

Conditum Paradoxum: The composition of this excellent spiced wine is as follows. Into a copper bowl, put 15 librae (10.8 lbs) of honey and 2 sextarii (1.08 L) of wine; heat on a slow fire, constantly stirring the mixture with a stick. At the boiling point add a dash of cold wine, retire from stove, and skim. Repeat this twice or three times, let it rest till the next day, and skim again. Then add 4 unciae (4 oz) of ground pepper, three scruples (3/24, or 1/8, oz) of mastic, a drachma (1/6 oz) each of aromatic leaves  and saffron, 5 roasted date pits, the dates themselves soaked in wine, having been steeped beforehand in wine of sufficient quality and quantity so that a sweet mash is produced. When you have prepared all this, pour over it 18 (9.72 L) sextarii of smooth wine. The resulting mixture is treated with charcoal.

The English, but not the calculated amounts, is a combination of a couple of different translations, but mostly Giacosa's A Taste of Rome.  The mixture would, of course, be strained.

We decided to try this wine after finding a modern interpretation on this German website. It uses 4 L of Retsina wine, 500 g of honey, 60 g black peppercorns, 8 pitted dates, 1 teaspoon of anise, a pinch of saffron and as many bay leaves as would be covered by the liquid. Looking over it, we realized two things. First, they substitute anise for mastic, and second, they use proportionately a lot less honey, and a lot more of most everything else (with the exception of saffron). We figured we'd try something closer to the original, with gum mastic ordered from Amazon. However we did have to scale everything down, since we didn't want 11 liters of spiced wine.  We decided that the recipe would work best for 1.5 liters of wine (2 bottles).  So the proportions we used were:

• 1.5 liters (3.2 pints) wine
• 1.5 lbs (682 grams) honey
• .55 oz (15 g) pepper
• 1 roasted date pit
• 1 pitted date soaked in wine
• 1/43 oz (0.63 g) aromatic leaf
• 1/43 oz (0.63 g) saffron
• 1/58 oz (0.48 g) gum mastic

Some of these are very small quantities.  Well, except for saffron, which comes in jars of 0.5 g (technically, a jar containing a plastic bag with the saffron--but even so, it is really a lot of saffron, since it's a strong spice).  We just used one whole jar of saffron.  For the leaves, we used a couple of leaves of tejpat (though bay leaf works too).  The gum mastic, which is a tree resin, comes in beads of varying size, and after some math, we came up with 9-10 mastic beads (assuming a normal size distribution) as the proper amount.  We did use Retsina for the wine.

So, more accurately, our recipe contained:

• 1.5 liters (3.2 pints) Retsina
• 1.5 lbs (682 grams) honey
• .55 oz (15 g) black pepper
• 1 roasted date pit
• 1 pitted date soaked in wine, along with the wine
• 1-2 tejpat leaves
• 0.5 g saffron
• 9-10 gum mastic beads

I'll leave it to Kristin to give the full recipe she used, since she did the cooking (I just did the calculations).  If you do decide to make conditum paradoxum based on this information, the most important warning I should give is that like all Roman wines, it should not be drunk straight.  The Romans diluted their wines with anywhere from one to seven times as much water.  We found three parts water (or soda water, if you don't mind being anachronistic) to one part conditum paradoxum to be about right to give a sweet and spicy drink, tasting strongly of honey, pepper, and saffron. So you may think you're only making 2 liters of conditum paradoxum, but it's really 8 liters worth.  Share it with some friends.

Update (9/29/2012): Kristin's finally put the recipe up on her blog.  And I have another post on Ancient Roman food here.

Update (10/6/2012): Kristin pointed out that I left the black pepper out of the ingredient list.  I put it in.

Book contract

This past week, I signed my first book contract. Yes, someone actually paid me to publish my book. The book in question is Fire, which you've seen me talk about a lot if you follow my blog.  In the process, it has been renamed Heirs of Fire.  So, it looks like the book will definitely be published, by a real publisher.  Since it is a small publisher, they can move more quickly than a large publisher, and it will likely be out sooner rather than later.  I'll hold off on naming the publisher until they announce it themselves (I make a point not to steal other people's thunder).

For now, though, I thought I'd talk a bit about the contract.  I'm not going to discuss the actual terms of the contract, aside from saying that I'm overall happy with it.  Rather, I want to talk a bit about what I was looking for in the contract, and what points I made sure I was clear on.  Whether I was concerned about the right parts or not, only time will tell.

Indemnity clause. This is a clause that says that if the publisher gets sued because you plagiarized someone, you're the one who has to pay. The better versions of this clause say you only have to pay if the suit is successful. More worrying versions would have you paying legal fees when anyone sues, whether they're successful or not.

Rights clause. This is the clause which says how long the publisher has rights to publish your work, where and how he can publish it, and whether they're exclusive. You want to make sure the rights have a limited term, only covers places you're willing for them to publish, and if they're exclusive, don't prevent you from publishing somewhere you want to be able to publish.

Royalties. Aside from making sure the amount is satisfactory, you want to compare this to the rights, and see if there's a way for the publisher to sell your book where you wouldn't get paid. You also want to see if there's any way for the publisher to give away your book for free without paying you. The second one is less worrying, as there's not much evidence that giving away books actually cuts into sales, but if that's part of their marketing plan, make sure you're okay with it.  The other thing to make sure of is that you don't have to cover the publisher's expenses before you get royalties, such as editing, or printing, or cover art costs.

Advance. I don't worry too much about this.  The idea of the advance is that it's a pre-payment of royalties.  Just be careful if the publisher stipulates circumstances where you're required to give back all or part of your advance.

Reversion of rights. What happens if the publisher ends up not publishing the work after all? That's why you need a reversion of rights clause. This isn't as important if the term of the rights starts as soon as the contract is signed, but if it doesn't start until the book is published, or that term is particularly long, that could be a problem if the publisher never gets around to publishing your book. You'll want the rights to return to you so you can try somewhere else. You should make sure that the reversion of rights clause names a time period, rather than saying it occurs when the publisher decides not to publish, since that can allow them to sit on your book for years. If the term of the rights is especially long, you may also want reversion of rights to you if the publisher ceases to offer your book for sale. You need to be especially careful here, since the publisher may consider "offering for sale" to consist of "making available for order through a limited number of bookstores in another country," as one author discovered to her horror. That's why I prefer a limited, not-too-long term of rights, since it avoids complications like these, and your book won't be unavailable for too long. And if you are happy with them, you can always negotiate a new contract when the term ends.

Right of First Refusal. This means that the publisher gets the first chance to look at your next work, before you can send it to anyone else. It's best to avoid this altogether, but if you do end up with it in your contract, make sure it requires your publisher to respond within a set time period (months, not years), so they can't sit on your book forever, preventing you from publishing it anywhere.

In-laws and nephews

Kristin and I spent this past weekend visiting her brother and his family in Alberta, including three nephews whom I was meeting for the first time.  Although they consistently called me Uncle Donald, I was unsuccessful in dubbing them Huey, Duey, and Luey.

We spent a day at the Royal Tyrrel Museum, in Drumheller.  This is set among the badlands in Alberta, and is the home of a large collection of fossils, ranging from the Cambrian period all the way through the last Ice Age.

The next day we went to Banff, a town in the Canadian Rockies, which is well-known for its hot springs.  And its touristy small-town vibe, with lots of shops crowded by tourists over the long weekend.  There's also a beautiful hotel, called the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel, that you probably can't afford to stay at.  After a hike up the falls, we ate in town, and then went to the hot springs, which was actually a pool fed by the hot springs.

A few pictures for your enjoyment:

I have way more pictures of these prairie dogs, outside the Royal Tyrrell Museum, than I have of anything inside the museum.

The lower falls, on the hike.

The upper falls, which is as far as we hiked.

My brother-in-law, his wife, and three boys--5, 4, and 5 months--on the way back from the hike.

Review of Terry Mancour's Spellmonger

I've decided to start reading, and reviewing, some of the novels available on Amazon.com's Kindle Lending Library.  This allows Amazon Prime members to read some books (one per month) for free on their Kindles.  The catch is that a lot--probably most--of these books are self-published e-books, using Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing.  That's sort of the reason I'm doing this.  Anyone can self-publish a book, and most of them are junk.  That said, 90% of anything is junk, so while there may be a lot of bad, self-published novels on Amazon, there are bound to be some good ones.  And as long as Amazon is letting me read one free once a month, I might as well take a chance on some of them.

First up is Terry Mancour's Spellmonger.  Now with this one, I may not be taking that much of a chance.  It's #7,325 in paid Kindle e-books, and has over 50 reviews, with an average rating of four stars (and while it's possible for self-published authors to game the review system, most of them seem fair, rather than the undeserved gushing of friends and relatives).  Additionally, Mr. Mancour has already published a novel (Star Trek The Next Generation: Spartacus).  So, I may be taking a chance, but not that much of one.

The first thing you notice about the novel, aside from the simple but functional cover, is the hand drawn and less functional map at the beginning.  I puzzled over this a bit, but I usually don't spend much time looking at the maps in e-books, so it was hardly a deal-breaker.  So I went straight to the opening scene.

The novel is high fantasy, with a noir voice.  The cynical, sarcastic first-person POV adds a lot of humor to the story, and it gave the novel a lot of its flavor.  The story started where most epic fantasies start: a small, rural community.  And the novel opens with a bang, with invading goblins gurvani attempting to burn the place to the ground.  At which point Minalan, the titular spellmonger, and former warmage, comes to the rescue.  It's a good opening, introducing the main character, his apprentice, and a bunch of villagers whom we instantly forget about.  Soon the lord of the valley arrives and the main plot begins.

The gurvani are coming by the thousands, armed with magic-enhancing Irionite, and the people must prepare for a siege: gathering allies and moving into the lord's castle.  Meanwhile, Minalan tells us about his life and background, weaving his backstory into the narrative. Unlike most novels of this type, the ally-gathering happens fairly quickly, and most of the novel is spent on the siege, and the clever ways Minalan and his allies use magic in order to escape complete destruction.  And it really is about how the magic is used--fairly little is done by the mundane folks.

That's one of the great weaknesses of this novel--all the important stuff is done by Minalan and a couple of his allies, all magic users.  Nothing of import is done by any of the mundanes.  They're mostly cannon-fodder and obstacles to overcome.  And there are some characters who seem like they'd have a lot to contribute, especially the mercenary leaders, but I can't remember anything of note they did outside of support for the magic types.

Another weakness is the half-hearted characterization.  There's a cast of hundreds, if not thousands, but most of them aren't important, and because they aren't, Mancour doesn't bother giving them more than a cursory introduction.  The three apprentices of the competitor spellmonger aren't even given names until just before their critical scene.  The main love interest shows up twice before the two stumble into a relationship, without any build-up to make us believe that they are actually in love.  The ruler of the rural valley goes from wise and good to petty and vain to sort of redeemed without much in the way of transition.

And for all that Minalan is the main character, he's not really that likable.  He's something of a lecher, so much so that it's hard to believe that he's decided to settle down when he does, and he has a prickly personality. He antagonizes the lord of the valley and his fellow spellmonger, but apparently they deserve it, since they're awful people--which we know because he tells us, not because of how they behave on-stage.

But for all its faults, Spellmonger still works.  It's well-written, and the presentation is professional.  The story is interesting, and the pieces come together in the end, with only a couple of plot holes.  Overall, it was worth the time to read--and really, I measure value more by the time than the money.

Review of The Avengers

The Avengers came out this past weekend, and I talked Kristin into seeing it for our date night on Friday.  We had already seen all the lead in films--Thor, Iron Man 1 and 2, The Incredible Hulk, and Captain America--so we were familiar with all the heroes.  It was fun.

It was very much a comic book movie, with all the team-ups and intra-team fights you expect from a comic book movie.  In fact, that was Kristin's biggest complaint: it had all the team-ups and intra-team fights you expect, which made it kind of predictable.  There was Thor vs. Iron Man, Thor vs. The Hulk, Black Widow vs. Hawkeye.  There were Iron Man and Captain America vs. Loki, Thor and The Hulk, Captain America and Black Widow, and Captain America and Thor vs. the aliens.  And, of course, the big battle scene at the end against said aliens.  There were a few other points of predictability.

All that said, it doesn't matter.  It was still great fun.  The action was exciting.  The characters, each of whom is strong enough to carry his own film, nevertheless worked well together.  They all had a chance to shine without anyone overwhelming the others.  The dialogue was as funny as you'd expect from Joss Whedon, and the action was exciting.  All in all, it was definitely worth watching.

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.

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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.

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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.