Mellonostalgia

This is a post merely to document a new word I've coined. Mellonostalgia is a combination of the Greek mellon (future) and nostalgia. It is a wistful longing for things that have not yet been. Things that, perhaps, may never be.

Some examples. Your friend is going to go to school for a degree that you have gotten. Your brain cycles through all the possibilities they have before them, all the things which you did and wish you had done, and perhaps your heart hurts in anticipation on their behalf. This is mellonostalgia.

Someone you loved deeply breaks up with you. Your world is shattered, and your mind flashes through the life you could have had together. The small moments you might have shared. This is mellonostalgia. A rueful remembrance of the future.

My Issues with Episode VIII

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I saw this movie a couple days ago and just needed some place to catalog all the reasons I thought it wasn't up to quality.

Holdo withholds info, spurring Finn toward a useless expedition that gets loads of people killed.

• There's no reason Space Cadet Jane needed to be all secretive about their plans.
• Finn's entire plot during this movie was useless, and Rose felt forced as a character.
• They can't get the code breaker's contact info from Maz, or even try to look it up online? They have to physically fly to his planet (which happens to be close enough) and get him?
• The casino place, which ended up not even being used, got more exposition than any other part of the movie.
• Meeting the code breaker was garbage. There's how many jail cells, and you get put in one with a guy who happens to be able to break through First Order encryption on the fly?
• Their entire mission to save their friends is jeopardized beyond redemption, but a shot at redemption comes along and their response is, "Nope." They don't even consider it.
• BB-8 takes down a bunch of guards. Felt like it leaned too heavily on comedy and not on "this could actually happen."
• Rose taking the saddle off the fathier and saying, "Now it was worth it," is such an eye-rolling moment. For all they know, their mission was a complete failure. All their friends are going to die. But you took a saddle off one animal that's going to be rounded up in an hour, and now it's worth it?
• Phasma was built up to be this big deal, then she poofed after like a minute.
• The giant First Order ship gets destroyed by the hyperspace jump. Everbody in armor: dead. Finn and Rose: A-okay.
• Even though Finn, Rose, and Poe do a thing that gets people killed, there are no repercussions for them (admittedly they did it because of poor leadership).
• At the very least, the First Order would have been able to see the heat signal from the escape ships' exhaust (not to mention Finn and Rose's ship). They (the First Order) didn't need to make a deal with the code breaker.
• Rose crashes into Finn. I'll ignore whether or not this was a good decision plot-wise and simply ask, how in the world did she reach him? They have the exact same crappy speeders. He's going at full throttle. She turned away and has to circle back. There's no way she can catch up to him, let alone t-bone him.
• The kiss felt very "we're going to jam two mismatched puzzle pieces together." It didn't fit. There wasn't really a buildup to it. No chemistry between characters.
• How did they get back to the base? It took the cruisers quite a bit to get out there going at high speeds. Somehow Finn drags Rose back in like five minutes, and all without any enemies noticing and shooting them.
• All in all, Finn, a great character, was wasted in this film. His plotline was supposed to be about failure, but instead of him failing it was the writer(s).

"Somebody has to stay behind."

• No, you dumb cow, nobody has to stay behind. This is why they invented the computer. I promise the autopilot can handle flying in a straight line. If not, I promise you can control it remotely.
• Side note: this was a problem in Rogue One, too. People not knowing how computers work. "We have to get this hard drive physically to the top of this tower in order to transfer the info." No, that is absolutely not how computers work.
• Even if somebody did have to stay behind, it shouldn't have been Holdo. Leia or Ackbar would have been better. Someone who we care about should have been the focus of the most cinematically stunning scene in the movie.
• I couldn't tell if the hyperspace thing was her plan all along, or if she just thought of it as she was watching her fellows get obliterated. Her insistence that someone (her) stay behind makes me think it was in her plan. If so, why did she wait while the others got killed?
• The hyperspace kamikaze, though extremely cool, presents the issue of, why doesn't everybody just have hyperspace missiles? Why build humongous ships when someone could just hyperspace through it and shred it?

Let's make the main conflict be a whale hunt.

• Where were the TIE fighters? They've already shown that TIE fighters can damage the rebel ships. Why did they call them back if they're so dead-set on taking their enemies down? Poe can take down a dreadnought's entire weapons systems with one X-wing, but the First Order can't spare a single TIE fighter?
• It's been pointed out to me that they knew the rebels would run out of fuel (not sure how the FO knew), so it was economically better for them to wait it out than to expend ships taking them down. We know the FO has resources though (they built a planet that could eat stars and have loads of ships and troops), so I don't wholly buy that argument. Also, they destroyed a bunch of rebel fighter ships already. My response to "we can't cover you from this distance" is, once again, computers. Self-driving ships.
• Why in the eff were lasers fired in space arcing in a parabolic trajectory? I know they do things that don't always gel with physics, but some (lightsabers) it's assumed there's a technological reason for it. The arcing lasers just felt like bad design.
• I refuse to believe they're using anything except fusion or fission to power these ships (since they have limited amounts of fuel, so they're not using radiant energy). That being said, the fuel should have lasted a lot longer.
• Why couldn't the First Order have called in more ships? I'm sure you could have some hyperspace in ahead of the rebels and come at them the opposite way.

Snoke? Snoke who?

• Here's an incredibly strong force user that's been around since the Empire. How did he rise to power? Where was he during Palpatine's reign? Response: Lol, why would anyone want to know that?
• Luke says that Snoke already had too strong a hold on Ben Solo. How did they come in contact? Internet chat room? 
• Snoke, who can arrange force Skype sessions for other people, who can levitate other force users, who can read minds, etc. etc., doesn't notice that Anakin Skywalker's lightsaber is being turned through the force four inches away from him? Not believable.
• How are we supposed to care that Kylo took him out if we don't even know anything about him?

The Amazing Flying Leia!

• What on earth was that?
• You go unconscious pretty fast in space. Not to mention she was already unconscious from the blast (but she wasn't really hurt?). But somehow she came out of that and was able to use the force to fly back to the ship? Not believable.
• We've known she's force sensitive, but she's never actually used the force before in her life. Now that she's unconscious in the cruel vacuum of space, she can suddenly use it.
• Also, how did they get her back in the ship? When they opened that latch, it would have sucked them out into space, not to mention their oxygen.
• I wish there would have been some follow-up to her suddenly using the force. They completely ignore that it happened.

Luke.

• I feel like they weren't really true to his character. I know it's been a long time and things happen, but still. He's always been the guy who defends others and jumps in to help where he can. Why would he run away from Ben Solo alone when he had all these other apprentices?
• We never get to see his reaction to Han dying. It just cut away from that. Obviously not as important as drinking green milk from tumid space teats.
• He's cut himself off to the force for how long, and as soon as he opens himself up to it again he can do amazing feats like astral project into the physical plane across bazillions of miles?
• There was no reason for him to die. "Oh boy, what a hard day's work. Guess I'll die." The logic behind it is very shaky.
• So he's lost his hope. Okay. His turnaround for regaining hope seemed kind of quick.
• When he saw Leia, I really wanted him to say, "Wanna make out again?"

Force power creep.

• I'm a little iffy on the power creep we've seen going on with the force. The limits keep getting blurred (not that they were crazy well defined to begin with, but it was never so grand).
• Being able to force two other people into a distance-disregarding face-to-face talk is pretty big. Being able to astral project and talk and give dice is big.
• When is it going to stop? How preternatural are force wielders going to get by the end? 
• Some foreshadowing for new abilities would be nice, at the very least. I guess Yoda hit Luke with his cane, maybe showing that force ghosts can interact with the physical plane.

We need more humor!

• Star Wars has always had humor, but it feels out of place in this movie. Big explosion, lost a lot of people and equipment, Poe flies back, BB-8 flies by with a comedic scream (of course neither of them got injured when everyone else did).
• Maybe they're going to merge Marvel and Star Wars at some point, so they're prepping audiences by duplicating the humor.

How do I Reyact to this?

• I did like Rey better in this movie. She was much less of an I-can-do-everything type.
• Her training . . . was essentially no training. It was Luke proving that he can complain about things. And that's it.
• Didn't like how they built up this "darkness under the island," then when she goes down there it's a mirror that shows . . . a reflection of her. Wow. So amaze. Dark side so mystery.
• I reeaally wanted her to join Kylo Ren. I guess it's okay that she didn't, but can you imagine?
• How did she get off the ship and back to the Falcon? Do none of these ships have cameras?

Kylo Ren is good.

• He's my favorite character. Great performance by Adam. Great conflict and weaknesses.
• He was really the only one in the movie that acknowledged that Han Solo had died. Kind of disappointing.
• Where are the other apprentices Kylo took with him?
• There were no lightsaber duels in this movie. Almost one between Kylo and Luke. Almost one between Kylo and Rey. But no. This was the least lightsaber-intensive Star Wars movie ever.
• He doesn't notice that Luke is holding Anakin Skywalker's lightsaber, which was just destroyed by Kylo and Rey. I can write this off as him being blinded by rage, but still.
• He says that Rey killed Snoke. Once again, are there no cameras!?

I think that about wraps it up, though I'm sure there were more things (like them saying godspeed). My question is, what happened? Did Rian Johnson and everyone at Disney start taking stupid pills? Sure, there are plenty of things that you could argue are stylistic choices, but there are lots of things that are just straight up defects. Can Episode IX save this trilogy? Yes. Will it? I doubt it.

The Omission of Transmission

There's an issue I see a lot when certain scientific topics come up. I don't think it can properly be termed a logical fallacy, though by brute definition it certainly qualifies. I think a more appropriate expression would be conviction tempered with ignorance. At any rate, the issue is as follows:

Someone reads/sees a piece of media about some technology/substance. The video makes a claim on what could be done with this technology, often with the implicit, "If only those dang capitalists and politicians weren't so stubborn and greedy!" Our enthusiast, who in all honesty has society's best interests at heart, now forms an emotional connection with the assertion and becomes belligerent when confronted with opposing views.

Two examples: power and cancer cures. I see media all the time claiming things to the tune of, a solar farm yea big in thus a location could provide the world's energy needs. Maybe it's algae. Maybe it's solar panels in orbit. Maybe it's a crop of wind turbines. I also see media, or just people, shouting that thus and such a substance kills cancer, but the government keeps it illegal.

Where our sanguine enthusiasts err is in transmission. They fail to understand how massive, long distance power works. If you were to try and power the world from one solar farm in the Sahara, all you would accomplish is heating a lot of wire. They fail to grasp that simply because something kills cancer doesn't mean that it can do so in vivo without compromising the well-being of the host. Fire kills cancer. Toss a hunk of cancer into a vat of gasoline, light it up, then try and tell me the cancer's still alive after everything's burned down.

The unfortunate thing, I've found, is that though most of these people are well-meaning, they won't let go of their convictions once presented with counter evidence, because they've welded themselves to their convictions with emotion. The trick is to disillusion them in a friendly manner so that they won't hate you when they don't believe you. An even greater trick is to disillusion yourself regardless of the manner.

Stoneslayer Draft 2, Beta Reads, and The University Vignettes

By way of update, a little over a week ago I finished the second draft of Stoneslayer. I had hoped to reduce the word count under 120k, but I ended up making it about 450 words longer, ending at 123.5k. I've sent it to a ton of beta readers (~20). We'll see whether they get to the end :) So far their suggestions have been to add more...

The University Vignettes:
I suppose I should make a mention of a longstanding project I've had called The University Vignettes (working title). I wrote a random kernel of a short story back in March 2015, which I rediscovered in August 2016 and finished. That project became "The Future's Price", a commentary on the cost of higher education through a very grim fantasy story. You can listen to a reading I did here.

But it doesn't end there. I got the idea to make a series of commentaries in this fashion, which I've tentatively titled The University Vignettes. There will be five short stories all told. They're all separate stories (well, #'s 1 and 4 are from the same POV), but they reference each other and focus around a particular event at the university, the breaking of the Jewel of Tusco (a giant stained-glass window).

Just the other day I finished the second of these stories, named "To What Degree?" The alpha reader reactions have been overwhelmingly positive, which is encouraging. This is a slow burning project though, so there's no telling when exactly I'll make it to the next vignettes. I do already have the epilogue written. I'd like to say I'll finish before the end of summer, but with the helter-skelter angle I've taken with this I'm much more comfortable saying the end of the year. Once they're all done, I'm going to publish them in a little anthology.

Evoking the Fantastical Milieu: Naming

This post will focus specifically on names and words.

Names are powerful. Glance over the two following lists of names:

• Daniel, Samuel, Adam, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Joshua, David, Zach, Aaron, Benjamin, Jonathan
• Abdon, Dishon, Jerah, Maher-shalal-hash-baz, Phallu, Urijah, Vophsi, Zeror

If you were raised in a biblically influenced country, the first list will likely seem mundane to you. However, the second list will immediately transport one to a land far away and so unlike our own. In case you didn't guess, all of the above names are from the Bible. If you know your audience, you can evoke impressions and emotions by choosing the right names.

In The Dinosaur Lords, Victor Milan lifts names straight from Spanish (Spañol), French (Francés), German (Alemán), English (Anglysh), and Russian (Slavo). He references countries and principalities in approximately the same locations as Spain, France, Germany, England, and Russia. The primary difference from our world is that they use dinosaurs for warfare. I personally would have preferred an alternate world rather than just an alternate history, but Milan did what he did so that he could immediately put impressions of these countries in our heads without having to devote much time for cultural backgrounds. A shortcut, if you're not looking to build a whole world.

Your names need a sense of uniformity in their foreignness. One option is to pick a language and lift all your names from that language. For Stoneslayer I used Hebrew. I made some rules, like all B's became V's. I often changed A's into E's. The particle 'om' means god (instead of 'el'), so lots of names end with that. Some other things like that. By my count, there are 96 separate names (some are used more than once though). Evrom, Matek, Shaleyu, Verutz, Lahilokh, Hayam. They have a sense of coherency, yet none are familiar to the reader.

For Orluvoq I used Greenlandic. It's a base I've essentially never seen in the books I've read. Orluvoq, Naalagaa, Ikingut, Nunapisu, Arsarneq, Arpap, Paarsisoq, Sinik. Once again, all very foreign, but all similar.

If you have multiple cultures, you need to make sure your naming bases are separate. Choose phonemes (basic units of sound) and some rules, then apply them to your names. In Augmentals I have one language that has a sound where they kiss the M. To represent it I use 'mm'. They also have the voiceless lateral fricative, which I represent with 'tl'. These are things that the reader will likely never consciously know, but their subconscious will pick up on the uniformity and whisper to them, "This is a solid book."

Magic Systems

In the earlier days of fantasy, magic was often a given nebulous force that accompanied the story. As the years have progressed, people have conjured up increasingly diverse scenarios and put new sets of constraints on their magic. From this there has arisen some sort of rift in the fantasy community between those who prefer a softer or a harder magic system.

Definition of Magic
I think it’s important that we first define magic. To me, magic is anything that is not possible within the bounds of the reader’s physics. Some people who prefer a soft approach to magic will say that anything that takes a more systematic, scientific approach disqualifies it from being magic. I say that whether or not it’s considered magic by the characters in the book is irrelevant to whether or not it’s magical to the reader. Because all of us live in the same world with the same physics, I think it’s safe to talk about the things outside of our laws under the umbrella term “magic”.

A Call for Mystique
Another argument I see a lot is that magic must have an air of mystique, a sense of wonder, a shroud of mystery. These people are conflating their preference with definitional limitation. That would be the same as saying magic must involve mental exertion, runes, ingredients, demons, handheld conduits, flashing lights, dead gods, temperature changes, incantations, exhaustion, sacrifices, or any other number of requirements. Certainly someone can have favorites, but personal penchants do not nullify all other options.

The Basis of Fantasy
The basis of fantasy and all good speculative fiction is that it poses a question and then explores the answers. The question is almost always in the form of, “How would humans react if they were put into a situation where [blank]?” (Possibilities for the blank: the gods interacted with men, dragons roamed the earth, there were other sapient species, certain people could control the weather?)

We live in a world that has figured out electricity and magnetism, wireless data transmission, nuclear power, space travel, DNA modification, vaccines, and endless other marvels. In a world where magic was relatively widespread, it would require great suspension of disbelief to pretend that that world’s humans hadn’t made any investigations into the nature, limits, and uses of that magic.

Now, there are possibilities of regressions, dark ages, and that their discoveries haven’t advanced very far yet. Maybe a god is keeping them from learning too much. Maybe they’re religious and kill anyone who uses magic outside the prescribed methods. Maybe they live in an extremely harsh environment and don’t have any extra time to devote to study. Maybe magic is only available to very few people. There are many good reasons why the world wouldn’t know very much about the limits of their magic. But human ingenuity, curiosity, and persistence are powerful forces, and I believe that wherever possible, they will have made at least some investigations into the strange powers at play in their world.

The Limitations of Constraints
I believe that constraints inspire more creativity than sheer freedom does. You see it in music when a composer decides, for example, to create something in a whole tone scale, never use the key’s base chord in the progression, write in 5/4, or use at least one augmented chord per measure. Working within limitations allows you to push the boundaries; when working with pure freedom there are no boundaries to push.

I hope the above explains why I lean more toward the hard magic end of the spectrum. Let’s take Sanderson’s Mistborn, specifically the steel push and the iron pull. At its core, these two powers are nothing more than telekinesis. However, the constraints that Sanderson places on them turns them into so much more. These include

• Must be a misting (born with the ability to burn a metal in your stomach)
• Must have your metal in your stomach; once out, so are your powers
• Can only push/pull on metals
• Can only push/pull in a straight, radial line from your center of mass
• Every push/pull reacts with a proportionate pull/push on you

So Sanderson took a very common power, telekinesis, put constraints on it, and turned it into something that’s far more interesting. Battles and puzzles require more creativity. I find that often when the magic is less defined I wonder why a particular magical solution wasn’t applied earlier than it was, or why it wasn’t applied again at a later point.

That being said, some people prefer a less systematic approach, just as some people prefer not to listen to music in 5/4 or music that has an augmented chord in every measure. Both opinions are right for those that hold them.

Conclusion
Both hard and soft magic systems are valid, even if you prefer one over the other. I have read, enjoyed, and written both kinds. However, I typically get more enjoyment out of hard systems, so I tend to use those in my bigger series so I can flex my creativity against the constraints.

Consumers, the Casual Killers

I originally wrote this because I gave a presentation on nuclear power in one of my friend's high school classes, and the students wanted to know how many people died from their energy use—your so-called deathprint. Skip ahead if you don't care about the calculations.

Hey, I ran some calculations for your students. I couldn't find exactly the per capita energy usage for an American, so taking some averages and estimations I went with 90,000 kWh/yr. The deathprint numbers come in deaths per PWh, so I use the equation $$k = \frac{a\ell d}{10^{15}\, Wh}$$ where k is the amount of people you kill over your whole life, a is your annual energy consumption, $\ell$ is your life expectancy, d is the death rate multiplier (variable by energy source). I could have included the 1E15 Watt-hours in d, but it's easier to plug in this way.

Plugging in everything but d gives us $$k = \frac{d(9E10\, Wh/yr)(80\, yr)}{10^{15}\, Wh} = 0.0072d$$ Now it's time to calculate d.

From the eia.gov site, it says that in 2015 the US energy production mix was 32% natural gas, 28% petroleum, 21% coal (see footnote 1), 11% renewables, and nuclear electric 9%. You may notice that's only 91%. The remaining 9% was primarily petroleum imports, so we'll bump our petroleum up to 37%.

So we have $$d = (0.37\times 36000) + (0.32\times 4000) + (0.21\times 15000) + (0.11\times r) + (0.09\times 40) = 17753.6 + (0.11\times r)\, deaths$$
Now we have to figure out r (renewables factor). Using the EIA site again we get 49% is biomass, 25% is hydro (see footnote 2), 19% is wind, 6% is solar, and 2% is geothermal. So (this is just an estimate) $$r = (0.49\times 24000) + (0.25\times 100) + (0.19\times 150) + (0.06\times 440) + (0.02\times 0) = 11839.9$$ I put 0 in on the death rate multiplier for geothermal because I couldn't find any info on it. We plug that in and get $$d = 17753.6 + (0.11\times11839.9) = 19056 \, deaths$$

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Skip to here if you're just looking for a number

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Plugging that into our original equation we find that $$k = 0.0072\times 19056 = {\boxed{\color{#9fc5e8}\text{137 people killed per lifetime}}}$$ If it was 100% nuclear, d would be 40 and k would equal 0.3 people killed per lifetime. That, of course, is factoring in all the major accidents (using outdated technology) and the linear no threshold model, which has been proven to be false. Using updated science, the number would be much lower than 0.3 (see Footnote 3).

Once again, this is using the energy mix from 2015. We all know that the energy mix of 2035 will look pretty different from 2015. But with these numbers we can approximate that the average 16-year-old American has indirectly killed 27 people (or approx. one every 7 months). The actual number is higher than that because a) coal usage peaked in 2008, and b) a lot of energy-intensive processes that we benefit from have been moved to other countries, so those aren't counted in the consumption profile.

If all that energy was 100% nuclear derived, your students would have collaterally killed about 6% of a person each. In other words, it would take 17 students to have killed one person. At this energy consumption rate, you would have to live for 278 years to kill one person. This only accounts for energy production though, nothing about food, technology, or conveniences.

These are just some quick calculations using numbers I found. You (or your students) could do a much more in-depth research project by finding a lot more data points (see Footnote 4). Hope you enjoyed it! Also, you should tell your students to read my books :) I believe they're available at the school library. If not, they're available here.

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Footnote 1 The world average is 100,000 deaths/PWh and the Chinese rate is 170,000 deaths/PWh. I used the US number of 15,000.
Footnote 2 This is the European number which doesn't include the Banqiao dam break that killed 171,000.
Footnote 3 This is infeasible, but a fun thought experiment. Switching over to entirely nuclear would result in a 99.93% reduction of the deathprint. The reduction would be greater if you factored in the performance history of the nuclear navy, which has logged "over 6200 reactor-years of accident-free experience involving 526 nuclear reactor cores over the course of 240 million kilometres, without a single radiological incident, over a period of more than 50 years." (Source)
Footnote 4 Here's the full equation if you want to tweak parameters:$$k = \frac{a\ell}{10^{15}\, Wh}[p_{pt}d_{pt} + p_{ng}d_{ng} + p_{co}d_{co} + p_{nu}d_{nu} + p_{re}(p_{bi}d_{bi} + p_{hy}d_{hy} + p_{wi}d_{wi} + p_{so}d_{so} + p_{gt}d_{gt})]$$ It's kind of a crappy formula because the p values (ha) are the percentages of the energy mix, except the ones in the square brackets are the percentage of the renewable energy mix.

New Novella: Orluvoq

I know I never update this and no one ever reads this, but just in case here we go.

Yesterday I finished writing my novella Orluvoq. It's 30,600 words long (which correlates to about 120 printed pages) and inspired by Inuit (specifically Greenlandic) culture. Here's the blurb:

In the highest north, the world has an end. Black oblivion gapes out forever beyond the plains of rotting snow, the two separated by the infinite drop of an ice cliff holding all the world’s dead.

In the highest north, hunters ride kites into the aurora to fell narwhal from out of the sky. Chandlers set the beast’s tusk in columns of tallow. Shamans exact powers from the burning candles—powers to walk with shadow or the wind, to turn away frostbite and fever, to stay warm on the darkest night in deepest winter.

But the narwhal’s tusk has other powers. Darker powers. When consumed, it floods the devourer with an inimitable high. Once consumed, the devourer will never be satisfied with anything less. Every shaman is taught not to eat the tusk. If forced to choose between healing and warmth or the high, the shaman can’t always be trusted to be stronger than the addiction. 

But not every shaman does as they’re taught.

And so, we follow Orluvoq, a drug-addicted, eight-year-old shaman, as she climbs down the ice cliff at the end of the world to find her dead parents. Will she find answers, or will she only find that her hope is all gone?

 I don't have any information on a publishing date, but I'm sure I'll post here once I do. In the meantime, you can read the beginning here.

I found this picture and thought, "That's Or lu freaking voq."