I’ve been writing for years and wandered aimlessly through the self-publishing (killing?) fields without actually pulling the trigger. In 2013 I created a new Twitter account for my creative writing and have engaged in some writing chatter. After year of wandering I decide that I should get something published. Anything. I enjoy writing and I think that the universes I’ve created are interesting and intriguing. Eventually, I came across Smashwords and decided that was the best way to go. And now I can present my first finished published work (excluding my PhD thesis of course, does that even count?):

Smashwords link: Terosan Tales

Four short stories set in the same universe which are the beginnings of a larger tapestry of interwoven stories.

For a brief summary of each story click on “Continue reading”:

General background

Terosan Prime is a planet-spanning city that sits at the heart of the Terosan Galactic Republic. A democratic power that spans numerous star systems with majority control of their galaxy. Their power is only rivaled by the large consortium of corporate planest who are collectively known as Kyopix. The latter were once wealthy Terosan merchants but broke away to form their own “civilization” with a set of rules that’s less restrictive. Trade between the two is prosperous and the hostility is mostly confined to heated negotiations.

The gaps between these two powers is full of independent star systems; they are the unconquered, the resistive, the destroyed, or the unknown. Living free but sandwiched between two super-powers does not make for easy living.

This is a universe of empires, computer hackers, gamblers, merchants, nomads, killers and faster-than-light travel.

Further background reading in a previous blog post: Terosan background details.

Stories in this volume: “Deck 20″, “Fallen Gods of Cheam”, “The Pirate Queen”, “Gnir’s Raid”.

Deck 20

Terosan is a sprawling planet-wide city. It is the centre of the Terosan Galactive Republic and therefore the major seat of power in the galaxy. The military of the TGR is arguable the strongest in the galaxy and Terosan Prime, the capital planet, is clearly the most populated with the largest economy. It dominates all.

In this modern metropolis everything is monitored. Security begets stability. Crime is low and the citizens can live in peace. As can be expected in such conditions, crime isn’t absolutely zero. The areas with the highest crime rares are at the bottom of the sky-scraping towers where the power people live. Deck 20 is a story of a boy who ventures outside to play in the streets, against his father’s wishes and ends up on the wrong side of the law.

Fallen Gods of Cheam

Cheam is a backwards planet by Terosan standards. Sentiment life exists but the civilizations are primitive. Although on a world covered in ice it shouldn’t be a surprise. Survival is the highest priority and nothing else even comes close. Despite such harsh conditions life is able to exist but not exactly flourish.

The Cheamans are primitive and superstitious but not stupid. This story concerns a hunting expedition of a tribal leader and his closest companions who eventually confront the twilight of their gods.

The Pirate Queen

Being born poor doesn’t mean that you have to die poor. This pirate queen lives in the gaps between Terosan and Kyopix. She plays against the both of them and raids who she pleases to make a comfortable but risky living for herself. She doesn’t work alone, of course, but rather she commands a small fleet of ships filled with a loyal crew.

If anything, life seems too easy. Luck faltered when this queen was eventually captured but she was given an opportunity of a lifetime, one that would allow her to walk free and make more wealth than she ever had before. With great rewards comes great risk.

Gnir’s Raid

Hacking. It ain’t easy. Few people can do it, even fewer can do it without getting caught. In a world where everything is tagged and closely monitored then escaping the surveillance isn’t easy. One of the most prolific hackers thinks he’s found a secret but disused government owned information stash. Is he right and what can he do about it?

(note: Long read. Actually ended up longer than intended.)

Technical – work

On the creative side of things I haven’t to write anything fresh since Nanowrimo (Nov 2013), although I managed to type up some short stories earlier this year that I’ve had on paper for the last year or two. Nanowrimo was unfortunate but life got in the way and I had to abandon much of my free time. It all worked out in the end so no complaints.

Since January I’ve been engaged in mostly technical writing for work, this is only part of my job but it is a necessary part of the role. The documents should be concise and easy to read, include pictures / tables / diagrams as necessary, such that someone can pick it up read it (mostly) independent of other documents. Obviously there is always some minimum level of required knowledge but I need to be clear where I’ve assumed something and be sure that I’ve defined everything.

I’m reluctant to share the details of those documents so the above is slightly contextless. However, one thing that I can do which I’m not sure that others in my workplace can is to compare the technical writing process with that of the creative writing process.

I’m not saying that technical writing is completely devoid of creativity but rather it is much more constrained and often well defined that the outcome (the final document) in advance of starting the document. In some ways this makes writing such a document easier, and can be a case of just sitting down and writing it.

The process benefits from the fact that I’m writing about something I know a lot about, and in all cases this year the details have not been complicated. Naturally, I didn’t write any document without flaw in the first attempt but rather each document underwent numerous revisions. Feedback (from coworkers) is a necessary part of the process and part of the “formal” procedure which makes it easier to revise something when it has been agreed what needs to change: no need to second guess your own decisions.

All of the above points are why I find technical writing easier, admittedly it hasn’t been the hardest technical writing, but it also helps to get paid. The document gets finished because it’s part of my job hence I’m paid to do it.

Technical – PhD

An example of hard(er) technical writing was my PhD. While I was an (or became) expert in the area of research my thesis didn’t have a known structure before I started it. Nor was the outcome of my research known at the point I started.

As such a document takes a long time to write I figured it was best to start it well in advance. I actually started my thesis before some older people (who were due to graduate a couple of years before me) actually started theirs. What can I say? I was keen to get writing it and put my ideas on to paper.

While the research was tricky and vacillated between fun / interesting and “damn it this doesn’t work”, writing the thesis was mostly fun. Removed from the research I actually enjoyed talking and writing about my subject. The main motivation was graduating with an advanced degree as well as getting it done so I could move on with life.

Discursive – blogging

Despite creating my website back in 2009 and that most of the content is “blogging”, I still loathe the word. For me, the word has connotations of (melo)drama: people open up on their blog and provide a stream of consciousness about their daily routines. My desire to text-dump my daily routine isn’t anywhere on my priority list. Sure I’ve made the odd rant status on Facebook but I’ve mostly weaned myself off of that. My modestly contrarian views on life and the universe are often met with hostility. ^_^

While I try to avoid outright contention I can’t help but write with an overly cynical or critical tone when it comes to discursive writing. That is my perspective of my own writing, I’m not sure how it sounds to readers. That said, I’ve tried to be less contentious or confrontational. I’ve found that avoiding forums and not participating in the comments section of newspapers (etc) helps to stay calm (and sleep well at night ).

On discursive writing itself, as a process, I do find it easier. The reasons for this are corroborative with my comments above on technical writing. I’m not paid but generally the outcome is well known before I start; I already have an idea of what I want to say and I can see the light at the end of the tunnel before I start. All of my discursive writing pieces are sub-5000 words (iirc) which also helps for staying focused.

Creative

… and finally on to creative writing, and for clarity: writing fiction. Of all the types of writing mentioned here this is the most fun but also the hardest. Creating a universe isn’t the hard part, but writing believable characters that exist in that universe is. Keeping the momentum going to write a full length story in a universe that you create with little or no structure has been tough.

The motivation for creative writing isn’t there in the same way either: if I complete my work and get it published then I might make make some money. A huge if with much uncertainty. Unlike writing technical documents at work where the writing is a part of my job, the structure is clear and I’m paid to do it.

Creative writing was something I did at school in English classes, I always avoided discursive but I didn’t know how to tackle that. Most (all?) of what I wrote at school was either sci-fi or fantasy (no surprise!) but all of the pieces were short (a couple of pages of A4 at most).

Outside of school I eventually started to create various SF&F universes as games. In some cases I created games around well-known universes such as StarTrek and StarWars. I created ships, planets and species and wrote a brief backstory of how they would fit together and also consistently with a universe that already existed. This part of writing is always the most fun but in many ways also the most distracting. As I’ve got older I always promised myself that I would eventually get something published. In order to focus on writing I had to work with a universe that I had already created and try to cut down the distractions.

As I probably discussed in a previous blogpost it wasn’t until I left high school that I actually tried to write a full length SF&F novel. In those days I disdained short stories as an “improper” use of time; how could something be exciting and also grand in scale if it was sub-10,000 words? That was roughly my line of thinking but the counter-side to that is that writing a full length novel is a lot of work.

The fantasy novel that I started circa 2002 (can’t quite recall) was first written and basically complete (structurally) and circa 50k words. Quite far short of what I thought a real novel should have. Not long after I started to write my sci-fi novel which eventually stalled at 30-40k words with about half of the plot written. That sci-fi novel is based upon notes that I created at high school and is the same universe in my newly completed collection of short stories.

The fantasy book was eventually re-written in 2009 / 2010 and is now at 100k words with approximately 95% of the structure complete. It has dangled there at the end point since. I’ve lack the motivation to finish it. Partly because I couldn’t figure out how to make it end and partly because I couldn’t figure out what I’d do with it was it was finished. My initial goal was to write and then publish it to lulu (I’ve also considered going the traditional route, that can be another post). I didn’t quite get there.

Motivation is tough, pay is currently non-existent, the structure is chaotic and inevitably the writing stalled. However, I did eventually get something published. Next post coming up!

Main thread
The centre stage for the Universe is actually a particular galaxy and even more particular is the main federation that I have tentatively named Terosan (I created the name years ago but it seems other have used a similar name — try Googling). This federation is the majority power in its galaxy who dominate at least half of the map. Their capital world bears the same name and is a Corsucant (see StarWars) inspired planet that is almost entirely covered by buildings. The system of government is democratic with something similar to the US senate house. There are obvious parallels with the real world that I hope will be familiar and hence help to ease the reader into immersion better. As you may be already expecting this government also has a large military with several hundred starships, if we include the small ships then probably tens of thousands would be a more accurate number. Influence / power is derived some such a large active military, one which is well organized and cohesive too. Naturally, this ought to conjure up the idea of a “democratic imperium”.

The major relationships in this galaxy are between Terosan and the large consortium of corporate planet who are collectively known as Kyopix. The latter were once wealthy Terosan merchants but broke away to form their own “civilization”. Their rules are less restrictive, as they see it. There is still a lot of trade between the two and hostility is mostly confined to heated arguments diplomacy. Kyopix has a less powerful military but they do maintain influence through their wealth and resources. Within the ‘borders’ of these two ’empires’ control is near 100%, outside the borders are a slew of independent planets that haven’t been conquered. They survive by being far enough away from Terosan Prime (the capital world) that their capture would be expensive or difficult to manage the taxes etc. Kyopix are less about conquering and more about trading, so they are keen to trade with the independent planets rather than attack. This covers the main dynamic of the galaxy.

There is one more civilization to consider and that is the mysterious Hayf Empire who I alluded to in my previously posted short story “Pirate Queen”. Not much information has been given about them, and little is given away in the novel either. They are mostly reclusive and defensive, but have a military power beyond any other. In the novel, the Terosans have managed to strike a deal with the Hayf for the purchase of an inter-galactic propulsion system. This allows a starship to travel not from star to star but galaxy to galaxy. This technology is rare, complex to build and expensive to buy / maintain. Intra-galactic is mainly via jump-gates, which are big metal rings that bend space and propel craft to their destination (another jump-gate). Most ships are not powerful enough to carry their own faster-than-light drive, only the biggest ships can do that. This creates a dynamic where the ability to travel grants power. The novel already assumes that the trade between Terosan and Hayf has happened, it also assumes that Terosan has visited the nearest galaxy and that things a new tension has arisen.

The short stories I’ve presented on my blog are prequels. They create the back-story and so provide a flavour or what is to come.

Sub-threads
The sub-threads all relate back to the main thread in one way or another. The link isn’t always obvious at first but it is definitely there. Some of the links may not be apparent in the novel, and so will only be revealed in a later book. I’m still figuring that all out.

Hackers: this sub-thread occurs on the capital world: Terosan Prime. Given that most of the planet is urbanized, and that this is sci-fi, then clearly there is going to be a vast network like the internet. It needs to be more advanced than our current internet too, but I’ve struggled to capture the correct balance of realistic and fantastical. Basically, the planet’s inhabitants can put on visors and tap away at futuristic keyboards that take them into an online world. One which is a replica of the one they live in, but one which is also enhanced by rich meta-data. Oddly, the offline is also enriched by excessive electronics and connectivity. This story follows a small group of societal rejects who have begun notorious online trouble makers, they hack for fun and attempt to discover how their world is works. They explore the connections and relationships in order to gain a new insight on life. However, such a life is not without peril and people are easily lead astray when they believe themselves too powerful. On top of this, I suggest to my readers that hyper-connectivity may have consequences: how does a brain cope under the stress of excessive excitement?

“Pirate Queen”: See my untitled short story posted here. The “Queen” is someone who grew up in independent space and after a rough and tumble childhood she grew to be a captain on a starship and command her own fleet. She’s often rude and obnoxious but commands a crew who is fiercely loyal, partly because they are well rewarded.

Stephen Hawking’s Universe – David Filkin

This book is the easiest one to dive into and finish without any headaches. Better yet, this is actually a simpler version of Hawking’s book “A brief history of time”. So if you have fancied reading that book but were too afraid then try this one first. The great thing about the book is that it covers the history of the key people in the scientific revolutions that lead to our modern day understanding of the cosmos and it covers the history of the Universe as we know it. The book is also a companion to the TV series although I never saw that. Finally, it is full of colourful pictures and well worth every penny you pay for it.

Also posted to Amazon:  http://www.amazon.co.uk/review/R2IMNGXCC5AL31/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm

Once you have read it the I thoroughly recommend that you go on to read A Brief History of Time.

A brief history of time – Stephen Hawking

I read this book more than 10 years ago now, I actually borrowed a copy of the original version of the book and read it within a week (I’m not a fast reader but I was a teenager then). I thoroughly enjoyed it and soon after I purchased my own copy which is the 10th anniversary edition. Before I read this book I actually read Stephen Hawking’s Universe (Stephen Hawking’s Universe: The Cosmos Explained), which I found to be good preparation. At the time my knowledge of physics was that of high school level physics, which is enough to get you through both books. Both cover a bit of history of the key figures in the development of astronomy / cosmology but this book eventually goes into greater detail of the more difficult concepts.

Read the rest of my review on the Amazon page for the book:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/review/R3SSQH9N4RPN78/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm

Black Holes & Time Warps – Kip S Thorne

One of my favourite books and also one of the most influential. I read this in my teens, about 12 years ago, in the same summer that I read Hawking’s Brief History of Time. Although I skimmed through the book again before writing this review. This book is perhaps easier to read and like Hawking’s book is full of diagrams to aid understanding. Some relativity is covered, including the idea of lightcones and how they relate to causality. This was actually one of the trickier concepts, in that I tried to fully understand what the lightcone diagram meant and what the consequences are of the information displayed upon one. They are key to understanding black holes and how they distort space-time.

Read the rest of my review on the Amazon page for the book:  http://www.amazon.co.uk/review/R2FFQSXTQSWES2/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm

On morality in fantasy and science fiction

This a repost of an article I did that evaluates morality /ethics in science fiction and fantasy. The same lines of argument can be applied to any genre but my knowledge is in SFF.  This is the moderately less contentious and shorter version.

Ultimately, you want readers to buy your book (really just a consumer product although I secretly pretend it is a work of art) and it doesn’t matter what their views are as long as they buy your book. Not everyone like it, but hopefully some will love it. Under no circumstances would I ever recommend talking down to the reader, any reader. Soap boxing your political (e.g. moral) beliefs is really a no-no. Make the readers emote but do not irritate them.

In this essay I review the judgement of morality as given by the author from the evidence of their texts. I will state my own preferences and understanding of the texts used, and come to a conclusion that is consistent with my appreciation of said texts.

The opening scene of A Game of Thrones

The opening scene of the game of thrones series tells of humans who venture into an unforgiving winter landscape, if nature killed them we would reconcile that as “expected” and even “normal”.

Man fought against nature and lost: this does not require a moral judgement from the reader. As a brief aside, I will acknowledge that some people may assign value judgements of good or evil to nature that requires nature to have a thinking will (more on that later). In this scene one of the characters witnesses the bloody remains of a massacre, of which children and adults have been gore-rotted  and given that it is the opening scene there cannot be a complete understanding of what happened and so we cannot assign blame or make a moral judgement.

Shortly after, we read that some of the characters are killed by an unknown terror that could be an animal, a person or something else unworldly. We don’t learn enough about it from the opening scene to a judgement. When people cannot assign blame to any particular thing then is no judgement of anything to be wrong. There was no wilful killing. This is akin to the statements that psychologist Sam Harris makes with regards to morality;  confer: would we judge a bear to be morally wrong if it mauls a child? I think very few people would assign blame to the animal as it did what we expected and that it did not make a rational decision in the same way that a human does. Similarly, dying of hypothermia does require us to place a value judgement upon nature and to call it evil or wrong.

In the next scene we learn that one of the people who escaped from the opening scene is to be executed as a traitor. I did not fully understand the reason why or how this person escaped, it seemed like a bit of a plot device at the request of a publisher to have action in the opening scenes (IMHO ); however, not to digress we learn that one of the main characters, a protagonist, has to execute this supposed traitor. It is an act which I also couldn’t quite fathom as to why it was necessary so was reluctant to accept why this should happen. It seemed like a plot device rather than an actual virtue / principle of character.

For now, let’s accept that it was a principle of this society: a human must kill another human as it is required by law. Depending on your ideology, this will either be seen as morally right or morally wrong. We can draw obvious parallels to modern capital punishment but in this essay I wish to state no preference to either, and I wish to state that I have no desire to tell you what to think. The beauty of GRRM is that neither did he; GRRM’s view of morality isn’t necessary, he is writing a story not a diatribe. Not once does GRRM pull you aside and say “Hey reader, Ned Stark had to kill this guy because that’s just how the story works but I really don’t support this viewpoint, just so y’all know: killing is bad m’kay.”

It would be totally redundant.

Evangelism

I abhor idealistic evangelism in story telling. It makes for poor story telling and is thoroughly inane, it is also frowned upon as a valid form of fiction writing yet many authors and story tellers continue to do it. Gods, why? Please stop doing this if you write fiction or ever plan to. Just like the GRRM mock quotation above, it really isn’t a good idea to have anything that reads like the following: “Dear reader, you are too stupid/ unwise to make up your own mind so I will feed you with my ideology and tell you what to think”.

(I realise the irony of that last paragraph… but forgive me please. )

This is one of the things I appreciate about GRRM’s work, that and I think he has great skill as a wordsmith. In his books people meet unjust ends yet at no point does the author tell you who to side with, nor who you should judge, he leaves that to you as the reader. I’ve had many conversations about the characters in his works and had a lot of fun disagreeing with friends about who is a fun character to follow or who is better than another.

The folly of dualism

You may then wonder where I stand with Tolkien whom is one of the greatest writers yet a central construction is the dualistic,  i.e. binary, nature of good and evil in his works. I cut Tolkien much slack because a simple casting of (say) LOTR’s morality as binary would be a  naive interpretation. Tolkien does use words like “good“and “evil” but rarely does he assign the value of absolute good or absolute evil to any of his characters. Sauron is perhaps the closest when he refers in an absolute way to either value judgement, yet he does not do this with Melkor  (Sauron’s former boss) in the Children of Hurin (or the Silmarilion). Neither is Ungoliant (who appears in the Silmarillion) denigrated in a cheap way as just being a character who is simply evil. All three are described as treacherous or dark but neither appear to be handled in a childlike manner where the author commands you to dislike either character. Admittedly Tolkien treads close to the edge with the dark characters but on the flip side to that argument is that I feel his good characters are shades of grey.

Who is the most good in the lord of the rings? The elves? Perhaps, yet they are reluctant to help the humans, yet they might be ‘more good’ than the humans but given that they have participated in war then are they are pure as the Hobbits?

The Hobbit have no taste for war or conflict yet Bilbo considers killing Gollum (heeds Gandalf’s words and for goes it), Frodo had wished that Bilbo had killed Gollum yet Gandalf points out that not even the wisest can see all ends. Is the explanation there that those particular Hobbits were under the influence of the ring? Perhaps, however, the ring is a plot device in this case, and the underlying fact is that a moral choice is presented as a shade of grey. The good guys are willing to consider killing as a solution but are persuaded otherwise by Gandalf. I will therefore admit that Gandalf is a likely voice of the author and (ergo) his opinion on morality and the inevitability of war (and the deaths that come with it). Recall: Gandalf, Pippin and Merry are present in the battle at Minas Tirith.

What or Science Fiction?

Some of the classics are written in such a way that challenges our knowledge of what is and isn’t acceptable. StarWars rehashes the classic good versus evil style plot, although you aren’t forced to side with the good guys the story portrays them in a much better light. This is where the originals shine and the newer ones are dulled down; older is more varied, while the newer are too simple.

The original SW films at least provided some shades of grey: the rogue is a rogue. Han Solo shot first. We may never behave like Han Solo but that doesn’t mean his charm doesn’t appeal to us.

Contrast to the unforgivable error in episode 3 where Obiwan Kenobi decries that the Sith are evil because they are absolutists. Yet this is at odds with how the Jedi and Sith are depicted, both are depicted in a fairly absolutist light yet it seems that the Sith are more likely to be pragmatic to get the job done rather than depend upon the rigours of scripture as the Jedi would.

Dune is one of my favourite novels. Herbert writes a lot about tyranny and the folly of following powerful and charismatic leaders. That isn’t to say that all leaders are bad, or that all charismatic leaders are bad, but rather we don’t always tend to see the flaws of the president we love the most ( ). I don’t think Herbert has succumb to dualism either, despite the myriad references to the Abrahamic religions, the author has the foresight to write the book in a fairly neutral light. He does not say which religion is better, or whether religion is good or bad. He points out the problems of blind faith and the power struggles that have surrounded religion: in many cases I do not detect an overly critical personal tone. It is my opinion that he lets you make your own decisions and that he merely presents an interesting set of stories.

… and that is how I think it should be handled by all authors of fictional works.

These are the files you will need:

Dune 2: The game. This link might ask you to donate but if you wait it should provide the download for free. It did for me.

DOSBOX:  DOS emulator.

Manual:  This is a text version of the game manual – needed in game to answer a question after the first level. There is also a colour pdf version of the manual.

Setup

Once the game has been downloaded you will extract it to a folder of your choosing. Run the setup  (.exe) file, this will actually run in newer versions of windows. It will ask you about soundcard settings, back in the day you couldn’t have settings automatically detected so you had to input those manually. The SoundBlaster was a nice card and the SoundBlaster Pro was even better; this game will run with any of those choices but if you choose Pro then you get nice sound quality. If you choose PC Speaker than you get 8bit mono. All sounds came through my regular sound card and speakers with no problem. If you have any problems then you’ll have to Google it.

DOSBox

Download / extract as necessary then run it. Type ‘intro’ to understand how it works. Basically you need to mount your hard drive in the same way you would on Linux/Unix. Well, not exactly. You mount a virtual hard drive which could be your games menu, eg you could type mount c c:\games in order to mount your games menu as hard drive. That’s what I did. Also, I think you will have to mount your hard drive every time you use dosbox. I’m sure there is a script you could write to prevent this but it isn’t difficult to type out the above each time. If you want to access this directory then simply type c:

At this stage you are good to go. Go to Dune 2 directory and run the bat file (I think). Fingers crossed and it should load up with sound. Note that the game is windowed but appears to run at the correct speed.

Article previously posted in the other section of my website.

Faster Than Light travel can be broken down into 2 main types, with a further divisional sub-type. With reference to my previous post I will ignore any instance of “actual FTL” and just stick with “apparent FTL” (off the top of my head I can’t think of any of the former anyway). The two main types as I see it are instantaneous and non-instantaneous: Battlestar Galactica is an example of the first, where each starship jumps from one location to the next with zero travel time between points. An example of the latter is StarTrek: it takes time to get from one point to the next. In terms of flavour I prefer the latter. While FTL already bends the laws of physics there still tends to be some logic that is preserved, such as nothing happening in an instant. A further problem is that of teleology: where you assume something about the future and use it to inform the present. A possible exception (of sorts) here would be wormholes or jump gates, but I shall return to that later.

This now brings me to the further subdivision of FTL types: Ship-based devices and non-ship based devices. Yes, my division into types is my opinion and hence arbitrary but I’d like to think I am presenting a logical method of categorization. Anyhow, back to the story… a ship-based device could be either StarTrek or Battlestar Galactica: both have FTL drives that propel the ships through space. The latter case, non-ship based devices, would obviously be wormholes or jump gates.

So the 4 types of FTL are Ship-based instantaneous, ship-based non-instantaneous, non-ship-based instant and then non-ship non-instant.

What I’d argue for is to pick a style that you prefer and stick to it. It is better if the story devices are logical and consistent so the reader knows what to expect: while science fiction bends physics, it makes no sense to completely destroy physics (and logic) such that a reader will never know what happens. It wouldn’t be impossible to blend all the styles, in fact I’m sure it can be done, but then it would be necessary to differentiate between the different types at each stage in the story. If travelling between two points is instantaneous (say) then what would prevent all characters in the story from doing that? A little bit of “book-keeping” would be in order to preserve logical consistency.

Let me be clearer: StarTrek makes good use of wormholes and ship-based FTL drives but the travel time is never zero in either case. Recall that everytime a ship in DS9 went through the wormhole it spent some time making the crossing. Could this happen in reality? No idea. No one knows. If wormholes exist then it might truly be the case where the travel time is essentially zero. The *trick* here is that the two end points are already connected before a ship makes a jump. Why the two ends are connected is not wholly important, it could have happened by accident. Where I knee-jerk slightly is when a ship travels instantaneously between two points, this basically says that the end point is known and to some extent that point is connected to the point where the ship is currently standing.

I hope you can see how this leads to problems with causality. All forms of instantaneous travel can cause problems with causality, and that is one of the few places guaranteed to give yourself and your readers a headache. By knowing something about the end point of travel is to say that you have information about that point. Guessing (say, coordinates) is fine but knowledge implies that information can flow from you to it, or back again. If information can flow instantaneously then you have a problem with causality. When there is a connection between two points then information can flow, and this leads you into a tricky situation. To re-iterate: the laws of physics can be bent but reckless, illogical, abandon of such laws is not what sci-fi is about (imo).

Allowing for finite travel times can also boost suspense, readers have to wait to find out what happens next, so it makes for good story telling too. OK, so it wasn’t really a problem for Battlestar, nor for Dune, but if you think on it deeply then you have to wonder why not just travel instantaneously to your destination or just use the device to “search” the other side and figure out if that’s where you really want to go. If it can be done instantaneously then in theory you could scan the entire galaxy (or universe) with relative ease. But enough of that and let me provide a brief list of examples that you can relate to:

Ship-based devices

Instant

• Battlestar Galactica
• Escape Velocity (computer game originally on the Mac)
• Dune (in the film it looks like the Guild Navigator may be taking the ship through space at a finite speed but according to wiki the jumps are instant. Don’t recall the issue being so clear in the books).

Non-instant

• StarTrek – All are non-instant including: Warp Speed, Quantum Slipstream Drive, Borg Transwarp conduits.
• StarWars – Hyperdives
• Andromeda (can’t remember but sure it was non-instant)

Jump gates / wormholes (non-ship based)

Instant

• Space Empires (ditto, although the latter versions came in the 00s) – each sector was connected via a series of wormholes (or similar). The game itself was turn-based but I believe the travel time was effectively zero (could be wrong there).

Non-instant

• Descent: FreeSpace (computer came on the PC, from the 90s) – used big metal rings that connected one part of the galaxy to another. Travel time was not instant.
• StarTrek – Wormholes in StarTrek were non-instant

Interestingly, there are few exceptions in space-faring sci-fi where FTL is not employed. A notable example of such an exception if Alastair Reynolds who stuck with the good old fashioned laws of physics and forced ships to accelerate slowly to maximum speed. Space travel therefore takes thousands of years. This was also the case in the film Event Horizon, the ship was in space for decades.

So what would I do?

Well, I’ve opted for a blend of jump gates and ship-based devices. All non-instantaneous as you might have guessed by now. My division between jump gates and not will depend on the size of the ship. Most small ships will not carry enough energy to make the jumps themselves, plus the technology is fairly new (in my story obvs.) so it isn’t even the case that all large ships have FTL drives. The larger ships in my story will at least have the possibility of carrying an FTL drive, although the technology is a hot commodity so it won’t be entirely common. I hope to use this to build tension by creating a division between the “haves” and “have nots”. There will be a struggle to have the technology and to exploit: of course, I will be playing upon the unintended consequences of such devices. Not necessarily where the drive itself is faulty but where human politics comes into play and the consequences of FTL cause much more trouble than was expected!

It is very timely that Wired published an article today which decries the rise of ebooks. Ok, so there is definitely a downside to digital media: piracy is an issue and it does seem like libraries are not treated fairly. That said, the rise of digital media is not going to bring more problems than solutions that it provides. The cat is out of the bag. The horse has bolted from the stable. Digital media artists need to confront and prosper from this new reality rather than become a victim to it.

How does a creative artist prosper from this new digital reality? By understanding how the digital age works,  how the upcoming generation behaves, and most importantly: convexity. When I say new I mean this relative to the old forms of publishing in hard formats. Myspace has been around for years and provided bands to promote their music globally. In theory, a band can record a piece of music and then send it to millions of people around the world in the same day. That is just simply impossible with the old forms of publishing, but it is reality for digital media.

This isn’t a secret, at all. Many content creators have embraced digital content. It has decrease many barriers to entry and provided a bridge between (say) writers and readers than have otherwise not existed. However, with such low barriers to entry there is a downside in the form of piracy. The downside is that your content is copied many times without your consent and without payment or credit. The upside, yes there is an upside, is that your content has possibly been shared with millions. Popularity (fame) is never a guarantee of vast wealth. This is reality, but there is a way to benefit from it rather than become a victim to it.

Accept that piracy can happen, although in the early stages of your career it might not, but understand that this is in credit  to your popularity rather than a discredit to your popularity. Folks don’t pirate Breaking Bad or the great works of GRR Martin because they hate it, but precisely the opposite. Does this represent lost revenue (sales) ? Sure, it might be lost revenue but it also allows for a opens up a far greater market. Does this mean that the artist may not be able to live off their creation? Sure, that’s also true but that has always been true, even before the internet began it was never a guaranteed certainty than an artist could ever live off the royalties of their own work. This line of argument is a red herring (imHo).

Let’s go back to my statement about MySpace: an musician can upload a piece of music and share it with millionns (heck, billions!) in the same day. To re-iterate a separate previous statement: this was impossible in the old days of non-digital publishing. This makes life hard for the old forms of copyright to still be useful or even meaningful.

In the days of underground music, bands would copy of their own material (tape to tape) and then given it away for free or exchange for things like alcohol. The bands wished to share their music, their creations, their passions, rather than try make money from it. With the advent of the internet underground music no longer exists. A downside to this is that everyone gets “published”, even the bad stuff. The upside is that everyone has the opportunity to get published.

For some this is the opportunity they need to get their material out to a wider any audience. The internet is in many ways an equaliser for content creators, they now have the possibility to publish their work but the internet has also reinforced some previous “problems”: people still stick with trusted brands. People buy from brands that consistently provide the content they desire.

A demonstration: JK Rowling published a book under a different name, but the sales were rather luke warm. The apple cart is toppled, everyone finds out that the book was written by JK and sales go through the roof. What changed? The content was exactly the same, so there was no change in quality, or design, but the brand changed. The brand that is JK Rowling was suddenly attached to the work and sales changed overnight. This, ladies and gentleman, is convexity.

Sales growth exploded in a completely unpredicted and non-linear way. These are the hall marks convexity. It is possible to identify sources of convexity but it is generally impossible to predict the outcome. Content creators have to face this reality and expose themselves in a way to capture the success from convex situations rather than become a victim to it.

With a nod to Nassim Taleb, author of Fooled by Randomness, the Black Swan, and Antifragile, we can identify possible professions and situations where convexity exists. A baker makes bread but they have to make every single that they sell. One sale represents one unit of work. This process doesn’t scale so well. Digital content on the other hand is created once, perhaps it takes a year to write the new best-seller, but it can be copied and sold millions of times in a day. One sale does not represent one unit of work.

The total number of sales from your latest ebook is hard to predict, success is never guaranteed, even in the digital world, but you can at least be sure that you are in a favourable regime for explosive growth.

Where FTL is actually impossible is when something travels faster than the speed of light in a vacuum and the space it occupies is not folding or bending. If it were possible then this would be a true version of FTL and also a violation of physics as we know it. Why so? Well the short explanation is that it would violate laws of energy conservation and that is never a good thing to try; there is a lot of physics that has been measured to be correct and is underpinned by assumptions of energy conservation, so breaking that would cause many rules to be violated at once. Such rules are well founded with good reason and not something to overturn quickly. That’s why we can safely ignore any experiment that suggests to have created or detected particles (or signals) that travel faster than light.

You may recall the media frenzy when “scientists suggested that” certain neutrinos in the 2011 CERN experiment were travelling faster than light but it wasn’t so in the end. I was betting against this discovery being true.

The concept of folding space on the other hand is different. In such cases the rules of physics are bent but not violated. If the distance between two points decreases then the speed needed to travel between them can be smaller (for the same amount of time). Simple, nay? Fold space, stroll across to the other side. The bending, or folding, of space is not quite the same as wormholes which are a particularly special case of folded space. Wormholes could be created when two black holes connect with each other across a great distance; that is to say that it is more of a tunnel than just a simple fold. Picturing that is hard too as it is essentially a “bridge through a 4th dimension”.

Coming up next: an article on FTL in fiction. Comments / questions are always welcome.