Good Stuff! Science as Storytelling

ByJohn Brown

I know the word ‘atheist’ presumes a lot, but it’s just an easier way of describing someone with a rational mind.

Joe Konrath, a self-avowed atheist, awesome fighter for authors, and leader in the indie author movement, said that almost a year ago in his Konrants post.

My response then was the same as it is now—right, the rest of us run around eating socks and wondering if there really are gerbils under the hoods of our cars.

Shoot, wouldn’t it be great if we could get us one of them rational minds?

In the comments of that post, I had a very interesting conversation with Joe about God, belief, and evidence. Joe brought up a number of valid points about the errors we can make when we formulate beliefs using something other than science.

However, he didn’t point out the errors we can make when we formulate beliefs based on science. He didn’t want to talk about the limits of science. What he wanted to focus on was the claim that if God existed, we should not only be able to observe things about him, her, or it, but we should also be able to subject those observations to the scientific method.

If we couldn’t do that, Joe claimed, then there was no rational basis for believing in God. God did not exist until he was proven to exist. And the only way to do that was by using science.

So here’s the question: is Joe right?

To answer that, we first have to understand what science is. And what it is not.

And I’m happy to report that earlier this year I read probably the best article explaining what science is that I’ve ever read. It’s called “Science as Storytelling” and was written by Barry R. Bickmore, a professor of Geological Sciences at BYU, and David A. Grandy, a professor of Philosophy at BYU with a strong interest in the philosophy of science.

Hold on, John. Is this some anti-science thing?

Not at all.

In fact, it’s just the opposite.

They wrote the first version of this article help students with simplistic views of science and who tended to “dismiss scientific conclusions that challenge their preconceived notions—especially those connected with religious or political views.” They also wrote it to help scientists who are not religious, downplay the supernatural, or “share in certain inaccurate views of the nature of science.”

What they have fashioned is a way to “help science students (and professors) gain a more productive view of both the nature of science and the science-religion interface.” And, as good scientists, they put their theory to the test and found that their approach was indeed effective at both secular and religious colleges.

So, is Joe right? Is science the only way to prove or disprove God?

Let me suggest you read the article. Let me suggest that this is the most productive way of talking about the issue that I’ve found. As you read, you might want to look for the answers to the following questions:

  • What makes science different from things like astrology?
  • Does science have any blind spots?
  • Is science fiction because its stories change?
  • Is it possible for natural phenomena to exist upon which you can do no science?
  • Under what circumstances could science prove the existence of a God?

If you’re interested in science or religion, I think you will love this article. Not only because it clarifies and reaffirms science, but it also because it helps us understand its limits.

I would, of course, be interested in your responses to it. And in another post perhaps we can talk about how we’re supposed to proceed about a subject when we can’t do science.

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  • Interview with Author Bradley Beaulieu

    ByJohn Brown

    Bradley P. Beaulieu just had his first novel released on April 1st. It’s called The Winds of Khalakovo and is the first of three planned books in The Lays of Anuskaya series publishehd by Night Shade Books. In addition to being an L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Award winner, Brad’s stories have appeared in various other publications, including Realms of Fantasy Magazine, Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show, Writers of the Future 20, and several anthologies from DAW Books. His story, “In the Eyes of the Empress’s Cat,” was voted a Notable Story of 2006 in the Million Writers Award. His agent is Russell Galen.

    Brad is a software engineer by day, wrangling code into something resembling usefulness. He is also an amateur cook. He loves to cook spicy dishes, particularly Mexican and southwestern. He lives in Racine, Wisconsin with his wife and two children. As time goes on, however, Brad finds that his hobbies are slowly being whittled down to these two things: family and writing. In that order . . .

    I recently had the opportunity to interview Bradley. Among other things, we talked about how he broke in and how he comes up with his ideas. He also convinced me to use his picture method, which I’m finding very handy on my current thriller project.

    ***

    JOHN: In your novel an elemental spirit attacks an incoming windship, murdering the heir to a kingdom. The person believed to be behind this is a child, an autistic savant. This sounds like Orson Card tale (grin). Did you come up with this character first, the magic, or something else. Tell us the genesis of the tale and this character in particular.

    BRADLEY: The genesis of the book is actually from a series of postcards of fine art that I picked up in Edinburgh, Scotland. (I posted about it on my website if you’re curious to learn more.) I used that artwork to first generate and then crystallize my thoughts about the book. Initially, I tried not to let any one thing rule the brainstorming I would do from time to time. I didn’t even know who the main characters were at first. I was quite taken by the picture of the three sisters, though, and I knew right away, the moment I laid eyes on the original in the National Gallery, that they would play a major part in the novel.

    But in the end it was the picture of the boy with the flaming brand that kept leaping out at me, calling for attention. The artist is Godfried Schalcken, and the piece is called A Boy Blowing on a Firebrand to Light a Candle. This character eventually became Nasim, the autistic savant. As I was studying the characters, I began to realize that this boy was not going to be a point-of-view character, but he was going to be a prime mover. In the end, he embodies much of what Winds is about. The story truly does revolve around him and his unique powers.

    The brand that he holds in the painting also came into play. I didn’t know what the magic was going to be about. I hardly had a single preconception about the book going in. I just wanted the artwork to speak to me, to advise me as to what the story was going to be–from the characters to the world to the magic. The boy blowing on the brand got me to thinking about elemental magic, and I realized that Nasim was one who could do this without even thinking. It came as naturally to him as did breathing. That’s a difficult place to put a character, however. As a writer, you have to be careful of all-powerful things, and so I needed something to balance Nasim’s abilities. And this, of course, is where his disconnection from the world came from. Nasim, as written in the book, is often lost. He has difficulty relating to others in even the smallest of ways. This both limited his power and made him in some ways more dangerous and more scary than a calculating villain, simply because of the unpredictability.

    I’d be remiss if I didn’t also mention Rehada, who started out as a somewhat minor character but grew into the most complex and perhaps the most compelling of my three main characters. Rehada came from Andrew Geddes’ Hagar. It’s another beautiful painting, filled with emotion. I was drawn to the fact that she was crying. I wondered why. I spent a lot of time answering that one question. After knowing that her people were essentially pacifists, I realized that Rehada was not. She felt she had betrayed her people and their ways because she had taken to the path of violence. It was from this, from that one single tear, that the entirety of the Maharraht–the fanatical splinter group that came to embrace violence as a means to an end–was born.

    By this point, I understood that I wanted there to be an aristocracy of some kind, and I fairly quickly landed on a culture that was modeled loosely after Muscovite Russia. I don’t remember why, exactly. It might have been that the other artwork reminded me of Russian Czars a bit, but I think the biggest driver here was that I definitely didn’t want something that was centered around western Europe, because frankly that’s been done to death. I wanted something more unique, and I’d always sort of like the mystique and darkness that seemed to hover around that time period in Russia. They’ve always seemed like a hard people, a people that would do whatever it took to survive, but in the same light, they took time to live life fully when they could.

    Given that I had the loose guidelines of the aristocracy, the peace-loving, indigenous Aramahn, and finally the will of the Maharraht to do whatever it took to regain the islands as their own, it created a crucible from which the story flowed fairly easily. I spend a lot of time building my worlds so that the conflicts within them come naturally, and that was definitely the case here.

    JOHN: The description of the world and your process for getting into the story is fascinating. From the article on your site it sounds like using images was a new technique for you. Is that correct? And if it is, was your process previously to have some other physical object of which you’d ask questions?

    BRADLEY: Yes, using artwork as a starting point was a new technique for me. I had no idea if it was going to work or not. An interesting thing came up when I was doing it, though. One of the things I learned at a few of the workshops I’ve been to (Writers of the Future and Orson Scott Card’s Literary Bootcamp) was to create stories in very little time using a few unrelated things as starting points. One unanticipated result of having restrictions in some areas (such as the elements involved in the story) is that it opens your mind in other areas. You’re forced to become more creative in some ways because certain avenues have been closed to you. I think it was the same with the portraits I used to represent the characters.

    Before that, in the previous three novels I’d written, I didn’t really have any specific brainstorming techniques. I would start with a premise and perhaps a loose idea of the characters and a mood, and I would go from there, trying to stay true to those things as the story evolved and grew. Although part of the problem with those early stories was that I was young in my craft, I also think my brainstorming wasn’t very efficient. I think, as I alluded to above, that there were too many possibilities. I had trouble narrowing the story down, and it led to stories that were ok, but nothing great. Too often they became a bit generic. Nothing really stood out.

    So while the artwork I used is one of a great many possible brainstorming techniques, I like the idea of challenging yourself with restrictions in order to force the story to stretch and bend in unpredictable ways.

    JOHN: Wow. That’s a striking insight. I think I’ve found the same thing occurs when I run workshops or do my own brainstorming, but I don’t know that I’ve ever crystallized it the way you have. (See folks, this is why I love these interviews.) So I see _The Winds of Khalakovo_ will be published by Night Shade books. You’ve had quite a few short stories published, but this is your first novel. How did you make the sale? Did you have an agent? Was the editor someone you knew? Gives us a bit of the story behind this.

    BRADLEY: As you said, I’d been making steady progress throughout the years in short story sales. I had attended a number of workshops, and I think my name had at least some recognition by editors, either from short stories I’d published or personal connections I’d made at conventions. As an aside, some people will say that you shouldn’t go and sell yourself at conventions. If an opportunity comes up, they say, and an editor or agent asks you what you’re working on, go ahead and take advantage of it. I don’t doubt that that’s good advice for some. Just not for me. I believe that editors and agents are at cons not just to meet with their authors and speak with agents, but to see who’s coming up in the field. They’ll get to know a certain percentage of the newcomers from their short sales, or even novel sales, but they can’t read everything. They can’t even read a small percentage of the fiction that comes out each year. So, frankly, it’s up to me to make them aware of who I am.

    Now, that doesn’t mean you should be pushy. You should be friendly and businesslike. Keep things short and sweet and as casual as you possibly can. And that’s exactly what I tried to do. I approached Jeremy at World Fantasy in San Jose (2009) and told him I had an epic fantasy that he might like. I pitched it as “The Song of Ice and Fire meets Earthsea.” He asked me if I had an agent. I said no. Night Shade doesn’t normally take unagented mss (and I should probably ask Jeremy some day if he gets annoyed that I tell this story), but he said he liked the cool pitch and said to send it his way. Roughly five months later, I got an email from Jeremy, offering to publish the book. 

    At that point, I moved quickly to find an agent, and believe me, agents will move quickly as well if you tell them you have an offer on the table. That doesn’t mean they’ll be clamoring to sign you up. It just means you have their attention. I was lucky enough to be picked up by Russell Galen of the Scovil Galen Ghosh Literary Agency. Russ and I are simpatico on a number of levels, and to be frank, as an agent he kicks serious ass, so I feel honored and blessed to be under his wing.

    JOHN: What a great breaking in story. And you’re right, Galen is tops. So to give my readers perspective, did you approach a lot of editors this way? Or was Jeremy at Night Shade one of a select few? And did you encounter any annoyance? I know my editor, David Hartwell at Tor, doesn’t much like to be approached at cons. But obviously, that’s not the case with all editors.

    BRADLEY: Well, I had not approached anyone else for Winds. However, I had previous novels, and I’d approached a variety of agents and editors over the years. Not scads of them, mind you, but a number of them, and there were more agents I spoke to than editors because the general rule of thumb is that you can approach and/or query multiple agents at the same time, whereas editors you typically ask for exclusives, even at the partial stage. I was also careful about who I approached, and when. I went to the Pikes Peak Writers Conference for several years. They had pitch sessions there, where you can sit down with an acquiring agent or editor and talk to them about your novel. I certainly took advantage of this, but I also wasn’t afraid to approach them outside of those sessions. At conferences in particular, I think the invited guests are open to being approached at the bar, at the dinners, and at the parties. Again, though, I tried to keep things as casual as I could, and I kept the pitch short and sweet so that they could determine quickly whether it was a project that interested them. Most often I got a “Sure, send me 50 pages” type of answer, but I got a few requests for fulls by doing this as well.

    Conventions are another beast. It’s a looser environment than a conference, so I was much more choosy about when I approached agents and editors. I’ve never encountered annoyance, but I’ve certainly felt stiffness from those who perhaps would rather not be approached. I learned from this early on and adjusted my approach. I would try to meet them first and strike up a conversation and see where it went. Often, if you can just be humans with one another, the subject of what you write and what projects you might have ready will come up. Try to take that approach, because there’s nothing to put off an editor that already keeps unknown writers at arm’s length than the smell of desperation. In the words of Monica Geller, keep it breezy.

    JOHN: Well, I’m excited for you. Night Shade is a great publisher. So I have one more question: what’s next?

    BRADLEY: I’m contracted for two more books, so that’ll occupying my time for a little while yet. But I’ve started brainstorming the next project. (I like to let things germinate for quite a while, so it’s important for me to get my hindbrain working on these as early as possible.) I have two possibilities that I’m mulling over. The first is a science-fantasy called The Days of Dust and Ash. Think Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind meets The Coldfire Trilogy. I’m excited about this story, because it’s a departure from what I’ve written in the past, though it will still be fantastic and wide in scope. The story focuses on a young girl who is summoned from the dust, a global consciousness that was created as the last great age of technology fell under a nanite plague.

    The other is called From the Spices of Sanandira. I sold a novella with the same title to Beneath Ceaseless Skies last year, and it will be appearing sometime this spring. It’s a story that springs from Sanandira, a large desert oasis known for its caravan trade and spice bazaars. It’s got a strong Thousand and One Nights feel to it. The novel is not so much an expansion of the novella as it is a re-imagining of it. It will probably focus on a pair of twins: one boy, one girl. The sister is sold to one of Sanandira’s famed assassin rings at a young age. The boy (the protagonist) finds his sister by happenstance years later, and because of this chance meeting is drawn into the world of intrigue his sister walks every day.

    ***

     JOHN SEZ: I just love hearing how other authors work. As I said before, after this interview I decided to use the image technique myself on my current thriller project. Images of people and places and thing. I’m finding it helpful to help the story come to life. I also think Bradley’s breaking in story illustrates one key thing: work. And that’s exactly what I need to do right now 🙂

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  • Good Stuff! Simply Three

    ByJohn Brown

    The joy of music. Pure, unadulterated joy–this is what I recently stumbled across on YouTube.

    I was watching the The Piano Guys and thought I saw something new from them. I clicked, but it wasn’t The Piano Guys. It was Simply Three doing a cover version of the popular “Wake Me Up” by Avicii.

    For those unfamiliar with the term, a “cover” or “cover version” is a reworking, updating, or interpretation of an existing song. And this cover simply blew me away.

    SimplyThreeWakeMeUp

    Simply Three is an electrifying trio made up of cellist Zack Clark, bassist Nicholas Villalobos, and violinist Glen McDaniel, although they have switched in other violinists, including Alex Weill and Olivia Lemmelin. But don’t let the instruments fool you–this isn’t some stuffy classical music gig. And it’s not muzak in the elevator. Not even close.

    They are doing what Lindsey Stirling and The Piano Guys are doing: taking modern songs in wonderful new directions and, in the process, making these classical instruments cool again.

    I went on to watch a number of their other covers, and then I had to purchase the songs because I simply had to be able to listen to their great beats and interpretations on the road.

    Here’s their cover of “Wake Me Up.” The joy Zack Clark (the cellist) exhibits sells the whole thing for me.

    Here is their cover of “Demons” by Imagine Dragons.

    And finally their cover of “Counting Stars” by OneRepublic.

    If you like them, you can get each of these on Amazon for less than a buck with these links:

    Buying them not only supports the artists, but it lets them know there’s a demand for it and encourages them to make more. And I hope they make more.

    ***

    By the way, “Counting Stars” has some interesting lyrics. Ryan Tedder, the songwriter, is a professed Christian. He grew up in a Charismatic household and graduated from Oral Roberts University.

    However, you might look at some of the lyrics and think he’s given all that faith up.

    I feel something so right
    Doing the wrong thing
    I feel something so wrong
    Doing the right thing
    I could lie, could lie, could lie
    Everything that kills me makes me feel alive

    But you need to look at the lyrics in context of the rest of the song and the artist’s statements about the song to see he’s singing about something totally different.

    Some poets, and songwriters are poets (song is where poetry lives these days), think being obscure is cool. Tedder follows that more obscure approach in this song, which is unlike the immediate clarity he put into the lyrics of the fantastic “Halo,” performed by Beyonce, or his own OneRepublic’s “Apologize.”

    Sometimes the artist writing gnomic lyrics doesn’t want to pin down a message for the listener—they think it’s cool for each person to make up their own message (I prefer clarity). Other times they do have a message, but they want the listener to work for it, and so they try to be subtle. Or sometimes they simply goof and don’t realize their lyrics are being so vague.

    I have no idea which path Tedder was trying to take with these lyrics, but I do know that he’s made statements about the song. And these statements give us a guide.

    In an interview with 5280, the Denver magazine (Denver is where Tedder lives) we get the first glimpse.

    At 15, he began writing his own songs. “I obsessed over music and just loved it,” Tedder says. “But I never considered it as a career. Where I grew up you go to high school, you go to college, you find a wife in college, you get married, you have 2.3 kids, and if that hasn’t all happened by the time you’re 24, some people think there’s something wrong with you—or the assumption is that maybe you’re not into the opposite sex.”

    But he couldn’t keep away.

    Back in Oklahoma, at Oral Roberts University, the largest charismatic Christian university in the world, Tedder majored in public relations and advertising. At least that’s what his diploma says. Based on the time he put into sneaking into the Timko-Barton Performance Hall’s piano rooms, he probably could have been a double major. He spent hours on the piano and the guitar deconstructing his favorite albums—like Eric Clapton and B.B. King’s Riding with the King—figuring out the chords and then trying to write new songs using those same chords. He was skipping classes—even meals—to write songs.

    No one knew. Not friends. Not his roommate. He sang in secret. He was in the school choir, but his friends always thought it was odd that a person who didn’t seem overly musically inclined would be taking a singing class. When he was in one of the piano rooms he would tape a piece of notebook paper over the small window in the door so that no one could see him.

    Tedder says there were two reasons he hid his passion. The first was that he believed there were so many bad singers and bad songs in the world that he didn’t want to add to the noise. He wanted to be certain he would be successful before he revealed himself. The second reason was more deep-seated: Being raised in a religious home, Tedder had been taught that there was a purpose for his life, and that because God had ordained that purpose, he should live the life expected of him—one that was pious and humble. “Deciding you want to go into the music business is about the most narcissistic thing in the world,” Tedder says. “I had this constant battle—and to some degree I still do.”

    So Tedder felt “wrong” about songwriting. But he eventually began to see it as his gift to share.

    In an interview with Billboard magazine, we learn that he wants his OneRepublic to sing about different themes than the norm.

    Billboard: Given “Counting Stars”‘ uplifting, faith-based message, it must be gratifying to be connecting with such a meaningful song.

    Tedder: I think it’s our responsibility as a band, and what separates us from everyone else. I took that from being a fan of U2 for two decades now, since “Achtung Baby.” To this day, they might be the only band on that level who sings about things other than just boy-girl troubles or the kind of selfish, “I’m a badass” stuff. I’ve spoken with Bono about this when we toured with him, and he said the same thing. I felt a responsibility to actually write and sing about things that have a level of human gravity to them. If everybody else sings about sex and love and lust and money, then somebody’s gotta be singing about life and faith and hope and things of that nature.

    So if “Counting Stars” isn’t about sex, lust, and money, what’s it about?

    In another interview with Radio.com, he indicated that the whole counting stars bit was for anyone who loses sleep wondering how they’re going to be able to afford their rent or provide for their family. When he was first starting out, things were rough.

    “A lot of time I just lay in bed awake, stressing out,” Tedder said. “Everybody does it. And I just thought, I can’t wait until I’m counting stars and not counting dollars anymore. Things will be so much better.”

    To me, it’s clear that Tedder is singing about his story. And he’s singing for people like him who have a passion, but society says it’s not the practical thing to follow or dedicate your life to. Songwriting is what makes him feel alive. Furthermore, he had flashing signs indicating that if he sought, he would find—in other words, it was the thing God wanted him to do. And he just had to have hope, a four-letter word for those who are practical- and money-minded, and follow that passion.

    We can argue the merits of that follow-your-passion message, but I think we’re all happy Tedder followed his.

    ***

    And while we’re talking about the joy of music, how about this baritone saxophone and drum.

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  • The Last Apprentice, Path Finder

    ByJohn Brown

    The Last Apprentice

    Revenge of the Witch by Joseph DelaneyMy wife is always telling me I need to write a young adult or middle grade adventure series. One that’s directed at boys.

    Not because we have something against girls. We have four daughters, and my wife is adamantly pro-woman. But she finds very few books for her sixth-, seventh-, and eighth- grade male readers. I haven’t done a count, but I’m pretty sure that most YA is targeted at females. And this isn’t just me. I remember visiting a Barnes & Noble in Arizona with my voracious-reader nieces a few years ago and riding the escalator to the YA section. They told me that they called it the “girl-book section” because they figured that basically 90% of it was indeed for girls.

    Anyway, I think writing such an adventure would be a blast. I can already think of a number of near future or fantasy settings that would rock. But the time constraints I have right now just won’t allow me to start another series. Nevertheless, we sat down the other day and listed out all of the authors and books we knew that had a more male focus.

    For about the twentieth time she told me about Joseph Delaney’s The Last Apprentice series. It’s about a boy who apprenticed to the county Spook who is someone that takes care of witches, ghasts, ghosts, etc.  Her students love the stories. She loves them. She has bought the first ten volumes for her classroom. Why the heck wasn’t I reading them?

    Well, for starters, I just don’t like books about witches. And the first book in the series is called Revenge of the Witch. I don’t know what it is. Witches aren’t as bad a zombies–I am SO bored with zombies; I just don’t get the appeal. But even if they’re better than creatures that make no sense at all to me, I just don’t like spooky horror all that much. I loved to be scared, startled, and filled with dread. But not with witches.

    Witches? The gals with pointy hats?

    No.

    But this was, as I said, like the twentieth time she’d brought it up. We were driving over to Logan (that’s the big city for us), and stopped at the library, and we went over to the YA section. Unfortunately, they didn’t have volume one. But I did see many other volumes on the shelf and figured I needed to see what the competition was doing. So I perused. A few night later we went to her classroom, and there was volume one. The one about the witch.

    I sighed and opened it and began to read. And when I finished chapter one, I realized I kind of liked it. It was like the old Life cereal commercials—hey, Mikey!—and I wanted to read more. And so I took it home, read the whole book, and was delighted with the story. I liked it so much I promptly borrowed volume two, Curse of the Bane, from my wife’s classroom and read it as well. And I liked that one so much I checked out the third.

    The story is about Thomas Ward, the aforementioned apprentice. In book one, he is forced to face down some witches. But it’s Alice, the girl with pointy shoes, who made the story for me. Adding her as a character transformed it from a run-of-the-mill booger man story, into something special. No, I’m not going to give you a peek at the plot. Just know that this is the book where Thomas starts his apprentice, has to deal with that new life (and I thought Delaney captured that so well), and makes some apprentice mistakes that he then has to fix.

    In book two, we get to meet Alice and Thomas again, but this time they have to face down a different creature. And again, while the adventure is all cool, it’s the interactions with Alice that put it over the top.

    Having praised the books, I will say that I think Delaney has something against priests and religion in general because he paints it all with a negative broad brush. It’s too bad. Not only is such a view inaccurate, but showing the good and bad could add so many delicious dimensions to the tale. Maybe we’ll see that in later books. But even if we don’t, book two was still a great read.

    I’m looking forward to book three. If you’re in the mood to try something new, something about a young man and young girl that doesn’t revolve around romantic smoldering, something that a guy would like to read, let me recommend you join me in reading the volumes of The Last Apprentice.

    Pathfinder

    Pathfinder by Orson Scott CardI was once in a discussion about religion with a friend who happens to be an atheist and fellow science fiction and fantasy writer. He’s a great guy. The blog posts he wrote about the passing of the woman he loved who was lost to cancer were poignant and wonderful–full of beauty. I read them and wanted to be a better man. Still, he and I disagree about God.

    I remember telling him that science fiction is the one genre that makes God more plausible than any other. At least, it makes my view of God more plausible.  Now, I do not want to talk religion in this essay. But it’s just hard for science fiction to leave the idea of creation and Adam and Eve alone. Witness the many stories over the years about these very things.

    Heck, even the recent movie Oblivion has references—are not Jack and Victoria much like Adam and Eve? Just think about it. Their paradise together as a team, the knowledge, the fall. The echoes are simply marvelous.

    Well, I just read another science fiction tale that provided a wonderful opportunity to think about these things. It’s Orson Scott Card’s novel Pathfinder. Now, the story isn’t about God. It’s not a biblical allegory. It’s not dressed-up doctrine. It’s a tale about a boy named Rigg with special abilities on a quest to find his real family and who he is. Along the way we meet some interesting people, especially one character named Loaf who leavened the whole tale. So there’s an interesting adventure and speculations about faster-than-light travel. But one of the chief delights for me was the questions and ideas this story raised in my mind about the creation of our own world—“Garden,” the name of the world, just begged for it.

    For example, a long-time staple of science fiction is the idea of terraforming—changing face of the flora, fauna, atmosphere, and climate of the planet to be hospitable to your species. If you believe in a God that is more a being of advanced technology than one of unknowable fantasy, doesn’t that present a new and interesting way of viewing the creation story? It does for me, and Pathfinder sparked ideas about this.

    The book also led me to think about life. First, Card has these characters called “Expendables.” They’re robots, but not really. They’re artificial intelligence. But not really. The way Card presents the expendables, you don’t think of silicon and steel and gears. You think of biology.

    You think of mosquitoes.

    You think about the fact that if we humans use intelligent machines, surely God must use intelligent machinery. So what kind of intelligent machinery does God employ? (Dude, that idea is just pregnant with stories!)

    Are viruses and bacteria machines? Are mosquitoes and beetles (please, let there be no mosquitoes in heaven)?

    The book prompts me to wonder. It prompts me to look at the life about me on our wonderful world with new eyes. It prompts me to think differently about some of my core definitions. In fact, there are some exchanges between a character and an expendable where they talk about the difference between humans and expendables and the definition of what it means to be human, especially given evolution.

    This is a book about an adventure, but also a book about ideas, which is as it should be. Science fiction is the one genre, more than any other, that marries character and plot with exploration of ideas. If you’re looking for an interesting tale that will make you think about our world differently, give Pathfinder a try.

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  • Author Interview: David Farland

    ByJohn Brown

    David Farland has been a big influence on me. It was his workshop back in the 90’s that actually made me think I could write professionally and led directly to my first publication as a Writers of the Future winner. Later Dave gave me comments on my first novel which helped me write a second, much better one that attracted Tor Books. And it was Dave who showed me the ropes on my first ever author tour.

    But long before all that, Dave was a writer whose work I loved. I read ON MY WAY TO PARADISE when it first came out and enjoyed the heck out of it. SERPENT CATCH and PATH OF THE HERO were next. I gobbeled them up too. Then came the THE GOLDEN QUEEN. By the way, SERPENT CATCH and THE GOLDEN QUEEN are two of my favorite novels. Now, all of those were written under Dave’s given name–Dave Wolverton. When he switched over to fantasy he used the Farland pseudonym.  His first Farland book was RUNELORDS. Folks, RUNELORDS is, in my opinion, one of the top 10 epic fantasies ever written. Ever.

    Of course, Dave has written many other novels and was involved with some Hollywood producers. Now he’s doing something new. He’s started his own publishing company–East India Press–and is releasing the first of his enhanced books through it.  Enhanced meaning far more than a book in print or electronic form–there’s also a soundtrack and art. NIGHTINGALE is that book. I asked him to share with my readers a bit more about it. Here’s his reply.

    *

    JOHN:  Tell us about how you came up with the idea for Nightingale?

    DAVE: Years ago, in the late 1980s or early 1990s, I read a book by a doctor who had worked for the CIA, experimenting with drugs that would erase both long- and short-term memories.  It was fascinating work, and he eventually won the Nobel Prize for it.  So I became interested in memory transfer.

    Later on, one Christmas, I got to thinking about the three “Wise Men” from the bible.  Normally, a “wise man” is called a wizard.  A “maji” is called a magician.  Why was it that the writers of the bible were using double-speak when discussing these guys?  Weren’t they astrologers?  Doesn’t the Old Testament condemn these folks to death?

    So I went back to the Hebrew and found out that indeed these three gentlemen were in the same class of magicians that the Old Testament condemned to death, the m’khashepah—which originally referred to a class of magicians that hung around royal courts.  Of them the bible says, “Thou shalt not suffer a m’khashepah to live.”

    So the thought occurred to me, “What if they weren’t just coming to give Jesus gifts?  What if they really had come to be . . . advisors.  What if they wanted to give him wisdom?”

    That started a whole train of thought dealing with memory transfer—transfer of memories, the possibility of training reflexes, transfer of memories on a cellular level, and so on—which led to the creation of my magic system. 

    The questions arose, what would people do with such power? 

    And of course from that a novel was born.

    Nightingale tells the story of a young man named Bron Jones, who is abandoned at birth.  Raised in foster care, he’s shuffled from home to home.  At age 16, he’s kind of the ultimate loner, until he’s sent to a new foster home and meets Olivia, a marvelous teacher, who recognizes that Bron is something special, something that her people call a “Nightingale,” a creature that is not quite human. 

    Suddenly epic forces combine to claim Bron, and he must fight to keep from getting ripped away from the only home, family, and girlfriend that he has ever known.  He must risk his life to learn the answers to the mysteries of his birth: “What am I?  Where did I come from?  Who am I?”

    This is a big project, an enhanced novel with illustrations and animations from half a dozen talented illustrators.  It has a sound track by the head of the National Composer’s Guild, James Guymon, with a dozen professional musicians and vocalists.  We’re releasing the novel in several formats, as an enhanced novel, a normal e-book, an audiobook, and as a hardcover.

    But we did one last cool thing.  The enhanced book was designed for the iPad, though you will also be able to read it on just about any other pad or smartphone.  But we had our programmers create a web app so that you can enjoy the book on your computer—read a few chapters, take it for a test drive, or simply buy it for reading online.  You’re free to go check out the results at www.nightingalenovel.com.  If you like it, remember to “Like” us on Facebook.  Better yet, re-post our site info and tell your friends on Facebook.

    Oh, and while you’re there, check out our short-story contest, where you can win $1000.

    *

    John sez: I’m very excited to see where this goes. I’ve loved Dave’s stories for a long time. And the premise of this book sounds great. Samples are available at: www.nightingalenovel.com

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  • How to be a hero in your own house

    ByJohn Brown

    I have four daughters.

    My four daughters have long hair.

    That long hair finds its way into our drains. (Yes, despite our telling them to get it into that thing called a waste basket.)

    Said hair might flow down the pipes. But said hair does not. Life is not that easy. Instead, some evil house spirit catches the hair just as it begins its voyage and turns it from a luscious thing of beauty into a gunky demon of drain death.

    You would think that Drano could defeat this black magic. But Drano gets its butt kicked every time. Drano is in the pee-wee league against this thing. Drano is like a kitten. And gunk demons don’t listen to kittens.

    So for the last few years, we’d blast with Drano and then still have to stand up to our calves in water when we took a shower. Or wait as the sink decided it might finally slowly empty and leave soap scum, whiskers, and toothpaste on the sides for everyone’s viewing pleasure. And then we had to do the slow clean (I hate the slow clean).

    Recently, I was strolling along in a hardware store and saw this.

    Zip-it drain cleaning tool

    Click on the picture. Get a good look. I bought ye handy yellow flex sword. And I did verily slay the monster lurking in every drain in our  house.

    I am the MAN!

    If you have drain issues, let me suggest you be the hero and buy your own sword. It’s called the Zip-It drain cleaning tool. If you’re a weird-o, in addition to being the hero, you can also use it to draw forth disgusting things to scare nieces and nephews with. Just saying.

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  • Masters of Chaos, Chosen Soldier, and Teenage Boys

    ByJohn Brown

    US Army Special Forces

    Nobody can stand up to the US Military’s conventional fighting force using conventional tactics.  Yes, Russia and China have significant militaries and a fight with them would be bloody.  But it’s not likely we’re going to go to war with them.  Instead, as we’ve seen since the 1990’s, we’re likely to fight much smaller groups—Somali warlords, genocidal brutes in the Balkans, terrorist-supporting regimes like the Taliban, unstable dictators like Saddam Hussein, or Islamic extremists who aren’t associated with any nation. 

    Those who do try to fight us conventionally get wiped out.  We saw that very clearly with Saddam Hussein.  Which is why the fight went underground.  In this type of war, when the bad guys are hiding among the good, we can’t just rush in and bomb the place to the stone age.  If we do, the local population will soon come to hate our presence and work against us.  And when that happens, we set ourselves up for defeat.

    The best way to fight against insurgents is to ally ourselves with friendly portions of the populace who can identify who the insurgents are, which doors to kick in, and can actually kick those doors in themselves, if only they get some support and training. 

    Because of this, a strong argument can be made that the US Army’s Special Forces are the most effective tool we have in winning the types of wars we’re likely to fight in the near future.

    The US military has a number of special operations forces.  Those you’re probably most familiar with are the Navy SEALs, Delta Force, Rangers, Marine Force Recon, and the Army’s Special Forces (commonly known as Green Berets).  There are other groups like the Air Force’s Combat Control Team, the Army’s 4th Psychological Operations Group, and other black op units that the military doesn’t officially recognize. There is some overlap in the types of things these forces do.  However, each has its own focus, the thing it’s best suited for. The reason why the Army’s Special Forces are so valuable in our current environment is that one of their main missions, the thing they do better than anyone else, is conducting and fighting unconventional wars.

    Along with all the other cool stuff that goes along with special operations work, Special Forces troops have to learn how to build rapport and trust because unconventional war is conducted through and by the indigenous population.  Special Forces troops not only have to know how to conduct high-risk missions, they have to be able to train others to do the same, which is why they are all required to learn a second language.  All this people work requires a more mature soldier.  And it shows: the average age of the SF operators is thirty-two, while the average age of a US Marine is nineteen.

    I just read two fabulous books on the Army’s Special Forces.  The first is Masters of Chaos by Linda Robinson. Robinson was given unprecedented access.  She traveled with them to the front lines and was allowed to interview and report as no other had been allowed up to that point.  She starts with a brief history of the SF and their training; she then details missions the Special Forces carried out from 1989 – 2003, including their work in Panama, El Salvador, Kuwait, Somalia, the Balkans, Afghanistan, and the second gulf war.  My eyes were opened to the significant role they’ve played in all these conflicts.  It was absolutely fascinating.

    The second book is Chosen Soldier by Dick Couch. Couch, a former Navy SEAL and CIA case officer, is the only writer ever given the privilege to attend the many months of Special Forces pre-selection, preparation, selection, and qualification training from start to finish.  He was given “full access to all training, venues, students, and training cadres.”  Couch did not merely interview.  He and his wife moved to one of the few residential structures on base at Camp Mackall in North Carolina.  Couch went out with the SF candidates to observe first hand exactly what they did, and, in a number of instances, do it with them.

    One of the things I loved about this book are the personal bios given about the backgrounds of the various candidates.  They are not at all what you’d expect—everything from bouncers to engineers to one fellow who had a degree in and a passion for Russian literature.  I also enjoyed the details he gave about the training.  There are about 1.2 million people in the US Army.  Only about 5,000 of them are in the Special Forces.  When you finish, you have a good feel for the types of things they learn and why about 80% of those who volunteer for training wash out.

    I couldn’t put either of these books down.  If you decide to read them, let me also recommend you download and read Army Field Manual 3-05.20 Army Special Forces Operations as well, which is the Army’s “keystone manual for Special Forces (SF) doctrine” that “describes SF roles, missions, capabilities, organization, command and control, employment, and sustainment operations across the operational continuum.”  You can find it here: http://tinyurl.com/3ryt3o3.  For those who just want an overview of these forces, the Army has provided a great site here: http://www.goarmy.com/special-forces.html. 

    The Boys of Laketown and Round Valley

    Every school morning my wife and two oldest girls hunt.  They eat their breakfast perched high on a hill and watch for the quarry.  When it appears, a shout is raised, and the trio races to the car.  They blast out of the garage, perform an expert three-point turn, then Monte Carlo down the winding hill road.  Next, they attempt to set a land speed record on the straight shot into town, all in an effort to catch the big yellow school bus. 

    Most days they make it.  The bus makes a few stops in town.  Sometimes they’re not so speedy and can only manage to catch the bus at its last stop.  Sometimes I join in on the hunt.  Most of the time I catch the bus at its last stop in town.  But this week I was quick enough to get them to the third stop in front of the middle school where most of the teens board the bus.  And I had the privilege to witness a class act.

    The first time I arrived with my payload, all but two teen boys had already boarded.  We raced up to the bus, my daughters flew out of the car, and the two teenage boys from Round Valley stopped.  They did not get on.  They waited for my girls to hustle the length of the bus.  My girls got on, and the boys followed them in.

    Odd.

    The next day we got there a little bit earlier.  This time I witnessed ALL of the boys from Laketown and Round Valley stand and wait for all the girls to get on first.

    What was this? 

    I asked my girls about it.  They confirmed—it wasn’t a fluke.  While first initiated by the bus driver, the boys have the class to show this courtesy every day. 

    Teenagers . . .

    Bravo, Gentlemen.  Bravo.

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