Private First Class Bowe Robert Bergdahl, United States Army. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

So we’re a week away from Rolling Thunder XXV, and I’m reminder by recent news articles just how important it still remains that every year we highlight the issue of MIA/POWs.  Whilst the Vietnam War is still a big presence hovering over the event, the MIA/POW situation is still importasnt because there is at least one live soldier who is not yet home - Bowe Bergdahl.

Politics aside, whether you’re in favor of the war in Afghanistan or not, pro- or anti-military, liberal or conservative, please remember next weekend whilst you’re all enjoying your Memorial Day barbecues that there is at least one service member who won’t be with his family, won’t be watching TV … Please, give a moment of your holiday weekend to give him your thoughts and remember those “rough men [who] stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do [you] harm”.

And so I repeat this poem (no laughing please) I wrote after Rolling Thunder many years ago.

Poetry is not my strong suit, but on the way home from Rolling Thunder in 2006, I kept having words turning and in the end let them have free reign to come out.

When I originally wrote this, a friend who wrote for a biker magazine on the West Coast suggested it be submitted, and it was accepted and published that same year.

I apologize the poetic style isn’t what you’d consider very good – but not for the words and what they mean.

Steel Voices © miika 2006

Honour, and steel, winds blow as we ride,
though those who sent us would rather we hide,
politics forgotten, we put them aside,
we come for our comrades, and honour and pride.

gladly we served, gladly we fought,
for those who needed us, for those who sought,
freedom and life, to live in safe port,
released from terror, and life peril fraught.

hundreds of thousands, steel voices cry in pain
hundreds of thousands, steel voices cry in shame
our children are home? how many remain?
for those that came home, nothing’s the same.

steel voices raise up, our rallying cry,
asking the guardians, why? oh why?
we did not object, we knew we may die,
but to rest at home, those guardians deny.

everyone comes home, this we all knew,
but those given peace, there are so few,
betrayal and abandonment, if only we knew,
so we raise steel voices, so you now know too.

harden our hearts, lest we forget
those who served, without a regret
and sit ye at dinner, this day that you set
a feast of celebration, with friends well met,

remember the fallen, and those who weep,
for loved ones still missing, no word not a peep,
and when this night you lay to sleep,
think of those, your freedom do keep.

bring them home, alive or dead,
do not allow them to languish in dread,
“everyone comes home”, it once was said,
remember those words, and those whom they led.

celebrate life, but on memorial day,
hear our steel voices, as we ride to say,
our comrades will come home, we pray some day,
regardless of the price for which we must pay.

honour the fallen, those who paid the price,
in deserts or swamps, or yes fields of rice,
return our children home, why must we ask twice?
listen we pray, this pleading precise.

for they are our legacy, those ones who stood tall,
risking their life, lest freedom would fall,
raise up your voices, every one and all,
let “everyone comes home” be your call.

Shortlink for this post: http://wp.me/p2cbiZ-Yg

One of the problems with trying to promote disability awareness is getting people to see things from a disability perspective.  It can be hard for people to understand issues without the same frame of reference used raising them.

Oh, I know there are plenty of “simulator” methods out there used to try and show people how disabilities themselves “feel”, but that’s only part of the story – how we interact with our environment as people with disabilities also needs to be explained.

For almost a decade, Pat (@Hell_On_Wheelz) and I have made an open offer to local media, politicians, decision makers and the like – we’d gladly lend them a spare wheelchair and let them experience the environment from that perspective, which is impossibly to perceive when you’re fully mobile on two working legs.  It’s very specific, and only shows the challenges we face as wheelies (as opposed to being blind, or deaf, or any of the multitude of other disabilities out there), but it’s a start.  Unfortunately, in that decade, no-one had ever taken us up on the offer.

Until this past weekend that is, when Chris, who tweets out as @FixWMATA, took us up on it!

Starting (And Dumping) Out

I have to say this right at the start: the entire purpose behind this evolution is not to try and “show someone” what it’s like to have any specific disability – personally I think it’s impossible to do that to any real degree to begin with.  Rather, the intention is to allow someone to get a better perspective of the way the environment is “different” for someone in a wheelchair, its effects on mobility and independence (and, to be fair, the ways the environment has been changed to make it better for people in wheelchairs where possible).

Given Chris’ Twitter handle and his transit advocacy efforts  (including the #HotCar hashtag I so shamelessly appropriated to use as an example for the “When Interpretation Goes Horribly Wrong” post from a while back), it wasn’t surprising that the topic of interest was going to be WMATA‘s claims that “Metro Is Accessible”

When Pat and Chris talked in advance about what he (Chris) wanted to get out of the experience, it was decided to concentrate on MetroRail.  Trying to expose Chris to MetroAccess, the complimentary paratransit service WMATA is required to operate as per the ADA would have complicated the whole day, given its own issues.  We assumed MetroBus would be part of it, but we got an interesting surprise when it came to that part of the day – more below

So with Chris being brave (or foolish) enough to put himself in our hands completely, everything was set for a brisk Saturday morning!

Pat and I did have to get to the arranged rendezvous separately, given the differences between his chair and my Tank – not to mention the logistics of trying to get a folding wheelchair onto a bus along with two powerchairs would have been a nightmare – so I set off to trundle the couple of miles to the station we were meeting at, pushing our manual wheelchair in front, whilst Pat resorted to a bus.

Getting to the station brought a reminder home for me of the perils of wheelchairs in general before I’d even found Chris though – I lost control of the manual chair, and it (and I) were headed for the kerb at the station …

“Dumping”, or going over in a chair, is kind of a regular rite of passage for some wheelies – and you get used to figuring out what you’re going to do when it begins – so once I understood I was going over the kerb no matter what, I just punched the power and took it on straight.  End result? On the road of the station, upright and all 4 wheels down.

Have I mentioned I call my Tank “The Tank” for good reason?  She’s a Quantum Rehab Blast, a chair so good they don’t even make them any more!  A tribute to the design skillz of Mark E Smith (@Wheelchairjunki) – its being discontinued a tribute to Government’s opinions about just how mobile people “deserve” to be

Of course I was able to use this incident to regale Chris with the dire warning he mentions in his own blog post about what to do if he dumped in the manual chair.  Nothing like a recent brush with disaster to get someone in the right mindframe

Some Lessons Are Never Forgotten, And Faregate Virginity Is Lost

One of the things that surprised me right from the start was how many things I had thought of to try and prepare Chris for the day – all the little things that had become so ingrained in my reflexes and procedures I hardly even noticed that they needed to be kept in mind.  Even after 8 years in the Tank, the lessons learned through trial and terror in the year I spent using the manual chair before getting the Tank were still there, popping up as Chris started to get used to moving the chair around in the relative safety of the bus bays at the station.

That “surprising recollection” effect continued through the day.  Watching him encountering situations, large or small, would keep bringing up even more of those little things I had forgotten about.  No matter how good the physical therapists you see are, there are things you simply don’t learn until you face them on a day to day basis on the ground itself.

Here’s one example: At the very start, before he’d even set hit butt down in the chair, I told him “Vertical surfaces are your friend”.  The “Why?” is actually very simple – you can use those to push or pull against, straight or pivot, and get more power through to the wheels from your arms than you can simply pushing against the wheel-rims.  Back at home, where I use the manual chair inside to this day, I maneuver all the time by bouncing off walls that way.

When I explain it here you, gentle readers, may be thinking to yourselves “Well that makes sense, what’s so profound about that?” – it’s so simple you don’t even realize it’s an option until you try it the first time, and it becomes second nature you forget you’re doing it.  But for a neophyte wheelie, it’s that first “Aha!” moment that makes it profound – along with the realization that Metro has lots of vertical surfaces to exploit like this

Chris obviously took this nugget to heart right from the get-go, using it to lever himself through the wheelchair-wide turnstile at the station – these are the only pics I got of the whole trip, and cover his first time (and this isn’t even a Campari ad!)

That Sinking Feeling of Doom, A Challenge, And Geotagged

Once through College Park, it was off to Greenbelt, and a bus ride to go get breakfast – and there we discovered Chris had never actually been on a bus before.  Can’t imagine why anyone would want to skip them </sarcasm> but I doubt he’ll forget his experiences on the buses in a wheelchair – on the way back, he got an older lift-equipped bus, and got that sinking feeling of rolling backwards!

Once back on the system, a trip to Fort Totten to show him the reason why (we think) that elevator keeps on dying (a hole in the roof that drips water down on top of the motor housing of the elevator that for some reason WMATA can’t get around to fixing), and then planned torture – we took him all the way down to Union Station and once there, gave him one instruction: Find your way out”

He did actually manage to find the elevators, but in the process got to see how crazy Metro’s elevator layouts can be – the mezzanine to surface elevator at Union Station is one of the weird L shaped ones that feel like rejects from Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory.

One amusing note of caution about social media use came out at the same time – as we were heading back down to the platform, Chris bumped into @kurtraschke, another aficionado of all things WMATA-data related.  Turned out he had been on a train on his way home and saw Chris’ tweets about being at the station, and stopped off to see if he could say hi

After a brief visit to Dupont Circle to demonstrate to Chris just how “accessible” DC’s kerb cuts actually are (since the topic of red top meters came up in conversation) we called it a day – we really wore his widdle ass off with all the wheeling  I’ll give him credit, he only needed a tow twice during the whole day, and only cheated using his feet once – and that was to stop elevator doors from crushing closed on me!

Elevator Trolls Do What They Do Best To Cap The Day

The goal was for Chris to experience just how accessible Metro actually is.  WMATA loves to say “Metro is Accessible”, and their press people will happily trot out “Metro is in compliance with the ADA” on cue, but we wanted to know if someone would agree with that stance.

On paper, in theory, Metro is indeed “accessible” – by virtue of being in compliance with the ADA.  Chris had to face the little obstacles that the ADA says are perfectly acceptable, and got an eye opener on the difference between “on paper” and reality.  Whether it was having to back onto MetroRail cars because of the difference in height between platform and railcar bed, or the visibility of signage, he got to see lots of things the ADA says are fine that are just barely minimally useful for accessibility.

But best of all, he got to experience something, at the very end, that wheelies and others with disabilities see on a regular basis – passengers rushing into an elevator then frantically pushing the door close button whilst trying desperately to look like they don’t notice wheelies coming closer to the elevator doors – which actually ends up looking like this:

Oh come on, this is me we’re talking about here – did any of you really think I wouldn’t manage to fit aliens into this post somewhere??  Best of all, it doesn’t even require a stretch of the imagination to see the comparisons in this case – deal

A Mission Draws To A Close

One of the things we tried to do as we took Chris through the system was to show him the things that Metro has put in place that do work and do help with accessibility, as well as the things that could be better.  The problem with Metro and accessibility isn’t often a matter of the people that do the work – there are some very clued in people working for WMATA who know there could be improvements and try to get them implemented – but rather the problem lies with WMATA itself and the culture surrounding and within it.

If it’s hard for a department to carve out money for safety improvements, what makes anyone think the Accessibility Department is going to be able to have more luck in improving lighting in stations, for example?  Accessibility issues have to struggle against the “big projects” that WMATA hopes will improve their PR (and boost the careers of those involved in them), and WMATA relies on the attitudes of people like those elevator trolls to keep the noise to a muted roar when it comes to accessibility complaints.

All the little accessibility things, that executives won’t fund because there’s no glory in it for them by supporting the accessibility department, that the Board never gets to hear about in the rarefied atmosphere of the Jackson Graham Building, and that the mainstream ridership are fooled into thinking will take funds away from paying for their vaporware services such as real, truly working properly escalators, are issues that won’t go away any time soon.  Some of them might indeed be “in a perfect world” things, but too many others are not, simply awaiting the moral will from the Board to tell the GM to quit stalling and bring his own house in order, whether it be finally fixing escalator debacles or funding the signage project.

I have to admit, I gotta give major kudos to Chris, @FixWMATA – not only for his willingness for trying something totally out of his comfort zone, but also for his own observation skills seeing things before we even mentioned them a lot of the time.  He ended up exhausted and sore from his exploits, so #WeBroke @FixWMATA

It was a fun day – and ended as it had started, with Pat calling me after seeing Chris to the bus stop to return home asking me to come get him and push-truck his chair back to the house – he’d used all his batteries and ran out just short

From around the Interwebs:

Shortlink for this post: http://wp.me/p2cbiZ-Xi

Every year around this time we tend to reach the same place when it comes to network TV news – announcements of those shows that have been renewed for another season, and those that have been cancelled.

This year, we got hit with a whammy and a half when it comes to science fiction shows – Terra Nova has been cancelled, and Fringe, according to many, is on life-support, with no definite answer due until the end of the current season.

The reasons follow a similar refrain we’ve heard before – the production costs are too high.  This makes sense, when you consider the amount of FX work that science-fiction shows tend to use these days.

But I can’t help but wonder why the studios seem to be surprised those costs can run high.  It’s not like there’s a dearth of examples studios can use to get an idea how much a show’s FX budget is likely to run: in recent memory there’s The Sarah Connor Chronicles,  cancelled after one season – same reason – and in the future there will be Terra Nova, Fringe (perhaps).  History will keep adding to the list.

The uncertainty over Fringe makes me wonder, this time next year are we going to be hearing a similar decision for Alcatraz, Fox’ latest Sci-Fi drama?

The other question I have around this time is: why is it that other shows, from other networks, seem to weather the financial costs of the FX they face, so well?

Consider Sci-Fi Channel’s run over the years: Stargate SG1, Stargate: Atlantis, Sanctuary, Warehouse 13, Eureka and (of course) the reimagined BSG: Battlestar Galactica.

Add in the recently renewed Falling Skies from TNT, ABC’s Once Upon A Time (which has some great writing by @JaneEspenson who also worked on BSG), NBC’s Grimm, and the new Stephen Hawking‘s Sci-Fi Masters on Science Channel, and you can see there’s a lot of production houses out there, past and present, that seem to able to produce science fiction shows, with varying levels of effects required, without any trouble.

So it seems logical that the argument science fiction shows are cancelled because their production costs are “too high” is some form of studio-speak for “the advertising revenue is too low” – and therein might lie the real difficulty science fiction series productions face.

The effects can’t keep people interested in a show alone, certainly not enough to keep the viewer numbers up high enough to make the shows attractive to advertisers compared to other TV offerings. If the story arcs behind a show are weak (or non-existent), then no matter how good the effects are, it’s not gonna keep viewers.

Likewise, studios and networks have to consider the demographics they want to attract with a show, because that’s one of the things they use to attract advertisers.  For some reason, it feels like studios equate heavy flashy effects with the young male demographic that is reputedly most prized by advertisers, and so push shows that provide those expensive effects – perhaps to the detriment of the plot, which would give you the same result.

So there may be an expectation that high production costs because of the FX demands of a series are warranted if it will draw in more viewers – which attracts advertisers, which generates revenue.  If that doesn’t happen, the FX are high on the list of factors “blamed” for the show’s expense, and it’s dropped with the “too expensive” reason.

But we come back to the success of those shows above that continue to keep decent viewer numbers consistently, have strong fanbases, attract advertisers, and budget their effects wisely and effectively.

They prove that science fiction on TV doesn’t have to be expensive, and also doesn’t have to be the death knell for a show.  So here’s a question for you all:

If these “smaller” networks can keep producing excellent quality science-fiction television, why do the larger operations seem to have a problem doing the same?

On Twitter

FRINGEonFOX

TerraNovaonFOX

SanctuarySeries

OnceABC

NBCGrimm

humanorcylon

JaneEspenson

FallingSkiesTNT

Syfy

Related articles from around the Interwebs:

• Extinction-Level Event: Why You Should Care That Terra Nova Was Cancelled(entertainment.time.com)

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• After ‘Terra Nova’s Cancellation Does Science Fiction Have to Be Effects-Heavy?(thinkprogress.org)

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• “Fringe” Producers Discuss Show’s Future and “The End of All Things”(spinoff.comicbookresources.com)

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Shortlink for this post: http://wp.me/p2cbiZ-WB

It’s been a stressful few weeks when it comes to issues surrounding Metro, the mass-transit system operated in the Washington DC area by the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA).

We’re coming off the back of a series of public meetings discussing the proposed fare hikes on the system, as well as continued disruptions, both planned and unplanned.

So people’s tempers have been getting short.  Understandable really, given the historical trends on these matters.

Escalator issues, elevators, trains going out of service, unidentified track problems causing trains to be emptied at stations – it’s a long list that, viewed sequentially, gives the impression of a system in operational crisis.

Add to that the disabled community trying to prevent another fare hike that will raise their trip costs (currently capped at $7), and it’s a hot time in DC right now when it comes to Metro.

Add to this the media attention to the Twitter feeds tracking the #WMATA hashtag (@kytja, @postmetrogirl, @drgridlock), and tweets aimed directly at those users mentioned above (and others), and twitter is absolutely a “must” for information – whether it be passenger-reported (#HotCar), or WMATA’s own twitter feed (@WMATA), it gets pretty intense.

But this past week I saw something dark and sinister on the Twitter feeds for #WMATA.

WMATA’s PR people post to Twitter too, usually using the @WMATA account – Dan Stessel is one of them, and he is the “public” face of WMATA, appearing up on TV as he gives out press releases etc.

That’s his job, it’s what he’s paid to do.  And it stands to reason that his job description includes putting the best face on things he can, even when those things have no face that could possibly be considered “good”.

He also posted using his personal Twitter account, which some people (myself included) thought was too confusing, it was his own personal account not a WMATA account, so was he posting on that account as a private citizsen or still as a WMATA PR person?

I mention this because it’s part of the timeline of events.  For whatever reason, Dan Stessel flagged his private Twitter account as “Private”, so only those who he allowed could read his stream.

That makes sense, it’s his private account, if he wants to make it private, then that’s fine – it gives a more visible “separation” between what he posts privately and what he posts as WMATA’s PR flak.

Unfortunately, when he flipped the account, some people on Twitter, who are vociferous in highlighting Metro issues, seem to have taken that as a personal affront, and as an excuse to begin attacking Stessel personally.

I saw a series of tweets at the end of the week that had me furious:

FakeDrGridlock

(Fake Dr Gridlock)

Lol! Sissy Stessel locked his account!!! @dstessel @wmata #TRAILBLAZING LOL!!!!

On 15-3-2012 02:10:39 from Twitter for iPhone

FakeDrGridlock

(Fake Dr Gridlock)

@FakeFakeDrGrdlk @dstessel I prefer the original. It sent sissy Stessel into a hissy fit last week!

On 15-3-2012 21:11:32 from Twitter for iPhone in reply to Fake Fake DrGridlock

These tweets didn’t in isolation make me angry, they’re a sample of the tone that the discussions on Twitter have reached for some people.

It’s been taken personal.

And that’s where I object.

Dan Stessel’s job is to spin – if he wasn’t doing his job people should be complaining about that too.  He’s really in a no-win situation, but that probably comes with the job and he’s almost certainly aware of that.

But attacking him personally, as an individual, is crossing a line.

The problem is with the Authority that pays his wages, the people that create the situations he has to spin.  That is who our ire should be directed against.  Not the individuals.

There is no decent honorable reason to take the disputes between passenger advocates and activists up against the individuals themselves, they’re not the enemy even if they work for them.

No-one at WMATA deserves the personal attacks and anger that’s becoming a staple of commentary for some people through the #WMATA thread on Twitter.

People need to step back and think, calm down, and remember who the real target of their irritation should be.

Stessel makes an easy target because he’s the public face of WMATA, but in that capacity, not as a person.

It’s easy to say “But WMATA sucks, their service sucks, and this guy just sits there and says stupid things” (recent comments regarding sexual harassment on WMATA springs to mind) – but still, that doesn’t justify taking this to a personal level.

Have we, as a community, fallen so low that all we can do is make stupid insulting comments about the people involved?  Have we nothing constructive to say that we have to resort to trying to make other people feel degraded and ridiculed because we feel that we’re getting nowhere trying to effect change rationally?

There is a line between someone’s profession and their personal life.  That line has been crossed.  We need to all step back from it and remember that it’s the system, not the people, that need poking.

Escalating anger into personal attacks only helps WMATA deflect attention from the real issues we keep trying to highlight.  It’s counterproductive, and a momentary gratification through name calling can bring everyone else down with them.

Enough is enough.  If the PR coming out is bad, or wrong, then say so, but don’t make it personal.

From across the interwebs:

• Lies Or Incomepetence? (UnsuckDCMetro Blog)
• It Takes More Than An Email Address (UnsuckDCMetro blog)

Shortlink for this post: http://wp.me/p2cbiZ-VT

One of the things much wiser people than I keep trying to get through to authors these days is the importance of communicating with the artist they pick (or is chosen) to do their cover art.

I guess I’m kind of jumping on the bandwagon with adding my .02 cents, but circumstances conspired to give me the perfect opportunity to come up with a prime example for you all.

Here’s the pitch:

@FixWMATA is a local activist that tweets regularly about WMATA and it’s … issues.

He has a web site, which he asked @Hell_On_Wheelz (my darling beloved better half) to come up with a logo for, and so my darling did.

Every year, @FixWMATA also runs a tweet list under the hashtag #HotCar

So after seeing my darling’s banner image for the gentleman’s website, I figured I could do some sort of graphic to represent the #HotCar site too.

I mean, how hard can it be?  I have all the information I need to work from, right?  The guy is @FixWMATA, so it’s gonna be about mass transit in the DC reagion.  the hashtag is #HotCar, the guy is … well, a guy, and it’s for the summer months so the artwork to go with it was pretty straightforward to deduce, and since it would be a surprise I wouldn’t want to question him for details in case he figured out what I was doing.

And so I went on my merry way, putting my little heart and soul into crafting a wonderful showcase piece of art that anyone would be proud of to have on their website, exactly on theme and topic.  I even (for once) forwent adding in any Giger aliens, a huge deal I can tell you!

And lo and behold, The Art – Hot Car!

Now that’s a piece of work to be proud of, I even managed to double down on the concept of “hot” with the two individuals, and putting the car on a metro platform was inspired I can tell you!

Except for one thing.

#HotCar is the hashtag @FixWMATA created to collate reports of Metro rail cars that have defective, malfunctioning, or other issues that lead to the subway car in question being hot inside.

Whoopsies.

I went with creating something with minimal data, and ended up with something completely unrelated – well, it’s still valid for the original reasons of being about a hot car, but that’s not the point

Authors and artists work together in partnership – the author has painted a picture with their words, now they need to help the artist paint a picture in … well, pictures.

To do that the author and the artist have to be in synch to a degree, or the author will discover their prized manuscript will be going out on Amazon or Smashwords with cover art of a future car and a couple of suggestively dressed people on it.  Not exactly the selling point they hoped for trying to break into the Winnie The Poo market arena

OK, so I’ve exaggerated the scenario a lot – no, I really am not stupid enough to think #HotCar referred to actual cars in context – but it did give me an idea of how to give an example of just how a lack of communication of the needs of the author and the artist together can end up an unholy mess.

As I mentioned in a previous post, the cover artist is the carnie barker, dragging the punters into the flap of the tent, where they will take a seat and await the next show.  But we do much better when we know what we’re selling

Shortlink for this post: http://wp.me/p2cbiZ-Vw

Thanks for posting this. I have two thoughts that fit better here than in twitter-sized chunks, in response to your ending questions:

> Does anyone have any thoughts on this apparent trend towards darker visions of the future?

I think that to reconcile the differing perceptions of myself and @SueGrimshaw, we need to recognize that different genres of fiction fulfill different roles for people. Let me simply label those roles as “thinky” and ”escapist” fiction. In short, “thinky” fiction exists to explore ideas, one way or another. “Escapist” fiction exists to provide readers with a temporary vacation to their mental happy-place.

Ok, fine, those definitions would never withstand academic scrutiny, but then, this is not an academic journal and I trust readers to take my basic point.

Commensurate with those functions, escapist fiction is basically forced to be lighter. Readers read that stuff in order to experience a sense of relief and refreshment. That’s hard to achieve if the subject matter of the book is a total dystopic downer.  Thinky books, on the other hand, aren’t burdened by the requirement to spikethe reader’s endorphin levels. Thinky books revel in _difficult_ ideas. And, by their nature, difficult ideas tend to be darker.

Sue Grimshaw’s Twitter profile doesn’t say exactly what she works on, but says she is a “category specialist” for a few different publishers. Her profile pic strongly suggests that the category she specializes in is romance: practically the poster-child for escapist, mental-vacation, endorphin inducing fiction.

For better or for worse, I’m genre agnostic. And while I can’t say I see a particularly large number of manuscripts set in the future coming from my clients, the few I’ve had definitely skew dystopic. Two post-plague novels jump to mind (and bummer for those clients, Megan Crewe’s _The Way We Fall_ series seems to have stolen that thunder), plus a sci-fi piece that was very distant-future, but certainly not suffused with the kumbaya human-unity that is typical of Star Trek.

> Are authors predicting, or is the mood of the world today just another springboard to launch their imaginations?

This, to me, is by far the more interesting question. The world today certainly colors every author’s beliefs, perceptions, and imaginations. How could it not? The attitudes of an era have always shaped that era’s fiction.

Jane Austin’s circumstances–English high society–were dramatically focused on issues of social order, reputation, and marriage. And guess what her books focus on?

In America, the second half of the 19th century was dominated by questions of racial relationships. This period gave us _Huckleberry Finn_, _Uncle Tom’s Cabin_, and other such notable works. Amid the wreckage of the Great Depression, Steinbeck gave us _The Grapes of Wrath_. The post-WWII and Korean War years yielded Heller’s _Catch 22_. The Civil Rights era gave us _To Kill a Mockingbird_.

Every era has yielded fiction that is reflective of its own broader sentiments. So let us look more narrowly at fiction that is _set in the future_. There isn’t much of it outside of science fiction, perhaps unsurprisingly, so while that’s mostly the data set I should say I don’t think the driving forces we’re talking about are specifically limited to SF.

Sci-Fi had its golden age in the 1950s and 1960s, when scientific progress was hitting an inflection point. Slow centuries and decades of progress, from Arisotle through Newton, Gauss, and other such foundational figures, built up a bedrock of knowledge from which scientific progress could suddenly leap forward. And leap it did during those decades. Sure, the world had problems–the cold war, notably, and fear of sudden nuclear annihilation. But technology was booming. The green revolution saved billions of lives in India and China. Mankind was stepping out into space. Could Mars colonies, flying\ cars, and interstellar travel be far behind? Was there any challenge facing mankind that science couldn’t smack down? Unthinkable!

And out of that gee-whiz techno-optimism was born a slew of science fiction, from Heinlein to Asimov to Bradbury, Pohl, and so many others, many of whom took as a given that their stories would be set in a future which had solved all the problems plaguing mankind of the mid-20th century.

Fast forward to the 1970s. We had an energy crisis, and the nuclear-power miracle solution we had been promised didn’t come in to save the day. A recession, with high unemployment and even higher interest rates, dragged the economy down and clipped the wings of many people’s retirement dreams. 3-Mile Island and Chernobyl showed us that the miracle solution had a nasty backside.

The 80s brought us AIDS, against which the miracles of modern medicine were helpless, and the first rumblings in the scientific community about the possibility of global warming. If you’re old enough to be reading this comment, you’re likely old enough to remember the 90s and 2000s, so I won’t recap.

Suffice it to say, we’re now living on a planet that, as TEDster Paul Gilding said, “is full.” (http://www.ted.com/talks/paul_gilding_the_earth_is_full.html)

We’re already feeling the effects of global warming. Technology is still booming, and yet, we still don’t have technological solutions for the world’s long-term, sustainable energy needs. We have no realistic idea of how to get all that carbon back out of the air. We have no realistic idea of where the water, the food, the energy, the material needs for a human population of nine billion are going to come from.

Is the world today a springboard for authors’ imaginations? Hell yes it is.

Look at the state of things! The general public, and authors along with them, are having an increasing realization that technological progress _hasn’t_ solved any of these important problems even while it has delivered us gigahertz desktop computers and an internet that was literally unimaginable to the sci-fi writers of fifty years ago.

The world IS a springboard for authors’ imaginations, but the backdrop of _today’s_ world makes it increasingly difficult for authors to imagine any futures other than dystopic ones. In just the same way that the gee-whiz techno-optimism of the 50s and 60s gave us optimistic sci-fi, the frankly bleak outlook of today is giving us the opposite.

Is it any wonder that novels like _The Road_ resonate with readers? Or that _The Hunger Games_ scares us by being an all-too-believable vision of what a post-consumerist society might look like? Or that Megan Crewe is doing nicely for herself by reminding us that despite 100 years of “germ theory,” we’re just as vulnerable to a super-flu now as we were in 1918?

Given the state of the world, it’s no surprise to me. Nor will it surprise me to see such novels continue to make their presence known in best-seller lists for a long time to come.

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A series of twitter posts between myself and @p2p_editor earlier today has me wondering.

As a cover artist, there’s a trend to some of the artwork I’m asked to create – a lot of it tends to be dark, post-apocalyptic, dystopian scenes or themes.  I believe that editors are seeing a similar trend in the stories coming across their desk too.  This was the basis of the conversation with @p2p_editor.

Whilst it’s probably not reliable, the stuff that’s being written tends to be affected and influenced by the world around the author.  Science fiction especially tends to reflect the society and culture in place, even when its looking to the future.

So I wonder at the trends in what people are writing – how much of it tends towards a darker, pessimistic view of society?

When I look at my object library, the meshes created or acquired to use for rendering artwork, a lot of it tends towards dismal scenes, the post apocalyptic world you’d imagine thinking back on “Mad Max“, the dystopian culture of “Blade Runner“.

Talking with @p2p_editor, that doesn’t seem to be an isolated trend – as he said:

MoonWolf95

(miika)

@p2p_editor Thinking of blog post on discussion - question: what's the weighting of books across your desk, dark vs light future views?

On 5-3-2012 18:22:38 from HootSuite in reply to Jason Black

p2p_editor

(Jason Black)

@MoonWolf95 Haven't taken a careful survey, but the ones set in the future are all worse-off futures.

On 5-3-2012 18:23:57 from MetroTwit in reply to miika

p2p_editor

(Jason Black)

@MoonWolf95 Hunger games. The Road. Across the Universe. I don't read much future-set fiction, but lately, that's the obvious trend.

On 5-3-2012 18:24:33 from MetroTwit in reply to miika

Edited: I asked the same question of @SueGrimshaw, another editor, and this is her reply:

MoonWolf95

(miika)

@SueGrimshaw Question for you, if you would be so kind: do you have a sense of balance of books coming your way, dark future vs light?

On 5-3-2012 18:28:52 from HootSuite in reply to SueG R@R

SueGrimshaw

(SueG R@R)

@MoonWolf95 Both really -- maybe 55% lighter . . . but, hard to say. Lots of good stories out there - wish I could buy them all :)

On 5-3-2012 19:40:14 from web in reply to miika

(Caution, tweet quoting system not entirely reliable from Twitter)

Are authors seeing the future as inevitably dark, or are they just using the examples of today’s society in distress (recession, terrorism, wars etc) as inspiration for the “what if … ?” of the universe they’re writing in?

When I was a kid, I got to attend my first ever science-fiction convention, Enterprise One in Liverpool UK.  I had the true privilege of spending several hours in the dark of one morning in conversation with Dorothy Fontana, of Star Trek fame.  I remember it clearly because in that conversation, she asked us what we thought the future would end up like, and mjy reply even that young was “Blade Runner”.  Of course, as a kid I couldn’t elaborate on the why of my view of the future

Editors, Agents, and artists get to see a snapshot of the mood of authors, but it doesn’t answer the question of why some styles of writing about the future are darker – is it a preiction of the future, as so much science fiction before has been?  Or is it a moral warning to society of where things could go if taken  from now to extremes?

In either case, authors right now have a great amount of information and observation of dark energy to kick-start their imaginations, just as it kicks my artistic side when I doodle.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this apparent trend towards darker visions of the future?  Are authors predicting, or is the mood of the world today just another springboard to launch their imaginations?

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The scene was composed so that elements could be split out as separate “snapshot” renders, if possible – “Shall We Dance” is one example derived from this scene, with additional tweaks for the close-up.

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A few days ago I had a brief Twitter conversation with @SueGrimshaw, and at one point she noted something along the lines of “we have the most fun” – we being editors and artists.  This coming on the heels of a post on @JodyHedlund’s blog, “Book Covers: Are They Important in the Digital Age?” got me thinking about this aspect of my work.

I asked myself “Do I have fun doing cover art?”.  The answer came back to me as a “Yes!” – although admittedly it took some thinking through to be certain.  To answer the question from Jody’s blog, I believe that cover art is important, perhaps even moreso in the digital age than the old times of just physical books.

This is where the “fun” and the “important” merge together.

Cover artists (whether freelancers or part of a House’s art department, traditional digital or 3D/animators) have a critical role to play in book marketing.  We’re the guy stood at the flap to the tent, top hat and cane, a twinkle in his eye and a knowing grin showing whiter-than-white teeth, the barker at the carny, the hook to catch those wandering by.

It’s our artwork, our imagining of the book that becomes of the cover, that catches people’s attention and drags them in closer so the back cover blurb can snare them and drag them to their doom (well OK, the checkout – be it physical or Amazon).

To be able to craft that cover, the call of the barker to begin with, we (or at least I) get to read what we’re creating that art for, in order to build that imagery that captures the reader’s eye – the teaser, or the flash of shapely thigh.  That might not seem like fun (and sometimes the constraints of a particular job can preclude any fun being had), but think about it for a moment …

The author puts their heart into creating written words that paint many pictures, describe whole worlds, people, things.  We, as cover artists, can have the chance to take their written pictures and try to create one actual picture to match.  Some of the things we get to imagine and visualize are amazing, so that’s fun!

It’s also somewhat critical – In today’s digital age, people are used to near-instant gratification, instant results.  It’s human nature for people to “scan” until something catches their eye.  so it takes a lot to grab their attention.  Online booksales have the whole panopoly of sales tools –  reviews, recommendations etc – but the trick is to get people to stop and look at a book’s page to read those reviews in the first place.

Yeah, I think you’ve started to see the big picture¹.

That’s why the cover is even more important now than when books were only over a counter, or a magazine.  It’s harder now, creating good, eye catching cover art, because of having to cater to multiple image sizes and media – hardcopy, Kindle copies, eBooks, or even simple .PDF files – and the attention span of potential customers is reduced by the sheer volume of information they see on your average web page, but that’s where the fun comes in as too.

Well OK, on that last point I might be in a minority seeing it as even remotely being fun, but I’m also a geek – too many hats baked my sensibilities out I guess

Cover artists are, at the end of the day, showmen – an essential part of the team supporting an author and helping market their work.  We get to show off our skill and imaging of the stories authors are telling, and draw you in, prime you to enter the world they’ve created.

I’d call that fun, wouldn’t you?

Wait, what was that Sir?  I’m sorry, I couldn’t hear you, come a little closer and speak up!

What about the post’s title, you ask?  Never fear, my good sir, for all shall be revealed – in the book

Related articles

• Judging Books by Their Covers(ithinkimanauthor.wordpress.com)
• A Game, Give Your Opinion….(annajeffreyauthor.wordpress.com)
• My Cover Art Inspirations(andreacefalo.com)
• New Cover Art Alert(nobleyoungadult.wordpress.com)

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1. The quickest route between two puns is a straight line

I’m not exactly a fan of NASCAR, but I do watch it on occasion.

Last year I came to a startling realization.

Every time I looked at the screen, the commentators would be talking about Dale Earnhardt Jr, or Jeff Gordon, or Jimmy Johnson, or the rest – but out of the corner of the screen, every time, one car kept showing up that hardly was being mentioned.

Every time.

This black and gold car, emblazoned with “Cat” on the front, number 31.

It was always there shadowing the cars the commentators were talking about, but it never seemed to get any mention.

It started looking to me like a predator, hunting the others, waiting for that momentary distraction or error that would give it a chance to smoothly glide past them – and it did so, every time.

I started calling it “Jaws”

Now as I mentioned, I’m not a NASCAR fan, so to be perfectly honest I had no clue that the driver of car 31 is Jeff Burton.  It rarely was a name mentioned in the commentary, but as I said the car was stealthy, sneaking up on its prey, so the commentators probably didn’t notice either.

To be honest, I still don’t really care who’s driving Jaws around, for me I’ve become a fan of the car itself – which is about normal when you consider my writing and art, anthropomorphism of a car is no stretch of the imagination

But to my horror, I have discovbered that whilst there are fans for all the drivers, there are no fans of the cars themselves …

Poor Jaws … so unappreciated by the teeming hordes rooting for the guy inside that it speeds around the track, allowing himn the privikege of being a passenger on board whilst she (they’re all female, of course, those cars), takes him to fame fortune and glory.

It’s a prejudice in favor of organics, this blatant dismissal of the true star of the team – after all, it’s the car people recognize on the track, not Jeff Gordon.  ”The 31 car”.

Sorry Jeff, but she’s the one who gets you there

Ironically, given the track conditions at the Daytona 500 today, Jaws may be in her namesake’s element – swimming seems appropriate there right now

So here’s a shout-out to Jaws, long may she sneak up through the pack and pounce on unwary opponents on her way to the finish line – from her only fan

Oh come on, I’m a transhumanist, who didn’t see it coming that I’m all for the car, sod the driver?

And yes, girls can too like cars – witness these self-portraits

Disclaimer: Self-portraits may be digitally altered, enhanced, stylistic, conceptualizations of an idealized perspective of an opinion of self-image not entirely in line with reality.  Viewer Discretion Is Advised.

Related articles

• Danica Patrick Boosts NASCAR Popularity(webpronews.com)
• Daytona 500 2012: Lineup, Starting Grid For NASCAR’s Biggest Race(sbnation.com)
• NASCAR postpones Daytona 500 for first time ever(ajc.com)
• NASCAR postpones Daytona 500 for first time ever(thenewstribune.com)

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