Buffy and Firefly vs. Dollhouse

Well, I watched the first season of the new Joss Whedon series religiously and, while I think it’s okay, I have to say it falls far short of what I expect from him.  It didn’t take me long to decide what was missing.

The characters aren’t nearly as engaging, either.  It’s a very serious show, with serious implications, which, in my view, should necessitate the addition of something to break up the drama.  Dollhouse doesn’t bring the funny, so the drama isn’t nearly as compelling.  The best shows, in my opinion, offer up both humor and drama in more or less equal parts.  I’m not thrilled with any show that doesn’t even attempt to do so.

Dollhouse doesn’t have the staying power of Buffy, or even the cult popularity of Firefly.  What it has is Eliza Dushku.  She’s attractive and talented enough, but she can’t carry a show that doesn’t have the elements to make it extraordinary.  Basically, in my opinion, Dollhouse is simply ordinary.  And that’s a shame.  Knowing that Joss wrote it, it could have been great.

Too bad.

The Joy of Trek

I grew up on Star Trek–you know, that early integrated starship crew traveling around the galaxy on a mission of exploration rather than expansion? I also grew up reading comic books like Spider-man and X-Men. I played a lot of D&D as a teenager. I read SF and Fantasy almost exclusively back then–everything from Heinlein to Robinson to Saberhagen to Norton. I LOVED Star Wars and the subsequent novels (though I despise everything about the prequel trilogy and the train wreck that is Clone Wars).

Someone asks “why do adults care about this stuff?”

As a geek from day one–I was reading comic books in Kindergarten–I have to say “Because we don’t have a stick up our asses.”

Just saw the Star Trek reboot yesterday and loved it, though I have to wonder how someone who doesn’t “get it” can look around and NOT see how it’s influenced the growth of our technology. Flip phones and PDAs, Voice Recognition software and GPS. These things were BORN of SF and integrated into our popular culture through Star Trek.

“You, Mr. Burton, were not put on this world to GET IT.”

I also grew up watching the old b/w movies of another era, the ones some people think epitomize the “golden age” of American entertainment. See, this was back before you could dependably see modern movies broadcast across all the networks at any given time, when the independent channels, such as they were, put on old movies during the day and late at night. But, honestly, I’m still not sure why anyone would prefer them to modern fare.

One person’s trash is another’s treasure. This is true in movies, books, and music more than anywhere else. I don’t expect everyone to love everything I love, or dislike what I dislike. If I say I think modern American rock music sucks, I’m sure I’ll find those who agree and those who do not. If I say American metal has gone to the dogs (almost literally, given the sounds most so-called vocalists make) there are those who’d get offended.

When one delves into the world of literature, things get even more contentious. You have “real” literature (the kind of the stuff that made my college Am Lit class something akin to mental torture–I never knew boredom could be so painful), and you have “trash” literature–like anything speculative. SF, Fantasy, and the like. MY cup of tea.

I know my own novels aren’t for everyone and that’s okay. A long time ago I accepted the advice to “write for yourself” because you can’t please anyone and, frankly, who wants to? I’m not looking to write “The Great American Novel,” whatever that is. My stuff is fast-past fantasy adventure with (hopefully) engaging characters. Entertainment with maybe a little social commentary thrown in from time to time. That’s good enough for me.

On one of my email groups someone asked recently, “so whatever happened to scary vampires?” My answer? Anne Rice humanized them, Buffy knocked them down to size, and Twilight made them household guests. The time of scary vamps is over. There will probably never be another “Salem’s Lot.”

Of course, there are those who revile anything to do with the restless undead, and that’s okay. Fangtasia isn’t for everyone. But it’s funny how many people are happy to get their hate on for anything Twilight related, almost in knee-jerk reaction to super hype. Don’t worry, folks, it’ll fade. That’s what hype does. But, in the meantime, millions of people are reading for pleasure who have never done so before. And that’s a win all around.

So, a message to my fellow geeks. When you’re sitting at a bar discussing the evolution of the Dark Knight, please be aware of the “normal” sitting alone at the bar behind you, soaking it all up and gaining nothing from it. NOT getting it at all. Let’s keep in mind, “Normals” are people too. Ostensibly.

It’s funny, considering that “Normals” are what the people in my future novels call those without altered DNA–the small subsection of humanity that hasn’t been changed by Loki’s metaviruses. In my world, people had to redefine what it meant to be “human.” Silly things like race and/or nationality become far less important when the guy next to you on the bus might be a vampire or lycanthrope.

And in the end that’s what all this geek stuff is about. Striving to understand OUR world better through the lens of a world that might be similar, but just different enough to give us all a new perspective on old assumptions. Star Trek and the comic book movies MIGHT seem like a waste of time, but they’ve managed to inspire whole generations and given many of us new things to think about. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, they’re not going away. The 80 + millon dollar opening weekends make that a certainty.

I’d rather have a spider-man reading Trekker geek in the Oval Office than a misanthropic missing link. Call me weird, but that’s just how I see it. You think Obama isn’t going to “waste” the 126 minutes watching the new Trek? Given that he once flashed Leonard Nimoy (that’s the fellow who played Spock, to the uninitiated) the Vulcan hand-sign, I personally think that’s pretty damn unlikely.

Yeah, I’m a geek. And I don’t feel a moment of shame about it. May we ALL “Live Long and Prosper.”

Interview with Jaz and Nyx

Upon the release of the novel, Death of Heroes, I was fortunate enough to receive a visit from two of the women so centrally featured in its pages, during which I was granted an exclusive interview the likes of which no one has ever been offered.

Jasmine Tashae is the most visually striking, though both women could honestly be described as beautiful. Jaz is the taller of the two, with bright green eyes, dusky skin, and a sharp, slightly hooked nose that fits her face perfectly. Her broad shoulders and easy grace were the only direct evidence of her athletic build, clothed as she was in a voluminous green shirt and loose black pants.

Nyx Deathweb is smaller, equally dark, though her ancestry is plainly Latin where Jaz’s is Arabic. She is perhaps six inches shorter than her partner’s six feet, but clearly just as athletic. Nyx doesn’t quite share Jaz’s modest bent, arriving in a tight halter top that left her well-toned arms exposed and showed her modest breasts to good effect.

They don’t often visit our continuum, preferring instead to travel to worlds where their unique talents are, as Nyx put it, “better appreciated.” Suffice to say that neither woman finds the prospect of being harassed or prosecuted for assault or murder to be particularly enticing. When it’s pointed out that they can simply avoid killing anyone, the smaller woman let out an undignified snort and glanced at her partner.

“Jaz considers herself something of an exterminator,” Nyx told me. “She sees it as her duty to put an end to vermin pretending to be human.” By the tone of her voice, I took it that she didn’t always agree with Jaz’s perspective on such things.

Deciding that discretion was the better part of valor, particularly in these circumstances, I left that subject alone.

We met, as usual, at a pleasant outdoor location in Point Defiance along Five Mile Drive. Jaz has a particular fondness for the place and often visits in when she’s in an aspect where it exists. Sometimes she even stops by to visit the zoo.

“So,” I begin, taking out my tape recorder and pushing the REC button. “Are you up for an interview?”

“That’s what we’re here for,” Jaz answered. “Fire when ready.”

“So,” I say, “let’s start with something simple. Tell me about the Lady of Blades thing.”

The two women exchange glances and Jaz gives a husky chuckle. She has the kind of voice that demands male attention in much the same way her appearance does. “I thought it about time that we had an urban legend with a positive spin,” she says. “You know how it goes, right? Stand in front of a mirror in a dark room and chant “Lady of Blades” three times? That gets the attention of my Gray Robe and he brings me to you. But there’s a caveat. You have to be in danger, and you have to be an innocent. Anyone else pulls that trick and bad things will happen.”

I nod. That fit with what I had heard. “So that’s your job, then? Your mission? Protecting the innocent?”

“If and when I can. I don’t always succeed. There are a billion predators out there, and only one of me.”

“Two,” Nyx points out.

“Two,” Jaz agrees with a sigh. “Not enough people know about the Lady of Blades legend. I’m glad you asked that question straight away. I want more people to know about it. I can’t help if I’m not called.”

“I’ve heard that you two met like that,” I say, “that she called you and you came.”

Both women nod, exchanging another meaningful glance. Jaz reaches into empty air and pulls out a package, which she then hands to me. “Since you ask—this is a journal of our meeting. I’d like you to read over it and use it for your next novel about our exploits.”

I take the package. “It’ll be out of order. It predates Sword and Shadow by what—a hundred years?”

Jaz shrugs. “So? It’s a good story. It has airships and androids, young kings and captive princesses. And a love story like no other.”

“Sounds great. But what should I call it?”

“How about ‘Nyx and Jaz?” suggests Nyx. “Simple and catchy.”

I nod. “Okay. It might take me a while to get it up and running.”

“You’ll do fine,” Jaz tells me.

I shiver as a blast of cold wind rises over the bluff from the Sound. This time of year isn’t particularly hospitable here in the Pacific Northwest, but, then again, I’m partial to late Spring and early Summer. I hate the cold. Wet I don’t mind, but cold unmans me.

She gestures, doing something with those strands of magic I cannot see and I’m suddenly infused with warmth. “Thanks.”

They don’t seem to be affected by the cold at all, but that doesn’t really surprise me. One of the benefits of being immortal, I assume. “’Death of Heroes’” went to print last month, by the way.”

“That’s the one about Morrigan, right?” Nyx asks.

“Yeah—but you two are in it too.”

“I remember,” she says. “Kicking super-villain ass.”

“Doing what we do best,” Jaz murmurs. She glances up at my car, parked down on the street some fifty or so yards away. “I take it you don’t need us to get you home?”

I shake my head. “Nah, but I appreciate the offer.”

“The least we can do for our chronicler.”

“Hey, I get a lot out of this relationship,” I tell her. “I get to tell people that there are still real heroes out there—not just celebrities. Of course, they take it all for fiction, but what the heck? It’s all fiction until they turn a corner and find themselves looking at something they never thought might actually exist.”

“So we’re heroes now, are we?” She seems amused by this. “I guess it depends on how you define the word.”

“You protect the weak and take down the predators. That’s pretty heroic to me.”

She shakes her head. “There are a lot of types of heroism—you don’t have to wield a sword and blast bad guys with magic to be a hero. It’s easy taking on the big bads when you’re immortal. It’s a lot harder to deal with regular evil on a daily basis, or just deal with the ignorance and stupidity of ordinary assholes. Look around you, Saje. Anyone who tries to make the world a better place is a hero.”

“Well, that’s what you do, isn’t it?”

“We try.”

“Then there you are.”

Nyx glances at the mirrored bracer on her wrist that allows her access to the dimension of mirrors. Apparently it also functions as a timepiece, because she exclaims suddenly “We’ve got to go.”

Both women stand abruptly, leaving me sitting on the picnic table alone. Nyx produces a shining knife no larger than my index finger and tosses it into the bench beside me. What follows is difficult to describe, but both women seemed to fold themselves into its reflective surface and vanish. Only the knife remains. The knife and the package in my lap are the only things that prove they were ever there at all.

I climb into my car, set the package on the passenger seat, and start it up. I light a cigarette and stare out at the picnic area for a moment, then down at the knife in my hand. I place it carefully in the console and turn the stereo up. I pull out of the parking stall and cruise through the park, imagining for a while what it would be like to live their lives.

All in all, I think I prefer my own. Less danger, less surprises, and far fewer people who’d like to see me dead.

Everything has its price.

About a dog

I’ve come to the conclusion in the past few years that our schools should offer a canine awareness class.  So many people out there own dogs, or come into regular contact with them, all the while remaining ignorant about what drives them, or how they communicate with us or one another.  Many dog attacks could be avoided, for example, if more people had a clue when the dog was saying “leave me alone.”

We get a lot of fear mongering in the media, and among people who should know better than to accept anything at face value.  “Oh, pit bulls are dangerous.  They should be banned.”  Maybe we should ban stupid humans.  That would improve matters immensely.  And not just for the dogs.

It’s not as though dogs are some mysterious creatures newly come into our company.  We’ve been breeding and raising them for thousands of years.  But people cling to popular misconceptions.  It’s not helped by these moronic assholes who think dog-fighting is “good sport” or that owning a bully breed dog somehow makes them tough.  News flash–people who feel the need to look tough rarely are.

Then there are the people who think breeding dogs for fun and profit is some sort of Constitutional right.  Not that most of these people would understand a real Constitutional right if it flew up and bit off part of their ear.  There are millions of dogs put to death every year because of selfish jerks eager to make an easy buck.  Breeding is a science, folks, not a hobby for illiterate pinheads.  It takes work, and knowledge, and a true dedication to improving the breed.  Anything else is an insult to everything dogs have given us through the eons they’ve traveled at our side.  Civilization might not be what it is if not for the dog.

Busy enough as it is…

Facebook and Myspace both run these apps like Vampires, Mafia Wars, Pirates, and Dragon Wars, and I am constantly getting invites to join this clan, alliance, family, etc…  Part of me feels bad that I haven’t taken anyone up on the offer.  My oldest son invited me to join his vampire clan on Myspace, but, frankly, I’m really not interested in any of them.  I feel like I’ve got enough going on that any additional distraction could throw off the delicate balance between getting something done and getting nothing done at all.

On one of my author groups, it’s been suggested that playing these games is a good promotional tool.  Maybe it is.  But I figure one of two things might happen.  Either I’ll like it way too much and run the risk of getting into it/them far more than I should, or I’ll find them absolutely boring and be stuck trying to figure out a way to bow out gracefully.

For one thing, I’m simply not competitive against other people.  I rarely play board or card games anymore because I generally don’t care if I win or lose.  I know that sounds strange, but it’s the unvarnished truth.

I know a lot of people play these games as a way to socialize, but I’ve never really gotten into that aspect of computer gaming in the first place.  Usually when I finish a novel I go out and buy myself a game.  Last time it was Guild Wars, a multi-player RPG game.  Except I don’t really make use of the multi-player aspect.  I log on and grab some NPCs and head into open territory away from the other players.  I just want to kill monsters and advance my character.  For a while I played MUDs, until I realized that I didn’t particularly care for the social or role-playing aspects of those either.

I am, at heart, a table-top RPGer.  Cooperative gameplay interests me far more than competitive gameplay, and I honestly prefer the direct social interaction, roleplay, and problem solving dynamics of a small, tight-knit group chowing down on pizza and driving the game master out of his or her mind by systematically out-maneuvering him or her.  That’s not even possible in most computer type games–they’re not designed with the tactical player in mind, unless they’re primarily strategy games, and most of those lack the role-playing aspects that I enjoy just as much.

I never got into WOW because I refuse to continually pay for something I’ve already paid for in the first place.  If I buy a game, I want to play it.  I don’t want to have to pay for it again and again and again.  I know this puts me in the minority, considering there are millions out there who don’t seem to mind.  I’m a low-maintenance type guy–I refuse to add another monthly bill for something that my wife and I can’t enjoy together, something that I’m likely to find onerous after a while anyway.  Besides, again, we have that whole social aspect again.

Gaming, for me, is a way to escape social pressures.  That’s one of the reasons I enjoy the table-top games, just ha,nging out and playing with people I already know and like.  I work retail, so I spend a lot more time than most folks dealing with a constantly shifting mob of people.  I’ve come a long way toward defeating my social anxiety, but everyone needs down-time.  Writing provides a lot of that down-time and I really can’t see how it could possibly be good for me and my mental state to sacrifice writing time for another kind of high-pressure socialization.

An old martial arts instructor of mine had something he called the “100 percent rule.”  Basically we, as conscious beings, only have so much mental energy to put toward things.  We have to choose where we put our energy, because we can’t possibly go beyond that upper limit.

So I’m sure it disappoints a few people that I haven’t and won’t join this clan or that alliance, but, as I said, I really have neither the time nor the energy.  Between the day job, writing, promoting, helping my wife out with her review site, taking care of our animals, cooking meals, cleaning the house, what little time I can donate to the local pagan group with which we’re affiliated, not to mention getting ready to get to work on my upcoming video project this spring, as well as occasionally spending quality time with my wife, I can’t imagine where I’d find the time or energy to engage in one of these games, much less half a dozen of them.

So if you send me one of those invites and I don’t respond, please don’t be offended.  I’m not joining anyone else’s clan, alliance, mob, or anything else.  I’m held hostage by the real world.  Honestly, I’m not sure how I could find the time to do a table-top game right now, and, as I’ve already stated, that’s my preference.

Hope everyone understands where I’m coming from here.  If they don’t, there’s not much I can do about it except to keep on doing what I’m doing.  It’s not as though I have a choice.

Problems with the Paranormal

There are two common terms related to both writing and investigating the paranormal that just drive me crazy to hear.  One stems from a public misconception so widespread that it’s unremarkable when it becomes itself a movie title.  The other stems from a personal perspective on the nature of the universe I think is so basic that the nature of this conceptual error should be obvious to just about anyone.  There are those who follow certain religious philosophies that wouldn’t see it this way, but I would think those who are not tied to such would be able to grasp what I’m saying.

The first term is the “Sixth Sense.”  This is based on the–quite mistaken–premise that we have only five typical senses.  Sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch.  But, in fact, we have several others we tend to overlook.  Years ago, while leafing through a psychology textbook, I read a passage that suggested instead that we have 11 senses.  The other six are equilibrioception (balance), proprioception (the kinesthetic sense),  temperature, temporal, and pain.  So the use of the “sixth sense” to denote psychic gifts is, in my opinion, simply unacceptable.  Call it, instead, the “Twelfth Sense.”

The other term that makes me crazy is “supernatural.”  It is my contention that all things that exist are part of the universe and therefore are inherently “natural.”  Nothing can exist here, unless it somehow impinges upon our continuum from outside , that could in my mind truly be considered “supernatural.”  I believe that ghosts, for example, if they exist, are a form of energy we cannot easily detect or as yet understand, but would, however, exist within our universe.  “Supernatural” as a word, suggests something that might exist outside the natural order, but, to me, instead denotes the concept of existing outside of nature itself.  I do not believe this is possible within the bounds of the universe as we understand it.  Even mythical things–gods, ghosts, demons, vampires, faerie, etc… would not be so much “supernatural” as, perhaps, “supernormal” or (far preferable in my opinion) “paranormal.”

It’s a small thing, perhaps, but one of those things that eat at me.  It stems from a love of language, and a passion for clear thinking.  Or so I like to believe.

To our 4-footed companions

It should be no surprise to anyone that I share my life and home with an assortment of wee beasties, a veritable horde of cats and dogs.  For a long time my wife and I worked with Seattle Purebreed Dog Rescue, though the acquisition of our Jindo put an end to our ability to foster any others.  She is a jealous beast, and it is not within her to easily tolerate dogs in her territory that are not already part of her pack.

She’s my wife’s self-appointed guardian.  In the summer, when I’m at work, she stays outside on the porch with Shaiha while she sits reading in the cool night air, ever alert for any sign of danger.  She’s the foster-mother of our youngest kitten, the gorgeous black longhair named Deja, and spends as much time as she can grooming him.  He seems to enjoy that as much as he loves being petted by his human slaves.

Beijing is the largest of our canine companions, fifty-five pounds of muscular agility.  She was a rescue, and still suffers from a lack of trust towards men and anyone wearing a uniform.  Even now, after some years in our home, she flinches if I move towards her carrying anything at all.  I would so like to repay the person who put that fear into her, though I’m sure it would do no good in the end.  Any person who would abuse a dog, particularly a loving creature like ‘Jing, is probably beyond redemption.

Our oldest dog is my Shiba Ina, Kitsune.  Both lazy and cunning, Kits is a sneaky, conniving creature with a primitive breed’s sense of self-interest.  Oh, he’s obedient enough as such things go, but you can always see him thinking to himself “so what’s in it for me?“  This is the dog who will appear to be sleeping in the corner until I step out for a smoke, then pop up and go for my coffee sitting on the arm of my chair, who suffers not the slightest feelings of guilt or contrition even when caught in the act.  This is a dog who plans things out, and shows no sign of having done so until he’s already in action.  He’s the reason we make sure to keep medicine bottles out of reach of the dogs, because he’s proven more than once that he can open them without biting off the lid.  He holds them between his feet and turns the childproof cap with his teeth until it pops open.

Then there’s our Pomeranian Devil, Captain Fuzzybutt.  Oh, his official name is Creme-De-Kharma, but he likes his nickname.  Even when he’s in full “I’m going to eat the neighbor” barking his fool head off mode, he’ll almost always answer to his nickname.  He understands English better than any other dog I’ve ever seen.  One must be very careful what one says around him, because he’ll respond to things you would swear he couldn’t possibly understand.  And loyal to a fault.  This dog is firmly convinced that every other human–other than those officially part of his pack–are out to get us and he’s willing to throw his 25 pounds into the breech to hold them off until we can either escape or deal with them ourselves.

The funny thing is my wife wanted a lap dog.  That’s why we got Kharma in the first place.  We didn’t expect a mutant Pom.  He’s the farthest thing from a lap dog you can imagine.  Unfailingly loyal to us, but too damn supercharged to sit on any lap for any length of time.

So that’s why we got Bella-Boo, my wife’s Minature Pincer.  Bella’s whole purpose in life is to snuggle, preferably with my wife.  Her most relevant command is “Be flat,” which my wife uses to prompt her to lay still beneath her laptop while she sits in her chair and does her business.  Bella’s not the sharpest tool in the shed, and is far more likely to look to us for protection than otherwise, but she’s my wife’s dog body and soul.

Then, of course, there’s the cats.  Damien, who came to my wife on Halloween the year before me met, and who tried to brain me with a houseplant after I’d moved in, who still for some reason acts as though he expects me to enact my vengeance on him nearly eight years later.  He’s a well-mannered old gentleman cat now, but he tolerates me as a necessary evil who can be trusted to give good scritches when the opportunity arises.

My wife’s never satisfied with only one cat.  Deciding she wanted a companion for her Bella, she contacted a friend who’d taken in a pregnant stray and claimed one of the kittens.  Oddly enough, though Shaiha is a natural “cat-whisperer,” it wasn’t her to whom the kitten bonded.  Mere moments after meeting him, Bastion made it clear that he was my cat, whether I wanted a cat or not.  Bastion is an odd beast himself and I think if I were a witch, he’d be my familiar.  He’s nearly as obedient as any dog (probably more so than my Shiba) and nearly always comes when I call him.  He’s one of the only male cats I’ve known who likes having his belly rubbed, and acts as though he knows exactly what we’re saying to him.

Deja, the kitten we brought in when it became clear that Bastion and Bella weren’t going to bond, is a reddish-black longhair, truly one of the most beautiful cats I’ve ever known.  And an absolute lush.  He likes being petted so much, he’s quite contented when Beijing grooms him, and will actually seek her out when he wants attention he can’t get from a human.  When he saw us feeding mice to our snake (we also have a ball python) I told him that if he wanted mice, he’d have to catch them himself.  Two days later he caught a mouse in the house and is now receiving bounties of cat treats for every mouse he catches.  He even conscripted Bastion into helping him a time or two.  Unfortunately, I think the two did their job too well for their sakes, for I’m not sure there are any mice left.  Fine by me.  We live in an old house and the mice seemed entirely too comfortable here.  Deja and Bastion took care of that.

There are people in the world who think that pets are just bundles of programmed responses, that animals can’t “think” as we recognize it.  All I know is that no two animals with which I’ve shared my life have been like one another.  No dog, regardless of breed, is like another, and no cat has been a mere doppelganger of one that came before it.

Now is a rough time for people, and likewise for pets.  When people lose their homes, all too often their animals end up in shelters, abandoned and condemned to an early death.  When we take an animal into our homes, we are accepting responsibility for them, we are making a promise to them that we are honor-bound to keep.  They trust us, they love us, and they guard us from interlopers, be they human or rodent.  They ask little in return.

So here’s to our 4 footed companions, whatever they may be.  The world would be a much poorer place if they weren’t in it, and our lives so much less worth living.

Futuristic Fantasy? WTF is that?

Okay, I know that the terms futuristic and fantasy don’t seem to go together.  When most people think of fantasy, they think LOTR, the Wheel of Time, Valdemar, etc.  Even though urban fantasy has grown in popularity in recent years, the notion of fantasy set in the future might be a bit confusing.

It’s not really new, though I don’t think anyone has ever used the term “futuristic fantasy” before.  Piers Anthony did a little of this in his Incarnations series–mixing fantasy with SF to a limited extent, but most Science Fantasy has leaned very heavily on “pseudo-science” like psionics–i.e.  Julian May’s Saga of Pliocene Exile and her related Intervention series.

No one has really taken the concepts of fantasy and mixed them so thoroughly with scientific and futuristic elements like starships, genetic engineering, and the like.  Oh, the RPG Shadowrun, with its cyberpunk concepts, did a little of this, but I like to think I took it a little farther.  Grafting some fantasy elements onto a generally cyberpunk universe worked well, as far as it went, but I’ve been doing this to some extent or another since the mid eighties.

One of my goals from the beginning was to create a fantasy universe that stripped away the mystical elements so many depend on, yet still keeping with many of the basic premises.  One of my beliefs is that “supernatural” is a complete misnomer, that NOTHING in the universe can be supernatural, for all that exists is somehow natural–weird as it might seem.

So in my universe I define nothing as existing outside the natural order.  “Super” or “para” NORMAL,” sure.  But not supernatural.  The “gods” are humans altered by an alien disease.  Vampires and lycanthropes are humans changed by Loki’s Sin.  Magic is a human birthright that uses energy left over from the creation of new universes via quantum “many worlds” theory.  Goblins are human children, stolen and twisted by a combination of magic and technological know-how.  Trolls are people who were defiled by the effects of yet another nanovirus created by Loki.  Imps are extremly complex spells given self-awareness.

I wanted to change the rules, to look at fantasy from a totally different direction.  I like to believe I succeeded, but I guess only time will tell.

A toast to Dangerous Women

I do a lot on my inspirations here, as you might have noticed.  I really, really like kickass female characters.   My favorite X-”Man” was Rogue–in the comic book, not the movie.  They made her a pansy in the movies and I hated that aspect of them.  Rogue should be able to go toe-to-toe with Superman.

I hated the Buffy movie and didn’t tune in to the show until the end of the first season.  Felt like pounding my head into a wall when I realized what I’d been missing.  Buffy rocked.  So did Faith.  I’ve already mentioned how much I enjoy Xena.  And I aim a salute at Renee O’Connor for her part in it as well.  Gabrielle was a perfect partner for the Warrior Princess and Renee pulled it off with great panache.  It bothers me to see that both she and Lucy get so little work these days.  They showed a lot of acting chops, as well as chopping acts.

My first intro to Milla Jovovich was in The Fifth Element, which probably has something to do with how much I enjoyed that movie.  She’s a great female action star and even though I don’t particularly care for zombie flicks, I loved all three Resident Evil movies.  She’s ultimately convincing in her action roles, whether as Alice or as Violet in the much deprecated Ultraviolet.  Which I also enjoyed immensely.

I liked the first Tomb Raider–but not the second so much.  Angelina Jolie impressed me with her guts and nerve, her willingness to do her own stunts.  Her willingness to work hard to get good at what she did.  The stunts in the first one were amazing.

I even liked Elektra, which almost no one did.

It should be no surprise that my fiercest, my most dangerous, characters are women.  Jaz and Nyx are, in a way, modeled after all of these characters, and a little on the actresses who played them.  All it takes is the ability to convince me that they really know what they’re doing, to lose my imagination in the role they’re playing.

An interesting game my friends and I used to play was to try to cast movies that hadn’t been made yet.  It would be interesting to hear what others might think about casting Nyx or Jaz.  I have my own ideas, but I have the feeling that some of the actresses haven’t been discovered yet.

Or maybe they haven’t.

Underlying themes

Having sat through a literature class or two, I imagine that there are a few who’d read my books and wonder “what is he trying to say?”  Oh, some of my philosophy bleeds through into the work, but anyone trying to view it through a certain manufactured lens will and should be a bit puzzled.  I’ve never bought into the notion that there is some sort of Rosetta Stone with which to translate the expressions of various authors into a single set of metaphors.  This apparent belief was one of the things that made Lit class a form of torture for me.  As a writer myself, I found it hard to align what I was being told with what I already knew about the craft.

In my later Infinity: Empire books, a specific adage will appear.  “Humanity Abides.”  In a post-human universe, where the ordinary view of humanity no longer applies, the question that arises is basically ‘how human are these characters?”  Since I believe that humanity is both a catchall phrase replacing the often sexist “mankind” as well as a philosophical perspective suggesting a particular ethical and moral path, the opposite of “man’s inhumanity to man,” it is my contention that the definition of humanity is incredibly broad.

There is no doubt that in my universe the power possessed by some of my characters, as well as their separation from ordinary humans on a genetic or cultural level, makes the first definition of the word–basic human-ness, something of a question mark.  Is a vampire human, under the surface?  Can he be?  Or how about the immortals–the original ones, or the newcomers like Jasmine Tashae?  How human is a being that can weave probability the way someone might weave cloth, or destroy an enemy as easy as some might squash a bug?

I often try to paint questions of right and wrong among the immortals and other post-humans as a matter of individual perspective.  ArchAngel, arguably one of the most powerful immortals in existence, is by nature a pacifist despite his warrior past.  Or, perhaps, pacifist isn’t quite the right word.  He isn’t opposed to violence when he thinks it’s necessary, but he prefers to avoid it if at all possible.   On the other hand, the Lady of Blades determines the value of life quite differently than does ArchAngel.  Diseased humans, those who prey on those weaker than themselves, hold no value to her.  She completely disdains their alleged humanity.  Her attitude toward such people is one of the things that prompts people to fear her, though it’s often all out of context.  Her temper, and capacity for violence, is just one aspect of her personality–the one most obvious to bystanders.

But her desire to protect the innocent can’t be denied.  There are very few lines she wouldn’t cross to do it, or to exact vengeance–or justice–if it came to that.  Not only for the innocent harmed, but for those who might be harmed by the same force in the future.

Then you have Loki, who would never intentionally harm anyone, yet killed tens of thousands when his nanoviruses swept through the population.

Cynicism is easy.  The kind of abject nihilism that suggests that there’s no purpose to our existence, that we might be, as Agent Smith suggests in the Matrix movies, little more than a virus, a disease, ourselves, is as damning of humanity as those who claim Original Sin.  I believe neither of these things.  We are flawed, yes, but we are also more than the sum of our flaws.

Though it’s doubtful that anyone could see it in my writing, two of my biggest influences have been Frank Herbert, with his Dune series (not just the first book, mind you, but the whole of the series until he died), and Spider Robinson, to whose work “Tales from the Magitech Lounge” was something of a tribute.  My time traveler, Jack, is no Mike Callahan, but he was never meant to be.

My goal is to create something bigger than just a story, or even a series of stories.  Not to preach, but to attempt to illuminate something I believe about us–about humanity.  That, despite our destructive ways, our incessant hunger for something tangible to define ourselves, and our belief that we can somehow triumph over injustice by perpetrating injustices, there is a spark of something at our core that transcends this.  A belief that we can be better, that humanity is more than just a word, or a virus dedicated to perpetuating ourselves and consuming all in its path.  That there may be a higher purpose for our existence.

In the end my books are about people.  Strange people, sometimes, but they have the same kind of flaws, suffer from the same sort of misjudgements and false starts as the rest of us.  Perfection is not only unattainable, it’s not desirable.  Only in the striving to be better, to be more, can we find our destiny.

Yes, I believe in redemption.  I believe in evil, too, but primarily evil in the form of that nasty little voice inside all of us that leads us away from our better selves, so far in some cases that there can be no path back.  I think there’s more to all of this than we can see, or measure, be it with the naked eye or with mechanical and electronic artifacts.  And, in the end, it’s up to us as individuals, as humans, to help change the world.  No one else is going to do it for us.

Humanity Abides.  Even in the darkness.