Signals Interviews Bradley P. Beaulieu, Author of Absynthe

Signals From the Edge recently had a chance to sit down with Bradley P. Beaulieu, AKA Brendan Bellecourt. His newest book, Absynthe just came out in December, and we talked about what went into the worldbuilding for that book, as well as his writing process for some of his other works.

Absynthe is a sci-fi, decopunk/alternate history book based in the American roaring twenties. It follows Liam Mulcahey, a war vet, as he’s thrust into a new world of mind-bending illusions and world-ending conspiracies.

Isaac Payne: So, Brad, you just finished up writing The Song of Shattered Sands not too long ago, how big of a shift was it to go from writing a sprawling desert fantasy to a sci-fi concept novel?

Bradley Beaulieu: In some ways, it wasn’t a huge shift because I’ve been writing sci fi and fantasy in short form for many years. I’ve always been interested in science fiction and fantasy, as well as dark fantasy.

Plus, my writing style is such that I let story ideas percolate for years before I start writing them. Absynthe, which came out after Shattered Sands, is a decopunk novel set in the roaring twenties, in an alternate history version of Chicago.

I actually had a finished draft of Absynthe ready a few years ago, but my publisher and I decided to see The Song of Shattered Sands through before releasing a new book.

That timeline gave me extra time to work on the story, the world, and the characters, so as the Shattered Sands was starting to wind down, I began paying more attention to Abysnthe.

In this case, it was a pretty easy transition. I usually don’t have spur of the moment ideas that I immediately start writing. Instead, I tend to start a Scrivener document, create a Pinterest board with images that speak to me, and begin to explore the characters and the plot. All of this takes me quite a long time.

I’d say from inception to really starting to write in earnest, the process takes me a minimum of two years, sometimes three.

author interview bradley p beaulieu absynthe

IP: You mentioned working on the worldbuilding for Absynthe: especially in the early chapters, I noticed a lot of details about clothing, cars, buildings, etc. How much research did you do about the time period to get these details just right?

BB: I didn’t do exhaustive research on the history of the time period because I was changing it up quite a bit.

I ran a podcast at one point, and I spoke with Mark Hodder, author of The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack and other stories set in a Victorian, steampunk era. He likes writing in real-world history because for him, it’s easy. He didn’t have to explain why something happened because they just did, it’s part of our history.

I’m the exact opposite. History interests me, but I’m not a huge history buff, so I like altering things. I make up rules, magic, types of characters, and worlds on the cusp of change.

With Absynthe, I spent more time on architecture, clothing, and music. I paid particular attention to absinthe since I was trying to portray a vibe around the liquor and the cocktails made from it. There’s a mystique that’s built up around absinthe lot of misconceptions about its effects.

There’s a lot more to it than just the liquor; it’s about the ritualistic making of the drinks, the ingredients, the lore, and that kind of thing, and I wanted to make sure I captured that in the story.

I also paid attention to the vehicles in Absynthe. I’m a car buff, to a certain degree, because my dad was always fixing up old cars and we used to go to old car shows. There’s a nationally-recognized car show in Iola, Wisconsin that we used to go to and they had a lot old cars from the 20s, 30s, 40s, and 50s, that really interest me.

For example, in Absynthe, there’s a Phaeton, which is based on long-nosed sedans, particularly the Auburn, which had chrome pipes coming out of the engine compartment. So that was fun, getting to write about such a cool looking car.

With worldbuilding, I pick my battles and delve deeply in certain areas, but I don’t do a ton of broad research.

I have an example of not wanting to stick too closely to real history:

The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand was kind of the spark that lit the flame of WWI, and in an early draft of Absynthe, I twisted it so that event was the start of the war. But the politics didn’t match up how I needed them to, so I ended up tossing the idea and working up a new flare point that led to the war. I ended up keeping some of the broad European politics as a base to explain why the war started, why it was fought on American soil, and why the alliances were altered from how they actually happened in WWI.

Once you start changing things, it raises a lot of questions, especially for people who know a lot about the era, so you have to be really careful.

IP: You talked about your writing process a little bit already, but are you the type of writer who outlines everything, or do you start with a few scenes and see where the story takes you?

BB: I teach writing here and there, and the way I describe myself is that I’m halfway between pantsing and plotting.My background is in IT software programming, and in those disciplines, you have to be very organized and structured.

I thought that process would transfer naturally to writing, but that just wasn’t the case. I found that I couldn’t envision what was going to happen without getting into the world. Yet, by the same token, I couldn’t start writing without some idea of where I was headed.

What I tend to do is start my Scrivener doc, my Pinterest board, and let it germinate for a few years.

Then, when I finally start writing, I make a loose, high-level outline. In the beginning, I had 2-3 turning points and the finale, but I have since adopted Dan Wells’ 7-point story structure. Originally, he took the idea from an RPG handbook, but has adapted it for writing novels.

There are some details about when the protagonist takes up the call, twists that come into play, and when the character moves from action to reaction. It’s just a more detailed way of looking at a story.

I’ll come up with those high-level plot points even if I’m not sure what incarnation those points will take, or how the characters will get there. It doesn’t matter at that point, because I know I can steer things to get to there, and that’s part of the fun of writing anyway. Steering the characters, seeing their emotions and development is all part of the enjoyment.

After I have the high points, I’ll plot out in detail as far as I can, which is usually between 4 and 6 chapters. As George R. R. Martin would say, you can see the lights in the fog, which in this case, are the high points.

I call it inch-worming my way through the plot. I’ll write as far as I feel comfortable and then when motivations seem unclear or I’m having a hard time seeing the way forward, I’ll plot out the next few chapters and keep writing until I’ve reached the end of a sloppy first draft.

I call this the “zeroth” draft, borrowed from a fellow writer, Robert Levy. It just means the story isn’t ready for consumption by anybody, so I’ll go through it one more time to fix all the things I know are broken to get a true first draft.

IP: If you had to pick one tip for new writers, what would it be?

BB: A lot of the common advice is to read widely and write every day, and that’s good advice.

However, one tip I would have given myself when I started writing is to be bolder.

When I started writing, I was hewing to the stories that inspired me to write—stories by writers like Glen Cook, Tolkien, Robin Hobb, Roger Zelazny, and Guy Gavriel Kay. While not intentional, I was regurgitating their ideas and ways of writing.

Though I didn’t realize it at the time, I was writing in a very safe way, and I wish I’d just pushed myself harder and in different directions. That will not only help you come up with really cool story ideas, it will help you learn from your mistakes. Mistakes and failed stories will teach you a lot more about the craft than successes will. And having writers and readers around you can help to identify your weaknesses and speed that process up.

A general writing tip is advice I’ll break into two parts. First, seek out advice, but be ready to evaluate the advice you receive. Don’t always take what people say for granted. They might not have the best advice for your story. Don’t be afraid to say to yourself that it’s good advice in some circumstances, but not for your story.

On the other hand, don’t discount advice simply because it stings. Negative advice is easy to discount because writing is such a personal thing.

Your instinctive reaction might be “screw that, my story’s good”, but try to evaluate the advice given as neutrally as you can. Give it honest consideration. Don’t be afraid to write an exploratory draft. You might not always use the advice as given, but you might find other, better ways to fix the underlying issue.

IP: I read on your blog a while ago that you have a new fantasy series in the works, The Precipice Sequence. Can you tell us a little bit more about what to expect with your new series?

BB: Everything I’ve written in fantasy in novel length at this point has been non-traditional European fantasy. I’ve shied away from dragons, even though I was influenced early on by the Dragonlance series and Tolkien, I didn’t want step into that arena unless I had something interesting to say.

I like to hang my hat on worldbuilding. Some of my favorite stories to write—and read—are steeped in worldbuilding, where things have been culminating for a long time. Characters knock a couple of pebbles loose and eventually the story starts to rumble down the mountainside and eventually crash.

I’m hugely affected by climate change and what’s going on in our own world, and I’m invested in trying to fix those things. I know it’s been affecting my writing, and I don’t mind. And so, with The Precipice Sequence, I think I’ve found a way to combine all these elements in an interesting way.

In the story, a large empire has conquered a rather important valley, and has taken to hunting the umbral dragons that live there. In this world, there are two kinds of dragons: scintillant and umbral, both of which feed off of diametrically opposed suns, the bright sun and dark sun. These suns give different kinds of magic, and a lot of the flora and fauna of this Amazon-like valley are tied to the suns.

So, a lot of the story has to do with the scintillant dragons the empire uses as weapons, and the umbral dragons that are quickly being hunted to extinction.

The two main characters, Rylan and Lorelei, are a half-blooded thief and an imperial inquisitor, respectively. Eventually, Rylan and Lorelei meet when a plot against one of the mountain cities comes to light, and that’s when the mountainside starts to rumble and threatens to crash.

IP: That sounds awesome. Is there a release date for the first book?

BB: Tentatively, we’re saying spring of 2023. I’m about 40k words into so far, and it will probably end up being around 140k. Not a doorstopper, but pretty big.

A big thank you goes out to Brad for sitting down for this chat! You can read more about his work on his website, as well as purchase Absynthe, The Song of Shattered Sands, and his other books.

Post of Interest: Author Interview with Sebastien de Castell

Chaos Walking: A Sci Fi Movie on Hulu

I had high hopes for Chaos Walking, a new sci fi movie on Hulu staring Tom Holland and Daisy Ridley.

The concept was great: a new planet where your thoughts permeate outside of your head, and a strange girl lands in a world where there seemingly aren’t any women. It paired a few clichés together, but it looked like it would be a good 2 hours of my time.

Space Western was one of the prominent themes of the movie, with everyone in cowboy hats and riding horses. But, in terms of substance, the film offered very little. Chaos Walking severely overpromised what it had to offer, and in the end, I was left disappointed and unsatisfied.

Some Background

I didn’t know this when I watched the movie, but Chaos Walking is based on a book by Patrick Ness, The Knife of Never Letting Go, published in 2008. Now, the book has received rave reviews, and even won the James Tiptree, Jr. Award, the Guardian Award, and the Booktrust Teenage Prize.

In 2011, a team of writers, including Ness, started writing a screenplay for the book, and in 2017, the film began production. This project was 10 years in the making, finally being released in 2021.

The film stars Daisy Ridley, Tom Holland, Mads Mikkelson, Nick Jonas, Cynthia Erivo, David Oyelowo, and Demián Bichir.

Despite a decade of preparation, the film flopped upon release. The film just barely made a quarter of the money spent to make it, and critics ripped it to shreds. The film has a 4.5/10 on Rotten Tomatoes, and multiple critics have bashed on the movie’s “generic characters” and lackluster plot.

Worldbuilding and Stuff

Before we slap a verdict on Chaos Walking, I want to talk about the worldbuilding.

Now, I’ve never read The Knife of Never Letting Go, so the movie could have obliterated the science of the world (hopefully not, considering it took Ness and 5 other people 6 years to write the screenplay), but I felt there was really something interesting about the setting. In New World, which is some non-Earth planet, I-don’t-really-know-they-never-explained-it, your thoughts become external, like a little blue halo-ish thing and a voice that says what you’re thinking.

This happens to all the men on the planet, and occurs naturally for the indigenous race, the Spackle. The women aren’t impacted by the Noise, as it’s called. People who have learned to control their Noise are able to manipulate their thoughts to create illusions. We see Todd, (Tom Holland) the main character, create a snake in the beginning of the film, and other characters cast illusions of real people later on.

Coincidentally, the whole mind-illusions premise reminds me of the mechanics of Brandon Bellecourt’s Absynthe, where soldiers were injected with a serum to allow them to communicate telepathically and craft illusions using their mind.

Despite the interesting concept, Chaos Walking does not make any effort to explain how the world works. There’s clearly something about the aura of the planet because we see as soon as Viola’s (Daisy Ridley) crew enters atmosphere, the men start to experience the Noise.

No explanation of the Noise, no real explanation of the Spackle, and not an inkling of how, who, when, or why humans settled New World to begin with.

From my perspective, world building certainly isn’t one of Chaos Walking’s strong suites. But, does it have any redeeming qualities?

The Acting Is Okay…?

For a sci fi movie on Hulu, I was surprised to see so many popular actors and actresses in Chaos Walking. Tom Holland has pretty much become the new Orland Bloom of his time, and Daisy Ridley, the new Kiera Knightley. It’s kind of weird to think that they both come from massive blockbuster franchises, Marvel and Star Wars, and ended up in a half-baked sci fi concept movie.

I’d say that the actors were limited by the one-dimensional aspect of the characters. I hate to lean into the criticism around the film, but I have to agree that the motivations of the characters are bland and generic.

sci fi movie on hulu chaos walking tom holland

And as an actor, there’s only so much you can do to break out of that mold. Mads Mikkelson plays great villains, but even his character lacks depth or purpose.

Is Chaos Walking The Worst Sci Fi Movie on Hulu?

It kind of blows my mind to think that Chaos Walking was in various stages of production for a decade, and yet didn’t even manage to bring in half the money the company spent to make it. For me, at least, if I’m working on a project, the longer I have to work on it, the better the final product will be.

Chaos Walking is the antithesis of that sentiment. If you watch it as a B-rated sci fi movie, it’s fine. You have to take a lot of things at face value, and be prepared to get confused at the ins-and-outs of the world.

But it really shouldn’t have ended up like that. Had the team focused more on developing motivations for characters, especially the villains, then I think the film would have done better.

At the end of the day, the villains—and to some degree, the protagonists—were driven by a single-minded goal that lacked complexity in a world that should have been very intricate. The Noise presented a great opportunity for developing character relationships, and yet, the writers fell back on the proliferation of random thoughts giving away secrets or upsetting people.

Overall, there was a good idea here for a movie, but the execution was severely lacking, so much so that even the collective acting expertise of the cast couldn’t fix it. I give Chaos Walking a 4/10, and the mantle of the worst sci fi movie on Hulu.

Movie Review: The Mandela Effect

Book Review: Yokohama Station SF by Yuba Isukari

Galaxy’s Edge Sci-Fi Book Review Roundup: January, 2022

The new year brings with it a new issue of Galaxy’s Edge Magazine! This month’s lineup includes authors Harry Turtledove, Effie Seiberg, Galen Westlake, Wang Yuan, and more!

Plus, Jean Marie Ward sits down for an interview with prolific sci fi legend, John Scalzi.

And Robert Chwedyk is at it again with another round of sci fi book reviews, this time including:

Perhaps the Stars by Ada Palmer
Noor by Nnedi Okorafor
Needle by Hal Clements

Check out what he had to say about these books below!

Perhaps the Stars

by Ada Palmer

Tor

November 2021

ISBN: 978-0-7653-7806-4

This was the work I was most hoping to get my hands upon when I entered the dealers’ room. It’s the “culmination” (it says so on the cover) of Ada Palmer’s massive tetralogy, Terra Ignota. And it fulfills the promise of the earlier books, Too Like the Lightning, Seven Surrenders and The Will to Battle. This is science fiction conceived of as a “literature of ideas,” and then raises the stakes to something that seems to dwarf such terms as “literature” and “ideas.” It’s a novel that not only contains the heart of a person or group of persons (a cast too numerous to even hint at), it contains the heart of an entire age. An age to come.

That age, to the surprise of some, is a renaissance transported centuries ahead of our time.

And why not? Writers like John M. Ford and Jack Dann have transported science-fictional concepts and sensibilities to alternate versions of the Renaissance. Why not the other way round? It was an age of great discoveries and brutal struggles for power and influence. It was era of great art and murderous passions. It was an age marked by both progress and the threat of ultimate calamity. Describing it that way, it sounds like the milieu of an Alfred Bester novel, or Cordwainer Smith with a crueler streak. And that’s not a bad way to summarize Palmer’s Terra Ignota milieu, except that Palmer raises the stakes a few nth degrees. Palmer’s world reinvents and somewhat refines technologies that have existed for centuries, were lost, and invented yet again. More important than technologies in some ways are the reinventions of ideas, like humanism, since the Renaissance can also be considered to some degree a humanist revolution.

It was also a most forward-thinking era. An impressive number of its luminaries could be mistaken for science fiction writers (and very often are). Also very much present in Palmer’s imagined future is the presence of the classical myth and epic imagery which energized and inspired the historical renaissance.

Those are just some of the aspects of renaissance culture Palmer so splendidly re-tools and extrapolates to thrilling effect, which may sound strange, since much of her prose is dense in texture. It is not, however, impenetrable. On the contrary, it draws you in and sustains your attention.

No matter how alien (in the widest sense) and far-out her scenarios and speculations may get, there is something familiar about them that we can connect with. Science fiction is often complimented (and also castigated) as a literature of ideas. Palmer is one of those writers who can bring those ideas to life in myriad, and fascinating, ways. It is more than intellectual exercise. In her hands, it’s emotionally compelling too. The novel pulls you in and sustains your interest throughout.

There is no one else in the field now (or at any time before) writing like Ada Palmer, which some readers may think a pity and others a blessing. The good news is that one Ada Palmer is sufficient (and necessary), and we’re very fortunate to have her.

Noor

by Nnedi Okorafor

DAW

November 2021

ISBN: 978-0-7564-1609-6

Of recent, Nnedi Okorafor has branched out into writing comics and screenplays, but what I still love best are her novels. She has not only invented a whole new way of looking at science fiction, but in doing so not only invented a voice, but a new kind of voice. Her worlds are as distinct in their own Africanfuturist (which Okorafor distinguishes from “Afrofuturist”) way as are the worlds of a Cordwainer Smith or an Alfred Bester or a R. A. Lafferty or a James Tiptree, Jr. are to theirs. I know, she has received much acclaim already, but I think her contributions are still undervalued to the field because, simply, so many of us are still learning how to read her.

Her most recent work has us following Anwuli Okwundili, who has shortened her name to AO, though she also insists this stands for “Artificial Organism.” AO was born with severe defects and given a number of mechanical enhancements. We’re in cyberpunk territory, but only in some ways. AO ends up with more enhancements when she turns fourteen, courtesy of the Ultimate Corp. All of this, as you would expect, makes her something of an outcast in her Nigerian village, until the day she is attacked in an Abuja marketplace. She manages to kill all the attackers. Now she is really an outcast, on the run, and she heads for the desert, where she runs into a Fulani herdsman named DNA, who is a lot more than his humble profession may suggest.

Also in the desert they encounter a roving dust storm called the Red Eye (which reminded me, of all things, of the sentient tornado named Sweetiepie that outsider artist Henry Darger wrote about in his autobiography). It is inevitable, especially in an Okorafor novel, that AO and DNA’s journey will bring them into the very heart of Red Eye, and even if you are familiar with any of Okorafor’s recent work, it will not be like anything you expect.

The thing I’ve found about Okorafor’s books is this: whoever you are and wherever you come from, you have to give yourself over to her and let her work her (in some cases literal) magic on you. With some authors this would be a dangerous proposition. Not so with Okorafor. Not only does she give me a plethora of new places to see, she lets me see them from angles I never would have imagined before. I trust her even when I have no clue what she’s doing because I’m certain she damn well knows what she’s doing, and that’s good enough for me. That feeling, that trust, is one of the things that got me reading science fiction in the first place.

Post of Interest: Afrofuturism and Music

Needle

by Hal Clement

Doubleday & Company, Inc.

1950 (first printing; many editions followed from several publishers)

ISBN: 0-380-00635-9

As much as I love all the new releases, my favorite part of the dealers’ room are the tables and tables of second-hand books, especially the mass market paperbacks. Were it not for those little gems calling out to me, siren-like, from the spinner racks of pharmacies and department store displays all those years ago, I might not have lost my heart to science fiction, at least at such an early age.

At the convention, I was fortunately able to acquire a copy of Hal Clement’s first novel, Needle, which I loaned out to someone who had the good sense never to return it. Clement hasn’t been given much attention in a long, long while, though he is occasionally remembered via lip service as one of the founders of “hard” SF. When mentioned, it is usually in regard to his best-known novel, Mission of Gravity.

I can’t say which novel is objectively better, but I have a fondness for Needle because it not only gives us the prototype for a number of stories where alien life forms take up residence in human hosts, but it does not descend into the kind of horrific scenarios most writers would take this sort of thing. In fact, Needle can also serve as a prototype YA novel, since its human protagonist is a fifteen-year-old boy. It has also been unofficially adapted (aka ripped off) by the manga 7 Billion Needles, along with media variations as far afield as Ultraman, The Hidden and Brain from Planet Arous. If “steal from the best” means anything in our culture, this novel has some real creds.

Robert Kinnaird, the boy, finds himself inhabited by the alien, The Hunter, who, as his name suggests, is in pursuit of a criminal alien. The criminal and The Hunter, both in their own ships, crash land near a sparsely populated Pacific island. As The Hunter inhabits Kinnaird, the criminal he’s pursuing inhabits someone else on the island. But just as The Hunter is learning something of his host, the planet and the culture he now finds himself in, Robert is sent off to a New England prep school. The Hunter not only has to find a way of cooperating with his host, and vice versa, he also has to find a way to get himself (or “themself,” sort of) back to the island so he can apprehend the criminal alien.

The novel works marvelously on several levels. It not only successfully portrays non-humanoid aliens as something other than nefarious invaders and maintains its hard science-fictional pedigree, but it also serves as a metaphorical evocation of the strangeness of adolescence: a boy feeling his body in change, as if something new is living inside him, not quite him but not quite not him. This perceived change gets even pricklier when he returns to the island and we discover who the host of the criminal alien is (no spoilers).

It’s a fable of change and growth and maturation told in the brisk and capable voice that marks the best of Clement’s work.

The discovery of such a gem in any dealers’ room is one of the joys of going to conventions in the flesh.

It felt so good to be back.

May we all be able to do much more of this soon.

Be sure to check out all the other books Chwedyk has reviewed in the January, 2022 issue of Galaxy’s Edge, as well as the great stories from new and established authors alike!

Galaxy’s Edge Magazine, January 2022

Sci Fi TV Shows: The Book of Boba Fett

Have you watched The Book of Boba Fett, one of the new sci fi TV shows on Disney+? We have, and we have to say, it brings a new life to an old character, one previously labeled as a villain.

The Book of Boba Fett aired in December 2021, and will run for seven episodes, ending on February 9^th, 2022.

I didn’t really have any expectations for the show, I saw it as a cash grab for people who loved the Boba Fett character from the original Star Wars films and The Mandalorian TV show. But, having watched the first three episodes, I think it has a lot more substance than most Star Wars media.

(Spoilers ahead for the first three episodes of The Book of Boba Fett and both seasons of The Mandalorian.)

A Rich Background

When Boba Fett first appeared as a dangerous bounty hunter in the Star Wars Holiday Special in 1978, and later played a bigger role in The Empire Strikes Back and The Return of the Jedi. He was the kind of character you hated to love, with very few lines, but an imposing presence.

In short, he was one of the classic villains from the original Star Wars trilogy, and later appeared in dozens of Star Wars comics, some of which were one-shot adventures, other were longer stories.

But, only when Temuera Morrison reprised his role as the infamous bounty hunter in The Mandalorian season 2 did Boba Fett become more than just a gun for hire. The show gave him depth and purpose, a vast change from the shoot-first, ask question later character many of us were familiar with.

Writing the History

So far, The Book of Boba Fett has been filled with backstory about how the bounty hunter escaped from the Sarlacc pit and found his way back to civilization.

Personally, a lot of the backstory about the Tusken Raiders and Boba Fett’s return felt unnecessary. When the character made an appearance in The Mandalorian, we could very well have assumed most of what happened after he was presumed dead in The Return of the Jedi.

But the backstory seeks to do more than reveal how the bounty hunter survived. It takes the new Star Wars approach, where previously bad characters are seen in a better light. And not just Fett, the Tusken Raiders, too.

For most of Star Wars history, the Raiders have stood as one of the perils of Tattooine, a dangerous desert tribe who pillaged for survival. The Book of Boba Fett shows us a new side to the classic “bad guys”, showing them with more culture and heritage than they ever had before.

Boba Fett not only learns to accept the Raiders, he helps them stake their claim on their land and even becomes an honorary member of their tribe.

I think what sets apart the new Star Wars media and the old Star Wars content is compassion. In the original Star Wars, Boba Fett would have never thought twice about killing Tusken Raiders, but now, he takes the time to learn their ways, protect them, and go out of his way to give them the respect they deserve.

Not to mention, the enthusiasm and compassion Boba Fett shows to the Rankor calf gifted to him by the Hutt Twins. It’s interesting to see Fett’s character transition away from anger and violence to a more thoughtful approach.

Fennec Shand

In many ways, Fennec Shand plays the part that Boba Fett played years ago as a bounty hunter. Played by Ming Na Wen, Shand is a deadly assassin who first makes her appearance in The Mandalorian season 1, episode 5, and is later seen in the animated series, The Bad Batch.

She’s known as a ruthless bounty hunter, and is Boba Fett’s right-hand woman in the new sci fi TV show. Where Boba Fett in the original trilogy was cold and heartless, Shand is more pragmatic, though still prone to violence.

She’s one of the most interesting characters in the show, and I’m interested to see what story arc is in store for her. In some capacity, I feel like she’ll remain a static character, always sticking by Fett’s side because he once saved her life. However, I wouldn’t be surprised if she becomes frustrated with Boba’s newfound patience and branches out to commit criminal acts in his name.

Is The Book Of Boba Fett Worth Watching?

I’d say yes, it is. This sci fi TV shows spins the previous narrative of the infamous bounty hunter to make him a more likeable and relatable character. Plus, we get see sides of Tattooine we’ve never experienced before, like the deep criminal politics.

I do feel like the backstory is overplayed, and it really dominated the first two episodes of the space western TV show. Hopefully, moving forward, we’ve crossed over into the present, and the backstory is only interspersed throughout.

If you liked this post, check out some of our other content. We’re always talking about all things sci fi, whether it’s a deep dive into science fiction subgenres, or reviews of books, movies, games, and shows. New blogs, twice a week!

Review of Rorschach by Tom King

Does Paris Syndrome Have a Place In Speculative Fiction?

Paris Syndrome is one of those things that everyone’s heard about but most people haven’t experienced. It’s a result of high expectations of a place, primarily Paris, hence the name, and the resulting disappointment when the place doesn’t live up to the hype.

It seems like a very specific condition, and it is, and in this article, I want to dissect how Paris Syndrome plays a part in science fiction, or, how it might.

What is Paris Syndrome?

For centuries, Paris has been a travel destination for people from all over the world, from all walks of life. The city has a rich history of intrigue and romance, and often, the hype around the city is far more exaggerated than what the city has to offer.

Paris Syndrome was coined by Japanese psychiatrist Hiroaki Ota when he worked at the Sainte-Anne Hospital Center in France. The condition, as Ota states, is primarily seen in Japanese tourists who visit Paris. The high expectations set by magazines, media, and travel advertisements—like how people think Paris is filled with models, millionaires, and artists—are the primary cause of Paris Syndrome.

It’s worth noting that the condition comes in two forms—the people that had predetermined mental conditions that were triggered by the realization that Paris isn’t a city of glamour and romance, and those people that had no prior history of mental conditions.

Those who suffer from Paris Syndrome often display delusions, hallucinations, anxiety, and in severe cases, derealization and depersonalization. Not to mention the psychosomatic effects, like dizziness, sweating, trouble breathing, and vomiting.

The condition was deemed so serious that the Sainte-Anne Hospital and the Japanese Embassy set up a department to assist Japanese travelers suffering from Paris Syndrome.

How Does Paris Syndrome Apply To Sci Fi?

While the original use of the term Paris Syndrome was to describe Japanese travelers experiencing a place that hadn’t lived up to their expectations, it can also be used to describe the same situation in different cities, regions, countries, etc.

When I was reading about Paris Syndrome, even just the simple article I’d found, a thought crossed my mind. How severe would Paris Syndrome be in the future? For a time-traveler, maybe, or for someone so sheltered from society that they experience the extreme effects of Paris Syndrome.

Imagine a character who had been living in a rural area far removed from a cyberpunk city in the future, that all of their perceptions of the place were from advertisements, news, or second-hand accounts. Now imagine they visit the city and are so overwhelmed by its neon bulbs, drugs, crime, and all-around nastiness that they start to have hallucinations and delusions. To me, at least, it sounds reasonable.

Even traveling from a small, Pennsylvanian town to NYC for the first time, I was anxious, felt closed-in and constantly watched, and generally uncomfortable. What would that experience be like in a sci fi world?

I started looking for examples of Paris Syndrome in science fiction literature, and I uncovered some interesting things.

“Border Control”

The first story I came across was the flash piece, “Border Patrol” by Liam Hogan, published in The Arcanist.

I’m familiar with Hogan’s work from when I worked on the Triangulation anthology series, as he was a regular contributor. His work has always been interesting and thought-provoking, and this story was no different.

In this micro-fiction piece, Hogan thinks about what Paris Syndrome would be like for time travelers. And rightfully so. The future holds so many possibilities, it’s easy to create a grand illusion of what it would be like. But, it’s probably much darker and mundane that we imagine it to be.

I suppose the same would apply to the past. If you traveled back into the past, say, the 1920s, you might expect Gatsby-style parties, car-rides through growing cities, and unprecedented wealth. However, your hopes would be dashed when you landed in the trash-strewn streets of New York, where the average American is still grieving their losses of WWI and struggling to get by.

Speaking of war, let’s get to our next example:

The Forever War

After picking r/sciencefiction’s braintrust, I realized that The Forever War by Joe Haldeman has elements of Paris Syndrome, while not named as such.

For those of you who haven’t read The Forever War, the premise is that the world’s most elite military recruits are sent into space to wage an impossible war with the Taurans. Because of their tech and their missions in the farthest reaches of our galaxy, time passes much more quickly on Earth than it does for the recruits waging war.

When they finally return to Earth, so much time has passed on their home planet that they don’t recognize it at all. And that’s where Paris Syndrome comes in.

Instead of finding their place in the futuristic Earth, they mourn so much for the place that they knew and had dreamt about while at war that they reenlist. They’d much rather return to a galaxy at war than learn to live in a place that so drastically changed shattered their hopes and expectations.

Of course, there are elements of PTSD, but the Paris Syndrome is part of the underlying reason Mandella and Potter return to the Forever War.

Frequently There, Never Named

Even though we might not recognize it, the Paris Syndrome plays a part in many science fiction novels. It’s never noted as being the Paris Syndrome, but the same idea is there.

The Dark Eden series by Chris Beckett has elements of Paris Syndrome, and Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson and The Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin both have shadows of the idea.

Paris Syndrome is more prevalent that we might think, and it’s certainly a condition that plays—or has the potential to play—a larger part in science fiction literature. Like in The Forever War, the future has so much potential that everyone has their expectations of what it will be like. But, when faced with the harsh reality of things, it turns out to be less ideal than one could have hoped.

I think in many ways, we might all feel Paris Syndrome sometimes, though to a less severe degree than Japanese tourists in France’s pearl. If you’ve ever had high hopes for a new book or show or movie, and then felt wildly disappointed or distraught when it doesn’t live up to your expectations—that’s small scale Paris Syndrome. Especially if there was a lot of hype around it, like positive advertisements, reviews, etc.

What do you think? Is it a stretch to believe Paris Syndrome plays a role in science fiction? Or is it a reasonable hypothesis?

Let us know in the comments below!

Space Mining Is Closer Than We Think

We’re All Him: Comic Book Review, Rorschach by Tom King

When I first read the Watchmen comics a few years ago, I was enthralled with Rorschach. His character design, his principles, his grit—it all was so realistic, which isn’t something you often think when reading a comic book.

But Watchmen isn’t like other comic books, and the sequel, Rorschach, isn’t either. I thought it was only fitting we hop on the mainstream train for a while and do a comic book review of Rorschach, the 10-issue series by Tom King and Jorge Fornés.

Some Background for the Rorschach Comic

Rorschach was a serialized comic book series that lasted for ten issues from October 2020 to July 2021. It was written by Tom King, illustrated by Jorge Fornés, and colored by Dave Stewart.

Tom King is well-known for his work with Batman, Mister Miracle, and from his novel, A Once Crowded Sky. In 2018, he shared the Eisner Award for Best Writer with Marjorie Liu, author of Monstress.

Both Jorge Fornés and Dave Stewart have worked for Marvel and DC comics, most notably for Daredevil, Spiderman, Catwoman, and Captain America comics.

The Rorschach comics occur after the events of Watchmen, Doomsday Clock, and the Watchmen HBO series that aired in 2019. The story is set in 2020, right before a big presidential election where Governor Turley seeks to beat the 5-time president, Robert Redford.

Rorschach Never Dies

I was curious to read this series and do a comic book review on it because unlike some other comics that are merely FLASH and BANG, Rorschach has substance. Like, a lot.

Starting off, I was a bit confused about the concept for the series. At the end of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ Watchmen, Dr. Manhattan vaporizes Rorschach for threatening to reveal the truth about Veidt. So, Rorschach—the original Rorschach—is dead by the time Tom King’s series starts.

But it quickly becomes clear that there are multiple people impersonating Rorschach, all of whom are vigilantes working to take down the corrupt powers that be and prevent another squid invasion.

The whole premise of Rorschach’s—and the other Watchmen’s—survival was that Dr. Manhattan released their souls into the world to find new bodies and continue their work. But the Walter Kovacs’ Rorschach’s legacy extended far wider than his singular soul. He embodies the rebel, the anarchist, and the idealist.

Rorschach lives on in the hearts of those who need him, of those who believe in a better future, free from tyranny. But those people also see Rorschach’s darker side, including the blood on his hands.

King’s Rorschach takes that idea and runs with it. In many ways, the comic series is as much a political and ethical commentary as it is a hard-boiled detective story.

The protagonist, an unnamed investigator, slowly unravels a vast conspiracy that reeks in the wake of the world the Watchmen left behind. King’s grim vision of 2020 has even more bloodshed and filth than our own 2020, which is really saying something.

Leaving a Legacy

Comic book historian Bradford Wright stated once that the original Rorschach’s intentions were always “a set of black-and-white values that take many shapes but never mix into shades of gray.”

But King’s Rorschach believes in the black, white, the gray in between, and blood red. In many ways, this reflects the worldview we’ve all kind of come to accept (minus, perhaps, the blood).

In the past few years, we’ve seen the break down of American politics. Core principles of democracy that were once firmly black and white, right and left, have slid into the gray areas. We’ve all overlooked things we shouldn’t have, and we’ve all gotten worked up over things that, in retrospect, didn’t matter.

That’s the legacy that King’s Rorschach leaves us. At one point, one of the main characters, Wil Myerson, says “most evil is done by people who never made up their minds to be or do either good or evil.”

And that’s the hard part. To see things as black and white as Walter Kovacs takes a keen sense of self, a set of values that don’t waver under external stress.

Thinking about my own life, I realized this is a lot harder to achieve than it seems. We’ve all told a white lie (which, in this color-coordinated analogy, is really a gray lie) because we felt the truth was irrelevant, or would hurt.

But that hurt is important. Given the truth, we can structure what’s right and wrong, what needs to be done, and what can be saved for later. So, while the original Rorschach might not live in all of us, King’s does. “Some people need masks. Some don’t,” as the book flap of the Rorschach anthology reads. Don the mask, or don’t. Either way, embracing Rorschach is as critical now as it’s ever been.

Comic Book Review of Rorschach: Conclusion

Despite paltry reviews of the 10^th issue, I felt that Rorschach lived up to, and in some ways, far exceeded, my expectations.

King has done more in ten issues to flesh out a philosophy for Rorschach than Moore and Gibbon have ever done.

The art is fantastic, while grimmer than the original Watchmen comics, and I found myself unable to put the book down.

While Monstress might have been the first 10/10 I gave a comic book, Rorschach will be the second. It takes the comic book medium and uses it to tell a truly fabulous story, outlining in it’s pages a path forward for many of us who are confused or conflicted.

Review of This Eden by Ed O’Loughlin

Sci fi Subgenres: Splice & Dice, the Biopunk Code

Of all the sci fi subgenres, biopunk probably hits the closest to home. Modern medicine and biotech has reached new heights, but a lot of the seeds of the fields were planted 40 years ago in some of the seminal biopunk novels.

Biopunk is closely related to cyberpunk and its derivatives, but it certainly presents a more realistic, while grim, outlook for our future.

What is Biopunk?

Where cyberpunk focuses on modifying the human body mechanically (think implants, advanced prosthetics, and computerized neuro functions), biopunk focuses on biology. Specifically, synthetic biology, including genetic engineering, extreme natural selection philosophies, and biochemical enhancement.

While some sci fi genres like solarpunk take a more optimistic outlook on the human experience, biopunk is closely related to cyberpunk in its adherence to a pessimistic, even grim, philosophy. As such, most biopunk books, novels, and games have dystopian societies, shadow governments, and totalitarian overtones.

Biopunk often features illegal black-market biohackers, people who operate outside the sanctioned scientific community to provide experimental—and dangerous—solutions to people’s troubles. While William Gibson’s Neuromancer was instrumental in the creation of cyberpunk, it also hinted at a biopunk world functioning in tandem with the flashy neon and advanced hardware of cyberpunk.

Case, the main character, sustained significant damage to his nervous system, which prevented him from hacking into cyberspace. In exchange for his services as a hacker, Armitage repairs his nervous system while implanting a failsafe—poison—in Case’s bloodstream. Biopunk, right?

It’s clear that biopunk doesn’t operate in a vacuum, but just how connected is it to real science? Well, this sci fi subgenre is simply a culmination of fear, anxiety, and contempt for the illicit activities of real-life scientists. The history of the biotechnology revolution laid the groundwork for the core tenets of the biopunk genre.

The Biotechnology Revolution

Biotechnology isn’t a new field. It’s predecessor, zymurgy, was incredibly prevalent in the late 1800s. The bustle and boom of the industrial revolution brought with it the need to increase food production and raise valuable capital for impending wartime projects.

German scientists began developing specific yeast strains that would increase beer production and boost the industry’s revenue. And during WWI, German and Russian scientists raced to use their new fermentation tech to support the war efforts, through the creation of hydraulic fluid alternatives and acetone.

Eventually, the focus moved away from fermentation and the field was more broadly defined as biotechnology, coined by Karoly Ereky, a Hungarian pork mogul. With the discovery of penicillin, the field became obsessed with curing human ailments and making a stronger workforce.

After a few decades of tinkering with biofuel and single-cell protein projects, biotechnology experienced its next boom with the creation of genetic engineering. DNA structure and recombinant DNA took biotech by storm, and would remain the core focus of the field for the next fifty years.

Realizing the vast potential of biotechnology, politicians went to war with human rights activists over the ethics of biotech, and for a while the science community placed a moratorium on biotech until the industry was regulated and assuaged public fears.

The biotechnology as we know it today was born out of the desire to improve the human condition, with IVF, gene-editing therapy, and microbiological advancement like synthetic insulin.

But the biotechnology prominently featured in the biopunk genre is the biotech of the 1960s, which placed a heavy focus on eugenics and biological warfare.

Biopunk Novels, Films, and Games

One of the early proponents of the biopunk genre was Paul Di Filippo, with his collection of short stories, Ribofunk. Di Filippo emphasizes that cyberpunk as a genre lacks any real substance to maintain a status in the public eye for more than a fleeting moment. Instead, in Ribofunk, he proposes that biopunk, or slipstream works with a focus on biotech, is the study of living, not the depressing, close-to-extinction fiction of cyberpunk.

Despite his efforts to elevate the genre, much of biopunk still riffs off the dark nature of human experimentation and exploitation, albeit with some positive undertones.

Some prominent novels in the genre include:

Blood Music by Greg Bear (often seen as an overlap of biopunk and nanopunk)
The Xenogenesis trilogy by Octavia E. Butler
Schismatrix by Bruce Sterling
The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi

But, the biopunk genre extends farther than the written word, encompassing visual mediums like film and video games.

The BioShock game series
The 2009 film Splice
The Resident Evil game series
The TV show Orphan Black

Blade Runner, the 1982 film based on Philip K. Dick’s book Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is often categorized as a cyberpunk work, which in many ways, it is. However, it does feature biopunk themes. The Replicants, sometimes thought to be androids, are actually biologically-engineered, clone-like entities. This becomes clear in Blade Runner: 2049 with the scene Replicant-birth scene.

A Sci Fi Subgenre With Substance

Biopunk started out as an offshoot of cyberpunk, but in many ways, it has overshadowed its predecessor. The dedication to the ideological expansion of biotechnology and its implications to the everyday person makes biopunk a much more digestible genre than cyberpunk.

While we’re closely catching up to the cyberware featured in the cyberpunk arsenal, biopunk hits closer to home. Everyday we see incredible advancements in genetic engineering and biochemical panaceas that make biopunk’s darker ideations much more realistic and haunting.

What do you think? Will biopunk outlive its predecessor? Or will our biotech surpass the bounds of imagination?

Let us know in the comments below!

Classic Sci Fi Book Covers That Made The Genre

The Speculative Fiction Poetry of Progressive Rock

A few years ago, I attended Confluence, a sci-fi convention in downtown Pittsburgh. I attended a few panels about science topics, and even ran a mini-writing workshop with two of my Alpha graduate colleagues.

But one of the most interesting things I encountered while at Confluence was the filk community. For those who don’t know, filk is a culture, genre, and community based around music and speculative fiction. Filking is a wild experience. The music, which is heavily inspired by Tolkein-esque ballads and high-concept sci fi worlds, is accompanied by elaborate costumes and role playing, almost like LARPing.

After leaving Confluence, I started to consider how music and science fiction were tied together, and began noticing certain similarities between speculative fiction poetry and progressive rock, a genre I’d been listening to for a while before attending Confluence.

In this article, I want to lay out some thoughts about how prog rock takes spec fic themes and runs with them.

What is Progressive Rock?

You have probably heard prog rock before and not even known it! The movement began in the 1960s with the growing popularity of concept albums, introduced by The Beatles and other pop bands of the time.

A few of the core tenets of prog rock include:

Instrumental Experimentation– adding instruments and methods not widely used, like bringing in orchestral instruments and synthesizers. While the latter has become more mainstream as technology has improved, prog is still one of the pioneering genres seeking to use weird, unique sounds and instruments.

Pairing Literature and Lyricism – the idea of the concept album brought about philosophical ideas to mainstream music, as well as literature into lyrics. Prog rock artists often incorporate literary references when crafting their vast—frequently science fiction—masterpieces.

Advanced Musical Theory – Prog rock excels in breaking the bounds of musical theory. Most prog rock bands will tinker with time signatures, harmonies, and length to produce unique, compelling pieces of music.

How Do Prog Rock and Speculative Fiction Overlap?

It’s very easy to compare prog rock and speculative fiction because the two share a lot of the same fundamental values. Speculative fiction, be it sci fi, fantasy, horror, slipstream, or any of the hundreds of sci fi subgenres out there, all work to break the bounds of conventional thought. This could be through a complex story structure that mirrors how we think, or by incorporating fantastical ideas about unexplained phenomena in our world.

Prog rock follows a similar style, albeit more abstract. It pairs unique sounds with complicated, sometimes cryptic, verses all written in a poetic style. I’ve listened to some prog rock albums more than a dozen times, and they always take on a new life and meaning when reading the lyrics.

To show just how closely the two entities are connected, I’ve picked out an example:

Chromaparagon by Moon Tooth

I doubt a lot of people of heard this one, but it stands as one of the most interesting examples of prog rock that I could find.

Moon Tooth is a four-person band originating from Long Island, New York. Chromaparagon is their first full-length album, and is succeeded by Crux, and another album that’s upcoming sometime this year.

What I found particularly compelling about Chromaparagon, and super-relevant to our conversation of science fiction and prog rock, is their focus on the arcane, the weird, and the bizarre.

Take, for example, the first song on the album, Queen Wolf.

If you read the lyrics, you’ll recognize the linear motion of the story, which follows a mysterious, seemingly exiled character only referenced as “I” as they discover and confront the Queen Wolf.

My interpretation of the story is that the “I” character comes to realize the cruel nature of solitude and ostracization, and throws aside their old beliefs (evident by the line “I gathered up my holy books, O, my holy ink and paper and I burned them all). Afterwards, they set out to find the Queen Wolf, who has also been ostracized, and when the character finds her, “there was no denying that we belonged to each other.”

It’s a story of breaking from solitude and old beliefs to be with someone who is equally as shunned for their beliefs, even if they are perceived as a monster.

Keeping with the literary theme of prog rock, the song features a section from C.S. Lewis’ Prince Caspian book, “I am hunger, I am thirst. Where I bite, I hold till I die. I could fast a hundred years, I could lie a hundred nights on the ice and not freeze, I could drink a river of blood and not burst. Now tell me, who comes to disturb me?”

That monologue from Prince Caspian is spoken by a werewolf who had once been a servant of the White Witch and was brought out of exile by Nikabrik, a grumpy dwarf. Pretty fitting, right?

Throughout the rest of the album, the themes portrayed in the first song are built upon. In “Little Witch” the mysterious “I” talks about creating a personal Hell, but not a Biblical Hell. More like a Paradise Lost Hell, a hell of one’s own making.

Vesuvius I and II take us away from the previous themes, replacing them instead with iconography of Aries and the mountain of fire, instilling in listeners a sense of urgency as the ash darkens the sky.

Eventually, we reach “White Stag”, where we finally get a bit of hope. “Clouds dance and weave in infinite potential…He wills in your name on forever in beautiful ways.”

The Poetry of Prog

While this is only one example of how the genre-bending nature of prog rock music ties in with spec fiction, it’s a perfect case study for the abstract and the experimental.

A lot of people don’t listen to prog rock because it is weird and experimental, but us sci fi fans are quite familiar with those things. The music market is a highly competitive place, but progressive rock bands have made it their mission to break the barriers of genre, just like modern sci fi writers.

Moon Tooth, while our primary example, was a band I only discovered in the past two years. Before them, I was introduced to the genre by Caligula’s Horse, whose Bloom album stands as another intersection of spec fic poetry and rock music.

At the end of the day, the writers and musicians who make waves with their work are the ones who will be remembered. And Chromaparagon certainly stands as an album worth remembering.

A Cyberpunk Story About Tequila, Candy, and Barfights