Cat Sheely

Writer and opinionated reader


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Eurobodalla Writers and Reading Arthur C Clarke’s Space Odyssey series

It’s been a while since I posted here.  I’ve been setting up a new website for the Eurobodalla Writers  and it has taken up quite a bit of my computing time.  On top of that we’ve set up a critique group that meets monthly and, with the financial support of the Eurobodalla Shire Council have set up an evening group to complement our daytime group.  It could not have been achieved without the work of Louise, our PR person and the EW secretary Rosie.

Now I am looking forward to the next challenge – editing the next EW anthology for the groups 20th anniversary next year.  We are currently voting on the theme.  Then we hope to use Kickstarter (crowd sourcing) to get finance to print the book.

After 20 years of the Eurobodalla Writers it is interesting to see how the group has changed and who has stayed with it throughout the changes.  We have several foundation members still with the group who are enthusiastic about the changes which is nice.  We have new members who have been the impetus for change.  And change includes getting onto the web, doing the anthology in a professional manner and asking members to write stories longer than the usual 1000 words.  I’m looking forward to seeing what the members write as there is a lot of talent in the group.

In the coming week we are privileged to be undertaking a workshop by Rik Lagarto, a member of the Canberra Speculative Fiction Guild (CSfG).  He will be presenting to both the evening and day groups.  We also had Ian McHugh, current President of CSfG do a workshop for us last year.  It has certainly improved the standard of the groups writing as a whole.

So with all of this going on I’ve not had too much time to blog here.

I have of course continued my reading of sci-fi classics.  Currently onto Arthur C Clarke‘s 2010: A Space Odyssey 2.  I realised that 2001 was written while Kubrick was filming and the story setting is somewhat different from the film.  When writing the 2010 Odyssey book he write it in line with the film.  It is a bit sad he didn’t stay with the original book but people remember the film and the famous sequence starting with the line “Open the Pod Bay doors, please Hal,” didn’t exist in the first book.

What I really like about these books is that overall they haven’t dated.  Clarke wrote about the planets in a way that is still current today and the way he wrote about technology is broad enough to still feel ‘real’ today.  He talked about touch screens for example – an item we are all now very familiar with.  We may not have plasma drives yet but with all the work being done on getting to Mars and maybe even working toward a settlement by 2023 (see New Scientist, No 2910 of 30 March 2013) we could be on the way to developing some sort of engine to move through space at a good clip.  So now off to finish 2010 and head onto 3001.


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Winds of Change eBook Available – Great Value and Great Reading!

The Canberra Speculative Fiction Guild (CSfG) has published it’s anthology ‘Winds of Change’ as an ebook. See here for details.

You can buy it  USD $4.99 e-book – available in most formats from Smashwords, Kobo Books, iTunes and Barnes & Noble

It is a great read and includes my own story ‘Dragonfly’.

 


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Another Case of Science Fiction and Reality

Several months  back I read the Orson Scott Card‘s novel ‘Enders Game‘.  This morning, over breakfast, I was catching up on reading New Scientist, my favourite magazine.  As a writer it provides me with interesting ideas and as a life-long learner it provides me with challenging and new lessons every week.  So what do these two things have in common?

The 26 January 2013 edition of New Scientist has an article by Sara Reardon called ‘I spy, with my faraway eye’ (p.46) about trainee pilots for the US Air Force drone program.  She describes the small musty-smelling room, dark and silent, in which the trainees sit at a console and learn to wage war remotely.  She goes on to describe the trainee and pilot feelings about the drones, how they feel part of the war effort and are satisfied when they receive thanks from soldiers on the ground.  She also discusses some possible psychological outcomes which can include ‘vicarious traumatisation’. This issue was identified in psychologists who spent time debriefing people after disasters or from war zones.  As they listen they make a mental image of what the client describes to allow understanding of the situation and feelings it engenders.  After any extended time some show PTSD type symptoms including nightmares and sleep disorders.

So I began to correlate Ender’s story with that of the trainee drone pilots.  Ender was born as part of a program to find a very young child who could be trained to fight an intergalactic war both strategically and remotely. He is put through rigorous training for many years in life-like simulations.  In the end, and without his knowledge, he is actually leading the war effort –  but flying remotely.  In doing so he wipes out an entire species and suffers what one could now consider PTSD.

Take the intergalactic out of this and replace it with the other side of our planet and a parallel can start to be drawn.  Card wrote his original story in the 1960′s and over the next years turned it into a series and a science fiction classic.  And here we are in the early part of the next century, fifty years on, pretty much on the way to fighting wars remotely.

So maybe the ‘GAME’ isn’t so much science fiction anymore?

 


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Ray Bradbury and Fahrenheit 451

As noted in recent posts, I have been reading some of sic-fi’s classics.   I have just finished Fahrenheit 451 and I’m very surprised by it.  It is in no way what I expected even though I was aware of the premise.  I admit to never seeing the film either.  So, what was surprising.  Mostly that a lot of the 109 pages are a treatise on the life of modern man that is still as relevant now as when the novella was written.

Written in 1953 it somehow extrapolates the technological trends beginning at that time, for example television and easier communication, along with the psychological possibilities those technologies could induce, like isolation of kids in front of televisions or computer games.

The story begins with a fireman, Guy Montag,  in some not-so-far-distant future, who is now burning rather than putting out fires.  And he and his colleagues are burning books because they are deemed anathema to a happy life.  The reason is that there is a belief that the myriad of ideas in both fiction and non-fiction lead to interpersonal and internal conflict for individuals.  Instead homes are fitted with huge televisions that cover full walls in the ‘parlor’.  The programs are interactive to the extend that they are manipulated to input the watcher’s name in appropriate places.  The noise and colour are so all-encompassing that it overrides people s psyche.

All books have been destroyed and any that are left, if found, are burned.  The owner is imprisoned or, in some cases, commit ‘suicide’ with their libraries.

Montag lives the life of a so-called believer until he meets a young 12 year old girl on his way to work.  By asking questions she opens up his deep-seated unhappiness and leads to his rebellion.  He loses his job, his house, his wife but he finds others like him and in the end, when the apocalypse hits the cities, he and like-minded others, survive.

Bradbury writes in an almost philosophical style by letting the reader into the thoughts and emotions of Montag while at the same time using language to build on the depth of the story.  For example in the opening lines he describes Montag’s view of a burning:

‘It was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed.  With the brass nozzle in his fists, with this great python spitting its venomous kerosene upon the world, the blood pounding in his head, and his hands were the hands of some amazing conductor playing all the symphonies of lazing and burning to bring down the tatters and charcoal ruins of history.’ 

Immediately you feel the import of the subject, the drama and as it continues you see Montag go through his own epiphany as he rises from the ruins just like the Phoenix.

These days with plasma and LED televisions that cover walls and sound systems that fill a room it is not so amazing to think of television walls or even a room wherein the watcher is part of the program.  Like this blog, my own game-playing and web sites that I administer I spend quite a deal of time staring at a screen, absorbed in what I’m doing but only interacting with others at a distance.

As for burning books, in a way we do that now but we burn them onto an electronic media.  No longer do we carry paper novels or hardcover books but instead eReaders of some kind – they carry a whole library of books.  I read this one on my Sony in fact.

I have to admit that on at least to occasions I nearly put the novella down because it seemed unnecessarily wordy in places, sometimes a bit confusing.  But I was intrigued by the story and continued on.  I’m very happy that I did.

From a writers point of view I realise that classics are really all about the story, the suspense of seeing where it’s going and the readers connection with the characters.  In this case I realise we have all felt confused when learned beliefs begin to crumble.  We have all felt the dissolution and the loss that comes with it when we begin to question our world.  Bradbury captures this very well and thus it is easy to feel for Montag.  I simply had to keep reading so see what would happen to Montag and if he survived thus the story and the tension kept me reading despite the sometimes dense language.

It is still a story that suggests we beware of ‘Big Brother’ and that we should not believe everything we hear and see in the media.  Many of us do question the media these days but it still worries me when I see the bias in newspaper and television commentaries on all types of subjects depending on their editorial directions.  I sometimes wonder if they do believe what they write for these media or simply do it as part of their jobs?  My optimism hopes the latter but my head suggests it is likely the first.

Now I’m going to re-read Bradbury’s Illustrated Man – one of my favourites when I was a teenager.  I bet I have a different view of it now!


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Classic SciFi – Arthur C Clarke’s ‘Childhood’s End’

I’ve recently been going through some of the classical science fiction books and short stories. In earlier posts I’ve discussed my reactions to Dracula and Frankenstein, Alice in Wonderland and a few more.  I have just finished  reading Arthur C. Clarke with quote

‘Childhood’s End’.  Beginning from a short story in 1946 (Guardian Angel) and ending in the novel published in 1953 it details the arrival of an alien race to Earth.  For more details it’s always good to start at Wikipedia.

From what I read it seems that this was Clarke’s first book and it takes a surprising view of alien invasion.  The so-called ‘Overlords’ are quite hands off and instead of ruining our culture they homogenise it, ensuring war is a thing of the past as well as famine or disadvantage.  Everyone is well off but scientific enquiry and creativity tailor off to be only an area of individual interest.

Clarke tells the story through the eyes of several humans.  The first is the head of the United Nations who is the only human to deal with the Overlord Karellen.  When he retires, the story moves on to Jan, his sister Maia and George and Jean Greggson.  It is an interesting way to tell a story over time although when reading it takes a few pages of the new/additional characters to see that the story has moved on in time.

Overall, it is the story of humanity’s development to join the overall mind of the universe.  As as such I found the story chilling.

The style of the story suggests that it is a wonderful thing to see humanity destroyed in its current physical form and become part of the Universal ‘Mind’.  To me, and maybe because of my stage of life, the loss of all the worlds children to the ‘Mind’ and the destruction of everyone and eventually Earth itself is nothing but apocalyptic.

I think it is this, the style and the horror/apocalypse it portrays, that makes it such a chilling and outstanding story.  We have had many apocalyptic stories in recent years and especially in YA fiction.  That Clarke had just lived through WWII and was still in his 30′s may have something to do with it.  When contrasted to his Oddessy series in which the human race does go out into space (with varying degrees of challenge and success) Childhood’s End is gloomy.  Yet the idea of ridding Earth of conflict and living in a ‘Golden Age’ of prosperity for all must have seemed a wonderful idea.  I wonder if Clarke was not of the view that anything good has a price and that the loss of humanity as it is currently – it’s physical shape and it’s environment – was the eventual price for the Golden Age.

I found some of the assumptions in the book rather quaint.  That in the 21st century people would still be using film was interesting as in the era this was written there was no idea of microchips.  Another thing that came to mind was the view that everyone would be using airships of sorts to get around forgoing cars, ocean travel and railways.  With the interesting fact that the three day hiatus of air traffic after 9/11 showed a 1.1 degree Celsius change in air temperature the idea that everyone taking to the air with little or no effect on the environment was interesting.  And finally there was the assumption that humans playing around with the atom would cause the destruction of Earth and homo sapiens with it. The last was the theme behind the story as the alien invasion stopped it from happening.

We have moved on scientifically since the story was written.  That said, it is still a very interesting concept, novel, and it seems no-one has repeated a similar concept in any stories that I’ve read.

I’m glad I’ve read this book.  It was only 177 pages so really a novella.  Never-the-less it certainly left an impact on me.


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Writing in 2013

Today I had the pleasure of meeting with the Committee of the Eurobodalla Writers.  These wonderful people work to promote the craft of writing in the Eurobodalla Shire, a beautiful area on the South Coast of NSW.

The Moruya River looking upstream from the bre...

The Moruya River looking upstream from the breakwater on the northern head of the river (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We had long discussions on what will be done in the group this year and it sounds like a very interesting time.

There are quite a few long term members with much experience and, over the past year or so, many new and enthusiastic members.  The group meets on the 1st and 3rd Wednesdays of the month.  At these meetings members read out their work and, when requested, have it critiqued.  The writing is on an agreed topic and is between 500 and 1000 words in length.  Sometimes there are workshops – my favourite last year was one on the writing of sonnets by Margaret Barlow and many of us tried our hand at this very difficult style.  Members writing covers all genres from biographical to horror or fantasy, from romance to who-done-its.  So much talent and so much fun.

The group also self-publishes anthologies of the members work.  The last book, ‘Where Pelicans Fly’, has been popular and only about 100 books left unsold.  You can catch us at the Moruya Markets during the summer as we try to sell these.  Also individual members publish their books – for example Louise Falcioni has almost sold all of her children’s story book ‘Theo’ and is working on her next one.  The last copies are also available from our small table at the markets.

One exciting new venture is getting the Eurobodalla Writers online with a discussion group on Yahoo (invitation only) and maybe making our next publication an ebook.

So this is shaping up to be a very interesting year for EW.

I am also still involved with the CSFG.  This year is Canberra’s 100th anniversary and the city will host Conflux 9 in April.

2013 is off to a good start.  Hope it keeps going that way.

 


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The Next Big Thing

I have avoided getting involved but finally allowed Ross C Hamilton to get me involved in this little game of e-tag.  I’m not entirely sure that there is anybody in my acquaintance who hasn’t already been tagged so I might be a dead end – hmmmm, sounds ominous.  Anyone interested let me know in the comments and I will be happy to tag you.

So, now to start….

1.  What is the working title of your next book?

Oh I wish it were my ‘next’ book but this is my first and it’s working title is ‘Cynan’ – the name of the central character.  It is a working title but it will be hard for me to think of any other title when push comes to shove as it is etched into my brain.  I think I may need prodding, pushing and poking and a lot of help to find a final title.

2.  Where did the idea come from for the book?

At the outset I wanted to explore a matriarchy and how such a system might work and remain stable – what would keep the males from reaching for power.  As the characters took over the story morphed into something altogether more interesting and fun.

3.  What genre does the book fall under?

It falls squarely into the fantasy/adventure genre.

4.  What actors would you choose to play the parts of your characters in a movie rendition?

As by the time this thing is finished and published (optimism runs in my family!), there might be many young female actors in their late teens/early twenties for the part so…. haven’t got a clue.  I can’t even find a role for my favourite actor so what hope have I got.

5.  What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

A thousand-year old prophecy predicts the fall of the Tertian Matriarchy.  There is a small hope – the Matriarch-designate must remain a secret and go into hiding.  Torn from her her childhood home in the caverns of Jacobsby, Cynan must depend on her own common sense while she travels to her distant aunt.  Her journey leads her into the midst of a revolution where she finds herself torn between her duties and her inherent need for fairness; a driving desire to travel to the depths of the coldest continent on Tertian on a hunch or to remain with her new companions to forge a new life for all Tertians.

6.  Will your books be self-published or represented by an agency?

There is no intention to self-publish.  Publishing house or death!

7.  How long did it take to write the first draft of your manuscript?

The first draft took 4 years as I was still working full-time.  The re-write, now that I’ve had time to learn my craft better, has taken 12 months so far.  After all, the first draft was 220,000 words and I’m having trouble deciding on one book or two and where to finish the first book to ensure it can stand-alone.

8.  What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

Beside the fact that, like all good fantasy, there is a journey to find the ‘grail’, I can’t think of any similar books.

9.  Who or what inspired you to write this book?

An in-depth discussion with a close friend about women and culture and the following Saturday morning when boredom claimed me and I wanted something interesting to do.  It started life as a short story but I couldn’t contain it.

10.  What else about the book might pique the readers interest?

A strong female heroine who doesn’t use a sword.

Well, that’s it.  Anyone want to be tagged?  Please let me know.

YaY! Late entry to the tags… Robert Easterbrook – over to you – and thanks for not leaving me hanging.

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