Is Amazon the Devil?

I like to think back to a time about twenty years ago, before I'd even heard of Amazon.com. It was a funny time, when I used to frequent second hand bookstores, enjoying the feel of the old pages on my fingertips as the tales unfolded across the landscape of my imagination. I dreamed, way back when, of telling stories - though at the time my focus was through the medium of music, it hadn't been too long since I'd been caught up in the fantasy of having books sold across the world to people I'd never meet. In this dream, someone not so different to me was sitting in a bookstore, thumbing through the pages of my stories. 

It was a nice dream.

Music relented the stage back to writing, and I resumed my quest for storytelling, seeking out the right story and the ability to tell it. 

By this time, I'd heard of that Seattle company called "Amazon" that promised to deliver books right to your door. It was ludicrous, I thought. Why would you go there to find books that you can more easily find through the satisfying process of wandering the shelves and seeking out that one spine that shone out from the rest, called out to you and demanded to be taken home and devoured? How could that experience possibly be replicated on the internet? 

Well, I'll be honest. It couldn't. The tactile sense of connection which only really happens in those dusty stacks of books can't really be found through a brightly beaming laptop screen or even through the touchscreen of your iPad. 

But around that same time, a funny thing happened. Those wonderful, small, cozy, familiar bookstores began getting shuttered, unable to compete with the gleaming brick and mortar bookstore chains. Soon, all you had was brightly lit marketplaces, all more than happy to show you on their end caps or bold cardboard standees just what book you needed to buy next. You could avoid those, sure, but the decisions about which books stared at you and what books were even permitted to turn their spine to you were already long since made. Thumb through them all you like, the improvisational sense of discovery was quickly replaced by computer menus and a friendly vested staff who were happy to point to this section or that, and would you be paying for that by cash or credit card today?

The quest...was sterilized.

So I, on a dare, I think, returned to the computer in my home. I figured, if I'm going to have a sterilized, brightly lit and impersonal quest for books, I might as well do it in my pajamas. At least I don't need to worry about finding a good parking space.

And there it was: Amazon. I set up my account and logged in. Poked around a bit, and noticed that the searching became much more intuitive. As I made purchases, it figured out what kinds of things I liked, and even made suggestions. Sure, I know it's the same deal as in the new franchise book stores, but something about it just felt like it was becoming my own personal shopping assistant. 

I placed my orders, they magically appeared on my doorstep a few days later, and that was it. I was hooked. My ferret-like need for instant validation was rewarded. I once again began devouring books. And then music. And everything else Amazon began to offer. I did my holiday and birthday shopping there, even got my stuff gift wrapped and shipped to my friends and family who didn't live near me. It was kind of perfect.

A short time later, I wrote my first book. Now, the at-that-time established process for publishing success was simple: 1) write a book; 2) get an agent; 3) get your book signed to a publisher; 4) pile all your delicious money into an empty pool and go swimming in it.

So, like a dutiful young author, I submitted query letters to agents. "Hey there, I've got a book! You should read it!" Now, I had low expectations, taught to me by the music publishing world. But I got some great responses. Some agents wanted the manuscript. Some wanted just the first few chapters. A few just thanked me for my time and wished me luck. But the most successful queries all returned the same response: "loved the book...loved the characters...loved the world..." et cetera et cetera. "...But I'm not sure how to market a 'steampunk/young adult/science fiction/fantasy' book..."

This confused me until I considered how bookstores manage their publications. See, it's all about the real estate, right? Where do the books fit on the shelf, how many books are already on that shelf, is there room? Can the book be face out? On an end cap? On a table? What section of the store will it be in? What other books are coming out at that time that this book will be competing against? These are all questions that any book following the old marketing model have to consider. 

But then I learned a very interesting fact: Amazon didn't worry about those questions.

So I stopped sending out pointless queries and published directly on Amazon. It's been a few years now, and I've learned a lot - mostly through trial and error, much through expert guidance through people I trusted - and, some 45 publications later, I'm doing fairly well. When my books are ready - written, edited, re-written, designed, and formatted - they go up and are ready for consumption within hours. HOURS. 

All the costs are mine, the responsibility to market and produce are mine, the fees for editing come out of my own pocket, but, also, the royalties for every copy sold are mine. I don't get many of the perks that larger publishing houses are able to wrestle from Amazon, but the way I see it, the benefits of being nimble are always going to outweigh the benefits from being unwieldy and bloated. Standard production time of a "traditionally published" novel can be years - most of which is after the book has left the author's hands. And that's fine. It's a bit understandable why the larger publishers so frequently miss the mark on trends and contemporary interests, but then again, most of them own the newspapers that print the reviews, so I'm sure that balances out for them.

But now, in light of all the craziness in the current public debates regarding Hachette and Amazon, and all of the "he said / she said" inherent to such arguments, I tried to view the entire process with an open mind. Yes, I do business with Amazon - I have my books sold on multiple platforms, but Amazon simply does better business for me, so yes, there is that potential for bias. 

At the same time, the idea of "following the money" makes things pretty clear. Large publishers have built in processes that require constant influx of money. They've got their stable of artists, editors, distribution companies, paper suppliers, marketing groups, lawyers, and so forth. And with that vast army of worker bees, they have been losing money on publishing for the past 20-odd years, and are more than happy to blame the new kid on the block. But the fact is, when a book sells, the author should get paid. Period. Forget the idea of advances, let's look at truly traditional publishing. You write a book, you print the book, you sell the book, you make enough to print two books, and so on. You start small, you work your way up. 

Isn't that how it should work? 

So when I look at the differences between the two companies - Amazon and (Insert publishing house name here) - I ask myself this question: where is the closest connection between author and reader? Financially, it makes more sense. Creatively, it makes more sense. 

But really, it's about options. The old way. The new way. There are more readers than ever before, there are also more writers than ever before. It's a big new world. And the less time we spend fighting about it, the more time we'll have to improve it.

For more blogs, head on over to www.renwritings.com.

20,000 Views Later....

In honor of a pretty nifty milestone - 20,000 blog views - I opened myself up to a random topic, and my old friend Yann Soitiño challenged me to do an appropriate tribute to Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

Fact is, that old book really had a profound effect on me, and it warrants a tribute.

I was first introduced to the novel by Walt Disney. I can't remember if I was on the ride at Disneyland first or

if I was watching the movie on Sunday night's Disney show, but I remember they were both well before Star Wars. Though the idea of being fascinated by the stars and the universe and dinosaurs were all part of my childhood realms of imagination, this movie was the first step. It was just like going to the moon, I thought, by dropping below the depths of the seas and exploring terrain no man had seen, facing unimaginable terrors and the subtle political and social themes present in the book - though they were lost on me in my initial exposures - as well as the overall epic scope.... come on, giant squids!

So here are a few things that maybe you weren't aware of - things I always found to be pretty interesting.

First, did you know how far a league is? Well, in this book they use the metric league, which is about 4 kilometers. 20,000 leagues is several times the diameter of the earth. I say this just to clarify that the title of the book is not referring to how far down the Nautilus went, but how far it went. Captain Nemo, in his desperation to remain undiscovered by the evil political constructs of mankind, was resolved to remain underwater, far below the reach of the nations of the world. Thus, 20,000 Leagues refers to the resolve of Captain Nemo, and the journey he took his crew and captives on, until his mad quest for vengeance eventually led to what we are left to believe might have been his death.

Second - his book contains many allegories against the plight of the common man ("No Man" = "Nemo") against the abusive might and crush of commercial industrialism. The Nautilus was described as a personal construct and design, with the octopus being a commonly used symbol for industry and revolution. Considering the way industry runs the world even now.... it still strikes a punch.

See, this is why it's a good book - - hundred+ years later, it's still interesting; still relevant.

Thank you again, Jules. Among the other books you penned, this still remains my favorite. In fact, I think I'll go give it another read. Been a while since I visited Atlantis. ;)

Memorial

The word that is sticking in my head today is "independence." I know that the actual USA "Independence Day" isn't for another month and a half, but thinking about Memorial Day made me think about how many soldiers have fought for the idea of freedom from tyranny. "Freedom isn't free" - I keep seeing that slogan all over Facebook today, and I agree. Sometimes, you have to make the difficult choices when faced with something that goes against your moral core. Sometimes, that choice means being willing to risk losing something that matters to you - sometimes, that is a very scary choice to make. At least, I used to think that. Then you find yourself in the middle of the decision and recognize that it's always been clear what you should do.

So many people have died for this country. Died. It's a sobering thought. Many of them wore uniforms, held weapons to defend or attack their enemies. Our nation was founded on the principle of being prepared to defend this nation at all costs, from any enemy, without or within.

This Memorial Day also makes me think of all the people who have died in this country who were not soldiers. Who were not in uniform, who were not on the front lines in some other country, who were not holding weapons. Some of these lives were taken by foreign extremists. Many were taken by domestic extremists. People who believed that their philosophies, their rage, their hostility justified the taking of other human lives.

I think about those people as well. And I wonder how long we - all of us, this whole human race - will allow all this senselessness to go on.

If you'd like a rhetorical question, to help wind this whole statement up, then how about this:

What could we, as a world, accomplish, if we had one full year without violence? Working together, for the benefit of us all? What might we do?

Global Harming

Thought I'd take a bit of a thematic departure today and discuss something I keep seeing, reading, hearing about and I'm really close to getting a concussion from all the times I strike my head against the wall.

I see two political camps debating - stop laughing, I know I used the word "debating", in spite of the fact that the conversations rarely could be logically categorized as such - the premise of "Global Warming", or "Climate Change", or whatever term is being used to describe the status of our world as being globally climatically changed.

The debate rages - it's been going on for a good hundred+ years, in fact, and though the facts themselves have only clarified the causative link between our actions as industrious human beings and the gradual disintegration of our viable biosphere on this, our only currently known and accessible habitable planet. And this back and forth conversation has fallen into a pattern. See if this sounds familiar:

1. Scientists present facts: X is happening, Y is probably the cause.
2. Other interested parties (and if you go far enough, it's the people who make money from X) say "oh, pshaw. Your theories are bad because Z."
3. Scientists return to their science, come out with a better definition of Y.
4. Return to step 1.

Sometimes, this process results in a different name for X. Sometimes the clarification of Y gives us a better understanding of our world. Every single time, Z has no scientific basis, and is only the equivalent of "la la la! I'm not listening!"

Often, the Z pretense is a distraction, such as trying to make jokes about the term "global warming" as a way to oversimplify into falsehood the entire concept of X in the first place. Then, the scientists have to waste their time just coming up with a new term for X that people won't just decry out of hand.

Look, people, science can be hard facts. Sometimes you don't want to hear it. But the Sun does not revolve around the Earth, and life did evolve, and the universe is a big big place, filled with potential and wonder.

Let's look at the basic premise behind Climate Change. It's warning that our use and dependence upon fossil fuels, our drilling into the earth's crust, our pollution of the seas and waterways and soil - all these things are contributing to the destruction of our planet.

People who argue against this premise - I'm going to give you a simple challenge. If you pull your car into your garage, close the door and run the engine, what's going to happen? And now, multiply that times the BILLIONS of cars, trucks, buses, boats and other engines that use that same fossil fuel source for their combustion. And where do you suppose all those toxic fumes are going?

But I can see that some people still don't want to believe it. They still want to argue the facts. So here's another concept to chew upon.

We have the technology to convert our engines to clean burning processes. We have the ability to use solar, hydroelectric, wind power, and we have even newer technologies that go even further. We have these abilities to use technology in a way to generate energy that will NOT CREATE ANY POISONOUS FUMES AT ALL.

Let's pretend that all these "global warming" and "climate change" scientists are possibly wrong. Let's suggest that they have only a 75% chance of being accurate. No, let's go 50%. 25%. Let's go crazy and suggest that there's only a 1% chance their theories are right.

I have a daughter. One day, she might have children, and they might have children and so forth. If there's a 1% chance that they won't - because we failed to change one stupid thing that we knew there was a chance might KILL US ALL and did nothing about it.....

Think about this. If you're one of the people who clings tenaciously to the FALSE CLAIM that our dependence on fossil fuels, coal, and all the other unclean and non-renewable energies are NOT slowly killing us and our planet.... just think. If there was a 1 percent chance that you were wrong, and that this falsehood could result in the death of our entire planet.... WHY WOULD YOU NOT TAKE THE CHANCE THAT YOU MIGHT BE WRONG??

What is there to lose by changing this? Why not risk these petroleum companies and their chance of making their quarterly bonuses in favor of SAVING LIFE ON THIS PLANET?

Our great-great-great grandchildren won't care who those CEOs are.

At least, I pray they'll be alive so that they won't.

Stop arguing the wrong things. Start making the changes. Change what needs to be changed. Save this world. It's the only one we have.

One Lengua To Rule Them All

A lot of folks seemed to be okay when Coca Cola tried to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony, and I guess maybe they thought Coke was speaking literally. Because now that they're trying to invite us to be okay with the idea of *racial* harmony, people have just lost their freaking minds. 

I'd like to invite all those people who say that America should only speak its truly American language to learn Nahuatl, or one of the Athabaskan languages. Oh, shoot, how about Cherokee or Sioux. Or, Spanish or French or Dutch, which were also spoken earlier in many parts of the United States of America. 

Also, now might be a good time to mention that no, there isn't an "American" language. Should there be? Well, there are sufficient grounds to suggest we are in the middle of a communications crisis in this country. But to say "English" (as in, From England, an imported language FROM ANOTHER COUNTRY) should be "The American Language" is to court idiocy. As in, you're treading upon thin logic. If you're going to be TRULY American (read: North American, from the United States of America), your official language truly ought be BI-LINGUAL. At least. 

Aspire to be better, my friends.

Who Is Favo Carr?

One of the questions I get asked a fair bit is who or what inspired the characters I've written. To be fair, I've a different answer for each character - in many cases, the ways the characters were inspired were as varied as the characters themselves, and many of them are actually amalgams from a cast of sources. But in light of the current and soon to be birthed "Steel & Sky", I thought a bit of background on Favo Carr might be

appreciated.

He came originally from two characters: one in Final Fantasy XII and one in Star Wars: Balthier and Han Solo. Kind of an adorable but cocky scoundrel. Well dressed. Polite. Charming. And a bit filthy. I always hear his voice sounding a fair bit like Jude Law, but lately, he's been looking more and more like Tom Hiddleston (with sun-bleached hair). Stop your swooning, ladies. This lad's not spoken for, but good lord does he have more issues than Rolling Stone. Though, if you like that sort of thing, go right ahead.

We first meet him, briefly, in the Chronicles of Aesirium, book one: Reaper's Return. He's a villain, of sorts. An elegant thug. A miscreant and a coin-operated criminal whose main interactions with our heroes is to be hunting down a mysterious object called the Morrow Stone.

I had a few plans for the man - he was fun, he was my favorite mix of naughty, but, really, he wasn't the Big Bad from the books and I'd considered him more of a red herring than anything. But then a funny thing happened. I started to genuinely like the character. He loved to talk, but had a style of verbal waltzing that I found charming. The man could talk his way out of most issues, but, as it turned out, he didn't mind occasionally getting his hands dirty. Form and function.

He's an odd mix of street smarts, book-learned magic and good old-fashioned practical experience. He can pick the antennae off a flea at thirty meters with his trusty Mark IV SpellShot, and that isn't even the least of the tricks he keeps up his sleeves. It goes mostly unmentioned in the books, but he's a fine dancer and even considered a future on the stage, but he lost interest in drama when he discovered that you didn't get to keep the costumes.

Oh, and all that practice with the rapier? A bit of refinement and it works even better in real life.

It was some point around book four where my editor sat me down in a sort of intervention and asked me, "okay, I have to know: are you ever going to kill him? It's like he's freaking immortal or something. Nobody is that lucky." And thus the legend of the Immortal Favo Carr was born.

I shouldn't think it too great a spoiler to reveal that he is also one of the main characters in my newest series, "Tales of the Dead Man", and we meet him right around the beginning of "Steel & Sky". Though just how he comes to be a part of this great new adventure....well, you'll have to read it and find out. Trust me, compared to the things that get laid out in this next series, mentioning that Favo is in the books is the LEAST spoilerish thing I could tell you. Well, maybe I could mention that it takes place in Aerthos, as well. And there just may be a few other cameos here and there. But I'm not telling.

Oh, and on a little behind the scenes note: whenever I'm writing Favo's scenes, I play the Sherlock Holmes or Pacific Rim soundtracks. It seems to make him walk with a bit more swagger in his step. Go figure.

Talking the Walking (Dead)

I've been meaning to blog for a bit - not that there's been any shortage of topics, just that time itself has been a premium. NaNoWriMo was this month, and so was Movember - not that that required any time - if anything, not shaving every day is really helpful. I didn't finish my newest novel, but I am about 65k into it, so that's a big plus. In the press of the days, I managed to add that huge chunk of wordcount, plus I changed the book title (it's now called "Steel & Sky") and came up with a cover. I also finished the production of the Audiobook of "Reaper's Return" with Nigel Patterson, and that just went live yesterday. Also, in the middle of the month, I took an emergency train ride to Montana (don't worry, everybody's fine now) and even had some family come in for Thanksgiving. Also, in the mix were some dramatics involving the old house, so if you wouldn't mind crossing your collective virtual fingers for me, I'd kind of like that to be overwith too. One less rattle in the noggin would be a delightful bit of peacefulness.

Also, November was a good month to wrap up a lot of television I was for some reason making time for. There are a couple of new shows - "Almost Human" and "Sleepy Hollow"; and it shocks me how much I'm enjoying those - and a few ongoing ones. Most notable were the Doctor Who 50th anniversary special, and, just this past week, the midseason finale of "The Walking Dead".

For those of you who may have been in a coma during the zombie apocalypse, this show (like the comic book it was based on) is about a fluctuating group of survivors following the pandemic infestation of a horrific and virulent disease. The world is now mostly populated by the undead, the flesh-eating mobile legions of zombies.

The creator, Robert Kirkman, wanted to do a comic book that took the concept of a zombie movie and kept going after the credits roll. He was constantly frustrated by the constraints of the zombie movies, because, as he explained it, "by the time you get to know these interesting characters, ROLL CREDITS."

The comic started about ten years ago, and picked up a huge fanbase and audience, and won several awards. Fact is, it's some pretty heady stuff. It strays from conventional comic book storytelling (in addition to nobody being superpowered, of course) and applies one major rule: anything bad can - and likely will - happen to the main characters. No spoilers, let's just say you really shouldn't get too attached to anybody.

This clever and inventive storytelling picked up such a tremendous following that it was only time before someone tried to make it into a movie. Projects specs were thrown unabashedly at Kirkman, who remarked that most of them read like bad zombie movies - one, I believe, had a talking dog - which was ironic, since that was exactly the very sort of thing his book was intended to combat.

And then, Frank Darabont approached Kirkman with a much better idea: a television show.

So far, with a few dips and wobbles, the show has been quite satisfying. But I think the part I find most interesting is to compare and contrast the story of the comic book with that of the television show.  Given my own projects, I find it interesting to see how storytelling becomes so dependent upon the medium.

I don't want to post details here - - some people are very anti-spoilers, and I'd like to respect that - - but the sort of things I find the most intriguing are the characters they use (and the ones they don't), the characters they kill (or maim, or leave pristine), and the individual stories they use, combine, change or leave out altogether.

See, some things just plain work better with whatever medium in which you're working. Look at fine art, for example. Recreating a beautiful sunset wouldn't work so well with sculpture, or pencil. You have to, to a certain degree, be willing to alter the original source in order to be best represented in the medium you've chosen. There are scenes in the comic book that just don't work as well on screen, so these have to be either adapted or abandoned. Comic books can be very limited because of their own, well, limitations. The Walking Dead comic book is all in black and white, for example, just like the old George Romero movies. AMC (the network that produces the Walking Dead TV show) even showed the first season in all black and white, as a kind of tribute marathon.

I stopped reading the comic when the show came out - I wanted to enjoy the show fresh, and not pick up any additional spoilers along the way - but I realized I was also now missing a lot of the "easter eggs" that the show runners were slipping into the series. So last night, I picked up my first three trade paperbacks and started them anew. It's been a few years since I'd read them, and I was pleasantly surprised at how well they held up as storytelling. I'd also been depressed at how much I'd forgotten about these early stories. Like, I'd forgotten all the character hookups, and how different these relationships had been there when compared to the show. That might sound like a silly thing to get hung up on, but here's the thing I think most people forget.

At its heart, this is NOT a zombie show. It's a people show. It's really all about how people react to the end of the world. Take out the zombies and replace them with nuclear fall out, or a forest fire, or boiling acid, or aliens, or rabid wolves. The story is about how people come to grips with sudden and permanent change.

Taken to its most personal level, think about the moment you realized that you were going to die. Like, specifically KNEW it. Everybody tends to have that moment, sooner or later, when you realize that the life you have had is gone, that you cannot in fact relive the past and that what lies ahead will never be like what has been. Sometimes, it's even more specific than that - you're diagnosed with something incurable, or lose a limb in an accident. Lose a friend. Lose a loved one. Admit to yourself that it's just never going to happen.

There is the old story about the man who was so wicked that the gods themselves conspired together to find an adequate way to punish him - and as a consequence of his deeds, they cursed him with the gift of prophecy. He laughed, recognizing that now he knew everything that would come to pass with a perfect clarity: he could see the future - not as it might be, but as it would be. "This is no punishment," he cackled, "this is a reward!" But then, he saw the moment of his own death, and, knowing that it was an unavoidable certainty, lived the rest of his life in abject misery. For to know one's end is a fixed point is to lose the most precious gift of all: hope.

One of the elements that is in the books but not so obvious in the television show is the eventual degradation
of hope. In the first few books, a common statement is said: "when things get back to normal". It's not clear when this reflex ends, but it does end eventually. Over time, it erodes to the point of ineffectiveness - it is too weak and frail a thing to stand up against the realization that things will, in fact, never be the same again, that the Time of the Walker is here to stay.

But in the television show, they are exploring different themes, in some cases much more subtle ones - - also, themes I believe the writers and producers now understand when looking back over the Walking Dead series as a whole which Kirkman could not have foreseen ten years ago.

Mostly, the one major theme the show is exploring is about what kind of person you become when faced with the end of the world. Where do your priorities fall, and what will you be willing to do to survive. It tries to address the question of "Hope versus Despair" in a unique way that the comic book is not always able to do. Granted, it has tools the comic book does not. It has an impressive and talented cast who can nuance an emotional response in a way that the comic book cannot; they have a soundtrack to help imbue the scenes with emotional subtext (not always effectively, but what are you gonna do), and it can pull focus to the exact place you need to go in order to get the story told to you in the way the writers and directors want you to see it.

The Walking Dead is a challenging concept to pace out, a complaint many fans have made. Consider this a moment. Once you've come to grips, as an individual, with the end of the world, what will then be required to change your perspective again? In that sort of an environment, how long does it take for habits to change, once newly established? Seems to me that you develop your "this is how we survive" habits, and everything else develops when you have time. You know, when you're not running for your life, or struggling to not die.

So when the different "chapters" of the show appear, they tend to advance the timeline by a few months, and we see all the characters adjusted to whatever new horrors they've faced, but they are established in those new (to us, at least) routines. And then, for several episodes, they don't really change so dramatically - or, if they do, it's only then at the end, when someone important to them dies. On the flip side, they can cram

enough intensity in ten minutes of screen time to fill up an entire graphic novel.

One last item, though. Characters on the show die. Again, I don't want to spoil anything, but, yes, main characters on the show die. They turn into zombies, are killed by friendly fire - sometimes not so friendly fire - and viewers get mad. It's an equation that can only lead to a sad and tragic end.

Coming from a writer's perspective, killing characters is NEVER an easy decision. You can't just kill them out of randomness, there has to be a point to their death - though, let's be honest, sometimes the point is to remind the reader that sometimes death is pretty pointless. A lot of folks will issue threats of "if you kill so-and-so, that's it, I'll never watch your show again!" which is both a compliment and an insult. As a writer, you want the people who read your material to love the characters so much that killing them will have an impact. But you also don't want people getting so mad at you for it that they stop trusting that the death MEANS SOMETHING.

George R R Martin lost me on a few of those deaths. He'd make me like a character only to kill them off by the end of that same introductory chapter. That makes me lose interest in even investing in future characters, period.

Joss Whedon ticked me off in the Serenity movie, too. Though I forgave him ultimately, there was a death or two which hurt. Like, almost tangibly caused me pain with their suddenness and brutality. As a fan, it stung. But as a writer? Man, I was impressed. The final act was filled with such juxtaposed hope and despair, that you truly just didn't know if they were going to come out on top in the end. You were anxious as they were, fearful that all their sacrifice would be for naught.

The difference between that movie and the Walking Dead, however...?

Serenity was a two hour movie, with a fixed resolution. The Big Damn Heroes would either triumph or die. No half-measures. But the survivors on the Walking Dead? What is their resolution? The truth is, they have none. Their success lies in survival, every week. If they survive, then they won the little victory. For their part, they have no choice but to try.

For me, the big question is whether or not the fans of the show will continue to manage their own sense of hope versus despair, and struggle each week with the characters, or if they, like so many of the characters so far, will simply succumb and be left behind.

Stay tuned.

Steampunk, Undefined

Had a wonderful time once again at this past month's SteamCon event in Seattle, Washington. The panels went nicely - mostly focusing on writing and self-publishing - got to spend time with some good friends and even made a goodly quantity of new ones. Scores as a win, I say.

Sometimes it's easy to forget, when you spend so much time in a particular genre - whether it be fiction, society, fandom, music or whatnot - about a few different perceptions that tend to go on. There is the perception among people outside of your genre about the people inside the genre, as well as the perceptions held by people inside the genre about others inside the genre as well as about those people outside the genre.

From the outside in, this generally gets expressed simply by one of two common questions I get asked:
"What's going on here?" and "What is Steampunk?"

The first question is mostly overheard at Steampunk events - I typically dress more or less how I normally do, plus or minus a vest or clever glasses, so innocent bystanders usually guess I'm a reliable source of insider information. They also guess that I'm not going to give them an answer in essay form (I leave that for the blogs).

But the second question I hear as often from people who know very little about Steampunk as I do from people who LOVE Steampunk.

Now, if you don't know much about Steampunk, it's a reasonable question to ask, right? (There was that episode of Castle where everyone was wearing top hats, right?) Any time a segment of subculture strikes popular attention - punk, goth, hipster, geek, whatever - there's naturally some curiosity about it. And that's a good thing. Steampunk isn't a religion or a cult, so nobody's looking to proselytize or corral in new members.

But it's when I hear it asked from other Steampunk fans that I grow concerned. Not because it's betraying some lack of Steampunkery or whatnot, but because oftentimes I smell a trap. Much in the same way the Comic Book fandom - and Geekdom in general - has been experiencing self-defining growing pains, Steampunk seems to be feeling the itch as well. But let's call it what it is: this is adolescence.

One of the primary characteristics of adolescence (which means, by the way, literally, "growing up") is self-definition. Figuring out who you are, and coming to grips with that. Self-confidence, self-identity, self-esteem. It's kind of self interested, really. And we find that same element in nearly every organization - it's been present in religions, political parties, and it's not by itself a bad thing. It's just a thing.

Now, granted, the roots of Steampunk have been around for years - you can effectively track it back to the Victorian era itself - but it's been reformed in the age of rebellion, of the redefinition of history, and it's been turned into a social structure, a fashion statement, a cultural resistance born straight out of the fires of DIY and a love of old world elegance.

When I wrote the Chronicles of Aesirium, I'll admit that my first goal was not to write a series of Steampunk books - the industrial age simply worked as the most ideal backdrop for the world I was creating, and it felt like the best place to insert my story. I wasn't trying to write the definitive Steampunk book - nor would I have ever wanted to. If anything, they're somewhere in the middle between "it has a gear on it" and "STEAMPUNK!", which is where I would generally want to be.

The new series - "Tales of the Dead Man" - is even less so. The first book, "Steel and Sky", involves two differing cultures, tech and natural magic. The tech world has a steam-powered science, but I wanted to take it out of pure victorianism and do something different with it. Also, I've written 6 borderline steampunk books, I wanted to introduce some new developmental elements into the new books - but the spirit of steampunk, as I see it, is still there.

And that's the part of Steampunk's adolescence that I enjoy so much. The elegant way in which we do it ourselves, embracing that most industrious spirit of adventure.

Archetype vs. Stereotype

I attended the recent Geek Girl Con in Seattle, this time taking my daughter as an excuse for enjoying a convention as an attendee (okay, she got some really cute moving cat ears that are both creepy and spectacular, and a reminder of why my daughter shall always be so much cooler than I will ever be. I cannot pull off the kitty ear thing, try as I may) - I go to so many conventions now for work that it's nice to just step back and remember why I go in the first place. It's officially getting to that point where I run into old friends and peers for the length of the floor, which I would qualify under the header "Problems I Always Wanted to Have." Day two was back to work - the other founders of Talaria Press and I gave a workshop on character creation, followed by a small signing, and it was one of the more cleanly inspiring hours I've had in a few months. Not to be underestimated. Aside from a few bad apples in the mix - there's always one or two, aren't there? - it was a solid and enjoyable weekend.

But now I'm looking down the barrel of another SteamCon, and before I get back into con prep mode, I wanted to wag my tongue about a topic that came up on the first day of GGC in a panel hosted by some of the directors of the EMP, along with writer Jane Espenson. The topic was about character archetypes, and much conversation was given to the evolution of the female archetypes over the years.


One question in particular took my notice: "What is the difference between an archetype and a stereotype?"

Everyone rattled off some answers and then they got side-tracked onto a different topic, as convention panels are wont to do. But the question hung over my head, and stayed with me long enough to, apparently, merit an entry on my blog, here.

The specific answers boiled down into the origins of the words themselves; into the marrow and substance, whereas "archetype" finds its roots in ancient Greek meaning "the original, best, or first, example." A stereotype is more of the "copy of a copy", wherein much detail is lost and the image resembles more like unto a caricature than a realistic image. Thus, a Hero would be represented by among the oldest and most established examples of such characters - Hercules, for example, as an archetype of the same; but those primary qualities of his, passed down through literature and the oral traditions of the time, still permit those heroic elements to carry forth in characters like Luke Skywalker and Superman. Eventually, those heroic elements become worn down and dulled, and the heroes become mere stereotypes of the ancient traditions.

Vladimir Propp whittled it all down into 7 broad character types - his "dramatis personae": the villain, the dispatcher, the helper, the princess (or prize), the donor, the hero, and the false hero. Jung broke it down into actual personality characteristics as archetypes for humanity - mother, father, child, devil, god, wise old man, wise old woman, the trickster, the hero, the shadow, the maiden, and so on. Even to a certain extent, tarot cards break down the types and facets of mankind through its use of imagery and metaphor in its major and minor arcana.

I'll confess, I've got a few of my favorites. I patterned my whole cast in the Reaper's Return series off various tarot cards, and shifted gears a bit in the latest series - everyone's going through at least two cards through the course of the books - but I do like to flip the cards over and see where they land, so to speak.

For example, the Tower card isn't so bad (author's note: okay, it looks pretty frightening in the deck, I admit). I used the tower metaphor frequently in the Reaper series. Rom's favorite place was a clock tower in the middle of Oldtown - and it's a statement about how she came to grips with the passage of time, of the evolution of life, and, specifically to her, how she as a Reaper had to manage life itself in a very tangible and literal way. In the tarot deck, it is a card to be taken quite seriously - a portent of dramatic change - but I wanted to write it into the books in a way of drawing back the fear and anxiety about change, and show that it's, like so much of life, something to be learned from and appreciated.



But what about you? What's your favorite archetype? What's your favorite stereotype - or your least favorite one that you feel could use a refreshing? I'd love to hear from you!

Dead Man (teaser)

Chapter One: The Pirate

The end of world came almost without warning.

No dark clouds, no ominous celestial portents of any kind. One day, the sun shone, the two moons continued their lazy chase across the Aerthian sky. The next moment, the sky parted and a great and glowing sword of light burst from the wound, striking Aerthos down and cutting a vicious swath of death through all its inhabitants. Man, woman and child, animal and vegetable fell before its dread blade, and when all had perished, even the Reapers stood for but a moment before they, too, were slain.

The world became like a lump of coal, blackened and dry. Cracks formed in the crust of the land, splitting the world wide to its core, until, at the last, every last ounce of life was sucked away to slake some bottomless thirst that lay beyond their perceptions.

Even the Reapers, the old woman thought with a shock that stirred her from her dream.  The most powerful beings in all of Aerthos, those who held the power of life and death in their hands, who could pass between the lands of Aerthos or through time itself as easily as a mortal could step from their beds. What manner of being has such power?

The screams of the dying were still fading in her ears as her eyes adjusted to the pre-dawn darkness. The winds toyed with the curtains of her room, blowing in from the east and the south. The same dream had first haunted her nights almost five years ago to the day, and she had not even the barest concept of what she could do to stop it. Surely the gods do not give us dreams of the morrow in order to punish us with fears of the unavoidable, she had thought.

As Song-Mistress of the Sky People, she had to be on the watch for dreams of grave portent. Sometimes the dreams were simple – go west for rain; watch the baker’s tower for an unexplained fire; treat the mason’s son with dried farol root and the extract of a spicy persimmon fruit to reduce his fever. For two incarnations of the Song-Mistress, there had been few concerns – the sandstorms which frequented the deserts notwithstanding – but now, this. She sighed ruefully.

A short-legged fur-covered animal appeared as if from thin air, its bright orange eyes sparkling in the half-light.

“Ah, Merlo,” the woman smiled. “Did I wake you with my dream?”

The creature shook its head. The old woman stroked the creature’s soft iridescent fur, causing her hand to momentarily look as if it was fading in and out of reality. In truth, it was a side effect of the creature’s natural camouflaging abilities, but Merlo had ways of using her fur’s shifting color patterns to achieve a variety of mystical effects as well.

The creature’s fur was the least of her uses to the old woman, however. As with all of her kind, Merlo was connected to all her species, living and dead. All memories and thoughts were stored in the aether of the world, floating in and out of their kind’s grasp. It made a fitting companion for a Song-Mistress – Merlo’s access to her species’ memories gave her a veritable library of history that stretched back thousands of years. Access to the whole of history helped put whatever visions the Song-Mistress might receive into proper context.

Sometimes, the best the creature offered was comfort. With the series of dreams like unto the one which had just awakened her, there was no context that helped, no historical anecdote that reassured the Song-Mistress. The dreams had troubled her and it had grown long since past the point where she had considered them a simple trick of anxiety or bad wine. What she had dreamed would come to pass, and though the final outcome was unclear, she knew that all life hung in the balance. She was old enough and wise enough to know that all too often the least desirable outcome stood the greater chance of happening.

But it was not until a month earlier that she had been given hope. Hope, strangely enough, that came in the form of a corpse.

She put what steps into motion as she was able, and now, with those steps already on another edge of the world, she was helpless to do aught but wait. Patience was not a lesson that had come easily to her. By the time she had a grasp of it, she had so precious little time left. One more irony to add to the pile, she mused. One more pinch of incense to add to the flames.

She exhaled, contemplating rising early to meditate in her prayer room. It was on the west of the city; it would still be in shadow for another two or three hours. She decided to stay here for now, and go to her prayer room when the sun was higher and that extra bit of cool would be most appreciated. For now, she decided to remain in the quiet shadow of her room, alone with her dark thoughts and the merest fragment of hope to drive them away.

“Fly well, my niece,” she whispered, flexing her old and tired fingers in an ancient gesture of good fortune. “Find what we so desperately need and return with it to us.”

Sleep would not return to her that morning. But all day long she would pause and look to the north, for sign of the airship’s return.

"Dead Man" is the new Aesirium novel by author Ren Cummins, due out by the end of 2013.

You can read more about his previous novels at http://talariapress.com/the-chronicles-of-aesirium/

The Other Half of my Blog Title

Okay, so for years now, I've been "Steampunk and Synthesizers", and I'm kind of shocked that nobody's called me out on only talking about Steampunk and writing. Honestly? Not one of you has wondered, "okay, Ren, we get it. You're a steampunk author. But what about...?"

So here we go.

Friend and fellow author (and the Jedi to my Sith), Kiri Callaghan, recently posted a few recent songs, and it inspired me to get off my butt and post some of my own material. I've had it up on Amazon as a CD and MP3s, but now that I've added some digital audio equipment to my office, I really am quickly running out of excuses.

So here you are. Music.

I included a "radio edit" I'd done for one of my longer songs, and included a song that wasn't even on my original album, "subterranean". We'd stumbled upon the idea for the song while we were doing some follow up work on a different project, and then I went back even later and did some remixing of it, adding some middle eastern percussion and samples to it, and made the song feel much warmer and earthier.

I've also plans to digitize my first album, which means I might finally get some uploads of a few of my all time favorite originals, "The Ballad of the Invisible Boy", and "Between the Mountains and the Sea." There's also a song I wrote with my old friend Storm Hodge, the U2-inspired "Homelands", which I honestly haven't even listened to in years. I'll keep you posted.

The summer's been a crazy one, my friends. We moved into a new house, are in the process of turning the old one into a sold one, and in spite of all that crazy, I've dug about 25000 words into "Dead Man", and started two other short projects, "World War Zero" and "Baktun" - two shorts for an end of the world anthology Talaria Press is doing.

AND.

I'll be appearing at Rose City Comic Con this weekend, at table J-01, with Kiri - and then I get to prep for two cons next month - Geek Girl Con and SteamCon V.

I need to hurry up and wrap "Dead Man", and then I've got to start working on "Dust" with Kiri, plus the follow up to "Apollo Rising" with Jen Ashton. How has my brain not fallen out? Hmm. It's a mystery.

Okay. Back to work.

Death Dealing

Death has always been a topic of some fascination for me, so I suppose it is no surprise that I devoted an entire series of books surrounding a character who literally becomes the face of Death itself. Recent events have brought this thought into sharper focus, however, and, not so much as a quest to express myself as a consideration to comprehend myself, I thought I should write something declarative about it.

I was pretty young when it first fell into my lap, this sense of mortality. My grandfather had already passed away before I was born, and my uncle died when I was around four years old. Family was a weird notion as well - I didn't know my father's side of the family quite as well even before my parents were divorced, and knew them all far less afterwards. So before I was even ten years old, I was left with the impression of having very few actual family members. And then my parents each remarried, and life was flooded with step-siblings and so forth. This probably should have left me feeling like I was blessed with an excess of family, but I think it sent me the other direction - feeling isolated and separated. I don't blame them for this - I can't think of an individual or collection of acts which gave me this impression. I interpreted my world in this manner, and I'm responsible for feeling how I felt.

My relationship to my parents started falling away in large chunks around this time. I know adolescence and teenagedom is generally given a lot of the credit for breaks in communication between children and their parents. There was a bit of that here, too, I suspect. But my mother and step-father moved to Missouri, taking a few of us kids along for the ride, so miscommunication or not, I became closer to my mother and more distant from my father. It was the miles, it was being a 16 year old boy, it was everything. Family members passed away. Grandparents - people I hadn't really known that well, given my age and distance - and others.

All the while, though, I was kept from what I would call a truer exposure to loss due to the comforting reassurance in the existence of heaven and the afterlife. "Families are forever", I was taught, and any natural compensation of mourning and grief was assauged by the sense that I did not need grieve, for my family would be reunited later in the presence of god. My tears - when they fell - were brief. Underneath them all, I doubted. Did I know? Did I believe? Was it really going to be the way I was taught?

I saw death, yes, but it was most prominent in how it affected others. My parents, my friends, my siblings. I saw the pain and grief in their eyes, and for the most part I felt a numbness - death was only a transition, I told myself. Life is eternal. There's nothing to cry about.

It wasn't until I was in my late twenties that I truly experienced death, in all its apparent finality and horror.

A few years earlier, I had at last confronted my struggle of faith and found that I couldn't follow the church of my youth - and that no church I could find really offered the path of faith I sought, if even any such existed. So, really, I suppose it was a fairly perfect time to have my world come crashing down.

When I was old enough, I had moved even further away from my family, resolved to figuring out the path to my life as only I felt I knew best. I've always been stubborn in that way - or maybe "stubborn" isn't the right word. I just didn't know if I could trust anyone else's opinion. I'd left everything else behind - my family, my home, my faith - and built a new life, one that was built on my own choices. I didn't know if I could trust my own decisions, but at least they were my own decisions. If I was wrong, at least I'd only have myself to blame.

I began to rediscover faith, growing out of my own experiences and awareness, made new friends, and met my wife-to-be and was eventually married. We rented a pretty horrible little house, but it was ours and we looked forward to taking on the world, just the two of us. And then, just a couple of months after our wedding, one of my best friends - and something of a surrogate father - died. He was in his early forties, and had been challenged by poor health for much of his life, but somehow I'd just never expected it to happen.

I saw his body at the funeral service, and it just didn't look like him. It was like they'd mocked up a "Mark suit" for the occasion, and had done a piss poor job of it, like some really bad special effects house or something. At the time, this translated to me as proof of the existence of a soul - for seeing such a potent difference between a living person and what remained... it was too stark to deny it. And I was mad at him. Jealous, to a certain extent, that he'd gone on ahead to discover that great mystery he and I had so often discussed, and that I was left with the great unanswerable question. I was pissed. I was afraid, but I was also pretty angry.

Anger and resentment gave way to something else. A year and a half later, my wife and I had a child, and the fascination with life brushed away the questions of death.

It is said that this is the one question which defines mortality - this is what has been the inception of religion, of myth and faith, since the beginning. When the sun sets, will it rise again? When the winter comes, will Spring return? When the seed is planted, will the flower bloom? That's the very nature of faith. What has come before may come again, but we don't know. We just do not know. What we can do, however, is believe.

With the arrival of our daughter, the question of faith has become a central topic for my wife and I. We both have distinct opinions on the matter - a fact I would have, once upon a time, felt to be uncompromisingly destructive to a marriage - but ones that, as it turns out, are oddly complimentary. In our case, however, I believe our differences stem from our exposure to death, when viewed through the lens of our sense of family. My wife has had a much different exposure to death than I have. It found its way straight into the heart of her close and loving family several years before we met. I'll never know what that's like, what that kind of pain and grief is like. I don't know that anyone could. No one should ever have to. Seeing the face of someone you love suffering like that, years later... it makes me hate death for the indiscriminate desolation it leaves in its wake. My wife was so close to her family, and suffered loss so suddenly and unexpectedly, and it seems like I just seem to have dodged grief this way and that, by having kept myself so far from the family I have known.

I know I can't run forever. Death will catch me again, either through me or through the people I know and love. I fear it, and I still hate it. I realize that Death is supposed to be a comforting angel, to greet us at the last moments of our lives, and take us to the verdant fields beyond, but I just don't know. In my books, I made Death into an eleven year old girl, vibrant and optimistic. In this fiction, Death is the opposite of my fears. She is a hero, filled with hope and flying above the rooftops. She is the protector of the people, clear-eyed guardian angel, terrible only to her enemies.

One of my uncles passed away this week - one of my father's brothers. I'm aware that my life is getting to that point where this is going to be more and more of an occurance as more and more people in my life will pass away. One day, I, too, will shuffle off this mortal coil, and I won't be around to come up with a clever blog to write about it. There's a finality in that which chills me.

And that's the danger, I think. Death has had an influence on me for much of my life, but not in the way with which I'm comfortable.  It's frightened me to the verge of inaction, terrified me into distancing myself from the people who I should have reached out to. It's stopped me from doing a lot of things, my fear of death.

The question I have now is, will awareness of this fear be enough to push me into a new path?

The truth is, I don't know. But something has to change. Because Death, whether a villain or a companion, is coming. Sooner or later, this whole living nonsense will be over. And I sincerely hope I waste no more moments of it while life is mine to experience.

The Choice Is Yours!

With the Steampunk vibe pounding once more in my veins, I'm ready - excited to start on my next adventure, but I find myself at a fork in the road.

There are two big stories I want to tell, and I'm not sure which one to do first. Here are the choices:

1. The big story of Grindel and Prama, the next two Reapers to arrive among the people of Aerthos; a dark new threat has emerged, and Romany has gone missing, and these two Sheharid Is'iin have not even awakened - will they be able to find Rom and save the world?

2. The further adventures of Favo Carr - the self-proclaimed hero of Aesirium and somewhat reformed scoundrel Favo has one great new adventure: to live.


Go here to my Facebook page and cast your vote - - I'll cap the votes on the 15th of May, and will begin working on the next book by the 21st.

Thank you so much! Allons-y!

Chronicles of Aesirium update!

It's a big day for mid-process project changes. I shall now gently put "The Old Bones" back onto the back burner while I make some big preparations for something potentially even bigger. I'm gonna need three/four artists, a videographer, a couple of actors, a musician/songwriter, a six pack of Mike's Hard Lemonade, a fantasy playlist for my iPod, and enough people to push a Kickstarter campaign all the way through to completion. And, of course, all of you, my friends - - - I can't do this without all of you.

"Do what?", you ask?

Why, how about a whole new Aesirium trilogy?

Yep, that's right. It  just hit me today, that while I'm very excited about the prospects of the Old Bones as a series, I'm really just not done with Rom and her friends, and their world of Aerthos. There are so many stories there, left untold. From the final (?) adventures of Favo Carr, to the new dramatic tales of Grindel and Prama, plus the lost legends of Force, Inertia, Artifice and Ian. Plus, there are more tales still, beyond and through the Blink, the old foundations of Aesirium, the Sky People, and more!

But first, there are more things even just associated with the stories of Rom herself, including an expansion of the world you already know. Maps and paintings of the characters themselves, including Mulligan, Rickets and Yu; an arcana of the main characters as Tarot cards - - you might have wanted an idea of what Cousins' deck looks like - - well, that's a new project I'm developing. I've also had a lot of requests for Mully, Yu and Rickets as plush animals; I'll be working on that soon, too.

All of this will be leading up to the next series, but I haven't decided yet which, exactly. Both stories are roughed out; look for a poll to hit my Facebook page soon - - make your wishes known, friends of Aesirium! The Favo Carr stories and the Grindel & Prama stories will all be coming out eventually, but whose do you want to see first? Ooooh, decisions, decisions!

Don't let it be said I am a cruel creator - - I want to give you what you want to read - at least, well, I'll let you choose from a small list, but that's something, isn't it?

Talk to you soon!

~ - ~ - ~

Ren Cummins is an author who currently lives in the Pacific Northwest. In addition to writing, he is an accomplished artist and musician, cat herder and professional nerdist. His second novel, "The Morrow Stone", was nominated for "Steampunk Book of the Year" in 2011. He is co-founder of Talaria Press, an independent publisher that focuses on alternate publishing models and low-overhead project management.

"Reaper's Return" is book one of a completed 7-book series of young adult steampunk fantasy tales, about Romany, an 11 year old orphan girl in Oldtown-Against-the-Wall, who discovers that sometimes, death is just the beginning of your life's adventure. It is a 65,000-word novel, written for ages 12 and up. All 6 novels and an additional anthology are available as both ebooks for Kindle and in paperback format through Amazon.

For more information about the books and the author, please see the author's website at www.talariapress.com

It's a good time to be a Nerd

2013 has a summer of crazy. Iron Man 3, Star Trek Into Darkness, Man of Steel, Epic, After Earth, Oblivion, Much Ado About Nothing, World War Z, Pacific Rim, RIPD, The Wolverine, Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters, Kick-Ass 2, Elysium, The World's End... and that's just off the top of my head.

Frankly, I don't know that there's going to be anything left in my entertainment budget after this.

And then in the fall, there's Thor 2, Catching Fire, Ender's Game, Riddick, and on and on through the Hobbit, and, jeez, 2014 is already going to be insane. Clearly, Hollywood has realized that nerds have come into their own, have cash and aren't afraid to spend it.

Something to consider, going forward. Video games, comic books - the dungeons and dragons crowd has grown into its own target demographic. And to be honest, I kinda like it. Well, yes. Of course I'd like it. I'm right square in the middle of that group. The once too-geek-to-be-franchised is now The Franchise.

I'm kind of at a loss. After growing up feeling inclined to apologize for my geeky hobbies and interests, suddenly everyone seems to like it, but I can't shake the feeling that it's going to end up just like Carrie, where we're so overwhelmed by the sudden adoration that we don't notice the bucket of pig's blood that's about to come crashing down over our heads.

Which, as it turns out, has also been remade. Hrm.