I guess I need to quit banging my head against a wall, rock, or whatever nice, hard surface is available. Looking back over some of the fanfiction I've written, as well as humorous pieces, and some of the comments. "That defies the laws of physics", or whatnot, to which my response is usually, "What part of the words science fiction are we having problems with?"
I guess I expect too much of people anymore.
Sometimes, I like to close my eyes, and drift off to a world where horse sense was never sent to the glue factory with along with the horse, or common sense hadn't gotten upset because it was... well... just common.
Ahhh... A world without Star Wars I, II, III, VII, VIII, or IX. A world where Rocky XXIII wasn't a possibility, and First Blood hadn't spawned Fifteenth Blood!
A world where Donny Osmond sang his own songs, rather than danced for Weird Al... No wait.... That was actually pretty funny. That one can stay in my fantasy world.
A world where the price of water per gallon was less than the price of gas per 55 gallon drum! A world where people still know who I am referring to when I mention Thurston Howell III!
A world where.... You know... I think my headache's getting worse...
Comments
Thurston Howell III
Wasn't he Woodrow Wilson's Secretary of State?
I know the sort of alienation you speak of. Hang in there, and remember there might be up to a dozen people here who do get you, and love your works. For me those are the ones who make it all worthwhile.
~hugs, Veronica
.
One day I was walking down the beach and found a message in a bottle.
Three badly weathered pages that read:
“Our skipper, the man we trusted to lead us, to get us through the weeks or months until we were found and rescued from this wretched island has gone insane. The big jolly oaf has grown gaunt, his eyes haunted by insane visions, by the terrible voices in his head. And he's dragged the girls into his madness, like it was some new improved type of sanity. Sweet wholesome innocent M and maybe not innocent but basically goodhearted G are unrecognizable to me now, and not because of the blood they've smeared all over their faces in strange lines and symbols. It's that look in their eyes, savage, no longer even a bit human as the run around with spears chanting KILL THE BEAST! SMASH HIS HEAD! CUT HIS THROAT! SPILL HIS BLOOD! These two wonderful young women and the man who was like a second father to me have turned so strange and demonic.
Maybe it was those mushrooms, but I ate them too and I got better, so did the Professor. Maybe that's why they decided we're the enemy now. Traitors to their madness + paranoia. To the terrible god they've made out of that dead parachutish or whatever he is that we found just before the the three of them completely lost touch with reality...
Its ironic. I was the goof, the screw up, the butt of everyone's jokes and condescending pats on the head like I was some 25 year old man-child, but now I'm the only sane one on this Island. Well the Prof is as smart as ever, but since he broke his glasses he's pretty well useless; and he's demoralized, withdrawn. I'm taking care of both of us. But with the three of them sleeping in shifts around that bonfire and guarding the only source of water, we're getting desperate.
I can't say I liked Mr + Mrs. H, they had the uselessness and entitlement of Old Money that never learned to open a can or make a sandwich or do ANYTHING but bark orders and complain, and if that didn't work then complain to the Management. Well there's no servants here, no management. And no I didn't like these two silly self-important old people but I was hoping this hard life here might teach them a few things about reality + how to treat others. But that's not going to happen now, and as aggravatingly clueless as they were they didn't deserve to be butchered like that by those psychos, sacrificed on that terrible fly-shrouded altar. This is the heart of darkness, and I don't know how long-”
And there the manuscript ends...
Weird, huh?
What borders on pure insanity?
Canada and Mexico.
.
Huh.
I don't know what you have there, dear, but if there's any left in the bottle I'll join you.
That smacks suspiciously Lovecraftian, if you know what I mean. Are you absolutely sure that it is mermaids you prefer, and not something from the deeper waters?
Come to think of it, where was it you said you hailed from? Not Innsmouth by any chance?
You never saw Lord of the Flies?
A political allegory about British schoolboys stranded on an Island who quickly descend into savagery and bloodshed. I never saw the remake but the original definitely warped my formative years (I know I read the original novel at some point too). I thought it would be hilarious to do a mash-up of Lord of the Flies and Gilligan's Island. That was as far as I got when I realized how wrong I was about "hilarious"; and that it was way too dark + gruesome to put in the mermaid series, and I left the Chthonic Abyss with its terrible Leviathans for sunnier waters...
What borders on pure insanity?
Canada and Mexico.
.
That's
really good!
A mash-up
Gilligan's Island meets Lord of the flies. Oh, the dark demented humor. Reminds me of Heathers!
I admit that I have written dark humor. On occasion.
-- Daphne Xu (a page of contents)
Poor old Uncle Thursty.
I am a Howell, and we would have money left over, had Lovey not told the chauffeur to "keep the engine running" while they were gone, but it was 15 years, and you know how gas prices skyrocketed in the '70s. Our fortune made Exxon richer, while we got poorer.
Ah well...
Hugs!
Rosemary
Message in a bottle
I must say, I didn't ever see Lord of the Flies, but I enjoyed your monologue.
I do have to wonder, though, if the professor tried to tell Gilligan how to build something, how it would have turned out? Perhaps that might have offset the darkness with a bit of humor?
On another note, I always feel my age when someone asks me to spell my last name and I tell them "H-O-W-E-L-L, just like in Thurston the 3rd from Gilligan's Island." If I get a laugh, it's okay, but if I get a blank stare, I realize how old I'm getting.
Hugs!
Rosemary
No problem here
Howell is a perfectly respectable Welsh name.
You'd have no trouble with it this side of the pond.
Yes. I recently bought a
Yes. I recently bought a Welsh Cilt in the Howell / Powell tartan from Wales Tartan Centres. I love it!
Hugs!
Rosemary
Science Fiction
I hear you. These days my tastes have shifted to almost exclusively Non Fanfic Science Fiction. I've grown weary of stories that take and outie and make it an innie. There are only so many scenarios for that. And I did it myself. There are and have been some authors here that are simply amazing. I think that one or two of the best were College Lit students and when they finished the course and got their grade that was it. I wish they had kept on. I would have paid for their stories.
I prefer romantic, happy tales, and that is what I try to write.
Much peace
Gwen
I love romantic tales as well
I love romantic tales as well. I'm a sucker for them, and then I write science fiction. Go figure.
Hugs!
Rosemary
I should look up your stories.
I am not familiar with your work. :)
Gwen
That's okay. I'm not either.
That's okay. I'm not either.
Hugs!
Rosemary
LOL, made my morning
Thank you Rose. I needed that to begin my day. You're too cute.
hugs hon
Barb
Life is a gift, treasure it.
Oklahoma born and raised cowgirl
Take heart
I remember fondly Thurston Howell III and his fellow castaways. I also remember his alter ego, in the same time slot on a competing network, Mr. Magoo. AAAh, those were the days.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin eine Mann
Oh! You Mean James Deans Father
To jump back to the original thread.
I long for a day when TV commercials didn't make me want to shudder in fear about some obscure "disease" I need to treat.
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
I long for a time when
I long for a time when looking up the ingredients in a strip of flypaper on the internet didn't convey the erroneous message to every business on the internet that I need to purchase it by the truckload.
Hugs!
Rosemary
Defying the Laws of Physics (yes, CAPS!)
You may defy the laws of physics in science fiction, but if you want science fiction, it should be clear which of the existing laws you want to violate and it should be done consistently. Otherwise you are writing fantasy (nothing wrong with that, I love both genres) like Star Wars or Barsoom.
E.E. Smith invented suspension of inertia to allow superluminal speeds - SF done right.
David Brin inverted the second law of thermodynamics for a setting (great novel, "The practice effect", definitely recommended).
Other authors used some handwaving (wormholes, "subspace" etc.) or simply accepted the limits and explored generation ships and the like.
If you love Hard SF and prefer SF to speculate in a scientific way ("if we change this law, let's see what might happen") then you might react the way you mentioned to so-called SF that is in reality fantasy.
Don't apply the wrong label, that will surprise readers and while they might love your story at the right time, right now maybe they just wanted SF and not fantasy.
It is not that your stories are bad, they might just be perceived as mislabeled. No bad intention involved, neither by you as the author nor by the reader (who may simply have misunderstood you or use a different measuring stick regarding the science part of science fiction).
Well, I usually stick to the
Well, I usually stick to the laws of the "SciFi Universe" I'm writing in. I've written a lot of Star Trek FanFiction. However, I also love crossovers, and there, you can run into trouble, by universes "arguing" with each other. In such a case, I try to come up with a way they're not at odds, but perhaps things are seen in a different light.
My son and I wrote the "Iconia Continuum" books together, and we had the difference between Star Trek Warp speeds, and the Hyperspace speeds of the Stargate universe. We came up with an explanation for the vast differences of speed, but sometimes people can be too hardnosed in their own favorite universe to accept that perhaps their ships can't go as fast as another series.
Anyway. I don't believe I apply the wrong label when I'm calling Star Trek, Stargate, or any of the other series in stories of that type, Science Fiction. :-)
Hugs!
Rosemary
Progress in Understanding
I prefer to think of advances in understanding the laws of physics, rather than flat-out removing them. Yes, it's hypothetically possible that advances lead to surpassing the speed of light. (This also makes it possible to escape being caught in a black hole.)
Also, I'm quite good at imagining consequences of certain claims. Suppose some spacecraft went from Our Universe to Universe Q, where the laws of physics were very different. Invariably, the spacecraft and the humans are in a bubble where Our Universe's laws apply. Human bodies and the equipment still work. In fact, the new world is very often earth-like.
You go from our three-dimensional universe to a five-dimensional universe. What's the dimension of the portal?
Actually, it can get worse. This might happen: because of the difference in the laws of physics, the door (used metaphorically) from Our to Q can exist in our universe but not in Universe Q. That's flat-out logically contradictory.
"Accelerate to attack speed!" That sounds fine, doesn't it? You might not notice that they're decelerating from (say) miles per second down to hundreds of feet per second.
I read a couple of David Brin's novels, one of which was Earth. I had considerable trouble with that. Ofttimes, he threw out trivia unrelated to the plot. He's heard of magnetic field reversals. Suppose the magnetic field were to reverse today? That would cause major devastation. He missed out on the part where magnetic field reversals take thousands of years to occur.
Suspending inertia? What else had to be suspended as a biproduct? Force = mass * acceleration? Force = rate of change of momentum? Those at a bare minimum. Anything else that leads to them. It's one thing to accelerate a body with a huge force. It's another thing completely to alter the body's response to a force. And what are the consequences to the human body?
Inverting the second law of thermodynamics? That's denying probability and statistics. The second law is solely the product of the probability and statistics of large numbers.
Heck, there are things even God can't do. (It's not a question of being all-powerful.)
-- Daphne Xu (a page of contents)
I think I remember Thurston Howell II ...
... , his junior partner Topper, and best bud Jiggs... that Maggie could have pitched for the Yankees!