Brian Terence's Blog

Types of authors, an editor’s guide - by Lord Of The Rings characters.

Orcs, or more specifically, AI orcs. These are authors focused entirely on volume, not quality. They are only interested in the sheer weight of numbers, like the orcs from the LOTRs stories and achieve volume by heavily relying on AI. The specific danger they pose to an editor is that they may ask an unsuspecting editor to work on a manuscript and then not pay. Simply because they are trying to produce as much as possible, but at the absolute minimum cost.

The second type of author an editor should avoid is a Gollum; they have probably written only one manuscript, they may never write another and have probably worked on it for years, if not decades. The reason for avoiding this type of author is that to them, their manuscript is PRECIOUS! Even assuming they trust you with it, if you suggest moving so much as a comma from there and back again. (If you see what I did there) They’re likely to try to throw you into a volcano.

This brings us to the 3rd type, this is a Hobbit, this type of author is the best for an editor to work with, they aren’t flamboyant, they may take small steps, but consistently make steady progress. They may be introverted and quiet, but they are humble enough to accept the editor's feedback, rather than turning into a fire-breathing dragon at every suggestion. They may be obsessed with food and have hairy feet, but they’re the best author for an editor to work with.

So, what type of author am I, you ask? Well, I’m a Gimli, I’m grumpy, sarcastic and dangerous with an axe!!

What type of author are you?

These are my personal reflections on how Goodreads (GR) compares with LinkedIn (LI), different authors may have other priorities. Many social media platforms have a professional page that gives more features than the standard; there is often a specific style of page for authors. GR has an accredited authors page; LI doesn’t have anything comparable, although I guess LI would say that, as the whole platform is for professionals, there’s no need.

Can you add links to your bio – GR yes, LI no! For a platform with link in the name, LI appears to have an allergy to links, especially those that leave the platform; often, a pop-up page appears and asks if you’re really sure you want to leave the hallowed halls of LinkedIn.

Total number of links - GR is effectively unlimited, as you can add them to your bio. There is also a website link in the headline. LI, 1 in the headline and up to 3 in the contact info box, assuming the person viewing your profile can find it.

Videos embedded on the profile page - this feature isn’t available at all on LI; no limits on GR, as it embeds YouTube vids. LI has a limit on video size, and it is only available on your profile if you create a post and then select it as ‘featured.’

Thumbnails to books - obviously, I want people to be able to find my books. LinkedIn is a professional platform, but I can’t actually promote my work; GR has a selection of thumbnail links to my books. There is no similar option on LI, although there is a publications section; I’ve never found a way to add thumbnails.

Groups, Friends/Connections, Followers (without connection) are available on both platforms.

Rating/reviews. They are only available on GR, although you can have endorsements on LI.

GR doesn’t list profile views, but the 3 profile views available without premium on LI represent less than 1% of my 90-day views. So, GR is 0% and LI is less than 1%, so it may not be the huge differentiator that LI might think it is.

Finally, the point to consider is how your profile looks to someone not logged in to the platform. For example, if they simply Google you, but don’t have LI/GR accounts, so can’t log in. This is where LI really fails; often, you encounter an authorisation wall, so they can’t view your profile at all. Even if the visitor can access your profile, the website link is hidden, and the contact info is not accessible without signing in, the GR profile is visible without restrictions. You can click hyperlinks, play the embedded videos, and click book thumbnails to jump straight to the book's Amz page, even when not signed in.

I’m not suggesting we all abandon LI for GR; they aren’t exactly a like-for-like comparison, but I would encourage authors to use the platform, especially as it’s free!!!

Possibly controversial thought:

Is there a danger that writers can become too insular?

I often see posts by authors where they interview other authors, post reviews on other authors' work, discuss another author's techniques and life experiences - But what I don't see, at least not very often, is references to the readers.

So, please authors, although it's great to support each other, try to avoid becoming too inward-looking and focus more on trying to reach out to your potential readers.

That may mean that dreaded term MARKETING, but there you are, I just used the rudest word in the author's repertoire!

I'm deeply concerned about AI and don't use it myself; anyone who has watched the Terminator films is going to be heading for the nearest available bunker.

Sci-fi does explore these ideas, I Robot, the film, not the book - Looks at AI taking over to protect humans from themselves.

Asimov's famous 3 laws of Robotics, unknown to many, had a 4th law - Rule Zero, that robots had to protect humanity as a whole, even before protecting individual humans.

Asimov explored these ideas further with his Multivac stories, in which an alien race contacts humanity to test them. It was the existence of a guiding AI that qualified the human race to enter the galactic community.

It's the role of sci-fi authors to develop these ideas to the extreme to see what the consequences might be, the problem is that the founders of these AI companies are excited by the ideas portrayed in sci-fi, but completely fail to heed the warnings.

Plot-holes, pot-holes and cracks in the pavement!

Over the weekend, a friend asked me to have a look at a short story he’d written, prior to publication.

It flowed well and had plenty of action.

‘Boss lady’ had been reminding me that the grass needed cutting, so I put my headphones on and had ‘Word’ read it to me, while mowing the lawn – Heaven forbid – I was almost multi-tasking!

It worked fine, and listening helped distract me from the mowing.
But in one section, a character is exploring an abandoned boat with a torch, and later, he has to use a cigarette lighter to illuminate his way.

What happened to the torch?

This question then bugged me for the rest of the story. The author is an experienced and published writer, and there is nothing wrong with the story. But the question of the torch distracted me a little. Like a crack in the pavement, I stumbled over it.

It emphasised to me the importance of asking for support and advice, so consider joining a writer's group. Definitely, instruct an editor to have a look at your work.

Because sometimes there’ll be huge plot-holes, sometimes just smaller pot-holes or even just a crack in the pavement.

However, another person reviewing our work can help smooth the path for the reader.

It's an odd coincidence that 3 of my favourite authors are called Harry, Turtledove (he's on BlueSky), Harrison and Sidebottom. Has anyone else got an author coincidence?

Me, misquoting Douglas Adams, who misquotes Lewis Carroll.

“Sci-fi writers are an odd bunch. They might not have done six impossible things before breakfast. Still, they may have created universes, destroyed whole worlds, conjured into being, and then subsequently dispatched nightmarish monsters—and all before most people have finished their muesli.”

I’m not going to get into the debate around the exact date H G Wells set his 'War of the Worlds'; let’s just call it the early 1900s.

Assuming the Martian's technology stayed the same, what’s the last date they could have reasonably been expected to win, as human military technology improved over the twentieth century? This discussion is based on the original book, not on any of the more recent adaptions.

The Martians have two primary weapons; the ‘Heat-Ray’ and gas shells; the latter is short-range. They are also described as having a steam generator to clear the gas. But that’s not really a weapon.

Another common misconception is that the Martians never conquered the whole world; in fact, they never controlled more than the Southern half of Britain.

It’s not defined in the book, but what was the probable effective range of the ‘Heat-Ray’? – We know it must be in a straight line – Even with the height elevation of a tripod, could it be more than 3 miles? Which is the average distance to the horizon, it’s a line-of-sight-weapon. It is another side point that the ‘Heat-Ray’ in the book could have been one of the first references to a laser in fiction. It’s described as being a collection of mirrors that focused the heat.

An artillery piece, certainly by WW1, had a much greater range. Approximately double the range of a Martian ‘Heat-Ray’. It is related that a battery of guns did destroy a Tripod, this then leads to the Martians deploying their gas weapon.

The first significant use of gas was in 1915; gas masks were common in the later part of WW1, they would have neutralised the Martian gas bombs. How effective WW1 tanks would have been is hard to gauge. I doubt they would have been very useful; they were probably too slow. Although against the ‘metal tentacles’ they may have been effective.

What about aircraft? It is doubtful that the small number of planes would have made much difference against the Martians. The planes were slow-moving and very vulnerable to the ‘Heat-ray’. They may have been able to work as spotters for artillery, if they could get enough altitude to be out of range. Another possibility would have been a dirigible, taking a bag of highly flammable hydrogen into battle against an enemy equipped with a ‘Heat-ray’; what could possibly go wrong?

However, a Royal Navy warship, ‘Thunder Child, ’ inflicts significant damage on a group of tripods. The range of WW1 warship's main guns could have targeted the Martians at some 25 miles distant. How accurate they could be at that range is hard to estimate. Could they have hit anything as small as a tripod? But clearly, their range would have restricted the Martians to inland areas.

So, by WW1, the Martians would have lost, assuming all the details of Wells's book are the same.

It is interesting that Wells wrote/set his book in the 15-year window when it could have happened and not years later. In many of Well’s stories his predictions of the future were almost prophetic.

In the next article, I will consider a broader question: Is an alien invasion even possible? Let’s ask the experts, by which, of course, I mean sci-fi writers.

In this Article, I’m reviewing various Sci-Fi author's comments, and the portrayals of alien invasion; to Ask – Is an Alien invasion even possible?

Harry Harrison, one of my favourite authors, expressed in a number of his stories, The ‘Stainless Steel Rat’ novels, for example, that interplanetary invasion was impossible. The logistics of lifting even a single bullet up and out of a planet's gravity well and then travelling the interplanetary distance, months just to get to Mars, make it disproportionately expensive.

The ‘World War’ series is the nickname given to a series of alternate history science fiction novels by Harry Turtledove. The invading reptile creatures have technology similar to what we have today and are invading Earth during the middle of WW2. That would give them technology some 75 years more advanced. In the story, the human race fights until a stalemate is achieved. So even though the invaders are more advanced, they can’t achieve a total victory. Harry Harrison suggested that if the defenders could arrange a decent defence, then interplanetary invasion would be impossible.

What about H. G. Wells’s Martians, well although they had technology far in advance of 1900s Britain, they still didn’t achieve a victory beyond establishing a toehold in Southern England. A mistake that Wells made in his portrayal, is that given the Martians were using a cannon to fire their ships at the Earth, they probably would have aimed at a large landmass; he should have had the Martians land East of the Ural Mountains. But that might not have been as dramatic for the British readers of the story.

What about if the Aliens only want destruction, to Exterminate the humans, to quote a Dalek?

Let’s consider – ‘Footfall’, a 1985 science fiction novel by American writers Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. In this story, the invaders just drop a large rock on the Earth to intimidate and weaken the human race's chance of fighting back. They also lose in the end. But this does introduce a very different type of alien attack. You don’t need an Alien battleship hanging over the White House; they just throw rocks at us from the asteroid field. Or even worse, just skim the edge of the solar system and dislodge a few Oort cloud objects and drop them into the inner system. When the subsequent comets destroyed all life on Earth, we might not even realise it was an attack. Another take on this theme is ‘Starship Troopers’, there is, however, some uncertainty if this was an alien attack or an inside job. I’ll let you explore that internet rabbit hole on your own.

But why would you even invade another planet or solar system; resources, right?

Wrong – there are easily accessible metals, water and other useful materials in the asteroid field or moons of the gas giants. If you have interplanetary travel, trying to descend into a planet’s gravity well to extract the material you need would be a wasteful effort. As you’ve already flown past them on your way to the Earth.

One option is mentioned in Asimov’s ‘Foundation’ series, which is a type of gravity engine. But there’s no way of knowing if such a thing is even possible. But, I hear you cry - if the aliens are millions of years ahead of us, then they may have technology we can’t imagine. Yes, that is possible, but if you go down that road, you end up with flying dragons and unicorns! Theoretically, anything is possible, but I’ve tried to stick to technology that we at least can see the scientific principles behind it, even if we can’t build it yet.

Wells’s Martians wanted the human race as a food crop, although the biologists would probably suggest this is also implausible as we’d be incompatible with each other. So even having the Human race as lunch isn’t really that practical.

So, although alien invasion makes great Science Fiction, at least as far as our understanding goes, it isn’t great Science Fact.

The first of Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Martian Novels was published in 1912, as a serialisation. The gender and racial attitudes portrayed in the book are of its time and not something I wanted to explore in this article.

I would like to consider what Sci-Fi tropes ERB introduces and how the science of ‘Mars’ has changed in the 112 years since the stories were first published.

The stories were first published as ‘Under the Moons of Mars.’ So, let’s start there. Mars has two moons. That information would have been well known in ERB’s day, Phobos and Deimos, having been first observed and their orbits calculated in the 1870’s. Burroughs gives a vivid description of the dual shadows moving across the ground. This helps the reader to feel immersed in the story.

One area where ERB was very much mistaken is, of course, with the ‘canals’ of Mars. But it’s worth noting that it was still a hot topic at the time the stories were published, so Burroughs certainly can’t be blamed for using them as a part of the ‘Barsoomian’ landscape. This does give us an excellent example of ‘world building’. Burroughs used the canal network to construct the Barsoom economy. He extrapolated how the canal system would affect their way of life and culture. With many people living in farms along the length of those canals.

He also gives a good example of constructing a ‘history’ for the planet, covering millions of years. Again, helping the reader to feel immersed in the world Burroughs was creating and helping bring the world of John Carter to life. With occasional references to the abandoned cities and the frescos on the walls, depicting times long gone.

Related to the ‘canals’ were, of course, the polar caps, and this again is an area where Burroughs was let down by the science of his day. The Martians, (Barsoomians) relied on the melting of the ice caps to fill the canals and therefore irrigate the dying planet. Unfortunately, the ice caps are mostly ‘dry ice’, that is, carbon dioxide rather than water ice, so they couldn’t have served to irrigate the farms.

What about Mars's atmosphere? It is clearly shown in the books that without artificial means, Mars would have been long dead. There is a situation where the atmosphere generation plant is sabotaged, and everyone starts to suffocate. Of course, John Carter comes to the rescue and saves the day. But it does give an insight into the world building that Burroughs went into to construct his ‘Barsoom.’ He had to find a way to ‘bend’ the science to allow Mars to be inhabitable and, at the same time, create a plot for a story. For writers, the Barsoom novels are a good example of world building. If the human race is one day to live on Mars, we’ll either need to construct huge domes or build our own atmosphere generation plant. According to ERB, the plant was equivalent to 4 square miles in area. You might be reminded of the atmosphere plant shown in the 1990s film ‘Total Recall.’

Another area where ERB does well is in the portrayal of John Carter trying to walk under the lower gravity of Mars. Remember, this is over half a century before ‘One giant leap for mankind.’ We take images of the astronauts bouncing along the lunar surface for granted. But ERB had to imagine this and incorporate it into his stories. John Carter's physical strength is exaggerated for narrative effect in the stories, but the basic idea is sound. Please note, that ERB had to put this into a story in a way that was relatable to readers in 1912.

Related to the comments above on the ‘History’ of Barsoom, it's understood that Mars cooled faster than the Earth and, therefore, was habitable much sooner but correspondingly became uninhabitable sooner also. ERB uses this as a part of his world building, why the Barsoomians have much more advanced technology. They are potentially millions of years ahead of the humans. Having long ago reached their peak, they are now well into their decline.

This is why I feel that the Barsoomian Novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs are an excellent example of immersive world building.