Mark W. Bonnett's Blog

I said, when I write my little tribute to Harold Ramis, that there was one tribute I was dreading having to write, as I knew it would be the one that would hit me the hardest. That time has sadly come, and in the end, it's taken me over a week to collect my thoughts, and finally get this written.

And I've decided: I'm not going to write a tribute to Terry Pratchett. It doesn't seem enough, somehow, not for the man whose work has had the greatest effect on not just my own writing, but on my worldview.

No, this isn't a tribute. This is a thank you...
I read my very first Discworld novel when I was a young'n, probably only about 12 or 13, when a cousin lent me The Colour Of Magic and The Light Fantastic. I was blown away instantly; never before had I seen the fantasy genre get the piss taken out of it so thoroughly, so affectionately, and so beautifully. From then, I was hooked, and as I read them, something happened to me, the same as I reckon happened a lot to people who read the Discworld novels.

I learned, and I changed.

I came to see the world differently, and not just because of the new and exciting ways I saw Pratchett twist and turn language into something wonderful. Pratchett may have been, to me, the greatest fantasy writer who's ever lived (and I say that entirely without irony or hyperbole), but what made his books really resonate round my brain, and rearrange my neurons in new and interesting ways, was just how insightful they were.

Show me any work about the human condition by Dickens, Austen, or any of the classics, and I'll hold up a Pratchett book and say, "I'm fine with this, thanks. It's got metaphor and dwarfs."

And so, I write this thank you. I'm not going to go on about how Terry Pratchett was a visionary and a genius (though he was those things). I'm just going to say thank you for making me the writer, and the man, I am today.

I hope Binky had his best saddle on when he came for you, Pterry. And like Granny Weatherwax said, if you haven't gone to a better place, you'll damn sure make it a better one.

(Image by Paul Kidby, source: paulkidby.net)

As I'm sure you can imagine, the art of storytelling is something that's, well, really really bloody important to me. I'd assumed it was important to everyone who makes a living through writing fiction, because when you're writing fiction, telling a convincing story is frankly everything. It's one of the main bleedin' points of the entire exercise.

So, imagine my surprise when I read that the writer for Transformers: Age of Extinction believes that it's just not that important...
Y'see, SlashFilm sat down with Ehren Kruger, the man who wrote all three of the Bayformers sequels, and what he said was rather illuminating. Specifically, what it illuminated was the opinion I spoke about in the title of this very post: Ehren Kruger has no business calling himself a writer. Oh, and I should also point out that this post isn't going to be about me shouting at the Bayformers movies for being utterly dire. I mean they are, obviously, but this little rant is going to be specifically about Ehren Kruger's interview.

I reckon you'll see exactly why it infuriates me so much, when I show you the money quote:

"When you’re talking about aliens, robotic machines which disguise themselves as vehicles and animals, you start to make your peace with the idea that logical sense doesn’t have to be the be-all, end-all."

I'm sorry, what? You mean to tell me that a story making sense is not one of the core bloody tenets of the whole bloody art of bloody storytelling? Well, what the hell have I been doing spending 90% of my time making sure that my books, y'know, make sense? Ye gods, I wish I'd known, I could have written any old drivel and still managed to sell it, and the books wouldn't take half as long to write!

Wow. Who knew that a narrative making sense wasn't the most important part of constructing a narrative in the first place?

Now, around this stage, I'd usually acknowledge that my opinion of Bayformers is entirely subjective, but that's sort of the point, really. I'm not actually ranting about the movies. I'm ranting about a man who calls himself a writer while, we can infer from his words, thinking the art of storytelling isn't actually that important.

And that disgusts me.

It cheapens the art of storytelling. It cheapens the hard work put in by writers who spend hours upon hours making sure their story makes sense. It's a huge insult to moviegoers and book readers, as it implies we're not smart enough to tell when a story is hideously badly written.

Besides which, as Mark Twain himself said, "It's no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense." 

Ehren Kruger, you should be ashamed of yourself...

The ever-expanding and growing Cynos Union Series is available to buy now! Subscribe for more news from the world (and brain) of Mark W. Bonnett! 

There's been a little bit of a theme in a couple of my books so far (namely the first in the Cynos Union saga, Messiah's Shard , and book 3, The Abominable Moon ), of people not being quite who they say they are, or rather, not being totally honest with how they feel. In fact, it was a major plot point in both books; to see how, you'll just have to read them, but suffice to say, the basic point is that everyone, absolutely everyone, hides who they really are from the world. I keep using that trope, so now it's time to look at why.

I've mentioned before that a big part of why I write what I write is the fact that it's cathartic. Writing helps me to deal with my own personal demons, and in a way, understand myself better. Oh, and settle in, because this post will be a long'n (and also, possibly, maybe, a little bit uncomfortable to read, but keep going to the end, 'cos I promise it's not all doom and gloom)...
By fictionalising them, it makes them, well, safer to think about, I suppose, and easier. I guess that just comes as part of being hyper-analytical about everything, really: if I can sit back and look at how fictional characters deal with what's going through their minds, it somehow becomes divorced from myself (even though I wrote them), and I can look at them and go, "Ah, so that's how to deal with that thingy, then."

Yeah, I freely admit that thought process probably isn't going to make that much sense to other people...  

Understanding Through Writing

But then, that bit, the fact that the whole experience makes very little sense to other people, is easily one of the worst parts about battling with depression or (in my case) borderline personality disorder. It's that bit that makes me (and, I can only assume, other people who have to battle these things) feel like they're alone. As odds go, that's edging towards 'insurmountable', and the only way I can describe is like this: you're trying to fight an army of demons vastly more powerful than you are, it's really hard to find any kind of energy to fight such a vastly overpowered foe, no-one can help you (because it's your fight which only you can win), and neither you nor they really understand the whole situation, anyway.

I'm not saying that Messiah's Shard is an allegory about fighting mental health issues, but I'm also not saying that it isn't, so you can probably draw your own conclusions...

And so, I write, to tell a story, yes, but also to understand, and maybe to help other people understand. Understanding's the hard bit, though. I mean, after all, how can I expect anyone else to understand this, until I understand it myself, right? Even then, though, there's still the stigma that comes from mental health issues, but we all know where that comes from, right?

Yep, once again (sing it with me), lack of understanding, and that's made worse by the whole thing being so hard to explain to anyone who's not suffered through it. Y'know, I've long thought that this page from Robot Hugs sums it up perfectly. Have a read, I'll wait...

...

...

Humans Are Useless At Doing Understanding

Welcome back. I try not to get angry when people offer advice like that, because after all, they are just trying to help, and it's not their fault that trying to make ourselves better is what people with mental health issues do all the time, 24/7, whether we like it or not. We know that what we feel is completely irrational, but without a serious run-up, and perchance a really big cricket bat to smack our personal demons about, we can't help it.

And then, the fact that we know those irrational thoughts are stupid makes us feel stupid, and powerless, for not being able to stop them. We know we need help, but even if we can muster the energy to try and get some, finding help isn't easy. That stigma goes all the way throughout a society that would, it seems, prefer to forget such edge cases like us happen, or encourage us to treat the symptoms with a pick 'n' mix of pharmaceuticals every day, instead of understanding and fighting the internal causes of the problem.

Hell, even people like us aren't that good at understanding and supporting other people like us. I can remember joining a general mental health support group, since therapy's so expensive, only to find that everyone else in the group wanted to focus on postnatal depression (a genuinely big problem, but not one I can ever understand or experience). The end result?

Another feeling of isolation, brought on by a group who were explicitly there to support people with mental health issues. I could have said something, but the point is this: the world constantly tells us there are people worse off than ourselves, and how do my problems compare to people with postnatal depression?

So, the situation's pretty much hopeless, right?

Well... no, actually...

We Will Fight, And Though We May Stumble, We Shall Not Fall

One of the deepest beliefs I've always held is that there is always hope. No matter how dark things get, hope will always abide. That's the deepest belief I cling to because, quite frankly, I have to. I have to believe that hope never dies, because otherwise, what's the point?

And do ye know, there's a funny thing about believing in hope. Believe in it, and work your bits off to make it happen, and it does get better. It really does. People like us, we go through the mill every day, to the point where even getting out of bed in the morning doesn't seem worth the effort.

Every day, we fight against that, but that's fine, because doing that just makes us stronger. I hate giving advice, because it's arrogant to think I know more about you than you do about yourself, so this is the only bit of advice I will ever give to anyone who, like me, struggles with these things: you are stronger than you realise. You will find that strength when you're ready to, you will survive your struggles, and you will outlast your personal demons.

After all, you've already proved you're a survivor by not letting those demons beat you, up till now.

People like you and I, we'll just carry on surviving, the same as we always do, and bit by bit, day by day, we'll win.

And yes, these things have, as you might have guessed, informed my writings.

I've always said that every Cynos Union book will, no matter how dark it gets throughout the story, have a somewhat happy ending. It might be a bittersweet ending, sure, but I refuse to use the kind of downer endings that strange, floppy-haired people claim to be the Only True Art™.

Like I said, there has to be hope, or what's the point?

Smacking Personal Demons With Big Angry Sticks

So in conclusion, never stop fighting. Though it may very well be the hardest thing we can ever possibly face, we won't lie down and give in. We won't allow the despair and the loneliness to destroy us from the inside out. Those things will try, those little doubts and niggles and personal demons that we sometimes forget are a part of ourselves because they feel so alien, but the fact is that they don't control us.

They are not who we are, and since we have boundless depths of inner strength, we can be bloody sure that we'll drag the little bleeders into the light, and prove how little power they have over us.

And the most important thing to remember is that we're never alone, not really. There are thousands upon thousands of people who feel like us, even people who hide it from, well, themselves. There are quite possibly millions of other civilisations out there in the blackness of space, too, and even amongst those, there will be thousands of people, or squids, or nine-limbed monkeys with tree frogs for faces, who feel just like we do.

Though it might sometimes feel like it, people like us, whether we're human or squid or something else that can't even be imagined by science, are not alone.

So now, it's over to you. Jump in with your thoughts. Tell the world, without shame, how you give those personal demons a bloody nose.

The ever-expanding and growing Cynos Union Series is available to buy now! Subscribe for more news from the world (and brain) of Mark W. Bonnett! 

Ah, the joys of being on holiday; it quite often means that I miss something the day it gets published and then have to rant about it a week after everyone else has given it a good going over. Usually, that'd lead to me not bothering, since people have already said everything I'd want to say by that point, but this time it's different.

This time, I done got the fire in my belly, and it all started when I read that article on Slate (you know the one), about how adults who read YA fiction should be embarrassed.

Now, perhaps unsurprisingly, this is not a post where I come out swinging in defence of Young Adult fiction, because quite frankly, I'm not a fan. I've tried to read some, here and there, and it's just not my cuppa tea. Instead, what I'm here to do is ask this question: when did it become a-okay to imply people are somehow deficient as humans (and "should be embarrassed") when they like something you don't?
I mean did I miss a memo, or something?

Mind you, let's be honest here, the original article, by writer Ruth Graham, isn't exactly anything new, is it? For those of us who like aliens and dragons, or rayguns and swords, being told that the thing we love is somehow not proper and decent for adult comsumption is something we're well used to. One only has to watch the mental hoops the supposed arbiters of culture jump through to ensure that George Orwell's 1984 cannot be a dystopian science fiction novel, or that Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol cannot possibly be a ghost-filled fantasy story.

No, they're both "proper literature", not the kind of disgusting, pulpy genre fiction that the unwashed and braindead masses consume like the animals they are. You know the stuff: Aldous Huxley, Mary Shelley, H.G. Wells, Jules Verne, all those stories for plebs, that's not proper literature...

What it ultimately boils down to is snobbery, plain and simple, a kind of cultural elitism which states that only a narrowly defined range of things can be considered "worthy", and anything outside that narrow band of things can go do one.

"Science fiction can't be literature," they say. "Heavy metal can't be music. Comics and video games are for children, and should be banned anyway. You should be ashamed of yourself for liking such things, and should consume only what I say is good for you, for such is the path to salvation."

No, such is the path to stagnation. What people who make these claims seem to want is a society based purely around what they like. Other people's tastes? Things that other people may like?

Pah, what do those  plebs know about anything?

There's an odd (well, perhaps not that odd) parallel here, with the world of publishing, or more specifically, with the world of traditional publishing. For years, publishers acted as the arbiters of culture, defining themselves as the gatekeepers of what the public should like (I firmly believe that's partly why traditional publishers are slowly going extinct, and not a moment too soon: the people are rebelling and deciding their tastes for themselves in this great ebook revolution), and that view, to my mind, looks pretty much identical to the one in the Slate article.

All of that seems to lead to one inescapable conclusion about how such people think, and it can be summed up thusly: you philistinies are too stupid to choose for yourselves. 

It's a shockingly authoritarian view, and if there's one thing I really do loathe, it's people who paint themselves as authority figures; any person who says they know what's best for other people is someone who, quite frankly, disgusts me.

So go on reading YA fiction. Carry on reading your sci-fi epics where five-limbed squids do unthinkable things to humans. Read what you love. Oh sure, people will telll you that you're wrong to like what you like, complete with the subtle implication that they're better than you, but quite frankly, who cares what they think?

You're not reading for them. You're reading for you, and you alone, so enjoy it!
____
Addendum Edit-To-Add Thingummy:

Ruth Graham also had this to say in her original article, and I completely forgot to pick up on it as I was first writing this post...

Most importantly, these books consistently indulge in the kind of endings that teenagers want to see, but which adult readers ought to reject as far too simple. YA endings are uniformly satisfying, whether that satisfaction comes through weeping or cheering. These endings are emblematic of the fact that the emotional and moral ambiguity of adult fiction—of the real world—is nowhere in evidence in YA fiction. These endings are for readers who prefer things to be wrapped up neatly, our heroes married or dead or happily grasping hands, looking to the future. But wanting endings like this is no more ambitious than only wanting to read books with “likable” protagonists. 

What, precisely, is wrong with a book having, y'know, a proper ending? Is it some kind of crime to like stories, works of fiction, to have the narrative closed out in an emotionally-satisfying way (whether that emotion is elation or heartache)? Sure, some books can turn what might otherwise have been a cop-out ending into pure genius (American Psycho springs to mind), but why must every bit of adult fiction ever have the kind of ambiguous, narratively-unsatisfying ending that Ms. Graham seems to want to see?

I swear, some people are so hung up on deep and meaningful, they forget what it's like to tell, or be told, a story...
____
The ever-expanding and growing Cynos Union Series is available to buy now! Subscribe for more news from the world (and brain) of Mark W. Bonnett! 

Author's Note: this story does not take place in the Cynos Union. I felt like a change of pace...

(Image courtesy of Serge Bertasius Photography / FreeDigitalPhotos.net)
People often ask me what the most important thing about colonising planets is. I swear, they ask questions like that all the time, and I'm convinced they want me to answer with something exciting, filled with much bravado and swinging between starships with plasma cannons held in our teeth.

This has never happened, ever. Also, don't try it. Ever. Plasma cannons have an annoying habit of going off unexpectedly, and your head won't grow back.

Trust me, I've seen it happen...
Anyway, here's the thing, right: the truth about planetary colonisation is that, well, it's boring. Everyone thinks it's going to be exciting, but it's just not. There's no death-defying fights against hostile aliens (plasma cannons again; hostile aliens tend to run away), the Science Institute's forcefield technology means that even hypercanes can't touch us, and if things do get a bit scary, standard colonisation procedure is to run away, and wait till the natives die out.

The point is this: none of those things really matter when you break ground on a new colony. No, I shall tell you what really matters:

Food supplies.

Seriously, the standard colony size the Science Institute sends out is around 600 members, and once we've made planetfall, we have to find some way to feed them all. Sure, we can send out the agriculture-mechs, but people get bored when all they have to eat is scropweed, right? Right, and don't tell me you wouldn't get bored if you only had scropweed to eat.

I mean come on, it's scropweed.Yes, I know it's incredibly nutritious, and yes, I know we were incredibly lucky to find it on that  planet we colonised  in the Vala Rell system, but the simple fact is that it tastes like perforated anus.

I've seen crews mutiny over that stuff. Just... no...

We're omnivores, we need meat in our diet, it's as simple as that. But where oh where does one find meat that's safe to consume on a world where the biochemistry is so radically different to our own?

Well I'm proud to say that I was the one who found the solution, on a rather backwards planet the Institute had been keeping under surveillance for a while. None of us knew that the indigenous creatures of this little planet would be our saviours, until one of us (that would be me, by the way) wondered whether they might actually be edible...

Well, praise the ancients, they were!

Not only that, but as was belied by their hideously ugly forms, they were unbelievably tasty! And so, our solution was clear: we began husbandry trials on these ugly creatures, to bring out their docile traits, and better improve their flesh-value for livestock purposes.

I'm sure you remember the news reports around the time. Everyone does. All those wild stories about how we were killing intelligent animals, just because they could use tools. Well let me tell you, many creatures on our old homeworld use tools, and that never stopped us eating them. Besides, we ran every single test imaginable, and I can personally guarantee that those creatures are not sentient.

They may use tools, but trust me on this, they do not show any signs of true sapience, and as we all know, the ability to open your mouth and wobble bits of it at people is not a mark of intelligence. Walthron-beasts can do that, after all, and I don't see you complaining about having nice, big steak to eat.

You'd have more luck finding intelligence in a rock than in one of those beasts, is what I'm saying.

Still, the ethics committee found nothing wrong in all of our tests, so we steamed on ahead, and let me tell you right now, the only reason our colonisation plans took off so quickly, the only reason our civilisation now spans four hundred star systems, is because of those ugly, pink things from that backwards planet that nobody likes going to.

Like I said, the most important part of any colonisation effort is food supplies, and the simple fact is this:

We wouldn't be where we are today, if we hadn't started eating 'humans'...

© 2013 Mark W. Bonnett
The ever-expanding and growing Cynos Union Series is available to buy now! Subscribe for more news from the world (and brain) of Mark W. Bonnett!

Y'know, I've never made a secret of my musical tastes. I am a metalhead. I may not have the long hair any longer (because damn, did I ever look like Meatloaf, when I had long hair), and it's no longer dyed every colour they could find in the barber's, but I remain, in my very soul, a headbanger till the day I die. Hell, that's even leaked into my books; I was intent that the Cynos Union would be 80s sci-fi, but with added metal, a bit like if Star Wars suddenly decided to switch out John Williams for Steve Harris out of Iron Maiden.

But anyhow, there is a point to this preamble; over the past couple of days, something has happened, a thing that's left me feeling more proud to be a metalhead than I ever have before (and I was already pretty bloody proud). It all started in a little pub in Newcastle...
Well, alright, according to the original story on Chronicle Live, it all started when the big honcho of said pub, City Tavern, kicked out a bunch of heavy metal fans because they were, in fact, dressed like heavy metal fans. This is a pub that explicitly doesn't have a dress code, mind, plus the headbangers who got the boot had been regulars for years, largely because the pub used to be known as a rockers' pub.

But, y'know, new ownership, 250 grand refit, and an owner who's reported as saying, "You’ve came in here with Slayer T-shirts and belts, it’s not a good look."

One does have to wonder how closely he had to look to see Slayer belts, but since they weren't wearing Slayer gear (and aren't even Slayer fans), it's probably a bit pointless to theorise. I'm not going to get drawn into talking about what kind of hang-ups the owner might have (because I can't know, and it's not fair to speculate), or what kind of clientèle he's wanting to attract (but come on, we all know it's stag do's and chavs). I'm not even going to call the owner what I want to, because it'd probably get me banned from the internet forever.

Nope, I'm going to focus on the good bit. The really good bit. The bit that made me immensely proud, except that the reason I'm proud might not be why you think...

Y'see, the pub's Facebook page is currently getting the arse trolled off it, to the point where this whole thing has gone viral, and well-known magazines like Metal Hammer, as well as people all round the globe, are talking about it. The lulz are epic, but that's not why I'm proud. No, I shall tell ye why I'm proud.

We metalheads, we're family. We look out for each other, and if an injustice is done against one, the very heart and soul of metal, fans like you and me, will rise up, roaring and snorting, and come to our fellow fan's aid. Sure, we might argue like cat and dog about who's better between Slayer and Iron Maiden (it's Iron Maiden, for the record), but that's just brothers and sisters doing what we do.

See, I know this from experience of being a drummer in more than my fair share of gigging bands. After a while, I could tell what the crowd was going to be like, just by looking at them, and the best audiences, the absolute nicest, most supportive people I've ever seen at a gig, were leather-clad bikers.

Bars like what City Tavern seems to want to be, now?

Yeah, those are the gigs I don't want to remember, especially the one where they started fighting as we were setting up.

And then, of course, there's the issue of tolerance, what with metalheads being the most accepting people I've met, too, which brings me on to a question m'good friend Bulldog (owner and canine overlord of NoiseMatters, a rather fandabbydozy place for finding unknown bands) suggested asking of City Tavern's owner. It's a good question, too, a nuclear-powered acid-edged scalpel of a question, made even better by being only four words.

"Where does it stop?"

Yeah, I don't even need to spell out the implications of that one, do I?

But enough of that. Talking about blatant bigotry against what someone clearly thought was an acceptable target isn't why I'm here. I'm writing this because I'm proud. Proud of you out there, my glorious, headbanging brothers and sister in arms, with yer leather and yer long hair, or yer short hair and yer cargo trousers, or yer Lita Ford blasting out while you fill in spreadsheets (because anyone who thinks there's one specific thing that can be classified as "a metal fan" is rather amusingly wrong; my 70 year old dad liking Nightwish is kinda proof of that).

Like the immortal prophets said, be excellent to each other. Oh, and of course, party on, dudes.

And always remember...


Oh, and if you want to Like the Boycott page on Facebook, here's yer linky... 

The ever-expanding and growing Cynos Union Series is available to buy now! Subscribe for more news from the world (and brain) of Mark W. Bonnett! 

Well there we go, it's that time again. Today's the day when we've all flocked out to the polling booths for the European elections (I hope there's been a good turn-out, too; ye can't complain about who gets in if you didn't vote in the first place).

Anyone who's been following the news in the UK over the past few weeks (or, let's be honest, hasn't been comatose during the last few weeks) will know that the topic du jour is Britain being part of the EU.

Nationalistic sentiment has been spurting out all over the shop, rapidly transmogrifying into jingoism, and the results have been oh so very telling...
For starters, it's become almost impossible to see the motives of people who, say, want to vote for one particular political party (and you know which one I mean) as being anything other than simple xenophobia, masquerading as some kind of patriotic desire to "put Britain back in the hands of the British" (as if Britain isn't a nation whose population comes entirely from people coming and settling in/conquering the country). The language of anti-EU parties is one of fear, after all, with certain parties (yes, them again) encouraging the British population to fear the outsider.

However, the fact that UKIP is a party founded on xenophobia and bigotry is a rant for another day (and about 17,000 more words, give or take).

No, today is the day where I take a look at why pulling out of the EU would be A Very Bad Thing. There are, in fact, two reasons why it's a bad idea...

The sensible reason: Britain's economy will flatline  

There's a lot of talk about how we need to pull out of the EU to bring Britain back under our own control, which isn't just wrong, it also neatly sidesteps the main issue: if we pulled out, Britain would, by turns, become a third world country.

Sure, maybe I'm being a teensy bit hyperbolic for effect, but look at what the ramifications of such a move would be. For starters, many companies have said they will cut funding to the UK if they pull out of Europe. Unilever is one of the big ones, then there's Airbus, Citi... the point is that we would become less economically attractive, so investment dries up, jobs disappear, and the whole thing gets compounded by countries (notably Japan) saying the same thing.

Still, at least UKIP's goal would come true, eh? There'd be less "foreigners" coming here to work. Sure, it would be because Britain had become an economic wasteland, but hey, like they say, you can't make an omelette without killing the very future of your own country breaking a few eggs...

The idealistic reason: the EU and the United Federation of Planets are the same damn thing 

So that's one reason. That's not my favourite reason, though, although it's the most important one in the short-term. No sirree, my favourite reason is the one that takes the long-term view...

Ignore the economic reasons for staying in the EU for a second, and think about the other reasons. The pulling together of humanity in pursuit of a common goal. A union of disparate people, working towards the common good. The very notion that humans can pull together, for the common good, bonded by our core humanity.

And now, look at the European Union, then look at the United Federation of Planets from Star Trek.

They're the same bleedin' thing!

I'm fully aware that some people are undoubtedly lining up to call me naive, or they might decide to call me idealistic, as if that was ever a bad thing, but the point is this: while the EU may have its flaws (and I'm not blind enough to say it doesn't, but we don't get to help fix it if we're not a part of it), it's a symbol. It's a symbol of how humanity can rise above differences to become more than we were. The EU, quite simply, is humanity pulling itself up by its own bootstraps, and making itself better.

Regardless of political leanings or creeds, that should be the goal of our species. And that is why groups like UKIP are so pernicious; they want only to divide, to separate humanity into warring factions separated by mutual hatred.

They strike at the very soul of what gives our species so much potential for greatness, and we have to stand strong in the face of, as King Theoden of Rohan would say, such reckless hate.

We owe it to ourselves...

The ever-expanding and growing Cynos Union Series is available to buy now! Subscribe for more news from the world (and brain) of Mark W. Bonnett! 

Warning: this post talks about Transformers. Again. Because I like Transformers. Deal with it. 

There's been a massive furore in the world of Transformers over the past few months, even bigger than when Beast Wars happened, or when Bayformers happened (but then, Bayformers is awful, so...). That furore is over the whole issue of female Transformers, with the shorthand I've seen used in various places being "the Windblade issue".

Now, to forestall the argument that I'm only against Windblade because I'm sexist (the standard, instinctive reaction even to people making valid, well-thought out criticisms), I'm going to preface this little stream of consciousness by saying that I'm 100% in favour of having female characters in the Transformers mythos. There are already a whole shedload of women out there who love Transformers, and having female Cybertronians also has the rather desirable benefit of making the story universe within IDW's Transformers comics that much more diverse and wonderful.

It's just a shame that Windblade herself, the poster-girl for this absolutely necessary movement, is dire...
Y'see, there's another female character in the mythos, who is (like Windblade) brand new to the franchise, and when I compare the two, one of them comes across as little more than a dull cypher, while the other comes across as a genuine person.

That character is Nautica (the purple one in the pic), and she is, quite simply, awesome. 

Blank slates = duuuuuuull 

Now, you may remember that I did a post ages ago about 'strong female characters', and how they're rather boring. Well this post is kind of an extension of that, because it turns out that there's more to the story than just that. Y'see, Windblade herself is categorically not a 'strong female character', which is a good thing; she's naive about the situation on Cybertron, and trying to make the best of knowing virtually nothing about what's been going on throughout the civil war.

The problem, and the bit that makes her a bit of a non-entity, is this: that's all she is. She's essentially yer basic reader-surrogate, someone for the new reader to view the events of the story, and in that sense, she's kind of a blank slate.

The problem with blank slates is that they're not known for having bags of personality, and that is precisely what Windblade is missing.

You are the little things about you

Compare that to Nautica, currently being awesome in the More Than Meets The Eye comic, written by James Roberts. In the two scenes in which she appears, we learn a surprising amount of tiny, incidental details about her character, that (unlike Windblade) are in no way related to her role in the story. We learn that she's a quantum mechanic (pun of the year nominee, right there), who doesn't like the idea of moral absolutism, who loves to read, and who likes a wee dram of the good stuff.

None of those details matter in the grand scheme of things, but as Nightbeat (Cybertron's greatest detective) says in the very same issue, not being important is precisely what makes something important.

That, right there, is the big difference: Windblade feels like a cardboard cut-out, because we actually know next to nothing about what makes her tick, while in a mere two scenes, we get a sense of Nautica as a fictional person, real and fleshed out (metaled out?) instead of just being a mere character. It's like the real world, I suppose, where the wisdom of Tyler Durden says that you are not your job; at the minute, Windblade is just her job (that job being "reader-surrogate"), while Nautica is most definitely not.

'Character' bad, 'person' good

And so, we come back to what I said at the start of this post. The IDW Transformers comics are truly brilliant, and long may they continue to bring female characters into the fold. It serves to bring in new fans and it makes the universe more diverse, so the addition of female characters is, I'd say, rather essential.

It's just a shame that Nautica, one of the best new characters to join the franchise in years, is losing out on love, in favour of one of the dullest characters in years...

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Well, this week's been interesting so far, ain't it? Look around the internet, and you'll see that the biggest news story of the week (nay, of the bleedin' decade) has been this heap big palaver about the Heartbleed bug. Yes, this was the week that the internet collectively cacked its pants, because... well, let's not play down the seriousness, Heartbleed is one of the worst security threats to ever hit the internet.

It is, in short, a clustersmurf of epic proportions. 

But - and this is a big but - the most interesting bit about the Heartbleed situation, for me, is that it illuminates one surprisingly prevalent trait of human nature: humanity's inherent propensity for running round like headless chickens, proclaiming that the end is very bloody nigh. And do ye know what? It's all evolution's fault...

I'll get onto that in a minute, but first... Heartbleed. Yes. It's nasty. It's not a virus (so ignore anyone who says it is), but a flaw in the OpenSSL security thingummies that a lot of sites (and some Android phones, and some broadband routers) use. In simple terms, it's a vulnerability that lets malicious types grab information from unpatched servers (hence why you need to change passwords, but why you also need to wait until a particular server - say Yahoo or Google, which have both been patched - has been fixed, because there's no point in changing your details while it's still vulnerable).

Yes, it's bad. Really very bad, in fact, but there's been a whole ton of misinformation spread about the situation since the news broke over the weekend. And why has there been misinformation?

Why yes! It's humanity's propensity to cack itself, and run round whimpering, at the drop of a hat! It's a weird one, that, because every single one of us realises, on a rational level, that you only get things solved when you stop panicking and get your backside in gear to actually solve it, so why do we keep doing it (and yes, I mean every human ever; training helps people to not panic, but the instinct is always there, as is that little blip of random, existential, falling-sky terror)?

Like I said earlier, I honestly believe that trait has a simple explanation, and it's all the fault of evolution.

Humanity is very good at seeing worst-case scenarios, y'see, and in this case, the worst-case scenario is "everyone in the known universe's identities being stolen, and the lives of everyone on the planet ruined".

Now consider our distant ancestors in Africa, where the worst-case scenario was "slide unhappily down a lion's gullet"; evolution selected for whatever genetic (or memetic/cultural; could go either way, this one, although the fact it's still hanging about today makes me think it could well be some genetic thingummy coding for a bit of the brain) trait made our ancestors more paranoid about worst-case scenarios, because if they weren't on guard for the worst-case, they'd end up (eventually) as lion poo.

Let's call it the CAN'T SLEEP EVERYTHING WANTS TO KILL ME instinct.

And thus, because there's never been any real evolutionary pressure for that instinct to disappear, we still cack our pants at the slightest provocation, and shout out to the world that danger is coming (it's especially humorous if we do that while having a friend called Will Robinson), because warning your mates (about Heartbleed, or bad weather if they're driving, or whatever) means that our mates don't get eaten by lions.

Heartbleed is our modern version of EVERYTHING WANTS TO KILL ME.

So, panic like this is natural, but - and again, it's a big but - raw panic is less than useful in getting things done, and this is why it's a good job plebs like me aren't in charge of fixing the Heartbleed situation (and it will get fixed, never doubt that, even though it'll take a metric arseton of work). Yes, you need to check that any sites you use have patched their servers, and yes, you need to change every single one of your passwords the second that the server it's used on is patched (again, no point changing it till the server's patched), but get past your inherent panic reflex, keep a calm head, actually get stuff done, and things shall turn out alright.

Until the next time, anyway, because when people say things like, "Security threats don't get bigger than this," I can't help but feel like they're tempting fate...

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Blimey it's been a busy old month, what with one thing and another. There's the writing on the next book to keep on top of (which is loads of fun), there's some super-secret artwork that you've not seen yet, but that you will, eventually (which is also loads of fun)... yes, alright, basically, I'm saying that I've been having fun for a month, although it's fun that's actually productive at the same time, so basically, the key point to remember is that everyone's a winner!

Anyhow...

I had another crack at sketching out a sookas, one of the eight foot-tall, right-wing lizards that call the Cynos Union home, and a close friend said something to me that made me smile, as he spotted more or less exactly why I made the sookas the way they are. Y'see, the sookas in the pic is a female (as is the one in the pic just up there, above this paragraph), and he quite rightly pointed out that a lot of people would instantly think it's a male...

That, my friends, is kind of the point of the sookas. 

Yes, that design choice was entirely deliberate, and there's a very good reason why I've made the female of that species into an eight-foot, armoured, perpetually angry, civil rights-abusing tosser. I'll explain how I came to their design in a sec, but the why of it is this: I cannot stand female aliens that're basically just male aliens (and they're invariably too human, as well) with ladybumps super-glued onto 'em.

Seriously, it bugs the crap out of me, and it has nothing to do with any kind of spittle-flecked feminist-social-justice-smash-the-patriarchy-rawr ranting. None of this warbling about binary-gender-thinking, here, no sirree bobby; there's a cast-iron scientific reason why denoting female aliens through cunning use of chesticles is a massive load of old cobblers.

Quite simply, unless you can think of some really twisty story shenanigans to explain how aliens and humans have a common ancestor (which I may have done, a bit, with the vossarulls) or are basically exactly the same as terrestrial mammals (even though evolution doesn't work that way), female aliens don't have breasts.

It's especially bad when you see it done with aliens who are ostensibly supposed to be reptilian, 'cos reptiles definitely don't have them. I mean seriously, mammals are named after mammary glands, 'cos they're the only sodding class of animals that have them (well, female mammals, anyway). One cannot make a lizard into a lizardette by making it curvier.

No. Wrong. Stop it.

So, we come back to the sookas, and since they're reptiles, I based on things like dinosaurs and, even more than that, komodo dragons. In reptile species, the females tend to be bigger than the males due to the fact they're the egg-layers, as ye can see in the case of Sue the T. rex, who's called "Sue" precisely because she's such a big bugger.

And so, your average female sookas stands around eight feet tell, and is built like several brick outhouses stacked up into a roughly humanoid shape.

Here's where it gets interesting, though, because they're mainly based on komodo dragons, quite possibly the most awesome lizard alive on Earth today (crocodiles and alligators aren't lizards, they don't count). Komodo dragons are fascinating animals, too, because they've recently been shown to be capable of parthenogenesis, of reproducing without a male, and since no-one in the Cynos Union has ever seen a male sookas (and it's long been theorised that the sookas may in fact be a mono-gendered species), would you like to take a guess on how these big, ugly aliens reproduce?

This is why I love doing my research before I get down to writing; through following wherever real world science leads, it means that I can come up with an all-female species of quite monstrous bigots, all of them eight foot-tall killing machines who make life miserable for the poor little ampullas, the other species that shares their homeworld, and who sound like Tony Todd.

Most importantly, they do not have funbags.

And then, of course, there's the yowason, who all look exactly the same, because they're all egg-laying, seasonally-gender-swapping hermaphrodites. Yeah, that one was fun to come up with, and no mistake...

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