My @capclave (DC area science fiction convention) schedule (Fri 10/18 to Sun 10/20):
https://www.capclave.org/…/capclav…/individual_schedule.php…
Fri 730PM Reading
8PM Real Religions in Fiction
10PM I Can’t Wait for the Apocalypse!
Sat 10AM Coming Civil War
2PM Failure of SF Prediction
8PM Mass Signing
10PM The Golden Child
Sun Noon Non-Western Mythology in Modern Fantasy
A few weeks out, and it’s more clear that #GameOfThrones effectively concludes w/ The Long Night aka Battle of Winterfell. @Djawadi_Ramin’s haunting music is the perfect accompaniment to the seeming end of all things, when even the memory of the living world will be erased. Rest is epilogue. Also, I think it would be helpful to have a semi-official retcon on the nature of precog warfare. It seemed clear to me what was going on between Bran, Melisandre, and the Night King, but only perhaps because I write about precog warfare in my own work.
The problem prior to the battle similar to that presented in Dune Messiah when precogs are trying to out-scheme other precogs and the people in their immediate orbit, and the Night King either has some ability in the precog line or such good supernatural intel that it amounts to the same thing. It was as much as Bran could do to tell everyone that he’d be the bait for the Night King, and arrange the pieces (and knife) accordingly. To say (or even probably think too loudly) the rest would be to give the game away. He allows everyone else to assume that Jon or others will be the ones to take out the Night King. So, like a perfect Taoist, Bran sits calmly with seeming passivity as things play out. Dispersing his consciousness into the ravens probably both engages the Night King’s attention and makes Bran harder to read as the Night King approaches.
Bran relies on Melisandre, the other precog on the scene to complete his plan. She has to wait to speak with Arya until the Night King is fully engaged with the business of the battle, and even then she uses soft language (like someone in our world concerned about surveillance). It’s just enough for Arya to get it.
When the Night King finally reaches Bran, his focus is totally on his goal. The NK pauses and tilts his head. He senses Bran isn’t afraid, but can’t get a handle on the reason. The solution seems to be the same in any case–kill Bran. But Arya gets there first.
A note on Arya–it’s unlikely that the Faceless Men have ever let
someone else with their training retire. They must have wanted Arya to be a free piece in the Westeros game, which they themselves couldn’t play under their guild’s rules. Like their use of faces, the stealth of those assassins must have a supernatural aspect.
Also, Bran’s calm is probably in itself an intense effort. Given the nature of precog against precog conflict, he can’t know for certain his plan will work–in fact, it’s probably a helluva long shot that relies on everyone (even Theon) exceeding expectations. But it’s the best shot they have, so he stays calm, because his very doubts might betray his scheme.
The whole first time I was watching Bran in that episode, I was projecting a hidden activity beneath the seeming passivity and seeing the deliberate calm of someone who had already made all their moves. But that was my reading based on how I wanted it to be. Objectively, it’s not there on the screen, and the writers had an obligation to put it there somehow. So, let’s get a semi-official retcon.
To put it fully onscreen may have required some allusion in the aftermath episode. Too much beforehand wouldn’t have worked, though maybe a simple statement by Bran during planning that he couldn’t say anything more would have helped set things up.
Or maybe all of the above + retcon is still not enough to save Bran’s role, so let me know your thoughts and we can try to hammer it out some more or give up the whole business as a lost cause.
My Schedule at Balticon (www.balticon.org)
Friday, May 24 9pm
So What Do They Get Out of It: Writing Motivation for Doomsday Cults
Saturday, May 25 11am
Autographs: Doyle and Kimmel
7pm Monarchy and Empire in Speculative Fiction
8pm 1970 Hugos
9pm Scifi, Dystopian Fiction, and Horror
Sunday, May 26 11am
Non-Western Medieval History
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2pm Just How Many People Live in Your Fantasy City, Anyway?
6pm Readings: Avery, Doyle, Krasnoff
Monday, May 27 12pm
30th Anniversary of Sandman
1pm Navigating the Alternate Future
2pm The Good Place as Dystopian Fictionbalticon.org
Here’s a snippet from my story, “Collaborator” in the new Lost Signals anthology of tales from Chuck Gannon’s Terran Republic:
Agent Conrad shared her credentials, though it took a moment to figure out how to get them to the mayor’s primitive comp. The mayor looked at his screen, which was now flashing at him. “Hmm, your ID is quite literally demanding my attention. So please, have a seat. You were saying that you’re lookin’ for someone?”
“Yes. Professor James Marlow.” She sat in the cubicle’s guest chair. The wood of the cubicle was fragrant, like sandalwood, masking any less pleasant odors. Conrad showed the mayor a picture on her pad: a pale, ginger-haired, clean-shaven man.
“Why are you lookin’ for him?” he said.
“He betrayed the human race.”
“During the invasion of Earth?” The mayor took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose between his fingers. “Unfortunately, not that uncommon a crime. We have folks here who are probably former CoDevCo, and we have likely deserters from both sides, and so forth, but I have no fricken idea what their real backgrounds are. Frankly, as long as they keep the peace here, I don’t wanna know.”
“This man’s betrayal was at a higher, more public level. And we have reason to believe he may be betraying us again.”
“I see.” The mayor glanced again at the photo. “I haven’t seen anyone here who looks like that.”
“He doesn’t have that name and face anymore,” said Conrad.
“Huh. Then how will you be able to ID him? Going to check everyone’s DNA?”
“Better,” said Agent Conrad. “I have his story.” And with that, she began the collaborator’s tale.
The book is now available here: Print book: http://tinyurl.com/y3t4hwfd. Ebook: http://tinyurl.com/y63g7hck
#SciFi#book#authors#spaceopera#space#interstellar#sciencefiction#reading#planets
I’ll be at Washington DC’s Awesome Con this weekend. My panel is:
12:30 PM – 1:15 PM (room 154)
Dark History Meets Dark Fantasy and SF
My co-panelists are Jack Campbell (John Hemry), Alma Katsu, Alan Smale, and Robert E Water. Hope to see you there!
The wonderful folks at Graphic Audio have released their dramatic audio performance of American Craftsmen! Books 2 and 3 of the trilogy will be coming soon.
Order Graphic Audio’s American Craftsmen here.
I’ll be reading on All Saints’ Day at the World Fantasy Convention at Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. I hope to see you at the reading, or at the convention, or at the hotel restaurant/bar. https://wfc2018.org/wfc_online_program.php
Friday Sept. 28 to Sunday Sept. 30, I’ll be at Capclave, a wonderful DC-area convention for talking with your favorite science fiction and fantasy authors (www.capclave.org). Here’s my schedule:
Reading: Saturday 4:30
Panels, etc.:
Fri 6PM: SFF of Political Resistance
Fri 8PM: Author Table (I may take off early to hear Sarah Avery read).
Sat 11AM How We Imagine the Future and What It Says About US
Sat 1PM What Makes Alternate History So Compelling?
Sat 3PM Alternate History and Historical Fantasy
Sat 6PM Alternate History and Historical Fantasy
Sat 7:30PM Mass autographing
Sun 10AM Redemption Arcs
Sun 1PM SFF As Literature of the Diaspora
Sun 4PM Resistance is Never Futile
Friday, May 25
6pm Anthropomorphism in SFF
9pm Post-Apocalyptic Fiction
Saturday, May 26
6pm Religion and Spirituality in Sci Fi
8pm Turning the Starship of State: Government in SF
Sunday, May 27
1pm Readings: Jack Clemons, Tom Doyle, Scott Edelman
2pm Kaffeeklatsch: Tom Doyle
6pm Fantasy and Folklore in Shakespeare
Monday, May 28
11am Autographs: Tom Doyle and Charles Brown
12pm Stranger than Fiction: When Real History Outdoes Genre
1pm Ending Your Saga
I’ve figured out the real way that the Battlestar Galactica reboot ended (versus the Hollywood version we saw on TV). The real BSG story was just too dang sad. After all they’d been through, the fleet (and not just the leader) was dying. They arrived at Earth during the last ice age. They’d already taken major losses, only to discover that a combination of toxins in Earth’s food, new diseases, and a slightly different biochemistry meant that they wouldn’t survive more than a generation on this new world. At the end of their resources, they chose to stay anyway to help the local humans, who were experiencing a population bottleneck. The fleet arranged for the destruction of their advanced technology not because they didn’t want to use it anymore, but because they couldn’t allow such technology to fall into the hands of a bunch of hunter-gatherers, and there wasn’t enough time to uplift them to a technological civilization. If they held on to the tech for too long as their numbers dwindled, the locals would overwhelm them and take it. But before the fleet destroyed their tech, they took measures to decrease the albedo of the ice caps to end the ice age sooner. And they had another plan–they’d give these hunter-gatherers the knowledge of agriculture.
Only one person was biochemically equipped to survive indefinitely on this new world–the human/Cylon hybrid named Hera. It was she who continued the project of the spread agricultural knowledge among the local humans after the rest of the fleet was dead. With her unique genome, she may have lived for hundreds of years (she may be alive still). She told stories about the fleet that had brought her to this new world; if she was capable of having children with the locals, she gave them the names she remembered in the fleet’s honor (Adama, Apollo, etc.). Besides inspiring the obvious goddess’s name, she also became the inspiration for Demeter and the other goddesses of agriculture. But she never forgot what she’d lost.
The war with the Cylons became the revolt of the Anunnaki, among other stories