One More, a poem

One More

Light one more candle
in the church of my heart,
to flicker in darkness
if but for this moment.

Sing one more hymn,
your sacred song rising
to echo and fade
among shadowed vaults.

Whisper one prayer;
the words will not matter.
Allow them to wander  
to their true amen

hidden in smoke,
clothed in our music,
one last fleeting flame
before our stripped altars.

Light one last candle
in the church of my heart,
to burn until we
both are forgotten.

Stephen Brooke ©2024

This is admittedly an early draft and I see places I may or may not make changes. Of course, I'll probably never rid myself of Catholic imagery!

Boredom, a poem

Boredom

Excitement is nice
for a day or two,
but I would prefer
sharing boredom with you.

We’d let the days melt
one into the next,
and not be bothered
and never be vexed.

Ah, such a life
has its appeal,
to sail through the years
on an even keel.

So, come join me,
we’ll make an accord
to avoid life’s turmoil—
would you be bored?

Stephen Brooke ©2024

Not of course, to be taken seriously. Or too seriously.

Rubber Science

There is a fair amount of ‘rubber science’* in the three science fiction novels I have written under the name Oliver Davis Pike. The one SF novel with my name on it, the time travel tale “When Man Was Young,” avoids much science at all. I certainly do not explain how anything works, only a few ramifications of the fact it does work. The book was largely an excuse to write about Neanderthals.

But the ODP novels: those consist of the stand-alone “Alienese” and the two Jack Mack adventures, “Among the Many Worlds” and “Jumping Jack.” All include faster than light (FTL) space travel and various useful gadgets. I do not dig deeply into the science in “Alienese.” There is some mumbo-jumbo about teleportation, which is pretty much central to the plot. How does it work? No idea; it’s an innate gift for some species and others can follow the ways they open. It might be assumed there is some ‘folding’ of space or something of that sort. Other technology was kept sketchy. “Alienese” is ultimately a light, humorous novel and not to be taken too seriously. That is not to say it does not have a coherent internal logic. That is a necessity for any good science fiction. Or any good fiction, period.

The Jack Mack novels are another matter. There is plenty enough rubber pseudoscience to be found bouncing across their pages. I base a lot of it—without overdoing any explanations—on the use of ‘super-massive elements.’ They are definitely involved in faster than light travel. Whether they are used to create a ‘warp bubble’ or work somehow else entirely, I have left to the reader to decide. Indeed, the characters are not always certain how things work themselves!

Which is one reason I made my main protagonist, Jack McFee—Jack Mack himself—a bit of a technophobe. As in “Alienese,” there is a mental component to the FTL technology. Yes, that echoes the navigators of the “Dune” books a little bit. Not that Herbert was the first to use the concept.

However, the ultra-heavy elements thing does pop up with some regularity. It is the basis of all sorts of tech, including artificial gravity and dampening fields and such. And, of course, it is exceptionally valuable and the mining of it—primarily from collapsed stars—is essential to the economies of most of the ‘many worlds.’ I really do prefer to focus on culture and economics and that sort of thing; I readily admit it. Chances are I shall crank out more Jack Mack stories in time. Assuming I have time!

I must mention that all the books mentioned (as well as all my other published fiction) is available from Arachis Press (arachispress.com) as print editions or as free ebooks.

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*The term rubber science was coined by science fiction author Norman Spinrad as a term for "pseudo-science ... made up by the writer with literary care that it not be discontinuous with the reader's realm of the possible." Spinrad created eight rules of rubber science:

Explanations must feel scientifically correct and have internal consistency.

Principles used for plot purposes must be planted in the reader's mind long before they are used as plot elements.

Concepts shouldn't be over-explained; a theoretical basis is sufficient.

When creating a new science, authors should pay attention to how established sciences evolve.

Interfacing two or more existing sciences will create a plausible new science.

Plausibility can be lent by systematizing terminology and relating it to existing human knowledge by choosing words for metaphorical resonance.

Rubber science can be solidified with believable hardware.

Rubber science can "contribute to the dialectic of scientific evolution" as a tool for intellectually exploring the unknown.

(this explanation was largely taken from Wikipedia; read further there for more info)

Word-Driven

A question that pops up with some regularity in ‘author talk’ is whether ones writing is ‘plot-driven’ or ‘character-driven.’ I’ve never been inclined to think too much about this; I just write the stories the way I feel they should be written. But, were I required to make some sort of statement on it, I would say neither. My writing is ‘word-driven.’ My first interest is language and its use.

That may or may not shove my writing in the direction of ‘literary fiction.’ I do not really care much. Labels are road signs, not the road itself. Still, an emphasis on language is a mark of literary fiction. As does ‘commercial’ fiction emphasize plot and ‘up-market’ focus on characters.*

All three—plot, characters, and language—are necessary components of fiction. The rest, setting and so on, is peripheral to these. Which we choose to emphasize is our personal choice though, to be sure, our chosen market or genre will have some bearing on it. I do feel the very best fiction finds an appropriate balance.

Perhaps I occasionally find that balance myself.

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*Commercial, up-market, and literary, as used by the publishing industry at this time, are essentially marketing categories, separate from ‘genre.’ Genre tends to be more about subject matter (though not always!).

Islands in the Sky

 

The first science fiction novel I ever read was ‘Islands in the Sky’ by Arthur C. Clarke. This was a young adult title that is more-or-less hard SF, published in 1952. I might have been ten or eleven when I picked it up.

It did not greatly impress me as a story at the time, yet I know bits of it have stuck with me. The ‘coffin’ space suits of my Jack Mack science fiction stories (written as Oliver Davis Pike) owe a definite debt to those in the novel. The technology is most of what I remember, to be honest; there didn’t seem to be much plot.

This was very early Clarke but he always liked to explore the engineering and science aspects in his tales. I don’t really have it in me to write hard science fiction, not that it keeps me from sprinkling some tech into my own stories. Only a little!

So when did I really discover SF that grabbed me? That would have to be the science fantasies of E.R. Burroughs a couple years later. I much preferred Barsoom to any space station Mr. Clarke might launch. And though I read a lot of science fiction in my teen years—most of the usual suspects—my tastes ran particularly to Jack Vance and Roger Zelazny and the like. Writers some might accuse even of penning ‘literary’ SF (not that such can be successfully defined).

Then I discovered fantasy and all changed.

Pulling Strings

In a couple of my Mora fantasy novels—set in a preliterate Polynesian-like society—I have mentioned someone pulling someone’s strings. This, of course, is a relatively modern expression, coming from puppet shows. So was it anachronistic to use it? I admittedly didn’t think about it much until I worked on my current fiction project, which also mentions string-pulling. It poses no problem there; it is a more ‘advanced’ society and knows all about puppets.

I feel it was all right to use the expression in the earlier novels. It says what I intend my readers to understand, without any roundabout explanations. We can, if we wish, simply think of it as a translation of some Mora expression. Or maybe the Mora people had puppets and puppet shows. Why not? There are other traveling entertainers mentioned. Indeed, they play a major role in some of the stories.

It is entirely possible I will mention puppet shows in a future Mora novel. I might even feature one in some way. That is for somewhere down the line but I do have a couple more tales set among that people in my to-write queue.