Eneh Akpan Writes: Science fiction

Showing posts with label Science fiction. Show all posts

Friday, March 28, 2014

10 Ray Bradbury Quotes Embedded in Pictures

Here’s about ten Ray Bradbury quotes to get you fired up for the next assignment—something for your muse to chew on for a little bit.

Some of these pictures might have copyright (not the ones w/ the Ray Bradbury close ups) I'm not sure. But just in case, I hope the owners ain't mad I distorted their works w/o written permission. Look on the bright side, at least, I used it for a good cause. Thanks.

Just saying, did any of the quotes/pix get your juice flowing?

Keep your pens bleeding!

Akpan

Sunday, February 16, 2014

Science Fiction: Vehicle of Change

Long before I knew what the genre was called, an unalloyed sense of something deeper than awe always accompanied my views of any science fiction flick. The reason is not far-fetched cause the plot of a science fiction film 'looks like something that could happen' (advanced readers would call that plausible but my shoestring inventory couldn't afford such words at the time).

It is close to impossible reading or watching a movie or literature of the science fiction persuasion and not feeling the weight of urgency press down your pair of shoulders. No other genre drags you to the edge of your seat and sets your mind reeling off into forbidden places (were you to voice these in the dark ages, you’d be laughed out of court) that might be the future of the race of man. Science fiction is the one branch of literature that accepts the inevitability of change. Without the initial assumption that there will be change, there is no such thing as science fiction.*

Courtesy: guardian.co.uk

Once upon a memory, a post I had authored averred predictions were staples of the science fiction genre and a commenter on Reddit almost bit my head off for it. Obviously, it meant a lot to him (or her) that Sci-Fi and predictions be on bad terms. Well, here I am with a typically wholesome head and I still stand by that declaration. To boot, although I do believe a science fiction story shouldn't portray something that is going to happen, before it can be important, I do not totally agree science fiction can survive and thrive as a genre that suggests change without forays into the predictive. Besides, a good deal of the world's inventive genius has been the upshot of this invention-triggering genre. Films, books and art presented in a form that all but screams in your face; this could happen anytime soon even though much of what is portrayed may seem off-the-wall.

Individuals who have been inspired by science fiction run into hundreds, thousands by extension. People who read science fiction come, in time, to know that things will be different.* Beneath all the rise of the machines and alien invasion is a tour-de-force genre which appeals fiercely to the imaginative genius within us all. Science fiction tunes us up and opens up our hearts to perceive why things need to be different. Why techniques will change, why cultures will evolve and what we must prepare our minds to accept as inevitable. It is the preview of both the immediate future and the distant.

Science fiction foresees the different and alerts its fans to stretch the wings of intuitiveness and get hold of a spontaneous stimulation of sorts. It prepares the minds of people for technological advancements and real engineers and scientists are challenged to get productive. This is the function of science fiction; to incite a need—a deep-seated craving for the over-the-top—a desire to seek out unusual and out-of-the-way technique of finding answers to many of life’s problems. A need for change.

Keep your pen bleeding!

Akpan

*Asimov, The influence of Science Fiction

Friday, September 20, 2013

2 Paybacks of a Fine-Tuned Setting

Getting to Know You (short story collection)

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The geographical location and moment in historical time where and when the events of a story unravels is its setting. In a short work of fiction, this element of story may be disregarded but not in the longer form of short fiction or the novel.

Exquisite, fine-tuned settings that take the reader by the hand into the landscape in glittering details and this woven into a vista of background history of the people might very well be the platform that launches a story from obscurity to fame.

1. Originality:

This may not be as apparent in a really short story as it might be in the long form of the short story or in the plot of a novel. But it might very well be the breather the writer needs to create a unique universe; a place where his characters can readily adapt and become living, breathing people. Real people. A well-developed setting can achieve such a feat.

2. Plausibility:

A setting that shows depth and distance becomes its own peculiar world possessing its own set of rules, which govern the events, and the citizens of that unique state. If you create a sleeping beauty-ish universe then you have to make it palpable how an entire kingdom can stay in a coma defying every known medical code and then rouse itself several years later as easily as a child coming off a midday nap awakens.

Developing the setting for your story is like pulling weeds in your lawn, trimming the plants in your garden, repainting the porch to create a sharper contrast of your entire house. Every curve is placed in proper perspective and every outline is well defined.

Keep your pen bleeding.

Akpan

Sunday, May 12, 2013

3 or 4 Processes That Lead to Novel Serialization

This one’s coming off an article by Isaac Asimov I read recently. Inspired by correspondence with a fan of his who wrote him about the prevalence of serial novels in recent times. ‘It can be frustrating…,’ she wrote.

Personally, I don’t take issues with continuity in a plot, which takes multiple volumes to unfold, do you? I could list a couple of books I would have appreciated as a series because I wanted to see more of the characters.

And now, the moment we have all been waiting for…

The reasons writers create sequels.

1. Publisher Pressure

J. R. R. Tolkien’s trilogy was originally intended as a single volume publication (Wikipedia still regards it as one book in its Bestselling Fiction List). But Tolkien’s publishers made him reconsider; paper cost was their major excuse.
Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy was a compilation of separate pieces from Astounding Science Fiction between 1942 and 50. The stories were created at editorial insistence. And the fourth and fifth books in the series were dragged out him by his then publishers, Doubleday.

2. Reader Pressure

Arthur Conan Doyle is peculiar as an example of author victimization by his readers. Doyle who is credited for creating the most adapted character in the fiction universe made a grave ‘mistake’ and killed Sherlock Holmes. You think it wasn’t a mistake? A. Conan Doyle probably thought the same thing until fans expressed their indignation and demanded that Sherlock Holmes be resurrected.
The author was forced to put his fictional character back in action after the series was already concluded in Doyle’s mind.

3. Muse Pressure

The sequelization (as Asimov calls it) of a book can be the result of an idea that becomes too big for a single volume publication.

Thomas Harris did it with his Hannibal set of novels; Tolkien with his Lord of the Rings, Silmarillion and the Hobbits. In some peculiar cases, different writers have continued other writer’s work with a different background and set of characters because the original holds them in everlasting appeal. One striking example is suspense writer, Dean Koontz with his Frankenstein series.

Horror writer Stephen King explains this process in his book, On Writing:

“A thousand pages of Hobbits hasn’t been enough for three generations of fantasy fans. Hence Terry Brooks, Piers Anthony, Robert Jordan, and a half hundred others. The writers of these books are creating the hobbits they still love and pine for; they are trying to bring Frodo and Sam back from the Grey Havens because Tolkien is no longer around to do it for them.”

Stephen King,

On Writing, A Memoir of the Craft.

Bram Stoker and Stephen King have both published serial novels (not whole books with a continuity of plot and character but a single volume published in four or five batches). In Everything’s Eventual, a collection of short stories by King, he gives us his reason for serializing his books, The Green Mile and The Plant;

“It’s about trying to see the act, art, and craft of writing in different ways, thereby refreshing the process and keeping the resulting artifacts-the stories, in other words-as bright as possible.”

I love it when a favorite character makes a comeback. If that’s the reason for serializing a work of fiction, I believe it’s a good and welcome enterprise.

Keep your pen bleeding.

Akpan

Thursday, February 28, 2013

The Contemporary Folklore

There's some old guy opening this page on his Ipad. Somebody else is probably, doing the same thing with his cell phone. And still it is a certainty, many folks are viewing this blog on their laptop and desktop PCs.

Isn't science awesome?

Science fiction museum Photo credit: pelican

The genre or subgenre (depends from which side you view it) of fiction popularly called science fiction was not always known by that name. Like lots of stuff in art and life, inspiration and invention come first and then, the naming. It's never the other way around.

Maybe I ought to let you in on a secret from the onset so you don't end up getting disappointed by the end of this write up; this is not a term paper on the history of science fiction. Do not expect an overdose of quotes and proofs. Believe me, you don't need the attention. Rather, try to see how this wonderful and amazing genre has evolved over time to become for us what fantasy was for folks of the Dark Ages.

We've left behind the age when science fiction was primarily a work of speculation as more discoveries and inventions are brought to the fore. Especially, inventions predicted in the writings of several scifi writers. The people of the Middle Ages were up to their neck in tales of dragons, enchanted forests and talking animals. Literally, swarming with stories of evil stepmothers and witches, of poisoned apples and frog princes, of ogres and magic mirrors (who needs magic mirrors when you have Google's internet glasses?).

In modern times-our time-we grew up with tales of computer crashes; hacked Facebook accounts; Bluetooth transfers, tethering, email... Today's folklore is communicated through Cable. Who needs a crystal ball when Google Search gives you access to the world's information with a few keystrokes? Nobody needs worry about preserving ancient scrolls for future generations, just PDF, XPS, DOCX or whatever it. And if the message is for a chosen individual who's got to slaughter a dragon to prove his mettle? No problem, encrypt the document and give him the password. Easy.

Take a look around you and see the reality which for a time was fiction, science fiction.

We talk science, breathe science, eat science, sleep science. Why combat dragons when unmanned drones can go to work for you? The internet, exploration in space, the eBook, air travel (remembering Icarus of blessed memory); we talk about this kind of stuff day after day, it's become a way of life for us, our culture and tradition.

Much of the credit for this technological advancement goes to the literary genre of science fiction, the folklore of the computer generation.

Keep your pen bleeding.

Akpan

Monday, February 25, 2013

Science Fiction + Horror: A Match Made in Mars?

Photo credit: Wikipedia

Science fiction is sensational for a genre which not only explores several delicate issues but attempts to proffer the fundamental reasons behind them. However, I would have you mull over the peculiar twist that takes shape when the storyline of a scifi makes the acquaintance of a shock/suspense plot.

Both genres are masters of their own universes nevertheless, there are such times when a writer crosses the two and creates a sort of art hybrid. The masterpiece which evolves during this literary copulation is something which quickens the human heart to awe. Science fiction with all it's possibilities, limitless multi-verses and travel through time. Horror on the other hand, gripping you by the balls, evoking the worst kind of nightmarish ecstasy, holding its cold claws to the stuff that speeds up your heartbeat and not for the better.

Some of the best science fiction flicks are tinged with horror themes. Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park brought dinosaurs to life. Yet, the weight of the potential disaster, if science decides to delve into such enterprise as pictured in the movie, slides home with relatively greater force because of the horrific content of the story than in spite of it.

The memories carved by images and by implication from Jurassic Park is something that would go to the grave with me. The Resident Evil series is another fine example of a mix of science fiction and horror that hits you on the head with a message of world domination. Just finished watching a scifi film tinged with horror themes and felt compelled to write this.

The next time you watch a scifi flick I challenge you to judge how much themes of the macabre moves the plot, holds you by the hand and leads you into the grave dangers abounding in the subject matter.

Somethings were made to bond.

Keep your pen bleeding.

Akpan