Reading ‘Weaponized’

Reading Weaponized by Neal asher (2023) was a marathon.

There are a couple of Asher’s novels I’ve enjoyed, The Skinner and The Voyage of the Sable Keech, for example, the first two instalments of the Spatterjay trilogy, published in the early 2000s.

I found those inventive and engrossing. I still think with fondness about the living ship. The Polity novels that intervene between those and Weaponized are set in a human universe ruled by AIs.

In Weaponized a bunch of human characters from the polity intend to colonize an outer planet. They’re all in their second or third century and are bored. They intend to go back to basics somewhere new.

Ursula Ossect Treloon is their leader. The plot is a relentless competition for superiority between the human would-be settlers, and the native wildlife.

Neither of them wins when both appear to be taken over by superior Jain technology, from yet another universe. The end is is circular, a mystery, when a fragment of Ursula is saved by the Polity mole.

Most of the story is the ‘science’ describing the adaptations that need to be made to continue the struggle to survive an ever evolving enemy.

And this is an evolution happening at a daily at most week’s pace. The actual plot was told with a series of one liners buried in the almost baroquely detailed descriptions of the technology. Non-stop action as the back cover promises.

By about a third of the way through, I was wishing for a bit of ordinary narrative, describing the settlers ordinary time. But if anything proceedings notched up, there was never any relief.

Lego: Mapping

My original plan was about four times larger than I have available … my tabletop is four baseplates wide (baseplates are 25 cm/10 inches a side.)

The first thing that told me I’d be biting off more than I could chew was realizing I’d need about 45 baseplates.

The sheer work involved in building them and the cost were the next considerations. I reminded myself of the premise.

“Bosley and Co are building their accommodation on an island that nobody wants, surrounded by wetlands.”

The cost of the wetlands alone would’ve been beyond the scope of the project. Transparent light blue 1×2 tiles are 22 cents each in my scene.

I decided to go back to my original idea. Instead of covering seven baseplates with swamp, I’ll make one, at most two, swamps and move them around as needed.

I’m not sure yet what I’ll do about the deep water river channel. Two baseplates already but including with the channel, places for large ships and small boats to dock. As seen below:

Just Thinking 1: Why Write

In the Fields embroidered by Rita de Heer

It’s useless to be thinking about the future when you are starting out, on anything. You start your working life putting up signs, you have no clue that one day you might be working on high rises installing in glass walls with the help of a robot.

People starting out as writers are the same. I started with writing poetry. I had no idea then that one day I’d take on an sf trilogy.

Nearly everybody here in the Discord’s Writing Cartel has a world/universe that they are either writing into or using as scene setting for any number of creative projects. Yesterday I watched a short film on Youtube, there are people developing games, writing novels, short stories, you name it, it’s being written.

Every one of these worlds/galaxies/universes are huge. Many of us have spent every spare moment of our boring work lives thinking up detail. There will always be areas in any of these worlds that will stay private to their creator, and other areas that will see heavy traffic of stories.

We’re all doing it for the love of it. World building is one of the most satisfying mind games we all engage in, relaxing and psychologically uplifting. Next comes the harder thing. Convincing other people to put their own worlds aside for an hour, and engage with us in ours. So we write stories, develop adventure games, produce visuals, film about our worlds.

The Discord Writing Cartel community is all about sticking our toes in the waters of our worlds, writing though the shallows, and finally committing ourselves to writing fully fledged stories to share first with each other, then with the world.

Only then, with that last word, can you start thinking about how much money you might make.
Though, of course, these are just my own thoughts. Take them well salted.

Page Redesign … Already?

Earlier today, I totally changed both the intent and the content of the page I added yesterday.

Now called The Eleven Islands, it will be where for the present I will post snippets about the way The Eleven Islands world is being created … Yes, that process is ongoing too … followed by little travel talks in which I’ll describe how the islands work for their residents, and for travelers negotiating for their passage with those residents.

The troubled waters of the Great Southern Ocean

Souzadelay and Bight are two islands in the extreme south of the group that some people still call the Australia Archipelago. That name was changed at the request of geographers claiming confusion with islands such as Eastralia and Westralee. Want to read more? Click on The Eleven Islands page …