NaNoWriMo – It’s Elgin…I think

Posted on October 30, 2011 by Sci Fi Engineer

I think that Elgin’s the storyline I’m going to drive forward with for NaNoWriMo. Its a theme I’ve been playing with for a couple of years but not to the level of a full novel. Its a bit different from what I’ve written up to now and it seems like I might be able to make it interesting. Now have to start thinking about some prototype cover art.

NaNoWriMo — Elgin

Posted on October 17, 2011 by Sci Fi Engineer

Elgin was born in Beauty Wyoming, one of the more beautiful places one could be born in this world. The name on his birth certificate was Elgin Campbell Chalmers IV, though there were no Elgin Campbell or for that matter Chalmers in his family history. His father who may not have remembered his own real name, thought it was a great name and a bit of a joke.

Elgin’s mother walked out when he was twelve, never to be heard from again. From that time on he lived with his father in an old Airstream camper, on the Split S ranch during the summer and on the edge of Beauty the local ‘big town’ on the end of Black Sky lake, during the winter. His father, one fourth Native American, was constantly fighting the local tribal council for ‘his’ cut of the tribes take from Beauty’s Casino and Tourist industry, spending most winters writing long rambling letters to various people, papers, officials, offices and NGO’s about his terrible plight. Never to any avail.

On Elgin’s sixteenth birthday he left his father drunk on the lean-to porch of the Airstream in the morning to catch the school bus. He returned to find his old man dead of a massive coronary, his father had been a week less than forty.

After that Elgin was taken care of by an until then unknown network of cousins among the locals, quite a few nearly full blooded indians, among whom the blond, blue-eyed Elgin looked out-of-place. He was never much trouble though he often hung with the local hooligans. And though a ‘good looking boy’ and reasonably ‘common sensed’ he was never a good student or a hard worker, though neither lazy or dishonest.

And so Elgin drifted into life. At thirty two Elgin lived in the Airstream he’d ‘inherited’ from his father and worked at the ranch job at the Split S he’d also inherited. He wasn’t exactly a drunk, or a pot head, but he wasn’t sober much of the time away from the ranch. His only companion was a huge cat called Humphrey, who looked like a somewhat chunky Siamese grown to the size of a small German Shepard. Humf had an appropriate Siamese/GerShep cross bad-tempered arrogance that would have gotten him shot long ago except for Elgin.

Elgin knew he was a waste of oxygen most days and a disappointment to his family, such as it was, but didn’t let it bother him, unless he had a really bad drunk. The November of his thirty-second year, in the grips of a particularly bad one, he rode into mountains on a Friday afternoon. Ignoring the oncoming wall of clouds that promised an early snowstorm.

Saturday, half-frozen and still drunk he drove his horse out of the safety of the cavern he’d camped in, out into the snow and ice. An hour later the horse slipped and threw Elgin down a rocky precipice into a shallow stream. Unconscious, with one arm and both legs broken Elgin drowned in six inches of ice-cold water.

It was only then that things started looking up.

Sorry…couldn’t resist, that’s the intro to one of the othe options….which is also a sci fi fantasy as I think you can tell…

NaNoWriMo the Countdown

Posted on October 16, 2011 by Sci Fi Engineer

So the daughter likes the one about the swordmaid and the old mage, sounds like a bad joke in a MMOG. The good thing is that this story is based in the universe of a novel I’ve been working on for a year or more and ‘know’ pretty well. It could be pretty interesting to work at developing that universe more, with its multiple parallel worlds with different levels and types of magic and different though related inhabitants.

It’s what one might call a QuantFunk universe where magic works because of differences in the ‘Quantum fabric’ of the universe. All of my Fantasy is of this type, not because I have a philosophical thing against supernatural magic, but because I cannot come up with a supernatural magic ‘system’ that makes sense to me. I’ve read plenty of good novels where the author creates good ones, but I just have a mind block, comes from being an engineer I guess.

I had been working on the Five concept, have some settings, characters and plot elements laid out. All of which Fiona and her Mage lack but that’s not stopped me in the past.

So to Fiona’s universe:

I happen to have loved Victorian times long before they became tres chic with CyberPunk, so think of: dress, furniture, buildings, towns, politics and much else as ‘looking’ Victorian.
Fiona’s home world is essentially similar to Earth as it might have been if the tectonic plates had moved slightly differently.
In general this is a world where males and females are more equal than not. Sexual dimorphism in size & strength is less pronounced in a world of magic (don’t make me explain why, I can probably do it) Equalitarian systems exist but Patriarchies are common and there are some matriarchies.
The world is ruled by the King of Kings, an Elven warrior. The Elves come from a parallel universe. Thousands of years ago they lifted Man up from barbarism but have often regretted it since. The Elves find themselves constantly having to get between factions of Men who want to kill off each other.
There is a large faction of Elves who want the KoK to just leave Men to kill themselves off. There are several small political factions of Men who want to exterminate the Elves.
There are also Trolls, Goblins and Dwarves. They kind of play the roles you’d expect. With some differences, Dwarves aren’t that small and are engineers and scientists as well as sorcerers and fighters. The Trolls are not only big and mean they can also be brilliant scientists and powerful sorcerers. The Goblins come in two types, one aligned with the Trolls, the other essentially unaligned. While Goblins can be pretty frightening to a human, they can be extremely attractive.
All of the races, Elves, Men, Trolls, Goblins, Dwarves are genetically related and can interbreed but its not terribly common.
Even with the King of Kings there is no ‘World’ gov’t as such. The KoK tries to control at the international level have a basic rule of law, human rights and fair trade.
Local gov’t varies from place to place, from Democracies to Despotisms and the KofK does not interfere unless its egregious and or he is asked for help by the subjects.
Firearms never evolved because all forms of gunpowder are too easily triggered by sorcery.
Swords and knives are the standard personal weapons, with ‘carry’ laws varying from country to country.
Bows not crossbows are used again because a crossbows too easily messed with.
They have heavy weapons that compress air into glowing ‘meteors’ that can be tossed around but they are relatively slow firing and slow moving, the weapons are electrically powered.
They use kerosene (essence) that is converted in directly to electricity plus H2O and CO2′ in a form of fuel cell for powering most of their technology.
They have essence / electric horseless carriages though they are fairly rare.
Their aircraft are lifted by a form on contra gravity and propelled by fans powered by essence fueled generators, they are mostly wooden and lightly built but can be hundreds of feet long. Aluminum and other light metals are not commonly available due to lack of industrial infrastructure.