A Road Map (Six Months Forward, Six Months Back pt. 2)

Posted by natechen on

So as of the beginning of April, Heat Wave has been running for six months. Last week I mentioned some of the complications that fact is already causing me, some of the decisions that I’ll have to make sooner or later, and asked for some feedback in how you might like me to handle them.

This week let’s look forward past the end of Heat Wave. I’m not 100% sure, of this writing, when that will be, but I suspect it will be sometime in May or early June. What comes after Heat Wave?

Well, for starters I have the seed of a second Project Sumter novel in the works. Circuit and Helix haven’t really been working at cross-purposes in Heat Wave, they just don’t like each other very much (mutual respect aside). Also, Heat Wave is going to leave some major plot threads hanging that I don’t want to leave unresolved for too long. However, seven or eight months of one story is a long time. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading it and I know I’ve enjoyed writing it, but I also have a lot of other ideas percolating on the back burner and I’d like to share them with you.

So, for a month or two after Heat Wave is finished I intend to post several short stories on Monday, instead of novel chapters. Some of these short stories may be too long for a single week (leaning more towards 6,000-8,000 words instead of the usual 2,000-4,000 words I aim for in the usual novel “chapter) and I’ll probably wind up splitting those into two weeks of content. I’m not sure exactly how many of these there will be, but I promise not to spend more than two months on them.

At least one, possibly two or three of these stories will be set in Project Sumter’s world and will explore what some of the characters are doing in the time after Heat Wave or the early chapters of the next book. A new character or two may make a first appearance in these stories as well. The others short stories, however many there winds up being, will be stories with new characters set in new worlds. Hopefully you’ll find those stories, characters and worlds just as interesting as Project Sumter has been for you. Unless you found that to be boring so far. In which case, nothing personal but why are you still here?

Why spend two months dividing my message? Why introduce a whole bunch of new concepts before going back to the tried and true?

Well, for one thing, I want to tell these stories. The drive to write is one of the most important aspects of a writer’s life and I’d be stupid not to go where it takes me. Another is, while I have plenty ideas for short stories, ideas suited to full length novels are a little more sparse on the ground – and not all of them are Sumter stories. In fact, a minority of them are.

I want to keep telling stories long after I run out of ideas for Circuit, Helix and their merry bands. I hope you’ll come along for the ride, and to do that there’s nothing better than whetting people’s interests ahead of time.

At the same time, I do want you to stick around and see how the second book turns out. So, after finishing with the short stories I’ll take one week to do a brief introduction, as I did with Heat Wave, and we’ll start with Water Fall sometime in late July or early August. It’s been six months of hard work, but I’ve enjoyed it. I hope you have, too.

Cool Things: Clockwork Century

Posted by natechen on

Our last episode of Steampunk Month (a spontaneously generated phenomenon now coming soon to headspace near you) is dedicated to Cherie Priest’s Clockwork Century series of novels. Like all steampunk novels, Priest’s story is set in a world with rather Victorian sensibilities and retro-futuristic technology. Like Whitechapel Gods, last week’s steampunk offering, the Clockwork Century takes place in a world that is pretty much like our own.

Unlike, Whitechapel Gods, the Clockwork Century focuses on events in North America. In the 1890s of this strange, parallel world the American Civil War (or War Between the States, or What Have You) continues to rage off and on through a series of armistices, truces and perpetual ill-will. Like all good sci-fi/fantasy authors, Priest doesn’t spend a whole lot of time trying to explain where the South is getting manpower from, or how a mostly agrarian economy managed to match an industrial powerhouse longer than a handful of years. I mean look, the British allied with the South, supplies, mercenaries, time to develop new technologies, Progress! Huzzah!

Not that the dynamics of a rapidly industrializing society at war are really what Clockwork Century is about. No, most of the action in the fist five novels or so (give or take the road trip aspects of Clementine and Dreadnaught and the jaunt to New Orleans in Ganymede) is centered on the west coast. Sure, the stories range far and wide, but everything actually hinges on the abandoned city of Seattle, in the territory of Washington (which, with the war still on back in the states, hasn’t had much luck in getting admitted to the Union.) There, way on the northern end of the West Coast, the aftereffects of Dr. Leviticus Blue’s Incredible Bone-Shaking Drill Engine are shaping up to redefine life as we know it. In a strange, subtle, very weird kind of way. You see, while I love a good steampunk story the Clockwork Century has one thing I really hate.

Zombies.

Or, if you’re a resident of Seattle or the surrounding area, rotters. Rotters is the name for people exposed to a strange gas that started leaking out of the ground after Dr. Blue’s test drive of the Boneshaker, who died and who haven’t quite stopped walking around yet. For reasons unknown, they bite people. Okay, honestly they bite people because that’s what zombies do, but if you think about it that only makes sense when we’re dealing with corpses animated by a malevolent force bent on killing, maiming and terrifying people. Rotters are not those kinds of zombies (that we know of.)

So normally I wouldn’t recommend a zombie story to you, just like I wouldn’t normally recommend Lovecraftian fiction to you. The Clockwork Century stands apart, however, because it gives its zombie narratives context and handles its characters with style.

The blight gas that creates rotters is the focus of much scrutiny to the scientists of the Clockwork Century. Deranged people with little sense and less restraint, known as chemists to most of the world, have discovered a way to distill blight gas into an addictive drug and are selling it for pleasure or as an alternative painkiller. It also turns you into a zombie if you take enough of it but, like all addictive drugs, that goes without saying. There is the interesting little problem of these particular zombies being able to reproduce by biting people.

And the fact that that makes no sense does not bug me. At all. >_<

BUT. By constraining the rotters to Seattle and a few other places where blight gas (or it’s distilled form) has been around more than is healthy Priest manages to avoid many of the annoying cliches of the zombie genre. There are still people in this world. Civilization carries on. In fact the old city of Seattle has sealed tunnels full of people (and empty of blight gas and rotters) working quietly to figure out what they’re going to do about their private little end of the world.

And the people in the North, the South, and the independent Republic of Texas (which apparently scrounged up enough good sense not to get involved in the war in this time line)? Well, they carry on, too. They just have to dodge the occasional zombie outbreak while they’re doing it. While an argument could be made that the Clockwork Century does not have the transportation infrastructure or population density to make a zombie apocalypse the danger it is to a modern world, I would tell people arguing such a thing to read at least up to Dreadnaught before making that judgement.

And now I’m going to stop talking about the zombie part of this series, because, while zombies are just a horrible train wreck of crap that has been foisted onto fiction to the detriment of us all, and while Priest does a halfway decent job managing not to make her zombies much more than set pieces and keeping the action focused elsewhere, the real charm of this series is not in the zombies or even the steampunkness, it’s in the way Priest handles the world as a whole.

When I talked about keeping the story in mind I mentioned Priest as a great example of juggling characters. Truly, the way she does it is a wonder. I can’t say too much about it, as the nature of some characters are spoilers, but suffice it to say that just because a character walks off the screen in one book and isn’t seen again in that title doesn’t mean they’re gone. In fact, minor characters frequently go on to sprout entire books of their own. Case in point: Book 5, The Inexplicables. Or, to give an even better example, the many trials and tribulations of Jeremiah Swakhammer. (Yes, he’s as awesome as the name implies.)

The sense you get is that the world itself is alive and growing, with a lot of small, mundane things happening off the screen that stack up and surprise us when the narrative takes us back to people we haven’t seen in a while. Sure, some of the things that are alive and growing their ranks are actually, technically undead but hey, that’s just the price you pay.

All in all, the Clockwork Century series is well titled. It doesn’t rest on the back of a character, it doesn’t focus on a particular conflict. It’s much more an adventure through a wild, unpredictable frontier. An Old West you’ve never seen before. A war that’s not in any history book. And yes, possibly the end of the world in slow, shambling motion. If you love world building or character driven fiction, it’s probably worth your time to check out.

A short story entitled Tanglefoot, set after Boneshaker, the first novel in the series, but containing no spoilers for that book or any other stories in the Clockwork Century, is available for free by following this link.

Heat Wave: Smoke Signals

Posted by natechen on

Helix

Now I know a little bit about electronics, what with all the time I’ve spent chasing Circuit over the past eight years, but that only goes up to a certain point. What I was looking at was totally beyond me, a mess of circuit boards, routing cables, dedicated processors and who knows what else that only made sense to people with years of study or experience in tinkering. I resisted the urge to poke at it mindlessly just to see if it would shoot off sparks or something.

“Tell me, Shelob,” I said, watching the pieces slowly disassembled before my eyes, “why are you tearing the building’s surveillance cameras apart?”

Watching our building security chief work is an education in and of itself. You wouldn’t think a thirty year old woman only a few inches taller than me, with mousy brown hair in a sloppy bun and librarian glasses would be an expert on electronic surveillance, but then you don’t expect superpowered men in suits, either. Deceptive appearances is one of our favorite ways of staying out of sight.

But what is really impressive is Shelob’s concentration. She barely spared enough brainpower to speak, mumbling along in a monotone as she continued to run strange, arcane diagnostics on her gear. “Got a problem with the audio/visual broadcast formatting in one of the cameras on the south side of the building. Not transmitting right.”

Normally, if something like that is broken, we let maintenance take care of it. But our cameras are a special breed. Typical cameras don’t broadcast at all, and if they did it certainly wouldn’t be in a format an antenna like Shelob could understand. People had worked on the problem before, but no one had come up with a solution that did anything other that give talents headaches until Shelob had a breakthrough in her junior year of college and started her own private security firm. A few years after that the Project had discovered her but failed to recruit her as an actual agent. Instead, she worked for us as a civilian contractor.

That has it’s pluses and minuses. On the plus side, she can dress down, makes a lot more than me in a year and gets guaranteed holidays. On the minus side, whenever anything breaks she’s pretty much the only person working here who knows how to fix it.

Shelob’s new security station was located on the top floor of the building, down the hall from the offices allocated for the important people and right next to the staff cafeteria, which shows that our management has it’s priorities straight. Stay near the food and the security officers and you’ll come out okay, especially since you keep your guards well fed. There were still stacks of chairs waiting to be set up in the cafeteria sitting in the hall so I snagged one and flipped it around, sitting with my legs straddling the back of the chair and watched her work.

“Shouldn’t you be on break or something?” She asked as I settled in.

“Oh, I am,” I said, resting my arms on the back of the chair. “But, the cafeteria and break rooms aren’t set up yet and there’s no way I’m staying at my desk. It’s like a war zone down there. What’s wrong with your cameras? Something jostled during the move?”

“Not the move,” Shelob mumbled, sticking some sort of a cable in her mouth to hold it while she typed on her laptop. “I’m guessing Broadband was in recently.”

I frowned. “Yeah, last week. How could that mess up your cameras?”

“Same talent, different senses.” Shelob paused for a moment, then grunted, pulled the cable out of her mouth and started reassembling the camera again. Her hands worked on autopilot and her attention returned from wherever it goes when she’s working on her gizmos. Her expression became more animated and there was actual, well, expression there. “See, it’s like this. In the old days Broadband would have been called an oracle, not an antenna. He hears transmissions and is best suited to things like intercepting cellphone signals or jamming shortwave radio. Me, I’d be called a visionary, because I see transmissions and can mimic a lot of line-of-sight communications like IR transmitters. I can do a lot of the jamming type stuff, too, but audio transmissions don’t make any sense to me.”

Situations like this are what the smile-and-nod routine were invented for. I didn’t understand half of that, but it probably wasn’t important at the moment. There was one thing that I was pretty sure of. “You and Broadband were lumped into the same category of talent because you can both serve as radio transmitters, but that ignores a lot of the nuance. Not the first time it’s happened.”

In fact, putting cold spikes and heat sinks aside, I could think of two other cases of two or more talents being combined under a new, broader definition in the time I’d been with the Project. The problem with that is, as Shelob pointed out to me, we loose a lot of the fine details that sometimes make all the difference. The result is that a lot of the field agents still use the old terminology while Records and most of the higher ups expect reports to use the newer names. And thus, the Federal Bureaucracy continues to produce confusion at a stunning pace. “Still, I don’t follow how that messes up your cameras.”

She pointed the cable at me like it was some kind of weapon. “It’s your stupid rules.”

“Sorry, we have a lot of those,” I said apologetically. “Any one in particular?”

“The one that says any piece of Project equipment modified by a talent for greater compatibility with their ability must be equally usable by any other Project personnel with the same talent.” Shelob snorted in disgust. “It’s probably a good idea for some talents. But it took four months for us to find a way to let Broadband tap into my CCTV rigs audio feeds. Time we both could have spent better on other things. And if he forgets to switch things back when he’s done it feels like I’m having epileptic fits – there’s stray signals all over the place! I wish he’d just stick to eavesdropping on cellphones.”

I suddenly had a very, very bad feeling. “This thing, when you switch up the cameras so Broadband can hear them. It looks a lot like a cellphone signal to you?”

“It’s complicated.” She thought about it for a minute, then shrugged. “Audio and visual information have different formatting, radically different if you want it to make sense to us. A lot of the specialty in my gear is in the coding. But yeah, when you switch the cameras over to their oracle settings it looks a lot like a cellphone signal.”

“So, why aren’t you simply going around and switching off all the cameras one at a time? When the camera that’s glitching is turned off you should stop seeing the weird signal, right?”

“If it was happening all the time, sure.” Shelob shook her head. “If only my life was so simple. The problem’s intermittent, I only see the stray signal every couple of hours.”

The bad feeling got even worse. I tipped my chair forward and leaned part way across Shelob’s desk. “Shelob, where’s the new evidence room?” The sudden change of subject threw her off for a second and she stared blankly. “Evidence room, Shelob. You should have a building plan around here somewhere, right?”

“Oh. Uh, yeah.” She fumbled through her desk for a second until she came up with a slim binder. As she flipped through it she said, “I know we put it in the basement again. It looks like you hang a right out the main elevator, take the second hall on the left and there you are.”

“On the south side of the building?”

Shelob checked the map again. “Yeah.”

“Great. Come on.” I jumped up out of my chair and started for the stairs.

“Where are we going?” Shelob asked, ducking out from behind her desk grabbing her now-repaired camera in one hand.

Hopefully I was wrong. But if I was right… “We’re going to fix your malfunction.”

——-

There it was, a big, ugly card with a lot of stuff sticking out of it nestled in among the various other cards, cables and mysterious little metal boxes that live on the inside of a computer. It could have been just about anything, as far as most people are concerned, but the fat little antenna that stuck out of one side confirmed my suspicions as to what it was. The guy in charge of the evidence room, who I didn’t recognize and who’s ID badge was sticking out of one pocket, making it impossible to just glance and get his name, scratched his head and said, “You know, I don’t think that’s supposed to be there.”

“I know it’s not,” I said, setting aside the piece of the computer case and turning to poke through the evidence boxes that were stacked along the walls, waiting to be sorted and stored. I found what I was looking for on the bottom of the stack, naturally. “Give me a hand with this.”

Shelob obligingly came over and helped me shift things around until I could get the box out and open it up. “This is the stuff from our raid on Circuit’s warehouse.” I fished out a flat metal box a little bigger than the strange gizmo in the computer. It had been cracked in half lengthwise along an invisible seam and the parts left in the evidence box. “This is what we thought was a cellphone signal booster, a ‘lucky find’ Circuit left behind in his hurry to leave. Forensics was going to strip down and analyze for us, hopefully sometime this quarter.”

“Oh.” Shelob glanced back over at the computer. “Except it wasn’t a lucky find, it was left there deliberately, so we’d bring it back here. And he installed it into our network when he raided the building.”

“And it’s probably been phoning out packages of data for him ever since,” I said, tossing the metal pieces back into the evidence box. “More than that, I’ll bet it’s how he located us in the first place.”

That got a wince from Shelob. “Meaning this location is probably compromised, too. We need to let Mike know, and I should probably get back to the security center.”

It took me a moment to realize that “Mike” meant Michael Voorman. I’d never heard anyone call him that before. In my confusion I almost let Shelob out the door before I could say, “Wait. I need you to find Agent Massif before you go.”

She skidded to a stop, one hand on the doorframe. “Which one is he? I don’t see all of you often enough to keep the names straight.”

“You know, the one who look like a blond version of Superman?”

“Oh, him?” Shelob let her eyes drift half closed for a second, blinking every few seconds. It was a little unsettling, but I knew it was just part of the gift. Evidence Guy didn’t seem to be taking it quite as well, but that’s the drawback of a desk job. When the office becomes the field, a lack of real world experience can hurt. After about twenty seconds of blinking, Shelob opened her eyes again and said, “He’s on the firing range.”

I shook my head. “If they’re pranking newbies by ‘accidentally’ shooting at him again I’m gonna have somebody’s hide.”

“Does it really matter if they can’t hurt him?” Shelob asked.

“Everyone makes mistakes.” I shooed her out the door. “You better get back to your desk before being AWOL becomes yours.”

She made a motion which I guess was supposed to be a salute but looked more like an attempt to shoo off flies and said, “Yes, sir!”

“And you.” I swiveled and to look at Evidence Guy. “Get Forensics on the phone, do whatever you have to do to drag them down here and look at that thing. I want to know how it works and what Circuit’s been doing with it, and I want to know by the end of the day, yesterday.”

He raised his eyebrows in disbelief. “And why am I doing this, again?”

His tone implied that I was the field agent, I should be taking care of this, but I was not in the mood. “Because it’s in your evidence room, and you boys are the ones who didn’t notice Circuit had stuck it there after his little visit.”

The look I got for that told me I’d made an enemy, and foresaw trouble of some sort arising from the evidence room somewhere down the line, but he picked up the phone and dialed Forensics, and at the moment that was all that mattered to me. The only thing I regretted was not asking Shelob where the firing range was before she left. I headed out the door to go find it.

Harriet Verger was a seasoned agent with twenty-two years of field experience. Each and every one of those years was on display for all to see in wrinkles that scratched at the corners of her eyes and streaks of dirty gray slashing through her black hair. She’s Aluchinskii Massif’s supervisor and she was with him on the firing range when I got there, probably because I’m not the only one who doesn’t think it’s funny to give people a heart attack as a way of proving that bullets don’t normally work on him. Over the years I’ve worked with her several times, both with Massif and before, and we have a decent working relationship.

While it’s not really kosher for a Senior Special Agent to hand out orders to someone who’s not on their team, Verger has strongly suggested things to me more than once and I’ve found that listening to those suggestions is usually a good idea. In fact, given that she was eligible and, in my opinion, more qualified, I’ve never been able to figure out why she didn’t get Voorman’s job when the post came open. My guess is politics or a burning desire to remain on the frontline, or some combination of both.

Of course, strong suggestions work both ways and Agent Verger got to hear a number of them as I hustled her and Al up to the large room where Herrera and the rest of my team were clustered around the desks. When we came through the door I was just finishing up.

“It’s also possible that the activities of talents involved in this case have been compromised.” I absently scanned the room as I spoke, but really there wasn’t any need to bother. My entire team was clumped up around Mosburger’s desk and there was a lot of chattering and hand waving going on. From the looks of things, I’d missed something while I was on break.

“I think Massif and I can adjust our activities to take that into account,” Verger said, thoughtfully worrying at the cuff of her sleeve. “We’ll have to be extra sneaky, since this is Circuit we’re talking about and I’ve read some of his file. But he’s only met Al the once, and I doubt he has a good read on what he can do yet.”

“You’re probably right,” I said, dragging my attention back to the matter at hand. “I’m sure you and Massif can work something out. I’m more worried about a pair of new talents we met this week. The names are Gearshift and Amplifier. I wouldn’t put it past Circuit to try something with them in an attempt to distract us. Or worse, pressure them into joining his organization somehow.”

“That would be a problem,” Massif said, absently rubbing the side of his face. “He already has at least one other talent working for him, I’d hate for him to get his hands on another.”

“Where do we find these people?” Verger asked.

“Not sure, but if I can get to my desk I can get that info from the files.”

I started threading my through the desks but I barely got ten feet before Jack looked up and waved to me. “Helix! Get over here. Mossman thinks he’s figured out where the Enchanter will go next.”

Suddenly I was by Mosburger’s desk with no really idea how I’d gotten there. Jack and Kesselman moved aside and let me into the circle. I realized Verger was still a step behind me when she spoke over my shoulder. “I don’t suppose I could leave Massif here to listen in?”

“You can both stay, if you want,” Herrera said from the far end of the desk. “This is as much a part of your case as ours.”

“I’d love to, but I’ve got a favor to do for Helix. A sort of quid pro quo. Are those files out on your desk?”

That last was to me but it took a minute for me to realize it. Then I fumbled my keys out of my pocket and handed them back to her, saying, “No, in the second drawer. Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.” From the sound of her voice she was already walking away.

I leaned forward to look at the stuff scattered on Mosburger’s desk. “Okay. Where is he?”

——-

Circuit

The institutional fire door slammed shut behind me, leaving me in a gloomy atrium. Narrow hallways, floored with cracked, yellowing tile stretched away on either side. A display case held sad relics of the past behind fogged panes of glass. Bolted to the front of the was a brass plaque that said “Public High School #44” in engraved letters.

To the left, a sign on the wall told me the office was to my left. I felt myself smirking ever so slightly. If this was really where the Enchanter wanted to make his biggest statement to date, then so be it. But it wouldn’t be the statement he was expecting.

I rolled my shoulder experimentally, working the muscle to loosen it and wincing in the process. After being in a sling for a few days it was good to have the use of the arm back, but things were definitely not back to normal. My left hand was still a little stiff, but in better shape than my shoulder. But all in all, for what was in store today, it should be more than enough. I turned to the left and headed to the office. There was work to do.

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Editing and the Internet (Six Months Forward, Six Months Back pt 1)

Posted by natechen on

Hello, and welcome to Nate Chen Publications, home of the Project Sumter case files and, hopefully some day in the future, other stories. Six months ago I started this blog with the intent of serializing Heat Wave, the first novel dealing with Project Sumter and the talented individuals that work for (and against) that agency. This is the first in a pair of posts serving as a kind of review of how things are going, and what I’m thinking of doing for the next six months to a year.

When I originally started this blog it was with the intention to do exactly what I’m doing now: Write a story. Make it available to the world here. One day publish it in some format, probably as an eBook and probably independently. Huzzah business plan!

Now here I am, seven months into that plan and six months into the serialization, and I’ve run into an interesting quandary. I’ve managed to keep up with a fairly demanding schedule of three posts per week, amounting to 4,000+ words, and one of the ways I did that was by having a backlog of material to work with. Great so far, right? Except, while I had a backlog, I by no means had Heat Wave complete as I wanted it to appear. It’s been growing and evolving as time goes by, as stories have a tendency to do, and like all stories it’s probably going to need a little editing when its done. I’m not talking about simple GPS (grammar, punctuation and syntax) editing, I’m talking about some structural work and possibly the addition of a scene or two.

The problem: Heat Wave is already technically published here on this blog. How much tinkering is really kosher? While having new content would give people an incentive to pick up the published version of the story, do I really want to be that guy? On the other hand, marketing is a part of business, and I started this blog in the hope to use it to advance my writing career. I want to have Heat Wave finished in another two months or so, and I had originally hoped to have an eBook ready to publish on the one year anniversary.

To do that, I’ll need to figure things out soon. So I’m asking for the opinions of my readers. Would you rather see an eBook version of Heat Wave identical to what’s here, except for some basic GPS clean-up? Or would you rather see new scenes added and perhaps the order of some scenes adjusted to give the story better flow? Would you object to the eBook having a special goodie, like a short story that would only be published as part of the book? Or do you have no particular preference at all? I’d love to hear your comments.

Cool Things: Whitechapel Gods

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Steampunk runs a wide gamut of themes, usually drawing inspiration from the likes of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells along with the pulp fiction that was famous for it’s prolific nature and low quality in the Victorian era. In many ways it is a retro genre, as much about evoking the feel of those days than about trying to tell a particular brand of story. So steampunk has a tendency to wander far afield. Where fantasy, mystery and science fiction are usually thought of as mostly separate genres, steampunk has a tendency to mix all three liberally.

But there’s one other genre that frequently, but not always makes its way into steampunk stories: Horror.

Not just any horror, either, but horror based on the madness-exploring works of H.P. Lovecraft. One such book is S.M. Peters Whitechapel Gods.

Before we dive into that, a brief explanation of Lovecraftian fiction, also known as cosmic horror. Cosmic horror is designed to induce fear through the idea that humanity is in the grips of uncaring and impersonal forces beyond the ability of men to understand or have any lasting effect on. These forces are usually personified as old and powerful aliens from the depths of space (hence the term ‘cosmic’), the most well-known being Cthulhu. Any attempt to come to grips with these forces, and in many cases even just seeing them, drives people mad. They leave readers with the impression that, with the exception of a few well trained experts who can hold insanity at bay, if only for a time, humanity has no choice but to accept eventual destruction. Their only choice is whether they will approach it in ignorance or insanity.

Cosmic horror tends to be popular among geeks (but not this one) and scientists (they’re not the same thing), but doesn’t enjoy much acceptance in the mainstream, which already has newspapers and MSNBC presenting much the same themes.

So wait, if I don’t enjoy cosmic horror much, why am I recommending Whitechapel Gods to you?

Well, mostly because it manages to dodge most of the failings of the cosmic genre while reveling in the trappings. For those of you that have never heard of it, Whitechapel is a part of London (which means that, unlike the other two steampunk stories I’ve mentioned, this Victorian era fantasy actually takes place in Victorian London!) However, unlike the real Whitechapel, the Whitechapel created by Peters is totally cut off from the rest of London, and England as a whole. Within its walls, Baron Atlas Hume rules with the aid of his steam powered robotic enforces, the Boiler Men and his majordomo, John Scared.

In addition to being the ruler, Baron Hume is the high priest of a dark cult that worships the horrific cosmic beings Mama Engine and Grandfather Clock, and assists them in the Great Work that will ultimately Destroy The Earth (okay, that last part is never actually said anywhere, but it’s implied.) Each of these strange, mechanical “gods” claims a priesthood from among the general populace, known as Black Cloaks (for Mama Engine) and Gold Cloaks (for Grandfather Clock).

Oh, and there might be some normal people running around trying to overthrow the Baron and his gods and restore Whitechapel to London proper.

What sets Whitechapel Gods apart from most of cosmic fiction is that it makes humanity an active participant in the story and avoids sidelining its villains. One of the biggest problems of cosmic horror is the way it tries to present epic threats to the safety of humanity while the majority of humanity remains in ignorance of the threat. Cosmic horror implies that this makes humanity ignorant chumps, with the exception of the chosen handful who have the strength of will to look extinction in the face and realize they’re doomed.

On the other hand, in Whitechapel Gods humanity actively participates in either advancing or preventing the outcome of the story. First and foremost is Baron Hume, who lays the foundation for the altered Whitechapel of his own free will. Following in his footsteps come the armies of Cloaks who read his words and trust his gods. Behind them all lurks John Scared, who pursues his own twisted ends and opposing them is the very Crown of England and its agents, plus many of the common people of Whitechapel itself.

Since the typical Lovecraftian horror drives men insane just by being around, it’s really very hard to describe them in the pages of a book. Any title that tries and succeeds is likely to have a hard time finding a publisher. As a result, we tend to hear people talking about these things an awful lot, but they never do anything of note (except possibly being seen by one of the characters and thus driving them insane). There’s a whole lot of build up without a lot of payoff and the villains of cosmic horror wind up being not the entities the stories are about, but the humans who destroy themselves trying to understand them.

Whitechapel Gods presents us with entities that are much more active and thus, much more sinister. Just the presence of Mama Engine and Grandfather Clock causes a disease known as the clacks, a disease that slowly morphs parts of the victim’s body into machinery. Grandfather Clock can see through the faces of clocks and watches, and spies on the people of Whitechapel to keep them in line. Mama Engine will not let her priests die, no matter what happens to them. While not present in the way the other characters are, the cosmic horrors of Whitechapel Gods are just as present and just as horrible as the human villains of the book, putting them several steps ahead of most other Lovecraftian creatures.

Now if all there was to Whitechapel Gods were a great story of creepy aliens plotting to destroy the world from the heart of Victorian London I’m not sure the book would be worth recommending. But with the addition of a solidly written hero’s journey and a slew of surprising and well rendered human protagonists, Peters does an excellent job of giving you people to root for as well. With subtle questions about what it takes to be a leader in hard times woven throughout, the tale offers food for thought as well.

Many books show you humanity at its best. But if you like fiction that takes a stab at showing how humanity can show its best even in the face of things that should be beyond it, Whitechapel Gods is a title worth checking out.

Heat Wave: Final Connections

Posted by natechen on

Helix

“He mentioned two other families?” Cheryl asked.

“Yeah.” I was sticking to grunts as struggled to see around the two file boxes I carried stacked in my arms. They weren’t heavy, but two of them together was taller than a guy like me could see around. I was beginning to regret agreeing to help her carry them into the new Records office, whether it made for a good excuse to rehash last night’s discussion with Senator Dawson or not.

“That doesn’t mean she was an adoptee.” Mona had kept to a much more sensible one box, although she was tall enough to see over two. She set the files down on an open desk and leaned one elbow on them, assuming a thoughtful pose. “Her parents could have divorced and remarried. He could have simply been referring to the way the extended families of both parents treated her. There are-”

“A lot of other possible explanations,” I said, stubbing my toe on a desk and muttering something very unprofessional under my breath. “I get the picture. It’s something he said, is all, and it supports the idea that Teresa was the daughter of one of Lethal Injection’s victims.”

“Duly noted,” Cheryl said, taking one of the boxes off of the top of my stack and moving it over to one of the offices filing cabinets. “And you honestly think that the Senator was just worried about Teresa’s health?”

I put the other box down next to Mona’s and shrugged. “He didn’t ask about the case and seemed pretty confident that we had Herrera under surveillance already. I don’t see any other reason to talk to me in what he said.” I glanced up at my former analyst. “Do you?”

Mona sighed and shook her head. “For now it looks like we’ll just have to be content with knowing that the Senator looks after his own. I wish I could say that was news, but really I don’t think he could have gotten as far as he has if he didn’t.”

“Speaking of looking after your own.” I matched Mona’s leaning pose and gave her a sideways look. “Herrera somehow got directions to my workshop yesterday. You wouldn’t know how that happened, would you?”

“Me?” Mona jerked upright and failed to look innocent. “How many more boxes have we got out there, Cheryl?” She asked, making a beeline for the door.

“A dozen or so,” the red head answered, following Mona out the door. “Since when does Helix have a workshop?”

There wasn’t much to do but follow along behind the two women as they wound their way back down the hall, through the large open floor where most of us field agents would work, and out onto the loading dock. As we walked I felt obliged to point out, “I’ve had a workshop almost ever since I was posted to the Midwest about four years ago. As you might have already guessed from the fact that you’ve never heard of it until now, it’s not something I talk about much.”

“I’m not entirely sure why. He made me a great sofa.” Mona said.

“A sofa?” Cheryl sounded surprised and more than a little confused.

“Yeah.” I waved that away. “But it was originally supposed to be for your anniversary four months ago. That kind of thing takes time. And I could only afford it because Jack paid for the upholstery.”

“Of course.” Cheryl piled three boxes into my arms, maybe as some kind of punishment for confusing her because her face said she was still completely lost. “What’s the big deal about Mona mentioning your workshop to your boss? Teresa’s probably going to need to know where it is sooner or later.”

I shifted the boxes to one side, then the other, in an unsuccessful attempt to look Cheryl in the eye. Mona either realized what I was trying to do or just didn’t want me spilling potentially sensitive information all over the loading dock floor, because she grabbed the top box out of my arms and added it to the one she was already carrying. I nodded my thanks and managed to hook the other two boxes under my chin. “You see, the thing is, I go to my workshop to relax from, you know, work. Yes, by building sofas.”

“I have no idea what you just said, Helix,” Cheryl said.

For a moment I considered taking the boxes I was carrying and building a little fort under my desk with them. That way I could illustrate my point and maybe finally get some time to myself. Then Mona said, “He wants to get away from things from time to time, that’s all. And with a chronic case of foot in mouth, he’s always hated anything where he has to be subtle.” I sent a glare in Mona’s direction, nearly spilling my boxes on the floor as I did so. She ignored my fumbling and went on. “Bob and Michael have shoved him into the middle of this mess with the Senator and it’s got him all worked up in knots. I was hoping meeting Teresa on his home turf would help him relax and see the situation in a less adversarial light. It doesn’t look like it worked.”

“I am still here, you know,” I muttered.

“Okay, so you don’t like having your boss drop by on your day off,” Chery said. “No one would. Bill it as overtime.”

“I’m on salary. No overtime.”

“I could bake you some oatmeal cookies,” Mona said.

That was tempting… “No. I resist all attempts at casual bribery.”

“Blueberry muffins?”

“All serious bribery attempts will be given due consideration.” I balanced the boxes I was carrying on the edge of the desk, next to the last one I’d left there, and rubbed my hands together. “Do these muffins have nuts?”

Mona laughed. “Of course not.”

“Then we have a deal.” She piled her box on top of mine and we shook on it.

Cheryl shook her head, amused, and said, “You people are remarkably easy to please.”

“Sure,” I said with a grim smile. “All I want to know is what’s going on in my job, kick all the politicians out of it, have fewer criminals on the streets and figure out where Circuit is going to be tomorrow so I can arrest him and finally get a good night’s sleep.”

Mona lifted a can of caffeine and sugar, Pepsi brand, that I’d been drinking earlier off the desk and said, “It might help if you drank less of this stuff.”

“Yes, mother.” I took my soda back and finished it anyways. “Any word on how Circuit might have found our building and broken into it yet?”

“We’re still working on that,” Mona said, her brain visibly switching gears as her face went from amused, but slightly worried, to just plain worried in a heartbeat. I didn’t like to see that, but she had come a long way from when she first moved to field work and joined our team. She was plain worried all the time, then. “No leads so far, but we’ve ruled out pretty much any possible perpetrator besides Circuit, another branch of the government or someone we’ve never heard of.”

“Another branch of the government? Has that ever happened before?” I swiveled to look at Cheryl, who would be in the best position to know.

“Not that I’ve heard of. I’m sure if it was a serious possibility the matter would have moved out of our hands and up the chain of command.” She frowned. “Still, shouldn’t the fact that he managed to call us on the phone been a danger sign?”

“No, that number routes to us through City Hall.” Mona drummed her fingers on top of her box for a moment. “Maybe it’s time Bob and I went and had another talk with the Forensics people, see if we can come up with a way to check if he was tracing that call to us.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose and sighed. “Well then I should probably lean on Mosburger, see if he can work out where Circuit’s going to pop up again any faster.”

“Go easy on him, Helix.” Mona’s scolded. “He’s still new at this. You need to give him time to get his bearings.”

“I’d love to, but he got stuck on this case before he had time to get them.” I shook my head and started for the door. “And we can’t afford to wait anymore. If I know Circuit, he’s got his next move planned out already.”

Circuit

“No, I don’t have any idea what our next move is. I will confess that the Enchanter’s ruthlessness and planning has exceeded my expectations entirely.” I leaned forward across my desk. “But I will not substitute haste for preparation, Davis. We will deal with the Enchanter, then we will focus on Chainfall. Not before.”

“Chainfall has nothing to do with it!” My chief technician braced his hands on my desk and leaned forward until we were almost nose to nose. “You’ve been saying that the Enchanter was a secondary concern for the last two months. Now, he’s suddenly the hottest thing since sliced bread. You underestimated him, Circuit, and yet the day after his biggest fire yet you were off who-knows-where, with your head stuck in the sand! You should be out there now, pounding the pavements to find this guy and leaving me to do my work. Or leaving the Enchanter to the Feds and focusing on the long term. Either way, I don’t need you looking over my shoulder!”

These loud fits of indignation are a semi-regular thing with Davis and I accept it as the price I must pay for his brilliance. And I don’t use the term lightly, Davis is a brilliant man. His understanding of modern day industrial processes is second to none. Unfortunately, he often thinks that his skill with production translates directly to skill in strategy, and that he is qualified to advise my decisions. This is manifestly untrue, particularly as regards the use of my talents.

Occasionally, it’s necessary to remind him of this. So I stood up, causing him to back up a step, and rested one hand on his shoulder, which caused him to flinch. “There are many things that I do which are not considered admirable, Davis. Micromanagement is not one of them. I assure you, when I no longer trust you with work I will not waste time looking over your shoulder, I will simply find someone who I can trust and replace you.” I stepped around the desk and leaned in close to him again. “That transfer is likely to be very disruptive. For both of us. I’d prefer to avoid it if I can.”

I had to give him credit, Davis paled slightly but otherwise didn’t react. “But we are both in luck right now, because I am certain you can do what I want today. And what I want is to test the prototypes you’ve been working on.”

“I only got the designs for the second thing you want two days ago,” he pointed out. “And you changed priorities on me, too, said you wanted it before the hydroelectric prototype.”

“So I did. But I still want to test them this afternoon, and I’m sure you’ll have them ready on time, just like always.” I gave him a pat on the back and walked him towards the door. “Now, if you would be so good as to get ready for todays tests, we can get back to Chainfall that much quicker.”

As soon as Davis left, his expression suggesting he was already wrestling with the details of getting his work out on time, I walked back to my desk. From his place standing just beside it, Simeon gave me a wry smile. “Do you want me to start looking for a replacement for Mr. Davis?”

“Not yet,” I said, sliding back into my chair and taking just a moment to appreciate it’s sculpted leather depths. You can only call yourself a man of intelligence and culture if you actually take the time to appreciate what the intelligence and culture of others creates. “If nothing else, Chainfall is too far into implementation to replace him now. Besides, he’s intelligent and hardworking, both of which I need, and while he can be grating he’s always delivered when we need him to.”

“Very good, sir.” Simeon pulled out his notebook as I woke up my computer. “Do we really have no next step for our enchanting little problem?”

Pulling up the periodic data dumps I was getting from Project Sumter was a fairly complicated task but I managed to spare a disapproving glance for Simeon’s pun. “I have a few theories, but actually following up on them is going to be difficult. It would be nice if Helix had cooperated with us. Unrestricted access to the progress of the investigation would probably give us several more leads to follow up on. Have you finished your analysis of the books?”

“There’s very little to them, sir.” A shrug was far below Simeon’s dignity, but he still managed to convey the impression that he found the stories to be so much twaddle. He stepped over to the office’s side table, where coffee and other refreshments were normally kept, and picked up the books in question. “Analyzing morality tales is not exactly what I was trained for, nor am I a psychologist, but I do have one or two ideas about how the Enchanter might be drawing from them.”

I started my computer on collecting and decrypting the various data packets that had piled up in various corners of the Internet over the last two days, then leaned back in my chair and said, “Go on.”

There was a moment’s hesitation as Simeon extracted a sheet of notebook paper half covered in elegant handwriting from one of the books. “First, the primary enemies of the Enchanter featured in the books were park rangers and taxicab drivers. That’s probably the meaning of his last message, the symbol of the park rangers was a silver hatchet. The Enchanter’s own power derived primarily from a powerful network of propaganda and slave labor provided by orphans.” I grimaced in distaste. If I had been in any way impressed with the Enchanter up until then the feeling was well and truly gone at that. “Since our Enchanter hasn’t been able to gather any allies of his own, in part because he ran into us, I surmise he is trying to undermine what he perceives as the power base of the state he detests.”

“So he attacks the firefighters first.” I steepled my fingers and tapped them lightly against my chin. “Yes, that makes a certain degree of sense. But why not the police first?”

“The biggest thing the rangers do as a group is fight a forest fire,” Simeon said. “Perhaps he thought that made firemen a more appropriate target.”

“So the a good symbolic match is important to him as well.” Symptom of a disturbed mind. But at least it was a potentially useful pattern. “Propaganda suggests the newspapers, or perhaps simply the spokespeople for government. Maybe even mean us, since we’ve seen to it that his attempts to make himself known have been suppressed. But orphans… that will be more of a problem. Not many of them in the U.S., far fewer in the city.”

“In the literal sense, perhaps.” Simeon set the books down on the desk and folded his hands behind his back. “But, given that there is no direct corollary between most of the stories and reality, it’s likely that the Enchanter will simply look for the next best thing. Perhaps he’ll try to recruit from street gangs. They’re young, functionally without parents and likely to be amenable to his wants.”

That made sense, at first, but the more I thought about it the less likely it seemed. “No, he’s not to that stage yet, don’t you see?” I drummed my fingers on my desk absently. “These arsons are all a kind of grandstanding, he’s putting himself on a stage, trying to make himself so big people can’t help but ignore him. Forming patterns, sending letters to the police and to us. He’s aiming to be noticed and if he stops to gather a cadre of others he’s going to have to share the stage. He doesn’t want to do that until he’s sure he owns it.”

Simeon frowned but nodded, conceding my point. “Then he’s likely to be planning another arson.”

“Yes, but one that fits with the stories.” I picked up the top book and flipped through it. “The Enchanter calls himself an anarchist but he’s proven willing enough to stick to a pattern once he’s decided on it.” I paused as one of the short story’s titles caught my eye. “The Orphan Exodus. What’s that?”

Simeon leaned forward slightly to look over my shoulder. “Ah, that is a story in which the Enchanter’s rival frees the exploited orphans, and sends them to be looked after by his followers.”

I closed the book with a decisive snap. “Of course. And the Enchanter is the opposite of the king. The system is the king in America, so the Enchanter will turn the tables. And then he’ll have his army, just like you said.”

“Beg pardon, sir?”

I turned back to the updates from my mole in Project Sumter. “I know his next move, now. Thank you, Simeon.”

“Of course.” His expression suggested he wasn’t sure why he was being thanked. “Then, I will page you when Mr. Davis is ready to test your new countermeasure for…” he hesitated, clearly uncertain. “Is this new countermeasure intended for the Enchanter or Agent Double Helix?”

Although mostly engrossed in sifting the data on my screen I still had enough presence to spare a smirk and ask, “Why can’t it be for both?”

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Fiction Index

Overdoing It

Posted by natechen on

One thing that authors rarely think about when writing a piece of fiction is how long they want their story to be. That’s a mistake.

Now on the face of it, that seems off. After all, a story should be allowed to grow to its full extent, shouldn’t it? Rather than worry about your short story’s word count or spending a lot of time stressing about how many pages your novel is, shouldn’t you be doing everything you can to make sure that your story is as strong and interesting as you can make it?

Of course you should! That’s why you need to do everything you can to keep your story from being too long.

You see, part of being an author is loving what you write. If you didn’t love it, there’s no way you’d spend hours and hours slaving over it, after all. And part of loving something is the ever-present temptation to indulge it. To talk about it constantly. To let it do whatever it wants, not whatever is best for it. In short, you can overdo it.

Have you ever met one of those people who only talks about one thing? Their job, their kids, their blog, their six-years-and-running D&D campaign? If you have, you know that even if that subject interests you at first, there’s only so long you can sit and listen to it before it becomes boring. Now, depending on how interested you are in that subject and how interesting the person telling you about it is, it might take you a while to reach the point where you’ve had enough, and it will definitely influence how likely you are to come back for more, but the key point here is you don’t ever want to let a story run so long that readers loose interest. Ask yourself how long you would let the premise of your story keep you attention, then, if your story looks like it’s going to run longer, find parts of it to cut.

You have to be ruthless about this, because even when you’re doing your best to write with the most elegance and the least waste possible, you’re likely to find yourself running much longer than you expected to. Both Heat Wave and my previous writing project (which I may talk about more in the future) have run away from me with surprising speed. Heat Wave is shaping up to be about 10,000 words longer than I originally expected it to be, and I’ve only included about 80-90% of the material I had originally hoped to use.

Now that doesn’t mean I’m scrapping all that. I talked about nonlinear writing a while back and one of the things I’ve discovered the more you do that kind of thing the more willing it makes you to take material originally intended for one story and transplant it into another. You may wind up writing whole scenes that contain great ideas or fantastic dialog but aren’t directly related to what goes on in your story.  Save them for another story with the same characters. Or even different characters.

Have background on your characters that the reader doesn’t need to know just yet? Hold on to it for a later story where it will immediately important. That will give it more impact, because your reader sees both actions in the past and their consequences in the present in the same story. That improves both your writing now, as it removes extraneous detail for you readers to keep track of, and gives you a leg up on future projects.

Finally, trimming all that extra stuff keeps you within the bounds of the Law of Conservation of Detail. We’re busy people, who only have so much time to keep track of things. Do your readers a favor and keep how much stuff they need to track to a minimum and they’ll love your writing for it. Your stories will be slimmer, trimmer and more memorable than if you just let them run all over the place, and the ideas you’ve had to cut will be glad to have more time and space to develop themselves more fully, too.

I know that this is a hard area for me to practice what I preach. I love the extra details, the hints at the bigger picture, the long running threads that only bear fruit with time. But sometimes serving your story’s best interests isn’t a whole lot of fun for you as an author.The results are well worth it, though.

P.S. – This is a link to a review of Under the Dome by Steven King, which illustrates what I’m talking about from the reader’s perspective. That review was posted after I wrote this post, and I didn’t want to try and kludge it in in some awkward way, so I’ve just appended it here.

Cool Things: Girl Genius

Posted by natechen on

And we’re back here with Steampunk month on Cool Things, bringing you another week of coal-fired goodness. This week’s theme: Steampunk Illustrated!

I can only be talking about Phil and Kaja Foglio’s amazing steampunk comic Girl Genius. Unlike many of the things I’ve been geeking about on this blog, Girl Genius is a genuine web-based property, meaning that by following the link I’ve provided you’ll be able to read the entire saga of Agatha Clay as she traverses Europa in a saga of adventure, romance and mad science.

Of course, your time is precious and you may not want to invest the kind of time necessary to get current on a story that has been updating regularly, three times a week, for over a decade. So what is it that sets Agatha’s tale apart from the rest?

For starters, there’s the sense of humor. Steampunk, being mostly rooted in the culture and moors of Victorian England, is not exactly known for it’s laugh-a-minute soundtrack. But Girl Genius spices up it’s Victorian setting and themes with excellent, vaudevillean banter, well timed comeuppances and hilarious sight gags that, odd as it may seem to say about a static medium, are executed with expert timing. The expressions of the characters alone is worth the price of admission, or at least the time invested.

The world of Girl Genius is exceptional too. Europa is very much a parallel to Europe of the past, but rather than being ruled by nations the continent is ruled by sparks, people with the touch of madness that makes them phenomenal mad scientists, among other things. Baron Klaus Wolfenbach is one of the most powerful sparks around, and he collects lesser sparks and channels their studies into avenues that are less likely than most to result in disaster or discomfort for the common man. The eponymous Girl Genius is Agatha Clay, one such spark who has to find her way in the increasingly treacherous world of the Baron and his son without loosing her life or her sanity. The inventions of the sparks are funny and original, and are beautifully illustrated in ways that are both impressive and whimsical.

But most endearing are the characters, from the somewhat shy Agatha to her dim but enthusiastic Jaeger sidekicks, the brooding Baron and his brash son, even Agatha’s small, clockwork robots show more personality than you will find in many titles from DC or Marvel. Whether you’re looking for someone to root for or root against, Girl Genius has what you want.

And on top of all that you can add:

Check it out. You might find you like it.

Heat Wave: Fire Drill

Posted by natechen on

Helix

The alley outside of Firehouse 10 was still full of puddles from the fire hoses. You would think, with a firehouse being occupied by some of the best people in the county for fighting fires, that the building might have gotten through the blaze mostly unharmed. And under normal circumstances you might be right.

The half-melted, charred wreck of a fire engine that I could see inside the firehouse’s garage gave a hint at why that might not be the case this time around. A firefighter is frequently only as good as his equipment, and fire isn’t something people are well equipped to fight with his bare hands.

Normally.

Still, the firehouse was a big place, with enough room in the garage for eight engines, and it looked like only one was a total loss. Two more were parked out front, surrounded by firefighters carefully checking and packing away their gear. I managed to gather that much just walking past the front of the building on my way to the alley where Agent Verger said Al Massif was at the moment. I left Jack and Herrera, who was still dressed as a thrift store shopper and probably not being taken as seriously as she’d like, with the arson investigators while Kesselman and Bergstrum were on the prowl for signs of Circuit. And they say I have no situational awareness.

It was an average place, as far as alleys go, about wide enough for one and a half people and full of the kind of junk you’d expect: cardboard boxes, plastic bags full of things best left to the imagination, potted plants desperately clinging to life and the rusting bottoms of old fire escapes just overhead. Leftover heat from the fire pressed down on the alley and walking into it was a lot like walking downhill, except the ground was level. Which probably doesn’t make as much sense as it might if you felt the world around you like I do.

Once upon a time there had been a chain-link fence across the mouth of the alley, but now it was bunched in a twisted mess on one side of the alley. I probably would have just melted the padlock off of the gate and left the rest of the fence intact, but it looked like the Firestarter, or the Enchanter or whatever you wanted to call him, was growing more destructive over time. Typical arsonist behavior, no matter how you’re starting your fires.

I found Massif crouched on his haunches, running his hand lightly along the edges of a two foot hole in the concrete wall. A plastic trashcan sat against the wall a few feet away. If the trail it had left in the muck on the ground was any indication, it had started out right in front of where Al was crouched suggesting the Firestarter might have used it for cover while melting his way through the firehouse walls. As a courtesy, I pulled up against the heat in the area, sending much of it sliding out into the street, then held it steady somewhere around the eighty degree mark. Not only would that make things a little cooler, it would make it easier for Massif to make sense of what was going on.

Massif is a vector shift, and that means seeing the world in a much different way than your average joe. Of course, that’s true of pretty much all talents, from Amplifier’s super hearing to my ability to “feel” heat in unusual ways, most talents see or hear or feel the world in ways much different than normal. Trying to describe it to a normal person, or even to another talent who’s gifts lie in a different direction, is really an exercise in futility.

But I did know that people like Agent Massif and his ilk don’t just see an object, they see how it’s moving. And air is moving all the time, in no small part due to heat, so for a vector shift day to day living is an adventure in sensory overload, kind of like walking around drunk all the time. Massif once mentioned that I was a lot more stable looking than most people because I regulate the temperature of the air around me and the farther I expand that influence the easier it is for him to see what’s going on. As self-centered as it sounds, I’m not sure how he gets by when I’m not around, which is most of the time. I do know Agent Verger has to drive him around because he’s not safe behind the wheel.

Needless to say, Massif noticed the change in the air around him immediately and jumped to his feet, looking around with a grim expression. Since he was at the site of an arson started by a guy with my talent, that was an understandable reaction. His expression cleared as soon as he saw me, though, and he lumbered over and wrapped me in an bear hug that set my ribs creaking.

“Helix! Glad you’re here.”

I’m not a very touchy-feely person but I still resisted the urge to pry myself out of the hug. Al may be disgustingly tall and good looking to boot, but for whatever reason he decided he was my friend even though I’m the one who figured out he was talented and roped him into this job. Any person who puts up with you for more than two or three years and can still smile every time he sees you is a rare thing, and they’re worth a little work to keep happy.

So I pounded Massif on the back once or twice, enough to satisfy whatever standards of male affection he subscribed to, and did my best to hold my breath until he let go.

Once I was out I said, “Looks like you’re in a real mess this time around, Massif.”

“It’s not my kind of thing, that’s for sure.” He waved his hand at the firehouse. “This is the work of a real nutcase. It looks like he went straight through the wall and hit the firetruck just inside – cooked it up until the gas tank blew.”

I knelt down and peered through the wall. Sure enough, the blackened chassis of the firetruck that I’d seen before was just a dozen feet or so beyond. I craned my neck way back to look at Al. “You know, I’m not an expert on the subject since I’m usually discouraged from cranking up the temperature around anything that runs on petroleum, but I wouldn’t think one truck’s gas tank could set fire to this building.” I stood and took a step back and looked down the wall which, sure enough, still looked to be solid concrete. “Sure, one or two trucks might catch, but why start the fire here?”

“They think the Firestarter used some kind of accelerant this time around,” Massif said. “Looks like he had some more gas cans with him, stacked them by the wall so they’d catch and spread the fire once things got going. The change in MO had them questioning whether it was really our guy this time around.”

I glanced down at the hole in the wall. “I trust that there’s no question about that now?”

“Oh yeah, but we were sure from the get go. Checked the weather people’s radar recordings before we even headed out. They show the usual temperature drop and weird weather you get from an active heat sink. Sudden clouds forming, random, highly localized rain. That kind of thing.” He gestured back towards the mouth of the alley. “Half the firehouse was out on another call when the fire started, right now we’re trying to determine if that was a deliberate distraction or the Firestarter was just waiting for an opportune moment. Thoughts?”

“He probably just waited. Every other fire he’s set so far falls into some sort of pattern, I doubt he’d clutter it up now.” I shoved my hands in my pockets and sighed. “Honestly, the whole chasing the Firestarter and catching him thing is not our gig anymore. We’re more here to keep an eye on the crime scene and try and grab Circuit if he or any of his people show up.” Not an easy job, what with no good way to close off at least one end of the alley and plenty of access from above, but then easy is not what we sign up for. “I should probably get Bergstrum over here and see about setting up some surveillance.”

Massif nodded, although he didn’t look very happy about it. “Seems like a waste of time. If Circuit hasn’t already come and gone he probably won’t show up for a few days more. If he comes at all.”

“My thoughts exactly. But in this job, the one day you don’t cover all the bases is the one you wish you had.”

“Sad but true.” Massif glanced at the entrance to the alley and dropped his voice. “There’s one other thing you should know about. Just in case it makes a difference somewhere down the line…”

Sometimes it seems to me that Project Sumter is keeping its eyes on the wrong people. Sure, I have more practical uses in urban warfare than a than in law enforcement, but even if I did go rogue I’m not exactly subtle or hard to find, and much more fragile than most people would expect. On the other hand, tell me to somehow get a command vehicle and spare personnel to run it out of our office while it was in the process of relocating and I’d have said you were out of luck. Herrera had managed to get the vehicle and volunteers to staff it who were standing by for her call. Not natural.

Still, if there’s anyone with no right to complain about not natural it’s yours truly. What’s more, my parents were not the type to look a gift horse in the mouth and I took after them.

We set up some basic surveillance around the firehouse and came to an agreement with the police and arson squad about how it would be handled over the next few days. Actually, Verger and Herrera did that, I rounded up some of the extra bodies Herrera had swindled into coming out and did the best I could to work out some sort of plan for keeping an eye on the building.

About seven in the evening Jack took over and told me to knock off. He’d finish our shift and then Massif’s people would take over. Since I was still running short on sleep I was only too happy to do just that. But before heading home I thought I should check in with Herrera and see if she wanted me to do anything else on my day off.

Our command van was located about a block and a half away, well outside of the clean-up zone. When we’d arrived that had been as close as we could get but the streets were mostly clear of the response vehicles and news vans that had cluttered them at first. Only Firehouse 10’s firetrucks were still out on the street, since they weren’t entirely sure the garage they normally parked in was still stable.

That didn’t mean the streets were clear, the general public had come and filled them back in with their cars and SUVs almost as soon as the emergency workers had left but there were far fewer people milling around on the sidewalks now, so I spotted the man leaning on the van and smoking a cigarette long before I got there.

I actually considered turning around, heading for my car and calling Herrera before I drove off but that idea was squashed almost as soon as I thought of it. I promised myself long ago that I’d never show my back to Brahms Dawson and I wasn’t about to start just because I was a little tired.

Of course having clear sight lines goes both ways, and the Senator saw me coming just as clearly as I could see him standing there. As I hesitated in the street for just a moment he pushed away from the van and came to meet me while I was still a few car lengths away, which really settled the matter.

I’d never seen him out of what I think of as full regalia – suit, tie, perfectly styled hair, prepared speech. Today he was in jeans and a short sleeved polo shirt. It still probably cost more than I made in a month, but it was the first time he’d ever seemed to be anything other than another suit in the office, if an important- or self-important- one. Which reminded me to glance around for his security people. To my surprise, I could only make one, watching quietly from across the street. I had a feeling this wasn’t one of his normal business visits to the People On The Front Lines.

The Senator stopped to tap the ashes off of his cigarette before looking me in the eye. I don’t think he’d ever done that with me before, and I was surprised to see that he looked tired and more than a little distracted. I suppose he’s got as much reason for that as anyone, maybe more, but that didn’t earn him any sympathy from me. Still, I heard the voice of Bob Sanders whispering that there wasn’t any need to pick a fight with him if he wasn’t offering one.

I wasn’t sure when Sanders had stopped being a voice that annoyed me in real life and became a voice that annoyed me in the back of my head, but I wasn’t sure I liked it. Worse, I was pretty sure he was right. So I just plastered a neutral expression on my face and nodded in greeting. “Evening, Senator.”

“Double Helix,” he said, taking a last drag on his smoke.

“Those things will kill you, you know,” I said. The obvious being the only thing I could think of to say.

Senator Dawson just shrugged. “I’m afraid I started as a young man, and kept them as my only vice. The public doesn’t like a leader without some humanizing quality. The only other option was to take up drinking, which my wife wouldn’t have cared for. So I’ve stuck with it.”

For some reason I found that funny and wound up laughing in his face before I could stop myself. “You risk lung cancer to score political points?”

“No stranger than you risk ulcers or getting shot to do your job,” he said, tossing the cigarette butt on the ground and grinding it out under one shoe. “Everyone takes risks doing their job, whether they realize it or not. The important part is to pay attention to the ones you’re taking, and be ready to live with your decisions.”

“You’re being surprisingly straightforward today, Senator,” I said, trying to read what might be going on behind his tired expression. To someone passing on the street we might have looked just like two guys swapping our thoughts on the Bears this season but I felt more like I was about to walk into a gunfight with nothing but a Swiss Army knife. My first instinct was a tactical retreat. “While I’d love to hear what’s brought out this incredible streak of honesty, I’m actually here to talk to my boss. So if you’ll excuse me…”

“She’s in the van.” The Senator jerked his head slightly back towards the vehicle he’d just been leaning against. “Asleep. For the first time in the last forty-eight hours, I believe.”

I raised my eyebrows. “That’s it? I was under the impression she only dozed a couple of hours a week, and wasn’t planning on a nap ’til this Sunday.”

He chuckled. “She does give that impression, doesn’t she?” The humor drained away as quickly as it had come. “I hear there was a fatality today.”

“Yeah. Massif says one of the firefighters had part of the floor give under him while they were clearing the second floor.” Absently, I rubbed at the back of my neck. “Just bad luck.”

“This Firestarter guy has killed now,” Dawson said. He wave off the beginning of my objection. “An accident, sure, but you and I both know that in the long run that’s not going to matter as much as the fact that someone died because of his crime. You people are going to be twice as focused on catching him, and he’s most likely going to have fewer qualms about endangering people with his next fire. So far, he’s been careful to light them at times when fewer people were likely to get hurt. Now he’s going to escalate.”

“If you ask me, he’s already escalating.” But the Senator was right. Even today, the Firestarter hadn’t touched off the blaze until part of Firehouse 10 was out responding to another fire. He was being cautious, but that might not last. “Still, I don’t see how it’s your job to warn me about the risks of doing mine.”

“It’s not.” He glanced back at the van. “But I’m worried about Teresa. She’s wanted to be a cop all her life, and damn the consequences.”

Unable to resist the urge, I said, “What an unprofessional thing to say.”

Senator Dawson stopped short. “What?”

“Nothing.” I tried to squash the smirk but it slipped out anyway.

“Fine. But you’re right, Teresa isn’t exactly professional about this. Sometimes it seems like she lacks perspective.” He absently fumbled around in his pocket and extracted a pack of cigarettes. “Even Elizabeth was worried that she’d be biting off more than she could chew, and she doesn’t even know what all a job with the Project brings with it.”

“Elizabeth.” I frowned, trying to remember if I’d ever heard the name before. “Your wife?”

“My daughter.” Dawson rubbed his forehead with his free hand like a man with a headache just waiting to make itself heard. “They went to school together, not sure how they became friends but Elizabeth was determined to make her one of the family. I went along with it at first because I hoped Teresa would be a good influence on her.”

“And you wind up sticking her in with all of the freaks.” I smiled grimly. “Seems kind of contradictory, if you ask me.”

That got me a grimace and I suspected the Senator’s headache was starting to really kick up its heels. “You just don’t get it, do you, Helix? Yes, I know that you have no control over being born with your unique abilities. I don’t hold it against you personally, but on a instinctual level that intimidates me, just like it will anyone else. Why else keep you talented people a secret? We can’t have a smoothly running society with that kind of power imbalance inherent in it. Someone has to act as a balance between you and everyone else.”

I snorted. “Don’t act as if its anything other than an ego trip, Senator. There was another guy who recently suggested he needed to be in charge in order to keep society from falling apart and to be perfectly honest, I’d more inclined to trust him with the job than you. But if it comes to that I’d really rather give the job to Robert Sanders than see either of you in charge. Why can’t people like you just leave the rest of us to work things out on our own?”

“Because most of you don’t work at it. I should know, my-” He stopped himself and rubbed a hand over his mouth, looked down at the pavement and gathered his thoughts. Finally he shoved the neglected pack of cigarettes back into his pocket and sighed. “I’m sorry, Helix. I’m tired, and I’m talking around the point. You’re not a fan of that, as I recall.”

“That’s a fair assessment,” I said, folding my arms across my chest. “You wanted to talk to me about something. If it’s not a balanced society or your family, what is it?”

“Teresa. She’s a sweet girl, as much a part of my family as she ever was with either of her other two, and what she has accomplished is amazing considering all the handicaps she’s had, but to get where she is now she’s had to overwork herself, almost like it was a religion.” For the second time in his life, Brahms Dawson looked me in the eye. “Since you joined the Project eight years ago no one has worked to prove themselves like you have. But you’ve always managed to find a balance. While there have been plenty of reports suggesting you’re short sighted and reckless, no one’s ever accused you of overworking of overstressing. I want you to keep an eye on Teresa for me, try and help her do the same.”

“You know it’s funny, you keep repeating thing’s I’ve just heard. You’re not the first person to ask me to keep an eye on Agent Herrera, either.”

The ghost of a smile quirked the edges of the Senator’s mouth. “Oh, that doesn’t surprise me. In fact, there’s a lot of reasons for you to want to do what I’m asking you, things like making sure your oversight agent is clear headed when you need her to be, and since you’re already keeping an eye on her how much of an added burden can it be, really?”

I studied him hard, but I still couldn’t see any sign of motives other than concern. I wasn’t getting the whole story, but my gut said what I’d heard was true. “Not to sound crass, but how does that help me do my job? Besides the obvious, of course.”

Dawson’s smile vanished and his expression became completely sincere. Not the polished, smooth sincerity of a person who had practiced these lines a dozen times in front of the mirror before convincing hundreds or even thousands of suckers with them. No, it was the fragile, brittle sincerity of a man who wasn’t sure he’d ever be believed, but was going with the truth for once anyway. “This may sound surprising to you, Helix, but I’ve developed a real respect for you over the years. I don’t like you, and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to. But with the right education, with the right mentors, with the right system, we can eliminate the differences that cause that and make a better world. Teresa wants to be a part of that. I want to think that in time you’ll want to be a part of that, too. Wouldn’t that help you do your job?”

For the second time that night I found myself laughing. “What’s really scary is I think you believe that, Senator. Unfortunately, my job doesn’t deal much with maybe-somedays. Now, as you already pointed out I’m an expert in balancing my work with the rest of my life. Today was my day off, my boss is asleep on the job and I’m ready to go home, so that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”

His face fell. “Helix-”

“Tomorrow is theoretically Agent Herrera’s day off. Unfortunately I’ll be in the office, and once she gets there it’ll be impossible to throw her back out again, so you’ll just have to invent some excuse to keep her from getting there if you want her to relax some this week.” I ran my fingers through my hair and could almost feel it pulling out between my fingers, leaving me a little closer to my father’s hairline. “I’ll talk with the tac team boys, maybe Mona, see if we can work something out for after that.”

A bright smile bloomed on Senator Dawson’s face, of the satisfied, friendly, political variety. “Thanks, Helix. It-”

“I’m not doing this for you, Senator,” I said, feeling more irritated now than I had through the rest of the conversation. “I’m doing it because like you said, it’ll make my job easier. And she deserves the chance to do this job right.”

He nodded, the moment of political handling already past. “I know, Helix. But trust me, you won’t regret it.”

I certainly hoped so.

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*add title here*

Posted by natechen on

What’s in a name? that which we call a rose 

By any other name would smell as sweet 

-Juliet, Romeo and Juliet 

I cannot give my character the moniker “Tim the Barbarian”. Especially since he’s the bard. 

-#378 of the Things Mr. Welch Can No Longer Do During an RPG

Ever had the feeling that the perfect title is eluding you? While Shakespeare assures us names are not the defining aspect of a thing, Mr. Welch’s counterargument also carries a lot of weight. Nine times out of ten, the name of your story will be the first thing about it that your reader encounters. That makes the name of your story a vital part of making a good impression and attracting the attention of potential readers.

Unfortunately, unlike a lot of aspects of writing, there’s not a lot of good, solid, repeatable methods you can use for story titles. You want something high imact, that will stick with your audience. But you can’t contradict the basic spirit of your story either – you can’t use Gory Deadly Overkill Title of Fatal Death for a romance and Super Fun Happy Thing of Doom only works if you’re trying to be ironic. You can’t use any titles you’ve used before, and you can’t use any titles that other people have used for very popular stories (unless you’re doing a mashup, like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies).

One of the most common strategies to coming up with titles is to develop a theme. The novels in the InCryptid series are all jokes based on the fact that the main characters’ last name is “Price”. Thus, Discount Armageddon, Midnight Blue-Light Special and next year’s Half-Off Ragnarok. You never have any doubts that your dealing with an InCryptid novel when you look at the title, but they don’t actually tell you much about what happens in them. On the other hand, the Cal Leandros series relies on single, high impact compound word to catch your attention and tell you a bit about what happens in the course of the story. Nightlife is your introduction to the world. Moonshine has werewolves in it. Roadkill is about a road trip (but not a fun one, exactly.)

Other themes include Sue Grafton’s alphabet soup series, which I’m sure has a proper name, but I’ve never read one of them, and the “Character name and X” convention (Mr. Monk goes to the Hospital and Immediately Leaves That Den of Filth and Iniquity) or simply naming the story after what takes place in it, such as the Peculiar Occurrences novels The Order of the Phoenix and the Janus Affair. The problem with embracing a theme is that once your dedicated to it, you have to stick with it or your audience will object to your breaking away from it.

And your theme may not be as deep or meaningful a well of inspiration as you had hoped. Chapters in Heat Wave get their titles based on which character is narrating. Chapters where Helix narrates get titles with a theme of heat or fire, while chapters that feature Circuit have titles with an electronic theme. Except when both characters narrate a significant part of the chapter, in which case I have to try and find some overlap between their themes. So far that’s worked but I’m not sure how many more chapters I’ll be able to find good titles for. Originally I had thought the title might reflect the events of the chapter to some extent, but that’s mostly fallen by the wayside at this point.

So naming your story. It’s a struggle, for most of us I think. But if you know a surefire way to come up with a great title every time, don’t hold out on us. Share it in the comments and let us in on the secret.