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Jul 2, 2017

The Truth Is Out There

This is one of my longer articles. I'm trying to do a few of them to break up the photo montages of archeoseismology travelogues and cute kitty and garden pictures. :-)

According to Wikipedia, the title of this article is a tagline (The X-Files) or an episode title (from the series Charmed and NCIS). The phrase is now so embedded in our consciousness that it might even qualify for a cultural meme.

But what is truth? Is it the same as fact? If it’s really ‘out there’, can we define it? How can we separate truth from truthiness, and why is this so important, both in the real world where we live and in the fictional world, where writers make a living telling lies and showing others how to do it (Telling Lies for Fun and Profit, by Lawrence Block, for example)?

At the Eurocon in Barcelona in November 2016, I participated in a panel about world-building. It was delightfully diverse in its make-up and in the opinions of the panelists about what constituted world-building. Without naming names, I’ll just summarize by saying that the ideas offered included making sure the cultural details included enough authority to be believable and draw the reader in, to constructing a fictional landscape that would be encountered in the scenes being written, to not having any care for world-building at all – i.e., the only thing that matters is story.

I can relate to the last sentiment. I live for story. But story (as in, A happens, then B happens, and so on) is not necessarily my first concern when I’m reading. To this (avid) reader, in the very beginning of a piece of fiction – or creative non-fiction – there are a couple of things
that always ensure I will keep reading. Character, yes. Setting, yes. What about Plot? Not so much, or at all, not at first. Action; please, no. I don’t need to be thrown down in media res. Oh, hell no. Ground me in the world. Make me care about someone. Anyone. And then you can lead me to action and plot all over the place.

My take on world-building as it pertains to a novel or even a piece of shorter fiction – in particular, the beginning – is that the world has to be presented to me, the reader, through the eyes of a character (or possibly a narrator who is not necessarily a character – think Lemony Snicket). I don’t care what kind of kick-ass Sensawunder setting is going on unless I am shown how the character thinks and feels about where she is. How does it smell? How does it taste? Is she happy here?  Is this her home or is she far away? That kind of thing.

To me, this has everything to do with world-building and relates to what the participants on the world-building panel were trying to say: culture, scenery, story. All these elements are valid interpretations of world-building, but by themselves, not enough.

Not to spare myself criticism, as a fellow panelist, I stammered through a short speech to give my take on world-building. I was imagining something similar to what I’ve begun to illustrate so far – but instead, I resorted to waving my hands (literally) and not making much sense. I resorted to using the word paradigm.

World-building is all about paradigm because paradigm is the basis for how we, as conscious beings, are able to create our selves as separate from the world around us. It is, essentially, on a personal or cultural basis, a model of the world. All people have a paradigm. I would go so far as to say that even non-people, members of the animal kingdom without a primate frontal lobe, also have a paradigm (see, for example, Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? by Frans de Waal)
So, everyone has a different way of looking at the world. Big surprise (said in a Julia Roberts voice).

But I’m still hand-waving. We’re not getting much closer to defining what a paradigm is and what it has to do with world-building and what that has to do with truth (and truthiness).

According to the OED, the simplest interpretation, based on the Greek (and Latin) origins of the word, a paradigm is a pattern or a model. The OED also lists a (philosophical) definition: a mode of viewing the world which underlies the theories and methodology of science in a particular period of history. This definition is one that I particularly identify with because I’m a scientist. My personal paradigm is shaped, is defined, by my scientific background as a geoscientist. It doesn’t mean that my paradigm is any more valid (true) than a non-scientist’s worldview. But there are important differences.

What separates the general population from those with a scientific upbringing is not only their respective paradigms (because each branch of the sciences – hard and soft – has its own, sometimes complementary, paradigm), but how they process their data. Data are collected bits (and I’m using that term here descriptively rather than quantitatively) of information. I’ll even further quantify: Data are values measuring or reporting information about each individual in a group, including details of how the values go together and what they report. Values have units, depending on how the data were measured or collected (adapted from the excellent textbook Data Analysis with Excel: An Introduction for Physical Scientists by Les Kirkup). Another way to say it in laymen’s terms: data have to be about something, and that something is information.

Thanks to the polymath and pioneer Claude Shannon, often hailed as the ‘father of information theory’, the term information is now firmly embedded in the global human consciousness. Although defined by Shannon over three hundred years later, information, like many other terms (matter, force, motion) quantized in the Clockwork Universe phase near the start of the Scientific Revolution, Shannon reduced information to its basic unit, the bit. Because data is a collection of information, that implies that data, too, can be reduced to basic units. But that would be too simple a way to view such a complicated concept and to go further in that direction is not really necessary for the purposes of this article.

So how does data relate to paradigm? Data by itself – consisting of facts, measurements and other types of information – does not constitute knowledge. Knowledge (or wisdom) is the next step and a concept even more nebulous than data. By analyzing patterns in the data (and here we are getting closer to paradigm – remember the Greek origins of the word), knowledge can be gained, interpreted and passed on to others. Does knowledge imply truth? Open question.

Regardless of whether knowledge=truth, an interpretation of the data at hand based on analysis of the patterns (commonly achieved through classical statistical analysis, exploratory data analysis or some other kind of deterministic modeling) does reveal a version of truth consistent within a particular (scientific) paradigm.

Or not.

If the investigator (human or computer) reveals through their analysis a result that contradicts the prevailing paradigm, then a scientific revolution a lá Thomas Kuhn may be instigated (or propagated), and the paradigm may (eventually) be usurped or modified to include the new results (usually after repeated instances of such results – a clear argument in favor of the continuance of peer review, but that’s another discussion). This is the way Kuhn believes science works, and as far as it goes, it’s not a bad way to look at the idea of paradigms through the lens of scientific traditions and methodology.

On the surface, cultural or personal paradigms are not too different, but instead of being driven by data analysis and/or models, they’re driven by social norms. As summarized by anthropologists Frederick Errington and Deborah Gewertz in their essay, Excusing the Haves and Blaming the Have-Nots (in Questioning Collapse:  Human Resilience, Ecological Vulnerability, and the Aftermath of Empire, edited by Patricia A. McAnany and Norman Yoffee), “…what people want…is formed in the context of narratives: stories they are told and tell about the way the world works or might work, stories about what human beings might plausibly hope for.”

So social norms also represent a sort of collective knowledge or truth, based on cultural and/or religious traditions. Can a paradigmatic shift occur when we change the kinds of stories we tell? Are statements such as “Make (insert ‘your favorite nation’ here) Great Again” (implying that ‘your favorite nation’ is no longer great) or “Immigration is Bad for Us Because (‘reasons’)” or “Climate Change is a Hoax” examples of changing the story? Do they represent a revolution in the making? Or are these examples of mere truthiness?

Stephen Colbert (in his 2005 initial episode of The Wørd) lays claim to originating the word truthiness, defining it to be “a quality characterizing a ‘truth’ that a person making an argument or assertion claims to know intuitively ‘from the gut’ or because it ‘feels right’ without regard to evidence, logic, intellectual examination or facts.” In his well-reasoned and interesting book, Truth or Truthiness: Distinguishing Fact from Fiction by Learning to Think Like a Data Scientist, Howard Wainer discusses fracking, teacher tenure, and student testing by posing the question: what’s the evidence?

For the claims given above, we as writers can also ask the question, what’s the evidence supporting the statements?  Wainer suggests that non-scientists can also benefit from using the methods of science and don’t need detailed technical knowledge to move from truthiness to truth in such claims. He lists three essential parts to investigating a claim: 1) some carefully gathered data combined with, 2) clear thinking, and 3) graphical displays (can be simple and hand-drawn) to illustrate the results of 1) and 2).

Think like a scientist! It’s a worthy challenge for all of us, especially at this time in history, when everything suddenly seems complicated, when political factions are more opposed than ever, and sometimes there simply seems to be too much information. But how does this apply to us as writers, especially speculative fiction writers engaging in world-building?

World-building relies on writers supplying the reader with stories containing truth rather than truthiness. Readers know the difference.

1) The data that has to be gathered is either already within us or can be had with the click of a mouse or flipping through the pages (physically or electronically) of books or gained first-hand by traveling to the desired location (even if fictional, there may be a similar earth-based location that can be visited).

2) Clear thinking involves the use of character to reveal the truth of the world as seen through the character’s (or characters’) paradigm – culturally as well as scientific (if applicable). 
While exposition may be necessary in parts, to be effective, it will need to be made through the opinion and experiences of character. This seems to me to be one of the best ways to execute world-building, whether the world is pre-designed with careful planning or grows organically by, as Dean Wesley Smith terms it in his book of the same name, Writing in the Dark.

3) Make the graphical displays of the world with words and/or pictures (I can't draw worth a darn, so I use mental pictures and sometimes, lately, if I really need some external help, I collect pictures into a category on ,Pinterest), using all senses where possible as often as possible.  This helps me, helps my brain to reveal the truth of what the characters want, the stories they tell themselves. Their truths are out there.

The creative process involves a hefty portion of visualization. It’s one of the major muscles that needs to be developed when learning the craft of writing, and training that muscle never ends. As Ed Catmull, one of the founders of Pixar Studios, advises (in Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration), “Measure what you can, evaluate what you measure, and appreciate that you cannot measure the vast majority of what you do. And at least every once in a while, make time to take a step back and think about what you are doing.”

Practicing world-building is an excellent training method. And if a story develops out of it, so much the better. Maybe it will even be one that participates in changing or advancing our human paradigm.

photo credits:

Jens Rost TP150 "Fingers crossed" via photopin (license)

tantek IMG_0247.JPG via photopin (license)

Howdy, I'm H. Michael Karshis If you were looking for a sign this is it. via photopin (license)
 
Cowgirl111 Too Cute - kitten challenge via photopin (license)

Jun 16, 2017

Eurocon 2017 Dortmund

 

I'll be in attendance at the Eurocon starting some time later today.

My official schedule:

Panel: Refugees
 Friday, June 16, 18:00-19:00

Short Fiction Reading: Some Don't Like It Quite So Hot featuring Schattenreich characters Caitie and Hagen von der Lahn in one of a new series of time travel mysteries
Saturday, June 17, 14:00-15:00

Hope to see you there!

May 24, 2017

My 100 Favorite Novels, the May 2017 version

Greetings from sunny Sicily, to be more precise, Selinunte, where battles were fought and lost and earthquakes ravaged buildings. Maybe.

Thanks to Nathan Bransford for the challenge to create a top 100 novel list. He said it was hard. He was right. I have no doubt I've forgotten many that should be on this list - which is why I gave it a dated version. This is a little like forgetting to acknowledge people, which is why I have a slight feeling of anxiety for forgetting a novel I really loved. But, hey, I've read a crapload of books and not all of them have floated to the surface in trying to create this list.

There are also a lot of novels that I probably *should* have read but haven't yet and so aren't on the list or novels that others thought are in the 'best' category but didn't rank as my favorites.

I've only included novels in this list - no short story collections, no poetry, no plays, no anything but novels. The list is, for...reasons ('cause it's what I like to read most), top heavy with SFF and I don't think there are many non-genre favorites in there.

I listed novels that are a part of series separately, because sometimes there were only one or the other novel in a series that made it into the favorites list. In some cases (hello, Zelazny) this was not the case. I did include a few contemporary novels, but most of them are ones that made a strong impression on me during my impressionable years (ahem, Ayn Rand - that's why she made the list, and no, I'm not embarrassed about it).

I would have loved to include a couple by Dr. Seuss, but they don't fall under the category of novel. Another list, then, sometime, for Favorite Children's Books.

I have no links - maybe I'll add them later when I'm not so tired after a full day in the field or full of Sicilian wine and dust and ...

Alphabetical order. Hopefully, I haven't gotten that too far wrong.


1.    The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
2.    Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Douglas Adams
3.    I, Robot, Isaac Asimov
4.    The Robots of Dawn, Isaac Asimov
5.    Foundation, Isaac Asimov
6.    Foundation and Empire, Isaac Asimov
7.    Second Foundation, Isaac Asimov
8.    The Naked Sun, Isaac Asimov
9.    The Caves of Steel, Isaac Asimov
10.    Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
11.    Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
12.    Something Wicked This Way Comes, Ray Bradbury
13.    Dandelion Wine, Ray Bradbury
14.    Sundiver, David Brin
15.    The Postman, David Brin
16.    Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
17.    Storm Front, Jim Butcher
18.    Stella Luna, Janell Cannon
19.    Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
20.    Alice Through the Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll
21.    The Hunt for Red October, Tom Clancy
22.    Midnight at the Well of Souls, Jack Chalker
23.    2001, Arthur C. Clarke
24.    The Andromeda Strain, Michael Crichton
25.    David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
26.    A Study in Scarlet, Arthur Conan Doyle
27.    The Sign of Four, Arthur Conan Doyle
28.    Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
29.    The Game of Kings, Dorothy Dunnett
30.    Queen's Play, Dorothy Dunnett
31.    Disorderly Knights, Dorothy Dunnett
32.    Checkmate, Dorothy Dunnett
33.    Gardens of the Moon, Steven Erikson
34.    Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding
35.    Eye of the Needle, Ken Follett
36.    The Eyre Affair, Jasper Fforde
37.    The Day of the Jackal, Frederick Forsyth
38.    Cold Mountain, David Frazier
39.    Tintenherz (Inkheart), Cornelia Funke
40.    Outlander, Diana Gabaldon
41.    Neverwhere, Neil Gaiman
42.    Sherwood, Parke Godwin
43.    Beloved Exile, Parke Godwin
44.    Firelord, Parke Godwin
45.    The Last Rainbow, Parke Godwin
46.    I, Claudius, Robert Graves
47.    Something from the Nightside, Simon Green
48.    The Anodyne Necklace, Martha Grimes
49.    The Old Contemptibles, Martha Grimes
50.    Help the Poor Struggler, Martha Grimes
51.    Pompeii, Robert Harris
52.    Enigma, Robert Harris
53.    Dune, Frank Herbert
54.    These Old Shades, Georgette Heyer
55.    The Corinthian, Georgette Heyer
56.    The World According to Garp, John Irving
57.    The Children of Men, P. D. James
58.    The Shining, Stephen King
59.    The Dead Zone, Stephen King
60.    Christine, Stephen King
61.    The Lathe of Heaven, Ursula K. LeGuin
62.    The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, C. S. Lewis
63.    The Call of the Wild, Jack London
64.    The Lies of Locke Lamora, Scotta Lynch
65.    The Crystal Singer, Anne McCaffrey
66.    China Mountain Zhang, Maureen F. McHugh
67.    Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
68.    Altered Carbon, Richard K. Morgan
69.    The Night Circus, Erin Morgenstern
70.    Sabriel, Garth Nix
71.    Crocodile on the Sandbank, Elizabeth Peters
72.    Gateway, Frederik Pohl
73.    The Cabinet of Curiosities, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
74.    The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand
75.    The Disappeared, Kristin Kathryn Rusch
76.    Strong Poison, Dorothy Sayers
77.    Clouds of Witness, Dorothy Sayers
78.    Have His Carcase, Dorothy Sayers
79.    Gorky Park, Martin Cruz Smith
80.    Cryptonomicon, Neal Stephenson
81.    Snowcrash, Neal Stephenson
82.    The Crystal Cave, Mary Stewart
83.    The Hollow Hills, Mary Stewart
84.    The Last Enchantment, Mary Stewart
85.    The Fellowship of the Ring, J. R. R. Tolkien
86.    The Two Towers, J. R. R. Tolkien
87.    The Return of the King, J. R. R: Tolkien
88.    Presumed Innocent, Scott Turow
89.    The Sirens of Titan, Kurt Vonnegut
90.    The Time Machine, H. G. Wells
91.    The Once and Future King, T. H. White
92.    The Sword in the Stone, T. H. White
93.    Shadow and Claw, Gene Wolfe
94.    Nine Princes in Amber, Roger Zelazny
95.    The Guns of Avalon, Roger Zelazny
96.    Sign of the Unicorn, Roger Zelazny
97.    The Hand of Oberon, Roger Zelazny
98.    The Courts of Chaos, Roger Zelazny
99.    Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny
100.  A Night in the Lonesome October, Roger Zelazny

May 4, 2017

The Looooooong Break

I'm back!

Sorry about the break, but I needed time to write, to read, to travel and time to think.

I know that's no excuse. I could have just popped in here and written something - what I'm writing, reading, thinking, etc.

But it was my alone time.

Everyone needs that. I am convinced I need a lot of it.

It's probably a delusion on my part, but spending time with myself has always been a big part of my life. When I was a kid it involved lugging tons of books home from the library and long bike rides and lone exploratory walks. As a teenager, it involved my record player and my bedroom and even more books from the library. I also took long walks. I wrote a lot of nonsense back then during those many hours in my room. But it was a good part of my life. Creative and positive as most things that include music and books tend to be. Those stolen bits of life were so good that now when I feel stressed or anxious or too many things from the outside world impinge on the inner world, I retreat to alone-space for a while.

Living with others means that alone-space has to be carved out of each day. But it's doable. I have headphones. And nighttime. And cats to share it with.

So now just a few pictures of our latest trip to one of the most breathtakingly beautiful landscapes on the planet - the American Southwest. America is still there in all her glory. But sometimes you have to look for her.


Our first night in Denver (just prior to the SSA 2017 meeting) included a tradition I almost never break when visiting the U.S. I need a real American-style burger. And, if possible, a margarita. Mission accomplished.

Here was the view of the Rockies from our hotel room in the Denver Downtown Sheraton. I've seen much much worse.










We walked from downtown through a quaint Denver suburb to the Denver Botanical Gardens. There's not much blooming in April (tulips!), but that's not the point. It's an immersion in plants and gardening styles. In arrangement of form and function, a welcome immersion in a gardening climate, or microclimate, not too different from my garden in far western Germany - between U.S. zone 5 and 6 - but considerably drier. But I was surprised at how many plants we had in common, the botanical garden and me in mine. Iceland poppies, violets, calla lillies and many more.



On the many paths through the garden, we discovered this artificial waterfall and our next garden project (even if ours might not be quite so grand and I doubt we will have koi - koi and tuxedo cats would not be good friends).
 


More margaritas after the meeting started. Of course there were.

At the 2017 Seismological Society of America Meeting, I was gratified and encouraged to learn that the spirit of science and the fight against science-deniers is very much alive in the U.S.A. from Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper's speech and very moving speeches from Frank Press Public Service Award Winner Professor Michael E. Wysession and Professor Gail Atkinson.


After the meeting, we followed Simon and Garfunkel's advice to Look for America and drove down to Mexican Hat, Utah for a quick two days to soak up the beauty and revel in that kind of alone-time that only comes with experiencing nature. We did it as best we could - by driving and that's not ideal - but it was what we could with the time we had.

We first picked up our rental car in Denver and headed down to Moab, our first overnight stop. We celebrated our 23rd wedding anniversary at the same place we celebrated our 20th - at Miguel's Mexican Baja Grill on Main Street, a small but lovely Mexican restaurant in the middle of Moab. Reserve early or be prepared to wait for a table. We decided to eat early to beat the crowd.














Next we left Moab and headed down to Mexican Hat












We made photo shoot stops on the way at the Mexican Hat formation (left), Navajo Twins (right), and Gooseneck Canyon (bottom left).

















Here at right we met one of the permanent residents of Gooseneck Canyon. He was only interested in our tortilla chips but was willing to pose for his lunch.








After a peaceful night in our hotel, The Hat Rock Inn (a very comfortable stay AND the view of the sandstone formations just above the San Juan River from the pool and hot tub is worth the price alone), we made the short drive down to the Utah-Arizona border, the Navajo Nation and Monument Valley.




These few photos cannot begin to capture its beauty that we, of course, shared with the many other motorists and tour vehicles. But it was April. I'd hate to see the traffic jams come June through August. I'd say April is a fantastic time to visit.









 



Our trip was complete on our last night in Mexican Hat when we treated ourselves to a Texas-style steak dinner eaten outside and cooked on a wood-burning swing grill. Perfect. 




On the return drive, we elected to drive through the Colorado National Monument - an area of geological transitions from Basin and Range to uplift and the Rocky Mountains. It's the land of free range cattle and other wildlife. We discovered that not only the mythology but the reality of the Marlboro Man (and Woman!) is still alive. We found a tiny slice of America here, intact and wonderful. No cell phones, no Walmarts, no distractions.

Our return to Denver consisted of a quick stop at Idaho Springs, with a restored gold mine (which we did not, unfortunately have time to visit) as a tourist attraction, before leaving the Rockies the next morning and heading to the Denver International Airport and home to Germany.











Photos: K.-G. Hinzen

Jan 9, 2017

January Sale and it's a tag team!

The first three books in the Schattenreich series will be FREE on KOBO (only on KOBO!) for part of January and extending into mid-February. The sales will be staggered and will also overlap, so note the dates. They are part of scheduled KOBO promotions and therefore the spread. So grab them when they go free (as of today, Primary Fault is already free). I've never done a sale like this before...and may not again for some time.

SO....

Primary Fault, Book 1 of the Schattenreich:
free on KOBO from January 9 - February 9, 2017



Shaky Ground, Book 2 of the Schattenreich:  
free on KOBO from January 16 - February 16, 2017

 


Double Couple, Book 3 of the Schattenreich: 
free on KOBO from January 23 - February 23, 2017