Waking Dreams Blog

Flash Friday: "A Thousand Slinkies"

2012-01-27T06:29:00.000-05:00

Dear Editor,

I am writing about the unfortunate opinion article that you ran on Sunday.

Every word was dishonest, down to the very title. The event was not "a show of waste with pollution as the grand finale." As my secretary takes this dictation, I am having craftsmen attach magnets to poles, the better to fish the slinkies out of the river. Furthermore, the slinkies will be recycled in a second marathon down the mountain.

To answer your question, I received each and every slinky as a Christmas gift, and that is why there is no "paper trail" as you so dramatically put it. I was as shocked as you to learn about the robbery at the warehouse three states over. To accuse me of such things is beyond disrespectful.

To show that I am and always will be a gentleman, I invite you and your pithy writers to attend the upcoming event. You at least I expect to see once again at the betting tables. I believe I have a photograph of you having a grand old time at my first prestigious event.

Until then,
Frederick Astor

TNG Ep. 63: Yesterday's Enterprise

2012-01-25T11:00:00.004-05:00

Summary:

The Enterprise's universe turns on its head when an older version of the Enterprise hops into the future through a time rift created by a battle with Romulans. On the new Enterprise, the Federation is at war with the Klingons and Tasha Yar is still alive. Guinan can sense that they are in a "wrong" timeline, and her advice prompts Picard to send the old Enterprise back to its battle and its death, putting the universe back in order.

LAME. And I'm not automatically saying that just because Tasha Yar was in it. I can't say that doesn't prejudice me, but I try to like every episode of Star Trek. I've even tried to like episodes of Enterprise. But that's a different story altogether.

So: lame! I think what I didn't like was Guinan. Not the acting, but the vague things she had to say. "Oh, Captain, things just aren't right!" Pahlease. This is like when Troi used to say that she felt "anger" and then that was all she could tell us. Maybe it would be cool if she could remember exactly what the real time line was like, instead of getting these impressions. Meh. Maybe what I didn't like more is that we still don't know much about Guinan, and in many ways this episode was about her, yet we learn almost nothing about her. Boo.

What I did like was that this episode gives Yar a more meaningful death. It's like the writers are trying to make up for how crappy the writing of her death was in season one. This also has the unfortunate side affect of reminding you of season one.

The best thing about this episode? Christopher McDonald is in it! I spent the entire time wondering where I had seen "Richard Castillo" before, and the answer is every where.

PS. Apparently I have no taste. According to Wikipedia, this episode was one of the higher ranking episodes when it aired and lots of reviewers like it and blah blah blah.

Brainstorming is not Writing

2012-01-22T07:00:00.001-05:00

Since I talked a lot in a recent post about all my accomplishments for the year, it's only fair that I mention a failure. Just before NaNoWriMo, I posted about a story that I was writing "by the seat of my pants" even though I'm typically more of an outline person. While it did help me get back into the joy of writing, that story sputtered out almost as soon as the post went live. So, for NaNoWriMo, I tried an approach more in line with my natural tendencies, to great success. First of all, I used "write or die" to hammer out in half an hour what would normally take me all day between taking care of the wee ones. I find marathoning the most useful for longer stories, to minimize distractions. For flash fiction I'd rather take my time with each draft, minimizing editing.

Secondly, I outlined using the notecarding method. If I ever want to pick up that other story, that's what I'll have to do. Let's keep the bulk of the brainstorming in the brainstorming phase, shall we? Otherwise I'll be all "oh, look! A butterfly!" And then write a flash piece about it. But the point is that my WIP will still be sulking in the corner, pointing an accusing finger at me. Or, by this point, billowing away as dust in the breeze. Dust under a million butterfly wings!

TNG Ep. 62: A Matter of Perspective

2012-01-18T11:00:00.006-05:00

Summary:

It appears as if Riker has murdered scientist Dr. Nel Apgar when the research station blows up just after he has transported away. The Tanugan investigator agrees to hear more of the witness' accounts before taking Riker in for a trial. This allows the crew to do their own investigation in an attempt to clear Riker. Following Tanugan laws, the witness testimony is used to create several holographic versions of events witnesses before the explosion. Riker's testimony and the widow's testimony are vastly different, yet both contain some of the same clues that eventually clear Riker. The research station appears to have blown up because the jealous Dr. Apgar attempted to shoot Riker, but the phaser beam bounced off of the transporter beam and into the fancy machine nearby. Actual dialogue and other facts are left unverified for the audience.

In other words, Riker may or may not have seduced and/or assaulted Ms. Dr. Apgar. It's tempting to be annoyed by the ambiguity, but in the end I find myself won over by the point that the episode was trying to make: witnesses remember the exact same events differently. We all see life through our own filters, and we go even further and edit our memories of the events after the fact. We don't even have to do it on purpose. Riker sees himself as a lady's man, and Dr. Apgar's wife sees herself as a loyal widow. The audience is left to assume that the truth lies somewhere in the middle. Riker was probably a little inappropriate, perhaps in response to a bit of innocent flirting. We've seen him flirt with plenty of other women, though we'd be disinclined to believe that he would kill in the name of jealousy. Unfortunately for Riker, the Tanugan people don't know him from Adam (or... Tanugan...?), so he's got to go through all that objective law stuff.

He'd better thank his lucky stars that Geordi's as smart as he is, and Picard as stubborn. If Picard can hold off Q, he can certainly hold off the Tanugan investigator. And Troi? she wasn't much help, except to let us know that all the witnesses were telling the "truth". In this case, if she had been of help, I would have been quite annoyed. She's an empath - she's not clairvoyant.

In conclusion, today's lesson is that I'm a sucker for correctly employed psychology.

YA Report: Hearts of Smoke and Steam by Andrew P. Mayer

2012-01-17T21:23:00.002-05:00

I'm pleased to point you to a review I wrote for a steampunk superhero book that I thoroughly enjoyed. The review goes something like this:

The Society of Steam makes you wonder why all super hero stories aren’t set in 1880s New York City. The adventure-quality superheroes fit with the big machines of steampunk like two cogs in a clock. The subgenre is a perfect stage for Andrew P. Mayer, who utilizes his experience as a video game designer to bring his readers cinematic visuals they won’t soon forget...

Head on over to the SFFWRTCHT blog to read the rest of the review.

Look for more information on The Society of Steam trilogy and Andrew P. Mayer on his website, http://www.andrewpmayer.com/ There is also an adorable little “newpaper” website for the trilogy at http://societyofsteam.com/

Friday Flash: "After the Funeral"

2012-01-13T01:51:00.002-05:00

He cries at the word bedtime as Mommy unbuttons his black jacket with fumbling hands. Her eyes are a scary red as she forces them into the routine of pajamas, tooth brush, and bedtime story. He waits until she flips the switch and clicks the door shut before he sits up against the darkness. There is still a piece of the routine missing, the hug that would make him feel safe again, if only he could stay awake long enough to hear the front door open.

But, like the night before, sleep steals him away before Daddy can come home.

Oh, my! This one's a drabble.

Looking to connect with other flash writers, read, and share your own work? Find me here:

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TNG Ep. 61: Deja Q

2012-01-11T11:00:00.004-05:00

Summary:

Q appears on the Enterprise bridge as a human, stripped of all his Q powers, as punishment for his past unfair treatment of humans. Picard allows Q to join the crew, but not before throwing him in the brig. Q then helps the Enterprise save Bre'el IV from its falling moon, although Geordi does most of the real work. Aliens called the Calamarain then attack Q, endangering the Enterprise. Data intervenes to save Q, risking his own life, so Q decides to go off on his own rather than risk getting Data and the rest of the crew killed. Witnessing this act of selflessness, the Q continuum restores Q's powers. Q returns to the Enterprise briefly to thank Data for being nice to him while he was human - his gift is that Data briefly experiences laughter.

Have you noticed that a lot of planets are named with the numeral IV? Where are the first III Bre'el's, eh? I suppose we'll never know because they're somehow even less important to the episode than Bre'el IV and its looming moon of doom. Once Q shows up, we're pretty sure that somehow he - no wait, Geordi? - will straighten that whole mess out.

Silly names aside, this episode is designed to make us start taking Q more seriously. Paradoxically, it accomplishes this by having Q take humans more seriously. His empathy is faint, but it's a start, and it in turn makes him more sympathetic to us. No longer is he the PIA godling running around zapping people for the fun of it, with no internal consequences. Now, if he zaps, he might actually experience this little thing called guilt. He might have internal motivations that the Enterprise crew can understand and manipulate, which could sure come in handy when he's threatening to zap crew members to death for the fun of it. And, in the future, those crew members on his zap list probably won't be Data, because Q now has some modicum of respect for the android. Data is, after all, a better human that Q.

It was also a nice touch to see more of Guinan. We still know so little about her, but we were already introduced to the fact that she and Q despise each other, so it would have been negligent for her not to antagonize Q during his stint as a human. The fact that she does so with a fork just notched her up on the list of characters I care about. I'm sure she could do a lot more to him with her unknown superhuman powers, but instead she's just mean, like Q has been to the Enterprise crew. TAKE THAT, you... spork lover... you!

PS. The actor for the Q^2 is named Corbin, which is just cool. It sounds like my child's name without having anything to do with his name, etymologically speaking.

Friday Flash: "Lilith"

2012-01-06T02:06:00.003-05:00

She looked up out of thin gray walls that curled up over her bare skin. Later she would think of it as a sarcophagus, but for now it was simply the first thing she'd ever seen, along with his hungry face.

"Lilith," the man above her demanded in a booming voice that echoed inside the coffin. She took his proffered hand, having nothing else to do. His tone was soft when he added, "You will be a fine wife." All she could think about was that he had cloth to cover himself, yet she did not. It was cold.

Looking to connect with other flash writers, read, and share your own work? Find me here:

Drabblecast forums (as MrsMica)
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Friday Flash Collector at Mad Utopia

TNG Ep. 60: The High Ground

2012-01-04T11:00:00.003-05:00

Summary:

Dr. Crusher is abducted by terrorists while delivering medical supplies on Rutia IV. The "separatists rebels" are using an unknown form of teleportation that the Rutian government cannot track, and therefore they cannot rescue Dr. Crusher. Meanwhile, Dr. Crusher develops some sympathies for her captors - who then attempt to blow up the Enterprise with her son on it. They cannot blow up the Enterprise, but manage to abduct Picard instead. This abduction, however, allows the Enterprise crew to locate the rebel base and overwhelm the rebels with superior fire power.

This episode gets major Soap Opera Points, and I say that with glee. Remember how excited I was when Dr. Crusher came back on the show? This is one of the major reasons why, because I was hoping to see more of this. I like the conflict of the best friend falling in love with the widow, and Picard and Beverly are both so professional that it adds another layer of conflict and a bit of realism to explain why they haven't gotten together already. Imagine poor Dr. Crusher trying to explain that one to Wesley. "Wesley, Picard and I are getting married." Woah! Woah. Ok, so, we didn't even get to hear "I love you"... but the implication is there!

Dr. Crusher and the Captain aren't the only thing emotionally charged in this episode. The plot goes beyond moral ambiguity and hits close to home by referencing then-current politics, saying that, according to Star Trek's history books, the UK will be united by 2024. Yeesh, but it gets complicated trying to work out the verb tenses in a sentence like that. The UK will have been united? Ha. Anyway, Data's little mention of this "fact" was so controversial that the episode was censored in the UK [see here]. It was probably not so much the "united" part that bothered them, but more the idea that the unification would occur due to a successful terrorist attack. Are terrorists always the bad guys? Probably not in the clear-cut way we tend to think of them. Us-versus-them thinking helps us preserve that "us" that "they" are against, because otherwise we develop things like Stockholm Syndrome, which you can see how much good that did Dr. Crusher, seeing as her kid almost died any way. But you know how the saying goes, that in the end it's the winners who write the history books. There's some truth to that. Just ask the Confederate South what the US Civil War was all about, and then ask a middle school student.

Friday Flash: "Stolen Mass"

2011-12-30T02:53:00.005-05:00

Every rotation, she diminishes and I increase. I will be my sister's grim reaper. I can imagine that, at first, our parents were ecstatic. A twin star birth would be a powerful one, enough to increase our galaxy's standing against our neighbors. Then I and my sister emerged, not the promised identical twins of legend, but ever so slightly mismatched. Already, she is an orange-red subgiant, doomed to a cooling core.

This flash is a "six sentences" format and I've recently posted on the Six Sentences social network.

Happy New Years Resolution! Come a bit early, I suppose.

Looking to connect with other flash writers, read, and share your own work? Find me here:

Drabblecast forums (as MrsMica)
Ficly
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Friday Flash Collector at Mad Utopia

TNG Ep. 59: The Hunted

2011-12-28T11:00:00.003-05:00

Summary:

The Enterprise investigates Angosia as an applicant to the Federation. During the investigation, the crew assists in the capture and detainment of a criminal escaped from a lunar colony, Roga Danar. The Enterprise learns that the criminal is an war veteran psychologically programmed and physically modified to be an adept soldier. These modifications leave the veterans with tendencies towards violent, even murderous outbursts. The Angosia government has imprisoned all such veterans on the lunar colony with no plans to reintegrate them into mainstream society. Roga Danar escapes The Enterprise and frees several of his fellow inmates, who then hold key members of the Angosia government hostage. It appears as if several of the Enterprise crew will become involved in the conflict, but Picard orders non-interference and they all beam out, leaving the Angosians to their own troubles.

Well, that was sure depressing. Not the ending, but the whole premise. The US government does a lot to attempt to provide for its veterans, but they can never guarantee a good reception by all of society. Just last summer I was hearing that veterans that had left service after 9/11 had a higher unemployment rate that their fellow veterans and also higher than the average citizen. Tsk, tsk, society. Scarier than that, though, is the idea of the super soldier, and of our inability to turn a super soldier back into a regular citizen. You can't just wipe the training and the memories of war. You can't say "just kidding" and rewind time for them - just like you can't take back the bad experiences that happen to numerous poor and otherwise disadvantaged people around the world, except that with soldiers, its more directly our fault if they turn out too Super. But maybe we could give them a chance at a job, out of respect for the fact that they risked so much for us.

Of course, the super soldiers in the episode are a bit more extreme than our real veterans. Most real veterans aren't more likely to, say, knife us in the back, and we try really hard to identify those who are, so that they can get help and not give the rest a bad reputation. We try not to give them multiple personalities and all that fun stuff. But, hey, with Scifi, anything is possible! It's more exciting that way! No, wait... still depressing.

NEXT.

A Special Time of Year from PV

2011-12-25T03:08:00.001-05:00

Listen to a special message from Pendragon Variety!

In related news, I finally worked out a decent setup for recording prose. The last couple of projects that I had tried to record were full of noise that no amount of editing could eradicate. Now I just need a decent pair of headphones so that I might join the Ladies Pendragon on their group recordings.

Oh, and Merry Christmas, every one!

This Year, Next Year

2011-12-22T13:15:00.002-05:00

Despite moving and having a baby, this year has not been a total loss writing and podcasting wise. Here's what I've been up to both here on the blog and elsewhere, and what I'm planning for next year:

TNG Reviews. I had made it my goal for the year to write TNG episode reviews every week and that I have. It has been great practice for writing nonfiction and for posting regularly, to a deadline. I found that I prefer to write a bunch at once and schedule them ahead of time. As such, the reviews will continue for the beginning of 2012, but I plan to close this chapter of the blog in the spring. I'd like to finish TNG and get to DS9 ever in my life. Plus, I have something else to review now!
YA Book Reviews - I’ve been writing the YA Report at SFFWRTCHT. Bryan Schmidt, scifi author and orchastrator of the weekly #sffwrtcht chat on twitter, runs author interviews and the like on the associated blog. I do a small part of the work, writing reviews and interviews for the YA Report column. From now on I'll be posting here to let you know about these reviews! Here's what's up so far:

Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr
Ian McDonald Interview
Plannesrunner by Ian McDonald
K.D. McEntire Interview
Lightbringer by K.D. McEntire
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

NaNoWriMo - My biggest fiction writing achievement this year was with NaNoWriMo. I set my goal at 25k based on my most productive days since the move and the baby, and I outlined ahead of time using the notecard method and the suggestions in Scribe's blog, Ink Stained Scribe. The final piece of my success was my use of Write or Die. I'm hoping to edit this novella (The Real Woman) in January. The whole family has been sick for a month, prompting a break from such endeavors, but the real culprit has been holiday shopping. January is a new year!
Pendragon Variety Podcast - I haven't been able to join in on the recordings, but I've been doing a little bit of work on the backend, like uploading the mp3 files. These ladies are pretty funny and insightful, and there are some changes coming next year, so go check it out*! The Ladies have also been involved in a reading of A Christmas Carol.
Theory Train - I've mentioned before that I'm staff on this specific magazine. Recently I helped judge submissions and now issue 3 is out! Keep us in mind if you're looking for something short to read or submit.
Lesson Plans - I used to work in afterschool education and now I'm planning on homeschooling my own kids. They're only two and zero, but that's not too early for lesson plans! I've been writing math activities and looking into teaching at a homeschooler's coop. Bet you didn't know that!
Pendragon Express - We had a great time at *! I started a newsletter for the project, but it's been a bit on hold. What I really need is local people who want to run tables and small events to represent independent publishing. I'd love to play backup, helping prepare displays and talk to authors and the like, but I can't be the main person going to these events. Please let me know if you're interested because otherwise the entire project will need to go on hold.
Flash! Next year I'm hoping to get back into writing flash fiction (regularly. I did write some!) and participating in the drabblecast forums. I thoroughly enjoyed being an active forum member there and I miss the people and the flash fiction - both my own and theirs. And I loved podcasting flash, and even have a mic appropriate for it. Flash fiction fits best into my current life style, what with two small kids, so my obsession with trying and failing with longer forms doesn't make sense. Folded Word might be releasing an anthology of my flash next year. Why not stick with what I know? Here I come #flashfriday and @dribblecast ! I would also like to submit any of said flash any where by the end of the year. Perhaps I'll refine this part of my goals at a later date. ;)
Questions for Writers (tag QfW). My amusement with this has ended! This is not currently in the plans for 2012.

What are your goals? What were your goals last year and what did you accomplish?

TNG Ep. 58: The Defector

2011-12-21T11:00:00.003-05:00

Summary:

The Enterprise rescues a Romulan craft pursued into Federation space by a Romulan warbird. The Romulan warbird turns tail and the single Romulan occupying the craft boards the Enterprise, announcing his intentions to defect and claiming knowledge of a secret Romulan installation in the Neutral Zone. At first Picard is suspicious because the defector claims to be an insignificant clerk, but then Picard learns that the defector is actually Admiral Jarok. Jarok eventually gives Picard detailed tactical information, convincing him to investigate the supposed base. The Enterprise does, only to be attacked by cloaked Romulan ships. The Enterprise is ready with three cloaked Birds of Prey, so the Romulans turn tail. Jarok was set up, used as a pawn to lure the Enterprise into a trap. He can never return to his wife and family because he defected, but staying in the Federation will mean that he is tortured if he does not give up Romulan secrets. He chooses to kill himself, and this ends the episode.

YES. I love the twist at the end of this episode. It would have been too simple if Setal was double-crossing the Enterprise, yet too easy if he really did know about a secret violation of the treaty. Instead, every one gets screwed in some way or another - check mate! Political intrigue isn't my favorite kind of premise for an episode, but I enjoyed this one any way because of how well they characterized Setal and Picard. I also tend to enjoy episodes that can't be easily summed up in four sentences or less.

And I know that last week I was complaining about that episode being depressing, but here it totally makes sense that Setal would kill himself at the end. Where would he go and what would he do, if he were alive? No doubt he had Romulan secrets that he didn't want to tell the Federation despite his defection, and they probably would have just tortured him until he died any way. Usually I'm totally against stories ending in suicide - don't get me started on how much I hate The Awakening! - but this one I can accept, in part because he isn't a main character of the series. The writers wanted to get him out of the way, and I can understand that as long as his actions aren't out of character, which they aren't. Boohoo, a Romulan died. The end.

TNG Ep. 57: The Vengeance Factor

2011-12-14T11:00:00.004-05:00

Summary:

Upon investigating a raided Federation outpost, the Enterprise is drawn into a long-standing clan war among the Acamarian people. One faction, The Gathers, who were responsible for the raid, have exiled themselves from their home planet, refusing to take part in the others' treaty(s) ending the clan wars. Picard convinces the Acamarian Sovereign to once again seek reconciliation. The Sovereign brings her personal servant, Yuta, who secretly attacks one of the Gathers at the first peace meeting. At first it appears as if the man died of natural causes, but Dr. Crusher soon discovers that it was actually a microvirus that had to have been genetically engineered to target a certain Acamarian clan. Data and then discovers that it is Yuta who carries the virus, and Riker rushes to stop her before she can kill The Gathers' leader. He arrives at the peace talks just in time, but must kill Yuta, whom he has been infatuated with. The Acamarians are grateful and go on their way. Riker is put out by the whole affair.

Aw, how sad. But who doesn't love a good murder mystery?

Though, seriously, that woman should give it up. Maybe I just wasn't raised with enough feuding instructions, but I find Yuta's character to be a prime example of why people should grow old and die at a rate proportionate to their fellow human beings. Otherwise you'd have those die-hards (pun intended) who would be carrying on prejudices and the like for eternity, because their papa raised them that way. Think about it - if people didn't die out in their natural time, we'd probably still have segregated buses (or have them again). Note that this is also why cryogenically frozen Klingon soldiers are a bad idea. Yuta might as well have been frozen all this time for as much as she was willing to change her character and sense of purpose.

Poor Riker. They might have been good together if it wasn't for the whole obsessive assassination thing.

TNG Ep. 56: The Price

2011-12-07T11:00:00.003-05:00

Summary:

The Federation is in a bid for what appears to be a stable wormhole, with The Enterprise as its representative. If the wormhole is actually stable, it could mean a cheap form of transportation to wherever the other end of the wormhole happens to hang out. The Ferengi suddenly appear and demand to be included, after which things start to get messy. The Enterprise obtains permission to run some tests on the wormhole, with the stipulation that they share all of the data collected with the other bidders. But, since the Ferengi don't trust any one, the Ferengi insist on being allowed to run their own tests. Meanwhile, Troi has a passionate affair with one of the negotiators who is secretly a mind-reader as well. Their relationship becomes strained when Troi finds out that her new lover uses his powers to deceive his competitors and otherwise gain the advantage. The shuttle team goes through the wormhole and discovers that it is not stable and that the other end does not stay in the same location. They try to warn the Ferengi, but the Ferengi shuttle won't take their word for it and end up stranded, with no possible rescue. Back at the negotiations, Troi's lover has worked up a ploy with the Ferengi that Troi feels she must call him out on, revealing his secret. She ends their relationship. Everyone learns that the worm hole is worthless, and all go their separate ways.

Pluses for this episode include Ferengi, gambling, and distraught Troi. Not that I don't like Troi, but I do have to admit that I like the Soap Opera Factor. Perhaps I should start giving out Soap Opera Points? I bet that the SOP score would correlate with how much I enjoy an episode. This would be especially true when I can stand behind at least one character's choices, because I wouldn't have stayed with Ral, either.

It's also good to have other things happening in the episode. Distrustful Ferengi are always good for a laugh, even when they get stranded by a worm hole which is almost the same as getting dead. And where there's Ferengi, there's often some sort of gambling, and I find it hilarious that they weren't even invited initially. It was also a nice touch that the gambling centered around a tantalizing scientific possibility. Man, what if there really was a stable worm hole? I imagine that after the newness wore off it would become an everyday super highway, even if they couldn't replicate it, but there's always that Ooooo factor when something like that is first discovered. Kind of like "Oooo, fire." Fiiiiiiiiire. Fire is pretty!

Er, I mean... Yay, science!

TNG Ep. 55: The Enemy

2011-11-30T11:00:00.003-05:00

Summary:

The away team beam down to a dangerous planet to find a downed Romulan spaceship. Geordi gets lost on the planet and does not make the rendezvous to beam back up to the ship. Worf and Riker beam up without him, towing along an unconscious Romulan survivor. Dr. Crusher learns that the Romulan will not survive without a transfusion from Worf, which Worf refuses on the basis that he's a Klingon and the dude is Romulan. Meanwhile, another Romulan ship appears and demands that the survivors be returned to them, which causes some hoopla about the neutral zone and who is breaking what treaty more. Back on the planet, Geordi runs into another survivor, and they quickly learn that they must work together in order to survive and get beamed the heck out of there. Once they are beamed back to the Enterprise, Picard returns the Romulan to the other Romulan ship, narrowly avoiding an epic battle.

As the Wonder Pets say: "What's gonna work? Teamwork!"

Feel free to imagine that with cheerleaders and pompoms in addition to the duck, turtle, and hamster. What an unlikely Trio!

One thing the Wonder Pets have over the characters in this episode is that they don't hate each other to start off with. Thus, the title of the episode, in case you were wondering. Team work is easy if you don't hate each other! It's much harder if you're expecting to be killed and/or tortured in the foreseeable future. You don't want to be part of the team work that leads to your own torture, because that makes you a chump. But neither do you particularly want to die. Sigh. Decisions! Decisions are hard!

Yep. That's pretty much the take-away from this episode. Decisions are hard. I suppose that's a solid enough premise.

TNG Ep. 54: Booby Trap

2011-11-23T11:00:00.008-05:00

Summary:

The Enterprise finds an old ship left over from a battle. After inspecting the ship they find that the debris field is a trap. Geordi must figure out how to get the Enterprise out of the trap, and to do so, he has the Enterprise create a holographic projection of a star ship designer - and guess what? She's cute. Together they figure out two methods that might let the Enterprise escape. One requires handing the ship over to the computer, and the other requires shutting down all nonessential functions and drivings the ship manually. Picard drives the Enterprise out of the trap and Geordi says goodbye to his holographic sweetie.

The opening scene where Geordi is on a date was pretty funny. As much as I like the shooty-guns bits of Star Trek, sometimes its nice to be reminded that they actually live on the ship, 24/7, inbetween the alien attacks. There's also a precedent for this kind of topic already. You might remember this scene from "The Dauphin" where Riker and Guinan pretend flirt as an example for Wesley. I probably shouldn't have mentioned that, because in comparison, this scene was pretty lame. Ah well. Maybe its because of the pat answer that Guinan gives, which amounts to "just be yourself." What would have been 'truly amazing' is if that lesson had somehow tied in to the rest of the plot.

OH WAIT. In true Star Trek fashion, it did. Geordi "meets" a young, smart woman - or rather, her holograph - that helps him solve the ship's problems. It's kind of creepy, and by kind of, I mean a lot. At the end of the episode the holograph assures him that she'll always be with him, every time he...touches the ship. And does Geordi learn anything about interacting with real women? Probably just that he shouldn't bother because his one true love is now a woman who is out of his reach on some star base or research station somewhere. Yeesh.

To contrast with the message that holographic women are awesome, the Enterprise crew goes the opposite direction when they escape the mine field. Geordi says that their chances are the same whether they let the computer try or do it themselves, so they opt to do it themselves, with Captain Picard at the helm. I'm all for believing that humans are superior to non-sentient machines, especially if those humans are Captain Picard, but in this case I'm not at all convinced. The escape depended on reaction time and correct calculations, not "intuition". I think the computer could have handled using the asteroids' mass to sling shot around and increase their speed. Letting Picard do it instead is like letting your legally blind great-grandfather drive you to the hospital.

Picard's references to building ships in bottles is cute, but eh. I never built ships in bottles. This episode had a lot of technical babble that I didn't care for, but at least ended with a big explosion.

TNG Ep. 53: The Bonding

2011-11-16T14:14:00.004-05:00

Summary:

The away team accidentally triggers an explosion which kills Lieutenant Marla Aster, leaving behind her orphan son. A mysterious being from the planet appears in the form of the late Marla Aster, claiming to be his mother. The being causes other illusions that are designed to make the boy feel more at ease with his strangely undead mother. When the crew catches on, they try reasoning with both the boy and the alien. Eventually they win out by pointing out that the apparition can never be his real mother, and that he has the other crew members to help him through his grief.

Grief is always a hard subject to tackle, but I think this episode does a good job of it. It helps that they use a kid as the focal point, so that grief can be simplified for the limited time we have to explore it, but Worf and teenage Wesley are also adeptly used. In fact, their interactions with Jeremy are a bit like what self-parenting might sound like. Like, a part of you feels one way, but another, more mature part of you knows better.

And then there's the underlying question of what makes something real. If believing were everything, then insanity wouldn't exist, but if hard facts were everything, then delusions wouldn't exist because there'd be no room for them. Jeremy is offered a tempting fantasy. What, exactly, makes that fantasy wrong? Is it that he would always know that it was just a fantasy, so he could never fully accept it and be happy? Is it that it only mimics a lost reality, and can't actually replicate it exactly? Man, I got philosophy in my Scifi TV!

TNG Ep. 52: Who Watches the Watchers

2011-11-09T11:00:00.005-05:00

Summary:

When the Enterprise stops to repair an observation outpost, the outpost's shields are accidentally disrupted and one of the proto-Vulcan Mintakan are injured. Dr. Crusher beams the Mintakan aboard, fixes him up, and wipes his memory, but something goes wrong with the memory wipe because he remembers seeing Picard. Once returned to his people, he starts a religion revolving around "The Picard" which ultimately can only be stopped by Picard himself showing up and offering to get shot by an arrow. Before that, though, Riker and Troi try other stupid ideas that only cause more chaos.

I like this episode because it deals with Prime Directive issues, but not in the "we're going to break the Prime Directive on purpose" way. Even the Enterprise crew makes mistakes! And does the mistake they make get to be the small, insignificant kind that fizzles out on its own? Ha! No. What kind of an episode would that make?

The one thing that's disappointing about this episode are the various comments degrading religion in general. I have no problem with the premise of the episode being that a religion builds around an alien sighting. Shoot. People make their brains jump through all sorts of hoops to explain what to them is the unexplainable. That doesn't mean that Star Trek has to make it sound like all religious people base their beliefs on random weird things that happened to their predecessors. We just don't want a religion based on an accidental sighting of Picard! And there the episode gets it right - the only way to correct such a mistake is to tell the truth. If the unexplainable is explainable, explain it. Especially if you're the one who caused the misunderstanding in the first place. Even the Prime Directive agrees. (Right? It should).

It is also nice to see that the Enterprise crew tried to fix the problem without revealing themselves further. You know, like they actually care about that Prime Directive thing they all swore to follow. Plus, the episode would have been really short if Picard beamed down at the beginning to tell every one what's what. Instead we had to wait until lives were actually at stake. That's the Star Trek way!

TNG Ep. 51: The Survivors

2011-11-02T11:00:00.006-04:00

Summary:

The Enterprise crew finds a devastated planet with only two survivors. The crew's attempts to convince the two to leave their doomed planet are consistently interrupted by the mysterious appearance of an unknown enemy ship. Meanwhile, Troi is bed-ridden by a psychic audio hallucination of music, music that matches a music box found at the survivors' house. Eventually one of the survivors, Kevin, admits that he is an all-powerful alien who has been causing the enemy ship to appear and the music to play in Troi's head, all to keep from being bothered and/or found out for what he really is. He tells the story of the planet's destruction, and how in a fit of revenge he killed off the entire species that murdered his lover along with the planet. This he regrets, and he had thought to live out his days alone with her specter, created by himself. Picard decides to leave Kevin to his self-exile.

Ah, for once we meet an all-powerful being with something of a conscience, and one who can relate to humans. Oh, I suppose the shape shifters in The Dauphin (Ep. 36) also qualify, but that episode and its Wesley googley-eyes is best forgotten. I'm pretty sure Kevin is more powerful, any way. Something about killing 50 billion beings on a revengeful whim.

There's something about that kind of power that makes the moral question presented intriguing. As a species, we're often struggling to keep our moral compass up-to-date with our newest powers, usually technology. We, too, have weapons that we're reluctant to ever use. Nuclear Holocaust, any one? But this goes beyond that because WWIII would probably harm the very people who unleash such weapons. Kevin's powers are more precise, so he experiences no physical repercussions, even when its a whole species that he wipes out. What would keep us from blowing our enemies to smithereens if we could be sure that we'd suffer no physical harm in return? Whenever we're powerful enough to annihilate someone else, there's usually something like resource dependence, or even powerful third parties, to keep us at bay. What if you could kill your enemy with a thought?

Well, I suppose first you'd enter a truce with the rest of your all-powerful species not to use such powers on each other. And then, if you have a lot of you running around, it could get quite messy if every one is always acting on a whim. You'd think Q would be more careful, eh? But Kevin is different than Q in that he seems to have a conscience quite similar to ours, or what we hope ours to be. He made a mistake and he regrets it. He doesn't like to play god. That makes him a likeable character, and therefore makes this a likeable episode.

TNG Ep. 50: The Ensigns of Command

2011-10-26T11:00:00.006-04:00

Hey, the name for this episode comes from a line in a John Quincy Adams poem. So says Wikipedia.

Summary:

The Enterprise rushes to rescue a lost human colony from the cold-blooded Sheliak. Data, the only one of the crew who can withstand the planet's atmosphere, is tasked with convincing the colonists to leave. His efforts are met with opposition as the leaders of the colony argue for staying and fighting the Sheliak. Data does make one friend, Ard'rian, who attempts to help him. Meanwhile, Picard stalls the Sheliak until he finds a loophole in their treaty with the Federation. The loophole allows the colonists the time needed to evacuate. Data finally convinces the colonists by showing them how powerless they are against advanced technology. Facing certain death as the only alternative, they agree to leave the planet.

As far as episodes staring Data go, this one was not one of the best. Perhaps its the well-intentioned woman following him around like a little puppy. Perhaps its because we're a little too sure that Picard will succeed in getting more time from the Sheliak. Perhaps it was just too predictable. Seriously, they get to save every one? No one is stubborn enough to be left behind, just for the principal of the matter? These colonists aren't nearly as difficult as some of the other people that the Enterprise has tried to help.

I do like the idea that the Federation has a treaty with aliens that can barely stand their existence. I also liked the role reversal - that Data would have been the best person to quibble contracts with the Sheliak, and Picard would have been the best person to convince the colonists that they should leave (or perhaps Riker) but because of the poisonous atmosphere, both must try to do the job that they are less suited for. It's kind of like handing Picard an iron bar to bend in half, and handing Data a puppy to pet and play with - oh, wait, Data did get a sort of puppy. Only, if she had been a real puppy, he might have known what do to with her like he knew what to do with the kid in "Pen Pals" back in episode 41.

So, Picard finds the loophole and Data blows up an aqueduct to show the colonists how pathetic they are. Next.

TNG Ep. 49: Evolution

2011-10-19T11:00:00.004-04:00

Summary:

Wesley accidentally releases nanites on the Enterprise. They then become self-aware and nearly destroy the ship before Data can establish communication with them. The Enterprise is also harboring a scientist who atagonizes the nanites out of fear that they will interfer with his research aboard the Enterprise. He nearly gets himself killed, but after Picard offers to bring that nanites to an unoccupied planet, every one goes on their merry way again. Wesley feels ashamed for his part on the near-disaster. Crusher has returned, and several crew members have been promoted since the end of the second season.

Dr. Crusher is back! Eee!

Ok, I had to get that out of the way first. I never hated the other doctor, but she was never Dr. Crusher, and I like the idea of the mother-son relationship being part of the show. I'm sure that has nothing to do with my having children myself, or that they're both boys. I'd apologize for the tangent, but actually, this episode is mostly about Wesley, the fact that he's growing up, and what that means for his relationship with his mother.

Every one has those mistakes that turn out to not only be really dumb, but really important. For instance, when I was young I accidentally broke a car windshield because I was throwing rocks up into the trees, trying to get a toy down. Yes, I was old enough to know better. I was also old enough to know that the broken windshield was a big deal. That was the day I learned what it really means to tell the truth even when you really, really don't want to. But even if you learn that lesson at a young age, sometimes older children (and adults) convince themselves that they can fix the problem on their own before they have to tell any one. It feels like it should erase the mistake, as much as a mistake can be erased.

The problem, then, can come when you can't fix the problem yourself. It's the big mistakes and the important mistakes that suffer the most from this. They're also the ones that you most wish that you could erase. Stupid reality. Stupid nanobots, eating the ship and becoming sentient.

Wait, take that back a step. It's totally awesome that they become sentient, and Wesley can almost take credit for that. If he'd invented sentient robots without the big mistake looming over his discovery, we'd have to hate him, but as it is, we see that he does have flaws that are't totally annoying. Must be why his mother keeps him around, eh?

TNG Ep. 48: Shades of Grey

2011-10-12T11:00:00.004-04:00

Summary:

Riker contracts a virus that feeds off of endorphines. To treat him, the Enterprise must stimulate his neurons to relive bad memories. Crappy montage follows.

You've got to be kidding me. This is the season finale? It was painful even to write the episode summary. This isn't what I would call an episode at all. This is what I would call "we ran out of money but have contracted to produce one more show."

If you haven't watched this episode yet, don't bother. It's nothing more than a collection of clips from previous shows, and Troi complaining about Riker being in danger.

TNG Ep. 47: Peak Performance

2011-10-05T11:00:00.002-04:00

Summary:

The Enterprise crew trains in a simulated battle using the Enterprise and an old Federation ship, the Hathaway. Riker faces off against Picard, commanding the Hathaway, which is sorely outdated compared to the Enterprise. Riker, with Wesley and Worf's help, tricks the Enterprise into thinking a Romulan ship has appeared, and scores a hit while the Enterprise is distracted. Then a real Ferengi ship appears, and, seeing two Federation ships apparently fighting, tries to take the older Hathaway which they assume must hold something valuable. The Enterprise's phasers are stuck in demo mode but the Hathaway crew uses warp drive to make it look like they've been blown up. Then they cause a phantom Federation ship to appear, and the Ferengi flee. During all this commotion, Data faces off in a game of Strategem against an alien advisor, Sirma, who came to help with the Enterprise's training. The first time, he loses, which sends him into an existential crises. At the end of the episode, he beats Sirma by playing towards a draw instead of a win, causing Sirma to get frustrated and give up.

This episode was designed to erase any dislike you might have still had for Riker. Here we get to see why Picard not only puts up with him, but actually likes him. He's not an immature Picard clone, which would be boring, yet he still has that captain-y potential. He knows how to improvise.

And Wesley knows how to cheat. Yeesh, I wish the writers would decide which way they want to go with his character. One episode he's all gooey-eyed for a girl who just happens to be his age, and then in this one he's treating a simulation as seriously as if it were the life-and-death situation it mimics. Good thing, too, since it turns into a life-and-death reality. Any one see that coming? I did, but I was glad for it, because otherwise this episode would have felt a little too unimportant. Like, blah blah Riker wins.

Oh! Except that we did have Data figure in as a side plot. I suppose if he was a main character in every episode, I'd get bored of him... right? Side plots are good! The writers are convincing me more and more that Data is more than a smart machine. As such, it's appropriate for him to learn what all humans must learn, which is that it's possible to perform perfectly and still lose. Sometimes there is no right answer, or there's more than one. Amazing how that relates to the main plot, too, because Riker's always looking for that other right answer that nobody else sees. What a coincidence, that the two should relate!

True Artists

2011-10-01T11:00:00.000-04:00

True artists can inspire you with the oddest things, such as a kid's TV show.

Everyone who helps produce the Backyardigans must love their job, and it shows. Each show has a musical and dance "theme" and each song helps tell the story of the episode, which in turn is often a take on a well known story such as Zorro. So, you might end up with a hippo singing a song that sounds like "Be my Baby" and talks about escaping from a dungeon. And the animated dances? Dance moves performed by real dancers to aid the animators. This blows my mind.

If they can make an episode where aliens use pancakes to power their ships, I can write about anything.

If my roommate can make a quilt that looks like the embodiment of halloween, I can finish that 30k novella.

If people can sneak out at night and crochet over parking meters, I can submit my work to publishers - and get published.

What inspires you?

TNG Ep. 46: The Emissary

2011-09-28T11:00:00.002-04:00

Summary:

The Enterprise receives an emergency mission to intercept a Klingon crew awaking from hibernation. With the help of half-Klingon K'Ehleyr as ambassador, the Enterprise attempts to convince the Klingons that the war with the Federation is over. In the end it is Worf, not the ambassador, that has the bright idea to bend the truth just a wee bit and make it look like Klingons hold high positions in Federation ships like the Enterprise. Another Federation ship then arrives to take over the Klingon's re-education. During the episode, we also learn that Worf and the ambassador have a previous history together, which quickly develops into a confusing love relationship. When the ambassador leaves, Worf is upset to see her go, and also upset that she won't agree to marry him right then and there.

Human and Klingon half breed? Yes, please. Or, maybe what I liked the most about Ambassador K'Ehleyr was that she is hot. She's intelligent and she smirks. It's almost like her character was created specifically to be a believable love interest for Worf. Much more believable than Data and Tasha, although that's probably Denise Crosby's fault.

The plot didn't hurt, either. It's the kind of thing that feels uniquely scifi because it makes you believe that it requires far-future technology, which in this case is working cryogenics. Actually, you could have a similar plot with spectacular magic in the stead of spectacular technology, but that's the writer in me starting to ramble, and you probably don't want to hear about Rip Van Winkle. Or, if you do, you'd rather hear it from the pen of Washington Irving.

Where was I? Right. Klingons. It is of course positively believable that Klingons that have had the misfortune of being frozen in time would be more difficult to handle than the every day sort. They barely admit that they're human's allies now, so I wouldn't relish trying to convince an ancient generation of that fact. Especially if I wasn't Klingon myself, which if you hadn't noticed, every one on the Enterprise suffers from that ailment, except Worf of course. Unfortunately Worf suffers from being Worf, so the Federation doesn't want to trust him (curse him?) with the task. Instead they send what must be the only Klingon or part Klingon negotiator they have, and even she thinks the mission is impossible. Why? Because they're Klingons! Klingons are always impossible!

Especially if you're trying to convince them to get married. Oh, wait. That's humans. Oh well. I suppose it would have changed the show a bit too much to throw in a new main character by having the Ambassador stay on the ship just because she and Worf spent a night together. Yet, it would have been disappointing if nothing had happened between them, especially with the background presented to us of their former history, their almost-relationship of yore. This way we get proof that Worf can get along with someone, and that he is capable of a romantic relationship. (He's the one who wants to get married, remember?) This is a relief when compared to other hints we've gotten previously, which basically amount to "no way is this man hitching up with a 'normal' Klingon." We like our main characters to at least have that capacity. Heck, even Picard has a past history with a hot old woman.

In the end, the good aspects of this episode can be summed up as: No Klingon death yell and pan out. Seriously, I don't think I can ever let that one go.

TNG Ep. 45: Manhunt

2011-09-21T11:43:00.000-04:00

I was very pleased with myself when I guessed that Troi's mother was about to show up. Nothing else makes her stand up and take the Lord's name in vain quite like that!

Summary:

The Enterprise transports fish-aliens to a conference. To their surprise, they also have to transport Troi's mother. The biggest problem with this fact is that Troi's mother is undergoing a type of menopause where her sexual drive has skyrocketed, and she's chosen Picard as her first target. Picard spends considerable efforts thwarting her, and she finally gives up, but not after thinking for a moment that Riker, of all people, might marry her instead. About to transport to the conference, she reveals that the fish-aliens, who have been in a comatose state until then, are actually assassins. Worf takes them away and every one gets to leave with their skin intact.

My mother pointed out that Wesley wasn't much in the previous episode where we see Troi's mother because of the naked wedding idea. Surprise, but he's not much in this one, either, besides making a few jokes about fish-aliens.

Speaking of which, Worf was absolutely hilarious in this episode. I love how he thinks the fish-aliens are handsome, whereas all the humans think that they look like, well, fish. He doesn't have much better to do besides admire the catatonic fish people, since it's his job to guard them - at least until the end, where Ms. Troi finally does something useful and announces that they're assassins. A good thing, to, since otherwise she was mostly a pain in the butt to the crew.

The only thing I didn't like about this episode was the Dix Hill stuff. It makes sense that Picard would go to his regular fall-back for entertainment, but at the point where he's nearly been "shot" twice, I expected him to turn the dang program off and pick something else. Has he no imagination? I know he's stuffy, but jeez. He could have asked for a beautiful woman in a bar, minus the impending encounter with an illusion who wants to shoot him.

Not that I didn't find everything else amusing. The whole point of the episode was to be amusing, and they pulled it off much better than that very early episode in season one where Picard binds himself with an energy being. In this episode you can actually tell that they're joking around. Actress Majel certainly helps, since she pulls off the characters so very well. It gave the writers a chance to make fun of Data, and it gave Riker a chance to make fun of Picard. Hilarity all around! And no one got assassinated. I call that a win.

Vivid Imagery: Thinking Without Words

2011-09-17T11:00:00.001-04:00

Let me share with you a mental pre-writing exercise I do to improve my imagery. I’m not much of a visual person, so I need to consciously add visuals, and I’m lazy, so I like any thing that theoretically shortens the editing process. Your reasons for trying this out might differ.

So here’s what you do. Sit where there are no distractions and close your eyes. Wear noise reduction head phones, if need be. Now, think about one of your stories. Alternatively, you can see whatever idea comes to mind, or you can start with an image that doesn’t have any attachments. Whatever you’re thinking about, begin banishing all thoughts that contain words. Refuse to even let the words finish forming. Focus on visuals and movement, and anything that doesn’t lend itself instantly to speech. Think without words.

If you just thought, “That’s crazy!” Well, of course it sounds crazy. Crazy is a word, and the word part of your brain thinks of itself as essential to your very being. Words are, after all, the main vehicles by which you communicate ideas to others. Don’t believe me that there is a word part of your brain? It’s called Broca’s area. (Cue Rainbow! The More You Know...) Linguists have a running debate on whether the language you speak shapes the way you think - but the point is, we CAN think without language, and you probably think differently when you think without language’s influence. This can lead to the kinds of ideas that normally wouldn’t even occur to you. Perhaps it will be the germ of a new story, or perhaps you’ll finally light upon something that makes that villain extra memorable.

Example: While practicing this exercise in preparation for this post, I saw a tabby cat with swirls for stripes. Next, a bird with triangles for feathers. There are so many ways I could chose to go with that. Main characters in a children’s book? Golems in a fantasy story? Constructs in steampunk?

And yes, I am essentially asking you to see things that aren’t there. So go to your quiet place, close your eyes, and see what you see.

TNG Ep. 44: Up the Long Ladder

2011-09-14T11:42:00.000-04:00

Who doesn't like a chance to make fun of the Irish?

Summary:
The Enterprise responds to an SOS signal from an unknown Earth colony. The colony's sun is destabilizing, so the Enterprise beams all 200 aboard - them and all their chickens. The colony isn't technologically advanced, but they're also no dummies. They are cultural relics but all-in-all they get along with the Enterprise crew after they discover that they can't set fires in the cargohold. Meanwhile, the Enterprise discovers another colony in the system that was colonized at the same time, but is technologically advanced. Unfortunately, the colony is a colony of clones made from the only five survivors. The clones attempt to steal DNA from Riker and Pulaski after they refuse to give it freely, but Riker and Pulaski freely destroy the incubating clones and shake their fingers at the colonists. Then the crew has a brilliant idea - dump the Irish colony unto the colony that needs breeding stock. Picard manages to convince the two colonies that it's a good idea, and everyone goes happily about their new lives. As a parting note, Dr. Pulaski suggests that to ensure the future of the colony, the first generation of women should each have three husbands.

Compared to the episodes before it, this episode is mediocre. Compared to season one, this episode is still pretty awesome. The best part was the loud-mouthed woman that Riker took a liking - and more! - to. The mediocre part doesn't really come in there, but in little details like OH let's just murder some clones! Or we'll just shout "Murderers!" and that will suffice. Maybe if they'd spent less time making fun of the Irish, they'd've had more time to explore issues like that. Not that I didn't enjoy watching Worf give the colonist a harsh Klingon drink.

The end made me wonder about gene pools in a population. I'm generally familiar with the concept of gene pools and why five people wouldn't work very well for a colony, but I'm wondering how over-simplified Dr. Pulaski's suggestion is. I'm wondering if they could still have monogamous relationships if each simply had enough children. Each child, after all, takes a different bit of its parents genes, like a dice throw with a bajillion sides. But then, I guess each woman would have a harder, or at least different, kind of burden if they each had to have a dozen or so children. Three children begins to sound much better.

And maybe loud-mouth lady already has a child by Riker. That should help the gene pool, if they're lacking in bull-headedness.

TNG Ep. 43: Samaritan Snare

2011-09-07T11:37:00.000-04:00

So, the title spoils it some, but the Enterprise is about to get caught up in some trouble when they go to help some people. Just thought I'd spell that out for you.

Summary:

Picard leaves the ship in order to have his heart replaced, a common surgery that he wishes Dr. Pulaski not to perform for unknown personal reasons. Wesley also leaves to take some kind of Academy examines, although these are never clearly explored. Back on the Enterprise, Riker receives a distress call, which he answers. The aliens that have put out the distress signal appear to have some trouble with their ship, and also appear to have limited mental capacities. Troi warns Riker that something is up, but Riker sends Geordi over any way. The aliens kidnap Geordi and nearly kill him with his own phaser. The Enterprise gets Geordi back by tricking the aliens, and just in time. Picard's surgery is going very badly, and the Enterprise returns so that Dr. Pulaski can save his life. Picard wakes up to find Dr. Pulaski there, grumbles, and everything goes back to normal.

I do like that the aliens are smarter than they first seemed, but still aren't geniuses. It is a little creepy that they look, uh... like certain humans with a certain disorder? Did anyone else catch that, or is my brain making with the crazy? In any case, I do believe that they were purposefully creepy, since they were the antagonists of the episode and all.

The thing that bothers me most about this episode is the idea that they kind of got away with it. They didn't get to keep Geordi, but they're still out there. They're not in prison, or to our knowledge have been put on any sort of social quarantine. We're not left with any sense that the Enterprise bothered to inform any one else of what happened, beyond their usual log reports. I suppose that's because Picard wasn't there to captain. Ha! Just kidding. Riker did a good enough job. He could have listened to Troi a little more, especially considering that he likes her (as in, like like!), but we're long ago convinced that he has his share of arrogance. Man, those aliens? They look totally harmless. It's just the Rabbit of Caerbannog.

Poor Troi. And poor Geordi.

Oh yeah! And Picard almost died. Except that he's Picard, so we knew that he wouldn't actually die. We got to see him look grumpy, though. That saves the episode, right? Seriously, though. The best part of this episode is Picard's crankiness, and his ability to hold it in when he's stuck with Wesley on a six hour flight in a shuttlecraft. Like all kids, Wesley sure knows how to ask questions.

Pantsing: Scene by Scene

2011-09-03T22:51:00.002-04:00

Usually I outline the plot from beginning to end before I set pen to paper (or...fingers to keyboard?). The outline might only exist in my head. It might be short, or vague, or sport a few large holes, but it will contain at least a beginning and an end. I like to know where the story’s headed so that I have a goal to shoot towards and so that I have some idea of how long it’s going to take me to get there. It’s these two things that keep me slogging through to the end of a first draft. At least, this is what I tell myself. Part of my success with outlining is just that I’ve made it a habit, and habits are maintained by, well, by doing them.

Then I took a six month break from writing fiction. I had just been through a move and it had completely obliterated the forward momentum I’d had on a large writing project. I switched to editing a short story and had to abandon that, too. I was suffering morning sickness and “looking forward” to moving some time before the baby was due. Frustrated, I decided that it would be better to take a purposeful break than to feel ashamed for accidentally not getting any thing accomplished*. But now that the break is over, I find myself writing... differently. It’s a bit like how I used to write before I decided to take writing seriously and develop My Way of Doing Things. But that’s not necessarily bad. It feels good to rediscover my roots.

My root is the scene. I used to think that my writing root was the characters, but it’s not. The characters are like the little tendrils that break when you mercilessly yank that pansy out of the pot for replanting. They grow to fit the container you put them in, and they regrow after you brutalize them like the heartless, character-murdering god you are. The scene, on the other hand, is how you present to the reader not only the characters but all the other good stuff, like car chases. And the Big Idea. You know, whatever there’s room to include.

The interesting thing about my scenes is that I also plan these in advance, even if “in advance” is only ten minutes beforehand. Envisioning scenes in my head is simply how I think about my stories most of the time, and although details such as exact wording will change once it’s actually written, I never find myself staring at the proverbial blank page. I do this because I can’t stand the idea of wasting time, so I’m brainstorming through scenes when I’m doing things like getting ready for bed or waiting at the doctors. If I give up on a story, it’s always at a scene break. That part hasn’t changed.

But now, instead of these scenes following an outline, they follow what I can only describe as developing action. I’ve got a basic world idea, a main character, and a theme. The more scenes I write, the more characters and events I have to draw from for following scenes. I think of two characters together, or a theme like, what would this character think about such-and-such? and from that come the scenes in my head. Then, before I actually write the scenes, I try to eliminate any that don’t have enough forward action. By forward action I mean any kind of discovery, decision, or action that has significance for the theme of the story and/or the main character. Compared to my usual method, this is flying blind. This is writing [i]too early[/i], before I know how the story will end or even who all of the main characters are. Example? After writing in it for a week, I finally have bad guys.

Part of me is screaming - how can I possibly finish a story like this? Won’t I paint myself in a corner at some point, or run out of ideas? But then the rest of me is enjoying myself. I’m banging out 1000 words a day after 0 words a day for six months. And since I naturally tend towards short fiction writing, 1000 words a day is a pretty good haul for me**. 2000 words is when I go buy myself (and my toddler) ice cream.

I suppose I won’t know how I feel about this New Way until I see how the project turns out. In the mean time you can take bets on if this hobbled-together method will have me cursing myself by Christmas, or if I’ll turn out with a workable first draft. If I do, maybe I’ll find some way to refine the method or explain it in more detail.

Does this sound like any thing you do? What works and what doesn’t, for you? Maybe I’ll get lucky and one of you will give me a heads up for what NOT to do when writing by the seat of your pants. Ready, set, COMMENT. Do your good deed for the day.

*Technically I wrote a couple thousand words during this break. That’s kind of like saying that you exercise at work by walking to the water cooler.
**Seriously. The first draft of this post was 1000 words and it felt like the longest thing ever.

TNG Ep. 42: Q Who

2011-09-01T11:00:00.001-04:00

Summary:
Q appears and asks to join the Enterprise. When Picard informs him that the Enterprise crew doesn't trust him enough, Q insists that the Enterprise needs him. To illustrate, he flings them years away from any Federation starbases, where they meet the Borg. The Borg are a collective entity that captures and consumes other species and their technology. Gaigan, who turns out not to be a human, reveals that her people have encountered the Borg and faired poorly because of it. The Borg nearly destroy the Enterprise, but at the last minute, Q deigns to save them when Picard is willing to ask him for help. Picard talks with Gaigan about the future of the Federation, now that the Borg are probably coming for them.

I KNEW IT. I knew it was the Borg!

Honestly, I think this episode must have been more exciting for me than it would have been for the people first watching it without any future knowledge of Star Trek. For me, I know that we'll be seeing the Borg again. I mean, yes, they tell you that at the end of the episode, but Star Trek hasn't had the best reputation with continuity up to this point, and I knew before they even had to say it. The Borg was my favorite part of Voyager (or the only part I liked. I can't remember for sure). I am extremely pleased that this episode and the Borg reach back all the way to the first season finale. In fact, I'm going to have to start reminding myself that this particular Star Trek series is actually trying for overreaching plot and continuity. In case you weren't convinced earlier, this is no TOS. And that's coming from someone who loves TOS.

Another clue that continuity is the new in-word: Q is back! I knew he would be, from what I vaguely remembered from when TNG first aired, but I worried about how they would bring him back. Thankfully, it was plausible. It was quite apparent last time that Q pissed off some of his fellow Q people, so now we learn that they have rightfully kicked him to the curb. I enjoy the fact that he wants to join the Enterprise, but doesn't understand why they don't want him. He manages to make his point in the end, but there's also the subtle fact that he proved their point - Q is untrustworthy. He flung them at the Borg, for goodness' sake.

The one thing I'm confused about is Gainan. The other characters act like her alieness is no surprise to them, so from the viewer's perspective, it's like the writer's were winging it. I mean, 10 Forward didn't even exist when we first saw Q in season one, otherwise we would have heard about some of this silliness then. I don't mind her being powerful or knowledgeable, I suppose, but I do hate it when it feels like the writers are just throwing darts at a board. Maybe the explanation would be that Gainan joined the ship between the two seasons. Hopefully, since season two has been so much better than season one, we can look forward to less scrambling to fill in plot holes like this one.

To summarize, Borg + Q = awesome!

TNG Ep. 41: Pen Pals

2011-08-31T11:35:00.002-04:00

Summary:

At first you might think that the plot is going to involve a great deal of Wesley, but we're quickly saved from this when Data gets a primitive radio signal from a dying planet. The voice on the signal is a little girl, and soon Data has the whole Enterprise rushing to violate the prime directive to go save his new friend. When the Enterprise gets there, the trouble with the planet turns out to be something geological that Wesley knows how to fix. While they right the planet, Data beams down and personally saves his little friend, who lives way too close to exploding volcanoes. Then, they wipe her memory and return her to her parents on the surface, leaving Data oh-so-lonely. As a last act of defiance - er, I mean, tenderness - Data leaves a stone as a comforting trinket for the girl, once again violating the Prime Directive.

The weakest part of this episode is that Data didn't get in trouble for any of his bending of the Prime Directive. ... No, wait. The worst part was the kid's makeup. Flashbacks to the lizard suit in TOS, anyone? Anyway, the fact that Data made a little friend is adorable, because deep down, we want to see Data as being a child himself. He's like pinochio, just wanting to be a real boy. With super human killing strength and amazing intelligence.

I love it that Data had contact with this little girl without informing his supervisors, as he technically should have. You see, he's smart enough to know that Picard will probably tell him to stop talking to his new friend, and it's easier to ask forgiveness than permission (as the Bynars have already pointed out). Data also knows that he's likely to follow the Captain's orders as long as they jive with general Star Fleet principles, because he's sworn loyalty to Star Fleet and to Captain Picard. So, it was easier for him not to tell Picard, and it makes Data intelligent in a way that's more than just equations and correlations. It's almost, dare I say it, emotional intelligence. And indeed, by waiting, Data helps force the hand of Picard and the Enterprise into helping his little friend.

Some people might be annoyed that Picard broke the Prime Directive, but let me remind you that this isn't the first time they've bent those particular rules. The Prime Directive is a principle, but not one that always makes sense for an individual case. It's the delicate balance we all have to achieve when our principals run into each other, for instance, the principal that we like to help people, versus the prime directive. Real life isn't as simple as our supposed absolutes. As for the Enterprise possibly getting in trouble for their actions in this episode, I see to recall being pleased that another of Picard's Prime Directive flaunts was called into question near the end of season one. Because of that, I feel it's unnecessary for us to see such a calling out again. The gist I get is that yes, the rules are very important to Star Fleet (otherwise why have them?) but they love people like Picard specifically because they trust him to know when to break the rules. I mean, they'll investigate him or what have you, but they don't put people in charge of ships like the Enterprise unless they have some common sense and some empathy, some humanity. They don't promote people to Captain if they wouldn't want to serve under them. At least, not in a perfect universe. And for this episode, everything turned out perfectly. They saved the little girl, and the only hitch is that she can't remember.

But Data can remember. Daaaaaaaw...

TNG Ep. 40: The Icarus Factor

2011-08-24T11:26:00.000-04:00

Summary:
Riker is offered a promotion, but it requires him to not only leave the Enterprise, but talk to his dad. It turns out he has some daddy issues that stem back to his father being just as stubborn and competitive as he is. After avoiding him for much of the episode, Riker engages his father in a martial arts match, which puts the two back on track with their relationship. Troi and Dr. Pulaski also talk about relationships, specifically theirs with Riker and his father. Riker decides not to take the assignment. He doesn't say why exactly, but his attraction to Troi might have something to do with it.

Thank goodness. This episode could have gone wrong in so many ways. I mean, Riker? (Ha.) Father-son issues? ... Klingons? There's even a fake Asian martial arts, but that didn't bother me because I'm not a martial artist. I'm sure any one who knows anything about real fighting would be popping veins over this episode, but for me it was just a pseudo-futuristic tool to make the boys actually talk to each other.

Speaking of which, I found the women's commentary hilarious, and gender stereotypes be darned. I've always believed that it would be impossible to get rid of all gender roles in our society, so if Star Trek had gone all high-and-mighty on that point, it would have been as ridiculous as when the crew talked about Capitalism in Season One. Instead we get a couple of grin-worthy jokes about stubborn men. In truth, it's nice to see that Riker's personality actually comes from somewhere, from both his upbringing and whatever genetics contribute to such things.

And, I can't leave off this episode without mentioning the Worf subplot. I can't say that I didn't find it a little humorous where it wasn't supposed to be, but I did appreciate the parallels between the two plots. Rights of passage and all that. Of course, we fully expect Klingon rights of passage to involve pain and yelling. Kudos to Wesley for putting up with that, eh? It's one of the few times the boy gets to show that he's actually growing up.

Why "The Hunger Games" Trilogy Is Excellent

2011-08-18T08:21:00.005-04:00

... It made me cry. So very few things make me cry. Out of all the books I've ever read, the only other ones that have brought tears to my eyes have been "Bridge to Terabithia", despite already knowing the ending, "Stranger in a Strange Land", and (cough) "The Lord of the Rings," although I'm not quite sure why for that last one.

To give some perspective: Other things that have made me cry include the beginning of the movie Up, but not the ending of Grave of the Fireflies. Meat Loaf's song "Objects in the Rear View Mirror May Appear Closer than They Are" is banned in my household because it makes me break down EVERY TIME, but I can hear "Seven Spanish Angels" (Willie Nelson and Ray Charles) and "The Little Girl" (John Michael Montgomery) without batting an eye.

And then of course there are plenty of non-comedic things that are excellent but don't make me break down into tears. You probably already know that the Thomas Covenant series is one of my all time favorites,* but that never elicits any tears. Neither did "A Boy Called It" despite it being a true story about horrendous abuse. I still hold these books in high esteem, but there's something special about the ones that actually make you sniffle (...or sob). So, what makes something a tear-jerker? What's the difference between a novel that has sad, dramatic scenes and one that actually makes your bottom lip tremble?

And why am I SUCH a girl? (Just kidding!)

*If you don't already know this, then you haven't been listening to Pendragon Variety (.com)

TNG Ep. 39: Time Squared

2011-08-17T11:24:00.000-04:00

You can tell by the name that this episode will have something to do with time. I'm a sucker for wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff! Er, even when it's not Dr. Who. ANYWAY.

Summary:

The Enterprise runs across a damaged shuttlecraft, which upon rescue, turns out to be an Enterprise shuttlecraft with Captain Picard in it. That makes two of them - both the shuttlecraft and Captain Picard were already on board, and it turns out that the new Captain and shuttlecraft are from six hours in the future. The crew also recover, with some difficulty, a partial video and log from the future shuttlecraft which shows the Enterprise being shot to pieces inside of some kind of vortex. The crew debates about fate and whether a time loop can be broken. In the meantime, the future Captain Picard is unhelpful because being out of time has put him in a kind of half-coma-nightmare state which only wears off as the Enterprise reaches his rightful time. The Enterprise encounters the vortex, which seems to be sentient, and all attempts to escape fail. Picard confronts Picard in his attempt to define his options and chose the best one. He choses to send the Enterprise into the vortex, and it works - unfortunately he has to shoot himself to do it, but at least the dead Picard and the future shuttlecraft disappear, leaving only O'Brian and the Doctor as the wiser. (Haha, the Doctor...)

I like that Picard decides to continue on their previous course, knowing that time loops aren't so easily avoided as simply turning around. Or maybe they are, but we don't get to find that out. Kidding, kidding. Picard seems to have learned from all his encounters with super powerful alien beings that like to run experiments on the Enterprise and so forth. The universe isn't that simple or that easily foiled, otherwise the episodes would be much shorter.

This episode doesn't connect much to the emerging overall plot of TNG, but I still felt that it was done well. The episodic quality is used to emphasize that "where no man has gone before" feeling. The Enterprise meets something strange, but it's a short encounter, and they don't have to learn everything about the vortex-creature for the episode to end. They're mostly just glad that they survived!

Except for future-Picard. He did not survive. Even if you take into account that he no longer exists because the time loop was broken, for a moment there, present-Picard shot him and he was dead. I have to say, that's pretty ballsy. It's one thing to know intellectually that you have to shoot someone who is, in one sense, you, and quite another to actually do it. On the one hand I'm willing to bet that Picard has personally shot people to death before. We know that he's at least ordered the destruction of a hostile Ferengi ship, but I mean that he's probably killed people in one-on-one combat. How else would he have survived so long in such a dangerous line of work? But then add on top of that the fact that it was himself that he shot, and... Well, I wouldn't want to be him. Or at least, I wouldn't want to be the sacrificed future-him!

TNG Ep. 38: The Royale

2011-08-10T11:33:00.001-04:00

It's kind of like a holodeck episode, minus the holodeck.

Summary:

The Enterprise finds a strange building on a strange planet. While investigating, they find the remains of a long-dead NASA astronaut - Also, the away team becomes trapped in a Casino-like atmosphere as described in a book that the astronaut happened to have on him. It appears that the casino was constructed by misguided aliens who wanted to give the astronaut a nice home after accidentally killing every one else on his crew. To escape, the away team must analyse the novel and convince the artificial patrons that they are the "foreign investigators" described therein. Luckily, the novel's fairly predictable.

Unfortunately for this episode, the back story sounds more interesting. We don't actually get to meet any aliens, just stereotypical casino lurkers. Now, the premise of the aliens basing their construction off of a book, and the away team being trapped therein, that part is fine. That's the interesting part, the part that screams Twilight Zone. But a casino? Eh. Didn't we have a mobster holodeck episode back in Season One? Also also in the original series? For some reason casinos and mobsters are linked in my mind, and Sherlock Holmes isn't all that tangential. So, for me, this episode feels like the revolving door that poor Riker tries to leave out of. Man, I hate revolving doors.

You know what might have been cool? If the astronaut were still alive! That might have added some urgency to the situation, even if the Enterprise wasn't able to save him in the end. It might have introduced more screaming and horrified looks. Screaming is always good!

TNG Ep. 37: The Contagion

2011-08-03T11:31:00.001-04:00

Summary:

The Yamato experiences systems failures while investigating the fabled, extinct Iconian civilization within the neutral zone. The Enterprise changes course to assist, but the Yamato experiences warp core breach and is destroyed in the meantime. Upon their arrival, the Enterprise also experiences systems troubles, caused by a virus transmitted by an automatic probe from Iconia. Picard, Data, and Worf beam down to the planet to investigate, and find a portal that rotates its destination. Data attempts to access the Iconian computer systems but also becomes infected with the virus. Back on the ship, Data eventually shut down and reboots automatically, restoring his systems to a save point from before the virus was introduced. At the same time, a Romulan Warbird decloaks near the Enterprise and seems to be experiencing the same problems. Geordi, using Data as inspiration, clears the Enterprise of the virus, and the Romulans are also able to reboot their computers.

I like how the virus problem in this episode is relatable to computer problems I've personally experienced, yet I'm not quite sure how realistic it is that Geordi wouldn't already have the solution at his fingertips. Maybe, since spaceships aren't directly and permanently connected to any larger network, computer viruses aren't usually a problem. Yet, viruses aren't the only thing that can force you to reload an operating system. The more I think about it, the more I'd better ask my dad if I'm using the right tech lingo here, or if I even know what I'm talking about...

... and I don't. His words were something along the lines of "that's not how it works but you can still use that as an example." Shoot. Star Trek, you win this one! I can't critique something I don't understand.

I guess that leaves me with the obligatory "Data is Awesome!" commentary. I like that he has an automatic reboot, because if he didn't, that'd be ridiculously stupid of Soong. And I'm glad that Geordi can take a hint.

GO ENTERPRISE.

And Now for Something Completely Different!

2011-08-01T11:36:00.004-04:00

After a month of just Star Trek (and a baby picture or two), I'm going to back to the previous once-a-week schedule, and on top of that, post about anything else. Like, that #flashfriday thing that I like to participate in? Or Pendragon Variety? Or Theory Train? Pendragon Express? All of those things that you haven't heard about in at least a month.

In fact, I've got a piece of micro-fiction for you now:

Birds chirped sweetly in the gray morning air, stirring a rumble from underneath the roots. "Who dares wake me?" demanded the tiny dragon, practicing.

TNG Ep. 36: The Dauphin

2011-07-21T11:34:00.001-04:00

Summary: The Enterprise transports future world ruler, Salia, and of course, things can never be easy. First they run into problems with Salia's protector, who is, well, very protective. Secondly, Wesley tries to convince Salia to stay on the Enterprise because he loves her. He kisses her and they flirt. Then it turns out that both Salia and her protector are both powerful shapeshifters, which complicates matters. It also turns out that Salia has a duty to her people, and so she decides not to stay on the Enterprise. Wesley is shocked and disappointed. Every one goes home sad.

This is the episode that explains to me what some people don't like about Wesley's character. Now, that's not to say that I didn't enjoy it, but when I try to single out it's merits, I come up basically empty-handed. It's a typical boy-meets-girl, only with a shapesifter thrown in as the girl.

It's nice to be reminded that Wesley is old enough to kiss, but his character is so naive that it hurts. Specifically, his 6-year-old-like resentment of the fact that she is a shapeshifter. And this from the dude who's best friend is blue and can't breathe our air. You'd think he'd be a little more tolerant. Heck, he could even be thrilled to have kissed a super-powerful being.

It also made me roll my eyes that he felt so betrayed that she was leaving. I was never convinced that he should believe there was a good chance of her staying, especially after Riker told him to forget about it. (Thank you, Riker. That made me laugh). Come to think of it, the most entertaining part of this episode is the banter between Riker and

I mean, Wesley asking the adults for dating advice? Sure. Even adults ask other adults about that stuff. Acting like a baby because she's a shapeshifter?

Meh. I guess not every episode can be "Riker lives with Klingons."

TNG Ep. 35: The Measure of a Man

2011-07-19T11:34:00.001-04:00

No! Don't cut open Data!

Summary: Data receives a transfer order from Star Fleet that essentially requires him to undergo brain surgery, performed by a doctor Maddox that doesn't even believe he is sentient, and more importantly, hasn't done enough research to prepare for the operation. Data is worried that the procedure will strip him of his personality, a personality which Maddox does not even acknowledge exists. Picard brings the problem to Starfleet Judge Advocate General Philippa Louvois, who reveals that the Enterprise must prove that Data is not just property, so that Data can legally refuse the order from the Federation. Problem is, Riker must represent Maddox or there can be no trial because the Judge Advocate is currently understaffed. Picard then sets out to prove that Data has more than just strength and intelligence, but also wishes, desires, and many of the same things that humans have. The judge determines that Data is sentient, and therefore cannot be property. Data officially refuses the operation, but promises Maddox that he is interested in his research and may be willing to cooperate in the future, after Maddox has worked out more of the details.

The theme of this episode certainly wasn't unique, but I also feel that it couldn't have been placed earlier, like anywhere in season one. We had to see enough development of Data's character to believe the resolution here, and in that sense it certainly was a success. And, of course, it was a success because it had significant amounts of Brent Spiner's acting. And there weren't any lines that made me groan, so the writers held up their end on the dialogue.

This episode also benefited Picard's character, and was benefited by it. In a way it harkens back to that first episode where Picard was forced to argue on behalf of all humanity in Q's court of law. Except of course with less Q, and more of a stubborn, anal retentive woman that gets along with Picard only slightly better. Something about the court martial of the Stargazer, Picard's old ship. I gather Picard isn't very fond of trials.

But back to Data, since he and Picard are the only real characters in this episode - sorry Riker, but you get the shaft here once more as a second fiddle. Anyway, Data was awesome. The end.

TNG Ep. 34: A Matter of Honor

2011-07-17T11:33:00.001-04:00

Honor. This episode couldn't possibly be about Klingons, could it? Yes! It could!

Summary: Picard suggests that Riker joins a new species exchange program - specifically, that Riker join a Klingon ship and try not to get murdered. Riker loves the idea of the challenge and the notoriety of being the first human to serve on a Klingon ship. In fact, he does pretty well until the Klingons discover a hull-eating substance that they believe to have been planted by the Enterprise. Actually, the miscommunication is the fault of another exchange student, who saw the substance on the hull of both ships, but withheld reporting it until his analysis could be completed. The Enterprise rushes to warn the Klingons, but by then the Klingons are pissed off and have cloaked themselves, prepared to fire. Riker tries to reason with the Klingon captain but ends up having to trick him instead. Thanks to an emergency beacon that Worf gave him before he left the Enterprise, the Klingon captain ends up being transported to the command deck of the Enterprise. Riker takes over the Klingon ship just long enough to resolve the conflict in a manner satisfactory to both parties. The Klingon captain is returned to his ship, and Riker is returned to the Enterprise, sporting a nasty-looking bruise on the side of his face.

Riker with Klingons? I wouldn't have thought of it myself, but it turns out that Riker's pretty good with Klingons. About time he was good at something. His character has taken a pretty hefty beating in the last several episodes, especially when it comes to his relationships with the other sex. But Klingon women? With them, it's appropriate to make jokes about three-somes. The last time Riker had this much luck with women is when he actually got to sleep with one on Angel One. Lady killer, that one.

But who needs the ladies when you're a man's man? Wait, I'm not sure that came out right... What I meant is that Riker gets along with the Klingons because they are macho men (and women). And, to his credit, because he does the prerequisite research. Worms for dinner? No problem. Riker already ate worms that time that he was pretending to be a body-snatcher.

So I guess what I'm saying is that I really want to like Riker, and now maybe I can. Hesitant cheer! And Klingons. I really want to like he Klingons, death yell not withstanding, and this episode certainly didn't hurt that. YARRRRG! And pan out.

Family Bed to the Toddler Bed

2011-07-16T20:42:00.003-04:00

This post is a bit time sensitive, what with it mentioning the upcoming baby, so consider it a bonus in your Star Trek month!

-----------

Since my last post about our struggles with the family bed, we've moved, transitioned C to the toddler bed in his new room, and the new baby is just a week or so away. The only thing that has not changed is that C still moves around and kicks us too much to spend all of his sleeping time sleeping next to us. And even if he didn't, as much as I'd like a family bed, a Queen isn't big enough for four of us, especially when I'll be recovering from a C-section.

Ok, I have to take that back. I know that if we really, really wanted a family bed, we could have one. Our mattress is already on the floor, and we would just need another to put another on the floor beside it - and to rearrange some furniture, possibly get rid of a dresser, to make the room. During my recovery, C could sleep with Daddy in the family bed and I could sleep in another room with infant P, then we'd join up again when I was recovered and P was old enough. C would sleep on one side of us and P on the other. Lots of families manage that sort of arrangement, right? Well, as much as I love to cuddle my kid (kick-happy as he is), I do like to have SOME time away from him, and he's just too young to understand that he can't climb over the infant. Plus, that dresser has stuff in it.

So, we did finally kick him out of the family bed. He now has his own room, and a toddler bed, and he was almost two years old. (He is two, now). Strangely, C didn't have trouble with going to sleep in the toddler bed. The first night we set it up, I put his cuddly toys in it, told him it was his big boy bed, and he climbed right in and fell asleep. Amazing! Other parents have always told me how difficult the transition was. C was old enough and he knew what a bed was for. Not that he goes to bed like that every night, but any trouble he gives us has less to do with the bed and more to do with teething and that sort of thing. Now if only he would sleep the whole night there.

At first I let him into our bed when he'd wake up in the middle of the night. My bad. I was sleepy and I knew that it was the fastest way for me to get back to sleep. I was already missing the family bed and cuddle time. But, just like giving your child a bottle every night, it trains him to keep waking up every night. Forever. The fact that C would sometimes sleep in when he slept with us doesn't really make up for that. So I had to be a mean ole mommy and make him get back in his bed, even when that means me staying awake in his room for an hour or more. Now the rule is that he can't cuddle with mommy until after dawn, because that's past his usual wake up time, so cuddle time doesn't usually turn into sleeping. The rule works pretty well. In fact, for three nights in a row he slept all the way through the night and I was thrilled. Half the time he doesn't even want to come to our bed in the morning and instead goes straight to his toys. After Mommy assures him that she has not disappeared, of course.

So for those three nights we had complete success with the transition from family to toddler bed. Then? Then he started getting his two-year molars. Arg! It's always something, isn't it? Even if he goes back to sleeping through the night soon, next his brother will be waking us all up. C and P will have a grand ole party waking up their parents every night!

... Wish us luck!

TNG Ep. 33: Unnatural Selection

2011-07-15T11:32:00.001-04:00

Oh, Star Trek. You and your clever episode titles.

Summary: Following a distress call, the Enterprise finds that the entire crew of the USS Lantree have died of the rapid onset of... old age. Naturally, this concerns the Enterprise greatly, so they download relevant data from the ship, place the ship on quarantine and hurry to the Lantree's last known port to warn the inhabitants there of the danger. Unfortunately the Darwin Genetic Research station is already showing signs of this rapid aging disease. The Station is most concerned about their genetic experiments, human children that have been genetically engineered. The children don't appear to be ill and may not be able to care for themselves after all of the affected adults have died. Dr. Pulaski, determined to prove that the children are not infected, ends up getting infected herself and she and Data land on the research station to help in their race against time. Through collective the efforts of the researchers, Dr. Pulaski, Data, and the Enterprise crew etc., they not only discover the cause, but manage to return everyone to good health. It turns out that the children were not just carries of the disease, but the cause; they release antibodies that aggressively seek out airborne pathogens and, in the process, mess with the DNA of regular humans.

The thing that impressed me the most is how well thought out this episode is. Sure, it's a bit generic in that this kind of plot could happen in any far-future scifi (and many not-so-far...) but at least if you're going to do a common theme, do it right. Make the details of the problem and of the characters' reactions believable. And this episode did, for the most part.

In fact, the only part that made me mutter under my breath was the very beginning. First off, it became clear that the episode was going to feature the new doctor, and I still miss Dr. Crusher. But mostly, the dialogue about her felt stilted. It was like telling me that the episode was going to be about her by writing said message on the frying pan swung at my face. If I try to forget the actual impact, I can just read the imprint on my forehead.

But really, the rest was realistic. I liked that the scientists at the research lab were blind to the possibility that their experiments caused the trouble. If the kids aren't sick, it can't be them, right? I also like how they neglected to mention that their 12 year old boys look 21. Real people are obtuse like that, blind to information that doesn't fit into their paradigm. Scientists are no exception.

Most of all, I liked that the crew was smart enough not to board the Lantree when their scans showed that there were no life signs aboard. Instead, they remotely control the Lantree so that they can turn the viewscreen on and at least see inside first. It's that sort of touch that not only gives you faith in the characters, but lets you believe that Star Trek is happening in the 24th century. It's like they have technology and military-esque training or something!

And Dr. Pulaski? I guess she wasn't that bad. I liked learning that she has a stubborn streak, but I'm not sure what else we learned besides the predictable "I believe that human life is sacred!" At least in fiction, that's why main characters become doctors. The rest is gravy. Or, the rest is a chance to show that you can act. Sigh.

TNG Ep. 32 The Schizoid Man

2011-07-13T11:26:00.002-04:00

Summary: The Enterprise responds to a distress call for scientist Graves, leaving an away team while they briefly take care of another distress call from a nearby freighter. The away team learns that Graves is dying of a degenerative disease that attacks the nervous system. Data learns that Graves was Soong's teacher, and at Grave's request, calls him Grandpa. Graves had planned to transfer his intellect into a computer he built, but secretly uses Data instead and is thusly transported to the Enterprise with the rest of the away team and his young assistant, Kareen. Eventually "Data's" strange behavior tips the crew off and they figure out what Graves has done. Graves also tells Kareen, who cries and says that she does not want to be put into a machine as he proposes. Upset, Graves accidentally fractures her hand, then goes on to "accidentally" injure several others. Picard confronts Graves about his true identity and these "accidents." Gravea strikes Picard, thus validating Picard's concerns. The crew then find Data - himself, again - next to a computer console into which Graves has imported his intellect, sans his emotions. Data doesn't remember a thing and the crew make a few jokes at his expense.

Wow. Brent Spiner. I thought I always liked Data because he's an android and that's just cool. No. I think that even as a kid Brent Spiner's excellent acting was the main draw for Data and - dare I say! - the rest of the show. Usually, having one actor support an entire episode by playing two characters? Bad idea. But wait! It's Brent Spiner, so it's ok.

Seriously, the man has the ability to convince me that he's two different people in one body. He knows how to use different tones and mannerisms to clue you in to who he's playing at the moment. It makes you believe that the other characters could guess the change - and in fact, if they didn't, you'd think them dense.

And props to the writing in this episode. Unlike a certain early episode in season one, the dramatic irony is pulled off well, so that it doesn't make all the characters look like morons for not guessing at the mystery earlier. More specifically, I like how certain turns of phrase that Graves uses, and perspective that only Graves would have, really connected Graves-in-Data with Graves-before-Data.

And, I admit, I've always found the two-personalities-in-one-body idea fascinating. Anything that provides a disconnect between the physical body and/or people's expectations, and how that personality secretly wants to act. I always loved Quantum leap for that. Although with Data I'm rooting that the disconnect be discovered.

In other words, this episode was like the perfect mixture of champagne and orange juice. Mmmm, mimosa.

TNG Ep. 31 Loud as a Whisper

2011-07-11T11:25:00.000-04:00

Summary: The Enterprise picks up experienced negotiator Riva and delivers him to Solais V at the request of the natives. Upon retrieving Riva, The Enterprise learns that he is deaf and that his "chorus" of three people speak for him thanks to some kind of telepathy. Riva flirts with Troi and probably would have flirted with Geordi if Geordi was female. Once they arrive on Solais V, Riva's chorus is killed in a sudden attack. Riva then wants to give up on the negotiations but Counselor Troi helps him see that he is still the best one for the job. Meanwhile, Data has learned Riva's native sign language, which helps him communicate with Troi and the rest of the crew. At Riva's request, the Enterprise leaves him on Solais V to continue the negotiations alone. Riva's plan is to teach the warring factions sign language.

I like that the galaxy's most trusted negotiator isn't the most tolerant and understanding person in the universe. In fact, he's ruling class and probably a bigot. At the very least, he believes that his personal capabilities, including the ability to negotiate, lie in his priveledged chorus. Not that he doesn't care for the people who make up his chorus, but he's a bit on the selfish side. It's all about him, or, er, all about him and the lovely Troi. She's a telepath, you see, and so she is worthy of his attention.

Good thing, I guess, because she's the one who points out to him that he is being selfish when he refuses to negotiate. Does that make Troi a good negotiator, too, since she negotiated a negotiator to continue negotiating? Ow. My head.

Lastly, I like Riva's solution at the end, but it made me feel a little sorry for Data that his ability to sign was used so little. Does he now delete that knowledge from his data banks? Can he even do that? Hmn...

C's B-day!

2011-07-09T22:00:00.000-04:00

Come on, you know I can't resist posting pictures of C on his birthday. And right before the new baby is born, too!

Last year, at C's first birthday:

This year, at his second--

It didn't occur to me until I was writing this post that the main difference between his first birthday and his second birthday is mobility. I mean, C was walking by the time he was 1, but in order to get him to sit still while he "ate" his cake, and then for the presents, we basically trapped him in a toddler chair designed to imprison children that age. By his second birthday, he understands enough rules about where he can and cannot smear chocolate cake, and then as a plus his cupcakes weren't chocolate at all. He also doesn't fall as easily. I mean, look at him! Running. In slippers!

And proof that he'll sit down without being imprisoned?

Daaaaaaaaaaw. Happy birthday to my sweetie!

TNG Ep. 30: The Outrageous Okona

2011-07-07T11:24:00.001-04:00

Summary: The Enterprise stops to help repair a small vessel, but in doing so finds itself in the middle of a political argument. Two separate governing bodies demand to take custody of the vessel's rouge occupant, Okona. Did Okona steal the crown jewel? Did he impregnate the young princess? Nope and nope. Okona reveals that the two "crimes" are actually the result of a secret love affair between the princess and the rival prince.

Ok, this one is kind of ridiculous, but it was also fun. Who is Okona and why do we care? It's not like he's trying to reach a parallel dimension or anything. Ha.

I enjoyed the character, though. He reminds me of Han Solo and Wesley from Princess Bride. He's like what they wanted to make Riker be, but then they realized that such a man would never make it to second in command. Or attract the likes of Troi. But I digress.

I totally guessed that the crimes were false accusations! Usually it's bad if I guess stuff, but since there were young lovers involved, I was willing to suspend my disbelief. Or maybe the previous episode was so incredibly bad that almost anything looks acceptable by comparison.

I also caught it when Okona was playing with the all-important jewel. Dang. I guess I just liked the man's smile or something.

TNG Ep. 29: Elementary, Dear Data

2011-07-05T11:00:00.002-04:00

It's rare that I actually hate an episode. Sure, I'll complain. I'll point out flaws - sometimes begrudgingly. But rare is the episode where I say "don't even bother." Don't watch it. It will only leave a bad taste in your mouth.

Summary: Stuff happens. Arg. Ok, ok. Geordi and Data decide to have a little Sherlock Holmes fun in the Holodeck, but Geordi accidentally gives the holodeck computer a dangerous challenge: design an antagonist capable of beating Data. To meet the challenge, the holodeck gives Moriarty sentience. Moriarty quickly discovers that Data et al come from another world. He accesses the holodeck controls himself, threatens the ship, and has to be confronted by Picard. Picard promises to save Moriarty's data patterns until such a time as he can be given a body.

Now, what do I hate about this episode? Oh, let me count the ways...

1st: I hate Data's Sherlock Holmes voice. And guess what he's speaking in for the first ten minutes? Right. I'm not saying it's bad acting, because this is Brent Spiner we're talking about, but I can't stand it.

2nd: It's ridiculous that the ship can create a self-aware entity, but all that shows on the monitors is a brief energy spike. Is it too much to ask that the lights dim for a moment, at least?

3rd: The resolution was too easy. Basically, Picard shows up and Moriarty gives up his evil ways on the vague promise that he might be made real someday. Maybe. This shows exactly what makes the episode boring: Moriarty isn't dangerous. He has crumpets with his captee for goodness sakes.

One thing I will give props for is the sense that Data had in getting the heck off of that holodeck. He realized quickly that things were strange, and he remembered that it was only a holodeck that he was on and that he had superiors to report to. Even more importantly, he stopped the Sherlock Holmes voice.

I think I can stop shuddering now...

TNG Ep. 28: Where Silence Has Lease

2011-07-03T11:00:00.000-04:00

Summary:
The Enterprise runs across a giant hole in space, but it's not a black hole, and Data's not sure how to describe it except that it has no dimension and no matter. Yet, the Enterprise ends up stuck inside it when they get too curious. Trying to warp out seems to run them in circles. Soon they are attacked by what appears to be a Romulan ship, but which blows up too easily and doesn't leave any debris behind. Next, the Enterprise's sister ship, the Yamato, magically appears. Riker and Worf beam aboard, having nothing better to do. The Yamato they beam unto doesn't follow the normal rules of time and space, and they find that the bridge is on the wrong floor, and once they've stepped unto the bridge, they can't step off of it, because each door leads back to the bridge, making it appear as if there are two bridges. Worf freaks out, then the Enterprise freaks out because they can't beam them back. Meanwhile, a hole appears leading to the normal universe, but Picard ignores it until the Enterprise can suddenly beam Worf and Riker back. Then, more holes appear, but each time the Enterprise tries to go for it, they're too slow and the holes reappears somewhere else. Finally a giant face appears to talk to them, and announces that its going to kill up to half of the Enterprise members in its experiments. Picard and Riker set the auto-destruct, which convinces the alien to let them go. Picard's not sure that they're really free, and waits until the last minute to cancel the self-destruct sequence.

This episode is a bit typical in its aspect of "super-powerful-being treating humans like dung." in retrospect, it makes me wonder where Q got off to for so many episodes. Not that there can't be other super powerful aliens, but lets not forget the pompous one we started the series off with.

Actually, forget Q for now because he's not in this episode. I knew this one would be a winner, though, when I saw that it started off with Worf. When such episodes are bad, they're at least laughably bad, like if you had Kirk strolling on set just long enough to yell Khan! Or, you know, the Klingon death yell. No Klingon death yell here, but we do get Worf freaking out about the space-time bending bridge. There should only be one, dang nabbit! It's the kind of freak out that makes you feel just a bit sympathetic because a tiny part of you realizes that you'd probably lose your cool and say dumb things, too. I doubt Starfleet Academy prepares you for rooms that act like the first Joust arcade game (link?).

I also liked how Picard handled the situation once they realize they're being toyed with. If he didn't know before The Skin of Evil, he definitely learned that you don't satisfy demented curiosities. If rats stopped running mazes, we'd get disappointed and experiment on squirrels or somesuch.

Lastly, I liked how Picard was so suspicious at the end and almost blew up the ship. Hey, no one's perfect, right? This episode is also not perfect. It's a bit too predictable. I can't decide if it falls into the laughably bad or awesomely awesome category.

TNG Ep. 27: The Child

2011-07-01T11:00:00.000-04:00

The first episode of season two! So, some things have changed... For instance, there's a new doctor. Wait, what?

Summary:
The Enterprise collects plague specimens, transporting them to Starfleet Medical in the hopes of producing a vaccine. Geordi designs a specify container for the deadly plague, but during their journey one of the specimens inexplicably begins to grow and threatens to burst out of the container. Meanwhile, a shining dot of an alien finds Troi and impregnates her. She insists on delivering the baby, has a painless birth mere days after her impregnation, and raises the rapidly growing child as her own. The Enterprise crew is pretty freaked out over the alien child, which looks human, Ian, except for the fact that one day he's a baby and the next day he's physically 4 years old. Ian informs Troi that he is the cause of the ship's trouble, which he is because he's radiating some kind of energy that's making the plague go berserk, and then he quickly and voluntarily dies right in front of Troi. After his death, his body morphs back into the glowing speck, which communicated briefly with Troi before leaving the ship. The plague stabilizes and the Enterprise is relieved. Also, there's a side story about Wesley not wanting to leave the Enterprise, so at the end of the episode, he asks Picard's permission to stay, which Picard gives.

Ok, number one, Dr. Crusher is gone. WHAT? Is this for forever? I like her! I'm not so sure I like the new doctor, although I am definitely prejudiced by the fact that I like Dr. Crusher so much. Sniff. Even if the new doctor does remind me just a teensy bit of Dr. McCoy, another character I've always liked. But, wait! Along with Dr. Crusher, they threaten to take away Wesley! But then they don't. Whew.

Secondly, this episode was clearly created just to mess with Riker. I approve. The too-cool-to-commit loser stares on sheepishly as his maybe-love has a baby, holding an android's hand. Awesome. Of course, Data is always awesome. I love how he thanks Troi for letting him participate in the birth, and also how he asks her a bunch of questions that she ends up not answering.

Speaking of the birth, man, don't we all wish it was that easy? Maybe it would be if, say, Adam and Eve had left that apple tree alone. But they didn't, so Troi's easy birth makes everyone suspicious. You get that horror movie feeling pretty much until the kid voluntarily dies to save the ship, because no matter how cute he is, he breaks the rules and humans don't like that.

And while we're talking about Troi, props to her for speaking up to say that she wanted to have the baby. Pretty cool fetus on the screen, too. Proof positive that at least it's not a brain-stealing alien in her chest. As a mother of a mostly human child myself, I can understand her getting annoyed and telling the bridge crew she's keeping the child no matter what they think of it.

And, oh, Riker. Mr., "I don't mean to be indelicate, but who is the father?" Even when he uses the right words, his tone is aggressive. You can just hear it killing any romance left between him and Troi (or, it should). The whole thing's so hilariously in character that I haven't left myself much room to talk about Wesley:

Wesley's growing up! He's staying on the ship (if his mommy will let him)!

Star Trek: TNG, Reviews Update

2011-06-29T11:00:00.008-04:00

Wow! So, we've just finished the first season of The Next Generation. We're also almost nearly to July, which is the month that my second child is due.

To celebrate both occurrences, I'm going to start off season two at a faster pace.
During this marathon, I'll only be posting TNG reviews on this blog. That, and perhaps pictures of our newborn!

Besides, if we kept at one episode per week for the entire series, It'd take over 3 years! Personally, it's not going to take me that long to watch all of TNG with my family. Consider this a downward sloping part of the roller coaster.

TNG Ep. 26: The Neutral Zone

2011-06-22T11:00:00.001-04:00

Summary:
While the Captain is away, Riker and Data investigate a derelict space capsule and discover three cryogenically frozen humans. There were others, but the rest have died. Under pressure to get back to the Enterprise when Picard returns, Data and Riker decide to transport the frozen humans to the Enterprise with them. From there, Dr. Crusher decides to unfreeze them because of the unpredictable state of their ancient cryogenics chambers. Picard is quite annoyed, not wanting the distraction while he takes the Enterprise to investigate the destruction of outposts in the neutral zone. He assigns the the newcomers to Riker, who manages not to get anyone killed. Eventually someone thinks to call in Troi as the ship's counselor to talk to the dislocated passengers. Meanwhile, the Enterprise discovers that the outposts are indeed destroyed, but the destruction resembles less of a battle or explosion and more that they have been scooped off of their respective planets. The Enterprise encounters a Romulan ship and almost fires upon them. Picard speaks to the Romulan captain and they agree to work together to find out what's happening to the outposts. However, their arrangement to work together is very limited, and the Romulans make it clear that they are not the Federation's allies.

Wait, there be Romulans in this series? The last time we caught wind of them we didn't even get to see any, and also the time before that, and then holy moly, there's a whole armed ship of them! Hot dang. Guess we gotta take them seriously, now.

This being the last episode of the season, I'm guessing that it's a promise that there will be more Romulans in the second season. My only contention with this is that the Romulans aren't the Ferengi, and I feel that the series can't have us caring about both at the same time. Not unless the two baddies team up. It's possible that I feel that way because the Romulans are almost an after-thought in this episode. What the story really focuses on are the humans that Riker and Data save from the deteriorating space capsule.

As far as the rescued humans go, what I find most interesting is how the writers attempted to cover a wide range of personalities in just three people. Secondly, their presence harps on the theme of powerlessness due to dislocation. The personalities show up in how each person handles their new position. First, you have the super anal retentive person who's used to having money and power and knowledge, and now has none of these things. Second, you have the laid-back artist who recognizes the value of not getting in other people's way, and sees his awakening as a new lease on life. Third, you have the person who didn't even chose to be cryogenically frozen, and finds the loss of personal connections such as family connections to be the most devastating. The AR dude has to be confronted by Picard in order to get him to shut up and start accepting his loss of power. The laid back artist fascinates Data. The woman who's lost her family is helped by Troi when Troi discovers that some of her distant relatives still remain on Earth.

Meanwhile, there's something about Romulans going on. The end of the episode even includes Romulans talking. Something about how they don't like how much the Federation has expanded while they were away taking care of "other business." Uh, ok?

TNG Ep. 25: Conspiracy

2011-06-15T11:00:00.001-04:00

It's worth noting that this is the second-to-last episode in the season. I am not disappointed.

Summary:
An old friend of Picard's, Captain Keel, secretly contacts and rendezvous with Captain Picard regarding his suspicions of a conspiracy within the Federation, echoing concerns from an earlier episode, "Coming of Age". Captain Keel informs Picard that affected officials seem not to remember personal historical details, such as whom introduced whom decades ago, etc. However, Keel cannot tell the captain much else, especially after his ship is mysteriously blown to bits. Under Picard's orders, Data finds an unusual pattern of Starfleet orders supporting Keel's suspicions. The bridge crew is informed and the Enterprise returns to headquarters to confront the problem. Upon their arrival, former confidant Admiral Quinn attacks Riker in an attempt to invest Riker with an alien being. Picard discovers that the heads of Starfleet are similarly invested. Riker fools the heads of Starfleet into thinking that he is infested as they are, just long enough to help Picard defeat the aliens and their mother alien. Starfleet is returned to normal.

I am quite delighted that the conspiracy mentioned in an earlier episode has been brought up again and resolved. Continuity between the episodes is nice, even though TNG isn't one of those shows where you have to watch them all and watch them all in order to enjoy them. Still, some continuity helps the show feel like it's going somewhere. Kind of like when Dr. Who keeps seeing weird writing on the wall, and then you finally learn what all that's about. You begin to trust that the writers have a plan for the series and aren't just winging it.

Of course, the special affects are quite laughable by now. If you were watching this with us, you'd hear giggles and shouts referencing everything from Aliens to Animorphs (I'd be the one referencing Animorphs, of course). OMG an alien in my chest! Boooooody snaaaaatchers. Ha ha. I love how the aliens tried to say that they wanted to live in peace and harmony with humans. By taking over their brains. Ha ha ha.

But who wouldn't love watching an old man throw Riker? I'm always cool with Riker getting thrown around.

The best plot point, of course, was when Dr. Crusher tricks everyone into thinking that Riker has been snatched. To make it look like he's been infested, Dr. Crusher attaches a fake protrusion to Riker's neck, imitating the alien's breathing apparatus. Dude, I was fooled. That's one smart lady.

TNG Ep. 24: We'll Always Have Paris

2011-06-08T11:00:00.001-04:00

Summary:
Investigating a time-loop phenomenon rippling through the galaxy, the Enterprise seeks out experimental scientist Dr. Manheim. Upon locating his facility in the Vandor system, the Enterprise discovers the doctor in distress and beam aboard the only occupants, Dr. Manheim and his wife. His wife, Jenice, turns out to be an old flame of Picard's that Picard stood you before leaving for the Academy. Dr. Manheim is dying due to a partially successful trans-dimensional experiment, which is also causing time "hiccups." Dr. Manheim explains how to enter the high-security facility to shut down the experiment, which Data promptly does. Meanwhile, Picard basically apologizes for being a jerk and he and Jenice resolve their past. Jenice stays with Dr. Manheim, back on the facility, and Dr. Crusher is relieved.

Ok, I have to admit. The more I learn about Captain Picard, the more I like his character. This episode, once again, makes him seem more human, and emphasizes that he's no spring chicken with a blank slate. Emphasizing his age helps justify his title as captain and allows the writers to utilize plots that just wouldn't be possible for a younger character. If Riker met a woman he'd spurned on Earth, the wound would still be raw and she probably wouldn't have married yet. Plus, it's Riker, so you'd expect him to handle the emotional situation badly. With Picard, the story can have a much different feel in large part because of his age. It's like learning about the girlfriend your dad had before he married your mother.

Dr. Crusher also handled herself maturely, even though she's shown that she can be quite the firecracker if things don't go how she thinks they should. Between her and Picard, the episode avoids being a terrible soap opera and instead has the realistic feel that people aren't perfect and life isn't perfect. Best of all, you get the sense that Picard has matured since he joined Star Fleet. Back then he abandoned the woman he loved - now he's reassuring her husband that she's faithful to him out of loyalty and love, not because they live in the middle of nowhere.

And, most importantly, the universe doesn't tear apart or implode or whatever. Interestingly, this threat is present, but overshadowed by the character development. Data gets to show off again, so it's all good. Seriously, if I had a super strong android on my crew, I'd send him on missions like that, too. He's simply the most capable when it comes to remembering all those codes and dodging lasers. Lasers! Weehee!

Lasers, beautiful women, and saving the universe. Obviously this episode has it all.

TNG Ep. 23: Skin of Evil

2011-06-01T11:00:00.000-04:00

The premise for this episode is pretty out there, though you don't get to find out the most out-there part until near the end.

Summary:
A shuttlecraft returning Counselor Troi to the Enterprise crashes on Vagra II, but something prevents the Enterprise from beaming them away from the crash site. While investigating this oddity, the away team encounter what appears to be a sentient oil spill that can move and change shape and apparently keep people from being beamed off the planet. This "Armus" kills Tasha Yar, just for laughs. Except that really, she's dead now. While the away team is back on the Enterprise, Troi communicates with the creature and finds out that it is a "skin of evil" abandoned on the planet by its creator-predecessors. Picard joins the away team this time, but there's a short hoola over Riker getting enveloped by Armus and almost killed. Once Riker is safe, Picard sends the rest of the away team back to the ship and convinces Armus to let him talk to Troi. Troi tells him what she learned, and Picard puts that together with findings from the ship's crew to figure out that angry Armus equals distracted Armus. So, he angers Armus and the Enterprise is able to beam him and Troi off the planet.

I can't decide if the pure evil thing is mindblowing or mindblowingly lame. Although its creation is highly improbable, having a creature who is pure evil is a nice break from the moral ambiguity needed to make the overall show feel realistic. Sure, we want realism, but we also want to be reassured that evil does exist and that the Enterprise can recognize and fight it.

Above all else, I thought the betrayal of evil acurate. Evil is powerful and pitiful at the same time. It's only objective is to hurt others and gain for itself. Evil is absolutely not the kind of person that you give a spaceship to no matter what they hold over your head. You leave evil behind if you can. Or, as Data put it, "Absolutely no redeeming qualities."

It is also nice to see Troi's talents used to tell us things we didn't already know. When an alien dignitary snarls at Picard on the viewscreen, we all get that he's angry. Troi doesn't need to tell us, unless she can give us a hint as to why. With Evil, she was able to discover that he had been abandoned. Then she used her training as a counselor to get more details out of it. Lastly, she told the captain what she knew and that helped him yell at evil one last time for the episode wrap up. Picard's performance angered evil, which weakened his concentration and let the Enterprise beam Troi and Picard out of there. Woohoo!

Oh, and I guess Tasha died. Seemed kind of abrupt and stupid. Also, my dad spoiled the surprise by saying at the beginning of the episode, "Isn't this the one where Tasha Yar dies?" Yeeeeep. It sure is.

TNG Ep. 22: Symbiosis

2011-05-25T11:00:00.000-04:00

Summary:
The Enterprise saves a decrepit ship from crashing on planet Ornara. During the rescue, the doomed freighter inexplicitly sends over cargo before bothering to help the Enterprise save their crew. Two of the crew die because of this. The cargo turns out to be "Felicium," a medicine for Ornarans. Except, actually, it's an addictive narcotic. The two Brekkans saved from the freighter already know felicium's nature and are a bit nervouse that Picard will interfere with their trade by telling the Ornarans. Picard refrains because of the prime directive, which of course upsets Dr. Crusher. But he also refuses to help fix Ornara's other freighters, essentially abandoning the Brekkans on Ornara with the soon-to-be consequences of their dishonesty. The episode ends with the expectation that when this shipment of felicium runs out, all the Ornarans will experience withdraw and discover the true nature of the "medicine" the Brekkans have been selling them for generations.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but... Wesley made me cringe. It was at the end of the episode, but I had to mention it before I conveniently changed my mind. See, Tasha gives him the best short explanation about drug use in the history of mankind, and at the end Wesley quirks an eyebrow and says "I guess I just don't understand." I know he's supposed to be sheltered an an ultra nice kid and all, but that line and its delivery were just... Gag. The cynic in me won this round.

Whew. Glad I got that out of the way because it's also my only real complaint about the episode. The drug thing was nicely foreshadowed, and afterwards nicely explained. The best part, of course, is that those pricks will be stuck on the planet when it runs out of drugs and the withdrawls start. Whether they spill their secret or not, they're screwed.

And the line Picard gives Dr. Crusher about humans trying to help and always fouling it up? Spot on, Picard. Spot on. The truth behind that is one of the reasons I can stand the Prime Directive at all even though I'm not an Isolationist. There's something to be said for always thinking that you know what's best for other people, and being generally wrong. Studying South American history and the endless times that the US has or has tried to help - well, let's not get into that. Let's just say that sometimes there are no good choices and unintended consequences bite. Like cats in Australia.

But hey, at least we aren't knowingly, as a planet, dishonestly operating as drug dealers for another planet. That's low, man. They're just lucky they didn't threaten to kill Wesley or something, because then Picard might have had to kick their butts.

TNG Ep. 21: The Arsenal of Freedom

2011-05-18T11:00:00.000-04:00

Summary:
The Enterprise investigates the disappearance of the USS Drake on their survey of planet Minos. Minos used to be run by an advanced weapons-selling race who are mysteriously all dead now. A holographic salesman greets the ship upon their arrival, but he's not a true AI and can't answer their questions about the Drake. Picard sends an away team which encounters another holographic projection, this one designed to lure them in and freeze them in place. Riker is frozen; Picard and Dr. Crusher join the away team to restore Riker. During the battle with the machine, Picard and Crusher fall into an underground cavern where they find the master machine trying to kill them, as well as the first salesman holographic projection. Picard learns that the machine killed all of the native inhabitants and probably the crew of the Drake. The away team tricks the machine into letting them off the planet by telling the salesman that they'll buy the darn thing. Congratulations, your demonstration was effective.

It makes me cranky any time an episode is saying "war is bad," but this one wasn't too obnoxious about it. And really, who can resist the good ole plot of "makers killed by what they made." I just prefer the made thing to be an AI, like Lore. Oh! When do we get to see him again?

And, of course, having the doctor be the one that's hurt was a nice subplot. Her knowing about the roots was a little kooky, but at least we finally got to learn more about her origins. In fact, none of the character interactions struck me as off like they have in other episodes. Tasha even acted like head of security and outwitted that second doohickey that was shooting at them. Even Tasha was not the weakest part of this episode, not this time.

No, the weakest part of this episode was the fact that the ancient race who built the killing computer didn't think to, you know, lie to it. Or include a master off switch. For goodness sakes. We have master off switches on our PCs. You know, that big green button on the tower? Press it long enough and the computer shuts off. What if the giant killing machine had gotten some kind of blue screen of death? How would they reboot it, then, without an off button? Pft. Lame.

I mean, maybe a master off switch would have still been useless. Maybe the machine would have fired on anyone who came near it. Still, its inclusion in the plot would have made the dead alien race - and the USS Drake - sound that much less dumb. To me, it's scarier if the dead makers actually took reasonable precautions, and were still foiled. That makes it sound more like it could happen to us. Like... Lore. Lore has an off switch, for goodness sake.

I didn't hate this episode. I just wasn't impressed. Neeeeeext.

Questions for Writers: Cool Accents

2011-05-07T11:00:00.000-04:00

I know that most published fiction doesn't emphasize the character's accents, but then of course we have our famous examples of stories that do. Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn, at the very least. There are many different reasons to emphasize an accent. Most of them come down to wanting to emphasize socio-economic status or foreign backgrounds. Whatever. I'm sure you have your reasons, and if you don't, pretend you do for a minute.

If you were going to write a story where one or more of the characters have a pronounced accent, what would that accent be? What would be fun to write? What would be realistic for your story? If you decided to go all out and mimic the accent in your spelling, would that change your answer? Would some accents be too dang hard for you or your readers?

TNG Ep 19: Coming of Age

2011-05-04T11:00:00.005-04:00

If you're guessing that I like this episode because it in part features Wesley, you're right. But it's not just Wesley - Picard gets some good lines, and we get to learn about the Academy. So, without further ado...

Summary:
The Enterprise arrives at Revla VII so that Wesley can take his Starfleet Academy exam. The exam isn't pass-fail, but a competition between him and the handful of other candidates. As the episode progresses, Wesley makes friends with the other candidates and even encourages them to have faith in themselves for the exam. Meanwhile, the Enterprise undergoes an investigation led by Admiral Quinn, an old friend of Picard's. Eventually the investigation turns up that Picard is awesome and there's nothing wrong with the ship. Admiral Quinn then invites Picard to be the next head of the Academy, which Picard of course turns down. Wesley faces his fear of indecision during the psych exam, and though he does well, ends up losing out to his friend that he helped during the exam. Picard tells Wesley that (shh!) he didn't get in the first time he took the test, either, and to buck up. No one leaves the Enterprise and life goes back to normal.

It was nice to see more about Starfleet Academy and the entrance exams, since normally we only hear about such things in the past tense. It helps flesh out the Star Trek universe, to say that yes, there is really an Academy that all the officers went through, and it's still there, and it's still churning out hotheaded youngsters like Riker. Normal life goes on even when the Enterprise is busy discovering Atlantis and then stealing their children back from Atlantis.

By the same token, it's nice to see that Wesley is subject to the same rules as most people even though his mother's a hot doctor and he lives on the most happening starship in Starfleet. You'd think they'd tell him that a year's experience on the USS Enterprise counts as his entrance exam, and he's in. I mean, for goodness sakes, the kid almost got killed back on Edo just because he fell on some flowers. I bet that's not the kind of thing his rival was thinking of when she told him that he was so lucky to be on the Enterprise and get real experience. But then, of course he's lucky, because some alien told Picard to stop being mean to Wesley and encourage his talents. Any way, it was good to see that other teenagers from different backgrounds had similar intelligence and potential as Wesley - especially the guy who beat him, although it's not a surprise that Wesley isn't going to be leaving the ship any time soon, so somebody had to beat him.

Oh, and, I've got to mention the hints about Wesley's father's death. Dratted hints! All we know now is that Picard had to make a tough decision and Wesley's father ended up dying. Oh, and I guess we know that Dr. Crusher doesn't hate him for it, which I had kind of already figured.

Ok, so, the other half of the episode was sort of about Picard and sort of about a vague over-arching plot that may or may not come up again in following episodes. Interesting. I'd prefer that it did, but won't be surprised if it doesn't. Apparently there's some kind of conspiracy, maybe, and maybe it's from inside the Federation and maybe it's from the outside. Heck, maybe it's Q. There's a lot of maybes, but whatever intrigue is going on is the reason that Admiral Quinn wants Picard to head the Academy.

And oh, watching Picard think about it was pretty awesome. You just know he's going to say no. Leave his starship, and do it to watch after young men and women? Leave it to head a teaching institute? No, thanks. I think Picard would die an early death with a job like that. A desk job. Ha. And, as he points out himself, Picard's not good with politics. Why should he be? He has no practice with it. Telling an alien species off is a bit different from how you get things done when your opposition is all "on your side" and supposedly "on the same page." Dealing with aliens is much more, "this is how it is," and "no, we don't want to kill you," or "no, you can't kill us." And also? If you manage to escape, you never have to see those aliens again. Picard can just tell Starfleet to put that planet on quarantine. Check it. Why would he give that up for a desk job? Ha.

The best part of the episode, though, is watching Picard tell Wesley that he didn't pass his first exam either. That's kind of like if your kid doesn't pass his driver's test the first time, except way more monumental, like, uh, space college. Space Harvard. You'll get in next time, Wesley.

Questions for Writers: Different Colored Masks

2011-04-30T11:00:00.000-04:00

So let's say you have a character that's doing a little bit of superhero work, even if they're not a superhero in the strict, power-wielding sense. Maybe they're stealing from the rich and giving to the poor, or attending clandestine meetings that help save the world. Whatever it is, your hero wants to hide his true identity with, at the very least, a mask. What colors might be interesting for your character to wear?

I mean, sure, there's always the black mask. The bad guys always seem to have them. And Zoro. And Westly from the Princess Bride. Yeah, there's a lot of black masks going around. I'm sure that's because their wearers can hide better in the dark, or want to present an ominous front, or blah blah BORING.

Give me MAROON. Give me FOREST GREEN. Give me CHARTREUSE. But not necessarily in all caps.

What could your character wear to give them a little, well, character?

TNG Ep 18: Home Soil

2011-04-27T11:00:00.001-04:00

This episode is known in my household as the "Ugly bags of mostly water" episode, a line I actually remember from the first time I saw it. Kudos to Data for teaching me that humans are 90% water, and before I was old enough to attend school. Talk about a lasting impression!

Summary:
The Enterprise stops by Velara III to check on the terraforming crew. They all seem fine, except that Counselor Troi can sense that Mandl is hiding something. Picard insists on sending down an away team as visitors, and while they are there, one of the terraforming group is killed by a psycho drilling laser. When Data and La Forge are checking out the vicinity for clues, they find a glowing speck which they take to the Enterprise. The speck is inorganic, yet appears to be alive - this becomes a certainty when it not only speaks to them through the ship's translator, but also self-replicates. Picard then has a stern talking to the terraformers because some of them kinda sorta knew that there might be life on the planet. The speck becomes a ball and declares war on humans for destroying it's habitat. By this time, the alien has taken over the remote controls to the lab. The Enterprise then figures out that the alien subsists on light, so they dim the lights to the lab manually. Everyone reaches a truce and the aliens are returned home with the promise that humans won't bother them for a while.

This may not be the most amazing episode ever, but the premise appeals to me. As a scifi writer, a non-humanoid alien can be fun to write. An inorganic alien that communicates with patterns in the sand? Heck yes.

Of course, what really takes the cake for this episode is the "ugly bags of mostly water" scene. When the aliens get the translator really working, that's the first thing they say. Picard is baffled, which is always fun to see, and Data has to explain it to him, which is also always fun to see.

I have to say though that this isn't an episode you take seriously. It may be amusing, but you never really feel like the characters are in danger, even though the alien is taking over the ship. None of the characters really stand out, either - oh! Unless you count Data kicking the butt of the psycho laser. Yeeeeeees. Is that not the point of having a super-human android?

This episode was on the predictable side, but I still enjoyed it. It taught me science when I was an impressionable preschooler! Win!

Theory Train Submission Deadline

2011-04-24T11:00:00.000-04:00

One week from today is Theory Train's submission deadline for issue 2. Visit our website now to review the submissions guidelines and submit your speculative fiction prose and poetry!

If you are interested in helping promote or review Theory Train and have not yet contacted us, please email theory train (at) gmail dot com about issue 2.

Questions for Writers: Useless Talents

2011-04-23T11:00:00.000-04:00

Real people have useless talents. What about your characters?

If a talent is truly useless plot-wise, do you even mention it in the story? Lets assume we're working with a novel, where there's more room for character development and backstory. Still, even in a novel, you don't want to ramble and risk boring or confusing your readers. How could you work a detail like this in appropriately? What would be the wrong way?

And then of course there is Chekhov's Gun. A character might have a talent that seems useless, or even a liability, until the climax. How do you pull that off believably? There might be some middle ground, too. Like, a talent that's useful a few times but doesn't come into play when beating the bad guy. That kind of detail can make a character seem more rounded, if you pull it off right.

This is kind of like two questions, unless you think about it as a question of balancing details. So sue me.

TNG Ep.17: When the Bough Breaks

2011-04-20T12:42:00.001-04:00

Summary:
The Enterprise is led to a hidden planet analogous to Atlantis, Aldea. The natives lower their planet's cloak and invite them planet-side, then reveal that they have no children and would like the Enterprise's. Riker, of course, says no, so they return the crew to the ship and steal the children using their superior transporter technology. The children are immediately assigned to families and given cool toys to play with. Because Wesley is one of the children stolen, Picard takes Dr. Crusher on the negotiations with the ?. With Wesley's help, Crusher obtains scans of the aliens which eventually allows her to develop a cure for the sterility and other health problems which are caused by their planet's shield. Meanwhile, Wesley leads the children on a food strike that upsets their new parents. Riker discovers how to beam down to the planet through a weakness in their shield, and he and Data disable the planet's mega-computer to give Picard and Crusher time to convince the aliens that their sterility is from radiation poisoning. Dr. Crusher cures their sterility and the children are returned to the Enterprise.

Is it wrong that my favorite part of this episode is Wesley and him leading the kids on a strike?

Wesley fandom aside, I really liked this episode because the antagonists weren't really enemies of the Enterprise. They were arrogant and desperate, but they weren't going to kill anyone even if the Enterprise told them no. Knowing this, Picard tread carefully and did a lot of stalling to give his crew time to find a peaceful solution. Sure, the Enterprise could have blustered and tried something more violent, but such an attempt was doomed to failure because of the planet's superior defensive technology. So, what I'm saying is that Picard and the rest of the crew were smart, and I like to see that they deserve to run a star ship.

And Wesley deserves to be leader of all the children. Seriously, he didn't break down into tears even when he saw his mother after the kidnapping. He knew how to talk to the younger children and how to talk for them. If I were five, I'd want someone like that watching out for me if my parents couldn't.

I also liked seeing all the parents in the meeting room with the crew. It's only fair to include and inform them as much as possible in that kind of situation.

The only thing off the top of my head that we could have seen more of is Dr. Crusher worrying. I mean, the ultimate solution rested on her head and she knew it. She was much calmer than in "Haven," though in Haven Wesley was threatened with death and the natives were barely willing to talk about it. Or maybe she was calmer this time because she now believes that Picard would do anything in his power to get her child back. That an go a long way. Still, there might have been some more wringing of hands on her part.

It's hard to hate anyone in this episode. All the characters behaved smartly and even the bad guys weren't so bad. I think we'll need some more Q or Lore to make the universe feel dangerous again!

Question for Writers: The Superpower Reveal

2011-04-16T11:00:00.000-04:00

In the majority of superhero stories, the superhero wants to hide his or her power, but they also want to use their powers to save others. The superhero is constantly in danger of being exposed, whether they use their powers to fight crime or they keep to themselves as much as possible. At some point, the hero is confronted with a choice: expose themselves to save someone, or don't. Protagonists usually chose to save that someone, and maybe they don't actually get found out by the whole world, but they took that risk because "With great power comes great responsibility."

But what if they didn't? What if they were a coward, or the person who needs saving wasn't so dear to them? What if they weren't The Hero? Or maybe their exposure carries higher stakes and there is no "right" answer. So, they let the kid die. Or their husband. Or a bus full of refugees.

What happens then? How does that change the themes of the story? How does it change the character? Would you write an antihero? Is it even possible to avoid anti-hero vibes if your character knowingly lets someone die?

Sorry, bus, but we just put the (anti)hero's life above yours. Cue evil author laugh!

TNG Ep.16: Too Short a Season

2011-04-13T11:00:00.000-04:00

Summary:
The Enterprise delivers Admiral Mark Jameson to negotiate a hostage situation on Mordan IV, accompanied by his wife. The Admiral, who suffers from Iverson's Disease, begins to show marked improvements in his health after self-administering an overdose of an alien anti-aging medication. By the time they reach the planet, he appears to be in his 20s and in excellent health. Meanwhile, the admiral discovers that the hostage situation has been concocted to exact revenge for a hostage situation he negotiated 45 years ago. Then, his agreement to give arms to both sides helped spark a 40 year civil war. The Enterprise sends an armed away team to rescue the hostages under the orders of the admiral. When this fails, the Admiral gives himself up to save the hostages. By then, Dr. Crusher has informed his wife that the Admiral is dying from the medication. Picard spends a few tense minutes convincing governor Karnas that the young man before him is really the Admiral. The Admiral dies in his wife's arms, and the hostages are released.

I liked that this episode had a lot going on, yet these things were all tied together by a theme of regret. It was like the character building episodes I like so much except that the character was not part of the regular cast. I suppose that allowed them to do things like, you know, kill the character at the end. If that had been Picard instead of the Admiral, Dr. Crusher would have found a way to reverse the deadly changes at the last minute.

I also like how this episode touches on the Prime Directive but doesn't really dwell on it or on blaming any of the characters for the 40 years of civil war. The Admiral feels guilty for his part, but you also get this sense that his choices at the time all sucked. Even the armed rescue, which he says he should have done the first time, failed. If anything it's an argument that you shouldn't negotiate with terrorists - but yeah, the hostages probably will die when you don't. Life sucks.

But on the positive side, the Admiral's wife still loves him even though he experimented on himself and took the anti-aging dose that he'd expressely gotten for her. Seriously, like taking all of his dose at once wouldn't do the trick. I'm not saying this is a plot problem, though, because some people really are that dumb when they feel desperate. And kudos to the wife, I guess, since the Admiral was dying for his mistake. No need to be mean to him in his last pain-filled moments, right?

Finally, I liked that the episode cut to the chase about the hostages. When ? spoke at the beginning claiming that dissidents had the hostages, I was suspicious. On the Admiral's second time speaking to ? He challenges him and learns the truth, that there are no dissidents. Later, Picard cuts to the chase when he tells the Admiral that he knows he's hiding something and to spit it out already.

All in all, a well-rounded episode with good pacing and enjoyable acting. Even if they didn't manage to save the hostages in a SWAT-style raid.

Question for Writers: Ice or Fire?

2011-04-09T11:00:00.000-04:00

Say you need to kill off a character, maybe in an elemental battle, or maybe on a lonesome journey of them versus nature. Would you rather write a character dying by the cold - frozen in a magical blast of ice, slowly freezing to death in a snow storm - or by heat - like in a house fire, or in the desert? Is there one you feel you could pull off better? Do you think one is scarier than the other?

Would it matter whether or not the character was the protagonist? How might the themes of the story affect your choice? Would you chose fire for a fast, sure death? Is ice necessarily slow, or less certain? Can you unfreeze someone and save their life? Can you magic ashes back to life?

TNG Ep. 15: 11001001

2011-04-05T11:00:00.002-04:00

Summary:
The Enterprise arrives at Starbase 74 for routine maintenance, which is performed by aliens called Bynars, which exist in sexless pairs. On their homeworld, Bynars communicate with their supercomputer and have developed a strange, quickly spoken language as well as an affinity for computers. Many crew members take their leave of the ship during the maintenance, but not Riker, Picard, or Wesley, who is expressly told to watch the Bynars for any funny business. The Bynars use the holodeck and an enchanting AI named Minuet to capture both Riker and Picard, at first unbeknownst to them, while the ship is evacuated over a warp-drive failure, also unbeknownst to them. The ship is set to scoot away as soon as the evacuation is complete, which it does, except that Picard and Riker are still on board. Not-so-magically, the engineering problem corrects itself and the ship heads for the Bynar's home planet. When Picard and Riker figure out the scheme, they leave the holodeck, set the ship for self-destruct just in case, and find the Bynars unconscious on the bridge. They turn off the self-destruct and determine that the Bynars are trying to save their home planet by resetting their supercomputer after an electromagnetic pulse from a supernova wiped it out. Picard and Riker facilitate this and bring the Bynars back from the brink of death. The Bynars explain that they were afraid to ask for help because the Enterprise might have refused. The Enterprise returns and there is some mention of a trial for the Bynar's kidnapping of the ship.

This episode had action and kooky aliens. Score!

The Bynars might not be the most awesome alien Star Trek has ever come up with (um, hello. Vulcans are) but I loved their answer at the end, that they didn't ask because the Enterprise might have said no. Little things like that are what make an episode feel like it was planned, and planned well, from beginning to end, instead of being written by 15 different writers of different backgrounds and experience. Yeah, let's not get into how most TV shows are written, and why sometimes their revision practices don't work. After all, this episode is modest proof that it can work, and we all love TNG or else you wouldn't be reading this.

The only weird part of this episode is that Wesley isn't more astute, or more vocal. His superiors set him to watch the Bynars, and even though I'm sure the Enterprise didn't expect any trouble, they did expressly tell Wesley to let them know if anything strange happened. Maybe it was because he was blinded by the coolness of aliens being connected to a comuputer and talking so dang fast. I guess the Bynars could have been whispering about how freaky-tall humans are instead of how they planned to steal the Enterprise.

And evacuating the Enterprise? My favorite part of this episode. I know, I'm supposed to say that the hot holodeck chick is the best part, but she disappears at the end, becoming a non-entity. Evacuating the Enterprise, on the other hand, gave the sense that not only are there a lot of people on the Enterprise, but they are all vulnerable to things like the ship blowing up. And having to leave their captain, because the passengers and the rest of the crew comes first, and they only have a few minutes to evacuate.

Good thing the Bynars are peaceful, right? I bet from now on the Federation only lets humans work on their ships - no, wait, that doesn't always work out either. Sometimes the crazy AI starts for-real shooting at the other Federation ships in a mock war [reference]. Oh well. I guess that's just life in the Star Trek universe.

Question for Writers: BFF! Genders?

2011-04-02T11:00:00.002-04:00

Say your protagonists are best friends, or that your protagonist has a best friend. Potato, potata. You could say there's something unique about a best friend relationship, but they're not one-size-fits all even in fiction.

One big factor in a best-friend bond is gender. Would you want these friends to be the same gender, or opposite? If the same, are they M-M or F-F? What different themes could you explore, and what plot devices could you use based on gender? If nothing else, their genders would affect how others percieve their relationship and whether or not it is socially acceptable.

Crime-fighting women? Boys who discover a magical other-world? Or perhaps a boy-girl team who save a mistakenly convicted felon from the electric chair?

And while your best friend team is off saving the world, is there anything that would challenge their relationship? Do they grow apart? Fall in love? Does one decide to fall in with the bad guys?

Feel free to answer/ramble in the comments. If the question inspires a Flash Friday or something similar, feel free to link to your story in the comments and please link back to here on the applicable webpage.

Best friend team GO!

TNG Ep. 14: Angel One

2011-03-29T11:00:00.000-04:00

Summary:
Enterprise searches Angel One, a planet ruled by a woman-only oligarchy, for the survivors of starship Odin, which crashed there seven years before. Angel One makes the Enterprise promise to take any survivors they find off of the planet, as they have been fueling rebellion. The away team has some trouble dealing with the Angel One rulers, it turns out in part because one of the counsel members is secretly aiding the rebels, but the real conflict comes when the Odin survivors do not want to leave with their families, and Data points out that because they are not federation crew, the Enterprise cannot uphold its promise and force them to leave. Meanwhile, the crew of the Enterprise suffers from a flu-like epidemic as Crusher hurries to find a cure, and their aid has also been requested in the neutral zone. At the same time, Riker has been smooching on Angel One leader Beata. Angel One gets a hold of the rebels by following their counsel traitor, and sentences them all to death, yet the rebels still refuse to leave. Riker makes a moving speech about martyrdom at the execution ceremony, and Angel One decides to stay the execution in favor of banishing the rebels to a remote part of the planet. If that didn't work, Riker had planned to beam up the rebels against their will. Dr. Crusher finds the cure and administers it to the crew - the away team returns, and they zoom off to the neutral zone.

I like the premise of the world Angel One because unlike other episodes where women's rights, or prejudice, or any other heavy-handed moral is at the center, this one feels more like a true what if. Not that I dislike the moralizing in Star Trek. If I did, I wouldn't love the original series so much. When it comes to feminism, though, this episode could have easily gotten into the ridiculous. It could have presented us with a world where women not only rule absolutely, but rule absolutely well. Instead we're presented with a world that appears as politically complex as our own, and indeed on the verge of major social change. Men's sufferage, perhaps. The current order is even exlained partially by an evolutionary biology of its own, where females are taller and stronger than males.

Ok, ok. I know that the premise is only part of the episode, but I don't often get to applaud Star Trek for its sociology. We're often presented with something interesting on other worlds, but also something simplified greatly in order to fit in the episode along all the action and more finite interpersonal dramas.

And now that I've mentioned feminism, let me say that Riker flirting with the leader of Angel One is hilariously in character and exactly what this episode needed. He mentions that Star Fleet officers have to play nice with strange people all the time. I'd only consider it bastardly of him if you consider him bounc to Troi, which, after she almost married that other dude she barely knew, I say go Riker. (But also go Troi for being right about his attachment to her. It's almost like a self-fulling prophecy kinda deal.)

Um, I guess I should talk about the whole matyrdom thing, which I gathered was a major point of the episode. I'm totally with the survivors on this one, because standing up for your principles does not mean running away. If they had, nothing would have changed on Angel One. And then of course it is a Star Trek episode, so I was fairly sure they wouldn't die. Even so, I actually think that Riker planning to beam them all out against their will was wrong of him. Not that you can really blame him for wanting to save the children and all. But still! He should know he's in a Star Trek episode and have a little faith!

...and everyone lived happily ever after!

Question For Writers: Alternatives to the Evil Monologue

2011-03-26T11:00:00.001-04:00

Question For Writers: Alternatives to the Evil Monologue

In the movies, the bad guy often monologues at the end, just in case you or the protagonist missed some important fact from the last 2 hours. Written fiction rarely relies so heavily on the monologue because readers hate to read the same thing two, three, or four times in a novel. Short stories run into the same problem as movies, where a lot happens in a short time, yet I rarely see the monologue there, either.

So, what do you do instead of the monologue? How and when do your characters discover the bad guy's plans? What sort of confirmation do they get that they're correct?

One device you might find useful is to have your character overhear something that other characters are trying to hide from them. Or maybe they find a note, or follow the money trail, or even receive a confession from a minnion. Even for protagonists who have to guess most of their way through the book, you want to throw them tidbits to let them know (or think) that they're headed in the right direction. Even Thomas Covenant sometimes gets to talk to dead people who used to work for Lord Foul.

Feel free to answer/ramble in the comments. If the question inspires a Flash Friday or something similar, feel free to link to your story in the comments and please link back to here on the applicable webpage.

Ready. Set - Anti-monologue device, activate!

Flash Friday #7: An Evolutionary Breakthrough

2011-03-25T11:00:00.000-04:00

The scientist beamed proudly at the viewer. "I call it... A space whale."

Mr. Devonshire steepled his fingers on his desk as he quirked an eyebrow. "Yes, I can see why. And it eats garbage, correct?"

"Its bigger than the moon! It's capacity far exceeds what you asked for," the scientist blurted. "It can travel between the planets using its solar fins. The space whale can take care of all our space junk problems. And the best part?"

"Frank, you're pausing dramatically again. Please just tell me the best part."

"Well, Bill, the best part is that you only need one!"

"We contracted you to design a garbage-eating space animal that could be replicated at will, depending on the needs of a colony. We'll want more than one."

"Yes, but you'll only need one. The prototype is pregnant."

"Pregnant? But there's only one prototype."

"Correct! But the XXYY genes used allowed the specimen to--"

Mr. Devonshire unsteepled his fingers to raise a hand. "Enough. We asked for a sterile unit."

"I thought it was sterile! This is quite a surprise! A revolutionary break-through!"

"So... This is the good news you came to tell me?"

Frank opened his mouth to say yes, but he sensed that something had gone afoul in their negotiations.

"Terminate it. We can't have moon-sized space whales propogating across the galaxy. We'll never be able to charge the colonists for them."

"But..." The scientist's lip trembled. "You want me to kill Gertrude? And her babies?"

"You... You named the whale?"

Frank nodded. "Her name's on all the reports," he mumbled absently.

"Yes, I know, but I thought it stood for something. Like, uh, Garbage-Eating Replicated... Uh..."

"No!" Frank shouted, startling both men. "Gertrude and her offspring are not for sale!" He ran out of the room, then, leaving only the picture of the space whale blinking on Mr. Devonshire's screen.

The picture wasn't supposed to be blinking. Bill hit a button on his desk. "Debbie? Get security to check Frank's office. I want him brought back here to honor his contract."

"Sir, the department of defense is on the line. Something about the moon getting... Eaten?"

TNG Ep.13: DataLore

2011-03-22T11:00:00.000-04:00

It has Data in the title, so you know it's good!

Summary:
The Enterprise has a few hours downtime and stops at Data's home planet, where several colonists disappeared, which Data remembers almost nothing about. Data shows the landing party where he was found and activated, and there La Forge discovers a hidden underground lab and bunker. Upon exploring the bunker they find creepy child-like drawings and what appears to be a duplicate Data, both of which they bring back to the ship. After the second android is assembled, he calls himself Lore and proceeds to mostly discreetly wreck havock on the ship. Lore explains that the drawings are of a life-consuming crystal entity, which he then secrectly calls to the ship while prentending to be Data. Wesley figures out the ruse, leading to Data being reactivated and fighting Lore in the transporter room. Wesley beams Lore out with the sheilds up, and the crystal being makes haste on its escape.

Ok, I know I said that Haven was the best episode so far, but now I can't decide. My fan girl love of Data says that this episode is even better - or at least equal. We get to see Brent Spiner act twice, and beat himself up! We get to see what Data might have been like if he had human eotions, which it's clear that Lore does. We also learn more about his past, that Lore was created first, then disassembled because he was too mentally unstable and murderous. Once again, the writers deliver on a character-backstory episode. The more I think back on this episode, the more I'm convinced that I loved every instant of it.

"How sad, Lore. You make me wish I was an only child."

And since Lore was so epic, you know there's no way he's gone for good. Even more than Q, he's like the boogie man that aways twitches at the end of the movie, and he always comes back. He's a mass murderer and he's a perfect foil for Data. Even if I didn't remember that he's in later episodes, I'd be expecting it.

Another epic moment: when Data weakly asks his brother for help, having been poisoned by his brother, and while his brother is ranting inanely. It gives Data a sort of innocence. Lore is literally the brother he had wished he had, and most likely the only android of his type or caliber that he will ever see in the crew's lifetime. Is it too much to hope that Lore won't try to kill him? Apparently. In a way that makes Data more alone than he was before, and you can hear it in that plaintive cry, in that last moment before Data's trust of his brother is shattered.

Yes. I really, really like Data.

Question For Writers: Spy or Turncoat?

2011-03-19T11:00:00.001-04:00

Say you need a character who is going to do something unexpected, like turn their friend in to the enemy, or suddenly stick up for that guy who's about to be pulverized by the big baddie. Would you rather have a character who has secretly been for the other side all along, or one who changes their mind at a critical moment? Would it make a difference if the character was your main protagonist or antagonist, versus a side character?

Both ways can get the OMG factor. Both can have the reader re-examining the character's past actions for clues. But one represents a change in the character, and another a change in the circumstances. One is the character saying "I was wrong to build this popsicle stand in the middle of the diabetic unit" and the other is the character saying "time to blow this popsicle stand. With bombs."

Feel free to answer/ramble in the comments. If the question inspires a Flash Friday or something similar, feel free to link to your story in the comments and please link back to here on the applicable webpage.

Ready. Set. GO.

Jealousy is in the Eye of the Firstborn

2011-03-17T11:00:00.005-04:00

NEWS FLASH: In case you haven't heard, we found out the sex of the baby due in July! It's a boy!

The other day my husband, C, and I were visiting a friend who was in the process of moving. Our friend had her infant with her, and of course I had C, so I was happy to watch the two children while my husband helped her move a few things. The three of us went out on the balcony, which thrilled C and kept him away from all the cleaning chemicals and heavy objects carried by lumbering husbands.

Now, spending time with an infant invariably gets me to thinking about our baby due in July. Spending time with my friend's little girl gets me to hoping that my next child will be as easy going, or at least more easy going than C was. And, of course, being with an infant obligates one to coo and tickle their cheeks.

At first C was as excited as I was about this small human. He loves to point at things and have me name them, so he pointed at the baby a couple of times and I excitedly informed him, "Baby!"

Click to wook at dat wittle smile!

But of course the baby wasn't going anywhere, so as soon as he figured that out, his attention drifted to other things, such as his daddy walking below on the sidewalk. My attention, however, kept lighting on the baby, and C soon noticed.

Confused, C kept looking at the infant, and then at me. His brain was desperately trying to make connections that its just not old enough to make. Why is mommy talking to that baby? Why is she NOT talking to me? My world is upside down!

I sensed trouble, so I sang a couple of kid's song that I figured would entertain them both. I concluded with the Itsy Bitsy Spider because it is C's favorite, but it was too late. When I looked from the baby to him, I did not see a smile. Oh no. I saw the pouty lip.

C never uses the pouty lip! He'll whine, he'll cry, but he rarely sticks that lip all the way out. And let me tell you it is adorable. At least, it's adorable for spans of a second or so, and thank goodness, the poor boy smiled when he saw me looking at him again. We were only there with his rival for a handful of minutes after that, so let me assure you that C survived the encounter with ego intact. Unfortunately that brief frown was a glimpse into the future. I'm going to see a lot more of the pouty lip, and probably more whining and crying, right after his younger brother is born. I'm trying to store up extra patience ahead of time. Wish me luck!

TNG Ep.12: The Big Goodbye

2011-03-15T11:00:00.003-04:00

When I saw the preview image for this episode, I thought I was seeing mobsters. It turned out that I was seeing the slightly less exciting private detective and cops, and that's when this episode stopped reminding me of "A Piece of the Action" from TOS. Ah well.

Summary:
The Enterprise is on a mission to greet very picky insect-like aliens so that they might join the Federation. Picard is stressed out about having to learn a sentence or two in their strange language, so he takes a break gallivanting on the holodeck as a 1930s private eye. While he and other crew members are in the holodeck, the aliens send a probing signal that accidentally turns the holodeck pyscho. Picard and others are trapped there, and the safeties are turned off, both of which they discover when some historian crew member we've never met before is shot in the abdomen. While Picard is unavailable, Riker angers the aliens by not being Picard and by being totally insensitive. Wesley and Geordi eventually fix the holodeck, everyone escapes, and Picard greets the aliens to their satisfaction. Mission accomplished.

This episode was very disappointing. The biggest problem with the story was the pacing. All the major plot points were reasonable, and many were even interesting, but the pacing killed a lot of the potential suspense. Mainly, we learn that holodeck has gone bonkers, but Picard and co. don't learn the danger they're in until a few minutes before they escape. Picard spends a good deal of time being interrogated without even realizing that he's in real danger. Sure, Picard and co. are held hostage briefly by the mob after they've learned that they could really die, but they don't have to think their way out of getting killed. In fact, Picard goes right to trying to tell them the truth, which naturally they don't believe, and he doesn't even offer to use Data's super strength to prove it. Now that would have been cool. "Data, lift this desk." And then what would Data have done with that desk? Thrown it at them. I should write Star Trek episodes.

On another note, Riker apparently has no diplomatic skills whatsoever. The aliens must have been feeling gracious that day, because I think that even I would have fried his butt for being so rude to me. I'm not sure I'd call this a flaw in the writing, since it matches some of the other stupid things Riker has said in other episodes. If snarkiness is needed, like with Q, Riker's the man to call. Finesse? Let's just say he's not ready for the captain's chair just yet.

In comparison, Picard handles the mission well. I liked the bit at the beginning when he's going over the strange alien pronunciations. Even though he fubs the holodeck hostage situation, you can still believe that this is the same experienced captain who convinced Q not to kill us all. He's also willing to learn a few ridiculous-sounding alien phrases for the sake of diplomacy. It's not often I praise Picard, so enjoy it.

I still hold that this episode would have been 100% better if Data had thrown a desk at someone.

But there's hope on the horizon... I see that the next episode is entirely about Data!

Question for Writers: Well-knit Group or Complete Strangers?

2011-03-12T11:00:00.001-05:00

Say your characters have to go on a long trip together. This could be your opportunity to force characters together who'd otherwise never stick around each other, or your chance to go all soap opera on some characters who thought they liked each other. Strangers might learn that one of them is a serial killer, while friends might learn that the village idiot isn't such a big dummy afterall. All while facing starvation, cabin fever, etc.

What it comes down to is, which group would you rather screw with?

Feel free to answer/ramble in the comments. If the question inspires a Flash Friday or something similar, feel free to link to your story in the comments and please link back to here on the applicable webpage.

Ready. Set. GO.

Flash Friday #6: My Kingdom for Her Heart

2011-03-11T11:00:00.000-05:00

They appropriate our livestock, our seed, and even our precious metals, but we don't care because the aliens are beautiful. Seeing one talk on a vid is like hearing God answer your prayers. Standing in one's presence is like communing with the divine.

I hear we're repulsive to them. Less suave members of their race have spoken about it at length, comparing their revulsion to our revulsion for insects and frogs. Yet when they call us these things, it is still the lips of gods that say it, and most of us cannot be mad. Instead we hear a glimmer of hope because, after all, not all humans are repulsed by bugs.

I want to tell you to resist. I want to tell you that we can take the Earth back if we can shed this glamour from our eyes and find our true selves.

Instead I will tell you that recently I stood in their presence. She had come to ask me about my murmurs of dissension, about the cynicism with which I had infected my fellow miners. Miners understand darkness better than anyone. We can hold on to our hateful and suspicious thoughts longer than those who walk on the surface under the constant glow of They. That is why she came to me, to make my knees tremble and buckle in her light. I answered her questions. I would do anything for her.

Have you heard the rumors that They sometimes lay intimately with our lowly kind? I have been told to tell you that it is true, and that it is worth more than all the Earth's pitiful sheep, corn, or gold. That is my new message.

TNG Ep 11: Haven

2011-03-08T11:00:00.001-05:00

Summary:
Surprise! Counselor Troi has a fiancée (Wyatt) and he's come to marry her. Troi thought that her old vows had faded into oblivion, but both sets of parents are set on the arranged marriage. The Enterprise agrees to host the wedding and Troi goes along with it because she says Riker isn't willing to put her above being a star ship captain some day. Riker pouts because it's true. Wyatt and Troi are getting along well despite their parents' squabbles, when suddenly an ancient ship of plagued humanoids shows up. Wyatt recognizes a woman on board as the woman of his dreams (literally) and the wedding is called off when he beams himself about, exposing himself to the plague.

I have to say that this is my favorite episode so far*, excluding the two-parter opening, which can't fairly be compared because it's twice as long. This episode was awesome because of the character interaction. We get to see Riker pout and Data make fun of drunk people ("Please, continue the petty bickering!").

Normally I would think I'd hate an episode that was all about Troi, but the writers show once again that they know how to delve into a character. Troi shows marvellous poise when dealing with her little-known fiance, then reasonably throws a fit when her mother is causing a scene. She deftly ignores Riker's pouting, telling him straight out why she's not cancelling the wedding for him, and giving him a fair chance to object. Since she's a Betazoid, she also doesn't freak out about dream-woman. It's also nice to see how utterly annoying her character would be if she were like her mother, an eccentric woman who expects others to suck it up when she offends them. It really makes you feel like all her stupid lines previously aren't the character's fault, like the character is a distinct entity who is unfortunately sometimes over-taken by terrible writers.

The ending was a bit touching, but not over done. Troi's a little emotional because she was getting along with her future husband pretty well, but it's like she doesn't forget that she essentially just met him.

I mean, there's always Riker, right? Noooooo!

*even though Wil Wheaton isn't in this episode

Question for Writers: Canine or Feline Sidekick?

2011-03-05T11:00:00.001-05:00

If your protagonist had a sidekick or familiar, would you rather they had a feline or a canine? Would the animal be your typical house pet, or something bigger? Or even something modified - smarter, cybernetic, humanoid? If so, what animalistic qualities qould they keep?

What would make them a good/bad sidekick? Would the relationship benefit your protagonist or their sidekick more?

Feel free to answer/ramble in the comments. If the question inspires a Flash Friday or something similar, feel free to link to your story in the comments and please link back to here on the applicable webpage.

Ready. Set. GO.

TNG Ep 10: Hide and Q

2011-03-01T12:57:00.002-05:00

Whoopee! A Q episode is always one full of some kind of entertainment! At least for Q.

Summary:
Q interrupts an important rescue mission to play games with the Enterprise crew. Over their protests that he go the frick away, Q pits the bridge crew, minus Picard, against furry humanoids with phaser-shooting rifles. Q threaten's Tasha's life briefly, but gives up on that after seeing a heart-warming moment between her and the Captain. Finally, he gives Riker the power of Q and offers to make him full Q. Picard wagers with Q privately that if Riker refuses, Q has to leave them alone forever. Riker eventually saves everyone by Q-ing them back to the Enterprise. Picard makes Riker promise not to use his Q power again if he intends to refuse Q-dom, which then prevents Riker from saving a little girl on their rescue mission. Q returns to the bridge; Riker offers to give everyone on the bridge a gift. Trouble is, no one wants his gifts: Data doesn't want to be a real boy, Worf refuses to have sex with the random Klingon Riker procures, and Wesley doesn't want to skip 10 years of his life just to be older. Riker decides not to be Q afterall, and Q's contemporaries make Q vanish from the bridge.

First off, kudos to the Enterprise crew for treating Q like the uninvited party-crasher he is. The problem with that is that this party crasher has god-like powers, and he pouts. I don't know if I could look Q in the face and tell him that I'd *maybe* give him the time of day *after* my rescue mission. There'd probably be more pleases in my refusal - at least the first time, before he told me that people burning to death doesn't matter because there are always humans dying and suffering somewhere. Sheesh, with that kind of philosophy we'd be like - well, like Q, I guess.

I do like how, after all his bullying, we're shown that "Q" isn't top dog of "the Q," and that some of those top dogs are a bit more honor-bound. But don't let me get ahead of myself like that.

Riker does two dumb things in this episode. The first is that he doesn't Q them all to the ship once he learns that he really does have Q powers. Instead he sits back and watches as Wesley and others die (sorry, but I only remember Wesley, teehee). The second is when he makes his promise to Picard without fully realizing the implications. Um, duh? The first thing I thought of when Picard laid out the promise was that they were about to be on a rescue mission where Riker could theoretically Q everyone to safety/life/whatever. But Riker holds that dead little girl like he just realised that fact. Also, he tells the other colonist that he could bring her back to life, but won't. That seems pretty cruel, but we'll chalk that up to it being an emotional moment.

One other weird thing about that rescue. Picard says at the beginning of the episode that there are hundreds of colonists to rescue, yet they only show us one scene with a handful of people. K? I guess the rest either died or weren't worth showing, or both.

Anyway, the end of the episode is cool. You know that Riker will refuse because he's too important of a character to become god in episode 10 of 178, but you don't know what's going to convince him. Having him offer Q-gifts is awesome because that's exactly what I would do with that kind of power. It's also an interesting take on "be careful what you ask for" which has always been a favorite theme of mine in any story. Riker doesn't go crazy with his gifts, either. He doesn't offer to make anyone super rich/powerful/famous, but rather his gifts are the sort that people truly would desire in that secret place in their heart, at least until it's actually offered to them. I also liked what the characters said when they explained their separate refusals. My favorite was Worf saying that the random Klingon woman was from a world he'd chosen to leave behind, and who has time for sex, anyway? Haha, but seriously, sometimes you take that fork in the road and wonder about or desire part of what you could have had down the other path, but not enough to actually go back and change it.

And, of course, Wesley's was the best because it's a parallel to Riker's own predicament. "I'd rather get there on my own," thank you very much. When the Q said humans would develop god-like powers, they DID mean in my lifetime... Right?

New Friends, New Beta-Reading

2011-02-28T11:21:00.003-05:00

Recently, Pendragon Variety had its first twitter chat (Tuesdays 9-10pm EST #pvpchat), and through that I was honored to talk to many of our listeners who are also other writers. It was totally awesome! Of course, "Friends" is a strong term for any one I've just met, but it made the title sound cooler. The point is that through social networking, I've just met numerous writers who might someday work on a project with me, or beta read for me, or at least re-tweet my blog posts. I love meeting other writers because you never know who will help you with what, or who you might help.

Now, you may have noticed that I used that obnoxious phrase, social networking. The phrase is obnoxious because it's used by many different people to mean many different things, but for every one I think it at least means this: not living under a rock. To me it further means making real connections with some of the people that you meet when you step out from under your rock. Real connections don't necessarily mean becoming best friends, but it does mean that you both give and take. You put out your writing, but you also read other people's. You respond to their questions. You pass on the things you enjoyed to others in your network. You ask so-and-so if they'd be interested in one of your projects, and you don't throw a hissy fit if they say no. In other words you treat people like people, and you yourself do not act like a mindless twitter bot.

And you Beta Read. Beta reading is an exchange unique to writers that requires both the writer and the beta reader to put themselves out there. Feelings might get hurt and miscommunication might abound. But hey, we're writers, so we can handle miscommunication, right? Right? In all honestly, I've rarely had a problem with beta reading, from either end. In fact, I'd like to mention a few of the authors I beta read for. Proof, after all, that I do not live under a rock.

David Barron - I met David Barron through twitter/Pendragon Variety and read his short story An Aesop Admist the Fairy Dust which you can find on Amazon. In fact, you can find the story and others by him for purchase in several different places, so I'll send you to his blog where you can find links to them all: http://davidalbarron.blogspot.com/. An Aesop Admist the Fairy Dust is about poor Hard Luck Charley unknowingly trying to run his pizza shop in the middle of fairy mob territory. That's right. I said fairy mob. This one is definitely a comedy, and many of his other works have at least a touch of comedy to them.

Bryan Thomas Schmidt - I learned about Bryan Thomas Schmidt through the Pendragon Variety chat and fell immediately in love with the premise of his space opera novels. The first, The Worker Prince, is scheduled to come out this year. The second, The Returning, I'm delighted to be beta-reading. His writing blog is http://www.bryanthomasschmidt.blogspot.com/.

L. "Scribe" Harris - Scribe is the editor of Pendragon Variety and an old high school friend of mine. I've been beta reading her epic fantasy, Markmasters trilogy, and I'm always biting my nails waiting for the next chapter. Visit her blog at http://lscribeharris.blogspot.com/.

I've also done beta reading for authors who aren't yet ready to announce their projects to the world yet, but I can't wait until they are, so I can post about them here! Now to get back to beta reading...

Question for Writers: Emotional or Physical Trauma?

2011-02-26T11:00:00.001-05:00

The climax of the story will probably involve both physical and emotional challenges for your protagonist. She'll likely face death and the knowledge that she failed to save her son. He'll likely face torture and the inability to warn his comrades that the enemy is coming. That sort of thing.

But for the rest of the story, for all those little bumps in the road that accumulate against your protagonist, do you focus on physical or emotional threats? If you could only utilize one kind, which would you chose?

How does the genre impact your decision? Romantic comedies are usually sans explosions, while action-adventure usually simplify getting the girl. So, would you rather write the guy who feels guilty because he betrayed his ally, or the gal who has to escape kidnappers?

Feel free to answer/ramble in the comments. If the question inspires a Flash Friday or something similar, feel free to link to your story in the comments and please link back to here on the applicable webpage.

Ready. Set. GO.

Flash Friday #5: The Sins of the Mother

2011-02-25T11:00:00.001-05:00

The steel visor hummed as I placed it over my eyes and hooked the ends over my ears. My gaze happened to drift up towards the clouds, and there I saw my first spirit creature, erasing all doubts. It was larger than the largest castle, and rotund, with dozens of wings and a head like a lizard's. The spirit inflated as it sucked in a breath, then deflated as it puffed out clouds. The clouds, in turn, became a playground for hundreds of small serpentine spirits, and their flight shaped the gigantic puffs.

I gathered my wits enough to say, "I see them."

Piotr cleared his throat. "Good, Sire. Now look over there."

I followed his gesture towards the Mount Ola in the distance. Famed for being the birthplace of our foremother, the mountain was revered, but in all my life nothing important had gone into or come from it. Not that I could see, anyway.

Now I saw the fabled King of the Mountain, Ola's father. He was large enough to swallow us mortals whole, and he had horns, and donkey hooves, just like the ancient texts warn. The demon stood on mount Ola and below him spread a sea of smaller demons, too indistinct to describe at such a distance, and too many to count. Was it as the prophesies said? Did he conspire to capture his errant daughter and her offspring?

I swallowed past the knot of fear in my throat. There was no denying it now, no hoping that Piotr had finally lost his mind. "Call the generals... And the priests."

Piotr smiled wickedly, the smile that I had always thought meant that he had tricked me somehow. "Yes, Sire."

TNG Ep 9: The Battle

2011-02-23T11:00:00.000-05:00

Summary:
Suspiciously, the Ferengi are being nice to the Enterprise and return a derelict vessel, the Stargazer, to it's old captain, Picard. While the Enterprise waits, Picard develops mysterious headaches that later turn out to be the Ferengi's fault. Of course everyone knows that something has to be up, especially when DaiMon Bok refuses to charge money for the ship's return. Even his subordinates look taken aback and later arrest him for engaging in an profitable adventure after it is discovered that the DaiMon has planted a mind control device on the Stargazer. DaiMon Bok uses the device to trick Picard into reliving "The Battle of Maxia," thus firing on the USS Enterprise from the Stargazer as if she is the unidentified Ferengi ship that long ago attacked Picard and his former crew. The DaiMon's son died in that attack, as the DaiMon informs Picard right before his plans come to fruition. Picard fires on the Enterprise, but Riker, knowing the exact maunever that Picard had and will use, is able to deflect the attack, snap Picard out of his trance, and bring the episode to a close as the Ferengi ship skitters off with it's tail between it's legs.

You know what I like about this episode? Ferengi. Real Ferengi, not the jokes we've seen hitherto. This time the Ferengi are clever and at least one of them shows some kind of value system. Even in their demonized ultra-capitalist society, they have certain inviolate rules. Rules such as, don't control the thoughts of others. I mean, jeez. It's one thing to trick someone into buying something that they shouldn't, and quite another to voodoo mind control your enemy into killing his crew.

Even though I liked this episode, I have to point out a few major flaws. Near the end, Riker can't save the captain because the sheilds are up, making beaming useless, yet the Ferengi captain beams through the shield to save his own skin. Do the Ferengi have super awesome beaming technology? Most likely, this is just a plot hole. It's sad if it's so big that even I notice.

Also, since when does the Intruder Alert go off just because a ship is approaching? At least this inconsistency is just annoying. It was nice, though, that Picard caught that Wesley was showing off by coming up to the bridge to warn them instead of using the comm. I like Wesley and all, but kids can be dumb like that.

And, magically, this is the one time that Troi can sense anything from a Ferengi mind, not that what she senses is incredibly useful ("deception").

Lastly, security checks out Picard's old ship before they'll even let him board, but they don't inspect the luggage that he has brought over from there? I guess we can blame Worf and Tasha's for that one. Woopsie.

So, ignore all that when I tell you that this episode is great. Mind control devices and reliving the past are both win-win in my book. Both Picard and the Ferengi needed this boost of character development. We get to see a tough, smart decision Picard had to make when he was Riker's age, we get to see Riker act as captain, and we get to see a Ferengi do the right thing by arresting his mind-controling superior. Like I said. Win-win...-win.

Proposal for Indie Authors: Update!

2011-02-21T12:43:00.002-05:00

I’m excited about the support and interest I received for my post: Proposal for Indie Authors. Interest is so great, in fact, that “I” is already “we” and we even have a name:

Pendragon Express*

Are you part of the we that makes up Pendragon Express? That’s up to you! I expect that the more people that hear about our new venture, the bigger we will become, and right now there are lots of different ways that you can help us if you support our mission.

Our Mission: To increase distribution of independent titles by making them available at conventions around the US.

If you read the first post, perhaps you gathered that already, but I do so like seeing it stated all concise and official-like. Now, to expand upon that. There are two metaphorical arms that will make up Pendragon Express and work together towards accomplishing our mission. Basically: Authors and Small Presses, and Sellers and Distribution Organizers. I’d like to outline for you our plan so far for how both arms will work.

Authors and Small Presses
As all who work in independent publishing know, you spend a lot of time and effort marketing and distributing your work to reach niche markets. We love you for that and we’d like to do more than just applaud your work from the sidelines. By pooling our resources, we believe that we can help you increase your exposure with no more cost to yourselves than you are already putting into other methods of distribution.

What we will provide: We will arrange for the booth, display equipment, labor, and much of the organization required to sell at conventions, fairs, and other events that might otherwise be inaccessible to you as a single author or small press.

What we need from you: We need you to provide the hard copies of your book(s), including shipping, to the convention(s) of your choice. We’d also love it if you included flyers and other promotional material. We will attempt to minimize your shipping costs by efficiently organizing our sellers between conventions. Meaning, you send copies of your book to one person and your book travels to several events for that year. To make all of this possible, we will also take a cut of the profit to cover the overhead mentioned above.

Are we out to make money? No. We are doing this for our love of independent publishing. If we were wealthy, we’d pay for all the tables, all the hotel rooms, and all the labor ourselves. Just like if you were wealthy, you’d print a large run of your books and pay the big book stores to distribute them. As it is, we must take a cut of the sales in order to provide you with a continuing business model - in other words, so that we can do this more than once and still eat that month. And, just as you labor for free to Get the Word Out, most of our labor will also be pro bono. Our cut goes towards paying for the dealer’s table and compensating our sellers.

Sellers and Distribution Organizers
We are also looking for people interested in the distribution and sales end of Pendragon Express. Without somebody standing at the booth, the books will not sell. Selling at a convention can be a wonderful experience for outgoing, passionate people interested in business or in our particular niche of publishing. Not only will you learn about and meet people involved in independent publishing through our organization, but you’ll meet all sorts of convention attendees who might share other interests with you. You’ll also, of course, gain experience with sales - both the pitch part and the display and organization part.

Who we’re looking for: We are looking for people who enjoy attending conventions, fairs, and other events where genre books can be sold. When we imagine our perfect seller, we imagine someone who attends one or more conventions, fairs, and other events every year (when possible) just for the love of attending those events. If you are already planning on going and are familiar with a convention, you’ll better be able to handle any hiccups that come your way. (“The event staff gave me the wrong table!”) You’ll also know how to arrange your time so that you can still enjoy the parts of the convention that you look forward to participating in that year. If you’re an experienced convention goer interested in attending new conventions, that’s great, too. It is unlikely that your compensation from Pendragon Express will cover all of your transportation, food, and other associated costs, so it is important that you chose to sell at events that you are personally interested in.

What we need from you: We need you to, most importantly, keep track of money and any merchandise we send you, as well as detailed records of what is sold, so that we may pay our authors and compensate you. We need you to keep track of when (and where) you need to show up, whether you are setting up the booth or taking over for another seller. We need you to inform us ahead of time of how much time you are willing to spend at the booth. Ideally, we’ll have at least two sellers at any event, even the smallest ones, so let us know which programs you wish to attend away from the booth. We need you to arrange for your own transportation and hotel room, if a hotel room is needed for you to attend. We need you to read over any information we send you regarding our authors, their works, and any thing else we expect you to sell or display. We need you to smile at customers and be willing to hold conversations with potential customers when appropriate. Basically, we need you to be friendly and responsible.

What we will provide: We will purchase the seller’s table, whether it be in the artist’s alley or the dealer’s room; or, at a fair, inside or outside. We’ll let you know if you need to purchase a badge in order to attend. We will facilitate the transfer of books to you or to the convention and give you the information you need to set up, sell well, and keep our accounting in order. We will also provide some display materials depending on where you are selling and the space available. We plan to put together digital displays that can be run on a laptop if electricity is available at your table, and to organize various business cards, fliers, and other freebies to help draw interest to your table. We will provide you with as much information as possible about our authors, their works, and any thing else we expect you to sell or display. We will compensate you for your time from our cut of sales at that convention. If sales are dismal because of a poorly run convention or low attendance, and if we have surplus funds from other conventions and donations, we will supplement your cut as possible. We value your time. We keep NO money for ourselves. Any funds go back into Pendragon Express, to our sellers and to cover tables and other overhead.

Interested?
If you like our mission, there are so many ways you can help support us, both big and small! Please email us and consider joining us for future skype or aim discussions where you can have an impact on how Pendragon Express will be run. We want your opinions, and your ideas. Most of all, we want to share the excitement!

pendragonvariety(at)gmail(.)com
pendragonvariety.com/express

There's not much up at the website right now, but that's because we don't want to make too much of the ins-and-outs official before you get a chance to add your feedback - so please do! By email or in the comments below.

*The name: We’ve named Pendragon Express after a podcast known as Pendragon Variety (.com). The Pendragon Variety podcast features round table discussions related to writing and reading of genre fiction, as well as author interviews and short fiction from around the ‘net. Not only do we like the name Pendragon (obviously) but we feel that these two projects are so strongly related that they should be considered as part of the same, larger organization of fiction lovers and independent authors. Because this organization is larger than Pendragon Variety, it is not necessary that you have participated in or even heard about the podcast in order to participate in Pendragon Express.

Question for Writers: Very Alien Aliens, or No?

2011-02-19T21:22:00.000-05:00

Usually in science fiction, if aliens are going to be our enemies, they're very unlike us in appearance, language, and social mores. If they're going to be our friends, they look like us with pointed ears. The same thing happens in fantasy often enough - again with the pointed ears versus bat-like demons and so forth.

Lets say your aliens, or your fae, or what have you, are going to be fairly neutral. They aren't going to blow us up, but they aren't going to kiss us either. So what kind of aliens would you want? How much would they be like us? They'd have to have something in common with us, for instance a desire not to be blown up, but how far would you take that?

Feel free to answer/ramble in the comments. If the question inspires a Flash Friday or something similar, feel free to link to your story in the comments and please link back to here on the applicable webpage.

Ready. Set. GO.

Guest Post: Doom and Short Story Collections

2011-02-18T20:33:00.003-05:00

Today I'm honored to have Andrew Jack from Andrew Jack Writing. I follow Andrew on twitter (@ajackwriting) and was delighted to hear that he was writing this post regarding changes in publishing. Below, Andrew delves past the abstract and recommends independently published books for your consumption. Without further ado:

Doom and Short Story Collections

I'm gonna sing the Doom Song now. [singing] Gir: Doom doom doom...

GIR, Invader Zim (2001)

Are we all doomed?

Listening to the news and various writing blogs it certainly sounds like it. Book sales are down, major book stores are going out of business, I can’t find my shoes…

It’s like the world of publishing is falling down and it’s falling on authors. How can we expect to make a living slinging words when the publishing world is heaving like a dragon in its last throes?

I’ve spoken about this before but the myth of publishing’s demise is a persistent one. Publishing isn’t dying, but it is changing.

Sure, if you’re determined to cling to the ideal of doing nothing but writing, and leaving everything else to publishers and agents you might be in for a hard time* but it’s not like people have stopped reading, it’s just that the way books are read and sold is changing.

No force in the ‘verse can stop it.

But we can ride the wave. We are already seeing a major shift towards authors being the primary promotional force behind their work and that’s going to become the norm. Not that publishers won’t market your stuff, but if you can successfully build a following before you’re published it will make your book more attractive to publishers.**

As authors we can also look at the emerging opportunities offered by e-books. I’m not saying you have to rush out a fifty book back list or devote your entire soul to self publishing, but at least check it out and see if the time and the toil is something you’re prepared to do.

One way of dipping your toe in the black waters of self publishing is by putting out a book of your own short stories.

Making the massive assumption that the stories are good, and you pay to have the cover designed by someone who knows what they’re doing, it can be a positive step for your career.

I plan to do this later this year, but for now if you’d like to look at a couple of excellent collections I have two you can’t go past (especially since they’re $2.99).

I’ve ranted on about Chuck Wendig’s excellent Irregular Creatures as a good example of a well done self published short story collection. I can also highly recommend James Melzer’s horror collection The Other Side as a great example of just how good a self published collection can be.

It’s worth noting that James and his wife Jenny are two of the nicest people out there in publishing, they both talked to me a lot on Twitter when I was a complete newbie and asking stupid questions, so anything you can do to help them out I would appreciate immensely.

You’ll get a damn good book too. Melzer has real skill when it comes to the rhythm of his stories. If you can’t wait you can pick up The Other Side from Amazon here and from Smashwords here.

The Other Side isn’t for the faint of heart. If you and the macabre don’t get on this is probably not the book for you.

That said, it’s macabre gone awesome. In fact I like it so much I’m going to give away a copy. Tell me, what are you afraid of? It can be in real life or in fiction. Let me know in the comments.

I’ll pick a winner in 24 hours and that winner will get their choice of format of The Other Side.

* Write a really great book and you might still be okay, but this is starting to look less and less likely.

** Bear in mind that your book still has to be good, a great platform but a terrible book is probably not going to make it. There are exceptions but why not have everything working in your favour?

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To enter the contest, comment on this post here at Andrew Jack Writing.

TNG Ep 8: Justice

2011-02-16T11:00:00.000-05:00

Summary:
The USS Enterprise has found an Eden-like planet which, surprise, tries to kill one of their crew members, namely Wesley. It's really Tasha's fault, as she claims to have researched the laws and customs of the Edo, but misses both the rule about forbidden areas, and that the punishment for every crime is death. Also, there's a super race hovering above the planet who warn the Enterprise not to interfere with their "children." The Edo agree to hold off on killing Wesley until sundown, and Picard chides the super race until the Enterprise is allowed to take Wesley off of the planet.

Nooooo, not Wesley! But then, when Picard said that Wesley was coming with them to the planet, I knew that something terrible would happen to him. That's kinda like Kirk sending a red shirt (note: some of the officers on TNG wear red shirts!), only with slightly less death. Knowing that the episode will be about Wesley, naturally, ensures my fondness from the beginning. Also, half-naked men and women. Ha ha!

How Wesley gets in trouble is a bit ridiculous. Actually, the laws and customs mistake I can deal with, because I can see how Tasha was busy checking out the oh-so-available hunks during her "research." what I don't understand is why forbidden areas are surrounded by an extremely low, easily missed fence. Wesley barely lifts an ankle to fall over one of these "fences". Pft. I guess we wanted whatever Wesley did to be unmistakeable not his fault, so that we could feel sorry for the boy and his mother. It sure worked on me, and I loved this episode because of it.

In fact, my favorite part about this episode is that they throw the Prime Directive out the window. Actually, they do that from the beginning by beaming down to a place that doesn't even have warp technology yet, but I don't mean that. That's just a bit of lazy writing - Kirk always beamed down just out of sight and then insisted that he was grom "very far away" which, you know, totally works. Anyway, I like the part that they want you to notice, which is when Picard decides that the Prime Directive can go cry in a corner if it means letting an innocent die. (Nevermind the probable murder of the Selay official in the last episode. He's not nearly as blameless as Wil Wheaton - I mean, Wesley.)

Data: Will you chose one life over one thousand, Sir?
Picard: I refuse to let arithmetic decide questions like that.

Take that, Spock logic! (No, no, I love Spock! And he sacrificed himself, not a boy, so it's different!)

Anyway, they get out of the whole mess by pointing out that laws shouldn't be absolute, which is another good take-away quote from the episode. Try using either out of context in your day-to-day conversations, unless you're talking about your math homework, of course.

Your Mom: If you don't eat your meat, you can't have any pudding! How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat?!
You: There can be no justice as long as laws are absolute!

Thanks, Picard, for finally saying something smart.

Become a Part of a New Spec Fic Ezine

2011-02-14T11:03:00.002-05:00

When my friend Luis asked me if I wanted to be part of a new spec fic e-zine, I knew I'd say yes even though I was in the middle of packing up my family's apartment to move, nursing an infant with an ear infection, and preparing to go to Florida for my grandfather's impending death. It didn't matter that it was bad timing because I wanted in.

Luis, Eileen, and Adam are the kind of people who are always improving the writing communities they're apart of, whether that be by podcasting poetry critiques or designing indepth prompts to challenge their fellow writers. I knew that an e-zine run by people like that could be what I'd say right next to "I'm a writer" when I introduce myself. "Hi, I'm a writer and I help run Theory Train Magazine." Yes, I wanted in on this project at its start, and I knew that after life settled down I might even write rambling blog posts about how I'm part of this new e-zine that you should submit a story or poem to at theorytrain.com (See what I did there?).

I'm already glad that I'm part of Theory Train. I love experiencing the other side of publishing. It's one thing to understand theoretically that publishers have to be ruthless in what they accept or reject, and quite another to actually have that on your shoulders. We want Theory Train to be a magazine you can be proud to be published in. We want readers to sample our featured poetry and prose and decide that this is a publication worth reading. We want you all to be excited enough to tell your friends about it.

And the best part? From where I'm sitting, the best part is that this is just the beginning. We have our first issue out and are accepting submissions for our second. These first issues are your chance, as writers, to help define the magazine in terms of quality and diversity from the beginning. Those who submitted to the first issue have done us a great service by giving us pieces that we can show the world and say, "This is what we want." You could do the same by submitting now - or, say you're very busy, like I was when Luis first asked me - come back any time before the May 1st deadline to show your support for the second issue.

For readers, your feedback is essential to the future of the magazine. Whether you have comments about the site's look, navigation, or of course, content, feel free to post them here, on the Theory Train website, or contact theory train (at) gmail dot com. We know our stuff, but part of knowing our stuff is recognizing that it is you, the readers, that we aim to please. We can't tailor our e-zine to fit our readers if you don't tell us your opinion.

Lastly, if you have experience reviewing genre fiction, we'd love to talk to you about reviewing our magazine on your blog or on smashwords.com where our issues are sold. Because we're new, nobody knows about us yet. Help us change that. Email theory train (at) gmail dot com to ask about the paid content we're giving away for free to a limited number of reviewers and others who can help promote the e-zine.

"Hi, I'm part of Theory Train Magazine. Oh, you've heard of it? Great! I'm in their latest issue with my story..."

This is the future, people! Go forth and make it so!

Question for Writers: Too Tall or Too Short?

2011-02-12T11:00:00.000-05:00

Would you rather write a character that had too much of an attribute, or two little?

Say that in your story the characters keep needing to get items off of high shelves. (Work with me here.) Would you rather have a protagonist that can easily reach the items and be the go-to hero, or one that has to get a ladder or ask for help each time?

Or, lets go with smarts, since smarts are pretty important in our society. That's what Flowers for Algernon was all about. Would you rather have the character that has to struggle to figure out what other people are saying, or the one who has trouble connecting emotionally because he's just that much smarter than everyone else?

You get the underdog affect one way, but the other way you get McGyver. Chose, but chose wisely.

Feel free to answer/ramble in the comments. If the question inspires a Flash Friday or something similar, feel free to link to your story in the comments and please link back to here on the applicable webpage.

Ready. Set. GO.

TNG Ep 7: Lonely Among Us

2011-02-09T11:00:00.004-05:00

Summary:
While delivering some undignified dignitaries to Parliament, the USS Enterprise encounters an energy cloud that deposits a sentient being into their computer systems. It takes the crew the entire episode to figure this out because they are distracted by the Anticans and Selay having a blood feud on their ship and because Dr. Crusher apparently considers an hour of memory loss an everyday occurrence. Luckily for them the energy being takes over Picard and recaps everything they've missed. The energy being and Picard become one, beam themselves into the energy cloud, where their union dissolves itself, leaving Picard floating out in space wondering what the heck. Riker almost abandons the captain before Troi senses Picard's presence. When they beam Picard back using hocus pocus transporter magic, he doesn't remember anything except how annoying the feuding aliens are. Tasha comes to report that one of the Selay have probably been murdered, but whatever. The end!

Theoretically I liked this episode. Energy beings! Identity fusion! Troi acually being useful!

In practice, I thought the episode made all the characters look stupid, and then I felt stupid for not realizing that the Anticans and the Selay were just comic relief. I mean, there's comic relief, and then there's letting them get away with murder, right? The Enterprise crew does not care that one of the Selay has probably been murdered by an Antican at the end of the episode. I guess that's because it wasn't one of their crew members - oh wait! They don't care about that either. All they want is to get the episode over with so that they can get the heck outta dodge and get the Anticans and Selay off of their ship.

But the biggest problem with this episode is not even the uncharacteristic handling of the alien dignitaries. The problem is that the only real mystery for the viewer is how these two parties are thwarting the awesome security of the Enterprise to eat each other. The energy being is not a surprise because we get to see everything about it, while the crew doesn't. This leaves you shouting at the crew to stop ignoring their sudden memory loss and figure it out already. I also had the misfortune of guessing that the energy being was peaceful because it handled Beverly so much better than it handled Worf. On the same principle, not really sure why it killed the next guy, but then achieved perfect fusion with Picard. Whatever. We all make mistakes, right? Fry up a Selay dignitary here, fry an Enterprise officer there...

Lastly, I thought it was a bit of a cop-out that Picard didn't remember anything even though his fusion worked better than the others. Does no one feel even the slightest bit betrayed that energy-captain-Picard abandoned them so gleefully?

energy-Picard: So long, suckers!

5 minutes later...
Riker: Oh thank goodness you're back, Picard! I might have had to marry Troi!

So, I didn't like this episode. The best part about it was that it had the guts to kill off an officer. Consider this entry as me pouting. It looks like:

Aw. Did you spot that one tear trickling down his face?

That's ok, though. I see that the next episode has half-naked men and women in it, and my dad assures me that it is "the best worst episode ever," meaning that I will love it. Yeeeeeeessss...

Playground Woes

2011-02-07T11:00:00.003-05:00

(The title should be read thusly; playground woooOOoooes!)

The bully.

I'm sure bullies on the playground are common, but for me, being a first-time parent, it was a new thing that I didn't immediately know how to handle. Most parents I meet are fairly attentive and have a discipline system that works for their kid.

This parent was not paying even attention, which meant that I had to pay extra attention. Harrumph. Her younger child was C's age, around the 1 1/2 to 2 age with similar physical and verbal development. So naturally C approaches the boy wanting to play. The boy gives him a shove and runs off. His older sister tries to tell on him, but their mom isn't listening and replies with, "that's nice."

I look at the other parents like, did that really just happen? But of course they are all absorbed n their mom conversations and their own kids. I decide I'd better keep both eyes on my kid around this little boy.

Soon after, the boy tells C "no" and shoves him off of the lower step of the slide. I raise my voice then and tell the boys sternly, "Play nice." The kid gives me a whatever look and runs off on his merry way.

Not five minutes later, another mean shove, but this time Mom sees. Thank goodness, I think as she draws her boy to the side... To talk sweetly to him. The word "no" never leaves her mouth. The kid is 1 1/2. He's not going to understand that he did something wrong unless you tell him so. The worst part, though, is that the mom immediately goes back to reading, instead of paying attention to see if her boy continues to shove.

Which, of course, he does. About that time I realize that while I'm sitting here mentally criticizing the other mom, I'm failing my kid. I don't want C learning that his mommy lets other kids bully him and he has to stand up for himself before he's even two years old. So, this is not a time to tip toe around the other moms and make sure I observe all the social niceties. Maybe they let this kid shove theirs around all the time. I don't care. This is a time to stand up for my kid in a clear, unambiguous way.

I see my kid get shoved again, and I go up to the other little boy and tell him, down in his face, "No. Play nice."

He gives me this look like, "Oh. You mean it." And I stand there between them and make sure he does play nice. And you know what? They do. (And his mom didn't even notice.)

I. Have. The Power.

Question for Writers: Lost Chameleon or Master Spy?

2011-02-05T11:00:00.000-05:00

Imagine a character who is a social chameleon. They're one of those people that everyone likes, when they want to be liked. They pick up easily on accents, lingo, mannerisms, and all that good stuff. Not only that, but they appreciate the value of their talents and use it to get ahead in life. Perhaps they pull scams, or perhaps they work for the CIA.

If this were your character, would they have a stable central personality, or serious identity issues? A character with a stable personality might have more to lose, like a significant other, while the lost chameleon might have more trouble choosing between two dates. Both can easily get tangled in their own web of lies. Which would you write?

Feel free to answer/ramble in the comments. If the question inspires a Flash Friday or something similar, feel free to link to your story in the comments and please link back to here on the applicable webpage.

Ready. Set. GO.

Flash Friday #4: Fairy Garden

2011-02-04T09:00:00.002-05:00

Sharon wasn't clear on all the rules of her new body so she chose a job that sounded safe. Watering flowers sounded safe. Physically, it was simple. Get water from a cloud and pour it unto the roots. Mentally, it was not so simple. She had to test the soil for dryness. She had to remember the best time of day to water them, and how much each needed. Worst of all, she had to understand and predict weather.

Stupid blessed garden. Mages never thought about the work it took to keep up their spells. Sharon certainly never had.

TNG Ep 6: Where No One Has Gone Before

2011-02-02T11:00:00.008-05:00

Summary:
The Enterprise is ordered to undergo a series of tests and fine tuning designed to increase the efficiency and speed of their warp engines, but Riker and the chief engineer have serious misgivings. It turns out that the equations really are bogus, and that it's Kosinksi's assistant, "The Traveler" who is really tweaking the engines using undisclosed methods. Something goes wrong when the assistant lets Wesley touch the axillary controls and the Enterprise is flung first far away, and then into another dimension altogether. The adults finally figure out that the assistant is behind it all, as Wesley tried to tell them, and The Traveler sacrifices himself to get them back home.

Wesleeeeeey! This episode is all about him, and I have a soft spot for coming of age genius characters. This episode certainly hits on that feeling that all teenagers have, that adults never listen to them no matter how important it is. "Not right now, Wesley," Riker tells him when he tries to draw their attention to the real architect of their adventure, the assistant - who, by the way, sounds like John Malchovich even though it's Eric Menyuk. And Kosinski? Totally Dr. Kroger from Monk (Stanley Kamel).

While we're talking about famous actors, omg Wil Wheaton! He's so young!

Ahem. So, the episode. The Traveler tells Picard that Wesley is a genius and should be encouraged, and all the adults are sorry for treating Wesley like a stupid kid. He's even made an ensign and allowed on the bridge again! But, have the adults really learned their lesson? Guess we'll find out in upcoming episodes.

Proposal for Indie Authors

2011-01-31T11:00:00.001-05:00

(self-published and small press)

What if you could promote your book at conventions, but not have to go yourself?

Here are my thoughts on why such a thing might benefit authors. For one, I've seen authors at conventions selling their books. Yet, I've also heard that most self-published authors' sales are very modest. I know from my experience selling jewelry at conventions that it can be touch-and-go as far as breaking even for the cost of the convention and a hotel. And that's with a popular, successful artisan. I can't help but wonder how many of the authors I see are actually losing money to promote their work. What if they didn't have to?

Additionally, I've learned from artisans that success often requires convention hopping. That means going to different states, to many different conventions, throughout the year. Similarly, many authors tour book stores in a flurry of promotion around the book's release date. These things require being able to travel - perhaps, not having a day job, or not having toddlers to look after. Touring represents significant expenses that might not be justified by actual sales.

Assuming that other authors have run into these problems, I think there might be a solution that we can work together on. I'd like to spearhead a non-profit organization that goes to conventions and sells several indie author's books, without each author having to go each time. Kind of like a mobile indie book store. If you live near DragonCon, you could run a table for us there, while other members run tables at other conventions you don't want to or can't go to.

Money wise, authors would provide the books. When those books sell, that author gets their overhead back plus some profit. Overhead might include having to ship the books between conventions, which could be a disadvantage of having multiple sellers. Also, personally, if I were running a table, I'd like to be compensated for either my badge or my time. Compensation would greatly expand what conventions I could go to for the group. But, that money would have to come out of the profits from the books, so we might have to start with that work being volunteer work. Once we've done several conventions and built up a reputation as an organization, hopefully we would have a more stable business model and be able to compensate our sellers, too. That way members don't have to worry about who is doing more, going to more conventions, and who is doing less.

Alternatively, sellers could buy books from the authors at a low price and keep any profit. I could see that working for sellers who plan to go to a couple of conventions every year and can hold on to unsold books between conventions. Or, the organization could represent the sellers by buying the books and organizing seller compensation and transfer of books between sellers.

Possibly, there could be a yearly membership fee that is waved for members who run tables that year. We would also ask for donations, of course.

These are all just ideas right now. What I need to hear from you, my fellow authors, is if you would be interested in participating, and what you think such an organization should look like.

Question for Writers: What Makes a Surprise too Big?

2011-01-29T11:00:00.000-05:00

Let me lay out a scenario for you, one that you may have seen before. The heroes are flying their spaceship through enemy forces, far out numbered, dodging strikes left and right. With luck and the skill of their awesome pilot, they make it through and crash land on the planet below. It's near the end of the movie so you're sitting on the edge of your seat wondering if they're all going to make it through the crash - and they do, coming to a complete stop. But before they and you can finish cheering, the pilot is interrupted mid-sentence by a flying projectile. He's killed on impact, and he's one of the main characters.

Poor Wash. The Serenity crew didn't even realize that they were still in super immediate danger, and neither did I. In that moment I felt bewildered, perhaps a little betrayed, but I couldn't say that it wasn't realistic. It was a surprise, but was it too much?

What makes a surprise too big? Is it when it happens, who it happens to, how it effects the story, or a lack of forewarning? What's the biggest gotcha you'd be willing to pull on your readers, and what would you do to prepare or console them? Would you risk being the writer that the reader hates to love?

Feel free to answer/ramble in the comments. If the question inspires a Flash Friday or something similar, feel free to link to your story in the comments and please link back to here on the applicable webpage.

Ready. Set. GO.