Just The Caffeine Talking

My First Story

Back in the 1990s I wrote some adventures and sourcebook material for the legendary Star Wars Roleplaying Game published by West End Games. Some of the worlds and plot elements I put in those pieces actually worked their way into the "canon" of the Star Wars universe, and I got paid, so I was happy.

But sadly, West End's Star Wars license got snarled in some legal traps and eventually yanked. This caught everyone by surprise, and an issue of the Star Wars Adventure Journal in production had to be scrapped just before release. I was particularly disappointed because that issue was to contain an original Star Wars short story I'd written. If the issue had actually gotten out, that would have been my first published fiction. 

However, fandom never forgets. Some West End fans have put the lost issues of Star Wars Adventure Journal on the web, including my never-published story "A Servant of the Empire." You can read it here.

Looking over the story, I'm not disappointed. I was still learning the art, and I was aiming for the pulpy, action-packed style of the Star Wars stories, and what I wrote was a competent pulp story. But I think it works, and I'm not ashamed of it.

 

  

PhilCon 2020 Goes Virtual

This year's PhilCon — the venerable Philadelphia-era science fiction con now in its 84th year — is going to be all-online. On the plus side that means no New Jersey traffic and mall food; on the minus side it means no spontaneous conversations in the hotel lobby, no room parties, and no basic human contact. But a virtual convention is better than none at all. 

Still, as in past years I will be participating, from my office in Massachusetts. Here's my schedule:

 

Friday November 20, 5:30 p.m.: Online Gaming: Not Just for Pandemics

Michael Ryan (moderator), Robert Hranek, James L. Cambias, Debby Lieven

The four of us will be discussing how the ongoing epidemic has affected how people play games -- will we go back to tabletops and rec rooms again, or is online gaming the future?

 

8:30 p.m.: From the Iron Bank to CHOAM: Business in Fiction

James L. Cambias (moderating), Anthony Dobranski, Elektra Hammond, Tom Doyle, Ian Randal Strock

A panel about the role of business and economics in fantastic fiction. How does a world's economy affect the stories one can tell? What does fiction get right and wrong?

 

Saturday November 20, 5:30 p.m.: The Oceans of Space

James L. Cambias, Tom Purdom, Kelli Fitzpatrick

I think I'm moderating this one. The three of us will discuss famous maritime science fiction, and how new discoveries in and beyond the Solar System may influence future ocean stories.

 

Sunday November 21, 1:00 p.m.: The Search for the Philosophers' Stone

Robert Hranek (moderator), Anastasia Klimchynskaya, James Prego, James L. Cambias, Elizabeth Crowens

We'll look at the history of alchemy, how discoveries in chemistry and physics changed our understanding of how matter works, and look at some other concepts which have shifted over time.

 

4:00 p.m.: Reading

I'll give con goers a glimpse into my forthcoming novel The Godel Operation, and the amazing far-future setting The Billion Worlds.

The Need For Long Campaigns

Here's an interesting — and, I think, important — brief essay on the value of long things. Listening to long pieces of music, reading long books, and (for us nerds) playing long roleplaying campaigns. It's by David McGrogan, better known as "Noisms," the somewhat mysterious author of the amazing Yoon-Suin game setting. 

Possibly revealing confession: in the course of writing this blog post I got distracted and managed to go down two different online "rabbit holes." This post is only 81 words long. 

The First CYBER WorldCon!

This year's World Science Fiction Convention was to have taken place in New Zealand, but since that country is entirely sealed off from the outside world, the convention has gone entirely on-line. It's a CYBER WorldCon! See the link here.

Despite obstacles the show will go on! I'm participating in several events, without leaving my house in Massachusetts. Here's my schedule (all times are in US Eastern Daylight Time):

Wednesday, July 29, 5:00 p.m.: Kaffeeklatsch

An hour-long informal hangout with me and nine other fans. Grab a drink and join us! (I probably will be having something stronger than coffee.)

Wednesday, July 29, 7:00 p.m.: Staying Closer to Home: Science Fiction in the Solar System

A panel featuring Daniel Abraham, Jeffrey Carver, myself, G. David Nordley, and Ian McDonald; focusing on the future of science fiction set within the Solar System rather than among the stars, and how our rapidly changing understanding of the Sun's other planets is affecting that.

Thursday, July 30, 5:00 p.m.: COVID-19: A Great Filter?

A panel featuring Valentin Ivanov, Vylar Kaftan, Ion Newcombe, and myself. We'll discuss whether pandemics like the current Coronavirus outbreak might explain why we don't see any sign of technological civilizations elsewhere in the Galaxy.

Thursday, July 30, 6:00 p.m.: Reading

I'll be doing a 20-minute reading of "Calando," a new short story of mine from the original anthology Retellings of the Inland Seas.

Friday, July 31, 6:00 p.m.: The Ascent of Wonder: What Makes Hard SF

Panel starring Kenn Bates, myself, Mark English, Harun Siljak, and Deborah Munro. We'll focus on how important it is to get the science right, what rules can we break, and who does it well?

Friday, July 31, 11:00 p.m.: RPG Design (And What to Do Next)

Join Michael Sands, Morgan Davie, Brandon O'Brien, myself, and Stephen Dedman for a discussion of how to design role-playing games and how to get them published.

Great Moments In Gaming

This table anecdote by Daniel J. Davis is one of the greatest examples I've seen of player-characters being player-characters. I love this stuff. It's why I love roleplaying games: seeing other people be clever (and, occasionally, horrifying).

 

 

For more clever, horrifying acts, check out The Initiate, from Baen Books. It will be in bookstores February 4, and is available for pre-order right now!

Arisia 2020 Report, Day 3

Sunday was my final day at the con. Most conventions are three-day affairs: show up Friday afternoon, do stuff Friday night and Saturday, maybe a few things Sunday morning, then head home after lunch. Not Arisia. Taking advantage of the MLK Day weekend, it stretches into Monday. That means Sunday is a busy full day rather than the tag end. 

I started my day moderating a panel on "Ringworld at 50," celebrating half a century since the publication of Larry Niven's landmark novel Ringworld. Opinions of the book among the five panelists varied, but we all agreed it's one of the most influential books of that era — not to mention a turning point in Mr. Niven's own career.

Slight pause after that, while I busied myself getting checked out of the hotel and finding a place to stash my stuff. Arisia may be a four-day convention, but I had prior commitments on the 20th and so couldn't stay to the end. 

I did manage to sit in on a couple of panels. The first was on book to film adaptations, and how one's impression of a work is affected by which version one experiences first. There are some cases where the film is actually better than the novel — my personal example is Carl Sagan's book Contact, which is full of plot holes the movie version avoids.

Another very useful panel was about crowdfunding and tabletop games. I may be dipping a toe into the Kickstarter world with an upcoming roleplaying game project, so it was all very informative. Watch this space for more information!

At 5:30 I participated in the panel "Writers React to Bad Writing," which might well have been called "Writers Forget Their Homework." We were all supposed to bring examples of bad prose to pick apart, but a minority of the panelists actually accomplished that simple task. I had selected a passage from Dan Brown's thriller Inferno, but cleverly left my copy at home so I had to reconstruct it from memory.

During the empty slot between that panel and my final event I taped an interview for Tyromag TV, which will probably appear in a few weeks. I don't think I picked my nose on camera.

I wound up my participation in convention programming by moderating the panel on "Hacking D&D," in which five panelists suggested rules tweaks or entire game mechanics from other games which can be ported into the most popular roleplaying system. In most cases they can probably be used in just about any game system without much tweaking. At least a couple of the examples are things I plan to use in games from now on.

With that done I could drop my name card into a recycling bin and join some other CSFWites at the ongoing "House of Toast" party. I had kind of assumed "Toast" was a euphemism, or maybe an acronym for something, but no, it was a party with about half a dozen toasters working full time popping out bread, and tables of exotic stuff to spread on them. We crunched down our toast and left the con. I got a lift to where my car was parked, and drove through a cold night back home.

 

A secret order of wizards rules the world, and one man has vowed to destroy them. The Initiate arrives in just two weeks!

Arisia 2020 Report, Day 2

Saturday the 18th was a light-duty day for me, which meant I got to enjoy the con as a member rather than as one of the dancing monkeys. 

Still fighting off my cold, I slept in on Saturday morning, starting my day by having brunch with my CSFW colleague Alexander Jablokow at a nearby Mexican restaurant. Many things of great import were discussed, though I can't quite recall any of them at the moment.

In early afternoon I sat in on a Meetup for gamemasters, discussing techniques, best practices, and resources. I had hoped to find some other gamers from western Massachusetts, but no luck. 

After that I took a turn about the dealer room and the Art Show. The quality of the artwork on display at Arisia is the highest I've seen at any convention since the Worldcon I attended in the summer of 2018.

In the late afternoon I watched a fascinating talk by David Shaw about the future of food. Unlike most studies of this topic, which focus on production, he concentrated on how new technologies and methods are affecting the art of cooking. Nor was this just theory: the talk was illustrated by slides of amazing dishes he himself had prepared. 

Following that I met with author Walter Hunt, chiefly in order to gush about his new novel Harmony in Light, and hear super-secret details of the upcoming sequel. 

After a rest to recharge my batteries, I put on my dancing-monkey costume and led a meetup for writers at 10:00 p.m. They were a great bunch, and I hope to see some of the works-in-progress they talked about during the session. 

And then off to bed and out like a snuffed candle.

 

A secret order of wizards rules the world. One man has vowed to destroy them. The Initiate by James L. Cambias is coming to a bookstore near you February 4. 

Arisia 2020 Report, Day 1

I drove out to Boston on a sunny but cold January afternoon, left the car at the disintegrating Alewife garage, and rode the T to the good old Westin Waterfront hotel.

Various delays en route and long lines at the hotel meant I barely had time to get my room, get my Arisia badge, and get my Participant Packet before it was time for my first event. But despite the crowds the hotel and convention staff were very efficient, so I was able to slide into the Independence room with a few minutes to spare.

"Stories From the Cities" was the title for a session of three readings by Andrea Hairston, W.B.J. Williams, and myself. Dr. Hairston read a couple of rousing chapters from her upcoming fantasy novel, Mr. Williams shared part of an urban fantasy work-in-progress, and I read an excerpt from (of course) The Initiate. All three seemed well-received by the half-dozen attendees — not a bad crowd for the very first time slot at 5:30 on Friday afternoon.

Immediately after that, conveniently in the same room, we had the panel on "Not With My Intellectual Property, You Don't." The panel included Diane Martin, Kristin Janz, Emperor Joey 1, Mark Painter, and myself. It became a very lively and thoughtful round-table discussion, touching on the effect of corporate ownership on works of art, the role of pastiche, fan fiction, and reimaginings; and kindred topics.

Then I hustled all the way across the hotel for a very fun panel about the Bone Wars between Othniel Charles Marsh and Edward Drinker Cope. With a peerless panel of experts including Mark Amidon, Ken Gale, and Jeff Hecht, we filled the hour with fun paleontology history. The four of us dovetailed nicely in our knowledge areas, so we had excellent "chemistry" and energy.

I paid a visit to the Art Show, hobnobbed with the convention's Guest of Honor, Cadwell Turnbull, and then . . . I went to bed. I'd been fighting a cold all afternoon, and didn't really think it would be wise to spread viruses around the hotel and just make myself sicker in the process.

Con Impressions: a big crowd, lots of young people. Fewer hall costumes than I recall from past years, but the brutally cold day might have something to do with that. Convention management ran extremely smoothly. The 75-minutes time slots with 15-minute breaks in between gave everybody time to get around and the panelists could spend a full hour in discussion. I think I prefer the longer time slots.

 

A secret order of wizards rule the world. One man has vowed to destroy them. The Initiate arrives February 4, 2020!

A Lovecraftian Chronology

For no very good reason I found myself making up an internal chronology of H.P. Lovecraft's horror stories. My guiding principle was that if a story doesn't have any time clues — and it's interesting to note that most of Lovecraft's stories do include specific dates — it takes place in the year in which the story was written, not published. I have left out some stories, like "In the Vault," or "The Outsider" which appear to be "non-Mythos" tales and have no clear time setting. I've also left out his "Dunsanian" fantasies.

The chronology revealed some fascinating patterns. There are a few "big years" in the Lovecraft universe: 1913, 1920, 1923, 1925, 1927, 1928, and 1932. Gamemasters who want to run a "sandbox" style Call of Cthulhu roleplaying game campaign could do worse than simply pick one of those years and start tossing out clues to ongoing events.

It also reveals some potential hidden connections among the stories. In "The Shadow Out of Time," Professor Peaslee's alien possession ends in 1913 — the same year that Wilbur Whateley is born in "The Dunwich Horror." Did Peaslee's alien controller want to avoid potential contact with the Spawn of Yog-Sothoth?

In "Pickman's Model" it appears that Richard Upton Pickman vanishes some time in 1925 (and later turns up as a ghoul living in the Dreamlands). But of course 1925 is also rocked by the nearly apocalyptic events of "The Call of Cthulhu." Did Pickman get a warning in his dreams and decide to get out of Cthulhu's way? The events of "The Horror at Red Hook" that summer look like a power play by Robert Suydam to take over the scattered and demoralized remnants of the Cthulhu Cult after the sinking of R'lyeh.

The Federal response to the events of "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" in late 1927 and early 1928 explains their curiously lackadaisickal reaction to the theft of the remains of some revered early American (it's got to be Franklin) in The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, which happens at the same time. All the government men with knowledge of the secret war against Elder Horrors are busy up in Innsmouth.

Later in 1928, "The Whisperer in Darkness" and the climax of "The Dunwich Horror" are happening almost simultaneously. Perhaps if Albert Wilmarth hadn't been off in Vermont getting chased by Mi-Go he could have gone with Dr. Armitage to deal with the invisible monster in Dunwich.

LOVECRAFTIAN CHRONOLOGY

1771: April 12 — Raid on Curwen farm and (first) death of Joseph Curwen (The Case of Charles Dexter Ward)

1838: Obed Marsh establishes cult of Dagon in Innsmouth ("The Shadow Over Innsmouth")

1843: Enoch Bowen discovers the tomb of Nephren-Ka ("The Haunter of the Dark")

1844: Bowen establishes the Church of Starry Wisdom in Providence ("The Haunter of the Dark")

1846: "Plague" in Innsmouth ("The Shadow Over Innsmouth")

1877: Church of Starry Wisdom disbands ("The Haunter of the Dark")

1878: Capt. Charles Weatherbee discovers unknown island and recovers strange mummy ("Out of the Aeons")

1882: June — Meteorite lands on Gardner farm ("The Colour Out of Space")

1884: Gardner family die ("The Colour Out of Space")

1889: Walker and Audrey Davis settle in Oklahoma, incur the wrath of Yig ("The Curse of Yig")

1890: Three monstrous snake-children born to Audrey Davis ("The Curse of Yig")

1891: Young man named Heaton explores Binger Mound, goes mad from what he saw ("The Mound")

1894: "The Transition of Juan Romero"

1901: "Beyond the Wall of Sleep"

1904: Herbert West's first experiments ("Herbert West — Reanimator")

1907: November 1 — Inspector John LeGrasse leads police raid of swamp cult south of New Orleans ("The Call of Cthulhu")

1908: May 14 — Nathaniel W. Peaslee possessed by Yithian ("The Shadow Out of Time")

1909: "Peaslee" spends a month in the Himalayas ("The Shadow Out of Time")

1910: Harry Houdini escapes captivity under the Pyramids ("Imprisoned With the Pharaohs")

1911: "Peaslee" spends time in the Empty Quarter of Arabia ("The Shadow Out of Time")

1912: "Peaslee" charters a ship to explore the Arctic north of Spitzbergen ("The Shadow Out of Time")

1912: "Peaslee" explores a cave in West Virginia for several weeks ("The Shadow Out of Time")

1913: February 2 — Wilbur Whateley born ("The Dunwich Horror")

1913: August — Death of Arthur Jermyn ("Arthur Jermyn")

1913: August — meteorite lands off Maine coast containing Greek manuscript ("The Green Meadow")

1913: September 27 — Peaslee's possession ends ("The Shadow Out of Time")

1915: Two "eastern visitors" from a small college vanish at the Binger Mound

1915: Herbert West continues experiments in field hospital in Belgium

1916: "Dagon"

1917: "The Temple"

1919: "The Statement of Randolph Carter"

1919: "The Terrible Old Man"

1919: "The Shunned House"

1920: Herbert West carried off by his experimental subjects

1920: "The Music of Erich Zann"

1920: "The Nameless City"

1920: "The Picture in the House"

1920: "From Beyond"

1921: August — destruction of a hamlet in the Catskills near Tempest Mountain ("The Lurking Fear")

1921: November — destruction of the Martense house ("The Lurking Fear")

1921: "The Hound"

1922: "The Festival"

1923: Charles Dexter Ward travels in Europe

1923: "Cool Air"

1923: July-August — "The Rats in the Walls"

1925: Ethnographer visits Guthrie, Oklahoma and hears the Yig legend ("The Curse of Yig")

1925: "Pickman's Model"

1925: March — unrest among cults worldwide, artists have strange dreams ("The Call of Cthulhu")

1925: March 22 — Island of R'lyeh rises ("The Call of Cthulhu")

1925: March 23 —Johansen encounters Cthulhu and disrupts it; R'lyeh sinks again

1925: "The Horror at Red Hook"

1926: May — Charles Dexter Ward returns to Providence

1926-27: Winter — Death of Prof. Angell ("The Call of Cthulhu")

1927: April 15 — Ward reanimates Curwen (The Case of Charles Dexter Ward)

1927: June — Outbreak of vampiric attacks in Rhode Island (The Case of Charles Dexter Ward)

1927: July — Robert Olmstead escapes Innsmouth ("The Shadow Over Innsmouth")

1927: November — Vermont floods, reports of strange creatures ("The Whisperer in Darkness")

1928: January — attempted theft of Franklin's remains (The Case of Charles Dexter Ward)

1928: February — Federal raids on Innsmouth, Curwen kills and replaces Ward

1928: March — Ward/Curwen in asylum

1928: April — Willett explores catacomb, destroys Curwen (The Case of Charles Dexter Ward)

1928: May — Akeley-Wilmarth correspondence begins ("The Whisperer in Darkness")

1928: August 3 — Wilbur Whateley killed ("The Dunwich Horror")

1928: September 9 — The Dunwich Horror strikes

1928: September 12 — Wilmarth visits Vermont and barely escapes ("The Whisperer in Darkness")

1928: September 15 — Dunwich Horror destroyed

1928: October 7 — Randolph Carter disappears ("The Silver Key")

1928: Autumn — Destruction of two wizards in Prague and Transylvania (The Case of Charles Dexter Ward)

1928: Ethnographer visits Binger, Oklahoma, explores the Mound and recovers the Zamacona scroll ("The Mound")

1929: Edward Derby marries Asenath Waite ("The Thing on the Doorstep")

1930: Randolph Carter in alien body returns to Earth, lives in disguise in Boston as "Swami Chandraputra" ("Through the Gates of the Silver Key")

1930: April 30 — Climax of "The Dreams in the Witch House"

1930: September — Miskatonic Antarctic Expedition departs Boston (At the Mountains of Madness)

1931: February 2 — Miskatonic Expedition departs Antarctica after disaster (At the Mountains of Madness)

1931: Robert Olmstead and his cousin head for Innsmouth ("The Shadow Over Innsmouth")

1932: "Swami Chandraputra" vanishes in New Orleans ("Through the Gates of the Silver Key")

1932: Asenath Derby disappears ("The Thing on the Doorstep")

1932: "Out of the Aeons"

1932: "The Horror in the Museum"

1933: Daniel Upton kills Edward Derby (maybe) ("The Thing on the Doorstep")

1935: March 28 — Team of Miskatonic scholars set out on expedition to Western Australia ("The Shadow out of Time")

1935: July 17-18 — Peaslee discovers lost city in western Australia ("The Shadow Out of Time")

1935: August 8 — "The Haunter of the Dark"

Lovecraft and Claptrap

This past weekend I attended (as a humble paying member) NecronomiCon 2019 in Providence, Rhode Island. If you know anything about horror fiction or games you can probably guess that NecronomiCon is a convention focused on the works of H.P. Lovecraft, the father of modern horror. I had a great time and plan to go back for the next iteration in 2021.

In connection with the con I decided to re-read Lovecraft's famous essay "Supernatural Horror in Literature." It's a good comprehensive survey of horror fiction up to HPL's time, with a fascinating introduction laying out his theory of what horror (or as he calls it, "weird fiction") should be.

As I was reading it, something struck me. Lovecraft knew a hell of a lot about horror fiction, and his analysis of it was quite thorough and profound. But when he touched on other subjects, I started to realize that he wasn't as erudite as his scholarly fictional characters — and probably not as erudite as he thought he was.

H.P. Lovecraft was mostly self-educated. He read widely and exhaustively. He really did know a lot.

BUT . . .

He had the problem common to many autodidacts: without any formal teaching, it's very hard to tell serious scholarship from bogus. So Howard evidently read, and uncritically swallowed, Madison Grant's The Passing of the Great Race. If you're hoping it's a "Shadow Out of Time" novelization, I'm sorry to disappoint you: it was a work of racist pseudoscience popular in the 1920s. It even gets a shout-out in The Great Gatsby, of all places. (F. Scott Fitzgerald is using it ironically, though: his vapid, decadent character Tom Buchanan is worried about the decline of the Nordic peoples.)

In "Supernatural Horror in Literature" Lovecraft refers to the grimoire "The Key of Solomon" as some immemorially ancient text, but by the 1920s serious medievalists knew it was no older than the 14th Century. He also makes reference to Margaret Murray's Witch-Cult theory as fact, though it was always controversial. He believed Charles Fort's accounts of paranormal events, even though (somewhat sadly) Fort's credibility suffers as soon as you start looking at the sources he cites. His views of the Middle Ages are the standard erroneous 19th-Century mix of Enlightenment anti-Catholicism and Victorian self-congratulation. And anyone who took high-school geometry can recognize that one of his favorite shuddersome adjectives, "Non-Euclidean," isn't quite as sanity-blastingly unnatural as he seems to think.

This is all quite ironic because of course HPL considered himself a great skeptic and materialist, and planned (unsuccessfully, alas) to write a series of "debunking" works with none other than Houdini himself!

Now, I'm not just making fun of a dead man's mistakes. As I mentioned, I think Lovecraft's self-education suffered from a lack of guidance. The only reason I can spot his errors is that I did have the benefit of many very good teachers, both in high school and in college. Without that advantage, he wound up siezing on authoritative-sounding works which were nevertheless wrong.

This is not a problem confined to people named Lovecraft in the early 20th Century. It is a HUGE problem today. We all probably know at least one person who has just read the One Book That Explains Everything. In past decades that book was usually either something by Noam Chomsky or something by Ayn Rand. More recent examples are left as an exercise for the reader.

There is a difference between ordinary "punditry" and the One Book That Explains Everything. It's hard to pin down precisely, but I think a key feature is that pundits — be they Rush Limbaugh or Rachel Maddow — make no secret that they are expressing their own opinions. They are making a case, attempting to persuade. Whereas the authors of the OBTEE genre simply assertthings as true, in a very authoritative way, with just enough evidence that only a real expert can spot the flaws.

This is where it gets good. I propose that not only did Lovecraft absorb some intellectual claptrap from writers like Grant and Murray, I think he also (perhaps unconsciously) learned from them how to convincingly put across his own made-up lore in the same way.

He's got all the tropes of bogus nonfiction in his fiction: the casual allusions to things as true (like the existence of "pre-human civilizations" or lost continents), the appeal to bogus authority (e.g. the Mad Arab Abdul Alhazred himself), selective use of quotations (Lovecraft mixes real occult bits with made-up lore of his own and makes extensive use of fictional newspaper clippings), and specific-sounding but vague details (we get directions to both Dunwich and Innsmouth, but you can't quite find them).

These are hugely effective ways to sell the reader on your story's background details in fiction (or in games). One reason we're still reading Lovecraft in a new century is the extremely convincing way he plants his fantastic horrors in a base of reality. Do likewise, and people may be organizing conventions in your honor in 2119.