Fantasist's Scroll

Would you like to have the Anime Network on your cable system?

Well, they’d like to be there! If you don’t have them already, there’s a website that you can go to get them to request the addition to your local cable system. You just fill out the form and they’ll even FAX it over to your cable company for you! Pretty Cool!!
Just hit the site, then go to the thing that looks like a banner ad at the top of the website. Put your ZIP code in and follow the prompts. It’s just that easy! And, if you’re in the greater Houston area, fill out the form so we can get the Anime Channel!!

I’ve just started Teach Yourself Linguistics, by Jean Aitchison.

So far, it’s living up to the generally great reviews it’s gotten in the ConLang forums where I lurk. The chapters are short and to the point, which I appreciate this week since I’ve been sick and not getting enough sleep. Also, the writing style is much, much livelier than the linguistics textbook that I tried to read last year. I was braced for a quite boring academic discussion of linguistics for linguists, but it’s really been presented in a format for the average joe. Well, if the average joe was interested in linguistics. Anyway, you get my point. I really look forward to the rest of the book now that I’ve gotten started on it. Hopefully, I’ll get enough out of this one to finally feel comfortable trying to design a decent language for my fiction. Well, actually, I hope to design several, but one step at a time, eh?

Engineering before engineers.

Well, at least, before engineers as we know them. Certainly, long before engineering degrees from universities!
The Genius of China: 3,000 Years of Science, Discovery and Invention and Engineering in the Ancient World (which is an updated version of a book I bought some time ago), both lay out some interesting ideas for “modern” technology for ancient cultures. They both present some great ideas for the basics of technology in a created culture or world.
For instance, China was quite advanced. The Chinese are famous for inventing paper, but they also invented the first printing press and gunpowder. Though, they used those technologies differently than we did in the West, due to cultural differences. They also invented luminous paint and earthquake detectors.
Other ancient cultures invented other suprising things, including water wheels and complicated plumbing and sewage systems. The Romans had heated baths similar to what we’d think of as indoor, heated swimming pools!

Of course, for me, it’s all the little things that really make a world seem real. Things like, what kind of clothing was worn and why. Like, how they lit their way at night. How they prepared their food. A lot of that, though, can be found in these two technology books. Think, for instance, about how much food needed to be processed and moved to feed the ancient Roman Empire or any of the Chinese Dynasties. All things to consider when building a world from whole cloth. And, every decision has impact on the others and implications in the way a people actually live. These two books begin to explore some of those relationships. The rest, though, is up to a creative author to discover.
So, what are you waiting for? Get reading! Then, get writing!!

New and Improved!

Way back when I first put the ConLang Word Generator on this site, my ultimate goal was to have something that created an entire language via CGI. There were lots of tools available for making words and even languages, but they were all limited in some greater or lesser way. For instance, the very good LangMaker by Jeffery Henning, is for Windows only. Chris Pound’s Name/Vocabulary generators require going to the command line, and it helps if you know a bit of PERL, too. But, I wanted something that would crank out languages on the web. Originally, I have to admit, I was trying to figure out a way to charge for this, but it’s just too fun to keep it to myself, so it’s free.
My ConLang Generator is based on Chris Pound’s PERL scripts, but with heavy modification. My English source files come from a number of sources, but mainly from resources associated with LangMaker.

So, standing on the shoulders of giants, I have finally made a free ConLang Generator. Enjoy!

Did you ever wonder where the bannana came from?

What about the orange? Or nutmeg? Or coffee? Economic botany is a pretty important part of our lives, though, we might not even be aware of it consciously. I started to get interested in this aspect of herbiculture when I went looking for a replacement for coffee in a fantasy setting. I was suprised to find that there are actual classes taught about economic botany! In fact, one of the best resources is an online economic botany text book at the UCLA botanic garden’s website.
Another “quest” was to find out more about lacquer. I found several references regarding this closely guarded Chinese technology, but the basics can be summed up here. Lacquer was originally made from the sap of a tree. It’s really an amazing substance, too. It makes wood fire-proof and otherwise wear-resistant. It hardens rather quickly and completely, but the Chinese artisans that first started using the plastic-like substance found that letting a certain kind of crab “swim” in the stored mixture keeps it fluid for days longer than normal. For years, the Chinese had a strangle-hold on the trees that produced lacquer sap and, therefore, the lacquerware market. That market dominance was eventually broken, of course, but it makes for an interesting plot or sub-plot.

So, there’s something to think about the next time world creation comes up. What plants fit where and why? Who uses them and how does that effect the rest of the world? And, really, these are just the tip of the iceberg on economic botany. The limit is, literally, the author’s imagination.

Which way do rivers flow?

It seems like such a simple question, doesn’t it? But, it’s not quite as easy as one might suppose. For instance, I’ve been told numerous times that rivers generally flow North to South. But, this FAQ on About.com that’s just a misconception. (Here’s another link that also dispels some river misconceptions.) Really, what matters is elevation, the degree of change in elevation, and the material over which the water travels. The flatter the land, the more the river will wander or meander, and the slower the speed of the water flow. The reverse is true as well, the steeper the elevation change, the faster and straighter the river will run. (For more details, see this article on About.com.)
So, essentially, rivers tend to flow “down” in the sense of the lowest elevation. That might be toward the coast and ocean, or toward a lake, or even toward an underground cave complex. The important thing to remember is that water in general, and rivers, flows toward the lowest point of gravity on the landscape, where ever that might be.

Well, you maybe asking yourself, that’s great but who cares? Anyone making a created world, country or culture. Rivers are a great way for people to move resources quickly and efficiently. They also tend to be sources of useful animals and plants. Water, after all, is one of the most important ingredients for life, so water attracts life. Rivers teem with life, both on their banks and in the river itself. Any place that attracts life in great quantities also attracts civilization as well. That, in turn, brings interesting things to write about. And, that, after all, is what I’m after!

So, let the water flow and the creative fiction ideas flow with it!

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Do we actually live in one “slice” of the Multiverse?

Well, according to this article in Scientific American, we just might! Multiple universes have been a staple of science-fiction for as long as the concept of other planes of existence have been contemplated, but physicists think they might actually exist. It’s hard for me to hear the term “multiverse” and not think “comic book”, but the comics industry apparently borrowed the term from quantum physics. Who knew?
Anyway, the article is pretty darn interesting and brings up some interesting thoughts about different ways that this multiverse might exist. Pretty much every possible configuration sounds like something that a science-fiction author has explored at one time or another. The good news is, though, that far from being a deterrent, my familiarity with science-fiction made it easier to understand the rather heady theories being tossed about.
If you’re contemplating any kind of “alternate” anything, including alternate history, this article should give you a jump start on the underlying concepts.

Okay, here’s a new angle…

Here’s a news story from Yahoo about a guy who claims to be a time traveller who “knows” what the market is going to do. He started with an $800 portfolio and in two weeks made over $350 million! What’s interesting is that no one can seem to find any record of the name this guy is using prior to December of 2002. He’s apparently claimed that he’ll tell us where Osama Bin Laden is and how to cure AIDS as proof that he comes from the future. Well, I’m game!

This does point out, though, why that old sci-fi favorite of travelling back in time to buy the right stocks on the stock market wouldn’t work. You’d have to be pretty darn careful or someone, somewhere would notice. On the other hand, it could just be an interesting plot twist. Of course, there’s still the old lottery gambit. You know, going back and getting a ticket with the winning numbers on it. Hmm… That one has some possibilities. Oh, and combine the two and you’d have an interesting tale of greed! Of course, time-travel is really more the realm of fantasy than science-fiction. Asimov came up with some rules about time travel that seem pretty solid to me. He was, after all, an actual scientist and a genius to boot. Also, he’s still one of the most prolific writers of our time. Still, those time travel stories have always piqued my curiosity….

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