Prolific Blogger Award goes to the Crazy Cat Lady....

Rebecca Luella Miller has awarded me the Prolific Blogger award! I've never been called prolific before (although my cats are).  This is what I've been accused of: “A prolific blogger is one who is intellectually productive… keeping up an active blog that is filled with enjoyable content.”

This is what I've got to do next:

1. Every winner of the prolific blogger award please (if you have time) pass on this award to at least seven other deserving prolific bloggers.

2. Every prolific blogger please link back to the blog from which he/she has received the award.

3. Each prolific blogger link this back to this post, which explains the origins and motivations for the award.

4. Every prolific blogger please visit this post and add your name in the Master Link (Mr. Linky) so we can all get to know the other winners.

There are so many bloggers that I'd like to pass the award on to, these are the first ones that popped into my mind.

YID WITH LID come for the political commetary, stay for the cool yarmulke ads
2SecondsFaster.com prolife and political stuff
Bad Wolf One: Doctor Who blog
The Sci Fi Catholic: co-written by a dragon
Dragon Bloggin': by author Donita K. Paul
Fabianspace: by author Karina L. Fabian
A Blog by Randy Thomas: a Christian blog



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Doctor Who: Kittens of the Motorway

The Doctor Who episode Gridlock from the third season is one of my favorite episodes.

There is this huge enclosed motorway with hover-vans and the Doctor is rescued from the fumes by Thomas Kincade Brannigan, a cat-man married to a human woman, Valerie. The cat-man in his wife have a litter of kittens--- that scene is about 3 minutes in on the video. I swear I could hear one of the kittens meowing 'Ma-ma'. Pretty good for a two-month old. (Thomas Kincade Brannigan=tomcat)

But the kittens come in all sorts of colors and coat patterns. I always thought when you get a litter of kittens like that it meant that they had different daddies. Hope Valerie wasn't running around on Brannigan with another cat....

Another point of interest--- this film clip starts with Martha Jones in the car of her kidnappers. The girl kidnapper, Cheen, is the same actress who plays the ghost girl in Being Human, the BBC series about the werewolf, vampire and ghost who share a flat. The werewolf has also been in Doctor Who in two episodes where he plays Midshipman Alonso Frame.

You can see some funny clips from Being Human at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLN0HSVjbfk&feature=channel

Anyway, in searching YouTube for a clip featuring the motorway kittens, it looked like one could view the whole Gridlock episode in clips of about 9 minutes, just thought I would pass that along for the BBC-deprived....

QUESTION: In this episode, Brannigan tells of a woman who stood in the motorway and her head grew to 50 feet. Later on, we meet the giant head Face of Boe. In a later episode, Captain Jack Harkness tells the Doctor that his nickname used to be the Face of Boe. So, is this the explanation for how Captain Jack ended up being a giant head--- he stood too long in the motorway fumes?

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What would YOU name this kitty?

Yes, this is an actual cat with two faces. What would YOU name a cat like that? I mean, Two-Face is a little obvious.....

The kitty kind of looks like my cat Mariska, but Mariska's only got the one face....

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Feb. Blog Tour Postponed

The Christian Science Fiction and Fantasy blog tour has been postponed because the book has not yet arrived in the hot little hands of tour members.

The next two tour books are being made available (so if you are on the tour mailing list, CHECK YOUR EMAIL because the deadline is Friday).

If you are a blogger who likes science fiction, fantasy, and Christianity, the blog tour is a great way to interact with others and to encourage the publishing of more Christian sf and fantasy. The right-side top blogroll on this blog features the participants from last month, please visit a few of their blogs!



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A Valentine's Day Treat

Fabianspace has a sweet Valentine's day post that is not to be missed--- very funny....
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Star Trek novel: Black Fire

The Star Trek novel 'Black Fire' by Sonni Cooper (1982) was about the eighth ST novel published by Pocket Books, and is perhaps one of the best, or at least the most memorable, ST novels of that early era. The book features an introduction written by sci-fi great Theodore Sturgeon, and said introduction mentions the fact that the writer Sonni Cooper was actor William Shatner's publicist.

The story starts out with a bang--- an explosion wrecks the bridge of the Enterprise, severely wounds Kirk, Spock and other important bridge crew while killing a bunch of redshirts--- excuse me, trainees--- who were the sacrificial characters in the case.

While Kirk is being pasted together piece by piece, Spock investigates and finds clues that the explosion was an act of sabotage. Starfleet Command begs to differ and so Spock and Scotty go off to find proof, and as a result are kidnapped by the alien Tomarii and are forced to make common cause with Romulans and Klingons who are also captives.

This little adventure gets Spock kicked out of Starfleet. In prison, he meets a Romulan space pirate. Escaping together, Spock and the Romulan get into the space pirating trade together. They acquire two identical ships, and, because of their physical resemblance to one another, both pose as a mystery space pirate called 'Black Fire'. But things are not as they seem.

In the end, the Tomarii aliens are not only defeated, they accept the need to become more like the Federation worlds, and Spock gets his old job back--- happy ending for all, as usual.

I enjoyed this book very much when it first came out. On re-reading it, it still stands up, though it seems quite retro compared to the view of Star Trek we have today, when, given the sheer number of Star Trek series and movies that have come out, there is loads more precedent that the Trek writer needs to keep in his head.

QUESTION: anyone else out there a fan of Star Trek novels? Which ones did you find most memorable?

Buy Black Fire (Star Trek No. 8) at Amazon.com


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Reducing a novel-idea to one sentence: Oh, the horror!

According to some, one of the first tasks when you begin putting your novel-idea down on paper is to write a one sentence summary of the proposed novel. This one sentence--- which, I've heard, is not permitted to be one of those run-on sentences that goes on for five pages--- is supposed to show some elements of both plot and character.

I am a little wary of this rule. In part because the example one-sentence summaries they give--- more often summaries of films than of novels--- tend to be missing the point of the story they are summarizing.

Task two tends to be to expand that one-sentence summary to a paragraph summary. This can be an easier task to learn because anyone who owns books has a good supply of examples of these one-paragraph summaries--- the book blurbs on the back (or the dust jacket) of novels we already own.

These book summaries are written by professionals for marketing purposes about books that have already been written, so that's a little different from what the novelist is asked to do in the one-sentence or one-paragraph exercise. But reading a bunch of book blurbs is still a good start.

Here is an example, from 'Left Behind' by Jerry B. Jenkins (and that other dude):

"In one cataclysmic moment, millions around the globe disappear.

Vehicles, suddenly unmanned, careen out of control. People are terror stricken as loved ones vanish before their eyes.

In the midst of global chaos, airline captain Rayford Steele must search for his family, for answers, for truth. As devastating as the disappearances have been, the darkest days may lie ahead."

This gives a good idea of the main plotline, and also introduces one of the characters.

Here is another example from Bone Crossed by Patricia Briggs:

As a shapeshifter with some unique talents, ace car mechanic Mercy has had to maintain a tenuous harmony between the human and the not so human within the Tri-Cities of Eastern Washington on more than one occasion. But this time she may be in over her head.

Marsilia, the local Vampire Queen, has learned that Mercy crossed her by slaying a member of her clan. Now she's out for blood. But since Mercy is protected from the vampire's direct reprisal by the werewolf pack--- and her close relationship with its sexy Alpha--- it's not Mercy's blood Marsilia is after....

It's her friends'.

Again this gives us some basic plot substance and introduces characters.

At this point in my current writing tasks, I'm not quite sure how to go about reducing my plot ideas to one sentence or even one paragraph. Currently I don't know enough about the major plot elements--- and I know enough backstory on some of my characters to write a trilogy about it! Except for the fact that this backstory, accumulated over many years, contradicts itself and has to be straightened out.

I don't even know if writing these summaries is REALLY the way professional writers take step one in writing down story ideas. I think some writers begin with what-if questions.

For example: What if a young actor, posing as a Fleet cadet, is mistaken for a real cadet and shanghaied onto a starship captained by a man who was involved in the murder of the actor's twin sister?

That's a tiny piece of what I'm working on for the openers of what I am currently calling my 'Psions universe' series. But there are lots of other bits that are also important.... More important? Less important? I'm not sure at this point....


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The Great Comment-Setting Experiment

I've changed the comment settings on this blog--- just to see what would happen.

I will now be permitting anonymous comments. I'm hoping that will encourage comments from new people who don't happen to have Blogger accounts.

Comments are staying moderated. Why? Mainly because that way I know when I have new comments. Otherwise if I don't look at the blog for awhile I may miss a comment. I tried doing it otherwise for a bit and it was just a pain looking around at all the posts for new comments.

I don't require word verification because I hate it so much on other people's blogs. On some, the distorted word I'm supposed to type is so distorted I can't read it. In other cases I get very distracted by the made-up words I'm supposed to type. It doesn't seem to make much difference in the amount of spam-comments I get anyway.

I've noticed that the Sci-Fi Catholic's comment system (haloscan) has crashed and he's lost all his comments. So maybe you ought to visit his blog to say something smart-alecky.
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Why 'terraforming' is a racist word and other ramblings

Science fiction has long postulated a process by which a planet which is not that useful, such as Mars, can be made into an inhabitable world by installing a breathable atmosphere, a water supply, plant life and possibly a nice wall-to-wall carpet.

They call this 'terraforming'.

What a racist concept! If the two-headed aliens change a planet, wouldn't they want it to be more like Two-Headed-Alien-Homeworld than like Terra? If the Vulcans or the inhabitants of Gallifrey do it, won't they want the resulting planet to be like their own homeworld instead of Earth?

So let's come up with a non-xenophobic word for this process! Planetforming and biosphere-forming sound too much like names for the original natural process, so they are out. Ecoforming? Neoforming? Both rather vague. Any suggestions?

Personal Writing-career goals for February
1. Keep up with my blogs, but not to the extent it eats my life.
2. Work on the process of splitting my internet-persona into two--- One being the serious writer, known under my real name, and the other being the smart-aleck nissa_amas_katoj who holds political and religious views all too likely to alienate future publishers.
3. Write more scenes, less notes, for my novel.
4. Complete certain promotional tasks for a certain poet's new chapbook, 'surly petunia'.
5. NOT START ANY MORE NEW BLOGS!!! Of course the last time I said that I started a new blog within the day....

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The Sci Fi Catholic: Cool guys don't look at explosions...

The Sci Fi Catholic has posted a seriously unmissable music video called Cool Guys don't Look at Explosions.

Why is this music video so unmissable? Because it's full of explosions! And the cool guys walking away from the explosions include Denzel and Will Smith and Cyrus the Virus and Barack Obama in a nurse's dress--- no, wait, that was the Joker from Dark Knight.
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Star Trek: Why McCoy hates the Transporter

The very first Star Trek novel ever was Spock Must Die! by noted science fiction writer James Blish, who was also the author of the Star Trek novelizations. This 1970 novel begins as follows:

"What worries me," McCoy said, "is whether I'm myself any more. I have a horrible suspicion that I'm a ghost. And that I've been one for maybe as long as twenty years."

The cause of McCoy's angst? The transporter, of course! You see, the transporter, according to Scotty, doesn't transform our bodies into energy and re-convert it at the desired destination--- it 'analyzes the energy state of each particle in the body and then produce a Dirac jump to an equivalent state somewhere else."

In other words, it creates a duplicate of your body at the desired destination and destroys the original body standing on the transporter pad. The duplicate has all your memories and all--- but what worries McCoy is this: is the duplicate really YOU?

In the novel McCoy speaks of his ego, his self--- the word he is grasping for, but is not allowed to use, is soul. And unless part of the transporter mechanism transfers that soul to the new body, what the transporter is doing is killing people and creating new ones.

Now, it's very possible that this explanation is that of Blish and not derived from any explanation in the series or in Roddenberry's notes therefore. And later incarnations of Trek probably have a kinder, gentler explanation of transporter function.

But one can imagine the horror as McCoy realizes, each time he uses the transporter: 'I'm going to die here. The last McCoy who used the transporter died here and I was created here. Now it's my turn to die and to be replaced. And that idiot Spock wonders why I'm fussing about it....'

In the Christian Science Fiction anthology Leaps of Faith edited by Karina & Robert Fabian, there is a grand story by Vincent Malzahn called Quantum Express. In it, galactic hero Lance Larue is impatiently waiting to be matter-transported to his next adventure. But this particular matter transporter, which functions somewhat similarly to that in Doctor McCoy's nightmares, sends this particular Lance Larue on an unexpected adventure--- to the same place all the other Lance Larues went.

Now, of course matter transporters of any type are imaginary science. The science fiction writer is perfectly free to create one in which the whole person--- body and soul--- is actually moved to the new location, and some advancement in future science overcomes any breaking of the laws of physics that might involve.

Or we can assume that science has discovered the soul, that matter transporters can remove the soul from the old body and shove it into the newly created one at the desired destination. Gee, I wonder if that kind of transporter could suck a demon out of a possessed person--- or beam a demon from one person to another.....

NOTE about Leaps of Faith: some readers believe that the term 'Christian Fiction' means fiction by Evangelical Christians only. This work is edited by *gasp* Catholics, and so one can assume the broader definition of Christian fiction does apply.
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My Goats think I have Christ-Like Powers

This is a sad story. A couple days ago I went out to check on my goats and noticed one of Paprika's kids was dead--- Paprika the goat, not the spice. And so I grabbed a goat leash and leashed up Paprika, and grabbed the living kid, Aspiradora (or whatever her name is) and marched off with the two of them to the main barn so they could live in the maternity pen for awhile.

Paprika hollered the whole way for me to bring her other kid. You see, she saw me turn it over to make sure it was really dead (stiff as a board, it was) and in her little goaty mind she was thinking 'the kid moved, it must have gotten better'.

Most of my goats are like that. If they see me touch one of their dead babies, they have this absurd confidence that I've made everything all better.

I wish I had that kind of faith in me!

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Combom Stalks Doctor Who so You Don't Have To

If you want to keep up with the Doctor Who universe, a prime info-source is the blog Life, Doctor Who & Combom, which has the absolute latest in the Whoniverse.

For example there are reports in on a day-to-day basis when Doctor Who location shoots are going on. Today they say the trucks are in the Stonehenge car park.

And there was a post that gave the list of alien species present in the cantina scene in 'The End of Time Part 2'.

Plus whatever Who-related pictures, video-clips and magazine covers Combom can lay his hands on.

OK, it's a little creepy--- but while we are all waiting for the next new episodes of Doctor Who and Torchwood to be aired, it's a can't-miss blog read.
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Doctor Who: Queen Elizabeth I mystery solved!

Remember the Shakespeare episode of Doctor Who? The Doctor took Martha Jones back in time to meet Shakespeare (who totally started hitting on Martha, hope Mickey never finds out), they had to banish some alien witches with Shakespeare's words and a spell right out of Harry Potter (Expelliarmus!), and at the end the Queen came storming in very mad at the Doctor for something that, in the Doctor's timeline, hadn't happened yet.

In 'The End of Time Part 1' this mystery is actually solved though if you weren't paying enough attention you may have missed it.

You'll remember it starts with the Doctor telling an Ood all the stuff he's been doing lately to get his mind off his impending doom. (The great thing about being a Time Lord is if you have an appointment you are dreading at noon tomorrow, you can spend fifty years or so doing stuff to cheer yourself up and still make it to the appointment on time.)

One of the Doctor's activities was to get married--- 'big mistake', and evidently, the bride was Good Queen Bess. No wonder she was mad--- the Doctor was her ex-husband! (REALLY Unlikely Couple Alert!)

(And speaking of queens there is Doctor Who writer/producer Russell Davies, who has perhaps made a mistake depicting the Doctor as an ordinary guy who might marry an Earth girl if he liked. The Doctor is an alien Time Lord, and Time Lords are meant to be mysterious. We've never been told how they reproduce, whether they marry--- they might well carry on their race by laying eggs for all we know. If the Doctor is a regular human guy who can marry Earth girls, why didn't he marry Rose? Or Donna? Or Sarah Jane?)

A George the Werewolf Story
The BBC series 'Being Human' is about a vampire, a werewolf and a ghost who share a flat together in Bristol. There was this time where George, the werewolf, has changed into a wolf out in the woods (to avoid wrecking all the furniture again) and when his time of the month is over, he's out there in the woods, naked.

And there's this other guy out there who turns out to be a werewolf out there and George wants to meet him so he scuttles off after him, with his hands strategically placed over his Little Werewolf, and this little phrase from a Harry Potter book popped into my head and won't go away.

"The Wagga-Wagga Werewolf."

(Sorry, couldn't help it.)

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