Breakfast with Pandora

The Borschland Hockey Chronicles and steampunk

This summer, as I rest and work towards a new school year, I have also had some time to work on a project I've cherished for a long time, which I am calling "The Boschland Hockey Chronicles," the first novel of which is "Forward in a Strange Land."

Image: how I might envision the poetess Rachajl Martujnz of "Forward in a Strange Land."

"Forward in a Strange Land" is an online experiment, a continuing manuscript rather than a novel, about an American ice hockey player who follows his dream to play professional hockey in the unknown nation of Borschland.

The manuscript is not science fiction per se, but in order to explain the existence of its setting, Borschland, I have had to resort to a science fiction premise: Borschland and the continent on which it lies is a "phase-shifting" place sometimes existing in our world, sometimes in an alternative universe. The otherworldly nature of Borschland allows it also to exist in a kind of technological cocoon: Borschland's technology is about one hundred years less advanced than ours. There are telegraphs and electric lights but no automobiles or computers. Borschland does, however, coexist with a nation of Upright Bears whose technology is similar to our present day.

At first I thought this wacky turn of imagination on my part was unique, but apparently it isn't, quite.

Yesterday I clicked a link of a link from a Facebook link and found myself on this page, written by Cameron Chapman, the author of a "steampunk" novella, "Aboard the Unstoppable Aerostat Fenris."

I had heard the word "steampunk" before, but had no idea of its definition. Turns out it has some important affinities with my Borschland project:

Alternate history, leaps of technology, airships, lightning rods, bustles, goggles, brass and gears - these are the things that Steampunks are made of. The lovechild of Mary Shelley, Jules Verne, H.G. Wells and Nikola Tesla. Strong women, handsome men, clever tinkerers, inventors, pilots and dusty adventurers. Scoundrels or heroes, Steampunks don't sit around; they constantly seek - under the sea, across the desert, in the air or across time. Steampunks are self reliant, resilient and they love a good story.

(quote from here)

The basic idea of steampunk appears to be story-driven fiction set in Victorian times or Victorian-style worlds, with all the charm of that era's clothing, manners, and culture, along with the possibility of strange and far-out technology and situations. I think of the TV show The Wild, Wild West, which was set in the American West of the 1870's and '80's and featured some weird and wonderful secret agent action and technologies.

So far, Borschland has no airships-- blimps, as we call them now-- but I may consider putting them in at some point. And I'm sure there won't be nearly as much action in "Forward in a Strange Land" as in most steampunk novels. It is going to be a mystery and a romance and perhaps a thriller-- we'll see. I don't know that FSL is worthy of the name steampunk. Maybe I could call it steamgoof.

I liked Chapman's site, so I invested $.99 in her Kindle e-novella, "Aboard the Unstoppable Aerostat Fenris." It is what a 99 cent novella probably should be in this day and age, a good draft of what may hopefully become a fully-realized, polished work of fiction.

The story starts with action and continues with action, which is all to the good. I like the heroine and her airship-captain benefactor. What's lost is an idea of the world Chapman is trying to create. What year is it? What world is it? Why is a world war beginning? Why is her heroine homeless? Why does she speak English but find herself in Kazakhstan? And so on.

I find that, as a novelist who gravitates towards wholesale world creation, rather than setting stories in known times and places, it's maddening and fascinating to translate one's vision of a world into the words of a story. You can do it through an introduction, or you can do it through narration, or an expository conversation, but the more you do, the less the action shines through.

Chapman's is good work-- she has solid skills in description and pacing-- but I think her book can be better and I hope she will revise as she feels led.

Now that I know about steampunk, I will spend a bit more time familiarizing myself with it and see how it might affect the Borschland work. It's fun to know that there are others out there like me interested in recreating worlds of the past mixed with the present and the future.

Netflix Follies: "Unstoppable" (spoilers)

"Unstoppable," a (potential) disaster movie about a runaway train, surprised me.

 

Movie poster found here.

I rented it specifically because stepson likes action movies, and all I knew about it was that there was action, in the form of a train smashing into vehicles unfortunately placed at railway crossings.

 

I was very primed to watch a lot of large things being smashed.

 

There's not all that much destruction in "Unstoppable." In fact, the flick is something like a quiet character drama, although lots of things happen besides talking.

 

And it is exciting. You know it's exciting when stepson puts up a constant stream of commentary during the movie.

 

But it's not about explosions.

 

If you haven't seen this one, I recommend it. And if you do want to see it, I recommend you stop reading this post now. All others, on we go.

 

(Spoilers below)

 

"Unstoppable" is a smaller picture than I thought it would be, and much simpler. A newbie railroad employee (Ethan Suplee) is asked to park a freight train and through a string of errors sends it hurtling down a mainline track at 70 MPH.

 

It has some tank cars with nasty explosive stuff inside it, and it has to be stopped.

 

Despite all the potential for mayhem, there is only spectacular crash at a railway crossing, and one train derailment and death. Everyone else gets out alive, including the 150 school kids in a train on a collision course with the runaway.

 

What makes it so engaging?

 

It's classic American myth. In this post I talked about the 4 main plot points of American myth, first outlined by Professor Robert Reich. Someone else has summarized these here in more detail, if you're interested.

 

"Unstoppable" has 3 of Reich's 4 main plot points: the "Rot at the Top," the "Benevolent Community," and the "Triumph of the Individual." Oddly enough, the fourth plot point, the "Mob at the Gates," is lacking. There is no terrorism angle in "Unstoppable," which was very refreshing to me.

 

The "Rot at the Top" is not developed, a good thing in my opinion. There's no psychopathic corporate mastermind, only some greedy executives of the train company and a short-sighted middle manager. Just enough to get the audience's populist outrage going.

 

The suits at the central office are, in fact, upended by the efforts of the triumphant individuals-- Connie Hooper (Rosario Dawson), the super-efficient dispatcher who, like a mom, holds it all together for everyone; Frank Barnes (Denzel Washington), the veteran engineer with a plan to stop the runaway; and Will Colson (Chris Pine), the hunky young conductor who bonds with the engineer.

 

Washington and Pine do the actual heroic actions, but not without the help of a pretty large benevolent community all working together to make sure of the happy ending. In addition to Dawson's efforts, there is a government inspector played by Kevin Corrigan who has a crucial piece of advice; a calvary-over-the-hill pickup truck driver played by Lew Temple, as well as the collected manpower of the Pennsylvania State Police, local law enforcement, and local firefighters.

 

In this day and age, when action movies seem always to be about aliens destroying the world in a catclysm of blowing up the Golden Gate Bridge because the world depends on the actions of one superhero who just can't seem to win the love of another blockbuster romantic woman with long, windblown hair, "Unstoppable" is unexpected fun.

Movie still found here.

For hockey (and story) afficionados

 

Congratulations to the Boston Bruins, Stanley Cup champions of the National Hockey League.

 

Logo found here.

Now that the season is over, there are probably a lot of you who are going into hockey withdrawal. No need to be. Why not click on over to my online interactive novel, Forward in a Strange Land, about a hockey player who goes almost nearly to another world in order to play the icy game professionally, and finds mystery, romance, and Upright Bears?

 

A new chapter awaits you, plus a bonus page on how this novel got started.

 

Violence and the good story

Summer's here and with a bit more leisure and focus on writing, I'm considering good stories and what they need in order to be good.

On the front of the burner right now, my online interactive novel, "Forward in a Strange Land" (working title, you can suggest another), which is about an American who follows his dream of playing ice hockey professionally to the mysterious, hockey-mad nation of Borschland and finds more than checks and pucks waiting for him.

Ice hockey is a violent sport. One of my Boston-bred friends once called it "an ancient blood sport," and I'm fine with that characterization. In Borschland, in the novel, ice hockey is more ballet and drama, and the anticipation of violence without its literal fulfillment is what makes Borschic fans so passionate for the game. In Borschland, the biggest cheers come from a player avoiding a collision rather than being leveled by one.

I realize this is contrary to human nature, especially male nature. Give us some beer and thousands of like-minded, reptile-brained dudes next to us, and we will roar and shake our bone clubs when grown men smash into each other with brutal intent.

I am coming to dislike this type of sport, and not just because recently one of my favorite baseball players was badly injured by the unnecessary violence of one of his opponents. And I am coming to dislike violence in stories as well.

One night about a week ago I pulled a random book from my son's bookshelf-- he is a much more avid reader than I-- and came out with "The Silmarillion," the compilation of myths and tales that J.R.R. Tolkien wrote as backstory to "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings."

Oh, good. I thought. When I was younger I could hardly wade through the stuff. I was much more impatient and undiscerning. It will be fun to see what my younger self missed.

The book tells the history of Middle Earth, Tolkien's master creation, from the beginning of the world to the "Lord of the Rings" era. And despite my aged wisdom, it was still pretty hard going with all the names and unfamiliar geography. Son's paperback edition only had one map, and you needed an atlas to keep up with all the places mentioned.

But that wasn't really the problem. 

I found my older self much less willing to be interested in the endless parade of kings, jealousies, intrigues, battles, wars and finally, armageddons, that the book chronicled. Is there anything else in fantasy writing besides climactic and cataclysmic violence?

Also in the past week I gave in to Netflix promptings (this is what you like, isn't it, isn't it?) and watched the Cohn Brothers' flick, "Barton Fink." I was creeped out and mesmerized by the first half of that film, which was almost entirely a study of what it feels like to have writer's block. Then the whole tone changed drastically because of an unexpected and ugly act of violence, and the thing went down the tubes for me.

Finally, in my continuing attempts to find common ground with stepson, I ordered the 1935 Errol Flynn classic, "Captain Blood," because I figured there'd be some fun sword-fighting in it for stepson, whose passion is fencing. He got bored and did not appreciate the presence of the porcelain-skinned Olivia de Havilland, Flynn's love interest. He finally walked away an hour or so in and just before the sword play began and the cannons started booming and the guys with the knives in their teeth were boarding the French ships.

I don't know if the film could've been saved for stepson if all of that action had come earlier-- after all, it was a black and white film with special effects that were spectacular for its time but lame compared to today-- but to a generation raised on first-person shooter video games, it feels like you've got to have violence now, continuously, and to the end if you're going to engage the young male attention span.

I, on the other hand, loved the de Havilland-Flynn scenes. Good writing.

So I feel out of step with the world and with popular storytelling, and wonder about the novel I just finished, "Healing Knowledge," which is about the peoples living in the islands of the Aegean Sea in the 20th century BC. It tells a story about strong emotions that are mostly not expressed in violence. I hope that the magic, sea travel, kidnapping, gold, and love in the novel can carry the day without having to resort to that cataclysmic battle scene at the end.

Maybe it's telling that this type of painting, by Genie Maples, is the kind of cover I see for my novel. There are no people in it and no swords, boats, or violence of any kind. Yet I feel as if it captures the spirit of the world I create in "Healing Knowledge," of sky, water and land pushing themselves together and in that tension creating every kind of possibility.