Juices
Thursday, 3. April 2008, 15:59:17
This is what I did at work today (click the 'Read More' at the bottom). My Creative side managing to crack through the thick shell of boredom. This, and other scenarios, is what rattles around the back of my head a lot of the time, screaming to be let free. Let me know what you think?
Sandra still wasn’t wholly comfortable with the invasive nature of the Nul-Fane Armour, and she suspected it would be a long time before she ever would be, but in the meantime she was forced to admit that wearing it felt incredible. Rather than the suit simply augmenting her own abiltities, being cocooned with the Nul-Fane’s advanced technology felt very much like being reborn, created anew as an entity far more powerful than any regular human could hope to be. Her head spun, her mind whirling with possibilities...she could spend months charting the number and limits of her new abilities, and even longer working out how much better she was at the old ones. Strength, speed, agility, awareness...these were only the few enhancements her pedestrian, 21st century human mind had been able to trial (no doubt blinkered by a steady stream of dumb superhero action movies): she sensed intuitively (‘or could she hear the semi-sentient software whispering to her through the suit’s fabricated neural-web connections...?’) that there would be a few far more exotic abilities waiting in the wings for their turn to shine.
For now, though, she was deeply impressed.
“This is wonderful!” She told her alien companion, still flexing and rotating her limbs experimentally. Her voice startled her, coming as it was through processors in the lining of her faceplate. She started to wonder why it sounded totally different to her own when she realised something even more astounding: she hadn’t moved her throat or larynx! The suit must have somehow intercepted the speech signals coming from her brain and routed them to it’s own systems! For a spilt-second she felt entirely giddy; the world started to spin alarmingly, but it passed as quickly as it came.
Of course, she thought, it’s designed for combat. Exposing the occupant to the environment could well be fatal in battlefield conditions. Which led to the question of what she was actually breathing...
The giddiness returned, this time backed by a rising hysteria. There was so much about this strange alien armour she didn’t understand. What if her own ignorance got her killed? She suddenly felt a terrible panicky drive to breathe the air again with her own lungs and windpipe, without the suit filtering it for her. She began fumbling at her head, fingers desperately seeking a catch, or hook, or something she could tear open...
Suddenly, her interface senses flickered as, with a little gasp of escaping pressure, the faceplate cleared to transparency, split in front of her eyes along lines that formed delicate petal shapes, and melted gracefully towards the back of her head in one smooth organic motion. Her enhanced sensory perceptions crashed back to her prosaic but wonderfully-familiar human senses and she found herself gasping for oxygen like a drowning woman returning to the surface of the ocean. She collapsed to the ground on all fours, breathing heavily, small wisps of hair falling past her ears.
“I’m...I’m okay”, she said, as she read the concern in her companion’s face. “Getting the hang of this thing...might take a while, is all. Perhaps I should try again tomorrow, when everything is less...overwhelming. How do I go about taking this thing off?”
Her alien companion finally spoke, in a quiet tone heavy with an undefinable emotion.
“The Nul-Fane Armour is a wondrous gift, a true miracle, and we have no doubt that you will quickly come to master its great powers. But now that it has bonded itself to a viable sentient...” the alien paused momentarily, her long digits flexing with apparent agitation, her bottle-green head bowing low on that strangely flexible neck...
“...there is no way that we know of to remove it.”
(33%)
I haven't read much (or possibly any?!) science fiction books, so I only have films I have seen to compare it with (and not many of those either! I haven't even seen star wars!).
But perhaps you don't want to be compared with other people's work, I know that I wouldn't like people to do that with my paintings, so it's good then that I am seeing it from non-science-fiction reading eyes!
Have you read a lot of science fiction?
By kirstycat, # 3. April 2008, 17:02:52
This is what I call a 'kernel'. It's a snapshot, a freeze-frame of something that keeps running itself through my head over and over. I haven't been writing in months, only today did I get so bored with work that I thought I'd zone out for a while and play in my imagination. The details of these kernels change but the fundamentals don't. I have several of these in my head, all more or less on a sci-fi theme. The difficulty comes when I try to expand upon them.
1) Sci-fi is where I'd cheerfully spend eternity, but when it comes to writing it I'm hobbled by the fact I'm not very good at science. Being more of a creative sort I flunked physics badly, didn't even go near biology and managed to scrape through chemistry by the skin of my teeth (Art and English were my best subjects). All that's left is a lifetime of reading, watching sci-fi on TV, and watching shows like Horizon, Equinox and Tomorrows World. This worries me.
2) Every time I try to expand on these things I find it very difficult to extract a good story, with rounded characters and decent, semi-original ideas. It's a huge challenge that I so far haven't been able to beat. This also worries me.
I'm not so bothered about being compared to anyone, as long as people enjoy it or can find something they like about it then I'm generally happy.
Oh, and if you put all the SF books I've read back into their original tree form, you could probably cover the whole of the UK in leafy woodland.
By GrantTLC, # 3. April 2008, 17:48:55
I don't think you need to have a great knowledge of technical science to write science fiction do you? You can bluff it! Or if you are making up other wordly things then anything could be true couldn't it? There are no everyday laws and scientific rules in the land of aliens surely
For some reason your snapshot story made me think of that scene in 'the abyss', where the hero puts on the diving suit and has to breath in the special fluid into his lungs so that he can go deeper without being affected by the water pressure (is this actually something that exists for real??) It sends shivers of horror through me just thinking of it.
By kirstycat, # 3. April 2008, 18:08:33
The Abyss? One of my favourite films! I love that sequence, the sense of isolation, his team-mates and wife freaking out in the rig...it's one of the most under-appreciated classics of our time and I'm chuffed you've seen it!
For sci-fi to work, good sci-fi anyway, there has to be a strong sense of reality in it. You can't have characters breathing in space, for instance. Lots of silly little fundamental rules like that apply. The trick with sci-fi is to find ways to break, bend or just plain circumvent these rules, and see what fun you have in the process. That pink fluid that Brigman breathes during his descent? I think that was definitley one of those ideas - imaginary, but oh so plausible!
Books are special to me too. If I've read a good one I'll usually keep it, and loan it only to people I trust not to ruin it, or who I think will enjoy it.
By GrantTLC, # 3. April 2008, 18:50:50
By kirstycat, # 3. April 2008, 19:18:47
By kirstycat, # 3. April 2008, 19:20:59
By GrantTLC, # 3. April 2008, 20:46:28
By solid copper, # 3. April 2008, 21:16:56
what if I pretend to be a wandering gyspy?
By kirstycat, # 3. April 2008, 21:54:49
@Kirsten: Hmm. You DO have that wild look about you, the dark Romany features...
By GrantTLC, # 4. April 2008, 07:16:47
By kirstycat, # 4. April 2008, 17:53:49
By GrantTLC, # 4. April 2008, 18:27:01
As far as I know, my family on both sides have all come from the highlands of Scotland, so I am a highlander through and through
By kirstycat, # 4. April 2008, 20:17:02
Granty I am having a cold and am a bit introverted - not forgetting your writing.
By solid copper, # 5. April 2008, 16:32:22
By GrantTLC, # 5. April 2008, 18:30:30
By solid copper, # 5. April 2008, 18:37:37
By GrantTLC, # 5. April 2008, 20:05:29
By solid copper, # 5. April 2008, 21:22:21
By GrantTLC, # 5. April 2008, 21:31:19
By solid copper, # 7. April 2008, 20:59:03
In a bizarre coincidence, I actually did spill French Cider all over myself when I opened the bottle. I'd forgotten that I'd carried it home in my rucksack - I didn't think that it would have been shaking and building pressure inside the bottle, I just gently popped the cork...and soaked me and my bedroom carpet!
By GrantTLC, # 7. April 2008, 21:30:47
By solid copper, # 7. April 2008, 21:40:47
By GrantTLC, # 8. April 2008, 07:30:24
By kirstycat, # 8. April 2008, 07:36:59
But you're mistaken if you think being a barman means I have a deep knowledge of cider, beer and wines; all that means is that I've TRIED more alcohol than regular people, and know how it should best be poured and served.
By GrantTLC, # 8. April 2008, 08:44:16
By kirstycat, # 8. April 2008, 11:38:29