Oof. Sorry this newsletter is so late. Christmas break was … but that’s a story for the next newsletter. This month, I want to take you back to mid-December, when I had a crisis of faith under the National Palace of Culture.
Susie Carder says you can’t tell a story until you’ve stopped living it. “Help, a book made me feel bad,” isn’t a story, and nor is “Nobody writes good books these days!” A story is when you say, “come, sit down beside me. You know what I did after I that book made me feel bad? You’re gonna like this.”
Hoarfrost on branches
Fog above and snow below
Black wood in between
So there I was, pacing back and forth in front of the bus stop, deep in the chilly concrete bowels of Sofia’s National Palace of Culture. I was half way back to my office and in the middle of my day, and I just tooth-gnashingly furious. I boiled with rage at this book I’d been trying to read. This book I had turned to for help! Which I’d bought for way too much money because I thought it would give me the next step in my development as a writer and a person. But then what did I come across in chapter 2? An ideology so repugnant that the mere act of reading it felt like being spat on. How dare this book disagree with me? To hell with it and everyone who ascribes to its mind-poison!
The subject of the book? How to work with people you disagree with.
Ho ho! So now, you’ve got my cry for help, my shout of rage, and even a some dramatic irony for you literary scholars out there. Now, here’s the story.
For the past several years, I’ve found myself becoming allergic to an increasing number of books. Part of this problem is my own training as a writer – I end up critiquing the author’s technique instead of losing myself in the story. There is another problem, though. It’s hard to put words to it, and if I succeed in doing so now, it’ll be for the first time.
So here goes: Most new books I read don’t say, “sit down beside me, you’re gonna like this,” they either say “how dare you,” or “to hell with my enemies.”
It’s a hard problem to talk about, because at this point in the conversation, most people ask as for an example. Things generally go down hill from there, because whatever example I pick, it distracts us from the real problem, which is the method of the delivery. “What?” the other person says, “who cares about the delivery? The message is what’s important, and message says that (good thing) is good. Only bad people would disagree that (good thing) is good. You’re not…a bad person, are you?”
Then we spend the rest of the conversation confirming that I do indeed think good things are good. But that’s not the problem. The problem is when someone goes around telling people that they aren’t good enough.
That’s what this book was telling me: “You’re not good enough.” I couldn’t read it any more, but that meant I couldn’t get whatever useful lessons it had to teach me. I couldn’t go back to my office and work. I could only gnaw away at the terrible conversation that the book had started in my head. Was I good enough? Maybe not. Maybe I should abandon my principles and throw in my lot with this author? Or maybe it’s this author who isn’t good enough! Maybe I should give up hope and stop reading any books at all!
I wrote some poetry, which I won’t subject you to, but that didn’t help much. I was still inside the story, and I couldn’t tell it. The only way I could teach my next class was to press my head against the bathroom wall and tell myself “You are enough. You are enough.”
Dead leaves on a twig
They will cling all winter, but
Buds will dislodge them
How many of you have felt the same way? Like you’re falling out of society? Like your only choice is to either mouth slogans along with everyone else, or go hide in a survivalist compound in the mountains? Because how could we ever talk to people who we disagree with??
It was somewhere around this time that I heard Carder’s advice about only telling stories once you’re out of them, but it still took an embarrassingly long time to make the connection. These books I don’t like, they were written by people like me. People who were in the middle of their stories. The authors of these books are struggling, crying out at the pain and injustice of their lives. Of course their literature comes off as either attack or alarm. I wasn’t the only one raging on the bus stop, halfway to work.
All I need is compassion. And the resolution to wait until my stories are done before I tell them.
Leaving the garden.
Last year’s plants in this winter.
Gray and brown and green.
In other news!
Interchange rested in December while I worked on the other projects. The Centuries Unlimited and The Sultan’s Enchanter both got new beginnings, which is something I can do now without tearing out my soul and squeezing it. I just put on some good music, meditate, and write…something that needs considerable work to fit in with the rest of the manuscript. But still.
And it’s not entirely true that I left Interchange alone. Back in the fall I signed up for the Science Fiction Writers of America mentorship program, and they paired me with a mentor. One of the many good things about my and my mentor’s conversations is that he can tell me to do things that I would otherwise flake on. But since someone told me to, I have no choice but to do my homework: a writeup of each of the alien biomes of Junction. I’ll post them on my website once I’m done with them, but for now you can follow (or join!) the conversation here.
As a Christmas present, I put up a new short story set in the Fellow Tetrapod universe. It involves film studies and…film studies. Enjoy!
I sent another short story to a big scifi magazine. Fingers crossed on that one.
And January 27 is the launch date for Protector! It’s “a sci-fi adventure equal parts Conan the Barbarian, Mad Max, and The Expanse!” If you preorder a copy, it’s more likely we’ll be able to write the sequel 🙂
The sky develops
Behind the corners of blocks
From midwinter night
Oh! And the treasure trove of Thracian stuff I found on Academia.com! The phonology alone! Oh my cruel, subterranean god! A major overhaul of my dictionary followed, and here’s the result so far:
Kipt igipûe ainē kēsa byźai dârsai ypo dēsâ.
Ebron, aiźē, byźâs kâ šhalmon, blēptē, bostâs kâ,
As tae uper sikinan kapâ te pe ûe binźan.
One time under heaven, there were some brave goats.
A kid, a nanny, and a billy goat, clever, observant, and tough.
Who want to climb up the hill to fatten themselves.
Tans ispilsa iâtrē strymē mâd kapō, śân târē dymē.
Ypo ûērâ tâ iserpsa źērē: źymlē tē udrēnē mērē!
Byźulâs źilins mirins ada. Bolûârē kela genta rhoda.
A fast stream between the hills blocked them, with an evil guard.
Under the bridge crawled a beast: the great water dragon!
A little goat eats tender herbs. A serpent gulps red meat.
Pešhēnon ârźa ēbron to. Šhâšhâpton ârźa an nugō.
Źymlē tē ilâ iglâûsa. “Kis ēs śy?” Nedton iglâtsa.
“Manon ēm ēźo: ēbron.” “Śan abadam samiston!”
First comes the kid. “Shhap shhap” it comes on its hooves.
The dragon heard this. “Who are you?” she roared.
“It is only I, a kid.” “Then I will eat you up at once!”
Dâ prâglâs as an ēbre te eg zi šhalmō tes ibutûe.
“Aiźē ârźa o udrēnin. Ân ûe isźas drâkûēnin,
Kiptas genton pi palon.” As idakûe iē gurmon.
But the answer of the kid was of the most clever.
“A nanny comes to the water dragon. If you wait for your dinner,
You will have very much meat.” This she greedily did.
Sâkton aiźē tē pešhara. Pipikton brâma iē an parâ.
Źymlē tē ilâ iglâûsa. “Kis ēs śy?” Nedton iglâtsa.
“Manon aiźē ēm ēźo.” “Isźem ûe ânâdon śo!”
Next the nanny begins to cross. “Pick pick” she sounds on a path.
The dragon heard this. “Who are you?” she roared.
“Only a nanny am I.” “I have been waiting hungrily for you!”
Thank you for the clouds
the birds that fly across them
And the winds that move.
And some stuff I liked this month:
Murder in the Dark by Kerry Greenwood – uh…it has weird pre-war sex rituals?
Nudge by Richard H. Thaler – a more academic approach to The Power of Habit. Dumb DUMB dad-jokes.
The Thousandfold Thought by Scott R. Bakker – whoo! That’s half of the series. I think I need to give the transcendental nietzscheans a break for a while now, though. The writing is just so good, but as heavy as depleted uranium. I did enjoy the glossary at the end, which was about a quarter of the novel’s length.
Good Manager  – oh that rascal! He did manage to defeat the wicked chaebol director after all. This was easily the most entertaining drama about accountancy that I’ve seen.
“Songo di Volare” by Christopher Tin – inspiration for Protector
“Gravity” by Against the Current – good Interchange music!
“In Hell I’ll be in Good Company” by the Dead South – very Thracian
And of course “Winter’s Dance – a Celebration of The Season” by Golden Bough and “Christmas with the Cambridge Singers.” Otherwise it wouldn’t be Christmas.

The sun rose, and the sky separated from the Pacific Ocean.
The water stayed dark, but the air above lightened and developed clouds. They shone pink and hazy, stitched by the gleaming contrails of jets.
Golden Hour, thought Mike Loew, and shoved the sippy lip of the go-cup into his mouth for another desperate sip of coffee. His body still thought it was 10pm. His brain thought he should be in Hollywood. In his heart, Mike was very worried about what the salt and sand would do to his shoes.
“Um,” he said. “Are you sure we’ve come to the right place?”
It was an inane question to ask. Of course they were in the right place. Mike’s charges had woken him up an hour before dawn, fed these coordinates directly into the rental van’s AI, then dashed straight into the water as soon as the vehicle had parked. All that was visible now of the visitors were the little robot interpreters hovering over four ominous shadows below the waves.
Mike tried to think of other ways to politely phrase, “What the fuck do a bunch of non-human film critics have to do at the beach at dawn?”
“Certainly,” said one of the interpreters in the chirpy voice Mike had chosen for Sessile Probings, the non-human in charge. The official name of Sessile’s species was “Individuals Locked in Mutual Tensegrity,” but Mike privately called him a slime-fish.
“We have to wait an hour to get the tide,” said Sessile. “However, Octopus Iceberg was bored at the hotel.”
Mike glanced at a passing jogger, trying to force his brain to work. “Okay, so you wanted a morning swim before we drive up to Hollywood? I just need to know how far I should push back the meetings I’ve lined up for us.” Meetings with people who would never have given Mike the time of day back when he was trying to break into the industry. When he’d been the sort of idiot who thought you got a movie made by telling a good story.
Mike was a government functionary now, and much wiser. Or at least, he had thought he was wiser until this morning. He raised his go-cup and found it empty.
“We do not swim,” said Sessile. “We study film.”
Yes! Mike wanted to shout. That’s why I pulled strings to get myself assigned to you.
He closed his eyes. They’d told him about this in Beijing. Interpreters weren’t perfect. You needed to speak clearly and stay aware of alternate meanings. “I am confused,” he said. “Please restate.”
“Currently, I am studying this film on this rock.”
Mike tightened his grip on on his cup. He stared out over the water, a horrible realization swelling in his gut. “Sessile, what do you mean when you say ‘film?'”
“I will show you.” Shadows moved against the sand, and Sessile rose from the waves.
Sunlight glared off the spun glass globe of Sessile’s primary shell. Then the slime-fish rose to his full height and the sun was behind him, haloing the bloated head within. Sessile’s eel-like tail thrashed embedded in the column of slime that supported his fish-bowl head.
The slime hardened as Mike watched, its surface turning gray and cracked as water wept out of it. Rods pushed out of the mass, dangling snotty strands. Webs of mucus tightened, and these extruded limbs flexed.
A cluster of these limbs cradled a flat, smooth rock, about the size of a plate. It was also slimy. Everything within a foot of Sessile was slimy.
The non-human’s head pulsed within its spiked and blistered globe. Bubbles of air farted out of the depths of the tower of mucus. “Look at this, Mike,” the interpreter chirped. “I found a model film. This is a good example of a film.”
Mike wanted to fall to his knees and shake his empty coffee cup at the sky. This wasn’t how things were supposed to work! He was supposed to be in a Hollywood board room in an hour, facilitating deals and making connections. They had to respect him now! He was bringing them film critics from alternate Earths! Not…not marine biologists!
“I think,” he said, “that there has been a translation error.”
The training turned out to be worth the jetlag. Upon further discussion, Mike and Sessile managed to establish that a film was a series of sounds and images that told a story when projected in front of a human’s eyeballs. A biofilm, however, was a colony of bacteria that coordinated their behavior in order to change their environment. They secreted a number of fascinating compounds.
Mike nodded and looked down at his salt-stained shoes. “Good,” he mumbled. “Good. I’m glad we established that.”
Sessile had finished excreting his land-body. He tottered forward on a pair of spindly puppet-legs, a fishy eye bulging behind a lens-blister on his shell. “Mike, does the shape of the front of your head indicate that you are emotionally troubled?”
“No,” said Mike. “No, I’m just fine. Please don’t try to give me a hug.”
“I won’t hug you because it will be disgusting. But please wait a moment. I will call Octopus Iceberg. He studied the psychophysiology of mammals.”
Another monster loomed out of the depths, this one a plexiglass globe perched on top of a ring of articulated metal tentacles. Floating within the globe, veiled in fluttering jellyfish gowns, was an octopus.
Mike wasn’t a biologist or paleontologist, so he didn’t know how octopi had conquered Iceberg’s version of Earth, but the Convention of Sapient Species had much weirder members. At least he knew the two of them shared a love of audiovisual story-telling. Or so he had thought.
“Octopus Iceberg, I believe our native guide is upset,” said Sessile.
Metal tentacles tip-toed over the sand. Segmented suckers opened like camera shutters. Colors and textures flickered across the skin of the octopus. “Yes,” said its interpreter. “He has a mental state of frustration.”
“It’s just I worked hard to get this job because I thought we worked in the same industry,” said Mike.
The non-humans looked at each other.
“But you are a government official and we study film.”
Mike squeezed his eyes shut. “Biofilm! Interpreter, translate that word as ‘biofilm.'”
“There is a very important difference,” Sessile told Iceberg. “This ‘film’ is a tradition of human performance art that Human Mike hopes to participate in.”
“I understand. Human Mike, don’t be ashamed of making bad films. It is very important that you are helping science.”
“I didn’t give up because I couldn’t make a good movie,” Mike told the inside of his eyelids. Who cared what he told a bunch of marine biologists? It might as well be the truth. “I gave up because Hollywood is a corrupt pit where real art goes to die.”
There was some confusion while their interpreters chewed on the cultural context behind that explanation, which evolved into a longer diatribe about the industry in general.
“It’s just so cynical,” Mike found himself saying. “There’s this old boy’s club giving awards to each other. Calculated grabs for attention. Public personas instead of actual people. Just…” he waved his hands, “just lies. But everyone has to act like they believe, or else they get pushed out. Nobody is willing to stand up and say what they really think.”
The octopus and slime-fish looked at him.
“I am still confused,” said Sessile. “So, are there images paired with sounds?”
Mike groaned and clawed at his pocket. “Look. I’ll show you. Here’s the most critically acclaimed film of the past year.” He had it downloaded on his phone, and he watched it compulsively. It always depressed him.
“Look at this!” Mike said, thrusting the phone at the biologists. “That brown color palette. Those fake accents. It’s not a movie at all, it’s just a sign that says ‘this is intellectual.'”
“Yes,” said Sessile. “It seems completely incomprehensible. But only the most advanced art can resonate outside of its cultural background.”
“No, wait, I think I might like it,” said Iceberg. “The problem is that the quality of the display device is poor. Wait a moment.”
A message popped up on Mike’s phone. “New device connected,” followed by a long string of numbers and letters.
“I have connected my armor to your communication device.”
“You can watch movies on your exo-suit?” asked Mike.
“Of course. The entire inner surface is covered with visual displays.”
“Octopus Iceberg’s species sees with their skin and also eyes,” explained Sessile.
“Sure, why not?” Mike pressed “play.”
Iceberg’s skin prickled. Browns and grays marched across his body. “It is pleasant and soothing,” he said. “However, this effect is only effective when you are watching a movie with all eight arms.”
Mike shook his head in despair.
“What about the population?” asked Sessile.
“The population only has two arms.”
“I don’t understand. I mean what movies do most humans like to watch?”
“Oh, the public, you mean? They watch absolute garbage. Uh…look.” Mike found last season’s highlight reel from a reality show and cast it to Iceberg’s suit.
His tentacles stiffened. The fishbowl helmet sparkled with refracted images and his skin flashed red, white, and purple. “Inarticulate joy,” said the interpreter.
Sessile’s scarecrow body jerked, sending mucus flying. “Octopus Iceberg! Are you okay?”
Iceberg’s skin shivered. “This is the product of great and noble talent,” whispered the interpreter.
Mike looked at his phone to make sure he hadn’t selected the wrong video. “What? No! It’s just sex and shouting.”
“This art encompasses the essence of human existence.”
Sessile connected to Mike’s phone and his glass shell swam with images. “I understand your idea. This shows the purest form of interaction. Bacterial communities coordinate in a very similar way.”
Mike floundered. Every diplomatic instinct he possessed was saying “Just nod and smile and agree.”
But he couldn’t. Not after he’d bared my soul to these non-humans. These beings who he had thought were people. “No!” He stomped his expensive shoe on the sand. A cigarette butt went flying. “No, God damn it! This stuff is garbage! It’s stupid, Sessile.”
“We will teach you to appreciate it,” said the slime-fish.
“Yes,” said the octopus. “All that is needed for this film is proper analysis.”