Science Fiction in Pulps, E-Zines, and E-Books

When I was young and first started reading Science Fiction, most genre fiction was published in what were known as "pulp" magazines with titles such as Amazing Stories, Thrilling Wonder, Astonishing, Fantastic, Planet, Terror Tales and Unknown to name but a small sample. They had garish brightly-colored covers, usually featuring a scantily dressed woman in some sort of peril by a Bug-Eyed-Monster or a robot with a spaceship in the background. They were printed on 8 ½ by 11 blotting paper and were about an inch thick. The interiors were filled with marvelous stories written by such legends as Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, H.P. Lovecraft, Robert Heinlein, and Arthur C. Clarke to name but a tiny fraction of authors whose careers started with the pulps.

In addition to the stories, they contained art by Earl Bergey, Virgil Finley and Chesley Bonestell and many other great illustrators. They had fact articles and massive letter columns where the fans argued about everything faintly associated with their favorite genre. Although they paid their contributors little in the way of cash, they were a great place for a genre author or artist to get published. If they were very good and lived long enough for the paperback explosion, many graduated into the world of published books where the real money was.

But sometime in the nineteen fifties, the pulps disappeared to be replaced by paperback books and smaller slicker magazines such as Analog. But these medium were more expensive to print. As a result, their editors were less likely to take a chance on new authors. In order for a genre author to get published, he or she had to be known from the pulps or be exceptionally gifted. Hence, from the late fifties to the nineteen nineties it became more and more difficult for a new author or artist to break into the publishing world.

In the nineteen nineties, a new method of publishing came into being due to the Internet and the prevalence of computers in people's homes. It was Electronic or E publishing. As it turned out, the electronic magazines or E-Zines returned to the days of the pulps. Although they paid even less (many pay nothing) than the pulps in terms of today's dollar, a new author, if he or she was any good at all, could finally get a break and get his or her stories published.

The same holds true of the E-Book publishers. Most of print publishing is done by a few major publishers who are mostly interested in publishing books by celebrities and well-known authors. Most will not even accept a manuscript from an unknown unless it arrives through an agent. Ah, but since publishing E-books and print-on-demand is a cheaper process, budding authors have a much better chance of getting published.

Mind Control

One of the most frightening themes in science fiction and fantasy is that of mind control, that your mind could be manipulated to make you perform actions against your will. In SF this is usually done with some sort of gadget that is implanted in your body. In fantasy, mind control is performed by the controlling being such as a wizard, vampire or demon by mystical means.

Apparently the SF version is already available. It is done by brain chips. In 1970, Jose Manuel Rodrigues Delgado, a professor of physiology at Yale University, pioneered an electronic device that can manipulate the mind by receiving signals from and transmitting them to neurons. At present brain chips are used to treat such conditions as epilepsy, Parkinson's disease, paralysis, blindness and disorders.

Delgado, however, was performing experiments that were more dramatic than anything done today. He implanted radio-controlled electrode arrays in various animals and even humans. He showed that he could control subject's minds and bodies with a push of a button. For the most part his work has been forgotten, but he is alive and living in San Diego.

Between 1952 and 1970, Delgado implanted electrodes in twenty-five human brains, most of whom were schizophrenics and epileptics. He showed that stimulation of parts of the brain could cause a physical reaction. Patients were made to perform such actions as tightening a fist or shaking the head from side to side by applying small electric currents to certain areas of the brain. Delgado also induced such emotions as rage, lust, hilarity and fear.

In one experiment he caused a macaque bully in a cage with other monkeys to be pacified when a lever was pushed. One of the female monkeys learned this and would press the lever whenever the bully tried to molest her. (Author's Note: In the future, will such a procedure be done on bully school children?)

One troubling aspect of Delgado's experiments is that they were supported by the Office of Naval Research. Some conspiracy theorists believe that the CIA was involved. Delgado countered any claims of mind control by saying that brain simulation can increase or decrease aggressive behavior, but not direct it at a specific target.

Currently many people suffering from certain brain malfunctions have chips implanted in their heads that stimulate certain areas of the brains by wireless communication to the chip. Whether this technology will be expanded to actually control human beings to act according to another person's will is yet to be seen. It is certainly a frightening thought.

Most of the information for this post came from an article in the October, 2005 Scientific American entitled "The Forgotten Era of Brain Chips" by John Hogan.

Macho Women in Science Fiction

I know there are a lot of strong women in science fiction, probably more than in any other genre – and I love them. Here are some of my favorites.

My number one favorite was Riply in the Alien series. Here was a woman who had everything. She was smart, tough and courageous. In Alien, she stood up to the weak captain of the ship in attempt to prevent the man infected with the alien from boarding the ship. She was the only one aboard who realized the danger. In Aliens, we see a softer side in her relations with the little girl, Newt, who was a strong female character herself. In Alien 3, she had to face tough prison inmates as well as the alien creatures and had to sacrifice herself to prevent the horror from brought to earth. And in Alien Resurrection, she became part alien herself.

Second on my list of favorite macho women was Lara Croft in the movie version of the game, Lara Croft, Tomb Robber. Angelina Jolie was perfect for the part, smart, sexy, athletic and tough. I hope they make a third Lara Croft movie with her in the lead.

My third favorite strong woman is not from the movies but from a book. She is Kithryn from the Doomsday Book by Connie Willis. Kithryn is young student sent back to the middle ages only to find herself in the time of the Black Plague that killed a third of the population of Europe. Ill herself from a pandemic in her own time, she manages to cope as the people around her die horribly, and she is unable to return to the place she needs to go to return to her own time.

Fourth is Zoe Graystone from the SyFy canceled TV series, Caprica. In the show, she is the daughter of high-tech scientist-entrepreneur Daniel Graystone or I should say the virtual copy of the real Zoe Graystone, who is killed by a terrorist suicide bomber boy friend early in the plot. She leads a tough life inside a PC virtual world as well as the mind of a warrior robot invented by her father.

Fifth is Morgan Le Fay (AKA Morgaine) in the Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley. Morgaine is a priestess fighting to save her matriarchal Celtic culture in a country where patriarchal Christianity threatens to destroy the pagan way of life. Morgaine is a strong woman who has unique gifts and responsibilities at a time of enormous political and spiritual upheaval as she is called upon to defend her heritage against impossible odds.

Sixth and Seventh were the main female characters in the TV series Lost, Kate Austin, Juliet Burke and Sun-Hwa Kwon. All three showed their self reliance in a hostile environment without loss of their femininity.

Of course, the main characters in my own novels are strong women, Morgaine the Demon Witch and Raven Lenore, Psychic Investigator.

I also enjoyed several strong female characters in Dark Shadows, the old TV paranormal soap opera.

Of course it was hard to choose. There are so many strong women in genre fiction. In my own novels, Morgaine the Demon Witch, her rival Melody Trent, and my favorite of characters I've created, Raven Lenore, Psychic Investigator.

Who are your favorites?

Galactic Empires

One of the most prevalent themes in science fiction is the galactic empire. Star Wars and Star Trek (and all their spin-offs) take place in a galactic empire; Isaac Asimov's Foundation series is about the decline and fall of a galactic empire. My novel Pawns of Tomorrow is about a galactic empire based on a chess game. To ensure a certain amount realism to the story, I did research about our own Milky Way galaxy. What I found out was that a galaxy is a hell of a big place.

To illustrate: The NASA space probe Voyager 2, traveling at approximately 93,000 mph, took twelve years to travel to Neptune. If this same space vehicle were to travel to the nearest star, Proxima Centauri, it would take it over 370 years to reach it. Okay, but that's reality. Let's assume that we have a starship capable of faster than light travel (impossible according to scientists). How much faster? Let's say it can reach Proxima Centauri (4.22 lightyears away) in four days. Pretty fast huh. That's one lightyear a day or fifteen lightdays per hour. Okay, now let's say we want to travel from one end of the galaxy to the other. The galaxy has an estimated diameter of 100,000 lightyears. The trip would take 100,000 days or almost 3,000 years.

In galactic terms, 100 lightyears or even a 1000 lightyears is in the neighborhood. As a result, even with FLT (faster than light) speeds, our empire could not be very large. Even then, travel from one star to another would take a lot of time, a hundred days (over three months) to go to a stellar system a hundred lightyears away, a thousand days (over three years) to go to a system a thousand lightyears away.

Another problem is that electronic communication between systems would be impractical. A message sent to a planet 100 lightyears away would arrive in the next century, a 1000 lightyears away, in the next millennium. So our galactic civilization would need to resort to communiqués sent by starship. It would be like the days around Columbus' time with sailing ships.

Another thing about the galaxy is the sheer number of star systems. There are 400 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy. Let's say that only a thousandth of them contain habitable planets. That means that the rulers of the galactic empire would have to administer 400 million planets each of which contained over a billion humanoids. What an administrative nightmare.

In my novel, my galactic empire spans part of the Orion spiral arm of the galaxy. An alien empire of approximately equal technological ability, based in the Perseus arm, declares war on the Orion's. But such a war becomes a tactical and strategic game of complexities. For example, most star systems don't even know that the empire is at war, some within the empire's borders don't even realize that there is an empire. It makes for some interesting situations.