Space MADNESS

[bloodyrosemccoy]

Okay, okay, the ginger Klingon is less irritating now.

I could have done without the ginger-Klingon sex, though.

The idea of introducing Pilot to Gypsy, however, has given me an excellent twist for an upcoming Doctors!verse novel. When I return to a sci-fi ruining state of mind,* the medical saga of Shipmonster G. Space!Kraken,** already inspired by an aspect of Gypsy, gets an upgrade. It hasn't made me cackle before now. I love it when I cackle.

Speaking of medical drama, I can't stop writing it even in high fantasy, it would seem. You rarely hear, "There will be a slight delay in our world-saving Quest on account of our hero's recovery from open-heart surgery" in these stories. I'd like to see the Houses of Healing deal with a character whose heart has just exploded. THAT'S RIGHT, YO, MY NOT!ELVES ARE WAY COOLER THAN YOUR ELVES.

Damn, I love this hobby. You wish yours was half so much fun.


*I oscillate between sci-fi and fantasy moods pretty regularly.

**Another placeholder name. It takes me YEARS sometimes to come up with good names.

For the record, the G stands for Gamera.

Comments

[shadesofmauve]

I'm so glad I'm not the only one who uses place-holder names for years. I get very odd and particular about whether a word feels right (it's why I haven't gone far with my con-langing), and I end up with /domain/ or /protagonist's-dad/ and stuff like that. There's a list of placeholders at the top of all my stories so I can do a find-and-replace when the right name FINALLY occurs.

Also, hooray for fictional medical emergencies. :)

Personally, one of my goals in fantasy is to work in entirely non-magical, inconvienient natural disasters. The flood does not just mean you cannot cross the river to reach the village; it means the village just went past you. On the river.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

I have to admit, I was sore tempted to actually name this particular character Gamera until I read The Ghost Brigades. Scalzi beat me to it.

When I'm writing science fiction I often wind up using placeholders, generally boldfaced as well as listed so that find-and-replace will work. Sometimes they're just for me, because working out a name either requires some conlanging first. Other times it's because the alien's real name is unpronounceable or (as in S.G. Space!Kraken's case) they don't know their real name and need a new one--which can get entertaining even when I do come up with something. (At one point I realized I had characters named Betty, Veronica, and Reggie in one story. I draw the line at Jughead Jones, Space Alien, however.)

Yay for medical drama and natural disasters! That village flood sounds like fun. I'm somewhere in between on that one--my other story right now hinges upon a mage who, as he puts it, "has some affinity with stones." It turns out this means he's worked out an understanding with a VOLCANO ...

[gwalla.livejournal.com]

Is he really neat, because he's filled with turtle meat?

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Yes! AND he's friend to children everywhere!

Well, one child, at least.

He also maybe used to be vaguely turtle-shaped, but, well, that was before he matured into a giant space kraken.

Have you read the Old Man's War series? There's a group of genetically engineered special-forces humans who can work in vacuum; they are leathery rocket turtles with weird senses of humor. They call themselves the Gamerans.