• Scriptorium Review: Thus Spoke the Shark Men, The Return and Theseus




    Scriptorium Reviews: Thus Spoke the Shark-Men by Copperknickers II, The Return by Iron Aquilifer
    and Theseus by Kip


    By Alwyn, waveman and Caillagh




    In 2015, the Scriptorium Writing Competition had a science-fiction theme, which inspired writers to enter great stories. The Critic’s Quill offer our commentary on the winning entries. Reading and reflecting on the best writing on TWC can help us to become better writers – it might even help you to write a winning entry for the next competition. This review investigates the secrets of three of the winning stories: Thus Spoke the Shark-Men by Copperknickers II, The Return by Iron Aquilifer and Theseus by Kip. If you would like to read the stories before reading the reviews, you can find them here.

    Thus Spoke the Shark-Men by Copperknickers II
    Review by Alwyn

    How would you tell the story of the first human exploration of another solar system? Would you begin with the starship emerging from hyperspace, its excited crew watching the planets appearing on the viewscreen – or with the first footstep of a human on another world? In Thus Spoke the Shark-Men, Copperknickers II chose a different option. Instead of those moments of discovery, we find ourselves watching a man striding into the spotlight on a stage.

    In Wonderbook: The Illustrated Guide to Creating Imaginative Fiction, Jeff Vandermeer suggests that the start of a story sets up expectations about what the story will focus on and the type of story we are about to read. Vandeermeer suggests adds that what works for the opening of a story is linked to the type of story we tell. What works for a noir mystery focused on the main character would not work well for a police procedural story with an ensemble cast. In Thus Spoke the Shark-Men, our focus is initially on the man who is walking into the spotlight. We are provided with some details – he is tall, has a cropped head and manner suggesting confidence and intelligence. We are introduced to his brother and, for a moment, see the man onstage through his brother’s eyes: -

    His brother, sitting in the front row, rolled his eyes, as he noted the childlike excitement in his elder sibling’s face at being the centre of attention.
    Despite being set in the far future, this story introduces something many readers can recognise and relate to (from the experience of friends, if not from our own experience) – the relationship between two brothers. Alongside this relationship, we have an exciting story of discovery. Science-fiction stories can involve huge numbers: vast distances, long eras in time and enormous armies or fleets. Huge numbers can be exciting but can be difficult to relate to. Copperknickers II connects readers with the large numbers involved in his story by relating distances to points in the Earth’s history:-

    Anyone living on a planet orbiting Proxima Centauri would, theoretically, be able to see earth’s sun, and (with a sufficiently advanced telescope) earth itself, but they would be literally looking into the past, seeing it as it was four years before. The stars visible from earth with the naked eye are anything up to 2500 lightyears away: this means that we see them in 3015 as they were when the Roman Empire was falling, and Mohammedan armies were sweeping across the Middle East, or when Genghis Khan razed Samarkand to the ground. Without telescopes, we can only see a small proportion of the stars in the Milky Way, and none at all outside it.”
    How can a science-fiction story create an authentic sense of being in the future, when we cannot know what the future will be like? One way to do this is to imagine how people in the future will perceive things differently from us. For example, in the early 21st century, London (in the United Kingdom) is a large city – but, even if its population continues to grow, it might be seen in a different way in future centuries:-

    The two men, Mads and Kamy, were twins, brought up in the small village of London, England. It had only 10 million inhabitants, and so the two had grown up in a near constant state of small town boredom, and since a young age had longed to travel, to see the solar system.
    Something which can elevate a story in the minds of its readers is the surprise, the unexpected twist. Thus Spoke the Shark-Men surprises its readers more than once. Having hinted that we are going to hear the story of the first human mission to another solar system, we discover that in fact this is the story of a new adventure. What our adventurers find is beyond anything that they anticipated, providing a second surprise. Along the way, they experience a mysterious environment which contains terrifying dangers. As at the start of the story, the descriptive writing has remarkable power:-

    And then, with a thunderous crash, something seized the craft and began to smash it off a hard surface like an otter trying to break open a shellfish. Warning alarms began to sound as the exterior of the craft buckled with the blows, though it did not break
    After the moments of terrifying danger comes a dramatic revelation which will changes the life of at least one of the characters. This revelation provides a satisfying climax and sets up the ending of the story. The revelation uses imagery from the Bible, showing how spiritual teachings (like old folk tales and legends) can be rich resources for an imaginative story-teller.

    Could this story be even better? As I see it, if Copperknickers II wanted to develop this into a longer piece, there are some unanswered questions which might usefully be explained or explored. As I read this story, the unanswered questions for me included: why would humanity send people on a mission when they were not expected to return (what would humanity learn from this, if no-one came back)? Why would the first people to reach another solar system be “B-list” celebrities? What happened to Mads after he passes out (he is not mentioned afterwards)? Why, at one point in the story, does a character need to open the throttle and head straight forwards? Surely a starship would already be moving forwards, as illustrated by the following quote from Mass Effect 2:

    Gunnery Chief: This, recruits, is a 20-kilo ferrous slug. Feel the weight. Every five seconds, the main gun of an Everest-class dreadnought accelerates one to 1.3 percent of light speed. It impacts with the force of a 38-kilotomb bomb. That is three times the yield of the city buster dropped on Hiroshima back on Earth. That means Sir Isaac Newton is the deadliest son-of-a- in space. Now! Serviceman Burnside! What is Newton's First Law?

    First Recruit: Sir! A object in motion stays in motion, sir!

    Gunnery Chief: No credit for partial answers, maggot!

    First Recruit: Sir! Unless acted on by an outside force, sir!
    Of course, writers do not have to answer every question raised by their story. In a short story, there might not be space to answer some questions. A writer might deliberately not answer questions, making readers work out the answers ourselves. I can find work out answers to some of the questions which I identified. For example, perhaps the starship was not already moving forwards because it had passed through a wormhole – maybe the wormhole acted as an “outside force”, depriving the starship of its momentum? Perhaps the idea that the first humans to explore another solar system could become B-list celebrities reflects the ‘scaled-up’ nature of this future era in which an urban area (London, England) with 10 million residents is described as a “small town”?

    To sum up: this stands out through several distinguishing features. Copperknickers II did not choose an obvious moment to begin his story, such as the arrival of the first human mission in another solar system. Instead, the story begins later, when the heroes of that mission are past their prime and their fame is fading. Despite being set in the far future, the story contains elements which we can relate to, such as the relationship between two brothers. Other elements of the story, such as the idea of a London with 10 million inhabitants being a “small town”, create a feeling of distance – if having 10 million people makes a place a small town, then we are a long way from early 21st century Earth. Mysterious dangers and terrifying moments elevate the reader’s experience, raising the stakes and setting up dramatic surprises which cause at least one character to see the universe in a different way. There are unanswered questions, but perhaps at least some of these are part of what makes this story so powerful: it draws us in and makes us want to understand. For all of these reasons, Thus Spoke the Shark-Men was a worthy winner of the Gold Medal in the Scriptorium Summer Writing Competition 2015.

    The Return by Iron Aquilifer
    Review by Alwyn

    This story begins with a sense of mystery and a feeling of tranquillity. This is a well-chosen mix. The mystery (why has the character been away for seven years? Where was he and where is his home? Why has he returned now?) makes readers want to read on. Moments of tranquility can provide a contrast for dramatic moments later on in a story. The best action movies, I suggest, are not continuous streams of action and explosions; they have moments of calm, to avoid us becoming inured or even bored by action sequences. This method, of drawing in the reader with hints, continues as we meet other characters and get an idea of the military mission which they are undertaking.

    It is not an easy task to build a believable world in the mind of a reader. Diana Wynne Jones wrote a much-admired shelf-full of fantasy books. (Perhaps you've read Howl's Moving Castle, or seen the movie based on the book? That was one of her stories). Having established strong credentials as a fantasy writer, she turned her attention to inauthentic world-building in fantasy stories in her satirical work, The Tough Guide to Fantasyland. In this extract, she discusses horses in fantasy novels:-

    Horses are of a breed unique to Fantasyland. They are capable of galloping all day without rest. Sometimes they do not require food or water. [...] Horses can be used just like bicycles, and usually are. Much research into how these exemplary animals came to exist has resulted in the following: no mare ever comes into season [during the story] and no stallion every shows an interest in a mare; few horses are described as geldings. It is therefore probable that they are bred by pollination...
    Diana Wynne Jones is joking, of course - but hopefully you can see her point. Sometimes, writers make stories which obviously - too obviously - don't work, without coming up with a plausible explanation for, for example, where the horses come from, or how they can travel without rest, food or water. Writers on TWC often say that they enjoy world-building, but they also say that they find this challenging. What can Iron Aquilifer's story tell us about world-building? We'll start with this:-

    A score of warships cut through the water, oars raising and dipping in a wave out of sync with the ocean all around them. Trained sailors heaved with every movement, working in near-silent professionalism. Above their heads flags swayed in the gentle breeze, bearing the proud heraldry of a half-hundred clans from Flendria. The banners were as colourful as the sails of the warships, deep reds and oranges rivaling the sun itself in their warmth, greens as varied as the clans themselves and the violet which looked more skin than cloth. Blue and white designs adorned the sails as well as the flags, uniting the clans in at least tradition if nothing else.
    Here, we are learning about the nation of Flendria through a striking visual image. We can imaging the oars rising and dipping and admire the professionalism of the sailors. We can image looking up in awe at the many colourful banners. Already, Iron Aquilifer has introduced us to some elements of Flendria's culture: their warships rely on the strength of their oarsmen (rather than sails); perhaps their ships are like Greek triremes or Viking longships? The training of their sailors suggests that they value their crews, rather than (for example) using slaves chained to their oars. The clans are varied, which implies that Flendria has both strong leadership and a degree of tolerance. Iron Aquilifer enables readers to pick up hints about the society of Flendria without telling us everything, leaving readers thirsty for more.

    Here, Iron Aqulifer tells us about the character of Smarv:-

    The lands of Flendria had become a second home for him, for the boy who had had nothing. The vast continent had taken him in, provided him with everything a man could need. In return, he had fought for its people. Bled his very essence for them. A hundred allies had been made there, some becoming close friends while others were only bound by their oaths. Yet each had provided men and money, no small thing for the clansmen of the hills and valleys beyond the domain of the city-states. Many had been relieved at the news that he was finally returning home.
    We might naturally sympathise with a "boy who had had nothing", an exile in a foreign land which became his "second home." The positive image of Flendria in the previous paragraph is reinforced: Flendria gave a foreign boy, arriving with no resources, a new home and took care of him. We learn, too, about the character of Smarv. He repaid the welcome of Flendria with loyal service, fighting for its people and bleeding "his very essence for them". Smarv is an admirable character: loyal to his adopted home, brave and willing to risk his life for the friends who took care of him. For me, this is an important section because it explains how Smarv, who went into exile, a boy who had nothing, is returning to his original homeland with a fleet of ships. Smarv did not pollinate horses or summon a fleet out of nowhere - he acquired their loyalty through his own loyalty to Flendria. They will fight for him because he fought bravely for them.

    Iron Aquilifer includes a ritual involving bowls of water and oil, with invocations of gods (or, perhaps, legendary figures or saints). This takes up a significant part of this short story. Some readers might wonder why it is here – there is little action and the plot does not appear to be advancing. Perhaps this section is meant to tell us more about Smarv, in lines such as “His vambraces ended in the sharp claws of a Flendrian big cat the king had once slain”, which points to his courage and skill in battle. Perhaps the calmness of this scene, like the tranquillity of the opening, would provide a contrast to action later on, if the story had continued with further chapters. Another possible explanation is that this section is part of how Iron Aquilifer makes the world of this story feel real. Here, we learn enough to be able to make an informed guess about what is happening, but Iron Aquilifer does not tell us everything. There is a balance to be struck between informing readers and maintaining a sense of mystery.

    One of the challenges for writers of fictional worlds is how to tell the reader about their world, its places and peoples, without having characters engage in unrealistic conversations. In the Turkey City Lexicon, Bruce Sterling explains a well-known writing trope called “As You Know, Bob” in which one character tells another something which they already know, so that the reader is aware of that information. Having someone explain something to another character is not necessarily a mistake. Writers can use characters who plausibly need to know the information which is being spoken about, to avoid the obvious problem with “As You Know, Bob”. Iron Aqulifier's story provides two ways to avoid this trope. Smarv, his main character came to Flendria as a foreigner. If this short story had been expanded, then we could heave learned more about how he grew up in his adopted land. Of course, as an outsider, he could plausibly need to be told about the customs and culture of Flendria. Now, Smarv returns to the land of his birth with a Flendrian navy. Here, the Flendrian navy are outsiders, so Smav can plausibly explain this country to them.

    Thes
    eus by Kip
    Review by waveman and Caillagh

    "Are you sure about this?" Less a question than an accusation.

    No. "Yes."

    "Aren't you afraid?" Less a question than an accusation.

    Yes. "No."

    "Systems are booted. It's time." This time a statement that feels like a question.
    And with that, our narrator is drawn into whatever endeavour he is undertaking, just as we the reader are drawn into Kip's story. Right off the bat - I'm drawn in with apprehension and curiosity. What are they doing? Is it bad? Dangerous? These feelings are only compounded by our unnamed protagonist's cool denial of fear, and the personification of the machine he his working at - to perform some as-yet unknown task:

    The machine hisses at me. It's angry. I think it knows better.
    And here we might start to wonder: what is it that is happening? What forbidden facet of the unknown are they tampering with? We almost expect some sort of trouble through the sense of tension built up by our protagonist's trepidation, the hostility of the machine.

    But our protagonist brings the machine back into line. Good, then. We can continue - which is maybe not so good.

    It is here that we begin to discern the goal behind all of this effort. This machine, loaded with "biogens," begins to produce something; She begins to take form. First a wisp in the pit, then an outline. Next, a silhouette.

    Still nothing concrete for us, the reader, yet this vague feminine something to seems to be enough for our nameless friend. It becomes evident that our friend is trying to recreate someone - someone who has died.

    Our protagonist waits hours, many hours, enthralled by the process, as do I. "Eighteen more hours. Or maybe it's been eight-hundred?" And this really serves to show how long and how focused the protagonist is. He may have been waiting only, only, eighteen hours, or it could very well have been substantially longer, and either way one length of time feels just like the other, so lost is he in the process. Finally it ends: She opens her eyes. It is I that is reborn.

    All of the suspense and waiting is crammed into this one statement, as well as our protagonist's hope and relief. And then we are left with a vague and tantalizing

    Eight-hundred hours pass, and I falter.
    "Darling?"
    I ask.
    Theseus is an engrossing story, made compelling by Kip's tastefully vague situation: we never learn the name of the daring protagonist, making him a more sympathetic character, and easier to empathize with his slowly revealed feelings of loss and longing, and of hoping to fight the natural order of life and death, just like many of the ancient Greek tales. In some ways, it is very reminiscent of the story of Pygmalion, with a protagonist who wants to create a living woman from non-living matter. In others, it reminded me rather of the story of Orpheus venturing into the underworld to try to recover his wife. Kip’s mention of Terpsichore, the ancient Greek muse of dance, is a beautifully subtle acknowledgement of this heritage.

    It is obvious from the way the protagonist loses track of time passing that he is completely focused on – even obsessed with – his work. But perhaps the many references to time passing are also there to parallel the endless – one might almost say timeless – repetition of the struggle against death that has forever plagued the human race.

    Certainly, Kip’s story forces us to consider whether this protagonist has chosen the right way to challenge death. Can this work, in any sense at all? And, perhaps more importantly, will the woman the protagonist rebuilds really be in any way the woman he has lost? Or, when the robot says:
    Memory is not a code. You cannot program experience. You cannot program love!
    ... is the robot right? Is the protagonist just playing – and inevitably losing at – chess against the greatest grandmaster of them all?

    Kip very cleverly doesn’t tell us. Instead, Kip allows each of us to read whatever beliefs and prejudices we already have into the final words of the story. Do you believe that science will one day be able to decode everything about a human being and accurately reproduce them? Or do you believe that there is more to a human being than just (very complicated) sets of instructions – that experience also shapes personality?

    Either way, Kip leaves our protagonist – along with us, as readers – at the final, crucial moment, before the woman we have spent so many long hours remaking can speak to us and either rebuild us or destroy us. This, with the whole story, is an elegant and thought-provoking picture of the power of love and grief, the anguish of loss and the risks of trying to replace someone who has been lost. With the protagonist, we hope that our lost love has returned – and we fear that she cannot.

    Conclusion

    Thank you for reading! We have seen how Copperknickers II surprises readers in Thus Spoke the Shark Men, by starting the story at a historical point which is not the obvious one. In both Thus Spoke the Shark Men and Iron Aquilifer's The Return, there is a balance familiarity and strangeness, mystery and comprehension. A balance between familiarity and strangeness tends to work well in stories which are distant from us in time (as in the far-future setting of Thus Spoke the Shark-Men) or in another world (as in The Return). Both writers include elements which readers can recognise and relate to, such as the relationship between two brothers (in Thus Spoke the Shark-Men) or the idea of someone forced into exile (in The Return), while also including elements which create authentically futuristic or fantasy worlds.

    Hints, mysteries and unanswered questions help to draw readers into all three stories. In Kip's Theseus, the nature of the main character's mysterious task unfolds gradually. Readers can judge for yourselves whether these stories answer enough of the questions they raise to satisfy you. If there is too much mystery and too little explanation, then readers might become frustrated and give up. However, there can be good reasons for not answering questions (or not answering them too early): if writers give away too much too soon, then the tension and uncertainty in the story could be lost.

    Writers can include spiritual teachings, folk stories or myths and legends to add an extra dimension to stories. In Thus Spoke the Shark-Men, Biblical imagery adds extra impact; Theseus has additional depth for readers who are familiar with the legendary tales of Pygmalion and Orpheus. In The Return, Iron Aquilifer shows ways in which writers can invent aspects of a culture (such as the ritual involving bowls of water and oil), or, perhaps, adapt aspects of Earth cultures to provide aspects of other worlds.

    We hope that you have enjoyed reading these reviews. Don't forget to look out for future Scriptorium writing competitions. In the meantime, you are welcome to post After Action Reports (AARs) and stories in the Writers' Study and to take part in our competitions.
    Comments 3 Comments
    1. Flinn's Avatar
      Flinn -
      Great review once more! As I said before I enjoyed very much the reading of the works presented during the last SWC and in particular the one that won (it was my pick too, hail to the Shark-Men! ); I loved the atmosphere of all the three in the podium (Kip's work are always surprising and the setting in The Return felt very realistic and fascinating) but I have to say that the winner immediately took my vote (maybe also becuase of the Lovecraft atmosphere you can feel when the brothers reach the planet of the Shark-men). Anyhow, great writings from everyone and excellet reviews!
    1. Copperknickers II's Avatar
      Copperknickers II -
      Wonderful review! As it happens, Flinn, I've never read any Lovecraft, although I am a big fan of his lesser known British contemporary Algernon Blackwood.
    1. Alwyn's Avatar
      Alwyn -
      Calling all writers! The Scriptorium Writing Competition 2016 has begun - you can find out more here (link)!