Abercrombie's Shattered Sea Trilogy Shatters Genres

            I recently completed my reading of Joe Abercrombie’s young adult “fantasy” trilogy The Shattered Sea comprising Half a King, Half the World and Half a War and as with all of his writing, I was thoroughly entertained. But it was the faux-fantasy setting which interested me the most conceptually. Which is ironic since Abercrombie has never been one of speculative fiction’s most interesting world-builders. The trilogy appears to be set within a typical pseudo-medieval world, albeit one with a cultural aesthetic reminiscent of the Vikings and Norse mythology. But through subtle allusions over the course of the series it becomes apparent that the narrative is neither set in an alternative world, nor a properly medieval one. It is in fact set in a post-apocalyptic future of our world where society has regressed to a medieval level of technological development and political ideology following what appears to be a global nuclear cataclysm. Judging by the map of The Shattered Sea, it appears that it is set around the Baltic Sea, particularly in Sweden. This makes the world closer to Mad Max than A Song of Ice and Fire despite appearing the share a stronger affinity towards the genre tropes of the latter.

            The post-apocalyptic nature of the world is never made explicit because the historical perspective of the characters is so distorted. The ruins of our present (or near-future-equivalent) civilization are known to belong to “elves” while guns and radiation are feared as magical phenomenon rather than recognized as technological and natural in kind. And though there is mention of unrecognizable territories such as Gettland, Vansterland and Throvenland, they are simply the new names assigned to territories of a post-apocalyptic Scandinavia rather than independent nations within another world. It is only through the description of the elves, their ruins and “magic” that the reader is able to incrementally recognize that they are mundane artifacts of our future’s mythologized past rather than a fantastical world utterly divorced from our own history. Hence the quotes around my label of the trilogy as fantasy fiction. Despite talk of apparently non-human elves, their forbidden magic and a dead God, the world is thoroughly naturalistic even if the continuity between the future and our present is occluded by the ignorance of the characters.

           

            Stories which are structured around the “feudal future”, “days of future past” or “magic from technology” tropes are fascinating to me because they have the potential to complicate the most fundamental distinction between fantasy and science fiction narratives: historical continuity. Science fiction presupposes its imagined futures (or alternative pasts and presents) as a historical possibility. These visions of the future are mediated by projected scientific discovery and technological ingenuity, hence the genre being science fiction. In contrast, the worlds of the fantasy genre represent a discontinuity with historic possibility, recognizing that such worlds are impossible for the reader to actualize. The paradoxical appeal of the fantasy genre is to take these impossibilities seriously, to explore a world that not only may never come to be real, but never could be real. Fantasy fiction doesn’t lack a sense of history itself (epic fantasies such as A Song of Ice and Fire and The Malazan Book of the Fallen have immensely complicated histories to their worlds), but rather disregards the possibility of actualizing its world over the course of our own history whereas science fiction takes seriously its potential self-actualization.   

The aforementioned tropes are a translation from the genres of fantasy to science fiction by way of projected superstition its demystification over the course of the narrative. The cataclysm of a global nuclear apocalypse in The Shattered Sea series divorces the world-text from the genre of science fiction and reframes the narrative in the recognizable tropes of the fantasy fiction genre. The event of a nuclear apocalypse erases the continuity between the reader in the present and the characters in the future; the world is described unrecognizably to the reader not merely because war and nuclear fallout has reformed the world to a dramatic extent but also because the collapse of civilization has deprived the characters of a modern ideology and vocabulary that the reader would recognize. Characters conceptualize their world in categories reminiscent of a more primitive and fantastical imagination and so the reader is misled along with them into understanding their world to be another world entirely: one governed by magic, elves and gods. Readers accept these elements uncritically at first as indicative of a fantasy world but as the narrative progresses these elements become recognizably more mundane and less mystical. Once it is recognized that the elf ruins refer to the concrete skeletons of modern cities, and elf magic refers to gun-powder weaponry, one is inclined to immediately re-imagine the story as post-apocalyptic science fiction rather than post-apocalyptic fantasy fiction.

            Yet this reversal is not necessary warranted by the world-text itself. There is no explicit identification between the world of the Shattered Seas and our own world that world necessitate re-imagining the series according to the conventions of science fiction as opposed to fantasy fiction. Although the translation of fantasy fiction into science fiction necessarily involves demystification (to the extent that spiritual and magical phenomenon belong to the former and not the latter), demystification itself does not require genre re-identification. It is perfectly consistent to deconstruct superstition from within the fantasy genre itself while consistently identifying with the genre. Magical abilities and supernatural deities are not essential to the fantasy genre; historical discontinuity, the impossibility that divorces the world-text of the fantasy novel from our own world, is what defines the genre. Magic and gods are the most explicit and familiar mediators of this discontinuity but they are not the only techniques. Describing the world as populated with alien ethnicities and animals, bounded by unrecognizable political boundaries and allegiances, and grounded by a history estranged from our own is also sufficient. A Song of Ice and Fire would still belong to the fantasy genre if the White Walkers never came out of the North, dragons never returned from extinction and R’hllor never granted a magical ability because the world-text of that series involves peoples, nations and historical events with no recognizable relation to our own world. It is a world of impossibility, of fantasy.   

What is relevant is whether the world-text in its totality can be identified as continuous with a point in our history or not and by what means this continuity is established. The recognition that the elves of The Shattered Sea are mere humans and magic as mundane modern technology may demystify the world from magical (high) fantasy to mundane (low) fantasy but it doesn’t require us to totally re-categorize it as science fiction from fantasy fiction. The inclusion of modern gun-powder technology in a fantasy narrative is no less disruptive than the inclusion of medieval weaponry and armor would be to a fantasy world. Both are technological artifacts of history and the fantasy genre is not restricted to any historical period since the inherent logic of the genre is anachronistic and distinct from the history of our own world. Fantasy worlds follow their own historical logic of development (or lack-there-of as is the case in the trope of “medieval stasis”) and it could be perfectly natural for a fantasy world to feature medieval and modern technology alongside one another. As it just so happens, this is the case with the world of The Shattered Sea: the majority of weaponry is at a medieval level of development but elf magic weapons (guns) provide immense power to those who can monopolize possession of them. The anachronistic juxtaposition of medieval and modern technologies and lack of an historical awareness (beside a supernatural and superficial remembrance of the collapse of civilization) reflect fantasy fiction’s disengagement with maintaining historical continuing between the reader and the world-text itself.     

            If the distinction between genres depends upon historical continuity or lack thereof, then whether a text is identified as science or fantasy fiction depends upon the narrator of the text having a historical self-awareness relative to that of its reader. The narrator must recognize their self as rooted in the history of the reader’s world if the reader is to recognize the text as the projected future of science fiction rather than the imagined impossible world of fantasy. Lacking any such historical self-understanding deprives the reader of identifying a shared historical connection between their world and the speculative world of the text and therefore the text is more akin to the impossible worlds of fantasy. If science fiction constructs its worlds by projecting the marvelous potential of science and technology through history as a bridge between our world and the future of the world-text, then apocalyptic fiction is the inversion of this. Apocalyptic fiction deconstructs such worlds by projecting the massively disruptive and destructive power of science and technology to retroactively erase history. The apocalypse opens up a space of interpretation for the reader amidst the destabilized boundary between science fiction and fantasy fiction. The apocalypse that occurred in the past of Abercrombie’s series didn’t just shatter the foundation of the world, it shattered the possibility of definitively recognizing that world as our own and as a distinct genre.

            Abercrombie’s series appears to encompass a transition from fantasy to science fiction genres but it is actually more subversive than that. What Abercrombie’s writing has accomplished, whether he intended or even realized it or not, is a subversion of the distinction between fantasy and science fiction itself. This is ironically the complete opposite effect of a surface reading of his world-text. When it becomes apparent to the reader that the elves are merely human and that the breaking of the world was merely nuclear disaster rather than apocalyptic punishment, this does not mean that the world-text transitions genres from fantasy to science fiction. It is a transition from high magical to low technological fantasy, it is an invitation to question and reimagine the conventions of the fantasy genre itself. Why can’t elves just be humans? Why can’t there be nuclear war, concrete architecture, and gunpowder weaponry in a fantasy world? I am more comfortable interpreting Abercrombie’s writing according to the genre of fantasy fiction rather than science fiction because the narrator and characters of his world-text do not understand their world in a way compatible with our own understanding. The apocalypse erased the past of their world and with it the necessary scientific ideology that would ground it as a projected continuation of our own world history.
            

            But simply identifying it with the fantasy genre is inadequate to address the unique indeterminacy inherent in his world-building (or apocalyptic un-building). If fantasy fiction is the speculation fiction genre of the impossible then Abercrombie’s series is fantasy in the ironic sense that it is impossible to say whether it is fantasy or science fiction. It is both, it is neither, it is up to the reader. Determining the genre of his world-text is an act of archaeology, digging through the apocalyptic ruins of his world-text for relics that would allow one to reconstruct the past and thereby recognize its genre. The Shattered Sea trilogy is post-apocalyptic fiction that is post-fantasy, post-genre. It is a work of young adult speculative fiction which asks its readers to mature along with its characters, to grow out of an adolescent understanding of binary genre conventions into the adult complexity of infinite possibilities and impossibilities, and mediate the path between the two for themselves.

Note: the above artwork is the property of Marko Djurdjevic for the tabletop RPG Degensis which I found to be both beautiful on its own and useful in conceptualizing some the world of the Shattered Sea

World-Building Artist Interview: Gassler's Art and Aurora

A while back I introduced an intended series of posts focused on the art of world-building. The idea was the promote speculative fiction, science or fantasy fiction, through artists as opposed to writers. I’ve always been more attached to aesthetics of visual art rather than the rhetorics of literature and having been a member of the Deviant Art for several years I thought it made the most sense to focus attention upon members of that community. Andrea Claudio Gassler, otherwise known on his profile as JuniorWoodchuck, is one such member I have been fortunate enough to converse with regarding his artwork and world-building on several occasions. What follows is a Q&A between us regarding such subject matter. His impressive portfolio encompasses everything from speculative xenobiology (including fan art for Snaiad), post-humanity, and Martian and future zoology. Check out his amazing artwork, especially his Aurora world-building project! 

What are your general interests as an artist? Is there a particular genre or medium you are most attracted to? 

Most of my pictures so far are either pencil or ballpoint line-art just because it’s an easy way to quickly put ideas down on paper and mistakes can be fixed quite easily. In the last couple of months, especially with the start of my new future biology project, I started to add more details and shade my pencil drawings as I grew quite dissatisfied with just the simple line work. It’s a way for me to visually convey more information about the organisms as well as add some more value to my own art.

In addition to that, I recently bought a Wacom tablet, on which I am trying to experiment with digital art and different techniques as often as possible as it’s something I want to explore further and maybe even fully transition to colored digital art. This is also mainly because I want my art to look more professional and realistic to properly illustrate what it is I see in my mind. The problem with that is just that I can be quite impatient, especially with myself, so I often get a bit discouraged when something takes too long.

Were there any particular works of art (including literature, television, film, or video-games) or artists themselves that were major sources of inspiration for your own art?

I grew up in a pretty artistic family of designers, artists, architects and photographers so drawing came quite naturally to me. As I have always had a vivid imagination, those imaginary creatures just came to me for as long as I can remember.

My first introduction to speculative biology and what really got me started in it, was Dougal Dixon’s fantastic "After Man". There was a copy of it in a local library and it was usually the only book I borrowed. I must have read through it hundreds of times and memorized all the different animals and how they came to be like that. His works did not really influence me on an artistic level though but more just in the way I approach speculative biology.

Terryl Whitlatch, particularly the work she did for the Star Wars movies, is one of the main and earliest influences on my art. After that, Wayne Barlowe and C.M. Kosemen have also greatly influenced me not only with their art but also their xenobiology projects Darwin IV and Snaiad. And of course, all the other great artists on DeviantArt have inspired and influenced me quite a bit ever since I joined the site.

Do you have a particular process you follow when designing your creatures?

When I start drawing, I usually have a pretty clear mental picture of how I want my design to look like. I then start with a very light sketchy outline to define the creatures proportions, how it is positioned and posed. I refine this outline until I’m happy with it before making the lines stronger or inking them, adding details and maybe some shading. This process is pretty much the same no matter the medium.

For your art that has a narrative attached, what is its relationship to your art typically? Do you have an idea in mind and build a creature around it or do you find the narrative forming around the creature?

That really depends to be honest. Sometimes I come up with an idea of how I want a creature to behave, what traits I want it to have, what niche it fills in its biosphere and other things like that and then model the creatures' designs around these ideas. Other times, it’s the other way around. I sketch some creatures until I have something I’m happy with and then create a narrative around the design. With Aurora, it usually started out with a very basic idea that I then translate into a design around which I create a narrative. Oftentimes, the design and the narrative develop and evolve hand in hand.

What is the importance of narrative to your artwork? Do you merely see it as a context to help your audience interpret your art? Or is the narrative a form of art in itself to you?

The main focus usually lies on the designs with just a few lines of description to convey the information that would not be evident otherwise. Mainly just so the viewers can get a rough idea of what they’re seeing. That does not necessarily mean that I place less importance on the narrative but I often struggle a bit with finding the right words in English. I do however have some upcoming projects where the narrative and art go hand in hand and even some purely text-based ones… So I certainly do think that the narrative in itself can be its own form of art and it’s able to bring across ideas that could not be depicted otherwise.


For your worldbuilding projects, such as "Aurora", do you find yourself coming up with a world first and populating it with creature art or is the world an afterthought to organize artwork you have already generated independently?

Well, Aurora is a bit different from most of my other worldbuilding projects…

My first xenobiology project ever has been about the organisms that inhabited a cold and barren Mars before an asteroid wiped them all out. All my other xenobiology projects since then have basically been alterations of that initial project and though the names of the planets have changed a few times, the features are usually pretty similar - cold, dry, and rather barren.

With my first few worldbuilding projects, I have been playing a lot of attention to biological accuracy, trying to make my designs look as plausible as possible. This was especially problematic for my xenobiology projects as the only reference I had was Terran wildlife. Because of that, all my designs turned out looking rather mundane and unimaginative - in my eyes at least. For a long time, I struggled to come up with something I was happy with until I decided to throw all logic out the window and just create something that looks cool. That’s how Aurora came to be…

That project is also different because I usually just created a creature and then kept it like that forever. The designs of Auroran animals are in a constant state of flux because I usually create them without too much attention to similarity. I then modify their designs depending on relation to other groups or just because I grew tired with it.
Had I not done that they’d still look like pudgy cone-heads or weird mosquito-horses.


What is the relationship you see between yourself, your worldbuilding and your audience community? Are the worlds an artist creates something "owned" within their own imagination or is it something open to an audience to populate with their own creations? 

Aurora as well as most of my other projects are very much an extension of myself and my imagination. It’s a way to process my thoughts, ideas and emotions. They are all worlds I have experienced in one way or another, be it through dreams, reveries or through the themes I cover in them. In addition to that, they are all just worlds or stories I want to experience and since they don’t yet exist, I have to create them myself.

I like to be the owner of my projects and I’m usually quite protective of my designs. On one hand, it is because they are all very personal to me but also so I have total control over them and can take them where I want them to go. Some sort of audience participation, in which I allow them to create their own flora and fauna is planned for the future - albeit only for a limited time.

I did start a rather fantastical collaborative project with my friend and fellow DeviantArtist Ryan Bowers. We were hoping people would take an interest in it and populate it with their own creations but due to our other projects, we weren’t really able to get it off the ground. It now lay dormant for quite some time before we decided to call it quits. There might be more collaborative projects in the future but for now, I want to focus more on my personal projects.


What do you want your audience, particularly other artists, to take away from your own artwork? Do you hope that they want to contribute to your worldbuilding, start their own projects, come away with some appreciation of the world around them, etc.?

I’m hoping to fill my audience with the same sense of wonder and awe I experienced when I discovered Snaiad, Darwin IV and all the amazing projects that can be found on DeviantArt and hopefully motivate them to start their own projects.


What is the value you see for yourself in your speculative and fantastical form of art? Is there a motivating purpose to worldbuilding and designing imaginary creatures and giving them explanatory narratives beyond the pleasure of exercising one's imagination? 

I’m not quite sure… I have never really thought about it before. It was just something I did because I enjoyed it. In some way, art has been a way for me to escape my sometimes unpleasant reality to a safe place over which I have total control.

I do think that coming up with these alien worlds can give you a deeper understanding and appreciation for your own one as you hear a lot about it by researching and by adjusting the different adaptions and laws of our world to fit your own. In a way, it’s a form of learning about our Earth by proxy.


Do you have any ideal, long-term goal for your artistic worldbuilding? Do you hope to organize it into a work of literature or website or is it merely for spontaneous pleasure and inspiration

Even though there is not that much of it online, I have tons of concepts for Aurora at home. I have been working on it for quite some time now and I feel like I have come to a point, where I’d feel comfortable with it coming to a conclusion.
But because I still have so many pieces and information, I have not yet published it and because it has been with me for such a long time, I’d feel bad just letting it die like that. Because it has been, and still is, such a big process and my biggest project so far, I do want to give it a proper ending.

So what I’m planning on doing is creating entirely new, digital illustrations and compiling them all together with informative texts on the flora, fauna, the planet itself and many other aspects of life on Aurora and turning it all into a pseudo-scientific book along the lines of Expedition or After Man. That would also be where the audience participation would come into play. My viewers would be able to take part in form of a contest to get their creations featured in it as well as maybe a physical copy of the book.

As of now, I’m not quite sure yet what I’ll do with it once I have created this book. Maybe I’ll actually try to get it published, maybe I’ll just have some copies printed for myself and friends (and maybe everybody willing to pay for it to cover my expenses) or I’ll just put it up on the internet as an e-book. Although it sounds like I have pretty well-defined immediate plans for it, it will still take a long time until it will actually become reality.

At the moment, I’m taking a break from Aurora to focus on my future biology project as well as on writing a novel and a (web-) comic and to improve on my digital art until I can do it justice and properly depict all the organisms. As I’ll also start studying soon, I don’t yet know how much time I’ll actually have to work on any of it so I really cannot tell when it’ll happen.

Five Forms of Racial Representation in Speculative Fiction

A while back The Atlantic ran an interesting article written by Noah Berlatsky of the comics-and-culture website, The Hooded Utilitarian. Titled “Star Wars and the FourWays Science Fiction Handles Race”, Berlatsky categorizes four aesthetic strategies science fiction utilizes to represent race: the metaphorical, token, diversity, and direct. No strategy is inherently superior to any other in his opinion as each offers a unique perspective on race and can be utilized well or poorly depending upon the skill of how it is used to represent racial identity. Though the article is framed around science fiction, I believe that it is equally applicable to fantasy fiction as well. Furthermore, I feel that Berlatsky overlooked a fifth way for speculative fiction to imagine race: alternative representation. This is especially relevant to the alterity of the fantasy genre which is often set in alternative, secondary worlds with their own histories and therefore our inherited racial categories, and the burdens of their associated stereotypes need not be an essential aspect of the world-building project.

            

The first method of racial representation is the metaphorical. Fantastical and alien species serve as the alternatives to the recognizable categories of racial identification. That these species are often referred to as “races” despite them being simultaneously identified as non (if not sub) human reflects speculative fiction’s pervasive problem with recognizing race authentically. By appropriating the term “race” into the discussion of non-human species, speculative fiction risks the identification of racial minorities with inhuman monsters which is exactly what racists do when they dehumanize minorities as of another species (calling them “apes” for example). This opens a dangerous space for speculative fiction to indulge in racial stereotypes without obviously having to own it. Even if the metaphorical “races” are relatively inoffensive, there is the problem that they are still structured according to homogenous racial stereotypes. If an alien species is supposed to be a metaphor for race, it must be ensured that there is recognizable diversity within the race and not merely amongst races. Speculative fiction is fond of indulging in word-building with a plurality of different racial species but each is only ever considered as a monolith with established stereotypes This is especially relevant to role-playing games based upon speculative fiction where racial categories are associated with stereotyped attribute statistics such that particular races are inherently stronger or smarter than other archetypes. For these reasons, the metaphorical approach, while not necessarily worse than any of the other methods is certainly the most challenging as it is likely to misrepresent race in such a way that would justifiably offend minorities.

Token racial identity is the second method by which speculative fiction represents race. Unlike the metaphorical technique, the racial identity is literal but similar enough to the metaphorical in that race is obscured from being anything but nominally depicted. Token representation ensures that minority races are included but their status as racial minorities is not an element relevant to the narrative. It is racial without any apparent social implications between characters. Such racial recognition is literally only skin-deep, serving more to describe the appearance of characters as opposed to defining their experience as a people. This approach often provides more detail than the metaphorical approach but does not ensure more depth. If anything it may prove even more evasive. For while a fantastical substitute may not take race literally, it may nevertheless explore the consequences of race and racism to a greater extent through metaphorical parallels. The token approach may be representative of post-racial societies of the future or alternative worlds and histories, but if this is the case then it should be the burden of the narrative to make the argument for such a setting. Speculative fiction isn’t merely about exploring imagined worlds but in explaining them. Our society is not colorblind, no matter how much some may claim to the contrary. So if such a world is written into existence, the burden is upon the good author to explain what differences between our world and the speculative world made possible to see race as irrelevant.         

Diversity in speculative fiction is the third method of racial representation. Instead of the narrative being dominated by white or pseudo-white people by default, the setting imagines a racial minority as the focus of the narrative. White (analogues) may not feature into the setting at all. Diversity goes beyond the strategy of token representation, by making the narrative about minorities rather than merely including them. The advantage of such an approach is that it puts minorities in a position of power that they may not otherwise possess outside of such speculative fiction. But at the same time the narrative may risk the accusation of being socially escapist for refusing the recognize the struggle of minorities as minorities. The narrative may lose its appeal for those with more immediate concerns over confronting racial inequality rather than imagining an escape from it. A further danger is that by placing the focus on racial minorities, extra attention is devoted to them and therefore it is essential that they be represented authentically according to the concerns of that community. Simply imagining a fantasy setting in Asia world does not guarantee that it will be without offensive Orientalist stereotypes. And as with the metaphorical method, it is irrelevant whether such stereotypes are derogatory or not since any stereotype creates an artificial constraint around a community’s capacity for self-expression and determination. Because of these concerns, diversity-focused fantasy settings is best conducted by those writing within their own community or consulting with authorities in a community.

The fourth approach to speculative fiction’s racial representation is to do so directly and explicitly. Regardless of whether the narrative is situated within an alternative time period or world altogether, the way in which race is discussed reflects contemporary concerns over racial identity and equality. If the circumstances and characterization of races is not identical to the present then it is at least continuous with it, possessing a narrative bridge between the present and its speculative alternative. In either case, the world-building is in continuous and transparent dialogue with concerns for racial identity and (in)justice. It neither approaches race through the surrogate of misleading metaphorical categories nor does it represent race as merely another feature of the world-building itself. The concern with direct representations refuses to speculate alternative possibilities of race and responses to it. By focusing on relevance to contemporary politics, the narrative may ignore the imaginative potential of speculative fiction to redefine those debates with new concepts, categories and experiences. Speculative fiction reaches its full potential when it isn’t simply determined by the present but is in constant dialogue with it, offering a different perspective on familiar and relevant phenomenon.       

The alternative approach is the fifth means by which speculative fiction can depict race that I felt that Berlatsky overlooked. It’s not simply reducible to one of the other four methods because it takes race literally but differentiates it from our familiar historical racial categories. As with the previous three strategies, alternative approaches take racial identity literally but like metaphorical techniques, they represent a divergence with a recognizable reality. Instead, fictional racial identities stand as substitutes for real racial membership. This isn’t the same as equating race with species as in the metaphorical approach but drawing distinctions between race along different lines. This allows for more detailed discussion of race than the metaphorical or token approach without having to make an apparent connection to real races or racism as necessitated by the direct method. There must be considerable differentiation between fictional and historical races in the alternative approach otherwise there is the concern that it will be legitimately identified as guilty of cultural appropriation and exploitation. Diverse cultural elements may be combined into a purely fictional culture, but it must be done carefully. If an alternative culture is going to appear similar to the stereotype of its historical inspiration, there must be adequate explanation for the familiarity. If not, it risks reducing minorities to a means of supplying an exotic and alien element of speculative fiction. The idea is to use an alien culture to familiarize the audience with racial diversity, not to alienate a familiar culture.  

There are a variety of methods available for speculative fiction to appreciate and interrogate racial differences ranging from the metaphorical to substitutionary and confrontational. But each of these methodologies must respect both the authenticity and disparity of racial identities. One must consider not only what is being represented, but how it is being differentiated from the ideological status quo. Speculative fiction imagines alternatives to our world but should remain in dialogue with this world because it is written and read within this world. Whether imagining an alternative history or another world altogether, speculative fiction remains interested in and appreciative of difference. When those differences are superficial and repeat contemporary injustices, the narrative is read not only as a failed exercise of the genre’s imaginative potential but also its ethical imperative to celebrate difference. 

The Art of World-Building: Coviello's Alienated Religions

            Last week I began my series on the art of world-building: a project focused on promoting world-building artists outside of mainstream speculative fiction who have inspired me. World-building has inherent value to the fan of fantasy or science fiction, and much of it is overlooked because it isn’t attached to a commercial product that can reach a mass audience. There are a variety of artists creating fascinating worlds on the internet, many of which I have connected with on Deviant Art. The second artist I want to explore is the art of Vincent Coviello, otherwise known by V4m2c4. Specifically, I want to focus on his Earth Religions Beyond the Milky Way series.

            This series brings together two of my favorite topics: aliens and religion. While aliens are iconic to science fiction, religion is a topic often looked down upon by the genre, if not overlooked entirely. But for all the technological and scientific progress that has been made within modern history, religion remains a dominating and inspiring aspect of contemporary culture. Though religion may often appear threatened by such progress and adopt of hostile disposition towards it, religions nevertheless endure and some even incorporate rational calculation and scientific consensus into their theologies. Projecting this dynamic into the speculative future imagined by science fiction, and it is entirely possible, if not probable, that we will take our religions with us to distant stars. They may even be the inspiration to the faithful to make the journey, if only to convert sentient alien life on planets beyond our solar system.

            This is the basis of Vincent’s series: imagining the intersection of alien biology and culture with religious conversion to the Terran cults of the space colonists they encounter. Each artwork is a juxtaposition of familiar religious inconography with alien biologies radically divergent from the conformting familiarity of our own humanity. This accentuates the alien quality, the absolute and transcendent otherness, of the religious imagination itself. Religions imagine the impossible as not merely possible, but as eschatologically inevitable; believing devoutly in what much of fantasy postulates for mere creative entertainment. Thus the project appears to be not merely a projection of human religions onto aliens but also, and more crucially, displays the strangeness within religion itself. These are alien interpretations of our terrestrial theologies but they also reveal how alien our own theological ideologies are to our humanity. Do not the strongly religious among our own species show patterns of thought often utterly alien to those outside of their community? The adoption of human religions among alien species is an argument that not only humanizes the alien but also de-humanizes theology, making it transcend association with any finite species and opening itself up to the infinite possibilities inherent in the divine. 

Below is an image of each imagined race and their adopted religion, with a brief synopsis and a link included to the original material. Thus far he has only imagined Christian, Buddhist and Islamic alien communities, but I hope that he will return to the project and imagine other combinations of religious and alien culture. Please check out the rest of his amazing artwork, much of which I expect to return to in the future. And yes, Vincent is the same artist I was fortunate enough to be able to commission to provide the amazing new header graphic for my blog: a critical debate between an eldritch being, a fantastic fae, and an alien creature. This not only captures the eclectic interests and critical perspective of my blog but also displays Vincent’s range of skill as an artist appealing to the speculative fiction community.

Kristraseen

"Christianity and Jesus became a fertility based faith and deity. When a female is with child she will be marked with the Ichthys emblem, signifying her transition to Dominas. When the male child is born he is deemed the “Christ child.” . She will be considered the mother of god and will reign with her son along side the clergical court. With the death of her son she will return to a lay position, though always seen as blessed. Jesus’ crucifixion mirrors the male child’s sacrifice. While prized and revered throughout his short life the male’s sole purpose is to repopulate the Kristraseen race with a fresh strain of offspring. Though rare, multiple sons have been born during a birthing cycle. If the case, the other sons will be considered apostles and will also populate along side the god son. A single female can reproduce more than one male throughout her life and if so she will become part of the permanent clergical court and will advise the new king and mother. While the bible is considered the holy book, only the clergical court and reigning family has access. While the Kristraseen bible has many similarities to the earth bible, a lot of stories are deemed unnecessary and invaluable to the race."

Coshum 

"Coshum by nature are hermaphrodites, a fact originally unknown to the Islamic leaders and Imans. Yet once a method of gender identification and classification was established, all be it inaccurate, “males” were sent to learn from Imans. When missionaries began enforcing strict gender rules, roles, codes and conducts there was a great deal of confusion. Categorized male Coshum would next day be exhibiting what was believed to be female roles and mannerisms. Once completely understood, Islamic law was eager to rectify the believed to be impure behavior. This free wielding sexuality was deemed an abomination and was strictly prohibited by force. While many did comply to identifying with a singular gender a “third gender” did appear. This third gender continued to practice the indigenous ideologies and hermaphroditeism. Most third genders still play a vital role in society as they are the only ones equip with indigenous knowledge, such as medicine. Worshipping towards Mecca was established quite early and the problem of accurately facing Mecca was rectified through the celestial astrolabe. This piece of machinery is capable of locating Mecca across the galaxy, pin pointing the exact location of devotion. Many devotees also use shrapnel from the original ship, the ship that brought Islam, as a religious artifact used during worship."

Kamadhatu 

“Biologically “immortal” Kamadhatu’s have a 4-stage metamorphosis. The last, ending in death or rebirth, is the Chrysalis stage (the Birthing coffin). A natural part of the life cycle, the dying Kamadhatu will produce a thick shell, where it will decompose and if healthy enough will reconstitute and “rebirth” with in 2 weeks of its chrysalis formation. Once a natural process it is now reliant on technological models, at least for those living in the industrialized world, to undergo a possible rebirth. (Traditional belief states that those who have more to accomplish will be rebirthed and will reincarnate in the specific stage based on the individuals conviction and the cosmic and biological forces that dictate it)…Buddhism came unbeknownst when Chinese embargoes took fleet to create trading agreements, so many different Buddhist sects and teachings were fragmented and loosely translated into a homogenized Buddhism. Buddhism was considered a fad religion in most of the industrialized world, practiced loosely, superficially and secularly as mysterious religion from the stars. Yet in the rural parts of the planet Buddhist teaching has been absorbed and incorporated quite seamlessly into the remnants of the indigenous religion. Many Buddhist teachers, leaders and even the Dali lama consider the Kamadhatu to be celestial Devas spoken of in Buddhist cosmology. The oldest of the Kamadhatu, most reincarnated, are seen as bodhisattvas constantly reincarnating to teach and enlighten.”

Jian Naodai

"It was the Catholic belief of transubstantiation of the Eucharist, which sparked the initial resistance. A religion founded on the teachings of a risen from the dead man god who’s followers ate his ‘flesh and blood’ was taken with great horror and touched upon racial taboos of Partaking of flesh and necromancy. This piece of information harkened to the indigenous belief shared across all tribes of the luwongne. Christianity became synonymous with the belief in these necromantic lords. Luwongne are believed to be plague bringing, carnivorous, reanimated bodies of Jian Naodai and are able to summon the dead and other forces as its army. They are believed to convert living followers promising them power and riches. It is not entirely know whether or not the supernatural aspects of the Luwongne stems from any truth.  As Luwongne do in fact exist. They are typically rogue warlords and are a possible threat to Jian Nodai tribes. Many in fact came to use Christian iconography and see Jesus as a necromantic deity. This sparked hysteria across the planet similar to the witch craze that plague earth’s history. Human inhabitants of the planet, regardless of faith, were regularly attacked believed to be Luwongne henchmen. Churches and other human built infrastructures are regularly attacked and destroyed. Fellow Jian Naodai who became devote or suspected to be Christian are ritually sacrificed to tar pits."

The Art of World-Building: Kosemen's Snaiad

For those who follow this blog or who have read some of my recent posts, they will recognize that I am a member of Deviant Art and I use the site to post some of my world-building ideas associated with my speculative fiction interests and writing. There are so many artists on Deviant Art who have been an inspiration for my own attempts at world-building and my conception of the possibilities open to speculative fiction. For all the interest that fans of speculative fiction have in world-building, it is rarely appreciated outside of its implementation in works of literature, film or video-games. World-building in itself seems undervalued as an art-form, as do the artists responsible for it. For that reason, I have decided to begin the “Art of World-Building” series, wherein I promote the world-building projects of artists who I feel have contributed something interesting and inspiring to the genre of speculative fiction and whose works deserve wider recognition in the fan community. With that said, I wish to introduce the first world-building project I was inspired by: Snaiad. 

     

          Snaiad is a science-fiction world-building project created by artist the brilliant Turkish artist C.M. Kosemen, otherwise known as Nemo Ramjet on Deviant Art. Snaiad is the name of “one of humanity’s first off-world colonies” founded by “hopeful colonists arriving from the war-wearing Mediterranean”. Snaiad is a world twice as old as our own home-world of Terra, but is very young to its human colonists with “scarely three hundred years” separating the “initial landing and their new-found peace in those precious few cities” founded on the planet. The history of Snaiad begins with life's conception 8 billion years ago, taking another 3 billion years for the first multi-cellular life forms to appear. Within another billion years the planet experienced a radiation of complex life, followed by a mass extinction thereof. Following this another cataclysm extinguished the majority of life on the planet and resulted in the originals of almost all modern plant and animal life. The ancestors of modern pseudo-vertebrates evolved during this period of re-diversification, resembling Terran sea cucumbers. From there life evolves, diversifies and goes extinct in patterns unique to Snaiad, giving rise to the life that humans will discover in the near future when the finally colonize the planet.   

200 years into the future and planetary warfare and resource conflicts have driven development in biotechnology, nanotechnology and metallurgy while life is first detected on planets beyond our solar system. 50 years later and economic and social progress have allowed the colonization of the Moon and Mars with colony ships sent on missions to planets outside of our solar system. During this period Snaiad is discovered by telescope. Over the next 200 or so years advances are made in suspended animation and nano-manufacturing, replacing the need for colonization by generation ships. Turkey, Greece, Cyprus and Israel unite together in efforts to colonize Snaiad and launch their first probes to the planet. Soon after “Sleeper” colony ships are sent to Snaiad. After successfully landing on the planet, the colonists awaken from their suspended animation and utilize nanotechnology to biologically manufacture the “Firstborn” generation utilizing stored ova and sperm. For the next 100 years, madness and depression among the artificially-born Firstborn generation complicate efforts at widespread colonization of Snaiad. The surviving Sleepers intervene and “invent the first Snaiadi religions as a means of social control” including such imaginative and mysterious cults as “Dicephalism, Nerdism, Jethjanism, Neo-Sabbatean sects and Snaiadi animal worship.” Soon after the first naturally conceived generation of colonists is born on the planet and colonization efforts begin in earnest.

Colonists initiate the “Arbophobe Wars” against the indigineous life forms and establish cities and nano-rail using nano-technology. At this time a Sleeper nano-technologist named Moiz Mavrokordatos secedes from the colonial government, changes his name to Sabbatai Sevi and identifies himself as the Messiah of Snaiad. Thousands of colonists follow his authority. The cult create a new nano-technology city named “Memograd” in remote Notor. Following this they begin construction of a star-ship fleet and weapons with the intention of leaving Snaiad in order to conquer Earth. This act of rebellion results in a short war between the Mavrokordite cultists and Neo-Mediteranean colonists, ending with the destruction of the starship fleet and the disappearance of “Sabbatai Sevi”. At the end of the war extreme measures are taken to ensure that another manic abuse of advanced technology does not occur. Knowledge of nano-technology and star-ship systems are ceremoniously destroyed and nano-technology is limited to use in food production, mining and medicine. Standards of living improve and the population of Snaiad stabilizes at 15 million colonists with an average lifespan of 250 years. An elite community of Sleepers, kept alive due to “now forbidden nanotech immortality, silently dictates population control and environmental management policies.”   

The planet Snaiad hosts a variety of ecosystems, some similar to those on Terra and others entirely unique to the alien environment of Snaiad. Deserts, forest, jungles and tundras are all familiar to the human colonists to Terra, excluding the alien flora and fauna inhabiting them. Unique to Snaiad are the Neomediterranean maquis, erthrophyte scrubland, sproglands, and pinnacle ranges. The maquis comprises “water-retaining, heat-resistant plants growing along warm seashores” specific to the Neomediteranean and Orolandic Aegean. The erthrophyte scrublands are a “steppe-like growth of Red-plant” pseudo-grass covering both seaside plains and islands. Sproglands are named after sprog itself: a “spongy, hole-ridden, landscape-blanketing vegetative growth”. Sprog not only provides sustenance for herbivores but is also home to smaller organisms that use it for shelter. Unique to the Pansavannah region of Vesterna is sprog grasslands where there is a “presence of grass-like filamentous plants that carpet the uppermost layer” of the sprog. Finally, there are the pinnacle ranges. These are plains dotted with “reef-like collections of symbiotic plants” bonded together to create massive pinnacles.

Snaiadi life-forms are deceptively alien insofar as they superficially resemble Terran vertebrates, especially dinosaurs, but are radically different once their anatomy is explored in detail. The most extreme divergence is that their genitals are contained in what we would identify as their head. While this body part is involved in the capturing of prey, it is the lower secondary head which is actually involved in the consumption of food. In complex vertebrates, young develop within a uterus within the female’s chest cavity and are birthed by the mother literally vomiting out the infant. In species with simpler or smaller heads, the infants disturbingly “slash their way out” using “specially developed womb-beaks.” Thankfully for the mother the injuries involved in such a birth are superficial and heal rapidly. Other species carry eggs or birth less developed young that resemble worms, which only later metamorphose into a form resembling an adult. For males the space occupied by female reproductive system is “occupied with a wide variety of specular penises, and/or display organs”.  

Snaiadi skeletons resemble wood more than they do bone because they are comprised of a “modified hydrocarbon composite” rather than calcium. This not only gives the skeleton a coloration of brown, black or green but also means that it burns easily when heated. An implication of this is that the fossil record of Snaiad is far more incomplete than that of Terra. The musculature of Snaiadi vertebrates are hydraulic in nature and are derived from “the water-vascular system of the sea cucumber-like” ancestors. As their muscles expand, bones push against one another, thereby moving them. These muscles come in a variety of sizes and are partitioned within self-sealing segments which are “resistant to puncture, and prevent the whole system from failing if a single lobe is disabled”. As vertebrates sleep the majority of their hydraulic fluid migrates to internal reservoirs which “help clean and replenish the hydraulic lymph supply, and also helps accommodate volume change in the entire system”. The bizarre consequence of this is that awakening vertebrates appear to “have thinner limbs and fatter bodies, as it takes a while for the fluid to fill up the limps and the spine”. While Snaiadi animals may breathe in oxygen and release carbon dioxide, they do so using nostrils located under their armpits or the tops of the body. These nostrils also contain their vocal cords which always vocalize in “stereo, from two separate sets of vocal cords on either side of the body” giving their songs “an enchanting, otherworldly effect on human listeners”.  

The deeper one goes into Snaiadi anatomy, the more alien and mysterious it becomes. The nervous system of Snaiadi vertebrates are a “fusion of stringy, impulse-transmitting” nerve fibers and “network of nodes and vessels containing a salty, slightly acidic fluid”. The vertebrate brain is actually two distinct organs which operate in unison. One is a dense formation of fibrous nerves similar to Terran vertebrate brains while the other is a disturbing structure known as a “worm basket”. As its name suggests, the organ is a “sac filled with an extremely convoluted bundle of microscopic tubules” within which millions of glands reside. The organ actually squirms when vertebrates engage in intellectually demanding activity or are dreaming while also being involved in the recording of memories, modulating the rest of the nervous system, and regulating growth and metabolism. The eyes of Snaiadi animals, if they possess them, are small “silicate lenses with no liquid inside” which are annually shed to clear up vision and are augmented by surrounding heat receptors. Hearing is primarily “accomplished by sensing vibrations in a compact bone-in-bone structure” under the arm-pits and secondarily by a hearing organs which “exist under the front footpads” of some vertebrate groups. The wide variety of Snaiadi animals, some of which I have put on display in this essay, can be explored here. I sincerely hope that the project continues to expand in the near future as it has been a huge inspiration to me.   

Aliens, Art and Fan Appreciation

          Yesterday morning I awoke to two things. The first such thing being my newly adopted Chihuahua wiggling across my bed for her much needed morning affection. The second was a comment on a work I posted on my Deviant Art profile, “Alienietzsche,” from another profile by the name of “Squidnapper.” As I read the comment I realized that it was from none other than the author whose work inspired the drawing to begin with. Peter Watts, author of Blindsight, my favorite science fiction book and one of the best books in the genre, had not only discovered my amateur work online but actually appreciated it enough to request that it be added to his website. I was shocked and elated. I am a huge nerd but I keep it to myself mostly. I have never attended Blizz-Con, Comic-Con or E3, although I plan on going to at least one of them one of these days. I don’t attend book signings or readings or comment on author answer-and-question threads on Reddit. I'm too lazy, too shy and too unfocused. The extent of my introverted fandom is my few attempts at fan art on my Deviant Art page. I’ve never sought the attention of someone whose work I appreciate, however immensely. So to discover that one such someone had stumbled across my humble tribute and had given me small praise was nothing short of awesome. Today my drawing appeared in his post “A Young Squid’s Illustrated Primer” under “part the Second: Scramblers.” He had the following to say: "Last week’s ego-surf turned up this great little illustration from Deviant Artist “Alienietzsche“— whose vision of Blindsight‘s scramblers is perhaps the closest I’ve seen to the images that were floating around in my own head while I was writing about those crawly little guys. This is going straight into the Gallery, with thanks and with ol ‘Nietzsche’s blessing." 

          

          Peter Watts is a “hard” science fiction writer which is the primary reason that I really enjoy his work, especially Blindsight and its pseudo-sequel Echopraxia. The names of these two books are derived from scientific phenomenon, as is much of the Watts’ writing. Whereas other speculative fiction authors might provide an appendix for the sake of fleshing out their world-building, Watts provides an appendix to justify his speculation with actual scientific research and publications. Bonus points for promoting scientific literacy. Unlike many works of popular science fiction, Watts takes his science seriously (he is a marine biologist after all). He doesn’t treat it as a surface level aesthetic, merely importing the imagery of the genre, but puts in the effort to argue for its scientific legitimacy. Thanks to his prose, pained with cynical intellect, this degree of scientific accommodation never devolves into being a mere info-dump to the reader. And even though Watts tethers his writing to scientific research and review, it doesn’t appear to constrain the reach of his imagination. Forget del Toro’s The Strain or Cronin’s The Passage (but not really, they deserve to be read, especially the latter), Watts has created the most scientifically plausible and terrifying vampires in the genre. His short-story, "The Things" is a brilliant and disturbing re-imagining of John Carpenter's classic horror film The Thing from the perspective of the alien itself. I strongly recommend you check out his work and welcome you to check out my Deviant Art profile. I realize I haven't even discussed the titular aliens who inspired this series of events to begin with but I fear that any elaboration regarding them would compromise their alien uniqueness to the genre and the imagination.