Sailing Venus: Riding the wave

Which way is up? That's a question I've struggled with a lot lately in relation to Venus. Here's the thing: Sailing Venus is, at its heart, an adventure story, but it's also a hard science fiction story as well. It's not hard SF in the sense that characters have rivets sticking out of their heads and speak in equations, but one where I try to get facts and details as correct as possible. I'm not writing about Venus' dinosaur-infested swamps, after all.

But you know what? As I get deeper into the story, something started going wonky. Venus is a weird world. It's a terrestrial planet like Earth, almost exactly the same size, but it has almost no water, is hotter than a pizza oven on the surface and its upper atmosphere whips around it in a superrotation that circumnavigates the planet every four Earth days (that's really, really fast). Venus has a day (243 Earth days) that is longer than it's year (225 Earth days), and also has a retrograde rotation, meaning the sun rises in the West and sets in the East. One would think that's pretty cut and dried, but it's not. Some Venus researchers don't view Venus as having a retrograde rotation, instead, consider it as flipped, with its north pole pointing "down" when viewed from the plane of the solar system, and a south pole pointing up. This nomenclature doesn't matter to me one iota, except that some websites and books present maps of Venus with one orientation, and others flip it. Clearly these are different schools of thought on which is the proper way to present Venus "right side up," but the trouble is, in most cases, they don't clearly identify which school of thought they subscribe to. So this is my dilemma--if I erroneously choose a "north is down" map, which has been flipped "right side up" so that Venus rotates in a counter-clockwise direction like all the other planets, the westward-blowing superrotation would be going backwards. Not only would that make me look stupid, it completely alters which locations are accessible to my protagonist--indeed, it profoundly affects the plot and even location of the various outposts on the planet. That's not something I can really fudge--which direction a continuous, 200 mph wind blows. To make matters even worse, several online science sites that claimed to set the record straight on this bit of befuddlement contradicted each other. Yeah, I could've emailed some NASA researchers, but I don't like to bother them unless absolutely necessary. And certainly not with a question as mind-numbingly stupid as this one. Fortunately, I stumbled across this graphic:

Is that not a thing of beauty? This is data from the Japanese space probe Akatsuki, super-imposed over a flattened map of the planet's entire surface. The colored elements of the image are infrared and ultraviolet renderings of a huge standing wave over the western portion of Aphrodite Terra. Not only does it clearly show the direction of the superrotation, it also specifically locates, geographically speaking, a significant atmospheric phenomenon that I'm going to put to good use in the narrative. So, yay!

But the hassle with "Which way is up?" got me to more closely examine other numbers floating around in my story. Most books and fact sheets about Venus list the extremes of the planet--highest pressure, fastest wind speed, highest temperature, etc. And it dawned on me that while I was using these numbers in my novel--accurate though they may be--they're not constant across the planet. Each changes with altitude, sometimes significantly. Venus' much-discussed superrotation? The top wind speed is roughly 223 mph around 45 miles up, but a little further down, around 33 miles up, it slows to about 150 mph. That's a big difference. Temperature's another biggie. The surface of Venus is hot enough to melt lead, and 29 miles up, it's still a blistering 197 degrees Fahrenheit. But jump to 35 miles up, and the temperature dips to 46F--enough to start worrying about hypothermia at those wind speeds. That is, were someone to be exposed to those conditions. Which nobody ever would be, certainly not in my book, right? From there I made the leap to realizing terminal velocity would be different on Venus as well. How different? Well, Venus' gravity is very close to that of Earth's, but the atmosphere, made up mostly of CO2, is very different. I thought the atmospheric pressure would have a big impact on terminal velocity, but it turns out that's not true. Pressure has no bearing, but density does. Those are distinct things. Researching density led me to individual gas constants, and from there back to drag coefficients. The irony is that I'm terrible at math, while my main character, Erica, is a whiz. I'm having to make my way very slowly and cautiously through these equations, which she could solve in her head.

And you know what? Ultimately, none of this will show up in the book. Oh, it'll be there, behind the scenes, informing what goes where and how this does that. But strictly as scaffolding and superstructure. I'm not stopping the narrative to deliver a physics lesson or print out some algebraic equations for readers to solve along at home. That's generally referred to as "I've suffered for my art, and now it's your turn" syndrome. No, I'm suffering for my art so you don't have to. Rest assured, though, that no matter how fantastical Erica's adventure may get, I've made a good-faith effort to ground it in reality.

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Old dog, new tricks, etc.

My first professionally-published piece of fiction, "Project Timespan," appeared in Interzone No. 116 in February of 1997.

Today, March 31, 2017, I received my first royalty check. Ever. Not first royalty statement--I've gotten plenty of those over the years. This is my first check. And no, I'm not about to retire off of it.

Let that sink in for a moment. I'll let you do the math.

I'm not Robert Silverberg-level productive by any stretch of the imagination, but I've published enough in my modest career to have escaped the one-and-done category. Occasionally, a random stranger will recognize my name. Some publications have been obscure, others have been fairly high profile. Fiction, non-fiction, reviews, essays, etc. I've not exactly pigeon-holed myself. A bit of my work's been reprinted. I received a reprint inquiry for one of my author interviews yesterday, in fact. Out of all of that, I've never earned a royalty check.

If anyone wonders why I've never made the jump to full-time freelance writer, that probably has something to do with it.

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Pine trees, with occasional grapes

So, remember those grape cuttings I got a while back? I'm happy to report that after almost a month in pots, I'm getting healthy growth from the majority. The Valhallah grapes are even trying to set flowers this year, see?

That's kind of nuts for a cutting that's just barely rooted, but the cutting doesn't know that. I'll pinch the flower bunches off soon, so it puts more of its energy into producing roots and vegetation. Next year I'll let it make some grapes so I can judge their quality. Valhallah is by far the most precocious of the cuttings I've received, and the easiest to root as well. The next-most vigorous is Elvicand, which makes sense, since Valhallah is a hybrid with Elvicand in its ancestry. After that, we get Ben Hur, which is pushing out buds but not growing anywhere near the rate of the first two. I'm curious about Ben Hur, as T.V. Munson, the breeder who created the type back in the late 1800s, described it as similar to Black Spanish (aka Lenoir) in most respects for use in winemaking, but had far higher disease resistance. The one that's disappointed thus far is Wapanuka, a white table grape type. It's not sprouted. Its buds aren't even swelling. Of the four varieties, only it showed little sign of callusing before I potted it up. Fortunately, the cuttings haven't taken on that sickly gray color of dead wood. It's still brown, with thin strips of papery bark peeling away. I'll wait a few weeks before slicing into the bark to see if there's still green tissue underneath, but at this point I don't know if it'll root or not. Patience is going to be my companion on this one.

My big effort this weekend involved planting a pine forest. It's not actually a forest, but I can pretend, can't I? See, pine trees don't grow well here on the edge of the Hill Country. The soil is to alkaline. But I ordered 25 piñon pine seedlings from West Texas Nursery, and they came in a few weeks ago. These grow out in West Texas where what little soil there is is alkaline and rain is sparse. Comal County is at the easternmost edge of its listed growing range, so they may or may not survive for me. I initially wanted the Texas piñon (aka Remote Piñon pine) but they're rare in the nursery trade. This is the closely-related species, Pinus edulis, which isn't as good a match for my area, but we'll see what happens.

The reason I did not plant them right away is because the space in the back corner of our yard where they were to go had been overrun with more of that damn Carolina jasmine. I spent Saturday attacking the overgrown mass with pruning shears, a hedge trimmer and chainsaw. This is what I cleared out:

In the landscaped areas in the backyard, the previous owners thought that covering the ground with stone would be a good idea. It's whitish stuff, marble or limestone maybe, and a huge pain in the ass. It doesn't suppress weed or grass growth at all, does little to retain moisture and is difficult to dig through or move around. To make matters worse, at some point they decided new landscape fabric was necessary to control weeds, so instead of pulling up the old stuff they simply laid a new layer on top--with about six inches of soil between the two. Talk about headache-inducing! In this section, though, it appears there is only one layer of landscape fabric (probably because of that monstrous jasmine). I used the trusty hoe to move the rocks and accumulated dirt/roots/mulch to expose the fabric.

Then I used my utility knife to slice a hole maybe a foot across in the fabric, and a sharpshooter shovel to finish the hole.

Here's where it gets interesting. The seedling pines arrived in conical planting containers. I've never seen anything like this before. The trees are not terribly easy to extract from these, especially without damaging the roots.

But the roots! Oh, my, they are packed in tightly! Some are even potentially girdling the young tree. This will never do.

Although the planting instructions on the West Texas Nursery site seem to recommend planting as-is, I felt it prudent to separate the roots. These were so small I just used my fingers to break up the soil and knotted roots, and after a short bit had a nice, frizzy cluster of roots.

Everything after that was pretty straightforward. I planted the seedlings in the holes then refilled with soil. In some instances large rocks came out of the hole, so there wasn't enough soil to go back in, in which case I filled a bucket with alluvial soil/clay from the drainage out front and used that to supplement the hole. Afterwards, I replaced the landscape fabric, covered with stone and mulch, then watered each tree with a gallon or so of water.

All in all, I planted 10 trees here, roughly 2.5-3 feet apart. This is closer than the recommended spacing, but I expect a fairly high mortality rate. In any event, it'll be years before they're big enough to worry about crowding, and even then they're relatively small trees. If I'm lucky, by then they'll be producing edible nuts. I've still got 15 seedlings left, and I plan to put some out in the front yard and pot up others to hold in reserve as insurance in case I have a big die off. The pine forest might not look like much now, but give it 10 years and you might even be able to tell there are trees planted there.

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Sailing Venus: Of writer groups and turning points

I've joined a writing group. The members invited me, out of the blue, a while back and I took them up on it, despite the fact (and this cuts both ways) none of them are of the SF tribe. No matter. I've been wrestling with Sailing Venus and the group offered me two things I desperately needed: 1) feedback on the prose itself, particularly whether the science-heavy world-building is integrated subtly an engagingly in the narrative, and 2) a regular deadline that forces me to regularly write. The feedback thus far has been interesting. Some of what I attempted in the story worked far better than I'd expected. Some trouble spots I'd not recognized were exposed. And some trouble spots I recognized early on have potential solutions. Already the feedback I've received has impacted the current pages, with new conversations and more fully-developed subplots than existed before. If I have one regret, it's my characterizing Sailing Venus as a YA book. None of the other writing group members have much familiarity with YA, but they do have pre-conceived notions that creep into the critique occasionally. As I've mentioned here before, my goal is to straddle that same line Steven Gould did so well with Jumper, namely, a story and characters equally accessible and appealing to adult as well as young adult readers. Don't worry about the intended audience, folks, just focus on the story and your reactions to it. Aside from that quibble, it's been a positive experience.

And the internal resistance I've fought on this one has started easing up. My word count is inching upwards, and those words (at the moment) are flowing more freely. I suspect this is because up until now, the story's been ill-defined in my mind. Oh, I knew what had to happen, but I didn't know how. Nor were the scenes clearly defined in my mind. That resulted in lots of restructuring and jettisoning some ideas whilst combining others. In essence, life is happening to the characters, but these seemingly mundane interactions are coming together in a way that will catalyze the harrowing adventure. I'm writing scenes now that I first visualized years ago, and while the details have changed, the core essence remains. Last night I wrote the third of three successive confrontations, each one quieter than the one before, but packing exponentially more emotional punch. After I wrote this passage, I had a throbbing stress headache. Talk about identifying with one's characters:

Erica recoiled, stumbling back. She had to get away. She couldn't let them find her here, watching this. Watching whatever came next. She fled.

What came next? She shoved it from her mind. She didn't want to know. She already knew. She should turn around. Confront them. Stop this... betrayal? Was this what betrayal felt like? Then why did she feel so guilty?

Erica stopped, blinking in confusion. Where was she? The hangar. How had she gotten here? She couldn't remember. Why couldn't she remember? The airlock leading to Wind Sprite lay open before her. Beckoning her. Only Wind Sprite guaranteed solitude. She was safe aboard Wind Sprite. Nobody could hurt her there.

Honestly, I feel sorry for Erica. She's about to make some very bad decisions, and suffer the consequences. Hopefully, once I'm finished, readers will feel that same empathy. After all, isn't that what writers strive for?

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Friday Night Videos

Genesis' hit single, "Follow You, Follow Me," is a song that's grown on me over the years. I believe the first time I realized I really liked it was during the "We Can't Dance Tour" in Houston, when they didn't play it. Or rather, they played a small snippet of it during a medley of other truncated songs I'd looked forward to hearing. The video's not much, but what's odd is that Mike Rutherford gets the majority of the camera time, Tony Banks is mostly ignored and there's some unnamed guy playing drums who looks vaguely Phil Collins-like in profile, but isn't Phil Collins. Despite the video's shortcomings, the song more than makes up for it.

Previously on Friday Night Videos... Postmodern Jukebox.

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Friday Night Videos

Postmodern Jukebox is kinda great. The Wife turned me on to them, and I've seen then live twice with her in the past year. Not all of their covers click with me, but when they do, it's magic. This last tour, we were treated to PMJ newcomer Sara Niemietz. I've grown increasingly impressed with not only her vocal prowess but her well-developed song selection--she picks material that really suits her skill set. Her latest effort is a bluesy, torchy cover of the Cheap Trick hit "I Want You to Want Me". Mission accomplished, Sara. Mission accomplished.

Previously on Friday Night Videos... Miles Davis.

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The Chicken Ranch does San Antonio!

Hey, San Antonio! I haven't had a public signing in the Alamo City since August, and I know some folks have asked when I'm heading back down that way. Well, tomorrow's your lucky day! I'll be signing copies of Inside the Texas Chicken Ranch at Barnes & Noble La Cantera 2-4 p.m. Thursday, March 16. This is the swanky Barnes & Noble in the La Cantera shopping center off Loop 1604, just west of Six Flags Fiesta Texas.

I remember the first time I ever visited this location was for a Rick Riordan signing for one of the Percy Jackson books. Talk about a madhouse! There must've been a thousand kids (and their parents) wrapped around the building for the autographing. It was really an impressive circus the staff handled quite well. Now, in all humility, I don't expect that large of a turnout for my little book, but if you're in the neighborhood please stop in and chat for a while. I always love to share Chicken Ranch stories!

Inside the Texas Chicken Ranch: The Definitive Account of the Best Little Whorehouse is now available from both Amazon.com and BarnesAndNoble.com. It's also available as an ebook in the following formats: Kindle, Nook, Google Play, iBooks and Kobo.

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