Two New SF/F Client Projects Live
Filed Under: Speculative Fiction, Web Design, creativity
Two projects have gone live to the public this week. Let’s break them down shall we?
Rocket Kapre is a website dedicated to fantastic Filipino fiction. I was approached by the client Paolo Chikiamco a couple of months ago with a tight timeline. We started with a pre-built theme and worked our way from there, customizing as necessary (and customize we did). I modified the slider and many other layout aspects significantly. I also rolled out quite a bit of custom template work using the Flutter CMS tool. Any place where I wanted to add new content areas to be filled out, custom images, etc, I used Flutter to do that. We have custom write panels for the Books and the Authors entries for example. I learned a lot about building a theme setting page by working with this theme as well. Also, I really became a fan of the AZIndex plugin based on the work on this site, and have used it twice since on other sites. I owe those guys a donation.
Recently, I was brought on board as the regular web guy to implement a bunch of changes over at Fantasy. I look forward to working with editor Cat Rambo on improving things throughout the year. Our immediate goal was to redesign the existing theme in a way that uncluttered the home page considerably and added room for some advertising. I developed the featured content slider and I built on the tabbed interface from the last site design by adding some accordion work as well. Anywhere I could open up content to the editors, I did so using custom page calls and the like. For instance, the masthead information on the About tab is a page that can be edited and modified on the back end now. In general, I did a lot of code base cleaning up for my own understanding. There are a couple of custom plugins at work on the site thanks to Matt Kressel that proved very useful. Coming up will be a much more complex user system allowing user profiles with all kinds of fun custom fields. I just need to get the box upgraded to PHP 5 for that work. Some cool features coming down the pipe there.
So those are just a couple of the projects I’ve been putting the finishing touches on lately. I’ve mostly finished up at least one other site that won’t launch for quite a while. And I’ve got a couple new ones to get to work on, and some subcontracting work lining up as well.
Clockpunk Studios is doing pretty good these days! Turns out that mastering the WordPress template system has been a good career move.
Case Study: The Five Worlds Website
Filed Under: SF Business, Web Design, creativity
…the Academy was founded to detail the story of how Fremont’s Children directed the outcome of the Making War. This is the incredible and unlikely story of how a brother and a sister, and other young heroes, created the balanced forces that drive us today. Although this is a tale of our past, it is still a story in the making. We uncover new bits of information regularly. We invite you to drop in from time to time to see it.
Brenda Cooper, co-author of Harlequin’s Moon with Larry Niven, contacted me a couple of months back, interested in how I might help publicize the release of the third book in her series, The Wings of Creation. I jumped at the chance to get involved.
The first thing I did was tackle the books. In this series, Brenda has built a strong cast of young characters and an interesting setting that is both recognizable and alien at the same time. They’re good “all ages” science fiction, and I really enjoyed them.
From reading the books, I suggested developing a website for the series as if the site was the digital presence of an actual institution in the world. The website would provide samples of the books for reading, and an encyclopedia of information–a kind of reader’s guide, if you will.
The Academy of New World Historians is the organization responsible for assembling the historical texts that make up Brenda’s series. Each book opens with excerpts of interviews conducted by these historians. The goal of the website is to share their publications with the rest of the Five Worlds.
The site is built on a WordPress framework, using a custom theme. It’s fairly straightforward in design and construction to reflect a culture that values simplicity and usability in interfaces. The design uses some jQuery effects here and there for some pizazz–I was really interested in trying out the “expanded navigation” method that I’ve implemented on the home page. You can hover over the section titles and see additional information for the section, such as links to specific topics.
Overall, Brenda has been a joy to work with. I hope you will all check out the site and her books. They’re good stuff, and I would recommend them even if Brenda were not a client.
Recommended Viewing: The Sleep Dealer
Filed Under: Recommended Media, SF Films, creativity
I have often thought that the future of science fiction isn’t in tales of first world nations like the United States. The future stories we should be exploring and contemplating more are the ones involving (and told by residents of) life on the fringes, in the favelas and the border towns, in the developing world, where raw humanity bumps up against the shiny and antiseptic American capitalist way.
Most do not live the lives of relative luxury we do, but one of the promises of globalism has been said to be an elevation of those who are in poverty. Will those living in Brazil, Mexico, Kenya, or China one day know lives with better amenities,health care, and basic nutrition? Or will the same web of post-colonialism, transnational banking dealing from decks stacked against the poor, and corrupt government regimes keep third world countries rooted in poverty?
The Sleep Dealer is an examination of American globalization as it impacts our lives today, where resentment to illegal immigration in America is as high as it ever has been, but where there are still jobs to be had for those who brave the crossing (at least, prior to our economic woes). The world of the Sleep Dealer is not so different from our own, except in a few very important ways.
The United States of the sleep dealer is mostly seen indirectly, through the lenses of telepresence drones, or in the cramped confines of virtual operator stations where soldiers pilot drones to protect corporatized water in places like Mexico. America appears to be sealed off completely to immigration, at least from Mexico. A wall has been built, and it’s guarded by remote-controlled cameras with heavy machine guns. A future that seemed much less implausible 2 years ago when the anti-immigration sentiment seemed to reach its peak.
The U.S. of this future still requires cheap labor, even if it cannot abide the physical presence of immigrants, legal or otherwise. In this near future, virtual reality technology, portrayed in a way that would fit in with any cyberpunk novel (a series of plugs along the arms and shoulders that allow a kind of neural interface), allows the poor to work within the States. It’s best not to think too hard about the portrayal of the equipment here, which seems more tailored toward a particular visual aesthetic than making logical sense. What was with the gas masks piping in oxygen? Nevertheless–
The backdrop of the world in the Sleep Dealer feels lived in, well worn, and not implausible. Our protagonist is an intelligent young man with an interest in escaping his tiny, water-impoverished farmstead. He tinkers with hacking telecommunications satellites as a means of escape, but soon he overhears something that he should not, and the events of the story are set into motion.
In the aftermath of a tragedy, Memo (a very Gibsonian name, I thought) travels to Tijuana to receive the implants that will allow him to work in the virtual labor factories. He meets a woman, a writer who sells her memories uploaded to the network, who takes an interest in his painful past and whose stories about Memo are funded by a mysterious buyer.
I’ll say no more about the plot, except to say that while this is a science fiction film, it is also an independent film in that sense that it is not the tightly shot, leave-nothing-unanswered big studio style of storytelling. The cinematography is often dreamlike, and the story’s gentle narration reinforce this. The story in some ways feels like a character’s lucid dream.
It’s a contemplative film in its pacing as well. Those expecting a tightly plotted thriller or action film should look elsewhere. This is a film that is more interested in letting the audience come to its own conclusions than lecturing morally (or otherwise).
This was something different than what we are used to seeing. While some of its ideas may not seem so fresh to long-time readers of science fiction, I don’t think this is something we’ve ever seen portrayed this way on the silver screen. It’s worth picking up on DVD or renting at the very least.
Be a Positive Force in Fandom, Not an Asshole
Filed Under: Speculative Fiction, creativity
If there was one thing that drew me in particular to genre fandom as a whole, it was the boundless and unashamed enthusiasm that genre fans had. Fans loved things, and their passion was worn on their sleeves. They weren’t ashamed to like science fiction in general, or, say, Star Trek in particular, despite there considerable societal disaproval of such things. My nerdy ways got me made fun of as much as my big ears, growing up.
Today, with Generation X and Y in full force, there’s been a bit of a shift, I think. Sarcasm is something our generations prize, as well as a well-cultured sense of irony. But what’s worse, when combined with those things, is a certain odd form of self-awareness that leads to what I’d like to talk about:
It’s cooler to dislike something than it is to like something today. It’s more culturally acceptable in my peer groups, particularly online, to express disapproval of something than it is to express enthusiasm.
I’m not against criticism. It’s only by being critical of art forms that we understand them and learn to improve them. Thoughtful criticism is a great thing. So let’s take that off the table of what I’m talking about. I’m going to talk about how we express our dislike of things, why, and when we do it.
First of all, I think it’s an undeniable trend that being enthusiastic for something is much less of a draw of attention than being highly critical of something, particularly online. If I write a blog post that is critical of a popular movie, it receives at least twice as many views as if I wrote a glowing recommendation. It’ll receive twice as many comments too, and often, what comments the glowing recommendation receives are arguments against the opinion. There are a lot of reasons for this, but in general, I’d like to see us change it in our corner of the web.
I used to be a regular on the blog Metafilter. We called a certain phenomenon “your favorite band sucks.” Whenever anyone expressed an appreciation or an author or a band, five people came along to criticize the author or band. Here’s where we come to my first rule of the positive fan.
Every expression of appreciation online is not an opportunity for you to voice your disapproval.
It’s fine for you not to like something. But every time someone else says they like something that you don’t is not the best time for you to piss in the cornflakes of internet commenting. Every discussion is not a debate on the merits and demerits of something. In fact, let’s put this out there in plain terms: every discussion online does not have to be and should not be “fair and balanced.” Know your audience, and know the scene you’re in–will they appreciate your perspective, or will they think you’re just being an asshole?
Which brings me to my next point:
Don’t be an asshole. Remember: everything you criticize is the hard work of a human being with feelings.
Don’t assume that the creator of what you are trashing won’t read it. It’s the internet. We’re all supernatural beings that can be summoned by the use of our name thanks to Google. Don’t be an asshole, and don’t resort to ad hominem attacks. Be critical of the work, and not the creator. Every creative act should be encouraged, even if you consider it a failure. All art is a learning process.
If you must be critical, be specific.
So you have a burning desire to share your disapproval of something and you just can’t be stopped. Fine. Leave your critical remark, but here are critcial remarks that do nothing but hurt people:
‘It sucked.”
“Don’t quit your day job”
“I want my [PERIOD OF TIME SPENT] back.”
“Who likes this shit?”
Do you see the trend here? We’ve all seen these comments. Most of us have probably left them at some point. What’s missing here is substance.
You owe your fellow humans to be specific in your criticism. It’s in everyone’s best interests for a creator to improve, and they can’t use your feedback to do that if it doesn’t have any substance.
I assume part of the point of the urge to share our strong dislike of something online, besides the weird Gen-Y/X need to feel cool via disparaging things, is that we can’t stand the idea that someone does like it, and we want to explain to them why their enthusiasm is misplaced. We’re not going to do that with vague generalities. Be specific, and be polite. Consider sharing our enthusiasm for something else as a counterpoint so others know we’re not just being an asshole for the sake of it. Is it something we would say to the creator’s face, in person, while they ball their fists and start to turn red? No? Dial down the venom, and remember:
All opinions are not equal. But if you think yours really matters most, you’re probably wrong.
Most people just aren’t going to really care what your opinion of something is, unless they know you. If you’re a random stranger leaving feedback on a blog, don’t expect your comment to hold any special weight with the other readers or the commenters. Don’t get increasingly angry when people aren’t swayed to your antagonistic point of view. Silently mark these people off as morons like you do to every human being you disapprove of, and move on.
Moving on to the Positive Part
Thus far, I’ve really focused on the negative, because I know that’s what is going to get the most attention. Now that I have it, let’s talk about how we can reverse the trend a little. As a group, working together with a common goal, I think we can lighten the tone a bit.
If you like something, say so.
Positive, supportive comments are always far outnumbered by the negative ones. We need to change this, or at least tips the scales back the other way a bit. If you take nothing else away from this sanctimonious blog post, just listen to this part. When you like something, whether that something be a story, a book, a website, a blog post, a podcast, a painting, whatever–when you like something, tell someone. You can broadcast it on your blog or your twitter. That is awesome. Or you can go narrowband and leave a comment for the creator or write an email. Hell, you want to really make someone’s day, send them a snail mail letter.
We as an internet populace have a tendency to be quiet when we’re approving, and save our keystrokes for when we’re angry. This is wrong, and I think we can change this. Let’s put the enthusiastic fan back into the mix. We can’t all hate everything. Let’s see if we can aim for bringing the positive/negative comment ratio up to 1:1. And hey–the only thing worse than a bunch of nasty comments and feedback is no feedback at all. Don’t assume someone else will say something. Take the initiative and say something yourself.
For a little over a year now, I’ve been making a point of writing authors and letting them know when I’ve really liked something they’ve written. I write people I know and writers I have never met. I’m going to start expanding this to other forms. There’s no reason I have to save my fannish enthusiasm for the printed word.
Now, you may be a major consumer of media, and you might be wondering, how can I possibly send notes to the creators of everything I consume? When it’s something you’ve paid for, I think your money is often appreciation enough. However, if it’s something you’ve read online for free, and you enjoyed it, I think we should feel obligated to share our positive feedback. If you want people to keep doing what they’re doing, you need to say so. Again–don’t assume someone else will do it for you. We should be as energized to share our enthusiasm as our outrage.
I hope you’ll join me in this-I don’t want to say “movement,” but let’s call it a pseudo-philosophy. I probably won’t convince the die-hard assholes to stop being assholes, but hopefully I can convince we quiet approvers to speak up more often. I know I’m not perfect, that I’ve been the asshole, but I’m making a concerted effort not to be in the future.
I’m sure there are a lot of criticisms of this post you can make, and you’re welcome to do so in the comments. Please follow the rules above. Consider this my new comment moderation policy on my blog. I hope I don’t have to enforce it.
