"Chess reality"
Howdy, folks, and Happy New Year very soon now! Depending on your local calendar, anyway. :)
Today we have: "Chess reality" (on chess, Go, and establishing "rules of reality" in fiction if that's something one cares about, which one doesn't necessarily), some hexarchate art, and a FAQ (Foxily Asked Questions).
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A concept I was introduced to in 2020, when I was learning a little Chess 101, was that of "chess reality." Basically (so I was told), this is that sense that a chess player develops of how things unfold on the board - what's a good position, what's a bad one, what's "weird" and/or terrible (Bongcloud, anyone?) and what is a "sensible" opening, that kind of thing. Naturally, a beginner does not have much sense of this and it's something one gains with experience/exposure.
Still, I recognized the concept of "chess reality" because I had seen it at work in Go (baduk in Korea, wei qi in China?). I am embarrassingly bad at the game, considering that my father is a good amateur player, as in he used to cut class to play Go against old men in Go parlors. On the other hand, I grew up watching older male relatives play the game during family get-togethers. (Because patriarchy, the womenfolk/girls would do the cooking, and the men would sit around, chat, and play games. That said, the womenfolk/girls would also sneak bites of really delicious Korean food before the menfolk got any, so it was not all bad. Just sayin'.)
So I have a sort of Go 101 sense of what a "reasonable" Go board looks like.
Consider the following well-meaning piece of Go art from the collectible card game Legend of the Five Rings during the AEG (Alderac Entertainment Group) era:
My dad's face melted when I showed him this card. This is not AT ALL a reasonable Go position unless both sides are trolling. (Is there a Go equivalent to the Bongcloud, one wonders? Because this is probably it.) I was so mortified by this that I went up to AEG's art director for L5R one Gencon and pointed him at Sensei's Library for a really easy source of sensible Go positions for any curious artists.
(That said, I have learned that artistic representations of chess are often just as egregious, I just hadn't run into examples or, more likely, hadn't been paying attention.)
The other analogy that occurred to me is in music, specifically harmonic progressions. I have to specify here that I mean more or less tonal Western classical music. I never did manage to acclimate to (e.g.) the twelve-tone row or anything after the Romantics, although of course atonal and aleatory techniques can be really valuable in, say, a film/game scoring context even if one does not actually enjoy them, heh. And I enjoy what I've heard of jazz but at the point where you're doing nifty things with eleventh chords, I'm out of my depth.
I'm not a musicologist, so forgive me if I'm mangling the terminology; but essentially, in classical music (or even standard pop/rock), some chord progressions are more "standard" or sensible than others; they create a logical path for the ear. If you're familiar with Roman numeral notation, I-VI-V-I and variants are practically clichés. Certain chords point "home" to the tonic while others tend to build tension or prolong the journey. You could be Beethoven with one of those miles-long cadences. :)
I've been thinking about how this applies to fiction and worldbuilding, especially for sf/f. You can have two worlds with (say) vampiric lemurs, and have the approach be totally different if POV #1 is totally blasé about vampiric lemurs and thinks that they're nothing special, which tells us something both about POV #1 and the nature of their setting; as opposed to POV #2 who is freaked out by the existence of vampiric lemurs, either because those darn lemurs have been in hiding all this time, or alternately, they escaped from a mad scientist's lab last Thursday so they are genuinely novel in this setting.
It is a genre convention that one usually introduces weird worldbuilding elements either through the eyes of a POV who is new to the weirdness, giving you an excuse to explain what the heck is going on; or else to indulge in some exposition. I don't mind exposition if it's engagingly written. I mean, I read straight-up nonfiction for fun. I think the extreme far end of "As you know, Bob" that I've seen in fiction is Tom Ligon's "Amateurs" in Analog July 1996. The whole thing is basically one long conversation about rocket science (or something adjacent to that; it's been a while) with a thin veneer of plot. (Believe it or not, this is not a criticism. I love that story and enjoyed it tremendously—isn't that what counts most?)
On the other hand, one of the things I loved about C. J. Cherryh's books was that she didn't slow down to explain things that the POV might already know but didn't have any reason to, well, explain. I mean, every time you use your laptop, do you do an internal monologue on the history of the integrated circuit or the invention of binary numbers or object-oriented programming or multithreading? I have to read Cherryh when I'm 150% awake and paying attention to every word, and even so when I reread Cyteen I discover some new nuance or implication every time. This doesn't exactly make for a beach read, and I can't do this when I'm exhausted, but it's tremendously rewarding.
In any case, I've been thinking about these distinctions: the axioms of the fictional world and its baseline reality vs. our reality, and then things that are weird for the fictional world (whether or not they're weird for our reality) vs. things that are weird for our reality (whether or not they're weird for the fictional world). Navigating these axes can be really interesting, either as a reader or a writer! I don't even think there's a one-size-fits-all right or wrong way to go about this, but then my general philosophy has been "What is your goal (with this story)" and "What tools will best enable me to accomplish this goal?" But that's a topic for another newsletter. :)
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Meanwhile, here's some art I did recently-ish in Procreate:
I'm still working on my process in Procreate, but I'm moderately pleased with how this turned out, even if it took me an embarrassingly amount of time to debug the one-point perspective! The art instructor who told me the "divide area into two equal halves in perspective" trick was worth its weight in gold wasn't kidding.
There are like three or four workhorse brushes I use for most of the piece, and then a set of free star/nebula brushes for starfields (by _Kim on the Procreate forums), and then I have waaaaay too much brush sets for other specialty stuff if I feel like screwing around. I have an "oil paint" set that I am desperate to take for a spin. But really most of this is a few simple brushes.
Also, if you'd like a print, they're available here. :3
(Yes, I have a Cheris piece as a WIP, but one thing at a time.)
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FAQ (Foxily Asked Questions)
What are you currently working on?
I'm awaiting editorial approval on my outline/synopsis of Lancers #2! I actually went ahead and did the outline/synopsis of Lancers #3 as well because some of the stuff in #2 is setup for #3. (It's a projected trilogy.)
I've also been doing some exploratory writing on another project, just to keep my hand in. Adult science fantasy with, uh, math and linguistics bits. Because it makes me happy when I can reference Cantor dust and stratificational linguistics, mainly because I have no life. :)
I'm also about to write some music for a friend—trying to decide between oboe and bassoon for the main double reed, and I think I'm going with oboe because it's easier for me to write for. My husband built me a new desktop computer after the old one died, and while it took a few days to set everything up (upgrading to Cubase 12 Pro, downloading/reauthorizing music libraries, etc.), I'm really excited for this! After that I might finally take a crack at that viola concerto.
Also, can I say that I'm glad to kick the USB license dongle to the curb, ugh. Updating my version of Cubase was worth it for that alone!
What is Lancers #1 about?
So, Lancers #1 is obviously a working title and not the actual title, but: I think what I'm allowed to say at this point is that it's Korea-flavored space opera with giant robots that smash things. (The evil empire is called New Joseon. This gives me an excuse to describe my favorite Korean foods in loving detail!) The heroine is a teenage girl who joined the evil empire because it was the only way she would ever get to be a mecha pilot. Guess who discovers that her heart's desire has strings attached.
What's one thing you're reading right now?
Actually, let me tell you about something I finished reading just today, which is Layla Lawlor's sci-fi webcomic Kismet, specifically the first graphic novel in the setting, Hunter's Moon. (Disclaimer: Layla is a friend of mine.) This is from the 2000s; I love the distinct and diverse characters and the character designs, the complex politics, the black humor, the worldbuilding. It does have dark elements (violence, people dying, brainwashing) but it was one hell of a ride, and I'm looking forward to diving into the next one, Sun-Cutter. Highly recommended!
What are you listening to lately?
I've been enjoying Arne Parrott's Call of the Sky: Captain's Edition, which I think is related to a podcast called Skyjacks? I don't listen to podcasts because I am a space cadet who zones out every five minutes (this makes it very difficult to follow a narrative), but music I can do. If you know of other music with this vibe, please let me know!
How's your catten?
She's doing great! We joke that she's a "trigonometry catten" because when she is about to jump up on the desk (and in front of the keyboard) to demand scritches, I swear you can see the calculations whirring in that tiny little brain. :)
Photographic evidence:
That bathrobe she's lying on was allegedly a Christmas gift from my sister, but I see now that it was a catten nest all along. :) It even matches her eyes!
How would Jedao feel about playing a cooperative board game?
Oh my goodness, Jedao would suck at cooperative board games. So, my husband is temperamentally very different from Jedao (...thank God, could you imagine being MARRIED to Jedao, OH HELL NO) but he is also a hardcore gamer. And what happens during cooperative board games with my husband is that he becomes a MIN-MAXING TYRANT who tells the rest of us what to do to optimize the chance of winning. (I love you, Joe, it's okay! We know it's for our own good. <3) Anyway, Jedao is egotistical and high-handed so he would be even more of a MIN-MAXING TYRANT. Dammit, now I want to write that crackfic. XD
I have a foxy question you haven’t answered here!
Sure, please email deuceofgearsart@gmail.com and I will get back to you!