09 Tuesday Aug 2022
OCEAN
We are small things
unlike the stars that birthed us
or the Moon who pulls the ocean
without ever touching her,
an infinite depth of azure and obsidian
swallowing dreams
dissolving them for centuries
before setting them on the shore
polished as smooth and featureless
as a mystery without end.
This poem now appears in the book Meteor Mags: Permanent Crescent.
29 Wednesday Dec 2021
Posted in MeteorMags, writing
The Moon is about to die, and it’s all Mags’ fault. Join a hell-raising space pirate and her indestructible calico cat as they confront a lunar death cult whose alien leader plans to take his revenge on humanity by destroying Earth’s ancient satellite.
July 2022 Update: The story is now collected in Meteor Mags: Permanent Crescent and Other Tales. For sale on Amazon in ebook, paperback, and hardback editions. The ebook is also available on Smashwords and other major retailers.
Permanent Crescent was the story I worked on while also putting together The Second Omnibus, so it bears the responsibility of setting the tone for what comes next. It was fun to write and took about three months based on notes I’d compiled throughout the year.
The first scene I wrote was a nice way to open the floodgates for writing, but it ended up on the cutting-room floor. You will never read it! I also drafted scenes which got heavily revised in terms of their points of view, tenses, and even which characters were involved. Hardly any scene survived in its original version.
As you probably know, I don’t believe in writer’s block. Even when I felt unsure about what direction to take for the story, I figured, “What the hell? Let’s wing it and see what happens!” Eventually, the results of that “anything goes” approach got ironed out into a single story.
After trying things a few different ways, I settled on three points of view to tell the story: the hero, her nemesis, and my standard third-person omniscient narrator for the series. I felt multiple POVs were necessary to convey the ways in which the hero and the villain are similar in their general attitudes but intractably opposed.
By letting both the protagonist and antagonist tell parts of the story from their unique perspectives, I hoped to draw parallels between the ways they perceive their world and their situation. Some hints are obvious, such as the way they both refer to “vermin”, but with each considering the other to be the vermin. Similarly identical phrases and judgments are woven into their narratives.
Several scenes are written in first-person present tense, which I rarely use. In Permanent Crescent, my intent was to use that POV to create a sense of immediacy, to put the reader in a moment where anything might come next. In Mags’ first-person scenes, she mostly abandons her conventions from the first two omnibuses where she wrote in a journal or a letter. This time around, she speaks more directly to the reader, and her only epistolary contribution is a journal entry from 1966 where she gives relevant background about developing artificial gravity.
Getting all that sorted was a world of fun, but writing the story took me to dark places involving crime, cults, and the human (and feline) condition in general. At some point, I realized I wanted Mags to narrate a few scenes in a pulpy crime/detective style. So, I re-read the entire Criminal series to get that flavor and tone in my mind.
Permanent Crescent also reflects my feelings about the kind of urban decay I’ve lived in or visited many times in my life. The descriptive scenes about lunar cities are basically me writing about neighborhoods I’ve had the misfortune to experience. If I had to pick one song that sums up everything about that, it would be Spinal Tap’s Hell Hole.
I was a bit disheartened to discover an anime series has already blasted the Moon into a permanent crescent. It’s getting so that you can’t even blow up the Moon without someone else having done it first!
Finally, I should mention how hard I tried to do the actual math for launching Patches out of a space cannon. I read a ridiculous amount of articles and papers about the problem, most of which were beyond my grasp. I tried multiple times to get scientists to help me, to no avail. I even created a spreadsheet full of formulas to do the math. At last, I needed to admit I had no idea what the hell I was doing.
But one way or another, we were launching Patches from a space cannon, and we damn well did it. If anyone wants to email the solution to me, I’d be thrilled.
08 Monday Jan 2018
Posted in science fiction
Tags
1958, fried eggs, Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, meteor, Moon, outer space, planets, topps, trading cards, vintage space art
Space travel ain’t what it used to be! Technology, design, and planetary knowledge have evolved since these beautiful Topps trading cards came out in 1958. But if you are like me and easily amused by vintage space art, these cards are worth checking out.
Below is a slideshow featuring a few dozen of my favorites. You can find a complete collection, including scans of the text on the back of the cards, at http://www1.coe.neu.edu/~dan/tsc/go.html
Meteor Peril! Isn’t space travel exciting?! The only thing that could make it more fun is fried eggs.
28 Sunday May 2017
gravity
the moon burns for the ocean
when no one else can see the sun
he cares nothing for what her tides erode
with violent patience
nor the animals lost
in her limitless depth
he only wants her
closer
they hold each other
across unchartable distance
never touching
but never pulled apart
This poem appears in the collection Inner Planets: 50 Poems by Matthew Howard. Available in paperback, Kindle, and audiobook.
08 Saturday Apr 2017
Posted in poetry
Frontier
Luna, our beloved crescent,
you swell until you are full enough
to hang heavy against the horizon
like the breast of a pregnant woman.
You will be the first we settle,
our laboratory to test survival
on other stones that fill the sky and
telescopes. How could we resist touching you?
Will you shudder with pleasure
beneath our fingertips, or recoil
at the machines and metallic intrusions,
the rivets and girders of our civilization?
You have been our goddess
since before the dawn of history.
Now we will bring you atmosphere
and mark you with our scent.
We have always been inseparable.
Now we will be close.
This poem appears in the collection Inner Planets: 50 Poems by Matthew Howard. Available in paperback, Kindle, and audiobook.
25 Sunday Aug 2013
Posted in dinosaur, science fiction
Tags
This one page story from Alarming Tales showcases two of our favorite things: going to the moon, and dinosaurs! We’re not really sure who gets the credit for this, but feel free to enlighten us.
Collector’s Guide: From Alarming Tales #6; Harvey, 1958. Issues #1-3 are now collected in a Kindle edition!
09 Monday Jul 2012
Posted in golden age, science fiction
In the future, women will not wear much clothing. But they will be in awe of man’s ability to ride ferocious beasts and kill really ugly monsters. In other words, it will end up being a lot like the past… At least that’s what we got from reading Planet Comics! From 1948-1950, Planet Comics included one and two-page features called “Life On Other Worlds.”
A little bit of science and a whole lot of fantasy, they still make for fun reading — and some of the rocket ships and aliens are outta sight! This month, we share with you the complete “Life On Other Worlds” features. So strap on your space helmet — and remind your girlfriend to undress before departure!
Collector’s Guide: Life on Other Worlds appeared in Planet Comics #49-51, #54-61, and #64.
16 Wednesday Nov 2011
Posted in educational, golden age
Cool stuff you never knew about the atmosphere and outer space, from Ripley’s Believe It Or Not #2; Harvey, 1953-1954.
Courtesy of the Digital Comic Museum.
21 Thursday Jul 2011
Posted in educational, golden age
Tags
edgar allen poe, Fantastic Worlds. Golden Age Comics, Flight to Venus, Moon, outer space, Richard Adams Locke, science fiction, Space Dictionary, Venus
Golden Age Comics story time! Fantastic Worlds 5 actually blew compared to Fantastic Worlds #6, but it had some awesome educational features including Space Flight to Venus!
Mars Will Send No More 