My Story … And My Dream

February 21, 2022February 24, 2022 / thealiennextdoor / Leave a comment

*Nina, age four, pretending to read, Granby, Quebec (photo by Maria Munteanu)*

I started writing and drawing as soon as I could hold a pencil. Even before I could read, I wanted to become a “paperback writer” like in the old Beatles song.

It was an incredible moment of clarity for me and despite being challenged by my stern and unimaginative primary school teacher, who kept trying to corral me into being “normal”, I wasn’t going to let anyone stem my creativity and eccentric — if not wayward — approach to literature, language and writing. I was a little brat and I knew it. She and I didn’t exactly get along. But I did okay and, despite her acidic commentary, Miss House awarded me some A’s and B’s…

*Country road in late fall, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)*

I wrote some fan fiction but quickly found my own creations far more interesting and less limiting.

As a teenager, I wrote, directed and recorded “radio plays” with my sister. When we weren’t bursting into riotous laughter, it was actually pretty good. She and I shared a bedroom in the back of the house and at bedtime we opened our doors of imagination to a cast of thousands. We fed each other wild stories of space travel, adventure and intrigue, whispering and giggling well into the dark night, long after our parents were snoring in their beds.

Those days scintillated with liberating originality, excitement and joy.

(Photo: Nina Munteanu and sister Doina Maria Munteanu at Grouse Mountain, BC)

*My first attempt at a graphic novel (pencil and ink drawings by a very young Nina)*

I also enjoyed animation and drew several cartoon strips, peopled with crazy characters. I dreamt of writing graphic novels like Green Lantern and Spiderman. My hero was science fiction author and futurist, Ray Bradbury; I vowed to write profoundly stirring tales like he did.

I had found what excites me — my passion for telling stories—and I’d inadvertently stumbled upon an important piece of the secret formula for success: 1) having discovered my passion, I decided on a goal; 2) I found and wished to emulate a “hero” who’d achieved that goal and therefore had a “case study”; 3) I applied myself to the pursuit of my goal. Oops … the third one, well … it went downhill from there … Life got in the way.

*The Beeches area of Toronto after a heavy snowstorm, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)*

I grew up.

Well, that, and the environment intervened. In several ways. It started with my parents. Recognizing my talent and interest in the fine arts (I was good in visual arts), they pushed me to get a fine arts degree in university and go into teaching or advertizing. They didn’t see fiction writing as a viable career or a strength of mine (I was lousy at spelling and, despite my ability to tell stories and my love for graphic novels, I didn’t read books much). I can still remember my father’s lecture to me about how perfect the teaching or nursing profession was for me. I wasn’t enamored by either. The second blow to my author-ego came in the form of a school “interest-ability” test, meant to prepare us for our career decisions. I remember the test consisting of an IQ portion (spatial, English and math), and a psychology portion (including problem-solving and scenarios meant to tease out our affinity for a particular career). Secretly harboring my paperback novelist dream, I filled out my forms with great excitement. I still remember the deflating results, which suggested that I was best suited to be a sergeant in the army. “Writing” as a career barely made it on the graph, and scored well below “computer programmer” and “mechanic”; none of which interested me.

*Country road in a he*avy snow, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)

I got involved in the environmental movement, while quietly holding my dream of being a paperback novelist close to my heart. I got several degrees in ecology and consulted for various companies to help protect the environment. I wrote a lot in those days, although it was more about the ecology of creeks and about industrial pollution. But my passion for writing fiction continued to simmer. Magazines started publishing my articles—my first sale was to Shared Vision Magazine in 1995 on environmental citizenship—and my published articles became my entrance into the world of fiction. Once I began publishing fiction stories—my first short fiction sale was “Arc of Time” to Armchair Aesthete in 2002—I never looked back.

Eventually, I was publishing a novel and several short stories every year. My fiction most often focused on environmental issues, humanity’s relationship with the natural world, and how we reconcile our reliance on technology with our respect for the natural world.

*Publications of long or short eco-fiction that include my writing or editing*

Throughout my writer’s journey, and particularly early in my journey, I weathered the threshold guardians, tricksters and shadows: friends and family who called what I did a hobby, something I did just to pass the time; people who didn’t believe in me, envied my drive or simply thought I was wasting my time; even industry scammers who preyed on my dreams and wanted my money for nothing in return; and ultimately my own fears and frustrations on query after query and rejection after rejection. Throughout it all, I never stopped dreaming.

*Nina’s family hiking and boating in British Columbia over the years*

I’ve travelled through Europe, Africa, parts of Asia, and Australia. I raised a family and lived all over Canada from the Pacific to the Atlantic coast. I worked as a barista, shopkeeper and science lab instructor, then as environmental consultant, writing instructor and writing coach. During these wonderful life-adventures, I never stopped writing.

*Nina Munteanu in the castle at Gruyères, Switzerland (photo by Jane Raptor)*

To date, I have written and sold over three dozen eco-fiction, science fiction and fantasy novels, non-fiction books, short stories and articles. I have sold short stories to magazines in Canada and the U.S. with translations and reprints in Israel, Poland, Greece, and Romania. My short fiction has appeared in Neo-Opsis Science Fiction Magazine, Chiaroscuro, subTerrain, Apex Magazine, Metastellar, and several anthologies. I’ve seen my short stories nominated for the Aurora Prix Award (Canada’s premier award for writing science fiction and fantasy) and the Foundation of Speculative Fiction Fountain Award. Recognition for my work includes the Midwest Book Review Reader’s Choice Award, finalist for Foreword Magazine’s Book of the Year Award, the SLF Fountain Award, and The Delta Optimist Reviewers Choice Award.

*Nina celebrates her adventures in Toronto (left) and Paris (right)*

I’ve published nine novels with nominations for the Aurora Prix, Foreword Magazine Book of the Year (several times), and various Reader’s Choice awards. My non-fiction book “Water Is…” (Pixl Press)—a scientific study and personal journey as limnologist, mother, and teacher—was Margaret Atwood’s pick in 2016 in the New York Times ‘The Year in Reading.’ My recent eco-novel released in 2020 by Inanna Publications “A Diary in the Age of Water“—about four generations of women and their relationship to water in a rapidly changing world—was a silver medalist for the Literary Titan Award, the Bronze winner of Foreword Magazine’s Book of the Year in 2020, longlisted for the Miramichi Review’s ‘Very Best Book of the Year Award,’ and a finalist for the 2021 International Book Award. Reviewers have described it as “lyrical…thought-provoking…unique and captivating…insightful…profound and brilliant…unsettling and yet deliciously readable…” One reviewer described it as a “a bit of a hybrid” and the writer “a risk taker”—which I quite liked. Another reviewer acknowledged that this was not a book for everyone and yet she found it “strangely compelling.”—which I found delicious.

It’s been twenty years since I seriously started my writing career with my first publication in 1995; my work is now recognized and translated throughout the world and I frequently get writing commissions from reputable magazines and publications. I am also frequently invited for speaking engagements and radio/podcast/TV interviews about my science and my writing. In short, I’ve come home; I’d taken a rather long detour but I’ve acquired some tools along the way. It’s been and continues to be a wonderful and exciting journey; and part of what made it so was that I never stopped dreaming and writing.

“…If you have nothing at all to create, then perhaps you create yourself…”
Carl Jung

A sampling of literary publications up to 2021-end that have included something of mine (short fiction, long fiction, non-fiction)

*Two people walk through snowy path after a fresh heavy snowfall, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)*

Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press(Vancouver) was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times ‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” was released by Inanna Publications (Toronto) in June 2020.

The Witch’s Hat and Other Fungi Tales

December 12, 2021October 21, 2021 / thealiennextdoor / 1 Comment

*Witch’s Hat (Hygrocybe conica) by cedar tree, ON (photo by Nina Munteanu)*

In my recent wanderings in the small cedar forest by the river near my house, I chanced upon a community of emerging reddish-orange fungi. They sat among the cedars in a crowded aggregation. Some pushed their way up through the duff like little buds, barely visible; others rose up with pointed steep caps; and others had opened further into tiny ‘witch’s hats’ and blackened.

*Several stages of Witch’s Hat, including blackening stage, cedar forest, ON (photo by Nina Munteanu)*

According to Frank Dugan, fungus plays a key role in many folktales and fairy tales. “They appear as foods, poisons, diseases, decorations, dyes or tinder, and even in insults, compliments, graffiti and video games,” says the author of Fungi, Folkways and Fairy Tales: Mushrooms & Mildews in Stories, Remedies & Rituals, from Oberon to the Internet.

Fungi figure in wonderfully with stories of and about witches. “Witches have long used fungi in their potions in Europe,” Fungal Folklore tells us. Even ferry rings are called “Hexen Rings” in Germany; Hexe means witch and this refers to “the dancing of witches on Walpurgis night (the eve of May Day) when the old pagan witches were thought to hold high revelry,” writes Dugan.

Baba Yaga

In the Slavic folktale, Baba Yaga is an ancient swamp witch; she’s a cruel ogress who steals, cooks and eats her victims, usually children; OR offers them help. It’s complicated; she’s either a maternal helper or a cannibalistic villain; or both. Certainly a trickster. Baba Yaga is guardian of the fountains of the water of life and lives in a forest hut perched on bird’s legs, surrounded by pine trees and glowing skulls. She can manipulate earth and wood, and can mesmerise. Baba Yaga has lately become something of an icon for feminism and the power of the feminine.

Says Marissa Clifford in Vice: “Like other witches, deistic Baba is agent of transformation, who, according to Kitaiskaia, exists ‘kind of outside of the things which constrain human society, like time and morality.’ She may well be so compelling for women today because of her rejection of social standards, and the power that comes from that. She’s an outlier with power that isn’t derived from her beauty, or her relationships with others. Instead, it comes from within her—earth, hut, and firey stove.”

*Baba Yaga (illustration by Tatyana Chepkasova)*

Witches, Fungi & Potions

“Witches have long used fungi in their potions in Europe,” The Fungus Among Us tells us. According to Dugan, the dung-loving Panaeolus papilionaceus (Petticoat Mottlegill) was used in witch’s concoctions in Portugal. The entheogen Amanita muscaria (Fly Agaric)—the elixir of ancient alchemists—is known as Hexenpils (‘Witches’ mushroom’) in Austria. Among German tribes, it is associated with Woton/Odin, god of ecstasy, war and shamanic knowledge. Puffballs were reportedly used in potions by witches in the Basque country. Witch’s butter (Exidia spp.) also figures in folklore. “Stabbing, burning or otherwise destroying these fungi were believed to harm the witch herself,” writes Owen. The Witch’s Hat (Hygrocybe conica) is aptly named for its blackening witch-style ‘hat’ that starts bright red-orange and turns coal black.

Many country folk through the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries performed rituals to protect their crops from the devastation wrought by witches and spirits. Thiselton-Dyer discusses the malignant Roggenwolf (‘rye wolf’ of Germanic folklore) who stole children and fed on them and the various rituals peasants used to appease these Feldgeister (field spirits), such as leaving a sheaf of rye in the fields over the winter. The Roggenwolf is, of course, the personification of ergot, the fungus Claviceps purpurea, which caused convulsions, burning, “massive-appetite”, and “the sense of becoming an animal.” People who contracted ergot poisoning from the contaminated rye were accused of being witches and brutally killed.

*Young Witch’s Hats push up through the cedar forest floor, ON (photo by Nina Munteanu)*

Ergot and The Last Summoner

In my historical fantasy “The Last Summoner,” young Vivianne Schoen, Baroness of Grunwald—accused of being a witch—is chased by her father’s guard to be burnt at the stake. Blamed for the sudden stupor of her father and the chaplain who both love their rye bread, it didn’t help that Vivianne possesses unnatural powers in metal manipulation, has weird markings or blemishes on her back or that suspicions of her preternatural mother being a witch precede her. Then odd things start to happen; cattle stop producing milk and other farm animals behave strangely. At a feast to celebrate her own coming nuptial to a foreign stranger and just after she is falsely accused of adultery, people suddenly succumb to fits of convulsions, facial distortions, hallucinations and paralysis. Targeted as the obvious candidate to blame, she must flee her home or be burnt alive at the stake:

…With a final unintelligible gasp that wet her cheek with flying spittle, he convulsed violently and pitched to the floor, shaking and vomiting his dinner.

Vivianne stared at her father, rolling and twitching in a seizure on the floor and crying out gibberish. She turned to the castle community, who were now pointing and shouting at her. Their faces had twisted from transfixed revulsion into fear and anger. Somehow they blamed her for both the stranger’s accident and her father’s sudden paroxysm. Perhaps for losing them a battle in the bargain too. Even Père Daniel’s face looked stricken with confused accusation. Until now Vivianne hadn’t realized how much his opinion of her meant to her. She felt his faltering faith drive like a blade into her heart and would have burst into tears had the crowd not suddenly grown very surly, which demanded her sudden attention.

Gertrude, the new dairymaid she’d assisted earlier, flung the first accusation: “She’s a witch!”

“Witch!” another echoed. “You heard her father call her one!”

Another servant swiftly followed with, “Just like her mother! She’s bewitched the baron! Put a spell on him with her wicked look!”

The crowd ignited to a raucous mob and a spate of accusations gushed out like a dam breaking: “My butter failed to churn because of her!”

“Look at the witchling’s eyes! They blaze with the devil’s own fire!”

“She appeared in Weikhard’s dream and now he’s ill!”

“She touched my cow and afterwards it couldn’t stand!”

“I saw the nursemaid bringing her a daily potion of nettle, mustard and mint with wine to make her lustful!”

Oh, no! They were implicating Uta along with her!

“I smelled basil and cloves in her bed chamber!”

Vivianne had used both to mask the rank odor of Uta’s anti-plague potions, completely innocent of their aphrodisiac properties. Vivianne stared in anguished despair as Père Daniel stood by, mutely sanctioning their actions. She’d thought him her champion once. But obviously this was too much for him to bear. He’d lost his trust in her. As their eyes met briefly, he suddenly gasped out strange words of gibberish. A violent shudder convulsed through him. It threw him forward, as if the devil itself were animating him, then felled him to the ground where he vomited alongside her retching father.

“She’s taken the priest!” someone shouted. “He’s doing the Viper’s dance!” Another screamed in a panic, “Watch out for her eyes!”

Vivianne turned back to the crowd. Whomever her gaze alighted upon shrank back and averted their face in terrified alarm. They were convinced that she could strike them down with a glance. To her horror a few of the castle servants jerked out of their seats with startled cries of gibberish then fell writhing to the ground; some began to vomit. Vivianne recognized the true onslaught of an epidemic. The same illness that had inflicted her father and the chaplain was attacking the staff. And again, the timing was impeccable, thought Vivianne with wry cynicism. As though God was plotting against her.

Gertrude pointed to her. “Seize her! Burn the witch! Before she kills us all!”

“Someone find her demon cat too!” Vivianne heard the doctor shout.

Several of the baron’s knights surged forward, swords drawn. As if suddenly awoken from a stupor, the Teutonic Knights at the high table leapt into action and drew their swords.

NO! Vivianne backed away in alarm. She envisioned their swords suddenly pointing back toward themselves. To her amazement, their swords flung back and the knights dropped them in shocked fright.

In that surreal moment, as the world staggered into slow motion, Vivianne saw the entire castle household draw in a long breath. Still on the floor, Père Daniel’s shakes abated long enough for him to fix lucid eyes upon her and silently mouth, “Cours, ma petite! Cours! Sauves toi!”

After a last glance at her convulsing father, Vivianne took the Père’s advice and ducked through one of the curtained archways behind the table to the kitchen stairwell, and pelted down the stairs.

“After her!” she heard the booming voice of Doctor Grien. “The witch is getting away!”

*****

Vivianne later discovers what caused the sudden ‘bewitchment’ of members of her community: all the people who became ill had eaten the rye bread. She learns about ergot poisoning of rye by the fungus Claviceps purpurea. Conditions had been ideal for ergot to thrive: damp and rainy cool weather.

*Young Witch’s Hat with peaked cone-shaped pileus, amid cedar duff, ON (photo by Nina Munteanu)*

The Witch’s Hat

Witch’s Hats are a small agaric (cap from 1-4 cm across) that start out bright red to orange, sometimes almost yellow as they thrust up through the cedar duff, looking like buds.

The conical pileus is often curved steeply with a fairly sharp top and sometimes with edges that curve slightly inward. The stem (stipe) is often white at the base blending to yellow and will stain black with age.

*Witch’s Hat mushroom showing inward curve of cap, with key to show size, cedar tree, ON (photo by Nina Munteanu)*

As the waxcap mushroom develops, the cap spreads out with a discernable brim while maintaining the hat peak of a witch’s hat. As it ages, it turns a deeper red-orange that blackens, often from the edges inward.

*Three stages of Witch’s Hat, from early conical to spreading and blackening hat, cedar tree, ON (photo by Nina Munteanu)*

This tendency to blacken from bruising or with age is a good diagnostic for this mushroom. Very few others show this trait. Its gills “have the consistency of soft wax when rubbed between the fingers,” Fungus Fact Friday tells us. The gills start white to yellowish and gradually yellow and stain black.

*Stages of Witch’s Hat from budding to opening cap to blackening cap and gills, cedar forest, ON (photo by Nina Munteanu)*

*Blackened and blackening Witches Hat caps and stems, ON (photo by Nina Munteanu)*

*Hygrocybe conica well-represents its common name Witch’s Hat as it keeps its peak and turns totally black, cedar in Ontario forest (photo by Nina Munteanu)*

The Witch’s Hat (Hygrocybe conica), also known as Blackening Waxcap (for the obvious reason), shows a diversity of habitat preference and high variability. It tends to grow on the ground under hardwood and conifer trees. The community I stumbled upon fanned out from a few cedar trees in a small mixed cedar forest. The Witch’s Hat also likes mossy areas, where I found several near the river. The saprobic Hygrocybe conica is also a mycorrhizal fungus, sending tendrils from tree to tree.

Mycorrhizae are symbiotic relationships that form between fungi and plants. The fungi colonize the root system of a host plant—in this case some cedar trees—providing increased water and nutrient absorption capabilities while the plant provides the fungus with carbohydrates through photosynthesis.

*Mycorrhizal network (illustration by Charlotte Roy, Wikipedia)*

References:

Dugan. 2008. “Fungi, folkways & fairy tales.” North American Fungi 3(7): 23-72.

Morgan, A. 1995. “Toads and Toadstools: The Natural History, Folklore, and Cultural Oddities of a Strange Association.” Celestial Arts. Berkeley, California.

Munteanu, Nina. 2012. “The Last Summoner.” Starfire World Syndicate. Louisville, KY.

Owen, E. 2003. “Welsh Folk-Lore: A Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales. Kessinger Publishing. Whitefish, Montana.

Thiselton-Dyer, T.F. 1898. “Folk-Lore of Plants.” D. Appleton and Co., New York.

*Young emerging Witch’s Hats through cedar duff, ON (photo by Nina Munteanu)*

*Witch’s Hat in cedar forest, ON (photo by Nina Munteanu)*

Delos Digital Publishes Nina Munteanu’s “l’Ultima Evocatrice”

June 19, 2021May 7, 2021 / thealiennextdoor / Leave a comment

I was recently commissioned by Andrea Franco at Delos Digitalin Milan to write a novelette for their Fantasy Tales Series. The resulting story was Summoning the Future’s Past a short adaptation of my alternative history novel The Last Summoner published by Starfire in 2012.

The novelette was translated by Chiara Beltrami then released by Delos Digital as the ebook l’Ultima Evocatrice, (Fantasy Tales 66), on April 13, 2021.

Here is what Andrea Franco said about l’Ultima Evocatrice:

“Recentemente in Fantasy Tales-Delos Digital abbiamo pubblicato il primo testo ‘internatiozionale’, della bravissima scrittrice Canadese Nina Munteanu, tradotta per noi in modo eccellente da Chiara Beltrami. Un bellissimo racconto lungo che gli appassionati di fantasy non dovrebbero farsi scappare. Lo avete letto?”

As with The Last Summoner, l’Ultima Evocatrice(Summoning the Future’s Past) is a fresh twist on chaos theory and observer-induced collapse of quantum entanglement. It’s June 14th, 1410, on the eve of the Battle of Grunwald, when history records that a ragtag peasant army will slaughter the arrogant monk knights of the imperialistic Teutonic Order … or will they? Because of an impetuous choice, 14-year old Vivianne Schoen, Baroness von Grunwald, makes the startling discovery that her mother is from the future and Vivianne herself can alter history—but not before she’s branded a witch and must make the most difficult choice of her life …

“l’Ultima Evocatrice”was recently featured in Fantasy Magazine.

Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press(Vancouver) was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” was released by Inanna Publications (Toronto) in June 2020.

The Last Summoner & “The History with Magic” Book Bundle

November 8, 2020October 28, 2020 / thealiennextdoor / Leave a comment

“The Last Summoner”by Nina Munteanu is now available as part of “The History with Magic”Book Bundle, curated by Athena Andreadis. The Bundle includes eleven books, each described here. Here’s what Athena writes:

“The History with Magic bundle offers eleven riveting works that occupy a vital nexus in the dense, labyrinthine metropolis that is fantasy: the crossroads of alternate history and secondary world fiction. Both are venerable subgenres in speculative fiction. Alternate history has been with us at least since Titus Livius, better known as Livy, contemplated a world in which Alexander the Great survived to turn his energies westward; and humans have invented secondary universes ever since they wove and spun stories around their gatherer-hunter campfires.
As the astrogator and lead editor of acclaimed small indie press Candlemark & Gleam, I’ve had the honor and pleasure of helping to create and release some of the best new works in this mode. And now I get to share such fusions of history with magic in this spectacular bundle, whose every entry deserves to become a visual spectacle as atmospheric and studded with larger-than-life events and charismatic characters as the serialization of Bernard Cornwell’s Last Kingdom or Philip K. Dick’s Man in the High Castle… Full of rousing, sweeping derring-do and jeopardies, risky missions and fraught choices, intricate alliances and jarring betrayals, it’s all here—with the layers of real history, and its very concrete consequences, glimmering like fata morganas through the gauze of fiction.”

This bundle is available for a limited time only (from October 28 through November 19) via http://www.storybundle.com. The bundle allows easy reading on computers, smartphones, and tablets as well as Kindle and other ereaders via file transfer, email, and other methods. You get multiple DRM-free formats (.epub, .mobi) for all books.

The Last Summoner by Nina Munteanu is a fresh twist on chaos theory and observer-induced collapse of quantum entanglement. It’s June 14th, 1410, on the eve of the Battle of Grunwald when history records that a ragtag peasant army will slaughter the arrogant monk knights of the imperialistic Teutonic Order…or will they? Because of an impetuous choice, 14-year old Vivianne Schoen, Baroness von Grunwald, makes the startling discovery that she can alter history—but not before she’s branded a witch and must flee through a time-space tear. Now in an alternate present-day France ruled by fascist Black Knights of the ancient Teutonic Order, she must decide how to remake history.

“For those in love with science fiction at its best, The Last Summoner is a complex story of ignored responsibilities and their dire consequences, of love and betrayal that span centuries and multiple worlds. Time travel, multiverse travel, immortality, alternate history in which the Nazis have won, not in the twentieth century but way earlier, in the Teutonic age. Angels and mutants, utopias and dystopias, even a Tesla occurrence— everything a science fiction reader could ever desire in a book. A masterfully told story with great characters. Nina Munteanu moves flawlessly from a medieval story to a modern one and everything in between.”—COSTI GURGU, author of RecipeArium

“A good, clever read and I think that history buffs would really enjoy it…You should read this book if you love fantasy, history or a combination of the two, you’re a fan of time travel and its many twists and turns, the concept of influencing historical events to create a better world intrigues you.”—THE COCONUT CHRONICLES

“A hard book to put down. Loved the historical references of gear, place and events. The characters involved you in their lives. Fast-paced”
— AMAZON REVIEW

“Exquisite! … A wonderful and skillful historical time traveler full to the brim of colourful characters intertwined with chicanery and loved, loved, loved the metaphors. A page -turner.”— AMAZON REVIEW

For more on the writing of this book, go to:

“The Art and Magic of Storytelling: Part 1, Sparking the Premise”

“Defining Moments and the Last Summoner”

“The Battle of Grunwald and the Fate of the Teutonic Knights”

“Cymatics: How Frequency Changes the Very Nature of Matter and Energy”

Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press (Vancouver) was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times ‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” was released by Inanna Publications (Toronto) in June 2020.

Defining Moments and The Last Summoner

September 26, 2020September 26, 2020 / thealiennextdoor / 1 Comment

A few years ago I attended a panel at Toronto’s Ad Astra convention called “Stealth Science Fiction in Person of Interest.” The panel was the brainchild of fellow science fiction writer Ira Nayman, an avid watcher of the TV show. Unbeknownst to me, the panel I’d been assigned to participate with Ira and another panelist was about a TV show (which I’d never seen)—not just an expression.

I bumbled in the beginning as realization dawned on me that this was what the panel was about and quietly berated myself for not rereading the short description (which had been sufficiently vague—at least to me). I finally let the panelists and audience know my limitation when Ira astutely noted that I was being extra reticent (not one of my usual traits in panels). We muddled along, despite my infirmity, and the panel went along admirably—mainly because Ira moderated with great astuteness and audience members participated enthusiastically.

One of the plot points of the show led Ira to share a personality-defining hypothetical dilemma that he’d encountered. Here’s how he described it: if you knew you could save five people by instigating the death of another person, would you do it? Or would you, by your inaction, allow the five to die by not instigating that person’s death? The premise, of course, is that you could tell the future of two divergent actions.

I realized soon after that this is exactly the situation that my main character Vivianne Schoen, the Baroness Von Grunwald, faced in her journey to change the history she’d inadvertently authored (in The Last Summoner). As a medieval time traveler, she was presented with several courses of history and needed to choose her actions carefully in accordance with both short-term and long-term consequences. Faced with the possibility of saving utterly millions of people who were fated to perish in World War I by instigating the death of one man—Kaiser Wilhelm II—Vivianne sets out to do the deed.

Besides her ability to time travel, Vivianne is able to manipulate metal through mind-wave energy. Because of this power, she decides to participate in a momentous event in which her power will have a potentially deadly effect. The year is 1889, just a year after Kaiser Wilhelm II was crowned Emperor, and the place is Charlottenburg Race Course in Berlin in this excerpt from The Last Summoner:

VIVIANNE pulled up the collar and hood of her fur coat to ward off the November chill as she walked next to Jurgen von Eisenreich in Berlin’s Charlottenburg Race Course. The coat barely kept the winter wind from cutting through her cream- colored evening gown. Fastened at the back, it had no bustle and signaled the upcoming style. They were here to watch Europe’s latest touring attraction from America: Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. Steering her by the elbow, von Eisenreich guided her up the rafter stairs toward the Royal Box, where the new Emperor was already seated with his retinue of several statesmen, including his aides-de-camp, and two imperial guards. Vivianne recognized the odious and obsequious Count Alfred von Waldersee, seated beside the Emperor. Twenty-seven years the Kaiser’s senior, the Count was a power-mongering anti-Semite, who would prove to mold the weak-minded Crown Prince into the bigoted warlord Kaiser Wilhelm II was becoming.

Kaiser Wilhelm II

Vivianne stole a long glance to the Reich’s young ruler. It had been just a year since the Crown Prince had ascended to the imperial thrown and he had already stirred up trouble with his insulting behavior of his mother, the dowager Empress, and his uncompassionate handling of his father’s funeral; then his shabby treatment of England’s Queen and her son, the Prince of Wales.

Vivianne furtively studied the dashing thirty-year old ruler with deep interest. Dressed impeccably in uniform, he was rakishly handsome, she decided, with sharp intelligent eyes, a long aristocratic nose and well-waxed handle-bar mustache. She found herself staring at his withered left arm, which he rested on his lap. Though she could not make it out, it was a good six inches shorter than the other arm and partially lifeless. He’d been a breech birth and both he and his mother were lucky to be alive.

Vivianne reflected on that eventful day when she’d botched her attempt to save the last Emperor of Germany from an unnatural birth. While Oskar had been instantly killed, the doctor had survived the carriage accident with only a severe concussion; he’d still only managed to get to Unter den Linden by early afternoon, having lain unconscious and unattended for most of the morning then having awoken at Humboldt Hospital where he’d ironically been scheduled to speak that day and had then foolishly insisted on tending to Vivianne first, who’d suffered a nasty head wound that she hadn’t even been aware of receiving.

The Emperor—like Vivianne—was here, in the District of Charlottenburg in West Berlin, to see the show’s star attraction, Annie Oakley, who acquired world fame for her skills with a Colt .45. The young sharpshooter had been invited by the Kaiser for a private performance for the Union-Club. Vivianne found her breaths escalate at the thought of what the impetuous Kaiser was about to do; and what she intended to do, as a result. Was it an ironic twist of history that only months ago Adolf Hitler was born this year? Vivianne glanced down at the program in her gloved hand:

Programme of Miss Annie Oakley’s Private Performance Before the Members and Their Friends of the Union-Club, Berlin, on November 13, 1889, at Charlottenburg Race Course.

There followed a list of up to seventeen feats she would perform, beginning with her exhibition of rifle shooting, followed by clay-pigeon sharp-shooting then various feats involving trapping and agility in weapon handling. She was not fated to get very far in her program before calamity of sorts would strike, Vivianne thought cynically.

“He’s alone…without his family?” she asked von Eisenreich. That would make it much easier, she concluded with an inward sigh.

“Dona prefers the comfort and warmth of the royal palace in Potsdam, and the company of her children,” he responded. “She’s not interested in this sort of thing. She has few interests other than church service, I’m afraid.” Then he leaned his head close to hers to confide. “Ten years ago, Wilhelm was smitten by his beautiful cousin, Victoria Elizabeth, the second eldest daughter of the Grand Duke and Duchess of Hesse and the Rhine. But Ella wouldn’t have him.” Then von Eisenreich surveyed Vivianne with an appraising look and smiled enigmatically. “In fact, she looked a lot like you.”

Vivianne swallowed down a sudden discomfort, not sure of its source. Von Eisenreich went on, “Poor Wilhelm became very self-conscious about his arm and thought himself unattractive. That might be why he chose a plain and simple, but pious woman.”

More like narrow-minded, anti-Semitic and bigoted thought Vivianne. Unfortunately the Empress fit in too well with the Kaiser’s own bigoted views and apparently her nature only served to exacerbate the Kaiser’s arrogance and insufferable nature.

Von Eisenreich chuckled to himself. “I heard that the Empress Dona was called unimaginative and prejudiced by the Emperor’s own mother. Dona hates the English. But don’t we all!” He laughed.

Vivianne thought of the cutting words of the gossiping socialite, Daisy, Princess of Pless: for a woman in that position I have never met anyone so devoid of any individual thought or agility of brain and understanding. She is just like a good, quiet, soft cow that has calves and eats grass slowly then lies down and ruminates.

“Apart from that homosexual, Count Philipp von Eulenburg, I’m the Emperor’s only real friend,” von Eisenreich confided rather smugly to Vivianne as they approached the Royal Box.

As if he felt her stealthy glance, the Kaiser turned to look directly at her. After an unabashedly long appraisal, he let his eyes drift away and leaned out, looking past his aide to focus on von Eisenreich. “Ah, Jurgen! So that’s why you dallied and missed my retinue!” The Kaiser yelled in a coarse Potsdam accent, eyes flitting back critically to Vivianne like she was merchandize. He stood up and clapped von Eisenreich hard on the back, clearly happy to see him. Vivianne got a clear view of his short left arm with dark brown mole on his shriveled hand. She noted that he was rather short in stature for a man, about her height or less, with a squat and slightly lopsided neck—owing to his left arm being shorter than the other. Eisenreich drew Vivianne forward.

“This is the Comptesse d’Anjou,” von Eisenreich said.

She pulled down her hood and curtsied slightly, eyes downcast. “I’m honored and humbled, your Imperial Majesty,” she said.

“No doubt you are!” he responded, swiftly tucking his left hand in his pocket. When she raised her eyes to meet his, Vivianne caught the brief instant as his eyes grew wide and deep with hidden intensity.  Jurgen caught it too. “I thought so, also,” he said with amusement to the Emperor. He was, no doubt referring to her likeness to the Princess Ella.

The Kaiser sucked in a breath and straightened with an imperceptible tremble, as if to shake off an old memory. Then he gave Vivianne a cold smile and extended his good hand to her in greeting. She accepted and instantly winced with excruciating pain. He barked out a cruel laugh and said, “The French are, I’m afraid, just like the English when it comes to my German mailed fist!”

Vivianne had heard of his sadistic handshake: he was in the habit of turning his many rings inward prior to clasping one’s hand with a vice-like grip. Somehow, she hadn’t expected him to inflict her with it. Perhaps it was his way of punishing his cousin for not accepting his marriage proposal, she concluded, regretful of her resemblance. The Kaiser hung on to her hand much longer than he needed to, Vivianne decided, squirming and attempting to retract it from his painful grasp. His grip was too strong.

Their eyes locked. And to her frustrated anger, her eyes teared up with the stinging pain through her glove.

In that moment she saw the hurt little boy in that bigoted, arrogant and angry face. She instantly knew that she’d misjudged one of his critical nexuses. Her mission this day might have been prevented. If she’d intersected with his life earlier, and somehow convinced his beloved Ella to accept his proposal, the single-minded but compassionate princess might have softened him, completed him, inspired him to be the great man he could have become instead of the bitter and insecure bully he now was.

Something passed between them and he abruptly let go of her hand with a sudden intake of air. “I beg pardon,” he said, voice softening from that harsh Potsdam accent. “You reminded me of someone I once knew…” In a flush of solicitous emotion, he pulled off her glove to inspect the damage he’d inflicted on her hand. Several red welts had surfaced on the inside of her lower palm where his rings had gouged into her flesh. “Ahh…such dear soft and warm hands…” he cooed in near reverence. “How remarkable…the soft insides of your hands…”

Vivianne slowly pulled her hand away.

They both looked awkward for a moment. Then the Kaiser broke out into a blustery laugh and turned to von Eisenreich.

“So, where’s your good wife, von Eisenreich?”

“Like you, I left her at home with my dear children, where she should be, your Majesty,” von Eisenreich responded cheerfully. “They’re no fun at these sorts of things.”

“Ah, but I wager the Comptesse is,” said the Emperor brashly and took the opportunity to rake her over with appreciative eyes.

Von Eisenreich let loose a conspiratorial laugh, as if to ratify the Kaiser’s innuendo. He then leaned into Vivianne beside him with a chuckle until his shoulder collided into hers. “I brought my lovely companion, the charming Comptesse d’Anjou, to improve my demeanour and make me interesting.”

The Kaiser threw his head back and shouted an open- mouthed laugh of abandon then stomped his foot. “Indeed, she has managed that!” He surveyed Vivianne with critical eyes that flashed with approval. When she’d first been introduced to him, she’d felt the Kaiser’s burning gaze roam over her like the eager hands of a lover. “Good choice,” Wilhelm said.

He’d clearly deduced that she was von Eisenreich’s mistress and Jurgen had as much as confirmed it. The Kaiser had several mistresses of his own and Vivianne had the impression he wouldn’t have minded another.

As Uta had predicted, Vivianne had indeed filled out into what most men commonly considered a woman of striking beauty. And she’d had many years to cultivate it into an irresistible package. She was now over four hundred years old, yet she looked no more than in her early twenties. That arcane quality alone, she knew, was enough to drive men to distraction.

Vivianne had only met von Eisenreich last week at a masked ball and, knowing his weakness for beautiful women, she’d shamelessly flirted with him; within short order she’d seduced his keen interest in her and ensured for herself an invitation to this event.

The Kaiser let his gaze stray to Vivianne as he spoke to von Eisenreich. Then he finally let his eyes rest openly on her with a cool smile. “You speak German very well for a French woman, Comptesse,” he said to her. “I detected no accent when we were first introduced.”

She smiled demurely and didn’t bother to correct him on her German lineage.

Annie Oakley

Then the show began and their attention was diverted to the ring below. Vivianne’s heart raced when Annie Oakley finally emerged. The diminutive woman stood facing the royal box in a smartly collared buckskin dress, bedecked with glittering metals from contests she’d won, cowboy hat, and holding her Colt .45.

Von Eisenreich leaned his head close to hers. “Chief Sitting Bull gave her the nickname of ‘Little Sure Shot’ because of her dead shot with a pistol, rifle and shotgun. Did you know that she began handling firearms at the tender age of nine to supply her widowed mother with game and eventually paid off the mortgage on her mother’s house?”

Vivianne let her brows rise in impressed surprise. In truth she knew. She knew everything about the American sharp-shooter. At 90 feet Annie could shoot a dime tossed in the air. With the thin edge of a playing card facing her at 90 feet, she could hit the card and puncture it with five or six more shots as it settled to the ground.

Vivianne felt her mouth go dry; she knew what came next.

With a flourishing turn, Annie faced the royal box and announced, “For my final act, I will attempt to shoot the ashes from the cigar of a lady or gentleman in the audience. “Who will volunteer to hold the cigar?” she asked the audience. Vivianne’s heart pounded. She knew that the little sharpshooter from Cincinnati expected no one to volunteer; Annie had simply asked for laughs. Her attentive manager-husband, Frank Butler, always stepped forward and offered himself. Not this time—

Just as laughter bubbled up in the crowd, Kaiser Wilhelm leapt out of the royal box and strutted into the arena to a stunned audience. Laughter turned to gasps as the Kaiser approached the sharpshooter. Annie Oakley visibly stiffened. In horror, Vivianne thought. The two guards scrambled forward from the rafters but the Kaiser gruffly waved them off. Vivianne marveled at Annie’s cool resolve; after handing the cigar to Wilhelm, the performer paced off her usual distance and the Kaiser lit the cigar with flourish.

Several German policemen rushed into the arena in a panicked attempt to preempt the stunt, but the Kaiser brusquely waved them off too. Then he lifted his head and placed the cigar to his mouth in a pose of a statue.

“No,” Annie said. “In your hand, please, Your Majesty,” she instructed. He looked disappointed but did as she’d asked.

Annie raised her Colt and took aim.

Royal Irish Rifles in the Somme, 1916

Vivianne swallowed the gorge in her throat. This was the moment she’d waited for; the moment for which she’d come. If this volatile and ambitious ruler were removed from the scene, one of the key reasons for World War I would also vanish. An entire world war would likely be averted. She only had to redirect the bullet; it was made of metal, after all. Kill a bully and incriminate and ruin the life of an innocent young woman … in exchange for over two million lives and the prevention of an age of non-stop violence—

Annie fired.

Carrying the wounded and dead out of the battle field

“For those in love with science fiction at its best, The Last Summoner is a complex story of ignored responsibilities and their dire consequences, of love and betrayal that span centures and multiple worlds. Time travel, multiverse travel, immortality, alternate history in which the Nazies have won, not in the twentieth century but way earlier, in the Teutonic age. Angels and mutants, utopias and dystopias, even a Tesla occurrence—everything a science fiction reader could ever desire in a book. A masterfully told story with great characters. Nina Munteanu moves flawlessly from a medieval story to a modern one and everything in between.”—Costi Gurgu, author of RecipeArium

At the mouth of Thompson Creek, ON (photo by Nina Munteanu)

Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press (Vancouver) was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times ‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” was released by Inanna Publications (Toronto) in June 2020.

Cymatics: How Frequency Changes the Very Nature of Matter and Energy

September 12, 2020September 13, 2020 / thealiennextdoor / 4 Comments

Reeds in Otonabee River (photo by Nina Munteanu)

Music can help recover damaged brain function by activating parts of the brain that are nearby—Oliver Sacks

If, indeed God moves us to express that within us which is divine, then poetry is the language of the heart and music is the language of the soul—Nina Munteanu

We are creatures of rhythm; circadian, diurnal, seasonal. Let’s face it; our environment—light especially—affects our behavior, psychologically, physiologically and even socially. For instance, mood-altering chemicals generated in the pineal gland in our brain, are partially affected by the light received from our retina. In an earlier post, entitled “The Mozart Effect: The Power of Music” I discussed how music can heal the body, strengthen the mind and unlock the creative spirit. For instance, music with a pulse of about sixty beats per minute can shift consciousness from the beta wave (ordinary consciousness at 14-20 Hz) toward the alpha range (heightened awareness at 8-13 Hz), enhancing alertness and general well-being.

Our world is composed of energy, light, sound and matter, all expressed at different frequencies.

The study of cymatics, coined by Hans Jenny from the Greek word kyma (wave), explores how sound affects gases, liquids, plasmas and solids and how vibrations, in the broad sense, generate and influence patterns, shapes and moving processes. When sound travels through non-solids it moves in longitudinal waves called compression waves. In matter, the medium is displaced by sound waves, causing it to oscillate at a frequency relative to the sound, and visible patterns emerge.

Water drops in rainfall on Otanabee River, ON (photo by Nina Munteanu)

Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo Galilei, Robert Hooke, and Ernst Chladni investigated this phenomenon in the 1400s, 1500s, 1700s, and 1800s, respectively. In 1967, Hans Jenny, a Swiss doctor, artist, and researcher, published Kymatik-Wellen und Schwingungen mit ihrer Struktur und Dynamik/ Cymatics (The Structure and Dynamics of Waves and Vibrations). Like Chladni two hundred years earlier, Jenny showed what happened when one took various materials like sand, spores, iron filings, water, and viscous substances, and placed them on vibrating metal plates and membranes. What then appeared were shapes and motion-patterns which varied from the nearly perfectly ordered and stationary to those that were turbulently developing, organic, and constantly in motion.

Using crystal oscillators and his invention called a “tonoscope” to set plates and membranes vibrating, Jenny controlled frequency and amplitude/volume to demonstrate that simple frequencies and songs could rearrange the essential molecular structure of water and other materials.

Raindrops falling among reeds in Otonabee River, ON (photo by Nina Munteanu)

Jenny was convinced that biological evolution was a result of vibrations, and that their nature determined the ultimate outcome. He speculated that every cell has its own frequency and that a number of cells with the same frequency create a new frequency which is harmonious with the original, which in its turn possibly formed an organ that also created a new frequency in harmony with the two preceding ones. Jenny was saying that the key to understanding how we can heal the body with the help of tones lies in our understanding of how different frequencies influence genes, cells and various structures in the body.

Boldly extended his tonoscope research into voice and language, Jenny discovered that when the vowels of ancient Hebrew and Sanskrit were pronounced, the sand took the shape of the written symbols for these vowels, while modern languages didn’t generate the same result. This has led spiritual philosophers to ponder if “sacred languages” (including Tibetan and Egyptian) have the power to influence and transform physical reality, to create things through their inherent power, or through the recitation or singing of sacred texts, to heal a person who has gone “out of tune”?

Cymatics photographer and author Alexander Lauterwasser showed that:

Higher frequencies created more intricate and complex patterns
Typical line types were radial and spherical or elliptical lines that repeated the outer form of the perimeter
When asymmetrical shapes developed at certain frequencies, symmetrical shapes always formed in between

In a controversial movie called “Water”, Rustum Roy, professor at the State University of Pennsylvania and Member of the International Academy of Sciences, suggested that water has “memory”, based on the structure it takes on as a result of electromagnetic fields and various frequencies to which it is exposed.

Rain falling among reeds in Otonabee River, ON (photo by Nina Munteanu)

I’m a practicing aquatic scientist and this is what I find fascinating: noting that the human brain is 75% water, it is not surprising that we can be affected by the shape and form of water itself—and, in turn, may shape water with our minds. This is in itself a startling admission and opens up a myriad of controversial topics, which many scientists find hard to reconcile and refuse to investigate, let alone entertain. And, yes, I am edging into the area of metaphysics, of “science fiction”, of “fanciful thinking”. A place populated by heretics who do “questionable science”, those rogue mavericks who dare step outside the realm of traditional science to imagine, to dare ask the unaskable, to dare pursue a truth using unconventional means.

Here’s my point: water is important to us in ways science can’t even begin to explain. Because science can’t yet explain it, should we abandon the potential and its investigation? All good science was once perceived as magic before it was understood.

Let me take it one step further:

I posit that our entire bodies are sending and receiving vibrations at different frequencies with our environment, other people, other animals around us, inanimate objects, even the seemingly ‘empty’ space. Our intimate relationship with frequency and waves has permeated our culture more than you may realize, including the metaphors we have seamlessly adopted in our common language: terms like “bad vibes”, “making waves”, “you can feel the tension”, and “you could cut the air in here with a knife”.

If you think this is all too weird, consider the weirdness of quantum mechanics, which shows us that not only is “solid” matter made up mostly of energy and “empty” space but what makes a solid a chair vs. you sitting on it is the vibration of its energy. Quantum science has demonstrated that light and matter are made of both particles and waves (New Scientist, May 6, 2010) and can exist in two simultaneous states. Let’s consider, for instance, “entanglement” (quantum non-local connection), the notion that particles can be linked in such a way that changing the quantum state of one instantaneously affects the other, even if they are light years apart. And what does it mean when solid flows, ghost-like, through itself under certain conditions? Or parallel universes created by splitting realities? Check out my historical fantasy novel The Last Summoner for a unique take on this popular notion.

Nobel prize-winning physicist Richard Feyman says of the paradoxes presented by quantum mechanics, “the ‘paradox’ is only a conflict between reality and your feeling of what reality ought to be.”

Magic, again… The mind is powerful and graceful in its unanswerable and infinite beauty.

Near shore of Otonabee River early evening, ON (photo by Nina Munteanu)

Reconciling Yesterday’s Future with Today’s Past

July 25, 2020June 20, 2020 / thealiennextdoor / Leave a comment

A worker tied to “the machine” in Fritz Lang’s Metropolis

Our predictions and visions of the future are certainly predicated on our perceptions of the present and the past. So, what happens when yesterday’s “future” collides with today’s past? Well, retro-fiction, alternate history and steam-punk, you quip, eyes askance with mischief: edgy sociopathic Sherlock Holmes with bipolar or obsessive /compulsive tendencies; flying aircraft carriers in Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, robot-like workers of Metropolis…

But what of the vision itself? History provides us with a panoply of realized predictions in speculative fiction:

In 1961, Stanislaw Lem’s novel Return From the Stars predicted the invention of the touch pad, iPhone, iPad and Kindle. The telescreens that monitored the citizens of George Orwell’s Oceania in his dystopian 1949 novel Nineteen Eighty-Four was reflected, twenty years later, in the first closed circuit TV (CCTV) installed in the United Kingdom. Almost a century before the Internet was conceived, Mark Twain alluded to the future of a global, pervasive information network. In his 1968 novel 2001: A Space Odyssey Arthur C. Clarke discussed a future where people scanned headlines online and got their news through RSS feeds. In his 1888 novel Looking Backward, Edward Bellamy describes a “future” society in 2000 where money is eliminated due to the proliferation of plastic credit cards. Philip K. Dick’s Minority Report accurately predicted personalized ads, voice-controled homes, facial and optical recognition, and gesture-based computing. Other advances and usage of technology have been predicted in speculative literature, including body scans, RFIDs, spy-surveillance, and touch screen interfaces.

Tom Cruise’s character using gesture-based computing in the film “Minority Report”

1950s ad for flying car of future

But there have been many speculations not realized. Where are the flying cars? Where are the moon colonies, rotating space stations and space elevator? What of the envisioned totalitarian states not realized; civilizations not demolished; utopias not developed?

Are those past dystopian or utopian visions failed attempts at predicting a future that eluded their writers? Or is it a question more of defining vision in speculative writing?

Ray Bradbury suggested that “the function of science fiction is not only to predict the future but to prevent it.”

There are, in most cases, no technological impediments to the flying car, the jetpack, and moon-bases; only cultural ones. “These SF predictions ought to be viewed as visions of where we could be, as opposed to where we will be, or, keeping Bradbury in mind, visions of where we don’t want to go and, thankfully, have mostly managed to avoid to date,” says Steve Davidson of Grasping for the Wind. “Perhaps it’s all cultural,” he adds.

How and why is it that our contemporary view of dystopian and utopian speculative fiction has shifted from an open-minded imaginative acceptance of “predictions” nested within a cautionary or visionary tale to a knowledge-based demand for largely unattainable predictive accuracy?

George Orwell wrote his dystopian satire in 1949 about a mind-controlled society in response to the Cold War. The book was a metaphor “against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism,” said Orwell in his 1947 essay Why I Write, adding, “Good prose is like a windowpane.” Was Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four a failed novel because the real 1984 didn’t turn out quite like his 1984? Hugo Award-winning novelist Robert J. Sawyer suggests that we consider it a success, “because it helped us avoid that future. So just be happy that the damn dirty apes haven’t taken over yet.”

Dystopian and utopian literature, like all good allegory, provides us with scenarios predicated on a concrete premise. What if we kept doing this?…What if that went on unchecked?… What if we decided to end this?…

A hundred years before 1984, Edward Bellamy published Looking Backward, “a romance of an ideal world”. It tells the story of a young man who falls into a hypnotic sleep in 1887, waking up in 2000 when the world has evolved into a great socialist paradise. It sold over a million copies and ranked only behind Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ as the top best-seller of the era. Looking Backward laid out a futuristic socialism, or was it a socialistic future?

At any rate, it influenced a large number of intellectuals and generated an unprecedented political mass movement. The book spawned experiments in communal living and fed socialist movements that promoted the nationalization of all industry and the elimination of class distinctions. Bellamy’s book was cited in many Marxist polemic works. Groups all over the world praised and embraced its ideals: Crusading Protestant ministers, American feminists, Australian trade unionists, British town planners, Bolshevik propagandists, French technocrats, German Zionists, and Dutch welfare-state advocates.

Bellamy’s conviction that cooperation among humans is healthier than competition formed the basis of Looking Backward. He predicted a revolution in retail that resembled today’s warehouse clubs and big-box stores. He also predicted a card system much like a modern debit card and people using enhanced telephone lines to listen to shows and music.

“Socialism, of course, had different connotations in the 19th century when it rose, principally as a backlash to the brutalities of industrialization and the exploitation of the workers by the ruling class,” says Tony Long of Wired Magazine. Bellamy’s socialism is perhaps best described as a syndicalism than what most of us think of as socialism today. Long somberly adds, “Were he alive today, Bellamy might note, with interest, that while the worst excesses of the industrial age are gone, the exploitation continues. Had Bellamy lived to the ripe old age of 150, he no doubt would have been disappointed to find capitalism running amok, and his fellow man no less greedy and self-serving than in his own time. But he didn’t live to be 150. In fact, Bellamy was still a relatively young man when he died of tuberculosis in 1898.”

So, what happens when history catches up to the vision?

In a foreward to a later printing of Brave New World years after it was first published, Aldous Huxley explained why, when given the chance to revise the later edition, he left it exactly as it was initially written twenty years earlier:

Chronic remorse, as all the moralists are agreed, is almost an undesirable sentiment. If you have behaved badly, repent, make what amends you can and address yourself to the task of behaving better next time. On no account brood over your wrongdoing. Rolling in the muck is not the best way of getting clean.

Art also has its morality, and many of the rules of this morality are the same as, or at least analogous to, the rules of ordinary ethics. Remorse, for example is as undesirable in relation to our bad art as it is in relation to our bad behavior. The badness should be hunted out, acknowledged and, if possible, avoided in the future. To pore over the literary shortcomings of twenty years ago, to attempt to patch a faulty work into the perfection it missed at its first execution, to spend one’s middle age in trying to mend the artistic sins committed and bequeathed by that different person who was oneself in youth–all this is surely vain and futile. And that is why this new Brave New World is the same as the old one. Its defects as a work of art are considerable; but in order to correct them I should have to rewrite the book–and in the process of rewriting, as an older, other person, I should probably get rid not only of some of the faults of the story, but also of such merits as it originally possessed. And so, resisting the temptation to wallow in artistic remorse, I prefer to leave both well and ill alone and to think about something else.

And with that, I leave you with a quote:

“…the past gives you an identity and the future holds the promise of salvation, of fulfillment in whatever form. Both are illusions.”–Eckhart Tolle

Snowing in New York City (photo by Nina Munteanu)

Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press (Vancouver) was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times ‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” was released by Inanna Publications (Toronto) in June 2020.

Vision 2020 and Water Is…

May 23, 2020June 12, 2020 / thealiennextdoor / Leave a comment

In February 2020, I was invited to speak and do workshops with over a hundred Grade 11 and 12 students about the future in the “2020 Vision into the Future” conference at Wilfrid Laurier University in Brantford, Ontario.

Keynote speaker Greg Lindsay talks to students at Sanderson Centre

Journalist, urbanist and futurist Greg Lindsay gave a rousing keynote speech to start the conference. Greg spoke about the future of cities, technology, and mobility. He is the director of applied research at NewCities and director of strategy at its mobility offshoot CoMotion. He also co-authored the international bestseller Aerotropolis: The Way We’ll Live Next.

I joined a suite of technologists, visionaries and other scientists in presenting various scenarios of the future through workshops and seminars.

Workshop subjects included quantum cryptography, autonomous vehicles, flying cars, robotic surgery, zero waste, computer glasses, and my workshop “writing science fiction.”

Instructive seminars included topics such as feeding 9 billion people, mental health, AI & computers, the science and meaning of water, urban development, the future of transportation and space exploration.

How to Write Science Fiction

Top choice image prompt for storytelling

I gave two workshops on how to write science fiction. The workshop began with a brief discussion on what a story is (and is not) and a summary of the key tools of writing good story (e.g. premise, plot, theme, character, and setting) with a focus on world-building and the role of science.

Each group then set out to create the framework for a story based on a premise from an image prompt and shared what they’d put together. In one session we all worked together with me scribing on one whiteboard, creating together as a class; in another session, small groups formed and created their own story among four to five members as I went from team to team.

Next popular storytelling image (cover illustration for “Ecology of Story” by Anne Moody)

Amazing stories emerged in both cases from the image prompts chosen. Students demonstrated imaginative, mature and original premises and carried through with thoughtful and imaginative plot, theme and character journeys. I was very impressed.

The Science and Meaning of Water

In this seminar I gave a summary of water’s life-giving anomalous properties on Earth and discussed the history and field of limnology (study of freshwater). I explored our history with water (including our impacts) and the implications of climate change on our future with water on the planet. Points of interest included water’s many weird properties, water’s ubiquity and its origins, the hydrological cycle, and the often strange adaptations of life with (or without) water.

We then discussed future implications of water scarcity (and geopolitical conflict) and some of the things individuals and communities can do. Much of the talk drew from my recent book Water Is… The Meaning of Water.

Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press (Vancouver) was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times ‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” will be released by Inanna Publications (Toronto) in June 2020.

Amazing Cover Art, Part 1: Tomislav Tikulin and Costi Gurgu

August 4, 2018August 2, 2018 / thealiennextdoor / Leave a comment

In my article “Should You Judge a Book by its Cover”, I wrote about the importance of cover art for book sales and to maintain integrity and satisfaction with the story inside. In the article, I pointed out that, “If you don’t know the author of the book, the nature—and implied promise—of the cover becomes even more important. If the book does not deliver on the promise of the cover, it will fail with many readers despite its intrinsic value. A broken promise is still a broken promise. I say cover—not necessarily the back jacket blurb—because the front cover is our first and most potent introduction to the quality of the story inside. How many of us have picked up a book, intrigued by its alluring front cover, read the blurb that seemed to resonate with the title and image, then upon reading our cherished purchase been disillusioned with the story and decided we disliked it and its author?”

Liquid Silver’s romance / SF cover

Cover art provides an important aspect of writer and publisher branding. Cover artists understand this and address the finer nuances of the type and genre of the story to resonate with the reader and their expectations of story. This includes the image/illustration, typology, and overall design of the cover. A cover for a work of literary fiction will look quite different from a work of fantasy or romance. Within a genre, subtle qualities provide more clues—all of which the cover artist grasps with expertise.

I’ve been fortunate in my history as a professional writer to have had exceptional art work on the books I’ve written or collections and anthologies I’ve participated in (see the mosaic below of many but not all the covers my work has been associated with).

For most of my books, my publisher provided me with a direct link to the cover artist (e.g., Dragon Moon Press, Edge Publishing, eXtasy Books, Liquid Silver Books, Starfire, Pixl Press) and I retained some creative control. I even found and brought in the cover artist for two projects I had with Starfire.

Tomislav Tikulin and “The Last Summoner”

Dragon Moon’s SF cover

Croation artist Tomislav Tikulin was the artist my Dragon Moon publisher had found for my 2007 book “Darwin’s Paradox”. For Darwin, I worked closely with Tikulin, who created the compelling hard science fiction cover of “future Toronto” that has attracted readers to the book for years. Tikulin has done cover designs for many publishers and bestselling writers from Ray Bradbury’s Dandelion Wine and Arthur C. Clarke’s Rendezvous with Rama to Amazing Stories Magazine.

Starfire’s fantasy cover

In perusing Tikulin’s website one day, I was transported by one of his illustrations—of an awestruck knight standing knee deep in a mire within a huge drowned cathedral. Shafts of golden light from the vaulted ceiling angled across, bathing the mire and the bemused knight beneath. There was a powerful story in that image, I thought, and wrote a whole book based on it: “The Last Summoner”. Imagine the feeling when I approached Tikulin to licence the image and then my Starfire publisher to use it—and both agreed! You’ll have to read the book to find out why the image was so important to the overall story. Graphic artist Costi Gurgu took Tikulin’s image and used his typology and design skills to create an extraordinary front and back cover and spine. You can learn more about Tikulin in my interview with him on The Alien Next Door.

Costi Gurgu and “The Splintered Universe Trilogy”

Starfire’s SF cover

I met Costi Gurgu and his wife Vali Gurgu at a science fiction convention in Montreal in 2009. Costi and Vali were successful graphic artists working on magazine covers and interiors for top magazines in Toronto. When I eventually moved there to teach at the University of Toronto, I discussed cover design with Costi. I was working on a detective thriller in space with kick-ass female detective and Galactic Guardian, Rhea Hawke. I’d initially envisioned the book as one entire novel with three parts, but it very soon became apparent to me that it was three actual books in a trilogy. The Splintered Universe Trilogy consists of Outer Diverse, Inner Diverse, and Metaverse.

I was intrigued by what Costi designed: a “Triptych” for the three books of The Splintered Universe Trilogy. In an interview I did on The Alien Next Door, I asked him what inspired him to come up with it and what did he like about it? Costi replied:

“Your main character, Rhea, undergoes a certain evolution from a regular human being to… let’s just say something else. And that evolution has three parts, one for each book of the trilogy and it also has a touch of divine. So, the triptych design, so often used for religious paintings, fits like a glove on the entire concept.”

Starfire’s SF cover

I was very taken by how the design for the triptych carried a powerful image that conjures a portal or gateway into another world (which is what the trilogy is about). The reader is drawn into an infinite landscape, looking in, and Rhea is looking out from within in Outer Diverse, bursting through in Inner Diverse, and walking outside with confidence in Metaverse. Costi explained the meaning behind the symbols and colours he used: “The initial idea was for the red ring to be a sort of mapping device and a radar combined into one, since Rhea travels great distances in her quest. Then I realized it might as well be a portal device on top of everything else and serve all her travelling needs.

There were two options —either we would look with her outside, to whatever target she had, or look towards her. I thought that it would be more powerful if we could look towards her and see her determined face, see the unflinching resolution in her eyes, while she’s pondering her next move and readying herself to use the device once again. But to look towards her and see her in a confining room of a space ship, or such, would have defeated the purpose. So, I needed to have her against the infinite landscape as the backdrop. She is in a continuous journey to discover herself and this journey takes her literally through the infinite spaces of not just one universe.”

Costi also shared some of the process in creating a cover design:

Starfire’s SF cover

“Technically speaking, I always start with sketches on paper, which I later scan. I mainly use Adobe Photoshop, but for this illustration I had to use Adobe Illustrator as well. Obviously, the layout and the typography were done in Adobe InDesign.”

Costi’s wife, Vali, was the model for Rhea Hawke. Some of the additional shoots can be seen in the Youtube book trailer). Costi shared that, “I had to decide how to treat her image. I could have gone towards a more glamorous, shiny look, like in a fashion image, or I could just simply keep it more realistic… I chose to keep it that way, because I wanted to offer a realistic image of an ex-police officer: a woman who was used to fighting and chasing criminals, rather than taking care of her appearance.”

You can read the complete interview with Costi on The Alien Next Door.

All Nina Munteanu books can be found on most Amazon sites.

Microsoft Word - Publication-COVERS-all-2017.docx

Sampling of publication cover art for works by Nina Munteanu (to 2017)

Nina Munteanu is an ecologist and internationally published author of award-nominated speculative novels, short stories and non-fiction. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s recent book is the bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” (Mincione Edizioni, Rome). Her latest “Water Is…” is currently an Amazon Bestseller and NY Times ‘year in reading’ choice of Margaret Atwood.

Nina Munteanu Interviewed by Simon Rose on Fantasy Fiction Focus

July 14, 2018March 30, 2020 / thealiennextdoor / Leave a comment

On Fantasy Fiction Focus Nina Munteanu discusses with author Simon Rose about the writing process, the emerging hybrid publishing industry, the importance of branding yourself as an author, and what can authors do to successfully market themselves and their writing. She and Simon discuss the writing community and the importance of conventions and festivals for aspiring writers.

The interview was done in 2015 but what Simon and Nina discuss remains topical and germane.

Nina Munteanu is an ecologist, limnologist and internationally published author of award-nominated speculative novels, short stories and non-fiction. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books.