National Observer Praises Nina Munteanu’s “The Way of Water”

May 10, 2018March 31, 2020 / thealiennextdoor / 2 Comments

Nina Munteanu’s “The Way of Water” and the anthology in which it appears was recently praised by Emilie Moorhouse in Prism International Magazine, in a review entitled “Courage and Imagination in Cli-Fi: Canadian Tales of Climate Change”. The review was also carried by the National Observer:

“The seventeen stories in this book edited by Bruce Meyer examine how humankind might struggle with the potential devastation of climate change in the near or distant future. Soon after I finished reading the book, Cape Town—known in precolonial times as “the place where clouds gather”—announced that it was only a few months away from what it called “Day Zero,” the day the city would officially run out of water, making the similarities between fiction and reality more than unsettling.

Munteanu’s story is set in a futuristic Canada that has been mined of all its water by thirsty corporations who have taken over control of the resource. Rain has not fallen on Canadian soil in years due to advances in geoengineering and weather manipulation preventing rain clouds from going anywhere north of the Canada-US border. . . I believe that fiction offers up two much-needed ingredients in the fight to prevent climate change: courage and imagination. It is my hope that more fiction writers will take up the task of writing in this promising new genre and use their imagination to inspire readers to collectively work towards a more sustainable future.”—Emilie Moorhouse, Prism International

“The Way of Water” (La natura dell’acqua) was translated by Fiorella Smoscatello for Mincione Edizioni. Simone Casavecchia of SoloLibri.net, describes “The Way of Water” in her review of the Italian version:

” ‘The Way of Water’ is to be ‘a shapeshifter,’ says Nina Munteanu in her dystopian narrative, where she draws a dark scenario and, unfortunately, not too improbable in the near future. In the universe of the story water has become a very precious commodity: rationed consumption, credits (always of water) accounted for and debts collected…The Chinese multinationals have exchanged the public debt of other states with their water reserves with which, now, they can control the climate, deciding when and where it will rain. Who understands this dirty game has been silenced, like Hilda’s mother, a limnologist, inexplicably arrested and never returned; like the daughter of two water vendors, mysteriously disappeared, after having decided not to bow to economic powers: Hanna, who now prefers secure virtual identities to evanescent real appearances. Water. The two, like the covalent bond of a complex molecule, develop a relationship of attraction and repulsion that will first make them meet and then, little by little, will change into a tormented love but, at the same time, so pure as to cause Hilda at great risk, to make an extreme decision that will allow Hanna to realize the strange prophecy that the internal voice, perhaps the consciousness of water, had resonated in the two women for a long time.

Nina Munteanu recounts that this element is also a form of love; a story to read, not only to deal with the possible but, above all, to understand that the time still available to “love” may be less than what we believe.”—Simone Casavecchia, SoloLibri.net

Derek Newman-Stille of Speculating Canada, offers the following insight on “The Way of Water”:

“The Way of Water” will also appear alongside a collection of international works (including authors from Greece, Nigeria, China, India, Russia, Mexico, USA, UK, Italy, Canada (yours truly), Cuba, and Zimbabwe) in Bill Campbell and Francesco Verso’s Rosarium Publishing / Future Fiction’s anthology “New Dimensions in International Science Fiction” in April 2018.

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.

When Do You Know Your Story Is Finished?

May 6, 2018April 4, 2020 / thealiennextdoor / 1 Comment

Spalted maple log (photo by Nina Munteanu)

A student of mine once asked me how many drafts it took to get the final version of a story. I answered cagily: as many as you need. I wasn’t trying to be cheeky or elusive. In truth, this is a question that only you can answer; and it will be different with each story you write.

George Lucas once said in an interview about the remaking of Star Wars that in the film industry, projects were never finished; only abandoned. What he meant by this was that at some point in the creative and revision process of polishing a story, you have to stop and show it to the world. Let your baby walk and stand on its own.

This is a big step for all beginning writers and many will freeze. Terrified at the idea of failure or censure, they end up sabotaging their own work. If you’re emotionally or psychologically not ready for the consequences of getting published, then you will falter, procrastinate, forever fuss over your creations and convince yourself that it isn’t ready. In truth, it’s you who aren’t ready.

This is a shame because to have written an entire novel is a great accomplishment. You’ve already done what over 80% of those who embark on a book don’t do: finish it. To halt the process by entering a perpetual cycle of revision is admitting defeat when you have really won the major battle. It’s like that fatal stumble on the last leg of a homerun.

If the idea is to publish, then you need to give yourself a kind of deadline or goal, based on something that makes sense to you and is achievable. This could even include a time deadline.

Robert J. Sawyer’s response to the question of “when do you stop revising?” was: “When you’ve taken out all the boring bits.” That may seem on the face of it either too simple or too abstract. But, in fact, he is right on the mark. However, to truly achieve that conclusion and consequently get your manuscript to where it is meant to be without you lingering like a frightened ghost, you need to accurately perceive what “boring” is. In order to do this you need to do several things.

The first is to gain objectivity of your work. You accomplish this by setting it aside for a while and letting it “breathe” (really, you’re letting yourself breathe). By distancing yourself a little from your work, you are able to return with a fresh outlook and read it more like a reader. Your “boring” meter will be running better this way and you will be in a better position to pick out redundancies, overly long exposition and detail, lack of context, “talking heads”, lack of action or tension, and confusing or awkward sentences. The other thing you gain with distance is the ability to describe your book’s theme and major plot. What is it really about? You need to reach the point where you can describe it in a couple of sentences or even a few words as you would describe a movie you like to a curious friend who hasn’t seen it yet.

patterns-Spalting log and blu-green stain fungus LR

Carbon cushion fungus spalting maple log (photo by Nina Munteanu)

Once you’ve gained some objectivity, you can critique each scene and each character for his or her plot purpose within that central plot and theme. You can also assess each sub-plot’s role within the major plot and theme. When every paragraph within every scene within every chapter of your story scintillates with purpose and meaning, you have accomplished your task of removing the boring bits. Now you have a story that is finished.

Art is self-expression and expression is a reflection of the culture and time in which you live. Stories are a snapshot of time and place. Treat your art like life; some revision is good but at some point you need to just LIVE. Let go of your work and move on to the next chapter.

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.

Sensual Writing and Why I Love the Smell of Smoke

April 22, 2018January 25, 2023 / thealiennextdoor / Leave a comment

Prospect Point, NS (photo by Nina Munteanu)

Last week, as I was driving along a winding country road on my way to Bridgewater from Lunenburg, I ran across the smoke of a small fire. They were obviously doing some roadside spring clearing.

Without thinking, I slid the window open and inhaled deeply. I was preparing to experience the exquisite “taste of home”. As I breathed in the aroma of burning vegetation, memories of outdoor campfires and old wood-burning stoves flooded in from my childhood. A goofy smile slid across my face as I bathed in the joyful innocence of adventure, wonder and the comfort of the hearth. I’d had a wonderful childhood and the smell of smoke brought it back to me in its full glory.

What does this have to do with sensual writing? Everything. Storytelling shares universal truth through metaphor, delivered from the heart. Sensual writing doesn’t just involve making sure to include at least a few senses like sight, sound, smell, taste and touch in your narrative. To write sensually involves much more than the simple description of a sense, though this is certainly the first step (and something all too often neglected by novice writers). To not connect a described sense to a memory or emotion is to miss a very important opportunity as a storyteller: that of enlightening the reader on some aspect of the point of view (POV) character experiencing the sense (things like their history, the quality and nature of their relationships, their viewpoints, education, prejudices, how and what they’ve experienced in their life).

Here’s what I mean:

EXAMPLE 1: Ben walked into the Grand Banker Pub and immediately caught the tantalizing aroma of garlic and pears amid the din of jubilant laughter, cackles and desultory conversation. The amber light enhanced the rich tones of nautical oak. Ben saw some friends drinking in the corner and sauntered toward them, smiling.

Farm near Liverpool, NS (photo by Nina Munteanu)

EXAMPLE 2: Ben stopped at the door of the Grand Banker Pub, inhaling the exquisite aroma of garlic and pears amid the din of jubilant laughter, cackles and desultory conversation. For a moment he was back on the boat, reliving the party that changed his life. He’d stopped eating pears after that. Ben caught sight of his friends drinking in the corner, beneath the amber light. Like a sailor seizing a rope, he sauntered toward them, a huge smile pasted on his face.

The first example describes; the second example emotes. The first example nicely describes the place but it doesn’t provide us with any information about Ben, except that he likes the aroma of garlic and pears. We don’t know why. In the second example, his senses are used to hint at intrigue linked to memories that, in turn, are linked to the associated sense—in this case the smell of garlic and pears. This is the power of sensual writing. Bringing it back home.

How the Women of “The Expanse” Are Expanding Our Worldview

April 5, 2018June 4, 2025 / thealiennextdoor / 6 Comments

Something is changing for women—and for men too. I’m talking about storytelling, both in literature and in film. Only a few years ago, no one would have predicted the success of Wonder Woman, which portrays a well-rounded (gylanic) female hero as both “badass” warrior (strong, determined and violent) and kind (compassionate, nurturing, empathetic and inclusive). Sadly, its release in 2017 stirred a backlash of mysogynist censure from some males who support—like strident insecure Trump-ets—a male-dominated androcratic world where a submissive demure woman is admired as “feminine” and a determined mindful woman considered as betraying her gender. The film was a box office hit. Wonder Woman grossed $822 million (highest-grossing superhero origin film of all time). And a significant number of viewers were women.

The Androcratic Hero

The male hero stereotype in literature and films of western neoliberal-corporate culture—and science fiction particularly—has often been characterized by strength, courage, integrity & honor, intelligence, assertiveness, single-mindedness, faith in his quest, and boundless determination: he is the altruist warrior, often acting alone against an unfair society through his conscience: all traits honored, respected and esteemed in men. In a woman, these Boadicean qualities often taint her as “bitch” “bossy” or “cold”. She may be considered unwomanly, unlady-like, intimidating, and untouchable (as in lesbian).

In the androcratic model, a woman “hero” often presupposes she shed her feminine nurturing qualities of compassion, kindness, tenderness, and inclusion, to express those hero-defining qualities that are typically considered “male”. I have seen too many 2-dimensional female characters limited by their own stereotype in the science fiction genre—particularly in the adventure/thriller sub-genre. If they aren’t untouchable goddesses or “witches” in a gynocratic paradigm, they are often delegated to the role of enabling the “real hero” on his journey through their belief in him: as Trinity enables Neo; Hermione enables Harry; Mary Jane enables Spiderman; Lois enables Superman; etc. etc. etc.

In so many androcratic storylines, the female—no matter how complex, interesting and tough she starts out being—demures to the male lead. This returns us to the clichéd role of the woman supporting the leading man to complete his hero’s journey—without considering her own. And this often means serving as the prize for his chivalry. We see this in so many action thrillers and action adventures today that promote the “hero’s journey” story trope. There’s even a name for it: the Trinity Syndrome.

Just four years ago, in a post on women heroes in literature, movies and pop culture, I quoted Gitesh Pandya, editor of a box office analyst site, who argued that this is because female-driven action movies have a hard time selling. “Most of the action films that have become huge hits are either male-driven or ensemble.” According to Pandy, “The (SF action) film industry has been male-dominated for so long, the people who are creating and financing these films typically put men in there as heroes.”

The Expanse Challenges the Androcratic Trope

Miller and Octavia Muss

In 2015, Syfy released Season 1 of The Expanse, a stylish and intelligent science fiction (SF) TV series set 200 years in the future when humanity has colonized the moon, Mars and the Asteroid Belt to mine minerals and water. The series is based on the novel series by James S.A. Corey with first novel in 2011 being “Leviathan Wakes”. Humanity has split three ways culturally, ethnically and even biologically: Earth is currently run by the United Nations; Mars is an independent state, devoted to terraforming with high technology; and the Belt contains a diverse mix of mining colonies, settlers, workers and entrepreneurs. Belters’ physiology differ from their Earth or Mars cousins, given their existence in low gravity.

The Expanse is a sophisticated SF film noir thriller that elevates the space opera sub-genre with a meaningful metaphoric exploration of issues relevant in today’s world—issues of resource allocation, domination & power struggle, values, prejudice, and racism. Critic Maureen Ryan of Variety says, “It’s to the show’s credit that it is openly political, and takes on issues of class, representation and exploitation.”

Women of “The Expanse” as Heroic Agents of Change

These issues are explored well through its female protagonists with subtle nuances of multi-layered social commentary sewn into virtually every interaction.

Julie Mao (Florence Faivre)

Julie Mao (Florence Faivre) is an Earther and “the richest bachelorette in the system” according to Detective Miller, who is contracted by his boss to “kidnap” the “spoiled” wayward daughter of corporate magnate Jules Pierre Mao and return her home before she embarrasses him further. Julie joined the hard core faction of the OPA (Outer Planet Association, led by Anderson Dawes as an activist organization that sells itself as a liberator for Belters but is really a terrorist revolutionary group, looking to shift the balance of power); she naively joined to help the lowly belters achieve justice and a voice in the oppressive squeeze by Martian and Earth corporate interests. In “Back to the Butcher”, a colleague of Julie’s relates how she selflessly helped injured minors on Calisto in a tunnel collapse with cadmium poisoning: “I never saw her shed a tear over the fact that she’d have to take anti-cancer meds for the rest of her life.” The only time she cried, he shares, was when she was acknowledged as being a true “beltalowda.”

Chrisjen Avasarala (Shohreh Aghdashloo)

Chrisjen Avasarala (Shohreh Aghdashloo) is the U.N. Deputy Undersecretary on Earth and a brilliant 23rd-century Machiavelli. She will stop at nothing in her search for the truth, including gravity torturing a Belter or playing her friends and contacts like chess pieces to find answers. What makes Chrisjen far more interesting than, say a Circe or Claire Underwood, is that her scheming—as reprehensible as it may be at times—comes from a higher calling, not from lust for power or self-serving greed. She’s seeks the truth. And, like Miller, she struggles with a conscience. Chrisjen is a complex and paradoxical character. Her passionate and unrelenting search for the truth together with unscrupulous methods, make her one of the most interesting characters in the growing intrigue of The Expanse. Avasarala is a powerful character on many levels—none the least in her potent presence (thanks to Shohreh Aghdashloo’s powerful performance); when Avasarala walks into a scene, all eyes turn to her.

Naomi Nagata (Dominique Tipper)

Naomi Nagata (Dominique Tipper) is a Belter who grew up on prospecting ships in the Belt and Outer Planets. An extremely talented engineer with a mysterious past of regret and secret pain, Naomi uses arcane abilities to save the ship and her crew. “I have no resentments,” she tells her Martian interrogator. “I don’t believe in causes.” While she makes a point of expressing no allegiances, the Martians accuse her of being an OPA operative and she finds herself ironically defending the Belt and Belters in the struggle between Earth and Mars. “We need to stick together,” she tells fellow Belter Miller and helps Fred Johnson’s team. Driven to help those in need, Naomi selflessly puts herself in harm’s way to save Belters used as lab rats on Eros or those left to die on Ganymede after a Mars and Earth skirmish. In an intimate moment with Holden after the atrocity on Eros with the proto-molecule experiment, Naomi reminds him: “We did not choose this but this is our fight now. We’re the only ones who know what’s going on down there; we’re the only ones with a chance to stop it.”

Camina Drummer (Cara Gee)

Camina Drummer (Cara Gee) is a hard-calculating Belter who used to work for Anderson Dawes and is currently second in command for Fred Johnson (a previous U.N. officer and ‘the butcher of Anderson Station’ currently helping the OPA) on Tycho Station. A complex character with mysterious connections and intuitive skills for people, Drummer gives one the impression that she can nimbly navigate between hard-line OPA and Fred’s Earther-version of OPA justice for Belters. In “Pyre”, she shows her mettle when—after being shot and held hostage by a militant faction on Tycho—she finds the strength to summarily execute them.

Bobbie Draper (Frankie Adams)

Bobbie Draper (Frankie Adams) is a staunch hard-fighting Martian marine who dreams of a terraformed Mars with lakes and vegetation and breathable atmosphere. Because of Earth’s Vesta blockade, Draper realizes that she will not realize her childhood dream of seeing Mars “turned from a lifeless rock into a garden.” The blockade forced Mars to ramp up its military at the expense of terraforming. Draper laments that, “with all those resources moved to the military, none of us will live to see an atmosphere over Mars” and bears a strong resentment against Earth. However, when Bobbie discovers her own government’s culpability with an Earth weapons manufacturer that used her own marines as guinea pigs, she chooses honour over loyalty and defects to seek justice.

Anna Volovodov (Elizabeth Mitchell)

Reverend Doctor Annushka (Anna) Volovodov (Elizabeth Mitchell) is a gay Methodist doctor (married to a woman and with a daughter) who is introduced in Season 3 as she struggles through a mob of anti-war protestors to enter the United Nations building on Earth. When a young man collapses through the barricade and breaks his wrist, Anna asks him, “Is this your first protest?” then calmly and firmly directs a surly guard to help him, handling the situation with firm grace–even after being injured in the confrontation.

The Secretary General (who she had a previous friendship that soured over some dubious event) has called Anna in to write a stirring speech to unite Earth behind the war erupting between Earth and Mars. Anna enters the political intrigue with naive hope and is badly used; but her inner strength, keen intelligence and courage propels her on an amazing trajectory of influence to the outer reaches of the solar system where first contact is imminent. Like a quiet summer rainstorm, Anna brings a fresh perspective on heroism through faith, hope and inclusion.

Women as Gylanic Heroes

The gylanic hero is gaining momentum in science fiction and action-thrillers; the gylanic hero—embraced mostly by women—teaches us what humanity needs now more than ever: the heroic gifts of altruism, compassion, faith, courage, passion, and endurance. She is already there, in movies and TV shows like Lucy, Edge of Tomorrow, Hunger Games, Divergence, Orphan Black, Farscape, Battlestar Galactica and The Expanse: fighting the dragons of prejudice, ignorance, cruelty, greed and intolerance–in partnership with her male counterpart.

When we dispense with gender-bias in defining heroism in story, we display maturity as a species. I think of my favorite stories in literature, peopled by men and women; all heroes: Tess of the d’Urbervilles, Fahrenheit 451, King Lear, Solaris, The Grapes of Wrath, 1984, Doctor Zhivago, Brave New World, Martian Chronicles, and To Kill a Mockingbird — to name just a few. The gender of the hero I empathized with was irrelevant. What remained important was their sensibilities and their actions of respect and integrity on behalf of humanity, all life and the planet.

Gylany: a social system based on equality of men and women
Androcracy: a form of governing system in which rulers are male (patriarchal rule)
Gynocracy: as with androcracy, an authoritarian rule by women over men (matriarchal rule)

A list of SF books and films with whole and relevant female heroes–gylanic heroes– follows below. There are many more. I’ve listed these because they are ones I enjoyed and know, several being my own. Please add yours:

GYLANIC HEROES (portraying women as agents of change equal with men)

Contact by Carl Sagan (Simon and Schuster) 1985. A woman’s quest into the unknown for benevolent intelligence in the universe.
Beggars in Spain by Nancy Kress (Harper Collins). 1993. A story that examines social consequences to transhumanist generic engineering.
A Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood (Anchor). 1998. A chilling fable of the near future, about a monotheocratic government where women are strictly controlled and assigned roles.
Cordelia’s Honor by Lois McMaster Bujold (Baen). 1999. A woman’s journey through deception and betrayal to find honour.
His Dark Materials Trilogy by Philip Pullman (Laurel Leaf). 2003. A fantasy alternate world adventure about a young girl who discovers that the fate of the universe lies in her hands.
Battlestar Galactica TV series by Ronald D. Moore. 2004. This second iteration of space “noah’s arc” is largely steered by key female agents of change in a gender-blind universe from complex pugilistic fighter jock and sly but intuitive politician, to love-seeking humanistic robot—all on a significant hero’s journey.
Darwin’s Paradox by Nina Munteanu (Dragon Moon Press). 2007. An eco-thriller about a woman unjustly exiled for murder and her quest for justice in a world ruled by technology and scientists.
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (Scholastic Press). 2008. A series of books about teens forced to fight to the death on television.
The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood (McClelland and Stewart). 2009. Toby and Ren must survive the apocalypse described in the previous novel, each reminiscing about their time in the God’s Gardeners religious movement and the events that led to their current situations.
The Steel Seraglio by Mike Carey, Linda Carey, Louise Carey and Nimit Malavia (Chizine Publications). 2012. A novel about the women of a harem in an ancient Middle Eastern kingdom, who forge themselves into an army after they’re exiled from the city of their birth — and then return to claim the city for themselves.
The Splintered Universe Trilogy by Nina Munteanu (Starfire). 2011-2014. This trilogy, starting with Outer Diverse, follows the quest of Galactic Guardian Rhea Hawke, who must solve the massacre of a spiritual sect that takes her on her own metaphoric journey of self-discovery to realize power in compassion and forgiveness.
Divergent by Veronica Roth (Katherine Tegen Books). 2012. a young girl overcomes her assigned caste in a dystopian Chicago to realize her true self-identity, revealed to be dangerous to the very existence of her ordered society
The Last Summoner by Nina Munteanu (Starfire). 2012. A young baroness discovers that her strange powers enable her to change history—but at a cost. Vivianne begins her journey in the year 1410, on the eve of a great battle. She dreams of her Ritter (knight), who will save her from her ill-fated marriage and the strange events that follow. But early on, she realizes that she is the Ritter she dreams about.
Leviathan Wakes & series by James S.A. Corey (Orbit Books). 2011. A high-stakes near-future space-colonizing conflict that brings strong female protagonists of varying cultural, ethnic and political influence into key roles as agents of change.
The 100 TV series by Jason Tothenberg. 2014. In this post-apocalyptic Earth adventure, several women protagonists share key roles in determining the fate of humanity in violent change.
The Expanse TV series by Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby, Syfy. 2015. The exemplary TV series based on the James S.A. Corey 7-book series.
Missions TV series by Julien Lacombe, Ami Cohen, and Henri Debeurme. 2017. The protagonist of this space race to Mars is a psychologist, who discovers her bizarre and personal connection to Mars, which promises to affect humanity’s destiny.
The Beyond film by Hasraf Dulull. 2018. This near-future thriller about first contact, features several women in key positions as scientists and mission administrators who must solve a key mystery that explores the consequences of humanity’s fearful tendencies.

Other Relevant Articles of Interest from The Alien Next Door:

Riane Eisler (in The Chalice and the Blade) provides examples of sociobiologists who draw on nineteenth-century Darwinism by citing insect societies to support their androcratic (social and political rule by men) theories. If humanity is to truly rise victorious over the scourge of climate change—a function of our current lifestyle and paradigms—we will need to adopt a cultural evolution that embraces a partnership society heralded by new and renewed symbology, language and “myth”: It starts with embracing gylanic heroes in literature and movies. Watching them, reading about them, writing and sharing these stories for the future they speak to.

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’s “The Way of Water” Receives More Praise

April 1, 2018June 13, 2018 / thealiennextdoor / 2 Comments

Nina Munteanu’s near-future speculative short story “The Way of Water” in Bruce Meyer’s (editor) “Cli Fi: Canadian Tales of Climate Change”, published by Exile Editions in 2017, will appear again in Rosarium Publishing / Future Fiction’s anthology “New Dimensions in International Science Fiction in April 2018.

She imagines its coolness gliding down her throat. Wet with a lingering aftertaste of fish and mud. She imagines its deep voice resonating through her in primal notes; echoes from when the dinosaurs quenched their throats in the Triassic swamps.

Water is a shape shifter.

It changes yet stays the same, shifting its face with the climate. It wanders the earth like a gypsy, stealing from where it is needed and giving whimsically where it isn’t wanted.

Dizzy and shivering in the blistering heat, Hilda shuffles forward with the snaking line of people in the dusty square in front of University College where her mother used to teach. The sun beats down, crawling on her skin like an insect. She’s been standing for an hour in the queue for the public water tap.

“The Way of Water” is a near-future vision that explores the nuances of corporate and government corruption and deceit together with resource warfare. An ecologist and technologist, Nina Munteanu uses both fiction and non-fiction to examine our humanity in the face of climate change and our changing relationship with technology and Nature.

A recent review of the anthology by Emilie Moorhouse in Prism International Magazine, entitled “Courage and Imagination in Cli-Fi: Canadian Tales of Climate Change” and carried by the National Observer, describes it this way:

“The seventeen stories in this book edited by Bruce Meyer examine how humankind might struggle with the potential devastation of climate change in the near or distant future. Soon after I finished reading the book, Cape Town—known in precolonial times as “the place where clouds gather”—announced that it was only a few months away from what it called “Day Zero,” the day the city would officially run out of water, making the similarities between fiction and reality more than unsettling. Munteanu’s story is set in a futuristic Canada that has been mined of all its water by thirsty corporations who have taken over control of the resource. Rain has not fallen on Canadian soil in years due to advances in geoengineering and weather manipulation preventing rain clouds from going anywhere north of the Canada-US border…I believe that fiction offers up two much-needed ingredients in the fight to prevent climate change: courage and imagination. It is my hope that more fiction writers will take up the task of writing in this promising new genre and use their imagination to inspire readers to collectively work towards a more sustainable future.”—Emilie Moorhouse, Prism International

A bilingual print book by Mincione Edizioni (Rome) showcased “The Way of Water” in Italian (“La natura dell’acqua”, translated by Fiorella Moscatello) and English along with a recounting of what inspired it: “The Story of Water” (“La storia dell’acqua”) in 2016.

“In ‘The Way of Water’, Nina Munteanu pens her love letter to water, exulting it as a liquid that has semi-magical properties…’The Way of Water’ evokes a sense of awareness about issues of access to water and about the dangers of imbalances in that access.”—Derek Newman-Stille, Speculating Canada

“In a short story in which every word has its weight, Nina Munteanu manages to describe a dystopia with ecological, political, social and economic elements and Hilda’s reactions to her situation with a great emotional intensity. To avoid thirst, Hilda ends up embracing an extreme idea, a last hope linked to water.

‘The Way of Water’ is a story of the kind you hope is science fiction but you fear is not.”—Massimo Luciani

” ‘The Way of Water’ is to be ‘a shapeshifter,’ says Nina Munteanu in her dystopian narrative, where she draws a dark scenario and, unfortunately, not too improbable in the near future. In the universe of the story water has become a very precious commodity: rationed consumption, credits (always of water) accounted for and debts collected…The Chinese multinationals have exchanged the public debt of other states with their water reserves with which, now, they can control the climate, deciding when and where it will rain. Who understands this dirty game has been silenced, like Hilda’s mother, a limnologist, inexplicably arrested and never returned; like the daughter of two water vendors, mysteriously disappeared, after having decided not to bow to economic powers: Hanna, who now prefers secure virtual identities to evanescent real appearances. Water. The two, like the covalent bond of a complex molecule, develop a relationship of attraction and repulsion that will first make them meet and then, little by little, will change into a tormented love but, at the same time, so pure as to cause Hilda at great risk, to make an extreme decision that will allow Hanna to realize the strange prophecy that the internal voice, perhaps the consciousness of water, had resonated in the two women for a long time.

Nina Munteanu recounts that this element is also a form of love; a story to read, not only to deal with the possible but, above all, to understand that the time still available to “love” may be less than what we believe.”—Simone Casavecchia, SoloLibri.net

“The Way of Water” will also appear alongside a collection of international works (including authors from Greece, Nigeria, China, India, Russia, Mexico, USA, UK, Italy, Canada (yours truly), Cuba, and Zimbabwe) in Bill Campbell and Francesco Verso’s Rosarium Publishing / Future Fiction’s anthology “New Dimensions in International Science Fiction” in April 2018.

“Nina Munteanu’s “The Way of Water” is perhaps more esoteric in its focus and more abstract in its approach, but I likewise found it to be a strong story. In an interesting scarcity future in which we follow the fate of a character abandoned by her mother, water itself becomes a character. In the second paragraph we’re told that “Water is a shape shifter,” and in the next page we encounter the following description: “Water was paradox. Aggressive yet yielding. Life-giving yet dangerous. Floods. Droughts. Mudslides. Tsunamis. Water cut recursive patterns of creative destruction through the landscape, an ouroboros remembering.” These descriptive musings cleverly turn out to be more than metaphors and tie in directly to the tale’s surprising ending.”—Alvaro Zinos-Amaro, IntergalacticMedicineShow.com

Nina Munteanu Interviewed on Splintered Universe Trilogy

March 11, 2018February 5, 2024 / thealiennextdoor / 1 Comment

I was recently interviewed by writer Simon Rose on my space detective thriller trilogy Splintered Universe, now available in all three formats: print, ebook, and audiobook.

Below is the interview:

My guest today is Nina Munteanu, author of science fiction and fantasy novels, non-fiction books and essays on writing and science. Her latest in a series of prolific works is the recent completion of the audiobook of her science fiction space-thriller trilogy, Splintered Universe.

Can you tell us a little about the Splintered Universe Trilogy?

Book 1 of Splintered Universe

The Splintered Universe Trilogy is a detective mystery-thriller that explores metaphysical and existential questions through a high-test space adventure. The three books include Outer Diverse, Inner Diverse and Metaverse.

The main character Rhea Hawke is a Galactic Guardian and the only human in an otherwise alien race of 7-foot tall purple-skinned Eosians—who she actually despises (for reasons you find out later). She’s a loner and a misfit in an elite police force tasked with keeping order in the galaxy; Rhea’s unruly tactics grate on them—particularly her boss. In Outer Diverse, Rhea investigates the genocide of an entire spiritual sect; but instead she kills her only lead.

Following the scent of Glitter Dust, Rhea connects the massacre to the murders of several prominent galactic citizens and finally to the deadly Vos, who invaded our galaxy, then disappeared. She realizes that the Vos have quietly returned, infiltrating every aspect of the civilized world—with dark menace in mind. But no one believes her—particularly her boss, who fires her instead for incompetence: badge, Great Coat and MEC weapon confiscated and her sentient ship Benny put in storage. Compelled by an urgency she herself doesn’t understand, she goes rogue and enlists the aid of surprising allies to save the galaxy.

You mention that Splintered Universe explores issues of existentialism and metaphysics. Can you speak to them?

Book 2 of Splintered Universe

The Splintered Universe Trilogy explores the fractal fabric of paradox, where the flow of particle, energy, wave and intention embrace: black holes, quasars, neutrinos, intuition, déjà vu, clairvoyance, altruism, faith…

The prediction by Gnostic priest Raphael Martinez (The coming of the Suntelia Aeon will be signified by the joining of twin souls) weaves many disparate threads of existence to Atlantis and the Eosian alien race (who resemble the Bible’s Nephilim), the sacred vishna tree (part of L’Ordre de l’Arbre Sacré in Quebec) and the precious mythical metal Orichalcum used by the Eosians. The prediction ties to an ancient knowledge that describes our very existence through déjà vu, synchronicity, sacred geometry, phi and the golden mean and the notion that “diverses” are mirror universes linked through dreams. The key is Rhea herself—who discovers that she is not who or what she thinks.

You’re a bit known for your world building. Tell us a little about that in this trilogy.

Book 3 of Splintered Universe

I’m an ecologist, so world building with realistic ecosystems is more than fun for me. I enjoy doing the research to create realistic and meaningful worlds. I consulted authorities in the areas of space exploration and habitable zones, AI, biotechnology, sleep biology, neuroscience, and ecology to design alien worlds and systems, populated with extremophiles.

In her pursuit of justice, Rhea travels to all parts of the galaxy and encounters some very strange worlds. In Book 1, Rhea pursues dust trafficker V’mer to the sulphurous AI-run water planet (Mar Delena), located inside the hole of the gaseous “donut” of Fomalhaut; it’s always raining acid. That’s where Book 1 starts: acid rain painfully spattering Rhea’s face as she lies injured and waiting to be dusted (with a lethal dose) by V’mer, surrounded by the oily fur-covered rodent-like Delenians—all dust addicts.

Rhea almost drowns in a high-speed skipboat chase of the murderer of a spiritual sect on the icy moon, Uma 1, (orbiting 47 Uma b of 47 Ursae Majoris b). The moon is mostly ocean beneath a thick layer of ice with thermal vents that provide the inhabitants—a spiritual sect called the Schiss—a home.

47 Uma a (also called Horus) was colonized in ancient times by the Khonsus, a raptor-like biped race with mind-probing capability. It is also the home of the ancient migrating trees, ammuts (giant flying insects), and the weeping mountains with their narcotic boiling seas used by the giant apophus to attack and set its millions of babies to devour Rhea in Book 1.

Virgil 9 is a tidally locked moon that orbits the gas giant 70 Virginis b; day and night last for weeks while water swings the extreme from deluge flood to desert conditions. In Virgil City, Rhea does commerce with information broker Shlsh Shle She, a moody amoeba-like photosynthetic Ngu who is just a pseudopod of a larger hive-entity.

Sekmet is a bog planet, where the raw materials of dust are harvested by the Rill, bulbous short smelly bog creatures with tube eyes, webbed limbs and large sexual organs; and who Rhea pretty much wipes out with her MEC weapon. Sekmet is also the location of a galactic penal colony (Hades) where Rhea is sent in Book 2. When she tries to escape, she must contend with other native creatures of Sekmet such as the giant crocodile-like sobeks and the terrifying kepry—giant flying crustaceans.

In Book 3, Rhea returns to Earth, transformed by Eosian settlers from its former polluted state dominated by urban concrete cities to an entirely natural world, now unpolluted and featuring the ancient purple vishna tree and a crystal symbiotic organic technology.

Rhea on Iota Hor-2

Worlds always have cool bling associated with them. What technologies or devices are featured in Splintered Universe?

I created an entire fleet of ships, all run on various technologies, from crystals, to wave-energy to dreams. That was fun to create. Two main ship builders include: Zeta Corp from Earth and Tangent Shipping run by the Fauche from Sigma Draconis. Rhea’s own ship, Benny, is an old ray class Fauche-built corvette, a two-man hybrid organic/nano-tech vehicle with folding wings and fuel scoops (so it can mine energy fuel from gas giants). Benny is a sentient ship that jacks the particle-stream and with whom Rhea has an interesting relationship. The ship serves essentially as butler, administrator, companion, and rescuer.

I also created a wide range of weapons, based on which alien race created them and for what purpose. Rhea gained some notoriety with her own created weapon, the MEC (short for Magnetic-Electro Concussion) pistol, a versatile wave-weapon that can target DNA signatures and do almost anything you want with a single sweep. Her proprietary MEC design is coveted by many groups—from shady crime syndicates such as Eclipse to her own Guardians.

I hear that the last audiobook (the third book) in the trilogy is finally out this January. That means that all three books of the Splintered Universe are now available in print, ebook and audiobook format. How does it feel to have a trilogy available in three complete formats?

It feels great! I’m so excited that readers can now obtain my trilogy in those different ways. It speaks to our different ways of consuming story. Some prefer to settle back by the fire or our favourite place to read with a “real” book; others like a mobile ebook so we can read while we travel and play; and then some like to lean back in the car and listen to a great story.

What was your experience with the narrator of the three books?

Dawn Harvey of “Dawn of Voice”

The experience was truly cosmic. When Iambik took on the books as audiobooks, they provided me with three voice artists to audition. I chose Dawn Harvey because I could visualize my main character through her voice, and given that the entire trilogy is told in the first person, the narrator’s voice had to be just right. Dawn’s voice is dark and sultry like coffee. It is sexy and irreverent with a hidden vulnerability and sensitivity that perfectly captured the main character Rhea Hawke. What I didn’t realize then was how well Harvey would represent the 30-odd other characters, mostly aliens—one who spoke through several mouths.

Audiobook of Outer Diverse

Working with Dawn was a pleasure. Dawn is a dedicated professional; she created unique and consistent voices for the book’s thirty-odd mostly alien characters. She ensured that each character had the appropriate vernacular, tone, accent and cadence. Then she did proofs and confirmed them with me. She also tackled the “alien” vocabulary; Rhea’s universe is full of strange and foreign terms (I have a comprehensive glossary at the back of each book). Dawn sent me a list to make sure she was pronouncing everything correctly—mostly made-up words. Dawn is a professional dedicated to her craft and her art. She literally breathed life into Rhea Hawke and all the other characters. The result is three audiobooks that will blow your socks off. I mean it. If you like audiobooks, get the first one and tell me different. When I first listened to Outer Diverse in the car on my way to Nova Scotia, I lost myself in her storytelling and forgot that I’d written it.

Where can people find the Splintered Universe Trilogy?

The best place, of course is Amazon (Amazon.ca or Amazon.com). All three formats are available through Amazon. The Audiobooks are currently available for free through Audible on Amazon. The books are also available through Barnes & Noble, Chapters/Indigo, Kobo, and many other book selling sites and brick and mortar stores.

When you’re not writing what do you do?

These days I’m mostly on the University of Toronto campus, teaching health science and engineering students how to write. When the students find out that I write science fiction, they get all excited. It’s a lot of fun. I also teach a science fiction writing coarse at George Brown College. When I’m not teaching or writing, I’m doing something in Nature, usually by the water. I’ve always had an interest in water. I studied and researched freshwater ecology as a limnologist for three decades. I’m a bit of an environmentalist these days, hoping to raise awareness and action for water. My latest novel—hopefully coming out next year—arose from my nature walks and my research in water. The story chronicles the lives of four generations of women and their relationship with water.

You can also listen to the Podcast interview of Dawn Harvey and Nina Munteanu by Casey Trowbridge of Talking Audiobooks on the process of their collaboration. Learn more about the process between writer and voice artist narrator:

The trilogy has received a fair bit of acclaim from reviewers and readers:

Martha’s Bookshelf
Speculating Canada
Dab of Darkness
Goodreads
Amazon
Amazon Canada

“Rhea Hawke is a Galactic Guardian, and I love to say her name. Her name alone let’s you know that there is a bad ass super hero of a woman on site. I can picture her boots, her great coat, and her side arms. I want to be her when I grow up. Obviously, you can tell I developed some hero worship for her by the end of this book. I really got wrapped up in this novel.”–Goodreads Review of Outer Diverse

“Ms. Harvey manages to enthuse the personality of the characters into each voice. The wise, gentle Ka has a soft, strong sound that reminds you of a wise old bird. Shlsh She She, a slippery, slimy creature has a slurry, garbled voice like a mouthful of mushy, wet food. Dawn’s reading conveys the loneliness in Rhea, the sexiness of Serge, the frustrated friendliness of Bas, and the faithful coziness of Benny. She is able to bring emphasis to the action or romance, weariness or fear elements of the story. The narration never takes over the story; but rather enhances it.”–Martha’s Bookshelf on Outer Diverse Audiobook

The excellent cover art for all three books is done by Toronto graphic artist and SF author Costi Gurgu (author of RecipeArium). People keep asking me who the model for the covers is; you’ll have to corner Costi at the next spec fiction con and ask him yourself.

Write About What You Know

March 4, 2018March 31, 2020 / thealiennextdoor / 2 Comments

Base of cedar tree, Little Rouge woodland (photo by Nina Munteanu)

How many times have you been told to write about what you know? And how many times have you trusted that advice? Well, how interesting is that?!? We think our lives are dull, boring, and mundane. We write – and read – to get away from it, don’t we?

Well, yes…and no…

In the final analysis, even good “escapist” writing, like some science fiction, despite its alien settings and creatures of imagination, is grounded in the realities of our every-day lives, which form the basis of human nature. Love, ambition, trust, hate, envy, honor, courage. All these are universal human traits which the writer taps into and ultimately writes about.

“In the 19^th century, John Keats wrote to a nightingale, an urn, a season. Simple, everyday things that he knew,” say Kim Addonizio and Dorianne Laux in The Writer’s Guide to Creativity. “Walt Whitman described the stars, a live oak, a field. They began with what they knew, what was at hand, what shimmered around them in the ordinary world.”

The advice, “write what you know” isn’t about literal truths; it’s about what you know inside. As SF author Marg Gilks says, “You know more than you think.”

Twisted Truths & Inner Knowledge

In an article in Writing World, Gilks discusses how a writer can use her own knowledge and experiences in everyday life and translate them into something far from ordinary. You start with universal experiences.

Get Emotional

What excites you; what frightens you; what angers you, makes you sad, happy. These are emotions we all feel. When we give our characters experiences similar to our own, we breathe life into both character and experience and provide the reader an anchor for her heart.

Get Sensational

You know how it feels when the sun shines on your face or the rain drenches you. You know how it feels to have your knees shake with fatigue after a long climb on a hot day or the invigorating freshness of a cool lake in summer.

Get People Around You

My neighbor has a funny way of focusing his gaze slightly off me when he talks, like he can’t look me directly in the eyes. When he approaches my house to deliver the paper, Dennis strides with a lilting gait as he listens to hip-hop on his ipod.

Drawing from what you observe and know of the people around you is one of a writer’s most treasured resources for character description. I always carry a notebook with me no matter where I go, even if it’s only to the grocery store.

The Magic of Storytelling

A writer is like a magician. You play upon what readers all “know” then surprise them with the unexpected.

Unleashing your imagination and letting it soar while grounding yourself in the realities of universal truths is the stuff of which stories are made. This is what most of us mean when we say “write what you know.”

“Unless you are writing about a personal tragedy,” says Tina Morgan of Fiction Factor, “you will have to use your imagination. Use the creativity that drives you to write in the first place. Take those feelings you have every day and amplify them. Make them more intense, more vivid. Before you know it, you will be ‘writing what you know’.”

“Next time you hear ‘write what you know,’ ” says Gilks, “you’ll realize that you know an awful lot about what matters most in a story’s success. It’s waiting only to be shaped by your imagination.”

Write Real

Literary Agent, Rachelle Gardner, provided a great definition of “write what you know” on her blog. Here’s an excerpt:

Most people think “write what you know” means you have to put characters in situations you’re personally familiar with. If you’re a mom with five kids, you should write a mom story. If you’ve fought cancer and won, you should write about that. But in my opinion, that’s not what it means.

Write what you know means write with authenticity about thoughts, feelings, experiences of life. Be honest. Write from a deep place. Don’t write from the surface. Whether you’re writing about parenthood or cancer or anything else… be real.

Don’t reflect what you know from other people or the media… write what you know from your own inner life.

Snow Is…

February 14, 2018March 31, 2020 / thealiennextdoor / Leave a comment

Montclair Street, Toronto (photo by Nina Munteanu)

I grew up in southern Quebec, where the first snow of the season often came from the sky in a thick passion. Huge flakes of unique beauty settled on my coat sleeves and within minutes I was covered in snow. I would stand enraptured and study each one as I could.

Snow wraps everything in a blanket of soft acceptance. It creates a dazzling face on a dark Earth. It refuses to distinguish between artificial and natural. It covers everything—decorated house, shabby old car, willowy trees, manicured lawn—beneath its white mantle. It quiets the Earth.

Have you ever gone for an evening walk in the fresh crisp snow, boots crunching, snow glistening in the moonlight? Each step is its own symphony of textured sound. A kind of collaboration with the deep of the night and Nature’s own whisperings.

Street car on Queen St (photo by Nina Munteanu)

Snow is a shape shifter, charging down in a fierce blizzard and as hoarfrost that forms as water vapour migrates up through the snow base on cold, clear nights. Snow is a gypsy, conspiring with the clever wind to form mini-tornadoes and swirling on the cold pavement like misbehaving fairies. It drifts like a vagabond and piles up, cresting over the most impressive structure, creating phantoms out of icons. Some people, fearful of the chaos and confusion that snow brings, hide indoors out of the cold. Others embrace its many forms, punching holes through the snow crust to find the treasure of powder beneath or ploughing through its softness, leaving behind an ivory trail of adventure.

Red barn, Ladner, BC

Snow is magic. It reveals as it cloaks. Animals leave their telltale tracks behind their silent sleuthing. No two snowflakes are alike. Yet every non-aggregated snowflake forms a six-fold radial symmetry, based on the hexagonal alignment of water molecules when they form ice. Tiny perfectly shaped ice-flowers drift down like world peace and settle in a gentle carpet of white. Oddly, a snowflake is really clear and colourless. It only looks white because the whole spectrum of light bounces off the crystal facets in diffuse reflection (i.e., at many angles). My son, who skies, extols “champagne powder”—very smooth and dry snow ideal for gliding on. On powder days, after a fresh snowfall, mountain trees form glabrous Henry Moore-like sculptures. Skiers wind their way between the “snow ghosts,” leaving meandering double-helix tracks behind them.

Author’s son and friend do a snow dance, Ladner, BC (photo by Nina Munteanu)

Snow is playful. It beckons you to stick out your tongue and taste the clouds. Snow is like an unruly child. Snow is the trickster. It stirs things up. Makes a mess. It is the herald of change, invigorating, fresh and wondrous. Cars skid in it and squeal with objection. Grumpy drivers honk their horns, impatient to get home; while others sigh in their angry wake. Brown slush flies in a chaotic fit behind a bus and splatters your new coat. Boys and girls (of all ages) venture outside, mischief glinting in their eyes, and throw snowballs. Great battles are fought in backyards where children build awesome forts and defend them with fierce determination.

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.

Fingal’s Cave by Nina Munteanu

February 3, 2018July 5, 2023 / thealiennextdoor / Leave a comment

After she and fellow colonists crash land on the hostile jungle planet of Mega, rebel-scientist Izumi, widower and hermit, boldly sets out against orders on a hunch that may ultimately save her fellow survivors—but may also risk all. As the other colonists take stock, Izumi—obsessed with discovery and the need to save lives—plunges into the dangerous forest, which harbors answers, not only to their freshwater problem, but ultimately to the nature of the universe itself. Mega was a goldilocks planet—it had saltwater and supported life—but the planet also possessed magnetic-electro-gravitational anomalies and a gravitational field that didn’t match its size and mass. The synchronous dance of its global electromagnetic field suggested self-organization to Izumi, who slowly pieced together Mega’s secrets: from its “honeycomb” pools to the six-legged uber-predators and jungle infrasounds—somehow all connected to the water. Still haunted by the meaningless death of her family back on Mars, Izumi’s intrepid search for life becomes a metaphoric and existential journey of the heart that explores how we connect and communicate—with one another and the universe—a journey intimately connected with water.

Fingal’s Cave by Nina Munteanu is the first story in the Megan Survival Anthology by Reality Skimming Press. The story is available as an ebook here. The print anthology is available here.

Nina was interviewed by Ellen Mitchell of Reality Skimming Press on writing Fingal’s Cave.

On the connection between ecology and science fiction, Nina says:

The science of ecology studies relationships. It looks at how things relate to one another. Ecology is the study of communities and ecosystems and how these interact—often in a global setting. Science fiction writing explores the interaction of humanity with some larger phenomenon involving science. Robert J. Sawyer calls it the fiction of the large. Large ideas, large circumstance, large impact. Both ecology and science fiction explore consequence in a big way. Ecology—like “setting” and “world”—manifests and integrates in story theme more than some of the hard sciences, which may contribute more to a story’s premise or plot. This is because, while most sciences study the nature and behaviour of “phenomena”, ecology examines the consequences of the relationship of these phenomena and the impact of their behaviours on each other and the rest of the world. It is in this arena that science fiction becomes great: when it explores relationship and consequence.

On the significance and importance of optimism in science fiction, Nina says:

Optimistic SF is the antithesis of pointless SF. The reason I define it that way is because I believe many would box the term too tightly, equating it to “happy ending” or the equivalent of “and they all lived happily ever after.” Others may even include a certain requisite language and tone, and subject matter that must be excluded to make it optimistic.

For me, it is enough that the story resolves and has a point to it; that the reader is able—even if the hero isn’t—to see a way out into the light. The story itself need not be “optimistic”; but the reader is fulfilled somehow. I suppose one could elucidate Optimistic SF through the “Hero’s Journey Myth”, a plot approach that describes the metaphoric journey of a character or set of characters toward some destiny that involves change and learning. Ultimately, for a story to be worthwhile, it must have a point to it. Otherwise, it’s just “reality TV”.

You can read the entire interview with Nina Munteanu by Ellen Mitchell of Reality Skimming Press here.

Fingal’s Cave is a sea cave on the uninhabited island of Staffa in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland. The cave is formed entirely from hexagonally jointed basalt columns in a Paleocene lava flow (similar to the Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland). Its entrance is a large archway filled by the sea. The eerie sounds made by the echoes of waves in the cave, give it the atmosphere of a natural cathedral. Known for its natural acoustics, the cave is named after the hero of an epic poem by 18th century Scots poet-historian James Macpherson. Fingal means “white stranger”.

p.s. Dragon Soul Press has recently included “Fingal’s Cave” in their 2021 anthology “Space Bound.”

*Nina Munteanu holds her copy of “Space Bound” anthology with her story “Fingal’s Cave”*

Fingal’s Cave was reprinted in 2023 on the online magazine Metastellar Speculative Fiction and Beyond.

A Tardigrade Christmas…

December 29, 2017September 9, 2018 / thealiennextdoor / 2 Comments

…A Different Christmas Story…

Blika lived in Mossland with her clone sestras, gathering and sucking the delicious juices of detritus and algae. Never in a hurry, she lumbered from frond to frond on eight stubby legs in a gestalt of feasting and being. Blika led a microscopic life of bloated bliss—unaware of forests, human beings, quantum physics or the coming singularity…

A sudden fierce wind wicked her water away. In a burst of alien urgency, she wriggled madly for purchase on the frond as it shivered violently in the roaring wind. Blika lost hold and the wind swept her into a dark dryness. Her liquid life-force bleeding away from her, Blika crawled into herself. The moss piglet felt herself shrivel into oblivion.

No, not oblivion… more like a vast expanse…

She had entered a wonderland of twinkling lights in a vast fabric of dark matter. Where am I?

It occurred to her that she had never thought such a thing before. Am I dead? She’d never thought about existence before either. What has happened to me? And where are my sestras? She felt an overwhelming sadness. Something else she’d never felt before and wondered why she hadn’t. Did it have to do with that liquid that had always embraced her with its life-force? Here, in the darkness of space, she felt alone for the first time, separated from the plenum.

“Welcome, sestra!” boomed a large voice.

Blika beheld a being like her with eight arms and hands, seated on a throne and wearing a jeweled crown. “Why do you call me sestra?” Blika asked.

“Because we are ALL sestras! You are a Tardigrade, aren’t you?” She waved all eight arms at Blika. “Well, I am your queen!” She looked self-pleased. “You are in Tunland now! The land of awareness. And now that you are self-aware, you can do anything! We’re special,” the queen ended in smug delight. The folds of her body jiggled and shimmered.

“Why are we special?” Blika asked.

“Because we are!” the queen said sharply, already losing patience with her new subject. “Don’t you know that you can survive anything? Ionizing radiation. Huge pressure. Boiling heat. Freezing cold. Absolutely no air. And no water…”

Blika gasped. Water was the elixor that connected her to her sestras and her world… her…home…

“How do you think you got here, eh?” the queen mocked her with a sinister laugh. Blika cringed. The queen went on blithely, “So, where do you come from, piglet?”

“I’m trying to find my way home…”

“Your way? All ways here are my ways!”

“But I was just thinking—”

“I warn you, child…” The queen glowered at her. “If I lose my temper, you lose your head. Understand?”

Blika nodded, now missing her home even more.

“Why think when you can do!” the queen added, suddenly cheerful again. “First there is BE, then THINK, then DO. Why not skip the think part and go straight to the do part? In Tunland we do that all the time,” she went on cheerfully. “And, as I was saying, here we can do anything!”

The queen grabbed Blika by an arm and steered them through the swirling darkness of space toward a box-like floating object. “This is my doctor’s Tardis…”

“Doctor who?” Blika naively asked.

The queen shivered off her annoyance and led them eagerly through the door and into her kingdom.

They entered a strange place of giant blocks and whining sounds beneath a dark swirling sky.

The first thing Blika noticed was the huge tardigrades floating above them like dirigibles! Others were dressed in suits holding little suitcases and walking into and out of the huge blocks through doorways.

“We’ve crossed into another dimension—my universe,” the queen announced cheerfully. “Here you can do anything you want. So, why be tiny and feckless when you can be huge and powerful!” She studied Blika. “This is your moment to do what you could never do before. Think of the possibilities! You too could be huge!”

Blika stared at the strange world of smoke and metal and yearned for her simple mossy home.

As if she knew what Blika wanted, the queen quickly added, “But you can never go back home!”

“Why not?” Blika asked, disappointed.

“Because, that’s why!” the queen shouted. Squinting, she added, “It’s too late. It’s just not done! Once you’ve learned what the colour green means you can’t erase its significance!”

“But I still don’t know what the colour green means,” Blika complained. “And, besides, I think you’re wrong. Becoming self-aware doesn’t stop you from going home. It just changes its meaning. And if I can really do what I want, then you can’t stop me. I’m going home to my family.”

The little hairs on the queen bristled. Then she grew terribly calm. “I won’t stop you, but…” The queen pointed to the floating tardigrades above them. “My water bear army will. I sentence you to remain in Tunland forever for your crime!”

“I haven’t done anything…yet.”

“You’ve broken the law of thinking before doing. In Tunland you have to skip that part—”

“You just made that up—”

“Doesn’t matter!” shouted the queen. “Sentence first, verdict afterwards!”

“That’s nonsense,” said Blika loudly. “The idea of having the sentence first.”

“Hold your tongue!” said the queen, turning a shade of chartreuse.

“I won’t,” said Blika.

“Off with your head!” the queen shouted at the top of her voice, pointing to Blika with all eight of her appendages. The water bear army hovered over Blika, taking aim. They were going to get more than her head with those lasers, Blika thought, and scurried for cover faster than her stubby eight legs had ever moved before. She was doomed—

Then, just beyond her sight, she saw—no felt—something far more significant than the colour green…or a huge bloated water bear army about to shoot her…

Water! She could taste it, smell it, hear it. Blika rejoiced with thoughts of her green home.

The water came in a giant wet wave of blue and silver and frothy green. Tunland sloshed then totally dissolved. Blika surfed the churning water. That green! She knew what it was! Blika reached out with her deft claws and snagged a tumbling moss frond. It finally settled and there were her sestras! So many of them clinging to the same green moss! She’d found her family! She was home! Yes, it was a different home and different sestras, but it was also the same. Love made it so…

Merry Christmas!

Tardigrades, also known as water bears or moss piglets, are plump, microscopic organisms with eight clawed legs. Fossils of tardigrades date to the Cambrian period over 500 million years ago. Over 900 species are known. Tardigrades were first described by the German pastor Johann August Ephraim Goeze in 1773 and given the name Tardigrada, meaning “slow stepper,” by the Italian biologist Lazzaro Spallanzani. Tardigrades reproduce asexually (parthenogenesis) or sexually. They mostly suck on the fluids of plant cells, animal cells, and bacteria.

Tardigrades survive adverse environmental stresses including:

High and low temperatures (e.g., -273°C to +151°C)
freezing and thawing
changes in salinity
lack of oxygen
lack of water
levels of X-ray radiation 1000x the lethal human dose
some toxic chemicals
boiling alcohol
low pressure of a vacuum
high pressure (up to 6x the pressure of the deepest ocean).

Tardigrades respond to adverse environmental stresses through “cryptobiosis”, a process that greatly slows their metabolism. Tardigrades survive dry periods by shriveling up into a little ball or tun and waiting it out. They make a protective sugar called trehalose, which moves into the cells to replace the lost water. You could say that the water bear turns into a gummy bear.

Tardigrades have revived after a 100 years of desiccation. The antioxidants they make soak up dangerous chemicals and tardigrades can also repair damaged DNA from long term dry-out. In low oxygen, the tardigrade stretches out, relaxed muscles letting more water and oxygen enter its cells. The tardigrade’s cold-resistant tun also prevents ice crystals that could damage cell membranes.

Tardigrades survive temperatures, pressures and ionizing radiation not normally found on Earth. All this raises questions of origin and evolutionary adaptation. How—and why—have tardigrades developed the ability to survive the vacuum and ionizing radiation of space? Some suggest that it’s because they originated there. Scientists argue that they developed extreme tolerances from Earth’s volatile environments (e.g., water bodies that freeze or dry up, and undergo anoxia). But, if they can make it there, they can make it anywhere. So, where is “home” really?…

My Book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press explores this creature and many other interesting things about water. Look for it on Amazon, Chapters, Kobo and in bookstores & libraries near you. If it’s not in your local library, ask for it.