Welcome to The Cortex Online: I am writer/freelance journalist Brad Smith and this is the official website for my Zedverse stories and blogs. The views and opinions expressed on this social media platform are entirely mine and—well, actually—do reflect what I think. Alea iacta Est—Tenebras expellit et hostes—Sic itur ad astra excelsior
The Maine Man is right.
Some writers feel that it's their moral obligation to have a message or agenda--and hammer away with it as readers slog through a manifesto thinly veiled as a story.
" Can't you guys just let a story be a story?"
That's a big problem with today's writers. The message is too important to them, it overtakes the story and the characters. It's bad storytelling. The last season of Doctor Who is a good example, but that's typical for Russell T Davies.
Star Trek: Discovery. Well, that was a mess from the very beginning--on many levels--and while the second season was somewhat promising, it went back to its formula of bad, heavy handed writing and the characters doing way too much whispering and crying. Discovery is a good example of show with talented actors wasted as they played boring, cringe-inducing characters as they uttered lame and, again, cringe-inducing dialogue.
It's a shame because actors like Tig Notaro and Mary Wiseman, to name a few, deserved better.
More importantly, the audience deserved better.
"First tell the story and everything else will work itself out."
The great science fiction writer and screenwriter Leigh Brackett said that. A lot of today's SF/fantasy writers could learn a lot about the craft of storytelling from Brackett and her contemporaries. That's why I gravitate to those older stories; they weren't overwhelmed by messages or agendas.
Yes, it's fine that writers inject sociopolitical messages into their stories. There's nothing wrong with it. Back when I was in my Libertarian phase--mea culpa, yes, I was one of them--I had some fairly decent ideas but I was so concerned about hammering my beliefs into the reader. Looking back at those stories, they're bad; I can now say that was my Eye of Argon period.
Some of you might want to Google that.
I want to tell a good story and throw in some social commentary. Nothing wrong with that. But, you see, that's all I want to do. My primary goal is to tell a (hopefully) damn fine story and entertain people. Now, if I can make some comments on this or that, that's okay too. Sinclair Lewis did it quite well with It Can't Happen Here. Lewis had something to say about men like Berzelius "Buzz" Windrip and he did so in an entertaining but frightening way.
Not only did it work but it worked well.
It was also prescient as the world saw Donald Trump's presidential campaign and his nightmarish administration.
It's a fine line, telling stories infused with one's various sociopolitical messages. It can be done. Stephen King has done it quite well over the years; so have other writers but you'll always have your Russell T Davies or a Brad R. Torgersen with their shite.
It happens.
But don't let it happen to you.
Well. That's my opinion.
That's all I have to say.
Be seeing you.
-30-
Hello there.
Welcome to the Cortex Online. This is my website for the Zedverse stories—plus my opinions, views and everything else I want to post. Yes, I’ve tried the Midnight Eye blog before . . . but it went nowhere. I’ve imported old posts that I wanted to keep but having a new website just feels good. A fresh start. One caveat: This website/blog is a work in progress, it’s in a constant state of flux. Various sections will be updated often.
Night Zero is the first novel in the Zedverse series; it’s split into a number of intertwined novellas and novelettes that’ll introduce the protagonist, Zed, and a late 2090s Earth that has a slightly different history—in fact, even the star system is different from ours. The first chapter, “My Echo, My Shadow . . . And Me,” is currently being written.
I plan on releasing the novella as both a paperback edition and an eBook via Amazon KDP. Yes, I’ve been dismissive of self-publishing in the past; I mean, I was something of a sneering rat bastard about the whole concept until noticing that a lot of my favorite writers are turning to self-publishing. Traditional publishing is a nightmare to deal with if you don’t have an agent. The independents are somewhat unstable, at times imploding and leaving writers in the lurch, their unpublished novels in a copyright quagmire. It’s a nightmare.
So, Amazon KDP it is.
What’s the Zedverse and Night Zero about?
Well. Let’s see:
The Zedverse has both cyberpunk and transhuman themes—there are dystopian and near-utopian elements in the stories. Pluto is still a planet and a small, rocky slag heap of a planet named Vulcan is located between the Sun and Mercury; all of the terrestrial planets and large moons have been terraformed—including Venus’ moon, Ishtar. And, from time to time, ancient ruins left behind by alien civilizations have been discovered.
Planets, moons and asteroids have been colonized, even a small number of comets. Orbital habs and drifts—similar to orbital habs but drifting in interplanetary space—are scattered about the Sol star system. Chimpanzees, orangutans, gorillas, mandrills, octopi, dolphins and even orcas have been gengineered to have human-level intelligence; some live in independent city-states and others live alongside humans.
Cthulhu Mythos exists. The Shaver Mystery is real.
Oh, there’s oh so much more.
But that’s a story for another day.
Until next time.
Be seeing you.
-30-
Mnemonic Gun
It was a chilly, misty October night as Donny Robson, age 24, raced through the maze of alleys in the BAM’s harbor districts. His clothes were drenched by the freezing rain, but despite his exhaustion, Donny felt exhilarated. He was one of the last few participants left in The Wild Hunt—the Shadoweb’s most notorious live-action roleplaying game—with a million Commonwealth reserve notes up for grabs as a prize.
According to the latest gamemaster’s update, there were only three players left.
And, of course, Donny was one of them.
The prize money was a very tempting payout of one million Commonwealth reserve notes. Mind you, Donny Robson didn’t need the money . . . but he craved that adrenaline rush playing the game gave him and how high it made him feel. You see, Donny had been in a rut the last few months and he needed something, anything, to make himself feel good once again.
That was why Donny found himself sprinting down a poorly lit, trash-strewn alleyway as he zeroed in on his next targets. Terminate the other two players, slice into the Solntsevskaya Gang’s data cache and—
There was a flash of baleful red light that tore out of the darkness like a scythe, searing into Donny's chest – a direct hit. His body collapsed onto the wet pavement like a puppet with cut strings, leaving behind a wisp of steam from where his heart used to be. Afterwards, the autopsy report said he never felt any pain.
In that moment, the game ended for Donny Robson.
And that’s how it started for me.
© Brad Smith
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