Travis Perry's Short Stories, Novellas, Anthologies, and Novels





Colony Zero Volume One CONTACT - multiauthor short story, an elitist Earth crew meets a colony of misfits

Colony Zero Volume Two-As Harmless As Serpents - the Earth crew's relations take a savage turn


Technically Magical - a fantasy/sci-fi blend; a gnome finding his way in a world of technology

Popular posts from this blog

Zombie Physiology

So how does the zombie body function? How is it that only a head shot is guaranteed to kill one of them?

As mentioned in a previous post on Zombie Ecology, there have been multiple ideas of what a zombie is. The original concept of spirits animating dead flesh requires no physiological explanation--that's how it works just because it does.

But the zombie stories that feature a virus, some sort of non-supernatural phenomenon animating dead flesh such as in AMC's The Walking Dead, could use some scientific explanation. How is it that the zombies are able to move about when most of their major organs are non-functional? How is it they resist completely rotting away into skeletons?

I've got some proposed answers (and I thank Paul Clyde and James Lehye for engaging in the conversation that inspired this post):

First off, the easy stuff. Zombies don't feel pain because their brains don't function right...the pain signals arrive at what is left of their brain, but nothing…
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The Why of Terraformed Worlds

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The idea of terraforming nearby planets (or more distant ones) is well established in modern culture. Moreso than I knew. The linked Wikipedia article on "Terraforming in Popular Culture" lists science fiction, movies, and video games that make reference to the idea. Some of the most important pioneering stories I was familiar with, including Robert Heinlein's Farmer in the Sky and Isaac Asimov's The Martian Way (both of which I'd read). I had also heard about Kim Stanley Robinson's Martian Trilogy (Red Mars, Green Mars, and Blue Mars). But I didn't know that there are at least 15 science fiction stories that feature terraforming, as well as at least 20 TV and movie references to it and over 30 video games in which terraforming is either a goal or a plot element.

Those used to easy travel to other worlds in a lot of popular science fiction (which are often really a part of the sub-genre "Space Opera"), such as in both Star Wars and Star Trek, ma…
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Story Combat Realism EXTRA--battlefield errors from The Battle of the Five Armies

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I promised my next post on combat realism would be on long-term effects of combat. But coming off watching The Hobbit: the Battle of the Five Armies last night, please allow me to insert some comments on ways the movie botched showing combat realistically.

Someone could easily answer that in the genre of fantasy, combat doesn't have to be realistic. That may be true, but I think writers should at least know what is realistic in order to be able to use realism if they so choose. Unrealistic combat scenes in movies muddy the waters of what really is and is not possible, so writer may genuinely think something is realistic, when it it isn't. I hope to offer a bit of clarity.
By the way, these comments will reference some specific events in the story, but won't commit any real story spoilers, nor comment on the overall story. So, listed from the worst on down:
1. War mounts plow through ranks of infantry.Look, a horse or war elk or whatever can knock a man in armor standing fi…
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Story Combat Realism 7--the Human Organism at the Height of Battle

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My most recent blog post on combat realism in stories discussed long-term effects of combat on human beings. This post looks at the physical effects a life or death struggle has on a person . (Information below is derived from Lt. Col. Dave Grossman's book, On Combat. Some of the specific physiological effects are summarized in an article on Lt. Col. Grossman's website):

When the human heart rate increases from stress alone (as opposed to exercise), certain predictable effects take place.
Note a trend in this chart. A certain level of elevation of the heart rate, between 115-145 bpm, benefits everything a human being can do, except fine motor skills. (If you need to thread a needle, it's best to be at resting heart rate.) Beyond that heart rate, human performance generally deteriorates, except for gross motor skills and movement, which are best over 160. The heart rate that supports best the activities of, say, swinging a sword with a full adrenaline power boost, generally…
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7 Ways to Deal with the Problem Magic Poses Christian Fantasy Writers

First off, what is the problem with magic for Christians? Or sorcery? Or witchcraft? (Are all of those things even the same?)
An entire book could be written on this topic (perhaps I'll do that someday) but to keep this as brief as possible, the short reason this is a problem is the Bible has nothing good to say about the practice of magic (neither does extra-Biblical Christian tradition). No translation of Scripture will record the 12 Disciples watching Jesus walk on the water and say, "Wow, that was magical!" Nor is the mana falling from heaven in Israel's wilderness wanderings described as some kind of powerful spell that Moses used, nor even is his rod described as "magic," even though Moses had the power granted to him by God to turn it into a serpent at whatever time he chose. No, the Bible describes events like these as "miracles," or "signs," or "wonders."
On the other hand, when the Bible talks about "magic"…
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Story Combat Realism Part 4--the Barbarian Way

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Last post I gave ancient and medieval examples of what I could have simply (but boringly) called "the professional warrior." The examples I gave were by no means identical, but they all shared in common an emphasis on long, disciplined study of war and weapons and hard training, on maintaining a code of conduct, and on staying as calm and level-headed as possible on the battlefield.

There's another warrior tradition of note--the barbarian warrior. There are commonalities and overlaps between barbarians and the pros (and even what it is meant by the term "barbarian"), but what I'm marking here as the fundamental difference between them is how they fight. The barbarian, whether a real one of history or fictional analogues, doesn't see any particular value in maintaining a level head in a battle. Not to say all of them are out of control at all times, but they do not specifically train to maintain calmness. Instead they rush into battle in a frenzy of rag…
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Peter Jackson's Ring of Power

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As Gandalf famously stated in the Fellowship of the Ring, the Ring of Power appealed to the good-hearted and heroic wizard, giving him a desire to use it for good. But in fact, as every LOTR fan knows, itcannotbe done. The Ring of Power will eventually corrupt every person who attempts to use it into an evil being.
Watching the Fellowship of the Ring movie last night reminded me of this principle. The fact that evilcannot be used for good is one of the things I love most about The Lord of the Rings. It’s a powerful statement about the attempt human beings make over and over again to gain power supposedly for good—which simply cannot be done by evil means. Not withoutbecomingevil.
By the way, back when it was first released, I strenuously objected to the plot changes Peter Jackson put into the Fellowship of the Ring. No, for me, the original story was quite good enough and didn’t need to be streamlined or “Hollywoodized” or anything of the sort. When Frodo sneaked away without telling an…
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The Quantum Mechanics God of Alternate Reality Bibles

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This post with an odd title will share a set of distinctly Christian story ideas loosely linked into the Many Worlds Interpretation (or MWI) of quantum mechanics.

So I feel compelled to explain what MWI actually is first. For readers who feel they understand MWI well, feel free to skip down 7 paragraphs, where I will begin talking again about what MWI means and how that relates to a story idea in bold print. 

In short, MWI sees that all possible alternate histories and futures are real. A way to tie that back into the specific language of physics would be to affirm that this interpretation "asserts the objective reality of the universal wavefunction and denies the actuality of the wavefunction collapse."

For those readers who many not understand the phrase I just used above (I pulled it off Wikipedia, BTW), I'm going to put into my own lay terms what I just quoted, using an electron as my example. According to quantum mechanics, the exact position and motion of an electron…
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The Big Idea--a blog relaunch

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I created the "Travis's Big Idea" blog back when I was barely READING blogs, especially not author blogs. A lot of the ones I did know about I found boring to be honest--seriously, writing about the process of writing is super DULL for me.

But I did know I liked story ideas--so I decided to blog about some of mine. Doing that was fun for a while, but I got bored with that, too. I'd like to talk about other people's ideas more often, not just my own. That's part of why it's been a long time since I've posted anything.

So I've given this blog a tiny bit of a makeover and a title change on the main page. It's THE BIG IDEA instead of Travis's Big Idea. I want to talk about much more than the strange ideas that run through my own head. I want to talk about your strange ideas (and other people's, too).

Anyway, I've got things to say. But that can wait a bit. First--I'M BACK WORLD. :)


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Still a Deep Space Niner

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It surprises many people to hear there were actually five Star Trek series. Not to mention numerous movies. And of those series, perhaps the one most likely to be forgotten is my favorite, Star Trek Deep Space Nine (most likely forgotten because of it's real differences from all the other Star Treks):


Why it's the greatest I can explain. But it's worth noting that I watched Deep Space Nine on television as the episodes were released in the 90s. I waited with eager anticipation between season finales and the startup of each new season. While I watched most other science fiction stories without having to wait. That certainly explains some of my past enthusiasm for the show.
Now I see the series differently, with more cynicism. Deep Space Nine had some serious problems. For one, it started slow--many people stopped watching it in the first year, which had the worst plots of the entire series. It also made a number of story-telling missteps. As episodes explored various wars and…
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