On criticism..

[gridlore]

Recently, in one of the posts on my developing Concordant setting, I received an anonymous comment. It was, in its entirety, one sentence:

Will Blimps v2.0 be a less-obvious ripoff of Iain Banks's Dwellers?

No name, of course.

To the person who wrote this, fuck you. Have the balls to sign your messages, and try to be constructive. The reason I post these works in progress is to get feedback and ideas.

Now, as to the blimps and Mr. Banks. I will freely admit that I haven't read all his books, and since you didn't bother to point out where these "floaters" appear, I can't very well compare what I came up with on my own with what Mr. Banks wrote, yes?

For your information, the idea for the blimps occurred to me while driving. One of the advantages of my job is time to think, and I was thinking about aliens. The idea of an intelligent balloon appealed, and I started mentally sketching in details. Nothing was ripped off. Hell, I was probably drawing inspiration from David Brin and Larry Niven, both of whom have written gas-bag critters before (so, was Banks ripping them off?)

Don't assume that I've read every damn SF novel and short ever written. Some I haven't, and some I read decades ago and they just stick in my head. If I ever directly rip something from a published work, I will announce that fact (such as in the first draft of my setting where I had 2300AD's Kafers as the main alien menace.)

I'm a writer, in my own small way, and I can't do what i do without good, honest evaluations of my work. That is why I post things, so I can catch errors like the size of the blimps, and get feedback on what to call the main government and its ruler. So when I post, feel free to jump on me with both feet if I screw up, but do so honestly and with a better idea in hand.

And sign your damn name.

Comments

[twfarlan.livejournal.com]

Another point to consider: you're not writing this with intent to publish the campaign setting, are you? This is a personal-use campaign setting; only you, your players, and those of us who read your entries about it will know anything about it, correct?

In which case, who cares? You could bally well have Dr. Who show up with Ace and K-9. You could throw in a Star Destroyer if you really felt like it, and it wouldn't matter a bit. (Aside from utterly wrecking the feeling of realism you're going for, that is, and spoiling the suspension of disbelief for your players, but that's not the point.) Gasbag aliens are not new concepts. Banks' book The Algebraist which, to my knowledge, is the first reference to the Dwellers, was published in 2004, yes? Considering that there are gasbag aliens listed in Barlowe's Guide as having been described by luminaries like Niven, yes, I'd say you're both ripping them off... the difference is that you're not going to financially profit from it.

So, anonymous poster. Care to defend Mr. Banks' intellectual theft now? Or are you willing to concede the point that you're being an ass for utterly no reason whatever?

[gridlore.livejournal.com]

This began as a personal setting, but with GURPS Space looming next spring, I've begun toi think it has potential as an e23 product at the least.

[gridlore.livejournal.com]

You know, I just looked up that book.

The Dwellers live in gas giant atmospheres. And may live for billions of years.

The Blimps evolved in the swamps of an Earth-like world, and live for about two centuries.

From a cursory examination, those are only the beginning of the differences.

[robertprior.livejournal.com]

Floating aliens living in gas giants? Sounds a bit like Jgd-Il-Jagd from Traveller...

[kengr]

And in Anne McAffrey's "The Ship who sang" and probably others in other books.


Hell, floating aliens (though more "dog level" intelligence are found in Heinlein's "Starman Jones". And I doubt he was the first.

[delta-november.livejournal.com]

The only connection I saw between the Dwellers and the Blimps is the societal structure of "interest groups". But the Hiver predated both...

[gridlore.livejournal.com]

And I mostly got that concept from Traveller's Vegans and their tuhir.

[twfarlan.livejournal.com]

Well, that's cool. It's sounding interesting.

As different as your Blimps are from Banks' Dwellers and from most of the other gasbag entities out there, it really isn't going to matter when it comes to publication if they're similar. Similarity to existing fiction is what some gamers enjoy, after all, to people who want to experience their own adventures in settings they enjoyed reading.

The anonymous poster remains a moron.

[jemstone.livejournal.com]

There is nothing new under the sun. Something, somewhere, has been done before. It's not a matter of whether or not you write a setting with gasbag aliens, it's a matter of how you approach them, how you handle them. So long as you are consistent, who the hell cares?

I'm currently writing The Wild Frontier, and have decided that all sapient life in the galaxy descended from each planets most adaptable, opposable-thumb, stereoscopic-vision equipped arboreal omnivore. Works for Earth. Works for RarrMak. Works for Magara. We might not be the dominant predators, but with adaptability and opposable thumbs, we soon will be, bucko!

Consistency matters more than originality.

If they won't leave a name, fuck 'em.

Or, rather, don't.

[(Anonymous)]

Hi, Mr. Berry. I was the poster that sent the flippant and insulting one-liner to you regarding your idea for the Blimps. At the time, I didn't think much of it, but I'm startled to realize that I'm feeling pretty guilty about what I wrote.

I apologize. It was inappropriate for me to tear down your ideas without putting any effort into constructive criticism, and it was cowardly not to properly identify myself. I indulged in the kind of behavior I abhor from others, and I'm deeply sorry if I've offended you.

Not to excuse, but to explain, I was surprised to see gas-giant dwelling creatures that communicate by varying the patterns on their skins proposed for a commercial product, as I was just reading The Alchemist by Iain Banks, and it's a pretty similar concept. On the other hand, I first encountered the idea in Carl Sagan's Cosmos, (except those beasties communicated by radio waves, if I remember correctly). So I guess the tradition of "ripping-off" is a long and distinguished one. To say that I communicated this "surprise" poorly would be an enormous understatement.

I again offer my sincere apology, although I've done nothing to deserve your forgiveness. I've been an admirer of yours since my days as a lurker in alt.conspiracy and the TML, and I my behavoir towards you was unacceptable.

David Clark
da_clark (at) shaw (dot) ca

[gridlore.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

I remember Sagan's gas giant critters as well, but an important difference is that the Blimps are not gas giant dwellers.

[robertprior.livejournal.com]

Arthur C. Clarke had the same thing in one of the stories in "Wind From the Sun": gas giant-dwelling blimps using colour patterns to communicate. One imagines he may have got the idea of colour communication from all the diving he did around Ceylon...

Ideas are not copyrightable. And if writers avoided writing a story with elements used by someone else, there wouldn't have been any new fiction in quite a long time!

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

You did the right thing by coming back and signing your name to your reply. As others pointed out, there are not really many completely new ideas, just new variations. Vernor Vinge put giant gas-bag intelligences, as I recall, as incidental characters in A Fire Upon the Deep; mind you, we only know about them through the interstellar equivalent of Usenet newsgroups.

[isomeme.livejournal.com]

Thank you, sir. You just helped restore some small portion of my faith in humanity.

[jemstone.livejournal.com]

Thank you for coming back and posting this, Mr. Clark. As has been said before me, you have helped re-establish faith in humanity, even just a bit, in me.

:)