To Jargly Go
Alright everyone—what’s our action plan?
This is a matter for Security, captain. That thing out there is dangerous. I recommend we blow it up.
Hrrmm. Too simple, bad ethics. Engineering, your thoughts?
To be brief, we need to jarg the jargescent jargobody, but our jargon-wave beams can’t get a lock on it.
There’s the lucid explanation I was looking for!
We could jarg the jargonian jargonators. I’m not sure, but that might jajarg the jarfield, which should increase jargon emissions. Then we’ll be able to jjjarg the central jargo jarverter. Of course, first we’d have to reset the jargopattern and calibrate the j-coils for jarcent jartistic. I should probably mention, there is some risk we could annihilate the universe.
That’s…not unreasonable, we’ve survived worse.
I estimate our chances of failure at about ninety percent, sir.
You have our full confidence. How long do you need?
I’ve never done it, but well, maybe a couple of hours.
Make it twenty.
…Sir?
Minutes. You have twenty minutes before the jargonic relay dejargs and we lose power. No one noticed the relay dejargging? One thing at a time, now. It’s only Monday.
I made a logo for myself. It’s a monogram—DAW, per my name, no relation to the publisher—with a promise of untold dimensions. Emphasis on untold, emphasis on told.1 Alternate realities are an old trope, sometimes interesting, yet I’m not so concerned here with connecting my stories in a multiverse.2 Nor does untold refer to mere numbers. Rather it means unheard, unknown, unprecedented. I want to take my SF/F to unfamiliar, sometimes outright weird, territory.
Although it’s a purely abstract symbol, you can make out potential images in it. The shape evokes an open book. Pillars flanking an alien portal. A starship engine. A mountain before the setting sun, seen through a window. A great lidless eye, wreathed in flame… It’s a framework. The structure and symmetry suggest craft and careful design. The diagonals give it some dynamism, while the horizontals keep it grounded. It feels at once modern, ancient, and futuristic: a pictogram, arcane symbol, diagram, interface icon. I won’t say timeless, but there’s an equal measure of fantasy, science fiction, and other genres, with no limitation on historical setting.
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Notes
1. By the act of writing and sharing a story I make it told, so I’ve trapped myself in a paradox. Yet a good story, packed with lively nuance, implies a hundred thousand untold stories. These could be alternate versions of the canon, or instead, unexplored alleys peeling off the main roads of plot. I make a lifestyle of paradox—in the original sense, which simply means an opinion contrary to the norm—but also in the sense of resolving or enabling the impossible. Or rather, resolving the illusion of impossibility?
2. Spurred by this trend, I have been spinning some thoughts about the role of worldbuilding in SF/F. They’re not coming together yet, so I’ve decided to post last month’s blog before it’s already next month.
