This week marks the one-year anniversary of the release of Mad Science Institute. When I started working on it about 3 years ago, I knew enough about Nikola Tesla to know that he was the benevolent king of all mad scientists, and that he should be the founder of my fictional institute. But I didn’t know much more than that, and everyone else seemed to know even less.

Back then, Tesla was like a well-kept secret. Here was the inventor whose work was at the heart of our entire electrical grid and all the devices that run off it (not to mention his pioneering of radio, robotics, x-rays and more). And yet nobody had heard about him.

But all that seems to have changed in only a few years’ time. It seems like Tesla’s name is everywhere now, and he’s the star of television, comics, and video games. His name graces an automotive company, and a crowd-funding effort a few months back resulted in more than 30,000 people contributing over 1.3 million dollars to the founding of a Tesla museum in New York.

I wish I could take credit for the rise in Tesla-awareness, but about all I can claim is that I was a Tesla Hipster. Still, I hope this trend continues and he gets his name into the history books where it belongs.

Viva la Spark-Punk Revolution!

And how about you? Are you a Tesla hipster or are you only now hearing about this historical figure? Leave a comment to let me know.

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Not long ago I was flipping channels and happened to find Back to the Future playing at the same time as Lord of the Rings. Seeing Doc Brown and Gandalf in such close temporal proximity inspired me to tweet “Mad scientists are to science fiction what wizards are to fantasy. They’re the ones who usually make the story happen.”

One of my Twitter buddies, @pipenta, called me on this and I completely agree that it requires more explanation. After all, what could be more contradictory than science and magic? The two, by definition, cannot co-exist. Or, if they do, it’s purely a matter of perception: as Arthur C. Clark put it, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

I should have specified that I was thinking in terms of archetypes and narrative roles. This is difficult to express in a 140 character message (“Archetype” is 9 characters all by itself) so I’m grateful to have a chance to do it here.

Wizards’ narrative roles

First, let’s examine what a wizard does. In the past few decades, wizards have emerged as protagonists, such as in televisions Merlin and, of course, Rowling’s Harry Potter series. But traditionally, wizards are supporting characters who are mysterious, mystical, and often live outside of normal society. They might be good, bad, or misguided, but they appear in a story to warn of, teach about, or create fantastical elements such as dragons, invisibility spells, or unholy armies.

Merlin points Arthur towards his special destiny and his holy quests. Gandalf initiates Bilbo’s adventure when he comes to his door with a key and a map (not to mention 13 rowdy dwarves), and then a generation later he returns to urge Frodo out on his own journey. In that same story, Sauron and Saruman both utilize their horrible creations in bids for world domination, and I defy you to name a “dark lord” in any fantasy novel who is not a sorcerer or at least involved with sorcery.

 

Scientists’ narrative roles

If you picked up on the phrase “bids for world domination,” you probably already see where I’m going with this comparison. Like wizards, scientists can be benevolent (like Doc Brown), or evil (like James Bond’s classic villain Blofeld), or just misguided (like Doctor Frankenstein, whose monster runs amok). All of them, however, exist outside of society (in secluded laboratories instead of wizards’ towers), and they serve as powerful allies or antagonists through whom the super-normal (if not super-natural) can find its way into the story.

Scientists (mad or otherwise) are the ones who provide the fantastical elements to science fiction—whether it be time  machines, doomsday devices, or atomic monsters, these serve the same roles as mystic quests, unholy powers, and legendary monsters.

The first true science fiction story, Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein, was about a man seeking to defy the laws of nature. Shelly clothed this story in scientific trappings because these principals were just beginning to pique the public interest. Had she written the story a few years earlier, Frankenstein might have reanimated the corpse through a demonic pact rather than electrical current. Same story, same character, different flavor.

 

Maybe I’m barking up the wrong lightning rod, or maybe I’m in danger of wrecking the things that make the distinct genres fun. Either way, I’m grateful to @pipenta for questioning this because it raises an interesting topic.

What do you think: have I gone wand-over-test-tube or do you see a connection, too? Can anyone out there think of some other wizard/scientist parallels or counter examples? I’d love to hear your comments.

The most common question I get about Mad Science Institute is: When will the sequel land? I love that question because it means that people are as excited for it as I am, so I wanted to give everyone a project update.

Right now, I’m on a heck of a roll. I’m a bit more than half way through the rough draft, and it’s coming together much faster than the original did—I think because now I know all the characters and have established the world. With the original, it was like building a diorama without even knowing whether I should use wood, plastic, aluminum, or what. This time, it feels like I’m putting it together with Legos because everything is clicking in a way that I didn’t reach on the last one until towards the end of the process.

Many of you have noticed the progress bar that I installed in the left column of this blog (take a look: it’s right over there ß). Many of you have also noticed that I haven’t been bumping it up much lately. That’s because I created a byzantine little formula for how much I should bump the meter based on how much I’ve typed. The thing is that I do a lot of my writing on the bus (it’s a GREAT place to write—every seat is filled by a potential character model), and I ended up with a pinched nerve because typing on a little netbook in a cramped seat is a nightmare scenario as far as ergonomics goes.

So I switched do doing my rough draft with a pen and spiral notebook. Gone is the pinched nerve, and welcome is the explosion of words. It’s got me thinking that I should do rough drafts on paper even when I don’t have to (many writers do).

The slowdown on the progress bar is just that I’ve been generating the hand-written rough draft faster than I’ve been able to re-type it, so it doesn’t factor into the listed progress. That bar was never meant to be anything other than a rough estimate, but I may re-work my formula to better represent my completed-ness.

November is NaNoWriMo (“National Novel Writing Month”) in which authors of all levels attempt to complete the rough draft of a 50,000 word novel in a single month. It’s a bit like a marathon, except that instead of 26.2 miles it takes 30 days. Writers sometimes disappear from Facebook and Twitter during November, or they don’t return calls until December because they’re too busy driving towards the end of their story.

Even in rough draft form, that’s a lot to do in a month. In a happy coincidence, it’s also the approximate amount I have left to go on the rough draft of Mad Science 2, so I’m going to go for it. After this, it will still take months of typing, revisions, editing, layout, printing, and so forth, but this will be a huge step towards putting the sequel into your hands.

Even if I don’t get the draft done, I’ll still get pretty close. Wish me luck!

 

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I just got some fan mail that I have to share with you. This is from a young man of about 12 years—we’ll call him Brent—whom I met at a recent book signing. He is obviously a very bright boy, and his question was so good it got me thinking, so I wanted to share it with you.

 

Hi Sechin Tower I am that kid from Gen Con in the star trek uniform. I have a question how does one become a mad scientist and what in your mind what is a mad scientist.P.S. loving the book can’t wait for the sequel.

 

Hello, Brent!

I’m so glad that I got to meet you at Gencon and I am very happy to hear that you are enjoying the novel. I’m working on the sequel right now and I think it will also be fun to read.

You asked a very good question about becoming a mad scientist. I think the most important thing to being a scientist is curiosity. Scientists are curious about the world and everything in it. They go to school and work hard to learn answers, but they also learn how to make questions that will lead to new answers that nobody has ever learned before. They do all of this because they are curious and love to learn. As long as you follow your curiosity and ask better and better questions, you’re on the path to becoming a scientist.

Now, a MAD scientist is a scientist who is either crazy or people think is crazy. Mad scientists try to use science to prove something amazing, something that nobody else believes can be true. In real life, mad scientists are usually wrong, but not always. Other scientists once thought that Nikola Tesla was wrong about alternating current motors and some people even called him mad. But then he proved that it could work, and it changed the way we use electricity. Tesla also said he could prove other things that still seem impossible (For example, controlling the weather or lighting up the sky) but he was never able to prove these other things, so some people still think of him as a mad scientist.

Are you thinking of becoming a scientist someday? It takes hard work in school, but someone as intelligent and curious as you can certainly become a great scientist.

Thank you for writing to me! I’d love to talk to you more if you are interested.

Yours sincerely,

Sechin Tower

 

Do you think I gave “Brent” the right answer? Leave a comment if you agree or disagree.

For you fans of the Ubiquity RPG system, this is the game scenario that I ran last week at Gencon. It’s got some experimental rules for making Mad Science something more usable during scenes (rather than something for NPCs or downtime). If none of that makes sense to you, then don’t download this. To the rest of you: happy rolling!

 

Download “Mad Science in the Hollow Earth” RPG scenario

 

My fellow Mad-Scientist Americans,

 

The European Commission recently launched a public campaign aimed at getting girls interested in science. Their tactic? Add some pink ribbons and declare that “it’s a girl thing.” It’s sassy, cloying, and kind of annoying. Is this the right way to go?

It’s no secret that women are still not equally represented in scientific fields, despite the fact that women own half of the best brains on the planet (and maybe more, depending on whom you talk to).

 

Digression

Actually, there is one exception to science fields lacking a feminine touch: medical science. Medical schools (and, indeed, all colleges across this country) are seeing a huge imbalance of qualified female applicants.

Why are boys trailing behind in preparedness for higher education? Some pundits argue that we, as a society, tolerate much more goofing-off from male children and hold them to a lower standard. Others suggest that boys are, by nature, poorly geared for the passive learning expected in many of our classrooms today. Or that boys are more distracted by video games, sports, and other pass-times that drag down academic efforts.

Well, that’s a topic for another post, but I wanted to bring it up because it shows that despite the disproportionately HIGH number of qualified female students, we’re still seeing a disproportionately LOW number going for math and science degrees. The numbers are getting better, but they’re still not satisfactory.

 

Back to the issue

So the question is, how do we get more girls interested into science?

I’ll admit, equalizing gender participation in science was an ulterior motive when I wrote Mad Science Institute, which is why I created strong female characters who were on equal footing with their male counterparts in the realm of science. Others have attempted to popularize the notion in similar ways, such as Claudia the hacker from Warehouse 13 or Amy Farrah Fowler from The Big Bang Theory, or… um… hmmm. I’m coming up with blanks. I’m sure there must be plenty more examples, right? Help me think of some!

 

The real question(s)

The real question might be: what keeps girls out of science in the first place? Are they learning unspoken prejudices from their parents and teachers? Do they simply lack role-models in scientific fields? If we could answer that, we’d be much better of

But the even more real question might be: how do we get MORE kids of BOTH GENDERS into science? In The World is Flat, Thomas Friedman points out America’s acute need for scientists and engineers. Tech firms aren’t hiring foreign workers because they want to, they’re hiring them because America isn’t supplying enough of its own brain-power any more.

 

If elected president…

Science education—and, indeed, all education—will become THE central focus of my administration. Why aren’t the other candidates discussing the gender gap in science careers—or the general gap in science careers for both genders? Write to your favorite politician to ask them about this issue. If they aren’t willing to address this, it’s time to find a new candidate.

AMERICA CAN’T AFFORD TO IGNORE ITS (future) MAD SCIENTISTS ANY LONGER

 

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I’m a mad scientist, and I want to be your president.*

Yes, I am one of THOSE mad scientists who creates insane doomsday machines and crazy lizard monsters, but I stand before you (or, rather, sit before my keyboard if you want to get all literal) to tell you that I’m also mad in the sense that I’m angry. Very angry. And just this once I think I’ll try politics before resorting to flying cyborg monkeys.

For too long the two major parties have ignored the important scientific issues that touch each and every one of us personally. No longer! With your support, I intend to lead America to a brighter, shinier future with far, far more robots and more flying cars. But more importantly, far less stupidity.

As a candidate in this election, I hope to shift the debate away from such petty, abstract issues such as the economy and gerrymandering, and shift it towards the real, important things that will change our lives today and in the future. Here are some of the issues I intend to stump for:

• Economy: we can’t afford to outsource our scientific future. Let’s make a particle collider so big it’ll give Europe boson-envy.
• Healthcare: why you’re a freaking idiot if you don’t vaccinate your child.
• International diplomacy: building better doomsday devices.
• Military: robot soldiers are the way to go.
• Global climate change: 98% of scientists never agree about anything… but they agree about this. What does that tell you?
• NASA: We now pay the Russians to fly our astronauts into space. Are you frakking kidding me? We can do better!

I’m sick and tired of politicians on both sides pandering to the denialists and distracting the public with petty social squabbles. Science is our burden, our mess, and our best hope for a better future. If you agree, tweet this, post this, email it, and leave me comments. The important thing is that you tell your friends, tell your co-workers, and tell your political leaders.

Let’s bring science back into the public debate.

AMERICA CAN’T AFFORD TO IGNORE ITS MAD SCIENTISTS ANY LONGER.

 

*I’m not really a scientist or a politician. This is a work of social satire. Don’t actually vote for me: if I really wanted your vote, I’d use my mind-control ray.

 

 

The Nazis led them at gunpoint up a broad flight of stairs to a huge room with a vaulting ceiling. It may have originally been designed as a ballroom that had boasted elegant chandeliers and bright banners but now served as a warehouse of twisted mechanical experiments. Hundreds of eviscerated machines and mutilated engines lined metal tables throughout the room, and the distinct scents of grease and smoke pervaded the area. The far end of the room was an elevated platform that probably was once an orchestral stage but now housed two great, grimy pillars that looked as if they had been pulled out of some pharaoh’s tomb.

“So glad you could join me in my laboratory,” from behind one of the pillars stepped the owner of the voice, a shriveled man in a white lab coat. His liver-spotted skin was so pale that it bordered on translucent, but his hair, greased back to reveal a dagger-like widow’s peak, seemed impossibly black, as if he had been dying it with engine oil. Reggie realized with a sickening lurch that this had been the man who had peered down at them from a window while they were attempting to bluff their way inside.

The guards forced them to their knees before the old doctor approached.

Dr. Scott looked up at him and said “Dr. Wurmhausen.”

“So you recognize me,” the older man seemed pleased. “I recognized you, too, Dr. Mortimer Scott, from the moment you attempted your ridiculous ruse to enter our compound. You didn’t really think it would work, did you?”

“Only some of us thought so,” Dr. Scott shot an angry glance at Reggie.

“And you two,” Wurmhausen pointed a bony finger at Reggie and Clem. “Should I thank you for bringing Dr. Scott to me? After all the trouble of sending in my panzer-kampftruppen, I should have simply hired his so-called friends.”

“We only came to find out why you’re trying to kidnap all those scientists,” Reggie said.

Wurmhausen snapped his fingers and one of the guards seized Reggie roughly by the arms. As soon as he was secure, another guard slammed the butt of his submachine gun into his nose. There was a crunching sound, and then a line of blood spilled down over his mouth and dripped from his chin.

“Do you take me for a fool?” Wormhausen drew a luger and pointed it at his head. “Your next sentence will be your last unless you tell me why you have come here.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 5: Soap

“I think you should reconsider that scholarship,” my Dad said as he sat at the kitchen table paying bills. He was resting his forehead on his left palm like he always did when he balanced his checkbook.

I was zig zagging through the apartment with a hand-held version of the EMP broadcasting device. With one hand I adjusted the power level while with the other I kept the focusing dish aimed up at a miniature autogyro helicopter I had constructed from balsa wood pieces salvaged from a model airplane and the motor from an RC car. It flew pretty well, but whenever the autogyro got too high, it would lose its energy and begin to float down where it would come closer to my broadcaster. Then it would get its motor energized by the electromagnetic field I was broadcasting and would go zipping back up to the ceiling. Up and down, up and down in our tiny apartment. The challenge was that it would veer off in all sorts of directions, so I had to move constantly in order to keep the broadcaster directly beneath it. It was kind of like that old game with the rubber ball on the string that you’re supposed to get in the cup, except here the rubber ball flies away on its own.

“I know it’s short notice,” my Dad went on. “But I think it would be a really good experience for you to go to that college.”

“Seriously?” I asked, hopping to my right to stay beneath the autogyro. “I’m only sixteen. I’d never fit in at college. Plus, it doesn’t seem fair that the only reason I got the scholarship is because my cousin was all smoochy-smoochy with the Dean of Students there.”

“That’s not why you got this scholarship,” he said. “Soap, you have a gift—”

I couldn’t hear what he said next because the autogyro veered off and I had to lunge to keep up with it, which made me knock over a floor lamp.  The lamp fell with a cymbal-crash, and it made both of my Dad’s autographed basketballs fall off their shelf and bounce to the other side of the room.

“Soap,” I think my Dad tried to yell at me, but it came out more like a sigh of defeat. “Sorry, Dad!” I said. “I just have to calibrate the amplifier and then I’ll be done.”

“I just feel like you might be happier there,” he said. “This city is just too small for you.”

“Dad,” I scolded. “New York is as big as cities can get.”

“That’s not what I mean. This place is too confining. Too… closed-in. You need open air and empty fields where you can run around and play Frisbee and launch your rockets without raining fire back down on densely populated areas.”

I smacked my shoulder into a wall trying to keep up with the autogyro. Aside from knocking the wind out of me, it took away any argument I might have made about not needing more space.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This continues an excerpt from Mad Science Institute, a novel of calamities, creatures, and college matriculation. (type “J” to skip back one post; type “K” to skip ahead one post)

The novel will be available 12/16/2011, but you can read the beginning here first!

 

Most of the rest of the day passed in a blur. Thankfully, no one was hurt beyond a few minor burns and bruises. All the same, I got some mean looks from the students whose experiments I had ruined. The judges wouldn’t talk to me, either, and the guy from MIT wouldn’t even look at me—although I did see him talking with the antimatter kid for a long time.

I felt lower than the scavenging worms at the bottom of the Marianas Trench. Even for me, this was an unprecedented disaster. My experiment had even burned out some of the wiring in the gymnasium. My Dad, being an electrician, had negotiated to repair the gym himself, but it would probably take him days to do it, and that didn’t cover the cost of all the cell phones and other electronic devices that were wrecked by the EMP. Here we were, so poor we couldn’t afford anything but the crummiest of cell-phones, and now somehow we were going to have to pay to replace everybody else’s high-end devices. I couldn’t even look my Dad in the eye all the way home.

The weird thing, the amazing thing, was that it turned out the science fair fiasco wasn’t the most important thing to happen that day. When we got home there was a letter from the Mechanical Science Institute waiting for me.

I recognized the name of the Institute because about a month ago a professor named Denise McKenzie had sent me a get-to-know-you letter saying she wanted to look into scholarships for me. I guess my cousin Dean had told her about me, but I don’t know what he said because I hardly knew him and the last time I saw him I think I was ten, back in the days when the whole family would get together for holidays sometimes. (I remember Dean because he stomped out the fire I accidentally started on the rug after rewiring the Christmas lights.) I guess he and my Dad must stay in touch a little, and my Dad must have bragged (or complained) about my inventions, and that’s how word got out to McKenzie.

Anyway, I didn’t think much of the Mechanical Science Institute at the time. The letter said it was a special program at some school called Langdon University, which was located in the weirdly-named town of Bugswallow, Minnesota. I had never heard of it before, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to look into it as one of my safety schools, so I sent Professor McKenzie the paperwork and copies of a few of my blueprints. Now I finally had her reply.

With a sigh, I decided my day couldn’t get any worse, so I opened the official-looking envelope and pulled out the letter.

 

Dear Sophia Lazarchek,

I have reviewed your transcript, your personal statement, and, most importantly, your schematics. I am particularly impressed with your knowledge and implementation of Tesla’s work with wireless electricity broadcasting. I regret that I will not be able to see your demonstration at the science fair, but I trust all will go well.

I am pleased to offer you enrollment in the Mechanical Science Institute with a full scholarship, including expenses for tuition, room, board, and books. Our classes begin on September 13th. I apologize for the short notice, but I hope you will join us this very year, as we are in need of a student with your expertise.

Sincerely,

Professor Denise McKenzie

Dean of Students, Mechanical Science Institute