Greetings earthlings. Would you like to know more about the planet where I live?
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One way is to read any of the Meniscus Seriesby Alexandra Tims.
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On Meniscus we have:
three-eyed snakes, twelve feet long;
crawling carpets of carnivorous vegetation;
genetically altered humans with nictitating amethyst eyes.
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You could buy the book … OR … You could win one! I am giving away four copies of Meniscus: South from Sintha at Goodreads from August 6, 2017 to August 14, 2017. No down-side … if you win (selection made by Goodreads), I’ll mail you, free of charge, a signed copy of my book. See the details below. Best of luck.
On the planet Meniscus, the alien Dock-winders plague my Human characters.
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Dock-winders, angular and lean,
elongated necks tattooed,
disconcerting eyes.
They travel together,
bundles of eloquence,
unperturbed by depravity.
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Dock-winders are purple, with chalky skin and eyes that blink one at a time. Their very long necks are tattooed to record significant transactions.
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A life-sized, stand-up cardboard Dock-winder made for the launch of my book Meniscus: Crossing The Churn.
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Dock-winders are the oppressive overlords of planet Meniscus. Most are merchants, trading in sentients, especially Humans. Thirty years before the opening of the story, they invaded Earth and brought the first shipment of Humans to Meniscus.
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On Meniscus, Dock-winders keep Humans as slaves, keeping them in appalling conditions. Humans are not allowed to associate with one-another. Men and women are kept apart and there are no relationships, families or communities allowed. Of course, Humans seek each other out in various ways and some manage to forge friendships.
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Dock-winders are also arrogant about the environment of their planet, forgetting that transplanted species may not stay under control. When they invaded Earth, they also brought a few other Earth species back to Meniscus with them, including the very aggressive banyan. Banyan has become a weed on Meniscus and overtaken the natural forests of the planet. Banyan has become my metaphor for oppressed Humans who may not stay down-trodden for long.
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Don’est, a Dock-winder child kidnapped by the Slain. Poor Don’est has to live with Humans she doesn’t understand and who don’t appreciate her odd ways.
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Next post, I’ll tell you about the Gel-heads, the other humanoid species on the planet Meniscus.
In the back of each of my books in the Meniscus series is ‘A Condensed Guide to Gel-speak’. The Guide includes all of the alien words I have used in the books to date.
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I am not a linguist. I speak English and French and I have some idea of how words are derived and the relationships between them. Who knows if our Human ideas of language and syntax would apply to an alien race!!??
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The Gel-heads in my alien world are barely sentient, driven by greed and the search for gratification. And yet, through some twist of Meniscus history, their language is the one used by most sentients on the planet. In one of the books, they will be seen in a village, teaching the children of another alien race.
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Gel-heads are covered with green gelatinous skin: their muscles, bones and internal organs can be seen through the integument!~
The Gel-head language includes clicks for word separation and emphasis, indicated by an inverted comma ‘ . The words are spoken with a hiss, and include many ‘th’ sounds.
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I have tried to construct words as logical associations of other words. So, for example, a building is marneth far’natha, built from the words for ‘to build’ and ‘a thing of value’ :
marneth far’natha a building
marneth to build
far’natha thing of value
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Another example:
grill’ to remove
grill’en small (something has been removed)
cardoth moon
cardoth grill’en the smaller of two moons
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In the top row of my bookshelf is a copy of The Klingon Dictionary (Marc Okrand, Star Trek Pocket Books, 1985). Originally meant as an assist to actors, it has become very popular among science-fiction enthusiasts. My copy has not been dusted off for many years, but I am proud to own one. The book has been issued in two editions and is translated into five languages. The Klingon Dictionary has sold 500,000 copies. So is a guide to Gel-speak silly? Who can tell?
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a few of my collection of Star Trek paperbacks … I can’t even reach that shelf, let alone find the dictionary, but it is up there somewhere!!!~
Writing science-fiction involves ‘world-building’, the process of creating an imaginary world. This fictional world can be represented with maps, illustrations and descriptions of setting. The constructed world should be coherent, and can have a history, geography, ecology, demographics, and so on.
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For my series about planet Meniscus, most of the world-building has been on-planet, inventing deserts and forests and the ecosystems found there.
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in Meniscus: Crossing The Churn, my main characters have to cross a desert, find shelter from a sandstorm and cope with scarce water
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However, just as with ‘character-building’, a writer is wise to develop as much information about the setting as possible, even if that information does not get included in the story. This information will inform the story and provide context.
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For that reason, I have developed a setting beyond planet Meniscus itself. I have given Meniscus a ‘solar system’ and invented some basic information on the planets there. After all, my characters spend a lot of time looking at the sky and who knows what they may see!
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In Book Five of the series, ‘Meniscus: Karst Topography’, one of the displays in a museum will be a holographic presentation of the solar system and the larger galaxy. When one of the characters ‘explores’ the holographic system, she will be able to experience returning to her home on Earth and to express her ideas about living so far from home.
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The fictional solar system where Meniscus is a planet is small — only four planets and their moons.
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‘Sel’ is the fourth planet in the system, a huge water planet. The white areas on Sel are frozen water; the blue areas are upwellings of liquid water, located in surface ‘hot-spots’. The life-forms on Sel are microbial, evolved to live in a watery world. Most of their lives are spent in a dormant state, waiting for intermittent thaw, or in the small air pockets in solid ice.
off planet 