“A life is a life, regardless of how it comes into being.” - Nausicaä, volume 7, p. 133

In this installment I examine volume 7, the conclusion of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, and discuss the theme of the book: judgment.

Note: I discuss ending spoilers for the entire series. You have been warned!

My first thought was, “Oh my God, I could get paid to write Dark Crystal tie-in fiction!”

This is no small matter. The Dark Crystal is, completely unqualified, my favorite movie. It got me hooked on genre stories from a very early age, and it’s been a touchstone for when I need to remember why I write in the first place. The worldbuilding, characters, and that peculiar Jim Henson touch make it fun, even if the pacing is sloppy and the main character a bit dull.

“My clan knows how to live by sharing the burden of suffering. We can teach you the way. Choose love over hatred.” - Nausicaä, Volume 6, p. 131

This time we explore volume 6 of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind and touch briefly on Miyazaki’s treatment of religious practice. As this is the penultimate volume of the manga, spoilers abound.

This is, obviously, a work of fan fiction. The character “Erik” is my own; all other characters are property of Stephen King.

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At first it sounded like a Redhill Crane.

I was taking a walk one hot summer afternoon in the woods outside my apartment complex. I had finished reading Stephen King’s novel It a few hours earlier, wondering what to make of this lengthy, thought-provoking book, when I heard it. I left the gravel road and headed into the scrub pine.

“. . .It looks like the day is coming when the living will envy the dead, doesn’t it?” - Kushana, Volume 5, p. 49

In this installment, I cover the fifth (and my personal favorite) volume of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind and talk about Miyazaki’s interpretation of the Cold War. SPOILERS, as always.

“You’ve heard of animals chewing off a leg to escape a trap? There’s an animal kind of trick. A human would remain in the trap, endure the pain, feigning death that he might kill the trapper and remove a threat to his kind.” - Dune, Frank Herbert

A young boy is led into a room, where a powerful old crone awaits. She commands him to put his hand inside a box, saying that if he removes it she’ll inject him with a lethal poison. He complies. The boy’s hand burns inside, but he keeps the hand inside, because the pinprick at his throat would kill him if he removes it. Finally, the agony stops. He pulls out his hand. . .

And it’s perfectly fine.

“Our god of the wind tells us to live! I love life! The light, the sky, people, the insects, I love them all!” - Nausicaä, Volume 4, p. 85

In this installment, I examine volume 4 of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, and talk a little about the role telepathy plays in the series.

(Note: spoilers from here on out!)

I’ve described writing IT stories for The Daily WTF, on more than one occasion, as akin to writing hard science fiction. Hard, in this case, means scientifically accurate, with some flexibility for storytelling (otherwise, it’s just realistic fiction!). You’re bound to the way that computers work – just as there’s no faster-than-light travel in hard SF, you can’t make a computer catch a human virus (unless you try really hard.) However, you can create fictional companies, even make up a computer application or two, so long as it could happen in real life.

“Take a good look, Nausicaä! This is war!” - Kurotowa, Volume 3, p. 64

In this installment, I cover the events of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind volume 3, containing both a compelling war story and a nuanced argument for pacifist and ecofeminist values.

Or: don’t name the car until you’ve bought it.

I won’t be working on that Otherkin project this year. In my post on the subject a few months back, I said that I wanted to write about it in some fictionalized form, and that’s still true. But I don’t yet know how I should. Should there be genre elements? Should it be a semi-fictional memoir? Short form? Long form? Until I can answer those questions to my satisfaction, I can’t make any progress on it. It’s just not ready.