Tag: science fiction

• October 15, 2022

  Help My Audio Drama Win an Award

  

  Read on to find out how you can help my debut audio drama, “The Adventures of Captain Radio,” win an Audio Verse Award!

  VOTE NOW

  In the fall of 2020, I was desperate for an escape. Between the bitter election and the threat of the pandemic, the future looked pretty bleak. So, in an effort to tune it all out, I wrote a script for a science fiction adventure set in the distant future. It was a lighthearted, retrofuturistic, utopian story in which a mustache-twirling villain bent on destruction faces off against a space-age knight in shining armor.

  Against all odds, that script became a podcast. My collaborator William McDonald helped corral a stellar cast of voice actors, a composer to write music for the show, and a graphic designer to create our show art. It went from concept to reality in less than two years and now we’re up for an award.

  

  The Audio Verse Awards recognize the finest audio dramas of the past year and “The Adventures of Captain Radio” is one of about 150 nominees, all of which are stellar. The competition is stiff — that’s where you come in. We need your help to make it through to the final round. Voting is open through October 30, 2022, and we could really use your vote.

  All you have to do is go to audioverseawards.net/vote to cast your ballot for “The Adventures of Captain Radio.”

  You should know that the ballot isn’t very mobile-friendly, so it’s best to use a desktop or laptop (or you can switch to the desktop view on a mobile device by clicking the “Aa” symbol near the top of the page). On the New Productions category, simply find our show art in the lefthand column and drag it to the right column to rank us as one of your choices. The more shows you rank, the more weight your vote will carry.

  Our whole team has poured so much heart into this story and these characters and it would mean a lot to see those efforts rewarded with a 2022 Audio Verse Award. Thank you for your support and for your vote!

  VOTE NOW

  — 30 —

  Jonny Eberle is a writer, podcaster, filmmaker, and photographer in Tacoma, WA. You can find his words in Creative Colloquy, Grit City Magazine, and All Worlds Wayfarer. While you’re here, read more of his travel writing, sign up for his monthly newsletter, and follow him on Twitter.
• August 15, 2022

  The First Great Pandemic Novel

  

  

  Within a few weeks of the worldwide shutdown that followed the outbreak of COVID-19, I remember reading a slew of think-pieces about how someone, somewhere was using their quarantine to write a great pandemic novel. I rolled my eyes at these headlines. I certainly didn’t have the mental or emotional capacity to write coherently about what was unfolding and I doubted that any writer could pen a book about the epidemic that would be worth reading—at least not until many years had passed.

  Fast forward two years, when my copy of Sea of Tranquility arrived in the mail. I was cautiously optimistic. If anyone could do justice to the COVID era, it was Emily St. John Mandel.

  Mandel comes to the topic of deadly diseases with more experience than most authors. Her breakout hit, Station Eleven, centers around a modern plague that has wiped out most of humanity. That book is a favorite of mine and it should be no surprise that it experienced a resurgence in 2020, six years after it was first published. Enthusiastic readers pointed to Mandel as a literary prophet who predicted the outbreak, even though her fictional Georgia flu is very different than the real coronavirus.

  Perhaps unsurprisingly, Mandel was flooded with interview and speaking requests. As the literary and the real collided, she started scribbling some notes about a 23rd century writer from the Moon who’s on a book tour on Earth when another pandemic strikes. That experiment in autofiction eventually became Sea of Tranquility.

  Having lived through two years of an actual, ongoing global pandemic, I wasn’t sure I was ready to read a novel about a fictional pandemic. Thankfully, Emily St. John Mandel handles the subject matter with delicacy and humanity. Sea of Tranquility is a fast-paced and beautifully written book. The book jumps across four time periods and Mandel wisely doesn’t linger too long in the present, choosing instead to draw parallels between today and epidemics in the past and the future. A time-travel plot ties the whole thing together, but the temporal mystery is secondary to how each character responds when their respective worlds come crashing down.

  But even in the book’s darker moments, there is an acknowledgement that history is never ending, even when it seems as though all hope is lost and the human race could never possibly go on. As the author character says in a virtual lecture in the middle of lockdown, “What if it is always the end of the world? Because we might reasonably think of the end of the world as a continuous and never ending process.”

  Fans of Station Eleven and The Glass Hotel will be happy to see a few familiar faces from the ever-expanding ESJM multiverse, but anyone can jump in without having read either previous book, though it adds an extra layer of depth if you’re able to pick up on the references and recurring characters woven through the plot.

  In Sea of Tranquility, Mandel has written the first great pandemic novel of the 21st century. Rather than feeling weighed down or pessimistic, the book is overwhelmingly hopeful. We have been through worse, she reminds us, we will survive this moment of history, and humanity will survive into the future. At a time when our society often feels like it’s on the brink of collapse, that’s a reminder we can all use right now. I know I needed it.

  Buy Sea of Tranquility on Bookshop.org

  Book: Sea of Tranquility (2022)

  Author: Emily St. John Mandel

  Length: 272 pages

  Genre: Literary/science fiction.

  Rating: 5/5

  — 30 —

  Jonny Eberle is a writer and podcaster in Tacoma, WA. His work has appeared in Creative Colloquy, Grit City Magazine, and All Worlds Wayfarer. You can follow him on Twitter, join his mailing list, and listen to his audio drama, The Adventures of Captain Radio, wherever you enjoy podcasts.

  I’m a Bookshop.org affiliate, so I may earn a small commission on purchases made using links from my website. Bookshop.org is an alternative to Amazon that supports independent bookstores, which is awesome. You can find more recommendations here.
• February 18, 2022

  I Guess This Makes Me a Podcaster: On Creating The Adventures of Captain Radio

  

  Let me start out by saying that I didn’t intend to create a podcast. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always enjoyed podcasts, having been a fervent Radiolab listener for more than 10 years, and I regularly recommend shows like 99 Percent Invisible, Levar Burton Reads, The Moth, and Imaginary Worlds to anyone who will listen. But I never thought I would make one. These shows were highly produced works of art. Coming from a film background, I knew how much time and energy that takes to pull off.

  But then, the whole world changed.

  A deadly pandemic upended my daily routine. I was out of work, alone at home, for days…and then weeks…and then months. I read a lot, but I also dove headlong into every podcast I could find, sampling from genres and formats I never knew existed. I listened all the time—in the shower, while weeding the garden, out walking the dog—trying to shut out terrifying reality with comforting voices in my ears.

  All that listening dredged up an old idea. Back in college, I used to joke with my friend and frequent collaborator Will McDonald that someday we were going to make a black-and-white sci-fi B-movie called Captain Radio and the Mutant Mole People from the Eleventh Dimension. For years and years, it was nothing more than an inside joke. Then, in the fall of 2020, something clicked and I realized that Captain Radio wasn’t a movie at all, but a 1930s radio show.

  I started writing. Soon, I had dashed off three scripts bursting with rocket ships, ray guns, robots, mad scientists, rapid-fire dialogue, melodrama, and (of course) a valiant hero. It was silly stuff, popcorn fare of the highest order, but it felt good to write something hopeful in the midst of a global catastrophe. I needed the escape, and I suspected others did, too. So, I pitched the show to Will and asked him to come along as the star and co-producer. For some crazy reason, he agreed. Together, we assembled a talented voice cast from across the country, many of whom we knew from Theatrikos Theatre Company in Flagstaff, AZ.

  After a lot of work finalizing the six-episode story, organizing recordings, learning my way around Audacity, creating sound effects with random objects lying around my house (wine glasses, bags of rice, and a wet sponge among many others), the first episode dropped on December 31, 2021. Chapter 4 is out now and as we rocket toward the season finale in a couple of weeks, I’m proud of the work we’ve done and hope listeners have enjoyed coming along for the ride as much as we’ve had fun putting it together.

  If you’re interested in checking out the show, you can find The Adventures of Captain Radio in all the usual places you consume podcasts, including Apple Podcasts and Spotify. If you enjoy the show, please take a moment to leave a rating and review telling others one thing you liked about it — that helps us immensely. You can also buy merchandise featuring artwork and quotes from the show, or you can skip all of that and make a monetary donation on Ko-Fi to help pay the bills. You can learn more on the Obscure Studios website if you’d like to dig deeper.

  I didn’t set out to become a podcaster, but here I am. I’m so excited to be sharing this spacefaring journey with you. Thanks for listening.

  — 30 —

  Jonny Eberle is a writer and aspiring podcaster in Tacoma, WA. His fiction has been featured in Creative Colloquy, Grit City Magazine, and All Worlds Wayfarer, and his debut audio drama, The Adventures of Captain Radio. Follow him on Twitter or join his mailing list for more news, writing, and musings.
• December 23, 2020

  Publishing News: December 2020

  

  It’s publication day for my newest short story! All Worlds Wayfarer is publishing my story “Firemaker” in their December 2020 issue, now available to read online for free or available as an ebook from Amazon. I’m beyond excited that this story has finally found a home. I sincerely hope you enjoy reading it.

  Read “Firemaker” Now

  Spoiler Alert: If you haven’t read the story yet, I hope you will before reading much further, because this is the point of no return if you wish to avoid spoilers. I love a good time travel tale. It’s a familiar trope for good reason — it allows us to imagine our reality in surprising ways. If we had a machine like the one my protagonist has at his disposal, I think we’d all be tempted to see what tomorrow had in store for us, or long to correct what once went wrong. But what happens once you’ve seen and done it all? Where would a weary time travel go to escape the sweeping currents of history? That’s the question at the heart of “Firemaker.”

  I started tinkering with this idea about three years ago, when I fell down a rabbit hole of information about linguistics. I remember reading about linguists searching for an ancient “mother tongue,” a lost language theorized to be the ancestor of today’s Indo-European language family. This missing language, dubbed “Proto Indo-European” can be extrapolated by looking for common words that may indicate a common root in the distant past. According to some theories, scraps of this language embedded in our modern lexicon may be the only surviving evidence of a hunter-gatherer society that existed more than 15,000 years ago. From that starting place, I began to imagine this society as a small band that did not survive the Ice Age, leaving behind nothing but their language. A dead-end civilization, cut off from us by a climactic disaster.

  Some time later, this idea merged with another one that was rolling around in my mind. I was thinking about time travel as a plot device, about the nature of time, and where a time traveler who’s tired of roaming might go. How might such a traveler retire after untold decades exploring every corner of history from the dawn of the dinosaurs to the destruction of the Earth? Where would I go if I wanted to avoid making disruptive changes to the timeline and simply be? In that position, I might want to find a quiet corner of time where I knew I couldn’t alter the flow of history, among people who would eventually disappear from the historical record. Perhaps an Ice Age civilization destined to die out.

  These two threads came together in an early draft of a story titled “Amber.” In that first version, the Traveler goes into the distant past to escape from the responsibility of knowing how everything would turn out. In that story, the Traveler came across as cold and detached, weighing the impact of his every action before committing to anything. In the story, he saves a boy from drowning, but only after deciding that doing so will have no adverse affect on history. It was an interesting thought experiment, but it lacked emotional stakes.

  So, I made some changes, put it away for a year or two, and then pulled it out again to fine-tune it. In the final story, the Traveler is much more impulsive and driven not by a sense of duty not to screw up time, but love for a woman with the potential to ensure her people’s survival as ice sheets bear down on their valley. “Firemaker” is a lot more fun than its earlier incarnation because of the protagonist’s willingness to throw away his whole life in order to get himself to Immaru ahead of schedule. But it also incorporates an undercurrent of uncertainty about whether or not we can ever understand or manipulate time. In the end, I honestly don’t know if the Traveler’s actions constitute a paradox or if that’s how it was always supposed to be and free will is an illusion. And I don’t know if the Traveler made it back to the tavern to order the drinks or if he ever existed at all. That’s the fun of time travel, and I hope you enjoyed the trip.

  “Firemaker” is now available to read on the All Worlds Wayfarer website. All Worlds Wayfarer publishes quarterly on the solstice and equinox, so you have until March 20, 2021 to read my short fiction there before the next issue is published. If you’d like a copy you can keep forever, please consider supporting the lit journal by purchasing the Kindle version on Amazon. Thanks for reading!

  — 30 —

  Jonny Eberle lives in Tacoma, WA with his wife, three typewriters, and a puppy. His fiction has been featured or is forthcoming in Creative Colloquy, Grit City Magazine and All Worlds Wayfarer. Read more of his short fiction here, follow him on Twitter, and subscribe to his monthly email newsletter here.
• March 11, 2019

  The Making of a New Short Film: “As Seen On TV”

  

  There was a time in my life where I could call up a couple of friends with a wild idea, grab my handheld camcorder and make a short film in an evening or a weekend. It was a freewheeling, fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants style of filmmaking that prioritized creative freedom over everything else — including scripts, plot, lighting, sound — and it’s what allowed Obscure Studios, the film company I founded and ran with a few friends, to rack up well over 100 videos in just two years.

  After moving from Arizona to Washington and away from my cadre of usual collaborators, filmmaking took a backseat to my writing and other creative pursuits. Last year, with the 10th anniversary of our minor hit, Reilly’s Dorm, looming, I had the chance to travel back to Northern Arizona. There, I carved out a couple of hours with my go-to partner in crime, the incomparable Will McDonald, to write and shoot a brand new short film.

  We were a little rusty, but five years between short films can do that. We cooked up a story outline at my favorite coffee shop and the next morning, filmed the opening and closing scenes of the film in the Airbnb where we were staying and the woods behind Will’s house. That afternoon, we set up shop in the basement of Theatrikos, Flagstaff’s community theater and a longtime support of Obscure Studios. We rigged up a lighting setup, cobbled together a campy alien costume for me to wear, and filmed the scenes that make up the heart of the film, as well as a quick promo video.

  And that’s all we had time for. We left straight from the theater to catch our flight back to the PNW and dove into a remodel of our house a few days later. It wasn’t until January that I remembered the footage that was waiting on my iPhone’s hard drive.

  Over the course of a few weeks, I pieced together the shots we’d captured that summer day. I was pleasantly surprised to see how good most of it was and how well the pieces fit into place. I played around with audio effects to give my voice an unearthly quality, tossed in a couple of visual and lighting effects, and added a 1914 public domain recording of “Stay Down Where You Belong” by Arthur Fields, slowed down to 10% of its regular speed as the soundtrack (I had originally planned to perform my own synthesizer music, but I quickly remembered that I’m not very musically talented, so only a few notes made it into the final cut).

  Overall, I’m really happy with how “As Seen On TV” turned out. Much of the credit goes to Will, a fantastic actor who’s immediately likeable on screen and blessed with impeccable comedic timing. And of course, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention my inspiration: my lovely wife who said, “You and Will should really make a movie while we’re in town” and provided both an unplanned cameo and makeup/special effects assistance with the alien goo (aka dish soap).

  Filmmaking is one of those things that demands so much time and attention to detail that you always feel exhausted at the end of a day of filming or editing. But, as soon as you see the final product, a dose of endorphins convince you that the sweat and tears were all worth it and all you want to do is make another and another. Making “As Seen On TV” makes me want to break out my camera and tell more stories, so don’t be surprised if you see more in the coming months and years. I feel a renaissance coming.

  — 30 —

  Jonny Eberle is a writer, photographer and filmmaker in Tacoma, WA. Incidentally, Tacoma would be an amazing setting for a noir thriller, don’t you think? When not engaged in cinematic plotting, you can find him on Twitter. Learn more about Obscure Studios on our fancy website.

  Join the mailing list today!
• March 9, 2019

  The First Thirty Thousand Words

  

  At my core, I’m a short story writer, a factor that has been both a blessing and a curse as I set out to write a full-length novel. At the 30,000-word mark, just over one-quarter of the way to my goal, it hit me that I was attempting something new. Up until this point, I could’ve taken what I’d written so far and turned it into a very long piece of short fiction; one of those short stories without an ending that thinks its clever for leaving the reader hanging for resolution. But moving past 30,000 words in my manuscript, that easy off ramp is disappearing in the rear view mirror.

  A novel is not a short story that didn’t know when to quit. Short stories, well told, are like diamonds — small, multifaceted, and complex, but contained. They’re defined by the surprising depth and tension that comes from expertly working within the constraints of the form to make each and every word matter.

  A novel is not like that. I don’t even have a metaphor to describe it, because I’m still discovering the differences. I’ve noticed that my writing style has started to change as my word count grows. I’m thinking more about the big picture and how scenes need to echo forward and back through the narrative. Three plot points aren’t enough to sustain the whole thing from beginning to end. Instead, I’ve felt the need to add three or more complications to each scene to maintain forward momentum.

  There is no going back. I have to see this through and continue to see how the form forces my hand, as well as where I can push back to subvert it in small ways. I guess the best metaphor at this point of naïveté is a whirlpool. The farther in I venture, the more I am pulled in. It is a terrifying thing to see the scale of an unfolding novel reveal itself in bits and pieces, but it also gives me hope that I can charge ahead into the next scene and the next chapter until I at last reach the end.

  Thirty thousand words down; 65,000 or so to go. Wish me luck.

  — 30 —

  Jonny Eberle is a writer, photographer, and filmmaker in Tacoma, WA. When not obsessing over his novel manuscript, he can be found on the Twitterverse. Watch his new short film, As Seen On TV, on YouTube or Facebook.

  Join the mailing list!
• November 20, 2013

  An Open Letter to the Doctor

  Dear Doctor,

  You are a man of many faces who has lived many lifetimes. For over a thousand years, you’ve been traveling through time and space in a ship disguised as a blue police box. But I’ve only been following your exploits for the past year or so. I first met you in your Ninth incarnation, when you were guilt-stricken with blood on your hands. It was clear to me that you were a great man, even if you didn’t know it yourself.

  You are unlike any hero I have ever known. In our early travels through space and time, you were a guilty man who doubted himself. You saved entire worlds, but preferred to live in the shadows. You brought out the best qualities of your companions. In your eyes, there were no insignificant people. You reminded me to have a brave heart, even when all looked lost.

  You are quick on your feet, eccentric, brilliant and unlike so many of the figures of your genre, you’re quick to show mercy. In a violent universe, you refuse to carry a weapon. You face armies with only your wits and a screwdriver. You were exactly the kind of hero I would’ve idolized in my youth.

  

  You and I have something in common — we’ve both been running our entire lives. What you’re on the run from is a mystery, as you madly dash (allons-y!) from adventure to adventure, saving planets from the Daleks or the Cybermen or the Weeping Angels. Like me, you are plagued by demons and tempted by the darker side of your soul, but you refuse to give in. It gives me courage to fight my own darkness.

  I don’t know who you are. You are a Time Lord whose name and past are shrouded in the veil of the time vortex and the ancient history of a forsaken world. You are a madman with a box, but you are also me. You are the highest hopes of what humanity could be. You are hope personified, Doctor. And as you and the TARDIS fly off to face the greatest dangers in the universe, that’s something I’ll keep with me, across all of space and time.

  Yours truly,
  Jonny Eberle

  — 30 —

  Jonny Eberle is a writer, Doctor Who fan and all around Anglophile living in Tacoma, WA. When he isn’t dreaming about the stars, he’s writing about going to them or on Twitter. Thanks for reading!
• September 10, 2012

  For the Love of Trek

  

  Forty-six years ago, the first episode of a science fiction TV series was broadcast. It was called Star Trek and it was destined to change the world. Half a century later, it is ingrained in our pop culture, lives on in spin-off shows, movies and books and has inspired three generations of thinkers, explorers and dreamers.

  It began with a simple, powerful idea — that in the future, humankind could abolish war, poverty, racism and intolerance. We would strive not for money or power but for the betterment of ourselves. It was a radical idea for the late-1960s, when thousands were dying in the jungles and rice paddies of Vietnam, the Civil Rights movement was railing against inequality and two nuclear superpowers stood one phone call away from mutual annihilation. The idea that humanity would survive and thrive into the 23rd century as a peaceful society was a blinding flash of hope in a world so desperately in need of a reason to believe in a better future.

  

  I was introduced The Next Generation during its original run (before I could even read). Then, as I grew older, I discovered The Original Series and its later incarnations. At first, I was drawn to the adventure, the larger than life characters and the explosions. It was only later that I realized there was a message. It wasn’t just the planet/monster of the week that I loved, it was the promise.

  I watched a lot of Trek in middle school, shortly after moving to Flagstaff. I was having trouble fitting in and making friends. Star Trek taught me that I had a place in the world and I didn’t have to change — infinite diversity in infinite combinations made the universe go round. It was a soothing salve for the loneliness.

  

  I know it’s just a TV show, but it’s my favorite TV show. Sure, it’s cheesy, but that’s exactly why we Trekkies (and Trekkers) love it so. The struggles faced by the crew of the Enterprise are more or less the same things we all struggle with. But while we get mired in petty fights, they rise above. They are us at our finest; the people we hope to someday be. We want Captain Kirk’s courage, Dr. McCoy’s humanism and Spock’s logic. We, too, want to explore strange new worlds and boldly go where no one has gone before.

  And as long as people continue to be inspired by Star Trek and its ideals, I have no doubt that we’ll reach that final frontier.

  

  — 30 —

  If you liked that, beam up to Twitter, proceed to my feed, @jonnyeberle, at warp factor 9 and follow me for more interesting thoughts about whatever I feel like talking about. As always, I love to read you comments. Thanks for reading!