Solarversia Fanboy Notes, Chapters 1–13

Fanboy Notes for Chapter Two

1. Casey Brown is named after Henry Dorsett Case, the protagonist from Neuromancer, the 1984 novel by William Gibson, and the book that popularised the term ‘cyberspace’.
2. Casey dragging the net up the hill was of course inspired by the Greek myth Sisyphus, the guy who was “punished for his self-aggrandizing craftiness and deceitfulness by being forced to roll an immense boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll back down, repeating this action for eternity.”

3. Casey climbs the hill 144 times, 144 being the square of 12, a number whose significance is referred to later.

4. I always visualised Wallace as being a young Nicolas Cage (think Raising Arizona).

5. The name ‘Arty’, the short version of ‘Artica’, was the first of two coincidences with the book Ready Player One. Arty is the nickname of Art3mis, and the author of “Arty’s Missives,” a blog dedicated to her search of Halliday’s egg.

Fanboy Notes for Chapter Three

1. Some early concept art for Nova:

2. I went with headsets reading brainwaves because it made life simpler for me from a fictional perspective (quite how people will navigate their way round spaces within VR is open to discussion). Technology that reads brainwaves has been around for years already. Will it be perfected to the level I use in the book by the year 2020? Probably not, but I don’t think it’ll be too far off that either. Here’s a TED talk from 2010, entitled A headset that reads your brainwaves:

3. The fireworks cam was inspired by this video that did the rounds a while back:

4. I always liked the phrase “volleying” with respect to cams

Once upon a time people hopped channels. Then they surfed the ’net. These days they volleyed cams.

What do you think of the phrase? Will it take off?

5. Arkwal got his name from something known as AQAL, which is the basic framework of something known as Integral Theory, created by my favourite philosopher, Ken Wilber. If you want to understand how everything fits together, there is no better framework.

6. Castalia was named after the fictional province from The Glass Bead Game a book my wife bought me years ago and which undoubtedly inspired the creation of Solarversia. The exact nature of the game remains elusive, but, as per wikipedia:

Playing the game well requires years of hard study of music, mathematics, and cultural history. The game is essentially an abstract synthesis of all arts and sciences. It proceeds by players making deep connections between seemingly unrelated topics.

And:

The Glass Bead Game is “a kind of synthesis of human learning” in which themes, such as a musical phrase or a philosophical thought, are stated. As the Game progresses, associations between the themes become deeper and more varied. Although the Glass Bead Game is described lucidly, the rules and mechanics are not explained in detail.

So, in a sense, Solarversia is an attempt to bring the glass bead game to life, which is fitting because the central theme of the book is something known as ‘mimesis’, which is described as follows:

mimesis is a critical and philosophical term that carries a wide range of meanings, which include imitation, representation, mimicry, imitatio, receptivity, nonsensuous similarity, the act of resembling, the act of expression, and the presentation of the self.

The world of Solarversia is a representation of the real world solar system, and the book represents the real world game I’m attempting to bring to life.

7. Emperor Mandelbrot was inspired by and named after Benoit Mandelbrot, the mathematician who discovered the Mandelbrot set.

One reviewer mentioned being put off by the unusual names in the book (Nova, Sushi, Arty, and Emperor Mandelbrot), claiming they were difficult to remember. Which I found interesting, because I used names that were a bit different for precisely the opposite reason — I thought it would make them easy to remember!

What about you? What did you think of the unusual names?

8. The Emperor sitting atop a dais was of course inspired by Jabba the Hutt, which was one of my favourite toys as a kid:

9. The Emperor being formed of hundreds of mouths which burst into song points to the (subtle) spiritual theme of the book. John 1:1 reads, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”.

When the universe started 13.7 billion years ago, a singular point exploded into many points — the one became the many. That’s represented by the singular face of Castalia becoming the 100 million squares of the Player’s Grid, and the light that’s emitted by it.

10. The Emperor’s full name (His Royal Highness, Emperor Commissaire de Spielen, von Unglai D’Acheera Nakk-oo, Mandelbrot) was inspired by the long names seen in Iain Banks’ Culture novels (Banks is my favourite scifi author). The name translates as follows:

Commissaire — A commissary is a government official charged with oversight.
Spielen — The German word for ‘game’ is ‘spiel’ (my mum’s German, as is Herman Hesse, the author of The Glass Bead Game, mentioned earlier)
Unglai — The species from which the Emperor evolved
D’Acheera — The Unglai’n word for ‘Grand Master’
Nakk-oo — The Emperor’s home planet

So, he’s the gaming commissary of the Unglai from Nakk-oo and a Grand Master of The Year-Long Game.

11. Back in 2010 Waterstones ran a competition on Twitter where you could tweet questions to Iain Banks. I was one of two people to win a signed copy of Surface Detail:

Fanboy Notes for Chapter Four

1. The format of the Player’s Grid is based on a mathematical concept known as the Ulam Spiral, which is a simple method of visualizing the prime numbers, and was named after Stanislaw Ulam, the mathematician who discovered it.

One of the challenges I faced was how to work out where any one number was located in the grid, because it determined what the player’s shortcode was:

Nova’s number, 515,740, was in ring 359, giving her the shortcode of C359.

I started to create one in a google doc and soon discovered that it wasn’t a viable option.

Pro tip: when in doubt, ask reddit (that’s a link to the question I asked on subreddit, r/math). Somebody told me about the Alpertron site, which enabled me to locate the position of any number. You’ll note that the grid on the site is rotated 90 degrees compared to the one above that’s mentioned in wikipedia. To the best of my knowledge, it remains an Ulam spiral, whichever direction the numbers go.

2. Sushi’s number (515,739) was chosen because it most closely resembled the word ‘sister’. And Nova and Sushi declared themselves to be ‘Solarversia Sisters’ in chapter one.

3. Spiralwerks got it’s name from the way in which the numbers spiral out from number 1. From the previous chapter:

The grid was comprised of ten thousand rows by ten thousand columns, with square number one bang in the centre. Numbers two to nine were positioned around it, and numbers ten to twenty-five around that. The numbers spiralled out like a snail’s shell all the way to one hundred million.

4. The grid was inspired by something known as The Million Dollar Homepage, which was a website conceived of by Alex Tew, a student from Wiltshire, England, to raise money for his university education.

5. Nova’s square in the Player’s Grid:

Fanboy Notes for Chapter Five

1. The start of chapter five is the first look at augmented reality (Nova playing with the Floating Flakeroonies). People often ask me whether the technology will be ready by 2020. The question reminds me of an essay by Paul Graham entitled How to be an Expert in a Changing World. When discussing the nature of change (and the fact that it’s very hard to predict) he says:

So I don’t even try to predict it. When I get asked in interviews to predict the future, I always have to struggle to come up with something plausible-sounding on the fly, like a student who hasn’t prepared for an exam. My usual trick is to talk about aspects of the present that most people haven’t noticed yet.

In a similar manner, my default answer is to tell people to watch the Hololens demo. Essentially, the technology already exists.

2. The phrase ‘Sacred Singularity’ alludes to the fact that the technological singularity is sometimes referred to as the “rapture for geeks”. The double-S (‘SS’) is also one of the motifs of the book (Solar System, Solarversia Sister, Sacred Singularity, and various others that haven’t yet been introduced).

3. The name of the gaming cafe, Fragging Hell, was inspired by a real world cafe, Fraggers, opened by a guy I used to work with. Sadly, it’s now closed.

4. Electropets are supposed to be modernday Teddy Ruxpins, the best-selling animatronic children’s toy from 1985. I’m convinced that Electropets (or whatever they end up being called) are going to be a multi-billion dollar industry by 2025 when robotics and AI converge.

If you’re a parent of a child who wants a cat or dog, you’ll be faced with two options:

• Buy a real animal and pay the ongoing costs (food, grooming, kennels, veterinary bills, and so on)
• Buy an Electropet with a one-off cost

Will Electropets be the choice for everyone? Absolutely not. But some people will own dozens of them. The Paris Hiltons of the world will carry them round in their handbags. Companies will own them too — restaurants, bars and cafes. People will share their Electropets’ personalites (their settings) in the same way they share content. They’ll become our friends, our colleagues, our lovers and our enemies.

The inevitable claim that Electropets aren’t the same as the real thing will continue until the two are indistinguishable, a variant of the Turing test (the Zhang test perhaps?) Based on Kurzweil’s predictions it sounds like that’ll happen sometime in the 2030s.

5. Some early concept art of Nova and Zhang:

Fanboy Notes for Chapter Six

1. Populating the world of Solarversia with exhibitions (like Conga World) was inspired by my trip to Burning Man in 2011. I’ll never forget cycling across the playa (the dessert) on my first evening there. I felt something I hadn’t felt in a long time and it took me a while to pin it down. It was the same feeling I used to get as a kid going on a bike ride — a feeling of excitement and wonder. That’s what I’ve tried to do with Solarversia — I’ve tried to make a world that inspires that childlike wonder.

The guy in the middle of the photo? His name’s Aymon McQuade, the 2012 New Zealand barista champion!

The guy on the right? His name’s Martin Clark, one of my oldest, bestest mates. He inspired the name of the generic avatars:

Bobbing alongside the Normal Avatars were a smattering of Generic Avatars, ones players could switch on to hide their everyday appearance. These avatars, whose male and female versions had come to be known as ‘Marty’ and ‘Smarty’, looked like plastic Duplo figures, and were identical to one another.

My favourite art exhibit at Burning Man was Charon by Peter Hudson. It’s a bunch of skeletons inside a wooden wheel. People pulled on ropes either side of it to power it, and once it spun fast enough the flickering lights made them look like they were moving.

In addition to the skeletons, a series of birds are painted on the wheel, which also look like they’re moving, albeit in the other direction. There’s no video of this thing that comes anywhere close to doing it justice. It’s majestic beyond words and belongs in a museum.

2. This chapter sees the world of Solarversia coming alive. It came about after some feedback from one of my beta readers, Daniel Mosser, who thought I hadn’t done enough world-building in the draft he read. It was excellent criticism and helped the book become far, far better.

If you’re self-publishing, I definitely recommend getting yourself some beta readers. Hugh Howey thinks there should be a beta reading service. I couldn’t agree more:

What might be helpful, as a service, is a process whereby manuscripts are uploaded and read for a fee. A random reader is paid to get as far as they can into a manuscript before they lose interest (hopefully they read to the end). Let’s say the fee is $10. Here’s why it can be so inexpensive: If the reader is enjoying what they’re reading, they’ll want to keep reading! Hey, they are getting paid $10 to read something they like! A book they didn’t pay for!

One for Reedsy perhaps? Until a service like this gets created, try the beta reader group on Goodreads.

3. The Forest of Fun was inspired by the VR Catwalk Show that Inition created for Topshop (see the two-minute mark in the video on that page, I can’t seem to embed it here). Inition host one of the two VR meetups that occur in London, the other one being the Augmenting Reality meetup, hosted by the brilliant Steve Dann. I thoroughly recommend both of these events. Steve was kind enough to contribute one of the testimonials on the back cover of the physical book.

4. In the fanboy notes for chapter three I mentioned a subtle spiritual theme that runs through the book. This continues when players arrive on Alpha Island. The journey through the year goes from Alpha to Omega, the end point.

5. Lotus Bay, the town that runs along the eastern edge of Alpha island, was named after Lotus Island, the destination for the characters in one of my favourite films, Alejandro Jodorowsky’s The Holy Mountain. Here’s the trailer. Not a normal film.

6. The line “We really wanna see those fingers!” was a hat-tip to Vic and Bob from their brilliant Shooting Stars comedy panel game:

7. In the fanboy notes for chapter two, I mention the first of two coincidences with a book called Ready Player One (my inclusion of the name ‘Arty’). The second concerns the term ‘Solo’. In Ready Player One, gunters (egg hunters) either search in clans, or as solos, on their own.

I always knew I wanted a word to describe the players of Solarversia, the equivalent to a ‘gunter’. I couldn’t think of anything suitable, and it was actually my (brilliant) editor, Helena Michaelson who suggested the term. It’s great for the reasons I include in the book:

The word ‘Solo’ had been appropriated by fanatical players of Solarversia to describe themselves. Similar to the word ‘solar’, it also played on The Game’s tagline, There Can Be Only One.

8. As I discovered after the book came out, the tagline (There Can Be Only One) was the one used in the Highlander films. Whoops.

9. Nova’s vehicles are themed with the ‘Tron look’. Her car, Flynn, was named after Kevin Flynn, the main character in the film (portrayed by Jeff Bridges).

10. Concept art for Flynn:

Fanboy Notes for Chapter Eight

1. I mentioned a couple of coincidences with Ready Player One in previous chapters. This chapter contained what was supposed to be the “official” hat-tip reference to it: “Son of a Gunter!”

If you’re an RPO fan, did you spot it?

2. The Telescopium constellation was chosen to represent Arkwal’s tour of the palace because he uses a telescope in chapter three to open the wooden crate in the Olympic Stadium at the opening ceremony. The Telescopium constellation actually exists, and is one of the 88 modern constellations.

3. The chapter was inspired by, and was supposed to be reminiscent of, Wonka’s tour of his chocolate factory.

4. We learn that the “architecture of Castalia is based on an intricate fractal pattern”, again referring to Mandelbrot, the mathematician whose famous fractal set was mentioned in the fanboy notes for chapter three.

5. It is mentioned that:

The Emperor consumes five to six metric tonnes of produce every day, washed down by one of several cocktails. His current favourite is the Panama Pooky, which consists of Cognac and white crème de cacao. Here on Earth you’d usually garnish it with nutmeg; the Emperor prefers a clove or six of garlic.

Little references to a couple of mates of mine, Rich Pook and Nick Garlick.

6. Early concept sketch of Arkwal:

Fanboy Notes for Chapter Nine

1. Nova visits Nottingham university. Guess who went there?
2. We introduce a character known as Ludi Bioski. ‘Ludi’ is the Latin for ‘game’ (‘Magister Ludi’ is the name of the protagonist in The Glass Bead Game, which translates as ‘Master of the Game’). Whereas ‘Bioski’ relates to the fact that he uses a contraption known as a ‘biomechanical random event generator’. ‘Bioski’ also sounds like the word ‘Boshki’, the nickname of Simon Venturi, one of my best mates from uni.
3. Ludi’s contraption is known as an ‘Orbitini’. When I first conceived of it I wondered whether it might be boomerang shaped, which reminded me of the Orbit In, a hotel in Palm Springs, whose bar is boomerang shaped. Although the contraption ended up being shaped differently, The name stuck.

Fanboy Notes for Chapter Ten

1. I created the Solarversia Simulator in response to beta reader feedback that the game was too reliant on luck and that it needed to be far more skill-based. Which seems so obvious in hindsight, and is yet another example of the value of beta readers.
2. I mention Nova grabbing a Solarversia-themed T-shirt from her wardrobe:

This shirt displayed the characters Ken and Ryu from the classic arcade game Street Fighter, facing one another in a sparring pose. Ken, who was standing on the left, had been drawn with the head of a guy called ‘Duncarelli’, who happened to be Thailand’s most famous ladyboy — and also number 515 in the Player’s Grid. Ryu on the other hand, had been replaced by ‘Alexander Lazaar’, a techno DJ from Detroit, and player number 740.

Another cheeky reference to a couple of good mates of mine, Duncan Nicholls, and Alex Kelly.

3. At the end of the chapter the simulator prints out a receipt that shows her updated stats, which she throws on the ground:

She crumpled the receipt up and chucked it at the nearest patch of grass. The ground into which it dissolved immediately sprouted a new flower. Her headset dinged as a company donated ten pence to a charity supporting sustainable horticulture.

This was inspired by a book called Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things, which changed my perspective on the notion of waste.

Fanboy Notes for Chapter Eleven

1. Nova takes part in an Earth Force Field quest known as “Bouncy Baltimore”. This is one of hundreds of ideas from time past that made it into the book. I loved bouncy castles as a kid, they’re the kind of thing I wish I could still go on. The thought of an entire city being bouncy and having to reach the top of one of the buildings like this would be the funnest thing that ever happened.
2. Bouncy Baltimore is the fourth EFF quest. I only mention one other in the book (which gets included in a later chapter). That leaves eight EFF quests that don’t get a single mention — I’m busy writing those and hope to publish them later this year.
3. I originally chose Baltimore because I thought “Bouncy Baltimore” had a certain ring to it. I then came to write the chapter and realised I should probably base it in a city whose buildings lent themselves to the idea. Upon doing some research I was happy to discover that Baltimore was, in fact, a perfect location, given the existence of Commerce Place and Phoenix Shot Tower:

4. I published this chapter on Medium far later in the day than planned. My wife was due to give birth on Thursday 18th February at our local hospital but the baby decided to make an early appearance. My wife woke me at 2am, I went to get the nearest Zipcar and was back home by 2.15, ready to drive her there, to be told it would be too late. I called for an ambulance and then had the operator talk me through delivering our son over the phone. It was all over in the space of about five minutes (fastest birth ever?!) and the ambulance arrived with three paramedics about 30 seconds later. All in all, an amazing experience that I’ll never forget. I’m off to bed now, time to get some much needed sleep. Mother and baby doing well, photo / name to follow in the next day or so :-)

Fanboy Notes for Chapter Twelve

1. This is the first time the reader gets to see Theodore Markowsky, the leader of Holy Order. When I started writing the book I naturally assumed that the story of the Order would be told from his perspective, but it didn’t turn out like out — Casey’s perspective ended up being more interesting and the one I went with for the majority of the book.
2. Theodore got his name from the Unabomber, because in early drafts the Holy Order was a neo-luddite movement. It soon became clear, however, that it wasn’t right — as an organisation they used a lot of technology, so it didn’t make sense for them to be against it. So things got changed (as I’ll explain in a later set of fanboy notes), but the name stuck.
3. As pointed out by another beta reader, and good friend of mine, Gerard Frith, early drafts of this scene were a bit weak. Theodore was portrayed as something of middle-manager, asking for reports, and not especially imposing or baddie-like. It led to me revamping him as a cyborg, which subsequently led to an entirely new direction for the Order, one that was infinitely better. Great feedback Gelboy!
4. Yesterday I mentioned delivering my son in our front room. Here he is: