You have probably heard by now about Amelie Wen Zhao, the Chinese immigrant who pulled her YA fantasy nove, Blood Heir, after being set upon by Twitter piranha.

Zhao based the invented world in her novel on her own experience growing up on mainland China. In China today, slavery is a concern, especially for young women, who are in danger of being kidnapped and sold to men who cannot otherwise find wives, due to China’s one-child policy. So Zhao included indentured servants and human trafficking as a plot issue in her novel.

Only, in her fantasy world, it was magic powers, rather than skin color, that fueled the discrimination that decided who ended up as a slave.

It was this that—of all things—that upset her attackers.

Nearly every fantasy or science fiction book I read as a child had basically this same theme—that prejudice would be different in an alien culture, and by viewing it from afar, we can learn to overcome it in ourselves. And yet, this very premise is what Zhao’s attackers denied. They condemned her for allowing slavery to be about anything but skin color.

They actually said this.

Other attacks

Zhao is not the only author to be so attacked recently. Laurie Forrest and Keira Drake both suffered similarly before the release of their books. The publicity from the media reaction catapulted Forrest’s book, The Black Witch, to greater success, but Drake was not so lucky. She delayed her book, The Continent, rewriting sections, but she did not benefit from the publicity and her series is struggling.

All three of these authors were attacked for writing the very kind of books that were most praised only a few years ago.

Speculative fiction without speculation?

Speculative fiction is the art of speculating about the world through fiction. How can such an art exist, if no one is allowed to write about anything  except exactly what they know from their every day experience?

Science fiction’s grand master, Gene Wolfe, addressed this subject when he wrote:

Science fiction’s fictional people are hard to make believable because they are likely to be remote from the writer’s experience. Who has known a Martian? A starship captain? A woman who has published scientific articles intended to prove that she is not a human being? If the writer cannot empathize with people who do not yet exist—and may never exist—he must stay out of science fiction.

His comments remain true today. Without empathy for others—the ability to imagine the life and experience of someone unlike ourselves—we cannot enjoy speculative fiction.

Hitting close to home

As an author, who is also the mother of a Chinese girl, this story hit me particularly hard. I immediately ordered Blood Heir on Amazon, hoping that a show of support from the public might convince Zhao to change her mind about canceling the book. Alas, I have since received word from Amazon that the book has been pulled.

Zhao’s story is doubly painful, because I, too, spent decades pursuing my dream before I was finally published by Tor in 2009. So Zhao’s comments on the topic from her blog broke my heart.

On a recent Skype session with my parents, my mother told me in tears that, when I was around 8 years old, I said to her one day: “Mama, I want to be an author!” And she gently sat me down and told me the reality. That so few authors make it — and fewer, still, make it big. That many still struggle on in pursuit of their dream. That I have to decide whether I want a life of comfort — one that my parents have gifted me — or a life of uncertainty, potential financial duress, and, very possibly, never having my books see the day of light.

I chose. For my entire life, I’ve prepared myself for a career in finance, telling myself it was the more realistic choice, that success stories for authors came true once in a blue moon and that dreams were something only Cinderella’s fairy godmother could grant with a wave of her wand.

I HAVE A THREE-BOOK DEAL!!!!!!!

This young woman’s life dream has been robbed by bullies.

The Impuritans

These modern bullies form mobs that exhibit as much moral outrage as the Victorians or Puritans of old, but they lack the one thing that redeemed the older groups: virtue.

The Victorians and the Puritans may be known for moralizing, but many of their members legitimately tried to live up to the high moral standards they proposed. One might say that they had the virtues of their vices. This new movement has all of their arrogance but none of their morality.

Because of this, some have started referring to these frothing, outrage mobs as Impuritans. Where the Puritans used peer pressure in an attempt to enforce morality, these modern Impuritans attempt to bully people into accepting sinful behaviors.

A Christian’s duty

L. Jagi Lamplighter

As a writer and a mother, this story appalls me, but as a Christian, our duty must go beyond merely being appalled.

As Christians, we have a duty to stand up to bullies, especially if they are urging us to commit sins and accept false, non-Christian moral codes. In the Bible, the penalty for yielding to bullies was surprisingly severe. Upon leaving Egypt, the Israelites had been told that they would be led to a Promised Land, running with milk and honey. Moses sent a few ahead to spy out what lay ahead. What they discovered was a land running with milk and honey, but the people living there looked menacing. The spies feared the locals much as we might fear standing up to a bully.

The spies returned and told the Hebrews that the land was full of unbeatable giants. Only one told the truth about what he had seen, a man named Caleb, but the people did not listen to Caleb. They quailed in fear and begged not to have to face these giants.

God’s response? He condemned the entire tribe to wander in the desert for forty years, until the current generation of adults had died. Those who had given into their fear were denied entrance to the Promised Land. When they finally were allowed to enter,  Caleb, the one who told the truth, was still as strong, at 85, as he had been—the gift God gave him for his truthfulness.

Standing firm

If we modern Christians give way to this mob mentality of immorality and outrage, rather than standing up to those who abuse the truth, we could lose our promised land. America has been a promised land in many ways—a place of freedom and human dignity. These benefits have been vanishing in recent years, not because some tyrant has taken them from us with bayonets, but because we are ceding the willingly, due to the insistence of the Impuritans.

Amelie Wen Zhao has had her promised land, the happy future she had envisioned since she was eight years old, snatched from her. If we continue to allow this to happen, we, too, may find that we have lost ours.

We must take a stand against immoral mob mentality if we want to be able to continue to practice Christianity, much less enjoy speculative fiction, in the years to come.

Travis P here. Since Travis C did an excellent job giving an overview of the costs of war essential to providing for a military, I think it’s time to give the math-lovers out there some hard data that can actually be used in formulas to make generate specific data on what an army might need, starting with the most basic possible cost of war–the cost of putting food in the bellies of war fighters. Which starts with a look at how much food per day a war fighter needs. You as a writer may never need these resources, but if you ever do, we’ve compiled some data to indicate just how much food it takes to keep an army fighting in the field. (Note this post wound up being longer than normal, but I’ve used bold text to highlight key ideas for those who will skim this article rather than read every word.)

The place to start with this kind of analysis is based on historical data, what real world armies have already done and then to expand from there to discussion of imaginary armies composed of fighters who are literally not of this world. We’ll also in future installments cover some of the issues regarding what it takes for a nation to produce sufficient food, which relates to the transportation of food and other supplies. Which will segue nicely into future posts that will provide some formulas that relate to transportation (and more).

How Much Food Per Human War Fighter

The first numerical summary I’ll share here of how much food an army needed per day was from the records of the Colonial Army prior to US independence from Great Britain (1775). What they listed as their daily needs surprised me in its last item (source, a US Army Quartermaster piece entitled The History of Rations):

Credit: Savoring the Past.net

l6 oz. beef  (probably salted)(about 1100 calories) (193 grams)

18 oz. flour  (about 900 calories) (510 grams)         

1.4 oz. rice  (about 150 calories) (40 grams)

16 oz. milk   (about 300 calories) (454 grams)

1 qt. spruce beer (about 450 calories) (907 grams/ml)

Total: roughly 3,000 calories per day (caloric value of food varies according to exact type, which is partially unknown), weighing 5 pounds 10 ounces or 2.56 kilograms. While the beef, flour, rice, and beer could be stored over a long period of time, the milk would have to have come from fresh-milked cows, due to a lack of refrigeration at that time.

Note that the members of the Colonial Army often enough did not receive this much food. But this list, even though a bit idealized, took into account the higher calories a person needs when marching from battlefield to battlefield, a number significantly higher than the roughly 2000 calories per person that’s considered an ordinary caloric intake in our time. The variety of food reflects a rudimentary understanding of nutrition–spruce beer, made from a brew that included fresh spruce tree needles, was intended to prevent scurvy (which it did because the needles added a certain amount of Vitamin C to the beer). (Spruce beer was the surprise item on this list, because I’d never heard of it before!)

Note also that the average size of a Colonial soldier was less than a modern American–and smaller people on average require fewer calories. A modern US Army MRE (Meal Ready to Eat) has approximately 1250 calories, so three per day would equal 3750 calories, which is a more appropriate calorie count for larger people. More on MREs and calories per size a bit later.

To further illustrate the issue of people needing a different number of calories in accordance with the work they perform, let’s look at the German rationing system for food during WWII (cited in the Wikipedia article Garrison Ration).

The Germans used 4 different levels of allotments for food, based on how hard they perceived a person was working and how much food they needed. Note this system was based on a number of scientific measurements. The food supplied was specific to what Germany was able to produce, but it covered all nutritional needs for their military well–even at the lowest calorie level, these were not starvation rations (sadly the Germans applied starvation rations elsewhere).

Ration I (Verpflegungssatz I) was for troops committed to combat, for those that are recuperating from combat, and for troops stationed in Norway north of 66° N. Latitude (because living in extreme cold requires a higher caloric intake).

Ration II (Verpflegungssatz II) was for occupation and line-of-communication troops.

Ration III (Verpflegungssatz III) was for garrison troops within Germany.

Ration IV (Verpflegungssatz IV) went to military office workers and nurses within Germany.

(Note under some circumstances, such as a soldier being very large, or extreme cases of long marches, the calorie intakes listed would be insufficient–but the system did work for most people under most circumstances.)

More ancient sources that list rations are, not surprisingly, not as nutritionally balanced. According to the online source Alimentarium, during the time of the early Roman Empire, each Roman soldier was allotted 2 Roman pounds (1 pound 5 oz or 657.8 grams) per day of bread, plus an unknown amount of meat, olive oil, and sour wine. Salt and the kinds of fruits that would stave off scurvy are not included in this daily ration at all. Though we should note that Roman soldiers ate fruits when available. (Romans always ate from local cuisine in addition to what they were rationed.)

The Romans would march with cows and wagons full of bacon, grain, olive oil, and sour wine as part of their baggage train. An individual soldier might carry some hard biscuits, bacon, and sour wine on his person, but most of the food was provided for the entire army at once, based to a large extent on what the local civilian economy supplied. Which was to a certain extent how all ancient and many medieval armies operated. Food supply was for the entire army, not really for soldiers as individuals. Without cooks (almost always civilians until WWI) to process the food, the army would go hungry.

The reason this was true was because of spoilage. Fresh food doesn’t usually keep for very long but live animals obviously don’t normally get eaten by bacteria due to their own immune systems (fresh milk will clearly not keep long, but if you keep the milk cows with you, you can provide fresh milk on a continual basis). Certain foods like grain or flour resist bacteria because they are dry. Dry cheeses also resist bacteria and have been used to supply some ancient and medieval armies (olive oil, while not dry, contains no water and as a result resists bacteria). Alcohol also resists bacteria and was for a long time in various forms part of the supply ration for many militaries (a ration of rum was common for colonial-era navies–a ration of whiskey was allotted to the men of the Lewis and Clark expedition).

Another advantage of alcohol as food supply is that some types, such as beer and wine, have water within them, which means they can help supply the body’s need for hydration. Whiskey and rum cannot do that effectively on their own, but when mixed with water, they serve as a purifier for water, since many ancient water sources were contaminated with bacteria or other microorganisms that alcohol kills. (While this article is barely touching on the issue of hydration, please note that military operations requiring a lot of marching may require on average about 6 liters, or 6 quarts, of water or other liquid containing water, per day.)

Pastoral nomad warriors of the past, who were able to sustain themselves off their herds, would simply drive the herd with them if going into a battle that would take a long time (and leave the herd in a safe place if going on a raid). Though of course the professional armies in world history have been supported by sedentary agricultural production. Since most agricultural nations have primarily produced grain (whether that be wheat, barely, oats, rice, or corn/maize) and secondarily livestock along with the fact that grain at least needs to be boiled in water if not baked into bread to be edible, while livestock needs to be slaughtered, butchered, and cooked to be edible, that meant that soldiers mostly could not carry their own food on their person. They were either dependent on what they could obtain from the civilian economy (which, especially if they were invading enemy territory, probably meant stealing from civilians) or soldiers required an entire army camp apparatus to provide their food. Or some of both.

Since it’s possible for soldiers to be cut off from the field kitchen feeding them or it may be necessary for them to spend extended periods of time away from such a kitchen in a combat operation (this can happen to sailors, too, but is not nearly as common at sea), militaries over time have worked to make rations more compact and easier to carry on a person in combat. An early step in this direction came in the late Eastern Roman Empire, a.k.a the Byzantine Empire, which eventually changed its philosophy on supply (along with the introduction of the Theme system). Each individual soldier was required to supply himself with 20 days of food, usually in the form of grain. The Byzantines carried a paximadion, a hand mill, to grind their own grain to make a rough bread that was their primary sustenance in battle, a bread the soldiers would make themselves, providing them a measure of independence in food supply that didn’t exist for most armies of their time.

It wasn’t until World War I that it became possible to feed a soldier a complete set of rations while separated from a field kitchen. That’s because of the invention of canning (“tinning” in the UK) allowed food of sufficient nutritional value to be stored in a way that would keep it safe from spoilage.  World War II also used canned (tinned) foods for soldiers who could not easily be fed in field kitchens.

Freeze dried food. Credit: Backdoor survival

Post-World War II, the practice of freeze-drying food, which actually had been pioneered by the Incas in South America (circa the 1400s), provided the most compact form of food currently known. With freeze-dried food, it’s possible to carry 3000-4000 calories per day at a weight of only 1.5 to 2 pounds per day (680 – 907 grams). (Of course you still have to add water.)

While freeze-dried food is the most compact form of food in common use, many militaries have moved away from using it, because freeze-dried food isn’t particularly tasty and in wartime, the supply of water isn’t guaranteed and may have to be carried by soldiers–so you might as well include the water in the food in the first place. In fact, the infamous US Army ration of modern times, the “Meal Ready to Eat,” (MRE) is “ready” because it ISN’T freeze-dried (though some early versions of MRE’s included some freeze-dried food, none do now).

Generally, a MRE contains the following items (from GoArmy.com):

Credit: Amazon.com

• Entree – the main course, such as spaghetti or beef stew

• Side dish – rice, corn, fruit, or mashed potatoes, etc.

• Cracker or bread

• Spread – peanut butter, jelly, or cheese spread

• Dessert – cookies or pound cakes

• Candy – M&Ms, Skittles, or Tootsie Rolls

• Beverages – Gatorade-like mixes, cocoa, dairy shakes, coffee, tea

• Hot sauce or seasoning – in some MREs

• Flameless Ration Heater – to heat the entree

• Accessories – spoon, matches, creamer, sugar, salt, chewing gum, toilet paper, etc.

Each MRE provides an average of 1,250 calories (13 percent protein, 36 percent fat, and 51 percent carbohydrates) and one-third of the Military Recommended Daily Allowance of vitamins and minerals.

Each MRE weighs between 18 and 26 ounces depending on the specific meal (510 to 740 grams), so an entire day’s provisions would weigh between 3 pounds 6 ounces (1.53 kg) and 4 pounds 14 ounces (2.22 kg). Which is heavier than freeze-dried food, but not a great deal and they are easier to consume.

Futuristic food is not likely to get any more efficient than freeze-dried/MRE-style meals. Star Trek fans may cite the replicator at this point–which can transform energy, which in theory weighs nothing, into food. This would seem to be the ultimate way of making food lightweight, right? Of course, speculative fiction authors are of course free to invent what they want; however, you should be aware that a food replicator is an unrealistic type of technology.

Directly transferring energy into food (Star Trek replicator style) would use a lot of energy. More than you might imagine–that is, if a replicator is truly thought of as directly converting energy into food. That process would be covered by the formula E=MC^2, or to flip that around for creating mass, M=E/C^2. Since “C” is the speed of light and that’s about 300,000 kilometers per second (186,000 miles/sec) that means C^2 is “only” roughly 90,000,000,000,000,000 (9×10^16). Which means if you decide to make 1 kilogram worth of spruce beer in your replicator (because you’re curious what it would taste like) (one kilogram, by the way, is about what the US Colonial ration of one quart of spruce beer would weigh), assuming 100% efficiency of the energy to matter transfer, it would take you a mere 90,000,000,000 megawatts to produce that one kilogram of spruce beer. And since by one online source, the entire United States uses about 317,000,000 megawatts per month, it would only take a “mere” 23 years 8 months of all the electric production of the entire United States (as it currently is) to produce enough power to quench your curiosity about what spruce beer tastes like.

Credit: YouTube

Yeah, I don’t see energy-to-matter food replicators happening. Not ever–even if a future society mastered the technology, it seems incredibly wasteful. That’s the kind of thing you’d save for rare engine parts made of out platinum or whatever other very rare mineral. You wouldn’t waste such a technology on food production. Even an advanced food generator that would allow you to replace cooks would make more sense if it used actual matter that’s already around instead of generating it directly from energy. Why not have a kind of advanced digital printer for a replicator instead, that could squirt together food components from a bank of proteins, fats, sugars, starches, and liquids to make your custom food? Much more practical! Though maybe not as tasty…but note that while this sort of technology would allow you to replace field kitchens, it would do nothing to make field rations any smaller.

So any realistic version of a future society will include them needing to pack and supply field rations as much as past ones have done. (In fact, even Star Trek itself at various times references the existence of field rations!)

Of course a story set in a fantasy world can have magical rations. The Lord of the RIngs features Lembas Bread, a bread baked by elves (no, not Keebler elves! 😉 ) that tastes sweet and when in use, one small loaf will provide enough energy for one person for an entire day. The exact weight of a Lembas loaf is unknown, but it does weigh something. Let’s estimate half a pound (227 grams) per Lembas loaf–that means Lembas Bread at maximum is only about 4 times more efficient than freeze-dried food. Though Lembas may have the additional benefit of reducing thirst, note that even an army of elves would have to think about how much Lembas they need versus how much they can carry–and for a long campaign, even magical bread would require wagons of some kind to move it.

Credit: Sorted Food

And of course one would have to consider the resources required to make Lembas or other magical food. Please understand I’m not saying good worldbuilding requires you to calculate all of these things out in every case. But nothing should be free in a story world. Not even magic. You should consider the fact that an army marching to war, even a magical army, will need to plan how it’s going to feed itself when you create your story world. (Of course, spells that generate food from non-food–say rocks into bread–could be one way to solve this issue.)

Food Per Non-Human War Fighter

Ok, we’ve talked about the amount of food a human warrior has needed and various means to supply it. But what if we don’t want to write humans? How much food will a non-human need?

While androids/robots may sustain themselves with mostly energy and a small supply of replacement parts (including replacement hydraulic or lubricating fluid if applicable) and while we can imagine more exotic aliens who perhaps lay out in the sun to gain energy from photosynthesis or magical creatures who derive energy from proximity to crystals or similar notions, these kinds of creatures will be the exception in most stories.Because most inhabitants of speculative fiction stories will need to eat food, just like we do. And while some aliens/magical creatures might be able to consume food humans would get no nutritional value out of, it’s generally useful to think of these beings as eating food the way we do, but needing different amounts.

There are two basic factors that influence how much food a creature needs to survive. The first is metabolic rate, i.e. how much a creature burns per hour at rest. The second is size, with larger creatures needing more food in general than small ones. With the important caveat that larger creatures almost always have lower metabolic rates than smaller ones, so while an elephant may need much more food than a mouse, each bit of tissue in the mouse is actually using far more energy per period of time than the same amount of elephant tissue. While it is true that an elephant eats much more food than a mouse, in proportion to its weight, a mouse burns more calories in proportion to its body weight than an elephant, nearly 12 times as much. So however many mice it would take to weigh as much as an elephant, that number would eat far more than an elephant does!

As explained in an article by Khan Academy, our planet has two kinds of creatures, endothermic (they produce their own heat) and ectothermic (their body temperature matches their surroundings). Birds and mammals are endotherms and pretty much everything else is an ectotherm (note most but not all dinosaurs are now considered to have been endotherms).

Lizardmen vs. Chaos. Credit: Warhammer Wiki

Ectotherms: A pure ectotherm’s metabolism is defined as a Standard Metabolic Rate (SMR)–and the thing is that this rate changes with temperature. So the SMR of any cold-blooded (ectothermic) creature is like an algebraic variable that has a different range for every species–a range and not a fixed value. When it’s colder outside an ectotherm moves slower and uses less calories. When it’s warmer, an ectotherm moves faster and uses more calories. Since an ectotherm is not using its own energy to raise or lower its internal body temperature, it uses much less energy overall than an endotherm, at times as little as 10% of an endotherm’s energy needs. So your army of lizard men can probably skip their breakfast…and carry far fewer supplies…but they are gonna march super slooooow in the morning…though they might get hungry in the afternoon after a quicker pace marching in warm sunlight.

Since the baseline food consumption of an ectotherm is a variable by temperature (not to mention activity), it will be difficult to account for it fully in this post. To provide some means to account for the effect of size alone on ectotherm metabolism, I’ll make reference to an academic paper that says the relationship of size of crocodiles to its SMR is SMR = 1.01 M^0.829 at the standard temperature of 30°C (86°F) (where M=equals weight in kilograms). For many readers this equation will not be meaningful. The following diagram will be better:

An unfortunate thing about this chart is it measures metabolism in oxygen consumption per minute. It’s possible to convert that to calories but the conversion factor itself is, in truth, a variable. But about 5 calories (we’re talking “calories” as the term is discussed with food and diet, which are actually “kilocalories” in scientific talk) equal one liter of oxygen consumed. But a really big crocodile weighing around 300 kg / 660 lb. uses about 1/10 liter of oxygen in a minute. Which means in ten minutes it burns 1 liter or uses 5 calories energy or 30 cal per hour. That means in a day, doing absolutely nothing, a big (300 kg) crocodile needs 720 calories to stay alive (at 30 degrees C). Since it can get that much from around 300 grams of meat (10.5 ounces), the food needs of any ectotherm/reptilian are very, very low as long as they aren’t doing anything (and are significantly lower when it’s colder outside!).

To get a handle on how much temperature affects ectotherm metabolism, let me include a chart from The Biology Place. The chart applies to a specific organism, but shows the general trend for ectotherms to use more energy with higher temperature up to a certain point, above which high temperature causes the ectotherm to begin to shut down–and need to cool off. Note that at 40°C (104°F) an ectotherm uses twice as much resting energy as at 30 C (86°F), but that at 10°C (50°F) it uses only 25% of the energy at 30°C…so our crocodile from above only needs about a measly 180 calories per day to stay alive at 10 C/50 F. This probably would also be true for reptilian humanoids, if such a thing were to actually exist. They can’t warm themselves, but their need for food when their activity is minimal is very, very low! (Of course, when actively moving over an extended period, they need to eat much more.)

Endotherms: Calculating the food needs of an endotherm is actually somewhat easier. An endotherm has a Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) that reflects the basic amount of energy it needs to regulate its body temperature. That means, laying around, doing nothing, an endotherm burns a certain minimum amount of calories just to stay warm. That number of calories can be thought of as a fixed minimum number per species, though it increases per muscle mass of an individual (which is why human men, who usually have more muscle mass than women, burn more calories per day). 

Note that while this post will not provide a specific formula to track it, it’s true that the BMR is higher for creatures prone to heat loss by living in a cold climate (including humans needing more calories in a cold zone than a warm one). As one scholarly article said, “All other things being equal, a polar mammal living at −10°C has a body temperature ∼2·7°C warmer and a BMR higher by ∼40% than a tropical mammal of similar size living at 25°C.” Polar land animals would have to eat 40% more (in their environment).

Likewise, you may not realize it, but living in water causes sea mammals to lose heat much faster than land mammals. While fat under the skin helps slow their heat loss, the BMR of any given sea mammal is much higher than a land mammal of the same size. One study showed at least some species of dolphins weighing around 1oo kg/220 lbs to use about 1 liter per minute of oxygen when resting.  Since there are 1,440 minutes in a day, times our rough conversion factor of 1 liter of breathed O2 equaling 5 calories, that means a dolphin of that size (100 kg) and species needs 7,200 calories per day just to stay warm–ten times as much food as a 300 kg crocodile at 30 degrees C. Note a 100 kg human male at rest uses about 2,500 calories a day–a dolphin of the same size to stay warm in water uses nearly three times as much energy and so needs to eat three times as much food. (Merpeople would need to eat a lot!)

Credit: D’nalsi Wiki

While scientific studies note a relationship between a creature’s internal body temperature and its base metabolism–a higher body temperature indicates a higher metabolism–usually this factor is something scientists ignore. They often calculate typical BMR based on the mass of a creature alone, as this generally accounts for observed caloric intake needs. Roughly speaking, though there are variations among orders of mammals and birds (the most important variation being sea mammals and extreme cold weather mammals as already noted, but it’s also true that creatures with bigger brains burn more calories at rest than smaller animals), it’s generally true that the BMR = M^0.75 (where mass equals weight in kilograms–for small mammals and birds this number is more like BMR = M^0.67).

What that math relationship looks like on a chart I’ll show you from an article taken from the Journal of Experimental Biology: Note that the bottom of the chart tracks mammals while hibernating or “torpid”–i.e. many mammals can enter a state where their metabolic rate plunges and they use far less calories than normal (when they are “entheric,” as the chart puts it).

An important point to remember on the subject of calculating how much a mammal (or likewise an alien or demi-human) needs to eat is that having to work can greatly increase the amount of calories a living creature will need, beyond the BMR. Human beings rarely double our BMR (the BMR for an average sized American woman is estimated at 1,400 per day and 1,800 for the “average” man), yet for most living creatures who live in the wild, doubling their BMR is the minimum they do on a daily basis. Some animals use up to six times their BMR when active (to give one example, while a dolphin may need roughly 7,000-8,000 calories per day resting, they on average need up to 33,000 calories per day in the wild!) Whether your non-human species typically does between 1.5 and 2 times BMR like a human or 4 to 5 times BMR like a dolphin has to do with how active your species is–if they are using 4 to 5 times as much energy as their BMR, they would pretty much be moving constantly, like dolphins do.

Ok, I’ve given a lot of data here as resources. It may not be immediately clear how to apply this data to world building, but Travis C is going to step in next week to help you put it all together. 🙂

Travis C here. I’ve watched Travis P develop this section through the week, building in detail upon detail of good stuff! Rather than pile on more this week, our next installment will work through an example using Travis P’s research and some of my own to show how a story might evolve via each of our Cost of War considerations.

Stay tuned next week as I unpack Lady Katie’s war against the Mad King Crabcakes as she fields a fantasy army!

There is a particular meme that always shows up twice during the year. You can see the meme below, where Spock is pondering the logical fallacy of looking down on sci-fi/fantasy conventions and cosplay while bearing less ill will to the equally silly/awesome/childish/dedicated/what-have-you devotion of football fans to their respective teams. This meme always makes the rounds when football season kicks off in late August and shows up again during the NFL playoffs, intensifying right around the Super Bowl. This is obviously a sore subject for many people on both sides, but since I’m not firmly rooted in either one, I’ll just throw my two cents out there.

I don’t consider myself an “avid” fan of anything. There are some fictional realms that I really enjoy, as well as some sports that I watch regularly. Yet I’ve never been to a convention and I don’t own any figurines, comics, or collectibles. I did see all three LOTR movies on opening night and numerous times afterwards (the movie tallying scene in Clerks 2 was a hoot) and I know a fair amount about Star Trek, though I can’t say that Star Wars holds my attention for long. I’ve been to a number of sports games but I have never been to a professional football game, and although I am a long-suffering fan of my hometown Atlanta Falcons, I don’t own any memorabilia or jerseys. I do watch football whenever it is on TV and I’ve been getting embarrassed in my neighborhood fantasy football league for a couple of years now. I know a good bit about the game, as well as baseball and basketball. However, I don’t live for these sports, just as I don’t “geek out” whenever a new Star Wars or Harry Potterverse movie trailer drops.

So now you know my (lack of) geek or sports cred, let’s examine the meme at hand. First, are these two fandoms anything alike? What do they share in common? Well, the fans spend exorbitant amounts of money on all manner of entertainment and merchandise related to their particular fandom. They wear uniforms to identify with their tribes. People who “don’t get it” think they’re weird. Their significant others are tired of competing against the fandom for affection. And no matter what you say or do or think, you’ll never convince them that your fandom is better than theirs.

How are sports and scifi/fantasy fandoms different? I suppose the biggest difference would be that one is based in reality while another is not. I don’t mean this to be derogatory, but this is a simple fact. Everything that sports fans idolize and cheer for are done by real people in the real world. Their “superheroes” don’t save the world or stop evil villains (at least, not in the traditional sense) but they fight against physics, physiology, psychology, age, the environment, and most importantly, other people who are very similar to them and who want the same thing. Fictional fandoms are based entirely on imaginary people, creatures, and worlds, and while they may be as complicated or perhaps even more so than our reality, there are far less limits in these realms.

This is where I have to disagree with Mr. Spock. If you ask a sports fan why he or she is wearing the jersey of their favorite player and the fan responded, “Because he is so AWESOME! He can jump over mountains and lift three tons and run a forty in two seconds and he never needs to sleep and he eats twenty steaks a day!”, people would probably back away slowly. Yet these characteristics would not be out of place at all at a superhero convention where people dress up as Superman or the Flash or Captain Marvel. Now, wearing a jersey or a costume imparts no powers nor brings the wearer any closer to their idol, but there is something to be said for idolizing reality rather than fantasy. You CAN meet your real-life sports hero. You CAN directly benefit from their community charity. You CAN possibly even play with or against them someday. However, the closest we’ll ever get to meeting a real-life superhero is shaking hands with the actor or actress who portrays them on screen.

Yet this speaks to the power of imagination. Superman isn’t a real person, but the idea of Superman has inspired millions and has helped many people through difficult times, as well as spawned countless livelihoods. Removing Spider-Man from the world would leave a bigger hole than if Tom Brady was suddenly erased (did I say that out loud?). So while cosplay and fantasy conventions are certainly more “nerdy” than sports, they are no more and no less stupid. It’s all what we make of it.

Last year, Lorehaven Magazine debuted our first issue for spring 2018.

Our mission: to find truth in fantastic stories.

This quarterly magazine can be read exclusively by free subscribers. But, for a non-virtual magazine, you might pick up an issue without subscribing. You might find a copy free in a waiting room. Or you could even (gasp) purchase an issue at the airport.

That’s why readers can now preview all of Lorehaven Magazine’s spring 2018 issue.

It’s all free online, including:

• Book reviews: twelve-plus fun, practical reviews of Christian-made fantastical novels . . .
• Steve Rzasa’s intro to Lorehaven Book Clubs, continuing now in the Facebook group . . .
• Featured review of James L. Rubart’s 2018 novel The Man He Never Was . . .
• Sponsored review of Raquel Byrnes’s steampunk novel The Tremblers . . .
• Cover story—in which Rubart explores the “magic” of biblical truth . . .
• Paeter Frandsen’s guidance for Christian geeks with strange gifts . . .
• Marian Jacobs’s caution about children who don’t read fantasy . . .
• Kerry Nietz’s survey of the worlds of science fiction . . .
• Elijah David’s tracking of the Four Horsemen . . .
• Finally, our Roundtable on fictional violence.

Nope, you don’t need to subscribe to read this issue. Not even for free.

But if you haven’t subscribed yet, we already have three more 2018 issues awaiting you. And the spring 2019 issue arrives next month. It features 12+ more Christian fantastical novel reviews, Tosca Lee with The Line Between, and beyond.

We’ll also showcase issues at the Teach Them Diligently convention in Waco from April 11–13. Texas fanservants, stop by and see us!

Meanwhile, keep watching this space for more Lorehaven updates—including a contest you can preview now at our web portal . . .

Stephen

What a great contest our 2019 Winter Writing Contest is. We’ve had wonderful entries—a considerable number which received double-digit thumbs up! Now it’s time to announce our finalists!

Just a reminder. This is NOT a popularity contest. We really do want to acknowledge writers who have honed their skills and demonstrated their ability in this little exercise. So, those who vote in the poll, please be sure you read all three of the finalist entries and give a fair assessment.

Special thanks to all who entered and all who gave their feedback in the preliminary round. We had some that came so close to making the finals—it was hard for me to follow the rules for the contest and include only three in this poll.

We’ve also had a number of excellent, helpful comments, so hopefully you all who entered gained some insight into your writing. I hope the challenge has encouraged and inspired all the writers.

So here, in alphabetical order by last name, are your 2019 Spec Faith Winter Writing Challenge finalists:

• Sarah Daffy

• Jay DiNitto

• L. G. McCary.

All that’s left is to select the winner, and that’s also in the hands of our visitors. Choose from these finalists and vote in the poll at the end of this post for the one entry you think is best.

The entry receiving the most votes will be the winner, and the author will receive a $25 e-gift card from either Amazon or B&N. (In case of a tie, I’ll draw for the winner).

Voting will last until midnight (Pacific time), Sunday, February 10.

And now the finalists’ entries:

By Sarah Duffy

The guard would never let me enter if he knew what I was planning.

The airport inspector and guard would never let me enter if he knew what I was planning—and hiding.

Right now I was being screened such at customs, for metals or explosive devices. What the airport inspector didn’t know was that a Bible was stashed away in the false bottom of my carry-on bag.

In this country it was illegal to import Bibles. It was illegal to be a Christian. It was even illegal to own a Bible. That’s why I was helping my friend Edward smuggle Bibles.

I held my breath as the airport inspector looked me over, hoping and praying he wouldn’t find me out. Or my secret. He patted me down and used his metal detector. Nothing. No metal, no explosive devices, nothing. He grunted.

“Go ahead, ma’am,” he said. “You’ve got nothing illegal on you.”

I smiled and moved ahead. I was through all customs, all inspectors, now all I had to do was figure out a plan and get the Bible to Edward.

Suddenly someone rushed across the airport, someone I knew and recognized.

Amir.

The worst enemy of the Christians. He was known for hunting Christians down, reporting them to the authorities, and worse. I knew someday God would bring him to justice, but right now I was terrified and thinking that day would never come.

“Don’t let her get away!” Amir shouted. “She’s carrying a Bible!”

Immediately the inspector officer rushed after me and caught hold of me. Amir stood by, smirking.

“Explain yourself,” the officer demanded.

“I have nothing to explain,” I said, “except I’m doing the will of my Father in Heaven.”

I looked up and our eyes met, mine boring into Amir’s. Right then and there I knew he was sorry he’d betrayed me.

Conviction.

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