Territories Not To Be Charted

During this last three days, I've been sporadically attending events at WorldShift Summit 2025, and one of the bits that I attended and found interesting was a talk titled "Writing Identities Not Your Own: Speculative Fiction", hosted by author Alex Temblador. During the course of the talk, there were points raised regarding sensitivity readers, research, and making the choice just not to write something (a choice that more authors should follow). I remember commenting in the chat about some areas that I had decided not to touch in my speculative writing, but the thought persisted. It also came to mind with other things I'd encountered, including a discussion within the PBS Storied YouTube posts, and this video from Overly Sarcastic Productions on urban fantasy.

So, I'll freely admit that in my early writing, I didn't have the full sense to not use certain pieces of belief systems or history. I used them, and thank all the deities that writing will never see the light of day. It's not just that it's subpar in quality, but it also ignores.some very basic rules of etiquette regarding cultural representation. There are some things which are relatively open for the usage, such as belief systems or pieces of history that are so far removed from the present day they might as well have happened in another realm. Ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome, the pre-Roman Celts, the pre-Christian Norse, and Japan.

But there are some pretty large areas where I don't feel comfortable treading. Many of these are places not only with active and living participants in a belief system, but also countries which have been victims of 19th and 20th Century colonialism, and places where there is already a literary tradition which is finally breaking through to a worldwide audience. You may call foul for having mentioned Japan, but I've noticed that unless an adapter is wholly disrespectful or malicious, Japanese people don't seem to mind as much when their Shinto beliefs are used for fiction. I may be wrong about this, please correct with examples if so, but their attitude seems a lot more--to mix metaphors--laissez faire.

So here are a few big examples of stuff I won't touch for some reason. Extant believers

*Native America: This is a very solid line that I've drawn for myself. The Native American belief systems are a much-denigrated, much-misrepresented, and much-persecuted way of seeing the world. Some of its symbols, such as dreamcatcher charms or what in English is called the "wendigo", have bled into popular culture while losing most of their significance to those who first spoke of them. They're frequently used in a context which is more than a little racist, and while I'd want to avoid those if I chose to use them, I'd rather not use them at all out of respect for the Native American populations whose living believe systems it is. As an example in this article, I won't focus on the Navajo yee naaldlooshii beyond this mention, since it's already misused and abused enough. Unlike a...certain culturally deaf author who shall not be named.

*Africa: A broad one with another very solid line. The rich and varied cultures of Africa have been one of the greatest victims of colonial attitudes during the 19th Century, which saw them as brutish and uncivilised because they were different in how their societies worked, how their knowledge was preserved, and what they chose to believe in. But just a brief look at the history of one country, take Ghana as an example, shows multiple cultural groups, rich history and artistic legacies, and deep folklore and mythology. Many will know of Anansi, a spider trickster from Akan folklore, but this figure is so much more fascinating than just his stories. And I wouldn't want to use Anansi because there are hundreds of thousands from within the Akan people who could write about him far better than I.

*The Indian Subcontinent: Now I must make the line a bit fuzzy here not because I feel I can't write about the culture, at least from the perspective of an outsider, but because its folklore, mythology and religion is dense and far more intricate than someone not versed in that tradition could understand. And on top of that, unlike what might seem like parallel belief systems such as Ancient Greece and Rome, the Hindu sampradaya, plus others such as Jain Dharma or the Sikh or the teachings of Buddha, are a still-practiced and active religion. According to some surveys, the Hindu faiths collectively are the third-largest practiced religion in the world. And while some pieces of fiction have butchered this religion for entertainment (looking at you, Temple of Doom), I prefer not to.

*Abrahamic tradition: I'd initially labelled this section "Jewish traditions", then realised this easily extends across multiple belief systems which fall under the Abrahamic umbrella Today more than ever, there are a lot of hair-triggers surrounding use of perceived misuse of this belief system in a speculative medium. I don't want to use the Golem as it's deeply embedded in aspects of Jewish history and folklore. I'm steering well clear of Islamic belief systems as there is a lot of nuance and strong opinions that I don't want to tread on. There are some aspects of Judeo-Christian beliefs that people have become less tetchy about, but even then I'm not comfortable using them in a big way. As a reference or a template, sure. But unless I really do have a lot of confidence that I'm writing it correctly or in a suitably tongue-in-cheek style, I'd rather not

*South American pre-colonial: This is a more fuzzy example, as the belief systems native to that area, while still practiced to a degree, aren't the mainstream anymore. But there is a ton of aspects that either isn't readily accessible, or just can't be accessed at all. The belief systems of pre-colonial South America are rich and intriguing, filled with nuance and depth. But due to a combination of time's unfriendly march, and systematic destruction by the Spanish of that culture in a brutal wave of oppression and conversion, little primary evidence survives. We have clues, a few surviving documents, and a mountain of deeply-biased accounts from Spanish colonials with a vested interest in painting the peoples of South America as brutal savages. So while I might use a reference to them, I wouldn't want to portray the deities in fiction any more than the people who worshiped them. It feels disrespectful.

*Mainland China: This is a tricky one in a different way, as there are some aspects of Chinese tradition which have become very much internationalized through the popularity of fiction such as Journey to the West and Water Margin. I also admit that I created a story on this very blog which was a tongue-in-cheek homage to Journey to the West. But there are still some parts of its culture and belief systems I don't want to handle. It's even more important as aspects of that old culture seem to be under attack from its present government, meaning it may become increasingly up to diaspora populations to preserve them. There is a prominent example of a Western take on "Chinese" folklore, BioWare's Jade Empire, which I used to like but now just find deeply uncomfortable. It does have a slight escape clause in that it's not specifically using Ancient China, but still too close for comfort. Might have been more tolerable if they had Chinese creatives on the writing staff.

So, there we are. Some bits I don't want to touch, and some of my reasoning for it. These cultures are beautiful and rich, and they should be shown to the world where possible. And as a White British man, that isn't a task I should take on. It should be done by writers who can take those traditions and weave stories of their own devising, stepped in their own cultural background which will lend it a depth impossible otherwise.

The Bionicle Movies: A Personal Retrospective

Note: This is the script for a video which you will find at the bottom of the post. Hope you enjoy one or the other, or both.

Bionicle has been on my mind recently. Why? Well, not just because of the Lego group recently cancelling a fan-made video game project dubbed Masks of Power after eight years of tacit acquiescence. It’s because Bionicle was a formative part of why I became what I am; an author, trying to get into the market alongside all the other things I’m doing. Including living a ‘normal’ life.

I first encountered Bionicle in 2003 through the Lego Catalogue, where I was absolutely terrified by the Rahkshi. I ended up getting my first set in 2004. I forget whether it was one of the Vahki, or the Toa set for Nuju. Either way, I got submerged into the world of Bionicle. I was already into Lego, through things like Alpha Team and the various more generic Lego bits we had at home. But Bionicle was different, and I found it had a story which pulled me in hard. Even after I stopped getting sets in 2007, I still followed the story until its original finale in 2010. And I bought the movies. All four of them. For better, and in the last case...for worse.

The Bionicle fan community is, I believe, unique within Lego’s corpus. It’s going strong to this very day, and the Bionicle Media Project is continuing its dedicated work preserving what might otherwise become lost media. This includes comics, books, web games, video commercials, even restoring some long-lost cancelled projects.

So, how can I best show my own love for this series, as Bionicle is on a lot of people’s minds at the moment? Well, I guess I could talk about the movies that helped me love this series, as the original trilogy remains some of my favourite set of films, even after twenty years. Even after everything else I’ve watched. I’ve absorbed countless pieces of other media, including the more dubious video game titles, but the movies are some of the most easily accessible. I’ve got the DVDs still, so I might as well go back and look over each of them. And find out why I still like them, even though they’re technically aimed at...a far younger audience than I.

Bionicle: The Mask of Light from 2003 tells...half of the story of that year’s released sets. There is a lot of extra stuff that isn’t covered, and while you can follow along, there are some casual details in dialogue that non-fans won’t get. I don’t think it’s an issue in this case. Also fun fact, I first watched this film in 2004, so when I heard the village leaders or Turaga being referred to using the names of the Metru Nui Toa, I...think my brain had a minor freeze. Because... Wait, what, Vakama? Nokama?! What’s going on, what happened!?

Partly due to how much it cuts, and party due to its intended audience, I’ve got to say it isn’t the best piece of Bionicle media in my opinion. A lot of my feelings of good towards it are rooted in nostalgia from when I first watched it. I had literally never seen anything like it; the corruptive Rahkshi, the scheming Makuta, the odd couple dynamic of Jalla and Takua, the internal conflicts of the Toa. All fairly standard, but delivered with real confidence. But that’s not to say there isn’t worth here outside of nostalgia.

I think one of the best plot threads in this movie is with the Fire Toa Tahu. He is painted as powerful, but arrogant and stubborn. When he is poisoned by one of the Rahkshi, slowly falling to its corruption, it forces the Toa to come together regardless of any differences they might have had before, especially Gali, Toa of Water. It shows the theme of unity which is present in...pretty much every piece of this series’ media. There is also Takua’s slow acceptance of his role as the titular mask’s herald, and it has a climax which is genuinely moving even if it dances around some heavier stuff.

And as for the production value? It’s really good for a first time, although it really shows its age in some of its composition and overall quality. This is a movie made with love. The animation feels solid, connected, you can believe the different characters are interacting with each other even if it’s entirely CGI. And Nathan Furst’s musical score ties it together beautifully. It may be a synthesised orchestra, but boy does it have some oomph.

So the first movie isn’t the best. It’s probably the weakest of the original trilogy. But it’s also got the heart and soul which would stand this universe in good stead going forward. And it shows what the original trilogy would do best; nice characters, great animation, and peak atmosphere.

Bionicle 2: Legends of Metru Nui, released in 2004, is a prequel to the original that follows six Matoran as they are chosen to inherit the mantle of Toa and defend their city from an insidious conspiracy that sees them branded as criminals. Honestly, the story has aged too well for its own good in these times. A state police that oppresses more than it aids, secretive operatives who disappear people, a charismatic leader few seem able to overcome.

I’m not sure I enjoyed it as much as I do now partly because its themes weren’t as relevant to me back in 2004 compared to 2025. Also the characters’ struggles didn’t hit me as much as they do now. The story is all about rivalry, self-doubt, discovering yourself separate from other people’s expectations. Due to these, and the overarching theme of a city being overtaken by an unseen shadow, the tone is a lot darker than the previous film. There’s also a greater sense of kinetic flow, with more movement and action, which really brings characters to life.

Something that I fear must be mentioned is that is feels as if Bionicle 2 some parts either weren’t adjusted for rewrites, or some bits were cut. There were some cut moments from the first movie too, but here it feels more obvious. It suffers from the same issue as Mask of Light, in that it cuts about a third of the 2004 storyline, a whole initial threat from a sentient plant called the Morbuzakh. There’s also some clear asset reuse with a few characters that really breaks the flow.

But that doesn’t make this a weak movie. In fact, I think it’s my favourite out of the original trilogy today. My favourite part of it is Vakama’s struggle with self-belief, needing to mostly rely on his wits rather than his Toa powers to get himself and his fellows out of trouble. He really comes across as someone who had a role thrust on him, feels he should follow a set pattern, and isn’t doing very well. The performances really sell each of the characters, to the point that the voice work feels better than the first, even if it’s on a similar level. Similarly improved is the animation and overall production, and Furst once again delivers an entertaining musical score.

All of this comes together to make Bionicle 2 a fascinating entry, if a slightly uneven one. It’s my favourite out of the original trilogy, and features some real strides forward in terms of characters and plot. If it had been given more time, had a little more content, it could well be considered a classic outside the fandom. Honestly it feels like this entire trilogy is in a battle between runtime and content.

2005’s Bionicle 3: Web of Shadows, while a sequel in name, is technically an interqual, taking place during the last few events of Bionicle 2. I’m not sure what I expected initially going into this, but I knew the story would be darker. That was the whole marketing behind this year, we were going into dark and edgy territory. The quest of the Toa Metru to retrieve the Matoran, only to be mutated into half-beast forms by the occupying Visorak army, is still surprisingly compelling.

For one thing, the overarching atmosphere really carries the increased personal stakes, and given the age range this was being aimed at, its themes of struggling with personal growth and feeling foreign in your own skin are quite pertinent. Even more so if the viewer were grappling with something like gender identity. This was the first time I felt real stakes, and also the first time that sudden death was so openly and bluntly portrayed. It also feels the most complete out of the trilogy, like very little if anything had to be cut before release.

There is a slight artificiality with how Vakama has gone from anxious to arrogant, but it’s not too much of a leap that I don’t buy it entirely. The rest of the character dynamics are retained, and it fits the overall theme. And whatever anyone else says, Roodaka is one of the most intimidating villains in the series, and probably helped establish some of my tastes with villainy in general. Secretive, manipulative, apparently soft, but fully capable of destruction when provoked.

As to the production, I think the animation is the best of the movies so far, there’s real weight to things. And while the musical score isn’t as strong as its two predecessors, the voice work has absolutely taken a step up yet again. Alessandro Juliani is almost literally slaying as Vakama, and Kathleen Barr helping make Roodaka even more intimidating than she already is.

I’m not sure I’d consider Web of Shadows my favourite today, but it certainly was way back when. Maybe because the themes resonated more. And it’s still a great gateway into Bionicle along with the other two movies. It’s got maybe the best story out of the three, strong production, stellar performances, and it also closes out the movie trilogy’s story in a satisfying way. If you only watched the movies, you would get a complete story.

ERROR: BIONICLE: THE LEGEND REBORN COPYRIGHTED BY UNIVERSAL, INSERT IMAGE HERE

Bionicle: The Legend Reborn adapts the 2009 storyline—sort of—and acts as an attempted soft reboot of the series. Different studio, different cast, different world. I wish I could say I got this footage from my own DVD copy, but I got rid of that ages ago as I held no value for it, so the footage here is taken from the Bionicle Media Project. Mostly because...oh boy.

The story follows Mata Nui incarnated as a Toa-like being, arriving on the world of Bara Magna and becoming entangled in both a search to reclaim his people from his arch enemy, and an ongoing conflict between surviving pockets of civilisation on the desolate planet.

I’m sorry to say it all feels very....meh. It’s not that the story is terrible, but how it’s delivered in the movie feels borderline bowdlerised. The 2009 comics portray a brutal world beset by gladiatorial conflicts over resources, an entire tribe who regressed to an animalistic state, outlaws who prey on travellers. It’s not a happy place, and the background lore reflects that. But you wouldn’t know it from the movie. It feels very kiddy, and not in a good way. And many of the characters’ personalities bear little resemblance to how they appear in other media, or are reduced to bit-players when they had a sizeable presence in Mata Nui’s journey.

Another huge issue is the casting. The original trilogy used a cast from across the Commonwealth—Canadian, Australian, British—and most if not all of the cast had a background in theatre as well as voiceover. It leant a distinct tone to the movies. For The Legend Reborn, the cast uses more mainstream American voices for many parts, including Lieutenant Worf himself Michael Dorn as Mata Nui. And I’m sorry to say this, I think Dorn was hideously miscast. I just can’t take him or most of the rest of the cast seriously. That, combined with animation that feels disconnected from itself across any scene with character interplay, and an extremely subpar musical score that I’m only using in this video under protest, conspire to rob this movie of any atmosphere of mysticism and otherness the main trilogy had in spades.

It doesn’t help this film was intended as the first of a trilogy following the soft reboot storyline, except the line ended in 2010. They did wrap up the story through other media, but this movie ends the original continuity’s cinematic legacy on one of the most pathetic whimpers imaginable.

Oh yes, and a quite touch upon the 2016 creation. Bionicle underwent a reboot in the mid-2010s, and...it didn’t sell. It was retired after less than two years. Lego seems to have tried recapturing the spirit of the original with an animated series released on Netflix, titled Bionicle: The Journey to One. But it suffers from the same issues as The Legend Reborn, only worse. And...oh boy, I was not feeling the story in the slightest. I just cannot recommend.

Image source: CGI commercial for the 2003 Bionicle video game

A last point to talk of is how the films adapted the Lego figures themselves. There are whole documentary pieces from the development teams on how they turned these figures into CGI characters. I don’t envy the production crews the task of translating the designs between two wildly different mediums.

Technically The Legend Reborn is the most faithful to the sets, practically recreating them part for part while giving them greater movement. The irony is that this faithfulness turns them from actual characters into...toys. The original trilogy took creative license with the models to give them distinct body types, strong facial expressions, even elements such as hair and cloth analogues. It leant each of the models a realness.

And the 2016 series just look like a weird hybrid between static models and free-flow, with zero creative license.

Bionicle is a great story, a decade-long saga of unity, duty, and destiny. Of hope, despair, and perseverance. Of searching, sacrifice, and solidarity. And even if they’re not perfect, the original trilogy captures that atmosphere to a tee. It’s a shame the fourth movie is such an outlier and more an archival curiosity than anything recommendable, and that the reboot television series falls so flat. That still leaves you with three movies of a descent length that will be a fun watch.

I wish to extend my heartfelt gratitude to the production crew, actors and many others who got the original trilogy to happen. They created something truly special. And I think the last word belongs Vakama.

New legends awake, but old lessons must be remembered. This is the way of the Bionicle.

CHECK OUT THE FULL VIDEO VIA THIS LINK.

Author Talks S3 E4: Updates, and Voltaire

It's that time again! The next episode of Author Talks has been released. This time, I give listeners updates on how my work and life are going and what's coming. For the fiction offering, I do a reading of Voltaire's 1756 short story "Plato's Dream", which can be classified as either an example of science-fantasy, or of proto-science fiction depending on who you ask. Basically, a fun time for this fairly short episode.

Spotify link

YouTube version

Oh lord, I really wrote that...

"Nobody's perfect." It's a very common phrase. It's a joke, an excuse, a trope and a cliché. But it's also an unfortunate, literal fact. Personally, I dislike perfection. I think of it only as an unobtainable abstract. Leaders creating a "perfect" society, creatives striving for that "perfect" project, people trying to lead "perfect" lives. Aiming for perfection is an easy recipe for inferiority complexes.

At the same time, maybe try not to make colossal mistakes which undermine what you're trying to do. Let's start this off with what triggered these thoughts. The use of the word "female" as a noun. It's actively insulting, especially today, and it makes reading some pieces of fiction more difficult unless you put in a metric tone of cultural relativism or some hefty world-building that explains why they aren't using some other noun to describe an entire gender. This is present in Mass Effect because obviously 'woman' can't be applied to non-human non-male members of a society, right? Except when the writers slip and do use that, and wouldn't translation devices approximate for humans so that genders would be described using their own words--and I'll save this for November.

The mainspring is that Emily Inkpen made a point about men who use "female" as a noun. I assume in their everyday speech and writing. She, with impressive restraint, told them to get off her feed and unfollow her as she didn't have the time. I thoroughly understand, using "female" as a noun is just insulting. But then, a penny dropped. I have read some older literature, and as was raised during a recent discussion for an in-progress project related to this event here, I let some of my archaic inspiration leak into how the characters were talking. And I checked: had I used "female" as a noun? And...well, the results were slightly mixed. More usually I realised I'd been using the word "female" as an adjective, but sometimes it did seemingly slip. I haven't checked to see whether I was doing it to help characterise the person in the writing, but regardless the point stands.

For those who don't get what I've been going on about, let me define noun and adjective as simply as I can, as I'm by no means an expert in the technical side of language. A noun is a word used to refer to something, that being an object or a named person or a location in a sentence. So "noun went to noun" or "have you seen noun". There is the further distinction between common and proper nouns. For proper nouns, think of all the esoteric terminology in fantasy and sci-fi. Meanwhile, an adjective is a word which defines a noun, so "an adjective noun" or "out with that adjective noun", or even "noun, adjective, did this three times".

This was something else Emily Inkpen brought up on a reply through one of her socials, where she was pretty angry at the people trying to defend the use of "female" as a noun, probably without realising that the examples being used were technically "female" being used as an adjective. As in "a female voice", or a "female creature". In the Cluster Cycle, I was faced with the unenviable task of creating three other distinctly not-human species for humans to interact with, and I didn't want to use the terms "man" and "woman" to refer to their traditional genders. Mostly because to me, those words are strongly linked with the word "human".

Now, to deliberately use "female" as a noun is insulting and degrading. One might use it in a character's dialogue to signal as such. One shouldn't use it willy-nilly in their own speech, or their prose description, or whatever else. So when I came across those points, I felt more than a little embarrassed. I'll have to be extra careful going forward, because I know I might end up slipping again. I might write something unintentionally insulting and belittling. And today, with many people on a hair trigger, I need to be more aware of that.

I can take a small comfort in the fact that when double-checking, I found that I generally used both "male" and "female" as adjectives, which seems acceptable. I don't know if there's been any update on that, because not only are cultural taboos changing at lightspeed these days, but English is an inherently difficult language because it's both extremely gendered and gender-neutral enough that it causes problems. It's not like French, German, Japanese, Chinese, and dozens of other languages where gender is baked into words and grammar.

All I can do is remember that before it became an excuse and a cliché, the phrase "Nobody's perfect" had a real meaning. And while I can't be perfect, I can try not to be an insensitive author.