“A Home of Wind and Water” has taken an honorable mention in WOTF. That means it was good enough for the judge to read all the way to the end, but not good enough to win, putting it in the top hundred or so of two thousand or so entries. Nice, but not as nice as winning.
There’s always next quarter!
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The Niteblade anthology “Lost Innocence” has just been released, and my story “Philosopher Quinn” is nestled inside it like spider eggs in a beauty queen’s face. Buy it!
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I’ve returned from Bali to the warm embrace of my computer, never to part again.
Two days ago, I wrote one last story while drinking tea with a view of emerald-green rice terraces, above which sparrows and cranes wheeled, and thought, “Writing doesn’t make you a writer. Drinking fancy tea makes you a writer.”
The story I wrote that day is entitled “A Surfeit of Eels”. I think Ali may have come up with that. If so, thanks, Ali! It’s a great story. Here’s the opening paragraph.
“That’s enough eels,” he said, waving the destructo-cannon. “When they’re up to your knees, you have enough eels.”
Look for it in Harper’s.
The same day I wrote that story, Randi and I were in a pretentious art gallery filled with pretentious photographs of the feet of people praying and pretentious crap like that. It was very pretentious. (Bali, you know, is a refuge for many famous artists who would be killed in their own countries [for their pretention].)
Anyway, I shook my head and said, “This isn’t art - ‘Dancing Queen’, that’s art.”
Randi frowned and said, “Not everyone can be a famous photographer. You have to buy a really expensive camera first.”
(No offense to my photographer friends. I have no problem with the medium of photography as art, even though I don’t really understand it. But this one guy really sucked.)
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“Blankenship & Dawes in: Chrono-Conundrum!” will appear on Every Day Fiction! Hurrah! Over a thousand regular readers will be exposed to the wonder and fundaeity of B&D. No publication date yet; stay tuned to this web-frequency!
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Two more nights in Bali, one night on an airplane, and then I’m back to Korea and regular internet access. More updates then!
“Lunacide” has passed the first round of reading at Space Squid.
The first page of “Electric Fantastiphone” is available to read at Space Squid. Read it! Then buy the magazine! Only a buck!
Part III of “Corazon” was posted on Space Westerns. Read the exciting conclusion!
Now reading: Hyperion, by Dan Simmons. Wow. Amazing novel. Blows my mind every fifty pages or so.
Just read: Falling Free, by Lois McMaster Bujold. I loved it. The science is interesting and sound, the characters are well-formed and complex all around, and the plotting is superb. She is the McMaster of my heart. Can’t wait to read more by her. It’s telling that she has as many best-novel Hugos as Robert Heinlein.
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Part of the reason why I was long shy of reading genre literature was the tremendous length of the works; it seemed that authors could rarely finish a story in 300 pages if it were possible to write 400; and why finish a story in one book if you can stretch it to five?
The Riverworld Saga reaches almost 2000 pages over its five volumes, but it never feels stretched, and for good reason; it’s the biggest idea in science fiction. The premise is thus: after death, everyone who has ever lived, from the dawn of time to 2008 (when the world was destroyed, you know), is simultaneously resurrected along the banks of a twenty million-mile river. Everyone is twenty-five again, with any physical imperfections and mental illnesses removed. And everyone is there: Jesus, Buddha, Gandhi, Hitler, Jack London, me, you.
Somewhere in the third novel, Farmer expounds, through the auspiciously-named character Peter Jairus Frigate, a scifi author from Peoria, that this concept is too big for any one author to explore in any one lifetime. That is true. The culture clashes alone could be mined for novels upon novels; factor in the sheer gratification of watching historical characters interact, and you’ve got material for a lifetime. And then there’s a pretty good scifi plot to explore as well.
The first novel, To Your Scattered Bodies Go, which beat The Lathe of Heaven for the Hugo in 1972, follows the historically awesome Sir Richard Francis Burton after Resurrection Day. He forms a band including Alice Pleasance Liddell Hargreaves, the inspiration for Alice of Alice in Wonderland, Kazz the Neanderthal, and others. They build a boat and begin the long voyage upriver to confront the makers of this mysterious world.
The Fabulous Riverboat opens with Samuel Clemens, in the uneasy company of a band of Vikings, searching for iron in the Riverworld to build a riverboat to storm the fabled tower at the end of the River. This novel features King John of England, Tokugawa Iyeyasu, and Cyrano de Bergerac. I read it in two days. This book really begins to explore the sociological aspects of the Riverworld, what happens when you mix people of all nations and all times.
His Dark Design is where the series hits a snag; Farmer wants to introduce new characters and new plots, but the resolution of the novel undoes much that the novel accomplishes. It’s still a fascinating read, and much of the Riverworld’s questions are answered, even, as the cover copy says, new questions arise!
The Magic Labyrinth was intended to be the final chapter of the saga. It delivers. It is a 500-page climax. Farmer pulls out all the stops and gratifies the reader for the entire length of the novel. Here is some of his most powerful writing (particularly in the chapter “Burton’s Soliloquy”); here the plots that we have followed for over a thousand pages reach fruition, as the vast cast of characters meet for their final confrontation. This book alone makes the saga worth reading.
Gods of Riverworld was never meant to be written. Farmer intended to stop one book earlier, but his imagination was tempted by the possibilities before him at the end of Labyrinth. Unfortunately, the book doesn’t really capitalize on those possibilities; there are many interesting ideas on display here, but they are never explored as deeply as they might be. Though disappointing, the book is still worth ending.
The compelling thing about this series is its sheer scope. It delves into history, sociology, psychology, spirituality, ethics, and hard science with equal aplomb, and, while the books remain gripping throughout, they never sacrifice their explorations for the sake of plot. These novels are the sprawling accomplishment of decades.
Farmer’s works are obsessed with the afterlife. His earlier novel Inside-Outside explores many of the same questions in different ways; one of the most interesting questions is the idea that we won’t necessarily get all the answers when we die, which is the complete opposite of Judeo-Christian-Islam belief. What if, he poses, the next world is as full of suffering and mystery as this one? In the Riverworld, the old religions struggle to adjust their creeds to the new, harsh reality; new religions arise.
Now that I’ve done my best to make it sound boring; read the books! Don’t be intimidated by the length of the series. I read each book in a few days. Singly they are incredible stories; together they are the biggest story in science fiction.
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I’ve been reading and writing a lot this vacation. It’s dandy.
Two days ago I wrote a short-short called “Ars Draconis.”
Yesterday I wrote a story called “Lunacide”. I’ve had the first sentence of this story for a long time, but could never figure out the rest: “It was 2016, and we were finally blowing up the moon.” So, yesterday, while the wife was at yoga, I took a lone table overlooking an emerald-green rice terrace, ordered a papaya smoothie, wrote the one sentence I had, and let the rest flow. I’m very satisfied with the results.
Today I wrote two stories: “Planetworld” and “Killipedes”. I admit that these were both written title-first. They’re both funny and deeply strange. I like them. I find it easy to write in a tropical paradise. I’ll send these pieces to Space Squid and EDF, though I don’t know which to where.
I recently read Raymond Chandler’s Farewell, My Lovely, and was deeply impressed. I quite literally writhed with joy while reading it. His language is delightful. His metaphors are renowned, and for good reason: “She was about as cute as a washtub.” “I lit a cigarette that tasted like a plumber’s handkerchief.” Even though I’ve never written noir or mystery fiction (too scared to try), I can admire his commanding style.
Now I’m about halfway into Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, which is pretty good. It has some pacing issues - I’m 300 pages in and almost nothing has happened - but the world he’s building is rich and interesting. I’ll happily read on.
Also, I neglected to upload the images for the next story. Nor did I get a guest column for next Friday. So I’m afraid the Tournament of Titillation will peter out with a final book review this next Wednesday. It was good while it lasted!
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Erin Kinch recently completed her Masters in Fantastic Arcanum degree at the University of Nova Texas, granting her fourth-level telekinetic abilities. It is rumored that she has the power of the evil eye. Her stories appear on EDF, Allegory, and many other places. She maintains a scintillating blog.
Young Adult Fiction Isn’t Just for Young Adults Anymore
I used to skulk by the Y/A section, perusing the shelves surreptitiously, hoping no one noticed me loitering. At the cashier’s counter, I had a lie on the tip of my tongue (“They’re a birthday gift, I swear!”). After all, why would someone clearly in the adult age range be interested in reading about teen angst?
Now I know the truth—it’s not just me. A lot of adults like Y/A fiction. Good stories are good stories, no matter what shelf you find them on at the bookstore. I probably should have realized that earlier—I was never embarrassed about liking other genres (sci-fi, fantasy, romance). But I didn’t think of Y/A as its own genre—I thought it was a maturity marker that I was somehow failing.
Several things helped me slough off that Y/A embarrassment forever. One was a quote I read from my favorite Y/A author of all time, <a href=“http://www.tamora-pierce.com/” target=“_new”>Tamora Pierce</a>. I can’t remember the exact words (it’s been a while), but the gist was that she wanted adult readers to should stop apologizing for their age in fan mail, because she wrote her stories for anyone who wanted to read them. She loved to hear that her books appealed to different generations.
And then, the <i>Harry Potter</i> craze hit, and suddenly everyone was talking about “kid” books. At first it was just the youngsters of my acquaintance. I started to read the series so I could participate in their heated discussions, and soon I was hooked on the adventures of the young wizard. Soon, though, I noticed that I wasn’t the only adult reading it, and it wasn’t just parents wanting to read what their kids read, either. It was everybody!
The Y/A genre has exploded over the past few years. Now I read author blogs (like <a href=“http://jenlyn-b.livejournal.com/” target=“_new”>Jennifer Lynn Barnes</a>) and agent blogs (like <a href=“http://pubrants.blogspot.com/” target=“_new”>Pubrants</a>), and Y/A fiction is a huge discussion point. They enjoy reading Y/A (and not only the novels they write/represent), and they aren’t embarrassed to talk about it.
There is so much great Y/A fiction out there that it’s hard to know where to turn. When I was actually a teenager, we didn’t have anything that inspired the kind of devotion of <i>Harry Potter</i> or <i>Twilight</i>. Maybe part of that was the lack of Internet to help us with our fannish pursuits, but I think part of it was the stories, as well. <i>The Babysitter’s Club</i> and <i>Sweet Valley High</i> can’t hold a candle to Ann Brashares, Melissa Marr, Meg Cabot, Ally Carter, Michael Grant, and all the other great Y/A authors out there. Every time I go to the book store, there’s more to choose from!
But what is it, really, that makes Y/A fiction popular to adults as well as younger readers? I really can’t say for the world in general, but I have thought about why I like it so much. There is something magical about the idea of that time in everyone’s life, that time of youth and possibility. The big choices haven’t been made yet; the characters are only just discovering who they will become, so the possibilities are still wide open for them. I guess I’m just a sucker for the coming-of-age story. And there are those firsts that happen around that time that, once they’re over, never happen for the first time again. It’s powerful stuff. And, there’s also the fact that I write Y/A—all my attempted novels have been in that genre. So maybe it’s just a genre that resonates with me for whatever reason.
It’s probably long past time for me to wind up this entry, so I’ll leave you with one last thing—a list of some of my favorite Y/A novels. If you’ve never read Y/A before, but now find yourself intrigued, one of these novels might be a good starting point (there are tons more I could list, of course, but these few are at the top of my list):
<ul><li><i>The Song of the Lioness</i> quartet by Tamora Pierce—When her gender disqualifies her from fulfilling her dream of knighthood, Alanna takes things into her own hands.</li>
<li>The <i>Harry Potter</i> series by J.K. Rowling—Unknown to Harry until his 11th birthday, he is the most famous wizard in the wizarding world, and he has a destiny to live up to in the battle against the most powerful dark wizard of the age.</li>
<li>The <i>Twilight</i> series by Stephanie Meyer—a new interpretation of vampires. Though, really, my favorite Meyer book is <i>The Host</i>. It’s technically adult, but it’s written in the same style. The only difference is the age of the protagonist, but Wanderer, in <i>The Host</i>, is coming of age just like Bella in <i>Twilight</i>—it’s just that Wanderer happens to be an alien!</li>
<li>/The <i>Peaches</i> series by Jodi Lynn Anderson—three very different girls, brought together by a peach orchard, discover that life has more twists and turns than they thought.</li>
<li>The Tillerman books, starting with <i>Homecoming</i>, by Cynthia Voigt—Four kids, abandoned by their mother, journey cross-country to find their grandmother.</li></ul>
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… is live at Space Westerns. So go read it!
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I’d never read LeGuin before, though I was long aware of her as one of the heavyweights of science fiction; mentally, I’d always confused her with Anne McCaffrey (no, not just because they’re both women; my reason is more complex than that; because they both have last names that start with ethnic prefixes!), and my one and only outing with McCaffrey to date (The Ship Who Sang) was disappointing.
This was, of course, a superficial aversion, and just like Cormac McCarthy and Carson McCullers before them, these two authors are now sharply divided in my brain. LeGuin is hyper-intelligent, with a keen eye to character and a deft hand to plot; there’s no confusing her with any other.
The Lathe of Heaven is about George Orr, everyest of everymen, except for the exceptional ability to make his dreams reality. The new, dreamed-up elements don’t simply pop into our reality; all reality is reshaped to make room for them. Orr is terrified of dreaming and seeks psychiatric help to relieve himself of this condition; he ends up in the less-than-scrupulous hands of Dr. Haber.
What unfolds is much more than a be-careful-what-you-wish-for tale; it is a powerful ethical quandary that explores Neitzsche’s will-to-power concept and Freudian character construction. Both sides of the dilemma are essentially right in the ensuing questions of greater good and individual good, but, as the characters flip from one eerie dystopia to another, they find themselves unexpectedly on opposite sides of the debate, or on both sides, or in a world with no sides at all, where reality is shaped by morality but moral questions are curiously obscured.
My attention was captivated by this book, and I’m looking forward to reading more of LeGuin. It turns out, writers with the title “Grandmaster” are pretty good!
Two further notes:
1) This novel was beaten out for the Hugo that year by To Your Scattered Bodies Go, the first novel of Philip Jose Farmer’s Riverworld saga, which we’ll be covering next week!
2) Whilst browsing Harold Bloom’s opinion of the modern Western canon, I noted that LeGuin’s Left Hand of Darkness was the only science fiction to make that prominent critic’s list. (Unless you count Vonnegut as scifi, which Vonnegut himself did not.)
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