Packed with action and humor with strong characterization, good special fx and a healthy dose of heart, Kenneth Branagh’s THOR is the best comic book movie I’ve seen in ages and destined to continue steadily earning boxoffice $s throughout the summer.
Chris Hemsworth is terrific in the title role, a god banished to mortal on a strange planet, trying to figure out who he is and where he belongs. Starting out arrogant and self-sure, Thor’s transformation to a new form of confidence is a journey many will relate to. At first, a fish out of water determined that his power and status still entitle him to whatever he demands, Thor quickly comes to realize his power and status mean little to the scientists who’ve discovered him in the New Mexico desert. As he uncovers their world and begins coming to terms with his mortality, he’s further discouraged by his failure to reclaim his hammer from Federal custody and restore the confiscated scientific equipment and data of his rescuers. Then his brother, Loki, played will by Tom Hiddleston, arrives to inform him the banishment is permanent, and Thor comes face to face with the reality his life will never be the same.
The characters are well drawn and used to full effect for both humor and humanness. Thor’s friends and their banter are both amusing and character building, and, along with the Earth characters, particularly the scientists played by Stellan Skarsgard and Natalie Portman, take what could have easily devolved into silliness and elevate it into a worth drama about coming of age, self-discovery, and family conflict. Throw in good special effects, plausible science mixed with magic (Magic is science we just don’t understand yet), and you have a very entertaining, crowd pleasing film.
The first 30 minutes was one of the best film openings to an action movie I’ve seen in the past decade–packed with action and good character development, it sets up the story and our players with a strong foundation which carries the rest of the film.
It was fun to see Rene Russo back in action film mode, however brief and small her part, and Anthony Hopkins made the most of his role as well. Idris Elba as Heimdall, the bridge guard also stood out to me and Jaime Alexander as warrior Sif added a touch of Xena to the proceedings, countering the damsel in distress heroine played by Portman. There’s room for strong women in more than one level in this franchise and that news bodes well for female filmgoers.
Unfamiliar with the THOR story, as I am not a huge comics fan, the movie sold me enough to make me want to go back and read the comics and the legends behind them. It will be fun to see what they do with further films in the franchise, including THE AVENGERS, which is due to arrive before another THOR.
Recommended to fans of all genres. A truly worthwhile afternoon at the cinema.
My friend Gene Doucette has a new book out called Immortal. A combination of science fiction, fantasy, and horror, it’s hard to categorize neatly by genre, but he’s given me the opportunity to review the book and do an interview as well. As a bonus, you can find an excerpt below. I hope you’ll check it out, and, if you like it, you can order the book here:
I don’t know how old I am. My earliest memory is something along the lines of fire good, ice bad, so I think I predate written history, but I don’t know by how much. I like to brag that I’ve been there from the beginning, and while this may very well be true, I generally just say it to pick up girls.
Surviving sixty thousand years takes cunning and more than a little luck. But in the twenty-first century Adam confronts new dangers: someone has found out what he is, a demon is after him, and he has run out of places to hide. Worst of all, he has had entirely too much to drink.
IMMORTAL is a first person confessional, penned by a man who is immortal but not invincible. In an artful blending of sci-fi, adventure, fantasy and humour, Immortal introduces us to a world with vampires, demons and other magical creatures, yet a world without actual magic. It is a contemporary fantasy for non-fantasy readers and enthusiasts alike.
Here’s my brief chat with Gene:
Immortality is a popular subject for a lot of writers. What made you decide to investigate it with Immortal?
To be honest, I had no idea how popular it was until I started promoting it. Then every few days it was, “Have you read…” or “Did you see…” I usually nod and try to point out where Immortal is different. And it is quite different. (I think the one story it has the most in common with is The Man From Earth, and the two stories are not at all close.)
I imagine I was drawn to it for the same reason most people were: the idea of being alive for long enough to have experienced things the rest of us have to read about is interesting. Maybe it’s a fear of death manifesting itself creatively, I don’t know.
In what way is Immortal different from the other stories?
When I began writing I posited one basic assumption: maybe this is all there is. I don’t mean religiously (although it made sense for my main character Adam to be an atheist) so much as intellectually and socially. On the scale of Adam’s lifetime societies are extremely temporary and knowledge is largely localized. There is a limit to the number of higher truths one can become aware of. In other words, grasping Plato doesn’t change anything if you’re still stuck in Aristotle’s rational reality.
So there is no magic, or true gods, or unnamable higher powers. And Adam has not become so detached from the world that he’s drifting through it like Bowie’s character in The Man Who Fell To Earth. He experiences. He interacts. And he drinks too much. He is a living representation of the history of mankind, but that history is messy and violent and not particularly full of enlightenment.
But you’ve included vampires and demons in this world.
I did. And pixies and iffrits and dragons, and in the next book you’ll see satyrs and werewolves and a few other things. But I took these beings and put them into a world without magic, and a world where history unfolds the way it has in the real world, in our world, meaning these creatures can’t have been significant enough to have had a direct effect. These are beings on the margins.
Including extra-human creatures was a concession I found I had to make to tell the story. And I’ve found that as long as readers find Adam plausible—and so far they have—the beings he associates with occasionally are equally plausible.
One of Adam’s themes throughout the book is that people exaggerate things, and that while some of the legendary things or events may have existed or happened, they were not as epic as described. It’s not a leap to have your main character declare on one page that the French Revolution was just an after-the-fact rationalization of a street riot, and on another page point out that the proportion of vampires that are also evil killers is roughly the same as the proportion of humans that are also evil killers.
Is this book part of a series or a standalone?
It’s part of a series now. When I first wrote it back in… good lord, 2004? I wrote a story that answered most of the questions raised within the book, such that a second or third book would have been less necessary, let’s say. But in rewrites I realized I’d crammed far too much into the final portion of the novel and it was killing the pace. So I pulled out some things—the most significant being his history with a certain red-haired woman. And then I went and wrote a second book that still didn’t answer those questions. So it’s going to be at least three books long.
What other books have you written?
My other published work is in humor. In 1999 I put out a collection of my humor columns called Beating Up Daddy and in 2001 I released The Other Worst Case Scenario Survival Handbook: A Parody which is a collection of fake “chapters” I did on my old website for fun. I just released an anniversary edition of that with new chapters as an ebook. I also put out a second collection of humor columns called Vacations and Other Errors In Judgment as an ebook a year or so ago.
For novels, I wrote a book called Charlatan before Immortal. It was agented and shopped but didn’t get published. I turned it into a screenplay a few years back, and that screenplay has won a few awards but isn’t currently optioned. Which is a shame; I think it’s better than most thrillers out there right now. And while Immortal was being shopped I wrote a novel called Fixer for which a deal may be pending. Then there’s Hellenic Immortal, which is in process.
What made you decide to become a writer?
I don’t think I ever made that decision. It was something I expected to be doing with my life as far back as when I learned how to read.
Do you outline, do character sketches, etc. or let the story unfold as it comes?
I start at the beginning and do the best I can to get to the end. So no outlines or character sketches or anything like that. But all that means is that I hold everything in my head rather than jotting it down. It’s easier for me to make changes if it’s not committed to “paper” somewhere. And my characters reveal themselves to me at the same time as the reader, usually through dialogue. It’s not something I’d recommend to someone who isn’t really good at writing dialogue, to be honest. (If I am allowed one moment of egotism: I am very good at dialogue.) Character delineation through conversation was one of the first things I learned how to do well, as a playwright.
Intrigued? I know I was. So here’s an excerpt from Immortal chapter four, in which Adam ponders the nature of the only other immortal he’s ever encountered, a red-haired mystery woman he’s never spoken to and only seen in glimpses throughout history.
I ran through the possibilities again. Vampire was one that was most likely, as they are hypothetically just as immortal as me. Except I’d seen her in the daytime on more than one occasion. And, every vampire I ever met had black eyes. Possibly she was a vampire that didn’t need to hide from sunlight and had blue eyes, but thats a bit like saying something is a cat except it walks on hind legs and has no fur or whiskers.
I dont know any other sentient humanoids that have a get-out-of-death clause. Well other than me. And I don’t have porcelain skin and haunting eyes. So she might be like me, but was she the same thing as me?
What was she?
Mind you, I’d run through all this before thousands of times. I’ve taken suggestions, too. A succubus I used to hang out with insisted my red-haired mystery girl was death incarnate, meaning my endless search for her was actually a complex working-out of my immortality issues. (A note: succubi are notorious amateur psychologists and have been since well before Freud. In fact I have it on good authority that Freud stole his whole gig from a particularly talkative succubus he used to know. And if you don’t believe Freud knew a succubus, you haven’t read Freud.) I didn’t find the argument convincing. If I am to believe in some sort of anthropomorphic representation of mortality I should first develop a belief in some higher power, or at least in life-after-death.
I’m a pretty sad example of what one should do with eternal life. I’ve never reached any higher level of consciousness, I don’t have access to any great truths, and I’ve never borne witness to the divine or transcendent. Some of this is just bad luck. Like working in the fishing industry in Galilee and never once running into Jesus. But in my defense there were an awful lot of people back then claiming to be the son of God; I probably wouldn’t have been able to pick him out of the crowd. And since I don’t believe there is a God, I doubt we would have gotten along all that well anyway.
I probably wasnt always quite so atheistic. I don’t recall much of my early hunter-gatherer days, but I’m sure that back then I believed in lots of gods. And that the stars were pinholes in an enclosed firmament. There might even have been a giant turtle involved. And I distinctly recall a crude religious ceremony involving a mammoth skin and lots of face paint. But after centuries on the mortal coil I’ve come to realize that religion is for people who expect to die someday and really want to go to a better place when that happens. It doesn’t apply to me.
Although it isn’t original to this site, I can’t resist reposting this article from www.howardandrewjones.com last December. Howard, one of the editors of Black Gate, is a talented author and somewhat of an authority on historical fantasy. His insights are well worth reading.
by Howard Andrew Jones
Some years back I decided that if I was serious about writing fantasy I’d best understand the roots of the genre, and I threw myself into reading work by its founding fathers and mothers. I came away with a deep appreciation of a number of authors I’d never explored in much detail before (Robert E. Howard, Lord Dunsany, Clark Asthon Smith, Poul Anderson, C.L. Moore, and others) and a better understanding of the kind of fantasy I most enjoyed. Some call it heroic fiction, and others have tried other labels, but the one that seems to have stuck the most is sword-and-sorcery, a term coined by Fritz Leiber. While I think I know it when I see it, a lot of different people have attempted to define it. Back when I helmed the Flashing Swords e-zine I had to tell the readers exactly what kind of fiction I most wanted to print, and so I set out to describe what I thougth sword-and-sorcery was all about. That’s been a few years ago, and the definitions have since been improved upon with some suggestions from John Hocking, William King, Robert Rhodes, and John “The Gneech” Robey.
The Environment: Sword-and-sorcery fiction takes place in lands different from our own, where technology is relatively primitive, allowing the protagonists to overcome their martial obstacles face-to-face. Magic works, but seldom at the behest of the heroes. More often sorcery is just one more obstacle used against them and is usually wielded by villains or monsters. The landscape is exotic; either a different world, or far corners of our own.
The Protagonists: The heroes live by their cunning or brawn, frequently both. They are usually strangers or outcasts, rebels imposing their own justice on the wilds or the strange and decadent civilizations which they encounter. They are usually commoners or barbarians; should they hail from the higher ranks of society then they are discredited, disinherited, or come from the lower ranks of nobility (the lowest of the high).
Obstacles: Sword-and-sorcery’s protagonists must best fantastic dangers, monstrous horrors, and dark sorcery to earn riches, astonishing treasure, the love of dazzling members of the opposite sex, or the right to live another day.
Structure: Sword-and-sorcery is usually crafted with traditional structure. Stream-of-consciousness, slice-of-life, or any sort of experimental narrative effects, when they appear, are methods used to advance the plot, rather than ends in themselves. A tale of sword-and-sorcery has a beginning, middle, and end; a problem and solution; a climax and resolution. Most important of all, sword-and-sorcery moves at a headlong pace and overflows with action and thrilling adventure.
The protagonists in sword-and-sorcery fiction are most often thieves, mercenaries, or barbarians struggling not for worlds or kingdoms, but for their own gain or mere survival. They are rebels against authority, skeptical of civilization and its rulers and adherents. While the strengths and skills of sword-and-sorcery heroes are romanticized, their exploits take place on a very different stage from one where lovely princesses, dashing nobles, and prophesied saviors are cast as the leads. Sword-and-sorcery heroes face more immediate problems than those of questing kings. They are cousins of the lone gunslingers of American westerns and the wandering samurai of Japanese folklore, traveling through the wilderness to right wrongs or simply to earn food, shelter, and coin. Unknown or hazardous lands are an essential ingredient of the genre, and if its protagonists should chance upon inhabited lands, they are often strangers to either the culture or civilization itself.
Sword-and-sorcery distances itself further from high or epic fantasy by adopting a gritty, realistic tone that creates an intense, often grim, sense of realism seemingly at odds with a fantasy setting. This vein of hardboiled realism casts the genre’s fantastic elements in an entirely new light, while rendering characters and conflict in a much more immediate fashion. Sword-and-sorcery at times veers into dark, fatalistic territory reminiscent of the grimmer examples of noir-crime fiction. This takes the fantasy genre, the most popular examples of which might be characterized as bucolic fairy tales with pre-ordained happy endings, and transposes a bleak, essentially urban style upon it with often startling effect.
While sword-and-sorcery is a relative to high fantasy, it is a different animal. High fantasy, mostly invented by William Morris as an echo of Sir Thomas Mallory and then popularized by J.R.R. Tolkien, moves for the most part at a slow, stately, pace, meandering gently from plot point to plot point, or, as is often the case, from location to location. Movie critic Roger Ebert has some astute observations on The Lord of the Rings, which I will quote here.
While exotic landscape is present, even common, in sword-and-sorcery, it is displayed differently and toward a different effect. Sword-and-sorcery was birthed in an entirely different tradition. Robert E. Howard, its creator, wrote for the pulps. The pulp magazines, the television of their day, were fueled by quick moving action. The stories needed to grab you within the first few sentences so that if you were browsing the magazine at the news stand you’d feel compelled to purchase it to finish. The pulp stories were meant to seize your attention from the opening lines and never let go.
This difference in pacing is crucial and there are hidden difficulties attendant in trying to create it on the page. My friend, the mighty John Chris Hocking, added this to the discussion: “Some sword-and-sorcery authors seem to believe that swift pacing must equal Action. And that Action must equal Violence. Neither of these things are true. All the fighting and running and frenzy you create will grow tiresome unless it is moving the story forward. Sure, Action is great unto itself, but it is the unfolding of the plot that truly captivates.”
The best way to acquaint oneself with this style of pacing is to READ the writers who did it. Certainly this is a far from exhaustive list, but this is a good start to the process. Read for enjoyment (if you’re not reading for enjoyment you probably shouldn’t bother trying to write in the style) but read critically as well. There are other fabulous works and fabulous authors, but this small selection cited here gives you a basic primer on sword-and-sorcery focusing mostly on shorter stories, short novels, and novellas. It is meant as an immersive introduction that will not take two or three years of study. Once you have the material in hand it would not take long to familiarize yourself with it.
Robert E. Howard: There’s a recent set of Howard books from Del Rey that collect all the Conan tales. Find a copy of The Coming of Conan and dip into the collection. At the least, read “Tower of the Elephant,” “Queen of the Black Coast,” and “Rogues in the House.”
Fritz Leiber: Leiber’s famed Lankhmar stories have been reprinted so many times that it’s hard to suggest any particular volume because the contents vary. Instead here are specific stories. Read three or four of any of these: “Thieves’ House,” “The Jewels in the Forest,” “The Sunken Land,” “The Howling Tower,” “The Seven Black Priests,” “Claws from the Night,” “Bazaar of the Bizarre,” “Lean Times in Lankhmar,” “The Lords of Quarmall.”
Jack Vance: The Dying Earth – sword-and-sorcery, science fiction, planetary romance—whatever it is exactly that Vance wrote when he bent so many genres (long before that was in vogue) he wrote it well, with amazing world building and vivid imagination. Don’t feel compelled to read the entire series, just the first short little novel.
Michael Moorcock: The first Elric novel or the first Hawkmoon novel.
Leigh Brackett: Beg, borrow, or steal the Sea Kings of Mars aka The Sword of Rhiannon. Sure, it’s really sword-and-planet, but sword-and-planet is really just sword-and-sorcery with a science fiction veneer. And Leigh Brackett was one of the very, very best sword-and-planet writers.
M.John Harrison: The Pastel City.
What to look for when you’re reading?
First and foremost notice the pacing.
Notice the tone in Howard, the somber, headlong drive.
Notice how dialogue is used to reveal the character rather than to reveal plot points and backstory. Pay attention to how the characters sparkle this way particularly in Leiber and Harrison. Notice Howard’s skill with Conan. He is far more than the stereotype suggested by his detractors, and more complex than barbarians crafted by most of his imitators.
Notice how atmosphere permeates everything in Brackett and Harrison and Vance—study their world building, and the sense of wonder they constantly evoke.
One thing you should note is that none of these authors worked from templates. The character classes as typified by role-playing games like Dungeons and Dragons were designed based on the works of these authors so that players might create characters like those from their favorite fantasy stories. Now many of those templates and settings have become rigid and unchanging. Castle, wizard with spell book, dragon, orc, halfing, thieves’ guild (from Leiber), chaos, law (from Moorcock). Too many of us have forgotten the source material. Those templates need to be set aside. If you’re writing for a game company by all means use elves, hobbits, ogres and the like, but otherwise leave them in their castles and invent something of your own. If you do want to write of elves or ogres, then you’ll need to do something unique with them.
Many people are surprised when agents and editors say that they often don’t need to read an entire story to know that they’ll reject it. Some writers are even insulted. But if you read five to ten story submissions a day, and you keep this up for a few years, you tend to develop an eye for picking the 10% or so of submissions that show reasonable promise to pass onto editors. How do you do it? Here is a quick checklist I use to weed out the stories that I’ll reject immediately from the ones I’ll continue reading—in the first few paragraphs (I usually do read a bit more, or skip to a different part of the story to see if the story redeems itself). I want to stress that this is my list, and that other people may well have different criteria. That said, the issues below will raise their ugly heads at some point in the selection process.
A decent magazine gets hundreds, or even thousands of submissions each year. They typically have a number of first-line slush readers. Those people will see hundreds of submissions. They don’t need to read an entire submission to know that they’re not going to pass it to the next level. Sometimes they don’t need more than the first sentence.
Why?
There is a myth in aspiring writer-land that grammar and style don’t matter all that much. That it’s the story’s content which determines its publishability, and that beautiful prose alone won’t sell your work.
Yes, yes, and yes.
That said, what sinks a lot of stories is a lack of what I’ll call natural flow in the text. It comes both from not listening to writing advice to taking it way too seriously. It comes from trying too hard to sound interesting and from lack of cohesion in the writing. It comes from tics every writer picks up somewhere along the line.
The most important reason a story gets rejected after a paragraph or two is that there are issues with the writing style and occasionally the grammar.
What do I mean by this, and what sets red flags?
Apart from the obvious (is the text grammatically correct and are there spelling mistakes?), an experienced slush reader will see:
If first few the sentences are unwieldy and trying too desperately to fit in too much ‘stuff’. Chances are that the rest of the story follows this pattern. Sure, this is fixable, but a lot of work for the editors, and a lot of communication with a writer who may not be ready for quite this much red ink. Too much effort. Reject.
The first few sentences contains odd word choices. The writer may be hanging onto the ‘no passive language’ or ‘use interesting verbs’ mantras too much. Again, this takes a lot of effort to fix because it will be insidious throughout the piece. Too much work. Reject.
The first sentence and the second sentence don’t follow one another. There needs to be a flow of logic in the text. If the first few sentences jump around like crickets in zero-gravity, chances are that the author has a problem expressing logic in a format readers can follow. This takes a huge amount of time to fix. Reject.
The first three sentences all start with the same word, usually a pronoun. A quick scan reveals that this continues through the text. Or the sentences start with some other repetitive pattern, like a participial clause (a clause containing the –ing form of a verb) or a prepositional clause, like: In the kitchen, there was…, or, After he did this, he… Writers often use these and participial clauses to avoid some other structure (never start a sentence with ‘There was…’ says the bogeyman), but the end result can become a repetitive mush of too-complicated sentences and death by ten thousand commas.
The story starts with an unnamed character and a quick scan reveals that there is no reason for the name of the character to be mentioned for the first time only on the third page. That by itself is not a great sin, but often, the lack of a character’s name will signal POV problems that may be more confusing.
The first few paragraphs contain words that are repeated several times, for example a four-sentence paragraph in which the word ‘door’ is used five times. Again, this is fixable, but if the writer hasn’t pick this up him or herself, it will likely occur throughout the story.
And an experienced slush reader will see these things even before he or she has started to take notice of the story’s plot or its central premise. The easiest way to make it past a first slush reader is to polish your style, and the best way to do that is by writing more and reading what you want to write. Meanwhile, try to volunteer as a slush reader some time. It’s a crash course in what works in fiction.
Besides a writer of crazy fantasy and hard Science Fiction, Patty Jansen is slush reader and editor at Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine. She blogs at http://pattyjansen.wordpress.com/, about writing, about science and about editing and slush piles. Patty is a winner of the second 2010 quarter of the Writers of the Future Contest and has published in the Universe Annex of the Grantville Gazette and has a story forthcoming with Redstone SF.
The beast came from sea, near the northern edge of the kingdom, and took the villages by surprise. The reports of devastation shocked Camelot, and Arthur hurriedly dispatched Merlin and Lancelot to address the situation, leading half the army.
“Do what you must” was all the King instructed. Arthur was as much at a loss as everyone else.
Uthor’s sudden death had left Merlin’s old friend stunned. His father was such a powerful figured in the young King’s life, and, although they hadn’t always seen eye to eye, Merlin knew Arthur’s loss was overwhelming. Merlin could only imagine how challenging it would be to both grieve such a loss and take over as liege of a kingdom. Arthur did his duty well, showing amazing strength, yet
Merlin did everything possible to ease his friend’s burden.
Their bodies felt him before their eyes saw him—a day before, in fact. The monstrous creature’s every step shook the ground like an earthquake. He looked like a giant, mutant dragon–with rough, bumpy charcoal-gray scales, a long powerful tail, and jagged, bone-colored dorsal fins and as the beast turned and they finally laid eyes upon his arcing green-scaled back and dagger-like teeth, it left them all speechless, their jaws dropping to their laps. He and Lancelot had ridden together on the three day journey to coast, discussing strategy and comparing ideas. Neither felt confident that they had a workable plan, but once they’d seen the actual beast, Merlin’s mind felt like a castle surrounded by fog—everything hazy, no clarity. He could make no decisions; take no action.
“My God!” Lancelot wheezed beside him. They watched the beast pick up a barn, screaming animals still inside, and pop it into his mouth like a slice of bread. His jaws crunched up and down, smashing the barn like a straw, stone, and wood cake with red fleshy filling.
“What in hell’s army is that?” Sir Gawain said from behind them.
“That, Sir Gawain, may be the end of us all,” Merlin replied as all three kept their eyes focused on the monster.
“You two have a plan then?” Gawain asked, without his usual bravado.
“If it gets too close, run,” Lancelot said, eyes unmoved from the monster.
Merlin chanted a quick spell for the horses, who had begun whinnying nervously and looked ready to bolt. They’d been shifting their weight from foot to foot, ever since they’d first felt the tremors, and the sight of the monster looked to be pushing them over the edge from nervous to outright fear.
As their horses calmed, the men remained on edge. The monster, meanwhile, took no notice of them, continuing to stomp around the village, crushing everything in its path.
“You must have a spell or something.” Lancelot looked at Merlin with hopeful eyes.
“It’s like fighting a dragon, isn’t it? You’ve done that.” Gawain nodded with encouragement to Merlin, who fought to restrain the laugh he felt rising in his throat.
Merlin knew they were right. Magic alone held the answers for this beast. A full on assault would only make him angry and result in the sacrifice of Arthur’s army. With enemies huddling on their borders eager to test the mettle of the newly crowned King, the army’s strength was vital. Arthur had only sent them along as a psychological measure—to reassure the masses. Like everyone else, Arthur was counting on Merlin to save the day.
He flipped through spells in his mind, closing his eyes as he did. He’d long ago memorized them, still, the book itself rode securely in the worn leather saddlebag which banged against his left life with every bump in the trail as he rode. His mind flooded with memories—fighting trolls and demons, plagues and a famine. Many of those enemies had been formidable, intimidating. All had caused him to doubt his abilities; to question how and if he would ever manage to find a solution.
The wind swelled and the smell of smoke and burning wood struck his nose. Mixed in with it was a fishy smell he suspected came from the monster itself. As the monster turned and came between the sun and Merlin’s party, their day turned black as night, all light overwhelmed by the shadow of the beast.
A thought came to Merlin: “What are you afraid of?”
“Him!” Gawain answered before Merlin even realized he’d spoken it out loud.
Merlin shook his head. “No the beast. If we knew his fears, we could use it against him.”
“Something that big must not fear anything,” Lancelot replied.
Merlin began chanting the words to a spell. The sky lit up as the clouds turned to flames of fire all around them. The beast reacted to the flames with a raging roar loud enough to rattle their ears and cause the horses to whinny with fright.
“Perhaps if you’d lit the monster instead of the clouds…”
Merlin brushed off Gawain with a wave and continued the spell. Flames swirled overhead then converged together surrounding the beast. The beast roared again, swinging its tail in a wide arc as fire poured from its open mouth.
“I was hoping to drive him away from the village and back to sea.” He’d once fought a dragon with fire balls. It didn’t have any long term effect but made the dragon change position. His mind raced for another tactic. “I need to be closer for this to work.”
“Closer? Are you mad?” Gawain looked to Merlin as if he might flee any moment.
Merlin ignored Gawain and looked at Lancelot. The knight nodded, showing no fear. “We’ll ride around to the north and draw his attention.”
Merlin smiled. “Thank you, Lancelot.”
“This had better work,” Gawain scolded as Lancelot gave the orders behind him and the knights rode off together.
Merlin steered his horse straight up the hill toward the village. The main road led to the sea from where they’d stopped, so he knew it would lead him to his foe.
As he rode, he continued chanting. The spell was complicated, with many sections. He’d only used it twice before, and it might be their only hope. In theory, the spell could shrink things. He’d only used it on objects before, and Gaius had implied it wasn’t meant for use on living beings. But given their desperation and the lack of options, he had to try.
The heat of the burning village increased with the smell of the beast as he drew nearer. Sweat dripped from his brow. He’d never been religious but felt inspired to offer a brief prayer, for the safety of his companions at the very least.
His horse stopped like it had struck a brick wall, almost throwing Merlin to the ground. Merlin looked around. Could it be another earthquake? Then he realized the horse was trembling with fear. He cast another spell to calm her, but the mare wouldn’t go on, so he dismounted, caressed her neck and went on alone.
As he strode through the outlying buildings, all he heard was the roar and the raging flames as the ground shook. Then he entered the village square and the beast was before him. He saw Lancelot and the knights squared off with it at the north end of the square. They were shuffling around like pieces on a chess board, weaving in and out of the buildings and brush. Their horses had apparently been abandoned also as none were in sight.
With the beast distracted by his companions, Merlin felt the energy rise in his eyes and saw flickers of the familiar glow they took on when he cast a spell. As he finished encanting the last section, he looked straight at the beast, which roared again, shooting fire at Lancelot, who barely dodged in time. Then the beast stopped, the fire ceasing as a strange look came into its eyes. It stumbled back a few steps on its giant legs, then began to shrink. The knights reacted with surprise as their once formidable foe reduced little by little to the size of a small ground squirrel.
The beast looked around it, as if deciding what to do. A small burst of fire left its mouth.
Gawain laughed. “He’ll make the King a fine pet now, won’t he?”
“He’s far too dangerous for that,” Merlin warned. Rushing forward, he scooped him up into a small box and whisked him away before the knights could even react.
“What will you do with him?” Lancelot called after him.
“Send him back to sea.” And that’s what Merlin did, setting the beast in a small row boat and sending it out on the waves, leaving it to its fate.
“What if the spell wears off?” Gawain read Merlin’s mind.
“It will eventually but by then let’s hope he’s far from here.”
Lancelot laughed and slapped Merlin on the back in congratulations. Then they turned and went off together to retrieve their horses.
A compelling read filled with sparkling prose about the author’s adventures outside his culture and comfort zone encountering predators around the world and even in his own yard. Rich in detail with a good sense of self-deprecation mixed with genuine cultural and animal insight, Foster herein challenges all of us to live a little more bravely than we might so that we can write better, understand better, and experience the world better. Truly inspiring. I couldn’t put it down.
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to stare a lion in the face on the serenghetti or swim with sharks in the ocean? Author Alan Dean Foster answers those questions and more in the riveting “Predators I Have Known,” coming February 22nd from Open Road Media.
Foster, a well known and respected author of science fiction and fantasy, New York Times bestselling author of 110 books, has the same lust for adventure he satisfies in readers with his many books and he takes us with him on many adventures around the world as he satiates it with daring encounters many of us might never risk. From the Amazon River in South America to the plains of Africa to the Arizona desert, Foster’s tales are told with vivid description, honest self-deprecation, and a great sense of humor using powerful prose. He captures his emotions and thoughts as he faces uncertain dangers yet feels compelled to stand his ground and not run. The predators are everything from giant ants to giant otters, usual suspects like snakes and spiders to big cats and elephants and other surprises. Some are well known, others less so. All are intriguing.
For readers without the budget, time or guts to travel the world, Foster gives you a bird’s eye view of Australia, the Amazon jungle, the Pantanal, African desert and more. Having visited some of the places he does myself, I can attest to the accuracy of his descriptions and realism of his emotions. I only wish I could describe them so well. Sure to invoke the imagination, the book will make you laugh with delight, squirm with discomfort, and wait with baited breath to see if he survives. It’s a wonderful change of pace from a beloved writer and one I highly recommend. I’m sure I will read it again and again, especially when my own reality prevents satisfying my own lust for adventure.
The only weakness for me was that I wanted more, and I especially wish there were some of Foster’s pictures of the various encounters. His prose is vivid enough one can live without them, but having them would have just made the book all the more powerful.
First, a couple of disclaimers might be appropriate: I like Mary Robinette Kowal. She’s a nice person, the kind who is easy to converse with and who doesn’t take herself too seriously. Vice President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, she penned one of my favorite short stories of the past few years, “Clockwork Chickadee,” a story which delights me each time I read it and is even more delightful hearing her read it out loud. She’s very giving of her time to help up and coming writers from teaching them how to do readings to answering basic questions. And she spends a lot of time with puppets. Who can help but like someone who spends her time entertaining and delighting children?
Second disclaimer: other than perhaps a passage or two in English literature classes, I have never read a Jane Austen book, and I think I have only seen one movie based on her work. Despite my weakness for romantic comedies and enjoyment of Nicholas Sparks, I just never felt drawn to Victorian romances. But when Kowal agreed to be with us on Science Fiction and Fantasy Writer’s Chat on Twitter, I had to read “Shades of Milk and Honey,” out of curiosity and an obligation to make the discussion as fruitful for everyone as possible.
Am I glad I did.
The prose captures the feel of Victorian writing beautifully, yet remains simple and accessible for readers who might not be familiar with it. Her characters are well drawn and interesting, and although before I read it I’d have thought I wouldn’t be drawn in by the personal politics of a female spinster and her family and neighbors, I literally couldn’t put this one down.
A delight from start to finish, “Shades of Milk & Honey” has been aptly described as Jane Austen with magic, but the magic, the manipulation of light through a technique called glamouring, fits in naturally with the story. Although it flows through and undergirds much of the narrative, Kowal maintains a sense of mystery about it by not telling us too much about how it works and instead focusing more attention on how it is used and how it affects the characters themselves.
The story of Jane Ellsworth, twenty-eight, a gifted glamourist in her own right, who dreams of love and happiness as she watches her much younger sister, Melody, and neighbors Beth Dunkirk and Livie FitzCameron wooed by men. When a few men take notice of her for various reasons, hope rises in her, but she always finds the possibilities threatened by others. Jane is too kind and mannered to wallop in her own jealousy and disappointment, however, and continues fighting her baser urges by befriending and caring for her sister Melody and neighbor Beth Dunkirk, whose brother Edmund seems Jane’s most likely suitor.
Then the mysterious galmourist, Mr. Vincent, hired by Lady FitzCameron, the Viscountess, to create a glamour for her dining hall, becomes an intriguing challenge. Jane compares her own skills at glamour to his, while examining his artistry and striving to improve her own. When his response seems to be resentment at her questions and attention, she begins to feel resentment of her own. Especially after he implies her art shows talent without any heart behind it.
There were times I felt Kowal’s foreshadowing made later developments predictable, but in the end, I discovered her plotting to be far more clever than I’d imagined. The ending certainly was different than I had expected in several respects, and the book maintains a sense of suspense and motion which kept me riveted and wanting to know what would happen next. In spite of my lack of commonality with these characters, they captured my heart—I cared about them and what happened to them far more than I’d imagined I would.
For a book which I’d not have chosen on its own based on what I knew of it and my own literary preferences to have so held my interest and charmed me, I feel confident in saying it will likely surprise and charm others as well. Kowal is a smart writer, whose gift for words and understanding of people are readily evident on every page. While one can find small deficiencies with which to quibble in her first novel (as in any other), the book shows great promise and is a great diversion. If anything it’s greatest weakness is its lightness. There is no heavy moral here. And the story does not create a great set of questions one is left to ponder for months after. Instead, the questions and story are light yet still manage to rise beyond mere entertainment.
Truly a worthwhile read from a worthwhile talent. I look greatly forward to what the future will bring from her.
Two sons, one an embarrassment, the other prophesied to rule the world. Two armies, facing each other for nine years of war. A tortured princess. A bodyguard torn between duty and love. Moses Siregar III’s “The Black God’s War” novella has all the right ingredients and his prose lives up to the challenge–an exciting new epic fantasy is soon to arrive.
It’s taken me far too long to read this tale, and I am reading an older draft, but I’m so glad I waited until I had the focus to properly appreciate it. It’s been a while since a novella so captured me that I read it almost straight through–70 pages in the first sitting. But Siregar’s novella, 15 chapters culled from 85 of his upcoming novel, just has that effect on you. His characters are as passionate as his descriptive prose. The pacing is perfect. There are a few spots where editing might tighten things up, but as I said, this is an older draft and I know he’s been polishing a lot since then.
“The Black God’s War” is the tale of two countries at war on a distant planet. The sons of their two leaders each take their role in battle. One, Caio, is the legendary Haissem, born to rule the world. The religious ceremony handing him his father’s power takes place and the army awaits his arrival and their imminent victory. The other, Rao, hardly knows his father and is mocked by his men. Meanwhile, Caio’s sister Lucia is leading the army as they await him. Each side calls on their gods and each expects to win.
The novella has elements of mythology reflective of Siregar’s years spent studying religions and philosophies. It has a Greek or Roman feel to it at times, yet it remains clearly in the epic fantasy mold, despite being set on a distant planet.
Siregar handles the battle scenes well, using dialogue richly to both build his characters and his world. And the novella introduces many of his major characters well, wetting the reader’s appetite and leaving him wanting more.
I’m anxious to know the rest of the story and you will be, too. This is a novella epic fantasy fans don’t want to miss. Avaialble as an ebook right now through Kindle and other sites. The novel should follow in Spring 2011. Siregar is an exciting new talent to look forward to.
Preparing to revise my third novel, the first in a multi-part epic fantasy series. It’s tentatively titled “Sandman,” for reasons obvious to the story. It took 9 months to write the first draft, and although I knew where it needed to go, I never really ended it completely. I got most of the way there and burned out. I struggled for six weeks to write something and finally decided I’d do better to set it aside and then come back to it. There are a number of things I had already made a list of which needed to be addressed in the next draft and I really believe clarity on how to write the ending will come as I work those into the manuscript, so here I am.
I don’t know how others approach their revisions. For every writer, the approach tends to differ, so I can only write about my own process. In first drafts, I try and get the scenic structure, characters and plotlines down. I focus on the key conflicts and personalities and less on full character arcs and detailed descriptions. Some might call it a skeletal approach, but what I end up with is often a lot of stuff I can use but which needs editing to cut excess and then thickening to fill in the meat on the bones. I also make a lot of notes as I go about things I need to foreshadow, flesh out, etc. For example, as with “The Worker Prince,” I reached a point in the first draft of “Sandman” where I needed something to happen which I had not set up in the parameters of my world building. Rather than stop and go back, I just made it happen and made a note that I will need to set that up earlier to make it plausible for readers. I also found character traits which I want to emphasize throughout and need to go back and add in. Character relationships developed which can be mined for humor and also character growth, but I need to set that up, too. The biggest development was finally sorting out what secret there is about a central character everyone is fighting over. Now I have to go back and foreshadow the reveal earlier and revise scenes knowing many of the characters already have that knowledge and it will underscore their actions. Lastly, there are themes/motifs which have come forward as the first draft unfolded which I now need to also thread throughout.
This is a good thing. I know many writers who end their first draft thinking it’s crap and embarrassed for all the time they wasted. Me, I feel like I have a really good foundation but know that without the bricks, cement, shingles, glass, paint, etc. it isn’t ready to open. Those things can be added. And I won’t have to start from scratch. I’ll probably add a scene or two in various places. I may cut one or cut it down or take sections of it for elsewhere. But I have stuff I can move around, which is much easier for me to deal with than the initial blank page.
I also have research to do. I have a book called “English Through The Ages” which I will use to revise my prose to reflect the time period in which the book is set. It’s set on a colonized planet where the people live in medieval type times, so I don’t have to be 100% accurate but realistic enough to their Earth ancestry as I can manage. I will be working in some other research I’ve done on magic, dwarves, and things like wagons and cities to make it more realistic and alive. This is the fun stuff though. Much easier to deal with when the basic structure is already there, and, despite the ending issues, the structure is there. Somewhere in this process I’ll also be sorting out where the story goes from here in the next book so I can set that up well, too. I have a rough idea, but I need to rough that out more, too.
I expect the second draft won’t take as long as the first. Anywhere from 2 to 5 months I’d expect. So from now until April, this will be my world. I have other projects waiting in the wings though as well, so if I have off days, I can work on those. After all, with “Worker Prince” coming out mid-2011, I do have a sequel to write for that. In any case, I’m excited about this book because it’s not based on another story, as “Worker Prince” was. It’s totally from my own mind, so it’s my first fully original speculative fiction book. It’s also my first fantasy. So that’s good career progress as well. Now, I just need to get this thing in shape for the betas.
Second draft. Beta readers. Third draft. Then out to querying agents. That’ll be the process. Maybe this will break me into the mass house world. Either way, it’s good to have something positive to focus on which helps my career progress forward.
Since it’s that time of year, I thought I’d do a few Best Of posts. The first one is about writers I discovered this year for the first time and really enjoyed. Given my years away from genre reading, a lot of these people are far from new, but here goes anyway, because if you don’t know who they are, you should:
Mike Resnick: I have read more books by him than any SF writer except Orson Scott Card at this point. His writing style is simple like my own without the hard SF. Instead he has great plots and characters in exotic settings like Africa or Africa inspired planets. Just really good solid story telling and craft, and to top it off, not only did I discover his stuff but we became friends this year. He’s been a real help and encouragement to me, and I’m grateful.
Jay Lake: I discovered Jay through Ken Scholes, whom I discovered in 2009 when I found “Lamentation” and loved it so much I bought “Canticle” and read it straight after. Ken is amazing and Ken and Jay are like brothers. Different yet connected at the hip. Jay and I have argued a lot over politics and some over religion. But Jay has been gracious to me and encouraging in my work and life. He’s been inspiring as well because he’s my age and yet he’s fighting cancer with a passion and dignity I don’t know if I could muster under similar circumstances. He’s a heck of a nice guy and if things work out, he’ll be my instructor at Cascade Writers in 2011. His Clockwork Earth series (Mainspring, Escapement, Pinion) introduced me to Steampunk and made me a fan. And his “The Death of A Starship” novella and short stories have awed me as well.
Nnedi Okorafor: I have her novel “Who Fears Death” sitting beside my bed waiting to be read. I’ve only read a short story by her but her conversations with me on Twitter have been deep. She’s passionate, kind, and very, very smart. She’s deep and well worth investing time in as a person, so I know she’ll be worth all of our time as a writer.
Brenda Cooper: Her story “Robot Girl” in Analog last April blew my mind and made me a fan. I have one of her novels here waiting to be read as well, but I’ve read several of her short stories and also spent time chatting with her at World Fantasy and on Twitter and she’s one admirable lady. Also deep and well worth the time.
Blake Charlton: Dyslexic med student and fantasy author and an awesome guy. “Spellwright” held me spellbound, a great read, and I can’t wait to read “Spellbound” and anything else he comes up with. Blake was one of my early Twitter friends and we finally got to hang out in person at World Fantasy. A nice guy, very smart, perceptive, and the first pro to help me out by giving feedback on a section of my novel. It was quite helpful and much appreciated. He’s a great conversationalist with a great sense of humor. Highly recommended.
James K. Burk: His debut novel “The Twelve” is some of the best character and world building in anything I’ve read all year (and I read Song of Ice And Fire this year by the way), so I recommend checking him out. Previously he had several shorts published. I look forward to more from him in the future. He also gave very useful feedback on my novel at the ConQuest 41 Writer’s Workshop and he’s a good friend.
Sam Sykes:Sam’s “Tome Of The Undergates” was the first sword & sorcery I’d read in years and I’m hooked again. Have a whole stack yet to read of the stuff. I can’t wait to read his follow up, “Black Halo,” either. Sam wrote one of the grittiest books I read all year and also one of the most honest, and he also wrote the longest battle scene I’ve ever read. He’s a nice guy and very perceptive and active on Twitter. He was also my first guest on Science Fiction Fantasy Writer’s Chat on Twitter so I owe him props forever.
Wendy Wagner: Another Twitter friend, nonetheless, her stories in several anthologies have been very impressive, but none more than “The Secret Of Calling Rabbits” from John Joseph Adam’s “The Way Of The Wizard.” I can’t wait to read her novel next year, and I’m proud as heck of her for beating me into SFWA membership. As one who for whatever reason has read more male than female writers, Wendy has me looking at women writers with new eyes.
Christie Yant: Christie is another Twitter friend who has also set me on a path of respect for women writers. Her story “The Magician & The Maid & Other Stories” from “Way Of The Wizard” is coming in Rich Horton’s Annual Best Of next year. She gave some very insightful and thoughtful notes on one of my stories and has been a great resource for me and connected me with a lot of people. A truly talented writer and I look forward to her future output as well.
These 9 are my best and favorite new discoveries this year amongst specfic writers for reasons listed above. Who have you discovered this year?
