Liz Williams is a science fiction author of several well received books. She writes books that mixes science with some fantasy elements, but takes interesting looks at different societies. Ghostsister takes place on a colonized world where the humans have a psychic link to the life on the planet. One woman doesn’t have this ability, so is treated as an outcast and protected by her brother. Empire of Bones takes place on Earth in a future India. A dying woman is offered to be saved by a visiting alien, but at what price? The Poison Master is the story of a woman who is a master of poison making and alchemy trying to get her sister back from strange aliens. This author’s books are very different to the science fiction genre, but very interesting.
Debbie Ledesma: How did you get started as a writer?
Liz Williams: I wrote on and off for years in a kind of desultory way - my mother was a writer, so in our family it always seemed to be a perfectly acceptable thing to do. However, most of my twenties were taken up with academic work and I did not really begin writing in any kind of committed way until I was in my thirties. I began by sending short fiction off to magazines and was lucky in that I broke into the professional market fairly swiftly, with a sale to InterZone. After completing my first novel, The Ghost Sister, I secured an agent and the book was sold about a year later.
DL: What authors, SF or otherwise, influence your writing?
LW: Le Guin, Vance, Tanith Lee, Bradbury - hey, steal from the best! I also have a great affection (combined with no small degree of irritation) for the Beat writers and people like Lawrence Durrell.
DL: Why did you choose the Science Fiction genre to write in?
LW: I think it chose me. Whatever I try and write has weird elements in it - it's just the things that have influenced me and the way that my imagination
works.
DL: Your book Poison Master mixes some fantasy elements with your story. Was it difficult to mix these elements in the science fiction story?
LW: No, because I always describe myself as a science fantasy writer. I don't use many hard SF tropes - I tend to concentrate on sociological and cultural elements - and there is more leeway in crossing genres. I think that this is somethi ång we are seeing more and more of these days - Alaistair Reynolds, for instance, employs a number of Gothic elements in his SF; China Mieville uses technological aspects in his fantasy writing. Authors like Chris Priest and Graham Joyce have always had a very cross-genre appeal and I have a lot of regard for that. Besides, I don't like being put in a box.
DL: Do you do a lot of research in science for your books?
LW: I try to keep up with developments in science, but because they're science fantasy rather than hard SF I make a lot of stuff up. I think I get away with it!
DL: Do you have a favorite character in your books? Which one?
LW: Eleres in The Ghost Sister, because he's basically a younger, male version of me, and Ari in The Poison Master. I love creating devious men.
DL: Are you planning to branch out into other genres?
Not at the moment but these things often t çend to happen organically, rather
than being planned.
DL: How do you view SF as a vehicle for social commentary?
DL: It can be an immensely powerful vehicle for social comment (Orwell is an obvious case in point), but I don't think it should hit people over the head with it. Fiction with a Message (TM) is always annoying.
DL: I agree fiction with a message is annoying. How do you incorporate social commentary into your works?
LW: I try to slide it in under the radar. But my own view of politics and
society is constantly changing - I'm definitely left of center politically,
but there's so much that is problematic with fixed positions that I prefer
to remain ambivalent. I'd rather ask questions than try to answer them.
DL: Do you attempt to influence the way people view society through your writing, and if so do you believe SF can have an impact?
LW: Not really - obviously I have values Ë and views, but I'd rather present these as an emergent property of my fiction rather than using what I write as a means of preaching to people. I'm more interested in exploring ideas through my work and perhaps not coming to any very solid conclusions. I am still figuring out where I stand in a lot of areas and that's a lifelong process.
DL: Some recent criticism of SF states the genre is dying or has become stagnant, thus losing readers. What do you think about the current state of the genre?
LW: I think it's actually pretty vibrant at the moment. There are a lot of new
and interesting people coming onto the scene, a lot of mixing and matching with genres. I find media SF pretty stagnant (as opposed to media fantasy), but that' Ês been the case for a long time.
DL: Do you think SF movies and tv series helps the genre or gives the public the wrong idea about what the literature can be?
LW: The tropes of SF are now familiar to the mainstream, but the mainstream remains very sniffy about SF - it does the classic double-bind of marginalizing it and at the same time acknowledging it as populist. There is an awful lot of really bad media SF, but then there's a fair amount of poor media detective genre, for instance. If people take the trouble to look for the good stuff, they'll find it, but I'd say that a lot of the things you see are off-putting.
DL: Do you have any advice for aspiring writers?
LW: Work, work, work. Read lots. Don't give up (never surre nder!). Keep sending work out even when you think it's going to kill you. Research markets and above all, be as professional as you can.
DL: What books are you writing for the future?
LW: I have another novel coming out with Bantam in the US in the fall, titled Nine Layers of Sky, which is a contemporary SF novel (again with fantasy elements) set in Central Asia. It's due to come out in the UK with Tor Macmillan. At the moment, I am writing a novel that is provisionally entitled Banner of Souls, which is about a far future solar system and a girl who can travel through time. Lots of Oriental elements and much of the book is set on Mars.
I have a sixth novel on the backburner, which will be set in the same world
as The Ghost Sister, and this will be - cheerily - all about death and loss. I have recently lost my partner and this will inevitably emerge in my fiction. After that, I am hoping to do a sequel to Nine Layers of Sky. )
DL: Thank you very much Ms. Williams.
Friday, August 20, 2010
Saturday, August 07, 2010
Barbara Hambly
A long time ago male authors dominated many genres of books including Fantasy. Some women authors had to use male pseudonyms to get published such as James Triptree who was really Alice Sheldon. Today, women authors hold their own with the men. There are many talented women Fantasy authors. Barbara Hambly is one of them. She has written many memorable books set in imaginative worlds of her own creation. Her characters remain with readers for a long time. All of the books span a range from Epic to Historical Fantasy.
The first series started with Time of the Dark, which became the Darwath trilogy. Ingold Inglorion, a wizard from Darwath, draws two young people from our world to his world to fight a menacing force of Darkness. Gil is a woman from our world who becomes a warrior and Rudy, an artist, becomes a mage. They explore the great fortress of the Keep of Dare in order to discover the secrets to defeat the Dark. The other two books in the trilogy are: The Walls of Air and The Armies of D aylight. Ms. Hambly wrote two other sequels that take place five years after the trilogy. Mother of Winter has the characters face new problems after the defeat of the Dark. They are threatened by a disease that destroys crops as the ice slowly moves south. The plot is resolved by a quest to a giant mountain known as Mother of Winter. The next book, Icefalcon’s Quest, takes place two years later. Ingold is away on a trip and dangers affect everyone else. This leaves Icefalcon to follow a dangerous mage and save a young boy. Ms. Hambly adds two stunning books to this fantasy world.
Another series is The Windrose Chronicles featuring the mage Antryg Windrose and Joanna, who is from our world. These books are set in a time approximate to the Industrial Revolution. The Silent Tower introduces us to Joanna as she is kidnapped across the Void the the empire of Ferryth. There she meets Antryg and along with another wizard, Caris, helps to defeat the evil intentions of the wizard Surkalin. I ˇn the next book, The Silicon Mage, Joanna travels back to the empire of Ferryth to help her friends defeat Surkalin once and for all. Finally, Joanna and Antryg live in California, but are dragged back across the void in the book Dog Wizard. These books have realistic characters involved in intriguing stories. Stranger at the Wedding takes place in the same world but tells the tale of Kyra. She is a young woman with strong magic talent. When she goes home for her sister’s wedding, she finds great danger and threats to her family. This is a nice addition to the other books set in a fascinating world.
Two of her Historical Fantasy novels are set during World War II and known as the Sun Cross. The Rainbow Abyss tells the story of the wizard Jaldis and his apprentice Rhion as they try to get to our world to answer a cry for help. Their world fears wizards and want to destroy them. The Magicians of Night tells a powerful story of the Holocaust. Rhion is trapped in Nazi Germany. He wants to get back to his world to find out what happened to his fellow wizards. Some Jewish prisoners help him to get back to his world. The characters are very realistic. Ms. Hambly does an excellent job of bringing a tragic part of world history to life.
Barbara Hambly has written Fantasy books with dragons too. Set in her world of the Winterlands, Dragonsbane is a classic of the genre. John Aversin the Dragonsbane and his wife Jenny Waynest receive a summons to a kingdom to slay the black dragon Morkeleb. Fearing for her husband’s life, Jenny makes a deal with the dragon. The author creates a remarkable character in Morkeleb that makes him seem what a real dragon would be like. The story and characters of this book appear in three sequels. Jenny Waynest and John return again in ¨ the next book Dragonshadow. This time they face demons who control other mages and dragons through their trapped souls. Ms. Hambly explores the theme of how power is a strong temptation to people in this book. Knight of the Demon Queen begins with a threat to Jenny and John’s son Ian. John owes a debt to the demon queen and must do it to save his son. Finally, Dragonstar completes the story of John and Jenny as John awaits execution. Jenny wants to save him as they find out who their allies and enemies truly are in this riveting conclusion.
This author explores other other cultures with her deft story telling. Bride of the Rat God is set in turn-of-the-century Los Angeles and has a lot about Chinese culture of the time. Christine is a movie star. She sets off supernatural events by wearing a necklace. This declares her a bride to the rat god. The problem is she does not want to be married to this Åancient Chinese demon god. This book is an interesting addition to the author’s various works.
Dark Fantasy is represented by two books about vampires. Those Who Hunt the Night is the story of Dr. James Asher who is hired by Don Simon Ysidro, the leader of the vampires of London, to find the murderer killing the vampires of the city. He must do this to save his wife Lydia. In Traveling With the Dead, Lydia asks for help from Don Ysidro to save her husband. They follow James Asher throughout Europe discovering trouble to everyone involved. These books add interesting views from this talented author.
Sun Wolf and Starhawk are two of Ms. Hambly’s interesting characters. Sun Wolf is the leader of a mercenary company and Starhawk is his partner. The Ladies of Mandrigyn introduces Sun Wolf trapped by women who want him to train them in warfare. He refuses so they hold him prisoner. His second in command, Starhawk, comes to rescue him. In the ensuing plot, Sun Wolf discovers he has magic power. Their next adventure is The Witches of Wenshar where they travel to a desert city to find someone to teach Sun Wolf how to use his powers. They find a lot of intrigue in the city and must resolve things before moving on. The Dark Hand of Magic finds Sun Wolf and Starhawk reunited with their company. Unfortunately, something is killing members of their company and they must find out what is going on. These characters are very interesting in their relationship and Ms. Hambly tells intriguing tales about them.
One of her most recent books is Sisters of the Raven. The book takes place in a city where magic is deser gting men, but women are gaining the magic power. Raeshaldis is the main character with the strongest talent among the women. They must band together to save the Yellow City from a plot that would plunge it into civil war. Danger lurks throughout the city, destroying the Raven sisters who are the only ones left to summon rain and bring precious water to the desert city. Part Fantasy, part mystery, this is a strong addition to the many of works of the author.
Barbara Hambly is a highly talented Fantasy author. She is the creator of memorable characters and Fantasy worlds. Her books span the range of Epic to Historical Fantasy. Dragons, vampires and many other characters are described in detail, bringing them to life. Ms. Hambly uses vivid images in her books to keep the intriguing plots moving along. Readers will find her books entertaining and worth reading.
The first series started with Time of the Dark, which became the Darwath trilogy. Ingold Inglorion, a wizard from Darwath, draws two young people from our world to his world to fight a menacing force of Darkness. Gil is a woman from our world who becomes a warrior and Rudy, an artist, becomes a mage. They explore the great fortress of the Keep of Dare in order to discover the secrets to defeat the Dark. The other two books in the trilogy are: The Walls of Air and The Armies of D aylight. Ms. Hambly wrote two other sequels that take place five years after the trilogy. Mother of Winter has the characters face new problems after the defeat of the Dark. They are threatened by a disease that destroys crops as the ice slowly moves south. The plot is resolved by a quest to a giant mountain known as Mother of Winter. The next book, Icefalcon’s Quest, takes place two years later. Ingold is away on a trip and dangers affect everyone else. This leaves Icefalcon to follow a dangerous mage and save a young boy. Ms. Hambly adds two stunning books to this fantasy world.
Another series is The Windrose Chronicles featuring the mage Antryg Windrose and Joanna, who is from our world. These books are set in a time approximate to the Industrial Revolution. The Silent Tower introduces us to Joanna as she is kidnapped across the Void the the empire of Ferryth. There she meets Antryg and along with another wizard, Caris, helps to defeat the evil intentions of the wizard Surkalin. I ˇn the next book, The Silicon Mage, Joanna travels back to the empire of Ferryth to help her friends defeat Surkalin once and for all. Finally, Joanna and Antryg live in California, but are dragged back across the void in the book Dog Wizard. These books have realistic characters involved in intriguing stories. Stranger at the Wedding takes place in the same world but tells the tale of Kyra. She is a young woman with strong magic talent. When she goes home for her sister’s wedding, she finds great danger and threats to her family. This is a nice addition to the other books set in a fascinating world.
Two of her Historical Fantasy novels are set during World War II and known as the Sun Cross. The Rainbow Abyss tells the story of the wizard Jaldis and his apprentice Rhion as they try to get to our world to answer a cry for help. Their world fears wizards and want to destroy them. The Magicians of Night tells a powerful story of the Holocaust. Rhion is trapped in Nazi Germany. He wants to get back to his world to find out what happened to his fellow wizards. Some Jewish prisoners help him to get back to his world. The characters are very realistic. Ms. Hambly does an excellent job of bringing a tragic part of world history to life.
Barbara Hambly has written Fantasy books with dragons too. Set in her world of the Winterlands, Dragonsbane is a classic of the genre. John Aversin the Dragonsbane and his wife Jenny Waynest receive a summons to a kingdom to slay the black dragon Morkeleb. Fearing for her husband’s life, Jenny makes a deal with the dragon. The author creates a remarkable character in Morkeleb that makes him seem what a real dragon would be like. The story and characters of this book appear in three sequels. Jenny Waynest and John return again in ¨ the next book Dragonshadow. This time they face demons who control other mages and dragons through their trapped souls. Ms. Hambly explores the theme of how power is a strong temptation to people in this book. Knight of the Demon Queen begins with a threat to Jenny and John’s son Ian. John owes a debt to the demon queen and must do it to save his son. Finally, Dragonstar completes the story of John and Jenny as John awaits execution. Jenny wants to save him as they find out who their allies and enemies truly are in this riveting conclusion.
This author explores other other cultures with her deft story telling. Bride of the Rat God is set in turn-of-the-century Los Angeles and has a lot about Chinese culture of the time. Christine is a movie star. She sets off supernatural events by wearing a necklace. This declares her a bride to the rat god. The problem is she does not want to be married to this Åancient Chinese demon god. This book is an interesting addition to the author’s various works.
Dark Fantasy is represented by two books about vampires. Those Who Hunt the Night is the story of Dr. James Asher who is hired by Don Simon Ysidro, the leader of the vampires of London, to find the murderer killing the vampires of the city. He must do this to save his wife Lydia. In Traveling With the Dead, Lydia asks for help from Don Ysidro to save her husband. They follow James Asher throughout Europe discovering trouble to everyone involved. These books add interesting views from this talented author.
Sun Wolf and Starhawk are two of Ms. Hambly’s interesting characters. Sun Wolf is the leader of a mercenary company and Starhawk is his partner. The Ladies of Mandrigyn introduces Sun Wolf trapped by women who want him to train them in warfare. He refuses so they hold him prisoner. His second in command, Starhawk, comes to rescue him. In the ensuing plot, Sun Wolf discovers he has magic power. Their next adventure is The Witches of Wenshar where they travel to a desert city to find someone to teach Sun Wolf how to use his powers. They find a lot of intrigue in the city and must resolve things before moving on. The Dark Hand of Magic finds Sun Wolf and Starhawk reunited with their company. Unfortunately, something is killing members of their company and they must find out what is going on. These characters are very interesting in their relationship and Ms. Hambly tells intriguing tales about them.
One of her most recent books is Sisters of the Raven. The book takes place in a city where magic is deser gting men, but women are gaining the magic power. Raeshaldis is the main character with the strongest talent among the women. They must band together to save the Yellow City from a plot that would plunge it into civil war. Danger lurks throughout the city, destroying the Raven sisters who are the only ones left to summon rain and bring precious water to the desert city. Part Fantasy, part mystery, this is a strong addition to the many of works of the author.
Barbara Hambly is a highly talented Fantasy author. She is the creator of memorable characters and Fantasy worlds. Her books span the range of Epic to Historical Fantasy. Dragons, vampires and many other characters are described in detail, bringing them to life. Ms. Hambly uses vivid images in her books to keep the intriguing plots moving along. Readers will find her books entertaining and worth reading.
Friday, July 23, 2010
Fantasy Books I'd Like to See on TV or at the Movies
The entertainment industry has taken an interest in recent years in the Fantasy genre. More films are being made from Fantasy books that are popular with the public. Many of these movies are based on young adult books like “Harry Potter,” “Narnia” and the “Twilight” series. These films are entertaining and okay, but there are other more interesting and adult fantasy books films could be based on. We have seen this with the recently defunct “Legend of the Seeker” TV series based on Terry Goodkind’s “Sword of Truth” books. The HBO cable network is currently in production with a series based on George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones. This article will deal with Fantasy books that I would like to see made into a TV show, miniseries or movie. So here is my wish list.
First of all, I would like to see a "Wheel of Time" series or movies. I admit it's a long book series, but it has much to offer. Such a complex story would be difficult to do as a movie or miniseries. It would be better as a long term TV series over several years like the "Babylon 5" science fiction series. This series would have something to attract viewers of all kinds such as adventure, romance, intrigue and many other things.
Patricia McKillip's books would make wonderful movies for viewers. Her lyrical, , vivid, image filled works would translate wonderfully to the screen. We could follow Morgon from the Riddle Master trilogy on his quest through many strange lands. The Forgotten Beasts of Eld would expose general viewers to a wonderful story with powerful themes. Any of her books would make good movies.
Another writer's books I would like to see made into movies are those of Robert Holdstock. His Mythago Wood books would be powerful movies with a dark edge. Viewers would be treated to mythic tales of a primal forest and its effects on the troubled characters that venture in there. These works portray psychological themes in a deeply imagined Fantasy world.
For Urban Fantasy lovers, Charles de Lint's books would be good as films. We would see denizens of Fairy interacting with humans in cities whether American or Canadian. These interactions could be interesting and/or dangerous. It would add a touch of magic to our reality by making the world seem more than our perceptions can conceive. Or a series based on the Mercy Thompson books by Patricia Briggs or Kate Daniels books by Ilona Andrews would have plenty of action, romance and interesting characters for people.
Returning to Epic Fantasy, other books I would like to see as films would be by authors Melanie Rawn, Mercedes Lackey, David Eddings, Andre Norton and C.J. Cherryh. All of these authors works would make great entertainment. They would be full of action, adventure and great characters.
These are just a few of the books on my wish list I would like to see. If I went on, this article would become very bulky. It is good to see the entertainment industry taking an interest in the Fantasy genre. With new strides made in special effects, making such films is no longer in the realm of impossibility. We should all look forward in the years ahead to some fantastic entertainment.
What books would you like to see made into a movie, TV series or miniseries? Start a discussion. I would be very interested in your responses.
First of all, I would like to see a "Wheel of Time" series or movies. I admit it's a long book series, but it has much to offer. Such a complex story would be difficult to do as a movie or miniseries. It would be better as a long term TV series over several years like the "Babylon 5" science fiction series. This series would have something to attract viewers of all kinds such as adventure, romance, intrigue and many other things.
Patricia McKillip's books would make wonderful movies for viewers. Her lyrical, , vivid, image filled works would translate wonderfully to the screen. We could follow Morgon from the Riddle Master trilogy on his quest through many strange lands. The Forgotten Beasts of Eld would expose general viewers to a wonderful story with powerful themes. Any of her books would make good movies.
Another writer's books I would like to see made into movies are those of Robert Holdstock. His Mythago Wood books would be powerful movies with a dark edge. Viewers would be treated to mythic tales of a primal forest and its effects on the troubled characters that venture in there. These works portray psychological themes in a deeply imagined Fantasy world.
For Urban Fantasy lovers, Charles de Lint's books would be good as films. We would see denizens of Fairy interacting with humans in cities whether American or Canadian. These interactions could be interesting and/or dangerous. It would add a touch of magic to our reality by making the world seem more than our perceptions can conceive. Or a series based on the Mercy Thompson books by Patricia Briggs or Kate Daniels books by Ilona Andrews would have plenty of action, romance and interesting characters for people.
Returning to Epic Fantasy, other books I would like to see as films would be by authors Melanie Rawn, Mercedes Lackey, David Eddings, Andre Norton and C.J. Cherryh. All of these authors works would make great entertainment. They would be full of action, adventure and great characters.
These are just a few of the books on my wish list I would like to see. If I went on, this article would become very bulky. It is good to see the entertainment industry taking an interest in the Fantasy genre. With new strides made in special effects, making such films is no longer in the realm of impossibility. We should all look forward in the years ahead to some fantastic entertainment.
What books would you like to see made into a movie, TV series or miniseries? Start a discussion. I would be very interested in your responses.
Wednesday, July 07, 2010
The Finnbranch Trilogy by Paul Hazel
I'm going on a trip, so the post is early. Enjoy.
In the 1980's a new Epic Fantasy trilogy was published. "The Finnbranch" by Paul Hazel is a rich Fantasy of deep thoughts. Blending Celtic and Nordic mythology, readers have a dark story of tragic characters, imaginative settings, descriptive language and mythic themes. The books follow the story of Finn through his quest to reclaim his birthright.
The first book, Yearwood, starts in a mountain fortress with a boy who knows nothing abut his father or his own name. Since his mother won't tell him anything but his name, he goes on a search for his father. His journey takes him through a twisted path of talking crows, living stones, witches and selkies. Honorable men follow him on his quest. Dark and disturbing, there is incest and a terrible conclusion, but the story continues in the next book.
Undersea continues Finn's story through many further episodes. In this book he travels to the past and meets his mother as a girl. After suffering attacks, Finn flees in a boat. He suffers death and is reborn as his son Lugh. On his next part of the journey he meets two companions and travels through the undersea kingdom of the dead. Interspersed are episodes from the future when he is king of his land. This book deepens the themes. There are wonderful descriptive passages of incredible images. At times, the story is convoluted and can be confusing. It is worth reading at a slow pace. The book leaves readers ready for the final book.
The last book is Winterking, continuing Finn's story in a strange modern world. A man named Wykeham is the main character who is very mysterious. He moves through this world hiding the truth about his life. Other characters are drawn to him that sets off a fantastic series of events that concludes Finn's journey of birth and rebirth. The blend of Native American and Celtic myth in a strange alternate America gives this book a vivid impact and conclusion to the trilogy.
Paul Hazel is a Fantasy writer of wild fantastic images and evocative language. With the "Finnbranch" trilogy he contributed an outstanding addition to Epic Fantasy. His use of different mythologies and a capable knowledge of writing technique gives Fantasy readers an incredible experience. Though his books are out of print and he hasn't written anything new since Wealdwive's Tale, his works are worth seeking out for a powerful reading experience.
In the 1980's a new Epic Fantasy trilogy was published. "The Finnbranch" by Paul Hazel is a rich Fantasy of deep thoughts. Blending Celtic and Nordic mythology, readers have a dark story of tragic characters, imaginative settings, descriptive language and mythic themes. The books follow the story of Finn through his quest to reclaim his birthright.
The first book, Yearwood, starts in a mountain fortress with a boy who knows nothing abut his father or his own name. Since his mother won't tell him anything but his name, he goes on a search for his father. His journey takes him through a twisted path of talking crows, living stones, witches and selkies. Honorable men follow him on his quest. Dark and disturbing, there is incest and a terrible conclusion, but the story continues in the next book.
Undersea continues Finn's story through many further episodes. In this book he travels to the past and meets his mother as a girl. After suffering attacks, Finn flees in a boat. He suffers death and is reborn as his son Lugh. On his next part of the journey he meets two companions and travels through the undersea kingdom of the dead. Interspersed are episodes from the future when he is king of his land. This book deepens the themes. There are wonderful descriptive passages of incredible images. At times, the story is convoluted and can be confusing. It is worth reading at a slow pace. The book leaves readers ready for the final book.
The last book is Winterking, continuing Finn's story in a strange modern world. A man named Wykeham is the main character who is very mysterious. He moves through this world hiding the truth about his life. Other characters are drawn to him that sets off a fantastic series of events that concludes Finn's journey of birth and rebirth. The blend of Native American and Celtic myth in a strange alternate America gives this book a vivid impact and conclusion to the trilogy.
Paul Hazel is a Fantasy writer of wild fantastic images and evocative language. With the "Finnbranch" trilogy he contributed an outstanding addition to Epic Fantasy. His use of different mythologies and a capable knowledge of writing technique gives Fantasy readers an incredible experience. Though his books are out of print and he hasn't written anything new since Wealdwive's Tale, his works are worth seeking out for a powerful reading experience.
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Diana Paxson
Creating Fantasy worlds that are realistic and stimulate a reader's sense of wonder requires special talent. Fantasy authors possess this ability to a large degree. Diana Paxson is such an author. She writes many books and stories of Fantasy including the subgenres of Historical and Arthurian Fantasy. Her works possess rich detail, realistic characters and intriguing themes that gives readers memorable voyages in unique Fantasy worlds.
One of Ms. Paxson's longest works is a series of books set in her Fantasy world of Westria. It is a future California after nature and magic rose to destroy our technological world. The books follow several characters as they strive to bring balance to the new world's problems. The books in the series are: Mistress of Jewels (a combined Lady of Light & Lady of Darkness), Silverhair the Wanderer, The Earthstone, The Sea Star, The Wind Crystal and The Jewel of Fire.
She collaborated with fellow author Adrienne Martine-Barnes on the "Chronicles of Fionn Mac Cumhal" books. These are Celtic Fantasies based on the Irish mythic hero. The series consists of Master of Earth and Water, The Shield Between the Worlds and Sword of Fire and Shadow.
Delving into Historical Fantasy, she has produced works of rich detail and fantastic elements. The White Raven uses Celtic material to tell the tragic story of Tristan and Isolde. Told by the character Branwen, Ms. Paxson gives readers a sad tale of love and triumph in rich vivid details.
She writes stories from other sources too. The Serpent's Tooth is based on Shakespeare's "King Lear." The story takes place in fifth century Britain when Leir conquers the tribes of Britain and fathers three daughters from three different queens. Cridilla, Leir’s youngest daughter, is exiled. When her father’s kingdom starts falling apart, Cridilla returns to help her father. Ms. Paxson adds another interesting book to her body of work.
Another group of books by Ms. Paxson uses Norse mythology. Her “Wodan’s Children” series follow several characters from Norse and other materials through several stories of magic and battle. These books are intriguing Historical Fantasies that present an interesting world. The first two books are The Lord of Horses and The Dragons of the Rhine.
She stated once in a panel at an SF convention I attended that every Fantasy author must attempt to write an Arthurian Fantasy. Her latest books are her contribution to the Arthurian mythos. The Hallowed Isle is split into four books: The Book of the Sword, The Book of the Spear, The Book of the Cauldron and the forthcoming The Book of the Stone. They tell the story of King Arthur using historical periods and what is know about cultures of that time.
She collaborated with the late Marion Zimmer Bradley on several novels set in the world of the book Mists of Avalon. Many of the books are prequels or sequels to this book following the changes of Britain before and after the time of King Arthur. The books in the sequence are: The Forest House, The Sword of Avalon, The Ravens of Avalon, The Lady of Avalon, Priestess of Avalon and Ancestors of Avalon.
Recently she has returned to her world of Westria with The Golden Hills of Westria. This books takes up years after the last series to follow characters that have aged or their children in a new tale of magic and adventure. The book contains the author’s usual powerful storytelling and interesting characters.
Whether it's a future world of magic or a historical period with fantastic elements, Diana Paxson provides readers with thoughtful adventures. She brings her fantastic worlds to life with vivid descriptions and sympathetic characters. She is a writer worth checking out for a new experience. Readers won't be disappointed.
One of Ms. Paxson's longest works is a series of books set in her Fantasy world of Westria. It is a future California after nature and magic rose to destroy our technological world. The books follow several characters as they strive to bring balance to the new world's problems. The books in the series are: Mistress of Jewels (a combined Lady of Light & Lady of Darkness), Silverhair the Wanderer, The Earthstone, The Sea Star, The Wind Crystal and The Jewel of Fire.
She collaborated with fellow author Adrienne Martine-Barnes on the "Chronicles of Fionn Mac Cumhal" books. These are Celtic Fantasies based on the Irish mythic hero. The series consists of Master of Earth and Water, The Shield Between the Worlds and Sword of Fire and Shadow.
Delving into Historical Fantasy, she has produced works of rich detail and fantastic elements. The White Raven uses Celtic material to tell the tragic story of Tristan and Isolde. Told by the character Branwen, Ms. Paxson gives readers a sad tale of love and triumph in rich vivid details.
She writes stories from other sources too. The Serpent's Tooth is based on Shakespeare's "King Lear." The story takes place in fifth century Britain when Leir conquers the tribes of Britain and fathers three daughters from three different queens. Cridilla, Leir’s youngest daughter, is exiled. When her father’s kingdom starts falling apart, Cridilla returns to help her father. Ms. Paxson adds another interesting book to her body of work.
Another group of books by Ms. Paxson uses Norse mythology. Her “Wodan’s Children” series follow several characters from Norse and other materials through several stories of magic and battle. These books are intriguing Historical Fantasies that present an interesting world. The first two books are The Lord of Horses and The Dragons of the Rhine.
She stated once in a panel at an SF convention I attended that every Fantasy author must attempt to write an Arthurian Fantasy. Her latest books are her contribution to the Arthurian mythos. The Hallowed Isle is split into four books: The Book of the Sword, The Book of the Spear, The Book of the Cauldron and the forthcoming The Book of the Stone. They tell the story of King Arthur using historical periods and what is know about cultures of that time.
She collaborated with the late Marion Zimmer Bradley on several novels set in the world of the book Mists of Avalon. Many of the books are prequels or sequels to this book following the changes of Britain before and after the time of King Arthur. The books in the sequence are: The Forest House, The Sword of Avalon, The Ravens of Avalon, The Lady of Avalon, Priestess of Avalon and Ancestors of Avalon.
Recently she has returned to her world of Westria with The Golden Hills of Westria. This books takes up years after the last series to follow characters that have aged or their children in a new tale of magic and adventure. The book contains the author’s usual powerful storytelling and interesting characters.
Whether it's a future world of magic or a historical period with fantastic elements, Diana Paxson provides readers with thoughtful adventures. She brings her fantastic worlds to life with vivid descriptions and sympathetic characters. She is a writer worth checking out for a new experience. Readers won't be disappointed.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
On Writing Fantasy: Online Writing Classes
Sorry for the delay of the article this week. Here’s my article for online classes on writing.
Summer is a time of year that can give people some free time to pursue other things. Writing is a profession that takes time, perseverance and knowledge. A writer must constantly pursue research and learning of new subjects to help generate new ideas and feed their imaginations. This is even truer for Fantasy authors that create whole new worlds for their books. Online classes are a good way to learn new knowledge for research and increase a writer’s creativity. Classes come in a variety of subjects, are reasonably priced, and self paced for a writer to gain new knowledge without a lot of time consumption. There are several places on the expanding Internet to take these classes.
A free site for online classes is Suite University (http://www.suite101.com/suiteu/). Divided into several schools, classes can be found in topics under religion, writing, literature, etc. These classes are taught by knowledgeable people who know their subjects. The classes can be taken as an individualized self paced version. A wide variety of subjects helps writers find information they can use in their writing. For instance my class on Fantasy Literature can help Fantasy writers learn about the different subgenres. My class is found at: http://www.suite101.com/course.cfm/17284/seminar
Virtual University is an online class company (http://www.ksurf.net) that has been around for a long time. They have classes in the areas of computers, self help, general interest and others. They have been expanding their subjects recently. One new class is on Screen Writing. The classes are taught by knowledgeable people, some with Masters degrees. A lot of information can be learned in a short time. The courses on forensics and serial killers are informative. This is a good site to learn new things.
Another good site for online classes is Course Bridge. Designed for adult learners, they have classes of general interest, spirituality and useful ones on writing. Fantasy writers would especially find the class on Medieval castles helpful to their writing. New courses are added all the time. Their courses provide a lot of information for a fair price. This site is found at: http://www.coursebridge.com I teach a class on Fantasy Writing here too at: http://coursebridge.com/html/courses/writing/CBWFF01.asp
Some writers have their own classes that they develop and teach. Holly Lisle is a Fantasy author with several published books and years of experience in writing. At her web site can be found several classes and resources to help aspiring writers learn the craft. Her Thinking Sideways course is popular and helpful. Many of her writing E-books are informative too. Her site can be found at: http://www.hollylisle.com
A site of interest for writers is Fathom. This is a site run by several colleges like Columbia University that used to have online classes. The site (http://www.fathom.com) is now an archive, which contains information in several different subjects. There is a lot of good information to learn for ideas.
Writers must seek new knowledge to help their creativity and bring their stories to life. Time is important to writers, which is devoted to writing. They do not have time to travel for classes. Distance learning through online classes is a boon for authors. Classes can be taken from home or anywhere an Internet connection is available. Learning new things helps in the writing process by providing more knowledge and ideas for writers. Online classes will continue to help writers expand their experience for powerful new stories.
Summer is a time of year that can give people some free time to pursue other things. Writing is a profession that takes time, perseverance and knowledge. A writer must constantly pursue research and learning of new subjects to help generate new ideas and feed their imaginations. This is even truer for Fantasy authors that create whole new worlds for their books. Online classes are a good way to learn new knowledge for research and increase a writer’s creativity. Classes come in a variety of subjects, are reasonably priced, and self paced for a writer to gain new knowledge without a lot of time consumption. There are several places on the expanding Internet to take these classes.
A free site for online classes is Suite University (http://www.suite101.com/suiteu/). Divided into several schools, classes can be found in topics under religion, writing, literature, etc. These classes are taught by knowledgeable people who know their subjects. The classes can be taken as an individualized self paced version. A wide variety of subjects helps writers find information they can use in their writing. For instance my class on Fantasy Literature can help Fantasy writers learn about the different subgenres. My class is found at: http://www.suite101.com/course.cfm/17284/seminar
Virtual University is an online class company (http://www.ksurf.net) that has been around for a long time. They have classes in the areas of computers, self help, general interest and others. They have been expanding their subjects recently. One new class is on Screen Writing. The classes are taught by knowledgeable people, some with Masters degrees. A lot of information can be learned in a short time. The courses on forensics and serial killers are informative. This is a good site to learn new things.
Another good site for online classes is Course Bridge. Designed for adult learners, they have classes of general interest, spirituality and useful ones on writing. Fantasy writers would especially find the class on Medieval castles helpful to their writing. New courses are added all the time. Their courses provide a lot of information for a fair price. This site is found at: http://www.coursebridge.com I teach a class on Fantasy Writing here too at: http://coursebridge.com/html/courses/writing/CBWFF01.asp
Some writers have their own classes that they develop and teach. Holly Lisle is a Fantasy author with several published books and years of experience in writing. At her web site can be found several classes and resources to help aspiring writers learn the craft. Her Thinking Sideways course is popular and helpful. Many of her writing E-books are informative too. Her site can be found at: http://www.hollylisle.com
A site of interest for writers is Fathom. This is a site run by several colleges like Columbia University that used to have online classes. The site (http://www.fathom.com) is now an archive, which contains information in several different subjects. There is a lot of good information to learn for ideas.
Writers must seek new knowledge to help their creativity and bring their stories to life. Time is important to writers, which is devoted to writing. They do not have time to travel for classes. Distance learning through online classes is a boon for authors. Classes can be taken from home or anywhere an Internet connection is available. Learning new things helps in the writing process by providing more knowledge and ideas for writers. Online classes will continue to help writers expand their experience for powerful new stories.
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Fairytales in Fantasy
Fairy tales have been a part of most people’s lives during their childhood. These type of tales are a part of every culture. Writers began collecting and publishing fairy tales as early as the 16th century. Familiar names associated with fairy tales are Charles Perrault, the Grimm brothers and Hans Christian Anderson. These men made fairy tales available to everyone. In recent times, fairy tale retellings have become a vital part of the Fantasy genre, recreated by authors of many talents.
A different take on the tooth fairy is told by Graham Joyce in The Tooth Fairy. Set in England, this is the story of a young boy named Sam and some of his friends. He wakes up one night, encountering the tooth fairy. This begins a long, convoluted relationship between the boy and a dangerous, violent creature over many years. Mr. Joyce creates a dark fairy tale in a complex coming-of-age story of three young people and a creature from our darker side.
Beauty by Robin McKinley is an excellent retelling of the “Beauty and the Beast” story. Ms. McKinley brings the characters to life with vivid descriptions. Beauty is a strong young woman that goes to live in the castle of the Beast in place of her father. She finds a magical place full of wonder and a troubled Beast. Dealing with things changes both characters by the end of the book. The author is a master of bringing fairy tales to life.
Charles de Lint is a master of Urban Fantasy, infusing magic into modern day city settings. Jack of Kinrowan is a fairy tale set in the Canadian city of Ottawa. Jacky Rowan develops the Sight which draws her into a battle between two factions of Fairy. Made up of two earlier books, this one is highly descriptive with likable characters and entertaining plots. Mr. de Lint uses the elements of fairy tales to bring a created city to magical life.
A Scottish ballad fairy tale is the basis for Ellen Kushner’s Thomas the Rhymer. Thomas is a wandering harper who meets Elspeth when he stops for an evening. Later he is captured by the Queen of Elfland. Returning to Elspeth after seven years, Thomas can only tell the truth. This creates a difficult situation for their relationship along with the separation of years. Ellen Kushner is a masterful storyteller, using vivid prose to give a magical story a powerful depth.
Orson Scott Card provides a retelling of “Sleeping Beauty” in Enchantment. The author mixes the fairy tale with Russian mythology to tell a different story. An American college student is pulled into the ninth century to live out a Russian Fairy tale. He and the princess must battle with the witch Baba Yaga to find happiness. Mr. Card is an excellent story teller, bringing a wonderful fairy tale to life.
Winter Rose is by author Patricia McKillip, a highly talented author of the genre. Two sisters have their lives get entangled with Corbet Lynn when he returns to rebuild Lynn Hall. His family is under a curse from a past indiscretion. The practical sister Laurel falls in love with him. Rois Melior is wild with a touch of magic. Drawn to Corbet too, she tries to unravel his past in order to save her sister. Ms. McKillip creates an entertaining fairy tale with her imaginative talent, adding another classic to her works.
The Porcelain Dove by Delia Sherman is a mixture of Historical Fantasy and French fairy tales. Told through the eyes of a chamber maid, Ms. Sherman creates a strange, magical chateau existing in the pre-revolutionary era of France. The chateau is called Beauxpres and located in the Jura mountains. At this place, no one ages and the servants are nearly invisible. There is a curse on the family, which sets off a quest to find a porcelain dove in order to destroy the curse. Readers will find an entertaining book, rich in detail, from a highly talented author.
Fairy tales have been a popular entertainment throughout human history. Fantasy authors are taking fairy and folk tales from around the world, and retelling them in new ways for modern readers. The books mentioned here are just a few in this category. There are many entertaining books for adult readers and young adults too. Other possibilities includes an anthology series edited by Terri Windling. For more books check out the list at: http://www.endicott-studio.com/list-fairyTale.html
A different take on the tooth fairy is told by Graham Joyce in The Tooth Fairy. Set in England, this is the story of a young boy named Sam and some of his friends. He wakes up one night, encountering the tooth fairy. This begins a long, convoluted relationship between the boy and a dangerous, violent creature over many years. Mr. Joyce creates a dark fairy tale in a complex coming-of-age story of three young people and a creature from our darker side.
Beauty by Robin McKinley is an excellent retelling of the “Beauty and the Beast” story. Ms. McKinley brings the characters to life with vivid descriptions. Beauty is a strong young woman that goes to live in the castle of the Beast in place of her father. She finds a magical place full of wonder and a troubled Beast. Dealing with things changes both characters by the end of the book. The author is a master of bringing fairy tales to life.
Charles de Lint is a master of Urban Fantasy, infusing magic into modern day city settings. Jack of Kinrowan is a fairy tale set in the Canadian city of Ottawa. Jacky Rowan develops the Sight which draws her into a battle between two factions of Fairy. Made up of two earlier books, this one is highly descriptive with likable characters and entertaining plots. Mr. de Lint uses the elements of fairy tales to bring a created city to magical life.
A Scottish ballad fairy tale is the basis for Ellen Kushner’s Thomas the Rhymer. Thomas is a wandering harper who meets Elspeth when he stops for an evening. Later he is captured by the Queen of Elfland. Returning to Elspeth after seven years, Thomas can only tell the truth. This creates a difficult situation for their relationship along with the separation of years. Ellen Kushner is a masterful storyteller, using vivid prose to give a magical story a powerful depth.
Orson Scott Card provides a retelling of “Sleeping Beauty” in Enchantment. The author mixes the fairy tale with Russian mythology to tell a different story. An American college student is pulled into the ninth century to live out a Russian Fairy tale. He and the princess must battle with the witch Baba Yaga to find happiness. Mr. Card is an excellent story teller, bringing a wonderful fairy tale to life.
Winter Rose is by author Patricia McKillip, a highly talented author of the genre. Two sisters have their lives get entangled with Corbet Lynn when he returns to rebuild Lynn Hall. His family is under a curse from a past indiscretion. The practical sister Laurel falls in love with him. Rois Melior is wild with a touch of magic. Drawn to Corbet too, she tries to unravel his past in order to save her sister. Ms. McKillip creates an entertaining fairy tale with her imaginative talent, adding another classic to her works.
The Porcelain Dove by Delia Sherman is a mixture of Historical Fantasy and French fairy tales. Told through the eyes of a chamber maid, Ms. Sherman creates a strange, magical chateau existing in the pre-revolutionary era of France. The chateau is called Beauxpres and located in the Jura mountains. At this place, no one ages and the servants are nearly invisible. There is a curse on the family, which sets off a quest to find a porcelain dove in order to destroy the curse. Readers will find an entertaining book, rich in detail, from a highly talented author.
Fairy tales have been a popular entertainment throughout human history. Fantasy authors are taking fairy and folk tales from around the world, and retelling them in new ways for modern readers. The books mentioned here are just a few in this category. There are many entertaining books for adult readers and young adults too. Other possibilities includes an anthology series edited by Terri Windling. For more books check out the list at: http://www.endicott-studio.com/list-fairyTale.html
Friday, May 14, 2010
Anne Bishop
Epic Fantasy books tend to be the largest number of books published in the genre each year. Some critics say that most of the books are derivative with not much difference from previous books. Newer authors to the genre try different things to give a fresh view to Fantasy. Anne Bishop is one of those fairly new authors. She writes Epic Fantasy with elements different from the standard and not what readers would expect. Her books have intriguing characters, different settings and unexpected plots.
Ms. Bishop sur prises readers’ expectations with her first trilogy The Black Jewels. Not the usual Fantasy, these books tell the stories of demons and humans that are part of the dark realm of their world. Daughter of the Blood tells the story of Jaenelle, a young woman with power. She is prophesied to become the next great Queen. Jaenelle is taught by Saitan who rules Hell, but must avoid the machinations and attempts on her life by a high priestess and others. In the next book, Heir to the Shadows, Jaenelle must recover her memory after a traumatic event that nearly destroys her. Finally, Queen of Darkness has Jaenelle in charge of her realm, but still facing a final conflict to rule in peace. The three books are now available in one volume.
The Invisible Ring is a stand alone novel set in the same world as the previously mentioned trilogy. In this book, Jared is the pleasure slave of a vicious queen. He murders his mistress out of desperation and flees. Eventually he ends up with a mysterious queen known as the Gray Lady. His new life proves dangerous as he goes against the enemies of his new queen in order to help her. Ms. Bishop provides another exciting look into her vivid world of dark magic.
Ms. Bishop’s next trilogy, Tir Alainn, takes place in a new Fantasy world. This world has witches who guard the roads into the fairy realm. These roads are fading out of existence due to a vicious Inquisition destroying magic. The Pillars of the World begins the trilogy with the story of Ari . She has a fairy lover and is unaware of his background. Her magic has her caught between two worlds as the Inquistion closes in on her. The story shifts to two new characters in Shadows and Light. A bard and a muse, Aidan and Lyra, try to thwart the evil Aldolfo from further destroying magic. They must find a Fae that will listen to them and help them. In the last book, The House of Gaian, Adolfo tries to destroy all the magic in the land one last time. He wants to do this by destroying the wellspring of magic. Witches, humans and Fae must band together to stop him from this folly. The author gives readers an entertaining series with strong women characters, adventure and romance.
A new book set in the first world the author created will be coming out soon P. Dreams Made Flesh Is a collection of four stories that explore some of the characters from the first trilogy in greater depth. Jaenelle returns with her lover Daemon in a story where another blood witch tries to break them apart. There is a character study of Saetan as he deals with his pregnant wife’s family. Two other stories round out this new book done with the author’s vivid style and dynamic storytelling.
Anne Bishop is a powerful recent author in the Fantasy genre. She brings to life her various Fantasy worlds with vivid words and a dark edge. Her books are full of adventure, romance, strong women characters and some intense themes. Readers will find her many books interesting and entertaining. Some of her books are not for young readers. They contain violent and explicit sex scenes, so parents should be aware of this.
Ms. Bishop sur prises readers’ expectations with her first trilogy The Black Jewels. Not the usual Fantasy, these books tell the stories of demons and humans that are part of the dark realm of their world. Daughter of the Blood tells the story of Jaenelle, a young woman with power. She is prophesied to become the next great Queen. Jaenelle is taught by Saitan who rules Hell, but must avoid the machinations and attempts on her life by a high priestess and others. In the next book, Heir to the Shadows, Jaenelle must recover her memory after a traumatic event that nearly destroys her. Finally, Queen of Darkness has Jaenelle in charge of her realm, but still facing a final conflict to rule in peace. The three books are now available in one volume.
The Invisible Ring is a stand alone novel set in the same world as the previously mentioned trilogy. In this book, Jared is the pleasure slave of a vicious queen. He murders his mistress out of desperation and flees. Eventually he ends up with a mysterious queen known as the Gray Lady. His new life proves dangerous as he goes against the enemies of his new queen in order to help her. Ms. Bishop provides another exciting look into her vivid world of dark magic.
Ms. Bishop’s next trilogy, Tir Alainn, takes place in a new Fantasy world. This world has witches who guard the roads into the fairy realm. These roads are fading out of existence due to a vicious Inquisition destroying magic. The Pillars of the World begins the trilogy with the story of Ari . She has a fairy lover and is unaware of his background. Her magic has her caught between two worlds as the Inquistion closes in on her. The story shifts to two new characters in Shadows and Light. A bard and a muse, Aidan and Lyra, try to thwart the evil Aldolfo from further destroying magic. They must find a Fae that will listen to them and help them. In the last book, The House of Gaian, Adolfo tries to destroy all the magic in the land one last time. He wants to do this by destroying the wellspring of magic. Witches, humans and Fae must band together to stop him from this folly. The author gives readers an entertaining series with strong women characters, adventure and romance.
A new book set in the first world the author created will be coming out soon P. Dreams Made Flesh Is a collection of four stories that explore some of the characters from the first trilogy in greater depth. Jaenelle returns with her lover Daemon in a story where another blood witch tries to break them apart. There is a character study of Saetan as he deals with his pregnant wife’s family. Two other stories round out this new book done with the author’s vivid style and dynamic storytelling.
Anne Bishop is a powerful recent author in the Fantasy genre. She brings to life her various Fantasy worlds with vivid words and a dark edge. Her books are full of adventure, romance, strong women characters and some intense themes. Readers will find her many books interesting and entertaining. Some of her books are not for young readers. They contain violent and explicit sex scenes, so parents should be aware of this.
Friday, April 30, 2010
Midori Snyder
The Fantasy genre has many writers with different voices that bring unique perspectives to the genre. Every author contributes to the advancement of and expansion of Fantasy. Midori Snyder is an author that combines myth, folklore and fairy tales into her works for stories with strong characters and interesting worlds. She has lived and worked all over the world, which brings a multicultural flavor to her many books.
Her first book was an adult fairy tale Fantasy called Soulstring. It is a story of an evil mage with a beautiful daughter. Suitors must pass tests to win her or are killed if they fail. Magda, the daughter, wants to stop her father. She has great power, but must learn how to use it. This is a book with a tightly woven plot that entertains readers with its many wonders. Ms. Snyder had a good start with this book.
The Flight of Michael McBride is a combination Western and Fantasy. Ms. Snyder mixes Irish and Spanish myths with Western legends, setting the story in the American West. Michael McBride, a half human, half fairy man, flees the fairy court of the East coast to Texas. He discovers he can’t outrun the magic, drawn into the magical struggles of the old West. This is a different story full of interesting characters and an intriguing setting. Ms. Snyder provides a memorably unique story to the genre.
Next, the author followed this book with the Oran trilogy consisting of New Moon, Sadar’s Keep and Beldane’s Fire. This trilogy tells the tale of four women that represented the elements of earth, air, fire and water. One steals the powers of the others to become the Fire Queen and begins an oppressive rule of Oran. Four new women rise up to unite the people against the Fire Queen. Interesting characters and a strong plot makes this an entertaining trilogy.
The Innamorati won a Mythopoeic award for best novel. It takes place in a magical Renaissance Italy, blending Italian and Roman legends with mask making. Cursed people travel to the city of Labirinto to try and enter The Maze to lift these curses. Characters vary such as a poet, priest, actor and mask maker. All the characters seek redemption while they encounter satyrs, sea nymphs, talking masks and other fantastical creatures. Ms. Snyder creates a vibrant world for this story that remains in a reader’s memory for a long time.
Midori Snyder is an entertaining Fantasy author of several books. Many of her books take lace in imaginative worlds and have won awards. The author combines her experiences of living all over the world with myth to provide memorable stories of interesting characters. She is an author worth reading.
Her first book was an adult fairy tale Fantasy called Soulstring. It is a story of an evil mage with a beautiful daughter. Suitors must pass tests to win her or are killed if they fail. Magda, the daughter, wants to stop her father. She has great power, but must learn how to use it. This is a book with a tightly woven plot that entertains readers with its many wonders. Ms. Snyder had a good start with this book.
The Flight of Michael McBride is a combination Western and Fantasy. Ms. Snyder mixes Irish and Spanish myths with Western legends, setting the story in the American West. Michael McBride, a half human, half fairy man, flees the fairy court of the East coast to Texas. He discovers he can’t outrun the magic, drawn into the magical struggles of the old West. This is a different story full of interesting characters and an intriguing setting. Ms. Snyder provides a memorably unique story to the genre.
Next, the author followed this book with the Oran trilogy consisting of New Moon, Sadar’s Keep and Beldane’s Fire. This trilogy tells the tale of four women that represented the elements of earth, air, fire and water. One steals the powers of the others to become the Fire Queen and begins an oppressive rule of Oran. Four new women rise up to unite the people against the Fire Queen. Interesting characters and a strong plot makes this an entertaining trilogy.
The Innamorati won a Mythopoeic award for best novel. It takes place in a magical Renaissance Italy, blending Italian and Roman legends with mask making. Cursed people travel to the city of Labirinto to try and enter The Maze to lift these curses. Characters vary such as a poet, priest, actor and mask maker. All the characters seek redemption while they encounter satyrs, sea nymphs, talking masks and other fantastical creatures. Ms. Snyder creates a vibrant world for this story that remains in a reader’s memory for a long time.
Midori Snyder is an entertaining Fantasy author of several books. Many of her books take lace in imaginative worlds and have won awards. The author combines her experiences of living all over the world with myth to provide memorable stories of interesting characters. She is an author worth reading.
Friday, April 16, 2010
Graham Edwards Interview
This is an interview I did with this author a few years ago.
There are many unique voices in the Fantasy genre. Graham Edwards is one of these voices. He has written two Fantasy trilogies with interesting themes and characters. The first trilogy consists of Dragoncharm, Dragonstorm, and Dragonflame. The trilogy tells the story of a changing world through the eyes of dragons. His second trilogy involves a mythic journey along a wall of history. Stone & Sky, Stone and Sea, and Stone & Sun are the books in this series.
DL: What led you to become a writer? Was it hard getting published?
I've always written, from an early age. Eventually I kind of rolled up my sleeves and decided to 'do it properly', which for me meant actually finishing a novel. That was Dragoncharm and it took two and a half years to write, longhand. I sent it out unsolicited and after a handful of rejections it was taken up by Jane Johnson at Voyager. These days it's really tough for a first-time author to get published without an agent. In other respects nothing much has changed - as well as being able to string
words together you have to land them on the right desk at the right time.
DL: Why did you choose the Fantasy genre to write in?
GE: I think it chose me really . It might sound odd but I never really thought of Dragoncharm as fantasy. For me, the story was driven by the characters, who just happened to be dragons. All the trappings of fantasy (and I would say the Dragoncharm books take place in a mythical prehistory rather than a traditional high fantasy realm) were just the life support system I needed to make them breathe. That said, I love the way fantasy can reflect and inform what we naively call the 'real world'.
DL: What authors, Fantasy or otherwise, influence your writing?
GE: I grew up on a diet of science fiction. More recently I've enjoyed reading Robert Holdstock, John Irving, Kim Stanley Robinson and John Steinbeck.
DL: What do you think about the current state of the Fantasy genre. Do you think that many books are too derivative?
GE: I've tried a few of the big doorstop epics but they don't do a lot for me. There is a lot of derivative stuff out there - what I used to know as sword & sorcery - but there's also a lot that, to me at least
, is far more interesting. I've mentioned Mr. Holdstock but there's a host of others like Graham Joyce and John Crowley who are exploring some fascinating territories.
DL: Your first trilogy has dragons as the main characters. Why dragons?
GE: The Dragoncharm series has its roots in Watership Down, which I read at a young age. I thought it might be fun to try something similar using mythological creatures. Somehow it didn't seem a tremendous leap from rabbits to dragons. I think I was probably influenced by the 80's movie “Dragonslayer” too. It was the first time I'd seen a dragon that looked like a real animal rather than a gold-hoarding flight of fancy - okay, she ate the odd princess but she was REAL. I loved the way she lurched around ‹like a grounded bat.
DL: The second trilogy is different. What is it about and where did you get the idea for it?
GE: In the dragon books I touch on some of the differences between history and myth. I wanted a way to explore these ideas more fully; the Stone books are the result. Stone is a world-sized wall in which all the memories of our world are stored - memories of past and future, history and myth. Travelling along the wall of Stone is a little like travelling through time.
The Stone books are an assemblage of many influences - all those SF Big Dumb Object books I read as a kid (Rendezvous with Rama, Ringworld etc); a fascination with time travel and the paradoxes it generates; the fluidity of history. I also began to wonder if altering Stone's database of memories meant you were actually changing history ...
And, once I'd thought of it, the world-sized wall seemed like the best adventure playground ever for getting my characters into all sorts of s àcrapes. Interestingly, Adam Roberts has just used the giant wall concept in his novel On, though in an entirely different way - I'm obviously not the only one fascinated by the idea.
DL: I’m always fascinated with Fantasy that has mythic themes. Do you use themes from mythology in your books?
GE: Actually I plunder mythology in a pretty shameless way. I tend to cherry-pick the things I like and ignore the things I don't. So in the dragon books I have faeries and giants and basilisks (which kill by a glance but bear no physical resemblance to the mythological cockatrice). And in the Stone books I have everything from Russian tree spirits to part-evolved Viking gods.
Myths speak to us in such powerful ways. These are the oldest stories of all. They inform us about human evolution in a way 'real history' can't - in truth the two can't be separated. I once worked on a heritage projec Qt where I was trying to weave together Scottish history and myth. One of the trustees was adamant we should dispense with the mythology altogether and include only what she called 'the real stories'. I nearly resorted to physical violence.
DL: A writer friend of mine said that all Fantasy authors eventually attempt an Authurian novel. Since you live in the country where the King Arthur legend was born, do you have any plans for an Arthurian story? Does the legend influence any of your writing?
GE: The Arthur legend does speak strongly to an Englishman born within spitting distance o ıf Glastonbury Tor. There are echoes of Tristan and Isolde in 'Stone and Sea'. As for an Arthur book per se, I think I'll leave that to the people who do it far better than I ever would. Although I do have this idea about what the Green Knight got up to before he bumped into Sir Gawain ...
DL: What themes or modern day issues do you include in your works that you want to share with readers?
GE: I don't really think in terms of 'themes', just stories. The former must grow out of the latter. Some people have commented that Dragoncharm is 'about' racial prejudice, with its war between charmed and natural dragons and the redeeming message that 'we are all just dragons'. Sure, the issues are there, but they just came along as I wrote the book Û. I'm happy when these things find their way in, because fantasy - in fact all fiction - is at its strongest when it's throwing a new light on the world we live in. But I never set out to make a point - I'm just here to tell stories.
But I do love to make connections with the modern day, or at least with the world we know. Stone and Sun, as well as dragons and magic, has stuff about the 1950's US A-bomb test programme (oh all right, it's not that modern ...). And the dragon books are consciously set in a world that is recognisably ours, even down to specific locations like Meteor Crater and Iceland. I like to have a perceptible thread connecting our world to the fantasy worlds I concoct. Anything else is cheating.
DL: What books or sto ries are in your future?
GE: I took a long deep breath after completing the Stone trilogy. I've got a couple of half-finished novels knocking about, which may eventually see the light of day. But right now I'm working hard to get a new manuscript completed by the end of the year. I hate categories but I guess it might be called a dark fantasy. And there aren't any dragons in it. I'll be posting more details on the website when it's ready to roll.
DL: Do you have any advice for aspiring writers?
GE: The art of writing is the art of applying the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair. (I can't claim that as my own and I can't remember who said it. But it's the truest thing I know).
DL: Thank you very much for your time.
For more information visit the Graham Edwards Website at http://members.lycos.co.uk/amara
There are many unique voices in the Fantasy genre. Graham Edwards is one of these voices. He has written two Fantasy trilogies with interesting themes and characters. The first trilogy consists of Dragoncharm, Dragonstorm, and Dragonflame. The trilogy tells the story of a changing world through the eyes of dragons. His second trilogy involves a mythic journey along a wall of history. Stone & Sky, Stone and Sea, and Stone & Sun are the books in this series.
DL: What led you to become a writer? Was it hard getting published?
I've always written, from an early age. Eventually I kind of rolled up my sleeves and decided to 'do it properly', which for me meant actually finishing a novel. That was Dragoncharm and it took two and a half years to write, longhand. I sent it out unsolicited and after a handful of rejections it was taken up by Jane Johnson at Voyager. These days it's really tough for a first-time author to get published without an agent. In other respects nothing much has changed - as well as being able to string
words together you have to land them on the right desk at the right time.
DL: Why did you choose the Fantasy genre to write in?
GE: I think it chose me really . It might sound odd but I never really thought of Dragoncharm as fantasy. For me, the story was driven by the characters, who just happened to be dragons. All the trappings of fantasy (and I would say the Dragoncharm books take place in a mythical prehistory rather than a traditional high fantasy realm) were just the life support system I needed to make them breathe. That said, I love the way fantasy can reflect and inform what we naively call the 'real world'.
DL: What authors, Fantasy or otherwise, influence your writing?
GE: I grew up on a diet of science fiction. More recently I've enjoyed reading Robert Holdstock, John Irving, Kim Stanley Robinson and John Steinbeck.
DL: What do you think about the current state of the Fantasy genre. Do you think that many books are too derivative?
GE: I've tried a few of the big doorstop epics but they don't do a lot for me. There is a lot of derivative stuff out there - what I used to know as sword & sorcery - but there's also a lot that, to me at least
, is far more interesting. I've mentioned Mr. Holdstock but there's a host of others like Graham Joyce and John Crowley who are exploring some fascinating territories.
DL: Your first trilogy has dragons as the main characters. Why dragons?
GE: The Dragoncharm series has its roots in Watership Down, which I read at a young age. I thought it might be fun to try something similar using mythological creatures. Somehow it didn't seem a tremendous leap from rabbits to dragons. I think I was probably influenced by the 80's movie “Dragonslayer” too. It was the first time I'd seen a dragon that looked like a real animal rather than a gold-hoarding flight of fancy - okay, she ate the odd princess but she was REAL. I loved the way she lurched around ‹like a grounded bat.
DL: The second trilogy is different. What is it about and where did you get the idea for it?
GE: In the dragon books I touch on some of the differences between history and myth. I wanted a way to explore these ideas more fully; the Stone books are the result. Stone is a world-sized wall in which all the memories of our world are stored - memories of past and future, history and myth. Travelling along the wall of Stone is a little like travelling through time.
The Stone books are an assemblage of many influences - all those SF Big Dumb Object books I read as a kid (Rendezvous with Rama, Ringworld etc); a fascination with time travel and the paradoxes it generates; the fluidity of history. I also began to wonder if altering Stone's database of memories meant you were actually changing history ...
And, once I'd thought of it, the world-sized wall seemed like the best adventure playground ever for getting my characters into all sorts of s àcrapes. Interestingly, Adam Roberts has just used the giant wall concept in his novel On, though in an entirely different way - I'm obviously not the only one fascinated by the idea.
DL: I’m always fascinated with Fantasy that has mythic themes. Do you use themes from mythology in your books?
GE: Actually I plunder mythology in a pretty shameless way. I tend to cherry-pick the things I like and ignore the things I don't. So in the dragon books I have faeries and giants and basilisks (which kill by a glance but bear no physical resemblance to the mythological cockatrice). And in the Stone books I have everything from Russian tree spirits to part-evolved Viking gods.
Myths speak to us in such powerful ways. These are the oldest stories of all. They inform us about human evolution in a way 'real history' can't - in truth the two can't be separated. I once worked on a heritage projec Qt where I was trying to weave together Scottish history and myth. One of the trustees was adamant we should dispense with the mythology altogether and include only what she called 'the real stories'. I nearly resorted to physical violence.
DL: A writer friend of mine said that all Fantasy authors eventually attempt an Authurian novel. Since you live in the country where the King Arthur legend was born, do you have any plans for an Arthurian story? Does the legend influence any of your writing?
GE: The Arthur legend does speak strongly to an Englishman born within spitting distance o ıf Glastonbury Tor. There are echoes of Tristan and Isolde in 'Stone and Sea'. As for an Arthur book per se, I think I'll leave that to the people who do it far better than I ever would. Although I do have this idea about what the Green Knight got up to before he bumped into Sir Gawain ...
DL: What themes or modern day issues do you include in your works that you want to share with readers?
GE: I don't really think in terms of 'themes', just stories. The former must grow out of the latter. Some people have commented that Dragoncharm is 'about' racial prejudice, with its war between charmed and natural dragons and the redeeming message that 'we are all just dragons'. Sure, the issues are there, but they just came along as I wrote the book Û. I'm happy when these things find their way in, because fantasy - in fact all fiction - is at its strongest when it's throwing a new light on the world we live in. But I never set out to make a point - I'm just here to tell stories.
But I do love to make connections with the modern day, or at least with the world we know. Stone and Sun, as well as dragons and magic, has stuff about the 1950's US A-bomb test programme (oh all right, it's not that modern ...). And the dragon books are consciously set in a world that is recognisably ours, even down to specific locations like Meteor Crater and Iceland. I like to have a perceptible thread connecting our world to the fantasy worlds I concoct. Anything else is cheating.
DL: What books or sto ries are in your future?
GE: I took a long deep breath after completing the Stone trilogy. I've got a couple of half-finished novels knocking about, which may eventually see the light of day. But right now I'm working hard to get a new manuscript completed by the end of the year. I hate categories but I guess it might be called a dark fantasy. And there aren't any dragons in it. I'll be posting more details on the website when it's ready to roll.
DL: Do you have any advice for aspiring writers?
GE: The art of writing is the art of applying the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair. (I can't claim that as my own and I can't remember who said it. But it's the truest thing I know).
DL: Thank you very much for your time.
For more information visit the Graham Edwards Website at http://members.lycos.co.uk/amara
Friday, April 02, 2010
Elves in Fantasy
We imagine sylvan forests of beauty and gleaming cities of delicate architecture. Humans don’t live in these places. They are too beautiful and perfect for us. These glorious places are inhabited by an immortal race of magical beings that hold a fascination in our imaginations. Elves have been a part of our mythology and legends since ancient times. They have become a fixture in Fantasy to the point of redundancy. Their continued existence is assured by many Fantasy authors who find new ways to include them in stories.
Elves come in many shapes and sizes. Some are tall, beautiful creatures beyond description. These beings are warriors and builders of fantastic civilizations. They are aloof, sometimes amoral creatures with different motivations than humans. Some are small statured creatures. These tend to be tricksters or helpers to humans. The common threads among Elven-kind are that they are magical and immortal.
One Fantasy author that writes about elves is Mercedes Lackey. She has brought them into our modern day world in her book with Ellen Guon of Bedlam’s Bard. Elves interact with humans in Los Angeles and San Francisco. They provide the creative inspiration for humans. Two humans, Eric and Elizabeth, help one of the elves to keep another one from enslaving humanity. The authors give us interesting twists on the lives of elves like getting addicted to caffeine.
Another author that uses elves in her books is Rosemary Edghill. She brings them to our world and has a woman from here travel into his world. The Sword of Maiden’s Tears has an elf mugged in a city. A woman helps him to recover his stolen sword, combating monsters in the process. The other books, The Cup of Morning Shadows and The Clo ak of Night and Daggers, move the story into the elf’s world. Ms. Edghill is a very descriptive author and gives her story a strong sense of romance and adventure.
Elves take on more roles in the sub-genre of Epic Fantasy. J.R.R. Tolkien presented readers with a noble, immortal race of elegant beings. He created whole stories and a language for his elves. There are Elrond, Galadriel, Legolas and many other interesting characters in Lord of the Rings. Other authors used his creations to inspire their own elven inhabitants.
Andre Norton and Mercedes Lackey have different elves in their collaborations of The Elvenbane and Elvenblood. In these books, humans are the slaves of the elves. Dragons help the humans by providing a rebel leader. Shana, a young half-elven, half-human girl, is raised secretly by dragons to fulfill a prophecy against the elves. These are entertaining books by two good Fantasy authors.
Tom Dietz uses the Celtic stories of the Sidhe in his David Sullivan books. His human characters keep dealing with the powerful elves of Samnildinach and other Sidhe through several books. It starts in Windmaster’s Bane. David Sullivan has the Sight and sees the elves on one of their marches. He eventually becomes a reluctant friend and ally to these beings.
Elves are part of many other Fantasy books. Terry Brooks has them in important roles in his Shannara series. Guy Gavriel Kay has the Lios Alfar in his Fionavar Tapestry. Katherine Kerr has an intere psting elven culture in many of her Deverry books. Tad Williams included an intriguing group of elves in his series Memory, Sorrow and Thorn. The list can go on for a long time. For those that like short stories, there is the anthology Elf Fantastic too.
Readers are attracted to the magical and immortal elves. They haunt our imaginations with dreams of strange beings capable of wonderful creations. Fantasy authors bring bring these aloof, capricious creatures to life in powerful, entertaining stories. You will encounter them in many books and stories by the best authors in the genre. Enjoy them.
Elves come in many shapes and sizes. Some are tall, beautiful creatures beyond description. These beings are warriors and builders of fantastic civilizations. They are aloof, sometimes amoral creatures with different motivations than humans. Some are small statured creatures. These tend to be tricksters or helpers to humans. The common threads among Elven-kind are that they are magical and immortal.
One Fantasy author that writes about elves is Mercedes Lackey. She has brought them into our modern day world in her book with Ellen Guon of Bedlam’s Bard. Elves interact with humans in Los Angeles and San Francisco. They provide the creative inspiration for humans. Two humans, Eric and Elizabeth, help one of the elves to keep another one from enslaving humanity. The authors give us interesting twists on the lives of elves like getting addicted to caffeine.
Another author that uses elves in her books is Rosemary Edghill. She brings them to our world and has a woman from here travel into his world. The Sword of Maiden’s Tears has an elf mugged in a city. A woman helps him to recover his stolen sword, combating monsters in the process. The other books, The Cup of Morning Shadows and The Clo ak of Night and Daggers, move the story into the elf’s world. Ms. Edghill is a very descriptive author and gives her story a strong sense of romance and adventure.
Elves take on more roles in the sub-genre of Epic Fantasy. J.R.R. Tolkien presented readers with a noble, immortal race of elegant beings. He created whole stories and a language for his elves. There are Elrond, Galadriel, Legolas and many other interesting characters in Lord of the Rings. Other authors used his creations to inspire their own elven inhabitants.
Andre Norton and Mercedes Lackey have different elves in their collaborations of The Elvenbane and Elvenblood. In these books, humans are the slaves of the elves. Dragons help the humans by providing a rebel leader. Shana, a young half-elven, half-human girl, is raised secretly by dragons to fulfill a prophecy against the elves. These are entertaining books by two good Fantasy authors.
Tom Dietz uses the Celtic stories of the Sidhe in his David Sullivan books. His human characters keep dealing with the powerful elves of Samnildinach and other Sidhe through several books. It starts in Windmaster’s Bane. David Sullivan has the Sight and sees the elves on one of their marches. He eventually becomes a reluctant friend and ally to these beings.
Elves are part of many other Fantasy books. Terry Brooks has them in important roles in his Shannara series. Guy Gavriel Kay has the Lios Alfar in his Fionavar Tapestry. Katherine Kerr has an intere psting elven culture in many of her Deverry books. Tad Williams included an intriguing group of elves in his series Memory, Sorrow and Thorn. The list can go on for a long time. For those that like short stories, there is the anthology Elf Fantastic too.
Readers are attracted to the magical and immortal elves. They haunt our imaginations with dreams of strange beings capable of wonderful creations. Fantasy authors bring bring these aloof, capricious creatures to life in powerful, entertaining stories. You will encounter them in many books and stories by the best authors in the genre. Enjoy them.
Friday, March 19, 2010
Glen Cook
Hired mercenaries fight a vicious war of weapons and magic against an empire. Another group of mercenaries fight against evil in a different world. A private detective deals with the supernatural in our modern day world. These are the Fantasy worlds of author Glen Cook. They are works of military bleakness and full of cynicism, but with understandable solutions to combating evil. Few of his characters are the black and white heroes of many other Fantasy novels. His books are full of action, violence and adventure, but make powerful statements about war.
The first of his book series are the Dread Empire books. In these books, a group of mercenaries fight for a quasi European and Indian group of countries against a dark empire much like ancient China. The mercenaries are led by a military genius named Bragi. Each book deepens the story of Bragi in his battle against the empire. A Shadow of All Night Falling, October’s Baby and All Darkness Met are the first books in the se ries. Two prequels of Bragi’s earlier life are The Fire in His Hands and With Mercy Toward None. Sequels to the first three books continue Bragi’s story with Reap the East Wind and An Ill Fate Marshaling.
Mr. Cook ventures again into war themes in his Black Company books. This is a group of mercenaries that fight ruthlessly with their enemies with magic and weapons. They serve an evil lady but eventually find a way to fight for good. The books are The Black Company, Shadows Linger and The White Rose. Another part of the series is known as the Books of the South. These are Shadow Games, Dreams of Steel and the recent Soldiers Live!. A side story of the Black Company is found in The Silver Spike. All of these books are very violent and bloody, and not for young children.
Next, Mr. Cook turned to Contemporary Fantasy with his other series of books. The Garrett books are private eye novels with Fantasy el ements. Garrett is a private detective who deals with the occult. In the first book, Sweet Silver Blues, he fights vampires and other fantastic creatures while solving a mystery. These books pay homage to writers like Chandler, Hammett and Spillane. Garrett is like Sherlock Holmes with a half elf Watson. The books have a strong sense of cynicism. Other books in the long series are:
Bitter Gold Hearts
Cold Copper Tears
Old Tin Sorrows
Dread Brass Shadows
Red Iron Nights
Deadly Quicksilver Lies
Petty Pewter Gods
He has written a stand alone novel also with The Swordbearer. This is an Epic Fantasy novel. A boy finds a sword that drinks souls and his destiny. He must deal with being a pawn in a war between interfering gods. Mr. Cook uses similar ideas like Michael Moorcock’s Eternal Champion books for this one.
Glen Cook is a Fantasy author of many books with a military theme or Contemporary Fantasy. He uses a lot of action and battles to make statements against war. His characters find ways of dealing with problems and are very human. Mr. Cook is a different voice in the genre. Readers will find his books very different from the usual fare.
The first of his book series are the Dread Empire books. In these books, a group of mercenaries fight for a quasi European and Indian group of countries against a dark empire much like ancient China. The mercenaries are led by a military genius named Bragi. Each book deepens the story of Bragi in his battle against the empire. A Shadow of All Night Falling, October’s Baby and All Darkness Met are the first books in the se ries. Two prequels of Bragi’s earlier life are The Fire in His Hands and With Mercy Toward None. Sequels to the first three books continue Bragi’s story with Reap the East Wind and An Ill Fate Marshaling.
Mr. Cook ventures again into war themes in his Black Company books. This is a group of mercenaries that fight ruthlessly with their enemies with magic and weapons. They serve an evil lady but eventually find a way to fight for good. The books are The Black Company, Shadows Linger and The White Rose. Another part of the series is known as the Books of the South. These are Shadow Games, Dreams of Steel and the recent Soldiers Live!. A side story of the Black Company is found in The Silver Spike. All of these books are very violent and bloody, and not for young children.
Next, Mr. Cook turned to Contemporary Fantasy with his other series of books. The Garrett books are private eye novels with Fantasy el ements. Garrett is a private detective who deals with the occult. In the first book, Sweet Silver Blues, he fights vampires and other fantastic creatures while solving a mystery. These books pay homage to writers like Chandler, Hammett and Spillane. Garrett is like Sherlock Holmes with a half elf Watson. The books have a strong sense of cynicism. Other books in the long series are:
Bitter Gold Hearts
Cold Copper Tears
Old Tin Sorrows
Dread Brass Shadows
Red Iron Nights
Deadly Quicksilver Lies
Petty Pewter Gods
He has written a stand alone novel also with The Swordbearer. This is an Epic Fantasy novel. A boy finds a sword that drinks souls and his destiny. He must deal with being a pawn in a war between interfering gods. Mr. Cook uses similar ideas like Michael Moorcock’s Eternal Champion books for this one.
Glen Cook is a Fantasy author of many books with a military theme or Contemporary Fantasy. He uses a lot of action and battles to make statements against war. His characters find ways of dealing with problems and are very human. Mr. Cook is a different voice in the genre. Readers will find his books very different from the usual fare.
Friday, March 05, 2010
Interview with Victoria Strauss
Victoria Strauss is the author of six fantasy novels, including The Arm of the Stone, The Garden of the Stone and The Burning Land. She’s a regular book reviewer for the online journal SF Site, and her articles on writing have appeared in Writer’s Digest and elsewhere. She’s an active member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, where she serves as vice-Chair of the Writing Scams Committee and maintains the Writer Beware literary scams warning website (http://www.writerbeware.com). She welcomes visitors to her own website: http://www.victoriastrauss.com.
Debbie Ledesma: First of all, what led you to become a writer? Was it hard getting published?
Victoria Strauss: I wasn’t one of those people who always knew they’d be a writer. As a child and a teenager, I did do some writing, but not seriouslìy, and certainly not with an eye to a career, even though my mother is a published novelist.
My first novel happened more or less by accident. I wanted to take a
year off between high school and college to live abroad with my family; my
parents were willing to let me do it, but told me I’d have to come up with some sort of educational or creative project to keep me busy for the year.
I’d just taken an English class that required me to write several short stories, and I’d enjoyed it, so I thought: "Hey, why not try and write a
novel?" I wasn’t serious, or at least I didn’t think I was--I was mostly trying to placate my parents. I didn’t actually expect to finish it. But a few chapters in I was hooked, and by the time I was halfway through I’d decided that writing was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.
I began submitting the book to publishers (this was back in the 1970’s, when publishers were still willing to look at unagented manuscripts), and
then, totally by accident, got an offer of representation from a brand-new
agent. She diligently sent the manuscript around, but got no takers, and after a while stopped actively submitting. She never forgot about my book,
though, and whenever she thought there was someone who might be interested she sent it out. Eventually, she did get me an offer. I had to completely rewrite the book to make it publishable, which was an interesting lesson in swallowing my authorial pride. But I learned a huge amount from doing it. To this day, I’m grateful to the editor who bought it for taking a chance on a very unready writer, and for being so generous with her guidance and support.
DL: Why did you choose the Fantasy genre to write in?
VS: My favorite reading as a child was fantasy ‘ (especially Arthurian
fantasy--one of my all-time favorites is T. H. White’s The Sword in the
Stone), fairy tales, and historical novels. Perhaps not surprisingly, my
first novel was a historical with fantastic elements. After that, I gravitated toward fantasy--always with a historical bent (people tell me that my books read like historical novels about places that never were). Apart from the ability that fantasy gives me to explore interesting themes, I love the sense of wonder that rises from magic and adventure in imaginary worlds. It’s my goal to share that with readers--really, to write the kinds of books that I myself would like to read.
DL: What authors, Fantasy or otherwise, influence your writ óing?
VS: I’m a pretty eclectic reader. One of my favorite classic writers is Thomas Hardy, for his matchless ability with character and setting. I’m also a big mystery fan--favorites include Reginald Hill and Barbara Vine (a pen
name of Ruth Rendell, whose books under her own name I don’t like nearly as much, for some reason). Mainstream writers who’ve impressed me recently include Matthew Kneale and Ann Patchett; and I recommend Jeff Long’s The Descent to anyone who likes incredibly dark, atmospheric SF-themed thrillers.
Classic fantasy and SF favorites include Ann McCaffrey, Patricia McKillip,
Philip K. Dick, John Brunner, and Andre Norton ï. I admire John Crowley’s literary fantasy, and Tad Williams is one of the best pure storytellers around. There’s also a really exciting crop of up-and-coming writers who are re-thinking and energizing various subgenres of fantasy and SF: Jacqueline Carey, R. Scott Bakker, Ricardo Pinto, Roger Levy (a UK writer who deserves a much wider audience), Scott Westerfeld, and many others. One of the perks of being a book reviewer is that I get to see a lot of terrific new authors.
DL: Do you find it easier writing for adults or young adults?
VS: Both kinds of writing are equally challenging, in different ways.
You’re catering to different audiences, but ê the level of imagination and
commitment you bring to each kind of book is exactly the same.
My YA books are less complex, plotwise, than my adult books, though
that’s mostly a result of the length restrictions that applied to YA fiction
when I was writing it. Nowadays, post-Harry Potter, it’s okay for YA books to be pretty hefty, but that wasn’t always true. My YA books also are less
dark. This also has to do with the needs of the market when I was writing YA; in fact, one of the main reasons I switched to adult fiction was that I
wanted to be able to delve deeper into darker themes. Again, though, the YA market has changed quite a bit in the past decade or so, and books that deal with dark themes and disturbing subjects are far more acceptable than they once were.
DL: How is your new novel The Burning Land different from your previous books?
VS: My two previous adult novels (The Arm of the Stone and The Garden of the Stone) had an alternate-world setting--a world that split off from our own somewhere around the early medieval period--and a lot of the world building was based on a European medieval template. I wanted to do something different with my next book, so The Burning Land has a setting that’s more reminiscent of Asia or the Middle East.
I also did more extensive world building for this novel than I’ve done
for others, in part because I’d like to set a number of books in this world
(right now, the only one scheduled is a sequel). I research all my
books, but I did much more reading for The Burning Land, and spent more time building the setting (I do a lot of world building on the fly, as I’m writing, rather than in advance--but for this novel, with its complicated background of history and culture and religion, I knew from the start that I’d have to invest more time up front). There’s a feature on my website (http://www.victoriastrauss.com) that discusses the research process, and gives a glimpse of the kind of preparation I did.
The Burning Land also has a very different magic system. The Stone books featured a wide range of magical gifts, but in the world of The Burning Land there are only two: Dreaming, a kind of astral projection that allows the Dreamer’s mind to fly out across the world in sleep, and Shaping, the ability to manipulate and transmute matter. Shaping is a limited gift--a Shaper can’t, for instance, create anything living--and it’s also greatly feared, because of abuses in the ancient past. As a result, Shapers are required to vow themselves to the god Arata (who originally granted the gift of shaping to humankind) and to cripple their power with drugs.
The hero of The Burning Land is a Shaper priest, Gyalo, who’s sent into an unexplored desert (The Burning Land of the title) sacred to the sleeping god Arata, in search of a group of Ürefugees from a recently-ended cycle of religious persecution. It’s feared that some of these refugees may be Shapers, free of vows and drugs and therefore extremely dangerous. After many trials, Gyalo finds the refugees, some of whom are indeed free Shapers--but far more amazing is the secret they’ve discovered, which seems to indicate that the central prophecy of Gyalo’s faith has been fulfilled, an event that heralds the destruction and rebirth of the world. Gyalo’s appearance out of nowhere, which at first seems to fit the refugees’ heretical beliefs, later begins to contradict them, and he’s forced to flee, along with a Dreamer named Axane who has also defied her people’s faith. But the church leaders to whom Gyalo returns are as threatened by his discoveries as the refugees were by his arrival. In the crisis that follows, all beliefs come into question, and both Gyalo’s courage and h Ñis deepest-held convictions are tested to their limits.
DL: I’m always fascinated with Fantasy that has mythic themes. Do you use themes from mythology in your books?
VS: Yes, always--though they’re probably not immediately recognizable as real-world myths. My Stone duology is centered around a mysterious magical object called the Stone, which is based in part on legends of the Holy Grail (which in their original form were quite different from the Grail of the Arthurian story). The Burning Land features Arata, the sleeping god whose dreams continually shape and change the earth, and whose rising will restore the world to its original perfection--a theme embodied in a lot of different myths and legends from many different cultures and religious traditions. I also enjoy making up my own myths--there’s one at the very beginning of The Burning Land.
DL: How do you view Fantasy as a vehicle for social commentary?
VS: Fantasy is a terrific medium for a theme-driven writer like me (when
I’m planning a book, theme comes first; plot and character grow out of it).
Because you’re working with an imaginary world whose nature and
principles you control, you can build a setting that embodies the themes you want to explore, without any of the constraints or baggage of real-world history (though in order to resonate with readers, the setting does need to reflect the real world in some way). Or you can use mythic archetypes to address universal issues; or your imaginary world can skew or satirize some aspect of the real world or work as an allegory of it. On the other hand, if you aren’t interested in anything so abstract, you can simply go for pure entertainment, pure adventure. That’s one of the things I love most about fantasy, both as a reader and a writer: it’s infinitely flexible.
The Burning Land does address serious themes, including the corruption of power and the dangers of religious fundamentalism. These are themes that have always interested me--and, as it happens, are reflected by recent real-world events, both in this country and abroad, in ways I didn’t anticipate as I was writing the book.
DL: Movies are a different medium, but do you think any of your books
would make a good movie?
VS: Maybe I’m biased, but I think any of them would! I’m a very visual
writer--I see the scenes and settings in my books like a movie in my head as I’m writing, and though my books are mostly character-driven, they also
feature strong dramatic story arcs. If I had to choose one novel to turn into
film, I think it might be my YA novel Guardian of the Hills. It’s a coming of age story set during the Depression, in which the excavation of a series of mysterious hill-tombs wakes a powerful, malign spirit.
The current interest in films based on fantasy novels is interesting. A few
years ago, fantasy novels stood little chance of ever being optioned. But
fantasy is now perceived as a moneymaker, and with all the advances in
CGI and special effects it’s possible to bring imaginary worlds and powerful magics to life in a way it never was before. Hopefully the “Lord of the Rings” movies have raised the bar for filmed fantasy, and will make film sales more feasible for writers like me.
DL: Do you have any advice for aspiring writers?
VS: Read as widely as possible, and think critically about what you read.
Apart from actually writing, it’s the best way to learn your craft.
Educate yourself! This is tremendously important. There are a lot of scams
and pitfalls waiting for new writers (in my other life, I’m a member of the
Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America’s Writing Scams Committee, and run a website called Writer Beware, which warns about various kinds of literary scams) and your best defense is to know how the publishing industry wo ≥rks before you start submitting manuscripts. You also have a much better chance of success if you carefully research agents and publishers ahead of time to be sure they are legitimate and that your work is appropriate for them. Many writers seem to want to skip the research step--and I agree, it’s tedious. But apart from writing a good book or story, a firm understanding of the industry and solid research are the two things that will best serve your quest for publication.
Don’t believe the prevalent new writers’ myths: that established publishers
won’t take a risk on new talent, that established agents won’t work with new authors, that original voices have no chance because publishers are
only interested in cookie-cutter clones of successful books. There’s some
truth in these maxims, which makes them very convincing--but they are greatly exaggerated. If your work is marketable and you are smart about
submitting, your odds of pu blication are better than not.
Be persistent. This doesn’t just mean about submitting your work. Keep
writing--if your current book or story won’t sell, the next one might. Keep
researching--the market is always changing, and if you keep on top of
it you’ll improve your chances.
Finally...be realistic. Publications aimed at new writers encourage them to
believe that everyone has an equal chance, and it’s just a matter of trying
hard enough or mastering a few tricks of the trade. But this is misleading,
because every writer is not equal. Some are talented--but more are not.
Consistent rejection by the commercial market may be shortsighted and
unfair...or it may be justified. It’s important to have confidence in your
ability, but at some point, you may need to reassess.
DL: What books or stories are in your future?
VS: I’m currently working on a sequel to The Burning Land. As I mentioned, I’d like to do other books set in the same world--I have an idea for a prequel to The Burning Land, based on a historical incident that’s mentioned in the book, but it all depends on whether my publisher is interested. I’m also working on ideas for another young adult fantasy, or possibly a series.
Debbie Ledesma: First of all, what led you to become a writer? Was it hard getting published?
Victoria Strauss: I wasn’t one of those people who always knew they’d be a writer. As a child and a teenager, I did do some writing, but not seriouslìy, and certainly not with an eye to a career, even though my mother is a published novelist.
My first novel happened more or less by accident. I wanted to take a
year off between high school and college to live abroad with my family; my
parents were willing to let me do it, but told me I’d have to come up with some sort of educational or creative project to keep me busy for the year.
I’d just taken an English class that required me to write several short stories, and I’d enjoyed it, so I thought: "Hey, why not try and write a
novel?" I wasn’t serious, or at least I didn’t think I was--I was mostly trying to placate my parents. I didn’t actually expect to finish it. But a few chapters in I was hooked, and by the time I was halfway through I’d decided that writing was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.
I began submitting the book to publishers (this was back in the 1970’s, when publishers were still willing to look at unagented manuscripts), and
then, totally by accident, got an offer of representation from a brand-new
agent. She diligently sent the manuscript around, but got no takers, and after a while stopped actively submitting. She never forgot about my book,
though, and whenever she thought there was someone who might be interested she sent it out. Eventually, she did get me an offer. I had to completely rewrite the book to make it publishable, which was an interesting lesson in swallowing my authorial pride. But I learned a huge amount from doing it. To this day, I’m grateful to the editor who bought it for taking a chance on a very unready writer, and for being so generous with her guidance and support.
DL: Why did you choose the Fantasy genre to write in?
VS: My favorite reading as a child was fantasy ‘ (especially Arthurian
fantasy--one of my all-time favorites is T. H. White’s The Sword in the
Stone), fairy tales, and historical novels. Perhaps not surprisingly, my
first novel was a historical with fantastic elements. After that, I gravitated toward fantasy--always with a historical bent (people tell me that my books read like historical novels about places that never were). Apart from the ability that fantasy gives me to explore interesting themes, I love the sense of wonder that rises from magic and adventure in imaginary worlds. It’s my goal to share that with readers--really, to write the kinds of books that I myself would like to read.
DL: What authors, Fantasy or otherwise, influence your writ óing?
VS: I’m a pretty eclectic reader. One of my favorite classic writers is Thomas Hardy, for his matchless ability with character and setting. I’m also a big mystery fan--favorites include Reginald Hill and Barbara Vine (a pen
name of Ruth Rendell, whose books under her own name I don’t like nearly as much, for some reason). Mainstream writers who’ve impressed me recently include Matthew Kneale and Ann Patchett; and I recommend Jeff Long’s The Descent to anyone who likes incredibly dark, atmospheric SF-themed thrillers.
Classic fantasy and SF favorites include Ann McCaffrey, Patricia McKillip,
Philip K. Dick, John Brunner, and Andre Norton ï. I admire John Crowley’s literary fantasy, and Tad Williams is one of the best pure storytellers around. There’s also a really exciting crop of up-and-coming writers who are re-thinking and energizing various subgenres of fantasy and SF: Jacqueline Carey, R. Scott Bakker, Ricardo Pinto, Roger Levy (a UK writer who deserves a much wider audience), Scott Westerfeld, and many others. One of the perks of being a book reviewer is that I get to see a lot of terrific new authors.
DL: Do you find it easier writing for adults or young adults?
VS: Both kinds of writing are equally challenging, in different ways.
You’re catering to different audiences, but ê the level of imagination and
commitment you bring to each kind of book is exactly the same.
My YA books are less complex, plotwise, than my adult books, though
that’s mostly a result of the length restrictions that applied to YA fiction
when I was writing it. Nowadays, post-Harry Potter, it’s okay for YA books to be pretty hefty, but that wasn’t always true. My YA books also are less
dark. This also has to do with the needs of the market when I was writing YA; in fact, one of the main reasons I switched to adult fiction was that I
wanted to be able to delve deeper into darker themes. Again, though, the YA market has changed quite a bit in the past decade or so, and books that deal with dark themes and disturbing subjects are far more acceptable than they once were.
DL: How is your new novel The Burning Land different from your previous books?
VS: My two previous adult novels (The Arm of the Stone and The Garden of the Stone) had an alternate-world setting--a world that split off from our own somewhere around the early medieval period--and a lot of the world building was based on a European medieval template. I wanted to do something different with my next book, so The Burning Land has a setting that’s more reminiscent of Asia or the Middle East.
I also did more extensive world building for this novel than I’ve done
for others, in part because I’d like to set a number of books in this world
(right now, the only one scheduled is a sequel). I research all my
books, but I did much more reading for The Burning Land, and spent more time building the setting (I do a lot of world building on the fly, as I’m writing, rather than in advance--but for this novel, with its complicated background of history and culture and religion, I knew from the start that I’d have to invest more time up front). There’s a feature on my website (http://www.victoriastrauss.com) that discusses the research process, and gives a glimpse of the kind of preparation I did.
The Burning Land also has a very different magic system. The Stone books featured a wide range of magical gifts, but in the world of The Burning Land there are only two: Dreaming, a kind of astral projection that allows the Dreamer’s mind to fly out across the world in sleep, and Shaping, the ability to manipulate and transmute matter. Shaping is a limited gift--a Shaper can’t, for instance, create anything living--and it’s also greatly feared, because of abuses in the ancient past. As a result, Shapers are required to vow themselves to the god Arata (who originally granted the gift of shaping to humankind) and to cripple their power with drugs.
The hero of The Burning Land is a Shaper priest, Gyalo, who’s sent into an unexplored desert (The Burning Land of the title) sacred to the sleeping god Arata, in search of a group of Ürefugees from a recently-ended cycle of religious persecution. It’s feared that some of these refugees may be Shapers, free of vows and drugs and therefore extremely dangerous. After many trials, Gyalo finds the refugees, some of whom are indeed free Shapers--but far more amazing is the secret they’ve discovered, which seems to indicate that the central prophecy of Gyalo’s faith has been fulfilled, an event that heralds the destruction and rebirth of the world. Gyalo’s appearance out of nowhere, which at first seems to fit the refugees’ heretical beliefs, later begins to contradict them, and he’s forced to flee, along with a Dreamer named Axane who has also defied her people’s faith. But the church leaders to whom Gyalo returns are as threatened by his discoveries as the refugees were by his arrival. In the crisis that follows, all beliefs come into question, and both Gyalo’s courage and h Ñis deepest-held convictions are tested to their limits.
DL: I’m always fascinated with Fantasy that has mythic themes. Do you use themes from mythology in your books?
VS: Yes, always--though they’re probably not immediately recognizable as real-world myths. My Stone duology is centered around a mysterious magical object called the Stone, which is based in part on legends of the Holy Grail (which in their original form were quite different from the Grail of the Arthurian story). The Burning Land features Arata, the sleeping god whose dreams continually shape and change the earth, and whose rising will restore the world to its original perfection--a theme embodied in a lot of different myths and legends from many different cultures and religious traditions. I also enjoy making up my own myths--there’s one at the very beginning of The Burning Land.
DL: How do you view Fantasy as a vehicle for social commentary?
VS: Fantasy is a terrific medium for a theme-driven writer like me (when
I’m planning a book, theme comes first; plot and character grow out of it).
Because you’re working with an imaginary world whose nature and
principles you control, you can build a setting that embodies the themes you want to explore, without any of the constraints or baggage of real-world history (though in order to resonate with readers, the setting does need to reflect the real world in some way). Or you can use mythic archetypes to address universal issues; or your imaginary world can skew or satirize some aspect of the real world or work as an allegory of it. On the other hand, if you aren’t interested in anything so abstract, you can simply go for pure entertainment, pure adventure. That’s one of the things I love most about fantasy, both as a reader and a writer: it’s infinitely flexible.
The Burning Land does address serious themes, including the corruption of power and the dangers of religious fundamentalism. These are themes that have always interested me--and, as it happens, are reflected by recent real-world events, both in this country and abroad, in ways I didn’t anticipate as I was writing the book.
DL: Movies are a different medium, but do you think any of your books
would make a good movie?
VS: Maybe I’m biased, but I think any of them would! I’m a very visual
writer--I see the scenes and settings in my books like a movie in my head as I’m writing, and though my books are mostly character-driven, they also
feature strong dramatic story arcs. If I had to choose one novel to turn into
film, I think it might be my YA novel Guardian of the Hills. It’s a coming of age story set during the Depression, in which the excavation of a series of mysterious hill-tombs wakes a powerful, malign spirit.
The current interest in films based on fantasy novels is interesting. A few
years ago, fantasy novels stood little chance of ever being optioned. But
fantasy is now perceived as a moneymaker, and with all the advances in
CGI and special effects it’s possible to bring imaginary worlds and powerful magics to life in a way it never was before. Hopefully the “Lord of the Rings” movies have raised the bar for filmed fantasy, and will make film sales more feasible for writers like me.
DL: Do you have any advice for aspiring writers?
VS: Read as widely as possible, and think critically about what you read.
Apart from actually writing, it’s the best way to learn your craft.
Educate yourself! This is tremendously important. There are a lot of scams
and pitfalls waiting for new writers (in my other life, I’m a member of the
Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America’s Writing Scams Committee, and run a website called Writer Beware, which warns about various kinds of literary scams) and your best defense is to know how the publishing industry wo ≥rks before you start submitting manuscripts. You also have a much better chance of success if you carefully research agents and publishers ahead of time to be sure they are legitimate and that your work is appropriate for them. Many writers seem to want to skip the research step--and I agree, it’s tedious. But apart from writing a good book or story, a firm understanding of the industry and solid research are the two things that will best serve your quest for publication.
Don’t believe the prevalent new writers’ myths: that established publishers
won’t take a risk on new talent, that established agents won’t work with new authors, that original voices have no chance because publishers are
only interested in cookie-cutter clones of successful books. There’s some
truth in these maxims, which makes them very convincing--but they are greatly exaggerated. If your work is marketable and you are smart about
submitting, your odds of pu blication are better than not.
Be persistent. This doesn’t just mean about submitting your work. Keep
writing--if your current book or story won’t sell, the next one might. Keep
researching--the market is always changing, and if you keep on top of
it you’ll improve your chances.
Finally...be realistic. Publications aimed at new writers encourage them to
believe that everyone has an equal chance, and it’s just a matter of trying
hard enough or mastering a few tricks of the trade. But this is misleading,
because every writer is not equal. Some are talented--but more are not.
Consistent rejection by the commercial market may be shortsighted and
unfair...or it may be justified. It’s important to have confidence in your
ability, but at some point, you may need to reassess.
DL: What books or stories are in your future?
VS: I’m currently working on a sequel to The Burning Land. As I mentioned, I’d like to do other books set in the same world--I have an idea for a prequel to The Burning Land, based on a historical incident that’s mentioned in the book, but it all depends on whether my publisher is interested. I’m also working on ideas for another young adult fantasy, or possibly a series.
Friday, February 19, 2010
Humorous Fantasy
Humor is an important aspect of human existence. We all enjoy humor whether it is subtle, bringing a smile to our lips or makes us laugh hard. For authors, humor can be a tricky thing to write but some can master it. Several Fantasy authors write humorous books using the Fantasy genre as their playground. They bring us works that give us laughs through many books.
One of the masters of Humorous Fantasy is British author Terry Pratchett. ]He created the Fantasy world of “Discworld.” He uses satire to poke fun at all of the cliches in Fantasy as well as at our modern world. His characters of the wizard Rincewind, the witch Granny Weatherwax and many others bring Discworld to life and gives us many laughs. Mr. Pratchett has a keen talent for humor that extends over several books. The Color of Magic is the first of the series.
Another humorous author is Piers Anthony and his “Xanth” books. Xanth is a land of magic bordering on our world of Mundania. Everyone in Xanth is born with a magic talent. Those that aren’t get exiled to Mundania forever. A Spell for Chameleonis the first book in this long series. It tells the story of Bink and his quest to find a magic talent before he is exiled.These books are pun driven. The series is now over twenty-five books.
Humor is not limited to men writers. Esther Freisner writes some books and stories that are very funny. She has a subtle but wicked sense of humor. Her books range from in your face comedy to a mild undercurrent in some books. They cover a vast array of Fantasy sub-genres. Harlot’s Ruse and Elf Defense are just two books from her considerable talent and imagination.
Following in Pratchett’s footsteps, Tom Holt added his contribution to humorous Fantasy with several books. Expecting Someone Taller tells the story about a character named Malcolm. While driving his car one day, Malcolm hits a badger. The badger granted him two powers, making Malcolm king of the world. A lot of satirical humor ensues. Mr. Holt uses various mythologies to write Fantasies poking fun at society. His books are entertaining.
For slapstick humor, puns and a lot of fun, Fantasy author Robert Asprin fits the bill. He has written several humorous books, especially his “Myth” series. These books tell about Skeeve the magician’s apprentice and the demon Aahz as they stumble through many adventures. Another Fine Myth is the first of the series.
Humorous Fantasy has many books from talented authors to tickle our funny bones. The stories can be subtle, pun driven, slapstick, satire or many other styles of humor. These books are entertaining and can be a change from the usual serious Fantasy. Everyone can benefit from a good laugh. So, find a book and enjoy the laughter.
One of the masters of Humorous Fantasy is British author Terry Pratchett. ]He created the Fantasy world of “Discworld.” He uses satire to poke fun at all of the cliches in Fantasy as well as at our modern world. His characters of the wizard Rincewind, the witch Granny Weatherwax and many others bring Discworld to life and gives us many laughs. Mr. Pratchett has a keen talent for humor that extends over several books. The Color of Magic is the first of the series.
Another humorous author is Piers Anthony and his “Xanth” books. Xanth is a land of magic bordering on our world of Mundania. Everyone in Xanth is born with a magic talent. Those that aren’t get exiled to Mundania forever. A Spell for Chameleonis the first book in this long series. It tells the story of Bink and his quest to find a magic talent before he is exiled.These books are pun driven. The series is now over twenty-five books.
Humor is not limited to men writers. Esther Freisner writes some books and stories that are very funny. She has a subtle but wicked sense of humor. Her books range from in your face comedy to a mild undercurrent in some books. They cover a vast array of Fantasy sub-genres. Harlot’s Ruse and Elf Defense are just two books from her considerable talent and imagination.
Following in Pratchett’s footsteps, Tom Holt added his contribution to humorous Fantasy with several books. Expecting Someone Taller tells the story about a character named Malcolm. While driving his car one day, Malcolm hits a badger. The badger granted him two powers, making Malcolm king of the world. A lot of satirical humor ensues. Mr. Holt uses various mythologies to write Fantasies poking fun at society. His books are entertaining.
For slapstick humor, puns and a lot of fun, Fantasy author Robert Asprin fits the bill. He has written several humorous books, especially his “Myth” series. These books tell about Skeeve the magician’s apprentice and the demon Aahz as they stumble through many adventures. Another Fine Myth is the first of the series.
Humorous Fantasy has many books from talented authors to tickle our funny bones. The stories can be subtle, pun driven, slapstick, satire or many other styles of humor. These books are entertaining and can be a change from the usual serious Fantasy. Everyone can benefit from a good laugh. So, find a book and enjoy the laughter.
Saturday, February 06, 2010
Interview with Vera Nazarian
This interview appeared a few years ago, but still has a lot of information.
Vera Nazarian is a rising star of the Fantasy genre. Originally from Russia, she brings vivid new stories to Fantasy that readers can enjoy. A writer and artist among other other areas, she is a multi-talented woman. She creates intriguing worlds filled with interesting characters in both short stories and novels. Her two books are Dreams of the Compass Rose and Lords of Rainbow. She is also owner of her own publishing company Norilana Books (http://www.norilanabooks.com). More information can be found at her web site at: http://www.veranazarian.com . Ms. Nazarian tells more about herself in the interview:
Debbie Ledesma: What led you to become a writer? Was it hard getting published?
Vera Nazarian: Good question. I think I became one despite myself -- tricking myself into it, really.
When I was a little kid back in Moscow, Russia, I've always thought I would
become an artist or a folk dancer or an astronomer. In fact, if you'd asked me then about a life of solitary writing I would have said, "Oh how boring! Imagine, to sit at a desk all day and just write." I was forgetting that an artist also just stares at a piece of paper or canvas all day. It somehow never occurred to me to connect these two diverse creative modes.
However I've always been creative verbally, had a flair, my teachers said -- wrote great expository essays in elementary school, scribbled little poems, embraced all writing assignments. And all along I read voraciously -- first in Russian and then, after we left the USSR, in English, and even Spanish. At some point in the US, in junior high, seventh grade, inspired by our recent reading of Tolkien, Piers Anthony's Xanth and Terry Brooks’ The Sword of Shannara, a good friend started to write a fantasy novel. And I said to myself, "Hey, why don't I do that too?"
And so I started to write. And I wrote and wrote all through high school. At some point, sitting in the school library, during reading period, I looked up from my leopard print hardcover composition notebook where I was scribbling a derivative Tolkien epic full of purple prose in tiny handwriting and thought to myself, "Damn! I am a writer! How did that happen?"
In those days, I relished the sweet sense of keeping a unique secret in my
mind -- a wonderful magical universe that I could go to any time, any place, and no one had to know. It was my personal place, better than any I've read about in any other book. And when I wrote, I was in the process of pulling that personal universe out of nothing and into the cold reality of the greater world. The act of sharing with readers was at first too much of an intimate thing. But it evolved into an intense necessity to share.
As far as publication, I was supremely lucky that in my senior high school
year I came upon an issue of _Writers Digest_ with a market listing for Sword and Sorceress #2, edited by Marion Zimmer Bradley. Before, probably around 1982, I had sent out some occasional poems to vanity contests (knowing nothing about the facts of vanity publishing and actually paying one of such poetry anthologies to "feature" my poem). I also sent out humongous and terribly overwritten stories to places such as _IASFM_ and _F&SF_ and _Fantasy Book_, and started acquiring rejections, with my very first one being a personal and very kind scribbled note from Shawna McCarthy. But here, Marion Zimmer Bradley took apart my first submission to her, covered the manuscript in red ink revisions, and told me to try her again. I had never been so reeling with authorial joy as I had been that day, holding Marion's letter and seeing that ravaged manuscript -- finally, it meant that someone cared!
And so I sat down and wrote a short story in two weeks and submitted it to her. And Marion bought "Wound On The Moon" for S&S #2. My first sale and my first pro sale rolled into one.
(See it reprinted here: http://www.fictionwise.com/ebooks/eBook5882.htm)
Since then I've sold about fifteen more stories to MZB's various anthologies, and many other short pieces to other markets, not to mention
the two novels to the wonderful small press owned by John Gregory Betancourt, called Wildside Press. However I will never forget what Marion did for me by accepting that first story from a stupid enthusiastic kid.
Of course at that point I had no idea that the adventure was only beginning and that the struggle and the rejections were to pile before me, a typical young writer, in an implacable mountain. But I was on my way.
DL: What authors, Fantasy or otherwise, influence your writing?
VN: At first, I would say it was all the Greeks and the Russian classics like
Tolstoy, Goncharov, Dostoyevsky, Pushkin, and the international classics in Russian translation like Victor Hugo, George Sand, Charlotte Bronte, Sir Walter Scott, Mark Twain. Then came fluency in the English language and with it modern fantasists like Tanith Lee and genre icons like Marion
Zimmer Bradley, CJ Cherryh, Andre Norton, Gene Wolfe, Charles de Lint,
Michael Moorcock, Roger Zelazny.
If you ask me now, I think every single writer whose work I've read has had some influence upon me, and I continue to be influenced, subtly, by
everything I read, like a sponge. But then, what writers aren't? Being a
literary sponge is one of the prerequisites for this insanity.
DL: You've written short stories before your novels. Which length do you
prefer?
VN: I am a novelist at heart. Short stories are like individual jewel stones
on a necklace, wonderful in themselves like standalone gleaming entities of semantic intensity. And yes, they often burst to come out, and I certainly
enjoy it when they do. But the satisfaction of short fiction does not come
close to the rich pleasure I get as a writer in the long deep immersion in
the same long work and its growing complexity. I suppose you might say I love to wallow in my characters and imaginary worlds. I love to play with
the whole necklace, not just one glittering stone.
DL: Your book Dreams of the Compass Rose is set in a desert. What do you find fascinating about a desert setting?
VN: Well, right now I technically live in the desert -- Los Angeles being an
artificial oasis -- but my interest stems even farther to my own ethnic roots and to my love of antiquity, of the Old World and of the east.
I also find the desert a wonderful metaphor for desolation and yet the exact counterpart of the ocean with its hidden depths. Both are vast, harsh, implacable, homogenous to the untrained eye, and beautiful. Both
allow the wind to roam on the surface. And both serve as wonderful
vehicles for human survival stories.
A made-up proverb from Dreams of the Compass Rose says, "In the desert, the only god is a well." I love exploring the intensity of such juxtaposition, the dangerous edge. In the desert, water gives life, while in the ocean an island stands to give anchor. Opposites are desirable and necessary. Once again, you see the theme of taking away a precious element of the world or making it rare and precarious.
Also, the desert is an ideal illusion of a blank slate -- so much mystery in endless layers is hidden underneath its bright, pseudo-sterile surface.
What more can you ask from a fantasy setting?
DL: Who is your favorite character in your books?
VN: The answer to this question tends to change, depending on what book or story I am working on at the moment. I usually focus on the whole group of characters in any given work-in-progress, and as a result they become particularly dear to me as I delve into their innermost motivations and live out their lives.
However I must admit that I do have a particular soft spot for the character of the chameleon-trickster goddess Ris in Dreams of the Compass Rose. Ris has gone through the whole spectrum of personal change and has had the longest road of all. And in the end she chooses to come back to the world, to guide, and to help, and to open the eyes of those who are suffering. In that is her true strength and humorous wisdom. I really do like her a whole lot.
DL: What themes do you find most compelling to include in your writing?
VN: One of the things that I've noticed over the years is that I seem to be
fascinated as a writer with the notion that we already have all that we need.
It is right here, all of it, here for the taking, right before our eyes -- happiness, fulfillment, hope, peace, justice. And most of all, there is truth, ordinary and simple, just sitting there to be plucked, if only we get our lazy rear ends off the pillow of complacency. But first, we need to open our eyes to this banal fact. And for that we need a periodic bit of shakeup in the form of an infusion of wonder -- fantastic literature.
And a related recurring theme is the exploration of how we take for granted the things in our immediate environment that are common and ordinary. Existential blindness, of sorts.
Our world is so bursting-full of natural wonder that we are all experiencing a sensory overload. We are no longer perceiving all of Ú the details, just the ones that immediately interest us. Indeed we often engage the defense mechanism of tunnel vision, just to keep ourselves focused on our daily lives. This makes us terribly jaded in our perception of what is really around us.
And here is where I like to burst in as a writer, to take one strong sensory detail or image and instead of enhancing it or directing attention to it by shouting about it, I simply take it away.
For example, in Lords of Rainbow I start out by taking away color from the world, and in the process show color's vital place in our lives. At least I hope that by the end of the book it's a portion of what the reader comes away with -- a sense of how much color perception enriches our lives and how its lack can make our sensory experience incomplete. Even for the people who are color-blind to any degree, I believe their experience would also be affected if everyone else too only perceived the world in colorless monochrome.
In Dreams of the Compass Rose, there is the running theme of the loss of water in the desert, and its ultimate reclaiming.
In some of my other works I take away other elements of the world --
normalcy, sex drive, sense of time, memory, a loved one. Without some of
these basics, characters have no choice but to do something to reclaim
their lives.
Seems to me that there is no better way to experience the depth of loss
than after the fact. No more powerful instrument of imbuing value in an
object than parting with it.
And it is a quiet terrible thing, too, to discover the value of love this
way -- when the object of love is no longer there, when love dies or goes
away or changes. When it is too late.
My characters often start out with a loss of some sort, usually a loss of
emotion or purpose or hope. What I do in the course of my writing is weave a thematic arc of fulfillment. It is my constant theme as a creator. It
also hinges on expectations met and not met, and the act of genuine surprise. I love to fool my readers, but in a good way. If you've read any
of my work, there's a good chance that at some point I surprised you.
DL: Do you use any mythology sources for you writing?
VN: So glad you asked -- I was nurtured on Greek Mythology and the classical epics. I lived and breathed Homer. Other mythologies -- the Russian, the Norse, the Persian, the Indian, Egyptian, etc. -- all came later. First and foremost were the Greeks, and they were all living in my head as though I were Zeus and they were a clamoring Chorus of Athenas.
Everything I write now might have roots in such myths, often disguised,
often dissolved into new multi-ethnic myths of my own making. For example, when reviewing my novel Dreams of the Compass Rose for the _Magazine of F&SF_, master fantasist Charles de Lint called it "engaging and resonant, creating a new mythology that feels so right one might be forgiven for thinking that it's the cultural heritage of some forgotten country or people that have been lost to history." This of course I take as the highest compliment, since it was indeed my sincere intent.
DL: Your latest book, Lords of the Rainbow, is receiving some good reviews. Please tell me a little about the book. Where did you get the idea?
If you knew, you would laugh. The idea came to me about 18 years ago, the summer after my graduation from high school -- yes, this is how long it
took me to write this book. And yes, Lords of Rainbow was the first novel I actually completed.
I was watching TV, possibly Saturday morning cartoons, and saw, stuck
between cereal commercials, a silly commercial for a little kid's doll. There was something to do with the rainbow, some sugary sweet jingle, and the doll was so cutesy that she annoyed me immediately.
And in a weird moment it occurred to me -- what if someone took the
phenomenon of the rainbow and treated it not in this treacle-sweet, cutesy,
little-kid manner but with deadly seriousness? With high tragedy, even? What if I made the rainbow sad, beautiful, ideal, and what if I took it so
far that there was even a philosophy based on it?
And the book was born.
LORDS OF RAINBOW is subtitled the Book of Fulfillment. I admit there were residual influences of all the epic fantasy that has gone before -- but primarily Tolkien and Brooks -- in my kid imagination. I remember reading and liking and yet being dissatisfied on some level, and wanting to write an epic where women and love and emotional relationships were just as important as the world-scope element of wonder (in this case the colorless world). I also wanted to portray a warrior woman whose main personal strength was not brashness or pride or military prowess or even nobility of character -- but humility and simple quiet loyalty.
The book became very complex. In addition to all the character layers
there was also the mechanism of Rainbow, what it stood for, what it meant.
The colorless world itself became a character with personal trait Òs -- the
impotent gray sun, the surfaces that were distinguished only by textures
such as matte or metallic, the fall of night like an instant blackout upon
a gray environment. And superimposed upon this monochrome fabric was color -- an alien, pasted-on thing that could never blend.
In this world, the avatars that were the ancient demigods of each major
color also represented human qualities, almost like a bizarre Tarot system
of personality. I've even come up with a personality test to determine
which of the Tilirr, or Lords of Rainbow each one of us "serves."
(Take the Tilirr Quiz here: http://www.veranazarian.com/lorquiz.htm)
I have been accused by some of mixing fantasy and allegory, of making
something out of nothing when assigning personality traits to the colors
and to the avatar Lords of Rainbow. But my response to that is, not at
all. Having thought long and hard and listened to my instinct as to what
each color represents, on some organic primeval level I honestly believe i Òn the association of red (Werail) with passion and aggression, of orange
(Melixevven) with joy, of yellow (Dersenne) with inspiration and
enlightenment, of green (Fiadolmle) with growth and creativity, of blue (Koerdis) with intellect, and of violet (Laelith ) with love and the higher
senses and the final mystery. What remains is Andelas who represents white as the union of all colors, and Feale who represents black, the absence of all colors.
There is no notion of good and evil, only completion and lack, need and
fulfillment. I would like to underline that I have no intention of associating white with good and black with evil -- that is complete nonsense, as anyone would see if they read the book. My villains are simply alien to the rest of us. They intend no evil, only the perpetuation of their own existence. Without giving any more of the plot away, I'd like to say that my "Dark Lord" is not the typical epic fantasy villain at all but is an integral part of the whole thing.
In short, there is no allegory here, only an alien -- and yes, fantastic -- way of perceiving the elements of our world.
Also, my brand of fantasy is completely devoid of the traditional notions
of magic as ritual. Instead I see the fantastic as a meta-layer of existence beyond the real world.
No waving of enchanted wands but heightened perception. No magic objects, but a transformed and enhanced reality. No spells or chants, but the raw power of the human will to enact supernatural change upon the universal fabric. This is the kind of "magic" that fills Lords of Rainbow - elemental, organic, humanistic -- an extension of reality.
DL: What do you think is the important function of Fantasy literature?
VN: I think fantasy literature is the one true literature of hope and
imagination.
Now, some writers whom I respect very much, like China Miéville and some others of the New Weird, consider the true role of fantasy to be not
Tolkienesque consolation but subversion -- a kind of rebe Ûllion from
complacency. Yes, I can see what is meant here. And I also see the need
to change, to fix, to drastically improve the human lot.
However, I see no profound progress taking place when there is no hope, no inspiration, only drastic overthrow and rebellion. Before having a
revolution of thought there must be real ideals to aspire to, and they are
only to be found within.
These ideals are not new, bright, shiny things but old, hoary, deeply
ancient things. This goes back to my pet notion that we already have all
that we need, merely are oblivious to it. Fantasy plunders the well of our
deepest selves for existent truth instead of creating new truths out of the
illusory fabric of recent events or the flow of society.
Fantasy is not the literature of subversion of the status quo but of
_awakening to_ the status quo.
The difference is in the attitude, in the subtle delicacy of approach.
And consolation has been wrongly reviled. Consolation is not apathy or
inaction. It is not closing one's eyes to the evils of the world. Rather,
consolation is the first step in regaining personal equilibrium and
strength, which necessarily precedes the ability to act.
Thus, true long-term change is brought about not by destructive passion of
the moment but by well-reasoned constructive action. Violent shock of
Armageddon that leaves nothing in its wake but a blank slate is not a
solution, only a postponement of progress. We don't need fantasy to mess with our minds to the point of rendering us insane -- real life horrors do that already.
What we need in fantasy is the sudden balm of clarity -- a temporary
reprieve from life's white noise and clamor of pain, a kind of time-out.
Such clarity, a new perspective, is made possible by fantastic metaphor.
Clad in metaphor, the world becomes newborn to our senses, like a phoenix. It is the most effective fresh presentation of the elements of our life for our jaded, numbed, even ailing sense of imagination.
Why? Because without such a reprieve we cannot pause and regroup and with the newfound strength go on to initiate that very change which is sorely needed by all.
Fantasy, at its best, is balm for the soul. But it is faulty logic to assume that balm is necessarily mind-numbing anesthesia. True balm takes away the painful irritation of life and simply heals, allowing one to begin anew. And that is what fantasy can do for us.
DL: What are you working on for the future?
A number of projects, actually, mostly novel-length. I have just completed
and turned in a far future SF or science fantasy novella titled "The Clock
King And The Queen Of The Hourglass" to the British specialty publisher PS Publishing, to appear in a signed limited edition of 700-800 copies in late 2004 or early 2005.
And now I am at work on a dark fantasy alternate-historical novel riffing
off the Persephone myth. It is called Cobweb Bride and the premise is that death, in the corporeal form of a grim 17th century Spaniard, comes to the world demanding a bride. Until a willing bride comes to him, says death, there will be no more relief and all acts of dying will cease in the world. As a result, the ill and the old and the mortally wounded are fixed in the same moment of agony without merciful release of oblivion. They are not able to pass on and therefore mount a search for the Cobweb Bride. Meanwhile, others who do not want to die ever see this as a selfish opportunity, and struggle to prevent the first group and make sure that no Cobweb Bride ever reaches death. This is very much an novel of ethical choices and sacrifice, and the protagonist, Percy (Persephone), an ordinary plain village peasant girl whose grandmother lies on her deathbed without release, ends up in the middle of this struggle.
This book is yet unsold, and will be marketed traditionally to the usual
publishers.
I also have a trio of other novel projects, but they are next in the pipeline after this one. One is a "kickass romance" aimed at a category fantasy-romance line, called Margot Phoenix Rising, about a female
superhero. Another project concerns the adventures of my character Ruricca NoOnesDaughter, and will likely be a medieval fantasy trilogy. The other, called Pantheon, will probably be an SF trilogy. Goodness knows, this should occupy me for the next 5 years at least. Beyond that, I am sure that inspiration will strike multiple times -- it always does.
DL: Do you have advice for aspiring writers?
VN: My advice for aspiring writers is threefold.
First, read as much as possible, both within and outside the genre you are
working in. By reading you hone your internal ear for style.
Second, write. Everything comes down to it; unless you write, you are not
a writer. This is the necessary applied practice of your skill, just as you would practice to perfect your skills in any other field such as sports or music or baking cookies or scrubbing the bathtub.
Third, submit your work. But -- stop chasing every seductive new market
out there, and stop trying to write for the tastes of specific established professional markets and editors. That way lies mediocrity and eventual
dissolution of your true voice, no matter how embryonic or pronounced it
may be now. The only way to help your unique literary voice grow and
eventually sing like a glorious creature of wonder is to write what you
excites you into a creative passion and brings you pure unadulterated joy.
All else is ephemeral nonsense (of course there are exceptions such as
being pressed for money here and now, but they are not long-term). Don't
believe me? Just try it and see.
Oh yeah, there is one more piece of advice. If you really believe in your
writing, then never give up. Good luck on your journey, friend.
DL: Thank you very much for your time Ms. Nazarian.
Vera Nazarian is a rising star of the Fantasy genre. Originally from Russia, she brings vivid new stories to Fantasy that readers can enjoy. A writer and artist among other other areas, she is a multi-talented woman. She creates intriguing worlds filled with interesting characters in both short stories and novels. Her two books are Dreams of the Compass Rose and Lords of Rainbow. She is also owner of her own publishing company Norilana Books (http://www.norilanabooks.com). More information can be found at her web site at: http://www.veranazarian.com . Ms. Nazarian tells more about herself in the interview:
Debbie Ledesma: What led you to become a writer? Was it hard getting published?
Vera Nazarian: Good question. I think I became one despite myself -- tricking myself into it, really.
When I was a little kid back in Moscow, Russia, I've always thought I would
become an artist or a folk dancer or an astronomer. In fact, if you'd asked me then about a life of solitary writing I would have said, "Oh how boring! Imagine, to sit at a desk all day and just write." I was forgetting that an artist also just stares at a piece of paper or canvas all day. It somehow never occurred to me to connect these two diverse creative modes.
However I've always been creative verbally, had a flair, my teachers said -- wrote great expository essays in elementary school, scribbled little poems, embraced all writing assignments. And all along I read voraciously -- first in Russian and then, after we left the USSR, in English, and even Spanish. At some point in the US, in junior high, seventh grade, inspired by our recent reading of Tolkien, Piers Anthony's Xanth and Terry Brooks’ The Sword of Shannara, a good friend started to write a fantasy novel. And I said to myself, "Hey, why don't I do that too?"
And so I started to write. And I wrote and wrote all through high school. At some point, sitting in the school library, during reading period, I looked up from my leopard print hardcover composition notebook where I was scribbling a derivative Tolkien epic full of purple prose in tiny handwriting and thought to myself, "Damn! I am a writer! How did that happen?"
In those days, I relished the sweet sense of keeping a unique secret in my
mind -- a wonderful magical universe that I could go to any time, any place, and no one had to know. It was my personal place, better than any I've read about in any other book. And when I wrote, I was in the process of pulling that personal universe out of nothing and into the cold reality of the greater world. The act of sharing with readers was at first too much of an intimate thing. But it evolved into an intense necessity to share.
As far as publication, I was supremely lucky that in my senior high school
year I came upon an issue of _Writers Digest_ with a market listing for Sword and Sorceress #2, edited by Marion Zimmer Bradley. Before, probably around 1982, I had sent out some occasional poems to vanity contests (knowing nothing about the facts of vanity publishing and actually paying one of such poetry anthologies to "feature" my poem). I also sent out humongous and terribly overwritten stories to places such as _IASFM_ and _F&SF_ and _Fantasy Book_, and started acquiring rejections, with my very first one being a personal and very kind scribbled note from Shawna McCarthy. But here, Marion Zimmer Bradley took apart my first submission to her, covered the manuscript in red ink revisions, and told me to try her again. I had never been so reeling with authorial joy as I had been that day, holding Marion's letter and seeing that ravaged manuscript -- finally, it meant that someone cared!
And so I sat down and wrote a short story in two weeks and submitted it to her. And Marion bought "Wound On The Moon" for S&S #2. My first sale and my first pro sale rolled into one.
(See it reprinted here: http://www.fictionwise.com/ebooks/eBook5882.htm)
Since then I've sold about fifteen more stories to MZB's various anthologies, and many other short pieces to other markets, not to mention
the two novels to the wonderful small press owned by John Gregory Betancourt, called Wildside Press. However I will never forget what Marion did for me by accepting that first story from a stupid enthusiastic kid.
Of course at that point I had no idea that the adventure was only beginning and that the struggle and the rejections were to pile before me, a typical young writer, in an implacable mountain. But I was on my way.
DL: What authors, Fantasy or otherwise, influence your writing?
VN: At first, I would say it was all the Greeks and the Russian classics like
Tolstoy, Goncharov, Dostoyevsky, Pushkin, and the international classics in Russian translation like Victor Hugo, George Sand, Charlotte Bronte, Sir Walter Scott, Mark Twain. Then came fluency in the English language and with it modern fantasists like Tanith Lee and genre icons like Marion
Zimmer Bradley, CJ Cherryh, Andre Norton, Gene Wolfe, Charles de Lint,
Michael Moorcock, Roger Zelazny.
If you ask me now, I think every single writer whose work I've read has had some influence upon me, and I continue to be influenced, subtly, by
everything I read, like a sponge. But then, what writers aren't? Being a
literary sponge is one of the prerequisites for this insanity.
DL: You've written short stories before your novels. Which length do you
prefer?
VN: I am a novelist at heart. Short stories are like individual jewel stones
on a necklace, wonderful in themselves like standalone gleaming entities of semantic intensity. And yes, they often burst to come out, and I certainly
enjoy it when they do. But the satisfaction of short fiction does not come
close to the rich pleasure I get as a writer in the long deep immersion in
the same long work and its growing complexity. I suppose you might say I love to wallow in my characters and imaginary worlds. I love to play with
the whole necklace, not just one glittering stone.
DL: Your book Dreams of the Compass Rose is set in a desert. What do you find fascinating about a desert setting?
VN: Well, right now I technically live in the desert -- Los Angeles being an
artificial oasis -- but my interest stems even farther to my own ethnic roots and to my love of antiquity, of the Old World and of the east.
I also find the desert a wonderful metaphor for desolation and yet the exact counterpart of the ocean with its hidden depths. Both are vast, harsh, implacable, homogenous to the untrained eye, and beautiful. Both
allow the wind to roam on the surface. And both serve as wonderful
vehicles for human survival stories.
A made-up proverb from Dreams of the Compass Rose says, "In the desert, the only god is a well." I love exploring the intensity of such juxtaposition, the dangerous edge. In the desert, water gives life, while in the ocean an island stands to give anchor. Opposites are desirable and necessary. Once again, you see the theme of taking away a precious element of the world or making it rare and precarious.
Also, the desert is an ideal illusion of a blank slate -- so much mystery in endless layers is hidden underneath its bright, pseudo-sterile surface.
What more can you ask from a fantasy setting?
DL: Who is your favorite character in your books?
VN: The answer to this question tends to change, depending on what book or story I am working on at the moment. I usually focus on the whole group of characters in any given work-in-progress, and as a result they become particularly dear to me as I delve into their innermost motivations and live out their lives.
However I must admit that I do have a particular soft spot for the character of the chameleon-trickster goddess Ris in Dreams of the Compass Rose. Ris has gone through the whole spectrum of personal change and has had the longest road of all. And in the end she chooses to come back to the world, to guide, and to help, and to open the eyes of those who are suffering. In that is her true strength and humorous wisdom. I really do like her a whole lot.
DL: What themes do you find most compelling to include in your writing?
VN: One of the things that I've noticed over the years is that I seem to be
fascinated as a writer with the notion that we already have all that we need.
It is right here, all of it, here for the taking, right before our eyes -- happiness, fulfillment, hope, peace, justice. And most of all, there is truth, ordinary and simple, just sitting there to be plucked, if only we get our lazy rear ends off the pillow of complacency. But first, we need to open our eyes to this banal fact. And for that we need a periodic bit of shakeup in the form of an infusion of wonder -- fantastic literature.
And a related recurring theme is the exploration of how we take for granted the things in our immediate environment that are common and ordinary. Existential blindness, of sorts.
Our world is so bursting-full of natural wonder that we are all experiencing a sensory overload. We are no longer perceiving all of Ú the details, just the ones that immediately interest us. Indeed we often engage the defense mechanism of tunnel vision, just to keep ourselves focused on our daily lives. This makes us terribly jaded in our perception of what is really around us.
And here is where I like to burst in as a writer, to take one strong sensory detail or image and instead of enhancing it or directing attention to it by shouting about it, I simply take it away.
For example, in Lords of Rainbow I start out by taking away color from the world, and in the process show color's vital place in our lives. At least I hope that by the end of the book it's a portion of what the reader comes away with -- a sense of how much color perception enriches our lives and how its lack can make our sensory experience incomplete. Even for the people who are color-blind to any degree, I believe their experience would also be affected if everyone else too only perceived the world in colorless monochrome.
In Dreams of the Compass Rose, there is the running theme of the loss of water in the desert, and its ultimate reclaiming.
In some of my other works I take away other elements of the world --
normalcy, sex drive, sense of time, memory, a loved one. Without some of
these basics, characters have no choice but to do something to reclaim
their lives.
Seems to me that there is no better way to experience the depth of loss
than after the fact. No more powerful instrument of imbuing value in an
object than parting with it.
And it is a quiet terrible thing, too, to discover the value of love this
way -- when the object of love is no longer there, when love dies or goes
away or changes. When it is too late.
My characters often start out with a loss of some sort, usually a loss of
emotion or purpose or hope. What I do in the course of my writing is weave a thematic arc of fulfillment. It is my constant theme as a creator. It
also hinges on expectations met and not met, and the act of genuine surprise. I love to fool my readers, but in a good way. If you've read any
of my work, there's a good chance that at some point I surprised you.
DL: Do you use any mythology sources for you writing?
VN: So glad you asked -- I was nurtured on Greek Mythology and the classical epics. I lived and breathed Homer. Other mythologies -- the Russian, the Norse, the Persian, the Indian, Egyptian, etc. -- all came later. First and foremost were the Greeks, and they were all living in my head as though I were Zeus and they were a clamoring Chorus of Athenas.
Everything I write now might have roots in such myths, often disguised,
often dissolved into new multi-ethnic myths of my own making. For example, when reviewing my novel Dreams of the Compass Rose for the _Magazine of F&SF_, master fantasist Charles de Lint called it "engaging and resonant, creating a new mythology that feels so right one might be forgiven for thinking that it's the cultural heritage of some forgotten country or people that have been lost to history." This of course I take as the highest compliment, since it was indeed my sincere intent.
DL: Your latest book, Lords of the Rainbow, is receiving some good reviews. Please tell me a little about the book. Where did you get the idea?
If you knew, you would laugh. The idea came to me about 18 years ago, the summer after my graduation from high school -- yes, this is how long it
took me to write this book. And yes, Lords of Rainbow was the first novel I actually completed.
I was watching TV, possibly Saturday morning cartoons, and saw, stuck
between cereal commercials, a silly commercial for a little kid's doll. There was something to do with the rainbow, some sugary sweet jingle, and the doll was so cutesy that she annoyed me immediately.
And in a weird moment it occurred to me -- what if someone took the
phenomenon of the rainbow and treated it not in this treacle-sweet, cutesy,
little-kid manner but with deadly seriousness? With high tragedy, even? What if I made the rainbow sad, beautiful, ideal, and what if I took it so
far that there was even a philosophy based on it?
And the book was born.
LORDS OF RAINBOW is subtitled the Book of Fulfillment. I admit there were residual influences of all the epic fantasy that has gone before -- but primarily Tolkien and Brooks -- in my kid imagination. I remember reading and liking and yet being dissatisfied on some level, and wanting to write an epic where women and love and emotional relationships were just as important as the world-scope element of wonder (in this case the colorless world). I also wanted to portray a warrior woman whose main personal strength was not brashness or pride or military prowess or even nobility of character -- but humility and simple quiet loyalty.
The book became very complex. In addition to all the character layers
there was also the mechanism of Rainbow, what it stood for, what it meant.
The colorless world itself became a character with personal trait Òs -- the
impotent gray sun, the surfaces that were distinguished only by textures
such as matte or metallic, the fall of night like an instant blackout upon
a gray environment. And superimposed upon this monochrome fabric was color -- an alien, pasted-on thing that could never blend.
In this world, the avatars that were the ancient demigods of each major
color also represented human qualities, almost like a bizarre Tarot system
of personality. I've even come up with a personality test to determine
which of the Tilirr, or Lords of Rainbow each one of us "serves."
(Take the Tilirr Quiz here: http://www.veranazarian.com/lorquiz.htm)
I have been accused by some of mixing fantasy and allegory, of making
something out of nothing when assigning personality traits to the colors
and to the avatar Lords of Rainbow. But my response to that is, not at
all. Having thought long and hard and listened to my instinct as to what
each color represents, on some organic primeval level I honestly believe i Òn the association of red (Werail) with passion and aggression, of orange
(Melixevven) with joy, of yellow (Dersenne) with inspiration and
enlightenment, of green (Fiadolmle) with growth and creativity, of blue (Koerdis) with intellect, and of violet (Laelith ) with love and the higher
senses and the final mystery. What remains is Andelas who represents white as the union of all colors, and Feale who represents black, the absence of all colors.
There is no notion of good and evil, only completion and lack, need and
fulfillment. I would like to underline that I have no intention of associating white with good and black with evil -- that is complete nonsense, as anyone would see if they read the book. My villains are simply alien to the rest of us. They intend no evil, only the perpetuation of their own existence. Without giving any more of the plot away, I'd like to say that my "Dark Lord" is not the typical epic fantasy villain at all but is an integral part of the whole thing.
In short, there is no allegory here, only an alien -- and yes, fantastic -- way of perceiving the elements of our world.
Also, my brand of fantasy is completely devoid of the traditional notions
of magic as ritual. Instead I see the fantastic as a meta-layer of existence beyond the real world.
No waving of enchanted wands but heightened perception. No magic objects, but a transformed and enhanced reality. No spells or chants, but the raw power of the human will to enact supernatural change upon the universal fabric. This is the kind of "magic" that fills Lords of Rainbow - elemental, organic, humanistic -- an extension of reality.
DL: What do you think is the important function of Fantasy literature?
VN: I think fantasy literature is the one true literature of hope and
imagination.
Now, some writers whom I respect very much, like China Miéville and some others of the New Weird, consider the true role of fantasy to be not
Tolkienesque consolation but subversion -- a kind of rebe Ûllion from
complacency. Yes, I can see what is meant here. And I also see the need
to change, to fix, to drastically improve the human lot.
However, I see no profound progress taking place when there is no hope, no inspiration, only drastic overthrow and rebellion. Before having a
revolution of thought there must be real ideals to aspire to, and they are
only to be found within.
These ideals are not new, bright, shiny things but old, hoary, deeply
ancient things. This goes back to my pet notion that we already have all
that we need, merely are oblivious to it. Fantasy plunders the well of our
deepest selves for existent truth instead of creating new truths out of the
illusory fabric of recent events or the flow of society.
Fantasy is not the literature of subversion of the status quo but of
_awakening to_ the status quo.
The difference is in the attitude, in the subtle delicacy of approach.
And consolation has been wrongly reviled. Consolation is not apathy or
inaction. It is not closing one's eyes to the evils of the world. Rather,
consolation is the first step in regaining personal equilibrium and
strength, which necessarily precedes the ability to act.
Thus, true long-term change is brought about not by destructive passion of
the moment but by well-reasoned constructive action. Violent shock of
Armageddon that leaves nothing in its wake but a blank slate is not a
solution, only a postponement of progress. We don't need fantasy to mess with our minds to the point of rendering us insane -- real life horrors do that already.
What we need in fantasy is the sudden balm of clarity -- a temporary
reprieve from life's white noise and clamor of pain, a kind of time-out.
Such clarity, a new perspective, is made possible by fantastic metaphor.
Clad in metaphor, the world becomes newborn to our senses, like a phoenix. It is the most effective fresh presentation of the elements of our life for our jaded, numbed, even ailing sense of imagination.
Why? Because without such a reprieve we cannot pause and regroup and with the newfound strength go on to initiate that very change which is sorely needed by all.
Fantasy, at its best, is balm for the soul. But it is faulty logic to assume that balm is necessarily mind-numbing anesthesia. True balm takes away the painful irritation of life and simply heals, allowing one to begin anew. And that is what fantasy can do for us.
DL: What are you working on for the future?
A number of projects, actually, mostly novel-length. I have just completed
and turned in a far future SF or science fantasy novella titled "The Clock
King And The Queen Of The Hourglass" to the British specialty publisher PS Publishing, to appear in a signed limited edition of 700-800 copies in late 2004 or early 2005.
And now I am at work on a dark fantasy alternate-historical novel riffing
off the Persephone myth. It is called Cobweb Bride and the premise is that death, in the corporeal form of a grim 17th century Spaniard, comes to the world demanding a bride. Until a willing bride comes to him, says death, there will be no more relief and all acts of dying will cease in the world. As a result, the ill and the old and the mortally wounded are fixed in the same moment of agony without merciful release of oblivion. They are not able to pass on and therefore mount a search for the Cobweb Bride. Meanwhile, others who do not want to die ever see this as a selfish opportunity, and struggle to prevent the first group and make sure that no Cobweb Bride ever reaches death. This is very much an novel of ethical choices and sacrifice, and the protagonist, Percy (Persephone), an ordinary plain village peasant girl whose grandmother lies on her deathbed without release, ends up in the middle of this struggle.
This book is yet unsold, and will be marketed traditionally to the usual
publishers.
I also have a trio of other novel projects, but they are next in the pipeline after this one. One is a "kickass romance" aimed at a category fantasy-romance line, called Margot Phoenix Rising, about a female
superhero. Another project concerns the adventures of my character Ruricca NoOnesDaughter, and will likely be a medieval fantasy trilogy. The other, called Pantheon, will probably be an SF trilogy. Goodness knows, this should occupy me for the next 5 years at least. Beyond that, I am sure that inspiration will strike multiple times -- it always does.
DL: Do you have advice for aspiring writers?
VN: My advice for aspiring writers is threefold.
First, read as much as possible, both within and outside the genre you are
working in. By reading you hone your internal ear for style.
Second, write. Everything comes down to it; unless you write, you are not
a writer. This is the necessary applied practice of your skill, just as you would practice to perfect your skills in any other field such as sports or music or baking cookies or scrubbing the bathtub.
Third, submit your work. But -- stop chasing every seductive new market
out there, and stop trying to write for the tastes of specific established professional markets and editors. That way lies mediocrity and eventual
dissolution of your true voice, no matter how embryonic or pronounced it
may be now. The only way to help your unique literary voice grow and
eventually sing like a glorious creature of wonder is to write what you
excites you into a creative passion and brings you pure unadulterated joy.
All else is ephemeral nonsense (of course there are exceptions such as
being pressed for money here and now, but they are not long-term). Don't
believe me? Just try it and see.
Oh yeah, there is one more piece of advice. If you really believe in your
writing, then never give up. Good luck on your journey, friend.
DL: Thank you very much for your time Ms. Nazarian.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Magic Realism
An angel walks into your local grocery story with shiny wings and a glowing halo. Everyone accepts this as a natural occurrence and doesn’t bat an eye. This is a simplistic example of the Fantasy sub-genre of Magic Realism. It is a growing part of Fantasy that hovers on the edge of classic literary works and mainstream fiction. Books in this sub-genre can be difficult reading, but are rich in description and can be very rewarding.
Magical Realism is a Latin-American influenced sub-genre. It consists of stories where the lines of reality and fantasy are blurred. Fantasy elements are matter-of-fact in the real world. The books usually include an examination of the character of human existence and some kind of criticism of society. The Latin-American contribution is felt by some experts to be a way for authors to deal with two separate realities. Many fine authors have been a part of this sub-genre, contributing intriguing books that provoke a lot of thinking.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez is one of th ˇe prominent authors of Magic Realism. His book, One Hundred Years of Solitude, tells the story of the Buendia family in the village of Macondo. It is a vivid story with memorable characters in a realistic setting. Fantasy elements are subtle and give a powerful addition to the story. The poignant scene of a ghost searching the house for water to wash the wound he died from is powerful, especially when the wife puts containers of water all over the house. This is one of many moving scenes in this great book.
Isabel Allende is a writer of powerful Magical Realism too. Her books are full of astonishing images and interesting characters. For example, House of Spirits is the story of three generations of the Trueba family in a fictional Chile. One of the characters has supernatural abilities. The powerful themes and fantastic elements blend with realistic characters to become an excellent book to read.
Ben Okri is an author from Africa and has contributed to Magic Realism. The Famished Road is the story of * the spirit child. He breaks his promise to return to the spirit world after being born as a human, becoming fascinated by his family and refusing to return to the spirit world. His fellow spirits torment him as he lives through an impoverished life in Africa. Mr. Okri brings Africa to life with complex characters and vivid images. His works depict the struggle for Africans to overcome the chaos in their countries.
For those interested in the topic of Magic Realism in more detail, there is Magic Realism: Theory, History, Community edited by Lois Parkinson Zamora and Wendy B. Faris. It contains in depth essays on the history of the sub-genre. The essays talk about how Magic Realism has become a part of world literature instead of w just a Latin American phenomenon.
“Chocolat” is a movie based on the book by Joanne Harris of the same name. It’s the story of a woman and her daughter that come to a French town. She opens a chocolate shop to sell her special chocolate candies that help people. A group of the more conservative town’s people want to get rid of her because they think she is a witch. This magical movie was nominated and won several Academy Awards.
Magic Realism is a sub-genre of Fantasy increasingly being explored by many authors. Once primarily a part of Latin American literature, it has found its way into the literature of many other cultures around the world. Works in this sub-genre are powerful literary stories with realistic characters and fantastic elements. Other writers in this sub-genre are: Alejo Carpentier, Jorge Amado, Jorge Luis Borges, Julio Cortazar, Maria Luisa Bombal,
Magical Realism is a Latin-American influenced sub-genre. It consists of stories where the lines of reality and fantasy are blurred. Fantasy elements are matter-of-fact in the real world. The books usually include an examination of the character of human existence and some kind of criticism of society. The Latin-American contribution is felt by some experts to be a way for authors to deal with two separate realities. Many fine authors have been a part of this sub-genre, contributing intriguing books that provoke a lot of thinking.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez is one of th ˇe prominent authors of Magic Realism. His book, One Hundred Years of Solitude, tells the story of the Buendia family in the village of Macondo. It is a vivid story with memorable characters in a realistic setting. Fantasy elements are subtle and give a powerful addition to the story. The poignant scene of a ghost searching the house for water to wash the wound he died from is powerful, especially when the wife puts containers of water all over the house. This is one of many moving scenes in this great book.
Isabel Allende is a writer of powerful Magical Realism too. Her books are full of astonishing images and interesting characters. For example, House of Spirits is the story of three generations of the Trueba family in a fictional Chile. One of the characters has supernatural abilities. The powerful themes and fantastic elements blend with realistic characters to become an excellent book to read.
Ben Okri is an author from Africa and has contributed to Magic Realism. The Famished Road is the story of * the spirit child. He breaks his promise to return to the spirit world after being born as a human, becoming fascinated by his family and refusing to return to the spirit world. His fellow spirits torment him as he lives through an impoverished life in Africa. Mr. Okri brings Africa to life with complex characters and vivid images. His works depict the struggle for Africans to overcome the chaos in their countries.
For those interested in the topic of Magic Realism in more detail, there is Magic Realism: Theory, History, Community edited by Lois Parkinson Zamora and Wendy B. Faris. It contains in depth essays on the history of the sub-genre. The essays talk about how Magic Realism has become a part of world literature instead of w just a Latin American phenomenon.
“Chocolat” is a movie based on the book by Joanne Harris of the same name. It’s the story of a woman and her daughter that come to a French town. She opens a chocolate shop to sell her special chocolate candies that help people. A group of the more conservative town’s people want to get rid of her because they think she is a witch. This magical movie was nominated and won several Academy Awards.
Magic Realism is a sub-genre of Fantasy increasingly being explored by many authors. Once primarily a part of Latin American literature, it has found its way into the literature of many other cultures around the world. Works in this sub-genre are powerful literary stories with realistic characters and fantastic elements. Other writers in this sub-genre are: Alejo Carpentier, Jorge Amado, Jorge Luis Borges, Julio Cortazar, Maria Luisa Bombal,
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