The Year in Blog

Overall, the blog approaches half a million hits. 

September was the biggest month although October 18 was the biggest day. 

The top 3 posts for the year (interesting that Waldrop was voted as World Fantasy grandmaster--more of a correlation, probably, with perhaps similar a cause).

1. "Night of the Cooters" by Howard Waldrop
2. "King of the Beasts" by Philip José Farmer (reassessed--one comment asked for more information, esp theme, so here it is)
3. "Fair Game" by Howard Waldrop (this needs some reassessing--after rereading and watching the Hemingway bio)
    
    
   Top 3 posts for new stories:
   
   
   
   
   "A Prize in Every Box" by F. J. Bergmann
   A Word That Means Everything by Andy Dibble
   Cat Rambo's "Crazy Beautiful" in F&SF Feb 2021 
   

 

The Art of J. R. R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings--Fellowship of the Ring: The Title

 

I'd always thought of Sauron as the title's "Lord of the Rings" and thought of Frodo's band as the fellowship of the first book's title. 

While both can exist, they necessarily contrast. One convenes for good, while the other for bad.

Yet couldn't someone else be the lord of the ring(s)? Who is the lord? And what kind of ring are we talking about? There are many types of rings here. All could apply--not just physical metal bands, but also a group of creatures who band together. 

Who rules? The one who holds the ring? The one who destroys it? Or the ring itself? Does not the metal band also lord over rings of men?

Meanwhile, could there not also be other fellowships apart from Frodo's? Sauron's, too, with vastly different designs. Gollum also has a fellowship, albeit a rather small one that temporarily expands only to collapse again. Surely, we are meant to compare and contrast them all.

- - -

Related posts:

The Art of J. R. R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings--the proem

Fellowship of the Ring, Ch 1 "A Long-Expected Party", part one (age, WWI)

Fellowship of the Ring, Ch 1 "A Long-Expected Party", part two 

Fellowship of the Ring, Ch 1 "A Long-Expected Party", part three

 

 

Wheel of Time vs. Lord of the Rings

Season one of The Wheel of Time is complete. I was fond of episodes two, three, and eight. 

Here was my hopefulness about the series after episode 3 of the Amazon series. Ah, youth.

I seem to have parted ways with viewers, in terms of episodes. They love four, and eight seems to have been their least favorite--not that eight is my favorite, but it offered me hope for season two when my faith in the series was waning.

Hopefully, they'll get another season to develop the characters...

Trent's law: "If you abandon basic storytelling in one area, make up for it elsewhere."

I'll be rereading book one. Here were my initial thoughts on reading it.

- - -

Stephen Colbert celebrated the 20th anniversary of Lord of the Rings' opening night. I find this less interesting for the humor than the claim that it is the #1 trilogy, beating out Star Wars and Godfather. Maybe? They're hard to compare since they all have different territories they mark.

I will say that I was disappointed yet hopeful at the first movie's ending.

On a rewatch, I noted how slow the opening was and how Gandalf remarks to Bilbo that he hasn't changed, but though Ian McKellen as Gandalf does flash some grim concern, it comes off as casual conversation. Besides he does look changed from earlier scenes. Not a major point, but interesting.

Krampus (2015)

Some minor spoilers. 'Tis the season.

Several movies have tried on the old legend (Wiki). If the IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes ratings are to be trusted (6.2/10 and 66%), this is the best of them--a slice above tolerable, although horror usually does get lower ratings. 

As a family unites and divides over the Christmas holidays, Krampus and his little helper wreck havoc on a family that's already torn apart.

The writers, who were nominated for a few speculative awards, have done animation, kaiju, and superheroes. They display brilliance mixed with suspect choices. It seems to be the story of one person although it shifts through many--some of whom don't make logical choices, or at least we are not privy to their logic.

The final frames show the film could be interpreted two ways--asking viewers to reinterpret the movie a bit--but each possibility is undermined by earlier events, so the way of interpretation is up in the air.

In some ways it's very much a Christmas film, in other ways it's warped (although some might maintain any horror movie about Christmas warps the Christmas spirit).

Interesting effort, nonetheless. Watch for the brilliance, and roll with the less admirable choices.

The Art of J. R. R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings--Fellowship of the Ring, Ch 1 "A Long-Expected Party", part three

The Art of J. R. R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings--the proem

Fellowship of the Ring, Ch 1 "A Long-Expected Party", part one (age, WWI)

Fellowship of the Ring, Ch 1 "A Long-Expected Party", part two (The Hobbit, sequel and comparative mirror, character, foreshadowing)

- - -

I need to address several threads I started in part two, but what is the point of this opening, anyway? 

It establishes the status quo of the story and does so in what probably felt like a small English village. In other words, apart from their visible differences, they should have felt like an average citizen who journeys into the strange other world, which makes this a portal fantasy: going from the real world into one of fantasy.

Tolkien spends a lot of time developing the shire, so that he doesn't start with the protagonist, or even the guy who starts the protagonist on his journey.

It does seem to start with Bilbo, but whose perspective are we in? Not Bilbo's. You can tell by the adjectives describing Bible I discussed in part one: "peculiar" and "well-preserved." The town is taking our hero, down a peg (cruelly, perhaps). Tolkien begins in humility: small town talking about a man whom readers of The Hobbit know has done great deeds, but who is humbled.

There is some distance from these citizens, so we are immersed in an omniscient narrator who doesn't reveal himself, but the first clear perspective we encounter is the shire's.

Tolkien's modus operandi seems to develop the shire both in the breadth of recent history, but also width of the shire, drawing on various perspectives: those opposed to and those in favor of Bilbo. While Frodo's mentioned as heir, the next perspective we get is old Ham Gamgee, who gives us a better perspective on Bilbo because he's actually close to Bilbo. Ham is a great word in connotation and denotation: hog, stocky build, performer who exaggerates, humor (a name for the meat of a pig). Both "ham" and "gam" refer to the leg, and both rhyme in an obvious humorous way. Ham could be short for "hamlet" which makes him also a representative of the village. This interpretation is backed up by how the people respect his opinion.

When we get to his youngest offspring, Sam, the rhyme's still there, so some humor remains like a distant echo, but it removes the obvious humor of ham/gam. Same carries his progenitor's traits with him: humorous yet respectable.

In The Hobbit, we get the rumor that someone in Bilbo's ancestry is fairy, which explains their desire of adventure. One might point to this and say, "Ah-ha! Genetic destiny." But surely we all acknowledge that genetics do have something to do with destiny based on genetic twin studies in which try to understand how much of who we are is nature (genetic) and how much is nurture (how we are raised). Moreover, it is a rumor--just a possibility, but never fully established. 

It makes sense to make the protagonists of a children's book small and weak since children themselves are small and weak. But why would someone do so in an adult novel? This is part of what makes this series so powerful and remains unique despite so many who have trod in Tolkien's footsteps. 

In most fantasies and throughout the superhero genre, we have people who are super-powerful, or who become powerful. In The Lord of the Rings, the main characters are all small and comparatively weak. They sometimes have advantages, sometimes not. Anyone who wants to critique Tolkien's work has to grapple with this. Whenever the protagonists might think they are important, they are put in their place: small in a very large world. Yet they remain the keys to solving the destruction of evil. How many current fantasies grapple with this paradox? Most fantasies wants their heroes to be super. Tolkien defies this and, because of this, remains unique.

Why didn't Tolkien keep Bilbo as the protagonist? Surely that would have been simpler. Have Gandalf show up, and have the dynamic duo ride off together to solve the world's problems. Two eternal beings take on a host of evil in the world: one fireball-wielding wizard dude and invisible small guy who's quick with his sword. Typical superhero fantasy.

Tolkien must have had a purpose in doing what he does, and I suggest that purpose is in the paragraphs above. Yes, Bilbo's important, but he's small and kept humble. He's been morally crippled by all the power in his life. Anyone could be crippled by it. 

Also, don't forget the title: Fellowship of the Ring. You could say that Tolkien intended one book, but he probably came up with that title himself. Leaving out "fellowship" leaves out a critical understanding of the work as a whole. It isn't going to be one person who saves the world but a team working together. There's not a good definition of the term that captures the need and power of fellowship as it is used in Tolkien's faith, but take a look all of the fellowships within Tolkien's work: often motley (different races coming together), otherwise down and disarrayed people who unite to perform a great deed.

If there's no nuance in a critique of Tolkien, jettison it. They don't understand the narrative on a basic level.

Interview with Jeanette Anderson, part one

 

Jeanette Anderson may be new to novels (I reviewed her first novel here), but not new to writing. The best of her blogs share a little something about her life. Here she discusses growing up in poverty near Snake River. She expands on that with a couple of personal anecdotes here, including this description of a UFO sighting:

Unbelievable to us, our eyes took in the image of a slowly moving saucer-shaped object, with red, green and white lights blinking around the perimeter. It moved directly over our heads toward the church, and I was sure it was too low to clear the steeply pitched roof. Much to my surprise, it did not hit the building but glided over it and disappeared.  We scattered and shouted the news to the boys who meandered around in the side lot. They yelled and jumped on their motorcycles and peeled into the vacant field behind the church property to see if the saucer had landed there. They returned disappointed. There was no sign of a flying saucer.

In her bio for a book-review blog, she wrote about this experience on a mountain road:

Years ago, I was steering down the steep, windy lane from the Sundance Ski Resort when my heart began to pound. The car behind me had closed the gap between us on the mountainside. Maybe he was a psychopath who would drive me off the road, attack and stab me to death. Maybe I was being chased by my handsome lover who had begged me not to leave him, was aching to hold me in his arms and wouldn’t let me go. Maybe it was both. My hands froze on the steering wheel when at the T-junction the suspicious driver pulled up beside me. When he turned in the opposite direction, and the chase was over, I decided it was time. As an accomplished and published ghost writer with over twenty-five years of experience, my subconscious was calling me to enter the world of fiction.

These demonstrate the power of Anderson's creativity and ability to enthrall with literary thrills. Though some might suggest a measure of credulity, you'll also notice the skepticism that also governs the imagination--that it is fiction that propels us forward. Just as she navigates the Charybdis and Scylla of politics, she threads narrative creativity as a skilled pilot, testing her readers' imagination with wild aplomb.

 - - -

How did you get started writing?

My mother read literature to us as kids around the kitchen table, and I was fascinated how the words could make her cry and give me goose bumps. I picked up a pen and began journaling as a young teenager and still journal to this day. I must have a dozen volumes now.

Have you mined those journals to write new works? Or are they workshops in craft? Or just personal records?

I used journaling to hone those emotional expressions and clarify life’s experiences which as you know is a huge part of storytelling, to get all that emotion onto the page and into the heart of the reader.

 

Who were some of your favorite writers back then? now?

I loved Nancy Drew Mysteries growing up. Now I enjoy the mysteries of Mary Higgins Clark and the romance of Nicolas Sparks.

What was the origin of the novel?

It was quite unexpected, really. I met a Palestinian woman on Shepherds Hill just outside of Bethlehem who thanked me for being willing to write a story of her people and their struggle. I felt embarrassed as I reflected on her words because I realized I was not even close to describing the conflict of that war-zone. I traveled home and changed my story. Instead of trying to avoid the conflict I put my protagonist into the center of it.

 

On her blog, she expands:

[The Palestinian woman and I] sat together and talked about the despair she had experienced; the bus searches and beatings, the laws prohibiting her from ever seeing her birthplace, Jerusalem. How in her desire to worship on the Sabbath she’d snuck through a hole in the security fence to reach the Mount of Olives and been shot at by soldiers. It was chilling.

 

Part two of the interview is here.

Interview with Jeanette Anderson, part two

Part one of the interview began here.

A review of her romantic-suspense novel can be found here.

 

What did you do for research?

I spent six years researching and interviewing friends from Palestine and Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and of course I traveled there and did onsite interviews. I had great support from both sides of the story.

Studying Palestinian poetry was a phenomenal experience. They have a flavor so unique and powerful that I loved playing with that.

What were some of those flavors?

The poems I studied had a unique style, with carefully placed words born of suffering which might seem angry and morbid to some, blood, death, despair and ruin, but because they were so beautifully written, they fall on your heart.

An American friend who studied there said that he had Muslim and Israeli friends with whom he freely discussed and debated important issues, whereas in the US, we're afraid to talk politics, except with like-minded sorts. What was your experience?

I imagine when your life is rooted in conflict and you are living in a war-zone you are not afraid to share your opinion. They disagree with each other, for sure and will correct you when they think you’re wrong. I found the opinions of people in Palestine well informed through their personal experience.

The novel did feel like you'd worked hard to understand the culture(s). In one part the community protects a criminal of their people, but at the same time tries to help a woman find her child. People make grave mistakes and feel shame with no way to atone--and are treated as if the mistakes were purposeful.

It is a complex society and my experience is limited, but I loved being with them. I found these people extremely loving, caring and helpful on both sides of the conflict.

How many of these events are based on stories you've heard?

This story was definitely inspired by the people I interviewed. I worked hard to get as many of their stories into the work as I could. The true stories from the book Son of Hamas by Mosab Hassan Yousef really touched me and informed my story.

 

Have you heard back from anyone from the area about the novel--or friends whose stories helped shape the novel?

Yes. They’ve asked for boxes of books for their friends. Some Palestinians wished I would have told more of the atrocities they had endured. Some of my Israeli friends felt I was a bit tough on the Israelis. I’d hear, “I can tell you’ve been talking with your Palestinian friends!” Then I would hear, “No. An Israeli doctor would never do that,” from the Palestinian side. Yet, I personally interviewed the Israeli director of surgery at the facility where the surgeon plugged the bullet hole in the student’s heart with his finger, and saved her, while the Palestinian shooter was in a stall down the hall. This doctor had personally flown with a Palestinian father and his child who was dying of cancer to a special facility and overseen his treatment. I wish I could have told all their marvelous stories.

What were some of the difficulties you had in writing it?

I had a hard time walking the line between being anti-Israeli or anti-Palestinian. I am neither. My goal was just to get people to think about their thinking. Open some minds to a new way to see this battlefield. Expose them to something they hadn’t thought of before. It seems to have been successful in that way.

It was also hard to figure out which genre this story fit into. It was not a good fit for romance because of the thriller aspect, but in the end, I chose to go with romantic suspense and hoped people would find it refreshingly different.

It is refreshing and different. I was constantly surprised when sections became a thoroughbred thriller. Who are some of your influences?

Everyone close to me, my husband, children, extended family and friends, all believed in me and encouraged me, and said that I could do it. What a blessing.

I definitely would have to say that my greatest mentor is David Farland. I have no idea how someone can write so stunningly. I started out careening from wall to wall trying to figure this writing process out, but he was right there with me. He has coached and edited and corrected and nudged me along this path and always with profound kindness. I couldn’t have done this without his expertise and encouragement.

What are you working on now?

This time I am taking the story to Southern Spain. I was on one of the southern beaches collecting shells when I saw my next love interest. He came out from an abandoned hotel and with a spear in his hand waded out to claim his catch. I asked myself. Who is this squatter and what is his story? I named him Marcos and he is a fascinating character in my next novel.

Good luck to your current and follow-up novels. I look forward to reading what you conjure up next. Thank you for the interview. 

My pleasure,Trent.

Love Behind Enemy Lines by Jeanette Anderson

 

Here's a contemporary romance thriller or thrilling romance for those who have a penchant for thrillers and romance. Both play a significant role. 

Glancing at the cover, I assumed that the novel was primarily romance, and put it on the back burner--to read as soon as I'd read these others. Romance fascinates me but usually as part of a mix, so the title and some of the subtle imagery should have suggested the strong impact of the thriller genre. 

In the novel, Jannah has a reason to become an activist. Effron and she make mistakes and hide secrets that get them in trouble. But even in a desert, they will bloom.

The strength of the writing took me by surprise. Anderson takes on a bestselling style, as expected for the genres she's mining, but puts effort into making her scenes vivid, more than most bestselling writers do.

Let's prove this by opening the book at random and picking a passage that illustrates this:

"When Shaphier came into view, Jannah’s heart quickened. She cranked the window down and leaned her head out to feel the stiff breeze on her face. Though home to 23,000, to an outsider, it appeared a backward town with unpleasant residents. She admitted it was a broken-down community. The power cables sagged between pine-log poles and gusting wind cartwheeled plastic grocery bags across the fields of gray stubble—after being a prisoner, it was a sight to be cherished."

What a keen eye for choosing the right word to carve out an image.

This is no easy love story. Setting it in one of the most controversial regions on the planet would probably not occur to most. But that challenge becomes a draw.

Does it accurately portray the conflict in the Middle East? That I cannot address. It feels like she has made a valiant effort to portray the conflict with difficult and admirable nuance, but those closer to the issue might have another perspective.

The opening sample might suggest whether you'd be interested:

Chapter 1

Wrongly Accused

For too many days, Jannah al-Jorbouni lay on a frayed and smelly mattress in her dim jail cell in Lachish Detention Center. The corridor light cast a yellow glow on a colony of ants climbing through the concrete cracks. Their black oval bodies darted into the bedding, food, and clothing.

Jannah clutched a handful of knotted sheets as the pain in her stomach spiked. A bizarre fever had raged through her body all night.

Like ice crystals on a frosty windowpane, she was freezing cold one moment, clutching the thin blanket under her chin, then suddenly, burned hot, her bedding drenched in sweat. The noxious odors of sweaty bodies and sewage further sickened her, and she felt like a caged animal.

She licked her cracked lips, which did little to moisten them, and stared at the two swallows of water left in the cup she held.

She leaned up, took a sip, swished it around to let the liquid bathe her tongue, then held it in her cheeks before swallowing.

As the gray days passed behind bars, each day drearier than the one before, a kind of hopelessness gripped her. She struggled against despair more than she did against the pain in her abdomen and ran her hand over the tally marks scratched into the wall near her bunk. Six months in this hellhole. How much longer can I hold out? she wondered.

The first few months at Lachish, she’d believed she could handle anything, but her Christian spirit had been drained. Too much wrath and retaliation had left her soul riddled with holes. The only evidence that she had not been entirely broken was when she left the boiled egg yolk or crust of bread on the dinner tray for Besan, who was more sister than cousin.

The Art of J. R. R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings--Fellowship of the Ring, Ch 1 "A Long-Expected Party", part two

The opening of The Fellowship of the Ring accomplishes a number of things. One, being a sequel, ties up loose ends that, though not critical, some may have wondered what had occurred in Hobbiton in the intervening years. Second, the novels shift in tone from a children's adventure to a darker adult tale, so there needs to be a transition that gets the reader comfortably situated in a similar tone before shifting gears. Finally, even if we start with this novel, the opening is a sort of portal fantasy that leads us from a world not too unlike our own, to the wider, wilder world.

The Hobbit ends on an auction conducted by the Sackville-Baggins, selling off all of Bilbo's stuff as if he were dead. Bilbo suspected they kept his silverware. The people of the town think him "queer" because he associated with different sorts of people--dwarves, elves, wizards, et al.

Not only does Tolkien wish us to compare and contrast The Lord of the Rings opening to The Hobbit's closing, but also its opening. The Hobbit opens with a chapter entitled "An Unexpected Party" while The Lord of the Rings opens with "A Long-Expected Party". In both openings, the term "party" plays on all of its meanings: a social gathering, a political group, one side in an agreement or dispute.

When Tolkien brings us back to Bilbo's hometown after his long retirement, we listen in on the gossip of the hobbits. The Sackville-Baggins are still on the outs with Bilbo--unlikely to inherit what they'd so desired to possess--while nephew Frodo is in, heir not only to Bilbo's worldly possessions but also his adventures, in a few different ways.

This returns us to The Hobbit:

"[Gandalf] had not been down that way under The Hill for ages and ages, not since his friend the Old Took died....

[Gandalf said,] "To think that I should have lived to be good-morninged by Belladonna Took’s son, as if I was selling buttons at the door!”  

“Gandalf, Gandalf! Good gracious me! Not the wandering wizard that gave Old Took a pair of magic diamond studs that fastened themselves and never came undone till ordered?....

“ 'Dear me!' [Bilbo] went on. 'Not the Gandalf who was responsible for so many quiet lads and lasses going off into the Blue for mad adventures? Anything from climbing trees to visiting elves—or sailing in ships, sailing to other shores! Bless me, life used to be quite inter—I mean, you used to upset things badly in these parts once upon a time. I beg your pardon, but I had no idea you were still in business.” 

“ 'Where else should I be?' said the wizard."

There's quite of bit suggested here. Gandalf is familiar with Bilbo's family--his grandfather Old Took who seems to be a fondly remembered patrician, and Old Took's daughter and Bilbo's mother, Belladonna--but unfamiliar with Bilbo.
 
Bilbo used to be more like his rube neighbor's--or at least he tried to be. He interrupted his statement about life being interesting with Gandalf in order to state that Gandalf upset the town--despite the many wonders Gandalf brought to the people. Gandalf occupies a strange niche within the community--both admired and shunned, liked and disliked, perhaps at the same time. This creates a fascinating mystery both within Bilbo, but also on the figure of Gandalf himself, who smiles about it, taking it in stride. Today, Americans would take offense at the prejudice, but here Gandalf finds it amusing.

Another further suggestion is that Gandalf keeps returning to this little village of little people for the purposes of taking them on adventures. Perhaps he took Old Took on one. It suggests that Tolkien may have already had Frodo's adventure in mind even while writing The Hobbit, seventeen years earlier.

The Art of J. R. R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings--Fellowship of the Ring, Ch 1 "A Long-Expected Party", part one

On my first attempts at cracking this book as a kid, I bounced off this chapter. When I did finally read it, I wasn't much taken by it. On the reread, I'm surprised not just by how much is implied, but also by the point of view: the people of Hobbiton. 

Bilbo is "peculiar" and the unnamed narrator [narrators?] focuses on Bilbo's disappearance and "unexpected" return. Apparently if you disappear, you aren't expected to return. Moreover, there's disapproval of his being "well-preserved" despite his generosity. One senses jealousy--perhaps Bilbo is only generous with the poor, not with the narrator.

There's a throw-away comment about Frodo "still in his tweens, as the hobbits called the irresponsible twenties between childhood and coming of age at thirty-three."

This is a curiosity that can play a number of ways. They have a comparatively extended childhood. Do they need the longer childhood? Or do they have that simply because they can? Is it a comment on our extending childhood where earlier generations were expected to be adults at younger ages?

If we map this on to our own lives, we can divide the ages by, say, between 1.4 and 1.8 to get an approximation of translation of what the human ages might be. If "tweens" = teens, then 1.5 is probably the best choice, but it would depend on what Tolkien's age thought "coming of age" was. 18 is the age where one can drink alcohol and join the army, so does 33=18 (then ~1.8)?

The human age would put Bilbo between 55-70 when he decided on an heir and in his 60s or 70s for his grand party, so that would be a little odd to see some looking like a younger man at that age. 

But it's also odd to be jealous of someone else's good fortune as these villagers seem to be. The village's comments are as much a comment on themselves as on Bilbo himself. Those who make negative comments tend not to seem aware that negativity can reflect back on themselves.

[SIDE BAR: As I perform the calculations and compare them to the comments, I'm now leaning toward an age-converting factor between 1.6 and 1.8, so that Bilbo seeks an heir between 55-62, and throws a party between 62-70--when his youthful appearance might seem peculiar but perhaps not too shocking. However, Bilbo plans a permanent exit, so would that be 62 (1.8)? 70 (1.6)? or 79 (1.4)? 

A little research reveals that life-expectancy for men in 1950s England [when and where the novel was finished] was around 65, so maybe 1.7 or 1.8 is the proper conversion factor. You'd want to exit before people think it's too strange (62-65). Choose an heir between 55-58. Come of age at 18 or 19. Become irresponsible from about 11 or 12 until coming of age. These feel about right. [ETA: Except when you get to Old Took who lives only to 130, which would only be 72, which doesn't seem an impressively old, so perhaps 1.4?]

However--and this could be just an invented cultural thing--the 111th birthday sounds like the quinceañera, a commonly and publicly celebrated birthday (along with Frodo's coming of age at 33), so while it may be near the end, it seems many do get to celebrate this age.]

All of this talk of prolonged youth brings up a question that isn't properly addressed: How do hobbits live so long? What or who protects them?

I've always felt the villagers were the rubes back home that never left to fight in a world war (as Tolkien had, reluctantly, in WWI) and now looked upon the youth returning home with disapproval--not just at war, but their venturing into the grander world for any reason. Peter Jackson addressed some of this in his WWI documentary, They Shall Not Grow Old:

The Art of J. R. R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings--the proem

Is it fair to examine poetry intended as a mythic part of as a larger prose work as poetry? Probably not, but such effects should exist to one extent or another. 

The first line has lovely assonance and consonance--the n's and s's and long e's. The second does the work of bringing together the first two lines by not only continuing the above, but also by adding the "or" sound. Moreover, we are given a repetitive grammatical structure of a "[number] for"--a pattern echoed through two more lines.[And to contrast with the \lines that begin with "One."]

Aside from rhyme and iambic rhythm (a rhythm that it didn't start with, anyway), one has to question strange arrangements like "in their halls of stone." Why move "stone" from the more natural "stone halls" to "halls of stone"? It's actually a brilliant move, highlighting the stone--the hardness and coldness, not just of the halls, but of the dwarves, of the rings and the ring bearers--all bound to the one.

"Under the sky" may not add much to eleven-kings unless there are others who don't live under the sky.

The fifth line breaks the pattern with a line that creates foreboding "In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie."

Before the fifth line is repeated in the eighth, we have anaphora of "One Ring to"--including an interior anaphora, which does exactly what the words claim: "bind them." There is rhyme, too, although I'm not sure this is an actual form--A B A B, A C C A

While the final line reintroduces us to the darkness, it's not clear that the repetition adds anything new--certainly nothing more than it's first appearance. Perhaps, then, it is best to consider it as a bit of folklore unearthed in the the mythos of this realm--one designed to set mood and demonstrate the power of the ring.

Realistic Portrayals of Religion

 A group of us were discussing religion, science and science fiction, and Andy Dibble came up with some excellent rules for portrayal of religion, using Ursula LeGuin's The Telling as an example.

I'd also add one weird aspect to religion. It picks up whatever's around it like Silly Putty--sometimes not contradictory necessarily, but sometimes it is. Christmas trees, Ptolmeic solar system, holidays, etc. 

I forget which illustrated coffee table book it was, but Joseph Campbell pointed Hebrew coins where God had the feet of serpents. This would seem to contradict their religion due to the serpent in Eden. Campbell listed one reason for their inclusion as the bronze serpents they had to kiss thanks to Moses, but other interpretations might be possible. Still did the image seem to conflate the two contradictory images? Or was one trodding on the other? A nuanced view is preferable to the uncharitable.

We have names for things in the culture that are supposedly forbidden, but that isn't quite what happened. Some things are clearly verbotten in religions although contextual clues give a nuanced interpretation. Other times they're a verbal tradition, based on an interpretation that's difficult to pin down.

Within any religion, though, there are selective interpretations that suit believers, and sometimes don't suit them, so that they wrestle with passages trying to understand. This isn't not usually good guy vs. bad guy scenario, although it can be an interpretation that suits one's worldview. Perhaps the aforementioned Silly Putty analogy is the desire not to conform to the text, but to unite with those around them.

This may be perhaps too nuanced for a short story to handle well or a cursory examination of a religion. And my placing this here does not constitute approval or disapproval--merely an observation.

Alien, Aliens, mothers, Alien 3 vs. William Gibson's script (spoilers galore)

Apparently, a new Alien movie is coming out along with a new Blade Runner, with Ridley Scott at the helm. Sounds promising.

This is my belated follow-up to this earlier post about the William Gibson script.

So Alien, the first movie in the franchise, gets a solid 8.4 on IMDB while the sequel Aliens gets an 8.3.

They are not without flaw. The biology of the species has a gaping hole and seems improbable although that doesn't interfere with the story. Namely, how is that creature growing bigger?

One pleasure, outside the obvious plot tension, is the mother motif. In the first, the seemingly benevolent mother is in the ship's computer  helping make their lives easier, but later we learn that "mother" is an amorphous authority running the ship from the outside, steering them into danger for its own benefit. A stand-in for authoritative governments that lack regard for its citizens and only use them as pawns to whatever that larger goal might be. The only other "mother" present (the alien) is meant to be seen as a visual metaphor for how destructive their government is.

In the second, we get an expanded metaphor of a positive mother where Ripley plays a surrogate mother to an orphaned child. The metaphor is now a contrast of mothers. The original metaphor has to be understood within the context of someone naming their native country their mother or father. The metaphor in the second loses bad government metaphor, but explores mother in a new fascinating way.

The followup, Alien3, got a 6.5 on IMDB. Why? This website lists ten possible reasons why.

It also explains why Gibson minimized Sigourney Weaver's role, which seemed a strange choice since she was the main player in the first two.

My first impression of the audio script was that it was too similar, which was why I needed to rewatch the first films as the audio drama was catching listeners up to speed.

Now Gibson's strength is teasing out an intriguing threat made in the first two that somehow never really made it into the series: namely weaponizing this alien species. This isn't settled here in his script but it leaves the door to be discovered in a further sequel. In retrospect, Gibson's choice is the most logical expansion of the series. 

Instead, the movie that got made was more creative in the sense of setting it on a former prison colony where a religion sprung up around their conditions--in theory. Granted, whoever created the religion could have tried harder, but it was still fascinating. Part of it may have been the necessity due to eliminating weapons. Nonetheless, the original concept feels fresh and should have breathed some life into it.

But it didn't build on what we knew. Ripley's character isn't expanded (apart from sex which isn't explained), and characters get killed off, probably to simplify the narrative. You certainly want a child visiting this colony. Also, we get no closer to understanding the species in the way that Gibson's makes us feel like we are approaching.

Finally, it didn't expand the motherhood metaphor except now Ripley is carrying a mother-alien child within her. Yet she doesn't follow the same lifecycle as the aliens did before. So again, biology problems. No explanation for why this creature the size of a baby isn't detected by the mother. And the metaphor isn't clear. Perhaps she's like the opposite of the Virgin Mary--with a kind immaculate conception. And she does sacrifice herself as a savior, falling in the shape of a cross, but to kill the infant this time. But there'd need to be more clues throughout to draw this conclusion. Perhaps I need to give it another viewing to see how well it built toward this view of "mother."

The real problem of Alien3 is the idiot plot. Sure, they kill off the one intelligent guy, so that it really is an idiot plot. But even that doesn't make sense. Why was she drawn to the guy where she didn't seem drawn before? Why develop his character then kill him off?

Now the brilliance of the first movie was that it explained why people didn't do the intelligent thing. The least powerful guys had the best advice, but it went unheeded. Why? "Mother" computer/government.

Alien3 was an decent movie with some fascinating premises that could conceivably have paid off. Perhaps, had it not had its predecessors, it'd have been seen as a stronger movie with less to live up to.

Would Gibson's script have been better? Hard to say. Certainly it would have at least expanded the series and moved it toward a long-term goal. It probably needed some revision to bring in some of the brilliance of the first and second films, which could have happened had the right director sculpted the script toward what the series had been building. Still, while not as powerful as the first two, both have something to add for fans of the series. It's good that it saw the light of day.

Wheel of Time (first three episodes)

I first read Robert Jordan's first novel some time ago. I rather liked it with some caveats (although I'm not sure if that's clear). I had anticipated reading more in the series--at least until it got boring, but I seemed to have lost that path.

I still plan to revisit the series, but here's one take on the TV series adaptation of The Wheel of Time from Amazon's Prime. The first episode doesn't do a great job getting us to care about what's happening to the characters, but the events are engaging.

By episodes two and three, though, the characters start to show promise, so if the first episode doesn't appeal to you, give the next two a go to see if they start to rub off on you. The IMDB ratings of the episodes mirror my own reaction, leaping from 7.6 to 8.2.

Kafka on what kind of books we should read

  “I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound or stab us. If the book we're reading doesn't wake us up with a blow to the head, what are we reading for? So that it will make us happy, as you write? Good Lord, we would be happy precisely if we had no books, and the kind of books that make us happy are the kind we could write ourselves if we had to. But we need books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us. That is my belief.” 

--Franz Kafka

Food for thought. I couldn't find where this originated, but still a fascinating perspective, no matter who said it.

Monte Cook's Numenera -- on sale!

 I went to Clarion with Monte Cook and had no idea what big deal he was at the time. He just seemed like your average nice guy--pleasant to chat with.Who knew that mild-mannered man was a mastermind of the RPG underworld?

He had a smooth fun writing style and imagination that I enjoyed. I bought his novel and I believe he signed it. He did one of the editions of D&D, so he's kind of a big deal.

Now he has his own gaming company.  If you are into RPG, this sounds cool and surprisingly inexpensive. $15 for a bunch of PDFs. I wish they did other versions, though.

 

99 cent ebook: L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future Volume 37

 Ebook just released yesterday, reduced 90% to 99 cents.

L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future Volume 37

I have a story in here. 

At the time of posting: #114 in Science Fiction Anthologies (Kindle Store)

Update:

The highest I saw:

#7 in Science Fiction Anthologies (Kindle Store)

#8 in Science Fiction Anthologies (Books)

#3488 Overall

The Sword of Rhiannon or The Sea-Kings of Mars by Leigh Brackett

First appeared in Sam Merwin, Jr.'s June 1949 issue of Thrilling Wonder Stories. Reprinted (first three chapters) by Brian Aldiss. Recommended by Stephen E. Andrews, Nick Rennison, T. A. Shippey, A. J. Sobczak, David Pringle, James Cawthorn, Michael Moorcock. 

You can read  an extensive excerpt through Baen (and purchase the book or ebook) although it's unclear if it's the full novel or just the original publication--or if those are exactly the same. I did some comparison and so far it seems to be the novel.

 "As an archaeologist, Matthew Carse was in search of the ancient Martian past. He did not find it--but it found him, and in no time he was fighting for his very life!"

The above quote may have come from this issue or perhaps Brian Aldiss who, in his Space Opera anthology, said he tried to use the original quotes when possible to give the anthology that Space Opera feel.

Carse is a former archaeologist who seems be resting on his laurels at age thirty-five, living on his non-native Mars for most of his life. He seems to be retired, living the good life--presumably dealing in antiquities, finding adventure where he chooses, traveling through the shady part of town and finding said adventure.

A thief is tailing him, for an unnamed reason, and Carse catches him. We never learn the truth, but the thief claims he has a treasure that he wants Carse to sell for him back on Earth because he'd get in trouble if he sold it on Mars. Carse realizes the only way the thief came across the treasure was to have found the Tomb of Rhiannon. He demands the thief take him there.

They go, but the thief has something else in mind, and thrusts Carse a million years into the past.

#

What traits give this brief novel its power?

One has to be the mixture of genres found in science fantasy. It draws from the same well that George Lucas drew upon when he wrote, "Long time ago in a galaxy far, far away" bringing us to worlds impossible for our experiences to map on. It draws on Edgar Rice Burroughs' Mars, a planetary romance--no doubt a powerful influence--but Brackett does something more with it. We begin in the future where travel between Earth and Mars is common.

Aldiss said he chose this as space opera because it dealt with the issue of exile. That seems an odd definition. Is Robinson Crusoe a space opera? Or was it simply a trait he found among stories he wanted to select? Perhaps Aldiss means being an outsider--one who eventually finds his place in a world not his own? If there were a theme here, that may be it.

But the exile theme doesn't capture the power of the work--at least not fully. In fact the story seems not to hold to any one particular theme or especially complex characters. There does seem to be a potent statement made about the treatment of one's enemies, post-war (the novel appeared shortly after WWII) but it isn't a theme the novel builds toward.

No, the charm of this novel depends largely on its romance in the sense of its transporting readers on an adventure to another place and two other times, to gods, spirits and possession. The wildness of its speculation is a definitive draw.

Another draw is the language. You can sense this in the different titles. The first listed above (the revised title) captures what may best unite the text. However, the second (and original) captures more of the romantic spirit of the tale--The Sea-Kings of Mars--the mellifluous sound, the mysterious image of a thing that is never fully explained.

Here's an example of both the romance and the fluid language:

"Carse walked beside the still black waters in their ancient channel, cut in the dead sea-bottom. He watched the dry wind shake the torches that never went out and listened to the broken music of the harps that were never stilled. Lean lithe men and women passed him in the shadowy streets, silent as cats except for the chime and whisper of the tiny bells the women wear, a sound as delicate as rain, distillate of all the sweet wickedness of the world."

Note the flow. But there's a slight, stilted awkwardness to "that were never stilled." Brackett drops these in infrequently, but just enough. These tiny strange arrangements of language may not be accidental but may be meant to evoke another time and place. It seems quite possible that the language was inspired by the King James Bible--a version that was once considered the best in terms of language and was still used in the pulpit. It was also the language of poetry. You can hear it in the Romantic poets although when you look at the dialogue of novels from the same era, the language appears closer to modern speech than to the King James. So the unusual cadence also captures both the poetry and the language of God (or gods). Lovecraft and company overdo this. Brackett does it so gently as to be almost subliminal.

To our ears, it doesn't sound so natural since we are farther from the Romantic poets and the pulpits that relied on King James Bibles, but it might still work for those with training in older forms of English. Brackett's usage is so subtle, though, that few will note her language shifts--whether in cadence of older word choices like "daren't."

One thing that might trip up contemporary readers is the opposing ideas of what people now consider romance (in our current usage of the term) versus Brackett's age. One character forces a kiss on his prisoner. Brackett means for her readers to see the helpless attraction despite frustration about the other's behavior. 

But perhaps contemporary readers will consider it toxic. Why would either be attracted to the other? A valid question. A progressive case could be made that one or both do not deserve love. Maybe this idea of love of this kind is too dangerous to entertain, however fleeting, so such readers might steer clear. 

On the other hand, why not? Are the ways of love beyond our ken? It'd be interesting to hear Brackett's take.

Her best characters are the conniving side-kicks: 

"Even through the fear[,] a note of cunning crept into the voice. 'I have a gift....

" 'First,' said the Martian, 'I am Pankawr of Barrakesh. You may have heard of me.' He strutted at the sound of his own name like a shabby bantam rooster.

" 'No,' said Carse. 'I haven't.' "

 So many lovely charms in so small a container, this novel brings a thrill of wonder.

Badlands, Springstein on character, and losing parts of a narrative to great effect

"You've got to find out what you've got in common with that character, no matter who they are or what they did," says Bruce Springstein on writing his narrative songs.

"So 'Nebraska' is a song written with the premise that everyone knows what it's like to be condemned." 

 

The above was inspired by the movie Badlands and Charlie Starkweather, whose life the film (and song) was loosely based on.

 

Tony Tost wrote, "This may be the greatest American film ever made without a single character with an IQ over 100." 

 

Is this following spoiler? Maybe a little. Watch it first. 

 

I may not have ever felt so much for characters who were serial killers--certainly not for their crimes and here mostly for her... until that last line which recasts him in a new light (the light had been there, but it clarified). Amazing how one line can change everything.

 

Also, that whole build up. There's no exciting climax*, no final show down. Just the impending doom and his reaction to what's happening. Heartbreaking. It's interesting what can be excluded from a story and yet remain powerful.

*One could claim that it is exciting, after a fashion--the sheer number of bodies suddenly on screen where there had been so few before. Also the climax is exciting in terms of one's psychological make-up. So perhaps what one takes out, one must replace.

 

Howard Waldrop's “Night of the Cooters" & George R.R. Martin's 1993 TV pilot, Doorways.

In other news, George R. R. Martin announced that Howard Waldrop's story, “Night of the Cooters,” has been adapted for film.  

It's been done on green screen with the long road ahead for the post production process.

I discussed Waldrop's story over here.

 

# 

 

In 1993, George R.R. Martian wrote a TV series pilot that got filmed but didn't find a home:

 

Largely, a low-tech operation, which can work (famously, the early episodes of Dr. Who), but it might have done better if it were shopped around ten years or so earlier.

Some intriguing premises here. Some unrealized plot ideas generated, but I'm curious how well that might have worked across an entire series. Great cast although they might have turned in better performances as they worked longer together, understanding their roles and relationships.

It opens on a woman running with and across traffic without explanation. Perhaps it needed more back story, or maybe needed to be shorter or even cut straight to the hospital.

The doctor eventually takes off with the stranger, which might have made more sense were he in love, but he doesn't seem to be. Maybe another explanation would have been forthcoming.

The character of Cat (her inability to speak or count) and those pursuing them across the parallel universes would have hopefully had made more sense as the series progressed. Also the rules of the universes could have been better explained such as a universe where there's no fuel yet we have hot air balloons.

IMDB rates it a 5.6, probably due to some of the above issues. Two years later, the show Sliders makes a go with a similar premise.

It's a shame Martin, the master storyteller, wasn't able to finish the project. There is a graphic novel that maybe fills in the gaps. But ah well, better he finish the Game of Thrones / A Song of Ice and Fire series.

Open for Business--novel openings

Thumbing through a bunch of novels--all varieties--it surprises me at how few make the narrative interesting. They must be decent books. Someone took time to hone it and probably inflicted it on friends and mentors to read. And later, an editor bought it and--one would think--helped hone it further so that you have something interesting happening in the first two pages. Something. I'm not asking for a gunfight or a verbal one, but maybe. Something. 

This scene from Together is amazing on how it engages the viewer, and it's just two people talking to us:

(The first version I watched was cut so that it seemed like she'd just now made this meal for him with the aforementioned mushroom which was even more interesting, but best to cut it since it isn't a part of the movie.)

Presumably the writer has worked harder on his opening than any other part (with the possible exception of the ending), yet as I comb through book after book, here are a bunch of dull starts. I don't get how that's even possible. If I were the editor, the opening would be my first priority. Yes, we need a narrative that flows and makes sense and moves us at the end, but readers have to start somewhere, usually at the beginning.

I used to read Charles Bukowski as a young man--in part because he wasn't me. I liked his devil-may-care attitude, his humor, and his commitment to art despite being destitute and drunk half of his waking life. Honest where most keep silent, he opened life to the seamier side. His perspective should not be construed as matching mine.

But the point here at the beginning of his novel was that it not only hooks but also gets the reader to think about the narrative, about life. He packed more in a few sentences than some writers put into two pages. The following opening from Women isn't the full paragraph but it's enough. Even one sentence is enough, but reader beware. Bukowski is definitely R-rated and not recommended for the woke and the strict religious type--or really anyone who thinks people should only think as they do.

I was 50 years old and hadn't been to bed with a woman for four years. I had no women friends. I looked at them on the streets or wherever I saw them, but I looked at them without yearning and with a sense of futility.

Not beautiful, not evocative, but functional. We get character and struggle immediately in the first sentence. Whether the reader feels for his plight is another matter, but that may say as much about the reader as the writer.

One of my all-time favorites is Of Mice and Men. It starts off with two pages of setting (also theme although I didn't notice that until a later reading), and I was never bored. Rereading, I see that on a surface level, it's about the land and about how it's been used by animals and men before of characters enter. It's not what sells me on the book, but it's interesting enough--for a moment. Steinbeck seems aware of what he can get away with and how much: well written and a touch of interest.

A few miles south of Soledad, the Salinas River drops in close to the hillside bank and runs deep and green. The water is warm too, for it has slipped twinkling over the yellow sands in the sunlight before reaching the narrow pool. On one side of the river the golden foothill slopes curve up to the strong and rock Galiban mountains, but on the valley side the water is lined with trees–willows fresh and green with every spring, carrying in their lower leaf junctures the debris of the winter’s flooding; and sycamores with mottled, white, recumbent limbs and branches that arch over the pool. On the sandy bank under the trees there leaves lie deep and so crisp that a lizard makes a great skittering sound if he runs among them. Rabbits come out of the brush to sit on the sand in the evening, and the damp flats are covered with the night tracks of ‘coons, and with the spread pads of dogs from the ranches, and with the split-wedge tracks of deer that come to drink in the dark.

There is a path through the willows and among the sycamores, a path beaten hard by boys coming down from the ranches to swim in the deep pool, and beaten hard by tramps who come wearily down from the highway in the evening to jungle-up near water. In front of the low horizontal limb of a giant sycamore there is an ash pile made by many fires; the limb is worn smooth by men who have sat on it.

Simple and effective. 

If you can't sustain my interest for two pages--the two pages you presumably worked hardest on--how can you maintain it for a book? Maybe it picks up later. When you get a sample today, though--you only get ten to twenty pages of the opening--somehow you have to persuade the reader that this book is worth reading. 

I picked these not as exemplary but as simple and effective, picked because they aren't hitting you over the head with their hooks.

A Wake with Lawrence Ferlinghetti on Green Street

 

Lawrence Ferlinghetti passed away this year on February 22, 2021, one month shy of reaching 102. He seems to have been producing new material for quite a while. He published a novel in 2019. While it could have been a trunk novel, it's still interesting that a man was capable of producing work that people would publish over a century of living. Apparently, not so much today, but that's another story.

The poem in question (posted online here) is untitled although this website calls it "Green Street"; however, note the formatting does not match the one I read.

My interest in it is how parallels other genres like science fiction. Also, my interest in it was how difficult it was to read it. I had a book of poems to read in spare moments, and for some reason my mind kept slipping off the poem. Probably I was distracted, not ready to focus. I don't blame the writer until I hunker down and focus.

This happens in most genres. There are moments in narrative when your concentration has to be 100% there. In science fiction, usually that's weighted at the front, the steep learning curve for learning how the world works. In mysteries, it's at the end when shifts and surprises can come fast. In poetry, it can be the whole poem. In literary fiction, it's similar, but it's often more nuanced although some experimental stuff may require most of your attention.

Here's the opening line:

The Green Street Mortuary Marching Band

What's tricky here is this pile up of nouns and adjectives, and what modifies what. "Green" is, in some senses, the most ordinary of these words. It most likely modifies "Street", but that doesn't help much because it could have been named because all the houses were green, or maybe it was covered vegetation, or maybe it was named after someone named Green, and have nothing to do with the color at all. It could also refer to being young, inexperienced, naive or unripe. It's also possible that Green could modify "Mortuary" or "Marching Band" or the whole. Alternately, or in addition, Wallace Stevens added on (at least within the field of poetry) a sense of spice, of creativity, and of color in "Disillusionment of Ten O'Clock" (excerpted here, see link for full poem):

The houses are haunted
By white night-gowns.
None are green,
Or purple with green rings,
Or green with yellow rings,

"Street" could mean just a paved avenue, or someone or something raised on or near the street as in "street kids" or "street dogs"--a sense of looking down one's nose can be heard in that. It could also refer to homelessness.

"Mortuary" adds the actual place but also the sense of death and passing on. "Marching" is interesting in that it could serve as part of a verb team (was marching) or a verbal clause (marching in place), but here it's an adjective like "Green," sort of.

"Band" unites the whole--in both definition and action.

Now that's a lot of information to process in one line. You might come up with more. It could be that mortuary marching bands have a place in our society. Maybe this famous one comes to mind:

But for most of us it lies outside our experience. And that jarring sensation between mourning (often the passing of elderly) in a mortuary and celebrating in a marching band (often composed of youth) creates the energy in this poem and in the above movie clip.

It's this energy that drives SF, too. When Elizabeth Bishop misread "mammoth" as "man moth," she wrote a poem. Jack Vance took that strange combination of words and tried to create a different reality.

I recommend reading the whole poem at the link.

Getting into Writers of the Future with Luke Wildman

Luke Wildman--cool surname, no?--and I will share space in the upcoming Writers of the Future anthology. He has a lot of good advice here. He's also recorded a video summarizing and answering questions about the contest:

Put an asterisk on some of the meta-analysis as possibilities but not definites. I may have read few more anthologies, but I hadn't read the most recent in awhile. The "alien" perspective is difficult to achieve and impressive when done well.

The best explanation I've heard or read about entering the contest is this podcast with David Farland/Wolverton, Tim Powers, and Orson Scott Card. This is what I've pointed to when someone asks about the contest.

Part of it is going to be arbitrary. What did everyone else submit? If you and 400 others submit BEM stories, you're competing against all those stories for one slot. This happens in the magazines. I've had friends upset that they miss a market because a magazine published or will publish something like it within the past year or within the next year. You're competing against unknown forces.

The only thing you can do about that is to write what only you can write. Of course, it might be an oddball that stands no chance of publication, but maybe it's something that might catch someone's eye. A couple in the last anthology surprised me--not that I didn't like them but that they were experimental in some aspect.

That leads me to the next point: Traditionally, it has been a place for traditional stories--meat and potatoes. What's showcased is the speculation. Maybe the anthology is changing, though, so pay attention to what it's currently publishing.

If you're going to guess, you might map out the speculative subgenres. See what isn't getting published in the anthologies, and try one of the less traveled subgenres. I guessed in this post that maybe the editors are looking for more elaborate world-building tales (published early accidentally after experiencing a few surprises). In the podcast, Wolverton says he is looking across the breadth and depth of the field. There you go.

 The contest is a great place to test out your stories. See what gets the editor's attention. He hands out different honorable mentions (in 2015 he started "Silver Honorable Mentions") and finalists. What are you doing that might have caught his attention this time that you didn't do before?

Finally, read the anthology, as Luke says. Read at least three or four of them. My personal favorite was L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future Volume XXIII although there have been several others that came close. Usually all are entertaining where two or three stand out, and a handful of those probably should have made it into the Year's Best anthologies. 

The temptation for a writer is to sneer and say that you wrote something better than story X! I'm afraid that the first time I submitted I probably felt like that. That can be healthy if it spurs you into writing something else and submitting it. After all, that's what got Octavia Butler writing. 

If it keeps you from submitting, though, then steer clear of it. The writers did something right, and your primary job is not to figure out what went wrong as if the story were still in the workshop, but to ask what made it catch the editor's eye. I hope that the analyses here on the blog all do that: something positive, something negative. A little bit yin and a little bit yang. A little bit country and a little bit rock and roll.

Feel free to send me your thoughts when the anthology comes out in November.

To all the writers, good luck! To the readers, have fun!

Writers of the Future, v. 36, edited by David Farland

Every year, the Writers of the Future anthology produces a volume of stories selected to entertain.  It's surprising the number of quality works they comb out of the slush. Each tale has something that strongly recommends it. A writer could do worse than studying the successes found here:

• devastating climaxes
• heartbreaks
• wild speculations
• philosophical examinations
• bold world-building
• enticing hooks
• an unusual take on a saying or something else we take for granted
• an unusual take on a trope
• ponderings on the past, present of future 

Clearly, a writer doesn't have to pack everything inside to perfection. But the story does have to do something well. The writers here unveil their talent like a colorful peacock's tail and assure us that all may go well for the future health of the speculative genres.

The reviews here speculate a bit on what the anthology is looking for--variety. So maybe if you think vampire stories will be glutting the market, now's not the time to send yours. But apart from anthology calls, there's no way to know what the editors will be reading.

I have no idea which writer will win the Golden Pen. I don't always agree with their choices as to which should have won. My favorite was sometimes one that took second or third. This time I don't have a clear favorite as all do something worth studying and emulating. Each has something that made me jealous of their accomplishment. I raise a glass to toast all the authors.

For writers out there, it may require not one anthology but multiple to pick up on the story types they're looking for. I do notice that sometimes stories that appear a year or two later have something to do with stories in a previous anthology--perhaps commenting on or supplying a new talk on a similar speculation. 

Another thing that just struck me is reading not just the Golden Pen stories (or quarterly winners), but also the stories opening the anthology. Even though it may not be what the judges or even the editor thought was the best, the editor is trying to grab readers with that one. 

Conversely, read all the final stories. Think the opposite. Maybe everyone's trying to write the story that appears first. What does the editor want the readers to leave with?

As a whole, the anthology stands toe to toe or even surpasses current professional magazines although it doesn't often supply the best that genre produced that year although it sometimes does. 

Here are the links to comments about specific stories, in the order that they appeared in the anthology:

1. "The Trade" by C. Winspear
2. "Foundations" by Michael Gardner
3. "A Word That Means Everything" by Andy Dibble
4. "Borrowed Glory" by L. Ron Hubbard
5. "Catching my Death" by J. L. George
6. "A Prize in Every Box" by F. J. Bergmann
7. "Yellow and Pink" by Leah Ning
8. "The Phoenix's Peace" by Jody Lynn Nye
9. "Educational Tapes" by Katie Livingston
10. "Trading Ghosts" by David A. Elsensohn 
11. "Stolen Sky" by Storm Humbert
12. "The Winds of Harmattan" by Nnedi Okorafor
13. 
    

 

Writers of the Future is offering a preorder special on volume 37.

Shotgun Lullabies by Sheree Renée Thomas [part 1]

The voice driving the stories and poems of Sheree Renée Thomas does have a lullaby quality, sung through the mouth of a shotgun--explosive and melodic, it pleases even as it bites:

In the beginning God walked barefoot ’cross the land. She spread Her big toe wide ’cross the rich, deep earth and danced. She stomped so hard with Her rockbottom feet, the earth split right open. Still She danced. Her big toe sunk deep, and the sweet waters rise quick, quick. That’s how we got the rivers, and the lakes, and the creeks.

Thomas often uses dialect as once was popularized by nineteenth-century American writers like Mark Twain but fell into disfavor by the next generation that saw it as a gimmick or cheaply sensational. Here, though, it's digging into the music of the voice, listening to the native language of speakers--sonorous and sensuous. 

A powerful draw to this chapbook is Thomas's voice. It seduces and mesmerizes. It speaks from the fundament of images, sound, and earth.

As you can see by the above sample, Thomas is interested in not just sound and voice but also myth--the larger than life, tall tales that aren't so tall that you might wonder, "Maybe?" They often crawl into the space between realism and speculative fiction. The narratives are less stories than myths where the mythic figure emerges, say [Sukie Diamond, for instance], unscathed through the Antebellum South where the world and the people she encounters are shaped by her being there.

Listen to a reading of Thomas's center story, "Malaika Descending," here.

If you haven't anything by Thomas yet, this is a great place to start. Mildred meets with the neighborhood, some weeks after her "Aunt Malaika" had passed. Her memory isn't a pleasant one altohugh the "aunt" raised Mildred. Somehow Mildred makes a trip to Hell and find Malaika there. It's a dark tale but, nonetheless, full of hope--even for a life after life. This isn't high-octane invention, but suggestive and moving. Well worth your time to check out.

"The Winds of Harmattan" by Nnedi Okorafor

First appeared in Nalo Hopkinson's Mojo: Conjure Stories. Reprinted by David Farland.

Nalo Hopkinson's anthology was about personal magic, using it to alter fate, which she described as "tricky, powerful, and often dangerous." Nnedi Okorafor's offering repays careful reading. It's trickier than its simple appearance.

Asuquo, the protagonist, is an alluring young woman, but she has the undesirable "seven glistening locks of dada hair" which made her a child of Mami Wata, the water deity who would come to collect and thought to be barren. Worse, she can fly. Her husband ties her down to keep her from flying away. She will become a legend, but even that will be rewritten.

What's wonderful here is the challenge it presents. It seems a typical feminist tale, but there are things that it accepts, rejects, or doesn't question, that should leave everyone uncomfortable, no matter what the perspective, which is exactly what Asuquo represents within her village--something that cannot be tamed or forced into a box. Any particular reading will have to ignore some details in order to make a case for forwarding a particular agenda. It has all sorts of barbs that makes it "tricky, powerful, and often dangerous."