But, oh, when the stories are found it is all worth it. They are the honeycomb in the moldering branch, finally reached by my fumbling claws. It's such a profound joy. If anyone is combatting boredom or a purpose for their life, I would recommend finding 100 things you want to explore, and doing it...
Finding books for the "100 Great Books of Fantasy" reading list is half of the adventure. This last set of "H" authors has been a challenge. First, finding at least a handful of authors to consider. Second, reading through the first pages on Amazon to see if it snags me. (Not many do.) Third, acquiring books, and even then, finding they are not my cup of tea. As beautiful as the writing was, I did not have enough brain power this month to surmount A Storm of Wings by M. John Harrison (I have since shifted to more scalable work of his). And as jaw-droppingly gorgeous as the descriptions of dragons are in Barbara Hambly's Dragonsbane, I know that I cannot get through this epic sword-and-sorcery quest, which is a hard genre for me, ironically: Not in fact my cup of tea.
But, oh, when the stories are found it is all worth it. They are the honeycomb in the moldering branch, finally reached by my fumbling claws. It's such a profound joy. If anyone is combatting boredom or a purpose for their life, I would recommend finding 100 things you want to explore, and doing it...
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The first book that we ever read by Nina Kiriki Hoffman was in the early 1990s called The Thread that Binds the Bones, a freaky out-of-this world take on magical families that completely side-stepped the usual genre tropes: vampires, fairies,wizards, etc. It was an amazing book. Spirits That Walk in Shadow takes place in the same lineage, placing Jaime, one of the magical wild-kids, at her first week at a "normal" Oregon college with a "normal" human girl named Kim who has a very creepy magical problem. Kim is a synsthate -- she sees the world primarily in washes of seething color -- and that makes her irrestistable to magically-parasitic stalkers.
The things I loved about this book was how the normally combative Kin were so protective of Kim, the really imaginative magical background of the family, the different cultures and types of magic, and Kim's amazing color-world. (Hoffman's magic is so stunning that she has either placed or one for every major fantasy award there is.) However, what I didn't love about this particular story was a full third of the book takes place in the space of a morning, and the slow pace and angst of the characters kind of tangled up for me. Since Jaime and Kim alternate chapters, it didn't help when their points of view covered the same moments. Lessons for Writers: I think it best when an event is covered by one point of view, and not diluted by other points-of-view. I know I've done this in my own writing, but in reading this story and others, it sure looks like there is a "right" point-of-view to use, even in the moments of a scene. Nina Kiriki Hoffman can take you to unique magical places, here. How good is Robert Holdstock? The British Fantasy Society calls their annual award for best fantasy the "Robert Holdstock Award." (Not the Tolkein award, mind you), that's how good he is. I am seriously bummed that he passed away in 2009 because now I can't write him and lavish adoration on him, that's how good he is. I want to read EVERYTHING he has written, that's how... oh never mind. I'm not going to read them all immediately. But I will. The writing style is limpid and willing to be read. I liked that alot.
Mythago Wood has the elements of many fantasy stories -- a mysterious forest with magical creatures within it. What I think makes it different is how the main character -- Steve -- relates to it like we all do to our own lives -- none of us honestly know what the heck will happen next. We think we do, but in our core, we are not sure. The book captures that mood perfectly in every moment: making breakfast, waiting for the love of one's life to appear, finding strangers at the perimeters of the ground who seem both violent and friendly, making and losing and finding a toy boat, Steve facing down his feral brother Chris: this is a story about the unknown within and without, the qualities of the world and ourselves that we both know intimately and not at all: we can never be sure, even if everyone knows the story. It makes you wonder how much of your world has sprung out of you. It's a really wonderful story. I want to read more from this storyline and his others. Lessons for Writers: in reaching for the fantastic, don't forget your characters can only make that reach with their own complex, messy, unsure, and somewhat magical senses of their own. Nothing is written in stone. Learn more about these wonderful books at the Robert Holdstock website. A small detour from my reading list -- I read the next two books in the Troy series. When I read the first one, Lord of the Silver Bow, I had dismissed the writing style as "summer potboiler," but that was too light a brush. I had already realized the strength of the story was the characters, but the strength of the writing is that everything is perceived through the characters: neither David nor Stella ever show their hand as authors -- they let their characters do the work, which makes for a very compelling story.
And yet this is deeply their story, so much so that it hurts to think about it. Shield of Thunder could have easily been named Everyone Dies in the Arms of Their Loved Ones, and David Gemmell died before this was published. His wife Stella finished the last book, Fall of Kings, using his notes, and in the last chapter, when Andromache lights her husband's pyre, it is clear that this was not just the story of Greek heros and heroines, but the authors' story as well. As I got toward the end, I was reading slower and slower. It was hard to finish this series because it dawned on me that I knew what would happen to Troy -- everyone does -- and that these characters were all going to die. It made me ridiculously greatful for the characters who did survive despite how ridiculous the set-up was. (Friends who became enemies became friends again; against improbable odds, Helikaion and Andromache are reunited with his two sons; his sons are set up as the models for Romulus and Remus; oh and there was more.) We are all heros and heroines in our own stories, and part of that mythology lives forever, and yet all of us die: it is so powerful a theme, and all the more so because the authors were living (and dying) in its unfurling. Lessons for writing seem so trite after so powerful a tale. Let your characters tell The Story...not a story. And Stella Gemmell is still writing. Her "first" book is here. This little book knocks it out of the park on its title alone. Oh, and with everything else that follows that title, by the way.
It's short. (Two short stories, each proceeded by a scattering of gem-poems, each followed by a wonderful explanation by the author. I had sworn off author explanations, but these have changed my mind.) Every word is so transfixing, time just about stopped when I read it: there is more writing and content in here than most books five times longer. Why does every book has to be 500 pages long, now? I miss short novels. I do. I also think I have another author to add to my impending "Poetry Reading List." This is the Matter of the South: King Arthur with his gun in a pawn shop, The Fisher King haunted by black howling cusiths, even The Questing Beast. It is murkily ethereal, both in writing and story. The opening poem sets the tone: The fence had died. Perishing by solemn degrees, Choked to silence by bullis vines Lurking on the ground And slithering like fertility symbols Through trees that suffered Their subtle visitations. For writers, hope and despair. Words DO matter. The perfectly perched word opens up worlds in your heart. But DAMN -- how do you get there? It reminds me of the wistful advice given to us by Chip Delaney at Clarion, in 2006: "You cannot master your craft; you must submit to your craft." And perhaps more gently and much more recently, from Naomi Shahib Nye: "Believe in the work that comes through you." Even better, Berrien doesn't refer to himself as a writer in his blog. He refers to himself as "writerly." I can't help but feel connected. I've wanted to be more writerly all this year! Greek mythology was my very first love, so I was very excited to read the first book of a series on Troy by David Gemmell, who wrote at least 30 novels.
Thirty. Novels. Jealousy ensues. Starting the story I was ambivalent (nothing to do with my jealousy of course), because it is written more in "summer bot-boiler" style than "effervescent literature" I've been playing with. I kept noting that the characters were much more modern in their attitude and the story became almost cloyingly sentimental in places. A lot of places, actually. But you know what? Those same characters completely won me over. Helikaon (Aenaeus), also known as The Golden One, also known as Lord of the Silver Bow, navigates grief, rage, love, and honor with the courage of the most noble of heroes; but so does desperately fat Prince Antiphones who is despised by his father, stern Andromache whose courage brings many unwanted suitors, and even bookish Paris who is besotted by a very ordinary Helen. It had not been my intention to read series of books during this Fantasy Reading List, and so far, I have resisted it fairly well. But not this time. I ordered the next two, even though by all rights, I should be on my way to the "H" authors on this list. And that was even before I learned Mr. Gemmell died in 2006, before the second one published, and his wife Stella finished the third one based on his notes. It feels honorable to finish these stories on honor. And the lesson for writers is this: don't make your fantasy world and characters so arcane and alien that they don't speak to (and therefore win over) real people. Pay your respects to David Gemmell. I read Nicola Griffith's Slow River for my science fiction reading list, and I became aware of Hild just as I was looking for another "G" author for this fantasy reading list. Set in the Britain at the tail end of the Dark Ages, this story follows the adventures of Hild, niece and seer to King Edwin, who fights dozens of other kings vying for dominance, and so travels with his immense household up and down the lands to oversee his holdings and bring his challengers into line.
It is not fantasy in that there is no real magic, though Hild and her contemporaries believe firmly in elfs, witches, omens, curses, and gods, and are quite willing to entertain a relationship with the new god of Rome if it serves their needs-- but is very much a world of fantasy for them from their point of view because they believe in its magic. It is utterly believable how they got to that point: their lives are beholden to the land they live on: good crops, healthy animals, and weather decide directly who lives and who dies. Griffith's in depth description of this interrelationship between these people and their capricious lands is beyond perfection. And the lengths at which people go to maintain their ties with power without a moral blink is absolutely chilling. Hild's mother aborts babies and kills a queen to secure her children's place in the world. Hild herself volunteers to go on a "butcher bird's" pogrom against marauding thieves. It is part and parcel of survival in this lyrical, perilous world. The writing is beautiful. "The string-thin paths of early spring were wider now, wide enough for the queen and Hild to walk abreast. The soft green tapestry of the woods was stitched with the bright gleam of birdcall, too many birds to name." and "When she thought at all, she thought in British, the language of the high places, of wild and wary and watchful things. A language of resistance and elliptical thoughts." and "The wine made him happy. When you understood what made people happy, you understood them." I would have liked Hild to have been more introspective, more emotional, more humorous perhaps -- and perhaps the author will work to bring the newly married seer and lady out of her environment and into her own in the sequel to this book which is currently being written. Lessons for Writers: Knowing how the characters intimately are a part of their environment is key, and knowing the intimate details of those connections makes the world complete and compelling. To learn more, visit Nicola Griffith. Almost everyone knows the movie. The book has some very nice surprises:
(1) It is heavy. I mean physically heavy. This 2013 30th Anniversary hardback edition with lovely illustrations is made of very thick and glossy paper. Because they loved and thought this book was important. I really liked the illustrations. More books should be illustrated, I think. (2) William Goldman did not actually write this book. He did an abridgement of an Italian story, called The Princess Bride: S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure. Goldman is however a scriptwriter with a lot of street cred, including Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. (3) This is a story about true love, but not necessarily about Wesley and Buttercup. It is the story of Goldman's love for his father (who read him the original abridged version when he was ill), Goldman's love for this beloved story of his childhood and for the characters who dearly love each other: Inigo, Fezzik, Wesley, and of course, Buttercup. (4) And, just as this is an abridged story by a different author, the story continues (sort of) after what both Goldman and later audiences thought were the real ending. It is a very sweet and entertaining read -- and I wish I had been in a better mood this last month, reading it. I do think it is as important and dear as the author and publishers think it was. But life is perilous at times. I also found it amusing that I picked up this story the week Janet Yellin ascended to the top of the Federal Reserve and that Prince Humperdink's Chief of All Enforcement (including the Brute Squad) was also named Yellin. Lessons for Writers: There are not just stories that authors love, but there are stories that form and inform their entire lives. As an author, you may be called to fight for that story. Fight for it. As his family is murdered, a baby escapes into a nearby graveyard, whose denizens take him in and raise him to adulthood. I was really resisting reading a Gaiman book for this list, but the reviews on this intrigued me. I must say it is classic Gaiman, in both the good and bad ways I've come to think of him. Good: charming touches, such as listing the birth/ death date and last words from each tombstone listed after each ghost's name. I liked Bod, the main character. Bad: that pervasive feeling that this book could have been so much more than a revenge and end of world story featuring ghosts, vampires, and a werewolf. It almost feels like he relies on his marketing to make his stories tick. And I hate saying that. Lessons for Writing: don't rest on your laurels. Write your heart out. Fill the world with art and poetry. (I have decided to go to a poetry workshop in late May. Did I mention that?) This 2012 first novel by Max Gladstone was recommended by one of my very favorite websites, io9.com, which I have come to trust and enjoy for all things fantasy and science fiction. And when I saw that the protag Tara Abernathy was a very hard thing to find in these genres -- a black heroine -- and it involved murdered deities, I was sold. It is a fun read, too: I am just surprised that no one had realized that the legal profession and necromancy are natural bedfellows before this!
In this world possession is an accepted part of societal infrastructure and divine power is parceled out with a checkbook ledger. Looking thoughtfully at gods, goddesses, lawyers, and other brands of needy creatures, the book examines and elucidates the nature of hubris on many levels. The writing is superb and clever -- very few sentences deigned to be banal -- but that brought up a few instances of writing hubris (trying too hard) . I don't know if that was intentional on the author's part, but it was wonderful because intended or not, it supported the theme. I enjoyed all the characters, but oddly enough never really bonded with Tara, even though I wanted to. I liked her, don't get me wrong. I just didn't "get" her. Also, I am not a huge fan of the improbable one-upmanship, info-dumpy "Ah-Ha! What you didn't know was this!" denouement, but still: this is pretty satisfying to the last word. I think my favorite interchange was this: "Often a mechanic doesn't need to worry about compression chambers and heat exchange. He only needs to know that the engine transforms fuel into mechanical force. That description of an engine as a box that turns fuel to movement is a convenient fiction." "I've never heard that example before," Tara admitted. "What example do you use?" "Reality." Looking up the author's website, Max Gladstone: Novelist Myths for Hire, his latest blog post begins with "It’s been a TARDIS of a year: fast-moving, far-traveling, yet much bigger on the inside than I would have expected back in Jan of ’13," so he has cemented himself as a Friend of the Forest in my mind. Two Serpents Rise came out this last year as well, and another book is slated for this upcoming April. Yes, of course. I DID need to add more books to my reading list... Lessons for Writers: Again, Theme is no minor device -- it is the backbone of your story from whence all meaning flows. And "meaning" is what a Story is. Visit Max Gladstone. |
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