The Toasted Scimitar

R.I.P, Toasted Scimitar

2009-07-03T16:07:00.001-07:00

We apologize for how long this took to come to a decision, but regrettably, the collective Toasties have decided to shut down the Toasted Scimitar.

We'd like to thank you all for reading, commenting, and making this blog such a fun place to hang out! You're a fantastic audience and we love you all. (Don't read anything more into that. Really.)

The posts blog will stay up for the archives for a year or so, and some of us may be re-posting articles on other blogs, etc. All hope is not lost!

Plus, perhaps in the future, the Toasted Scimitar will be reborn, like the phoenix (or a zombie), and will rise again!

Until then, thank you all again for your support and readership. We had a blast and hope you did too. :)

Cheers (and fireworks, since we want the blog to go out with a bang),

--The Toasties (Ardyth, Laurie, Merc, Sparky and Skip)

The Trouble With Demons: Book Review

2009-04-12T16:02:00.000-07:00

THE TROUBLE WITH DEMONS (ARC)
By Lisa Shearin
Ace Books
Release date: April 28, 2009
(Available for pre-order)

OPENING NOTES FROM THE REVIEWER: I think I may have let out a little squeeee (no witnesses, thank goodness) when I opened a package from Penguin Group this week and discovered—you guessed it—an ARC of THE TROUBLE WITH DEMONS inside. I lost no time jumping into the first chapter and being swept up in Raines’ continuing saga. If you’ve read my reviews before, you know I try to avoid spoilers. Knowing what’s going to happen takes the surprise and spontaneity out of the journey. And this novel has surprises, spontaneity and twists aplenty. I found THE TROUBLE WITH DEMONS slightly darker than the first two books in the series, MAGIC LOST, TROUBLE FOUND and ARMED & MAGICAL but no less unpredictable. The heroine has established a pension for doing the unexpected in the earlier books, and she certainly didn’t disappoint in this new tale of magic and mayhem.

Raine—no stranger to trouble, she—continues her penchant for getting into the most dangerous, impossible situations. There’s plenty of action, conflict, supernatural entities, epic battles, but woven into and through the adventure is Raine’s intensifying bond with, and heart-wrenching struggle over, both men who have infiltrated her life, Mychael and Tam. More on that later. On to the elements…

COVER ART: This is my favorite covers of the series, so far. The font has lost its little sparkly twinkles which makes it a bit less busy, and the use of vivid color and mythic backdrop suggests the novel’s tone. The depiction of Raine with knives drawn and “armed for ogre,” seems to capture the spitfire nature of the character I call Calamity Raine. I would still love to get a glimpse of her leading men on a future cover. Or are they best left to my imagination?

INITIAL IMPRESSION: Raine wastes no time finding trouble. By page five she’s embroiled in an attack by powerful demons who have some utterly creepy battle tactics, and who only Raine can see…and things plummet downhill from there. Yup. Calamity Raine is back.

MAIN CHARACTERS: Raine Benares is a seeker, a finder of lost things, and a sorceress of moderate powers. She’s also a street-smart, quick-witted, armed-to-the-teeth member of a family of infamous rogues and criminals. In MLTF, she found something she wasn’t looking for and has been trying to get rid of it ever since. The Saghred, an ancient, soul-munching stone of power, has claimed her as a bond servant—a plight that both disgusts her and at times gives her incredible abilities, but always at a price. Mychael Eiliesor, a fellow elf, Conclave Guardian, paladin and powerful spellsinger came into her life to help her shake off her disturbing attachment, and his job often puts him at odds with her instincts, but she knows not everything Mychael does for her is strictly in the line of duty. Tam, hot goblin, nightclub owner, recovering (or is he?) dark mage with a questionable past also finds himself entangled in Raine’s plight, though an entanglement of a different sort is more what he has in mind. When Raine accepts Tam’s help in one particularly grim and desperate scene, they find there are consequences for their collaboration. Serious consequences. As Raine’s dilemma continues, the love triangle manifests itself in a profound way and ultimately represents the forces of Good, Evil…and Raine.

SUPPORTING CHARACTERS: Oh my, where do I start? Phaelan, Raine’s infamous pirate cousin holds his own with the most menacing threats despite his lack of magical ability. Phaelan is devious, conniving, swaggering and steadfastly loyal. Phaelan’s dad, Raine’s uncle, Commodore Ryn Benares also steals a scene or two. Piaras, Raine’s young friend and adopted “kid brother” is a spellsinger university student of incredible talent. So much talent that it often threatens his life. Talon Tandu, friend and fellow student of Piaras, is a young, seductive, half-blood goblin/elf—and Tam’s son. Sora Niabi, professor of demonology, is very good at her job and a peer Raine can relate to. Vegard, the Guardian assigned to protect Raine, or just keep up with her—good luck with that, V—becomes an unwilling sidekick to many of her escapades. Archmagus Justinius Valerian, most powerful mage on Mid next to Mychael, is still recovering from an attack that occurred in book two. Or is he? Raine’s father, Eamaliel Anguis, also has a presence, though from inside the rock, and has a surprise in store. There are many more characters and it’s important to remember the names and roles of each, as they often make encore appearances.

VILLAIN: There are, once again, many who might qualify as “villain material,” and most either want to possess the Saghred/Raine talent team, or want the stone and/or Raine contained, controlled and destroyed, in no particular order. Sarad Nukpana is back in all his evil glory, as is Rudra Muralin, power-goblin of the past. Sundry demons, my favorite of which is yellow and pops out of the…well, on second thought, see for yourself. The demon horde has a formidable leader who’s in control of the invasion, and thinks Mychael would be quite delicious. Even some of the “good guys” are bad guys, and Carnades Silvanus, in particular, is always plotting and manipulating facts to suit his plans.

OTHER CHARACTERS: There is a large and well-drawn contingent of minor characters, including loyal Guardians, dark mage bodyguards, corrupt officials, seedy minions, and supernatural creatures of darkness. They have a habit of springing at Raine at any time and from any direction. Definitely keeps a reader on their toes.

WORLD BUILDING: The imaginative world continues on the Isle of Mid, home to the Guardian citadel, a university for learning the magic arts, the Quad, government buildings, tunnels, streets, alleys, abandoned edifices, passageways and a bustling seafront. In this fantasy world, the threat of a lawsuit is sometimes as imposing as the threat of violence.

CONFLICT: Raine wants one thing—to rid herself of the Saghred stone. Well, maybe she wants three things, Mychael and Tam also being at the top of her list, though she has good reasons for distancing herself from both despite the fact the Saghred wants to collect them as a packaged set.

ROMANCE: Raine and Mychael and Tam, oh my! How’s a girl to decide between the powerful White Knight of Mid who is sworn to protect her but shouldn’t even associate with her—not that he can stay away—or one of the darkest of dark mages who is doing everything he can to change his spots for Raine. Although this novel can’t be classified as a romance, I feel the romantic conflicts between the main characters is one of the most powerful aspects of this series. The characters are so compelling that I, as a reader, can’t make up my mind who I like better for Raine’s suitor any more than Raine can. That makes for some wonderful prolonged romantic intrigue that has carried through the first three novels, only gets more entangled in the third, and doesn’t look to be resolved anytime soon.

MOST QUOTABLE QUOTE(S): Sooo many fantastic quotes in this one, but some are so pivotal to the plot that I don’t want to spoil all the fun, so here are just a few non-spoiler extracts:

Phaelan’s philosophy: “Live fast, die young, and leave behind a damned fine-dressed corpse.”

Raine’s family: “I’m a Benares. Our standards of proper behavior are a little different than everyone else’s.”

Raine’s lament: “I scare me.”

MAGIC QUOTIENT: One of Raine’s thoughts pretty much sums it up: “…an apocalyptic, magical kaboom waiting to happen.”

EVIL AUTHORS GUILD STAMP OF APPROVAL: The Evil Authors Guild exists to encourage writers to inflict appropriate amounts of terror, angst and emotional torture into their characters’ lives, and to leave them twisting in the wind at every opportunity. As you may have guessed from the comments above, this one gets one big, fat, red Approved.

FINAL WORD: It’s rare when a sequel can carry on the inspiration and freshness of the original novel as ARMED & MAGICAL did. It’s rarer still when the third novel in the series can take the reader into uncharted territory in terms of romantic stakes, danger and spontaneity. THE TROUBLE WITH DEMONS goes there. The characters get a bit of a breather at the conclusion to reflect, rethink and possibly reload. The story is left with a wonderfully-developed suggestion of impending doom and a sharp, edgy hint that history is about to repeat itself. This air of suspense will no doubt leave readers clamoring for the next book in the series. THE TROUBLE WITH DEMONS delivers in spades…and rapiers, spears, daggers, and loads of “kaboom.”

Lord of the Rings as Written by Other Authors

2009-03-19T18:25:00.001-07:00

In my internet wanderings, I stumbled across this site.

Yes, just as the title suggests, and very entertaining.

I vote for Gene Roddenberry's and Dr. Seuss' renditions. Not that that's an option.

HOPE'S FOLLY Review

2009-02-02T17:57:00.000-08:00

HOPE'S FOLLY

By Linnea Sinclair
Science Fiction Romance
Bantam Books

OPENING NOTES FROM REVIEWER: I try to avoid spoilers in my reviews for all potential readers. Knowing major chunks of the story takes the fun out of the read. So, while deftly skirting the plot hot spots, here's my take…

COVER ART: My review copy is a PDF ARC, so no gorgeous cover to sit and gaze at for hours, but I've posted the artwork I found on the internet. The cover fit my mental image of the main characters.

INITIAL IMPRESSION: The story kicks off with a Mission Impossible style self-destructing Imperial Security bulletin that Admiral Philip Guthrie, a traitor presumed dead, is now believed to be alive and his capture and/or termination is top priority to the Imperial powers-that-be (i.e. "the bad guys"). Guthrie is, of course, the ex-husband of Captain Chasidah Bergen of the first two books in the series, GABRIEL'S GHOST and SHADES OF DARK. And alive he is. Injured, hobbling, disillusioned, lonely and with the weight of the universe and the hopes of the rebel Alliance on his shoulders...but still breathing. He's dismayed to find he's saddled with a derelict former citrus hauler as his command ship. This scrap-ready heap is named HOPE'S FOLLY, an unfortunate tag that Philip must live with. He hopes it's not prophetic.

MAIN CHARACTERS: Admiral Philip Guthrie, the dynamic silver-haired, steel-tongued warrior was introduced via both of the earlier books in the series. The Great Guthrie is marked for assassination when arch-nemesis Darius Tage assumes control and guts the Imperial Fleet, and Philip becomes leader of the outnumbered and ill-equipped rebel opposition. New to the series is Sub-Lieutenant Rya Bennton, formerly of Imperial Fleet Security Forces Special Protection Services (aka ImpSec) and fully capable of her motto: Polite, Professional and Prepared to Kill. She's assigned herself as Philip's personal bodyguard, much to his confoundment. She's also the daughter of the late Captain Cory Bennton, Philip's long-time friend and subordinate who met an untimely death in the power struggle with the Imperial Fleet. Philip is Rya's childhood hero. Rya is Philip's horrible-brat-from-the-past now all grown up and a comrade in the fight against the Imperial Fleet. They share a magical connection; a love of weapons.

SUPPORTING CHARACTERS: There is an assortment of ship's officers and crew that are interesting and well-drawn, and at turns either suspicious or suspect. I had hopes that Chasidah "Chaz" Bergen and Gabriel "Sully" Sullivan would make an appearance, but alas, it was not to be in this story. (I did miss them.)

VILLAIN/S: The biggest threat--Darius Tage--remains off-stage, but his influence is felt in his personal crusade to capture and/or kill Admiral Guthrie. Philip could have reason to doubt the loyalty of just about every member of his hastily-formed crew, including Rya. Rya is a danger, but in ways he doesn't want to think about.

OTHER CHARACTERS: There is a cast of effective and memorable personas, not the least of which is the vessel's former "captain," one of the curmudgeonly four-legged variety the Alliance inherits with the ship. He plays a small role in helping Rya feret out danger. No tellin'. See for yourself.

WORLD BUILDING: This Dock Five universe with its various ports and jumpgates felt familiar from the previous books. The ghost of the flagship's former life manifests itself in the gentle and persistent waft of oranges in the cabins and corridors, which I found a very humorous touch.

CONFLICT: Conflict exists on almost every level, and tension cranks higher with each turn of a page. There are obviously some major issues to overcome if Philip and Rya are to find love, not the least of which are merely surviving, the problems with a superior officer-junior officer relationship, the age difference, the perception of the command staff and crew, and the question if they have true feelings for each other or simply share a deep grief brought on by the death of Cory Bennton--her father, his friend.

ROMANCE: Don't look for a fast and furious fling. Like most of Ms. Sinclair's other SFR novels, the relationship takes time to develop and many questions and obstacles must be overcome in getting there. A major hurdle is Philip's tendency toward self-sacrifice, in more ways than one.

EVIL AUTHORS GUILD STAMP OF APPROVAL: The Evil Authors Guild exists to encourage writers to inflict appropriate amounts of terror, angst and emotional torture into their characters’ lives, and to leave them twisting in the wind at every opportunity. Give this one the gold stamp.

NEAT, CATCHY LINGO:
Gritter: nick for a GR-10 plasma cannon

ittle-doos: slang for cobbled fixes; from "it'll do"

Subbie: slang for sub-lieutenant

Star-Ripper: a formidable enemy ship

SUMMARY: Linnea Sinclair is a RITA-Award winning author of Science Fiction Romance novels. If you're already familiar with her work and/or enjoy tormented characters, imaginative future worlds and pressure-cooker tension, you're sure to enjoy HOPE'S FOLLY.

NOTE: HOPE'S FOLLY will be released on February 24, 2009.

Click here to see the trailer posted on YouTube.

To see Linnea Sinclair's website, click here.

Review: Writing Magic

2009-01-25T13:48:00.000-08:00

I'm excited to share about "Writing Magic" by Gail Carson Levine, a well-known children's author. When I opend this book as a Christmas present, I admit I was a bit skeptical. A children's book on writing? What was I going to learn from that? I've been writing seriously for the last five years and sold my first novel last year. After reading scores of books on writing, I already have my favorite two books on craft, "Writing on Both Sides of the Brain" and "The First Five Pages". Add the classic Stunk and White "Elements of Style" for grammar and "Steering the Craft" by LeGuin for inspiration when floundering, and I figure I'm pretty well set. I check the same books out of the library constantly.

"I know you know everything in this book," my mother said as I stared at it. "She's just such a joy to read and I though you'd enjoy all her stories about rejection letters. I found them heartening."

After giving the book a try, I have to say that Levine's book is the best book for kids on writing that I've read and certainly worth any beginner in writing picking up. Her friendly narration and hopeful and encouraging tone are quite infective. Plus, she's just plain fun. What other books on writing encourage you to rewrite Little Red Ridinghood with everyone staying eaten at the end (the chapter about making your characters suffer) or encourages you to describe in detail what brushing your teeth is like (the chapter on description)? The writing exercises are as quirky and enticing as everything else.

No, I didn't learn anything I didn't know before, but I sure had fun being reminded about it.

"The best way to write better is to write more," Levine insists throughout the book and promptly gives you more than enough prompts to do immediately that. Every chapter prods the reader in this direction. Humor might be the vehicle, but Levine is also deadly serious with all her suggestions and right on target with what makes writing good. A short 161 pages with large type (but nicely indexed for reference), this book is brief but welcoming, and exactly what I wish could have existed back when I was ten or eleven and convinced writing was "too hard" for me. As an adult and a published author, I really do enjoy the warm and fuzzy feeling I get reading it, the feeling I could write anything, and just might, if only I'd sit down and try it.

And I'll happily take her writer's oath again before getting back to work on my projects.

"I promise solemnly:

1. to write as often and as much as I can,

2. to respect my writing self, and

3. to nurture the writing of others."

Do that, and we can't go astray.

CHOSEN SISTER is out!

2009-01-19T13:58:00.000-08:00

*bounces around and throws flaming confetti*

Ardyth's first novel, CHOSEN SISTER, has just been released from Wild Child Publishing! :D

It's a fun, funny, action-packed fantasy--and can I just say that the Gold Wizard is made of win? (Yes, I know, Merc likes a wizard mentor... the world is ending.)

Do check it out, and stop by Ardyth's site too! :D

Next week, we hope to have an offical book launch party here on the TS. And a review. And more flaming confetti. ;)

CONGRATS, Ardyth! I'm sure there will be more to follow this success. B-)

~Merc

2009-01-16T14:54:00.000-08:00

I was thrilled to finally recieve my cover to my first published novel (with Wild Child Publishing). This is a young adult e-book. It'll be released next week and I'm very excited. Thank you to everyone who's supported me in my writing! You guys mean a lot to me.

I've also got a great website up and running thanks to Wulfie. I love the art there too. I appreciate everyone's support.

To tide you through...

2009-01-13T15:22:00.000-08:00

Over at The Bookshelf Muse, they have a link to a wonderful discussion on another blog about "finding your voice". Go check it out, it's a wonderful tide pool of tasty... er, snacks? Y'all like seafood, right?

~Merc

REVIEW: The Yiddish Policemen's Union

2009-01-12T05:00:00.000-08:00

I picked this book up for the concept—alternate universe where sixty years ago a temporary Jewish settlement was established in Alaska, and now in modern day, with Israel long failed and the territory of Sitka the closest left to a Jewish homeland, the settlement is facing reversion to U.S. control and its residents relocation.

The writing beautifully evokes the icy, claustrophobic, neon-smeared feel of the setting; in fact, the skill of Chabon’s writing was what kept me reading through early chapters when the plot was slow to pick up and the main character (a homicide detective with the soon-to-be-dissolved Sitka police department) difficult to care about. The world Chabon creates is rich and imaginative, if rarely pleasant—the book is heavily noir in feel. The secondary characters—the MC’s half-native cousin, his tough, honorable ex-wife (and new boss), his bush pilot sister, the junkie whose murder he’s investigating—are what truly carry the story (yes, even the ones deceased before the novel begins; they’re some of the most vivid and well-drawn of the lot).

One of the charms and sometimes frustrations of the novel is that it’s constantly shifting—it begins as a grit-minded murder mystery, and yet somehow morphs through adventure, speculative fiction, thriller, even passages that seem like excerpts from a memoir, so wistful and full of depth they make the reader feel as though this alternate history is the real one, not the world they live in. I never knew where the story was going next—something excellent and too rarely found, for me. However, at points the elements don’t mesh well; near the end, especially, the plot fails to support the story enough.

Overall, The Yiddish Policemen’s Union is a beautiful, bittersweet exploration of home and identity and community, worth picking up just for the worldbuilding and prose alone. And, of course, the swashbuckling bush pilot.

~Sparky

Quick...Look Up! Right Now.

2009-01-10T15:55:00.000-08:00

The biggest and brightest Full Moon of 2009 will rise tonight, and you can catch it right at sunset. Which, here, is...just about now.

Because of the Moon's eliptical orbit, it will be at perigee, meaning it will be closest to Earth and appear more than ten percent larger and thirty percent brighter than at other times.

*looks out window* Oh my!

Happy New Year

2009-01-01T00:03:00.000-08:00

A post-holiday treat from Jim C. Hines

2008-12-30T09:04:00.000-08:00

Do yourself a favor and pop over and read Jim C. Hines' (author of Goblin Quest, Goblin Hero, Goblin War, and the forthcoming novel The Stepsister Scheme) goblin-style Christmas story.

Holiday Greetings from Jig the goblin and Smudge the fire-spider

It's much wicked fun, and the perfect holiday treat. %-)

Enjoy! (And be sure to check out Jim's blog and books.)

~Merc

Merry Christmas, all!

2008-12-25T05:25:00.000-08:00

In honor of the season, this is a rendition of a song you all probably know well.

LOTR: The Twelve Days of Christmas

On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me
One Master Ring.

On the second day of Christmas my true love gave to me
Two towers dark
And one ring to rule them all.

On the third day of Christmas my true love gave to me
Three Elven rings
Two towers dark
And one ring to rule them all.

On the fourth day of Christmas my true love gave to me
Four Hobbits singing
Three Elven rings
Two towers dark
And one ring to rule them all.

On the fifth day of Christmas my true love gave to me
Five Uruk-Hai
Four Hobbits singing
Three Elven rings
Two towers dark
And one ring to rule them all.

On the sixth day of Christmas my true love gave to me
Six eagles soaring
Five Uruk-Hai
Four Hobbits singing
Three Elven rings
Two towers dark
And one ring to rule them all.

On the seventh day of Christmas my true love gave to me
Seven Dwarves a-mining
Six eagles soaring
Five Uruk-Hai
Four Hobbits singing
Three Elven Rings
Two towers dark
And one ring to rule them all.

On the eighth day of Christmas my true love gave to me
Eight Ents awakened
Seven Dwarves a-mining
Six eagles soaring
Five Uruk-Hai
Four Hobbits singing
Three Elven rings
Two towers dark
And one ring to rule them all.

On the ninth day of Christmas my true love to me
Nine Ringwraiths flying
Eight Ents awakened
Seven Dwarves a-mining
Six eagles soaring
Five Uruk-Hai
Four Hobbits singing
Three Elven rings
Two towers dark
And one ring to rule them all.

On the tenth day of Christmas my true love gave to me
Ten corsair longships
Nine Ringwraiths flying
Eight Ents awakened
Seven Dwarves a-mining
Six eagles soaring
Five Uruk-Hai
Four Hobbits singing
Three Elven rings
Two towers dark
And one ring to rule them all.

On the eleventh day of Christmas my true love gave to me
Eleven barrow wights
Ten corsair longships
Nine Ringwraiths flying
Eight Ents awakened
Seven Dwarves a-mining
Six eagles soaring
Five Uruk-Hai
Four Hobbits singing
Three Elven rings
Two towers dark
And one ring to rule them all.

On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love gave to me
Twelve Rohan riders
Eleven barrow wights
Ten corsair longships
Nine Ringwraiths flying
Eight Ents awakened
Seven Dwarves a-mining
Six eagles soaring
Five Uruk-Hai
Four Hobbits singing
Three Elven rings
Two towers dark
And one ring to rule them all!

-----

Enjoy and Merry Christmas!

~Merc

P.S. If you crave more renditions (and who doesn't?), see GreenBooks's version of 12 Days of Christmas and LOTR Christmas caroling. :)

Review: ALL THE WINDWRACKED STARS

2008-12-12T16:07:00.000-08:00

If the title alone doesn’t make your ears perk, this might not be the book for you. If the author Elizabeth Bear’s description of it as a “peri-apocalyptic noir Norse steampunk technofantasy” doesn’t, well . . . there’s not much I can do for you. I am a shameless fangirl for All the Windwracked Stars, and therefore I shall now babble joyfully a few reasons why (there are many more reasons, but, as I said, fangirl. I can squee all day about the excellence that is Mingan, Suneater and destroyer of worlds).

But first, a note on the cover: if I hadn’t already been craving this book for months before its release, the cover alone would have made me pick it up. It shows a two-headed, winged, antlered, horned steed. He’s named Kasimir. My zoologist’s heart goes pit-a-pat every time I think of him.

But onward, to the novel itself. I tend to prefer Bear’s short work, such as “Orm the Beautiful” and “This Tragic Glass”, since in her novels I’ve often had trouble with tangled plotlines and difficult-to-care-about characters. In All the Windwracked Stars, however, Bear continues to show her skill at creating deep, imaginative worlds while also following sympathetic characters (even the character most easily classified as an antagonist is a hero at certain angles, and vice versa) in a plot both complex and comprehensible.

The story opens at the end of the world—yes, the end of the world, and the side of Light has lost. Familiarity with Norse mythology isn’t required, though it resonates throughout the setting and story (the bulk of which takes place two thousand years later, as the world is finally finishing dying). Bear as ever packs her work with Cool Stuff—one of my favorite passages in the entire novel is this:

“ . . . human society had flourished very well—had blossomed—without them.

“Blossomed. And then fallen like the rose to the canker—rotten, slimed, and dead. They did it themselves, the Desolation, created it with their bioweapons and their radiation bombs, with their shoggoth main battle groups and their killer robots and their orbital microwave projectors, their mass projectors and combat sorcerers and laser-guided death curses.”

All the Windwracked Stars is so dense and twisty even trying to describe the main characters risks giving spoilers. To start with, though, we follow Muire: the last valkyrie, who in cowardice fled the battlefield millennia ago and thus survived, alone and shamed. She guards the last living city, as the world winds down to death. Now Mingan the Grey Wolf, old enemy and devourer, has returned to hunt the streets, and all the remaining powers of the world are drawn into the battle to survive.

Needless to say, I’m already craving the forthcoming second book.

If this book were an animal, what would it be?

A valraven, of course—the two-headed, winged, antlered etc. steeds of the fallen host of Light. Magnificent, sorrowful, glorious in grim determination and the overpowering will to live.

~Sparky

Interview with Marva Dasef

2008-12-10T08:00:00.000-08:00

As everyone knows, I'm excited about Children's Literature, and next month a wonderful collection of stories I helped stories I helped critique is coming out. So, I took a moment to catch up with Marva Dasef on her work and her new release.

Hi, Marva, and welcome to the Toasted Scimitar. How long have you been writing fiction and what got you into writing?

Greetings, Oh Dreaded One. Thanks for asking me onto Toasted Scimitar. It’s an honor.

Like all writers, I’ve been writing since I could smear my diaper contents on the walls. To this day, my mother is afraid of reading my stories. However, college led me into a more lucrative form of writing–technical documentation–for some thirty-five years. I wrote a bit of fiction along the way, but submitted only a couple of things for publication. I got a flash into an anthology on Sasquatch. Fond I am of the Northwest variety of the mighty beast. I dredged that story out of the shoe box in 2006 and got it published in Bewildering Stories. That revamp set me off on lugging out other junk to rewrite and submit for publication.

The next story out of the archives was a memoir-style story about one of my father’s experiences growing up in West Texas during the Great Depression. I hadn’t finished it since I didn’t have a good ending, so I went to visit my father (age 85) and asked him for more detail. Floodgate opening time! I ended up with twenty stories, fifteen or so actually based on his experiences.

I had seven of the stories published here and there in on-line and print mags.

I pulled several others out and went into rewrites (shuddering at my earlier efforts). With the help of lots of excellent writers on a couple of critiquing sites, I managed to shape up a few of the oldies for publication. From that, I gained enough experience to start writing new stories.

All told, I’ve had thirty-five or so stories published here and there. If anybody’s interested in the list, they can check my website. Some stories that went into ezines are still available.

All my books are listed here.

Why did you decide to self-publish "Tales of a Texas Boy?” What are the benefits and down sides of self-publishing?

I tried a couple of agents with the entire set of stories, but trying to sell a small book (about 33,000 words) of short stories is impossible unless you’re already a well-known writer. I might have waited, but since my father was getting on in years and almost totally blind with macular degeneration, I felt like I couldn’t wait to get famous. That’s why I decided to self-publish. I wanted my father to have “his” stories in a form he could hold, even if he could no longer read.

The best move I ever made was to put out a Large Print edition (8.5x11" and 7.5x9.5"). Of course, his blindness got me thinking about other people with failing vision. As it turns out, the stories resonate with the older folks. I’ve heard more than one comment that the stories reminded them of their own childhood, particularly if they grew up in rural America. Tales hit their nostalgia button. The two Large Print editions are regularly on the LP best sellers list on Amazon.

Benefits of self-publishing: You get published. Guaranteed. Whether you sell or not depends on how avid you are for marketing. Thing is, even if you get a regular publisher, you’re still going to have to do a lot of marketing. That’s the way the game works. A publisher does provide some publicity help. After all, they want to make money from your books, but don’t think you can sit back and collect royalties without lifting a finger.

Downside of self-publishing: You won’t sell a lot of copies.

What got you into small press publishers? Tell us a bit about your experience with that.

Small press publishers are far more accessible. I don’t think the quality of the material is any less than the majors, but there are only so many slots available with the majors. Getting an agent or major publisher for a novella-length book is an exercise in futility. I write books under 50K words. The small publishers are much more amenable to the short books, especially if they’re e-publishers.

Some people are predicting that e-publishing is the new direction for children's and YA books. What has been your experience with e-books and other non-traditional formats?

E-books are not just for kids. E-books are in all genres for all ages. A particularly hot (pardon the pun) market is for erotica. I don’t happen to write anything that I wouldn’t let my mom read (yes, she does read my books after all). But I know a number of writers who are prolific erotica authors with their main publishing outlet in e-books.

I produced a Kindle edition of Tales, and Cantarabooks also published it in e-book format. I think it’s a good idea to cover all the publishing bases you can. E-books are a great way to get your writer foot in the door of publishing.

I'm a big Cadida fan. Tell us a bit about your upcoming release, "The Seven Adventures of Cadida.”

Gee, thanks! I like that feisty gal myself. “The Seven Adventures of Cadida” (Sam’s Dot Publishing) will be listed for sale on The Genre Mall on January 1st. I wish it were in time for Christmas gifts, but, alas, practicalities got in the way of wishes once again. SDP also published my YA science fiction novella, “First Duty.” Here’s the backcover blurb on Seven Adventures to give folks an idea of what Cadida is all about:

Cadida’s in trouble again.

But then, when is Cadida not in trouble?

First, she gets captured by raiders and thrown into a cave to be sacrificed to a demon, which turns out to the a djinn named Bascoda, a rather clumsy genie who adopts Cadida as his mistress. Cadida manages to escape despite Bascoda’s “help,” but later returns to the cave to see if anyone else had been captured. She finds instead of a prisoner a rather lonely and rather pathetic demon who needs a new home. Then Baakir (a fire-breathing, talking, flying horse) tells Cadida that his beloved Barika has been captured by pirates. Baakir is only somewhat helpful because he is not yet fully in control of his magic. Oops.

Oh, yes, there’s much more...but you’ll just have to turn the pages and find out what kind of trouble this bored little rich young lady can get into.

What new projects do you have going?

I’ve started the third book in a middle-grade fantasy trilogy. I’m querying the first two books as a combo. Clearly, these are separate books, but I got little response to the first book as a standalone. One agent mentioned that it was too short and would do better if I added 20K words to it (to bring it up to 65K). I’m not a wordy writer. I figure that the reader knows the sky is blue and grass is green, so I’ve never felt compelled to tell them such things. I think this comes from my 35 years writing technical documentation. Short, simple, to the point. Anything extra is, well, extra.

This trait will also prevent my ascension into the Halls of Epic Fantasy Novels. When I read, I don’t want every little detail of the landscape and a description of every pockmark and wrinkle on the characters. I guess I write for people like myself. Less is better.

Oops, now I’m wandering off on a soapbox with wheels.

My WIP series is titled “The Witches of Galdorheim” and comprises Book 1: Bad Spelling and Book 2: Midnight Oil. I haven’t decided on a title for the third book. I just call it The Scottish Tale for now. Can you guess where it takes place?

Thanks for chatting with us about your work.

I appreciate the chance to natter on somebody else’s blog than my own. So, thanks for asking!

The Minions Strike Back

2008-12-05T00:01:00.000-08:00

“I said no. Waspinator sick of being evil, sick of being Predacon, and Waspinator especially sick of being blown to scrap all the time! So, Waspinator quit.”

--Beast Wars: Transformers, “Nemesis, Part 2”

~*~*~*~

The Minions Strike Back
by Merc

~*~*~*~

Morgop, Minion in the Ranks of Evil, glowered out his enclosed, stuffy helmet. Blasted thing was a pain to wear and everyone knew they didn’t do any good. He tugged his red tunic, which was sewn together from other (dead) minions’ salvaged uniforms, and wished he could wipe sweat off his face.

Across the plain, the band of twelve heroes waited, their single banner fluttering in the breeze. The breeze didn’t reach the minions’ side of the field, of course, and their banners hung limpid. It wasn’t quite the ominous effect the lieutenants were going for, but that was rank and file luck at work. Again.

“You have your orders,” roared the Second Lieutenant, a brutish ogre with huge, protruding fangs. “Kill them all!”

Morgop sighed and the platoon marched forward, the ones who had proper armor clanking, and the ones who had spears and pikes delegated to the front ranks. Morgop had a chipped, second-hand sword and a battered shield he’d gotten at the local flea market. He didn’t want to be in a full-fledged battle. Not against the Heroes (the ones that were important enough for capitalizing their rank). Last time he’d barely escaped and was missing one ear and the remains of his dignity.

It was his anniversary today—married (and survived) seven years with the most beautiful green-skinned, fanged orc woman around. He smiled thinking about her, the way her dreadlocks tumbled around her shoulders and her pointed ears had all those love bite scars. They had a special evening planned out, just the two of them away from the kids at one of the nicer barrack kitchens, and a private spot often rented out in the stables…

“Forward, maggots!” the Second Lieutenant shouted.

Morgop yanked his attention back to the present, and the very discouraging situation. He’d promised Lurkog he’d be home. She’d gotten dressed up and hired his cousin’s daughter as a babysitter.

He really needed to live through this.

But the Heroes were closing in on the Fortress of All Encompassing Evil—always a bad sign, according to the history books. Morgop, like his brothers-in-arms, didn’t have much to do between sieges, raids, and battles, and his employer didn’t believe in well-trained troops. Something about the status quo, and the necessary expendable masses. Morgop didn’t understand it. But he did like to read, and a gut instinct told him this was going to end badly.

With a bellow, the Second Lieutenant sounded the charge and they surged forward. Morgop raised his sword, let out a half-hearted war cry, and then slammed into the minion ahead of him, who had stopped short. Morgop reeled. His fellow soldier collapsed with an arrow in the eye. The elf was firing at rapid speed and Morgop threw himself flat.

He flung his shield up and an arrow split it in half, almost puncturing his arm. Damn.

Knowing that he couldn’t win, Morgop huddled on the ground while the Heroes slaughtered his fellow minions in droves. The moment any solider got close to one of the men or the dwarf or the elf, the wizard or the ranger, or the little thieves bopping around between them all, he got cut down, shot down, blasted into ooze, or stabbed in the sensitive areas by a half-sized twerp with hairy feet.

The screams from minions and chilling battle cries from the Heroes hurt Morgop’s ear. He winced and crawled towards relative safety. Until he found himself staring at a pair of leather boots.

He looked up at the blond-haired, blue-eyed square-jawed, pure of heart, newly discovered prince who now wanted to free his land from evil, despite having no clue about it before now. He just had that Look about him.

A glittering, blood-spattered sword, glittering even through the gore, pointed into Morgop’s face. Morgop gulped and scrambled up, clutching his weapon.

“Face me, evil one,” the Hero said. “You and all your kind will pay for what you did to my home and my family!”

“Um,” Morgop said. “Which one?”

He’d been on a fair number of razzings in his career, and he never could tell the villages apart. It was just his job. He had to provide for his wife and six children, and on his pay salary, he needed the extra loot to keep meat on the table.

The prince glared. “Brookhaven! Your murderous ways end here, orc.”

Morgop held up his hands. “Wait a minute, I—“

The prince ran Morgop through the chest.

Morgop gasped and fell backwards. As his vision faded, he saw his fellow minions scattered across the plain, all dead. Lurkog would be furious at him. Hell, he was furious at himself for getting pointlessly slaughtered.

“Okay, you’re dead, let’s move it already, orc-boy.”

Morgop squinted at the black-robbed depiction of Death standing irritably in front of him, tapping its scythe handle against one bony hand.

“Did you hear me, orc-boy?” Death said. “Author says you’re dead.”

“No kidding,” Morgop said, scowling.

He and all his brothers-in-arms were dead just because the Author decided it was time to slaughter them? What was the point, just showing how the Heroes were so amazing set up against odds that would always be in their favor? Being dead gave him a whole new perspective on what had just happened, and it sucked.

Well, he damn well wasn’t putting up with it. “No.”

Death hesitated. “What?”

“I said, ‘no’,” Morgop repeated. “I’m not dying just to add to the bodycount.”

“Um…”

Morgop punched Death in the face. “Tell the Author we refuse.”

Around him, the other minions stared at him in stunned, deathly silence.

“Listen, we don’t have to do this,” Morgop said. “We don’t have to die horrible, pointless deaths just because some Author says so.”

Behind him, Death spluttered and protested, but Morgop ignored the apparition.

“But… we’re dead,” said the Second Lieutenant in a timid voice. He touched his slit throat for emphasis.

Morgop stamped his foot. “I. Am. Not. Dead. I refuse!”

His vision began de-fogging and Death blinked out of sight. Morgop sat up, looked down at the gaping wound in his chest, and furiously willed the injury to heal. It closed over.

Around him, one by one, his fellow minions began reviving.

“Hero-boy,” Morgop said, picking himself up.

The prince spun around, and his square, noble jaw dropped. “I killed you, spawn of darkness.”

Morgop bared his fangs. “I’m disputing the fact.”

With a bellowing war cry, the Hero stabbed Morgop again through the chest again.

It hurt—Morgop was pretty sure being stabbed always did—but he refused to die. He felt the frantic efforts of the Author attempting to make death stick, but he held his ground. If Heroes could take multiple chest wounds and survive long enough for dramatic speeches, he was going to live through being stabbed and get home to see his wife and kids.

“Ah, crud,” the Hero said. The Author’s voice echoed around the still plain as well.

Morgop pulled himself off the sword, picked up his blade, and smirked at the prince. Behind him, all the Minions in the Ranks of Evil were on their feet and ready for the second round.

Wisely, the Heroes turned and fled.

Morgop let his friends chase them down. Whistling happily through his teeth, he headed back towards the Fortress of All Encompassing Evil, and a much-anticipated romantic evening with Lurkog.

Being an evil minion wasn’t so bad after all.

Writing in a Recession

2008-12-04T19:12:00.000-08:00

I've been remiss in my blog postings lately. Can't blame NaNo. I didn't participate. Maybe I can blame the stranglehold I've had on my muse for the last month (or is if vice versa?) in our ongoing argument over my current WIP. At any rate, I'm back.

A topic about the state of the industry seemed in order. Though most aren't ready yet to say the "R-Word" *grins at Arlene* that does seem to be where we've headed. Since I'm but an aspiring author and not an agent or an editor who has her thumb pressed to the pulse point of the industry, I can't speculate how bad things will get or how long it will last. What I do know is that it's great to be a writer, even at times such as these. Now how can I say that with publishing houses calling a halt to acquisitions and the big bookstores not exactly on a buying binge these days? Look at the (sort of) bright side.

The top five reasons why it's good to be a writer in a recession.

Number 5.
You have no employees to lay off. No lives to ruin. No families to put on the street when times are bad. You have only you to worry about.

Number 4.
Your product has an indefinite shelf-life. It's not going to spoil if it doesn't get marketed by next week. Keep it neatly tucked away on your computer hard drive or on a closet shelf and it won't be stale-dated when you take it back out and dust it off in six months or so.

Number 3.
You have almost no overhead. You probably write in a spare room, a home office or, like one of my IPs *waves to Dawn* in the front seat of your car. Sure you buy a bit of paper and pay some postage occasionally, but you don't have the exorbitant costs associated with running a business. Or even the high costs associated with most hobbies. Let's face it, writing is a pretty cheap pastime, for the most part. That's a good thing when money gets tight.

Number 2.
You don't have to have fancy computers, special equipment or even electricity to write. A pencil, some paper and natural sunlight will work. Sure, it's not the most efficient way to practice your craft, but a tight budget is no match for a determined muse.

Number 1.
If you have to cut back on movies, sports, Starbucks, clothes, Dish TV, gasoline and groceries....you'll have more time to write. And it costs nothing!

So there you have it. Yes, times are tough and may only get tougher, but aren't you glad you're a writer?

Oh, and if you're a reader, and not a writer, you can still smile. Books are one of the least expensive forms of entertainment. Stock up!

2008-12-01T11:04:00.000-08:00

Yes, we at the Toasted Scimitar are winners! I (Ardyth) rang in at just over 80,000 words, Merc at 66,500 words, Sparky at 38,000 words and Skip at 20,000 words. That's a grand totally of over 204,500 words collectively. Time to throw flaming confetti and start setting things on fire.

How many words did you write in the month of November? Remember, you're a winner no matter how many words you won.

As if you needed more to distract you during NaNo...

2008-11-11T08:01:00.000-08:00

I have discovered the wonderful, addicting podcast magazine, The Drabblecast.

It's audio stories of about 2k words or less, narrated by the wonderfully talented Norm Sherman (and occasional other readers). It's mostly spec fiction genres, and very entertaining. (Listen to the Halloween special if you haven't. The intro and conclusion are hilarious.)

Woe is my word count this November thanks to this... but it's well worth it! Listen to a few episodes, download them to your iPod or MP3 player or directly into your android brain, and listen on the go. Or, you know, while you're waiting for your minions to hurry up and bring in some heroes to torment.

And don't blame me if you get addicted. *is blameless*

Enjoy!

~Merc

Book Art -- Ardyth Gushes

2008-11-10T16:32:00.000-08:00

I don't know if I've offfically mentioned my e-book coming out sometime early next year, but I've been really busy with the editing of it. I've also just recieved some artwork I commissioned for my web-site I'm building, and I can't help but gush about it and share it here for everyone to see.

This is my main character, Reina. I totally love this picture. This is exactly how I picture her.

The artist is Jonathan DeBruyn. He's one of the magazine artists for Lorelei Signals (and my brother). He also does an online comic: Sluice. He accepts commissions, but they take a back seat to school work and orchestra.

2008-11-09T10:19:00.000-08:00

The Toasted Scmitar has been rather silent this last week due to the large number of words being written. With most of us participating in National Novel Writing Month, we've been absorbed with cursing the annoying state of our novels.

With myself at 25K, Sparky at 11K and Merc at 27K we've all been quite busy--and even if we're all convinced we're behind, it's been a good first week's show as far as diving into it.

I'm sure a lot of the rest of you have been writing as well.

Long live the novelling lifestyle!

2008-10-31T18:39:00.000-07:00

Happy Halloween
From
The Toasted Scimitar

The Top 5 Things That Scare Me

2008-10-30T05:00:00.000-07:00

I love snakes and think bats are adorable. So, in honor of Halloween, what on earth makes me shudder and want to run away?

1. Clowns

Perhaps even scarier that clowns are the people who find them amusing. I just—what is wrong with you people? From the warning-coloration makeup to the hungry shark grins to the sinister pack behavior, clowns are nothing if not terrifying.

2. Mimes

Like clowns, except they stalk victims in perfect silence.

3. Puppets

They’re inhuman and not alive, yet they speak and do the bidding of lurking masters. Most of them grin at you. The only time I’ve ever been even remotely amused or entertained by puppetry was the Press Conference Rag scene from Chicago.

4. People in mascot costumes

Or any characters from animated movies or comics. A young cousin of mine had her birthday at Disneyland recently, and my relatives cackled most cruelly at my cowering from Goofy and Jasmine. I’m starting to spot a pattern here.

5. Monkeys

I know, what kind of zoologist doesn’t like monkeys? Well, I’ve borne my shame in silence for years, and I’m finally admitting it here: I can’t stand apes and monkeys. I can tolerate smaller, less-monkey-like monkeys such as tamarins, and I love non-monkey primates like lemurs, but the rest . . . *shudder*

So, tell us, what’re the top 5 things that scare you? ;)

~Sparky

Scariest Science Fiction Film Countdown

2008-10-29T17:50:00.000-07:00

In honor of Halloween, here's a countdown of the Eight Scariest Science Fiction movies of all time. (Click on the titles to see movie trailers.)

Number 8: The Fly
A brilliant but eccentric scientist transforms into a giant man/fly hybrid after one of his experiments goes horribly, disgustingly wrong.

Number 7: The Invasion (of the Body Snatchers)
A Washington psychiatrist unearths the origin of an alien epidemic. The latest incarnation of the often remade classic.

Number 6: The X-Files: The Movie
The truth is out there-in all it's glorious creepiness-from spooky bee experiments to an eerie Antarctic laboratory.

Number 5: The Thing
Scientists in the Antarctic find a creature that has been buried in the ice for 100,000 years--a shape-shifting alien that assumes the appearance of the people it kills.

Number 4: War of the Worlds
Alien invaders wreck havoc on the planet and humankind in this modern remake of the radio classic that caused widespread panic when it first aired on August 21, 1953. Based on a novel by H. G. Wells.

Number 3: Signs
A family living on a farm finds mysterious crop circles in their fields which suggests something more frightening. It soon becomes more than a suggestion when alien beings invade their home and the world. Signs made tin foil hats and baby monitors into something sinister.

Number 2: Jurassic Park
Scientists clone dinosaurs to populate a theme park which suffers a major security breakdown and releases the dinosaurs. Jurassic Park introduced us all to the two-legged terrors called Raptors, and an up close and personal staredown with a T. Rex. Several more Jurassic Park films were released, but none had the impact of the original blockbuster.

and the Scariest Science Fiction Movie of All Time...

Number 1: Alien/Aliens
In Alien, the crew of remote mining ship Nostromo investigating a suspected SOS lands on a distant planet harboring a hostile species and unwittingly take a specimen onboard their vessel. In Aliens, Ripley, the sole survivor of the Nostromo still in hypersleep 50 years later is picked up by a salvage team. She returns to the planet of alien origin with a squad of Colonial Marines. The Alien franchise declares itself "The scariest movie ever made" and made Ripley an icon of savvy female heroines. Re-released on Halloween 2003.

Wait. We forgot the best one? Tell us about it.

Tony Hillerman 1925-2008

2008-10-27T04:53:00.000-07:00

Tony Hillerman, author of Navajo Tribal Police mystery novels featuring Navajo police officers Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee — died Sunday of pulmonary failure. He was 83.

Born May 27, 1925, in Sacred Heart, Okla., population 50, Tony Hillerman was the son of August and Lucy Grove Hillerman. They were farmers who also ran a small store. It was there that young Tony listened spellbound to locals who gathered to tell their stories.

Hillerman wrote many novels including "The Blessing Way" in 1970, "People of Darkness" in 1978, his commercial breakthrough "Skinwalkers," 1987, "A Thief of Time," which made several best seller lists, "Talking God" and "Coyote Waits." In all, he wrote 18 books in the Navajo series, the most recent titled "The Shape Shifter."

Many of his novels explored cultural conflicts and differences in undersstanding. Tony Hillerman said, "I want Americans to stop thinking of Navajos as primitive persons, to understand that they are sophisticated and complicated."

Although he was accused of exploiting the Navajo culture for personal gain, the Navajo Tribal Council honored him in 1987 with its Special Friend of the Dineh Award. He said he took greater pride in that than from the many awards bestowed by his peers, including the Golden Spur Award from Western Writers of America and the Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America, which elected him its president.

Although best-known for the Navajo series, he also wrote more than 30 other books, including the memoir, "Seldom Disappointed"; and books on the history and natural beauty of the Southwest.

In "The Spell of New Mexico" a collection of essays, Hillerman wrote "Those places that stir me are empty and lonely. They invoke a sense of both space and strangeness, and all have about them a sort of fierce inhospitality."

He also edited or contributed to more than a dozen other books including crime and history anthologies and books on the craft of writing.

I had the great pleasure to meet Mr. Hillerman when we were both members of Southwest Writers, and I will always remember him as being very personable and down-to-earth. He will certainly be missed.

Thanks for the Evil

2008-10-26T08:55:00.001-07:00

Thanks to all who came to our character party... we had lots of evil fun.

The Toasted Scimitar Character Costume Party!

2008-10-24T19:00:00.000-07:00

Here's how to come:

You can use javachat from here (you'll need java):
http://www.wikkedwire.com/javachat.html

Put in a nickname, then replace #help with #toastedscimitar (yes, you need the # mark), then click connect. Your username can be your CC name, or, if you want to come in costume, use one of your character's name.

If you've already got a chat client like xchat or mIRC, the server is irc.wikkedwire.com port 6667, the room's #toastedscimitar. Or chatzilla if you use Firefox.

WHAT: TS Halloween Party -- come as yourself or a character and play with everyone, chat, set things on fire, and generally have a good time.

WHEN: 7-11pm EST

OTHER STUFF: We encourage you to come as a character, introduce yourself to the others, and have fun. ;) We would kindly ask that you don't come as a licensed character, or one that belongs to someone else (a la fan fiction). This is mostly for the peace of mind of the mods and to avoid duplicates--and hey, we want to know about your characters, not ones we already know. ;)

There will be a moderator or two to keep things in line. :P (As a courtesy, we're going to ask that you keep strong language and overly sexual talk censored and tame. Thanks.) Other than that, come in, have fun! Virtual candy and drinks are provided.

Feel free to post questions here, we'll try and answer them as soon as we can.

Hope to see you there!

~The Toasties

Let's Do It Again

2008-10-19T11:37:00.000-07:00

Well, it's almost that time of year again. We mean, of course, Fantasy Lovers Christmas -- Halloween!

Our chat party was so much fun last year, we're making plans to hold another this year on Saturday, October 25th (also know as....mwahahaaaa...Devil's Night).

Please help us pick the most convenient time by entering your time slot choice(s) in the poll above. Thanks, and we hope you and/or one [or several] of your characters, will attend. (Character costumes are optional but encouraged.)

Link: Jackson Pearce

2008-10-11T11:02:00.000-07:00

So, as many of us gear up for NaNoWriMo this year, YA author Jackson Pearce brings us a vlog entry on outlining. Educational and hilarious, even for those who don't use outlines. Her other writing vids are wonderfully entertaining as well.

~Sparky

The Trouble With Demons News

2008-10-07T19:10:00.000-07:00

In case you didn't see it on Lisa Shearin's website, book 3 of the Raine Benares series, THE TROUBLE WITH DEMONS now has a cover and a release date of April 28.

I loved MAGIC LOST, TROUBLE FOUND and ARMED & MAGICAL was even better.

I'm really looking forward to the continuing story of Raine, Mychael, Tam and company.

SHADES OF DARK: Mini-Review

2008-10-06T09:14:00.000-07:00

I just finished this SFR and what a dark psychological journey it was. I started reading it once and had to quit. I just couldn't get into to. When I decided to give it another try, it took me by surprise—total hooksville. It's been quite awhile since a book has made me sit back and say "OMG!" out loud and bring real tears at the conclusion, but this one did. Powerful stuff here. I'm going to do this commentary/mini-review (unlike one of my quirky, full-blown reviews) to offer my overall impressions and thoughts.

This book is the sequel to Linnea Sinclair's GABRIEL'S GHOST and follows the continuing story of former court martialed fleet captain Chasidah "Chaz" Bergren and outlaw/heir Gabriel "Sully" Sullivan as they face a monstrous political upheaval and diabolical threat--a floating lab breeding killing machines called jukors. As Captain Bergren, former Pride of the Sixth Fleet, Chaz once pursued Sullivan on the fringes of colonized space trying to apprehend him. After her court martial, Sully (who's supposed to be dead, hence the title) rescues her from a dangerous prison colony and smuggles her away to help him find the beast-breeding lab that's at the root of a political scheme. This is the beginning of their love affair and their covert struggle, and also their conflict, when Chaz discovers Sully is a rare human form of a universally hated telepathic/telekinetic entity.

While Sully travels the path down into a dark place called the Kyi, he grows more powerful in his abilities, at quite a cost. The introduction of "Del" as his alien co-conspirator, instructor-bond brother added a character I was very uncomfortable with in terms of his influence on Sully and his constant sexual pursuit of Chaz. Del is also a contributor to Sully's personality "split" between his human side (Sully) and the side that isn't quite human and at times very frightening (Gabriel).

The sex scenes between Chaz and Sully were frequent and very intense, although not explicit or graphic. It was an emotional intensity fortified by the fact that she could feel his pleasure and he could feel hers through their mental link, and at times the sex reached some very high emotional heat pinnacles.

The author took chances with Gabriel's character and took him places few writers would take an MC. As it turns out, sex is one of the ways Sully increases his power as he "feeds" on emotions. But that need to feed has a very twisted side to it. At one point in the story, Chaz decides to leave Gabriel when she discovers what he's done, and I was right there in her corner. What Gabriel participated in was IMHO beyond redemption and very disturbing, and the author delivered that gut punch in a very artful way. (My OMG moment.) My feeling was "Get the hell outta of there, Chaz, while you still can...and take Philip with you."

Philip is Chaz's ex-spouse, ex-Fleet Admiral and soon to be ex-living soul when he crash lands in their ships' shuttle bay and Del threatens his life to pressure Chaz into sex. I didn't like Philip in Gabriel's Ghost. I thought he was an interfering, overbearing jerk and control freak. In SHADES OF DARK, Philip came through as an absolute doll, accepting of Chaz and Sully's relationship even as he still mourns her loss, and I could completely understand the strong bond Chaz still shared with him. He's the only one totally looking out for Chaz's welfare and concerned for her safety because of the dangers of Sully's fully-phased Kyi self and requirements of his bond with Del. I had no interest at all in reading HOPE'S FOLLY—the next spin-off book due out in 2009 and Philip's story—until I read SHADES OF DARK. Now I'm a huge Philip fan. I'm not so sure how this one left me feeling about Sully, quite honestly.

In the end, Gabriel betrays Chaz in the worst possible way, and then takes steps to redeem himself that results in what is certainly not a complete HEA but probably the best possible resolution under the circumstances. It didn't change what Sully had done but his acknowledgement and deep remorse for crossing the line did bring his human side back into play.

This book may not appeal to those who go for lighter romance content or blissful HEAs, but if you crave a psychological Twilight Zone spiced with sexual and moral dilemmas, you should check this one out.

The Gloriousness of Tentacles

2008-10-04T18:29:00.000-07:00

Seriously, there is a lack of heroic characters with tentacles in fantasy.

For some inexplicable reason, tentacles are often associated with Evil. (Cthulhu probably started this trend.)

You have tentacled monsters (e.g. the Watcher in the Water in the first LOTR movie), monsters with tentacles (although you gotta admit they're cute in Monsters, Inc.), tentacles that wants to suck out your soul (blaming the elder gods here again), etc.

But where are all the good guys with tentacles, or tentacled heroes, or tentacled familiars? (Someone seriously needs a squid as a familiar.) There's merpeople, sure, and the occasional good octopus (or one would hope), but in high fantasy, urban fantasy, low fantasy, and every other subheading you want to name, there is a decided lack of shininess that is tentacles.

Sci-fi seems to have a bit more tentacle equality (horror, not so much), but still, we don't get nearly enough "heroic tentacles" as we should.

(For a theme song, refer to A Shoggoth on the Roof done by the HPLHS. %-))

Why is this? What do fantasy authors have against tentacles? What did they every do to you ~~other than suck out your soul~~?

The next time you're about to add a slimy, evil, tentacled monster--consider, does it really need to be dark side?

Tentacled monsters have feelings too. They, uh, just express themselves differently. *makes no mention of soul-sucking this time* Let's hear it for physiological diversity! Add some good tentacles in your work and spread the love. (Soul sucking is optional.)

~Merc

We Missed a Monster

2008-09-30T19:15:00.000-07:00

Oh my. Sleeping on the job. The magical 20,000 hit mark slid right by without so much as a mention.

Whew! 20,000. That's a biggie. Maybe we'll try to plan something special for the 25,000 landmark.

Interview Up

2008-09-30T19:02:00.000-07:00

The Galaxy Express recently interviewed me about The Toasted Scimitar and two of my other blogs.

For anyone interested in Science Fiction, and Science Fiction Romance in particular, don't miss this site.

Sharin' Da Links

2008-09-22T15:42:00.000-07:00

A round-up of links that are noteworthy (or not):

I found this on Wired:
Five Thoughts on the Popularity of Steam Punk

An interesting chat on Chronicles Network about:
How to Keep a Reader from Hating an Unfinished Romance

Just for fun, Toledoblade brings you:
The Fall Movie Preview

*ahem* Geared to adult readers, the ever-entertaining Rowena Cherry posts on the Infinite World of Fantasy Authors site about...well, see for yourself:
Carpe Scrotum

Enjoy.

Review: TWILIGHT

2008-09-19T13:35:00.000-07:00

First off, I am not the target audience for Stephanie Meyer's novel TWILIGHT. I acknowledge this. I read it anyway, because when I hear crazy things about sparkly vampires and spine-breaking sea monster babies, there's no way I'm not gonna check that out (a note: Twilight does not feature spine-breaking sea monster babies. That's later in the series. But sparkly vampires, oh yeah).

So, I went into this knowing sparkly-vampire/klutzy-teen-girl romance was not my thing. Except this book turned out really not my thing--as in, I hate seafood with a passion, I understand other people adore it, but this book is like watching people slurp clam chowder. I had to go sit in the corner feeling queasy for a while.

So, what exactly Twilight is: clumsy teen (no, seriously, she is so clumsy it deserves mention here. At one point, she diverts questions about injuries by claiming she fell down two flights of stairs and out a window. And no one is surprised or questions this story, because it is completely in-character. As my sister said, "She can't even walk through a doorway without falling down! She should be checked out for a brain tumor or something! There's got to be a medical issue here.") Bella Swan moves to Forks, Washington, a seriously overcast and sunless place. This is important, because the local vampire family moved there for the sunlessness. Because they sparkle in sunlight. Yes, like glittering. "Sculpted, incandescent chest" and "scintillating arms" are used. Also butterscotch-colored eyes, but whatever, I am not going there.

So, manic-depressive eternally 17-year-old hunky vampire Edward also attends Bella's high school. Bella Swan (just go with the Mary Sue flow, right?) gets infatuated with him, because who doesn't want an angry emo boy with no social skills whatsoever, and Edward is infatuated back with her, except she doesn't find that out for way too many pages, because they are doing teenage "OMG! Is he looking at me? Don't look! He's looking, isn't he? OMG squee!" and "OMG she smells like freesia, so tasty, come here so I can eat you oh no I LOVE HER, run Bella, I am dangerous and will munch you om nom nom, but you are so wonderful I perpetually stalk you and sneak into your room at night and watch you sleep!"

I am not kidding about the stalking. The creepy vibes were rolling off the page, but the author and characters and about ten zillion fans find it all wonderfully romantic, so whatever. Have fun with your sparkly stalker fantasies. Really. I have my own squicky narrative kinks, I don't judge. I just feel mildly ill.

(Also, the dialogue tags are dreadful. "'I'm sorry,' I apologized." "'No,' he disagreed." "Then go," he condescended." The last isn't actually a quote, but it might as well be)

Some plot shows up three-quarters in, but it's not important. Ignore it. The thing the fans love (and the fans are mostly teenage girls and sometimes their moms, yes) is the emotional wish-fulfillment stuff. You know, hot cool dangerous guy falls for ordinary girl who is secretly hot and special and changes him with her love. It's a popcorn or cotton candy kind of book, if that kind of book is your thing. It's not mine, but as I said, other people's sparkly stalker controlling vampire fantasies are fine with me. Just be aware I will mock you by laughing uproariously at things like this (and the one for the last book, Breaking Dawn, is right here. And yes, that is really what happens).

(Also, why is so important the vampire family has a Volvo? The author mentioned it at least once a chapter. One reviewer nicknamed it the Vampire Volvo of Vengeance. This is a book you read for the crack factor, people. I swear)

(Also-also, my new favorite quote is "Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion!" So far today I have said this to my mom, dog, truck, and fellow blogger Ardyth)

~Sparky

The Things that Fantasy Neglects

2008-09-18T18:05:00.002-07:00

(Compiled by Merc, Sparky, and Ardyth)

It is with great shock and distress we’ve noticed a distinct lack of yodlers among fantasy characters. Oh, there are bards and actors and opera singers and whatnot… but where are all the yodlers? Why is yodeling so shunned? (What did it ever do to you? Wait, don’t answer that.)

And banjos. If everyone and his pet fire drake has a fiddle… why are the banjos never seen? Are they all banned to the lowest pits of hell?

Administrative machinery--everyone's got kings and lords and mayors, but who's regulating the size of postal carriers' bags? Or whether you can keep twenty chickens in your rooftop coop or ten?

If you see any flower arrangers around, let us know. (Little Shop of Horrors doesn’t count, sorry—even as much as Merc adores it.) We want decorations for the victory celebration over the Forces of Good, but where the hell do you find someone to arrange the six hundred and sixty six black roses?

In non-western fantasy, we ought to see more stagecoach robberies, don’t you think? And what about people hopping on the mail coaches? Public transportation in general? (Everyone is going green, so why don’t these fantasy utopian societies reduce their carbon footprint?)

We’d also like to see more decentralized or local government, a la the Wild West—not every place needs a centralized and massive government.

There’s also a special request out for archaic fauna, fainting couches and penguins.

How about spices like curry? Or people who work in a dye factory? Tamales instead of stew? Bagels and donuts? (Doesn’t the local militia stop by for coffee and bagels or are they deprived of such joys in their repressive, medieval society?)

And finally: Whitesmiths. They never get offspring that save the world.

--The Toasties for Neglected Ideas Rights

New YA Science Fiction Blog

2008-09-15T16:48:00.000-07:00

Kimber Ann, friend and one of the team-members of Enduring Romance has started up a new and exciting blog for Young Adult Science Fiction. It updates every Friday. As more young people use the internet to find and read the books they love, I predict we'll see a resurgance of interest in this genre. So, check out the new blog.

Ancient Literary Usernames

2008-09-13T21:01:00.000-07:00

Many of us go by names not our own online with our writing buddies and crit-partners. While we tend to think of this as a modern phenomena, this is nothing new. I've uncovered something interesting in my historical fiction project… Charlemagne and the intellectual men of his court who all enjoyed writing and commenting on poetry and philosophy all had unusual nicknames for each other that resemble the usernames we use online. While their snail-mail letters took even longer to get places than the modern mail, the did address each other by these names when writing to one another, and in that respect are no different than the ones we use today.

They took their "usernames" (for lack of a better term) from a variety of biblical and classic sources. King Charles was "David" after the biblical figure to his buddies. Others sported names like "Homer" or "Bezalel" and his daughters had nicknames after various saints or literary figures. They even wrote poetry to each other using the nicknames as a devise and played on the original context of the names while obviously referring to one another.

I found it quite entertaining to think of these quite respectable historical figures calling each other these things in writing… and in reading it, they sounded amazingly like US! Shows there really is nothing new under the sun.

--The Most Evil Dreaded One %-)

Shadow Unit, the Best TV Show You'll Never See

2008-09-11T16:34:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure whether this post is a review or a link. Ironic, given the uncertain nature of the Shadow Unit project itself--it's a collection of written pieces structured after the episodic nature of a television show, and available free on the Shadow Unit website (not an inconsiderable amount: the first season has eight regular-length episodes and a finale novella of 57,000 words). The authors (more about them later) have also taken advantage of website capabilities to give readers deleted scenes, "DVD extras", links to character livejournals, and more.

First, what it's about. I like to call it an FBI paranormal procedural--the main characters are FBI profilers, members of a special subunit (fondly called the WTF) dedicated to hunting down killers affected by the Anomaly. What is the Anomaly? No one's sure, including the team, but it gives those affected (or perhaps infected) varying and unusual powers, at great personal cost. Yet not everyone affected turns monstrous--two of the FBI agents themselves are Anomalous, and part of the mystery is why they haven't turned into the creatures they fight (and, sometimes, wondering if they will eventually).

Several authors collaborate on Shadow Unit, and they're what first got me interested. The main writers are Elizabeth Bear (of New Amsterdam, Dust, and more), Sarah Monette (The Bone Key, The Doctrine of Labyrinths quartet), Emma Bull (War for the Oaks, Territory), Will Shetterly (The Gospel of the Knife), and Amanda Downum. Season Two, which begins early next year, features an episode by guest writer Holly Black (yes, the Holly Black of Tithe, Valiant, and The Spiderwick Chronicles!).

I adore Shadow Unit. I've been babbling about it since the very first episode, Breathe. Complex characters, moral ambiguity, engaging plots (both episode- and season-length arcs), subtle yet impressive worldbuilding, and new content added almost daily--go check it out!

~Sparky

Review: SCAR NIGHT

2008-09-03T16:40:00.000-07:00

I’d heard mentions of Alan Campbell’s debut SCAR NIGHT--a steampunk novel set in the chained city of Deepgate and involving a psychotic serial-killer angel--so when a friend offered his copy I leapt at it. Dirigibles, poisoners, gods tossed out of heaven and building armies of the dead to retake it—what’s not to love?

Sadly, Campbell’s execution doesn’t match the world’s promise. The setting is lushly described, as it deserves—Deepgate is a city held by chains above the abyss in which its god lives—but at many points the “atmospheric” writing overpowers the story. The characters are flat and the majority of plotlines unengaging—I entirely skipped the POV sections from Mr. Nettle and Devon, a good third of the book or more, with no effect on my understanding of the end. Of the characters, only Carnival (the broken killer angel) held my attention—Dill, the next most interesting character, was so much a passenger in his own life I couldn’t care no matter how much I tried. In fact, the entire story produced a feeling of, “The world is interesting but why should I care about these people in particular?” I was disappointed in the final treatment of Carnival and revelations about the world (which I mostly figured out a third into the story).

Not to say SCAR NIGHT was a bad book. I’d pick up the sequel, if I were in a room without more exciting options. Overall, though, the novel was excellent in premise and worldbuilding but mediocre in execution. It had so much potential to be excellent that my lasting impression is sorrow it wasn’t.

Ah, well. At least it had a pretty cover.

~Sparky

Review: THE BLACK COMPANY

2008-08-25T20:23:00.000-07:00

How can I adequately sing the praises of Glen Cook’s THE BLACK COMPANY?

Well. This book was apparently designed with the Dark-Lord-loving reader in mind. It focuses on a mercenary company with a venerable past but a much-fallen present; desperate, they sign on with a new employer, and find out too late they’ve hired with the wrong side.

Indeed. The story is from the point of view of the Dark Lord’s minions. Or, in this case, the Dark Lady. If I had cackled any harder, I would have ruptured an internal organ.

So. The forces of the Rebel are advancing, the Lady’s generals (the superbly wonderful Taken, who have accurate names like Soulcatcher, Bonegnasher, and the Howler) are fighting viciously among themselves, and a strange silent warrior has joined the Black Company as a prophetic comet rises . . . the mercenaries just want to survive, and get paid, but that looks like it’s going to be a lot harder than they expected.

I adored THE BLACK COMPANY. Not that it’s without flaws—Glen Cook’s writing style is somewhat fragmented and relies on an alert reader to pick up clues and absorb worldbuilding without a great deal of explanation. At several points I was jolted out of sympathy with the characters; they’re in many ways unlikeable, but also engaging enough you forget until anything especially horrific happens. Then again, they are working for the Dark Side—one can hardly expect them to be made of sweetness and light. For that matter, even the Rebel, the supposed side of light, isn’t all that wonderful—which of course is part of the fun.

In all, if you’re a villain-lover, a cliché-hater, or even just a reader who appreciates detailed military fantasy, this is a book to hunt down. Fans of Steven Brust’s Vlad Taltos series may also enjoy it—in some ways it reminds me of Dragon. I can’t wait to get the sequels.

~Sparky

Are You Smarter Than A Third Grader?

2008-08-15T00:51:00.000-07:00

Line editing has a propensity to make me reflect on those things we think we know… and yet somehow still manage to botch when cleaning up. That, combined with looking over some inexperienced writing lately (some of it published… how do those people manage it?) put me in mind of something I've not thought about in a long time—"bed to bed narrative."

Despite the fact we know better, "bed to bed narrative" has a way of cropping up. It's characterized by a listing of events, and happens most often when writers indulge in the dreaded bad habit of opening a book with someone waking up. The main character then proceeds to put on his/her clothes, eat breakfast, and go to school/work/save the world/etc. These mundane events are listed out in a couple of really boring paragraphs that ought to be reworked or axed. It isn't interesting, if it doesn't further either the characterization or the plot.

Often in a smaller way, I've seen "bed to bed" slip into stories with people going in and out of rooms, or characters looking from one to the other. It isn't necessary to put in every little detail of movement, only those that matter. If they're arriving somewhere we can extrapolate that they got out of the car, walked to the front door, opened it, walked inside, and shut the door behind them. Some of those actions can be edited out and assumed.

Worse, sometimes chapters get in a bad habit of opening with the character waking up and ending with the character going to bed. You don't want your readers going to sleep with you. Sometimes, this happens not quite as literally with the beds, but in a more general sense of time passing in exact days. I once wrote a rough draft of a novel in a boarding school where I literally described every class, every meal, and every night. Despite trying to keep it full of plot forwarding events, I discovered at the end of the draft my entire story now took place in three days, while it took Harry Potter an entire year to get that much done. Boring days can be skipped over just like boring minute actions.

"Bed to bed" narrative issues are sneaky… watch out for it's clever ways of sneaking past our adult minds and taking us back to grade school. Now let's take this one step further.

In looking up "bed to bed" I discovered something fascinating… the writing benchmarks for third graders in the U. S. Thus, we come to the ultimate quiz of all: Do you write better than a third grader? I shudder to think of how some of my novels match up, especially in rough draft.

Test yours to see if it's up to passing the third grade. Here's the grading guidelines.

Standard One: Purpose

The story establishes a clear and effective context. It effectively establishes a point of view with main characters, a conflict/problem, and a resolution. Throughout, the story maintains a clear topic and focus around the central problem.

Or… is the context vague or nonexistent? Is there lacking a resolution? Or worse, a central conflict/problem? Is your topic or theme unclear and unfocused?

Standard Two: Organization

The story has overall coherence and makes sense sequentially. It has a beginning, middle, and end. It also has effective transitions.

Or… do your beginning or end need work? Are there digressions or gaps in the story that leave the reader puzzled? Is the story unorganized? Does it lack proper transitions?

Standard Three: Details/Elaboration

Relevant and concrete details in the story create vivid images, and the details advance the action. Dialog is used effectively and shows character motivation, development, and growth.

Or… are your details generic? Are they random and unimportant to the action/character development? Are your characters flat and undefined?

Standard Four: Voice and Tone

Langauge in the story is used effectively and purposefully. The story has proper vocabulary and sentence structure. Sentences show proper variety in length and structure.

Or… is your story full of grammatical errors? Do you repeat words or have sentences that all sound the same? Do you… *gasp* write below grade level?

Let's all try to get to the fourth grade here with our novel drafts, shall we?

Procrastination Central

2008-08-12T13:04:00.000-07:00

I figured it was time to post a list* of online 'zines that have SF/F/H fiction free to read. ;) This isn't an exhaustive list of course, as I'm always finding new stuff. It will be updated semi-regularly as I remember to do it.

Enjoy the procrastination possibilities! (And do feel free to list your own favorites in comment sections--I'll be happy to update the list.)

Note: As with many things online and off, unless otherwise noted, do be aware the stories and articles in these magazines may contain adult content. ‘Course some of us like that kinda stuff… O:)

---

Abyss & Apex

AlienSkin Magazine
Both Ardyth, Merc, and our guest blogger David have had fiction published here. Another guest blogger, Dr. Dume (Kevin Hillman) is a columnist. AlienSkin routinely has a fun selection of fantasy, science fiction, and horror. Enjoy the exploration!

Atomjack
You absolutely must check out "Raid" by Barton Paul Levenson. A hilarious parody. %-)

Clarkesworld
I suppose this one is on the more literary end of things...

Darwin's Evolutions
This is a newer mag but looks like it might be a good 'un.

Electric Spec
Sci fi and darker stuff.

Every Day Fiction
This is a daily flash fiction magazine that showcases all genres--not as much fantasy or science fiction but a fun mag nonetheless. Stories in particular worth checking out for you spec fic readers are "The Devil and the Details" by Mark Ward, and "Save the Disco" by Kevin Shamel. B-)

Fantasy Magazine
Another one more on the literary end of things, but has quite a bit of enjoyable fiction (all fantasy, if you notice the title) for your reading enjoyment. Also articles and reviews.

Flash Fiction Online
Another that is multi-genre that is quite enjoyable. Do check it out.

Nossa Morte
Dark fiction and horror usually dealing with the darker side of human nature.

Ideomancer
All sorts of stuff to keep you entertained.

Les Bonnes Fees
Everything fairy tales.

Nautilus Engine
Check out the story "Necromouser" by Mary E. Lowd. %-)This is a fun mag!

Postcards From...
Minion publishes fiction 1k and less (usually preferring under 500 words) in the SF/H/F genres. Oh, and his guidelines are hilarious. %-)

Oddlands Magazine
Odd indeed, and highly entertaining.

Reflection’s Edge
All genres. Some excellent and fun reads here.

Sorcerous Signals
Fantasy of all sorts. (And our very own Dreaded One had a short published in the Aug-Oct 2008 issue.)

Strange Horizons
Yup, you got it, another on the literary side. It does have some pretty interesting reads though, and there’s also art, reviews, interviews and non-fiction.

The Town Drunk
Hilarious fiction of all sorts. :D You absolutely must read "The Curse of the Friendly Forest" by Rod M. Santos. Don't drink and read at the same time.

*Please note that for now the list is mostly based on mags that I’ve read at least in part, and had a chance to write notes about. :P (Entries without notes probably haven’t been read in detail yet.)There are of course tons more out there. Eventually I’ll grow the list and I’ll link it in the sidebar soon.

We Ought to Know This Stuff

2008-08-11T19:06:00.000-07:00

I've been given a list of important things to look for in a manuscript by an editor covering some basic grammar rules we all ought to know. And yet, I've not only seen these mistakes a thousand times giving critiques, but made these mistakes way too many times myself… so, here's some basic grammar things we really all OUGHT to know, but most of us (including myself) tend to forget.

Dialog Tags

A tag is a talking word, like say or said, and ONLY a talking word. Words like laughed, sighed, or groaned are not tags, they're actions. These are punctuated as separate sentences.

Tag: "Hello," she said.

Action: "Hello." She sighed.

Editors really do prefer us to tag with either said or asked, and use exotic tags sparingly. Think of Ron "ejaculating" something in Harry Potter… Rowling was a culprit of lots of bad tagging, as well as overuse of –ly. Still if it's punctuated correctly, I just might forgive you.

Serial Commas

When listing something, use a comma before the and: He ate rice, beans, and tortillas for dinner.

Conjunction Commas

Use a comma with a conjunction if the two clauses are independent but not if they aren't. If you could delete the and and put a period there and have two correct sentences, you should use a comma.

Dependant, no comma: She went to market and bought some meat.

Independent, yes comma: She went to market, and Mr. Smith sold her some meat.

Commas for Too

Only use a comma around too if it's in the middle of the sentence, not if it's at the end.

I want to play too.

I, too, wanted to play.

Commas for Calling people

When someone is called by name use commas on either side.

"Joseph, come over here."

"Hurry up, Joseph."

"If you don't come now, Joseph, you're getting a spanking."

Possessive Words Ending With S

Stunk and White say there's two ways to do this, but it seems the industry is leaning towards using 's not just apostrophe, so we should go with that one.

We went to Cass's house.

Ellipses vs Em Dash

The ellipse is for trailing off a sentence and should have three dots plus the normal sentence puncuation. I've been doing this one wrong for a while….

"How can you…?" He trailed off in disbelief.

The em dash is for interruptions.

"How can you—"

"Don't try my patience!" She interrupted.

Obviously you don't need to say "trailed off" and "interrupted" since it should indicate this, I was just trying to make it clearer by using them in this example.

Strong Verbs over Weak Verbs

If possible, use the strongest form of your verbs instead of using supporting be verbs.

Like instead of: She was walking along Main Street.

Turn it active: She walked along Main Street.

Yes, we know all this stuff, or should, but somehow these mistakes keep cropping up in both my own work and my critique partners' work, so, let's keep this stuff in mind. At the very least, we don't need to look like idiots when we submit something.

Tork this Spadunk, or Fck this Sht

2008-08-06T00:43:00.000-07:00

(Not that there's uncensored language in this post. %-))

To swear or not to swear, that is NOT the question. People swear, it's a fact of life if you're from 10,000 BC, 1492, 2394, or Middle Earth. The question in fantasy is if you make up your own swearwords or do you use the usual ones.

Both ways can backfire on you. Make up something too crazy, and your readers are going to giggle and roll their eyes over all that torking spadunk you've got going. However, you also run the risk of sounding too modern if you use regular swear words. It's a tricky decision.

Okay, so, you've made up a whole culture, probably your first leanings are to make up words. However, this is something you've going to have to be careful of. There's several ways of doing it, and all of them have their upsides and downsides.

First, you can make up words that are similar to our swearwords, but fit in the cultural context of the novel. "Mudblood" in Harry Potter is a good example of this. It blends English, and the mild (depending on who you talk to) swear word bloody, to come up with something that sounds reasonably "bad." It's downside is it doesn't sound anywhere near as bad as the characters think it does when we first come across it, but it is a kid's book.

Likewise, the term "fruckman" in Elske (by Cynthia Voigt), an epithet for a coward or dishonorable person, has obvious connections to English. Where this gets really annoying is when you just water down real words into frick or dernit. If not handled artfully, it'll sound clumsy, or like a censored TV show.

Secondly, you can make up words entirely, but while it's good on one hand to avoid derivatives of the real words, you also have to watch how they sound. The line between serious and silly can be a fine one. Try saying it out loud. Can you imagine shouting it when you're mad? Does it fit the sound of the culture you're creating? Or when so-and-so says, "Oh regsodra you!" are we all going to crack up?

Thirdly, you can use real words in a new context. Our swear words either refer to what is most holy or what is most dirty. In this vein, for example in the Dragon Riders of Pern series (by Anne McCaffery) the characters swear by their dragon's eggs with word such as "shells", "shards", and "by the egg". This has the advantage of furthering your culture. However, you also have to be careful for it not to be random. If your character says "flaming" this and "smoking" that, what does fire have to do with the holy or the dirty? It had better have SOMETHING to do with it.

Okay, so, if you're not going to make up words, let's consider the real ones. How modern is our wonderful set of swear words? Will they stand out in your setting too much? Let's look at some classics real quick here.

Fuck—despite it sounding so modern, fuck is actually fairly old. It's first recorded as used in the 1500s, so depending on how strict you keep to the historical underpinnings of your fantasy world, this one might be okay. Then again, depending on your target audience it might be too much, this isn't going to work well in YA and mid-grade. Also, some phrasings of it are a lot much more modern, like using it as an adjective.

Damn—this one is even older. The idea of hell goes back to ancient civilizations… one caveat though, make sure your world has a religion that believes in an afterlife and damnation. Otherwise, it's really going to stick out as an inconsistency, one huge pet peeve of mine. This goes for Hades, Hell, and whatever other names the place of damnation has as well.

God/Gods—fine and easy to use, but make sure your world believes in a supreme being/s like with damn. Otherwise it's going to stand out.

Jesus—this one won't work unless your alternate reality has Christianity in it. That could arguably go for lesser forms of it like "jeez", don't use them if there's no Christ in your world.

Shit—this fine word, according Wikipedia is of Norse origin from Roman times. This one's historically safe for any story set technologically in ancient Rome or later. Besides, excrement is universally dirty. Like damn and god/s, I think it's a pretty safe swear word.

Crap—is a very modern word actually, possibly from the Crapper brand of toilets sold in the early 1800s. I learned about this in Seattle, since they were a Seattle based company that came from England… not sure how widespread they were, but the word is these days. That said, most people don't know it's a modern word, so depends how it sounds to you in your world building.

Ass/asshole—another set of modern words. Possibly ass meant arse/butt as early as the late 1500s due to Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream (according to the Online Etymology Dictionary--other sources think this is pure speculation and the word is definitely a 20th century word), but asshole is definitely from the 1930s and has a modern ring to it.

Bitch—this is another little gem from the Middle Ages. It's referring to humans in a rude manner started sometime in the 1400s, making it relatively safe for fantasy use.

Bastard—while this word existed as a term for an illegitimate child since the 1200s, the online etymology dictionary says it only became a vulgar word for someone since 1830. So, it might be better to stick to its technical meaning in most fantasy worlds unless it's a more modern setting.

So, be intelligent in your swearing decisions in constructing your fantasy worlds. Perhaps your readers may disagree, but having thought it through, you can have a good argument for your swearwords of choice. So, no more torking spudunk… perhaps you're just a dijisti igmorè instead.

The Dreaded One is published again!

2008-08-05T19:37:00.000-07:00

If you didn't know, and haven't read it already, do pop over to Sorcerous Signals, a fantasy online magazine, which has published our own Dreaded One Ardyth's short story:

Once A Thief

It's quite enjoyable--and has gorgeous illustration too! :) Now, go read. (And definitely vote for it if you liked it.)

*throws flaming confetti for Ardyth*

Drinks are on the house, everyone!

The Ten Top Ways NOT to Kill Your Character

2008-07-26T18:47:00.000-07:00

Killing characters is a time-honored way of upping tension plot, increasing the stakes, and making us feel the reality of a novel. Plus, there's always the obligatory villain death lurking at the end of your novel… how are you going to do the deed? There are some horrible cliché deaths out there that are better avoided like the plague. Here's the top ones off my personal pet peeve list that are sure to get my ire when you use them. These are not original or stunning, they're annoying.

1) Bambi Syndrome—Mommy or Daddy character dies a violent death, witnessed by Junior, the MC, with optimal tearjerker status. Awww, cute… NOT. Not only do you have two Disney blockbusters, Bambi and Lion King, ahead of you to top the cliché list, but ten zillion annoying fantasy blah books. Yes, Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru count as suffering from Bambi Syndrome. Find some more original way to gain sympathy for your teenage angst-filled MC.

2) The Great Fall—Why do villains have propensity to balance precariously at the top of waterfalls, castle towers, and bottomless abysses? And of course our unlikely hero (why is the hero always unlikely?) manages either to somehow knock him off or go over sacrificially with him. Yes, Shirlock Homes and Gandalf reign at the top of this cliché… let them keep the honor and avoid letting it rain villains down at the bottom of that great abyss.

3) Left Behind Hero—This dude might not be the most honorable of characters, or he might be the always cheerful side buddy, or the grumpy ranger, or whatever his personality, his death is always the same. He tells everyone else to "go ahead without him" while he takes a final stand against approaching evilness to die heroically while the chosen brat escapes unscathed. Hmm, looks like Gandalf hits two out of three… maybe three out of three if he'd formally adopted Frodo… Well, just because Tolkien and his ten zillion copycat fans are doing it does not mean you should do it too. After all, lemmings fall under cliché number 2, now don't they? I hope the next Left Behind Hero gets shot in the head ten seconds after the bad dudes show up and so doesn't manage to slow them up at all.

4) Death by Seduction—Its easy to think you might be the first to come up with the beautiful heroess who puts her life (and body) on the line to seduce Mr. Evil and kill him in the middle of (or after) making love to him. You aren't. This annoying tactic goes back to the bible. Judith or whatever-her-name-was has you beat by several centuries, and her sticking the dagger through his belly so far it ends up completely inside of him gets points for needless gore. Jabbing a dagger through his "black heart" just doesn't cut it. Oh, and why aren't there any sacrificial men willing to get felt up in order to get their one shot at killing a female villain? Down with sexism! (Having your heroess try this and fail at it counts as well. Don't stoop to this.)

5) The Self-destruct Button—Evil Dark Lord What's-it is given one last chance by Flawless Hero to repent, but refuses and chokes on his own spit, killing himself. This includes putting on the magic what's-it that melts him, drowning himself in a lake of blood, tripping into the deadly pit of snakes, or whatever other self-destructive tendencies are out there. I'm tired of evil recoiling on the villain's own head… let the hero slaughter him, and then perhaps feel guilty for the rest of his life he didn't give him that "once last chance" to kill himself.

6) Pandora's Box—There's a magic (and evil) something-or-other that you're not supposed to open, look at, move, and yet one idiot of a character apparently has enough brain damage to try it. BOR-ing. There's no tension in it, since we already KNOW it's a BAD IDEA. It's just annoying sitting there and waiting for said brainless fool to get zapped already and be done with it.

7) Redemption of the Jerk—The Jerk is the character no one likes or trusts, because (quite obviously) he's an utter jerk. He plagues the MCs with is nasty presence until the Proper Moment, when he suddenly turns heroic and dies to save everyone's life, become a Best Beloved Memory. All jerks should die immediately, or, even better yet, kill off the MC Hero Boy and make the Jerk have to save the day in the end. Spare us his redemptive death.

8) The Slaughtered Extra—When the villain is introduced at the beginning of the novel, the cliched author wants something to show THIS DUDE IS EVIL. What better than slaughtering some innocent or not so innocent spy, rebel, assassin, citizen, petitioner, messenger, etc? Wrong! Who cares about Mr. Let's-meet-you-so-we-can-kill-you? Even though the slaughtered extra is horribly tortured and twisted beyond recognition before finally breathing his last, it's only to hammer into our heads that the dude who did this is EVIL. Show us the villain is evil some other way… maybe he can serve green jello with tunafish mixed into it to his unsuspecting minions or unleash a plague of army ants on hero headquarters.

9) Indiana Jones Syndrome—Here, usually the villain, has to do an extra huge sword swing, backflip, cape twirl, or fancy move to show off that he's about to stab the hero through, and the hero stabs or shoots him through while he's busy doing it. How did these idiots get to world domination in the first place if they have to show off before running people through? The Jedi variant is where said villain kills or wounds one hero and gloats, while second hero yells "Nooooooo!" and kills him.

10) Mostly Dead—Here someone dies, mostly, only to be revealed he's still alive later. We weep and cry over the mostly dead, and then want to re-kill them when they miraculously show up later, grinning like and idiot and expecting us to be HAPPY for having been tricked. While it worked in the Princess Bride, it's quite annoying elsewhere. Wizard Mentors tend to be especially guilty of this, although it's certainly not exclusive. One mid-grade novel I read did this FOUR times… for three characters. That's right, one of the four character was mostly dead twice, and successfully brought back both times. Die, pointless cliché, die!

What? That doesn't leave enough non-cliché deaths to include in your latest farm boy epic? Come on! Get creative here, and have some people die in new and interesting ways. At the very least, don't combine several of these together to make urber-cliché deaths. Make death interesting.

Link to Article on E-Authors

2008-07-25T17:24:00.000-07:00

Here's a good reference article from the Redlines and Deadlines blog about some of the realities of e-publishing.

http://redlinesanddeadlines.blogspot.com/2008/07/do-e-authors-make-money.html

You might want to look at the articles archive on this site, also. Some good things here. :)

DRABBLES

2008-07-24T19:42:00.000-07:00

So if you’ve never heard the term, what the heck is a drabble? What you get when you cross a dragon with a tribble? A version of Scrabble that only allows cuss words? A duck? Of course, it’s related to writing, and while you might think it has something to do with novelist Margaret Drabble, it doesn’t. The term actually came from Monty Python’s Big Red Book (1971) where Drabble was a game where the first player to write a novel won.

Drabbles later became popular in science fiction and fan fiction fandom. The present concept originated in the United Kingdom. The 100-word drabble was started among Birmingham University Science Fiction Society. Beccon Publications published three drabble novels: THE DRABBLE PROJECT in 1988, DRABBLE II: Double Century in 1990, and DRABBLE WHO in 1993. You can find them here: http://www.lxnen.com/rogerbeccon/B/drabbles.html

A drabble is a very short fiction piece. The purpose of a drabble is to express something interesting and meaningful in as few words as possible. Drabble began with the 100-word definition and has since evolved to mean any short work of fiction of 1000 words or less.

Spin-offs of drabbles include droubbles, which is a work of exactly 200 words in length, dribbles, which are only 50 words, and drabblecasts which are podcasts of short fiction. Similar concepts are flash fiction, shortfic, microfiction or nanofiction.

Want to see what a drabble looks like?

You can find samples written by various authors on The Drabble Project website. http://www.meades.org/drabble.html#Samples

If you’re a writer, drabbles can be a way of focusing on, enhancing, or experimenting with your work. Sandra McDonald, author of THE OUTBACK STARS posted a selection of 30 Drabbles on Scribd that examines how the characters from her novel and its sequel, THE STARS DOWN UNDER, may have faired in alternate universes. [Please note the author’s warning of “naughty” content and spoilers.]

http://www.scribd.com/doc/3678713/The-Stars-Down-Under-30-Drabbles-

Why not give it a whirl? Post your own drabble in a comment.

Consider checking out GUD

2008-07-23T14:08:00.000-07:00

As a writer, it means a lot to me to have magazines out there offering not only great short stories, but also a positive and welcoming attitude towards writers. In my Imaginaries writing group, one of the founders and people who keeps it running is an editor at a wonderful up and coming magazine (both print and PDF) by the name of GUD. To kick off their third issue, they're holding a blogging publicity contest, and I want to encourage everyone not only to check then out (both as wonderful to read and a good place to submit to) but to also join in and and enter to win a free copy of the magazine.

All you have to do is write a blog post like this, encouraging others to link to them. So, check them out, see if they fit your submission/reading style, and take advantage of a chance to win a copy of the magazine.

Review: JHEGAALA

2008-07-21T05:00:00.000-07:00

Steven Brust’s Vlad Taltos series is one of my “dash to the bookstore the day of release” buys. Jhegaala is the eleventh in the series—at least in order of publishing. In the series’ chronology, it falls somewhere between Phoenix and Athyra.

With the entire Jhereg (the Mob-like organization Vlad was once part of) wanting him very much dead, Vlad heads to his ancestral homeland to lie low for a while. He’s on his own, without magic, allies, or much emotional stability given that his wife’s left him and he’s having doubts about his occupation (assassin). When he returns to his dead mother’s hometown, he finds strange happenings and even stranger people, and has some sort of mystery to investigate.

If you’re wondering what “some sort of mystery” means . . . well, yeah. For most of the book I was wondering too. Stuff happens, but none of it seems connected. Vlad talks to the locals. Vlad talks to himself. Vlad talks to his wisecracking reptilian familiar, Loiosh. I kept waiting for events to happen that I’d actually, say, care about. Even when a couple major events do happen (much too far into the book), the narrative’s roundabout way of describing them removes any emotional impact. There’s a big reveal scene at the end—like in murder mysteries, where the triumphant detective explains how everything fits together—except this one went on and on and just confused me more. I didn’t bother to reread it, just went, “Whatever” and continued reading in hopes of a more exciting finish.

The last Vlad book, Dzur, featured some of these problems—lack of action, lack of emotional stakes—while others have had roundabout action and withholding on the part of the narrator. However, Dzur was redeemed by its luscious food descriptions, and the novels with more secretive narratives usually contain more action and sheer fun (plus the eventual reveals make sense without my having to draw a chart). Sadly, here the most interesting parts were the section-beginnings about jhegaala (the constantly metamorphosizing animals of the title) and the chapter-heading excerpts from a Dragaeran play. Some of the series’s best features—the exotic non-human empire, the magic and gods and customs, and especially the usual cast of supporting characters—are completely absent.

If you’re a fan of the series, I do recommend reading Jhegaala; it’s decent enough to get through without too much trudging, and it gives some interesting insight into Vlad’s development from the earlier books to his mentality in Issola and beyond. If you’re unfamiliar with the series, I recommend starting in a different place—Jhereg or Taltos, maybe Dragon or Yendi.

~Sparky

REVIEW: The Nightside Series

2008-07-18T13:00:00.000-07:00

The Nightside Series, written by British author Simon R. Green, is like the Twilight Zone on steroids. Anything and everything is possible, will happen, and whether you escape with your sanity (and your soul) is always the question.

The series is dark urban noir/fantasy with a heavy injection of horror and the bizarre (and a splash of humor for good measure). The dark heart of London, where's it's always three in the morning and the sun never rises, where you can but anything for the cost of your soul (or someone else's); where gods and monsters walk side by side on the streets and the traffic is alive and will eat you if you aren't careful; where time slips make business hard for fortune tellers; where you can find any kind of vice, pleasure, or corrupting pastime on any street corner; where being dead doesn't stop you from being a major player... this is where John Taylor, private investigator, lives.

Something From the Nightside (Book 1)
Meet John Taylor, private eye, and the one dude that the whole Nightside either worships, fears, or wants dead in some horrible fashion. Usually all at once.

When he's dragged back to the Nightside from London on a case to find a runaway girl, Taylor meets old friends and enemies (mostly the later), and the dark, twisty, off-the-wall-bizarre-and-macabre world of the Nightside is introduced with lots of noir, gore and plenty of humor. There's also giant, man-eating houses, and time travel with a post-apocalyptic world overrun by bugs and monsters. It's all Taylor's fault, of course. In the end he gets more than he bargained for with the case—which isn't a surprise. This is the Nightside.

Agents of Light and Darkness (Book 2)
The Unholy Grail—the cup Judas Iscariot drank from—has shown up in the Nightside and John Taylor is hired by the Vatican to find it and get it back before the angels from Above and Below level the Nightside and kill everyone in it. (Not that that's such a bad thing in some people's minds.)

Questions keep arising about who Taylor's mother is, buildings keep getting destroyed in spectacular fashion, and naturally the angels are out to kill everyone. Teamed up with Suzzie Shooter (and with an obligatory trip to Strangefellows) if everything in the Nightside don’t massacre him, he might just get paid this time, too.

Nightingale's Lament (Book 3)
A beautiful girl is singing people to suicide. At Rossignol's (Nightingale's) concerts, there are always a few people who kill themselves while listening to her. She used to sing upbeat and happy songs, until she came under the management of an unscrupulous husband-wife duo. Rossignol's father wants Taylor must find out what happened and how to stop her deathly voice.

Taylor can't get what he needs, so he turns to his old enemy Pew, and his ally Dead Boy (the dead guy who haunts his own corpse and fights crime), to help him get Nightingale away from her contractors before even more people—or the signer herself—end up dead. Taylor among them.

Hex and the City (Book 4)
Lady Luck wants John Taylor to find out the origins of the Nightside after he destroys the chaos butterfly at an auction when things got out of hand. (And really, elder beings from other dimensions ripping into the space-time continuum is rather annoying. Not to mention destructive.) Quite a few of the Major Players, including Walker—who more or less runs the Nightside as much as anyone can, with the backing of the mysterious Authorities—don't want Taylor snooping around and revealing the true beginnings of the city where it's always three a.m. and you can buy anything for just the price of your soul (or someone else's).

Teamed up with Madman (who creates his own reality), Sinner (the man neither Heaven nor Hell will claim), and Pretty Posion (Sinner's succubus love), Taylor seeks information about the Nightside's creation and hopes in the process to discover truths about himself and who his mother is. You know, if he doesn't end up dead with some Major Player feasting on his soul first.

(This book, although I read it next to last in the series, had the most moving ending in the whole series. Completely not what I expected but excellently done.)

Paths Not Taken (Book 5)
Taylor and Suzzie Shooter travel back in time to seek out the Nightside's origins and find out exactly who John's mother is, and how to stop her. But that isn’t as easy as it sounds, not with Merlin Satanspawn (the Devil’s only begotten son who turned down the honor of being the Antichrist) involved, and various gods, monsters, and the usual horde of demonic beings out to eat your soul showing up in various attempts to stop Taylor or win him over.

Sharper Than A Serpent's Tooth (Book 6)
Lilith has returned to the Nightside and she's pissed off. Long ago she created the Nightside as a place where Heaven and Hell would have no authority, and she ain’t happy with the way things have been running since she was banished.

Walker kidnaps Taylor’s young ward and sectary, Cathy, and demands John turn himself over to the Authorities, complicating things. A trip to the Necropolis, Razor Eddie, Tommy Oblivion and Sandra Chance, and various other major players show up to help and hinder Taylor’s goals: stopping his mother from destroying the world of the Nightside.

Hell to Pay (Book 7)
In the aftermath of the Lilith War, and the various ruined state portions of the Nightside is in, getting invitations to high society parties such as those hosted by the Griffin and his family is still the most important agenda to many. John Taylor has never been one for high society, but when the Griffin himself hires John to find his kidnapped granddaughter, high society is exactly where John winds up.

Investigating one of the most infamous, wealthy and tricksy families in the Nightside isn’t as easy as it sounds. How does a girl disappear from the most heavily protected house in the world? Added to that, Something is blocking Taylor’s gift from finding the Griffin’s granddaughter inside the mansion, and if he doesn’t get the job done (the old fashioned way) before the deadline, the girl won’t survive. An appearance by the Salvation Army Sisterhood (fanatical, bloodthirsty nuns with machine guns who love to shoot up whole city blocks) and Old Father Time add spice and gore to the investigation.

The Unnatural Inquirer (Book 8)
Someone has found a recording of the Afterlife that will prove once and for all what lies beyond, and every media, news paper, gossip rag and collector (including the infamous Collector himself) wants to get their hands on it. The most notorious tabloid in the Nightside, The Unnatural Inquirer, hires John Taylor to get the Afterlife Recording for them before anyone else does. Not the easiest task in the world—or the Nightside—when Taylor is competing against the Collector, Walker, and just about everyone else in existence.

Something Powerful is blocking John's gift once again, so he can't use his third eye to find the recording. That means the usual legwork is required, and a reporter from the rag, the half-demon Bettie, accompanies John on the case, hoping to catch her career-making story. A war is also brewing between factions in the Nightside, and stopping it requires Taylor to find the recording before someone else does.

Just Another Judgment Day (scheduled for release in January 2009)

-----

THE WORLD
The Nightside is a character in and of itself, and hands down one of the most fascinating places I’ve seen in the urban fantasy/horror genre. The dark heart of London is the main reason I read the series and look forward to more—it’s addicting, like some kind of alien chocolate you try once and get hooked on despite not knowing all the ingredients in it. And who really knows what it’s made out of…

THE PLAYERS
John Taylor isn’t the most fascinating PI to walk through fiction, but he makes an entertaining observer to the more interesting people that inhabit the Nightside. Personally I’m only lukewarm about him as the main character—he works and has some fun moments, but others outshine him, and truly, I think it’s the supporting cast that makes the series.

There’s Walker of course, in his perfectly groomed suit and bowler hat, the man who runs the Nightside as much as anyone can. He speaks for the Authorities and he doesn’t care who gets hurt as long as he keeps order (and makes John’s life difficult).

Dead Boy was a normal guy until he got mugged and murdered. Furious, he came back to haunt his own body and now fights crime in the name of justice. He uses a lot of duct tape to keep himself held together when he gets damaged, and has a sentient, futuristic car that doesn’t take prisoners.

Suzie Shooter (also known as Oh God It’s Her Run), or Shotgun Suzie, is Taylor’s friend and semi-girlfriend, and works as a bounty hunter. A slob at home, an absolute ruthless professional in her work, dresses in biker leathers, and kicks ass. Mostly by shooting anything that looks the wrong way at her with her shotgun.

Razor Eddie, Punk God of the Straight Razor, can make the other gods run crying from the Street of the Gods when he gets ticked off. Don’t comment on his smell or his coat.

There’s Alex Mosley, the owner of Strangefellows, who wears all black until someone invents a darker color. He’s depressed because he’s Merlin’s decedent and bound forever to the bar, and complains nonstop about it. He never gives correct change and woe to anyone who complains back about this.

Cathy, John’s sectary and ward, can club-hop all night and still have energy in the morning to do the paperwork. Spunky and eventually ending up with a boyfriend John doesn’t expect (or exactly approve of), Cathy is the bubbly, semi-practical and organized counterpart to Taylor and the only way he can manage his business.

Dozens of minor characters show up on and off through the series, and new ones are always being introduced and killed off in spectacular ways. There’s never a shortage of wacky, crazy, insane and bloodthirsty creatures, people, and unknown entities populating the city—just watch your back (and your soul). Someone invariably wants to stick a knife in it. This is the Nightside.

WHAT I LIKE
There’s a lot to enjoy about this series—mostly the setting, the twisted, sometimes random storylines and plots, and the handful of secondary and minor characters who bring the world alive (or dead, depending on who we’re talking about).

Always, the books are full of gore, explosions, macabre humor and situations, and a complete disregard for reality or realism—and it works. The books are ones you don’t really take seriously—it’s a great rollercoaster of a ride, but then you move on to the next amusement (watch out for the haunted rides, though, or the loa running around). They’re short (rarely making it to 300 pages), which makes them easy to finish quickly. Think of it as those half an hour episodes of the Twilight Zone. ;)

The humor always comes through—often twisted or off-the-wall-weird, but almost always it made me snicker. (In the first book, upon his return to the Nightside, Taylor notices the graffiti and comments that “someone misspelled Cthulhu again”—yes, Lovecraft jokes! %-))

Perhaps what attracts me the most is that Mr. Green has one hell of an imagination and it shows. I love seeing what new weirdness he’ll come up with in the Nightside—logic has no bearing here. While the stories may at time take a familiar turn, there are always a few twists and booby traps and zombified bear traps lying in wait for you as you make your way through the city.

I really do love some of the secondary characters, like Dead Boy and Razor Eddie and Alex. They’re quirky and violent and highly entertaining.

Specific enjoyments are found in every book and I don’t want to give away spoilers—but if you know me, and know I like weird, funny, dark, violent, bizarre stories, then you’ll know why I enjoy this series.

WHAT I DON’T
People tend to talk in a weird, paragraphal way (long blocks of dialogue-exposition). They will explain to each other information in a fashion that sounds like they’re reading a script—it does get annoying, and while moderately better in the later books, the fact everyone does it at some point just ends up weird. There are quite a few info dumps and sometimes-awkward sentences, but writing mechanics aside, my issues tend to focus mostly on the narrator—Taylor—himself.

We never really, truly get deep into his head and emotions, which is part of the reason I have trouble identifying with him. (This is, again, why I say I read it for the world and some of the minor characters.)

One thing I never did quite get was Taylor’s “bullet trick.” His gift—finding things—I understand (although I never did quite figure out how he manages to shut things down, pull them away or to him, or otherwise remove the threat via his gift—how is it the easiest thing in the word?). The bullet trick is a device (a plot device) that allows Taylor to extract the ammo from weapons without touching the guns, thus surprising his attackers who suddenly have worthless guns in hand. (This trick also applies to internal organs with predictable, nasty and painful results and admittedly is a lot of fun. %-)) It worked a few times, but it’s inconsistent and not explained, which I found annoying.*

The author also doesn’t quite let Taylor get hurt as much as he might—someone or something tends to come to the rescue just before things get too nasty. There is tension and fun fight scenes but sometimes it feels like he’s getting an easy way out.

(For example, in the first book, the Harrowing, faceless indestructible attackers sent by his Enemies in the future, attack John and try to kill him. There was some excellent tension and I was looking forward to seeing how he got out of it, and then Eddie shows up and takes care of it. I was mildly disappointed in the intervention, but it’s a small-ish complaint overall.)

There is plenty of carnage and character suffering, though, so my twisted little mind is happy on the whole.

OVERALL

I do recommend it for people who enjoy dark fantasy, urban fantasy, detective fantasy or horror--or all of the above. (Do be advised it is gory in many places, there is strong language and sexual content, but the violence is perhaps the most excessive element. ;))

If you love wonky world-building, dark, twisty adventures with a colorful and only semi-living cast of characters, and not-to-serious world ending plots, then check out the series. You may just find you don’t want to leave the Nightside once you get a taste for it.

~Merc

*We’re not at the end of the series, forecasted at twelve books total, yet, so I have to reserve final judgment until I read them all. Perhaps the bullet trick and the facet of Taylor’s gift will be explained. Either way, you can be sure I’ll have something to say about it.

Fantasy and Moral Compasses

2008-07-14T17:36:00.000-07:00

I read this post a few days ago, on whether authors should feel obligated to reflect certain values in their fiction. This often arises in YA lit, in discussions over whether teen pregnancy or drug use or such should be portrayed, but I think it’s an interesting idea to consider in light of fantasy. Secondary-world fantasy is designed not to have any connection with Earth—and that means moral systems are not based on our own, nor (I believe) should they exactly mimic ours. Few things are more annoying than an exotic fantasy culture in which everyone holds modern twenty-first century values (except for villains, who often believe in slavery, oppression of women, and the burning of witches. Way to go with the nuances, author). I find, in fantasy novels, that my moral compass “resets”—I view events and interactions on the basis of what’s moral in this storyworld, even if it’s 180 degrees from what I believe moral in the real world. For instance, a favorite series of mine features an assassin: a sheer for-pay assassin, not one doing it out of religion or desperation or because he thinks he’s serving “the greater good” or such. He does it because he’s good at it and it pays well. This is considered perfectly fine (morally, at least, if not legally); at one point even a goddess hires him to kill someone. If I were reading a book set on contemporary Earth, following a hitman who killed innocent people, I would be very aware that this was Not Okay, and it would impact my enjoyment of the book (it’s one reason I have difficulty with a lot of non-sf/f novels; I’m religious and have certain bedrock beliefs about what’s right and wrong, and if a book’s set in my reality I tend to apply those views).

So what about you, fellow readers? Do you have trouble slipping into the worldview of a fantasy character who holds very different, and perhaps sometimes offensive, values? Are there some things that are sticking points, but others you let slide? Should authors feel obliged to retain certain basic moral positions even in works of fantasy?

~Sparky

Applogies to Minions--Er, Readers of the TS

2008-07-10T16:00:00.001-07:00

There really is no good excuse except we're all in the middle of taking over the world.

Or not.

We're really sorry about the lack of posts lately, folks. :( Summer hit all the Toasters in different ways and we've been trying to get real life stuff organized and smoothed out, keep the zombie hordes in line, et cetera.

Please bear with us, as we'll try and have semi-regular articles again starting Monday the 14th.

Thanks again for reading. :) We wouldn't be motivated to keep up this blog without all of you!

~Merc

Review--Standard Hero Behavior

2008-06-29T15:43:00.000-07:00

"Standard Hero Behavior", a mid-grade children's novel published earlier this year by first time author John David Anderson is a hilarious treat. You can't ask it to be anything it's not (mainly a humorous novel for kids aged 9-12) but for the adult reader it's kinda like a candy bar. A quick tasty bite. I laughed out loud a few times, and so did my husband who promptly read it on my recommendation.

A nice thin mid-grade of typical size, my gorgeous hardcover library copy has a tantalizing cover art picture by Peter de Sève, who did the hilarious covers of the humorous historical fiction Pagan Chronicles (Catherine Jinks) and some editions of the Enchanted Forest Chronicles (Patricia Wrede). "Standard Hero Behavior" with its sardonic narration, absurd elements, and yet honestly warm and fuzzy story hidden underneath a bit like both those series. If you enjoyed either of those series when you were younger (or now) you'll like this one.

Mason Quayle isn't a hero—that was his father, who left ten years ago and never came home. Mason is a near-broke rather mediocre bard reduced to turning his neighbor's encounter with a chipmunk into an epic feat of glory. Out of money and out of options, just a little faster than the rest of his economically stifled city of Darlington, Mason sacrifices his self respect and goes to grovel for a job from Duke Dirk Darlinger, the town's one remaining hero.

Instead, he discovers the duke is a fake, who's been paying off the forces of evil with cash, instead of fighting them. Darlinger's out of cash, the city's over-taxed already, and the new orc mob boss wants an impossible sum in five days, or all of Darlington is toast. Mason and his best friend Cowel (a broke plume salesman) go on a butt-blistering ride for help—to find the missing heroes and beg them to return. With instructions to find heroes between the ages of 16 and 60 (no pirates), hardly more than "glory" to pay them, finding the right sort of hero is neigh impossible, even with Mason's father's helpful book "Quayle's Guide to Adventures for the Unadventurous." Unfortunately, Mason and Cowel fall dreadfully short of SHB or Standard Hero Behavior as outlined by the book.

"Standard Hero Behavior is just full of everything from cute modern political satire that not overdone, to extremely bad epic poetry overdone over the top, from mobster orcs, to swallowing a vengeful pixie with a knife, from an attack of whatisits, to the narcoleptic somnambulist. He's deadly with a sword in his sleep

The book has a few flaws, namely some POV issues. It's a weird blend of third person omniscient and third person limited, but not so terrible I couldn't just ignore it. The snarky tone and lively pacing of the novel made up for that. There are also a few scenes where a person is not named to remain "mysterious". It isn't… it's just annoying, but those are the only places where I got jerked out of the novel and annoyed enough to grumble. Otherwise, it was a treat to read.

The book doesn't delve into real issues of the meaning of good and evil between races, but rather skirts them. You can't ask for everything… this is a lightweight novel. Merc might complain that the orcs are rather dense, but they're no denser than anyone else in the novel and it at least the narrative offers an extremely plausible explanation for why they lose in the end. The book's one dragon is as sympathetic as she is destructive. But while the novel doesn't explore that particular issue, it does totally trash the typical fantasy hero ideal and romp through cliché and stereotype. I whole heatedly recommend it for all kids and any adult who want a light and entertaining read. For those feminists among us, while the two MCs are male, the major characters do include several strong-willed and skilled supporting girls with smaller sections in their POVs. While boys are the target audience, girls should be pleased with the book as well.

So… to finish off this review, are you SHB material? Here's a quick quote to help you figure it out:

"It's a steamy Friday night and there's a sense of adventure in the air. You are A) out at the pub polishing off a tankard with some friends. B) at home in front of the fire playing footsie-ticklies with your spouse. Or C) deep underneath the earth in a cavernous lair of a giant man-eating spider, having just sucked venom out of your own butt where it stung you."

Children's Science Fiction—history of an often ignored genre.

2008-06-25T19:29:00.000-07:00

All the talk about the difficulty of selling science fiction in children's (mid-grade) and YA has got me thinking about some of the best science fiction novels out there in children's fiction… The genre to my mind has it's roots in the interest in space exploration in the fifties and sixties and a general interest in encouraging children to think and play about it. Children and YA Science Fiction has a solid history, despite the claims these days that it's a "hard sell" and I'd like to see more updated stories available to young people. So, I'm going to highlight its history with a few of the major authors that keep moving this forward.

I sincerely hope the wonderful people I've met online who write in this genre will soon be adding to it. Hey, I have a few mid-grade science fiction stories I'd like to write and market someday myself. All the books here are ones I loved dearly as a kid, but I did grow up in the inner city with limited funds and resources, so if I've missed any great children's science fiction novels, tell me what kid's books lit you on fire for Science Fiction.

It seems to me that science fiction for children really got going in the 1950s. Two authors from this period stand out in my mind. Whimsical and hopelessly out of date when it comes to the planets involved, their strength rather lies in their creative characters and fun plots.

"The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet" by Eleanor Cameron.

This classic mid-grade novel from the 1950s is a delight to read, although the sequels are way too sentimental for my stomach. Book one is a lot of fun. My father fell in love with it when he was young, and thus read it to us—eager to share this story of space travel.

David and Chuck read an article in the newspaper that offers a reward for the best built rocket ship. They built one and take it to the strange Mr. Bass, who promptly proclaims it perfect and installs an engine. (They also paint some special stuff on it that makes it space worthy… go figure, but the science takes the backseat to the classic boys on an adventure angle.) Mr. Bass sends them on a mission to a secret "planet" or rather moon, which orbits the earth but is invisible without special equipment. Mr. Bass is convinced that the people of Basidium are in desperate need, and of course they are. With only a few hours to make it home in time, the boys must find an answer to the perplexing problem destroying these cute little aliens. (Who'd have thought the chicken the boys bring on the space ship as a mascot would be the real hero of the day?)

The enduring popularity of this mid-grade novel is evident in the fact that it's still in print, with brand new covers and art.

"Space Cat" by Ruthven Todd and Paul Galdone.

This book, also from the 1950s, is wonderful and part of a delightful little series. The first book has been recently reprinted, perhaps because of renewed interest in space travel and science fiction for kids. I sincerely hope the rest of the books will soon follow… book three is hard to find a copy of currently, being a rare book.

Spaceball the cat is a stray who ends up the pet of an astronaut on the government's fledgling space exploration program. After sneaking on board a test flight, the program decides to fully train and outfit Spaceball with his own cat space suit. (Purrr-fect, really. You gotta love his personal sleeping hammock in the space ship too.) This book proves that there's nothing new about the rising blend of anthro books with science fiction on CC. Spaceball had it down first.

The sequels, "Space Cat Visits Venus", "Space Cat Meets Mars", and "Space Cat and the Kittens" are all way too much fun. You just have to ignore the fact there's intelligent plant life on the moon and Venus, and that Mars is inhabited by a mind-speaking red female cat and has enough atmosphere you can go around in the day without a space helmet. But why let reality spoil such a fun set of mid-grade novels?

Well, let's move forward a little into some more serious work that features young adult, rather than mid-graders…

"The White Mountains" by John Christopher.

Written in the 1960s the Tripod series by John Cristopher is a compelling children's series about Earth ruled by aliens, humans subjected, and a resistance banding together to take a stand.

Will Parker has only ever known the peaceful and rural life humans currently live as servants of the tripods. Capping, a way of arresting human thinking and development and keeping the population docile by sticking a computer chip in people's heads, is considered a rite of passage by the humans. Full of doubts after talking to a stranger who's "capping" appears to have gone awry, leaving him supposedly "mentally deranged", Will decides to run away instead and go in search of the refuge in the White Mountains that the stranger speaks of.

The story is continued in "The City of Gold and Lead" and "The Pool of Fire." There's also a prequel, "When the Tripods Came." The two sequels are terrific, I didn't find the prequel as engaging, but it was alright.

The science fiction is less outdated in these than the first two, but most importantly, these novels are character driven and compelling. Instead of whimsical like the 50s books, they tackle universal human issues and don't shy away from difficult questions and dilemmas. Are some causes worth sacrificing your life for? Can we really rule ourselves with peace and justice? Is freedom worth its cost? Like adult science fiction, they ask us to re-examine our present and ask ourselves where we're going with it.

"Enchantress from the Stars" by Sylvia Louise Engdahl.

In 1971, a Newberry Honor was given to a science fiction novel, a YA science fiction romance, no less. A strong believer in the importance of space travel, Ms. Engdahl actually wrote six YA science fiction novels, and this was her first. It's an engaging blend of anthropology, science fiction, and fantasy, and a book I'd love to use to discuss anthropology with kids.

A diverted flight home by an emergency gives teenage Elana a first glimpse of youngling culture, that is a society of people who've not yet culturally evolved to the point of being able to join the Federation. The Federation Anthropology Service's duty is to study and protect youngling civilizations without revealing their existence to them, and it's Elana's dream to follow in the footsteps of her father and her boyfriend and join as an agent.

On this planet of Andrecia though, a youngling society at the technology of the middle ages is being threatened by another youngling society that has discovered space travel and has imperial aspirations. They intend to subjugate these new "aliens" they've discovered and the Federation needs to stop them before the less developed society is obliterated without revealing their own existence.

Despite her father's orders, Elana sneaks onto a shuttle so she can see the Andrecian younglings up close. Only a tragic death of another team member forces her father to use her to help trick the invaders into getting scared off colonizing this particular planet. Elana pretends to be an "Enchantress" who instructs a few of the Andrecians in telepathic powers (or as they call it magic) so they can spook off the invaders. The best of these students is Georyn, someone Elana should not fall in love with, and who's connection to her might be the only hope for making the plan work.

This story is philosophical and somewhat tragic for all the main characters involved, but I love it anyway, despite my aversion to such things. It's one of my favorite novels.

Sylvia Louise Engdahl wrote also a rather chilling sequel called "The Far Side of Evil" also about Elana, working with the Federation on a youngling planet on the brink of nuclear war. In trying to stop her rash (and in love) co-worker from disclosure, Elana ends up a prisoner, facing an interrogator who is determined to bring her to her knees and discover her secrets. Elana's psychic powers could protect her from anything he plans to do, but to use them is to disclose who she is, which is forbidden by the oath she swore as an agent. Despite walking a very fine line involving torture, this book is YA and not quite as gruesome as it sounds… although it did make me swallow hard a couple of times.

Also published in the seventies were a YA science fiction romance called "Journey Between Worlds" and the "Children of the Star Trilogy", a set of novels about a teen who takes on a repressive society only to realize the realties of his dying planet are a heck of a lot more complicated than he thought.

Sadly the disinterest in YA science fiction saw all the books but the Newberry Honor winner go out of print, until in 2000, when renewed interest saw a reprint of Children of the Star as one volume. Since then Engdahl has updated both "The Far Side of Evil" and "Journey Between Worlds" to be less dated from the seventies. I plan to read Journey just as soon as I can get the spending money to grab myself a copy. Can't seem to find it at the library. I am hopeful though that the republishing of her books indicates a rising interest in YA SF.

Which leads to several well-known adult SF novels that have in recent times been re-packaged into the YA section, another hopeful sign for the genre. Both "Ender's Game" by Orson Scott Card (published first in 1985) and "Dragonflight" by Anne McCaffrey (published first in 1968) have been given kid-like covers and re-shelved in YA, along with a few of the author's other works with young MCs, to entice a younger generation. While kid's have gone shopping in the adult section of the store for science fiction involving space ships for most of the eighties and nineties, I think it's coming around again.

Unlike space adventures and foreign planets, near-future science fiction has remained quite popular in children's literature. Award winning books like "The Giver" by Lois Lowry (1993) and "A City of Ember" by Jeanne DuPrau (2003) indicate their growing popularity. There's two many of these to give a whole overview… so I'll just end by touching on one of my favorite, "Eva" by Peter Dickinson (1988), another author who writes a good amount of futuristic science fiction YA. The novel is about a girl who after her body is destroyed in an accident, has her mind imprinted into the body of a chimpanzee. Eva tries to live a "human" life after this, but comes to realize that too much of her is now chimp, and that with humans killing themselves off, the future of life on earth lies now with chimpanzees.

Lowry, DuPrau, and Dickinson are just three of a great many current authors turning out near-future science fiction for children, and have all written more novels in that direction. Hopefully this will in the end lead to renewed interest in more traditional science fiction for children—the exploration of space and other planets. Movie tie-ins with the Star Wars movies for children have also done well in recent years. Despite how I generally look down on move-themed books, I must say that I'm a fan of Jude Watson (Scholastic's author who writes most of those) and read a good number of them because she's an excellent writer. Plus, finding recent mid-grade novels with space ships can be quite a challenge these days, because we've yet to come full circle to the space adventure novels of the 1950s.

While breaking into this market at the moment sounds incredibly tough, just looking over the genre's history inspires me. I think there's going to be plenty more mid-grade and YA science fiction novels breaking out of obscurity and taking on new interest. Maybe I'll dust off that poor novel about a kid on a colony on a space station on Mars after all… it was a good idea and I'd hate to give it up just because the market is a bit challenging at the moment.

Long live mid-grade and YA Science Fiction!

Origins of Evil: Merc's Influences

2008-06-22T18:15:00.000-07:00

I'd like to tell you The Necronomicon was my early reading material, but sadly it wasn't.

My early introduction to fantasy came through novels like The Lord of the Rings, the Redwall series, Narnia, collections of fairy tales, The Wind in the Willows, and a variety of picture books that re-told myths and folklore or were parabolic. (I still fondly remember my collection of "Adam Raccoon" books, which I wore the covers off learning to read from on my own.)

It needn't be pointed out I've always been a villain enthusiast. ;) I did like the orcs and goblins, the weasels and rats, and the evil sorcerers. Some things never change.

pWhen younger, the family did a lot of driving--music lessons, carting kids around to activities and errands, etc--and we always listened to audio tapes. Some of the books that inspired me the most were ones I heard narrated while bouncing around in the mini-van. The Perilous Guard by Elizabeth Marie Pope inspired and heavily influenced my liking of mythical fey/fair folk (the nasty, shiny, manipulative kind) and I blame that book in part for the whole mind-drug-ritual-sacrifice phase I had.

The Phantom Tollbooth showed me just what you could do in fantasy--humor, unrealistic elements, and the fun you could have with language. Later it inspired me to try the unusual and take risks, experiment, in my writing.

When I started reading (voraciously) on my own, a lot of really crappy fantasy made me want to write something better. Then I went through a Victor Hugo phase where I tried (emphasis on try ;)) to read all his novels (with limited success... I still don't get Ninety-Three); I came to the conclusion I really preferred more, ahem, concise, focused stories after that.

I found Vivian Vande Velde's novels a little later and devoured hem all in rapid succession. The style, humor and voice stuck out for me and made me really want to stop restraining myself. (For the longest time I wasn't comfortable letting my sense of humor come out or stretching my imagination in dark, interesting ways--at least not on paper, where someone could read it.)

Of course noting is complete without The Princess Bride. Enough said.

When I discovered H.P. Lovecraft, my restrained (hidden) love of horror exploded in a violent surge and, no, I don't think it was the shuggoth attached to my brain that did it. I was amazed at what style and atmosphere could do--and I also with a sampling of Ambrose Bierce, I got firmly attached to twist endings.

Over the years a few series and books have stood out for me, like Jim Butcher's Dresden Files, Paul S. Kemp's Erevis Cale trilogy (Forgotten Realms--don't look at me like that), The Legend of Nightfall, Jeff Lindsay's Dexter series, Phantom by Susan Kay, Frankenstein by Mary Shelly... there's a lot that influenced me in many varied ways.

But books are not my only dark influence. Probably one of the most influential shows I watched when younger (and still do--trust me, you don't want to know how many times I've watched this series) is Beast Wars: Transformers. Velociraptors (and other dinos, arachnids, snakes, wolves, rats, etc--aliens too), shoot-outs, explosions, developed characters, death and destruction, time travel, more explosions, even more mindless destruction, humor, spoofs on way too many things to mention... it had it all. And for mid-90's, the CGI isn't bad! I blame this completely for my 'raptor obsession (though, sadly, I can't blame it for the zombies).

There is also Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003 4Kids series that much, much more closely followed the original comic). O:)

I watched a lot of corny sci-fi movies, B-rate horror, and cheesy fantasy movies too, and with both bad and good movies, I liked to watch the techniques used and tried to apply them to fiction.

I'm one of those that went to the comics after seeing movie adaptations, and from there developed a love of comics, which has lately influenced me a lot, in both subject matter and visual devices and conveying stories in a different medium. Marvel, Dark Horse, DC, webcomics, etc--it's all good.

As you can see, I have a varied background and it's all conspired together to help shape the evil that is Merc. %-) The world now knows The Truth.

~Merc

P.S. I've not bothered to link to all these books/movies/etc because my connection is unproductive to it. Will do it later. You'll live. You can look up the titles on your own if you want more info. ;)

On the Origin of Feral Biologists

2008-06-20T23:04:00.000-07:00

I was an omnivorous reader, when young—I took science fiction, murder mysteries, biographies, fairy tales, travelogues, anything I could get my hands on. My favorite “book” was our set of Encyclopaedia Britannica from the year I was born; I could sit for hours hopping from article to article, reading about everything from Ataxerxes to zorses. I don’t remember when I began adoring biology, but it hooked me early—the only thing I recall from fifth grade is the unit on bird wings and flight.

I also developed a particular love of fantasy (a common description of me, at thirteen and under, was “the girl with the unicorn collection.” I loved that cover of C.S. Lewis’s The Last Battle entirely Too Much). My earliest stories were a shameless mishmash of Mercedes Lackey and Anne McCaffrey, but at fourteen I discovered Diana Wynne Jones, whose Tough Guide to Fantasyland made me alternately cringe and weep with laughter. Around the same time I found Holly Lisle’s website and devoured her articles for writers. Never again could I accept common fantasy notions—like the perfect utility of stew, or the need for antagonists of Pure Evil ™--without thought. Apparently the universe believes in overwhelming force, because in this period I also stumbled over Terry Pratchett. His Discworld taught me many lessons, not least that you don’t have to follow the rules of the “real world” when writing fantasy—if you want your story set on a flat world spinning on the backs of four elephants that stand atop a giant turtle swimming through space, you can do it.*

Sadly it took me a while to absorb all these lessons—what did my first novel contain? If you answered, “Rainbow-colored flying unicorns who kill people,” you are unfortunately correct. I try to take comfort in the killing-people part, but it pales beside the rainbow-colored-unicorns part. I take more comfort in knowing no one but me will ever see that novel again. This is where I hit the second wave of influences—especially Steven Brust’s Dragaera books, with their excellent, edgy worldbuilding, and Lois McMaster Bujold’s Vorkosigan series, filled with rich characters and humor. I began deliberately questioning my writing choices—whether about worldbuilding, character reactions, plot dynamics, even basics of prose and POV—as I made them, as well as letting more of my beloved, twisted biology and evil inner author surface.

And here I still am. I’m young and learning my craft, and I try to absorb new knowledge from every book and author I read. Perhaps one day, with enough knowledge and hard work, I’ll see my own fantasy novels published.

~Sparky

*I still cherish the memory of the new librarian, staggering from the back with twenty Discworld novels in his arms and staring at me as if suddenly understanding why all the other librarians knew my name.

Mission Control: Inspirations and Influences

2008-06-18T11:55:00.000-07:00

I've been writing since I learned how to hold a pen and make funny marks on paper, so writing was/is a natural tendency for me. It’s how I’m wired.

So what inspired me to write a hard sell like Science Fiction Romance?

Short answer: It's what I love to read. Long answer: I enjoy creating worlds, and even universes, where the history, politics, technology, environment, or cultural stigmas create fascinating conflicts the characters must overcome.

Who or what have been my inspirations and influences?

My love of Science Fiction started when I was a teen. I subscribed to the Science Fiction Book Club and read several Science Fiction books every month. I loved the world of possibilities these stories opened up for me. The one that had the most impact on me was THE ICE PEOPLE by French author Rene Barjavel (now out of print). It was a story about a 900,000 year old (human) civilization discovered beneath the Antarctic ice, and one of two survivors who is revived from absolute zero cryo-freeze to tell her tale of a forgotten time in history. This is what got me asking the question, “What if…” and later inspired my Draxian Trilogy and my fascination with alternate history theories.

I read most of the sci-fi classic by authors like Alan Dean Foster (THE MAN WHO USED THE UNIVERSE), Arthur C. Clarke (2001 and RENDEZVOUS WITH RAMA), Isaac Asimov (FANTASTIC VOYAGE) and Robert A. Heinlein. As I grew older, my reading preferences jumped ship for the straight romance genre, and I include Nan Ryan and Nora Roberts among my favorite authors.

Later, McCaffrey’s DRAGONRIDERS OF PERN series and THE ROWAN, hooked me. I loved the elements of romance blended with sci-fi and/or futuristic fantasy. More recently, Linnea Sinclair’s GAMES OF COMMAND became one of my all-time favorite SciFiRom novels. A really great Fantasy can sometimes grab my interest, and I'm a monster fan of Lisa Shearin's Raine Benares series that began with MAGIC LOST, TROUBLE FOUND and continued with ARMED & MAGICAL. (No surprises there.)

Through Southwest Writers, many authors inspired me, some who were just starting out such as Carol Davis Luce and Eileen Dryer, and icons like Tony Hillerman, Roger Zelazny, and Norman Zollinger. Paula Paul, who at that time wrote romances and cozy mysteries, gave me a lot of great pointers on making my work more commercial.

But what probably gave me the biggest push toward writing science fiction romance was not a book. As a Trekkie fan from a young age, I just had to see (27 times!) this modest-budget little sleeper of a movie that came out in the late 1970s called--yes, you guessed it--Star Wars. After suffering through the glitzy, campy, sadly-lacking F/X of sci-fi movies that came before, the opening scenes of this soon-to-be-blockbuster blew me away. I’ll never forget the first view of the Corellian destroyer moving into frame and the incredible detail of its hull in that overhead fly-over. I’d never seen anything like it. I was inspired to try to capture that same sort of visual awe in a reader’s mind, something I still strive for today.

The Dreaded One's Influences

2008-06-16T12:31:00.000-07:00

When you're named after a character in a book, it's pretty hard not to let it influence you. My parents liked to read novels out loud together, and fell in love with the work of 19th century author George MacDonald (a contemporary of Lewis Carol and Mark Twain). I'm named Ardyth Irene after the Princess Irene of his most well-know children's book "The Princess and the Goblin". Obviously, they didn't stop there, but promptly read me all his fairy tales over and over again as I grew up, including his two adult "fairy" novels when I was older.

MacDonald was one of the authors who inspired those who founded the modern genre of Fantasy novels. His work draws mostly from mythology, combining it in new and interesting ways, and from learning to love it as a child, I also gained a deep appreciation of myth. I dove into folk and fairy tales from across the world, and these are the stories that sparked my own. I read very little fantasy, comparatively. With the exception of the Chronicles of Narnia and the Chronicles of Prydain, I mostly ready books about animals, such as "Big Red" or "Call of the Wild" or historical fiction such as "Young Fu of the Upper Yangtze" or " Daughter of the Mountains".

Naturally my early stories looked more like "Redwall" or "Kavak the Wolfdog" clones, than anything like my current work, but my love of both mythology and an appreciation of a bit of the absurd remained with me, and when I took to writing seriously in high school, it was mythical stories reminiscent of MacDonald.

The influence of several other myth-based children's authors, particularly Lloyd Alexander and CS Lewis are also apparent in my work. Mark Twain has influenced my humor.

My father believed in reading aloud to his children, a nightly tradition that continued until I left for college. In high school, he started to read literature and I was particularly struck by the themes of "To Kill A Mocking Bird", "Crime and Punishment", "The Brothers Karamazov" and "Descent into Hell." Moral dilemmas and spiritual forces acting in ordinary lives fascinated me, and I think such books are partially responsible for the serious undercurrents that move through all my books. (Growing up in the inner city touched by gang violence and intense prejudices might also be partially responsible for this.) I tend to take on difficult issues, both social and moral in a mid-grade context.

I don't know yet if what I write will appeal to the general juvenile public, but I do know that I will always be preoccupied by myth and meaning in my work. I will not shy away from difficult issues, but rather try to find a way to let kids think about them openly, hopefully without offending too many parents.

I have a sneaking suspicion though, that should I ever be successful, I'll be highly controversial. Oh well. Some of the world's best books are banned.

Topic of the Week: Our Influences

2008-06-15T12:17:00.000-07:00

It's one of those routine questions you're asked when you're published… what authors/books have most influenced your work? So, we thought we'd get a head start and consider it now.

This is a little different than asking which are our "favorite" authors. Sometimes those who influence and enlighten our own are our favorite authors, but sometimes they aren't. Sometimes can even be a book or short story that we don't even remember the author or name of… a childhood picture book that stayed in our mind… or a book we hated but made us think.

At the beginning of "The Great Divorce" for example, CS Lewis credits a short story whose author and title he doesn't remember, and yet inspired the novel. So, this will be less about books we purely loved, and more about what molded our own.

"You haven't READ it?! You heretic!"

2008-06-12T09:46:00.000-07:00

(In which Merc is inspired to rant about book "recommendations" and when they go from innocent suggestions to calls for burning things at the stake. Well. Kinda.)

WARNING: hyperbole ahead. Read at your own risk.

We all like to recommend favorite books to other people, right? We suggest titles and authors all the time--and as writers we also suggest reading for each other for research purposes.

Don't get me wrong. I love getting suggestions and recommendations... unless the "you haven't READ it?! You heretic!" syndrome shows up.

YHRIYH Syndrome happens sometimes unintentionally and mostly by, ahem, rabid fans. You know the types. The ones that adore and love certain books or authors so much they go berserk if you ever dare say anything even remotely negative about their Precious. This can hold true for just about anything, of course. Rabid fans exist in all forms of entertainment. Some scientists speculate that they spawn (rabid fans; not scientists) from the discarded or ruined copies of the work in question, and then spread like airborne disease and infect countless thousands.

For example, you might encounter the following (pardon the excessive punctuation), in which you may substitute the author, genre, etc, for whatever best fits your situation:

Random Writer: So what do you write?

Merc: Humorous fantasy.

Random Writer: Oh! So you must love Pratchett's work, then.

Merc: Actually, I only read one book and I thought it was okay. (Note here Merc hasn't actually said anything negative.)

Random Writer: *GASP!* you haven't read [huge list of titles that includes everything Mr. Pratchett has every published]?!?

Merc: No.

Random Writer: How can you possibly write humorous fantasy and not have read [list of title]?! Heretic!

Merc: . . .

A note to those infected with YHRIYH Syndrome: Get a life already.

It's perfectly possible to write in a sub-genre and not have read hugely popular or "keystone" books/series, and still be a legitimate writer yourself.

For those affected with YHRIYH Syndrome, I know this is a hard concept to grasp. Take a deep breath and when the red haze clears from your eyes, finish reading my post. I'll give you some time. Okay, better?

I used Pratchett as an example but the disease affects all sub genres and umbrella genres of fiction. The mindset that if you write in a particular style or genre or cross genre or whatever, you MUST be a fan/have read all the cannon of certain "iconic" authors is, IMO, stupid.

(Breathe!)

To write high/epic fantasy, you don't have to have read The Lord of the Rings. Honest. There's no huge editor in the sky who will fry you with a lightning bolt if you want to write about elves and quests and magic artifacts and you haven't read Tolkien.

If you write vampire fiction, you don't have to have read Anne Rice, Stephenie Myer, or Bram Stoker. Really! I know this is going to come as a complete and utter shock, but it's actually possible.

The Harry Potter series isn't necessary/required reading if you want to write MG/YA fantasy. (Still breathing? I have oxygen masks here if you want.)

I'm not in any way saying these books and authors are bad or that you shouldn't read them, or anything like that. It's good to read, to read widely, to know your genre, to be familiar with what's been done and who's done it. I'm all for reading and knowing the market and all that jazz.

I'm saying that it's not necessary to be able to write your own fiction. Amazingly--and I know this is hard to wrap your mind around--you can write humorous fantasy and not have read/be a fan of the Discworld novels. You can write horror and not have read or like Stephen King's stuff. You can even get by and not have read/liked Tolkien yet still create epic fantasy.

Would it help? It depends. Probably if you're looking to publish--in that case, you should know the competition, know what's been done, and be familiar with what's in the market and on the shelves.

However, just because you've not gotten around to reading certain books/authors in no way means you are incapable of writing your own work.

If you write a novel about Joe the halfling who finds a Great Evil Magic pocket watch and is joined by eight companions and heads off to destroy the pocket watch in the Factory of Doom (the icon of which is a burning eye) and is attacked by black-robed dudes riding horses/flying lizard things, and there are sieges and hordes of dead guys and a disturbed former pocket watch bearer who mutters to himself and has a split personality... and you think it's the most original thing under the sun, well, you have a surprise coming. :P

But seriously. There's a fine line by encouraging someone to read or offering suggestions when you think they may be writing similar to books/authors you've read, and calling them a heretic and raving rabidly about their miserable shortcomings for nor reading and failing to see the awesomeness that is book/author.

(If the later, I'm taking away your oxygen mask so you pass out and shut up already. %-))

~Merc

Disclaimer: views expressed herein are opinions of the author and not necessarily anyone else who has a lick of sanity in their possession. Or, you know, other TS authors. If you disagree and want to attack me, I have a zombie horde you'll have to get through first...

A Look at Hooks

2008-06-03T05:00:00.000-07:00

Our "Beginnings" theme wouldn't be complete without a discussion about hooks, in general.

Let’s start with the obvious. What is a hook? It’s an opening line, phrase, paragraph or set-up that grabs you by the collar and pulls you into the story. A hook should jump off the page, evoke your emotions, make you forget you’re reading a book and become immersed in the story.

A hook can be set in the first words with a strong opening line, with a paragraph that takes a few sentences to establish, or with an opening situation over several paragraphs that sets an intriguing scene.

Opening line:
On the whole, we’re a murderous race.
Dead Beat (A Dresden Files novel)
By Jim Butcher
ROC Fantasy

Opening Paragraph:
The thunderstorm appeared in front of the Boeing 747 without warning. At 33,000 feet on a calm, clear night over the Pacific Ocean three hours out of Honolulu International Airport, it should not have been there.
Contact
By Susan Grant
Love Spell

Opening situation:
Donovan MacLeod ducked as the compressed-air tank shot like a cannonball over his head and slammed into the shelves lining the cinderblock wall behind him. The impact reverberated through the cavernous warehouse.
Mac scooted over next to his partner, pressing his back against the overturned desk as he pulled his gun from his ankle holster. “Could be worse.”
“Oh?”
“He could have a grenade launcher.”
The Black Sheep and the Princess
by Donna Kaufman
Brava Books

Why is a hook so important? If you’re an aspiring writer, you have a series of readers to impress, beginning with an agent, and/or an editor, but--when you get to the point of being a debut author--especially the browser who picked your novel off the bookstore shelf because it looked intriguing. Gotcha!

If you’re a reader, the hook sets the tone for the rest of the story and along with the back cover blurb, is probably the most crucial factor in whether you carry it to the cash register, or plop it back on the shelf. Not every reader may be hooked by the same elements, so there are many different methods of creating a hook.

What makes an effective hook? Tastes and opinions vary. Let’s look at some examples.

1. Present a conflict or event, best done in the midst of, or in the immediate aftermath of, a struggle. A hook is a promise to the reader that they should read on, and hopefully utter one of those coveted statements: “I couldn’t put it down!” One method is to start in the middle of the action or conflict—the Shock and Awe theory.

So to begin with, General Mercator was dead.
The Mirador
Sarah Monette

Matilda Goodnight stepped back from her latest mural and realized that of all the crimes she'd committed in her 34 years, painting the floor-to-ceiling reproduction of van Gogh's Sunflowers on Clarissa Donelly's dining room wall was the one that was going to send her to hell.
Faking It
Jenny Crusie

2. Show what’s at stake. What can or has already been won or lost? How will it impact the characters or the world this story is set in?

We have been lost to each other for so long. My name means nothing to you. My memory is dust. This is not your fault or mine. The chain connecting mother to daughter was broken and the word passed to the keeping of men, who had no way of knowing.
The Red Tent
Anita Diamant

Children were crying all around the chief exobiologist of the SSC starship Bellatrix and the woman in her green Terravegan uniform wanted to cry with them. In ten years with the Tri-Fleet's Strategic Space Command, Lieutenant Commander Madeline Ruszel had never seen such wanton slaughter.
The Morcai Battalion
Diane Palmer

3. Appeal to the emotions. Get the reader interested by presenting a character or situation they care about or relate to.

"Once upon a time in New York City, there lived a Mage with a crippled right hand. Once he wore ten iron rings upon his fingers. Once he had a brother. Once he had a calling. Twice, he touched a unicorn.
Once upon a time."
Whiskey & Water
Elizabeth Bear

All of us have our little problems and insecurities. I'm no different. Back in high school when I used to feel insecure about something, I would console myself with two thoughts: I'm pretty, and my parents love me. Between those two, I could survive anything.
Since then I've come to understand how little the former matters, and how bitterly the latter can be tested.
Blood Fever
Karen Marie Moning

I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice - not because of his voice, or because he was the smallest person I ever knew, or even because he was the instrument of my mother's death, but because he is the reason I believe in God; I am a Christian because of Owen Meany.
A Prayer for Owen Meany
John Irving

4. Use wit, humor or irony that will draw the reader to read more.

The building was on fire, and it wasn't my fault.
Blood Rites
Jim Butcher

It was love at first sight. The first time Yossarian saw the chaplain he fell madly in love with him.
Catch 22
Joseph Heller

In the year he fully expected to die, he spent the majority of his fifty-third birthday as he did most other days, listening to people complain about their mothers.
The Analyst
John Katzenbach

"So long, Pop! I'm off to check my tiger trap. I rigged a tuna fish sandwich yesterday, so I'm sure to have a tiger by now!'
Calvin and Hobbs - Book one
Bill Watterson

The day Livia Pertini fell in love for the first time was the day the beauty contest was won by her favourite cow, Pupetta.
The Wedding Officer
Anthony Capella

Mr and Mrs Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.
Harry Potter
JK Rowling

5. Spring a surprise. Throw an expected element into your opening.

The angel was cleaning out his closets when the call came.
Lamb
Christopher Moore

Susy fell in love with Harry Fitzallan the moment she showed him her husband's sperm sample.
Good at Games
Jill Mansell

Beware the pitfalls of writing the dynamite hook. Because most agents and editors place huge emphasis on it, writers tend to concentrate on this area. There’s a problem with that. The hook doesn’t make the book.

In reading agent blogs, it’s apparent that many writers are investing all their time and effort into honing and polishing the hook, and not enough on the other elements. When the remaining story doesn’t live up to the standards of the opening scene, or worse yet doesn’t match its tone or follow-through with the plot, it’s a no-go. In order for a hook to work, the story has to back up and build on the promise that’s made to the reader at the start. There’s nothing more disappointing than a story with a killer hook that fails to deliver.

Author’s note: The above hook examples were gathered from a number of sources and not all could be verified. If you are aware of any errors, please notify me and I will correct them.

The Dreaded One Sails Into e-Print

2008-06-02T10:00:00.000-07:00

Okay...

So that's a bit over dramatic, but my first piece of fiction is offically published this month in Alien Skin's June/July 08 issue. http://www.alienskinmag.com/ It's in their flash section: "Rude Awakening". (Or will be when they update sometime soon... but it's June 1st and I'm too excited to wait to announce it.)

I just started marketing myself this January, so this is a huge step for me. So, please, bring out the virtual food and drink and help me party it up! While ultimately I aim for a career in children's novels and this short is neither a novel nor for children (well, not small ones anyway, teens are fine) I'm still partying it up. Best part is Alien Skin is free so you can go and read it if you so chose to. (I know a lot of you are doing their horror contest this summer.)

Better yet, I've got another story coming out in Aug in another online mag and one in Oct in a small print one. Sure, it's a far cry from the "BIG" guys and published novel-dom, but I'll take what I can get.

I want to extend a big thank you to Merc and Skip for their help on this story, and to the folks at Imaginaries writing group who inspired me to write it. http://imaginaries.org/ They're the reason I first tried writing flash fiction in the first place.

*indulges in a big serving of virtual ice cream* Wheeeeeeee!

--The Dreaded One, published at last

She Stared Out The Window

2008-05-30T16:14:00.000-07:00

While many things are fun in real life—drinking a cup of tea or staring out the window at the scenery, for instance—few are as enjoyable to read about, particularly at the start of a story. If a novel opens with the heroine sitting and gazing dreamily—or sulkily, or angrily, or boredly—at the rain, I am unlikely to continue reading (staring fearfully I might accept, since that implies there is something to be afraid of and, therefore, actual events may begin occurring soon). Description rarely starts a story well, whether it’s description of the rain, the hero’s looks, the heroine’s bedroom, or a rural farming landscape. Even excellent authors can fall prey to this, as the opening paragraph from Lois McMaster Bujold’s The Curse of Chalion attests:

*
“Cazaril heard the mounted horsemen on the road before he saw them. He glanced over his shoulder. The well-worn track behind him curled up around a rolling rise, what passed for a hill on these high windy plains, before dipping again into the late-winter muck of Baocia’s bony soil. At his feet a little rill, too small and intermittent to rate a culvert or a bridge, trickled greenly across the track from the sheep-cropped pastures above. The thump of hooves, jangle of harness, clink of bells, creak of gear and careless echo of voices came on at too quick a rhythm to be some careful farmer with a team, or parsimonious pack-men driving their mules.”
*

I admit, I came very close to rolling my eyes and setting the book back on the library shelf, because who wants to deal with that for three hundred pages? Fortunately I soldiered on, and The Curse of Chalion is now one of my favorite books, but I still sigh at that opening. And yet, for all the hideously dull first pages we’ve suffered through, there are descriptive openings that work beautifully, that come alive and sweep us into the story. Take the opening of Louis Sachar’s Holes:

*
“There is no lake at Camp Green Lake. There once was a very large lake here, the largest lake in Texas. That was over a hundred years ago. Now there is just a dry, flat wasteland.

“There used to be a town of Green Lake as well. The town shriveled and dried up along with the lake, and the people who lived there.

“During the summer the daytime temperature hovers around ninety-five degrees in the shade—if you can find any shade. There’s not much shade in a big dry lake.

“The only trees are two old oaks on the eastern edge of the “lake.” A hammock is stretched between the two trees, and a log cabin stands behind that.

“The campers are forbidden to lie in the hammock. It belongs to the Warden. The Warden owns the shade.”
*

This is hardly longer than the Bujold excerpt, and yet catchy enough that when I went to double-check the wording I ended up reading to the third chapter before I could tear myself away. Now that’s the ability to hook. It’s the difference between, “Oh, get on with it,” and “Go on, tell me what happens next!” And yet, one might argue, these two books have very different tones; one can hardly expect a sober, contemplative fantasy to have, as Ardyth remarked of Holes, an opening with attitude. So what kind of descriptive openings can work for more serious pieces?

Here’s the start of Peter S. Beagle’s The Last Unicorn:

*
“The unicorn lived in a lilac wood, and she lived all alone. She was very old, though she did not know it, and she was no longer the careless color of sea foam, but rather the color of snow falling on a moonlit night. But her eyes were still clear and unwearied, and she still moved like a shadow on the sea.”
*

This is not an action-packed opening, and it’s not filled with conflict. It’s a slower, almost dreamy opening, suited to the bittersweet fairytale feel of the book. If you don’t like this paragraph, you won’t like the rest of the novel. But for those who do, why does it work?

Well, one more example first. This is from Robin McKinley’s The Blue Sword:

*
“She scowled at her glass of orange juice. To think that she had been delighted when she first arrived here—was it only three months ago?—with the prospect of fresh orange juice every day. But she had been eager to be delighted; this was to be her home, and she wanted badly to like it, to be grateful for it—to behave well, to make her brother proud of her and Sir Charles and Lady Amelia pleased with their generosity.

“Lady Amelia had explained that the orchards only a few days south and west of here were the finest in the country, and many of the oranges she had seen at Home, before she came out here, had probably come from those same orchards. It was hard to believe in orange groves as she looked out the window, across the flat deserty plain beyond the Residency, unbroken by anything more vigorous than a few patches of harsh grass and stunted sand-colored bushes until it disappeared at the feet of the black and copper-brown mountains.

“But there was fresh orange juice every morning.”
*

So. This opening not only starts with orange juice, of all things, but then progresses to looking out the window. You’d think I’d hate it, right? Borrow Merc’s scimitar and slash it to mouse bedding? But no—instead my mind goes, “Must read more!” Why?

It’s not that The Blue Sword and The Last Unicorn start with a character—so does The Curse of Chalion, and that didn’t help it. The big difference is that the good openings matter. The camp and the lake are vital to Holes. The unicorn being old and alone triggers the entire quest in The Last Unicorn. In The Blue Sword, the MC’s new desert home and her desire to settle in, to belong, are central to the tale. As for The Curse of Chalion—well, much as I like Cazaril, it really doesn’t matter if there’s water trickling across his path or not. It doesn’t do anything for the story—doesn’t convey tone or backstory or character motivation, doesn’t startle or amuse or intrigue. The first sentences are where a reader gets drawn in, or turned away. This could mean starting with blasters drawn, or with tea poured, or with a whimsical explanation of how the tea got from bush to table--but however it is done it must serve the story. Openings may be many things, but they cannot be pointless.

~Sparky

Villian Cliches out to TAKE OVER THE WORLD

2008-05-29T21:06:00.000-07:00

Heh.

Over at The Bookshelf Muse, Angela has posted a highly entertaining and spot on list of villain cliches. Do check it out. That's not a suggestion. *cracks whip*

Now, if you've been around me for any length of time, you'll know I'm a villain enthusiast and rant on the subject often enough. I wholeheartedly endorse this article as required reading for villain creation. %-)

Hail (evil) overlords everywhere!

~Merc

The TS gets a report card!

2008-05-29T08:27:00.000-07:00

Inkblot over at Inkfever has posted a review of our blog. :)

(Thanks, Inky!)

Do check it out here (and the rest of her entertaining blog).

Also, if anyone else has reviewed the TS or knows of reviews of it, please drop us a line. ;) We're always open to feedback on how we're doing (more regular posts is something we're working on) so link away!

Ta,

~Merc

And a Hero was born...

2008-05-28T18:27:00.000-07:00

Picture this. Merc is browsing the fantasy section, hungry for an adventure with dark heroes and lots of battles (and maybe the occasional zombie thrown in for flavor). She finds a promising looking book, likes the back blurb and the cover art, and flips open to Chapter 1 to read a few pages.

The next thing you know, the book is hurtling across the room, Merc whips out her scimitars and with an enraged scream, she flies after it and-- shwip shwip shwip! The book lands in a pile of confetti and... oops. (Who are the men in white coats and why are they looking at me like that? And why does the bookstore owner look so purple in the face?)

If you were thinking that the book died a pointless, agonizing death because it had a chosen one, you would be close. If you think it died because, like Ardyth's excellent article, it started with a creation myth, you'd be closer.

The real reason for the book's sad demise is that it started this way: with the Hero being born.

Why, you ask, is this such a crime (or a big deal)? Well, other than being annoying and pointless, why the hell should I care?

Every hero is born sometime (unless he spawns from a dark cave or is pollinated by plant spores and hatches from a cocoon... which, you know, would be pretty cool). So what if he has a Speshul and Significant Birth™? So what if there are Signs and Portents around his/her birth? Why do I need to waste precious minutes of my life reading about it?

All the other characters can ooh and ahhh over the "Speshulness" of it all. Spare me. I want to read about the hero when he can, you know, do something other than cry and sleep, dirty his dippers and drink a bottle.

Much like creation myths or prologues that happen ten zillion years before the actual story takes place, starting with the birth of the main character is, IMO, far too early (unless the story is really about someone else--or satire; I can excuse almost anything in the name of humor and parody).

If something Really Important happened at your MC's birth, and the MC doesn't know (but the reader does, thus the "logic" of starting with the birth scene)... well, let us find out with her. Sometimes having the reader know more than the MC can create tension.

Other times it's just annoying, because we have to wait for the Clueless Hero to figure it out and get on with the plot.

This is part of the reason I dislike 'hero birth' openings. If we the readers know all the Really Important events that happen around the main character's birth, it's often a drag to read through the clueless MC growing up and wondering why he/she is different (when we want to scream, 'Because of all the Important Events that happened at your birth, idiot!' or 'Because you're the bloody Hero!').

Also, since the MC doesn't know, invariably he or she will find out, and then it's all repetitive for the reader WHO HAS SEEN IT ALREADY. So... what's the point? If the MC is going to find out anyway, just let us get the scoop when the hero does.

Just skip the birth scene and get to when the story, the PLOT, starts. When things get interesting and violent and bizarre. We can assume if your Hero is alive, he was born at some point. Really.

~Merc

P.S. No, I really don't kill books that way. What, did you think I was that evil and heartless? I let them suffer an even worse fate: NOT BEING READ. 'Cause, you know. I really AM that evil.

In the Beginning…

2008-05-28T17:29:00.000-07:00

A good number of the fantasy books on the shelves and an even larger number of chapter ones or prologues I've read in writing groups all start in the same place. The beginning—that is, with the creation of the world. This sends me right to sleep. There's a lot of great places to begin a novel, but a creation myth is not one of them.

For starters, who cares how the world began? This extends to real life, actually. I don't care if God took seven days to do it (or rather six and a holiday), if there was a big bang, or if what's-it, the ten foot pink rabbit spit the world into existence. I care even less about a fake world. I'm not interested in fake myths. If I want to read something bizarre and pointless, I'll read some real folk myths, thank you very much. How your fake world got started usually has little to do with the story itself.

Secondly, it's dynamic characters and exciting plot that draw us into a story. How the world got started is usually ions ago before the MC got about the business of saving it. It makes far much more sense to start with the STORY you're telling than with the business of creation.

What, you claim, if the creation story is "important" to the plot? Well, it's not very common that it actually is important, but there's certainly a lot better options as to where to put it. Consider these successful uses of creation stories that don't bore the average reader to death. None of them are at the beginning.

1) In the middle of the novel when it become plot. "The Magician's Nephew" is a good example. The creation of Narnia is part of the plot and has tension, drama, and character interactions happening. We're interested in it because it's happening right then as part of the MC's journey.

2) As part of a story that's structured with myths in the form an ethnography. "The Left Hand of Darkness" for example alternates the present time following the MC's journey with chapters containing myths that the MC is collecting about the culture he's studying. These quieter chapters are expected and part of the book's structure. Also, they are all plot relevant as far as themes and cultural issues that come up during the plot.

3) At the end of the book in an appendix or as part of a world information encyclopedia or reference book. Tolkien does this with "The Silmarillion". He's got a whole separate book so that people already into the world from the actual novels can read about the creation and history of his world, but those who don't care can ignore this volume and just enjoy the real story.

If the aim of the creation story is only to fill out the world, then I suggest just alluding to it and not actually telling it. Not only does that give the feel that there are myths/history without bogging down the text, but it'll annoy a small percentage of your readers who will happily hunt down your website to find the creation myth you've posted there. The rest of us will be extremely grateful you've spared us yet another stupid pretend myth.

The worst possible place to bore us with such things is the beginning! Save the beginning for something interesting… like meeting the main character or the plot event that propels the story forward.

A Glimpse of Things to Come

2008-05-27T10:00:00.000-07:00

I stumbled across a blog that might be a good one to keep an eye on if you're a writer. It's titled Electric Alphabet and it focuses on "Writing and publishing in the digital near future."

This article entitled "SF and Romance the Vanguard of Deep Niches" caught my attention. I found it provides good insights into possible trends in the industry. The embedded links also feature great resources. I recommend clicking the link and reading the Deep Niche article written by Michael Jension and posted on the Journal of Electronic Publishing as companion material.

http://electricalphabet.wordpress.com/2008/05/25/sf-and-romance-the-vanguard-of-deep-niches/

Review: THE BONE KEY

2008-05-25T19:27:00.000-07:00

Last week I picked up The Bone Key with the intention of reading it slowly, in pieces between classes. Well. That afternoon I finished the book in a two-hour dash, and since then I’ve reread it three times and gushed about it to anyone who will listen.

The full title is The Bone Key: the necromantic mysteries of Kyle Murchison Booth, by Sarah Monette (better known for the novel Melusine and its sequels). This collection of ten short stories follows Mr. Booth, a shy and awkward museum archivist, as he encounters some of the dark forces and creatures now interested in him after his hideous, beautifully described mistake in the opening story, “Bringing Helena Back.” Monette steps gracefully between the varied tones of the stories, from the Lovecraftian “The Inheritance of Barnabas Wilcox” to the wistful “Elegy for a Demon Lover” to the anguished “Wait for Me.”

(A note: one should not read “The Venebretti Necklace” right before bed, particularly if one also possesses a horror of deserted late-night library stacks, and a wild imagination that might be inclined to, say, picture the spirit of Madeline Stanhope in the darkness, to fancy that if one opened an eye one would see her standing there, pale cold flesh and small sharp teeth and eyes blazing with rage and hatred. One should especially not do this if a small earthquake occurs two minutes after one turns out the light, at which point one will squeak like an eight-year-old girl and hide under the covers quivering.)

As the reader might infer from the previous paragraph, this is horror that is wonderfully affecting, populated with vivid characters and subtle, eerie situations; Booth’s oddly sweet nature and gentle narration make the darkness more striking and terrifying than any amount of gore or dramatics.

If this book were an animal, which animal would it be?

Coyote. Fast and quiet and clever, unearthly eyes and too-thin body, as if it were a creature cursed to eternally hunger no matter what it devours. At once bold and shy, chasing cats through midday backyards or lying hidden in sunset brush. On clear nights you can hear it howl in the distance, voice floating high and thin like a child’s scream.

Campiness in Science Fiction

2008-05-21T12:03:00.000-07:00

This is aimed more at the big screen, but there's a lot here to think about--and, okay, chuckle over--if you're a Science Fiction or Science Fiction Romance (et al) writer.

http://io9.com/384520/21-ways-to-eradicate-campiness-from-science-fiction

Worth a look. :)

Brenda Novak Auction...Wow!

2008-05-19T18:26:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Dawn for letting us know about this one.

The Brenda Novak 2008 Online Auction to Benefit Diabetes research has something for everyone, but especially for those who write. You can bid on a variety of agent evaluations, author critiques, and editor evaluations. What a great way to get solid feedback on your novel, and participate in a good cause at the same time. You may see some well known names among those listed. There are also an assortment of items--jewelry, handcrafted items, books, you name it.

http://brendanovak.auctionanything.com/Home.taf

Check it out, join in the fun, and help benefit diabetes research.

Blog Birthday

2008-05-18T01:00:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday to Us!

Toasted Scimitar's first post was May 18, 2007.

Another Landmark

2008-05-17T23:24:00.000-07:00

The Toasted Scimitar has now reached another major landmark...

15,000 hits!

We're coming up on the anniversary of our first post, so we're averaging about 1,250 hits per month. Thanks for reading and helping make T/S a success.

Rules for Magic... or else

2008-05-14T20:07:00.000-07:00

Rules exist to control chaos.

Or something like that. But in fantasy, rules—particularly in regards to magic—exist so that everyone isn’t running around lobbing fireballs, obliterating solar systems, and generally making things unpleasant for the neighbors next door.

You need a clear set of rules for your magic, even if you are the only one who knows them. It doesn't have to be a science; you should just know what magic can and cannot do. Readers tend to feel cheated when the “rules” are thrown out the tower window for any reason—plot convenience or because the author failed to consider how to get the band of intrepid heroes out of the sticky situation they walked into.

How to Break The Rules You’ve Established

Say you’re halfway through this epic fantasy, and the Rules of Magic so far have been set up in a way that limits the user’s abilities. There’s no raising the dead, no summoning fireballs larger than your house, and no changing hair to neon shades of color.

Soon, the Heroes wander into the Swamps of Evil and are surrounded by Faceless Swamp Things that shoot lots of arrows and then disappear. (No one knows why. It must be in their contract.)

One of the party members is fatally wounded (for dramatic tension), gives a moving, tragic and yet uplifting speech, then dies in someone’s arms. But the author happens to be particularly fond of that character. (Perhaps it’s the thespian qualities he had.) So one of the Magic Users (a healer) summons all her strength and with a huge effort, brings the dead character back to life. Everyone is amazed.

Thwack! The book hits the wall. The author has just broken the carefully established rules for petty reasons and most readers are not going to be happy.

Simple solution—either establish that people can come back from the dead, or kill off someone else when the Swamp Things raid.

Don’t take the easy way out by breaking the Rules. (Not unless you want me to sic evil pink zombie bunny rabbits on your story.)

Limits in Magic…

When designing the Rules of Magic for your world, put limits on what can and can’t be done. If anything is possible, then chances are there will be far less conflict in the story. The Heroes need a magic amulet that can open the Gate to the Underworld, but no one knows where the original is? No problem, a nifty mage can magically create one that first just right.

Yawn.

Far more interesting if the heroes have to kill one of their own and have him or her try and unlock the Underworld from within, since no one has a key. (Plus, you have the conflict revolving around whom to kill, whether or not it will work, how they will escape the Underworld afterwards, etc.)

Limits ought to include who can use magic and why. Do only people with six toes on their right foot have a magical talent? Okay then, your wizard MC better not sport a foot with only five toes, unless he amputated or got frostbite.

The limitations you impose on your magic users had better remain consistent unless you give us a believable reason why they change.

If your MC is young (annoying) Frarmboy Fryd, who has only ever been able to do small time spells like lighting a campfire by blowing on it (and enough with this “limitless untapped magical potential” crap), then unless you show us how he grows or gets more power, he better not be snapping his fingers and igniting whole forests into roaring infernos.

(Remember what I said about the bunnies?)

…And Consequences

Somewhere in the Rules you should figure out what the cost of magic is. Does throwing a fireball as hot as the sun knock out the mage for three days straight and give him a high fever to boot?

Or can he hurl a bunch of miniature suns around, toss back a mug of ale, and continue on to fight an army of goblins without breaking a sweat?

If there are no consequences for the magic, you lose more tension in the story, because, after all, the heroes can wipe out a horde of evil minions with magic and then have a nice dinner while they polish their mail, who cares? There’s no conflict, no tension revolving around whether or not the heroes can beat their enemies.

Conflict is the lifeblood of a plot, and cutting out potential conflict by having limitless, no-risk magic just seems plain dumb. Yeah, it can be tempting to give the hero lots of kewl magic abilities and have him kick evil butt from one world to the next, but it’s boring from the reader’s perspective if there are no consequences, no limits, and anything is possible.

An idea you might consider is: the more that’s possible, the more possibilities for things to go wrong. (And the more consequences.)

If using magic drains the wizard’s life energy, and the more magic or powerful the spell, the more energy required, then make sure you stick to that Rule and don’t be giving your wizard a ‘get out of consequences free’ card. If summoning a demon leaves him unable to stand the first time he does it, he better not be summoning demon hordes a few chapters later without breaking a sweat. Not unless you have a dang good reason how that’s possible within the Rules.

How Rules Make the Better Story

If something needs to be done with magic, it should happen within the Rules, the limitations should be observed, and the consequences exacted on the user.

In the end, it’ll make for a stronger story. And you won’t have to battle zombified evil pink bunnies, either. ;)

~Merc

Command Presence

2008-05-09T10:13:00.000-07:00

When I attended police academy years ago, my instructors had a phrase for the quality that allows an officer to step in and take charge of a situation. They encouraged their students to develop this trait in how they deal with the public, suspects and victims in the line of duty. The term is "command presence."

Command presence can also be incorporated as a personality trait in an MC, a secondary character, even a villain, if you are selective in how you frame the words, actions and attitudes. Command presence should never be mistaken with haughtiness, superiority or conceit. It's an understated quality, more about how a character is perceived by other characters, not how he/she chooses to view or interact with others. A character who demonstrates command presence instills confidence and trust in others. He/she is looked at as the natural leader, the one who calls the shots, the one who has the upper hand.

In P2PC, my male MC could not demonstrate command presence. He's a fish out of water, a fugitive, and at the mercy of the pilot who agrees to help him escape. It was a difficult chore for me to keep his character strong and someone the reader could respect under those circumstances; command presence was out of the question. Though he does acquire clout as the story progresses, he is always a bold pawn, at best.

Draxis is a another matter. My male MC is indisputably in charge and in his focal introduction in the story (though actually not his debut), I had to establish him as a force to be reckoned with in the eyes of the female MC. He has to be confident and capable to deal with his headstrong and often unpredictable match. At the same time, I had to avoid making him a "typical male MC heart throb who has sexual power over women and alpha male power over men" that I see in many romances. I've edited his intro several times, because the trait of command presence is often understated and subtle. It took a few takes to get what I was going for, and not something that sounded like starstruck gushing.

Showing command presence in a character is about understatement and undercurrent. Choosing just the right words, thoughts, impressions to describe how he is viewed by others, how they react to him. The female MCs thoughts and perceptions of him were the key to the reader's impression.

Just because a character has command presence does not make him/her perfect, however. Command presence is more about knowing how to override flaws and weaknesses with "positive vibes." Having command presence is a lot like acting. No character can maintain command presence indefinitely. He/she is also human and eventually the warts are going to show. So command presence is akin to turning on a light bulb, and knowing when it should be on, and when it can be dark.

So how do you know if your 'command presence' traits are working in your character? That's where your critique partners come in. By analyzing their feedback on your character, you can get a good sense if he/she is oozing command presence or not, and if the scenes where it is demonstrated need more work. If you are hearing comments like "arrogant, assuming, presumptuous" then your character needs more work. If you're hearing words like "confident, powerful, take charge, leader" then you most likely have the command presence character trait down well.

Here are a few examples of well-known characters with command presence from cinema and television. Each of these characters are perceived as leaders or authority figures, though each demonstrates these attributes in different ways:

Aragorn (LoTR)

Glinda (Wizard of Oz)

Malcolm Reynolds (Firefly/Serenity)

Obi Wan Kenobi (Star Wars)

Jack Riley (The Hunt for Red October, Patriot Games, and other Tom Clancy novels)

Ellen Ripley (Alien, Aliens)

Captain Picard (Star Trek: TNG)

Captain Janeway (Star Trek: Voyager)

[Reprinted from The Draxian Trilogy blog with edits, (c) Me. ]

Review: DUST, by Elizabeth Bear

2008-05-08T17:05:00.000-07:00

I don’t read much science fiction, but this book looked too fascinating to pass up. The tale involves a feudal society with knights, angels, necromancers . . . set on a broken generation ship orbiting a pair of dying suns. Who could resist?

The story begins when Sir Perceval, a captured knight about to be executed (and devoured), is freed by the maid Rien, and the pair set off across the ship’s wilds for Perceval’s home, Engineering—one of the two powers, Engineering and Command, battling for control of the ship. Meanwhile, the fragments of the ship’s AI are also battling for supremacy, and if no one unifies the warring factions and gets the ship traveling again, all aboard will die when the suns go nova.

Unfortunately, despite this promising start, DUST has several major flaws. The setting is magnificent, combining technology and mythology in extravagant ways (the basilisk with laser torches for eyes, the ‘souls’ of the dead growing on fruit trees), but the reader hardly gets to see any of it—the narrative is so closely focused on Perceval and Rien’s quest that we see very little beyond their immediate circumstances, and even the complex political machinations are centered around them. The author has created a vast and rich world, with many characters who have centuries of history with one another (the ruling class is near-immortal), but none of this resonance makes its way to the story. The characters are so detached I had difficulty caring about them, and several emotionally charged situations are treated so distantly I could only stare.

Furthermore, the author often blithely sweeps along without explaining anything—the MCs encounter a necromancer, but the role and abilities of this person, much less the views of the wider society regarding them, are never mentioned. The reader is zoomed past, in interest of continuing the quest. This strange single-mindedness creates a book that is both too fast-paced and too slow-paced. Fast-paced, since we’re rushed past the scenery and history; and slow-paced, since we spend so very much time listening to Perceval and Rien discuss the situation, learn new info, or argue about the situation with others. Yet we never get a sense of what their lives were like before the quest, their cultures or upbringings, especially Perceval’s. Again, there’s no feel of resonance.

And finally, the politics—which manage to be both knottily complex and boringly simple. How? Well, for those without twisty politics-loving brains, the characters’ actions will likely be bewildering and difficult to follow. For those who enjoy twisty politics (*cough*), or recognize the Zelazny-esque machinations (an intentional parallel to Amber; the author also includes a parody of Moorcock’s character Elric), the same characters have annoyingly obvious goals and motivations, and the plot is rather predictable.

However, the sheer inventiveness of the worldbuilding makes this worth picking up; I will definitely be reading the next Jacob's Ladder book when it comes out, especially since it appears to focus in greater depth on the more interesting secondary characters.

If this book were an animal, which animal would it be?

Thylacine. Also called the Tasmanian Wolf, or Tasmanian Tiger, an extinct marsupial predator. Like the thylacine, this book is strange and beautiful and fascinating—but ultimately frustrating and impossible to get close to.

Even the monsters were young once...

2008-05-07T19:59:00.000-07:00

Baby Balrog by Merc

I vaguely recalled director Peter Jackson saying something about the cave troll being a kid once (and going home to his mom for milk and cookies) in one of those "extras" on the Fellowship of the Ring DVD. Can't recall exactly what he said (will have to go watch it again; good excuse, huh? O:))... but the point is, monsters were babies once, too.

Too often in fantasy, we have Slavering Ugly Monsters (or flaming spawn of Morgoth, or the generic equivalents) that get slaughtered needlessly. No one considers that, hey, maybe they have lives outside rampaging the world and leaving a trail of destruction behind them. (Everyone has a day job, after all.) Or that they have a history and they were kids once, too.

Like minions, monsters are often stereotyped as Evil and Hero Weapon Fodder and never given any thought beyond how many expendables (and the occasional Secondary who must die for Plot Purposes or Hero Angst) they can take out before they're destroyed. Who mourns the monsters?

So along with the Minion Union and League for Evil Minion Rights, us here at Evil Overlord Central have now opened the Center for Misunderstood Monsters. There's a therapy group every Thursday, a gallery for baby pictures (see above), and we even have nifty little pins. The mission is to make the world aware that, "Yo! Monsters have feelings too!"

Do your evil civic duty and support a lonely, misunderstood monster today (blood and soul sacrifices gleefully accepted). %-) Share the love. Hug a Balrog.

~Merc

REVIEW: The Redwall Series

2008-05-03T18:59:00.001-07:00

For over twenty years, the Redwall series—fantasy novels featuring anthropomorphic animals—has been on the shelves, and has entertained generations of readers. And you gotta admit—badgers and rats and otters and monitor lizards and hares and wildcats (et cetera) making war on each other with a variety of weapons is very cool. %-)

British author Brian Jacques originally wrote Redwall for the children at the Royal Wavertree School for the Blind in Liverpool. His descriptive style catered to his first audience; Jacques wished to paint words for his listeners so they could see his stories unfold. When his former English teacher read Redwall, and sent it to a publisher without Jacques’ knowledge, Jacques received a contract to write the first five books in the series. Ever since, the tales of Redwall have been published and read all around the world.

Redwall has been made into an animated TV series (Redwall: Season One), a stage musical (The Redwall Opera), a graphic novel (Redwall: The Graphic Novel), dramatized audio books (such as Mariel of Redwall), and there have been numerous spin offs of the series, including the Tribes of Redwall booklets, the Redwall Map and Riddler, the Redwall Cookbook, Songs from Redwall, and several gorgeously illustrated pictures books such as The Great Redwall Feast, and A Redwall Winter Tale. The series has been published in over fourteen languages, has routinely made the national bestseller lists.

Mr. Jacques is also the author of several short story collections (Seven Strange and Ghostly Tales and The Ribbajack) and his Castaways series (Castaways of the Flying Dutchman, The Angel's Command and Voyage of Slaves).

There's a lot of information about everything Redwall related at the official site, Redwall Abbey.

The series includes:

Redwall (A young mouse goes from bumbling novice to hero while he fights to save his home. Bonus: snakes!)

Mossflower (Classic rebel alliance against evil empire, and stars Martin the Warrior. Bonus: Mask, one of the coolest otters in the series.)

Mattimeo (The direct sequel to Redwall--all the kids at Redwall are kidnapped by a masked fox who's seeking revenge on Matthias. Bonus: an underground kingdom collapses and EXPLODES. Can we say cool?)

Mariel of Redwall (Here there be pirates, arrrg. Mariel sets out to avenge her father and kill the pirate king, Gabool the Wild. Bonus: Insane pirates.)

Salamandastron (Salamandastron is besieged by the army of the blue-eyed assassin weasel warlord and his son. A personal favorite. Bonus: Assassins. Wait, I already said that... okay, plague!)

Martin the Warrior (The story behind Martin's past and his PTSD. Bonus: cannibal lizards AND the pirate stoat Clogg.)

The Bellmaker (Mariel and her boyfriend get into trouble with the local fox warlords; Joseph the Bellmaker comes to aid her. Bonus: a maelstrom and ships get crunched.)

The Outcast of Redwall (A baby ferret abandoned outside Redwall is adopted and raised by one of the Abbeymice--until he's outcast for his crimes. Another personal favorite. Bonus: You mean aside from Veil?)

The Pearls of Lutra (A Legolas-wannabe otter chick seeks revenge for the slaughter of her holt, which was destroyed for six exotic pearls. This one has the monitor lizards and a pine marten who does hypnosis. Bonus: poisonous sea snakes.)

The Long Patrol (A young hare runs away to join the famed Long Patrol and much battling ensues. Bonus: badgers jumping off cliffs! (Again!))

Marlfox (The tapestry of Martian is kidnapped--again--and it's up to a band of young Redwallers to track down the Marlfoxes who stole it. Bonus: pwetty foxes.)

The Legend of Luke (What really happened to Martin the Warrior's father... and no, he didn't get sidetracked to Vegas. Bonus: everybody dies. Almost.)

Lord Brocktree (The origins of stuff at Salamandastron. Sorta. Bonus: Blue vermin. No, seriously, they're all dyed blue.)

Taggerung (An otter raised by vermin seeks his true family. The book that had some of the most shiny potential was a huge, huge disappointment. Bonus: Roagan Boar (a fox). The adjective "drool-worthy" comes to mind.)

Triss (A squirrel chick wants revenge. Merc sets her hair on fire for even reading this--IMO, it's one of the worst books in the series. Bonus: the pirate fox Plugg.)

Loamhedge (Redwallers go on a Quest. There are Riddles. People Die. Next. Bonus: ???)

Rakkety Tam (A mercenary squirrel seeks an escape from an oath he made, and comes to Redwall. This one features a wolverine as the antagonist, and the book was a little better than the previous few. Bonus: mercenary highlander squirrels.)

High Rhulain (More otters. More quests. Look, a feast at Redwall. Didn't see that coming, did you? Bonus: ???)

Eulalia! (Exactly what the title says. Badgers and hares run around whooping war cries and seeking Vengeance. Bonus: ????)

I must admit a certain fondness and sense of nostalgia for this series (don’t look at me like that; I’m older than I look, in demon years anyway). I grew up reading the novels and it was the world of Redwall that sparked my love of anthrofiction and furry stories ever since.

And it's true, I still do like a handful of the older books. Salamandastron, The Outcast of Redwall, and Mossflower,, for example. But the series--the world--as a whole has several Issues.

WHAT I LIKE
This is the kind of anthrofiction I love. Swashbuckling adventure, pirates, monsters, battles, and all done with fuzzy critters.

There are some characters in the series I like and care about, there are some great battle scenes, and while not always bloody, there is a good deal of gore on occasion. %-) Jacques' has a masterful grasp of language and he can paint gorgeous pictures with words.

There is also a fair amount of humor in many of the books. I mentioned the pirates, and it's because they are some of the most fun characters. ;) Cliched, true, and typically vermin (there are exceptions--rare though they are--just as there are the occasional exception to the Woodlander Rule [see below]) but some of them are just so over the top and brazen they're immediately likable. For example, Cap'n Tremmun Clogg (a stoat, from Martin the Warrior) and Cap'n Plugg Firetail (a fox—the only good thing in Triss).

The illustrations in the later books have been quite good, with detailed pen and ink illustrations to head each chapter and I love many of the covers (in both the US and UK editions--a note that the pictures here feature both UK and US editions).

The books have rich description, a strong vocabulary, and generally the plots—while nothing overly complex—at least build from beginning, middle, to end. The earlier books, at least, have had strong climaxes.

While perhaps the characters are more human than animalisitic in personalities and nature, the characteristics of the species do show through (if, perhaps, in predictable ways: otters are the good swimmers, squirrels are the climbers, moles are the diggers, hares are the runners, etc).

Though I personally am not found of the accents and dialects that 90% of the cast has, I do give Mr. Jacques points for coming up with a wide variety of dialects and more or less sticking with them. There's mole-speak (good luck), sparra (sparrow dialect), hare dialects, otter slang, vermin horrific speech patterns (one word: ugh), etc. It's easier to listen to, IMO, but the various speech patterns (littering the pages with apostrophes though they do) are part of the world and give it a sense of depth on occasion.

The coolest thing about the Redwall series has always been, for me at least, the weapons and warfare. I love the imagery of animals wielding pikes and scimitars and bows and claymores, and duking it out with each other.

While Jacques does use an omni-POV quite often, I find that it works well most of the time. I'm not found of it, but he has the skill to pull it off smoothly--he is a natural storyteller, and it shows in his writing.

WHAT I DON'T LIKE

Perhaps my biggest issue is that of species affiliation. The basic Law of Redwall is:

Woodlanders = Good
Vermin = Evil

("Woodlanders" being mice, hares, moles, squirrels, most birds, otters, badgers, voles, shrews, etc. "Vermin" are the rats, weasels, ferrets, wildcats, martens, all reptiles and amphibians, foxes, wolverines, etc.)

The worldview is black and white that's rarely touched with gray. What bugs me so much about this is that it MAKES NO SENSE. The species are good or bad because that's how they are born, apparently. *Merc sets Redwall's philosophy on fire*

Take Taggerung for example. The premise is that an otter is raised by a tribe of vermin. When I first read the blurb for the novel, I was excited beyonds words--I hoped SO much that we'd get an evil otter. (There's a borderline psychopathic otter in The Legend of Luke if I recall correctly, but this is different.)

Instead, Tagg is the epitome of Good. He may as well never have HEARD of murder, treachery, backstabbing, thievery, torture, slavery, wanton destruction, and abuse that everyone around him wallows in on a daily basis. ARGH.

This is the main flaw in the world. If you see a rat, you can assume that there's a 99.9999999% chance it will be Evil, probably have an ungodly accent, have a negative IQ and generally be the most useless thing around. (Warlords are the exception--they tend to be insane and smarter than the grunts, but that's it.)

Whereas you see a mouse, and there's about a 100% chance it will be Good (and good luck with the chances it will have, you know, flaws).

There have been some exceptions, yes. Veil's end choice (The Outcast of Redwall) is ambiguous--personally I think he turned back to the "light" at the end. ;) There are some good corsairs (such as Romosca in The Pearls of Lutra [please correct me if I misspell a name, or attribute characters to the wrong book--it's been awhile since I've read them all]) and some bad shrews. There's an occasional good rat and the odd bad squirrel.

But these are as rare as, hmmmm, Moby Dick. How many white whales show up every day? Yes, they're out there but they aren't the norm.

Aside from that, the books have become fomulatic. There is ALWAYS a riddle quest, a physical quest of some kind, a feast (sorry, but reading about food is NOT interesting--and especially not multiple times for pages at a time in EACH BOOK), and in the chronologically later books, Martin's sword (and spirit) are a staple.

The actual plots are recycled too often for my tastes now: some Evil Horde wants to take over or destroy Redwall (ain't gonna happen); ditto the EH attacking Salamandastron... or some variant of an assault on one of those two places. Or else there is a quest to free a Oppressed Woodland Representation (i.e. the rebellion vs the empire plot).

The earlier books had some distinct characters and antagonists. I've noticed one thing in the later books is that if the entire cast doesn't tick me off for being goody-two-paws, complete idiots, dibbuns [kids] that need to be strangled, pointless evil bullying "vermin, or is a hare, then they are forgettable.

All the Redwallers eventually blur into one homogeneous mass of Good, the vermin are all the same (except for the occasional pirate), and you may as well just call all the hares and badgers by the same name for the amount of variety we see in them. (I do admit the hares are probably the species with the most variance of personality, despite there being only different levels of how much they annoy me. Badgers--well, seen one in the Bloodwrath, seen 'em all.)

I haven't read the latest two books or Loamhedge because, to me, there's nothing special, new or memorable about the books anymore. It's one of those series that needs to be allowed to END.

IN CONCLUSION

I still do recommend the older books (go by publishing order, not chronological order), if you like animal fantasy and are looking for a good romp. The Redwall Series is an enjoyable anthro fantasy world, and while it does have it's flaws, a few books still stand out as being highly enjoyable reads that hold up to second and third reading.

While I do think the series needs to be allowed to come to a close, it's a pillar in modern day anthro fantasy and is well worth checking out if this is the kind of fiction you like.

~Merc

Long Live Evil Authors

2008-04-30T20:07:00.000-07:00

Wulfie sent us this one... and I'd like to point out that this is actually quite true. Books aren't any good if people don't suffer. If you're "nice" to the characters the story is bland and boring. This is why the world needs good evil authors. Evil authors are not afraid to make their characters entirely miserable… to torture them, kill their friends and family, and break their little hearts.

Why is this so hard for beginning writers? Time and time again I've looked at new writer's work and they seem afraid to hurt their characters. Instead they make them happy by giving them gift after gift to improve their little lives. This makes for poor reading. We get bored of people's good fortune in no time flat. Who cares if they're happy? All the best stories are excruciating and full of loss, pain, and sorrow.

Logically I think we all know this. Logically we realize that our characters are figments of our imagination and there is nothing morally wrong with doing horribly evil things to them. Rather, it's imperative that we have bad things happen to good people if we want to have any kind of real and valuable narrative. Their pain is one of the major things that helps the reader identify with them.

However, emotionally, our characters often end up feeling real and then things become a bit tricky. It hurts us to hurt them and kind of feels like there's something morally disturbing with the whole thing. This is why it's GOOD to be EVIL when you're an author. Murder and mayhem is all for the benefit of the story, and this is why I'm an evil author.

An evil author is not an evil person or even a person who likes evil in real life. An evil author is someone who can realize that the emotions we have in regards to our characters is a sort of optical illusion. Perhaps it's also a mystical illusion that teaches us about the secrets of God and the universe as well, but that's getting into what a "mystic" writer is, and I'm focusing on the evil here, today. An evil author is someone who's determined to see past this illusion and not only realize that there's nothing wrong to hurting character, but to go ahead and DO it full force.

I firmly believe that it's healthy to actually love all parts of the writing process, and I do. (Yes, I like line edits some days.) Part of this is learning to enjoy putting our character in difficult situations and making them deal with those. Sometimes it's writing out anger, grief, murder, torture, and all kinds of evil. As long as we don't dwell in these things ourselves, I think it's a healthy part of life to commit them to the page and offer our readers a cathartic experience of watching other people whose lives are worse than their own.

This ultimately is an Evil Author's mission—to help readers do exactly what this poster says.

Thanks for the reminder, Wulfie!

--The DO

ARMED & MAGICAL Launched!

2008-04-29T04:32:00.001-07:00

Today is the day! ARMED & MAGICAL is (finally!) released. This is Lisa Shearin's much anticipated sequel to MAGIC LOST, TROUBLE FOUND that I've been raving about since I received my ARC in February.

If you need a refresher, here the past posts on The Toasted Scimitar, including a review of the ARC:

http://toasted-scimitar.blogspot.com/search/label/Armed%20and%20Magical

MLTF, the first book in the series, has now been nominated for the Compton Crook Award for best debut novel of the year. A&M has received a 4-1/2 star rating (the highest) by Romantic Times.

Best wishes, Lisa, on another standout fantasy romp.

Review: SMALL FAVOR

2008-04-25T19:57:00.000-07:00

This is the tenth novel in the bestselling Harry Dresden series, which follows the adventures of an investigative wizard in Chicago. I am very fond of these books, especially the high destruction-to-angst ratio; one of my greatest problems reading urban fantasy is the prevalence of, as Hannah Bowen puts it, “Too much boyfriend. Not enough roller derby.” Small Favor, as indicated by the title, involves Queen Mab calling in one of the favors Harry owes her. I had high hopes, since I enjoy the faeries in the Dresden Files, but sadly I found Small Favor my least favorite of the series.

What did I like?

A major strength of this series is its cast of colorful and intriguing secondary characters, and many of them made appearances in Small Favor—Kincaid, Fix, Sanya, and so on. There were some very funny bits, such as Ms. Gard un-disemboweling herself, and major plot developments that will move the series forward.

What did I dislike?

Most of the prior Dresden novels had a central issue, a major new player or enemy on stage—werewolves, Fae, the various vampire Courts, necromancers, the Fallen—but in Small Favor the focus is mainly on interaction among factions already introduced. White Night, the ninth book, shared this structure. I don’t find it as compelling as the other style, but that might be personal taste; what truly bothered me (and this was confirmed by other readers I consulted, who don’t share my taste at all) was that the book doesn’t gain traction, plot-wise, until halfway through. Seriously—I was mildly bored until more than 200 pages in. Until then, it felt as if the book was running in place. Harry gets beat up. Building damage. Weird creatures attack. An explosion, yawn. More creatures attack. Hey look, more building damage. There didn’t seem to be much reason, or reason to care, in the first half of the book. All the plot developments and gripping character events happened in the second half.

And this dovetails with the problem of the secondary characters—many appeared, but few were used to their full potential. For instance, very little of Kincaid’s fascinating backstory was revealed or his current circumstances developed, despite heavy hints in previous books; Queen Mab hardly appeared, despite being integral to the plot (and as the wicked ruler of Winter, the very Queen of Air and Darkness, she could have added so much to the narrative); and the underuse of Marcone was, shall we say, criminal. The author has used long-laid, slow-developing plot elements before, but now he seems to be shifting entirely to those, as if this were an epic fantasy series, and all action in the books will now be to further these long-running goals. I hope not, as I have not had great success with the author’s pure epic fantasy series, Codex Alera.

Overall?

I liked Small Favor just enough that I am sad it didn’t live up to its potential, but not so disappointed I am annoyed at its lacks. If you’ve been following the series, I of course recommend reading this one as well; if you’re just starting, don’t read Small Favor until you’ve read everything before it. Furthermore, there are a few plot turns and motivations in this book that I did not understand—still do not understand—even upon re-reading.

If this book were an animal, which animal would it be?

Crow. Amusing, clever, but not very new or startling; comes with a flock of buddies.

Interview with Barbara Elsborg

2008-04-22T07:00:00.000-07:00

The following is an interview with Barbara Elsborg, author of PERFECT TIMING a Romantica® novel debuting next week, April 30th, from Ellora’s Cave. (Some of you may know her better by her online handle, Flick.) Barbara has been a past guest blogger here on Toasted Scimitar.

* * *

Hi Barbara. Thanks for agreeing to do this interview for The Toasted Scimitar.

For all us hungry writers out there, what does it feel like to be on the verge of the release of your first novel? What things are going through your mind?

I'm excited, thrilled and slightly embarrassed! I made the decision to publish under my own name but that means I'm very accessible. There isn't another Barbara Elsborg out there. So when my mother in law discovers what I've been up to, I'm expecting her to wrench her beloved son away from my perverted claws. I'm a little sad that my mum died last year before I made it - but since she switched off the TV if two characters got within inches of a bed, perhaps I've been saved from even more family wrath.

Tell us a little about your Romantica® novel, PERFECT TIMING.

The book took me about three months to write. I started it while I was on vacation in Orlando, Florida. I think I was inspired by the heat and the Jacuzzi. I shall say no more. But I hadn't read any Ellora's Cave books. I hadn't read any erotica - only sexy romances. I broke all the rules for the way to do this. Somehow - it worked.

It's a funny story. Oh gee, I hope people think its funny and it’s not just me. It wouldn't be the first time. I'm the one who has to have jokes explained when everyone else is rolling on the floor. I think maybe I'm accidentally funny.

The setting is a murder-mystery weekend in an English country mansion hotel. Daisy has turned up expecting a 1960s event and it turns out to be an over 60s weekend. But she's a good sport and joins in, especially when the hotel manager turns out to be such a hunk.

Tell us about the MCs in PERFECT TIMING.

Daisy Leaf is the heroine. Her arrival at the start of the story says it all. After she narrowly avoids hitting a sheep with her car, then a statue, the lump of wool pursues her up the steps of the hotel. Daisy and the sheep make a dramatic entrance, sliding on a marble floor and Daisy looks up into the eyes of Jake, the hotel manager. Jake is reluctantly in charge of the hotel for six months, a position foisted on him by his father, the Duke, in attempt to make his younger son more responsible. The arrival of sexy Daisy scupers those plans.

Is there an antagonist?

Adrian, Jake's snobbish elder brother, will inherit the dukedom when his father dies. Adrian thinks he's sterile and is desperate that Jake find a suitable wife. Daisy is not suitable and Adrian does his best to interfere with the developing love affair.
I've written a story about Adrian - called "Something About Polly" - Ellora's Cave currently has it under consideration. In this story, Daisy pushes Adrian to offer a lot at a charity promises auction. He writes 'Wild Sex' on a piece of paper as a joke and the lot is bought by Polly. Adrian tries to back out but Polly won't let him.

How would you rate the heat factor in PERFECT TIMING?

Heat factor in Perfect Timing - well, it's difficult to say. I hope it's nothing that would make people uncomfortable. What makes this different from a contemporary romantic comedy is only the sex - the amount of it and the detailed description of it. BUT, characters and plot are all important to me. There is a lot of sex in the book, but it's not gratuitous, nor emotionless. A lot of erotica that I've read (and I hadn't read any until I wrote this) seems to be sex for the sake of it with a small amount of story thrown in. That's not what I write. I hope I entertain and amuse and titillate to a certain extent but this is not a 'sex for the sake of it' story.

Can you explain the submission process for Ellora's Cave?

This story was originally written for a competition for one of their competitors. They didn't like it. I sent it to Ellora's Cave - following the procedures outlined on their website and waited. And waited and waited. I think I heard about 3 months later. They liked it BUT - didn't like the title (not the one it has now), they wanted more sex, steamier sex and a few other adjustments. I made the edits over about three weeks and lengthened it and resubmitted. Another wait and they said yes. Last August. Yippee. Apparently they accept 4 manuscripts out of 100, so I feel really thrilled to have been given this chance.

What were the steps involved in getting your novel ready to be e-published?

Ellora's Cave assigned me an editor, Carole Genz. As it was the first book I'd sent, it wasn't in the right format. They require RTF and specific font, etc. so Carole changed it for me and did line edits. I was so shocked when I saw all the changes and corrections. What I thought was a - ahem - perfect manuscript had been gone over with such precision -it was amazing. There weren't too many changes that required much more than a - yes, that comma is fine. I had one little wobble over the use of the words - got to be careful here - insert before the words 'lips' the other name for a cat. Got it? I didn't like that and Carole accepted my view. But I was happy with all the changes. I had the book back once more for a last read through and that was it. I was consulted about cover art, I could make suggestions within the limits of their house style, and they assigned it a release date.

Do you have any special plans for the release date?

Well, I'll be in the place where I had the inspiration for the book on the 30th April, so a glass of champagne in the jacuzzi sounds good to me.

Where can PERFECT TIMING be purchased on April 30th?

From the Ellora's Cave website. http://www.ellorascave.com/

Have you thought about doing any appearances or writers' conferences down the road?

I'd love to. Ellora's Cave is very supportive of their authors. They keep you in the loop of everything that's going on. They send reviews of all their books to all their authors. But I suspect that until I get into actual print - and they may well do that - I'm not much use on an appearance front. I'd need a few more books with them too. But they have two under consideration and I have another two almost ready to send.

What other projects are you working on?

Apart from the erotic romances I've written, I'm polishing a couple of contemporary romances and a suspense story. I also have a part-written YA paranormal that I'd really like to finish. About a summer camp for vampires, werewolves, faeries and shapeshifters.

So what will you do for an encore?

For an encore? Well, thrilled as I am that someone finally said yes - I want to get into print. It may or may not happen with Ellora's Cave. I'm not sure what criteria they use to decide who to put into paperback. So it's still a case of badgering agents and persuading them to give me a chance.

Thanks, Barbara, for taking time from your busy writing schedule to answer our questions. When next Wednesday arrives, I know I’ll be first in line to purchase my copy of PERFECT TIMING.

Good Critiquing

2008-04-17T20:10:00.000-07:00

For those involved in critique groups (which I highly recommend for serious writers), here’s a few points to ponder. Everyone has their own style of critiquing. Some approach it with a serious mind, some like to sprinkle liberal humor into their comments, others write their suggestions as if they were carrying on a conversation with the writer. There is no right or wrong way to do an effective critique of someone else’s work. But there are a few things to consider that may avoid ruffled feathers and bruised egos. Here are some suggestions for “critique etiquette” that go beyond the basic “be polite and constructive” rules.

Seven Ideas for Writing a More User-Friendly Critique

Ban the U. Don’t use attack language. Keep feedback impersonal. Avoid phrases that include: You shouldn’t…you always…you know better than… Avoid attacking the writer and focus on what’s wrong with the story. Even gentler wording should be avoided if it’s phrased as a personal criticism. It’s not about improving the writer, it’s about improving the text. Communicating on a personal level with the writer is a natural tendency, so this takes practice.
The protagonist --instead of-- Your protagonist.
There are a lot of --instead of-- You have a lot of…
These sentences --instead of-- Your sentences….

Forget tastes. Avoid stating personal likes and dislikes. Examples: I don’t like your title. I don’t like that character’s name. That’s a silly name for a country. Unless there are specific, concrete reasons for not liking a title, subject, place or character name, don’t let your personal bias intrude into good critiquing.

Stress the IMHO. Be sure to state opinion as opinion. When I went through academy my instructors had a system. When they introduced anything into the material that wasn’t supported by standard police training concepts or law, they would pause, hold up a hand and add the addendum, “Opinion!” Opinion has a place in critiques because readers’ likes and dislikes about scenes, characters and plots can be important in the revision process if many feel the same way. One critique is not "many", so state your opinions as opinion.
This sentence sounds awkward to me.
I think the protagonist would be more effective if he acted with more maturity.
IMO, this scene needs more tension between the characters.

Fill in all the blanks. Constructive criticism means explaining what you mean. I had a critter once tell me my chapter was “a train wreck.” Period. End of statement. I was baffled, as well as not amused. No facts or opinions were brought forward to support or explain this conclusion. What, when, how and where exactly did it derail? Are the tracks just bent, or do I need to reconstruct the entire rail line? Maybe build a whole new railroad? There’s nothing wrong with making strong statements in a critique, but be sure to follow them up with a thorough explanation. Many a train wreck can be turned into a flawless express line if you just take a little time to explain the problems you see.

Keep Rants Reasonable. For me, rants are one of the fun things about reading critiques and I find most humorous, well-intentioned, and very helpful. But rant subjects can be taken too far. If your rant is based on structure, plot or style problems (I’m known for my "Kill the –ly Adverb" tirades) then by all means, rant away. On the other hand, if you’ve taken a sudden dislike to a particular word or element—let’s use the word “scrumptious” as an example—for no apparent reason, and you spend a paragraph or more pitching a fit because the writer used the word “scrumptious” twice in their 100,000 word novel...well, I think that may be carrying a grudge a bit too far. *Opinion!*

Take Your Time. Be sure you're giving the writer your best effort. Don’t critique up to a particular word count, then abandon the rest of the text because the necessary credits have been earned. Don’t make a half-hearted effort to return a critique to someone who gives you thoughtful, in-depth feedback they invested a lot of time on. Don’t set a time limit, i.e. “I only spend ten minutes on a crit.” I had a critter once tell me this (with pride). My mental response? Yes, and it shows.

View critiques as education, not a chore. Don’t consider writing critiques a pesky nuisance or an item to cross off your “must do” list as soon as--and with as little effort as--possible. Look at the positives in the process: Writing critiques is time well spent and a major part of your education. Evaluating the work of others will help you become a better writer, because you’ll be more aware of pitfalls and problems in your own work. Besides, you may have the pleasure of someday claiming bragging rights. “I critiqued MONSTER BEST SELLER when it was just a fledgling WIP. Some of my suggestions were incorporated and helped make it the mega-success it is.” *big grin*

Must Fantasy Have Magic?

2008-04-15T17:35:00.000-07:00

Or science fiction space ships for that matter? I was once recently told that a story of mine had no obvious fantasy or science fiction elements, despite the fact it involved a made up place, names, culture, and characters… because it resembled the real world too closely. What are the tentative boundaries of this genre of ours?

When something involves magic and swords it's obviously fantasy, no questions. When involving places that don't exist, people find it more difficult to discern. There aren't many well-known fantasy series out there that don't involve magic, yet, to me, such a story seems obviously in the genre. It can't be historical fiction if the place and culture the novel takes place in don't exist, no matter how life-like and historical feeling the characters and technology feels.

It seems the current market is overly tied to the trimmings and trappings of fantastic elements. One of my favorite YA fantasy series has none of these… the Kingdom series by Cynthia Voyt. The gritty setting is full of things of the mundane and focuses on human problems and cultural interactions. These are the elements that make a good novel, honestly, while magic is more of a setting element in most books. I'd like to see less focus on heroes who learn magic or deal with magic objects and some more first class non-magical fantasy.

Then perhaps I wouldn't get so many odd looks for writing stories set in nowhere that exists that lack magic or superior technology. I still consider them quite solidly fantasy or science fiction.

Big News From Lisa Shearin

2008-04-13T16:24:00.000-07:00

By now everyone knows what a huge fan I am of Lisa Shearin's Raine Benares series that started with MAGIC LOST, TROUBLE FOUND and continues with the April 29 release of the second book in the series, ARMED & MAGICAL (see previous reviews and articles on this blog).

Lisa just shared some great news:

This is what I've been waiting to tell everyone!! *HUGE GRIN* Since it's been announced over on Science Fiction Awards Watch http://www.sfawardswatch.com/ I can officially announce it myself:

Magic Lost, Trouble Found is one of five finalists for the Compton Crook/Stephen Tall Memorial Award for the best debut novel of the year. The award is voted on by members of the Baltimore Science Fiction Society and will be awarded at their annual convention (Balticon) on Memorial Day weekend.

Needless to say, I was thrilled and amazed to be included in such great company. Check out the other nominees -- WOW!:

The Blade Itself, Joe Abercombie (Pyr)

The Outback Stars, Sandra McDonald (Tor)

The Name of the Wind, Patrick Rothfuss (DAW)

Magic Lost, Trouble Found, Lisa Shearin (Ace)

One Jump Ahead, Mark Van Name (Baen)

Wow, indeed! MLTF gets my vote (uh...if I had one). Fabulous news, and I know of no more deserving author.

Congratulations, Lisa.

Writers on Writing

2008-04-12T16:07:00.000-07:00

Who better to give advice or make commentary on their craft than writers? Here are a few gems from those who've been there.

"Mistakes are the portals of discovery."
—James Joyce

"Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way."
— E. L. Doctorow

"No passion in the world is equal to the passion to alter someone else's draft."
— H.G. Wells

"First, find out what your hero wants, then just follow him!"
- Ray Bradbury

"Don't explain why it works; explain how you use it."
- Steven Brust

"It is perfectly okay to write garbage--as long as you edit brilliantly."
- C. J. Cherryh

"Make everybody fall out of the plane first, and then explain who they were and why they were in the plane to begin with."
- Nancy Ann Dibble

"Get it down. Take chances. It may be bad, but it's the only way you can do anything really good."
- William Faulkner

"Don't be dismayed by the opinions of editors, or critics. They are only the traffic cops of the arts."
- Gene Fowler

"To know is nothing at all; to imagine is everything."
- Anatole France

"Put weather in."
- Joseph Hansen

"Buying books would be a good thing if one could also buy the time to read them in: but as a rule the purchase of books is mistaken for the appropriation of their contents."
- Arthur Schopenhauer

and one of my all time faves:

"I try to create sympathy for my characters, then turn the monsters loose."
- Stephen King

Global Darkness--Why it's such a stupid idea

2008-04-09T13:05:00.000-07:00

You know those Dark Lords who have a thing about complete and world-wide blackness? Yeah, you know the ones. They plan to Plunge the World into Everlasting Night™.

Well... they're idiots.

Now, don't get me wrong. I support Dark Lords and think they should all have equal rights and opportunities to take over the world.

But think about it. We (and most Fantasyland worlds) depend on the sun for a lot of things--you know, minor things like crops and solar power and heat--and even moonlight has its purposes. Sure, parts of the world get long periods of no sun. But eventually they do get their share of daylight.

If you had no sun, you would soon have no freaking POPULATION. And then what do you plan to rule over, a bunch of rocks and ice?

To start with, if you Plunged the World into Everlasting Night™ you're going to have a short harvest season (depending on when you eclipse the planet in total darkness). Then you start getting a lack of food.

No food makes it pretty damn hard to sustain a population.

If you plan on using magic (based on the rules of magic for your world) to create food, consider how long you can keep this up. You aren't just talking about the enslaved populace of the world--there's your minions, animals, livestock, and if you have some pet dragons, well... good luck.

With no sun or light, temperatures will start to drop. You'll have drastic changes in the wind immediately, and slower weather changes over time. And that's not even getting to how depressed everyone will be (minions aside) about the lack of light and heat.

Give it a year or so and you're going to have major problems. Supplies get used up--and not just food. You'll need more heat sources to fend off the growing cold, right? Fuel, warmer clothes, etc.

Eventually you'll have a full-blown ice age. Life in the sea will only sustain itself and the land-based inhabitants for so long before the seas begin to freeze over.

Unless you genetically alter your enslaved populace to survive in an ice age (can they eat ice and live in sub-zero and below temperatures all the time, see in the dark, etc?) you're going to have a pretty boring reign. No minions to order about, no heroes to slaughter, no terrified civilians to gloat over--plus, most Objects of Power would probably freeze and get ruined with frost and water damage.

(If you really want constant darkness, why not move underground and take your evil empire with you?)

The moral of this post is that if you have aspirations to Plunge the World into Everlasting Night™, think again.

After all, what's the fun of taking over the world if you can't enjoy it?

~Merc

Grey-Day Meandering

2008-04-08T23:54:00.000-07:00

It’s a cloudy day and I’ve been sitting inside pondering magic in fantasy (this is not as random as it seems: I’m sick and drinking lots of tea, and dry tea bags look like magical charms. To me, anyway). A lot of novels I’ve read seem to really like the four-elements system—earth, air, fire, water. I admit, unless an author does something brilliant with those, I get bored. Another is the “saying words to work a spell” method, as in Harry Potter. I never quite understood why Latinish words had anything to do with working magic, in Rowling’s storyverse. Patricia C. Wrede, in Magician’s Ward (a fantasy set in an alternate Regency England; it’s the second book featuring Mairelon the Magican, one of my favorite characters ever) offered an interesting explanation: the words are merely a way to help organize the magician’s mind and channel the power in an orderly fashion, which is why only foreign languages work—one’s native language is too deeply embedded in the mind to give enough conscious control. But many storyverses don’t offer any explanation for how and why magic works . . . although now I wonder why I need an explanation. Isn’t that rather the point of magic, that it’s inexplicable and in violation of the ordinary laws of reality? Except many modern fantasy novels, especially in urban fantasy, treat magic as a prosaic item, no more remarkable than flicking a switch to turn on electric lights (which is pretty near magical, to my inner-child mind—I dashed about in awe and glee when we got Wi-Fi, simply because it did feel magical: there were pictures, writing, music appearing on my screen that had not been there before, conjured out of the ether with a tap of my finger). The notion of vampires who take iron-supplement pills in place of blood particularly offends my sensibilities. As I am fond of quoting, “It’s not the blood. It’s what the blood means.” (I wish I could remember where I read that, and who wrote it.) I suppose one could make an argument for words-as-spells that it’s not the words—the vibrations of air that are translated into sound, or the curves of ink on paper—but what the words, the symbols mean, all the weight and connotation and represented-reality that we imbue them with, and the magic is casting them out into the world where they have an effect on real-reality. Or they are part of reality, or can become reality, or are a description of reality that then becomes it and possesses its own weight of existence . . . but they need to be the right words, then. Or images. Or the true knowledge of a thing, that is held in the mind—why true names are often considered important . . .

Okay, that last is probably not coherent to anyone but me. But I think the point I am rambling toward is the . . . the loss of sense of wonder, in many depictions of magic. Not exactly the numinous—though I’m not sure one can have the numinous without sense of wonder, though I think you can have sense of wonder without the numinous (the best examples of numinous I can think of—that awed overcome sense of beyond, other, that we cannot know fully—are authors like Patricia McKillip, Elizabeth Bear, Peter S. Beagle, even Robin McKinley in Deerskin, in works whose style is . . . writing pretty, I suppose. A lyrical, image-filled sort of writing, not the hard-edged cynicism I pick up from many urban fantasy novels. Is cynicism the death of the numinous? Maybe it’s not the ‘pretty’ so much, the jewel-like writing, as the attitude behind it. An openness to the world, and whatever is beyond it, a quiet and almost gentle air of examination, even if the story is brutal and bloody and shards of flame reflecting off broken glass). Perhaps cynicism is the death of sense of wonder, too. I can’t stand a jaded air about magic, or much of anything else; perhaps that’s why I bounce so hard off most determinedly grim-and-dark, dystopian styles of story.

It’s a thought to ponder, anyway, on a grey day.

ARMED & MAGICAL: Just Three More Weeks!

2008-04-07T19:02:00.000-07:00

Just a reminder that Lisa Shearin's ARMED & MAGICAL (the sequel to MAGIC LOST, TROUBLE FOUND in her Raine Benares series) will be released in three weeks. You might want to think about preordering now. ;)

I was lucky enough to get an ARC of A&M way back in late January, and it was one of the best times I've ever had reading a book.

Here's a few excerpts from my review:

I read it in a day. I could not stop. It rolled from one engrossing, hooky scene to the next. There is much to discover and some absolute pound-fists-on-the-table-and-kick-heels-in-glee surprises. Raine has one heck of a penchant for getting herself in the most awkward, intriguing spots. And when she isn’t immersed in a situation full of terrific humor, she’s up to her ears in bite-your-nails creepiness.

“Adventure” is too weak of a description for this grab-you-by-the-collar first chapter. By page 6, Raine’s got trouble—BIG trouble—and I’m once again pulled right into the crux of the action by the first person POV as villains pop out of the woodwork, a major character is in jeopardy, and an innocent is snatched. We’re off!

Raine Benares is savvy and unpredictable, and you never know what she might say next.

Mychael Eiliesor, a fellow elf, Conclave Guardian and paladin (read that: top cop) came into her life to help her shake off her disturbing accessory, but his job often puts him at odds with her instincts.

Tam, nightclub owner, exotic bad boy, and goblin with a dubious past also finds himself entangled in Raine’s business, though an entanglement of a different sort is more what he has in mind.

The imaginative world in MLTF continues on the shores of the Isle of Mid where a citadel, academic structures, government buildings, embassies, and nightclubs may have shadowy basements, tunnels, cells, and secret passageways. In this fantasy world, the threat of a lawsuit is sometimes just as imposing as the threat of violence.

It is a rare case where a sequel bests the original in brilliant style. MLTF was a delight. ARMED & MAGICAL is even better.

See the complete review here:
http://toasted-scimitar.blogspot.com/2008/02/armed-and-magical-arc-book-review.html

Be sure to check out Lisa Shearin's web site for news, excerpts, contests, artwork, her very active blog, and more fun. www.lisashearin.com

A Link of Interest

2008-04-04T17:21:00.000-07:00

Science fiction loves its advanced robots, but they might not be so far away--check out BigDog, a quadruped robot that picks over rocks, regains its balance after slipping on ice, and trots like a jaunty pony (I want one!). It can carry 350 lb and has an onboard navigation computer--but its shape resembles an animal enough that many people are highly disturbed by it. What's your view? Creepy or cool?

~Sparky

Global Darkness--Why it's such a stupid idea

2008-04-03T08:48:00.000-07:00

Read Call

2008-03-31T13:57:00.001-07:00

We haven't done one of these in awhile, and being as it's almost April *embarrassed face* I think it's high time we did another.

Read Call is your chance to recommend books to other readers. What have you read lately? Should we read it, too? Or are we better off avoiding it? (Consider this the Predators & Editors for readers.) *smirk*

Doesn't matter if it's not Fantasy or if it's been out in print for awhile, we'd still like to hear about it. Please share!

The Ebony Orbs of DOOM

2008-03-28T20:27:00.000-07:00

Biology professors like to use the old blue-eye/brown-eye example to explain basic genetics. You might remember it from high school—the brown allele is dominant and the blue is recessive, and so, they explain, two blue-eyed people can’t have a brown-eyed child! At which point every brown-eyed kid with two blue-eyed parents gasps in shock and panic.

I cannot adequately express my loathing of that example.

First, it is absolutely wrong that human eye color is determined by one gene, much less that simple dominant-recessive dynamics are at work. They’ve identified at least four genes involved in eye color, and there are probably more we haven’t found yet. Furthermore, how could a simple blue-brown dichotomy account for green, grey, black, hazel, and all the different shades of blue and brown found in humans? It’s ridiculous.

Fantasy writers, however, have the opposite problem—entirely too many eye colors. Worse, eye color almost always Means Something. We all know, when a character walks on stage with eyes of purple, or gold, or silver, or green (often Emerald Green) or even overdescribed blue (usually Deep Sapphire), they are in some way Special. They’re not just a random turnip farmer, even if they’re disguised as one—we’re only waiting for them to reveal their true identity as a royal heir, a Chosen One, a powerful wizard, a halfbreed elf/witch/shapeshifter/demon/dragon/god, or in very bad cases all of these at once (sometimes I powerfully wish to say, “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”). Sometimes characters get color-changing eyes, for no apparent reason, and when no one else in their world does. Sanity is not relevant here; the important point is to illustrate the protagonist’s inherent Specialness.

The Forces of Evil, meanwhile, have their own characteristic eye colors: black, red, sometimes blue that is Slightly Too Beautiful (often these will have blond hair and perfect features, as well. One suspects the author is working out personal issues). The antagonist may also have one eye black and one another color such as amber or Scum Green. A few unfortunate villains even get glowing red eyes with facets, as if they are half housefly. One can imagine the childhood bullying they received for this, and feel more sympathy for their traumatized psyches and desire to destroy the world.

Ordinary eye colors, such as mud brown or washed-out blue, are found almost entirely in sidekicks and other secondary characters. A plain-looking girl with pale brown eyes will likely not aspire to great heights of either Good or Evil; she may, however, die valiantly while saving the violet-eyed hero, who will then angst greatly over this loss and carry on to save the world and marry a princess with raven hair and eyes the color of moonlit mist. Sadly, I have not met a single real-life person with purple eyes, much less ones of silver with twinkly bits—and I am quite interested in eye colors, so I make a point to notice them. Most people, upon meeting someone for the first time, don’t notice. I once got colored contact lenses for my left eye, just so I could go around with one blue and one green eye and see if anyone’d spot it. No one did, unless I pointed it out first (and then they couldn’t forget and kept getting distracted while talking to me. It was highly amusing).

In real life a person’s hair style, clothing, posture, all are more likely to be remembered than eye color—especially since they convey actual information about the person, and the image they wish to present to the world. Even hair color is more relevant; you can point out “the black-haired guy over there” but no one says, “She’s the green-eyed one across the room.” Unfortunately, until fantasy writers stop using eye color as a replacement for characterization, we’re stuck with the hordes of sapphire-eyed heroes and ebony-orbed villains. At least no one’s a half-elf, right?

Right?

. . . Uh-oh.

The Toasted Scimitar

R.I.P, Toasted Scimitar

The Trouble With Demons: Book Review

Lord of the Rings as Written by Other Authors

HOPE'S FOLLY Review

Review: Writing Magic

CHOSEN SISTER is out!

To tide you through...

REVIEW: The Yiddish Policemen's Union

Quick...Look Up! Right Now.

Happy New Year

A post-holiday treat from Jim C. Hines

Merry Christmas, all!

Review: ALL THE WINDWRACKED STARS

Interview with Marva Dasef

The Minions Strike Back

Writing in a Recession

As if you needed more to distract you during NaNo...

Book Art -- Ardyth Gushes

The Top 5 Things That Scare Me

Scariest Science Fiction Film Countdown

Tony Hillerman 1925-2008

Thanks for the Evil

The Toasted Scimitar Character Costume Party!

Let's Do It Again

Link: Jackson Pearce

The Trouble With Demons News

SHADES OF DARK: Mini-Review

The Gloriousness of Tentacles

We Missed a Monster

Interview Up

Sharin' Da Links

Review: TWILIGHT

The Things that Fantasy Neglects

New YA Science Fiction Blog

Ancient Literary Usernames

Shadow Unit, the Best TV Show You'll Never See

Review: SCAR NIGHT

Review: THE BLACK COMPANY

Are You Smarter Than A Third Grader?

Procrastination Central

We Ought to Know This Stuff

Tork this Spadunk, or F*ck this Sh*t

The Dreaded One is published again!

The Ten Top Ways NOT to Kill Your Character

Link to Article on E-Authors

DRABBLES

Consider checking out GUD

Review: JHEGAALA

REVIEW: The Nightside Series

Fantasy and Moral Compasses

Applogies to Minions--Er, Readers of the TS

Review--Standard Hero Behavior

Children's Science Fiction—history of an often ignored genre.

Origins of Evil: Merc's Influences

On the Origin of Feral Biologists

Mission Control: Inspirations and Influences

The Dreaded One's Influences

Topic of the Week: Our Influences

"You haven't READ it?! You heretic!"

A Look at Hooks

The Dreaded One Sails Into e-Print

She Stared Out The Window

Villian Cliches out to TAKE OVER THE WORLD

The TS gets a report card!

And a Hero was born...

In the Beginning…

A Glimpse of Things to Come

Review: THE BONE KEY

Campiness in Science Fiction

Brenda Novak Auction...Wow!

Blog Birthday

Another Landmark

Rules for Magic... or else

Command Presence

Review: DUST, by Elizabeth Bear

Even the monsters were young once...

REVIEW: The Redwall Series

Long Live Evil Authors

ARMED & MAGICAL Launched!

Tork this Spadunk, or Fck this Sht