Part II: Does Blood Pool in Zero G? Or SF/F Ideas Lost in Space

One of the things that can scare nascent writers about science fiction is, well, the science. Even professional SF/F writers, like my mentor Eleanor Arnason, have been known to choke when it comes to the nuts and bolts part of the story.

First of all, don’t let "getting it right" stop you. Remember – William Gibson wrote his groundbreaking cyberpunk novel Nueromancer on a typewriter, and while having almost no experience with a computer. All you really need from the science is the spark for the idea.

In fact, a quick side story about all of that.... I had the honor of being at the pre-award banquet for the Hugo the year that Eleanor's "Stellar Harvest" was nominated in the novelette category. She had named me her alternate, because she didn't want to deal with going to the award ceremony. I talked her into going. Which was funny in and of itself since my name was listed on the guest list and on the reserved chairs, and I actually had to tell the guards at the door that Eleanor was _my_ guest.

At any rate, being the sort of person I am, I instantly recognized all the luminaries in the room (I regularly scan the photos of LOCUS so I’m never caught with my pants down, as it were.) At any rate, the editor of Analog came up to Eleanor in a kind of fanboy way and started telling her how much he loved her work. I could see her slinking away from him, so I took on the role of introducer, even though he and I have never met. I said, "Eleanor, do you know Dr. Stanley Schmitt?" She brightened instantly. He immediately chided her for not sending more of her stories his way. She gave a dismissive wave of her hand and said, "My stories aren't technical enough for you." Dr. Schmitt never missed a beat. "Eleanor," he said, "Let me be the judge of that."

The point of this story is that the story elements -- like character and plot and theme -- are far more important to most editors than the preciseness of the physics (or chemistry or biology or math). Now, that’s not to say you have a license to not TRY to get the science as right as possible, because SF/F fans (your readers) will notice egregious errors and be more than happy to corner you at a convention and explain the way gravitational physics REALLY works.

I think the key to writing successful science fiction stories is to be enthusiastic about the science you're writing about. I don't think about science every day, though I'd like to. One of the ways I keep myself open and receptive to the seed of a science fiction story is to hang out where ideas germinate.

If you're struggling to find SF ideas, (or if, like me, you just like to hang out where the smart people are,) I'm going to suggest that after you read the New York Times in the morning (or whatever your post-coffee gathering ritual is) you check out some scientific web sites – or, like I do, keep a few of these magazines in their print form in the bathroom for quick perusal.

Popular Science
Popular Mechanics
National Geographic
Science News

There are many, many more I could list, but the articles in these magazines are written in such a way to make you the kind of vaguely informed dangerous that really promotes a good science fiction idea. That's to say, they aren't terribly technical and they leave out the details that would probably send your idea down in a flaming wreck.

Half-assed ideas are the ones with the most wriggle room. Go for it. Make your characters real and the situation believable and the science won’t matter. Get it close enough, and then find an expert to fix what needs fixing. Or just pray that with enough hand waving, the editor will be so charmed by your work that s/he won’t give a crap that your science is wonky.

Next up -- Part III: The Magical Forests of Schenectady, or Hunting Down and Capturing Fantasy Ideas

Y’all Come Back, You Pagan Cowpokes!

I was listening to country music last night in the car, as I often do, and I was struck by the fact that country western really has the corner on the sappy, sentimental, stirringly religious songs, and, frankly, that's just not fair. I mean, I love singing along to Carrie Underwood’s "Jesus, Take the Wheel," but the Pagan in me recoils at having to promote through osmosis the one dying and rising god I have a few problems with (really, my issues are with his father and his folowers, but still.)

Since I love singing along so much, I've come up with a number of solutions:

For: "Jesus, Take the Wheel" (Carrie Underwood), I sing: "Isis, Take the Wheel"

For: "When I Get Where I’m Going" (Dirks Bentley and Dolly Parton) – They sing: "...And see my Maker's Face, I'll stand forever in the light of His amazing grace;" I sing, "And, see my Mother's Face, I'll stand forever in the light of Her amazing grace."

For: "Long Black Train" (Josh Turner) – He sings, "I cling to the Father and His Holy Name;" I sing: "I cling to the Mother, and Her Many Names..."

For: "The River" (Garth Brooks) – He sings, "But with the good Lord as my captain;" I sing, "But with the Goddess as my captain..."

I’m still working on how to fix songs like "Three Crosses," by Randy Travis, but it doesn’t stop me from singing along. If only there were pagan songs Christians felt the same way about.

Oh wait, there is: "Deck the Halls." (Quiz: What's Yuletide?)

When Accuracy Strangles Writing

One of the things I've been yammering on about is this concept that it's a good idea to have one's fiction be faithful to the world as it exists. My main argument revolves around inclusiveness, particularly when imagining supporting (or main) characters' race, ethnicity, religion, gender, and sexual orientation.

I also think it's great, if one has the expertise, to write settings that are atypical. I'm particularly drawn to this, even though I have in my other life written the excruciatingly familiar cyberpunk in a big city (in fact, THE big U.S. city, New York) and a fairy story that takes place in of all stereotypical places as Kerry, Ireland.

I know someone who, as far as I know never finished, had set a novel in a future Thailand. She was a good writer and, IMHO, probably had a shot at publishing the thing because the setting alone was deeply captivating. She'd spent some time in Thailand and she was a good enough writer that you really felt like you were there. I think you can get a lot of mileage out of that kind of expertise or, as I sometimes like to refer to it, "arcane knowledge," because I think that one of the reasons people read is to go somewhere new and to experience someone else's life. I think that desire is profoundly universal. To quote A. A. Milne’s WINNIE-THE-POOH, Chapter 2, In Which Pooh Goes Visiting and Gets Into a Tight Place, "Well, [Pooh] was humming to himself, and walking along gaily, wondering what everybody else was doing, and what it felt like being somebody else..." [emphasis added.]

A friend of mine and fellow writer Naomi Kritzer has books set in ancient Uzbekistan, and short stories set in WWII Russia and Prague. But, having talked to her, I also know that the amount of research that goes into some of her scene setting can be overwhelming -- to the point of strangling the creative process.

Writing isn't terribly fun. Anything that stops you from writing is EVIL.

So, while I advocate all of this deep thinking and going somewhere different from the norm, I also admonish you to never let it stop you. You also have to trust that your experiences are unique.

I remember talking to a writing class about this. The question inevitably arises as to how much physical detail is necessary. My answer is always -- only as much as the plot requires. But, the plot is more than a simple moving forward; it's often also an expression of character. So, I tell my students that a drive through the boring bits of North Dakota can become a moment of character revelation, even if it's something simple, like, that your character is the sort to randomly turn on the windshield wipers to stay awake while rolling past yet another flat field of tumbleweeds. (If the trip itself is Important. Otherwise, synopsize it at the beginning of the "arrival at destination" scene.)

Anyway, the point is this: when you can, explore the complexity of life, think beyond your own neighborhood, but don't let what you don't know stop you from writing what you do.

For Those With a Fast Internet Connection

...and who are vampire fans -- check out:

http://www.annefrasier/currentprojects.html

It's what's called in the biz as a "book trailer," part music video, part advertising tool.

Ah, if I had the time and money!

Mason Humor

This gem from my two-year old...

What sound does a rooster make when he's sick?

*cough*-a-doodle-do.

Thank you. Thank you very much. I'll be here all week.

The Devil Is Not in the Details, the Devil is In My Pants. Yeah!

Spare me a media fan moment.

Can I tell you that I love the new Battlestar Galactica? I know, I know. I'm not exactly bleeding edge here with this admission. Thing is, we don't have cable. I've been catching up on this series as soon as the DVDs arrive at Netflix.

I'm sure there are plenty of blogs devoted to this series, so I'm not going to say much. Except that last night while I was watching the first few episodes of season 2, I turned to Shawn and said, "Do you know what I really love about this series? What I love is that when people get hit hard enough to bruise the bruises don’t magically disappear in the next episode! Apollo has been sporting a shiner he got in the middle of the last season during a prison riot."

My suspenders of disbelief are made of the strangest kind of stretchy material. I have no problem with faster than light or machines that can mate with humans.... IF, and this is the key, IF you provide me these "contemporary fantasy" details I talked about in an earlier post. I will roll with the most insane plot holes -- like a virus that can infiltrate a LAN -- because the people, the situation, and the details captivate me.

This is true in writing to a fair degree as well. TV has the advantage of being singularly consuming. Pretty pictures can completely distract from a lame storyline (sometimes). Reading is a slower more internal process, so you have to be much more careful with plot... BUT, I still think that a detail can make or break a book. A detail that knocks the reader out of the story is a very, very bad thing. Cops don’t use those kinds of handcuffs anymore! Bang. The book hits the wall and bounces into the recycling bin. (And, if you’re my partner, the author's name is committed to memory on the "never buy again" list.)

Meanwhile, bits of arcane minutia can fascinate and captivate a reader. My experience as a reader tells me that a reader wants to feel like they're experiencing something new in a "true" way. Like reading about an archeologist might actually give you a tiny bit of understanding about archeology as a science, or a profession, or a lifestyle. (Like, the summer I did archeology camp I got eighty hours of sun. I had the best farmers' tan ever that year. Of course, my snot was black from the dust... but hey, I looked good.)

I think about this in reflection of the other posts I’ve made recently. Like, one of the reasons I think it's important to represent all the various ways of being in the world (ethnicity, queerness, religious bent) is because the more of the weird, fascinating truth you include about your world, the more real it becomes to the reader, and the more interesting. Knowing that Minnesota has a large Armenian immigrant population, for instance, is just the kind of cool, useless knowledge that readers love to collect, IMHO.

And, in some weird way, you can get away with minor plot problems if your details are all right. At least a satisfied reader is more likely to forgive.

She Thought She Was A Woman, But She Was Another Man

I want to talk about a book I read some time ago called A BROTHER'S PRICE by Wen Spencer. Set in ubiquitous fantasy/stock science fiction alternate universe, this is a fairly straightforward gender role reversal story. On this unnamed Earth-like planet (complete with horses, steam power, and European feudalism), men are rare. Women do all the heavy lifting and the men are left in charge of raising children and keeping house. Our hero, Jerin Whistler, is the prettiest and most fertile boy in the all land. When a princess ends up nearly dead on his family's doorstep, sexual hijinks ensue.

Actually, I found the sexual situations fairly entertaining. Admittedly, this is a fantasy I like to play with myself. I've even started a few role-reversed stories of my own (though none are finished, see entry regarding my problems with short stories below) and I even have a dystopian matriarchy, which involves an alternate future Russia that I've been noodling around with in my own head for years.

Plus, my own life lends itself to thinking about gender and gender roles a lot.

I had a very weird problem with this novel. It pushed all my buttons, but none of them hard enough. It's a strange complaint to say, "Hey, you didn’t piss me off enough."

I think in a lot of ways this is a really ambitious novel. Or, maybe it could have been, and that's what bothers me. My sense is that all my big questions with this novel were accidental. Spencer seemed to be playing up the titillating aspects of all of this, rather than bringing the gender/sex question to the forefront.

After a couple of days of mulling this book over, I started asking myself, what was Spencer thinking when she wrote this? Was she actually intentionally making some kind of statement about gender and society? In many ways, our hero, Jerin, could just as easily have been a woman. Though I think there would be a fair number of feminists out there (probably including myself) who would have cried bloody murder if she had written this book with Jerin cast as a woman. The number of times he's threatened with rape alone would have pissed me off. The things that are vaguely titillating about his situation (the way women grope him, the words they use to discuss, crudely, having sex for procreation with him, how he’s treated like property, and the amount of money he’s "worth") would be completely offensive if he were a woman.

Then, I thought, well, Tate, you sexist pig. They're plenty offensive as they're written. And, that could could be the point. Pretty subversive on Spencer's part.

But, at the end of the thing, I decided that I was once again just thinking too hard. It seemed to be meant as a kind of science fictional Regency romance, all meant in a tongue-and-cheek, wink-wink-nudge-nudge kind of way. (The very last line in the book was my tip off.)

Yes, But What's the Hypothesis?

Do you ever wonder if someone is running a social experiment on you?

On my way to taking my partner to work the other day, I discovered, of all things, a plastic pot -- the kind you might, in a less inclement season, find an ivy growing in -- sitting on the last step in front of my house. I had a brief moment where I thought, "I could walk around this." But, I didn't. I picked up and threw it into the garbage bag I keep in the back of my car.

Today... there was a newspaper in the exact same spot.

Okay, who ever is out there, yes, I am compulsive about picking up what I perceive as garbage in front of my house.

Stop it all ready. You're making me crazy.

At Home in SF/F

It's interesting to hear Elizabeth Bear say she's also on the look out for queer folks in novels she reads. And that finding them is like finding home.... or at least suddenly feeling more welcome.

There are many reasons I read. One of the reasons science fiction and fantasy keeps me coming back is because it is one of the few places in which an odd duck like myself can reliably find a reflection on the page.

I think that's why this issue of diversity is so important to me.

I remember having my heterosexism kicked in the teeth by Elizabeth A. Lynn's novels, which I read in high school. She not only made me realize when I was fourteen that people of the same gender could love each other, but also she made me really take a hard, cold look at my gender assumptions, in general. Who says "soldier" automatically means "male"? Who says "artist" is more likely female?

These questions have haunted me my whole life. When I see a science fiction show with the ubiquitous male space ship captain, I ask myself, why? Why is the captian a man? Why is white (if he is)? Why is he straight (if he is)? What else is out there?

Of course, I ask these same questions when watching commericals, driving my friends and relations absolutely spare. A real quote from me: "Honey, did you notice the guy selling the matresses is the white guy with perfect teeth and the people who can't seem to find a decent bed are the black couple?" Real response from significant other: "Could you just not think for five seconds?"

I blame Elizabeth A. Lynn.

Don't Ink and Drive: Writing and Responsibility

Still thinking -- which is probably dangerous -- about my previous post. Zoe commented that a writer who includes queer folks in the background runs the risk of seeming ham handed in their attempts at inclusion (or diversity or whatever you might want to call it.) This is a conversation I've had with other people (and on this blog, see below "The Whiteness of Space") about race/ethnicity, too.

There's a lot of validity in her concern. I grew up in the era of television "tokenism," where every show seemed to have to include the hero (white guy), the sidekick (black or other color guy), and the girlfriend (not guy). It was annoying, if only because the formula wherein the person of color was still stuck on the sidelines was never, ever violated.

On the flipside, I find TV shows (and movies and books) where there's a homogony of color (or gender or sexual preference) to be deeply, deeply frightening. It's the whole "Friends" phenomenon. How is it that these people who lived in New York City never seemed to know anyone of color? Or gay? And what does it say about them that they don't?

And does it matter?

Sure, people live like that. I would be forced to admit that ninety-percent of my close friends are white and straight. The "Friends" phenomenon is its own kind of truth, but I've always felt that a writer's responsibility is to see the whole picture – beyond the assumptions. Like, for instance, before I worked at the University of Minnesota's Immigration History Research Center, I would have guessed that the majority of immigrants settling in Minnesota were Norwegian, and that Saint Paul’s (my home town) main settlers were Irish. Not true. Both of those are myths perpetrated by storytellers, like Garrison Keillor (and the later by our former governor Jesse Ventura.)

I'm not trying to imply that either of those men are racists, but my feeling is that sometimes by not going beyond what we *think* is true, we inadvertently paint a picture that's not complete.

So what? Fiction writing isn’t about the truth, is it?

I think it is.

I think, in particular, when writing about the future, we need to be awake and paying attention to our words on the page. Our silences -- the people we leave out -- speak volumes about what we think is true... and what we feel is valuable.

I say this as someone whose life was changed by reading science fiction. In 1953, Theodore Sturgeon wrote a short story called "The World Well Lost," and he taught me the power of thinking beyond our assumptions.

Oh Look, Honey, the Gay Hustler is Cruising the Martians

I woke up this morning thinking a lot about something Melissa Scott once told me in an interview. We were discussing GLBT/queer content in science fiction and she pointed out that, particularly in cyberpunk, GLBT elements are often used as scare tactics -- a way to show the seedier side of life. You know you're in the deep, dark place because Jo-Jo sitting at the bar is a transsexual cyborg. Oh look, honey, the gay male hustler is getting cruised at the space station by the Martians. We must be in the dark underbelly of the future.

Where are the non-threatening, happy gay couples in space?

Of course, as a writer I understand that happy = boring. There's not a lot of drama when everyone gets along famously. But, I'm wondering if science fiction as a genre still hasn't shaken that idea that Melissa suggested nearly a decade ago -- that queerness is inherently "scary."

In the last year, I read nearly every paperback science fiction novel published in the United States (this is not an exaggeration, I was on a SF award committee). And, I have to tell you that the GLBT community was woefully under-represented.

In Elizabeth Bear’s series, we find out in the second novel that the main antagonist is a Family man, and has a husband in Toronto. Kudos to Bear for blindsiding me since my gaydar didn't go off on that one, and she did make me ask myself, "Why couldn't he be gay? Was I being heterosexist?" Shame on her for introducing the husband (and his very nice parrot) and killing them off at the end (often the usual fate for gay folks in the media.)

I would say, though, however, that Valens and his husband (of the above mentioned Scardown,) were, at least, nice men. They had a typical upper-middle class life in future Canada. Valens was of squishy moral character, but then so was the hero of the series.

So, at least some GLBT people in the future are non-threatening... but, then it's easy to be non-threatening when you're dead.

Then there’s Karin Lowachee's Cagebird. A difficult book, though a worthy one. However, there's no question that the gay people (and they're all men) in this book are broken, and broken very badly. They're broken in a way that is, sadly, very true to real life -- at least in my experience, but none-the-less this is far from the feel-good GLBT book of the year. There's some serious sickness here, and the sickness is wrapped up in being queer, and, specifically, in knowing that often in society one man's expression of love is another man's kink. This leads to ugliness and heartache. The book is about that, and about what that does to people.

I can’t think of a single other instance in a paperback novel this year in which there were even queer people present in the background. I don’t know what to think about that. Maybe people have been Will & Grace'd to death, and no one wants to even imagine a future with gay people in it. Or maybe GLBT people are no longer scary enough to even sit in the background so that the reader knows that we're not in Kansas any more.

My First Web Listing!

Check this out!

http://www.eternalnight.co.uk/books/h/hallawaytate.html

I'm now officially part of the Eternal Night Science Fiction and Fantasy Horror Fiction Web Site.

Getting the Itch Again (Somebody Stop Me)

I woke up this morning with the desire to write another short story.

"So what," you say, "Sounds great. Go for it." No, you don’t understand. This is an incredibly bad idea. Why? I suck at writing short stories. Worse, to paraphrase Marlin from Finding Nemo, I think I can do these things, but I just can't.

I imagine myself a fairly competent novelist. Certainly, I've written my share of them. I seem to understand the process of writing a novel at least well enough to get to THE END. Starting a short story seems to be the best I can do. I usually stall out a page or two into the thing.

I suspect the reason I don't finish most of the short stories I've started is because of the way I write. I've written to outlines for my novels, but more often than not I feel my way into the story. I dilly-dally for several pages before I really know what the novel is about -- both in terms of plotting, but, perhaps more importantly, in terms of theme, as well.

This is the stuff I have to know when I start a short story. If I don't know what the theme or the plot (especially the ending) is going to be before I start, there's no way I can wrap the thing up in 5,000 words or less.

5,000 words is nothing to a novelist. That's not usually even my first chapter. I'm just getting revved up in those first thousand words, not even thinking denouement, for god's sake.

Plus, for me, writing a short story ends up being a weird kind of time commitment. It takes me months to write a short story, plus then I figure in critique and revision... and suddenly, four or five months have gone by and I haven't written a damn word on my novel due to the publisher in August, you know?

So, like I said. Stop me. For crap's sake, someone stop me.

What Makes a Hero?

I finally saw the last "Star Wars" movie Revenge of the Sith and I didn't hate it as much as I expected to.

This, I should point out, is a major admission from me. I once carried on a year long argument over e-mail with a guy I met at a friend's wedding about how betrayed I felt by Phantom Menace and the subsequent (and, in many ways worse) Attack of the Clones.

Yes, I know I'm a geek and I need a life. Listen, I write SF/F, this *is* my life.

But, I have to give He-Whose-Name-Should-Not-Be-Uttered-(Lucas) a tiny modicum of respect for what I felt he was trying to do in Revenge. For once in a Lucas film, what I liked was the political intrigue.

I wish, in fact, there had been a bit more of it. What was missing for me was a better sense of how corrupt the Jedi had become. When Mace Windu insists that they must kill Emperor Palapatine he says something about how the justice system is completely in Palapatine’s pocket. All we have at that point Windu’s word on that. So, there’s really no conflict when Skywalker-soon-to-be-Vader is horrified.

However, that’s a great moment. It suddenly makes the Jedi into the street wise cops who end up bent because they want justice so badly they’re willing to be unjust to get it.

If only that could have been set-up a bit more... there was even a perfect moment to insert it. One of the first scenes we’re given is the rescue of Palapatine where, when Obi-Wan is knocked out, Palapatine orders Skywalker to kill his captor. I’d have liked a sense of Skywalker’s outrage that that point. I would have liked to see him stand up to the Senator and say, "No, we take him to justice." And then have a small scene where the justice system completely fails Skywalker.

Because then, when the moment comes up, we would know. And, more than that, Skywalker would know. Yet, he could STILL be horrified to hear a Jedi say this.

Especially after having been asked to spy on his friend.

Which is another set of scenes I would have liked expanded. I wanted Skywalker to be a lot less naïve. I thought, in fact, it would have been interesting to see him become a true spy. Playing Jedi off Emperor and visa versa, and in the process discovering the wickedness of both sides and becoming more and more disgusted with the whole political game.

I could relate to that. It would make Skywalker much more sympathetic, in my opinion. And his transformation fairly believable.

On a similar note, I totally dug the way the Jedi treated Skywalker (sorry, I can’t call him Annikin, it’s such a stupid name). I loved the scenes were he’s left behind and left out. That really underscored how much they never trusted him... which again, I’d have played up by having Skywalker really turn spy against them (while also working for them).

The only major problem I had with all of this is that the guy who says he doesn’t want to kill Emperor Palapatine turns around and kills Windu (for wanting to kill Palapatine.) This is not a very consistent philosophy. He then, ten minutes later, goes off and slaughters children in the service of Palapatine, which, in my opinion, makes absolutely no sense given his character up to this point. (Which is why Lucas had to include the stupid subplot about Padme and necromancy -- another Knights Templar reference for those of you who are counting).

As a good counter, I offer you Bruce Wayne of Batman Returns.

I was really enamored of the whole issue of compassion in Batman Returns.

(Skip this line if you haven't seen the movie). There's a major scene when the young Bruce Wayne is learning the ninja arts from his mentor Qui-Gon Jinn, er, whoever Liam Neeson is character is... and the mentor says to Bruce, "Your enemies will show no compassion," and Bruce replies, "That's why it is so important to have."

I have always maintained that a hero need to distinguish himself precisely in this way. The first Batman film shocked me when Batman killed the Joker. As a long time reader of comicbooks (though I'm mostly a Marvel girl, myself), I was very used to the idea that heros are not the killers. Villians (especially long time nemesises, like the Joker) come back and back and back because that's the line which is never crossed by a good guy... that's what makes our heros, well, heros.

Villians are supposed to live, stand trial, go to Arkham Asylum... just like Skywalker says they should.

Erotic Dark Fantasy: Things that Do More than Go Bump in the Night

Another stolen idea for a blog from Catherine Lundoff:

"Stories detailing the romantic and sexual relationships of vampires, werewolves and other critters have been popular for years and are only getting more so. What's the allure? Who does this well? Would you really want to do the nasty with someone who smells like a wet wolfhound?"

No, and I also wouldn't want to have sex with someone whose skin is dead... and cold.

I actually have my character in Tall, Dark & Dead talk about this. In Garnet's own words she says: "The fact remained that he was dead. As a doornail. And dating doornails was no fun. Trust me, I tried being with a dead guy once and it was miserable. I found that whole cold skin thing a big turn off in the bedroom. You can only do so many things in a hot bath or shower, and even then the heat didn't... well, penetrate, if you know what I mean."

This was one of those contemporary fantasy moments where the reality, if you will, of having sex with an animated corpse makes for a humorous reflection by the main character. I intentionally asked myself the question Catherine wants the panel to consider: what nitty-gritty, true-life details would you encounter if you took a supernatural being to bed?

I also have Garnet deal with the fact that vampires are nocturnal, and eighty percent (smaller? higher?) of the world is not. Like the majority of people, Garnet has a day-job. Dating someone who comes out after sunset is hell on one's sleep schedule. I know a lot of people who exist on very few hours of sleep at night, but I'm not one of those. Even though I can do short bursts of late-night living, I find I generally need to get eight hours of sleep (or more!) or I get really cranky. And, part of how I deal with writing contemporary fantasy is asking myself: what would it be like for me? Thus, Garnet ended up skipping a lot of work to nap.

The question is actually a gnarly one, because there is a kind of line you have to walk when you write fantasy. Getting the details "right" makes the story ring true, but if you were to say go into great detail about sleeping with a corpse you run the risk of losing a large percentage of your intended audience (minus, of course, the necrophilics.)

I guess the answer is to put in just enough to keep things real and willfully ignore the rest.

Van Helsing's Heirs

In keeping with my theme of 2006, this is another stolen discussion topic from the MarsCON programming ideas page. This one comes to us curtsey of Minneapolis/St. Paul writer Catherine Lundoff.

Catherine asks her panelists to consider these questions: Are slayers and hunters heroes or villains? Why do the vampires (or other critters) so often win in the end?

I think these are interesting thoughts because for me they tap in a question I asked myself at the very beginning of this blog: what on earth makes vampires so damned sexy?

Van Helsing should be the hero. I think when Dracula was first published in 1897, Van Helsing was meant a force of good in the novel. Dracula is a seductive evil that spoils the virtue of young Ms. Mina Murray (among others).

But when I review my memories of the novel, I can hardly give you any concrete impressions of Van Helsing's character. In fact I had to look up in Wikipedia to see if reading about him sparked anything. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Van_Helsing

Nope.

Dracula, however, is singularly memorable. The book is named after him, after all, and not for the slayer.

So, why isn't Van Helsing the hero?

I think that the problem comes from the fact that even at their most alien (when being cast as demons in "Buffy, the Vampire Slayer" or even as alternate species or space aliens) vampires are often depicted as very "human." In a way, they're kind of uber-human because they've left all the mundane trappings of life behind and have been reduced to humans at their essence (blood?) as hunter/predators (which we all know we are, deep in our hearts.)

And, as I've discussed previously, I find that kind of Romantic (with the capital R) vampire to be the most successful. A good hero needs a good villain. And, if the vampires are just mindless, hungry beasts, then their hunters might as well be shooting quail or ducks for all that the story interests me.

So the hunters have to be morally ambiguous. They're killers. And one of the big questions vampire literature asks us is -- aren't we all?

That's why the critters often get away in the end. It's a big, fat morality play in which two sides of the same dark coin are being played out. Van Helsing representing the "moral" killer, the one who kills for "justice" and with the trappings of the Church (crosses, holy water, etc.) vs. the unrestrained beastial passionate killer who feeds on others for self-serving, self-indulgent reasons.

Both are evil. But I think the modern reader comes to the self-righteous killers with a lot more baggage, a lot less willingness to forgive. He is the Inquisitor, the House Committee on UnAmerican Activities....

The vampire is just our passion -- our lust for life -- gone a little too wild.

The image for this post came from http://www.olemiss.edu/courses/engl205/dracdeath.html

Contemporary Fantasy -- Where Elves are Sexy

... and Available.

The title of this blog is taken from a list of programming ideas for Marscon. This particular idea was submitted by Minneapolis writer Paula Fleming.

Paula asks the panelists to consider this question: Contemporary fantasy often juxtaposes elements of old mythologies with cell phones and fast food. What do we find so compelling in this mix?

I thought I'd answer it here (and hopefully also on the panel.)

For me, the answer is: who doesn't want to meet an angel at McDonald's

Part of the reason I find "contemporary fantasy" or urban fantasy or paranormal romances so compelling is that, when done well, they give the reader the illusion of "it could happen."

Plus, I don't know about y'all, but I've spent a large part of my life in the realm of make-believe. When I was a kid, I chased my share of imaginary villains through the very real forests of Grandad's Bluff. But, then there was also... yesterday, when I was waiting in the doctor's office and I imagined what it would be like to be an international jewel thief. My imagination didn't switch off after I reached the age when it was no longer socially acceptable to play pretend in the woods with your school buddies. So, I guess the contemporary fantasy element appeals to the part of me that would STILL like those fantasies to be real, here, in my world.

Also, I think there's something inherently funny about an elf in a 7/11. I think that the format of the contemporary fantasy is one that allows us to look at both the mundane (the 7/11) in a new and possibly amusing way, but also to poke fun at all of the high fantasy stuff (the elf) we grew up reading. There's a lot of tongue-in-cheek that goes on in the works of, say, MaryJanice Davidson or Rachel Caine, like when your million year old djinn has to deal with... I don't know, pumping gas. It's not surprising to me that a lot of the popular contemporary fantasy is also intentially humorous and light.

It's funny because, in a lot of ways, the more ridiculous the situation, the more "real" the fantasy feels. This isn't always true, but I really enjoy it when, for instance, the vampires in the various chick-lit books I've read have to deal with the particulars of their existance. These kinds of questions (like how DOES a vampire get rich when he can only come out at night) obviously fascinate me (see several previous blogs). In fact, I find that the more those sorts of things are thought about and dealt with in contemporary fantasy the more the paranormal characters seem REAL.

And that appeals to my magical side, if you know what I mean.

If readers of this blog happen to be in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area on the weekend of March 3-5, 2005, they should check out Marscon's main web page for details.

A New Year of Reading

Instead of doing the usual post about books I enjoyed in 2005, I thought I'd put together a list of books I'm looking forward to reading this year.

WORLD-WIRED by Elizabeth Bear. I'm actually reading this book right now. It's the conculsion to Bear's Jenny Casey series that started with HAMMERED.

PLUTONIUM BLONDE and DOOMSDAY BRUNETTE by John Zakour and Lawrence Ganem. Both of which are the prequels to RADIOACTIVE REDHEAD, which I reviewed below. If you like fun, fast, and funny science fiction, then these books are for you.

WARCHILD and BURNDRIVE by Karin Lowachee. Dark SF. A worthy read, however.

POLARIS by Jack McDevitt. I don't know nothing about this bok except that Shawn recommended it to me.

And that's what's on the pile for now.

P.S. I resolve to be a better blogger in 2006.

I've been Tagged!

Michele Hauf tagged me, so I'm going play the game and her seven questions:

Seven Things to Do Before I Die:

(1)--Become a member of the exculsive University Club on Summit Avenue. (Really, all I need is money to join, so I guess "make some money" should really be the answer instead) and/or attend a "Renaissance Weekend."
(2)--Be a best-selling author.
(3)--Learn Gaelic
(4)--Win a Hugo
(5)--Punch or be punched by Harlan Ellison
(6)--Be asked to be a commencement speaker at my alma mater (either high school or college) and turn them down.
(7)--Edit my own science fiction/fantasy magazine.

Seven Things I Cannot Do

(1)--Spell "Cannot." (I always think it's can not.)
(2)--Read quickly. (I have mild dyslexia.)
(3)--Drive a motorcycle. (Though I'd like to).
(4)--Dance. (I do it anyway, but, really, anything that requires coordination is out of my league.)
(5)--Leave the table without one more taste.
(6)--Keep my mouth shut. (I love to argue. It's actually my religion -- I was raised Unitarian.)
(7)--Answer questions like this concisely.

Things that Attract Me to Men

(1)--The "ratio." (Shoulder to waist.) Like my character Garnet, I do so love that triangular shape.
(2)--A sense of humor. (Has to have one, to get along with me.)
(3)--Brains. I dated a "gnarly" California surfer boy once who was quite pretty in my opinion, but, really, at the end of the day I like them at least as smart as me, which isn't actually asking for a whole lot.
(4)--Hair. I'll admit it. I like a guy with good hair. It doesn't have to be long or short (or even there, a bald guy can be very hot), but I can't stand it when otherwise hot guys like Brad Pitt get what I call the stupid-boy cut. Do something intentional with your hair, guys. And for God/desses' sake, DON'T CUT IT YOURSELF. See a professional.
(5)--A sense of adventure. Even if he's an armchair warrior, I like that warrior.
(6)--Fearlessness. I want a man unafraid of love.
(7)--Fangs. Okay, not really, but I saw them, I'd be very, very intregued.

Seven Things I say Most Often

(1)--"Dude, get out of the way!" (While driving.)
(2)--"Oops."
(3)--"Wait, wait.... one more thing."
(4)--"Actually, if I may interject..."
(5)--"If I had a million dollars, do you know what I'd do?"
(6)--"Just once it would be cool to win." (While losing at Hearts or Mah Jongg or Scrabble or....)
(7)--"I love you, even though you vex me." (To Mason and my SO.)

Books or Series I Love

(1)--The Weather Warden Series by Rachel Caine
(2)--Wandering Stars: An Anthology of Jewish Fantasy and Science Fiction edited by Jack Dann.
(3)--Nueromancer by William Gibson.
(4)--The Retrieval Artist Series by Kristine Kathryn Rusch.
(5)--Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury.
(6)--The Marid Audran series by George Alec Effinger.
(7)--The Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evonivich.

Movies I Can Watch Over and Over

(1)--"Star Wars: A New Hope."
(2)--"Bladerunner."
(3)--"The Matrix."
(4)--"Pillow Talk"
(5)--"Ladyhawke."
(6)--"Lost Boys."
(7)--"Sprited Away."

People I Want to Join In (Tag You're It)

(1)--Naomi Kritzer
(2)--Peg Kerr
(3)--Any of the Vampire Vixens
(4)--Rachel Caine
(5)--Neil Gaiman
(6)--Sharon Stiteler
(7)--Will Clark

Another Good Book

I have another book to recommend. It's by Ann Tonsor Zeddies and it's called BLOOD AND ROSES: A JAYNE TAYLOR NOVEL. It comes out from Phobos Impact and it's a science fiction alternate history book, not unlike the Jay Lake book I talked about earlier. Only this one takes place in the Jazz Era. Bootlegging, Aliens, and "an insidious conspiracy involving the Empire of Japan." How can you go wrong?

You can't.