Chronicles Network: Science Fiction & Fantasy

Teresa Edgerton — Tue, 15 May 2012 00:18:49 +0000

THE OBJECT OF DESIRE — AN INTERVIEW WITH TANITH LEE

In a remarkable career, spanning four decades, Tanith Lee has written stories in practically every genre or subgenre of speculative fiction one could imagine: dark fantasy, children’s fantasy, gothic horror, steampunk, science fiction, mythic fantasy, sword-and-sorcery, fairy tales, contemporary fantasy … and the list goes on.

The Birthgrave, published in 1975, established her as a rising talent in the SFF field, was nominated for the Nebula award, and rescued her from a series of “stupid and soul-killing jobs” by allowing her to write full time. Since then, she has produced more than seventy novels and hundreds of short stories.

Known for her elegant and evocative prose, she was the first woman to win the BSFA award for best novel, and has twice won the World Fantasy Award for her short fiction.

With the publication of her short story collection Cold Grey Stones (NewCon Press, 2012), Ms. Lee kindly agreed to an interview conducted via email. The result is below.

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sffchronicles: You have said that you never know what you will write until you write it. Does this mean that you never plan ahead? Have some sort of idea where you want a story to go but leave the details to inspiration? Or that you make plans but are always ready to change them if a better idea comes along?

Tanith Lee: All of those. Sometimes there is only atmosphere, or a strongly — even vaguely — seen mental image, (as it was with The Birthgrave — and strong, this one: a white female-being curled up inside a waking, blood-red volcano. No more, no less). As I get into a book/story a certain amount of — not planning, more self-discussion and conjecture — occur, which are often immensely fascinating for me. Inspiration (or whatever it is) always supplies vast amounts of detail. Characters constantly arrive from ‘nowhere’. And in many scenarios the main character is the one who appears first and foremost, before any real aspect of the plot becomes at all clear. I can site Sabella in the latter case, also Esther and Judas Garber (Thirty-Four, Disturbed by Her Song) And very decidedly, Azhrarn, Prince of Demons, in the Flat Earth sequence. Though, in the instance of Azhrarn, of course, I already had the seed of the idea for the first story. Sometimes also my husband (writer/artist John Kaiine) will suggest a theme, twist, or whole plot. These are always striking and generally tempting, and I have assayed many, especially for shorter fiction — as endless ‘Thanks to JK’ credits show! The essential of the drowned mask in Faces Under Water (Venus Quartet) was his. Not to mention the overwhelming whale in the Lionwolf Trilogy. Speaking of Lionwolf incidentally, a medium told me I would write that. She said she saw snow and a strange moon, and a lion that was also a wolf. To which I found I added ‘and also a man… and a god.’ And there the 3 novels begun.

Occasionally, even before I start work, I have a definite outcome in mind — this is more usual for me when writing short fiction than with novels. But how I get there is by my constant method: I sit down with pen and paper ( I always write longhand — unreadable scrawl with the spelling skills of a year-old duck) and then I take the Dictation. And yes, also things can and do change. Sometimes I get the shock of my life ( another one, in writing it happens quite regularly) or am, as they say, ‘surprised by joy’. Now and then minor characters become major ones ( Guri in Lionwolf… the Pet in Don’t Bite the Sun), the wicked turn out to be innocent, the beautiful and good to be monsters, Heaven to be Hell, etc:—

sffchronicles: You have written most of your books in one draft, yet your prose is elegant and assured. Do you revise as you go along? Or does it simply come out of your subconscious fully formed? How much changes as the story you wrote out in longhand is typed into your computer?

Tanith Lee: Thank you! I do revise a little as I go along. When it flows, as a rule I don’t need to change more than perhaps the odd word or emphasis. Sometimes I need to add in a short passage, or remove ditto, or move an existing one up or down the line. Sometimes the scrawl is so uncivilized I realize even I won’t be able to translate it by the hour I again reach that point during typing, so I rewrite it slightly more legibly. As I type out the MS I may also change some small thing. Rarely does it amount to much. Now and then, luckily for me not often, I may struggle (at the longhand stage) over a tiny paragraph or piece of continuity. I’ve found, across time, (having been writing since 9, that’s roughly 55 years) that the best way here is to leave the wretched thing alone and go on regardless. Almost always, a while later on returning to the scene of the crime, I can sort it out in 10 minutes or less. Here and there I may, and have become, stuck. In some of the huger novels, especially the early ones, a certain amount of these stickings seemed very much in the nature of the beast. One swam, floated and flew for 150-200 pages — than ran into a granite mountainside. But by slow, persistent hacking with a mental axe, or scraping with a mental knife — or sometimes blowing the whole confounded mess up with mental high explosives — I’d eventually emerge into the light.

Worse by far than these hold-ups are, however, the very few novels/stories that simply would NOT start. A fine example of this is the first Piratica book. I’d engaged enthusiastically to write about pirates (there is another thing I need to add about this engaging-to-write business — I’ll come to that —). It was, though, to be a YA scenario. I don’t pull punches, whatever I write, but obviously in work for a younger audience, I firmly believe in keeping the worst sorts of violence off-stage. And so I had to face up to how difficult this would be, when dealing with some of the most blood-gulpingly ruthless and foul thieves on Earth. The book duly went into hiding. After about 5 false starts, (some of the material of which I was still able to use later in the book) my genius husband suggested (it’s by now fairly well known, so not too much of a spoiler, I hope) that with my heroine at least I could begin — not among throat-cutting crews, but with the talented actors who played them in The Theatre. (Actors are some of my favorite people). And inside a couple of days the book was off and sailing fast. Certainly, as it progressed, the real vile wickeds came in, but by then we all had our sea-legs, and there were, for me — as opposed to my characters — no problems at all.

My other comment on this is, though, that frankly I’ve always hated writing to order — that is from an already developed idea — and this is now, unfortunately, usually entailed in any sale which is obliged to include a (‘detailed’) synopsis. (I hate and resist synopses. They are, to me, chains. The only good synopsis, again for me, is the one prepared from an already completed work.) For this reason any pre-writing notes I offer a publisher carry the warning that ‘author may make changes’. And so Author does!

Yes, my work comes from somewhere or other that seems to have very little examinable relation to me either physically, or experience-wise. And I think I’ve established I prefer to be the bus, not the Driver. I am the vehicle, I take the Dictation, I gaze at the pictures appearing on my mind-screen, listen to the dialogue and the music, describe and report. For this reason I only deceive under instruction, where guided to, and never, therefore, lie. What I get I pass on. I’m a journalist — and I’ve been places even I, sometimes, can hardly credit.

sffchronicles: In a book like Venus Preserved where so many plotlines converge in such a complicated manner, was there any sort of rough outline, on paper, or in your head?

Tanith Lee: None. Pre-start, I knew this: Much of Venus was undersea and protected beneath an air dome: we would be dealing with the future. My leads were a male singer (Picaro) and a female gladiatrix (Jula). I was going to tackle the preposition of revitalizing the dead — which I’d already postulated the ill-advisedness of in a short SF story from the ’70′s, called The Thaw (published Asimov’s.) The book, too, had one strong connection back to the first novel of the Quartet. These are marker posts, obviously, not plotlines. (Near the end of the saga, which I admit I found extremely harrowing to write, I was startled out of my wits by the apposite revelation of the triple 6.) But really all this sort of thing is the typical Lee working day.

sffchronicles: Do you ever get the idea that your subconscious mind is running far ahead of you, working out different contingencies while you’re still in the early stages of a project?

Tanith Lee: Yes, I do, but I’m never entirely convinced it’s just my sub consciousness — although doubtless that will have its paws on the book as well. The inspiration and motivation seem to build from so many non-physical areas — genetics I never rule out, i.e. genetic memory — or those elusive yet maybe fundamental elements: World consciousness and Group awareness. What I call the boys and girls in the backroom backbrain. They take their very useful share of the work too, often bringing a needless flaw or error to my attention, or solving some obscure correlation of character action or psychology.

sffchronicles: For Cold Grey Stones, your new anthology, you wrote a story in four hours. Is it usual for you to complete a story in less than a day? And the stories you write at lightening speed, do you think that parts of them are already there in your subconscious, just waiting for the right story to come along?

Tanith Lee: On the speed — less often now than when I was younger, but as with the one you mention, it does still happen. This one came from ‘nowhere’ — as so many seem to — and again its last words surprised me, so I must conclude those backbrain boys and girls were on to it as soon as I was. It is a very short short though. Sometimes even when my writing gallops for me, sheer physical tiredness (not mental) makes me pause, or lay off till the next day. I think the most I ever wrote in 8-9 hours was a passage in Vazkor, Son of Vazkor (1st of the dual sequel to Birthgrave.) It amounted to about 17 long page-sides in rough — around 9-10 thousand words. But I was late twenties then. Now I judge my most recent bulk scribble was about 5-6 thousand words, in a contemporary novel, (due out late this year, I think, from Immanion: Ivoria). Some of these things do wait in the wings, very definitely, either on a scrap of paper with a tiny note, or title, or else unconsciously picked up from something or other I can usually, subsequently, identify. The Greyve— the story for Cold Grey Stones — didn’t relate to anything, so far as I know — aside from the collection’s title. But then, I might well be the very last to know…

sffchronicles: Are you ever intoxicated by words — your own or anyone else’s?

Tanith Lee: Regularly — by others. ( I read whenever I can, and some very wonderful writers.) With my own stuff I’m more often than not permanently intoxicated just by the sheer act of writing — the bus is allowed to be drunkenly happy with the drive. Sometimes a line, a phrase — more frequently the conjuring of an image seen by me, either in so-called real life, or on the inner screen, extremely excites and pleases me. I never feel these are mine — by which certainly I don’t mean I’ve stolen them from others. (Though for sure, reading geniuses can educate and enable any writer who is open to it.) It’s just that for a split second I feel This is it. Which, translated, is: This has caught some Essential — what I/we/the bus-Driver/s were after. It doesn’t intoxicate as such. It’s — like coming home.

sffchronicles: It seems that more and more of your novels and collections are published by the smaller presses. Do you feel that the smaller and newer presses allow you more freedom?

Tanith Lee: In many ways they do. Often they are run by writers themselves, and of high caliber. They know, of course, what writers hope for and try to accomplish, and exactly how they do NOT wish to be edited. An intelligent 2nd line editor is invaluable — one should always be one’s own 1st line editor. I have had the delight with working with 2 or 3 of these in the past, and now — with the writers I spoke of — very often. Even, once, one quite wonderful copy editor.

The good editors are gold. The rest… I rest my case.

sffchronicles: What made you decide to return to Vis and to the Flat Earth? To what extent do you think these new books will be continuations of the previous stories?

Tanith Lee: I don’t know yet. They are future projects, for which, nevertheless, I’ve had a hankering since the 1980′s. The Vis book sequel will also be a Birthgrave-Vazkor -White Witch sequel. How and why? Because I’d realized for some while, after completing both trilogies, that the albino Lost Race of The Birthgrave must also be the (firstly racially-abused and subsequently Fascistic) albino Amanackire of The Storm Lord etc: A strong clue lies in the absence of the colour green from the 3 Vis novels and an obsession of the Lost with all green stones, pre eminently jade, in the histories of Vazkor and his mother. (Backbrain on full power even back then, I think.) Other than these facts, I know really nothing of what will comprise the new linking book, though it has a working title: Sun in Amber, Moon in Jade.

On the Flat Earth, one of the proposed new books is a linked collection of (often long) short stories. This volume will be called, perhaps over-helpfully, The Earth is Flat. The last volume goes by the title of Earth’s Master. It will concern the final tussle — between all the earth’s most involved parties — gods, demons and mankind — for mastery of their world. The only thing I seem to know about this one is that the 5th Lord of Darkness has more than a mere cameo role. He has a sort of cameo appearance in Delirium’s Mistress, but no one — at least to me — claims to have spotted him. It will be intriguing to find out, ultimately, who did… Anyway, I shall see what exotic mayhem turns up once I sit down with the engine running.

sffchronicles: It provided an extra pleasure when reading your new anthology Cold Grey Stones to learn how diverse are the inspirations for the stories you write: a chance combination of words, an emotion you feel in the middle of the night, even an inanimate object. Even your first two published adult novels, The Birthgrave and Don’t Bite the Sun seem to have arisen from entirely different influences. Can you remember what those were?

Tanith Lee: The Birthgrave, as I mentioned, and have said in my intro to the new Norilana edition, came from the image of a pale female shape curled up inside an about-to-erupt volcano. The first paragraph was based on a strange awakening from sleep I myself experienced in my very earliest twenties. The image, particularly, stayed with me, a benign and enigmatic — yet insistent haunt. Once I’d sat down to it, there she was, Birthgrave’s heroine, white as ice, unknown to me as the back of the moon. But she told me, and let me ride in her cool, lovely, cruel, kind, longing and exiled brain. We rose from fire and from death, fell deep into the passions of love, raced the chariots, killed pitilessly in the black storm of war, worked miracles, bloomed, withered and regained our destiny. A breathlessly, astonishing journey for me, a 21-22 year old, usually totally at a loss in the ordinary world, but in her world, safely at large inside that colossal canvas, with a goddess as my guide. (Several dreams that came to me while I wrote this novel I put verbatim into the book — the girl in the pool, the winged men and women in the sky. Yes, in the dream I had wings too. I still recall what that was like.) Don’t Bite The Sun was written just a little earlier. I escaped from my limited and clerical-work-tormented life, to the Cities of the Fours. They started as a crazy letter to a friend, done as a mini-diary entry of a few pages that came to make up the first pages of the novel. And of course it was one heck of a first hook line. I let DBTS take over, and become. As with everything I write, it was just all there. It’s original title was Jang. But once the quote came in I knew that was the title. I can see certain (prior reading) influences too, from Aldous Huxley’s stupendous comedy of Horrors, Brave New World; and I think, Anthony Burgess’s ditto masterwork, A Clockwork Orange, threw a few levers as well.

sffchronicles: I won’t ask about any particular one of your short stories because they are so numerous, but I will ask if there are any recurring themes in your short fiction.

Tanith Lee: There must and will be. Many writers will have those. With me they are not truly conscious at the time of writing. (Here we go again.) And I do have the fairly universal obsessions with Love, Sex, and Death, common to writers of almost every ilk. I think the ‘Loner’, the exile or outcast — set apart for different reasons, but therefore ending up a Nation-of-One, is something I began with and always return to. I am a social animal, who likes people, but also I like lots of space and privacy — ie, Aloneness. And I do identify with the ones set — by themselves or others—quite apart. And this, unmatched to the rest of my personal trend, I recognized from early on. I like justice too, and Villainy suitably rewarded. The sorts of worlds and climates I tend to write about facilitate the violent and brutal measures that my characters often vengefully mete out. I also, again, not uniquely, seem to have a strong perchant for la femme- and l’homme -fatal. No doubt there are other recurrent themes, but as I’ve said, I swim in these seas, and analysis, though a lot of the fun for me, only occurs as a side effect, and that often only when asked.

sffchronicles: While we are on the subject of early influences: You have written stories where characters switch gender unexpectedly or where gender is ambiguous. I am reminded of Virgina Woolf’s Orlando. Have you read it? Did it provide inspiration for any of your own work?

Tanith Lee: Quite probably. I am a great admirer of Virginia Woolf. I read Orlando certainly, in the late 1980′s, and loved all of it. One of the best Total Transformations, too, the pure and unexplained simplicity of the switch. Orlando’s world seems to be a life that was so determined to experience both prime gender states, that reincarnationally easier modes (which would provide a childhood first, to relearn the modus operandi of an opposite sex) are cast aside. Now you are This; now That. Woolf was a major genius (still is, thank God, since her work still lives). I think she will have influenced, or helped to teach me various things as do all the greats I read, to the limit of my ability to learn.

But of course I was already instinctively into these games and challenges of being now-female, now-male etc:— Shakespeare had a major part in this too. He was and is one of my eternal loves, and his girls who dress as young men — Rosalind, Viola… et al — plus the young male actors (or normally young!) who firstly acted all his women — alerted me early on to the sensuous and intriguing dichotomy of me-as-thee and thou-as-I. Besides, anyway, I feel rather definitely that the animus — male aspect — guide of a woman, the anima — female aspect — guide of a man, are there apparent in any of us who are content to glance within ourselves. Also, if reincarnation is a fact we’ve all been both, and in all their permutations, many MANY times.

sffchronicles: Much of your work has a mythic quality, Greek, Roman, and Middle Eastern in particular. I have read that at one point you were quite enthralled with India, but have you made a study of these other mythologies or was the influence more indirect?

Tanith Lee: My mother had a fascination with and knowledge of the Dionysian, and a host of mythologies, (and religions). Most notably the Ancient Egyptian. She began my life-long quest for them, and later, inevitably, I read magical Graves, and certain portions of mystic writings, (such as the Upanishads.) Mine is a vastly imperfect and unfinished awareness, unfortunately. But my brush with such beauty and profundity has been monumentally inspiring, both in my books and in my dreams.

I fell madly in love with India in the early 1980′s (it really was like a sort of love-affair, the love object elusive yet kind.) I chose the best time, or it was luck — there was some type of ‘Indian Experience’ Celebration, and both radio and TV were rich with wonderful documentaries and extravaganzas — not to mention the extraordinary and exemplary films of Merchant-Ivory.

Myth in itself is altogether something that seems part of a real Real world. It is possible (encouraged?) to touch the edges of its cloak. Perhaps only the truly Wise-or silly, could dare much more.

sffchronicles: Most of your stories are dark, though sometimes there comes an unexpected moment of grace, a fortunate turn of events, or a bittersweet ending. Do the uplifting endings surprise you more than the tragic ones?

Tanith Lee: Well. Both can make me cry, (different genres of tears.) This less at the instant of delivery to the page, than on sitting back, or reading after. The ‘surprise’ is always an extra pleasure though. And if it’s a deliverance, I love it. I rejoice.

sffchronicles: Do you have any science fiction or futuristic fantasy coming out in the near future?

Tanith Lee: I do have a Science Fiction Collection coming out soonish from Aqueduct Press: USA. This contains some new short stories, and some older ones. They’re not, however, really of the same sort as either Sabella or Silver. I have, for some while, wanted to write a third book in The Silver Metal Lover sequence. The title: The Tin Man. But as none of the ‘Big’ houses are interested, I haven’t yet taken time to do it. For me, SF has always had to be about flesh and blood, that is, humanity. Or at least what is the best and worst of the human psyche and intent, even if translated through the medium of the android and/or robot. So no doubt however and whenever, there will be more takes on the theme.

sffchronicles: The Secret Books of Paradys and The Secret Books of Venus are marvelous reading simply for the stories, but there is also an added pleasure in discovering your alternate Paris and Venice. There is already short fiction about Petragrava, which I understand is an alternate Moscow. Can we expect novels to follow?

Tanith Lee: Petragrava is a parallel Moscow-St.Petersburg. The one existing example is a novella: Stringberg’s Ghost Sonata, published in the Ghost Quartet — SF Book Club of America. I’d love to write more on these lines, but there has been no encouragement and little time. Maybe, whenever, I can — ?

sffchronicles: Could you tell us something about At the Court of the Crow, which I’ve seen listed as dark fantasy coming out in 2012? Are there any other new novels coming out in 2012 that you would like to tell us about?

Tanith Lee: ATCOTC isn’t coming out in 2012 — or should NOT be. It is an unfinished work which was offered here and there as an example of the finished novel I wanted to write. Responses were negative or strangely confused. No one bought the work. And so far I haven’t completed it. It is, this one, an (to me) interesting and weird project. A rural place, feeling somewhat 1900, but where stars crash on the ground by night. Something apocalyptic happened, it seems, some years before, and civilization ground to a halt. There is the House, and the Town, and the Plain between, where you must Never venture after dark for fear of the peculiar and lethal creatures that teem there. And then the Old Man turns up, gorgeous of voice, unholy and persuasive of character. To the lonely, obscure young woman (oh, her again!) trapped in the house, with her cruel and ridiculous relatives, does he represent a way out, or the way… to Hell? Or both.

There are, though, other novels just out or due presently, from Immanion this year. They are part of what I’ve called my ‘Colouring Books’ series — dark, sometimes uncanny contemporary novels that are, I’d say, far more bizarre than much of my fantasy. To date, they list as: Greyglass. To Indigo. L’Amber. Killing Violets. With, to come: Ivoria. Cruel Pink. Also there is more Garber fiction (Gay/Lesbian) due from Lethe USA, and the dark fantasy collection from NewCon Press: Cold Grey Stones.

sffchronicles: Books like Vivia or the Lionwolf trilogy can leave readers emotionally exhausted, feeling that the sex and violence (and the violent sex) were more graphic than they actually were. Where these things are concerned, do you believe that skillful suggestion can be far more powerful than even the most detailed descriptions?

Tanith Lee: If skilful suggestion is what I am being ‘unconsciously’ directed to convey, then I’d hope it might. But to repeat myself I’m afraid, I don’t normally set out to use a design model or map for working. The Voice of the work will arrive, and I go with that.

Vivia is a book I, now, have a slight difficulty with. Intended as Horror, I was to a small extent working ‘to order’ — as Horror was what I’d been asked for. Obviously, if I hadn’t liked the genre/concept I’d have kept clear. (This has happened — I can’t do what I don’t like.) A lot of Vivia works for me, but some of the horror does seem, in retrospect, overloaded. In such a novel one needs only so much — ? Perhaps I was correct in skidding all the way down the slippery slopes I was being shown. But, my first line editor now, I would censor a little more than then I did. ( I don’t regret this; I did my best at that time. So long as I did that, for me, mistakes or oversights, are tolerable. Though of course not for anyone else who reads them, and quite right too.)

Conversely, and oddly(?) my enormous Horror epic The Blood of Roses is far more appalling — yet somehow, again for me, here the lavish and gory measures do work. I never got fully to check the proofs on this book, and a lot of printers’ and editorial errors never therefore got eliminated. Also some persons have formed (seemingly) wrong opinions about its underlying motif and aim. This annoys me — I have no quarrel with anyone’s disliking my work. I only dislike their disliking something in it which they have completely misunderstood.

I think the most terrifying ‘Horror Novel’ of mine was, for me, my historical, The Gods Are Thirsty, which concerns the French Revolution, and can indeed be classified as Horror. Blood everywhere, Terror everywhere, despair, broken hearts and dreams. And, as it really did happen, you can’t be surprised by a redemptive ending. The end was written on stone, and cut in place by the blade of a guillotine.

sffchronicles: It seems incredible that an author of your experience and standing is not able to sell books to major publishers simply on the basis of name recognition (not to mention a reputation for excellent work), but many publishers will only publish books that mimic the books that are putting up the biggest numbers right now. Considering your versatility, it is surely within your powers to write something that fits inside their current restrictive little box. Have you ever considered doing so?

Tanith Lee: No one, it seems, among the ‘Big’ houses, wants me to do anything at all for them, or remembers me, even when I remind them. (I have now and then tried to elicit a response. But, as in my early-mid-twenties, when I offered, for example The Birthgrave, if I get a reply it is No Thanks. A few are less polite. Plus a great deal of ungolden silence.) As for writing inside a box, there is one of my limitations. Unless the box entices me, I can’t do it. Very occasionally I’ve been offered one that did. For example I was invited to write a zombie short story for a very interestingly presented anthology, and wrote one with passion and suitable disturbed dismay. It had for me the ease I normally encounter when I write. But that was a one-off. (Zombie Apocalypse — 2011) Also I did a Romantic-Supernatural novella for Harlequin. I found this both alluring and an interesting discipline, and wrote the piece with dedication and enjoyment. I still like it, too. (Shadow Kissing — When Darkness Falls — 2003). Otherwise a couple of schemes I didn’t dislike nevertheless fell through. So, Fate, or ‘Big’ business, decrees my banishment. I do worry a bit, not just for my own work, but for new young fine and non-ghetto-minded writers trying to make their own break. But things go in cycles. The Market will open up again, in time for them, I hope, if not for some of the rest of us.

sffchronicles: So many of the elements that are hailed as groundbreaking in books being published now have been there in your stories since the 1970′s — though with greater authenticity, because they emerge from the plots and the characters. What is your reaction to the kind of fantasy that is most popular now?

Tanith Lee: Again, thank you. I’m afraid I read very little among modern fantasy and SF and Horror — aside from work by certain friends whose books are heart-liftingly excellent. However, I never did read too much any more inside these genres once I had started to write in them — again aside from certain firm favourites. This was and is partly self-protective. I don’t want to find, say, (as you have seemed to) that someone else has come up with a similar thesis to one of mine from way back. And I don’t want to be influenced, either — one can’t always avoid bits rubbing off. My gods were/are Bradbury, Leiber, Vance, Sturgeon, Ballard, Le Guin. Luckily they seem still respected as they should be. (Though I wish more people would recall how astonishing were/are the novels of Jane Gaskell — particularly the Atlan books, The Serpent and so on). Therefore of today’s trends I am mostly ignorant, and can’t make a comment.

sffchronicles: Which authors have influenced or inspired you the most?

Tanith Lee: Those listed above. And earlier and elsewhere — ie. Shakespeare, Virginia Woolf… If I ran the whole list it would perhaps be a book in itself. But certain writers and playwrights have dominion: Chekov, Ibsen, Strindberg, Pinter, Turgenev, Bunin, Dickens, James, Rosemary Sutcliffe, Mary Renault, Jean Rhys, John Fowles, Rebeccah West, Elizabeth Bowen, Graham Greene, John Le Carré ( to whom I was recently converted and who I now adore), the Bróntes, E.M. Forster, Maugham, Isabelle Allende, Margaret Atwood, Angela Carter, Ruth Rendell, Laurence Durrell, Elroy Flecker, Ted Hughes, Blake — I must stop!

sffchronicles: What book lost or non-existent would you like to read?

Tanith Lee: Oh, more than one. For example: 1) Written but unobtainable — Most of the works of Ivan Bunin — who despite being a prose-poet and genius, and having won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1933, is hardly to be found in translation in the west. 2) Probably unlikely — Anything extra that Jane Gaskell might ever write. 3) Psychic Alert — Dicken’s own version of the end of Edwin Drood, which he died before finishing. And others, lots of them.

sffchronicles: Do you have any advice for new young writers — or new old writers for that matter?

Tanith Lee: Write, that is the main advice. Write and read and watch movies and listen to music — or any of these — or other — you like; they will feed the flame. Meanwhile don’t let anyone — or thing — stop your writing. Resist adverse criticism unless it chimes — not with your own unsureness — but with your coolest analytical personal feelings as your own first line editor. Even then, be careful. You can, sometimes, be your own worst judge in the matter of inadequacies. Remember, your work may have flaws — but they won’t prevent its being damn good. (Emeralds have flaws.) If you get the chance, publish. If, for now at least that chance is evasive, continue to write for yourself, while expecting and believing that eventually you will be published. Trust what inspires you and drives you. A very great mystic, known as A.E. , suggested that what we normally call a ‘Gift’ in any field or area, is in fact a reward for some excellence in a previous life, or elsewhere. Believe in your self and your powers — something (and who knows what?) already seems to have done so.

sffchronicles: Do you listen to music as you write, and if so, what is your preferred “writing music”?

Tanith Lee: Not normally as I write (though a solitary exception was the 2nd Movement of Beethoven’s 7th Symphony, played continuously as I worked on Camille Desmoulins’ pamphlet France Set Free for The Gods Are Thirsty.) But I do anyway at other times, and quite often a particular piece of music, from a song to a symphony, will for me associate itself with a particular book or story. Shostakovich’s 5th Symphony inspired many scenes in Anackire; Saint-Saéns Agnus Dei from the Requiem brooded over the last page of all in Venus Preserved — if I reread the book, I always replay this piece immediately on finishing; the entire ballet music from Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet burned throughout my Romeo and Juliet retelling: Sung in Shadow; Sting’s song Valparaiso assisted me with the end sections of Piratica. And on, and on…

sffchronicles: What are you reading now?

Tanith Lee: collection of Bunin, so darkly beautiful — and the last piece I have of his. And I just finished Jeanette Winterson’s 1st class autobiography Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? It reveals, yet again, what an extraordinary woman she is.

sffchronicles: As a reader, what makes you reluctant to keep on reading?

Tanith Lee: Not connecting with or becoming fascinated by any of these three: Prose, characters or storyline. This is caused, generally, by the reader’s — in this instance my — own preferences. Sometimes one senses that if one persists it may get better — or even amazing — so I keep going, which has often proved rewarding. I usually try to persist to at least page 100 — unless the whole thing makes me sick.

sffchronicles: What makes you eager to keep on reading?

Tanith Lee: Same: Prose and/or characters/storyline. I list, in both categories — eagerness or repulsion — the most important elements in order of lose-Lee or grab-Lee value.

sffchronicles: Are there any new authors that you would like to recommend?

Tanith Lee: Ivan Bunin — though he’s hardly ‘new’ — but he was new to me until a couple of years back. His work concerns many places, including a vanished Pre-Revolution Russia, and varieties of people portrayed with a perfection of lightness and depth. A unique and beautiful Master. Out in the contemporary SF/Fantasy tumult, established but still among the younger team: Liz Williams, Storm Constantine, Ian Whates, Leigh Kennedy, Neal Asher, Craig L. Gidney, Sarah Singleton, Chaz Brenchley. Also Vera Nazarian — Lords of Rainbow in particular, a stunning idea, fabulously employed — a book to submerge in!

sffchronicles: You are so prolific; how many hours a day do you write?

Tanith Lee: As in my earlier answer, I find physically I can’t or don’t want to push my body to put in quite so much now. When I was in my thirties, and lived happily alone in a tiny house with my batchelor-girl cat, I’d think nothing of encompassing 9.30 a.m. till 6.30 p.m., with a lunch-break, and going back from, say, 9 p.m till midnight — or, now and then, 4 in the morning. And this would be around 6 days a week. Now I start about 11 or 12 in the morning and continue till about 5 or 6 evening-wise, and that seldom every day; plus tea-breaks and lunch-breaks are generally longer, and sometimes also include socializing or an hour’s read or CD concert after lunch. Very seldom either do I return to work post dinner. That’s reading or DVD or radio time, or sometimes early-going-to-bed-as-worn-out. There are also excursions and general companionship with partner and friends, which pleasantly intervene, of course. When work is flowing though, which it still does as a rule, I can clock up quite a lot inside the shorter perimeters. I love working. If anything, I’ve come to love it more and more. And when you’re in love, you just want to spend as much time as you can, and experience as much intensity as you’re able with the object of desire. Simple as that.

Photo credit John Kaiine

Review: Best Served Cold by Joe Abercomrbie

Brian Turner — Fri, 11 May 2012 23:44:25 +0000

Joe Abercrombie’s “Best Served Cold” is a standalone novel set in the same world established in his “First Law” trilogy.

Therefore if you’ve read that, some of the references and characters may be familiar. If not, you’re in for a treat anyway.

The whole story is based on a plot of vengeance, which is established in the first scene of the book.

And then, slowly, a group of characters come together in which to ensure this is carried out.

At first, it looks all too predictable – band of adventurers, a clear mission, and over the first few chapters, a sense of a clearly defined structure that will trundle along until conclusion.

Even more striking, those who have read the First Law trilogy may be unsettled by the familiarity of the archetype base for this merry band of aventurers: a rugged northerner looking to be a better person; a cold-blooded female warrior, a dandy swordsman, a master magician, a cripple …

Such comparisons soon become superficial, and just as happened in the First Law trilogy, Joe Abercrombie sets up a seemingly predictable situation – and then proceeds to make it unpredictable.

Chapter by chapter, the story evolves, the characters develop, and surprises occur. The plot moves away from initial safe presumptions and ensures a deeper and much richer work.

By the end of the novel, it feels as though the wheel of expectation has been thoroughly turned. What began as a simple-looking story has been turned completely on its head by the end.

Unlike the First Law trilogy, this book has some notable strengths:

- as a standalone novel, it’s concise and tells a full tale in just one book,
- the characterisation is very differentiated and frankly very well done,
- the storytelling begins with a simple precept, and turns it into a more complex development.

At times, the story does sometimes hang a little too grim, even a little too gratuitous with violence and gore. That’s Abercrombie, really.

Yet it is also comedic, in a dark and dangerous way that verges on the cartoonish at times. Sometimes the authors tongue is so much in their cheek you wonder if he isn’t toying with you.

The mixture of grim reality and dark humour with an intelligent plot manages to ensure it is both entertaining and gripping.

The main criticism is that while Joe Abercrombie’s writing tries to bring a sense of reality to his world, it feels like it is only just starting to develop properly – that the realism in the narrative has yet to be matched by the realism of the world building, not least when it is graced by small anachronisms that divorce it from the historical mediaeval reality.

Even this isn’t enough to distract from the story itself, and there is detail enough that clearly elevates Best Served Cold above the hideous twee fantasies that the fantasy genre has been subjected to for far too long.

Ultimately, this book is about exploring the human condition, not least the complexities o moral development, in a fantastical setting with mediaeval roots, and it works very well.

And as a wordsmith Joe Abercrombie is really starting to distinguish himself: there are some truly brilliantly sections of writing in this.

Overall, this is a compelling novel with compelling characters, that while takes a while to demonstrate it’s potential, it makes every effort to fulfill it, mostly with grand success.

For discussions on Joe Abercrombie, see our Joe Abercrombie forum.

Embassytown, China Miéville

Ian Sales — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 13:13:15 +0000

Embassytown, China Miéville
2011, Pan, 405pp, £7.99

There can be little doubt that China Miéville’s is currently the poster boy for British genre writing. His novels routinely appear on award shortlists – he has won the Arthur C Clarke Award three times, a feat so far unmatched. He’s one of the few genre writers to appear at mainstream literary conferences, or to write on non-genre topics in national newspapers. As a result, any new novel by Miéville is a) going to raise high expectations, and b) be widely praised anyway.

Because, let’s face it, if Embassytown had appeared in the 1970s, it would have raised few eyebrows. Perhaps it delves into its central conceit a little more than books of that decade generally did, but when a book puts a reader in mind of titles such as Norman Spinrad’s The Void Captain’s Tale, Vonda N McIntyre’s Superluminal, Ian Watson’s The Embedding and Ian Watson and Michael Bishop’s Under Heaven’s Bridge, it’s hard not to conclude it has appeared some forty years too late.

Which is not to say Embassytown is a bad book. Far from it. It’s a well-written, intelligent, thought-provoking and involving piece of science fiction. It simply feels a little past its sell-by date. Perhaps its current stature – it is already on the BSFA Award shortlist, and is a favourite for the Clarke Award shortlist – is in part a reprisal of M John Harrison’s Light. When that book appeared in 2002, it was seen by many as Harrison validating heartland science fiction (the book went on to win the BSFA Award and appear on the Clarke Award shortlist). Perhaps Embassytown is perceived as Miéville validating heartland sf for the current generation of readers.

None of which actually says anything about the novel itself. Like Miéville’s other novels, Embassytown is about a city – the eponymous city. This is an enclave within an alien city on the world Arieka, somewhere on the outskirts of human-colonised space. The Ariekans, known by the Embassytowners as Hosts, are mysterious and ineffable. They have two mouths, and their languages is built around this double-speech. Even more importantly, the Hosts cannot abstract. They can only describe what is. To use a simile, the action or object referenced must have at some point happened. Like Avice, the book’s protagonist, who is “the girl in pain who ate what was given her”. As a result of the Hosts’ inability to use symbols, they can only speak the truth.

Avice proves to have a talent for “immersing”, ie, operating starships as they travel through the strange ur-space which connects worlds. (This space is called the immer, which is German for “always”; and the real universe is the manchmal, German for “sometimes”.) Avice travels throughout human-populated space, experiencing new worlds and alien cultures, before eventually returning home… with a linguist husband in tow. This forms the first third of the novel.

The remainder of Embassytown describes Avice’s experience on Arieka after everything changed. Important to relations with the Hosts are the Ambassadors. Because Language (as the Ariekan language is called) can only be spoken with two mouths, each Ambassador is actually two people. But they must think and speak as one, and so are clones trained from birth for the role. The need for such people depends upon one vital characteristic of the Hosts. They cannot recognise as Language anything spoken by something that is not sentient, no matter how phonetically accurate or syntactically correct. So a translation device is impossible. Ambassadors have names such as CalVin (Cal and Vin), MagDa (Mag and Da), and so on.

When the Ambassador Ezra arrives on Arieka from Bremen, the world which administers Arieka (Embassytown is its colony), their appearance provokes a shock. Ez and Ra are not identical. They are two entirely different people. Yet when they speak Language, the Hosts understand them. This should not be possible – two unrelated people should not be able to mimic a single mind when speaking Language. Worse, whenever EzRa speaks some dissonance in their voices and/or empathic connection acts as an addictive drug on the Hosts. The aliens become hooked on Ezra’s words, irrespective of content. Ariekan society begins to break down…

The concept of a race whose language concepts must be concretised is fascinating. It’s is the (now discredited) Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis taken to the nth degree. That states, roughly, that if a concept cannot be framed in a language, it cannot be conceived by the language’s speakers. For Language, if a concept cannot be manifested in the real world, then it cannot be described and so is beyond comprehension. The need for speakers of Language to be sentient in order for the Hosts to understand them, however, is a bit of wibbly-wobbly authorial hand-waving. For one thing, Embassytown‘s plot depends on recordings of Ambassadors speaking Language being as effective as their speech in person – which does not logically follow.

Avice the protagonist is extremely well-drawn, and her place in the story makes perfect sense. Miéville also captures the sense of an expatriate enclave within a foreign culture quite well. The Hosts are intriguingly enigmatic, without being so alien they are nothing but ciphers. Perhaps the resolution of the novel, the solution to the problem presented by EzRa, relies a little too heavily on further hand-waving, but it is effective all the same. Having said that, the secret history of the Ambassadors I found a little flat – the existence of “failures”, and their subsequent treatment, should, I think, have been more shocking than it came across.

Embassytown feels a little old-fashioned, in the way that science fiction novels written by literary authors encroaching on science fiction often do. Yet it also reads like a novel written by a genre insider. It is good because of that literary dimension, but it is also very good in its deployment of genre tropes. It’s just a shame those tropes feel somewhat dated and well-used. I’m going to stick my neck out and say I don’t think Embassytown will be on this year’s Clarke Award shortlist.

300 Word Challenge #4

Teresa Edgerton — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 23:29:04 +0000

Forum member Teresa Edgerton is the winner of our January 300 Word Writing Challenge.

She wins a £10 voucher to spend at The Book Depository, our quarterly prize.

As usual, the challenge our members faced was to write a story of no more than 300 words, inspired by an image selected by our moderators.

For January, this was the inspiration, and Teresa’s story appears after.

*****

AMID THE COLD OF WINTER

It was a difficult climb stumbling up the hill. Esther’s legs already ached. But the children had said, “A Christmas tree down in old Mr. Spangler’s meadow.” She’d come to humor them. Where did they even get the idea? There had been no Christmas trees, no Christmas, no celebrations of any sort since she was a child and everyone had finally realized that Earth had forgotten them.

Forgotten this ball of mud and ice circling Bettelheim’s Star. The supply ships that used to come regularly had stopped. No one knew why. War or environmental disaster, maybe. What did it matter? The colony had troubles of its own. The native vegetation was inedible and the climate was changing for the worse. Under the thin cloud cover, the crops they’d been growing in vast greenhouses were fewer and sicklier. Two years, maybe three, that was all the time they had left.

Damn it, the grade was too steep. It seemed she could hardly get enough air in her lungs, but the children had no trouble. They ran ahead, laughing and calling back to her, “Grandma, hurry.” The thought of their certain disappointment when they discovered their mistake made her heart hurt. She remembered a line from an old book, “Always winter and never Christmas.”

But she crested the hill and there it was in the meadow below: Not quite the right shape — sleeker and more slender — but silver as the tinsel trees she remembered, and glowing with lights. Tears filled her eyes; the breath caught in her throat. A door had opened at the base of it, and out stepped three figures all in glittering silver.

Three men who followed the light of a star, and came bearing gifts.

Photo credit: NASA/Carla Cioffi

Leviathan Wakes, James SA Corey

Ian Sales — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 14:12:20 +0000

Leviathan Wakes, James SA Corey
Orbit, 561pp, £12.99

Leviathan Wakes, the first book of the Expanse series, landed with a substantial thud during the summer of 2011. According to George RR Martin, it is a “kickass space opera”, a quote prominently displayed on the front cover. There is another approving quote by Charles Stross on the back. It received good reviews on a number of websites, and every book shop in the land boasted large numbers of the novel on their shelves.

And why not?

Space opera is popular at the moment. Further, the publishers have made no secret of the fact Corey is a pseudonym shared by Daniel Abraham, whose fantasy novels have been well received, and Ty Franck, George RR Martin’s assistant. Leviathan Wakes is a sf novel which should do well.

So it comes as a crushing disappointment to discover that Leviathan Wakes is completely regressive. It’s written as if British New Space Opera never happened. It reads like the sort of space opera prevalent in the late 1980s and early 1990s, with all the attitudes and sensibilities implicit in that. The world has moved on since then; the world of Leviathan Wakes has not.

Much has been made in reviews of the level of world-building in Leviathan Wakes, and for good reason. The two authors spend much of the early part of the novel setting out the Solar System they have built for their story. Unfortunately, it’s far from convincing. We’ll ignore for the moment the traditional science fiction approach to space travel used throughout the book, despite it being set less than two hundred years from now and trying for a realistic hard sf feel. It’s the societies in the Asteroid Belt with which I have the biggest problem.

There are some 150 million people living in the Asteroid Belt. The greatest concentration is six million in the tunnels inside the dwarf planet Ceres. There is no diversity. There is passing mention of nationalities other than the authors’ own – and a bar the characters frequent plays banghra music – but the viewpoint cast are American in outlook and presentation. Ceres itself is like some inner city no-go zone, with organised crime, drug-dealing, prostitution, under-age prostitution, endemic violence against women, subsistence-level employment… Why? It’s simply not plausible. Why would a space-based settlement resemble the worst excesses of some bad US TV crime show? The Asteroid Belt is not the Wild West, criminals and undesirables can’t simply wander in of their own accord and set up shop. Any living space must be built and maintained and carefully controlled, and everything in it must in some way contribute. A space station is much like an oil rig in the North Sea – and you don’t get brothels on oil rigs.

Further, what does all this say about gender relations in the authors’ vision of the twenty-second century? That women still are second-class citizens. One major character’s boss is a woman, and another’s executive officer is also female. But that female boss plays only a small role, and everything the XO does she does because she has the male character’s permission to do so (and it’s not even a military spaceship).

For the past twenty years, British space opera writers have been putting diversity, gender equality and some degree of realism into their space opera. They kept the Big Dumb Objects and the gosh-wow special effects, but they stopped treating women like part of the hero’s equipment. They created characters from cultures other than their own, and made an effort to present them authentically. They created space opera universes that were as diverse as our own world is now – if not more so. Leviathan Wakes is a step backwards. It is Old Space Opera, with all the criticisms that implies. Of course, it doesn’t goes so far as to have EE ‘Doc’ Smith’s planet of evil naked lesbians who only need the love of a good man to become useful members of the galactic “fraternity”, but in this day and age its world-building is no less regressive.

As for the plot… it has its moments, but it too hinges on an action which is so unbelievable, so difficult to swallow, despite repeated protestations in the prose itself, that suspension of disbelief is entirely lost. In a nutshell, two separate and different characters – a hard-boiled cop and an idealistic spaceship captain – stumble across a conspiracy, which subsequently triggers a war between Mars and the Asteroid Belt. The conspiracy centres around the discovery of a “protomolecule” (whatever that might be), which proves to be an alien invader from two billion years previously and which can infect, subsume and re-build human tissue – a sort of cross between The X-Files black oil and Lovecraft. The two protagonists eventually discover that behind all this is a corporation, which has been testing the protomolecule on unsuspecting human guineau pigs. A methodology which culminates in the deliberate infection of the one and half million inhabitants of the asteroid Eros.

I don’t believe it for an instant. There is no situation in which a corporation could plausibly consign so many people to a fate worse than death in the name of research. But just look at history, some people will say. It has happened in the past – in Nazi Germany, for example. Except history is not just a narrative of past events, it is also a learning process. We realised that slavery was morally wrong, for example, and we outlawed it. And two hundred years from now, if we are capable of building a space-based civilisation, we will have certainly learned that such actions as described in Leviathan Wakes are so wrong they are unthinkable.

Given all this, it seems churlish to complain that Leviathan Wakes‘ presentation of space travel and spacecraft owes far too much to present-day naval ships and not enough to what it might actually be like. While Abraham and Franck get the physics mostly right, it’s all far more like traditional science fiction than the story’s purported setting suggests. Even though a little authenticity in this area wouldn’t have impacted the “alien zombies in space” plot.

Most definitely not recommended.

The next book in the series, Caliban’s War, will be published June this year. I will not be reading it.

All Zombies Must Die hits the Xbox

Darren Allan — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 17:42:33 +0000

At the weekend, All Zombies Must Die was unleashed on Xbox Live.

As you can probably guess from the title, this is a rather tongue in cheek game developed by Doublesix with a focus on multiplayer zombie slaying.

Set in the town of Deadhill, All Zombies Must Die offers a huge variety of weapons (such as Odin’s Toothpick Katana and the Dragon’s Breath Shotgun) in a four player twin-stick shooter with persistent RPG elements.

This is arena combat but with added questing elements, plus character levelling and weapons crafting too.

The quest plots are described as “insane”, the zombies plentiful and “terrifyingly funny” being rendered in cartoon style graphics.

Improvising with your weapons and using the environment to help kill the undead shufflers is all part and parcel of this hybrid action RPG.

In a press release, Doublesix noted that: “Zombies can be shot, slashed, blasted, blown up, electrocuted, torched, irradiated and zapped in a number of horrifying and hilarious ways, causing them to drop useful items like ammo, armor and hamburgers.”

Would you eat a hamburger dropped from a fetid Zombie’s pocket? No, us neither.

All Zombies Must Die is available now for 800 MS Points, just under £7.

Solaris Rising, edited by Ian Whates

Ian Sales — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 14:43:46 +0000

Solaris Rising, edited by Ian Whates
Solaris, 325pp, £7.99

Subtitled “The New Solaris Book of Science Fiction”, Solaris Rising is precisely that – a reboot of the George Mann edited The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction under a new editor, and an anthology of nineteen stories by well-known contemporary science fiction writers. And like any anthology, especially one without a theme, the book stands or falls on the stories contained therein. Whates clearly has a light hand when it comes to editing, and the stories in Solaris Rising cover a wide range of science-fictional modes and approaches.

Alastair Reynolds, for example, does what Alastair Reynolds does best, and in ‘For the Ages’ he has vast distances, deep time… and a story very much focused on the personal level. Likewise, Ian Watson remains true to form with an energetic tale of marooned astronauts on Mars being returned to Earth by a flying saucer and ending up living in a Spanish Wild West tourist attraction. Stephen Baxter’s ‘Rock Day’ suffers from being half set-up and half explanation, though it is affecting. Paul di Filippo provides one of the highlights in ‘Sweet Spots’, with a story of a high school student with a strange talent, though its ending pushes the central conceit a little too far. Ian McDonald’s ‘A Smart Well-Mannered Uprising of the Dead’ impresses with its local colour, though you have to wonder if the satire would have had more bite if it had been set in the West rather than an African nation – though, to be fair, it’s predicated on local culture, so perhaps it wouldn’t have worked otherwise. Dave Hutchinson tells Dr Manhattan’s story in ‘The Incredible Exploding Man’ and, while it’s done well, you have to wonder why. Adam Roberts’ ‘Shall I Tell You The Problem With Time Travel?’ is another of the anthology’s best, turning on a neat conceit, and though a not entirely serious treatment, it makes some serious points.

Ken MacLeod’s alternate history, ‘The Best Science Fiction of the Year Three’ pulls a rabbit out of a hat in the last paragraph, but it’s more the world it describes than the core idea that entices. Stephen Palmer’s ‘Eluna’ reads like an excerpt from a longer piece and suffers as a result, but the world it describes is interesting and worth a longer visit. Jack skillingstead’s ‘Steel Lake’ is among the least science-fictional in Solaris Rising but its tale of the side-effects of an anti-sleep drug are done well. Steve Rasnic Tem’s ‘At Play in the Fields’, set in a future Earth in which aliens hunt through the ruins of human cities I thought less successful. And Mike Resnick and Laurie Tom’s story of the Chinese-American captain of an interstellar mission trying to hang onto her culture, ‘Mooncakes’, is trite and old-fashioned.

Richard Salter’s time-slip serial killer in Brighton is effective, although as a mystery it’s not entirely satisfactory – but then the sf/crime story is an odd mix that rarely gels. After all, sf needs things to be explained, but crime prefers to hide things in order to delay the resolution of the central mystery. Lavie Tidhar’s ‘The Lives and Deaths of Che Guevara’ is the Boys from Brazil meets the boy from Argentina, and a clever piece about rebellions. Tricia Sullivan’s ‘The One That Got Away’ is opaque and set in a very strange world. I’m not sure how successful it is. Pat Cadigan’s ‘You Never Know’, however, is very much set in the world we know, and leads up to an affecting ending.

Jaine Fenn’s ‘Dreaming Towers, Silent Mansions’, another of the stronger stories, opens traditionally enough with a team exploring an alien city, only to turn strange and unexpected towards the end. Equally traditional is Keith Brooke and Eric Brown’s ‘ Eternity’s Children’, in which a guilt-ridden protagonist finds redemption in the forgiveness of others – in this case, the short-lived inhabitants of the planet which produces the longevity drug that makes the rest of the universe near-immortal. Finally, Peter F Hamilton’s ‘The Return of the Mutant Worms’ closes off the anthology in amusing fashion, with a tongue-in-cheek look at the author’s own career – the reference to “the best known name on the slush pile” was one applied to Hamilton himself by the editors of Interzone twenty years ago. It provides a perfect end to the book.

If there’s anything that characterises Solaris Rising it’s that most of the contributors have done what they do well. Few seemed to have moved far from their comfort zones which, I suppose, a themed anthology might have encouraged them to do. This is not a criticism, just an observation – after all, the authors in Solaris Rising are good at what they do, and they’re known for being good at what they do. It would be foolish to expect them to do something different. Despite this, the contents of Solaris Rising are varied – in mode and topic, and, it must be admitted, in quality and enjoyableness. But that is the nature of the beast.

There are those who think the short story is dying out, but the current plethora of genre anthologies and magazines put the lie to that. However, most of those anthologies are published by small presses, which means ones such as Solaris Rising are important in getting the word about short fiction’s health out there. Solaris Rising is a strong debut to what I hope will become a series.

Raam’s Shadow DLC out for Gears of War 3

Darren Allan — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 16:40:17 +0000

Gears of War fans should be sprinting to their Xbox, MS points in hand, because a new batch of DLC has been released for the game.

Raam’s Shadow is, in fact, the biggest add-on ever to be released in the history of the Gears of War franchise.

The new mini-campaign is around three hours in length, on average, and is available now on Xbox Live for 1200 MS points (around a tenner).

Raam’s Shadow is the second major dollop of DLC for Gears of War 3, and it lets the player fight on both sides of the Locust war.

It features a new gears outfit known as Zeta Squad who are attempting to evacuate Ilima City and protect its inhabitants from a Locust Kryll storm.

As well as organising and fighting with Zeta Squad, players will also get to strap on General Raam’s combat boots, and storm a human stronghold to find out what life is like on the other side of the Gears coin.

The downloadable content also features more than just the campaign, with an additional “chocolate” weapon set (designed for heavy blasting action and then a tasty treat), six new multiplayer characters including Raam, and a helping of fresh achievements to the tune of 250 gamerscore.

If you’re intending to buy the works in terms of Gears DLC, it might be worth considering the season pass which costs 2400 MS points, but gives you the first four add-ons at an effective third-off discount.

Two lost Doctor Who episodes returned to BBC

Darren Allan — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 12:01:51 +0000

If you’re a Doctor Who fan – and one of the true variety who has all the old black and white episodes on DVD, still watching them regularly – then some exciting news has emerged.

Two episodes from the sixties which were thought to be lost have been discovered and returned to the BBC, meaning we should hopefully get to see them soon.

Back in the sixties, TV shows weren’t kept archived as tapes were reused due to their expensive nature.

However, some programmes were recorded to film and sent abroad as Doctor Who was screened worldwide, and it’s a couple of these which have found their way back to the Beeb.

They were actually bought by a retired broadcast engineer at a school fête, of all places, way back in the eighties. He hadn’t realised the significance of them, and that they’re probably the only copies left, until now.

The two episodes in question are from 1965 and 1967, and they star William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton respectively, the first two actors to play the Doctor.

Unfortunately the episodes aren’t standalone, but are both part of a series.

The 1965 programme is part three of a four episode run entitled Galaxy Four, and the 1967 show is the second part of a two parter, so at least that has the conclusion to the story – which apparently involves unconvincing fish men and a plot to drain the ocean into the core of the Earth.

Sounds like classic Who indeed!

Over a hundred episodes that were broadcast in the sixties are still missing. Perhaps they’ll turn up one day, too.

World Building for Fantasy Novelists — No, your characters *aren’t* in a play

Teresa Edgerton — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 00:55:10 +0000

The following is based on discussions on these forums and materials I have prepared for clients, but I am, I think, bringing all of it together for the first time. Though it is principally addressed to fantasy writers, it applies to science fiction, too.

ON WORLDBUILDING

Back in the days of my youth, I used to spend a good deal of my time in costume: because I was involved in my local Renaissance and Christmas fairs, because I was active in the SCA, and because … well, because I was just the kind of person who liked to run around in costume. I rather wish I was that kind of person still, because it was good, harmless fun. A common question in those days was, “Are you in a play?” It was with a great deal of weariness (because the question had been asked and answered so many times already) that I would say, “No, I’m not in a play.” But though I was not in a play, I was play-acting, and one of the things I had to learn when I started writing seriously was that my characters were neither acting in a play not play-acting. I had to learn the difference between a backdrop and an invented world with depth and texture. Here is a distillation of what I’ve learned on the subject.

Some writers seem to skip over the worldbuilding entirely and content themselves with an odd amalgam of our modern era and the Middle Ages or a future world that is oddly similar to our own (everyone wears jeans and leather jackets). On the other hand, some spend so long building their worlds, they never get around to writing their stories. There is a middle ground, and it is an extensive one, where each writer may find a place that is comfortable, yet give readers all that they need to visualize the invented world.

Much of this article will concentrate on description: not only how it reveals your world to your readers, but how you can use it to generate insights that may help you add depth and texture to the world you are in the process of building.

Rule number one (and you will find this mentioned again and again in this article) is make the details specific. In general, a few specific, concrete, or tangible details sprinkled in along the way will allow readers to build up their own picture of a person, a place, or a culture. If characters are invited into a cottage for a meal and the cottagers offer “goat cheese and a coarse brown bread sprinkled with flaxseed” — rather than simply “bread and cheese” — not only does it create a more complete picture of the meal, but it suggests herds of goats and fields of flax growing nearby. “Dates and oranges” suggest a warm climate. “Fine white bread and delicate spiced meats,” suggest wealth and luxury. Longer descriptions, if the writer does them well, can add context, texture, and color, but selectivity, discrimination in choosing your words, may allow you to describe briefly and more effectively what would otherwise require many words.

In some cases, adjectives may be the least part of a description. Use verbs, nouns (this goes back to what I said about specific details), adverbs, present and past participles used as adjectives, and do not rely too heavily on adjectives.

Descriptions should appeal to the senses. A long description might appeal to all five senses; a shorter description might only appeal to one or two. The sense of smell is particularly tied to emotional memory, and most of all to childhood memories. Description should appeal to the reader’s imagination, and not simply be a list of what is to be seen, heard, smelled, etc.

Characters

As for the characters that inhabit your world, descriptions of them, if handled correctly, show more than how each one looks, it provides insights into age, social status, and much more. A character who sweeps into a room as though he owns the place, though he is wearing a tunic five years out of date, scuffed boots, and a cloak of rubbed and stained velvet is either someone who has come down in the world, or a mountebank — the other-world equivalent of that man in Nigeria who wants to send you all his money. You need not recount his history. After this first impression, the next words out of his mouth should establish which one it is.

Such details, in turn, add insights into the world: Is there a class system? How does it work? How can members of each class recognize members of another at a glance, or according to the way they speak (accent, evidence of education, forms of address, etc.)? If someone has either elevated his status or lowered it, what are the clues and how do people respond to them? Is an individual of decayed gentility still more highly regarded than a useful and prosperous member of the middle class? Or are those who are upwardly-mobile admired for their energy and their efforts to better themselves? (Unlikely, since any class is jealous of its privileges and reluctant to admit new members. To use a broad generalization, it is only where money and the ability to make it speaks louder than anything else that this is possible.)

Worldbuilding is also shown through dialogue. If the characters really match their setting — if they are people who could believably exist within that invented world — then the thoughts they express and the words they use to express them can also tell much about the world they inhabit. A perfect line of dialogue inserted at the perfect moment can be deeply revealing as to character, at the same time bringing to life the thought patterns of an entire society.

One of the best ways to reveal an invented world is how the characters act within it: how does it mold them, how do things like social standing and custom limit them, what impact do they have on their world, to what extent are their present actions and their present situation ruled by their historical context.

It can be fairly said that worldbuilding and characterization are so closely linked, it is almost impossible to do well at the one without paying close attention to the other. For writers who are stuck in the worldbuilding stage and can’t progress, instead of concentrating on the characters you have outlined and then stalled on, consider what kind of people must live in your world and what the inherent challenges must be. Those are the characters and that is the story you should be telling.

Landscape

When describing landscape, again be specific. When describing a hill it is better to say, “the lower slopes were purple with heather, and dark pines grew on the summit” than to say, “trees and shrubs grew on the hill.” Note that the first one paints a vivid picture in one sentence, while the other uses seven words to create only a vague impression — which, as a result, may read like seven words too many. Shorter is not always … shorter. If describing places where people live (village, cities, even solitary houses) try to give each place a personality of its own. Descriptions of towns and cities should provide clues to the kind of people who live there, their habits, their religion, the economy, etc. Rather than “merchants hawked their wares from booths around the square,” a better description of a marketplace might be something like this, “From hide tents and hastily erected wooden booths men hawked their bone-handled knives, leather pouches, and crudely painted pottery. The women told fortunes and sold packets of dried herbs.” This first is generic, and the second provides clues to their society and available natural resources.

Context

Without the context of a story, the conflict, the tensions, and the emotions can fall absolutely flat, confuse the reader, or create the wrong impression. The closer the setting is to the world we and our readers personally inhabit, the more the society that surrounds the story is like our own in time or space, the more we can depend on the reader to know the context and the more things both the writer and the reader can safely take for granted. BUT once we leave that zone of comfortable familiarity, we simply have to start providing context or readers will fail to understand the tensions and emotions.

To give an example of why context matters: Imagine a scene where five men are playing cards. Suddenly, one of the men announces that he knows that one of the others has been cheating. The protagonist (we’ll call him X) starts to sweat, he feels a knot in his stomach, his hands begin to shake. The reader rightly concludes from this that X is the cheater. But what happens next, if X is exposed depends entirely on the context, and it is the context that tells the readers how worried they should be on X’s account, depending on the penalties the society he inhabits imposes on cheaters. These could be minor and good-natured, or they could be severe.

So … should the readers be sweating along with him? Should they hope he gets caught? Should they hope he doesn’t get caught? Should they consider the whole situation so trivial that it doesn’t really matter whether he is exposed or not, but wonder what all of this sweating and trembling says about him?

Depending on the context, what the readers will be feeling could be any of these.

Maps

Although maps are not as necessary to fantasy novels as some readers and writers think, there are good reasons why drawing a map may be helpful, and not just because the author thinks it would make a nice finishing detail to the published book. It has been said that “geography is destiny.” The physical conditions under which any group of people live will have a huge impact on their culture. The natural resources that are easily within their reach, where and how they get those things that are desirable but not readily available (obviously the society that obtains these things by way of trade agreements is going to be radically different than the one that gets by on piracy or border raids) the degree of isolation in which they live and their culture has developed, whether travel is difficult or easy for them and whether they are on the direct route to other, more important places, all of these things influence how people live and what they think — and so, in a work of fiction should also influence how characters think, as well as create the challenges they face, and give some direction to how they meet those challenges as the plot progresses

So a map, although not vital, is useful for determining much more than how characters who are travelling get from point A to point B, or which obstacles they will meet and need to overcome along the way. It is useful for working out details that might not otherwise have occurred while outlining the plot, and can save a writer from making thoughtless blunders.

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A fantasy world need not be analogous to any real-world time or place. It is your invention, and as such, it is to be presumed that you know best what belongs there. However, when a writer mixes things up, it should be apparent that he or she is doing so deliberately and with forethought. There are various ways that authors can create this impression. One is to come up with some explanation why all of these unrelated things come together — for instance, the story is set near the nexus of several dimensions, where different influences either bleed over accidentally or pass through freely. Another is to create some sort of pattern to show how all the pieces fit together and stick to it. Still another is to create worlds and cultures so offbeat, so peculiar, so distinct from our own, that readers do not expect them to operate in any way that is familiar to them.

The best worldbuilding permeates a story and influences all its parts. The better it is done, the less necessity there may be for explanations. And it can be done very simply and consistently by taking one or two premises that make the imaginary world different from our, building on them and their natural consequences, and adhering to them throughout. Once the author strays from what he or she has established in the beginning, reasons, excuses, justifications (usually in the form of back story) begin to appear in great profusion in order to cover the plot holes. Because the best worldbuilding need not be complex, so long as it is consistent and revealed through specific details (so that there is less chance of being misunderstood). And if it is consistent, the reader is less likely to be thrown out of the story by those “what the heck?” moments, that detract from the storytelling.

Most of all, the best worldbuilding does not create an impression that the characters are acting against a backdrop of scenery. It should not leave readers with the impression that characters are simply wearing costumes (as I said in a recent interview, the characters should live in their clothes) or handling props. If a character picks up a sword, he should feel the weight of it, be aware at all times of the deadly cutting edge. He may not be thinking of this consciously, but he should never do anything that he would not do having that awareness. It is the same if a character straps on a blaster; she should be always cognizant that it is a lethal weapon, that there may be times when it is not set on stun. Moreover, readers should feel as though life continues when the point-of-view characters aren’t looking. They should not feel as though the environment in which your characters play out their lives only exists for the sake of the story (although of course it may very well). They should feel as if the world was there already, and that it is still going to be there when the story is over.

Some writers do all of their worldbuilding in advance, some discover the world as they write — they begin with one or two basic premises, and the logic and the consequences of those ideas just carry them along. You might call that second method “world growing” instead of “world building.” As long as the end result is sufficiently textured and consistent, it doesn’t make a difference.

Always keep in mind that the environment your characters inhabit is far more than the physical setting. It includes the cultural background, the manners, morals, and ethics of the society or societies within your novel — against which your characters react, either in opposition to that cultural environment, or in their efforts to maintain a position within it, or to protect it when it is threatened. This background ought not to be there merely as an extension of the scenery, it should contain within it some of the sources of tension at the heart of the story. The environment is also the emotional atmosphere in which the characters move, by which readers should also be affected.

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Teresa Edgerton works as a freelance developmental editor, helping new writers to develop their projects and improve their writing. If you are interested in engaging her services, you can contact her at hobgoblin26@att.net