Category Archives: Craft & Skills

Quick, name one aspect of life you almost never see dealt with in epic fantasy! Did you say “economics”? No? I don’t blame you. Like many, my eyes tend to glaze over when talk of money or economics starts up. Still, when you get right down to it, money makes the world go around in many ways. So it’s kind of odd it almost never gets dealt with in a serious way in fantasy. The hero either has a handful of coppers in his or her pocket or doesn’t, and little thought is given toward where the money comes from in a larger sense. And be honest; most people gifted with magical might would neither save nor conquer the world, but would instead use said power to make crazy money.

My friends, let me introduce you to the writings of Daniel Abraham. Maybe you’ve already heard of him through his epic fantasy series The Dagger and the Coin or his work as one half of James S.A. Corey in writing The Expanse. He’s even got a television show in production for that one. But I’m willing to bet even some of his newer fans haven’t checked out his first epic fantasy series, the tragically underrated The Long Price Quartet.

The Long Price Quartet was the first epic fantasy series I ever read that seriously dealt with economics. The second-world fantasy series features a magic system where poet-sorcerers are able to hold perfectly-formed ideas in their minds, breathing life into creatures called andats. Each andat has fantastical powers based upon the idea it represents, and the city states that employ the poets use the andats to retain an economic advantage over any rivals.

Need an example? In A Shadow in Summer, the first volume of the quartet, the poet Heshai controls the andat called Removing-the-part-that-continues (“Seedless” for short). Seedless is used to remove seeds from cotton on a grand scale for the city-state of Saraykeht.

It’s not as simple as that, though. The andats do not want to exist, preferring the abstractness of thought to existence in a concrete reality. If a poet tries to capture one and fail, he or she dies. And even if they are successful, they are bound for life to a creature that wants nothing more than to cease existing. Hence poet and andat are locked in constant mental struggle. Should the poet ever lose the thread of the thought that makes up the andat or die without passing that idea to another poet, the andat vanishes. And any given andat can only be captured once.

The power Seedless wields over cotton is great for Saraykeht. The only trouble is other nations grow cotton too, and there is only one Seedless. Jealous rivals will stop at nothing to remove the advantages an andat provides. But they dare not act openly, because removing seeds from cotton is not all that Seedless can do…

The books of Long Price are a slower read than some. In addition to an interest in economics that carries through to his other writing, Abraham eschews a lot of epic fantasy staples like large-scale battles. Instead he focuses more on intrigue and the human side of conflict. His prose is spare but efficient and filled with evocative imagery, and his books have absolutely no bloat, which will be a relief to many. I remember reading Long Price and thinking that I’d never read anything quite like it before. It immediately made Abraham a must-read author for me and reading his work has taught me a lot about my own writing as well.

So maybe you’ve heard of this Daniel Abraham guy. If you have, but have only read his later Dagger and Coin or his Expanse sci-fi collaboration with Ty Franck, do yourself a favor and pick up A Shadow in Summer*. And if you’ve never read Daniel Abraham, do yourself a favor and jump on the bandwagon of one of the industry’s rising stars.

*Note: The books of Long Price can be purchased individually or you can buy the series in two halves. A Shadow in Summer and A Betrayal in Winter have been merged into Shadow and Betrayal, while An Autumn War and The Price of Spring were merged into The Price of War.

Welcome to the Supernatural MI6

May 12, 2014

Nathan Barra

Craft & Skills Nathan Barra Tropes & Archetypes 2 Comments

I never thought living in the head of a paper pusher could be interesting, much less awesome, but Australian author Daniel O’Malley proves me wrong in his debut novel, The Rook. Granted, Myfanwy Thomas (pronounced like “Tiffany” with an M, since the Welsh reinvent phenoms as they please) is not your standard bureaucrat. In the opening scene of the book, Myfanwy “awakes in a London park surrounded by dead bodies [wearing latex gloves]. With her memory gone, her only hope of survival is to trust the instructions left in her pockets by her former self.” These letters lead her deeper into the rabbit hole, and back into her former life as a high-level operative in the Cheque, a secret government organization tasked with protecting the UK from supernatural threats. The thing is, the old Myfanwy foresaw her own end and left her future self a series of letters and an encyclopedia like binder detailing the milieu. Alone and with these scant resources, Myfanwy must re-integrate into her old life, rediscover her powers, learn about the supernatural world, and handle a barrage of supernatural crises, all while trying to root out the traitor(s) at the highest levels of the organization that had her erased in the first place.

Once the ball starts rolling, O’Malley spins a riveting yarn. In my opinion, his work has two major strengths. First, as a reader, I love the milieu that O’Malley has created. The idea of secret government agencies and the hidden world of magic are well-used tropes in this sort of fiction, but the elements that O’Malley chooses to emphasize make the whole experience seem fresh. Myfanwy is simultaneously a newbie and veteran in this life, and often feels the strain of trying to keep up when everyone around her assumes she’ll maintain her docile past persona. Though he spends much of his time in the day to day, O’Malley’s narrative style is at times laugh at loud funny, breathtakingly tense and peppered through with moments that lend the reader’s admiration and pride to his protagonist.

Secondly, I appreciate this book from the perspective of a craftsman. O’Malley exercises his gift for narrative in this novel, weaving a third-limited perspective of the present with a narrative of the past told in an epistolary style. Like most, he uses the past to clarify and resonate with the future, but where his true skill becomes apparent is when he uses the present to shed light upon the events detailed in old-Myfanwy’s letters to her future self. It takes real skill to make the trick work both ways without becoming bulky and distracting to the reader.

I have enjoyed this book twice now and intend to do a third re-read before the sequel, Stiletto, is released by Hatchette in Q1 2015. It is my hope that some of y’all enjoy it as much as I have and that you too are able to learn a bit about the epistolary narrative style while you do. It’s a while to wait for the second book, but fortunately my TBR list is long and colorful and has only been added to this month. I’ll leave you with the video that I found on Daneil O’Malley’s website while researching book 2. It’ quite entertaining and captures the spirit and fun of the book.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByWvG3KfOmo&rel=0]

Warrior. Iconoclast. Unicorn.

May 5, 2014

mary

Character Mary Pletsch Narrative Voice POV Reading The Writing Life 3 Comments

Unicorn stories. The topic seems geared towards wish-fulfillment for little girls, a more fantastical rendition of the “horsey” books so popular in the 1980s. As a child I consumed mountains of these books, about both horses and unicorns, until I stumbled across a completely different animal: Birth of the Firebringer by Meredith Ann Pierce.

This is not a story about what it’s like to ride a unicorn. This is a story about what it’s like to be one.

From the first page I was catapulted into a world unlike any I’d ever imagined. There are no human characters in this book. The unicorns of the Vale are a people, a culture unto themselves (though notably not the only unicorn culture), and the narration is sprinkled with examples of their religion, their storytelling, their singing. The main character, Jan, is torn between a desperate desire to win the good regard of his father the prince, and to follow his own heart, even when it conflicted with his people’s traditions and teachings. This conflict leads him to question everything he was raised to believe: about his faith, his people’s history, and his destiny.

These unicorns don’t lounge about in meadows waiting for beautiful maidens to happen by. Their story is one of struggle: driven from their homeland by the wyverns, they settled in a Vale across the Great Grass Plain. As Birth of the Firebringer opens, their numbers have grown and they await the coming of the prophesized Firebringer, who will lead an army back to their ancestral lands to reclaim what is theirs.

Pierce layers the narrative with hints that the unicorns’ version of history might not be as true as Jan has been taught to believe. The legends, for example, always describe the Vale as “empty” when the unicorns arrived. Later, Jan will realize that the Vale was a hunting ground for the gryphon clans, and when the unicorns invaded and drove out the native game, the gryphons, as a people, suffered. I still remember the shock of realizing, along with Jan, that the antagonistic gryphons might actually have a legitimate reason for the attacks they launched against the Vale–something beyond a thirst for cruelty.

I was thunderstruck. And I wanted to tell stories like that. My play with My Little Ponies changed from saddles and bridles and combing hair into epic quests and wars against dragons, incorporating world-building, history and mythology, involving prophecy and politics and revelations. Unicorns were serious business. I no longer wanted to be a princess mounted on a unicorn. I wanted to see a world through a unicorn’s eyes.

I was an adult before I realized that Birth of the Firebringer was in fact the first in a trilogy. Dark Moon addresses the question of humanity, previously only hinted at in Firebringer — an alien and powerful species that sees the unicorns as fabulous beasts. The Son of Summer Stars brings prophecies to fulfillment in a way no one imagined, and takes Jan from youth into adulthood.

The Firebringer Trilogy is classed as young adult fantasy, but reading the last two books as an adult, I have no reservations about recommending them to other adults. The story remains powerful, and the language beautiful. Pierce chooses words to enhance the conceit that the reader, along with Jan, is listening to a unicorn storyteller’s tale; and yet the tale remains easy-to-follow rather than getting bogged down by its own description.

If you’re ready to leave your humanity behind and take a look at the world from the point of view of a creature who is utterly unlike you – if you are ready to question your leaders, your faith, and your role in the world – if you are prepared to set aside the preconception that unicorns are fluff for little girls – then enter the world of Meredith Ann Pierce’s Firebringer Trilogy.

Into That Forest

May 2, 2014

Kristin Luna

Kristin Luna Narrative Voice Reading Reviews The Writing Life 1 Comment

Boy, do I have a book for you! You’ve probably never heard of it, but it’s spectacular. It’s called The Shining by Stephen King.

Just kidding! But seriously, you should probably read that one, too.

It’s a deal less popular than The Shining, actually. There are no alcoholic fathers, no boys with the shine, and no Overlook Hotel.

This book’s story elements are very simple: two little girls and the two tigers that raised them.

In college, as a sociology minor and overall sociology bum, I became aware and a little obsessed with the happening of feral children. There were cases of children who had been locked in one room for all their developmental years, knew nothing of language or social interaction, and later, either their remains were found, or they were rescued and the long process began of assimilating these children back into society. There were cases of children who were abandoned who later claimed to have been raised and reared by wolves or monkeys. These stories were and still are completely fascinating to me.

Perhaps the most famous mythical account of feral children is of Romulus and Remus, abandoned by their mother and taken in by wolves. Some actual historical accounts of feral children have since been proven false: someone elaborated a story for some sort of profit or gain. However, it was not uncommon throughout history for mothers to abandon children who had obvious mental or physical disabilities into the wild. This is a fascinating documentary digging deeper into more recent stories of feral children in the wild. I will warn you, it’s not easy to watch.

More commonly in the United States, there have been cases of children who have been abused and locked in a bedroom for their developmental years. Genie Wiley is one of the most recent cases in US history of an urban feral child. You can learn more about Genie’s story in this clip.

My interest in the subject is probably why I was destined to love Into That Forest by Australian writer and playwright Louis Nowra. Told in a rudimentary vernacular, Hannah O’Brien, now in her seventies, recounts when she and her cousin Becky were separated from Hannah’s parents during a flood in the Tasmanian outback. Hannah and Becky are soon taken in by a mated pair of Tasmanian tigers. The girls learn how to hunt, eat, and communicate like the tigers. Their harrowing tale includes run-ins with a tiger poacher, learning to live on all-fours, and a growing wariness of all humans.

tas-tiger_thylacines — Tasmanian tigers.

If you’ve read any of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ spectacular Tarzan novels, I can assure you you’ll feel a comforting reminiscence while reading Into That Forest, and you may very well love it just as much. And unfortunately like Tarzan of the Apes, I give you fair warning that this book might just break your heart.