A guest post by Gama Martinez.

Many years ago, when I thirteen or so, I was in a Walden Books. I decided I wanted to start reading big thick books. I also knew that I liked books about wizards. With no other criteria in mind, I went to the fantasy section and used my allowance to pick up two books. The first was Wizard’s First Rule, which you may have heard of. The second was The Western Wizard by Mickey Zucker Reichert, which you probably haven’t. The Western Wizard was about Colby, a swordsman who survived the destruction of his people, the Renashai, a tribe of warriors whose skill with the sword was unmatched. Even among them, Colby was the best. He finds himself at the center of plots by wizards, kings, and gods. Even though parts of the book didn’t make sense to me, I really enjoyed it. Eventually I realized that it didn’t make sense because it was actually the second book in the Renshai Trilogy which, as far as I can tell, I’m the only one to have read ever.

The first book in the series, The Last Renshai, starts off with the destruction of the Renshai. One boy, Rache, survives the destruction of his people and eventually finds a home in the house of a city lord. Impressed by his skill, even as a boy, the lord promises him a position as a soldier when he gets older. He begins to build a life for himself, eventually becoming a soldier and later the captain, though he never reveals his origins. The Renshai were universally feared and hated even to the point that the word “Renshai” was a foul curse, and in some places, it was a serious crime to speak it. Due to his beliefe that everyone should be able to defend themselves, he begins to teach the city lord’s daughter how to use a sword, but he teaches her the Renshai style. By Renshai tradition, it is not blood that makes one a Renshai, but training. Meanwhile, the world is heading for a great war prophesied in the distant past. Rache begins to hear rumors of another survivor of his people while the four wizards who are the stewards of the world worry about the ever looming Ragnarok.

Now, at this point, you’ve probably noticed something. This trilogy does something I haven’t seen before or since. It’s a second world fantasy that overtly uses a real world pantheon and mythology, Norse. It even includes some lesser known gods. The Renshai’s patron god is Modi, one of the sons of Thor. Thor himself shows up as does Odin, Loki, and Freya. The trilogy eventually weaves together the plots of various powers to either stop or survive Rangarok. There is a follow-up series as well, The Renshai Chronicles, which starts with Rangarok as a prologue, with the rest taking place 300 years later. The wizards have been replaced by an immortal guardian who maintains the balance between good, evil, law and chaos. It deals with the return of Odin and stopping him from conquering everything.

The Renshai books were, among other things, my introduction to Norse mythology which in turn led me to look into other mythologies and get inspiration from them. I looked for commonalities throur different mythologies. Essentially, it was my introduction to what Joseph Campbell calls the monomyth, that timeless story that has been told over and over again yet retains its magic.

These books take advantage of cultural conflicts (for example, in some cultures, it’s a sign of trust to turn your back on an armed person, and others, it’s an insult as if saying that even with your back turned, they’re no threat). The city lord’s daughter must find the balance between her family and the Renshai. There are also an interesting mix of personal conflicts (the boy trying to make a life for himself after his home is destroyed) to epic scale ones (Ragnarok). It also deals with different concepts of honor and how these differences clash with each other, even to one point, where two warriors who respect each other are forced to fight to the death. It is ultimately, a fascinating series, and one that I read through several times.

Guest Writer Bio:

Gama Martinez lives near Dallas and collects weapons in case he ever needs to supply a medieval battalion. He greatly resents when work or other real life things get in the way of writing. Other than writing, he does normal things like run from bulls and attempt to leave the Earth to be a Martian colonist. His first book, Delphi, based on Greek Mythology, will be released Tuesday, May 27.http://www.GamaRayBurst.com

Four Lords of the Diamond

May 20, 2014

Colette Black

Jack L. C Four Lords of the Diamond halker was a pretty well-known author, so I’ve found it surprising that very few of the writers I’ve interacted with are familiar with his Four Lords of the Diamond series. In all honesty, when I picked up the first book I wasn’t much of a science fiction fan. I gravitated more to fantasy and didn’t usually have much to do with stories involving science and technology. What truly intrigued me in Chalker’s work was the psychology aspect. There aren’t many books I remember from over twenty years ago, but these have stuck with me. Here’s why:

The premise of the story centers around a government agent, an assassin, who has his mind replicated. Four convicts destined for four separate prison planets are mind-wiped to be replaced with the agent’s replications. Each of them has an assignment to assassinate some prominent public figure for the cause of the intergalactic government. As they carry out their assignments, their minds are connected to the original agent. He watches as their new genetic make-up, along with their various environments, changes them. In the process, it changes him. This study of genetics and environment’s influence on behavior, as portrayed through this one man, fascinated me.

After all these years, I can’t tell you what they did on each planet, only that each story caused me to look deep within myself. I analyzed the influences in my life and carefully considered my goals. I identified some of the hurdles in my way, both genetic and environmental, and I decided how to overcome them. I don’t think I did this consciously, but I thought so much about what I had read that at some unconscious level I formed a resolve.

Some books have a lasting effect in our lives. It doesn’t happen with everything we read, and sometimes we find our own meanings within a story, but oftentimes the storyline is lost in memory because the deeper meaning is so profound. That’s how it was for me with Four Lords of the Diamond. Maybe it was my age. Maybe it was my mindset while reading a particular volume. Maybe it was just random happenstance. Whatever the reason, whenever you ask me about science fiction to make you think, this will top my list. If this is a series you’ve read, I’d love to hear your impressions. Let me know if it affected you as much as it affected me.

Welcome to Macdonald Hall

May 19, 2014

Evan Braun

Character Evan Braun Reading Reflection Reviews 4 Comments

East of Toronto, just off Highway 48, you will find a beautiful tree-lined campus right across the road from the famous Miss Scrimmage’s Finishing School for Young Ladies. It is Macdonald Hall, where generations of boys have been educated and prepared for manhood. Named for Sir John A. Macdonald, the Hall, with its ivy-covered stone buildings and beautiful rolling lawns, is the most respected boarding school for boys in all of Canada.

Okay, so here’s how the story goes. While in the seventh grade, Gordon Korman’s English teacher (“Mr. Hamilton,” according to Wikipedia, and the first book’s dedication) assigned his students to write a short novel. Putting aside how ambitious and insane such an assignment would be, the result was Korman’s very first attempt at a novel—This Can’t Be Happening at Macdonald Hall—which was subsequently published in 1978 by Scholastic Books. Korman was only twelve years old when he wrote it, and fourteen when it got published.

Hold the phone. Did you catch that? He was twelve and got published on his first attempt. Is anybody else feeling inadequate? I sure am. By the time of his graduation from high school, Korman had written another five books. Holy crow. Eighty-five books later, here we are, in 2014, and I’m going all the way back to the beginning of Korman’s career to tell you about a series of young adult novels that absolutely changed my life—the Macdonald Hall series, alternatively known as “Bruno and Boots,” for the two protagonists.

These books flood me with overwhelming nostalgia. When Greg Little announced that this month would be dedicated to unknown books, I knew immediately that I had to write about Macdonald Hall. I subsequently jumped onto my Kindle, eager to buy ebook editions of all seven books in the series. Well, guess what? They’re not there. I couldn’t believe it.

Fortunately, I had five of the seven books (along with a bunch of other favourite Korman reads) in an old box in my storage room that I hadn’t opened in a few years. I began to devour them.

I realize I’ve now written some three hundred words and haven’t managed to say anything about the books except “They’re awesome; no, seriously, they’re really that awesome.” Which makes for a pretty lousy endorsement, so here are some details.

I began this post with the first paragraph from Korman’s premiere novel, and it sets the stage for all the hijinks that follow. The setting is Macdonald Hall, a boarding school on the outskirts of Toronto, and just across the street is an accompanying boarding school for girls, Miss Scrimmage’s Finishing School for Young Ladies, an ironic and misleadingly quaint name. Indeed, these unruly girls figure prominently into each story, and they are beyond delightful—and nowhere near “finished.”

The titular characters, Bruno and Boots, are roommates in Dormitory 3, Room 306—a.k.a. central headquarters for a lot of shenanigans. Bruno Walton is a passionate troublemaker with a penchant for letting (nay, encouraging) his many elaborate schemes get out of control. Boots O’Neal is the classic straight man, a sidekick who frequently gets drawn into his best friend’s intrigues. In the course of these books, they plot the downfall of a hated new school administrator (The War with Mr. Wizzle, my personal favourite of the novels), the stratospheric rise and inevitable collapse of the Hall’s football team (The Zucchini Warriors, which presents some surprisingly interesting commentary on gender politics), the fundraising effort for a new swimming pool to avoid Boots being transferred to a new school (Go Jump in the Pool), the undermining of a Justin Bieber-like celebrity on campus to shoot a major motion picture (Macdonald Hall Goes Hollywood), among other memorable outings.

The friendships and recurring characters are beautifully developed over the progression of the series, and the prose is sophisticated enough to make me stare at the page in disbelief that a twelve-year-old could have had a hand in crafting it. As an eight-year-old reader, I fell in love with Bruno and Boots and their many cohorts. Yes, they were constantly in trouble, but they were almost always driven by noble goals. They were good kids. Flawed? Of course, but never beyond redemption.

And that leads me to the thing I appreciate most about the series. I’ve reread the series twice in my twenties, and I’m in the middle of a third reread now. No surprisingly, I appreciate different things as a thirty-one-year-old than I did when I was eight. Back then, it was clear that the overarching antagonist of the series was Macdonald Hall’s stern but fair headmaster, Theodore Sturgeon (a.k.a. “The Fish”). In the character of Sturgeon, we are confronted with the heart of the series. He’s depicted as a middle-aged man with zero humor and a serious disposition—that is, as far as the boys know. In private, Korman shows us a kind and warm-hearted molder of men, not unlike the beloved Coach Taylor from Friday Night Lights. Sturgeon isn’t the antagonist all the kids at the school think he is. The reality is that he loves and cares for his students, and he has a secret affection particularly for Bruno and Boots—not despite their troublemaking ways, but because of them.

I don’t have kids, and I probably never will, barring unforeseen developments in my life. I’m okay with this reality, and it normally doesn’t bother me. The only time it does bother me is when I think of these Macdonald Hall books, and I’m filled with sadness that I don’t have anyone to pass them on to. Fortunately, my niece and nephew are about to come into reading age. Hopefully my sister won’t mind if I drop by the house each evening before bedtime to read a few chapters.

A Take on Hell

May 16, 2014

Quincy J. Allen

Character Craft & Skills Quincy Allen Reading Reviews No Comments

Roger Zelazny is one of my favorite writers of all time, in no small part because of The Chronicles of Amber. Hell, I once contemplated changing my name to Corwin. Read the Amber series to get that.

Regardless, when the Fictorians said they wanted us to do a blog on our favorite book that nobody ever heard of, I chose something that has stuck with me over the years because of a personal fascination. When I reread the work for this blog, I was surprised to see that Zelazny had as much or more of an interest in the author—and the work—as I do, and perhaps for the same reasons… although Zelazny’s appreciation probably runs deeper because… well… Zelazny. In the forward, he wrote about the author and this work:

“I read the beginning to see what he was doing. I don’t know him personally. I know little about him, save what I can tell from his writing. When I realized where he was going with this story, my first reaction was, “He isn’t going to be able to pull this one off.” Not without getting trite, or cute, or moralistic—or falling into any number of the many pitfalls I foresaw with regard to this material. I was wrong. He not only avoided them all, he told a fantastically engaging story with consummate grace and genuine artistry.”

I’d cut off a thumb to get praise like that from Zelazny… the left one, anyway, because I hit the space bar with my right thumb.

Now here’s the opening sentence to my favorite novel that you probably never heard of:

“Snow, tenderly caught by eddying breezes, swirled and spun in to and out of bright, lustrous shapes that gleamed against the emerald-blazoned black drape of sky and sparkled there for a moment, hanging, before settling gently to the soft, green-tufted plain with all the sickly sweetness of an overwritten-sentence.”

In that first sentence, you have delicious, savory, thick verbiage that rolls off the tongue like honey and hot bacon fat… and wraps up with that same tongue pressed squarely into a cheek. Irreverence, it seems, is not always a bad thing.

The novel is To Reign in Hell by Steven Brust. Sure, everyone (well, everyone who’s anyone) has heard of the Jhereg series, and that, too, is one of my favorites. Jhereg is what put Brust on the map, at least for me, anyway. But To Reign in Hell is something different. Something special.

Let me point out that I’ve had a fascination with treatments of the Devil for a long time. In truth, my fascination with Western Civilization’s most infamous villain started when I turned away from the Catholic Church at the age of seven. I should point out, before the whispers start, that my fascination probably isn’t what you think. I’m not interested in gleaning power or sacrificing livestock to appease some ridiculous icon of evil. Nor am I interested in tearing down its antithesis. No.

Evil, such as it is, resides in the hearts of men—and women—alone. And whatever good our species is capable of rests in the same, meaty tissue. Where one seeks strength is as individual a decision as I can imagine, and I could fault no one for seeking strength wherever they might find it. Life can be a trial.

What I find interesting is the story behind that icon of evil. The evolution of Western Civ’s theism can arguably be said to have started with the Torah and Old Testament, transitioned into the New Testament, engendered the Quran, and has splintered and evolved into myriad interpretations of a common theme.

And the Devil is there, in every one of them, in one form or another.

Now, there has always been a phrase in that story that bothered me: “favorite above all others.” Satan, originally “the morning star,” is said to haven be the first angel, and favorite to Yahweh. Imagine that: the best of friends falling apart so far that an entire world lies between them and an endless cornucopia of souls lies in the balance. How does that even happen?

Steven Brust, also one of my favorite writers (again, probably not why you think, and yes, I have a lot of favorites), appears to have been fascinated by this very same conundrum. Like any good speculative fiction writer, he asked himself where Yahweh and Satan might have come from. Then, quite logically, he asked himself how they ended up where they did, one ruling in Heaven and one reigning in Hell.

It’s a story of love, naturally, and how the love between reasonable beings can be twisted and turned and corrupted by… well, there are no spoilers here. What I will say is—true to the Bible—deceit and pride are things that can bring us all to our nadir and literally ruin everything.

I abhor deceit more than pretty much anything, so this work touches me deeply. And as I read through the text, I was struck by something that has been troubling me for the past decade-and-a-half. It is also why I think To Reign in Hell may end up being timeless, or at least should be.

This country, perhaps the world, has lost sight of what Truth means… why it’s important… and why those who shit on it everywhere we look should be brought to task.

Look around America these days, just take a good long look at how two camps are at each other’s throats in damn near every news report. Those camps are being goaded on by pundits who take great delight (as well as plenty of power and monetary gain) by fanning the flames with deceit and half-truths… on both sides. Clearly, there are some who feel that there is more to be gained in conflict than in working together.

Such is the true nature of the Beast.

To Reign in Hell is something that all Americans alive today should read. And if they did, I could only hope they might seek out their own Abdiel, wherever it might be hiding. And do what comes naturally.