K.V. Johansen's Blog, page 13

Ebook: The Storyteller and Other Tales

The Storyteller and Other Tales has just come out as an ebook for Kobo and other epub file readers. Published back in 2008, The Storyteller is a collection of four pieces, one of which is a foretale to Blackdog. (What's a foretale? It's a word I like better than prequel — perhaps it will catch on!) The others pieces include a Bronze Age secondary world fantasy, a story about Merlin's daughter and the fall of Roman Britain, which I think is one of my best short pieces ever, and a prose-poem on the Battle of Maldon. The eponymous story is, of course, the one Connie and I are adapting as a graphic novel (details on the mangasaga blog). As the back-cover description says, "The Storyteller" itself is about Ulfleif, "a warrior-princess who would rather carry a lyre than a sword … drawn into an unfinished tale by the storyteller Moth," as "old lays of vengeance and betrayal wake into bloody new life around her." There wasn't all that much about the bear-demon Mikki in Blackdog, but he's one of my favourite characters; I think "The Storyteller" is as much about him as Moth.

I see there are links to a few of the bookstores carrying the new ebook down at the bottom of the Storyteller page on my website but I think the webmaster is still updating that. It's also available through Kobo and in the US, Powell's, Diesel E-books, Books on Board, Pages E-books, and in Australia, Angus Robertson and Borders. Those in the know, i.e. the publisher's people in charge of such things, tell me it will also be available in the UK through the Book Depository and W.H. Smith, though it isn't yet.

P.s. The collection, which has had some reviews I'm very proud of, is still available as a physical book, too.

Dispatches from the Writing Front # 7: Back to the Map

As the scene shifts from the city back to the tribal lands to the east, I've been measuring distances on my map, drawing exciting coloured arrows of who needs to go where, and muttering, "She's a lousy general, what's she thinking of?" Z. is not one of the world's great strategists. She's leaving herself open to having her supply lines cut. Someone had better notice and do something about it. Of course, she's got even worse problems in the making, as she left very little authority behind her to keep order, and a revolution is brewing as well. Since D.'s brother is Z.'s main opponent, perhaps he'd better rethink his decision to summon some of the lesser rulers of the tribes to join him; if he left one in particular where she was to start with, she'd be well-placed to cause Z. a lot of trouble. D's brother, however, may feel that she is better off where he can see her, just in case she forgets whose side she ought to be harrying.

At this point, it occurs me that said queen had better acquire a name, as she's looking to become slightly more important to the plot … Better yet, Z. should simply make sure said nameless minor queen is suborned to her side before she sets out, which would explain D's brother's hitherto unexplained delay at the fords as he waits for a vassal (to use a somewhat anachronistic term) who isn't going to show up … There, see? I knew what I was doing all along.

Meanwhile, I need to reread all the chapters in which D. is the central character, to get myself back into that part of the world, so that she can take the stage again, with her mysterious and slightly ominous new champion at her side. Rather awkward, in the Blackdog world, finding yourself proclaimed queen of a folk whose goddess is not yours and who really, really does not want you there.

Dispatches # 6: The Eternal Cave – brought to you by the MangaSaga

Dispatches from the writing front # 6 is actually posted on my other blog, the MangaSaga, as it arose out ofmy manga-partner's research into a suitable prison for the devil Ogada. It's a brief musing on caves, children's books, caves in children's books, and Alan Garner, and you can read it here.

Dispatches # 5: Rallies and groupthink

I've been thinking about what makes people into groupies, frantic cheering mindless crowds, all a-thrill with the presence of their Great Leader, whether she or he is a dictator, a saint, or a pop-star. The thing is, of course, that they're not a mindless crowd. They're a thousand individual minds all screaming and shrieking and cheering and shouting and ready to go along without whatever is being proposed because … because everybody else is? To dismiss it as that seems a bit of a cop-out in trying to understand. Every single person there has to decide, yes or no, to whatever is going on. Presumably most who follow do so because they want to, because they agree with whatever the harangue is about. Once the majority is agreeing, those who would rather not agree mostly go along anyway, because they're afraid it may be dangerous not to.

School pep rallies, freshman initiation mobs and the like, have always been quite horrifying to me, but then, I don't like crowds much. Everyone goes along with it, but I just don't get why. Saying, "Synchronized shouting, just like Nuremberg," didn't make me popular during Freshman orientation. (Nor did cursing and threatening violence when a bunch of thugs used a passkey to get into my residence room to haul me out for initiation at three in the morning during frosh week. Y'know, that's when you call the police — strangers breaking into your house and pulling you from the bed in the night. Unless it is the police. In which case it's time for the revolution. Though mind you, the threat of mayhem did make them go away. They even shut the door behind them. However, if the danger incurred by resisting had been prison, or guns, or other unpleasantness more unpleasant than a bunch of puerile second-years being mad at me for a few weeks, would I have had the courage of my convictions? That's a very sobering question.) Anyway, I thought that in this bit of the book I was going to have to have someone haranguing the multitude, and so have been trying to understand the multitude's reaction. As it is, I managed to narrow it down a mere passing procession, due in part to the slight nervousness that this might turn out to be merely a third through after all, and the fewer mass rallies that get into it, the better. Besides, I think there's a better place for it later on. I'm reading The Anatomy of Fascism, while thinking about these things.

I've only ever been to one real mass rally, and that was when Jesse Jackson spoke in West Berlin, at a rally "against racism and fascism" on a VE Day in the eighties. It was a very strange experience. The space all around the Gedächtniskirche was packed, seething with bodies, and this tiny, distant little figure spoke, amplified, of course. When Caesar and the like were haranguing their legions, as assorted Roman histories would assert they did so frequently, how did they hear? Was it a case of rumour sweeping back from the front; did officers get an abstract to read out before or afterwards? Anyway, it was masses of people, listening and breaking into periodic cheers, which drowned out whatever came after the phrase that touched off the cheering. Jackson had a very dramatic oratorical style. He also had a translator. The way it was supposed to work was, he declaimed a bit, paused, and she translated, either from what he had said, or from a printed text — I was too far back to see and wasn't athletic enough to join those climbing the lamp-posts. Carried away by his own oratory, though, he eventually surged on, talking over her, sweeping by, unpausing. Eventually she got fed up and went and sat down. And the thing that interested me at the time was that nobody seemed to notice or care. I had trouble following him, due to the distance (despite the sound system) and the echoes, and his regional American accent. How many of the Germans not in the front rows, however good their English, actually picked out more than a word here and there? But they cheered and they cheered, and they stood enthralled for a very long time. I was there with a Californian and a Swede, and neither of them could make out all of what was being said, either. So what were people listening to? Their own enthusiasm for what they thought he might be saying? The mere thrill of seeing a famous man, a celebrity of politics? Or was it the emotional kick of being part of a group, the power of "we are one"? I'm still musing over that, because whatever it was, it was a bit frightening; I couldn't help thinking that quite a few people there might have been there anyway, cheering just as loudly, if Jackson had been preaching on a different text entirely. Humans are easily persuaded by emotion; reason is hard. In a good cause or a bad, a charismatic speaker who makes his appeals to the emotions seems able to pull people his way, starting with the ones who share his beliefs or fears, but drawing in the previously indifferent or unpersuaded. Once a certain mass of followers for a person or an idea is reached, it becomes easier to go along than not, to belong for the sake of belonging, or for the sake of not standing outside, alone and vulnerable.

Anyway, I think I've just hit the halfway mark in the current project. Either that, or it's a third of the way through, in which case it's going to be looong. I think it's half. After all, I just need a small war and a revolution; sure, lots of room to cram those in. Really.

The Ancestral Julenisse

What are Julenisse? They're Danish Christmas elves who hang around and get up to mischief after you've gone to bed; they also deliver gifts. There's an article on the origins of them on Wikipedia. My lot seem to spend a lot of their singing and carrying on over foaming tankards, while falling off of things. One lazes about smoking a cigar; when I was a child I always put him in the china cabinet, that being the grandest place and thus the most daringly defiant one for him to carry on such a wicked activity as smoking in the house. (Also his smoke-rings wobbled unless he was propped up against the glass.)

My grandfather emigrated from Denmark in the thirties. He married in Canada and was of the generation which didn't pass on its culture or speak its native language to its children, but he did carry on one tradition, that of putting up cardboard Julenisse to decorate for Christmas. My father inherited the family Julenisse collection. There are actually two sets. One is quite old; whether they were something my great-grandparents sent to their never-seen grandchildren I don't know, but that's my guess, and in that case, they'd date from either just before or after the war. The second set are more modern, perhaps from the seventies, by the style. Over the years they've faded, lost limbs and feet, been bent, torn, and taped back together. I made colour photocopies about fifteen years ago and carefully pasted my duplicates onto cardboard backing to clone them and import them to my own house; the copying actually re-saturated the colours, returning them to a brightness I'd never seen in my lifetime.

They've all developed personality over the years. They're a bit mysterious, too. Why do Julenisse have tiny cats? Are there tiny folkloric mice for the cats to eat, or does the whole clan, nisse and cats together, live on rice porridge and beer? (And what happened to the one who was tucking into a bowl of rice porridge? I know there used to be one, of the more modern set, and he had grey cats, too.)

Most of all, there's one question that has perplexed me all my life. Why is one of them a pig?

Dispatches from the Desk #4: Skulking Through the City

Not as much progress as I had hoped has been made this week. Blame it Mister Wicked's IBS, which is acting up and leading to somewhat interrupted sleep, with polite, but sharp, "Arfs" from the bottom of the stairs demanding hasty trips to the yard in the wee sma' hours. I don't know what he ate that he shouldn't have, and surely dogs don't get excess-of-relatives-at-Christmas stress. Anyway, broken sleep and the need to cook a lot of things is interfering with progress.

Most of the central characters are still skulking in hiding in the city. I don't like cities much. Perhaps that's why it's going slower. I want to get back to the hills and the open sky. G., however, has abandoned the group, and is setting off in pursuit of his friend A., who is currently in a very bad state indeed and is being swept off with Z. to take over a small war in the west, which Z. feels is not being well conducted in her absence. G. is afoot and — why oh why have I inflicted a sprained ankle on him? He gave his horses, well, technically they were A.'s horses, away to D. He's going to have to steal one. That's the only solution. Well, he could buy one, he has money, but there's a bit of racial profiling going on as officialdom looks for a spy, and he unfortunately fits the profile exactly, being the spy they're looking for, except that he isn't — a spy, that is. He was merely an innocent tagger-along. That's his story, anyway, and he's sticking to it.

Onwards! Except that today is "Make the Christmas Stollen" day.

Dispatches from the desk #3: There are streetlights in my mind

The cast is/are (depending on US/UK usage) currently lurking in a ruined cellar in the dark. This creates problems. I always forget how dark it is. Partially this is because I write so much about shapeshifters, demons, and others who can (oh so conveniently) see in the dark — night is not a problem for the Blackdog or Moth or Mikki (or Torrie, or Rookfeather, or of course Maurey and Nethin, who are Nightwalkers) — but mostly it's because for the last dozen years I've been living in town. It's never dark here.

I grew up in a rural village and used to walk at night in the pasture. It was dark, with the faint pinkish glow of the city on the eastern horizon. I knew the ditches and the brooks, the trees, the stones and the cracks in the stone; I never actually fell into deep water or ran face-first into a hawthorn. (Cowpats, however …) The sky was black, black, black, thick with stars, and the Milky Way arched overhead as a river of faintly glowing mist. Now I live in town, and the night is a sort of pinky-orange. I can walk around my very cluttered house in the dark with the curtains drawn, because so much light leaks in there's no need for nightlights. I take Mister Wicked out for a very early morning walk, and at this time of the year that means it's still night-dark. We mostly meet up with a friend to walk in a park-like area where there are no streetlights, but there's still so much light that one has a good sense of where everything is. The dogs all have blinking red LED collars, which are actually a clipped-together pair of cyclists' armbands from Mountain Equipment Co-op. They're very good for letting cars see that the dog-walker is there, but not really illumination for walking, and yet, it's only the deep ruts in the lanes that take the foot by surprise; all the other obstacles are clearly visible. It's also easy to see where the other dog-walker is, his posture, his gestures, all those things one writes about without thinking. And yet, really, when it's actually dark, an observer wouldn't see all that. Even moonlight, unless there's snow to reflect it, doesn't light up the night very much, though a full moon and snow makes for a very bright and beautiful night. It's really hard to remember how dark true night is, when the cloudy night sky one sees all the time is a sort of murky pinkish and an unclouded one a muted dark with faint and scattered stars, only the planets burning bright.

I need to go back and revise my cellar, remembering that my five fugitives in the dark can't see one another.

Dispatches #2: Meanwhile, in Moth's world …

Not that I'm planning to post these dispatches all that frequently … one a week seems reasonable, rather than two a day, but this was actually the second part of the one from this morning.

Meanwhile, today in the next book in Moth's world, Captain J. is about to face a moment of decision, one of those choices made on the fly, act or don't act, and her actions (or lack thereof) will put her firmly on one side or the other of what is going to grow into a civil war. Ivah, from Blackdog, has already chosen where she stands, but who's going to trust her? It looks like Holla-Sayan is going to turn up after all, which will be a bit of a problem for Ivah, given her relationship with the Blackdog. The two main heroes of this book, G. and A., aren't in this bit, although G.'s path is about to intersect with Ivah's again.

Drinking rose congou tea from Pippin's Tea Co. and listening to The Silk Road Ensemble's Silk Road Journeys: Beyond the Horizon. Everyone's stuck in a city at present, though, not a camel or a distant horizon in sight. But just beyond the walls, there are mountains, and the road Over-Malagru.

Dispatches from the Writing Front: The New Torrie

I thought I'd start a new post category today, occasional (weekly?) updates on works-in-progress or dispatches from the writing front. I'm not going to be putting up anything to give the story away, but fairly cryptic reports, enough, I hope, to tease and intrigue, or to reassure friends of the various established characters that yes indeed, things are happening.

In the case of Torrie, I'm afraid this report is more to inform you that things are not happening, but — take heart — eventually they will again. Most of these dispatches are going to be about the new story set in Moth's world (i.e. the sequel to Blackdog), which is what I'm working on at present, but as I've had a few questions lately about the next Torrie book, I thought I'd update you about that.

The new Torrie, long-promised, was put on hold in order to work on an adult book, a sequel to Blackdog. It's about half done. Torrie, you'll be happy to know, has just (at the point that I stopped) been taken prisoner by a supposed ally. Wren and G. (a new character you won't have met yet, though he is mentioned in passing in Dragonslayers), having survived a flash flood and attack by … I don't want to give that away, but they're very nasty creatures … have met a dancing dragon and have drunk some tea. The rest of the party is, possibly, riding into ambush. There are elephants. And there I've left them all, waiting patiently.

Canine Pidgin and Talking Dogs

Mister Wicked is barking out the window. Why is he barking out the window? Not because his friends are walking by (the usual cause), nor because a bird has dared to sit in the maple tree. No, he's barking because I backed the car down a bit to shovel beneath it (there having already been quite a lot of snow when I got home last night), and it is now in front of the window.

"Car! Car! Car!" he barks. "Alert! Alarm! Visitors!"

"Look, that's our car," I say. "You saw me move it. My car. KV's car. KV car. Mister Wicked's car."

"Car?" he barks, more quietly. Quizzically, looking at me. Then he grumbles, "Garoo-oo-oo," and lies down again, rather than racing to the door. So I think he understood, somewhat.

We talk to Mister Wicked a lot. We've also noticed that we talk baby-talk. Not "Ootsie wootsie widdle puppy-wuppy" revolting baby talk, but the way a friend of mine has noticed she is talking to her new baby. We repeat things several times, with simple variation of structure. We use the pronoun, but then repeat with the proper name. We do all the things that humans are hardwired to do, when talking to infants who are doing that most important thing that makes them human, and programming their brains with language. I think pidgins do this too, when they reduce a language to its simplest form to make communication between speakers of two different languages possible, stripping out all the complex syntax, using duplicated syllables to make it easier to catch them and fix them in the mind, removing all inflected endings and strong verbs vowel changes.

The result of this is that Mister Wicked has an alarmingly large vocabulary, because we've been doing it deliberately, setting out to teach him words that aren't necessarily useful in his daily life, like "horse" and "cow". He's also learning "right" and "left" (after all, draft horses learn that: "gee" and "haw"). More useful, he's learning "later" and "then", putting things together in small sequences, as in "First we'll go for a walk. Then" (or "later") "we'll go for a drive in the car." Or when he's demanding something, and I'm busy, "Later," I can say, about whatever it is he's demanding I do, "we'll do that later." And he'll go off to his bed and glower at me, waiting with a martyred air, for the guilt to kick in and later to arrive. He definitely remembers whatever it was he was wanting, though, and expects it to follow. "Later" is not the same as "No."

This has led to speculation: could dogs learn to speak? That is, if a dog were physically capable of mimicking human sounds, could and would a dog begin to use its small basic vocabulary appropriately? I'm imagining something like the genetically-engineered pet sphinx Nefertiti given to Jin in Bujold's Cryoburn, who announces her desires — food, pee, out — in human language.

It's possible, but perhaps not desirable. I'm not sure that I really want to know what Mister Wicked thinks of my trying to sit around writing much of the day, instead of playing with him from dawn to dusk. "Enough book! No book! Bad book! Walk now! Play now! Now! Now! Now!" Is this a critic I have nurtured in my bosom?