Warren Rochelle's Blog - Posts Tagged "fantasy"

Hellebore & Rue: Tales of Queer Women and Magic by JoSelle Vanderhooft

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Hellebore—black hellebore (the most appropriate for a witch’s garden)—according to some sources, was used in the flying ointment. Other uses include the healing of mental and emotional illness and in exorcisms, and to increase intelligence, for protection, and for invisibility. It is a baneful herb, and should never be eaten and is highly toxic. “Wear gloves when handling it.”

Leaves of rue relieve headaches and when worn around the neck, aids in recuperating from illness and acts as a ward against future ill health. Fresh rue, sniffed, clears the head in matters of love and can help you think better. Toss some in your bath to break all hexes and curses. Rub fresh leaves on your floorboards and ill spells will be sent back; hang rue at the door for protection.

And combined together, as in the collection, Hellebore & Rue: Tales of Queer Women and Magic, edited by Joselle Vanderhooft and Catherine Lundoff, (Lethe Press, 2011) some powerful magic is made by powerful women, powerful witches, and yet, quite human, with all the contradictions and ambiguities that means. Magic can heal and protect; it can destroy and harm, and is both feared and desired, and so can and is human love and human desire. In these stories, these queer women who make and use magic must also navigate the complications and mysteries of the human heart, and as result, this is a collection will appeal the reader of fantasy and the reader who appreciates excellent stories of human relationships.

In this collection, the reader will find such tales as:
“Personal Demons,” Jean Marie Ward:
Tantric sorcery, an exorcism, a young girl possessed by a powerful demon—yes, this could exacerbate the already rising tension between the sorceress, or tantrika, and her psychologist partner who outed her as a user of magic in Psychology Today. Can love survive dark power and its use, its link to sex?

“The Windskimmer,” Connie Wilkins:
One last flight, one last mission, against the enemy for a greenmage, reuniting with her former partner—what will Menka find, will she be up to the task brought to her by Aviel? And what about their hearts?

“Witches Have Cats,” Juliet Kemp:
And this one has a dog, and doesn’t know she is a witch. But when Laura Verrall’s ex develops a sudden case of the boils and a woman at a coffee shop knows this, and offers to help her with her newly-manifesting powers, Laura’s life—and that of her dog, Jasper, suddenly get complicated. Then, her friend, Alicia, calls from a party. She wants to go home, but she can’t find the door—literally, and the corridors go “round and round in circles,” and she’s trapped—can Laura help? And people at the party recognize Laura’s power—Laura is for some changes.

“D is for Demons,” Steve Berman:
Ms. Grackle is another unsuspecting witch, a retiring school nurse, who learns not only that she is a witch, and there is power waiting for her to use, but that a dietary change can help—think Hansel and Gretel.

“State of Panic,” Rachel Green:
A London police officer, who has transferred to Laverstone, far from the city, Sergeant Anna Wilde confronts more than a little prejudice against women, and finds her magical skills come in handy—even as she has to keep them hidden: they burned her grandmother. Then a murder case turns out to involve Pan and Summer, that Other Place ….

These and other stories—a dozen altogether—with other authors, such as C.B. Calsing, Ruth Sorrell, Lisa Nohlealani Morton, Quinn Smythwood, Kelly Harmon, Rrain Prior, and Sunny Moraine, do indeed, as the back cover suggests, “promise the reader many wonders,” and this collection keeps that promise.

Catherine Lundoff and Joselle Vanderhooft have worked the powerful magic of story and word and wonder, dark and light, myth and magic, in this collection of tales of queer women, queer magic. You don’t have to wear gloves, but a little rue by the door and some leaves scattered on the floor wouldn’t hurt as you venture out and into this magical collection. Guaranteed to sharpen those mental process, both seen and unseen—and as for matters of love, well … some fresh rue might help.

Highly recommended.




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Wednesday, October 3, 2012

ROUND TABLE: Animals in Fantasy (Part II)

Hello and welcome back for the second part of a fascinating discussion of animals in fantasy.

Valjeanne Jeffers: The Newest Nonhumans on the Block.

My decision to write about shape shifters and animals—especially werewolves— was first met with shock...by me. When I was growing up, and until say the last ten or so years, the cast of animals in science fiction/fantasy was pretty limited. You had your choice of evil and doomed or tragic and doomed. Either way somebody, usually your animal, was doomed. Remember the “salt monster” from the original Star Trek series? It was a beast with no other desire than to assume the shapes of the crew—like a deadly chameleon. All the better to suck the salt from your body until you're dead. That was pretty much the fare of traditional SF films and books.

Whenever I sat down to watch a werewolf film, I already knew the beginning and the end. I already knew the skinny. It definitely wasn't cheerful. Some poor man or woman got bitten or scratched and went through a period of: “I can't believe this is happening to me!” Then eventually, like The American Werewolf In London, they all turned into hairy, psycho killers and proceeded to murder anyone unlucky enough to get in their way—including their own family members. That was the traditional SF nonhuman. That was his or her fate.

So why would I chose such a tragic protagonist? Now the plot, as they say, thickens. There is a nontraditional SF animal, oftentimes also a shape shifter, that has made his/her way into the SF/fantasy genre. These new animals or shape shifters can be loosely grouped into two categories: a thinking being that thwarts the heroine or hero, or one that helps them on their journey.

In The Talisman by Stephen King and Peter Straub, a science fiction/horror odyssey, there is a whole host of supernatural creatures: werewolves, were-goats, lizards... some good, some malevolent, but all with human intellect—a sharp break from the traditional werewolf formula. In fact, “Wolf,” a gentle, werewolf is pivotal to the hero's success. When Wolf runs with the moon, he too becomes a killing machine, losing his human ability to think and reason. Yet Wolf's humanity, unlike that of his literary forefathers, conquers this brutal calling.

But animals such as the talking familiars of A. Jarrell's Detecting Magic With Dick Hunter, and the magical crow of Balogun Ojetade's Once Upon a Time in Afrika showcase animals that completely belong to a new breed of SF/Fantasy animals.

In Detecting Magic... the animals guide and assist the hero in his quest—they in fact are essential to his success.

In Once Upon a Time... a magical bird, or a creature that look s like a bird, the “Crow,” gives the hero and heroine direction. In both cases these are thinking creatures. Gone is the mindless beast controlled by his or her transition into an animal.

Which brings me back to my original question: why would I choose to write about werewolves? Frankly, as I discovered, they fascinate me—always have—along with other shape shifting folk, like vampires. And because historically, in films and books, they've always been the underdogs: the unfortunate man or woman who was infected, suffered, killed and came to a horrible end. The underdog, the oppressed, the abused, the victim, who by the power of their spirit rises to become a heroine, has always been near and dear to my heart.

Another one of my motivations, is that in animals we glimpse one of the most glorious aspects of life. They will fight to death to protect those they love. They never kill for pleasure or greed. And the wolf is among the most noble, and beautiful creatures to walk the earth. Perhaps we could learn a thing or two from these “cousins?”

The shape shifters, Karla, Joseph and others, that I've brought to life in my Immortal series, in the alternate world of “Tundra,” are definitely nontraditional. They are humans, whose birthright forces them to become more. Not because they were bitten or scratched, but because they are Immortal Other, entrusted with the survival of their world.

They challenge the power structure of their planet imposed by a sorcerer, who also happens to be a megalomaniac. Not fearlessly (For who among us is fearless?) but with great courage, drawing upon their bestial natures to fight and protect their planet. There is eroticism. What is life without love? Violence, for the Others are nothing if not revolutionary. And growth. If you live you evolve. Or you stagnant and die. There is whole cast of preternatural humans and daemons in the Immortal series—some good, some evil—and all with their own agenda (whether working for themselves or some other entity) for who will rule Tundra.

Indeed, the world of science fiction animals is no longer a realm of star crossed creatures. No longer are werewolves and other meta-humans ruled by harsh literary plots, their bloody death predetermined by their nature. This new world is rich and multi-layered. Shape shifters are free to think, live and love—both as humans and animals—to chose their own path, whether benevolent or evil.

And this brave new world is where I've found my writing home.

Valjeanne Jeffers is an artist, poet and the author of The Immortal and The Switch series. She has been published in numerous anthologies including: The Ringing Ear: Black Poets Lean South, 31 Days of Steamy Mocha, Griots: A Sword and Soul Anthology, Griots II: Sisters of the Spear (in press) and Steamfunk!Anthology (in press). Valjeanne's novels can be purchased at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Smashwords, Nubian Bookstore, Morrow GA, and Eljay's Bookstore, Pittsburgh PA.

Preview her novels at: http://www.vjeffersandqveal.com

Sylvia Kelso:
This is one of those grab-bag topics: shake it and a confetti of sub-topics leaps out. Just to start with, especially in high fantasy, there are the normal but mandatory animals that indicate a pre-industrial or agricultural society: cows, pigs, etc., and above all, horses, that necessity of all heroes down from the Round Table knights.

Horses can come with varying degrees of verisimilitude, and for me at least, consequent levels of suspended disbelief for the whole story. Sharon Shinn’s Mystic books, for ex, don’t seem aware that horses on a journey need a lot of feed, water, shelter, grooming – as when chilled through by a snowstorm – and that their likes and dislikes include both rider and equine companions. In total contrast, Aerin’s horse Talat in Robin McKinley’s The Hero and the Crown is a personality in his own right, but a wholly equine personality, and as present a character as Aerin herself.

Equally essential to fantasy are the magical animals. Most often, they are speaking animals: to use a classic example, the Badgers and Reepicheep the cavalier mouse from the Narnia books. There is some discussion over what makes a beast fable as distinct from fantasy: my answer would be, in a beast fable the animals are allegorical, as in Animal Farm. The Badger and Reeepicheep stand for themselves, and are therefore fantasy. So, too, is the presence of animals as povs and purveyors of a wholly non-human society, as with Diane Duane’s felines in The Book of Night and Moon, and of course, Watership Down.

Where horses and cows lend essential verisimilitude to a pre-industrial world, magic animals matter in an entirely different way. Such creatures say very clearly that this is not realism but a genre of Elsewhere: Yeah, Toto, we’re not in Kansas any more.

Such animals often supply the first step toward suspension of disbelief in a fantasy world. Close behind in this role come original invented animals, such as Judith Tarr’s seneldi in the Avaryan books. Riding animals, though not horses, yet differing most clearly in the horns on their heads. More memorable to me are C.J. Cherryh’s “goblin horses.” For Goblin Mirror, they take a starring role on the cover, but inside, their strangeness stops at fiery eyes and three-toed feet. The full Monty comes with the “Night-horses” in Rider at the Gate: linked, like McCaffrey’s dragons, by telepathic rapport to one human, three-toed, omnivorous – happily consuming fish, bacon, small animals and “biscuits”– and with a bouquet of other psychic abilities. The Night-horses and their native companions produce a fascinatingly Other world, where the visible landscape is continually overlaid with a psychic view, “the ambient,” as infra-red vision overlays ordinary sight.

Different again are some of the oldest Elsewhere creatures, the were-animals: the selkie, the lamia, and used almost to overload of late, the werewolf. Definitely of Elsewhere, though since Laurell Hamilton very much at home in contemporary fantasy as well as paranormal romance, timelessly fascinating, to storytellers and readers/hearers both. But with the invented or magic animal, beasthood is in no doubt; the were-creature is another kettle of fish. Is it primarily a beast, or primarily human? The creature, question, and arising dilemmas have been a rich source for imagination from early fairytales on down.

And before and beyond and after all these come the myths and legends: the creatures that never existed, yet which have kindled imagination from times before writing. The chimera, the Pegasus, the griffin, the manticore, the basilisk, the harpy, and the dragon, above all.

Dragons have become a modern fantasy leit-motif that has outlasted even the snowy peaks once endemic on fantasy covers. Dragons above all signal, Elsewhere, and perhaps, if the reader and writer are lucky, that elusive quality, as I’ve said so often, that we may all be seeking in fantasy. I’ll let Tolkien sum it up, here from the famous lecture “On Fairy Stories,” but as so often, with that language which underpins all of Middle-earth.

[As a child,] I had no desire to have either dreams or adventures like Alice … and Treasure Island left me cold. Red Indians were better: there were … strange languages, and glimpses of an archaic mode of life, and above all forests … [But] best of all was the nameless North of Sigurd of the Volsungs, and the prince of all dragons … The dragon had the trade-mark Of Faerie written plain upon him. In whatever world he had his being it was an Otherworld. Fantasy, the making or glimpsing of Otherworlds, was the heart of the desire of Faerie. I desired dragons with a profound desire. (OFS 135, “Children” Sub-section).

Sylvia Kelso lives in North Queensland, Australia, and writes fantasy and SF set mostly in analogue or alternate Australian settings. She has published six fantasy novels, two of which were finalists for best fantasy novel of the year in the Australian Aurealis genre fiction awards, and some short stories in Australian and US anthologies. Her latest short story, “At Sunset” is in Luna Station Quarterly for September 2012.

Carole McDonnell:
For me, animals in a fantasy story root me in the real world. There are animals in fantasy and fantastical animals. I tend to like real animals. Oh, I don't mind the odd talking or magical animal but for me the best kind of animal in a fantasy is a horse.

Fantasies come in all kind. Some genres don't use horses at all. Urban fantasy, for instance, generally doesn't need horses. But those of us who learned to love fantasy by reading the old fashioned sword and sorcery tales understand the joy that rises to the spirit when a horse enters the page.

The horse alone -- sans its rider-- is a symbol of strength, nobility, loyalty, restraint, war and the old days. Its strength, its speed, and its nobility is given to the warrior. For me, a horse is a warrior's equipment -- like a sword, like a mantle thrown casually over his shoulder and blown in the wind. A fantasy story without a horse lacks nobility and lacks the Sensawunda Once-upon-a-time age-old quality. Horses are the cavalry: Sword and sorcery is essentially about someone on a great mission who will -- in the long run-- save someone, some great land, some oppressed people. Saviors and avengers as well as villains ride on horses. Even if the horse has no magic power, when the protagonist sits upon it, the reader has confidence that something wonderful is afoot, that the Savior and the True Prince has arrived.

In many western and eastern myths, heroes ride on horses.

In Christianity, when Jesus returns as king, he is depicted as being on a horse.

And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war. Revelations 19:11

Carole McDonnell is a writer of ethnic fiction, speculative fiction, and Christian fiction. Her works have appeared in many anthologies and at various online sites. Her novel, Wind Follower, was published by Wildeside Books. Her forthcoming novel is called The Constant Tower. http://carolemcdonnell.blogspot.com/

Warren Rochelle:
Listening to the Talking Beasts of Narnia

In The Magician’s Book: A Skeptic’s Adventures in Narnia (Back Bay Books, 2008) Laura Miller asserts that Human beings have longed to communicate with the universe since time immemorial—a profound, mystical longing. Tolkien described it as one of the two ‘primordial desires’ behind fairy tales (after the desire to ‘survey the depths of space and time’); we want to ‘hold communion with other living beings (27). But, we are separated from the universe, from the other living beings who share it with us, Miller contends, by words, by language (26-27).

Not so in Narnia. Here, human beings live side by side, and are often friends with, talking animals, “the most cherished creatures in children’s fantasy” (30). As a child, when Miller first read the Chronicles, this was one of the things she most loved about the books. She would have “given anything to join the Pevensie siblings at the round dinner table in Mr. and Mrs. Beaver’s snug house, trading stories about Aslan and eating potatoes and freshly caught trout” (31). She goes on, of course, to say as an adult she appreciates animals as they are.

Well. I first read the Chronicles when I was in third grade, eight-going-on-nine, and I fell in love, and I have never quite fallen out of that love (and I don’t really want to). While not the skeptic reclaiming Narnia from an adult perspective like Miller, I find myself when I reread the series (which I do every year, along with Tolkien, and a few others, such as A Wrinkle in Time) as an old friend spending time with another beloved old friend, whose warts and flaws are visible, but I love this friend no less.

I still long for Narnia. I still wish I could talk with the animals in my life. Here I want to briefly look at what Lewis is doing, beyond wish fulfillment. What do these Talking Beasts have to say to us when we do hold this communion, when we are no longer separated by language? According to Paul Ford in his revised and expanded Companion to Narnia (HarperCollins, 2005), each animal “acts according to its stereotype. Moles dig the apple orchard at Cair Paravel; Mr. Beaver builds Beaversdam; horses carry smaller creatures into battle with the witch. Glimfeather is a wise owl.” But Lewis goes beyond this: he ‘uses animals as hieroglyphs, or ‘pictures’ of certain human attributes; Reepicheep, for instance, is a hieroglyph of courage” (47). Jewel, the Unicorn, is the epitome of friendship. Trufflehunter the Badger is loyal, faithful, and true. Not all are good, of course—although they were created originally as innocents—Shift, the ape, is deceit and evil and betrayal.

The Beasts are “in many ways similar to humans; indeed they are anthropomorphized to a high degree.” Reepicheep remembers his cradle; the Beavers live in a “cozy English home and enjoy proper English meals” (420). Even so, Reepicheep is still a Mouse; the Beavers are beavers—they retain their animal-ness. In The Horse and His Boy, Bree and Hwin are fully realized characters with distinct personalities, who are Horses—who care for and love their humans, and who are the friends of their humans. And eat oats and like to roll in the grass, a habit that causes Bree distress: is this acceptable behavior for a Narnian Horse? Lewis, through his Talking Beasts who are like humans and yet distinctly not human, “reminds us that we are indeed part of the natural world, and not separate from it as modern science and technology might have us believe” (421).

Clearly, when the Talking Beasts speak, we should listen. They tell us that we are not alone—that we are part of the natural world, and indeed, we are responsible for it. . Narnia is not a land just for men, but it is a land that is meant to be ruled by a Son of Adam or a Daughter of Eve. As Reepicheep reminds Caspian in Voyage of the Dawn Treader: you promised to be good lord to the Talking Beasts. We—humans—must care for the world, and we must pay attention to it—we must see it. The Beasts also remind us that there is more to the world than the visible. The Divine, the Mystery, is present and a part of the world we all live in. Aslan, the Great Lion, the son of the Emperor-over-Sea, is one of the Beasts—he is a lion, like other lions . . .

I could go on with this list of virtues and Beastly lessons, but I think I may have said enough for the moment. Perhaps what the Talking Beasts are reminding us the most of is what it means to be human—and that humans are animals as well.

Warren Rochelle has taught English at the University of Mary Washington since 2000. His short story, "The Golden Boy” (published in The Silver Gryphon) was a Finalist for the 2004 Gaylactic Spectrum Award for Best Short Story and his novels include The Wild Boy (2001), Harvest of Changelings (2007), and

The Called (2010. He also published a critical work on Le Guin and has academic articles in various journals and essay collections.

http://warrenrochelle.com



See also:

http://deborahjross.blogspot.com/2012...

This one was passed on to me by the energetic and talented Sylvia Kelso, who's done the meme on her own blog. We all know The Next Big Thing is just over the horizon, so I'm joining the ranks of writers like Sylvia who are describing our own new and just-beginning projects, in answer to the Ten Questions for the Meme. And here are mine:

What is the working title of your next book?

*Hmm. I have a completed novel, The Golden Boy, which is currently being edited by Nancy Berman, a free-lance editor friend of mine. I am working on a story collection, with the working title, Happily Ever After and Other Stories. I have a novel-in-progress, The Werewolf and His Boy, almost finished but I have put it on hold to finish the story collection.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

*I don’t have an agent, alas. Self-publishing is an option, but before I try that, I am planning on sending the manuscripts to various small presses that have published similar books.

Where did the idea come from for the book?

*The Golden Boy:

The original idea came from the notion that all fairy tales are true, and that the magical and mundane coexist, although the latter is not always aware of the former, or rather doesn’t believe in the former—at first.

Happily Ever After:

Homophobia persists, lingers, and is girding its loins to fight to the death. And as a result, stories are still being published and films are still being made in which the gay characters do not have happy endings, usually with one dying, leaving the survivor to mourn. I was determined to write a collection of stories in which my gay protagonists have happily ever afters—more or less.

The Werewolf and His Boy:

*The story that inspired this novel, “Lowe’s Wolf” (published in the Spring 2010 issue of Icarus) was inspired from a dream my partner had about a wolf hiding in Lowe’s.

What genre does your book fall under?

*Genres for all three: Fantasy, speculative fiction, gay fiction, alternate history.

How long does it take to write the first draft of your manuscript?

*Good question. Maybe a year or so?

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

I’m not sure. There are several gay werewolf stories out there—novels and short stories. My friend, Catherine Lundoff, just published Silver Moon (Lethe Press, 2012) about a lesbian werewolf of “a certain age.” Queer Wolf (QueeredFiction, 2009) is an anthology of gay werewolf stories.

As The Golden Boy is an alternate history/fantasy/gay novel, there are just too many out there for me to pick one. But Time Well Bent (Lethe Press, 2009), a collection of queer alternative history tales, comes to mind.

Peter Cashorali wrote Fairy Tales: Traditional Stories Retold For Gay Men (HarperCollins, 1997) and these stories, this collection, inspired me to write my own.

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

*Hmm—which characters? Which actors? I’m not good at this sort of question!

The Golden Boy: Well, maybe Matt Damon and Ben Affleck for the title character, the golden boy, and Gavin, who is the protagonist. As adults, anyway. The boys grow up in the story, so their ages range from 6 to 40-something.

The Werewolf and His Boy: The werewolf, Henry Thorn: Agiris Karras, who played Riley Stavros on DeGrassi.

Happily Ever After: 10 stories—too many characters!

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

*Like I said, for The Werewolf and His Boy, the original inspiration came from a dream my partner had.

I think I have already answered this question for each book in the idea question. In general, I find myself inspired by such things as:

Dreams, fairy tales, myths, the people I love, love …

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

*The Golden Boy: It is set in an alternate universe, in which there is no United States, rather the Columbian Empire. Magic is real, albeit restricted and the magical are persecuted in the Empire.

The Werewolf and His Boy: For the people around here, the novel’s setting: Richmond and Fredericksburg, VA, with a foray to England.

Happily Ever After: The stories we know so well—the fairy tales, the myths—are still as powerful as ever, even as we reinterpret and reimagined them. That these stories have gay heroes might pique the interest of gay SF and fantasy fans.

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

*I hate these kinds of questions! Here are some possible sentences:

The Golden Boy: Can Gavin, part-fairy and gay, keep his true self secret, be true to himself, and survive in a country that wants to kill people like him?

The Werewolf and His Boy: Henry, a werewolf, and Jamey, a godling, must find the key left by Loki before it is too late and magic explodes in the world, and at the same time, sort out their love for each other.

Happily Ever After: Everyone deserves the chance to have a happy ending.

The great story teller and weaver of tales, Debra Killeen: http://myrridia.net/

Debra Killeen is the award-winning author of "The Myrridian" Cycle.




http://warrenrochelle.com/2012/12/27/...

The Silver Apples of Narnia
by
Warren Rochelle

This month's theme for The Great Fantasy Traveling Roundtable is food in fantasy literature. I chose to write about the silver apples of Narnia. The entire blog post, which includes pieces by:
Sylvia Kelso, Deborah J. Ross, and Andrea Host, can be found at:
http://www.sylviakelso.com
and
also on this blog
and at:
http://www.facebook.com/notes/warren-...

*****

Apples, apples and more apples, appear again and again in The Chronicles of Narnia. They are the first food eaten by the Pevensies when they return to Narnia in Prince Caspian—apples grown in an orchard they had planted centuries before, an orchard blessed by Pomona, the greatest of the wood goddesses. Perhaps the most potent, symbolically at least, are the silver apples. According to the WikiNarnia, “In all of existence, there are only “four known individual silver apple trees.”

The first one appears in The Magician’s Nephew. Digory and Polly are sent by Aslan to find the Garden of Youth and there take a silver apple from the Tree of Youth. There he meets the Witch, who was “just throwing the core of an apple . . . The juice was darker than you would expect and made a horrid stain around her mouth” (142-143). She has attained her heart’s desire, immortality, but already is experiencing what will many long years of despair of an evil life. She was warned: Come in by the gold gates or not all/Take of my fruit for others or forbear. /For those who steal or those who climb my wall/Shall find their heart’s desire and find despair (141).

Digory plants the second silver apple tree, the Tree of Protection, on the banks of the Great River of Narnia, with the apple he brings to Aslan. The tree grew quickly. “Its spreading branches seem to cast a light rather than a shade, and silver apples peeped out like stairs from under every leaf. But it was the smell which came from it, even more than the sight, that had everyone draw in their breath.” This breathtaking scent will keep Narnia safe from all enemies. As Aslan explains, the Witch “dare not come within a hundred miles of the Tree, for its smell, which is joy and life and health to you, is death and horror and despair to her” (155). For 898 years this Tree protects Narnia from all enemies. Presumably it dies and only then does evil come into Narnia: the Witch, having outlived the Tree thanks to the apple she ate, returns and the hundred years of winter begins.

It is an apple from this Tree that Aslan gives to Digory that cures his mother. And from this apple grows the third silver apple tree, in the garden behind a row house in London. The magic is lessened in our world, although it “did bear apples more beautiful than any other in England and they were extremely good for you, though not fully magical.” This otherworldly tree is magically connected to its parent in Narnia: “Sometime it would move mysteriously when there was no wind blowing . . . when this happened there were high winds in Narnia.” When a storm brings down the English silver apple tree (whether or not the apples are silvery here is not mentioned), Digory, by then an adult, has “part of the timber made into a wardrobe, which he put in his big house in the country” (166).

We all know what happens with this wardrobe.

The fourth silver apple tree is only hinted at in The Last Battle. The world of Narnia has ended; the Pevensies and their friends are in Aslan’s country and are being called to “Come further up and further in” (167) and to pass through the golden gates into a walled garden, “into the delicious smell that blew towards them” (169)—presumably the same delicious smell of the silver apple tree in Digory’s garden. At the centre of this garden is an orchard, “where the Phoenix sat in a tree and looked down upon them all and at the foot of that tree were two thrones, a King and Queen so great and beautiful that everyone bowed down before them” (170). These two are King Frank and Queen Helen, the first King and Queen, crowned hours after Aslan sang Narnia into existence. That they are compared to Adam and Eve suggests this tree is the Tree of Knowledge, a silver apple tree.

Clearly Lewis is drawing upon a variety of sources for these silver apples, and not just Genesis and the Garden of Eden—the forbidden fruit on the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil is never identified in the Bible as an apple, silver or otherwise. That fruit—and the silver apple tree Digory finds, are both forbidden and are both symbols of temptation, of the fall, of sin, of knowledge and immortality. For Digory this knowledge comes in a flash: the Witch is wrong; he must do the right thing, follow the rules, and do as Aslan has commanded. It takes Adam and Eve a little longer to figure things out.

According to the Myths Encyclopedia, “Apples are brimming with symbolic meanings and mythic associations. In China they represent peace, and apple blossoms are a symbol of women's beauty. In other traditions, they can signify wisdom, joy, fertility, and youthfulness.” In Norse mythology, the apples of the goddess Iðunn are necessary for the gods to keep their eternal youth—otherwise, they will grow old, grey, bent. One of the tasks of Heracles is to bring back the golden apples from the Tree of Life that grows in the Garden of the Hesperides. When Eris tosses out her golden apple, meant for the fairest, momentous and cataclysmic events are set in motion. Apples are sacred to Aphrodite: throwing an apple at someone was to symbolically declare one’s love (even though the fruit Eve picks is never identified).

Avalon is apple-island; Snow White is tempted by a poisoned one. An apple a day keeps the doctor away. Apples, apples, apples: food as myth, as metaphor, as icon, as a way to the truth—to greater knowledge of self, of what is real. Aslan’s Country is the truly real; we live in the shadowlands. God gave us bodies that must be sustained, must be fed—and he gave us souls that also must be sustained and fed. But why apples, what makes them so special? Originating in Western Asia, today apples are grown world-wide. Originally they were among the earliest trees to be cultivated, now, they are ubiquitous and we eat them raw, cooked, baked, fried, and stewed. They were (supposedly) with us in the beginning in Eden. Silver apples frame Narnian existence, from the beginning to the end. They are a fruit given by God, weighted with meaning.

I believe I will go get an apple . . . a Pink Lady, they taste so sweet …

* * * * *

Warren Rochelle has taught English at the University of Mary Washington since 2000. His short story, “The Golden Boy” (published in The Silver Gryphon) was a Finalist for the 2004 Gaylactic Spectrum Award for Best Short Story and his novels include The Wild Boy (2001), Harvest of Changelings (2007), and The Called (2010. He also published a critical work on Le Guin and has academic articles in various journals and essay collections. He is currently at work on a novel about a gay werewolf and a collection of gay-themed fantasy short stories. One of the collection's stories, "The Boy on McGee Street," was published in Queer Fish 2 (Pink Narcissus Press) in October 2012.

Website: http://warrenrochelle.com

Welcome to the January 2013 edition of the Great Fantasy Traveling Roundtable Blog.

This month we are pondering that mainstay of fantasy literature, the Hero and the Quest, with thoughts on unlikely heroes, what a hero is and isn’t, how authors such as Frank Herbert have used this trope, and how we interpreted said Hero and said Quest in our own fiction. Enjoy and reactions and responses are always welcome!


Warren Rochelle
My Heroes
According to the online version of the American Heritage Dictionary, a hero is:
1. In mythology and legend, a man, often of divine ancestry, who is endowed with great courage and strength, celebrated for his bold exploits, and favored by the gods.

2. A person noted for feats of courage or nobility of purpose, especially one who has risked or sacrificed his or her life: soldiers and nurses who were heroes in an unpopular war.

3. A person noted for special achievement in a particular field: the heroes of medicine.

4. The principal male character in novel, poem, or dramatic presentation.

The word hero should no longer be regarded as restricted to men in the sense [of] “a person noted for courageous action,” though heroine is always restricted to women.

Two of my favorites heroes are Russell and Jeff, who happen to be two of the four protagonists in my novels, Harvest of Changelings (Golden Gryphon Press, 2007, paperback, 2008) and The Called (Golden Gryphon Press, 2010). They are rather unlikely heroes. Briefly, Russell and Jeff are the Fire and Water of their tetrad, their found family. Tetrads are the basic social unit of Faerie, and come in all kinds of gender combinations; their tetrad has three boys and one girl, Hazel, the Earth. Malachi, the other boy, is the Air.
Often there are couples within the tetrad with the couple as primary bond, the tetrad as secondary. Except for Malachi, who is half-fairy, these children are the descendants of changelings left in our universe centuries ago. In Harvest, their long-dormant fairy DNA is awakened and they became to change, and become more magical, acquiring such abilities as flight and glamour-casting. At first they are dealing with these changes alone, then they find each other, and of course, they find themselves fighting Evil, human and otherwise, and on a Quest.

When the reader first meets Russell Avery White he is 12 and in the 5th grade, having had to repeat two grades earlier. The school system has classified him as learning disabled. Red-haired, he has grass-green eyes and is living with his father and pregnant stepmother. His birthmother ran away years ago, taking with her his little brother, and leaving Russell to be verbally and physically abused by his dad. As he tells the other three: “I don’t remember him ever not doing it, now that I think about it” (Harvest 214). Russell’s body and soul are scarred and wounded. He is angry and thinks of himself as dark. He has learned to keep secrets, including his growing awareness of his attraction to boys. He dreams of centaurs—dreams sent by Faerie.

Jeffrey Arthur Gates is 10, a 5th grader and in Russell’s class. He has dark brown hair and sea-green eyes, and suffered “aggravated and protracted sexual abuse” from age 6 to 10. His father was the perpetrator; his mother abandoned him. Like Russell, he has been classified learning disabled. Like Russell he is scarred; Jeff’s are invisible. Now in foster care and fearing returning to his father, Jeff dreams of dragons.

With Malachi, Hazel, they will fight demons, monsters, evil people, as, with the help of Malachi’s father, they search for the gate to Faerie.

In The Called, the two boys, now lovers, are older, emotionally and mentally in their late teens, their physical aging slowed from their years in Faerie. They are called home to Earth to reunite their tetrad, to fight in another war against evil. And they are still haunted by their pasts: the abuse, the pain, and the anger. They are still Outsiders.

They carry no swords or spears. Their births seem ordinary, their rearing, with the abuse, less so. They are called to adventure, to the Quest—but it is more that adventure and the Quest finds them. Helpers, animal and wise souls, yes, and as they encounter evil and discover how to deal with it, they are tried and tested. There are monsters, yes, but the evil is often interior—the shadows of their pasts, and the damaged adults who sort of care for them. Russell’s anger is not easy for Jeff to deal with, no matter how much he comes to love him. Russell’s darkness, his disbelief in his own goodness, is not easy for anyone to deal with. For Jeff, the Somebody in the dark who came for him is still there, a ghost that is always present. They make awful mistakes again and again.

And Russell and Jeff are two of my favorite heroes.

Why?

From pain comes strength? Yes, sometimes, but not always. Pain and anger can break someone; it breaks Russell; Jeff surrenders to it. Perhaps part of the answer can be found in these words by Jane Bowles*: “Your first pain, you carry it with you like a lodestone in your breast because all tenderness will come from there. You must carry it through your whole life but you must not circle around it.” That pain can bring tenderness, is, I would argue, the real source of the strength of my problem children. If they had not suffered and survived and grown from this, Jeff and Russell would have found their
Quest-given tasks far more difficult. As Fred Chappell said in the blurb he wrote for Harvest: “Perhaps a new beatitude is discovered: the broken shall mend the earth.”

But aren’t heroes the characters with whom the reader is to identify? The Hero is the archetype of the Self, right? The Hero and the Quest is the archetypal journey of coming of age (yes, I know it is problematic in its privileging of the public and the masculine)? But are there people who have not been hurt? We all were children once. And surely Heroes are Outsiders. I do identify with these two boys who grow into young men: they are telling part of my own story; they represent parts of my Self.

The potential for heroism is present in all of us. The pain and hurt that comes to us can break us, but it also has the potential for ultimately bringing us greater strength of character and a truer sense of Self.

The Quest is an ongoing journey.

*Jane Bowles, 1917 – 1973, is an American writer and playwright considered by Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote, and John Ashbery to be “one of the finest and most underrated writers of American fiction.” She has “long had an underground reputation as one of the truly original writers of this century.”

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Warren Rochelle has taught English at the University of Mary Washington since 2000. His short story, “The Golden Boy” (published in The Silver Gryphon) was a Finalist for the 2004 Gaylactic Spectrum Award for Best Short Story and his novels include The Wild Boy (2001), Harvest of Changelings (2007), and The Called (2010. He also published a critical work on Le Guin and has academic articles in various journals and essay collections. His short story, “The Boy on McGee Street,” was just published in Queer Fish 2 (Pink Narcissus Press, 2012).

http://warrenrochelle.com

***

Deborah Ross
Hero on a Quest
Once upon a time, a hero represented a very particular character, an archetype if you will. He was invariably male, either a youth or in the prime of life, neither a child nor infirm with age; he was physically powerful and if not morally irreproachable, clearly a “good guy.” It was fine for him to have a flaw or two, so long as it did not interfere with his ability to accomplish great deeds and conquer mighty foes. Occasionally, the flaw would prove his downfall, as in the case of Achilles. The tradition that stretches from Odysseus, Beowulf, and Gilgamesh continued through King Arthur and his knights, to Tarzan, the superheroes of comic books, Doc Savage, and James Bond. True, there were occasional female-heroes in this mold, but mostly they imitated the men, only with brass bikinis, improbably high heels, and better fashion sense. What made them heroic, men and women alike, were physical prowess, lofty ideals, and larger-than-life goals. In other words, they were Worthy of The Noble Quest.

The Quest was always something beyond the reach of the ordinary person. No average plowman or shop-keeper could aspire to find the Grail or slay the dragon. The Quest usually involved what Joseph Campbell called “the hero’s journey,” meaning that the central character must leave behind the familiar, venture into unknown terrain fraught with danger, and then return home. Sometimes he is changed by his experience, sometimes he merely puts himself back on the shelf until the next plea for help.

The function of this kind of Hero is not only as a Campbellian agent – that is, to guide the reader through a transformative journey – but as an agen instrument of Order and of The Triumph of Good. (Notice how the topic lends itself to unnecessary capitalization?) The world has veered toward Chaos, if not actually toppled headlong into the abyss, and the task of the Hero is to set things right. (I suspect that one modern incarnation of the classical Hero is the detective, who restores right social order by solving puzzles that lead to the apprehension of wrong-doers.) One of the implications here is that only those of noble birth, etc., and who are favored by the gods have the capacity to do great deeds. Aforementioned nobles undoubtedly relished stories that demonstrated them how superior they were and didn’t mind the peasantry being reminded of it. This propagated a hierarchical power structure in the same way as did the notion of the divine right of kings. It reinforced the notion that those with political power were inherently better (stronger, luckier, sexier, purer of thought, beloved by the gods) than those who had none.

In an interesting twist, if one wants to praise someone in the People’s Republic of China (or the old Soviet Union), one says he or she is a Hero of the Revolution.

One of the most interesting changes to come about with the development of the novel was the notion that stories about people of ordinary stature and circumstances could be interesting, and that such characters, however humble, might behave in admirable ways. Of course, “ordinary” is in the eye of the beholder and people who were illiterate due to poverty had little opportunity to see themselves in novel characters. Jane Austen wrote about her own fairly comfortable social class, people whose circumstances were familiar to her. One might consider her a Hero of the Novelistic Revolution.

With the shift to non-Heroic characters came the concept of a protagonist – one who acts — rather than a hero, and the blurring of lines between a person who may do extraordinary deeds but is not of the aristocratic, chosen-by-God mode. We might encounter protagonists-of-noble-birth who are heroic in spite of rather than because of their dynastic sociopolitical standing. Eventually, we also had anti-heroes, reluctant heroes, villains-with-hearts-of-gold, and women heroes (to distinguish them from the typical wailing wilting damsel-in-distress heroines). We had central characters who represented ordinary people who rise to extraordinary heights, people that could be you or me. We stopped calling them heroes for a while, but now often do so again.

Sometimes ordinary-people heroes go on quests, sometimes they get dragged kicking and protesting into adventures, and sometimes they simply ache with dreams until they wake up one day and take a small step toward realizing those dreams. In some ways, they carry us with them on their quest more readily because they are more like us. But with the specificity of character comes a different sort of distance from the reader. Many of the old-style Heroes were pretty bland as characters; they didn’t need quirks and failings and insecurities because they were, after all, Heroes. We now appreciate that in the hands of a skillful storyteller, superficial similarities (gender, race, socioeconomic status, nationality) fade in importance compared to the common human experience and aspirations. A sympathetic character trumps one who is “like me.” Added to that is the value placed on diversity and “exoticism” (which is another way of saying, the romantic aspect of strange lands and people).

I wonder if the shift from superhuman/aristocratic Hero to ordinary person acting in heroic ways also reflects a shift in empowerment. Once upon a time, not only could the people who comprised the vast majority of the work force hope to achieve anything notable, they dared not draw attention to themselves. I think now of the people who jump into rivers to save children, or land disabled airplanes under near-impossible circumstances, or place themselves between gunmen and the students in their care (or talk those same gunmen into laying down their weapons). These are true heroes and what they accomplish – often without planning or forethought – may not fulfill the classical definition of a quest. But to the children who are still alive and to everyone who hears these stories and gets tears in their eyes, these spontaneous acts of courage shine all the brighter.

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Deborah J. Ross began writing professionally in 1982 as Deborah Wheeler with Jaydium and Northlight and short stories in Asimov’s, F & SF, Realms Of FantasyY and Star Wars: Tales From Jabba’s Palace. Now under her birth name, Ross, she is continuing the” Darkover” series of the late Marion Zimmer Bradley, as well as original work, including the fantasy trilogy The Seven-Petaled Shield, forthcoming from DAW. She is a member of Book View Cafe. She’s lived in France, worked for a cardiologist, studied Hebrew, yoga and kung fu, plays classical piano, loves horses, and is active in the local Jewish and Quaker communities.

http://deborahjross.blogspot.com/

***

Chris Howard
Frank Herbert and the Quest without a Hero
Like any writer I have many stylistic influences spanning classical, romantic, and contemporary authors from Homer, Hugo, and Dostoyevsky to Terry Pratchett, Richard Morgan, and Caitlín Kiernan. But if I had to pick an author whose work influenced me to the core–and at a young age–it would be Frank Herbert. For a particular work it would be Dune.

One of the things Dune taught me was that the protagonist of the story can go on the quest, suffer at the hands of an oppressor, struggle through and around the obstacles enemies lay out for him, and he can even complete the quest and emerge victorious. And he can do all of this without being a hero.

Or maybe Paul Atreides was just a different sort of hero, one I had never come across before. With Dune Frank Herbert made me look at heroes and their quests in a different way.

I think many fantasy writers would automatically stick Tolkien on the list, but although I have read the Lord of the Rings dozens of times—and The Silmarillion at least ten—I can’t say Tolkien affected me the same way—or as deeply. Certainly Tolkien showed me the wonder of maps, invented languages, an excitingly deep world, and how a big story—Lord of the Rings—can become just one insignificant fragment of a far longer and more complicated story. These are the things I still love about The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion. I probably would have said Tolkien was my favorite author when I was a teenager, but when I hit twenty or so, after four or five readings about Paul Atreides and all the craziness he gets up to with the fremen, I sort of felt like I had graduated from The Lord of the Rings to Dune.

Dune was also exotic, non-traditional. It had European roots without being entirely European, and that drew me in. There was also a very familiar parallel with Paul’s move from Caladan with its broad oceans to the faraway and very different desert world of Arrakis. I had moved around a lot and I thought that gave me insight into Paul’s plight—typical teenager. I was living in Japan, going to high school, when I first read Dune, but I had also lived just outside Paris, and in Idar-Oberstein, Germany. I had been up and down South Korea, Italy, and through East Germany by train to Berlin. I had lived on both American coasts, and I was living in Silicon Valley. In my seventeen- or eighteen- year-old mind there was definitely something that connected the changes shaking up Paul’s life and the constant moving around when I was young.

If the unfamiliar and striking backdrop of Arrakis lured me in first, that was quickly followed by Herbert’s push and play with the concept of a hero. Paul Atreides wasn’t your typical innocent kid with a quest thrust on him, with everything he counted on pulled from under his feet. He wasn’t just a pawn struggling to find his way in a universe of space-folding guild navigators and galactic-scale trade and political manipulation. He was a significant piece in the Bene Gesserit breeding program. He took the terrible risk—basically gambling everything—to gain god-like powers, which he used to gather and train thousands of fanatical soldiers. He defeated the emperor’s forces, killing armies and princes, the whole time maneuvering himself onto the throne, marrying the emperor’s daughter purely for political gain. And he ends the last chapter with less control over his life than when the story started.

Paul was a man playing god,” said Herbert.

That idea hooked me at the first reading—that the hero could take on powers that he would not be able to control, that he could end up flawed so deeply he wasn’t a hero anymore.

None of the main characters in The Lord of the Rings had an evolution like Paul Atreides. Frodo, Aragorn, and the others were heroes in the traditional sense. Even if Frodo didn’t come home whole, he came back a true hero, having lost a finger and defeated the greatest evil of his age. Paul Atreides didn’t come home from his long journey a hero. He was a messiah at the head of a monster of religious ferocity he created. Anything that monster did would be done in his name, and he didn’t really control it.

Then he unleashed it on the universe.

In Herbert’s own words, “The bottom line of the Dune trilogy is: beware of heroes. Much better to rely on your own judgment, and your own mistakes.”

Paul had the quest. He made the journey. He was victorious. There’s a clear apotheosis stage—literally. Paul Atreides is deified. He passes through the stages of the hero’s journey. He just isn’t a hero. Not in the usual sense.

I haven’t read Dune in ten or fifteen years, but I can still feel the affect that book and the following two—Dune Messiah and Children of Dune —had on me. I loved the culture clashing in Dune, the court intrigue, the power and plans of the Bene Gesserit sisterhood, the dinner parties with codes and signals and conversations being carried on at several levels at the same time—and only understood by a few. But it was the protagonist wielding power beyond his control that pulled me back into that universe again and again. It was Paul-Muad’Dib driving his followers, his family, the guilds, the Bene Gesserits, and the entire empire toward a doom he could not escape.

That is what has stuck with me to this day. Paul became a model for the kinds of heroes I love to write about. Heroes who barely have the will or personal strength to hold onto the reigns of some monstrous power that is part of them, or that they have created, and sometimes they end up being consumed by it.

In the introduction to his short story collection Eye, Frank Herbert elaborates on this theme. “Dune was aimed at this whole idea of the infallible leader because my view of history says that mistakes made by a leader (or made in a leader’s name) are amplified by the numbers who follow without question. That’s how 900 people wound up in Guyana drinking poison Kool-Aid…”

I don’t know if it’s unusual but I love the idea of a protagonist who isn’t heroic in the traditional sense. I love an unsympathetic hero–or a hero who starts the story without a shared compassion or a strong connection with the reader, and grows to become sympathetic.

On the other hand I also love a good straightforward heroic quest, where the hero is good and right and fights evil. I know Herbert has been taken as being an active opponent of the hero’s journey, the monomyth, the whole Campbell thousand-faced hero, and in the Dune trilogy it looks that way–even with Paul’s progress through the story closely following many of the steps Campbell describes. It’s what Paul ends up becoming that disrupts the structure.

I don’t think Herbert’s in the same camp with David Brin, a confirmed and outspoken adversary of the hero’s journey and the Campbellian insistence that components of the myths are common among most cultures worldwide (Read Brin’s fun and interesting “Star Wars” despots vs. “Star Trek” populists: http://www.salon.com/1999/06/15/brin_...).

Herbert was more of an explorer of conflict and ideas, using his heroes to work through serious flaws in leadership, on the environment and very long range planning, the power of linguistics, and down to challenging what’s considered normal and abnormal. In the Dune books at least, he did not focus on science or future technology. His explorations frequently brought him up against traditional character structure and reader acceptance, but I don’t consider him an enemy of the popular heroic journey and story structure. I consider him a thoughtful science fiction writer who wanted to push the boundaries of the genre in ways that focused on awareness of important issues—ecology, flaws in perception—the infallible leader, and on the dangers of accepting without examination long-held beliefs and cultural fixtures—the hero who completes the quest and returns home a better or at least a more evolved person.

Herbert said, “We tend to tie ourselves down to limited choices. We say, ‘Well, the only answer is….’ or, ‘If you would just. . . .’ Whatever follows these two statements narrows the choices right there. It gets the vision right down close to the ground so that you don’t see anything happening outside. Humans tend not to see over a long range. Now we are required, in these generations, to have a longer range view of what we inflict on the world around us. This is where, I think, science fiction is helping. I don’t think that the mere writing of such a book as Brave New World or 1984 prevents those things which are portrayed in those books from happening. But I do think they alert us to that possibility and make that possibility less likely. They make us aware that we may be going in that direction.”

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Chris Howard is a creative guy with a pen and a paint brush, author of Seaborn (Juno Books) and half a shelf-full of other books. His short stories have appeared in a bunch of zines, latest is “Lost Dogs and Fireplace Archeology” in Fantasy Magazine. In 2007, his story “Hammers and Snails” was a Robert A. Heinlein Centennial Short Fiction Contest winner. He writes and illustrates the comic, Saltwater Witch. His ink work and digital illos have appeared in Shimmer, BuzzyMag, various RPGs, and on the pages of other books, blogs, and places. Last year he painted a 9 x 12 foot Steampunk Map of New York for a cafe in Brooklyn. Find out everything at http://www.SaltwaterWitch.com

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Carole McDonnell
The hero in stasis
Perhaps it’s the Judeo-Christian virtue of endurance. Perhaps it’s my own life. But my characters have never really wanted to go on a quest. Often they end up on one. Because the genre requires it, because the story requires it. But, for the most part, the quests of my heroes is the quest of a happy home. Home, as they have found it, is a burden to them and they generally want to leave home in order to find or create a better home — far from their own tribe or clan.

I haven’t read up on the hero’s quest in a while so I’m not sure why the hero generally leaves home. Maybe I’ve fallen into the requirements of the trope without knowing. After all, the hero’s quest is such a part of our culture. The prince must depart his land, fight dragons or ogres, marry a woman from another clan, then bring her happily back.

I will say, though, that my characters tend to be heroes of endurance. Whether women or men, they are mired in stasis — usually by well-meaning parents or clans. It is as if, my muses are not so much concerned with the quest but with exploring the brief imprisonment the hero endures. In most fantasy books, the hero has his little encounter with the jail/dungeon/dark prison then he moves on. In my books, the enduring of the dungeon is the entire novel. The hero or heroine is mired in waiting. This waiting involves hope, remorse, existential questions to God, deadly routine, and the determination to hold on to their personality, character, and/or will.

Thus, the quest is to leave the state of being mired and to return to a normalcy the typical hero takes for granted. To merely have a happy home. Perhaps that is why many of my characters are princesses or wives in unhappy marriages or damaged children of kings and warriors. Men and the healthy have a certain freedom that women, the sickly, and young children do not.

There are moments when they seem to have an apparent chance to leave their dungeon —whether by suicide, flight, or concession to the powers that be— but their love for another character, hope in Divine Intervention or a possible change of mind of their prisoner, or a holding on to their will prevents them from leaving. I suspect this kind of hero stasis can only be understand by those readers who, like The Godfather’s Don Corleone, are constantly being reeled back in —-in spite of every attempt to flee the clan.

So my new soon-to-be published novel, The Constant Tower, is not for happy middle class kids who want an adventure in order to grow, but for kids in bad neighborhoods, poor kids who wish to run away from home, kids who don’t want to be in clans, women married into hateful clans. Folks who just want to be happy with the normal. The Christian worldview of battling for a regular life in the face of suffering, sickness, and the fact of others controlling our lives changes the Hero Quest trope a bit — because of that Christian virtue of Endurance.

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Carole McDonnell is a writer of ethnic fiction, speculative fiction, and Christian fiction. Her works have appeared in many anthologies and at various online sites. Her first novel, Wind Follower, was published by Wildside Books. Her forthcoming novel is called The Constant Tower. http://carolemcdonnell.blogspot.com/



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Sylvia Kelso
When is a Quest Not a Quest?
“Quest: a journey towards a goal,” quoth the ubiquitous Wikipedia. “Hero” – one of the few words that descends but doesn’t translate from Classical Greek or Latin. “Heros” in Greek means exactly the same as “hero” in English. Whatever that may be.

The usefully succinct Wikipedia once again:
hero (male) and heroine (female) came to refer to characters who, in the face of danger and adversity or from a position of weakness, display courage and the will for self sacrifice—that is, heroism—for some greater good of all humanity.

Key-words, courage, philanthropism, self-sacrifice. Says something about the general run of homo sap. sap. that these last two qualities should be the benchmark for heroism, doesn’t it?

Outside literature, heroes don’t need a quest. They can fulfill the Wikipedia criteria without warning or training, on a surf beach, at a bushfire, beside a stormdrain. Inside littracha, everybody from Joseph Campbell up or down has produced endless lists of quest and hero variations. “’Bilbo went to find a treasure, there and back again, but I go to lose one, and not return’” (FOTR, 3 75), says Frodo to Gandalf, in That Book, citing just two possibilities. And every type of hero or quest studs modern fantasy, with the exception of one. The true anti-hero doesn’t appear.

An anti-hero usually loosely means, a hero who doesn’t look heroic: he’s unwilling, or ugly, or cowardly, or immoral. But in fact, a real anti-hero wd. be the opposite of a hero: when the crunch came, instead of fronting up like all the unlikely heroes, from Sam to Beau Mains, the anti-hero would turn and run. And without a hero who can meet the Wikipedia criteria, the whole “heroic” storyline would collapse.

But suppose that even if the hero/es behave/s in good heroic fashion, the Quest turns out not to be a Quest? Does that violate the spirit of both terms?

Quests are trickier than heroes. In littracha, you need them because without a goal, the hero/es’ wanderings wd. degenerate into a picaresque novel, a train of adventures with no coherent end. With a goal, there’s motivation for the story arc. There’s a visible reason to keep going somewhere.

I have done my share of starting-a-book-with-a-Quest, but for some reason the Black Gang, aka the creative part of the writing crew, chose to end my second Amberlight book at the start of a Quest. It was complete with dream omens, the gathering of a company, and an unknown but apparently desperately urgent goal. Deprived of their magic McGuffin at the end of Book 1, the main cast has been struggling to maintain their small Utopian community of Iskarda in the turbulent vacuum left by the fall of the city of Amberlight. At the end of book two, the McGuffin is suddenly restored – but now it’s no longer the basis of their former power, it’s a literal “seed,” powerless to protect even itself.

Only one solution, says their chief strategist. Get it out of here: the River knows it exists, the power-wolves will be after it. So make a public, heavily visible departure in hopes this small indefensible community will be ignored. Take it where? The answer is already supplied, perhaps by the McGuffin itself: the dreams’ goal, the image of a place their own lore identifies as the River’s source.

The novel turned out a two-fold story, told in letters between the chief Quester and her community’s newest foreign member, back in Iskarda. The Quest section proceeded in the proper mode: obstacles, traumas, self-discoveries and harrowing interpersonal conflicts, moments of wrenching loss, exotic new environments, uncovered secrets, and a tail of cataclysmic events, as the McGuffin’s presence disrupted or outright overthrew River states. All kosher by Quest list-rules. The “heroes” also met helpers as well as enemies, they transcended their ordinary selves, their actions were meant to benefit many others. Eventually, they reached the place that had been their goal.

The Questers had come to assume they would find not merely the River’s Source, but a solution to all the problems of a world by then convulsed in war, threatening to destroy Iskarda along with the precious new states founded in the McGuffin’s wake. Whatever it was, the goal would give them the means to save everything.

And it didn’t happen.

The Questers dealt, in some sort, with the shock. They picked themselves up, realized that their world was still dissolving behind them and set off, empty-handed, to fight and if necessary fall with their friends. As they very nearly did. In a sense, the return journey was far more heroic, in the general sense, than the one toward the goal, because unlike Frodo with his treasure lost, the return journey offered only probable immolation for its end.

Of course, this being a fantasy novel, the eucatastrophe that Tolkien first articulated eventually intervened. But the question remains: if the hero goes through the motions of the Quest, heroic and otherwise, but reaches his goal to find it – well, not what he expected – can that journey still be called a quest?

And if it isn’t a quest, though the journey remains motivated, is the goal-seeker a hero, in the most rigid and basic sense? That is, can you have a quest without a hero, even if you do have heroes without a quest?

The Black Gang consider the whole Q and A a critical trivium. Who cares, they say, if it’s “really” a quest or the heroes were “really” heroes? if it looks like a hero, and talks like a hero, and acts like a hero, it’s a hero, isn’t it? And if it looks like a Quest, and sounds like a Quest, and produces a story like a Quest, who cares? Nobody said the goal had to be more than a purpose or an aim. If you want a list-maker’s version, they sniff, then puff out your chest and claim it as the ultimate variation – the Quest that looked like a Quest and sounded like a Quest, and wasn’t technically a Quest at all.

And on this one, I think I’ll let the Black Gang have the final word.

* * * * *

Sylvia Kelso lives in North Queensland, Australia, and writes fantasy and SF set mostly in analogue or alternate Australian settings. She has published six fantasy novels, two of which were finalists for best fantasy novel of the year in the Australian Aurealis genre fiction awards, and some stories in Australian and US anthologies. Her latest short story, “At Sunset” appears in Luna Station Quarterly for September 2012.

Great Fantasy Roundtable Traveling Guest Blog, February 2013: Technology and Fantasy

Welcome to Part 12 of the Travelling Fantasy Round Table, a roaming discussion on aspects of fantasy literature!

Today, Carole McDonnell, Valjeanne Jeffers, Theresa Crater, Sylvia Kelso and Warren Rochelle join me in discussing technology in fantasy.

Andrea K Höst
Have you ever played Civilization?

You start with a group of settlers, and you end up in space. Along the way you build an Empire, clawing your way up a hierarchical technology tree where Pottery leads to Masonry, and Bronze Working leads to Iron Working, and you don't get to skip a step. You also never go backwards, never have your Great Library burn down, never have barbarians banding together to crush your Empire, and you never lose half your clever construction techniques.

Nor do you ever discover anti-gravity stones which allow you to construct floating cities and give every person fast, inexpensive and wide-ranging travel abilities.

I've discussed previously in my Impacts of Magic series, that it's rare to see magic used to significantly alter this hierarchical development of technology, and through technology to significantly change social and cultural development. Often magic is depicted as inimical to technology, causing more advanced examples to fail when in its presence.

It is rare to the point of almost never to have a healing mage show up and start teaching non-mages that there's different blood types, the basics of immunology, and the importance of sterilisation.

One series which does seem to marry technology to magic is Terry Pratchett's Discworld - from the Hex computer to cameras - but this appears to be a parallel technology tree rather than advancements in practical science. Other worlds have magic assisting technology (see all of Final Fantasy), but the injection of magic into a world of technology, or technology into a world of magic, rarely seems to massively alter the technology tree. We simply get "the Industrial Age + Magic" or "Feudalism + Magic" or "Faerie + Computers" without the complete revolution which that injection of other should surely bring.

Instead magic is often depicted as stultifying and backward instead of an instrument of revelation and advancement.

Magic in our world belongs to the charlatan. Rational science disproves magic, reveals its smoke and mirrors. Instead of partners in advancement, they are foes. Thus, to the fantasy author, it is only natural to make magic an enemy of scientific advancement. Science, with its need for comprehension and proof, with its systematic testing and extrapolation, should hate "explanationless" magic. Would science want a magic which can shortcut scientific testing, point out the correct result, and leave science to merely test and prove it?

Even in the genre of 'modern magic', urban fantasy, we rarely see any significant shift of this world's technology tree. We might get a werewolf working for, say, customs, sniffing out drugs, but we rarely get technology which has undergone a paradigm shift because magic is real. The closest we seem to come is a 'steampunk sensibility' (which appears to use clockwork technology with more than an element of magic about it) or the kind of World Behind story found in Gaiman's Neverwhere or Rowling's Potter books – magic is present but separate.

But perhaps the reason for the rarity of magic altering the technology tree is simply the sheer difficulty in mapping the result. How big a change would that anti-gravity stone bring about? Think of the impact on the Age of Expansion. Trade. Wars. At what point would mapping all those changes start to distract from the story and become an exercise in overwhelming worldbuilding, leaving the reader struggling to understand the rules?

Andrea K Höst was born in Sweden but raised in Australia. She writes fantasy and science fantasy, and enjoys creating stories which give her female characters something more to do than wait for rescue.

Carole McDonnell
There are two fallacies often found in fantasies where technology is concerned.

The first is that magic is purely fantastical. Of course, some magic is. Demons, faes, and gods abound in much fantasy. But for the most part, magic is a kind of technology in its own right, an art and lore that can be learned from wizened teachers or from ancient books. For instance, in Shakespeare's Tempest, Prospero has his wonderfully researched and studied Book.

The second fallacy is that some fantasies show the same pattern of civilization as Earth's. The Bronze Age, then the Age of Steel, animal technology, the Industrial Revolution/Steam Age, the age of electricity/radio/telegraph, the computer age/DNA technology/laser technology, and the space age, etc. But this particular sequence seems wrong to me. One culture might be more knowledgable about one type of technology than another. Or, one culture might have a technology that is considered magical or superstitious or "impossible" or "godly" in another culture. Also, some aspects of a certain technology might be explored in one culture but not explored in another. In addition, certain technologies are lauded, then forgotten, then rediscovered.

For instance, the Chinese had "gun" powder for many years but the Europeans invented the gun before the Chinese did. Some western cultures used "leeches" medically in the past and have begun using them again. Some so-called "primitive" cultures understood the nature of homeopathy (like curing like) before the sophisticated Europeans discovered the cowpox/smallpox connection. Other so-called "tribal" cultures understood how to use flies and centipedes for crime detection before European civilization got the idea. (Flies are often used by some African tribes to determine whose murderous-but-newly-washed dagger still retained the victim's blood and centipedes were used in ancient Korea to check if the blood on a dagger was human or animal.)

Thus it is possible for the technology of a particular world to NOT fall into the western model.

In my novel, The Constant Tower, the characters are warriors. Some would say the setting is "Bronze Age/medieval." But one tribe has solar panels because they understand the nature of light, and the studiers of this world understand music and the effect of "unheard sounds" in ways that would be considered miraculous by some of Earth's less "civilized tribes" or might seem merely fantastical to those with a western mindset.

Carole McDonnell is a writer of ethnic fiction, speculative fiction, and Christian fiction. Her works have appeared in many anthologies and at various online sites. Her novel, Wind Follower, was published by Wildeside Books. Her forthcoming novel is called The Constant Tower. http://carolemcdonnell.blogspot.com/

Valjeanne Jeffers

Technology and fantasy: put them together and you have a delicious synergy that's not quite SF, not quite fantasy. Some of my favorite authors have skirted the divider between fantasy and science fiction. Octavia Butler, for example, while she is almost always described as a science fiction author blended the two quite brilliantly in books like Wild Seed and Clay's Ark. Nalo Hopkinson also combined them with sheer genius in her novels Brown Girl in The Ring and Midnight Robber.

The existence of technology in fantasy often results in the co-existence of “science and sorcery,” as Charles Saunders (creator of Sword and Soul) has described my Immortal series. In my novels you have werewolves and vampires—totally in control of their preternatural abilities and using said abilities to protect their universe; but still such characters are most often found in fantasy or horror genres. Yet, the Immortal series also has time travel, aliens... and technology to support its futuristic setting. Such as in the excerpt from Immortal book 1:

Karla walked across the wooden floor of her living area into a kitchenette. A press of her fingers on the first sphere of a triangular pod started coffee brewing.

She filled a cup with chicory, walked back into the living area and pushed the second button on her remote, activating a blue panel beside the window. Jazz music filled the apartment. Like her bedroom console the unit kept time, transmitted holographic images and played tapes. Using the third button, she opened the curtains.

Thus, the Immortal novels have been described as both fantasy and science fiction novels. Use a little science and one still can be considered a Fantasy writer. Use a bit more and you've inched into the science fiction genre. An excerpt from Colony: A Space Opera (my novel in progress) illustrates this point:

She was born 20 years after Planet Earth's decline. The same year IST began building the probes: lightweight spacecrafts that humans could live in for years, if need be, and that moved fast enough to break the sound barrier—traveling millions of miles within weeks.

In 2065, global warning had accelerated. The final stage in Earth's destruction had begun. Temperatures of 150 degrees scorched the planet. Tidal waves, monsoons and cyclones tore it apart. Those who could afford it moved underground. Food became the world's most valued resource. The rest were herded under the domes.

Scientists scurried to genetically reproduce fruits and vegetables—with horrible side effects. Money still ruled the world. But money was gradually becoming worthless. That's when the government saw the writing on the wall and created IST and the probes: spacecrafts designed for one purpose, to seek out planets capable of sustaining human life.

When a writer uses technology in fantasy, the lines between the genres are even more gloriously buried. Thus, what may be described as science fiction by one reader/writer can just as easily be characterized as fantasy by the next. The only real rule here is to make one's technology believable; credible; plausible. Although it doesn’t yet exist—in a kind kind of literary sleight of hand.

Pulling this off, just gives me one more reason to absolutely love speculative fiction...even if no will ever be able to figure out whether I'm a science fiction or fantasy writer yet. In fact, I think I prefer it that way.

Valjeanne Jeffers is a graduate of Spelman College and the author of the SF/fantasy novels: Immortal, Immortal II: The Time of Legend, Immortal III: Stealer of Souls, the steampunk novels: Immortal IV: Collision of Worlds and The Switch II: Clockwork (includes books 1 and 2), and the space opera Colony.

Valjeanne's fiction has appeared in Steamfunk!, Griots: A Sword and Soul Anthology, LuneWing, PurpleMag, Genesis Science Fiction Magazine, Pembroke Magazine, Possibilties, 31 Days of Steamy Mocha, and Griots II: Sisters of the Spear (in press). She works as an editor for Mocha Memoirs Press and is also co-owner of Q and V Affordable editing.

Preview or purchase her novels at: http://www.vjeffersandqveal.com

Theresa Crater

I recently reread Bram Stoker’s Dracula for my Speculative Fiction workshop. While my writing students bemoaned the fact that Stoker does all the things they are advised not to do in their writing, I noticed Stoker’s love of technology.

The vampire is deeply rooted in old ways. His castle sits on a precipice, difficult for attackers to penetrate—and for Harker to escape from. His house is lit by multiple candles and furnished with old and moldy brocades. He uses centuries-old methods of travel for the most part—carriages and boats—yet maintains an interest in the trains in London, in particular their schedules.

But our group of heroes out to kill the Count rely on new-fangled machinery. Mina practices her shorthand, which her fiancé Harker relies on to send her secret message—although Dracula intercepts the letter. She types manically to escape her fears, but this useful skill allows her to compile a complete history of all the group knows about vampires and the Count’s doings. Dr. Seward records his diary on the phonograph, a technology that still mystifies me.

Our intrepid group also relies on a new mental “technology”—they hypnotize Mina after she’s been bitten to gain access to the vampire’s consciousness. Mesmerism was a new-fangled idea created by Anton Mesmer in the early 19thcentury, but which gained popular fascination during the spiritualist phase of Victorian society. If not technology, it certainly is a new way of looking at human consciousness.

Stoker sprinkled his novel with the gadgets his readers were finding popping up in their world. I don’t think he intended this contrast, but it’s there.

Theresa Crater has published two contemporary fantasies, Beneath the Hallowed Hill & Under the Stone Paw and several short stories, most recently “White Moon” in Riding the Moon and “Bringing the Waters” in The Aether Age: Helios. She’s also published poetry and a baker’s dozen of literary criticism. Currently, she teaches writing and British lit in Denver. Born in North Carolina, she now lives in Colorado with her Egyptologist partner and their two cats. Visit her website at http://theresacrater.com.

Sylvia Kelso

Technically, you should excuse the pun,“technology” is any form of applied science/knowledge, from a hand-axe to a nuclear bomb. For a fantasy writer “technology” becomes a most pressing question in the planning or first-paragraph stages of a novel or a world-building. The level of “technology” you factor in, whether by planned outline or draft-impulse, will decide almost everything about your invented societies, and quite a lot about the actual world.

A classic if rather hypothetical example is Middle-earth. Whatever Tolkien pre-invented in The Silmarilion, the pre-Industrial nature of Middle-earth was decided at the moment early in the first chapter, that he made hobbits mighty hunters with hand-thrown stones. He might have let them “take a gun out” like a Heyer Regency hero, given that Bilbo was the picture of a wealthy early 20th Century middle-class English male. Whether conscious or unconscious, or possibly prompted by the equally spontaneous choice of a children’s story genre, denying Bilbo the weapons of his Real-Earth period affected every further page of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

The nexus of Tolkien’s personal stand-points behind this choice does generate fascinating contradictions. While the Shire’s weapons are limited to stones, staves and bows, Minas Tirith has swords and spears, and magic defends Lorien. But evil, paradoxically but inevitably, introduces to Middle-earth the very technological level that Tolkien most loathed. Isengard and Mordor are copybook unregulated high industrial complexes, complete with waste, pollution, desolation, wheels and hammers, and “‘mind[s] of metal and wheels.’” (The Two Towers, Ch. 4)

But The Hobbit’s original gunpowder ban does not allow these fearsome lairs to spew out steam engines, aircraft, big guns, mechanical soldiers or machine-guns or mustard-gas, not even rifles and muskets. The Orcs seem to have been bio-engineered – which would not require all this mechanical paraphernalia –and they, like everybody else, fight with sword, bow and spear. Even the mighty Grond only uses muscle-power. The sole exception to this pre-industrial ban is the “blasting fire” by which the Orcs manage to infiltrate the stream-way at Helm’s Deep. Everywhere else, evil as industrialism can affect Middle-earth only through its environmental damage.

Other fantasies happily introduce later forms of real world “technology” in secondary worlds. Martha Wells’ Ile Rien series begins with a just-pre-Industrial society using pistol and arquebus, then moves to a faux Edwardian/Victorian period that still uses pistols, and in the second series, uses magic to present WWI and later technology like airships. Here, as with Naomi Novik’s Napoleonic War dragons, the tech. level is pre-set to industrial. But if less strikingly than with The Lord of the Rings, much of the available real-world technology, from cine cameras to machine guns, is again not admitted.

More dissonant cases exemplify what has been touted as “science fantasy” – where “science” – ie actually some form of very modern tech – is juxtaposed with an earlier technological level. A really striking example, and one of my favourites, is Barbara Hambly’s Windrose trilogy, whose second title epitomizes the type: The Silicon Mage. Though the cover appears pure fantasy, in fact, an impressive apparatus of spells, spell diagrams, sigils, and simple wizardly capabilities is connected to and through computers, to work in both primary and secondary worlds, with astonishing discrepancy and more amazing lack of fuss – now THAT is a real fantasy-tech.

There is, of course, an older wholly invented technology, the matrix science of Darkover, but though that otherwise pre-industrial world and its societies beg to be classified as fantasy, the origins of Darkovan “humanity” from a space diaspora make a strong claim that the whole world and series be called SF.

Which opens the other question about“Technology in Fantasy” – namely, if fantasy, apart from contemporary urban primary world stuff, starts to introduce really current tech. like gene-engineering, nanotech, and less realized forms such as cyborgs, even if the actual society is (apparently) pre-industrial, has the form then become SF?

SF is usually seen as the genre of the future, however often overtaken. Modern fantasy, to use a paradox, is usually seen as the genre of “the past.” How close can such a fictional “past” come to the “present,” or with imaginary tech, to a future, without sliding over the generic boundary? Whatever the writer’s intent, or the bookshelf label, if the savvy specfic reader perceives the conventions, icons and protocols in the text as SF, why isn’t it SF?

The generic SF/fantasy boundary concerned me deeply while I was struggling with the SF theory chapter of my PhD. Past/future-time, science/magic as unreality’s ennabling device, evidence of change, progress; I canvassed those and a number more of the abundant definitions. In the process I suddenly found myself, like Octavia Butler’s heroine in Exogenesis, conducting an experiment “in the field.” Once the opening paragraph of Amberlight arrived, the conscious project was to see how nearly I could make a text walk the tightrope, marked by Hambly’s Silicon Mage,between fantasy and SF.

Hence, the McGuffin in Amberlight, the “qherrique” which turned up as opening donnée, became the basis for a thought experiment in gender-role reversals, as well as the key to society’s shape. Only women could “work” the mysterious – substance, entity, animal, vegetable, mineral? The society became a matriarchy. Qherrique’s most crucial quality was its psychic effects, coveted by every other society, making Amberlight-the-city unthinkably rich. But qherrique had a bouquet of other attributes – pizo-electric, photo-synthetic, it could be worked like a mix of pearl and stone to drive machines, to power tools, to produce guns. Light-guns and horseless vehicles. Is this fantasy, or is it SF?

It charmed me immensely when I sent the novel in ms to Andrea (Hosth), asking outright, Do you read this as fantasy or as SF? And she responded that she couldn’t decide. The indecision reappeared among reviewers when I finally got the novel into print. It was political fantasy, it was high fantasy, it was a sub-genre of feminist SF: a whole grab-bag of answers turned up. Leading, perhaps, to the most interesting general conclusion – that the level and type of technology a writer consciously or haphazardly bestows on a specfic novel will not merely dictate the shape of that world and its societies, but even the genre in which the work will belong - or, if as with Amberlight, Loki or Coyote was around at the moment of inception, not.

Sylvia Kelso lives in North Queensland, Australia, and writes fantasy and SF set mostly in analogue or alternate Australian settings. She has published six fantasy novels, two of which were finalists for best fantasy novel of the year in the Australian Aurealis genre fiction awards, and some stories in Australian and US anthologies. Her latest short story, “At Sunset” appears in Luna Station Quarterly for September 2012.

Warren Rochelle

Fairies don’t really need machines, do they? Not the ones in my novels Harvest of Changelings, and its sequel, The Called. Elemental beings—Fires, Airs, Waters, and Earths—they have magical powers to use and manipulate these elements, with extra abilities for their particular element. Fires, for example, are best suited for heating things, so there is no need for electrical stoves. Instead, Fires, heat up stones, and in war, create fireballs. Airs are the most gifted telepathically and the winds answer to their call. Waters can call the rain and raise waves. The garden of an Earth is fertile, verdant, and productive; Earths can awaken volcanoes, make earthquakes. Machinery as we know it Here never developed There.

But the magic of this Faerie uses machines—at least it does Here. When Hazel, one of my four main characters, and one of the changelings, is called to return to Faerie, her gateway is not a wardrobe or a door in the side of the hill, rather it is a computer. Hazel has on her computer, Worldmaker, a program that allows the user to construct his or her own world from the ground up, to its people and civilization, its climate, its history. And it is through this portal that Hazel, accompanied by her loyal Siamese, Alexander, enters Faerie. As the dragon she encounters explains, “It was your machine . . . and your game. The machine knocked at the door and the game opened the door to this place; the machine answered a call from this place. It can talk to other machines, yes? Create invisible links of energy, of electricity? Such a link was made to here, which is beyond dreams . . .” (Harvest of Changelings 69). The computer, as a pegasus tells Hazel later, is “a dream-gate” (154).

In The Golden Boy, a novel-in-progress, I explore this link between machine and magic. In this novel the world is dominated by the Columbian Empire and the New World and a rational, science-privileging super-church, which is in opposition to the Old World and those who would also embrace magic and those who use magic, and those who are, the fey. Fairies, who are again Elementals, are iron-sensitive. The only way they can touch a car without pain is to touch one sealed in a plastic coating. Magic and machine in this universe are ways for one to fight the other.

So what? Is this just another take on the famous quote by Arthur C. Clarke, one of his Three Laws, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”? On reflection, no; rather I find myself doing something perhaps connected, but still different. Machines give us the power of magic: they can enhance speed and allow us to travel over great distances in a short amount of time—seven-league boots and aircraft. The magical can call down the lightning; laser rifles and cannons harness light for war. Software such as Hazel’s Worldmaker and the software that creates virtual realities allow us to enter the hills, go through the wardrobe. Through television and film, through computer monitors, we enter, and for a time, live in any number of alternate worlds.
Technology, then, allows us to explore just the kind of world my changelings find in Faerie, the kind of world the heroes in The Golden Boy are trying to save.

Magic, in the literature of the fantastic, in counterpoint, allows the reader to contemplate a world without the mechanical. It reminds us that we can—really we can, despite what my students tell me—survive without the machine. It reminds us that the Morlocks and the Eloi are possible. Magic warns of the possibility of the Borg.

Technology is magical; it is fantastical. Technology allows us to create a magic of the mind, and magic reminds us that it is the mind that we can find real magic. Any sufficiently advanced technology really is indistinguishable from magic.

Warren Rochelle has taught English at the University of Mary Washington since 2000. His short story, "The Golden Boy” (published in The Silver Gryphon) was a Finalist for the 2004 Gaylactic Spectrum Award for Best Short Story and his novels include The Wild Boy (2001), Harvest of Changelings (2007), and The Called (2010. He also published a critical work on Le Guin and has academic articles in various journals and essay collections. Most recently, his story, “The Boy on McGee Street,”was published in Queer Fish 2 (Pink Narcissus Press, 2012). http://warrenrochelle.com



That's it for this month's Travelling Round Table! Feel free to join in the discussion in the comments.