Warren Rochelle's Blog, page 30

Outer Alliance Blog Interview with Julia Rios on February 25, 2011

I wanted to share this recent interview. I included the URL, which you may have to copy and paste.

Outer Alliance Spotlight #66/Warren Rochelle
February 25, 2011
Julia Rios

http://blog.outeralliance.org/archive...

Welcome to Outer Alliance Spotlight #66. The Spotlight features news about (and sometimes interviews with) allies who are active in supporting and celebrating LGBTQI speculative fiction. Our guest this week is Warren Rochelle, author of The Called.

Warren is a professor of English at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia. His interest in mythology and archetypal journeys manifests itself in his fiction, which also incorporates LGBTQ themes and explorations of oppression and struggles for civil rights. His first novel, The Wild Boy came out in 2001 through Golden Gryphon Press, and he has since published two more novels. Harvest of Changelings came out in 2007, and its sequel, The Called, came out in 2010. Warren’s short fiction and poetry have appeared in many places including Icarus: the Magazine of Gay Speculative Fiction.

OA: In the alternate universe early 1990s US of your books, people recognize that magic is real and some of the population is part fae, which changes the course of political and social history. How do those realizations affect the history of gay rights in that universe?

WR: That’s a good question.
The realizations that magic is real and that there are folks out there who are part-fae makes things worse–at least for a while–for gay rights. Gay rights and gay people are quickly associated with the fae, in part, because of the tetrads, which form without any particular gender configurations. When those left behind after the Change and the mass exodus of changelings in Harvest and those who manifest their fae-ness after 1991 began to form tetrads and without regard to gender, this draws attention, especially from those already inclined to distrust and fear change (including gay rights). In effect, they become considered equivalent.

As a result, when the fae–or as they are called in this alternate US, changelings–are attacked or persecuted in the years following 1991, so are gay people. As the Ordinary Union (a political movement with its aim a pure and purified humanity) gains power, the accompanying voices in pulpits get louder as well. Changeling children are forced to leave some schools; police look the other way or actively support the persecution, and as it gets closer to 2012, things continue to get worse. There are mundanes (non-magicals) who support magical/gay rights, but theirs is a hard fight. People are scared and are getting more scared.

It’s not pretty.

This is sort of a double whammy of prejudice for the fae and the gay, but I felt it all too plausible as GLBT people are still, for many, the Other, the alien, those people. Nicola Griffith and Steve Pagel write about this in their introductions to their Bending the Landscape anthologies and it had a strong resonance for me. That those opposed to change, such as the revelation of the presence of magicals, would equate gay and fae seemed all too logical.

I also like to think of GLBT people as being somewhat magical, and I like playing the different meanings of the word “fairy.” Here, fairies are fairies–word thus reclaimed and with magical powers.

OA: Harvest of Changelings and The Called take place two decades apart. Do you think you’ll ever write any stories set in that alternate reality in the time between those two books?

WR: Hmm. You know, Julia, I think so, but I’m not sure when. I do have tentative plans for a third novel, as a sequel to The Called, and right now I am working on a novel about a gay werewolf and his lover, who is a descendant of the long-departed old gods. It’s set mostly in and around Richmond (where my partner lives) and in some ways has similar themes, as the 2 young men discover their differences and each other as they fall in love, and, wind up on a quest, fighting evil in various forms.

OA: The fae in your books set up four person marriages called tetrads. How do those marriages work, and what are some of their strengths and weaknesses compared to the current US default of two person marriages?

WR: A complete tetrad has an Air, a Water, a Fire, and an Earth, one of the four kinds of fairies, here or in Faerie. Each has different magical abilities and traits and certain physical traits. [For example,] Fires tend to be red-haired and green-eyed, and often have more volatile personalities. All fairies can have the power to make fire. But a Fire has far more power in this regard than the other three and can easily do such things (as Russell does) like heat water, recharge cooking stones, make light, and so on. Excessive amounts of water can be draining and he has a bad temper.

Tetrads tend to form in two stages. First, couples, a Fire and a Water, an Air and an Earth, a Water and an Air, or other pairings. They sense a [connection]; they feel drawn to each other; they bond. Then the two couples find each other–drawn together by their magical energies, their mana. Together they are stronger as four than two.
The bond of the couples is the primary bond; the tetradic bond is secondary. Couples or triads can exist and function–as many did after the Long War in Faerie–but there is a constant feeling of incompleteness. Tetrads can form in any gender configuration. A juvenile tetrad is usually formed first, often in early adolescence. This relationship tends to go dormant at the onset of adulthood. Juvenile tetrads can reform in an adult version, but this doesn’t always happen. In Harvest and The Called, the protagonists are in a tetrad, with one primarily heterosexual couple and one primarily gay couple.

I would say some of the strengths of this four-person marriage, as compared to a traditional two-person marriage would be such things as: a parent or parents are always available to the children; any one member can be as alone or as not alone as he or she wants; support is always there; and they are stronger as four than as two or one.
Some of the weaknesses would be it is not always easy to find one person with whom to bond and it is less easy to find another couple, or another three people. And, in my heroes’ case, when their juvenile bond went dormant and they separated, two going to our universe and two staying in Faerie, their reunion as an adult tetrad was made more difficult when it turned out the Earth-side couple had grown older and the Faerie-side couple had stayed adolescents. Aging in Faerie is at a much different rate than it is here.

OA: You’re currently looking for a home for a novel based on your Spectrum Award nominated short story, “The Golden Boy”. Can you tell us more about that?

WR: There are some similarities between The Golden Boy’s universe and that of Harvest and The Called—mainly in the use of the tetrad as the fae family unit, with an Air, an Earth, a Water, and a Fire. I also had as one beginning premise the notion that fairies would be fairies—gay or bisexual, some heterosexual. Beyond that, The Golden Boy’s universe is a different, albeit with some parallels. There is no US; instead there is the Columbian Empire, founded in a revolution from Britain back in 1776. The Stuarts still rule in Britain; the Columbians have a descendent of Theodore Roosevelt on the throne. Magic is real, but is suppressed in Columbia, with the Rationalist Church, which favors science, the dominant faith. The Fair Folk are sequestered in ghettoes; hybrids, like my hero, Gavin, have to live lives of secrecy. Vampires have been hunted to extinction; unicorns and werewolves are in zoos; centaurs hide deep in the woods. I tried to make the Columbian Empire’s universe echo ours, as sort of a skewed reality.

Gavin is also hiding his sexuality as only heterosexuality is legal in the Empire. Gavin is haunted all his life by recurring dreams of a golden boy, who is meant to be one of his tetrad, Fire to his Earth. The others he meets growing up in North Carolina, but very bad things happen.

The novel has two story lines: Gavin growing up and a week in 2000, when everything falls apart and hits the fan. Columbia is beset by earthquakes, hurricanes, and volcanoes, and rebellion. For Gavin it becomes both a personal and public quest for self and survival.

OA: This summer you’ll be presenting a paper on using autobiography in fantasy at the International Creative Writing Conference in London. How much of your own work draws on autobiographical events, and how do you use them?

WR: Probably autobiographical themes would be a better way to put it, more than particular events. Perhaps, the most obvious are the settings. All 3 of my novels are primarily set in North Carolina, especially in the Triangle area, where I was born and raised and lived until 1998. (Faerie is another key setting and in a way, I have lived there all my life.) I also used the North Carolina folklore and legends that I grew up hearing and reading, such as the Devil’s Tramping Ground (south of Chapel Hill). Supposedly the Devil walks there on a circular path on which nothing grows. I decided that would be a good place for a gate to Faerie.

A couple of other examples of settings from my own life would be: In the book I am working on now is set in and around Richmond, which is where my partner lives; and in my first novel, The Wild Boy, the heroes travel to Cartagena, Colombia, where I lived in 1980-82.

I came out rather late in life; I was around 40 when I started dealing with my sexuality. The message I got growing up when and where I did was that everybody got married when they grew up and had children, period, preferably by the time one was thirty. Homosexuals, if mentioned at all, were more than Other and alien; they were evil. I grew up in a pretty strong closet and when I went to college and fell in love with a guy, I couldn’t even admit then what that meant: we were experimenting and it was a dark, dark secret. After that experiment ended somewhat disastrously, there was lots of internal conflict and self-condemnation, trying to be straight, trying to follow what I thought was being normal. Eventually self and truth won out; it just took a while, along with some therapy.

This internal struggle has fueled some of my characters’ struggles, and has fueled some of the metaphors with which I have constructed the environments in which they find themselves. I did this in my first novel, The Wild Boy, without realizing it. I wrote the original draft of The Wild Boy, back in 1990-91 (my MFA thesis at UNC Greensboro), which was before I came out. When I sat down to revise it (post-PhD, 1997), I was in the process of coming out, and as I reread it, I realized I had been telling myself a story then that I wasn’t able to understand: the two male protagonists, one alien, one human, were lovers. Talk about the Other! When I reread an early draft of Harvest after that I realized: oh, Russell and Jeff are gay. Since then I have been using gay themes and characters, drawing from my own life and from the people I know. The story always comes first, but even so, social commentary has become part of my work as well. And no, not all my gay characters have tortured coming out experiences, or live in hostile societies!

Fathers and sons, parents and children, are other motifs in my work and I have drawn upon my evolving relationship with my own parents. Here I can say I have used personal family history to shape some of these relationships, and particular family events, too. I have drawn liberally from Celtic mythology, which is a personal interest that grew as I explored my own Scotch-Irish heritage. No Cherokee blood, but I grew up learning about the tribe as they are the most prominent one in North Carolina and I visited there often.
I think all writers do this, some more overt and deliberate and obvious than others, as we write out of the context of our lives. Our hero or heroine may be on a spaceship, or even an alien, but still we are creating out of who we are and what we know and feel and have experienced.

OA: Speaking of interesting stories from your own life, you’ve got two cats who usually get along, but you’ve had to consult an animal communicator to sort things out before. What exactly happened with that?

WR: Well, I hope folks won’t think I am too crazy, but here goes. I got Alex and Festus from the local animal shelter here in Fredericksburg, VA, thinking they were littermates. My vet set me straight on that: same mother, different litter. This meant their bond was a bit shakier than the bonds of littermates usually are. About 5 or 6 years ago, for reasons I couldn’t figure out, Festus, the older (and smaller, not that made any difference) started treating Alex as if he were an invader, a complete stranger: hissing, growling, and attacking. It was awful. I tried everything and the vet just told me to separate them, which helped, but didn’t stop the aggressive behavior.

A buddy of mine, Suzanne, mentioned she had consulted an animal communicator to help her sort out the behavior of her dog, who was a rescue. I was more than a little skeptical when she told me how it all worked—it sounded like the stuff I make up. But at that point, I was willing to try anything. Suzanne said it had worked for her and her dog amazingly well. I was just about ready to take Festus to my parents to live. So I emailed Patty Summers, the communicator, and set up an appointment, paid my fee. The appointment was by phone.

She called and we talked and then she “spoke” to Alex and Festus. Yes, it was weird. When she channeled (for lack of a better verb) what they “said” back, at first I was struck by how much it sounded like them, their personalities—Festus, more withdrawn, easier to spook; Alex, in your face, love me now. The story came out: a big cat in the neighborhood had confronted and scared Festus through the patio door. The aggressive response he had toward that cat, since he couldn’t get to him (thank God) had shifted to Alex—(the technical term is “displaced aggression,” by the way, and my vet said the communicator was probably right). Festus was afraid he was going to be sent away.

Reassurances of safety, promises to help, to give space (yes, from the cats!) were made and she gave some practical advice about how to handle Festus when he turned into a demon.
It took awhile, but her advice worked. Festus still has spells, but they are very brief and are usually solved with a time out in a dark and calm space. They get along now, most of the time.
There’s more. The really weird part. After communicating with Festus and Alex, the communicator said she sensed another cat, this time one in the spirit world. Yeah, I know you are shaking your head. The animal she described—and she had no way of knowing this—was my first cat, Osito, who had died a year after I moved here. He was still around, looking after me.

There you go. I know it sounds crazy.

Thanks, Warren! Join us next Friday for more queer spec fic goodness, and in the meantime, check out The Called.



http://blog.outeralliance.org/archive...

16 December 2010

I wanted to share this new review as I feel the reviewer understands the book--he gets it. I hope it will help others who may happen to read the novel.

Bloomsbury Review Fall 2010 Review of The Called

THE BLOOMSBURY REVIEW-Fall/20lO
FICITON
The Called
WARREN ROCHELLE
Golden Gryphon Press/IPG, $24.95 cloth,
ISBN 978-1-930846-63-0
Reviewer: Michael Cornelius

Welcome to World War Faerie.
Warren Rochelle's The Called,the follow-up to his critically acclaimed Harvest of Changelings, is a
relentless novel, a fantasy-war epic
that turns much of the United States and
especially North Carolina-into a bloody battleground. Unlike its more contemplative predecessor, which explores the nature of relationships and
being and the parts of our identities we
hide from the world, The Called is all
action, all the time, a gripping, fast-
20 paced tale designed to leave the reader as breathless and battered as the main characters called to duty here.

Like its predecessor, The Called features
four not-quite-human, not-quite fairy
changeling protagonists who form
a fey quartet that amplifies the powers
of the individuals involved far beyond
what they could otherwise achieve on
their own. As the novel opens, two of
the four, Malachi and Hazel, are living
on Earth, aging normally, having kids,
and fighting for the rights of all magical folk, who are being suppressed by the Ordinary Union, a political party with shadowy backers that feels threatened by anyone who veers even slightly from what they consider the norm. The other two members of the group, Jeff and Russell, have stayed behind in the land of Faerie, a parallel world that occasionally intersects with our own, where aging is greatly decelerated and life is nearly as idyllic as paradise. The previous novel focused on the four characters, then children, coming together as a group, defeating a source of evil known as the Formorii, and the ramifications of introducing magic to an unsuspecting, "mundane" world(Rochelle's term for those who possess no magical abilities). The current novel splits the group apart, first as their adult lives take them down separate paths,and then- as Malachi is kidnapped by members of the Ordinary Union and held as bait for the other three. The Formorii leaders of the Ordinary Union hope that by drawing the entire quartet to them, they can feast on their mana-their magical energy-and use its power to control the fate of both this world and the world of Faerie.

War is soon declared, in the form of a
military coup, as the governor of North
Carolina is assassinated and the president of the United States flees for his life. As the government dissolves into a brutal state of martial law, disparate groups of people choose sides based on ideological principles. One of the most fascinating aspects of the story is the convincing way in which people turn on and turn in their neighbors, friends,teachers, and fellow churchgoers, without reason or compassion, to destroy democracy, freedom, and, indeed, the entire country. Rochelle has fashioned
an alternate history, one that splits off
from our own in 1991, when the events
of the first novel conclude, and incorporates real historical figures and slight variations on the time line. Universities are destroyed, churches are leveled, and entire cities are firebombed in the name of ideological purity, an ideal that is never quite explicated beyond the human desire for power and the hatred of that which is other or different. If Rochelle's newly invented history seems too heavy-handed to be allegory, it is surely plausible enough, in this age of divisive politics, to terrify any reader
regardless of political affiliation.

Rochelle has created a startling villainous presence in the Formorii, reptilelike beasts born of shadow whose favorite dining option is the hearts and brains of magical and human folk alike. Lacking compassion or feeling, easily slipping into human garb, and rising to the very top of military and civilian authority, these terrifying figures remind us not only how easy it is for evil to lurk under our very noses, or in our own lives, every day, but also that such evil flourishes only because good men and women will not stand up and renounce it when it rears its ugly head. Truly chilling, the Formorii make great villains because they are us, the worst of us anyway, and in them readers will be forced to see themselves.

The novel works best when action meets ideology, as it moves back and forth from good guy to bad guy to indifferent
folk, and events unfold from multiple
perspectives against the backdrop
of a rapidly changing and devolving
world. At times it is an apocalyptic road
novel, akin to Cormac McCarthy's The
Road or Justin Cronin's The Passage, but
here it flags a bit. It is much better when the characters stand and fight, struggling to understand what is going on in their world and how they, as merely four individuals, can work to change anything. The large cast occasionally becomes confusing or a bit superfluous; the action is so frenetic and relentless that keeping all the magic and history and characters in order can be daunting. It's of no consequence, though, in the end. The Called is a story that grips readers and never lets go, leaving them as pensive as they are shaken .•

Midwest Book Review of The Called

A fine take on the meeting of fantasy and reality, highly recommended, October 16, 2010
By Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Called: A Novel (Hardcover)

People fear the different, and making them understand is no easy task. "The Called" is a follow up to the novel "Harvest of Changelings" and follows four of the characters of that novel as they are pitted against the drawing Reconvergence, a potentially catastrophic event that occurs on December 21st, 2012. Facing persecution when they leave their home land, they struggle for acceptance while trying to stand off against the evil of the Fomorii. "The Called" is a fine take on the meeting of fantasy and reality, highly recommended.
5 stars

A Review of The Called to share:

The Baryon Review, August-September 2010:

*THE CALLED, Warren Rochelle, Golden Gryphon, $24.95, 367 pages, ISBN:
9781930846630, reviewed by Barry Hunter.*

Rochelle has written an interesting tale that starts with the closing of the gateway between the worlds of the humans and the faerie. When the door was closed, there were many changelings and now there is trouble brewing on Earth. The events depicted here lead up to the events of December 2012 and Rochelle has written an exciting and action packed novel.

Malachi and Hazel are half faerie and half of the tetrad with Russell and Jeff. Malachi and Hazel returned to Earth to help those left behind on Earth while Russell and Jeff remain in the White City. There are rumblings of problems that will affect not only the changelings, but the human race as well.

Magon, one of the Fomorii -- enemy of the faerie, has come to earth and formed an alliance with radical religious extremists to destroy the changelings and anyone who gets in their way. President Gore's government is overthrown and the extremists start their campaign to rid the world of their enemies.

Rochelle keeps his story set in North Carolina where Malachi has been kidnapped and Russell, Jeff and Hazel have joined forces with the Cherokee to rescue Malachi and prepare the world for what is to come in December.

There is plenty of action, personal and political backstabbing as no one knows who to trust. Rochelle ties in Cherokee and faerie myth along with the lost Roanoke Colony. This is a well written tale that has a cast of interesting characters and some unusual ideas about what
to expect when the Mayan Calendar ends.

An interview in Othergate

Below is the link to an interview on The Called that I did with my students last year. I think it potentially adds to the reader's understanding of the novel.

http://othergate.umwblogs.org/tag/war...

august 29

It's still bloody hot and humid.
Anyway, so far, one review of The Called and it was quite favorable, and I know of another one that will be favorable also--which is exciting.

As I write this, I wonder if anyone besides me is reading it, and what questions would someone have about my work, my books, about me. My website is:
http://warrenrochelle.com
and
I hope people will go there to find answers to some of their questions and to read the reviews that have been posted for any of my three novels.

The Called has been released!

I know it's not yet showing up as published on Amazon, but tis out! The cover is beautiful; I can't wait to see it on Goodreads. Only one review so far, but quite positive. The reviewer described the book as "an exciting and
action packed novel," which has "plenty of action, personal and political," and that this i"a well written tale that
has a cast of interesting characters...."

The full text of the review will appear in Baryon in August.

My First Goodreads Blog Post, July 5

OK.
This is my first blog post and I am, frankly, not quite sure what to say.

In terms of my books, my new novel, The Called, is due out soon. It is the sequel to Harvest of Changelings, which some people out there in Goodreads territory have read and liked. For those who are interested, a synopsis and some advance critical reviews follow:

The Called by Warren Rochelle
Hardcover, $24.95, September 2010 (but it looks like it might be sooner), Golden Gryphon Press:
Synopsis:
The four changelings from Harvest of Changelings, after vanquishing the Fomorii, settled in Faerie with the other changelings and learned to use their fey powers. On Earth, intolerance toward the "different" began to grow on a worldwide scale again. Sensing this, two of the four changelings, Malachi and Hazel, are called to return to Earth to help those who had not crossed over into Faerie. The other two members of their tetrad, Russell and Jeff, chose to remain in Faerie, by physically splitting their tetrad. On Earth, the Fomorii are hidden but influential, organizing humans into anti-magical groups, particularly in religions and government. As 2012 opens, the Fomorii become more active, kidnapping magicals, including Malachi, then using their human pawns, overthrow the US and state governments in a military coup. Jeff and Russell return to Earth to re-unite with Hazel and gather allies to rescue Malachi. Their "army" includes Cherokee, Tlanuwa, Little People, Tuatha de Danaan, Talking Beasts -- all those who are different and who oppose evil. Celtic "gods" fight one another over taking sides, as well as the inhabitants of Faerie. The ultimate goal: control the Gate to the universes between Earth, Faerie, and Fomorii before

Some advance reviews:
"It is delicious to read Warren Rochelle's compelling new fantasy, The Called. Rochelle's writing is strong and sure, and his maturity makes for a compelling continuation to his story of the intersection of the world of Faerie with the Piedmont South."
-Jim Grimsley, author of The Ordinary, winner of the 2004 Lambda Literary Award in Science Fiction and Fantasy

"I didn't so much read The Called as hang onto its trailer hitch for dear life as it sped through a hundred colorful ravaged parallel landscapes at the same time. Rochelle has given us a complex, exciting tale with a grand cargo of love, human and faerie. I finished this hurtling volume, dazed and nigh breathless."
-Fred Chappell, two-time World Fantasy Award winner, author of I am One of You Forever

"The very best fantasy creates its own vivid world while casting new light onto a real one. Not only does The Called's use N.C. geography in 2012, but its changelings and other spirit beings illuminate how today's intolerant Americans can demonize and attack anyone different from themselves. Though battles rage between magicals and enemies all the way to the winter solstice, as in Rochelle's previous novel, the power of love in its many forms can raise the dead, can overcome evil."
-Doris Betts, winner of the North Carolina Medal for Literature and author of The Sharp Teeth of Love

"More than most fantasy novelists, Warren Rochelle understands that magic comes at a cost, and he significantly raises the genre stakes by setting his epic Faerie-vs.-Fomorii war in a vividly realized modern-day North Carolina that rings true, changelings and all. The Called is a scary, cautionary, sometimes heartbreaking thrill-ride. I hope only the good parts come true."
-Andy Duncan, World Fantasy Award-winning author of Bethluthahatchoe and Other Stories