Ken Lizzi's Blog, page 80

Twenty Silver Jakatas per Gross Weight of Lembas

Building a believable fantasy world is a challenge. There is no precise recipe, but there are ingredients. One of those ingredients is a sense of an economy, the suggestion that in the lands the characters live in, visit, or simply pass through there are people farming, building, manufacturing, and trading. This doesn’t require a treatise on local coinage or an exegesis on the bailment laws. But a writer who wants the world to feel lived in and vibrant will hint at activity occurring at the margins of the action, that daily life goes on even if the hero isn’t present and that that daily life is of the mundane, work-a-day sort we all experience.

Some writers do this exceedingly well. J.R.R. Tolkien sits at the head of the table of world-builders. MIddle-Earth feels real. He mentions dwarves passing to and from their mines. He builds inns and fills them with travelers. He describes roads and highways and indicates their decay and growing disuse, both suggesting a dwindling of trade and hinting at a time of greater commercial activity. He builds a world of increasing provincialism, of commerce becoming increasingly localized, of long-distance trade growing ever more hazardous. It aids tremendously in making Middle-Earth seem an actual, historical place, and the inhabitants as real as your Aunt Joan.

Robert E. Howard pulls off a similar trick. I’ll write at some later date about his strengths and weaknesses as a world-builder. But the Hyborian Age of Earth, when Conan trod the jeweled  thrones under sandaled feet, does seem alive with ships, caravans, and traveling merchants. The cities appear to bustle with buying and selling. Often Conan is in some hinterland or other, but the reader still gets the impression that somewhere there is a core of nations whose inhabitants are constantly trading, squabbling, and intriguing. The sweat of the laborers, the goods exchanging hands, the clinking of gold coins, all seem real, adding to the verisimilitude.

Stephen R. Donaldson’s The Land never seemed believable to me. I never got the sense that his communities could actually function. They seemed facades, Potemkin villages, or sets thrown up in the desert for a Western. I never got a sense of a working economy, how these people could live, where their stuff came from, how they exchanged goods and services. Now that might have been deliberate on Donaldson’s part. He may have been trying to reinforce the suggestion that this was all a hallucination. But once he introduced a second point of view character from Earth, that red-herring slipped out of the net and swam off.

This isn’t to say that a realistically portrayed world is essential to quality fantasy literature. E.R. Eddison’s Mercury doesn’t require a mention of trade routes or the types of crops the farmers grow in Demonland. But what Eddison is writing is akin to a fable. Like Lord Dunsany and William Morris, what he wrote were long form, adult fairy-tales. With these writers you always have the sense that someone is telling you a tale, you never fall into believing it to be a story told of a real place. You don’t get the immersiveness of Middle-Earth (a fairy-tale, perhaps, but one with solid foundations), or Westeros, or the Malazan Empire. You can almost imagine yourself falling through the pages into Hobbiton or King’s Landing.

And if you did, you just might be able to get a job.

Dune: The Spice Still Flows

Is there a work of science fiction that acts as the standard-bearer for the entire genre, the way “The Lord of the Rings” does for fantasy? I’m not sure. The field is crowded with worthy candidates. But I’d nominate Frank Herbert’s “Dune.”

It is a sprawling, glorious space opera, replete with memorable images, clever conceits, scientific speculation on a grand scale, and magnificent characters. The villains are vile and the heroes heroic. Who can ever forget Baron Vladimir Harkonnen? Or Duncan Idaho? “Dune” gave us mentats, gholas, hunter-seekers, the Gom Jabbar, and ornithopters.

The story continued after “Dune.” I have “Dune Messiah” and “Children of Dune” sitting on the shelf next to their progenitor, and I have re-read them. In high school I rushed through the rest of the series written by Frank Herbert. But while I’ll likely read “Dune” again, I’m unlikely to continue on to any of the others. I haven’t picked up any of the continuation novels written by Frank Herbert’s son Brian in collaboration with Kevin J. Anderson. While that fictional universe is interesting, and doubtless could spawn an endless variety of stories, only the original book truly captured me.

The film version and the television series each had elements to recommend them. But there remains plenty of room for a more definitive cinematic take on “Dune.” I haven’t seen the documentary about Alejandro Jodorowsky’s attempt to create a film version. I hear it is fascinating. But as I haven’t been able to get through more than thirty minutes of a Jodorowsky film. And I’ve heard that he never read the novel. So consider me content that his vision never made it to the screen.

What other work of science fiction could challenge “Dune’s” claim the crown? Asimov’s “Foundation” novels? Something of Heinlein’s?

Bernard Cornwell, An Appreciation

Bernard Cornwell is one of the foremost historical novelists working today. He is best known for his “Sharpe’s” novels (“Sharpe’s Company”, “Sharpe’s Tiger”, et. al.,) chronicling the military exploits of the fictional Richard Sharpe during (and prior to) the Napoleonic Wars.

“Why then, Ken,” you may ask, “are you writing about Bernard Cornwell in a web log geared more to discussion of speculative fiction?” Or, you may not. Probably not. But let’s pretend you do. And here’s the answer: “The Warlord Chronicles.” Cornwell wrote an excellent Arthurian trilogy. Once you start writing about King Arthur (a ‘historical’ personage notable mostly for his apparent non-existence), no matter how meticulous your historical research, you’ve stuck your foot into the fantasy pool. Often you’ll find “The Warlord Chronicles” shelved in the fantasy section of the bookstore.

Then there is the Sean Bean connection. The BBC produced a series of television dramas based on the “Sharpe’s” novels and starring Sean Bean as the eponymous Sharpe. You get Sean Bean, you get a fantasy connection. No avoiding it.

And Cornwell’s immersive storytelling allows for in-narrative ambiguity about the supernatural. In his current series, telling of the struggles between the Anglo-Saxons and Danes and the creation of the nascent kingdom of England, Cornwell uses prophecies, casting of rune sticks, and his characters believe in magic. While the series is straight historical fiction, it could be read as fantasy. That’s a pattern with Cornwell, with his “Warlord Chronicles”, “The Grail Quest” series, and the current “Saxon” series.

If one wishes to criticize Bernard Corwell, it would be in connection with his use of patterns. Or, rather, formula. His characters are generally of a type. An ‘Englishman’ (Celt, Saxon, etc.) from the lower classes discovers a particular talent for killing and warfare, rises somewhat through the ranks, creates enemies among the powerful, as well as a few friends who appreciate his skill and may even hold a true affection for him. The storylines are similar, beat for beat, leading to a climactic battle. But I don’t criticize Cornwell for this. Because the formula works. I know what I’m going to get when I open a new novel from him and I’m never disappointed. The man delivers the goods.

So three cheers for Bernard Cornwell.

Tardy Web Logger. Sorry.

Regular posts will resume next week. Yesterday and today were largely consumed by travel and I was without internet access. The usual nonsense will be back soon.

In the meantime, here’s a picture of a tree.

Kona Brewer’s Festival

Aloha! I’m writing today’s post from the lanai of rented condo in Kona Hawaii, overlooking palm trees, tennis court and ocean. The things I do for you people. Exhausting.

Take yesterday for example, when I spent the afternoon tasting beer, oceanside, in the sun and sampling the offerings a dozen local restaurants and caterers. Sheer torture, the Kona Brewers Festival, but I endure it for you.

I didn’t care for the first twenty minutes or so, standing in line on the asphalt, waiting to be allowed in. But this being Hawaii, a land of generosity and helpfulness, the organizers opened the gates a half an hour early and I streamed in along with the rest of the throng. The nearest thing to a disappointment was the prevalence of Oregon beers. Near half the options were beers I could pick up a short drive from home. Of course that meant I could narrow my focus and simply ignore a large swath of possibilities (though I did feel some regret passing by the Breakside Brewing and the Gigantic tables. Yum.)

Hawaii is coming on strong in the craft beer scene. Various island breweries presented quality beer across the style spectrum. I still find their IPAs to come just short of the mark, but they are getting there. Missoula, Montana’s Bayern Brewing supplied the day’s most popular beer, “Bad Santa” eisbock. Its 12.5% abv attracted the festival’s longest lines. And it tasted good as well, like a hearty strong ale, not like a barley wine at all.

A beach table dinner at Huggo’s, complete with sunset, wasn’t a bad way to finish off the day.

Of course, it turns out this is also a working vacation. The editors comments are in for “Under Strange Suns.” So it isn’t all fun in the sun. It is also editing. In the sun. Writing a new chapter, making corrections, creating a better book. All for you. The things I do for you people.

My Second Novel, “Under Strange Suns”

No suspense, no buildup. Here’s the deal: I placed my novel Under Strange Suns with Twilight Times Books. http://www.twilighttimesbooks.com/

There, that’s out of the way. Details, then. It is a science fiction story. Or rather, planetary romance written with a twenty-first century audience in mind. That means, pace Burroughs, I cannot simply have my protagonist fall asleep on Earth then wake on an alien planet. While that works well for John Carter, and I’m not knocking ERB’s story-telling at all (perish the thought of such hubris), I don’t think it would go over well with contemporary audiences in a new novel. Meaning reliance on science fiction instead of fantasy. While the science may – from the perspective of today’s physicists –  be functionally equivalent to the John Carter dream transit in plausibility, at least it has the scaffolding of science to hang the implausibilities on. Spaceships! FTL!

More details. Under Strange Suns is tentatively scheduled for a mid-2016 release. That seems ages away. But much requires completion between now and then. An editor needs to read the manuscript and provide notes. Then I need to read those notes and revise the manuscript, respecting the experience and story-telling savvy of the editor while still reserving my own judgment. The publisher will need to assign a cover artist. I’ll need to approve the preliminary cover concept/design. I’ll need to review galley proofs, reading through line by line, word by word, knowing that any misspellings, grammatical errors, transpositions of character names, etc. are all ultimately my fault. Also knowing that something is going to slip through anyway, dammit.

But eventually we’ll have a book. And that makes me happy. How happy? When the publisher informed me of acceptance of my first book, Reunion, I was euphoric. Culmination of a lifetime’s ambition euphoria. Bound to be a drop off after that. But I opened the email from Twilight Times Books, felt my heart rate spike, and popped out of my chair with a big grin. The elevation carried me through the rest of the day. So, yeah. Pretty damned happy.

I had fun writing the book. I hope you have fun reading it. Save your pennies; Under Strange Suns arrives sometime next year.

Lin Carter

Here is another entry in my irregular series on Appendix N. Today I’m considering Lin Carter.

Those of us who enjoy fantasy of a bygone era, pulp or otherwise, owe a debt to Lin Carter. Many consider his great contribution to the field to be his collating and editing of past masters, either in anthologies (e.g. “Flashing Swords”) or in reprints from the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series. I doubt I would have encountered James Branch Cabell so early had it not been for Lin Carter championing the great writer.

As a writer himself – well, a man’s reach should exceed his grasp. Right? I certainly am not going to cast the first stone, despite sitting through more than one Thongor of Lemuria story. I haven’t got around to any of the Callisto books. I’m not in any particular hurry to do so.

But what I think of when the name Lin Carter flashes across my mental radar is “Tolkien: A Look Behind the Lord of the Rings.” I picked up a copy of the paperback at a yard sale when I was a kid. A pristine copy. I must have read it through cover to cover three or four times. It is still in pristine condition – I was a fastidious custodian of my paperbacks back then, less so now. But what a great book. I’ve since heard rumblings about the accuracy of his scholarship, but at the time that book opened up new literary vistas for me. I’ll be forever grateful to Mr. Carter for it.

That’s all for today. Still dealing with the aftermath of water damage, so back to manual labor.

Battle for the Belt 2015

I’m once again hijacking this website for beer blogging purposes. Beer was sampled, it must now be written about. That’s how it works.

Yesterday I attended the annual McMenamins Battle for the Belt. Again. It’s like a duck migrating, it’s just what he does. Every year. McMenamins puts on this festival. So I go. Every year. The various McMenamins each brew a beer and bring it to the Hillsdale McMenamins for judging via ballot. The following is essentially a transcription of my raw tasting notes from both trays of beer, including the grade I gave the beer on a scale of one to ten. I’m curious to see if I can read my handwriting from the later entries.

Enough ado. Here we go.

Yellow Tray.

Thompson Brewery. Czech it Out. Decent Czech style pilsner. Can see having more than one. 6.

Concordia Brewery. Black Days Dark Lager. Or as like to call it, Black liquorish Budweiser. 4.

Spar Brewery. Hot Break Habanero Extra Pale Ale. I believe I’ve made my view on pepper beers clear, but to reiterate: I’m opposed. However, this one is unobjectionable, verrrry lightly spiced, the habanero merely waved above the brew kettle while the brewer chants Spanish abjurations against spice fiends. 4.5

John Barleycorn. Day Tripster Oatmeal Pale. Taste does not live up to the aroma. Over-hopped for a pale without compensating with flavor. 3.5

McMenamins on the Columbia. Apple Jack Ale. Nice concept: Apples, spice, cinnamon, Jack Daniels barrel aging. But it underwhelms. Not crisp enough for cider, too cloying for beer. 3.

Hillsdale Brewery. Daydream IPA. I’m not quite a daydream believer. Tolerably good IPA. Not much more to report. 5.5

Queen Anne Brewery. Confined Spaces DIPA. It’s a double IPA hitting a triple instead of a home run. Best so far. 6.5

Oak Hills. L-Train Cascadian Dark Ale. Initially flavorless. Then you wish it had remained so. (For basketball fans: Would not be on my All-Star ballot.)

East Vancouver. Cherrysh the Moment. Not like a box of chocolates: I knew exactly what I was going to get. Does not make for a good beer flavor profile. 3.75.

Edgefield. Cerberus Wild Ale. Tart Belgian style. Slightly too thin to give my full approval. 6.5? Supplement – unpleasant aftertaste. 6.25.

Cornelius Pass. Death Star. This is now the ultimate power in the beer-verse. This beer goes to Eleven – to mix movie metaphors – 11.09% ABV to be precise. A thick, dark, barleywine. I’m inclined to switch my allegiance to Lord Vader and the Empire, hokey religion or no.

Blue Tray.

Roseburg Brewery. Vienna Lager. What does Roseburg have against Vienna? Tastes like salted PBR. 2.75.

Wilsonville Old Church. Lumber-Sexual IPL. Slightly soapy version of the IPL style. Borderline. I give it a 4.

McMenamins on Monroe. Pepperhead. Ahh…peppers again. I smelled it. Now I don’t want to drink it. But for you, readers, I did. Now I don’t like you readers very much. 1.25.

Fulton. Lost Frisbee Dry Hopped Amber Rye. A lot going on here. Too much. Needs a more malt-forward body.

Mill Creek. Blueberry Doughboy. Fruit beers, see Pepper beers. 2.25.

Lighthouse Brewery. The Admiral’s IPA. Solid entry in the IPA category. 6.5.

Old St. Francis. HIgh Top Double IPA. Promising start ruined by a poor finish. Lesser entry in the DIPA category.

High Street. Boysenberry Cream Stout. It makes a fine soda. Beer? Not so much. 4.

West Linn. Nutella Porter. Might be good over vanilla ice cream. As the bar did not serve it with ice cream, can’t recommend it. 4.5

Crystal. Boudicca’s Revenge. Phenomenal. A braggot: an ale/mead cross. One senses honey flower and berry without either being present. If you have the opportunity to sample a braggot, take it. 7.

Highland. The Spud-nik Russian Imperial Stout. More flavorful beer than I expected. Not a session beer. A trifle overwhelming. 6.25

Pesky Real Life

I held a giveaway contest for “Reunion” recently. Congratulations to the winners. I hope you all enjoy the novel.

I seem to be doing quite a bit of giving recently, mostly money. Real life continues to stick its nose under the tent flap of my world-building, fabulizing, tale-crafting pavilion. Pesky thing, real life. I’m writing this post from a friend’s apartment as my place if barely habitable at the moment. Water heaters, it seems, have a finite useful existence, at the end of which they leak out their life fluid, impregnating the walls and floors. Said walls and floors are unappreciative of this last gift. So currently industrial-size fans, of the type usually found in aerodynamics testing wind-tunnels, are attempting to desiccate the swamp that I usually call home. Money has already passed from my hand to the pocket of the plumber who swapped out the corpse of the previous water-heater with a new, vigorous replacement. More, much more, will follow to various tradesmen.

This website, as you may notice, remains unwell. I really have been in contact with people who can heal it. Top men, top men. So patience, this site will return to its former glory soon.

Meantime, despite the best efforts of real life to thwart me, I continue scribbling away. The second draft of “Thick as Thieves” is nearly complete. Other projects are circulating, or waiting for a polish. You’ll not thwart me, real life. This I swear.

 

Top Ten Most Influential Fantasy Writers of the Twentieth Century

The wellsprings of modern fantasy run deep. Very deep. People could write books about it. And they have. So if I have the temerity to toss my two-cents worth into the conversation I’d best limit the scope. I’m limiting myself to author’s who wrote in the Twentieth Century (some continue on into this century) and ignoring all the giants of prior centuries upon whose shoulders they stand. This is pure subjective opinion on my part. I’ve done no empirical research to support my conclusions, so take this a grain of salt the size to meet your USDA daily sodium intake.

I’d like to include writers such as E.R. Eddison and James Branch Cabell. But their influence appears to have waned. You might see a touch of Eddison in Clark Ashton Smith, or a hint of Cabell in Jack Vance. Might be a faint echo of both in Gene Wolfe. But I don’t see elements of either in much contemporary fantasy. So my personal preferences won’t play much part in this list.

Note that I’m excluding YA authors from the list. Hey, it’s my list. Write your own damn list if that bothers you.

On with it.

Number 10. Some essayists claim you should begin with your strongest argument. I’m a contrarian, or a fool. Maybe both. Meaning I’m beginning with an entrant whose qualifications I’m least certain about, Anne Rice. “Anne Rice,” you splutter, “doesn’t she write horror?” I don’t know. Could be. These definitions get nebulous at the borders. She writes about vampires, werewolves, and mummies in a more lyrical vein than most horror writers. I think she can be considered a fantasist. Whether she qualifies as a fantasy writer or not, she was certainly influential. The shelves in the bookstore wouldn’t look the same absent her popularization of the vampire. Modern urban fantasy wouldn’t exist in its current form without her. The Science Fiction/Fantasy section wouldn’t feature covers of sword-wielding biker chicks embracing half-clad vampires. So, Ms. Rice leads off at number 10.

Number 9. Jack Vance.The great Jack Vance brought us world-weary amoral heroes. He brought sparkling dialogue and a sardonic sense of humor. His influence comes primarily through his Dying Earth stories. You can trace the genealogy of stories set in a future Earth nearing the end of its habitability to Vance. There are earlier examples of the subgenre, sure (e.g., William Hope Hodgson, Clark Ashton Smith.) But Vance popularized the concept. You can find anthologies paying homage to the Dying Earth. Gene Wolfe’s Long Sun books owe much to Vance. Michael Moorcock and M. John Harrison, to name just a couple, have written books in this subgenre.

Number 8. Fritz Leiber. Leiber and Vance shared a literary sensibility. Fitting they’re paired here. Leiber’s Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser fathered any number of duos and odd couples. Leiber’s DNA is all over mismatched pairings ranging from Violette Mahan’s Dhulyn and Parno to Simon R. Green’s Hawk and Fisher.

Number 7. Edgar Rice Burroughs’ fingerprints are all over fantasy. Tarzan helped popularize lost civilization stories. They are less common now in this time of satellites and Google Earth but writers from A. Merritt to Philip Jose Farmer used to spin those. ERB brought us the Sword and Planet or Planetary Romance novel. Leigh Brackett, C.L. Moore, and Henry Kuttner, to name three, carried on that tradition. Wasn’t that long ago Disney released a big budget John Carter film. Word is Edgar Rice Burrough’s Inc. is trying to get another version in the works. Hollow Earth novels are still seeing publication. ERB’s influence continues.

Number 6. Michael Moorcock. The speed-writing peddler of the multiverse, Law vs. Chaos cosmological conflict, and albino, elf-like anti-heros. Others may have preceded him with some of these. Poul Anderson was writing independently about a Law/Chaos divide. But Moorcock owned it with his Eternal Champion cycle. The concept of the multiverse is common parlance now, popping up in everything from novels to television shows. Elric of Melniboné can almost be considered an archetype now, cf Hellboy II: The Golden Army.

Number 5. Anne McCaffrey, mother of dragons. Time was you picked up a book with a dragon in it, you knew who the villain was. With The Dragonriders of Pern and those gorgeous Michael Whelan covers that all changed. Now you see a dragon on the cover it could just as easily be an ally as an enemy. Naomi Novik’s Temeraire series can claim Pern as a progenitor.

Number 4. Howard Phillips Lovecraft. There’s the horror/fantasy question again, though there used to be little – if any – distinction made between fantasy, science fiction, and horror. HPL’s influence is unquestionable on horror, even science fiction (think Alien or any other H.R. Giger-involved film.) But he was also influential in the development of fantasy. Even immediately so. Think Conan, preventing a wizard from summoning a nameless cosmic horror from the gulfs in the blackness between the stars. This is HPL’s influence, the idea that the demon being conjured is not in fact a demon in the traditional sense at all, but an unknowable entity from a cold, uncaring universe with no interest in man one way or another. I’d argue that philosophically the “grimdark” school owes something to Lovecraft. And you know the Cthulhu mythos has wormed its tentacles deep within popular culture when you can buy a Cthulhu plush doll.

Number 3. Glen Cook. With The Black Company Cook altered the landscape of fantasy. Writing with a gritty, modern prose style, Cook laid the groundwork for the so-called ‘grimdark’ school. Without Cook there is no Joe Abercrombie, no Steven Erikson, possibly no Game of Thrones (though that’s hardly G.R.R. Martin’s only claim to fame.)

Number 2. Robert E. Howard. Can there be any question? One of the big three (along with HPL and Clark Ashton Smith) Weird Tales contributors, Howard was the quintessential pulp writer, churning out Westerns, boxing tales, hard-boiled detective stories, horror, and fantasy. He created the Puritan swordsman Solomon Kane, the barbarian-turned-king Kull, and the barbarian-turned-king Conan. Every broadsword wielding, mighty-thewed barbarian to come down the pike since owes his existence to Conan. From Brak the Barbarian to Druss the Legend, Howard’s influence is undeniable.

Number 1. Come on, say it with me. J.R.R. Tolkien. You saw that coming, right? Tolkien’s influence is deep and indelible. Starting with The Iron Tower and The Sword of Shannara the bookstore shelves have overflowed with Tolkien imitators. You couldn’t find a paperback fantasy back cover blurb in the 1980’s that didn’t compare the author to Tolkien. When people like something they want more of it. And if you’re going to imitate something you could do worse than The Lord of the Rings.

There you have it, the top ten. What do you think? Did I miss an obvious candidate? Is my order out of whack? Who is in your top ten?