C.P.D. Harris's Blog, page 82

Taste and Criticism

Just because I don’t like something does not necessarily mean that it is bad.

People often make the mistake of equivocating their personal taste with objective criticism. This is particularly true in the age of the internet. There are very few mechanisms in place that prevent people from over-reacting or conflating their opinions with some universal truth. I see this every time I shop for a game or a book and check the write ups under the ratings. Lack of originality, for example, is often used as an excuse to give a game a bad rating. This is foolish, in my view, because true originality is exceedingly rare. If a game is fun, I don’t care if it isn’t all that original. As long as it keeps me interested and entertained then I don’t mind familiar ground.

Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files makes an art of using “cliche” fantasy elements and a purposefully formulaic mystery novel structure and I find it vastly more interesting because of the way the author combines those exceedingly familiar elements into a coherent, entertaining, exciting, and relatable tale. Butcher uses the familiar as a primer for his series, using it to draw us into a world that is more complex than these elements might suggest. By doing so Butcher manages to dominate a genre, Urban Fantasy, that is difficult to write well.

World of Warcraft and the Warhammer 40K franchise make use of many of the same fantasy elements. People who play these games will be familiar with orcs, demons, portals to otherworldly realms, the undead, and so on. But its not like either of these franchises invented these elements. They simply borrow from the vernacular of fantasy (and sci-fi in Warhammer 40k’s case) and add their own spin to it. They don’t bother to disguise monsters and races be renaming them because by doing so they would lose the lore and image that other works have lent to that element. Calling something an elf is certainly not original, but it carries with it a set of strong associations that can be very useful to both writer and reader alike. Over time these archetypal elements get integrated into the whole, becoming distinct and interesting on their own. Orc/Orks in World of Warcraft and Warhammer are both borrowed from Tolkien/Mythology but if you delve into the current lore for either of them you will find new distinctions added to the old elements. Warcraft Orcs were once the pawns of inter-dimensional warfare and still carry the scars of that while 40k orcs are actually part fungus.

In Bloodlust I use traditional fantasy races. They exist in a multi-cultural society however, which I think separates them from the way many other authors and developers use races in Fantasy, where culture is often determined by race. Some people take one look at my book, see elves and dwarves and don’t want to read it. I have no issue with that. But when they come after me for not creating “original” races and naming them things C’nir and !shum I get a little annoyed. It is one thing to dislike a book because of the elements it uses, it is another to attack someone because you feel originality is the holy grail of fantasy.

Some people like plot driven books, while others prefer writing that focuses on the characters. I frequently encounter people evangelizing one at the cost of the other. Again, I have no problem with this until the would-be-critic tries to present their opinion of whichone is better as fact. Different readers prefer one or the other, and it may even vary depending on how one reader feels at the time. Gritty versus heroic, first person versus third person, and so on are all personal preferences. I recognize that my preferences do not constitute objective criticisms and will generally try to judge a work based on what I think the author/designer is trying to convey. If I slam Joe Abercrombie because he is too “gritty” for my tastes it says more about me than it does about his work, and one wonders why, if I don’t that style, I would be reading his work in the first place.

Here are two snippets of criticisms I have received from Bloodlust: A Gladiator’s Tale reviews (they’ve been altered a bit to prevent stepping on people’s toes).

Criticism A: I like blood, but there is way too much fighting in this book.
Criticism B: For all the fighting, I don’t feel like the characters are ever in much danger.

Criticism A has very little merit. It amounts to the person not enjoying the level of action in the book and offers little else. One should expect a book about Gladiators to have a lot of fighting. I am left asking why the critic even bothered to buy the book when it is fairly obvious from the title, the samples, and the description that the cup runneth over in the action department. Seriously, what did you expect?

Criticism B is much more useful to me. In fact I added a few bits to the book in response to it. For one it is much more specific. The reviewer narrows down what they see as a problem and why they see it as a problem in the context of the book. Not bad.

Try to keep personal preference out of reviews and criticisms. Ask yourself if you fall outside the target audience of the work? Don’t get hung up on ideas like originality, tone, and style being the final word in what is acceptable. Just because I don’t like something doesn’t mean that others won’t, nor should I act that way and try to persuade people that my view of the product in question is more important than it is. I hated the latest Batman movie with rabid passion, but that does not mean that I feel that other people shouldn’t watch it

Midnight musings

These are just random late night thoughts. Well, its midnight somewhere, at least…

I have run across a few consistent strains of thought this week and they have occupied a fair bit of my mental resources. The first is very comparable to a virus, prejudice against women in gaming and women in geekdom in general. On Tuesday I ran into this in three separate forms: the ongoing #1ReasonWhy campaign on twitter which sums up some of the lingering, possibly growing sexism faced by female professionals in the gaming industry. The little stories that these women share are worth reading, and just make me sad. This RPS column sums up why everyone, especially us men, should show their support for our sisters in the gaming industry. Having done some work in the industry, I’d love to see this shake things up. I would much rather have any of my gamer friends, male or female, work on a game than a former banker who is just in it for the money. The second was a discussion about fake gamer girls.  Apparently women who use voice chat in Xbox live and other online services are often bombarded with sexist comments. The newest strain of this is that these women are “fake gamer girls” who are “just trying to get attention”. I have also seen this kind of virulence directed at cosplayers and spokeswomen. A friend of mine mentioned this to me because he could not understand why his female friend had to switch from Xbox to PS3 to play her favorite shooter. He thought that gaming with mixed groups women was markedly healthier than just gaming with guys. I tend to agree. Female players kick ass in MMOs and some of my favorite modders are women so why am I even having to write this. I literally feel like I have gone back in time 20 years to being the games club president and having to have discussions about not not raping the characters of female players. I blame politics, I really do. Young men see their powerful, political elders attacking women’s rights and some of them copy that exact language and throw down with it in games and internet comments sections. They sound like Rush Limbaugh. The third one is that this has also filtered into the publishing industry, where, despite the fact that we have more great female sci-fi and fantasy writers than I could ever list, women are still facing barriers. The only time I give a crap about the author’s name is if I have already read them and a feel strongly about their work in general. Otherwise it is utterly irrelevant.

I remember a time when geekdom was small and insular and there were very few women. Trust me, modern geekdom is far better because of people like Felicia Day. As a geek, male or female, if your first reaction upon seeing a woman (or any person at all, really) is to try to judge whether or not she is a geek poseur you are not helping. Even if they aren’t quite getting it right, they are showing an interest in your culture, why not help them out and promote the things that you are passionate bout? Or if not keep your rabid, puritanical gob shut and remember that geeks and nerds started as social outcasts and have always been inclusive of anyone who was willing to put up with them. Now that we are growing we should not arrogantly cast that aside.

On a more positive note the other consistent strain of thought I’m coming across is in publishing advice. The consensus seems to be that the best way to promote yourself as an author is to write more books. The theory is complex and interesting, but it who needs it anyways because the idea just makes sense when you think about it. If readers like your work they will want more. The longer you hold their enthusiastic attention the more theyw ill recommend you.

There are subtleties to this. Strategically, I would have been a little better off to write both Bloodlust Books and then release them withing six months of each other, bumping my first book at just the right time. Live and learn.

Have a nice evening, and FFS be kind to each other.

Naming Conventions and Originality

On way home from my day job on Friday, eager to get home and defend the honour of my map on my favourite message boards, I shared the late night bus with a woman and her two daughters. I was minding my own, catching up on the Dresden Files (Summer Knight, book four) when I overheard on of the daughters start talking about writing. Naturally, I zoned in on the conversation. Here is the snipet that caught my attention.

Daughter: My teacher says my writing is really good.

Mother: That’s nice dear.

Daughter: She says that if I apply myself I will be able to be a professional writer some day.

Mother: -Rolls eyes and shakes her head, as if the weight of her daughter’s impractical dream is settling on her shoulders

Daughter 2: -Laughs at Daughter 1

It was a profound moment for me, on a couple of levels. I had a shocking sense of dejas-vous, as if I’d read this scene from a book the day before. It was a glitch-in-the matrix moment that is still etched clear in my mind’s eye two days later. It was a real life cliche, complete with stock characters, absolutely nothing original about it. And yet at the same time I found it powerful and relatable. It was also personally poignant since I was getting ready to defend myself against a few trolls who were trying to stir up some hate by pointing out that the place names on my map don’t sound original.

I put up a sample of my map on Reddit r/fantasy and r/world-building. About 80% of the feedback I recieved was postive, mostly in the form of upvotes. I recieved some useful criticisms of course, and had some nice interactions where I explained my naming conventions. However a few people attacked me with some pretty vicious stuff. Here is a small sample.

I stole my names from WoW and other video games: Thunder Bluff sounds too much like Iron Bluff, Grandia’s Landing sounds too much like Grandia, the title of a video game.

I stole my names from George R.R. Martin. Marius’s Wall is a rip off of Martin’s Wall (Yeah, I know), Grandia’s Landing is too close to King’s Landing.

These are just insulting, but in the interests of argument I posted the reasons for choosing the names for each every place on the map (I’ll post this at the end of the blog). I also explained how place names in the real world functioned and gave quite a few examples.This did little to stem the tide of idiocy, since the trolls really did not have any interest in reading my explanations. However, I did find the excercise useful and a few people read it and sent some cogent observations/criticisms my way.

I then started responding to each and every troll, pointing out the errors in their reasoning and that if they really wanted to be taken seriously they should not start their posts with obvious insults like stealing from WoW or ripping off GRRM. Engaging trolls is risky business, they tend to downvote in packs and are very prone to raging out of control. They could easily do some temporary damage with bad ratings on Amazon or Goodreads. But I couldn’t back away, I feel the need to defend my work, especially against what I see baseless attacks. Everyone has the right to criticize, but ff you are not literate enough to realize that GRRM is not the first fantasy author to use the wall, or think a name like Iron Bluff is a rip off of Thunder Bluff then I don’t feel the need to hold back when returning fire, especially if I offer a two page warning shot and you ignore it. Also don’t force a poorly thought out opinion on someone and try to pretend you are “helping” them if your comments begin with things that most people would find insulting like accusations of theft. 

Eventually I managed to reduce most of the these threads to a common argument. My names just didn’t seem original enough to them. Sylvanwood is in every fantasy everywhere. The whole Red Hills/Iron Bluff/Emerald Cove description paired with geographical feature thing had been done to death. Places named after the historical deeds of the people in the book is just so passe. One person even suggested that I should google every name of every character and place to make sure that it had not been used by a popular author before. And thus I arrived full circle, at cliche again. 

Originality is often put forth as the purest goal of a fantasy author. Names should be in made up languages that evoke a sense of detachment from the real world. I can see the sense in that. But presenting it as a golden rule is complete and utter bullshit. 

Originality is a device in writing, and like any tool it is very good for some uses, but not so great for others. The Domains of the Chosen, the empire in which Bloodlust is set is an actively militaristic, expansionistic, monoculture. After the Reckoning and the brutal wars for survival that marked the early history of the Domains, remnants of other cultures could only be found in people’s names and in ancient records. Other languages just don’t exist, really. The culture-race identity from Tolkien, is absent from the many races of Krass, wiped away by the empire. Thus all of the names save Krass and a few others are at least partly in english. This represents the attitude of the empire towards culture, namely that there is only one culture that matters. This is perfectly in line with the themes of the story in which the enemies of the Domains often end up as fodder in the death-rituals that are the Gladiatorial games. It is a show of power and dominance in a hostile world that they have been waging war with for a long, long time. 

When I considered place names in the Domains, I considered who was doing the naming. Most places are named when the Legions set up camp nearby or the chosen decide to put something there. In this way I did imitate GRRM a little. I think his names (Highgarden, King’s Landing, The Aerie) make sense because they have historical context. The reconquering Chosen don’t show much sensitivity to the ruins that they recover and reconquer. These are harsh people, often settling or fighting in hostile territory. They want to put their stamp on the place and they just don’t care to come up with a flowery, orginal sounding name for the most part. They want a name that glorifies their actions, that implies ownership and for that clarity is far better than orginality. And when a living weapon of mass-destruction wants to name something Sylvanwood, who is really going to argue with them. After all, Alexander the great named dozens of places Alexandria and even one after his dead horse, Bucephalus. No one dared change them while he lived. Now Imagine if he had the lifespan of one of the Chosen. 

I get the idea of originality, I just don’t think it would convey what I wanted to in this case. The scene of the bus would not have been nearly as powerful for me, if it weren’t so archetypal, so relatable, so familiar. I could have created my own naming conventions. I could also have avoided using traditional fantasy races. But that would not convey the character of the Domains very well at all, would it? 

Attachment: my justifications for each place name on the map, excuse the swearing. 

Krass, Karanoff, Kyrof, and Tavalon are the only names that are not at least part english. They represent places the only places that survived the Reckoning, which is essentially the magical equivalent of a full nuclear exchange. The names are slightly exotic, but similar to some real world languages and place names. Naming them something like Aven’en’dar did not seem genuine to me, although some fantasy fans do prefer that style. Most of the other place names are based around the historical actions of the Chosen. The society is ruled by the Chosen, powerful mages who make a covenant with the people of the Empire. These are people who have the strength to make their mark on the world and I decided it would be remiss of me not to have that reflected in the place names of the empire. Many of these people are still around, centuries later, which is why the names don’t suffer degradation.

Here is a list of each name of that type and a brief description of whence it came.

*Balvuk’s Triumph: Where Chosen Balvuk slew a Dragon. It is now something of a resort/retreat. People can visit the old lair and even see the Dragon’s Skeleton.

*Brighthoof Plains: Chosen Brighthoof, a minotaur, makes his home here. Brighthoof is his Gladiator name, mane of the Chosen were once Gladiators and they often had odd stage names that they get stuck with for years and years.

*Bryndon’s Quarry: Once the largest quarry in the domains, now played out and converted into an arena. Named after Chosen Bryndon who is one of those guys who names everything after himself (Fun fact — Alexander the great named a lot of places Alexandria and even one after his dead horse)

*Dun Mordhawk: Dun is a reference to the grey stone of the hills it is built on. Mordhawk is the name of the Chosen. Likely his arena name since it sounds pretty metal. (Mord=death + hawk)

*Grandia’s Landing: The place where Chosen Grandia and her army made landfall when the Domains started expanding southward.

*Scorpion’s Oasis: Part of Chosen Giselle’s Domain. Her arena moniker was the “Silken Scorpion.”

*Sonarion’s Crossing: Chosen Sonarion crossed into Sylvanwood here, winning a battle in the process.

*Marius’s Wall: Named after Chosen Marius, who held the territory while the wall was built.

*Mazurinhold: The hold of Chosen Mazurin.

*Terlula’s Pride: The city is named after an action that cost Chosen Terlula a great deal.

The other names are descriptive of the places themselves, which is actually rather common in real world names.

*The Boneyard is no town. It is actually the area surrounding Hollowfell where a number of battles have taken place, leaving a huge number of bones. The bones are also part of Hollowfell’s defences, since it is ruled by a cabal of heretical (to the Chosen) Necromancers. (Its not necromancy that makes them heretical, the Domains don’t like magic that they don’t control)

*Brightsand Halls is named for the pristine sands that shine in the sun when Chosen Giselle looks out from her massive palace (the hall part) in the morning. Some people might think the name is stupid but they won’t say it to her face, since she used to be a real terror in the arena and now wields more magical power than most Archmagi.

*Bullstock is a huge town where cattle are gathered and processed.

*Camp Valorous is the place where they train soldiers going to the wall. Try telling them they aren’t valorous…

*Cliffshield is a fortress that was built to guard the nearby sea approach. It is is built on a Cliff and Shields the land nearby.

*Dreadwood is named because it is in an old forest that is still wild in places and has unusual magical properties that creep people out.

*The Dragon’s Green is a fertile area watched over by some dragons who have made peace with the Domains.

*Emerald Cove is so named because it is built near a cove where the water takes on an deep emerald hue at certain times of day.

*Fellwatch is a military camp built to watch over the Boneyard and Hollowfell.

*Hillgrave is so named because an entire legion was wiped out here in an ambush from the hills.

*Hollowfell is a city ruled by some necromancers who are enemies of the Domains. Hollow is a geographical feature + fell is evil. The necromancers of Hollowfell resent this label but they wont come out to discuss it for fear of being destroyed.

*Hornwatch is a fortress built to watch for invasions from Sudra’s Horn.

*Lost Avenholt: An area lost to the Wirn. Was originally called Aven (elf) holt (hold).

*The Lost Expanse an area that is a big steppe/grassland that the Domains that covers a couple of Domains that were lost to mismanagement and beastmen.

*Iron Bluff is named that because they mine iron here and it is built on a bluff.

*Irongrim is an ugly fortress with Iron covered walls (why did he build it out of Iron? Why did he build it on a Volcano? because he is Chosen and does not give a fuck)

*The Promise is the area of land promised to Veterans who survive the first, horrible campaigns as the Domains expanded into the magic-blasted lands after the Reckoning.

*The Red Hills is named for the reddish veins of iron in the hills surrounding the mining town.

*Rivergate is a fortress town that Guards an important river.

*Rosehold is named after the amazing rose Gardens of Chosen Artus.

*Sea of Sand. A fairly common name for deserts. Because sand dunes can look like waves.

*The Sky Isles poke up into the clouds.

*Smallrock is a fortress built on a small rocky outcropping.

*Sudra’s Horn is the northernmost point of the continent south of the Domains, which they call Sudra (south)

*The Sylvanwood Sylvan is a word often associated in fantasy with elves or fey.

*Thousand Tongues is a region criss-crossed by rivers and lakes (more than you see on the map) the rivers are like the tongues of a snake when drawn on maps and there are a lot of them.

*Trapholds: The people who live here are trappers.

*The Trials is an ongoing battle really, it has gone on log enough to get a place name.

As a side note, I was already playing with idea of cliche in Bloodlust. Just look for it

Cartography and Fantasy

Aside from working on the second half of Bloodlust, my big task this week has been getting a map inserted into the first book. In this case that meant pouring over the place descriptions and travel sections that I wrote and situating them properly on a hand-drawn map, making sure that places were where I had described them to be. It would not do for the Iron Bluff to be west of the Red Hills, for example.  I drew the map in pencil, finalized it with pen, scanned it, and then added place names in a digital editing program. I was unsatisfied with the way the place names came out, they were hard to read and obscured too much of my great work. So, as I do whenever I have a problem like this, I harassed my friend Dan Barclay (who did the cover). After a few calls and some experimenting on Amazon we came up with the map shown at the end of this post, which shows up quite well on Kindle and Smashwords copies. As soon as I can figure out how to format it properly, I am going to drop it into the Print on Demand copy as well.

Here are some random thoughts about the process:

I should have drawn up the map before writing the book.

Yeah… this seems obvious in retrospect. In my youth, whenever I wanted to create a new RPG campaign, I would get working on a map as early into the process as I could. The map helped everyone visualize the setting, lending a bit of reality to something purely imaginary. A map was an early request, actually, one from the Puslinch Pioneer reviewer Virginia Hildebrandt.

It is also quite a bit easier to to draw a map and then use it in your writing than it is to reverse engineer a map from your novel. You

Many Fantasy Fans prefer “hand drawn” maps, in the books at least.

Originally I wanted to break out my expensive, dying-to-be-used campaign cartographer software and whip up a digital map. I’d had this in mind from the start, actually. But while I was researching how to insert an image into the various formats I use, I came across post after post that stated that people prefer maps that have that simple, iconic look. Delving deeper, I found research and discussion on why people prefer these maps. Firstly, it seems more personal. The handcrafted look simply feels more personal to the reader, like the author put special effort into it. Secondly, with modern mapping software you can create a realistic map, but the reader might be put off by this this. A too-detailed, perfect map speaks of reality, which does not help settle you into a Fantasy book at all (although readers often seek out immensely detailed maps of works they have already read) while a simple, iconic map evokes the imagination.

Here is my contribution, the map of the Domains of the Chosen:

 

I’m pretty happy with it. I did not draw forests. Let me know what you think.

Classical Influences

It should come as no surprise that a book series about Gladiators has classical influences. The great Roman and Greek civilizations, and to a lesser extent the Persian and Celtic civilizations that shared the same time-space have fascinated me since I was a child. I encountered an old picture-book, aimed at young men, that described the military aspects of Rome. It was full of lovely illustrations and pictures of swords older than Jesus, and even contained a single page describing Gladiators and the arena. Much later, in high School, I had the pleasure of deliving into the Classical period in Latin Class, taught by a brilliant, enthusiastic woman named Mrs Bell. I was terrible with the language, but my love of the historical aspects helped buoy my grades. The culmination of that trip was a visit to Italy, where one of the places that we visited was the Colosseum  While we were there a person tried to commit suicide by jumping from the old arena. There was a kind of magical irony to that: perhaps the old building still hungered for the good old days when the blood ran freely!

I could go on at length about how the decline of Classical education in schools has shut our students off from some of Western civilizations greatest sources of strength. After all, it is the Renaissance, the rediscovery of those great, old civilizations that truly lifted us from the torpor of the middle ages. However, it is evening on a Sunday, and I don’t really see the need to get worked up today. Perhaps some other time.

The Domains of the Chosen is about an Empire that is very similar to Rome in many ways. The political structure of the Domains is patterned after ideas that come out of Roman and Byzantine history. Even the Factions have their genesis in classical ideas. Krass is the great city at the heart of the Empire, analogous to Rome. The Domains are like the Roman provinces. The early provincial Governors of the Roman Republic and Empire gained tremendous power from their charges, not exactly like the Chosen, but Rome certainly had its super-heroic men, like Caesar. The politics of the Roman empire was much more diverse than the middle ages, with numerous competing institutions and powers. The Domains are similar. Even the limited amount of politics that the Gladiators are allowed to see is dominated by numerous forces competing for power: the Factions, the Chosen, the Deliberative. The political stew of an Empire is a very different flavour from feudal based medieval fantasies. In the second book, Gavin starts to get curious about forces he surmises must exist, but has not encountered.

The law is another factor that is key in classical civilizations  especially the Romans. Our system of law has its true roots in those ancient courts, places where rhetoric, reason, and precedence governed the affairs of men more often than superstition. This law was a monolithic force unto itself, something we in modern days are well familiar with. The Gladiators in Bloodlust are conditioned to follow the Covenant, including using their magic in prescribed fashion. The very idea of “forbidden magic” and the Deliberative, a body that regulates the use of magic is rooted in that kind of legal system. The Domains are the type pf society that is governed by the ebb and flow of power, where the decision makers constantly compete to change and exploit the law instead of bowing to some sort of absolute. If their had been magic in Rome, real magic, it would have been governed by law… after all they regulated religion.

The very idea of an institution of Gladiatorial combat comes to me from Classical history. The Gladiatorial games of Romes provide the foundations of the Great Games of the Domains. The Roman games were elabourate, and fantastical, as well as occasionally debauched. These days we tend to focus on the bloody and the bizarre from these old accounts, but in the days of my youth I was very interested to read about the many different types of Gladiators (the easiest analogy to RPG classes I have ever seen) with their distinct armour and fighting styles. The types of matches from beast fights, to reenactments of famous battles, even the flooding of the Colosseum for “naval battles”. These are the roots of my ideas for the Great Games. The idea of “bread and circuses”, how the games were often used to distract the people of Rome is also important to understanding the Domains.

The structure of the empire that is the Domains of the Chosen, the idea of legal regulations, and the basis for the Gladiatorial combat of the Great Games are all rooted in my love of classical civilization. Much of the imagery and ideology that I favour in Bloodlust is meant to evoke those old ideas, which still have a strong enough hold on our imaginations.

 

Things I Like About Modern Fantasy

First off, I had an interesting Remembrance day experience this year. I visited my Grandparents in the home and got to see all the older Veterans with their medals, pictures, and pride on grand display. It was an extraordinary experience, just sitting and listening to their simple stories of the war, over casual conversation at lunch.

Last week I wrote a post entitled Jersey Shore Fantasy, essentially discussing some of the things that turn me off in some Fantasy books. It was prompted by a discussion with my friend Decio, that Saturday, about how every hero these days is “from the shadows”. It may have come off a little negative, so on the flip side here are some things about modern fantasy that I really, really enjoy.

Things I Like About Modern Fantasy

1. Women, The Obvious Point

One of my favorite characters from Dragon Age II, was that bruiser of a woman named Aveline. Aveline was not pretty. She was not motherly. She was not peaceful or soft. Aveline was an uncompromising, stubborn, bully of a girl who would kick your arse if you crossed her… but she was noble, moral, and would back you to the hilt if she thought you were right. There was no one more reliable and no one you would rather have at your side in a fight. She was all this without trying to act like a guy and that one character made the game for me — even more than Isabela, the sultry pirate swashbuckler, or Verric, the witty dwarven thief and unreliable narrator.

Female characters have often been stronger in Fantasy than other forms of literature (yes, I just called fantasy Literature), and some of the best Fantasy writers of my youth were women. But modern Fantasy does it even better, with strong roles for women in Fantasy Movies, TV series, Comics, and so on. It has helped broaden the genre significantly and I heartily approve.

My tank driving, lawyer sister isn’t twisting my arm either

2. I can hear the dice rolling.

When I started writing I thought that noting that I was a gamer might have a stigma attacked to it. Nope. Quite the opposite, in fact. Just last week I saw a video that was a who’s who of big names in Fantasy gathered around a table playing D&D. It has gotten to the point where I think some people might be claiming to be gamers who really aren’t. (Where were you when Silverwall fell?)

But many Fantasy writers have obviously played games, from D&D to World of Warcraft, and many lesser known games. It shows in that extra level of consideration that the author gives to systems of various sorts from Magic Systems that have coherent and sensible rules to superior world building.  Gaming is a great test space. Table top RPGs can really help you test the consequences of actions in a Fantasy world. If an action take has a consequence that feels off or isn’t cool, it will almost always fall flat at the gaming table. I enjoy running ideas past my gaming group, having the smashed and dashed, refining them and giving it another go. Bloodlust is the result of a Game that I put together when my fabled Saturday night gaming group, that ran for 10 years (not so long by neckbeard/grognard standards, but still…), started falling apart. I found that the arena allowed for a narrative that could survive people dropping in and out of the session like crazy. Turns out adding all those extra little details that are required for an RPG helped flesh out the setting enough to make the background for a brilliant novel.

Computer gaming has led to stronger action imagery in Fantasy novels as well. The brutal, bloody combat and the crazy anime/action styles of some games have obviously helped some authors create better action scenes. Stephen King has noted that visualization is the key to good writing, and I think that some of the better computer games have really helped some authors in this regard.

Of course it goes both ways, with great Fantasy books helping to influence better RPGs and computer games. Which in turn, influence the writers again, and so on. So far, this has been very good…

3. Adult Stuff, y’know…

Fantasy still has a long way to go in this regard, but more Fantasy authors are exploring sex in their writing now. From sexual politics to magic and sex, it has the potential to be very interesting and add a strong human element to the story. Sex, is on some level, vital to stories for adults, be it a lovely Romance to the pure pleasure of hedonistic lust.

Just ease up on the gratuitous rape.

4. The enemy within

Modern Fantasy has a broader range of bad guys. Gone are the days when orcs and trolls penetrating your borders are all you had to worry about. Politics, backstabbing, rebellion, disaster, and just plain miss-communication are all thrown into the mix in Modern Fantasy. Conflict has been taken to a much higher level in the Genre, with the protagonists often having to deal with shifting alliances, betrayal, misfortune and a host of other obstacles on scales both personal and epic. Protagonists in modern Fantasy often have to leverage more than just their fighting abilities which leads to creative plot points and some great brains versus brawn moments.

Often the enemy isn’t even a threat to the kingdom or even really a worse person than the hero. Villains can range from understandable and sympathetic to monstrous and unknowable in Modern Fantasy, and that is a great thing.

Revolution has become a source of conflict in Fantasy… I love this.

Because the enemies aren’t always monsters, evil gods, or invading armies the protagonists are often different as well. A musician or an artist is just as powerful as a knight against the right antagonist. This in turn, allows Fantasy to explore new areas, create stronger characters, and generally broaden in scope.

5. Complexity 

Some people criticize Fantasy for being unrealistic, too soft on characters, or simply too optimistic. I think this misses the point. One of the things that I love about Modern Fantasy is the complexity. Its not just that Fantasy is no longer about black and white struggles of good against evil; I honestly don’t think good Fantasy was ever that myopic. It is that modern Fantasy is mature enough that authors can deal with real issues in a Fantasy context now. Much of this is because the audience for Fantasy is broader now, with a demand for a larger variety of subjects within the Genre as a whole. Kudos to the pioneering authors who pushed, and still push the envelope in this respect as well as the readers who support them. I feel that Fantasy is a much richer Genre now.

6. Exploring Magic

This is pretty clear. up until recently there were very few Fantasy series where the main character was a wizard or possessed some magical power. Even if they had magic, the author would often gloss over it. Lord of the Rings, Conan, Arthurian Works, the Iliad, Lankmar stuff, and all of the old Fantasy greats featured magic but usually did not delve into it. Modern Fantasy gets into the nuts and bolts of magic. The protagonists are frequently mages or have some form of magic power. Magic systems are explore thoroughly, often having a tremendous impact on the plot and world building. This exploration of magic often leads to some interesting thought experiments that would be impossible in any other genre. Create a set of rules for powers that do not exist and then think up how they will effect your made up world… AWESOME!

7. Let’s not get Medieval

Fantasy Authors no longer limit themselves to the middle ages as a background. The castle and the village are not the only settings or departure points for Modern Fantasy. The City has made its way into the Genre. With the city has come urban themes: politics, corruption, multi-culteralism, pluralism, democracy, fascism, industrialization and so on. Orcs aren’t always evil any more. Imperialism and Colonialism can be explored. Characters don’t always have to be farmers, knights, or clergyman. Rich new territories abound.

Classical influences, from Rome to Renaissance, which have gone missing from the rest of modern life are alive and well in Modern Fantasy, even as their absence is felt in classrooms.

Victorian/Napoleonic and modern Urban Fantasy are becoming strong genres as well. Fantasy branches out into different histories and cultures and grows as it does so. The Genre has become bog, bold, and broad. I feel it is stronger now than what we call Literature. Modern Fantasy has escaped its old rules and conventions and attracted a growing number of skilled writers and astute readers. It is a complex, growing Genre where anything goes and I hope it stays that way.

Jersey Shore Fantasy, also Maps

Firstly Maps. I am thinking of dropping a map into Bloodlust. A few people have asked, and it seems like a better solution than just putting up a map here. It is a fairly easy task to update the eBook, and free to people who have already purchased.

Now… Jersey Shore Fantasy

A Jersey Shore Fantasy is a fantasy book that has all of the worst qualities of reality television.

Before you read further, I am not naming names, nor am I saying that using one of these devices makes a writer bad.Fantasy has always had a subset of writers who strive to write gritty, dark, and even horrific books. The best of these write that way because it suits the story they want to tell or because it is the style that is most natural to them. The create works that are wonderful and terrifying, great reads if that is what you are in the mood for. However some writers seem drawn to dark and gritty Fantasy because they want to be seen as edgy. These are the guys that turn Tolkien into a straw man, and seem to think the only way to rescue Fantasy from authors who create overly cheerful worlds is to drown readers in the exact opposite.  I am just tired of seeing these tropes used in certain ways.

1. Rape, with a side of Dragons

Critics love sex. Erotica sells. Consequently modern Fantasy that is written for adults often has a healthy dose of sex. Some authors make brilliant use of sex for characterization or even to drive the story. One thing that really turns me off is authors using rape flippantly, particularly just to show off how cruel and gritty their world is. Rape is traumatic, unambiguously vicious, and profoundly uncomfortable.  Seriously, if your book has no consensual sex at all, but is chalk full of random rape references it is really telling. If I get even a whiff of an author using rape in a Fantasy book just to seem edgy it makes me nauseous.

2. Assassins and Mercenaries? You don’t say…

The Shadows are getting crowded these days. The most common protagonist in modern fantasy is the assassin, followed closely by the mercenary. It is getting to the point where I think one could be startlingly original by writing a good book about a knight or a prince. Dark Fantasy often works by subverting traditional Fantasy tropes, and anti-heroes are an easy way to do this. Assassins and Mercenaries are easy anti-hero archetypes, dripping with the kind of adolescent cool that only a person who kills for money can manage. Good writers can turn a mercenary or an assassin into a brilliant, original characters that is both dark and sympathetic  Bad writers turn them into teenage fanwank fantasies about having immense power without any risk or responsibility. The later are far too common.

Also if assassins are super-powered killing machines, you’d think those in power would take better precautions… sometimes it just seems like modern fantasy city-scapes are just designed as playgrounds for sociopaths.

3. Bodycount is King!

Back in University, I remember a month when all of the Games Club GMs held a contest to see how many characters they could kill. Wisely, I opted out. I remember quite a few players were annoyed at the arbitrary way in which their favoured characters got offed, and statistical glee of the GMs. One meaningful, well-written death is worth far more than dozens of pointless deaths that are just there to show how gritty and X-TREME your world is. For all the scorn that is heaped on Tolkien for not killing enough characters, the deaths of Boromir and Theoden-king actually impacted me as a reader. A surprise/random/shock value death of a named character here and there certainly helps establish a gritty tone. Some writers do this brilliantly. I don’t like it when a writer seems to go for quantity over quality, to the point where they are introducing characters just to kill them off. Death ceases to be gritty if it is so commonplace that I start wondering how society holds together. You want lots of death? why not put it in proper context and write about a battle or a revolution? if people are dropping like flies for little discernible reason, I’m out.

4. Cynicism is the best power!

In one of the aforementioned assassin Fanwank books, I remember a scene where the protagonist is forced to fight a group of hardened veteran soldiers. He not only survives, but he kicks the crap out of them. Why? because he fights dirty. His cynical attitude towards life gives him the upper edge, the willingness to use those dishonourable tactics is the secret to his success. Except its not that much of a secret — I don’t know any adult that does not realize that they could enjoy a little more short term success by being a little less virtuous. The idea of a veteran soldier who does not understand the power of fighting dirty, even if they don’t want to use it,  is utterly unbelievable. Like I said if your world is full of assassins, people are going to take precautions just to survive. The alternative is that your world is populated by idiots, and I don’t want to read that crap…

5. Everyone is a jerk…

If I can’t relate to any of the characters in a book, I am immediately turned off. In a gritty world, everyone is broken, but I am not interested in books where authors double down on degenerate character traits just to come off as edgy. No one is normal! no one is an innocent! ok, sounds gritty… there are no heroes!, oh, very grim… everyone is trainwreck with no sympathetic traits whatsoever? pass. The worst are the books where the characters stumble from event to event, never learning from their mistakes, becoming more and more broken but somehow coming out on top. Some readers enjoy watching broken characters get what’s coming to them repeating their mistakes over and over again for the crowd’s amusement. I don’t, its why I don’t watch reality TV. Nuff said.

Smashwords, Print on Demand, Goodreads, and a Wedding.

In the few weeks I have traveled nearly from one end of Canada to another. I took a flight out to BC to see my Brother, David and drove out to New Brunswick three weeks later to go to my cousin Andrew’s wedding. Both were quick trips, and I’m grateful for the help people gave me in getting around the country. What I saw of Canada from the cloud shrouded Rocky mountains to the rain drenched forests around Fredricton left me thirsting to see more of Canada, and beyond. We should all travel more.

I enjoyed seeing my Cousins, Michael and Andrew, again (it has been far too long) and meeting their wives Dan and Meghan as well as seeing my Uncle Daryl and his wife Alice. Again, it would have been better if I could spend a little more time visiting. We make due, though, and it was a great visit despite the brevity.

Before embarking on the trip to N.B. I put Bloodlust: A Gladiator’s Tale up as a print on demand paperback on Amazon and made it available as an eBook on Smashwords.

The Amazon operation went smoothly. Dan had already done most of the hard parts in sizing the cover and that sort of thing. We were actually ready to go about a month and a half ago, but I wanted to make sure the first commercial printing was as error free as possible. I received some last minute corrections from my Mom, my Grandmother, and several readers. Thanks to everyone who helped out with that!

Smashwords was tougher. The Smashwords meatgrinder is famed for being accessible and finicky at the same time. The basic process is very simple. Upload a DOC into the meatgrinder and Smashwords will convert it into various formats for you. Problem #1, I don’t use word. Microsoft is becoming less and less open, and I much prefer an open source word-processor that comes in one useful variety and does not try to rip me off or give me less functionality because I did not buy a deluxe version. So I converted the ODT (openoffice)  file to a DOC (MSword) and uploaded it. The meatgrinder did like it. I reformatted it and tried DOCx, the modern extension for word. The meatgrinder did not like it. I googled some of the errors I was getting and fixed them one by one. The meatgrinder kept rejecting me (shades of highschool, snap!). I had to remove all of the spacing between paragraphs manually. Man, that was painful. Finally I narrowed it down to a “copyright” error of some sort. Turns out I needed to put Smashwords edition on the title page… something I overlooked despite the fact that they made it painfully clear. I was rather stressed out by the time I finished, but I learned more about formatting and the Smashwords process. We shall see if it is worthwhile — Smashwords distributes eBooks to quite a few partners, including the apple bookstore and Kobo.

Someone added Bloodlust to Goodreads, and I claimed my book and made an author page. Goodreads is a social media site dedicated to reading. You can find reviews, discussions, lists, and recommendations galore there. Check it out.

Now I need a good self portrait for use with all these sites.

Oh and I kicked chapter 42′s ass, finally.

here is a taste

“Love is the strong recognizing the strong. All true beauty and all proper desire is a reflection of our love for own life. I would never have dared challenge Sadira until she attached herself to you.” from the chapter currently titled the Veteran’s Masquerade.

Sports and Politics in the Domains

The Popular Factions in Bloodlust might seem, at first glance, to be a reference to modern political parties. In Canada the Conservatives are Blue, the Liberals are Red, the NDP are Orange, points to you if you guessed that the Greens are Green. This is true to a certain extent. However it is also a reference to some interesting phenomena that I came across in my studies: the sporting factions of Rome and Byzantium.  We know a fair bit about these organizations due to records of the Nika Riots but they frequently pop up in older references to Gladiatorial Combat in Rome as well as Byzantine Chariot Racing. The incomparable Guy Gavriel Kay make use of them in his superb Sailing to Sarantium duology. In many ways these Factions served similar functions to our modern political parties, giving the common people and the lower aristocracy a greater voice in governance due to mass of numbers and organization. I actually think that there are more similarities, and that it is an area of history well worth examining.

In this light, I decided that the popular Factions in the Domains started off as sporting clubs and gradually gained broader influence as their organizations became more and more powerful and more unified. Each faction begins life as a group of sportsmen, fans, and supporters who band together to influence the sport that they love. They quickly find that this sort of allegiance gives them influence over the popular assemblies. We currently have  Political factions with their own news channels, imagine if they also had sports teams…

The Blues, the first Faction, started as a group of Arena Masters and Traditionalists who were wary of new changes in the rules of the Great Games. It is understandable that people who have an advantage in a particular system want to preserve (or enhance) that advantage. They likely started as a group that opposed the influence that the Deliberative gained over the Great Games as a whole. They wanted each individual Arena Master to have as much independence and control as possible.

The Reds rose in opposition to the Blues. The Blues became so powerful that they not only crushed the original political alliances in the popular assembly but they severely curbed the power of the Deliberative and handed Arena Masters free reign over the games for a while. This led to abuses, favoured Gladiators dying, and at least a handful of Chosen who were basically put in place by the Blues. The Reds formed out of the anger against the abuses of the Blues. They are not as tightly knit as a group, but they are far more numerous and quite powerful whenever they come together and organize.

For a long time the Blues and the Reds were enough. They balanced each other. The Faction games were created so that they could directly support their favoured fighters. However, even the more progressive Reds became bogged down by special interests over time and thus the minor factions (Oranges, Greens, and others) arose. These Factions often push particular issues until it becomes popular enough so that one or both of the major Factions feels compelled to pick it up.

As it stands in the Domains now, each Faction not only has its own news, politics, and Gladiators but also taverns, celebrities, neighborhoods, authors, dancers, and so on. They are full lifestyle choices. They are the Dominant “brands” of the Domains and are so powerful in the time that Bloodlust is set that even the Chosen have to tread carefully around them.

However, that said, I try to avoid pushing modern political issues onto the various Factions in all but the most general sense. The politics of the Domains are very similar to ours, but their problems and solutions are not at all the ones that we face in the real world.

Race and Gender in Bloodlust

When the cinematic versions of Lord of the Rings came out I was treated to a slew of articles on race in Fantasy. Most of these were the sort of juvenile drivel that attempted to paint Tolkien as some kind of  racist. For the most part the writers of these attacks were exercising their own prejudices, and did not add anything meaningful to the discussion of Tolkien or the use of race in fantasy, in general. More interesting critiques of race in Tolkien involve the use of race as a stand-in for ethnicity/nationality or even social class. Tolkien vehemently denied all of these readings, and allegorical interpretations of his work in general, and my feeling is that he was mostly attempting to create a self-contained world.

Some authors deliberately use fantasy races to examine and confront racial prejudice in a new context, free of the deep complexities that sometimes bog down the discussion of real-world racism. I’m not sure how effective that is. I can think of a few that have backfired, but I can’t think of many that have been truly edifying. I avoid this. Racism is certainly present in the Domains, and the Gladiators often use racial insults as call-ons in their matches, but I’m not really trying to make a complex point with that. The Domains are a multicultural society, but I felt that readers would find it hard to relate to if there was no evidence at all of racism. Gavin worries about it, Omodo suffers from lingering prejudices. The fear of the “other” that informs Racism is perhaps better represented by the Wirn or the other monsters that the Gladiators fight and slaughter in droves.

My use of race in Bloodlust is gamist in its approach. In a well-designed RPG player races, like any character choice, are created to appeal to certain personality types or concepts. it is merely another tool in the kit for describing a character. A player in a game picks a Dwarf because they represent a certain archetype, a set of traits that appeals to them or is useful for the character they want to make, not because the Dwarf represents a particular nationality or race. I make sure to divorce race from culture in the Domains. Everyone, regardless of Race, was thrown together into a very small area during the Reckoning and this submerged most of the old cultures and force the people into a more multicultural and multiracial environment.

In addition, the power structure of the Domains is based around the Gift and the Arena. Any person who has the Gift and chooses to fight has a shot of making it as a Chosen. In theory, this precludes racism and sexism. However, as we see in Omodo’s case the prejudice of the crowd can still shine through despite the supposed fairness of the rules.

Gender is another hot topic in fantasy. In Bloodlust, I set the bar for gender rights close to modern day. The Gift does not discriminate based on gender and so female Gladiators, and female Chosen, are well-represented after a thousand years of the Great Games. I’m actually thinking they might have a slight advantage over the men in the era that the books take place in.

However, despite the rules, and the fact that Magic does not discriminate, there is still prejudice, racism, and sexism in the Domains. Equal opportunity in the rules does not always translate into the arena where popularity and patronage can make a big, but not overtly obvious, difference in a Gladiator’s ultimate success.