Sarah Chorn's Blog, page 97

What Speculative Fiction Taught Myke Cole

About the Author

As a security contractor, government civilian and military officer, Myke Cole’s career has run the gamut from Coun­tert­errorism to Cyber Warfare to Federal Law Enforcement. He’s done three tours in Iraq and was recalled to serve during the Deep­water Horizon oil spill.

 

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So, Sarah emailed me the other day and asked if I’d be willing to talk a bit (and by “talk,” I mean “type”) about what I love about speculative fiction. There’ve been a lot of kerfuffles in the industry lately, from Orson Scott Card’s public douchebaggery, to Jim Frenkel’s recent (and long overdue) dismissal from Tor. There’s the “grimdark” tempest in a teapot. There’s the baseless accusation that big publishing doesn’t employ female editors (fun fact: MOST editors in the Big 5 are women. My imprint’s editorial staff is entirely female. Harper-Voyager, DAW and Baen are all run by women). There’s Vox Day’s toxic implosion and subsequent expulsion from SFWA.

Hanging out on Twitter, one would think that Internet outrage is pretty much all we do. And frankly, I’d be hard pressed to prove that wrong.

But the real reason I got involved in the genre was for great stories. Sure, they can make political points, paint pictures of worlds where the injustices of our own are put right. All of that is a piece of the magic. But, at the root, the story is what I’m after, the heady feeling of transportation and resonance. The notion of possibility.

And one other thing: Science Fiction is my father. Fantasy is my mother.

That’s not hyperbole. A couple of years ago, Ethan Gilsdorf interviewed me for a piece in salon.com (read it here - http://www.salon.com/2011/03/09/dungeons_and_dragons_comes_back/). The conversation was about Dungeons and Dragons, but the truth was that it encompassed the whole genre in all its mediums, from novels to comic books to film and television.

As a pasty, scrawny weakling kid, playing role-playing games in my mom’s basement, I knew something was wrong. I didn’t like how powerless I was. I didn’t like being picked on. I didn’t like being afraid. In the absence of qualified male role-models, superheroes stepped in. I learned resourcefulness from Batman, righteousness from Superman, finding strength-in-weakness from Daredevil. The party structure of D&D forced me to socialize until it became natural, and the fighters and paladins I always played showed me what it meant to be brave. Novels followed: Tolkien and Brooks and Anthony and Bradley and yes, even Orson Scott Card, whose magnificent Ender showed me that a child can be powerful, can be so good that he is impossible to ignore.

I rolled those dice, and pretended to be that paladin, for years upon years. And, after a while, the act seeped into my DNA, the role consumed the player.

By the time the smoke cleared, I wasn’t playing anymore. I *am* that paladin, just as I’d always imagined I would be.

I love my parents, but I can’t lie. They were too busy fighting their own fires to take care of me.

So, the genre did. Science Fiction and Fantasy are more than a form of entertainment to me. They’re my FAMILY.

And do I love my family? Yes, I do. Truly, madly, deeply.

I’ve been asked if I’m surprised that I wound up writing fantasy novels. I’d counter that it was inevitable

Blood will tell.

Books I’m Eyeing

Books I’m Eyeing is a (hopefully) weekly series wherein I show you the books that have intrigued me, and the blogs and reviews we can all blame that on. My goal is to make my library hate me because of all the holds I have placed. This feature will show you just how I’m accomplishing that.

This week’s will be a hodgepodge of Twitter recommendations, blog recommendations, and books I want to read based on the fact that they were nominated for various awards. It’s a long one.

Do any of these books interest you? Or are there some that I’ve missed but should check out? Let me know!

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The Grim Company – Luke Scull

Discovery blamed on: Mark Lawrence and Sam Sykes

About the Book

This is a world dying.

A world where wild magic leaks from the corpses of rotting gods, desperate tyrants battle over fading resources, impassive shapeshifters marshal beasts of enormous size and startling intelligence, and ravenous demons infest the northern mountains. A world where the only difference between a hero and a killer lies in the ability to justify dark deeds.

But even in this world, pockets of resistance remain. When two aging warriors save the life of a young rebel, it proves the foundation for an unlikely fellowship. A fellowship united against tyranny, yet composed of self-righteous outlaws, crippled turncoats and amoral mercenaries.

 

 

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The Eyre Affair – Jasper Fforde

Discovery blamed on: A Fantastical Librarian

About the Book

Welcome to a surreal version of Great Britain, circa 1985, where time travel is routine, cloning is a reality (dodos are the resurrected pet of choice), and literature is taken very, very seriously. England is a virtual police state where an aunt can get lost (literally) in a Wordsworth poem, militant Baconians heckle performances of Hamlet, and forging Byronic verse is a punishable offense. All this is business as usual for Thursday Next, renowned Special Operative in literary detection, until someone begins kidnapping characters from works of literature. When Jane Eyre is plucked from the pages of Brontë’s novel, Thursday must track down the villain and enter the novel herself to avert a heinous act of literary homicide.

 

 

 

 

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Greatshadow – James Maxey

Discover blamed on: The Founding Fields

About the Book

Greatshadow is the primal dragon of fire, an elemental evil whose malign intelligence spies upon mankind through every candle flame, waiting to devour any careless victim he can claim.

The Church of the Book has assembled a team of twelve battle-hardened adventurers to slay the dragon once and for all. But tensions run high between the leaders of the team who view the mission as a holy duty and the super-powered mercenaries who add power to their ranks, who view the mission primarily as a chance to claim Greatshadow’s vast treasure trove. If the warriors fail to slay the beast, will they doom mankind to death by fire?

 

 

 

 

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The Adjacent – Christopher Priest

Discovery blamed on: The Speculative Scotsman

About the Book

Tibor Tarent, a freelance photographer, is recalled to Britain from Anatolia where his wife Melanie has been killed by insurgent militia. IRGB is a nation living in the aftermath of a bizarre and terrifying terrorist atrocity – hundreds of thousands were wiped out when a vast triangle of west London was instantly annihilated. The authorities think the terrorist attack and the death of Tarent’s wife are somehow connected.

A century earlier, a stage magician is sent to the Western Front on a secret mission to render British reconnaissance aircraft invisible to the enemy. On his journey to the trenches he meets the visionary who believes that this will be the war to end all wars.

In 1943, a woman pilot from Poland tells a young RAF technician of her escape from the Nazis, and her desperate need to return home.

In the present day, a theoretical physicist stands in his English garden and creates the first adjacency.

THE ADJACENT is a novel where nothing is quite as it seems. Where fiction and history intersect, where every version of reality is suspect, where truth and falsehood lie closely adjacent to one another.

It shows why Christopher Priest is one of our greatest writers.

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Tomorrow the Killing – Daniel Polansky

Discovery blamed on: The fact that I realized I reviewed the first book (Low Town) and never read the second.

About the Book

Once he was a hero of the Great War, and then a member of the dreaded Black House. Now he is the criminal linchpin of Low Town.

His name is Warden.

He thought he had left the war behind him, but a summons from up above brings the past sharply, uncomfortably, back into focus. General Montgomery’s daughter is missing somewhere in Low Town, searching for clues about her brother’s murder. The General wants her found, before the stinking streets can lay claim to her, too.

 

 

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Some Kind of Fairy Tale – Graham Joyce

Discovery blamed on: It’s nomination for the World Fantasy Award

About the Book

It is Christmas afternoon and Peter Martin gets an unexpected phonecall from his parents, asking him to come round. It pulls him away from his wife and children and into a bewildering mystery.

He arrives at his parents house and discovers that they have a visitor. His sister Tara. Not so unusual you might think, this is Christmas after all, a time when families get together. But twenty years ago Tara took a walk into the woods and never came back and as the years have gone by with no word from her the family have, unspoken, assumed that she was dead. Now she’s back, tired, dirty, dishevelled, but happy and full of stories about twenty years spent travelling the world, an epic odyssey taken on a whim.

But her stories don’t quite hang together and once she has cleaned herself up and got some sleep it becomes apparent that the intervening years have been very kind to Tara. She really does look no different from the young woman who walked out the door twenty years ago. Peter’s parents are just delighted to have their little girl back, but Peter and his best friend Richie, Tara’s one time boyfriend, are not so sure. Tara seems happy enough but there is something about her. A haunted, otherworldly quality. Some would say it’s as if she’s off with the fairies. And as the months go by Peter begins to suspect that the woods around their homes are not finished with Tara and his family.

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Crandolin – Anna Tambour

Discovery blamed on: Its nomination for the World Fantasy Award 

About the Book

In a medieval cookbook in a special-collections library, near-future London, jaded food and drink authority Nick Kippax finds an alluring stain next to a recipe for the mythical crandolin. He tastes it, ravishing the page. Then he disappears.

So begins an adwentour that quantum-leapfrogs time, place, singularities, and Quests – from the secrets of confectionery to the agonies of making a truly great moustache, from maidens in towers to tiffs between cosmic forces. Food, music, science, fruitloopery, superstition, railways, bladder-pipes and birth-marked Soviet statesmen; all are present in an extraordinary novel that is truly for the adwentoursomme.

 

 

 

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Alif the Unseen – G. Willow Wilson

Discovery blamed on: Its nomination for the World Fantasy Award.

About the Book

In an unnamed Middle Eastern security state, a young Arab-Indian hacker shields his clients—dissidents, outlaws, Islamists, and other watched groups—from surveillance and tries to stay out of trouble. He goes by Alif—the first letter of the Arabic alphabet, and a convenient handle to hide behind. The aristocratic woman Alif loves has jilted him for a prince chosen by her parents, and his computer has just been breached by the State’s electronic security force, putting his clients and his own neck on the line. Then it turns out his lover’s new fiancé is the head of State security, and his henchmen come after Alif, driving him underground. When Alif discovers The Thousand and One Days, the secret book of the jinn, which both he and the Hand suspect may unleash a new level of information technology, the stakes are raised and Alif must struggle for life or death, aided by forces seen and unseen. With shades of Neal Stephenson, Neil Gaiman, Philip Pullman, andThe Thousand and One Nights, Alif the Unseen is a tour de force debut—a sophisticated melting pot of ideas, philosophy, religion, technology and spirituality smuggled inside an irresistible page-turner.

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The Drowning Girl - Caitlín R. Kiernan

Discovery blamed on: Its nomination for the World Fantasy Award.

About the Book

India Morgan Phelps — Imp to her friends — is schizophrenic. Struggling with her perceptions of reality, Imp must uncover the truth about her encounters with creatures out of myth — or from something far, far stranger…

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Stormdancer – Jay Kristoff

Discovery blamed on: Being nominated for the Gemmell Award

About the Book

Griffins are supposed to be extinct. So when Yukiko and her warrior father Masaru are sent to capture one for the Shogun, they fear that their lives are over. Everyone knows what happens to those who fail him, no matter how hopeless the task.

But the mission proves far less impossible, and far more deadly, than anyone expects – and soon Yukiko finds herself stranded: a young woman alone in her country’s last wilderness, with only a furious, crippled griffin for company. But trapped together in the forest, Yukiko and Buruu soon discover a friendship that neither of them expected.

Meanwhile, the country around them verges on the brink of collapse. A toxic fuel is slowly choking the land; the omnipotent, machine-powered Lotus Guild is publicly burning those they deem Impure; and the Shogun cares about nothing but his own dominion. Yukiko has always been uneasy in the shadow of power, when she learns the awful truth of what the Shogun has done, both to her country and to her own family she’s determined to do something about it.

Returning to the city, Yukiko and Buruu plan to make the Shogun pay for his crimes – but what can one girl and a flightless griffin do against the might of an empire?

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The Bottom of the Sea – Zachary Jernigan

About the Book

THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA is an e-book collection of five short stories, one of which is a previously unpublished work. (The others made their appearances in ASIMOV’S SCIENCE FICTION, THEAKER’S QUARTERLY FICTION, and PAX AMERICANA.)

At close to 30,000 words, these five narratives span the whole range of speculative fiction, from near future sf, to space opera, to modern-day fantasy.

80 pages (ebook)

Published on September 5, 2013

Author’s webpage

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Short stories are hard for me to review, so I almost never do it. I either love them or I hate them. There really is no middle ground. I also think short stories are harder for authors to do well. There is less time to build a world, develop characters, make a compelling plot, and tell a good story. Less time means it is easier for people to mess up on execution, and those mess ups are often quite impressive.

Basically, short stories are hard for people to write properly, and for that reason I try not to read them. I also try not to review them because I don’t like doing it. Most of my time is spent summarizing stories, which bugs me, so I usually end up writing the kind of reviews that authors hate, where I just discuss overall impressions without dissecting the stories themselves.

It’s a love/hate relationship, and I always fail at it.

Jernigan, author of No Return, has a unique writing style that just does it for me. Anyone who has read No Return will know that Jernigan holds nothing back with his unique world building, and that’s probably why I love his writing so much. Nothing about what he creates is standard. I never read a word in No Return and thought, “Wow, this reminds me of (insert other book here).” Whatever he writes will be completely unique to him. In this day and age, being able to say that about an author is rare and I treasure it when it happens.

So how does that unique flair work when it is compacted into a short story? In a novel, Jernigan has plenty of time to explore his world. He can develop it slowly and with finesse. In a short story, he can’t. Honestly, I wasn’t sure how he’d handle the short story challenge, but I’m pleased to say that he doesn’t let his readers down. Everything you love about Jernigan thrives in his short stories, and in some cases, the short length just makes his writing that much more powerful.

The Bottom of the Sea is comprised of five short stories. This anthology shows off Jernigan’s stunning ability to write many different styles. Perhaps what is most impressive is the fact that the stories are so incredibly diverse, taking place in other worlds, futuristic worlds, involving gods, disabilities, and whatever else, but each story is crafted to perfection and the worlds, histories and characters are meticulously and surprisingly developed.

One of the most impressive aspects of The Bottom of the Sea is that, no matter how diverse the stories are, they all deal with intense emotional themes. There’s a heavy quality to this book that makes the reader instantly feel like they are probably sitting in on a very private part of Jernigan’s psyche. Not only does he show a very personal part of himself to the reader, he also pushes boundaries and forces readers to really explore and really think about love, loss, privilege, belief and so much more. He takes fundamental feelings and understandings, dissects them, and forces the reader to make sense of it all. It’s quite artistic, really, and honestly rather genius.

Jernigan has a tendency to leave rather open endings, which can make the deeper themes and emotions he plays with just that much more powerful. He sucks the reader in, takes them on a fantastic journey, and then leaves them with just enough information to spend a bit of your spare time imagining what happened next. That’s a huge hallmark of being a good author – he can pull you in in such a short amount of time, and leave you gaping once the story has ended. It’s quite impressive, really.

He also has a knack for slowly revealing things as he writes, which is surprising, especially in short-story form. The worlds have a tendency to be instantly visible and real while the intricacies of the history, culture and/or whatever else is subtly and naturally woven in. This really lets the reader experience an intense sense of wonder while Jernigan slowly reveals the wonderful world(s) and cultural details that accompany each story. Jernigan has a unique flare for powerful world building at the best of times. He truly seems to love science fiction, and he infuses The Bottom of the Sea with that passion. He really stretches his wings and his unique, well developed, and diverse worlds/places benefit from it. 

While this review might seem like an incredibly general piece of crap for an anthology, I’m hoping that it is exactly the opposite. The thing is, The Bottom of the Sea is a very powerful collection. It contains five short stories, but summarizing them would take away some of their magic. Half the thrill is discovery. The diversity in this collection is impressive but it is Jernigan’s writing that really knocks my socks off. The worlds are incredibly well developed. All the details I love are naturally woven in. Each story is different, and therefore each story will provoke new and unique thoughts in readers. Not only has Jernigan written a powerful collection, but it is a powerful collection that is strangely intimate. The Bottom of the Sea is incredible.

The Bottom of the Sea will be available for purchase on September 5.

 

5/5 stars

What Speculative Fiction Has Taught Matthew Jenks

About the Author

Matthew R. Jenks is a Librarian/Metaphysicist with an unfortunate penchant for apocalyptic story ideas who enjoys creating worlds and stories so vivid they must exist somewhere in quantum reality. He also enjoys writing, hiking, intense music, long walks on the beach, Skyrim, Fantasy in general, and playing chess. He lives in New England “Somewhere on the Mount, Cloud-Hidden, Whereabouts Unknown”.  He is the author of the epic 4-book Fantasy series titled “Hearth” (on Amazon Kindle).

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A recent Google search of the Best Speculative Fiction by yours truly brought up a vast and varied population of Results, ranging from Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein to the Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowing to 1984 by George Orwell to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams to Neuromancer by William Gibson, and on and on and on …  Even Lord of the Rings was on the list; certainly in the top 3 on my own list for High Fantasy but a stretch for my own definition of what Speculative Fiction is.  I had read slightly more than a quarter of the books on the list, but there were almost as many I had never heard of before, and I read my share of Lit.

In looking at the list, I tried to think of a common thread running through them all.  What was the theme that tied them all together?  What made them all Speculative Fiction?  Hard as I tried to find a linking pattern or thread, I couldn’t, and I challenge the Reader to find one.  It seemed like a pointless exercise to me.  There is no common theme in any of the plot lines or moral conundrums posed in the novels.  You certainly won’t find it by comparing the worlds, memes, inventions, or any of the technology (or magic) each presents.  They are as wide-ranging and diverse as one can find, their only limits the breadth and depth of each author’s imagination.  Then I thought, perhaps I’m looking in the wrong direction.  Perhaps the common thread wasn’t to be found in the novels, but inside ourselves.

That turned out to be the key to the answer, and it didn’t take me long to see what it was.  You’ll find the one commonality by examining your own response to each work.  At least that is how it was for me.  For it is not in anything specific in each novel that you’ll be able to determine its place on the list; it’s in the sense of Wonder (cap is mine) it evokes in us all – that sense of thrill and awe we get at the sheer brilliance of what is possible.  It causes us to see reality in a different way, to look at things in a new light and think about existence, time, space, reality, technology, time travel etc. in a way we hadn’t thought about them before.  It even forces us to examine our own views and beliefs, on everything from racism to overpopulation to space travel; even issues about spirituality, creation and organized religion aren’t offf limits.  Speculative Fiction opens up our minds; that is what ties all it’s greatest works together and that is what it has done for me in my life as a Reader and a Writer.  It makes us think.

For me personally, Speculative fiction in all its forms, whether you’re talking about Ray Bradbury, Neal Gaiman, Stephen King (yes, he’s not all horror) or Harlan Ellison, has always been about Wonder – and that is what it has taught me.  I said in another post that part of that wonder (an almost spiritual experience for me) is about our struggle as humans against the Dark – against death, against ignorance, against mortality and even meaninglessness.  We want to know that life MATTERS, that what we do MATTERS.  For me, Speculative Fiction reminds us of that; we ARE in a struggle, but along the way we find Wonder and Joy – Joy in many forms.  We engage in Discovery, we have Grand Adventures, we make new Friends!

These are the things Speculative Fiction is all about!  I might add that I also believe we are eternal beings, but we metamorph, much like butterflies and moths.  Old stories end and new stories begin, but I don’t believe the Great Story (which we are all a part of) ever really ends.

So, as the Revels say during their yearly Christmas concert at Winter Solstice, before the Lord of the Dance begins – “When Life Bestows on You Darkness and Pain and Sadness at the Turning of the Year, Take Joy!! Take Light!!  For the Darkness is Fading and a New Day Begins!”

Take Joy!

What Speculative Fiction has Taught Matt Gilliard

About the Author

Matt Gilliard runs the popular review website 52 Book Reviews where he does author interviews, and reviews SFF books and audiobooks.

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Finding My Tribe

When Sarah asked me to take part in this project about what I’ve learned from speculative fiction, a lot of things came to mind. My vocabulary is largely due to my wide reading habits as is my far ranging sense of various historical periods and many other bits of only vaguely useful information that makes conversing with strangers at parties much easier. I’ve learned to look at any situation from other people’s point of view having read the stories of thousands of characters of every race, creed, age, sexual orientation, and point of view. But as important as all of that is to my development as a person, that wasn’t what stood out to me. To get to that, I’ll need to tell a story. Imagine that.

I’ve been a bibliophile for as long as I can remember. To this day, my grandparents proudly recount the days when I would simply pull down a volume of the encyclopedia and read for hours. I remember those days only hazily, but I know even then I was reading about mythological creatures and the gods and goddesses of civilizations from long ago. Fantasy is in my blood, though it’s taken many forms over the years.

My obsession with Narnia and Oz in elementary school wasn’t something anyone paid attention to, there was no teasing or bullying then. I was just a kid who liked to read. My teachers encouraged it and so did my family. Middle school was different; I hadn’t discovered more sophisticated fantasy and science fiction at that time and comic books were my newest vice. That got me teased. I even remember mocking yearbook signatures about superheroes in my yearbooks. I don’t remember caring. There were other kinds of bullying that mattered more, but that’s something for another time.

Eventually, I found a friend who loved superheroes and eventually role playing games as much as I did. We created our own heroes, devised our own games, and spent countless hours telling their stories together. In high school we gathered more of our kind and our circle expanded. Most of my fondest memories of that time involve late nights, copious amounts of caffeine and oddly shaped dice. College changed things a bit. Comics were replaced by books and I gathered new geeks and gamers. One of the members of that first group of new gaming friends is serving as a groomsman at my upcoming wedding and I count him as one of my oldest and dearest friends.

All of this brings me to my point. That speculative fiction and geekery in its many forms has given me is a real sense of community. A sense of tribe, if you will. My geekery no longer defines me as much as it once did. It’s a bit more below the surface, due more to professional restraints than any sense of shame. But I know how to read the signs in the people around me. I see a particular kind of book cover, overhear a bit of trivia or movie dialogue, or any of the countless telltale signs that only members of our tribe would recognize. And when I find those, I’m that much closer to a meaningful conversation or a possible friendship. It makes it much easier to befriend a stranger when you know there is a strong chance that you will have a certain amount of built in commonality. I find these days, when genre is more and more accepted and mainstream than ever before, that I am never alone for long before I meet someone new who can appreciate the things that give me the most joy.

Being a blogger and reviewer has only expanded the scope of my tribe, taking it to the internet, crossing miles and even oceans to connect to other fans and even the authors who produce the novels that have given me so much enjoyment. Some of those I’ve even come to consider friends. With just a little over one year of being a larger part of the genre community, I’ve made countless new friends and discovered a score of new authors whose stories have challenged my perceptions of the world and my place in it. But most of all, I feel a part of something bigger than myself, a group of people who not only share my passion for the genre but embrace new ideas and new people with open arms ignoring the meaningless labels that serve only to divide.

I realize we are far from perfect as a community and not everyone who wears the label geek, blogger, reviewer, or author espouses the same inclusive and welcoming stance I’ve been fortunate enough to encounter at almost every turn. But most of us try. And that’s more than enough for me. That’s part of what being in the tribe is all about. Imperfect though we may be, we give each other a place to belong. Warts, Starfleet uniforms, Monty Python quotes and all.

Matt Gilliard is the reviewer/operator and chief bottle washer at 52 Reviews, a speculative fiction book review website. When not waxing un-poetic about all things science fiction and fantasy, he teaches Japanese martial arts and works a job too boring to mention.  He also would rather watch Roadhouse than almost any movie on earth. The power of Swayze’s mullet will not be denied.

What Speculative Fiction has Taught Zachary Jernigan

[image error]About the Author

Yo! I’m Zack, a 33-year-old, quarter-Hungarian, typically shaven-headed male. I’ve lived in Northern Arizona, where the weather is nice and the political decisions are horrifying, since 1990, with occasional forays into the wetter and colder world.

My favorite activities include: listening to 70s-00s punk and post-punk music, cooking and then eating delicious and often unhealthy foods, riding human-powered vehicles of all varieties (though hardly well), talking and/or arguing about religion, watching sitcoms, night-swimming, and jumping on and off stuff.

During my depressingly rare periods of productivity, I write science fiction and fantasy. No Return , my first novel, came out in March of 2013 from Night Shade Books. My short stories have appeared in a variety of places, including Asimov’s Science Fiction, Crossed Genres, and Escape Pod

 

 

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What I’ve Learned is What I Want to Be

Zachary Jernigan

One of my go-to claims is this:

“I read science fiction because I lost religion.”

It always requires explanation, even though I think it’s fairly clear what I mean — up until the point where I really think about it, that is. For the person who practices a religion (or is spiritual, if you prefer; no, I won’t split hairs), the world is full of a particular kind of wonder. There is a god, or gods, or a universal presence, etc., and that’s pretty darn cool, right? For the person who has never had a religion, on the other hand, the world is as full and meaningful as it’s always been.

But for the dude who rejected the faith of his upbringing? Well, for him the world will always be a little less cool — but still cool, mind; science rules! — because it lacks all the really neat stuff that a theological view of the world provides.

Just for some context, I was raised, much like the owner of this blog, in the LDS (Mormon) church, so you know I’m missing out on the belief in a bunch of really cool junk (for men, that is). I mean, being a god with a perfected, ageless body after death? Who wouldn’t want to believe that’s gonna happen?

Still, the fact is clear: I can’t make myself believe things, no matter how cool they might be to believe.

And so, long and short of it, I read science fiction (and, to a lesser extent, fantasy). Instead of going to church and praying, I go to a library and find a book where godlike beings can exist and travel the universe, or where ordinary people meet dragons and get swords of power. I escape, in both an “escapist’ and an intellectual way, into worlds of wonder. I take inspiration from the imaginations of others in the way a religious person might take inspiration from hearing about the plan of salvation.

I know that some people — religious, atheist, not giving a crap one way or the other — know what I mean when I say this, because, really, reading itself is an act of faith. It is an exercise in trust. You put yourself in the hands of someone you (probably) don’t know and say, “Okay. I give my brain over to these three hundred pages: take it where you will, Author Person!”

You live, for that brief time — or long time, if you’re a slow reader like me — in the creation of the author.

You do this because it feels good to be taken somewhere.

And me? I like to be taken to the awesomest places. I like to see things that no one’s ever seen or going to see. I like that feeling of my brain pulsing under the thin barrier of my skull, growing new wrinkles as it attempts to wrap itself around a novel description, a new kind of person or mode of expression. In the best moments, I come closer to the transcendent than I ever did praying, or hearing about the gospel, and though that fact might make some believers sad for me, to me it is the most wonderful validation I can imagine.

The universe is no cold, dead place, not while I’ve got a good science fiction book in my hand. Oh, no; at the best moments during reading, being inside my head is literally the best place for a human being to be. (And I don’t say that lightly, because my brain’s sort of a mess.)

This is why science fiction matters to me: This is what I’ve learned: It is no small thing to have happen, sitting in a room while all of existence explodes around you, over and over again, reorganizing itself in incredible ways, lending a true sense of awe, of fear and majesty.

All due to some words, man. Words.

And so now I’m an author, doing the most frightening thing in the world — to me, anyway. The fact that I even try to recreate in the minds of a reader the kind of experiences I’ve had reading proves how foolish a mere mortal can be. I’m trying to paint, word by insufficient word, something that exists only on the palette between my two ears, something born of the unique obsession to show the reader something they’ve never before seen. I’m trying to do what my heroes, the priestesses and shamans of my homespun anti-religion, did to make me the man I am today — a supremely flawed human being, but at least one who has seen the edge of the universe and come away smiling at the sight.

What Speculative Fiction has Taught Me

The other day I wrote this post about why I love the genre so much. It got me to thinking. I’ve been a little less engaged than I usually am in other blogs and I started wondering why. It’s not because the blogs are terrible, or I’m losing interest in the genre. It’s because cancer changed something fundamental in me. I don’t want to be as negative anymore. Life is short, and I’d like to spend my time alive focusing on positive things. It is so easy to focus on the negative issues of the genre, and I just don’t want to fill my days with that. I had enough negativity during my 2.5 years fighting cancer, I really don’t want to infuse something I love, like SFF, with that negativity as well. I know that sounds very Pollyanna of me, and maybe it is, but things change once you have to face your own mortality.

The thing is, it’s easier to focus on the negative rather than the positive. That’s just human nature. I wrote my post the other day about why I love the genre, because it was a day that my RSS feed was full of posts complaining about this genre issue, or that genre issue. It got to me. I wanted to discuss why the genre is a good thing despite all the problems people might focus on. We are all authors or bloggers because we feel passionate enough about the genre to spend hours and hours and hours reading it, writing about it, talking about it, thinking about it…. I want to focus on that passion. The truth is, it’s impossible to love something that doesn’t give back. Love is all about give and take, and I want to focus on what, exactly SFF has given those who love it so intensely.

My post had a massive amount of positive feedback. It honestly surprised me. The amount of feedback made me realize that maybe I’m not the only person sick of negativity. Maybe others are, too. Maybe it’s time to celebrate all the wonderful things about the genre and forget, for a time, that there are negative, gripe-worthy aspects. Maybe it’s time to really focus on what, exactly, SFF has given back to us. So I asked for volunteers who were willing to write up a guest post for me answering one question, “What has Speculative Fiction taught you?”

This is going to be a fairly unstructured event. I have no timeline, no word or page limit, nothing like that. I’ll run it as long as I get posts for it and once they dry up I’ll stop. I want it to be fun. Sometimes I feel like we write too many essays and don’t spend enough time being informal. I’ve asked SFF bloggers and authors to participate, and I’ve basically just sent off an email to those who were interested. They’ll either write a post or they won’t. I’ll be as surprised as all of you by how many responses I get, but I sincerely hope they don’t stop coming in. Therefore, count this post as not only an introduction to an event, but also an open call for others willing to submit a post to me answering that one question I listed above. If you do want to participate, please send an email to sarah (at) bookwormblues (dot) net with the subject as GUEST POST. I’ll send you an email back with the details of what I’m looking for in your submission.

I have received my first guest post, which will go live on Monday. Depending on how long it takes for me to get more, you might see another post next week or you might not. Keep your eyes peeled. It’s time for us to focus on what, exactly, SFF has given us.

I hope you enjoy this. And don’t forget, if you want to participate, I’ll take as many posts as there are people who want to offer their time to write something up.

Books I’m Eyeing

Books I’m Eyeing is a (hopefully) weekly series wherein I show you the books that have intrigued me, and the blogs and reviews we can all blame that on. My goal is to make my library hate me because of all the holds I have placed. This feature will show you just how I’m accomplishing that.

Get ready, ladies and gentlemen. It’s been a hell of a good week in the blogosphere, and this incredibly long post will prove it. Also, be sure to take a looksee at the blogs I mention throughout my post. They are all amazing and worth looking at.

Do any of these books interest you? Or are there some that I’ve missed but should check out? Let me know!

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Horns – Joe Hill

Discovery blamed on: A reader comment on last week’s Books I’m Eyeing post

About the Book

At first Ig thought the horns were a hallucination, the product of a mind damaged by rage and grief. He had spent the last year in a lonely, private purgatory, following the death of his beloved, Merrin Williams, who was raped and murdered under inexplicable circumstances. A mental breakdown would have been the most natural thing in the world. But there was nothing natural about the horns, which were all too real.

Once the righteous Ig had enjoyed the life of the blessed: born into privilege, the second son of a renowned musician and younger brother of a rising late-night TV star, he had security, wealth, and a place in his community. Ig had it all, and more—he had Merrin and a love founded on shared daydreams, mutual daring, and unlikely midsummer magic.

But Merrin’s death damned all that. The only suspect in the crime, Ig was never charged or tried. And he was never cleared. In the court of public opinion in Gideon, New Hampshire, Ig is and always will be guilty because his rich and connected parents pulled strings to make the investigation go away. Nothing Ig can do, nothing he can say, matters. Everyone, it seems, including God, has abandoned him. Everyone, that is, but the devil inside. . . .

Now Ig is possessed of a terrible new power to go with his terrible new look—a macabre talent he intends to use to find the monster who killed Merrin and destroyed his life. Being good and praying for the best got him nowhere. It’s time for a little revenge. . . . It’s time the devil had his due. . . .

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The Red Knight – K.T. Davies

Discovery blamed on: Weirdmage’s Reviews

About the Book

A thousand years have passed since the Clan Lords and the Fey commanded dragons and raised mighty citadels. The remnants of their ancient power lie dormant and a new conflict threatens the kingdom of Antia…

King Daris rules a peaceful and prosperous land, but his conniving brother Jerim covets the throne and civil war looms.

But there are worse threats to Antia than mere human greed.

Two people will stand against mortal and demonic enemies: Alyda Stenna, Captain of the Hammer of Antia returns from campaign to a hero’s welcome after prosecuting war abroad with brutal efficiency.

Garian Tain, the spymaster’s apprentice, hunts for an assassin through the streets of the capital while the knights bask in the adoration of the crowds.

This is just the beginning.

Both will fight overwhelming odds in a bid to save the kingdom. War and betrayal will test them to their limits. One will rise; one will fall; both will be changed forever.

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Swords of Good Men – Snorri Kristjansson

Discovery blamed on: Civilian Reader

About the Book

To Ulfar Thormodsson, the Viking town of Stenvik is the penultimate stop on a long journey in this riveting adventure of clashing Viking powers. Tasked with looking after his cousin after disgracing his father, he has traveled the world and now only wants to go home.

Stenvik is different: it contains the beautiful and tragic Lilja, who immediately captures Ulfar’s heart-–but Stenvik is also home to some very deadly men, who could break Ulfar in an instant.

King Olav is marching on Stenvik from the East, determined to bring the White Christ to the masses at the point of his sword, and a host of bloodthirsty raiders led by a mysterious woman are sailing from the north.

But Ulfar is about to learn that his enemies are not all outside the walls.

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War For the Oaks – Emma Bull

Discovery blamed on: Fantasy Book Critic

About the Book

Eddi McCandry has just left her boyfriend and their band when she finds herself running through the Minneapolis night, pursued by a sinister man and a huge, terrifying dog. The two creatures are one and the same: aphouka, a faerie being who has chosen Eddi to be a mortal pawn in the age-old war between the Seelie and Unseelie Courts. Eddi isn’t interested–but she doesn’t have a choice. Now she struggles to build a new life and new band when she might not even survive till the first rehearsal.

 

 

 

 

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The Black Fire Concerto – Mike Allen

Discovery blamed on: Little Red Reviewer

About the Book

The Red Empress is the only home Erzelle has known since the day her family was lured aboard and murdered, victims of a grisly ritual meant to make the elite immortal. Erzelle plays her harp for the diners inside this ghoul-infested riverboat, knowing her own death looms, escaping through the music that’s all she has left of her parents.

Her nightmare’s upended in the space of a day by the arrival of Olyssa, a fellow musician, but so much more.

Erzelle is swept up in Olyssa’s quest to find her ensorcelled sister Lilla, a journey across a mutated landscape that leads them to an enemy responsible for the deaths of millions. To stop the slaughter of countless more, the pair has no choice but to draw on the deadly magics that reshaped the world … a power that’s as dangerous to its wielders as it is to its foes, one that’s killing Erzelle even as she fights to control it.

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Never Knew Another – J.M. McDermott

Discovery blamed on: Pornokitsch

About the Book

Fugitive Rachel Nolander is a newcomer to the city of Dogsland, where the rich throw parties and the poor just do whatever they can to scrape by. Supported by her brother Djoss, she hides out in their squalid apartment, living in fear that someday, someone will find out that she is the child of a demon. Corporal Jona Lord Joni is a demon’s child too, but instead of living in fear, he keeps his secret and goes about his life as a cocky, self-assured man of the law. The first book in the Dogsland Trilogy, Never Knew Another is the story of how these two outcasts meet.

 

 

 

 

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Under the Empyrean Sky – Chuck Wendig

Discovery blamed on: Rob of SFFWorld

About the Book

Corn is king in the Heartland, and Cael McAvoy has had enough of it. It’s the only crop the Empyrean government allows the people of the Heartland to grow ? and the genetically modified strain is so aggressive that it takes everything the Heartlanders have just to control it. As captain of the Big Sky Scavengers, Cael and his crew sail their rickety ship over the corn day after day, scavenging for valuables, trying to earn much-needed ace notes for their families. But Cael’s tired of surviving life on the ground while the Empyrean elite drift by above in their extravagant sky flotillas. He’s sick of the mayor’s son besting Cael’s crew in the scavenging game. And he’s worried about losing Gwennie ? his first mate and the love of his life ? forever when their government-chosen spouses are revealed. But most of all, Cael is angry ? angry that their lot in life will never get better and that his father doesn’t seem upset about any of it. Cael’s ready to make his own luck . . . even if it means bringing down the wrath of the Empyrean elite and changing life in the Heartland forever.

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A bit of nostalgia & why I love SFF

Speculative fiction has a massive fan base. We have conferences; people cosplay, being a geek is something to be proud of; we spend hours each week listening to podcasts that talk about various issues in geekdom. We talk about important things like which book/movie has the best spaceship and that’s not weird, but normal. It’s fantastic and invigorating. It’s also addictive. That’s exactly what I am. I’m addicted to SFF. It’s like a drug, and I just can’t seem to get enough of it.

I haven’t always liked speculative fiction. Hell, I haven’t always liked reading. I went through a phase when I was in third grade. We moved across country. I had a hard time adjusting and I decided I hated everyone; people, places, and even books. Then in fourth grade I had a teacher who loved to read and she got me to love to read as well. Ever since then it’s been nonstop. I was the kid who walked around reading a book. I’m adept at it. I still do that. I walk into and out of my work reading. My coworkers think I’m nuts and they are currently taking bets on how long I until hurt myself.

For a long time I liked to read, but I never read speculative fiction. I wasn’t interested. I was in school, and the fact that I liked to read already pinned me as social pariah. If I read fantasy books, it would be even worse. Then, a few things happened at once. The cosmos aligned and I was introduced to SFF and never looked back. In high school I had a creative writing teacher who celebrated all things fantasy. We had assignments to read fantasy books and the project was to fill a notebook full of quotes from what we read. She somehow managed to turn something that made me an even bigger nerd into something cool and I loved her for it. Two of my older brothers rounded on me around this period of my life and convinced me to give A Song of Ice and Fire a shot. It took them several weeks to convince me, but convince me they did. Soon A Song of Ice and Fire turned into The Wheel of Time, and then it was truly all over. I was a genre fan for life. It didn’t matter that it made me a total nerd. I was in love, and if being a nerd was the price I needed to pay, I was fine with that.

I’m not just a genre fan now. I run a blog dedicated to how much I love reading, and the SFF genre in general. I’m like a hyperpowered geek these days. I’m the empress of the nerds, and I’m ridiculously proud of that. I’ve done what I never thought I could do. I’ve talked to bestselling authors, I count authors among my friends, and I read other genre blogs and feel insanely jealous of most of them. I judge my weirdness and find myself wanting, but no less proud of my fandom despite the (somewhat) poor quality of it.

Occasionally I sit back and wonder just what it is about speculative fiction that has me so hooked. Once my mom said that fantasy is for people who like to play pretend too much. Statements like that aggravate me. Some might think of fantasy and SciFi as being completely escapist, but that’s never what has attracted me to it. To me, SFF is an incredibly engaging mental exercise. I rarely read an SFF book just to escape. Just because something might take place in a secondary world doesn’t mean that it’s irrational, lacking logic, and pure mental candy. In fact, in my opinion, SFF is so mentally engaging because it takes place elsewhere and elsewhen.

The thing about SFF that you can’t really say about other genres is that there are no rules. The only rules that exist are the rules the author imposes on their creation. They are so like gods to the worlds they create, it’s inspiring. This also allows authors to play with ideas and themes easier than they could if they wrote, say, straight fiction which would be limited by our world, our rules, and our understanding of it all. Speculative Fiction is often deep and layered. The stunning use of make-believe not only allows the author to toy with deep, often controversial themes that they can’t really toy with in real life, but it gives the reader a new window with which to see the world, and their place in it.

Speculative fiction’s use of secondary worlds, huge futuristic universes, or even our contemporary world with fantasy thrown in here and there also gives the reader a front row seat to witness incredible, complex, and riveting creation. This intense and incredibly personal perspective allows us to become amazingly emotionally invested in worlds and characters. Authors magically bridge a divide between the reader and what they are reading. This makes everything we read so much more personal and intimate than might be otherwise. For those moments we read these books, we aren’t (insert your name here) stuck in (insert boring city here). We are the people we are reading about, living magical, challenging lives amid strange and wonderful cultures. It makes the deeper themes and ideas that the author inserts into their work so much more powerful because we are part of those ideas. We take part in the creation along with the authors. It’s incredible.

There are a lot of reasons I love speculative fiction, but being an escapist genre is not one of them. Reading is an exercise for dreamers. It doesn’t matter what you like to read, but those of us who are addicted to it tend to like to spend a lot of time in our own head, in control of our own visualization and understanding. You don’t really get that anywhere else. We read because we like to dream, and speculative fiction gives me amazing, magically unique, incredibly thought provoking dreams. Speculative fiction forces the reader to turn the magnifying glass both outward and inward. It forces us to live through uncomfortable situations in strange and wonderful worlds and thereby stretches our understanding of ourselves. It also thereby causes us to see our own world in fantastic, unique, and vibrant colors. It adds layers of thought and magic to the mundane.

That’s why I love speculative fiction. It’s thought provoking, magical, layered, creative and even godlike. It allows my dreamer’s mind to dream and gives me countless new universes to explore. It has broadened my view of reality, my understanding of the world, and my place in it. It keeps me from remaining stagnate and keeps me from becoming too comfortable and complacent. Speculative fiction is all about progress and ideas. It’s creativity made real. It’s addictive and visceral. It’s a drug I just can’t get enough of.

One of the best gifts I can give my daughter is something speculative fiction taught me. Being a dreamer isn’t a bad thing. It doesn’t make you a social pariah, nor is being a nerd horrible. Reading is exercise for those of us who refuse to stay stagnate. We like to be challenged. Mentally playing pretend isn’t an escape; it’s an engaging, thoughtful exercise. Reading a book is like holding a ticket in your hand to new and incredible worlds, adventures, and friends. It challenges us, it stretches our limited understanding of anything and causes us to always change and adapt. It broadens our worldview. Speculative fiction isn’t just an escape, it’s bold, fun, engaging way to poke the bear of reality a bit. It sets the world on fire, and I love to watch the flames of passion, imagination, and ideas burn.

That’s why SFF is a drug that I just can’t get enough of and that’s why giving the gift of my love of reading to my own child is one of the most important, passionate gifts I could possibly ever give.

This River Awakens – Steven Erikson

About the Book

Owen’s family moves from the city to the countryside, and the adolescent Owen quickly develops friendships and rivalries. When he discovers a corpse in the river, it proves the catalyst for a spiralling descent into the darker reaches of the community, and a stark rites of passage for Owen.

432 pages (paperback)

Published by Tor

Published on July 9, 2013

Author’s webpage

This book was sent for me to review by the publisher.

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Pretty much all you have to do is say Steven Erikson and I’m there. This River Awakens is far different from anything most people will think of when they hear the author’s name. It’s not set in a secondary world. It’s not epic fantasy. There isn’t a huge war or expanding empire in the core of the book. From what I understand, This River Awakens is Erikson’s first book and it’s more fiction and urban fantasy than anything else. While it is far different than typical Erikson, it is still absolutely glorious.

This River Awakens is being re-released after being published in 1998 under Erikson’s name of Steve Lundin. It’s a completely different tone from anything I’ve ever read from Erikson before. As I mentioned in yesterday’s review, I love reading author’s works that are totally different from what I typically associate with them. I love seeing just what an author is capable of producing, and their offbeat books tend to show that so much better than the books they write to their already established fans. This River Awakens is so absolutely different than Erikson’s epic fantasy books, but you can still see him in these pages. His writing is solid, flowing, lyrical and incredibly atmospheric. His world building is nothing short of stunning and his characters are deliciously complex. This is true Erikson. It’s so different from anything I even imagined him reading, that it’s pure candy for me.

This River Awakens tells the story of young Owen (12), who is moved to the countryside with his family. Owen is younger, which makes this book, for the most part, a rich and emotional coming of age tale. Owen makes friends and enemies, like any kid does. He has good times and bad times. Parts of his life is great and other parts suck. He’s just a confused kid trying to make it through those pukey years we all remember so fondly. Despite the fact that this is Erikson’s first book, the characterization is reminiscent of the author’s epic fantasy. Owen is painstakingly developed. He’s well rounded, incredibly complex, and raw which makes him absolutely engaging and believable. He isn’t just a character you read about, you will become Owen, which just makes the book even more engaging and enjoyable. Erikson doesn’t shy away from the dark and light parts of his characters, even his younger ones. This might make some readers uncomfortable, but his ability to shine a light on the complexities, dark, and light qualities of the human psyche is fantastic. Furthermore, the excellent characterization doesn’t stop with Owen. Erikson spent plenty of time developing the supporting cast as well.

There is a haunting quality to the area where Erikson sets his book. It takes place in rural Canada, which could easily be rural anywhere. However, there’s something quite eerie about the location. Once Owen and his friends find the body of a very large man floating down a river, the location seems to take on a life of its own and the fantasy element are truly inserted into the tale. The fantasy works well with the location and atmosphere to create something entirely new and very believable within the context of the book. This is one of those rare books where the world becomes as much of a character as the people who pepper the novel. Erikson’s stunning writing infuses This River Awakens with intense atmosphere. This makes the events that transpire seem so real, and will help the readers feel incredibly emotionally engaged in the characters. This also makes the struggle between light and dark, childhood innocence and adult reality so absorbing.

This River Awakens is shockingly dark and even, at times, rather ugly. This could easily be “too much” to some readers, s be warned. In fact, a lot of what happens in this book can be stomach churning. I can tolerate a lot of dark. Lots of dark. Tons of it, but this book did disturb me at times, and that fact alone shocked me. It also says something huge for the realism of Erikson’s writing. For example, a girl is raped by her father, a woman is battered by her drunk husband, kids find the rotting body of a giant and more. This is an incredibly dark, very disturbing book and readers should be aware of that. Yes, its coming of age, and yes, there is some light but it doesn’t balance the darkness and Erikson’s incredible writing and intense atmosphere can make the darkness seem so much more dark.

This River Awakens also has a slightly bloated feel. The plot is so slow moving at times it feels like you are stuck in cement. The writing, the Erikson feel, the rich characters don’t make up for this. While readers who stick through the book will be richly rewarded, it is a ponderous tome. If Erikson had cut the length a bit, and perhaps moved the plot forward faster, the book might be easier for readers to enjoy and the dark aspects of it might be a bit more tolerable. That being said, it really says something for the author and first book that readers can and do manage to read the entire book despite the ugly bits and ponderous pace. This is a deeply disturbing, very slow novel (and the slow pace might make the disturbing bits seem all that much more disturbing), but it’s still engaging, absorbing, and beautiful in its own way.

This River Awakens is incredible. It’s incredibly disturbing, incredibly dark, incredibly atmospheric, and incredibly beautiful. It’s a raw, visceral coming-of-age story and absolutely unlike anything I’ve ever imagined the author could, or would, write. It’s a haunting tale that will stick to you like glue once you finish it, though you might have to work a bit for that finish. It’s worth it (squeamish readers beware). This River Awakens has its share of problems, and it’s definitely not for everyone, but despite its issues, it is fantastic. It shows just how versatile Erikson is as an author. Ponderous pace be damned, this book is pure art – beautifully dark, very challenging (in more ways than one) art.

 

3/5 stars