KES comments revisited

 

APOLOGIES.  I have a lovely guest blog series waiting in the wings . . . which I managed not to send to Blogmom to set up in hangable form.  ::Beats head against wall::  All right, it’s the day after KES:  let’s catch up on a few comments.  Whimper.

TheWoobDog

Okay, I would feel slightly abashed that my first question after this post has to do with Kes’s choice of sleepwear, but since it’s obviously an issue which intrudes quite frequently into her own thoughts I don’t feel too bad about asking:

Can we expect Kes* to make it a priority to adopt sleeping attire more appropriate for the occasional nocturnal interruption of sword-wielding, thing-hacking, horseback-riding adventure**?

No.  She’s going to get home (finally) and TRY VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY* HARD TO PRETEND THAT EVERYTHING IS BACK TO NORMAL AND NOTHING HAS CHANGED.  Since you posted this question I’m pretty sure Kes has made some remarks about sleeping in black leather and Kevlar but she’s joking.  She’s trying, somewhat urgently, to keep her spirits up in a situation rather designed to smash those suckers flat.

*Assuming that she makes it out of this alive and sane^

^This is a McKinley story, after all, and the Hellgoddess, while a lover of cliffhangers, nonetheless would never hang her heroine out to dry

Well, not for very long anyway.  This is a McKinley story.  I have every intention of bringing Kes safe home**, although she’s going to have to get used to the lack of normal and the disturbing existence of change.  I don’t know if the bloodstain in the front room is permanent or not, but Kes is going to have a major problem with funny creaky-old-house noises, you know the kind that you and I say ‘mice’ or ‘hellcritters’ or ‘dream’ and put a pillow over our heads or turn the music up in response to?  Kes won’t be able to.  Or anyway she probably better not. . . .

**Kes might prefer the term “horror”

And she can start by learning to say ‘adventure’ rather than ‘horror’.  Poor woman.  I’m so with the hiding-under-the-bed impulse.

Katsheare

. . . the thing that I am MOST enjoying about Kes is that it’s episodic. I remember reading A Tale of Two Cities, my first Dickens, and wishing for that possibility to read something in installments. . . .  given that I can, if I want to, read whole new books all in (roughly) one go — the 800-900 word nature of Kes is exciting. . . .

Are you too young to remember the . . . uh oh, this is not an easy google search so we’re going to have to rely on my memory.  BAAAAAAAD.  Well, when I was a young lass, ANALOG used to run serials.  This would have been in the ‘60s, because I was introduced to both ANALOG and their serials by my First Boyfriend in junior high.  And they made me crazy.***  I don’t know if ANALOG still runs them—I was just looking at the table of contents of the current issue†—and I don’t see anything that overtly says serial but that’s not definitive.  And I can’t remember if F&SF did (or do) serials too?  I can’t begin to keep up with my book TBR piles, I stopped subscribing to fiction mags decades ago, the idea of a steady, relentless additional few hundred pages arriving every month makes me cry, although I’m perfectly capable of buying or ordering several hundred more specific-book pages every month, and usually do.  And if I’d been alive back when Dickens was publishing HOUSEHOLD WORDS I would totally have had a subscription.

. . .  [Kes] doesn’t want her life to go High Forsoothly. YES. In spite of my fondness for fantasy and fae and all that . . .  I don’t really believe any of it exists. And I do have a way deep-down fear that someday it will show up and prove me wrong.

I have a deep-down fear that it won’t show up and prove me . . . um . . . right?  Although if it involves wielding a sword—which I know as little about as Kes does††—and riding to battle in my nightgown I’ll pass.  So would Kes, of course, if she didn’t have a mean author jerking her around.  I’m sitting here wondering what I can safely wish for, in terms of some manifestation of magic in this our real world, you know?  Be careful what you wish for.  Is there anything that is both undeniable and harmless?

I can totally understand the act of closing eyes to force reality to come back. . . . .  But I’ve also dealt with GMs before, and I know full well that you never break in the middle of a mind-frelling (and/or battle) bit.

I’m really worrying about ‘GMs’.  Gastric Mucosa?  Grandiloquent Mayhems?  Giant Metatarsals?  Gorblimey Maelstroms?

Plus which, like TheWoobDog, I’m assuming this will not end with Kes a smear and Murac saying ‘Gah, wenches’

::falls down laughing::

or something of the sort.

I think ‘gah, wenches’ will do nicely.

Ivonava

I *am* worried about Sid. I’m getting close to pulling an entitled reader moment

Hee hee hee hee hee hee.  Try it.  Go on, try it.  Hee hee hee.

and demanding to know where she is! Too many episodes without Sid!!!

Mwa hahahahahaha.  Hint:  there may be barking soon.

And that twisted strap thing? If Kes doesn’t fix it, it’ll turn into a nasty. I’ve been there, and I know.

Mwa hahahahahahahaha.

Hunter Gatherer

While I am a partisan of Murac . . . I would like to point out that “A man who takes good care of his horse can’t be all bad.” is kind of a bad way to judge him. As a fantasy style mercenary his horse is his very close to his life, livelihood, and continued good health. Taking good care of his horse is an important business/survival practice and (possibly) has nothing to do with goodness or badness.

We-ell.  Point taken, but I don’t think really effective partnerships between Person and Horse are made if the person solely looks at the horse as a means to an end.  I don’t think the horse is going to put itself out for the person without some kind of, you know, relationship bond, even if the feeding regime and stable management are sound—which as a mercenary’s horse they won’t always be.  So you have to be the kind of dude who can fulfill this charge.  Which means you have some spark of positive emotional connectedness behind that leathery exterior.   Whether or not this has any effect on your attitude toward other human beings is, however . . . unpredictable.

But I can understand how Kes is grasping at straws here after that “at least they’re not going to rape me” moment. (Although I think Flowerhair would not be undecided on the Good vs. Bad issue if Murac were a known rapist there still remains the unknown.)

If Flowerhair knew him to be a rapist she would (excuse me) have cut some salient bits off.  But, you know, The McKinley Story thing can be relied on here too.  If Murac were that kind of total scumbag, he wouldn’t be getting the air time.  Remember that KES is for fun.  I don’t say there won’t be some genuine thorough-going villains . . . but Murac isn’t one.  Although personally I don’t want to invite him over for a cup of tea and a chat about world politics either.

Somehow the comment about Kes’ younger self “She might even have thought Murac was romantic in a ramshackle sort of way.” made me think of her as an Agatha Christie heroine momentarily.

Snork.  Well, I read a lot of Agatha Christie in a very short space of time when I was young and impressionable.  Possibly these things Will Out.

So, on another topic, tangential to Katsheare’s comment… I’ve been wondering if there’s a new kinship with serialized authors such as Alexandre Dumas (and others) developing?

Elizabeth Gaskell maybe.  Or Mary Elizabeth Braddon.  Or Frances Hodgson Burnett.  Or George Eliot, if you will allow SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE to count as serialised.  Or as a novel.

TO BE CONTINUED. . . .

* * *

* Very to the ten to the whatsit power.  Very to the max.

** And if the Story Council should be so indiscreet as to attempt to get in my way I will WHACK THEM.

*** So did he, but that’s another story.

† The internet really is amazing.

†† I took some fencing lessons, but with a modern sabre—nothing like the practical hacking-and-hewing items that Murac and his lot carry, or that Silverheart, for all her superior breeding, is also built for.