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Green Orc Blues

Green Orc Blues

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stscrabbleRecently I had occasion to visit the toy store — a rarity in a life spent avoiding children as much as possible — and was sort of blown away by how different it was than I remembered. The last time I was in a toy store was probably as a pre-teen buying Advanced Dungeons & Dragons books (yes, unbelievable as it seems, Fiend Folio and Unearthed Arcana used to share self space with Teddy Ruckspin and Cabbage Patch Kids at the local Toys ‘R Us) and, while I wasn’t surprised to see a complete lack of anything RPG in my visit, what did impress me is just how much fantasy and scifi oriented material I did find — you might even say the place was a juvenile spec fic warehouse, though with a side order of dinosaurs, pirates, and the occasional pony.

But that is sort of obvious, right? SF and fantasy have always been big components of children’s toys, especially for boys, at least since the Star Wars explosion of the late seventies. And that’s true of course, though things seem far slicker and better presented these days (thinking especially of the tremendous Star Trek display I saw as soon as I walked in the door — kids today just don’t stand a chance against stuff like that). And all that big name, blockbuster-fodder stuff was there in abundance, and had permeated down to the smallest level and mutated into weird, unexpected forms: a Transformers chess set, Star Wars Battleship, and the mesmerizingly implausible Star Trek Scrabble (!?!).

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There Wolf! (Dreadful Skin by Cherie Priest)

There Wolf! (Dreadful Skin by Cherie Priest)

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The cross-genrefication of all genres has produced some interesting work. It’s true that if someone describes a book as “steampunk slash horror slash fantasy slash splatterpunk slash slash with a pinch of oregano” I’m likely to quietly sidle away, assuming that the project is too high-concept to include conveniences like characterization, plot and verbs other than slash. But the conventions of certain genres seem to me to have a hey-you-got-peanut-butter-in-my-chocolate kismet about them. I’m thinking specifically of the Western and horror. Zombies in the old West? Transdimensional gunslingers? Billy the Kid vs. Dracula? Why not? The images mingle pleasantly and unexpectedly. Maybe it’s because both sets of images have a certain stark moodiness to them, when done well.

Cherie Priest’s Dreadful Skin is a newish (2008) entry into this not-altogether-new cross-genre. In it, a renegade Irish nun pursues a serial-killing werewolf across America in the 1870s. The concept raised hopes higher than the book actually delivered to me, but it’s well-written, covers some interesting ground, and I wasn’t sorry I’d read it. Hackle-raising (or at least heckle-raising) details after the jump.

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Plums deify a Mercedes-Benz

Plums deify a Mercedes-Benz

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I made a fascinating discovery today. I was reading one of the books by the dead George Carlin (if I called him ‘the late’ or ‘the lamented’ George Carlin, he would rise from the dead and crush my skull), enjoying some great laughs from his satirical observations about people and government. I then put down that book and picked up a collection of essay by the equally dead philosopher Bertrand Russell. And I found that his opinions, tone, and attitudes were exactly the same as Carlin’s. Not only that, they were just as funny. “Another way in which good men can be useful is by getting themselves murdered.” That’s brilliant. I realized at that instant that George Carlin is Bertrand Russell as a stand-up act.

I’m telling you all this to fill up space on this post. I’ve had a busy weekend, most of it a highly positive busy, but nonetheless busy. So I haven’t had the opportunity to carefully craft one of my more ponderous reviews. So instead I’ll sling at you a writing exercise that I did a few weeks ago. Writers looking for an engaging experiment might want to try it.

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Arab Fantasy

Arab Fantasy

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This, alas, is not going to be one of those highly informative posts by a knowledgeable person possessing vast information on the subject. Instead, it’s a partial response to several different topics that have crossed my consciousness lately. One is an ongoing issue–the role of the Other (exotic, evil, dangerous, wild, etc.) in our culture and our storytelling, and what it is like living in a country of one of our current primary Others (Arabs) for the last year. Another is an article I read recently on the current state of Arab cinema (burdened by censorship, unwieldy bureaucracy, and funding problems–see also here and here). Finally there was a conversation last night on the future of the Arab world in which the subject turned to education. As in the US, discussions about the role of education tend to focus on job readiness and the economy, but it’s art and storytelling that are crucial for cultural health, and growth.

“Arab Fantasy” could mean fantasy by outsiders using elements of Arab tradition, or fantasy by Arabs using traditional or other source materials. The best-known source in the west is, of course, One Thousand and One Nights in its numerous versions, although (quoting from wikipedia, that utterly reliable source), “Some of the best-known stories of The Nights, particularly “Aladdin’s Wonderful Lamp”, “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves” and “The Seven Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor”, while most likely genuine Arabic folk tales, were not part of the The Nights in its Arabic versions, but were interpolated into the collection by its early European translators.” Actually the article is a pretty interesting overview, and I learned a bunch of stuff. Genre works influenced by Nights are many; titles I’ve read recently enough that they float to the surface include Tim Powers’ World War II espionage-with-djinns novel Declare, Diana Wynne-Jones’ Aladdin sendup, Castle in the Air, and P.B. Kerr’s Children of the Lamp series, aimed primarily at middle-grade readers, but entertaining enough for undemanding adults, and, it seems, forthcoming as a movie from Dreamworks. …

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Going Portentiously Where Everyone Has Gone Before

Going Portentiously Where Everyone Has Gone Before

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Okay, so I’m interested in seeing what everyone is calling “the reboot” of Star Trek, though I could be content to wait until the DVD comes out. And, sure, there’s a lot of buzz (as well as some discussion in this forum), if only because the franchise appears to be doing something interesting, for a change. Fine. But all this blather about the “significance” of Star Trek, particularly this article by Dave Itzkoff in The New York Times is really too much.

Itzkoff characterizes Star Trek as “supremely influential,” and I guess in that it has promoted grown-ups dressing in space pajamas and wearing pointy ears and expecting to be taking seriously, I suppose he’s right.

Look, I’m old enough to have watched the original Star Trek when it was first on television. As I recall, I lost interest sometime in the middle of the second season. Because, even then I realized what a lot of commentators such as Itzkoff overlook: for a supposed science fiction series, it was pretty bad science fiction.
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HBO’s A Game of Thrones

HBO’s A Game of Thrones

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a-game-of-thronesReading James’ post on Wednesday about the fan angst surrounding George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series (and some of the unnecessarily blunt backlash), I started thinking about just how much I know about this hugely popular saga which I have actually never read. Indeed, having not even read it, I can say I am predisposed to already like it but, as Dave commented on James post, I’m also one of those people who tends not to buy into series with no end in sight.

However, with the announcement that Martin’s A Game of Thrones is being seriously considered for an HBO series, with a pilot already in the works, that rule is going to have to get chucked out of the window.

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A Song of Fice and Ire

A Song of Fice and Ire

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Neil Gaiman recently dismissed fan entitlement regarding George R.R. Martin with a memorable line–as memorable now as when it was coined in the comment section of John Scalzi’s blog 2 or 3 months ago (see comment 258 by “Tully” , who may be Neil Gaiman incognito, for all I know). Pointing out that writers are not machines is maybe a less abusive way to respond to the same concern (see comment 136 on the Whatever thread linked above). NG’s conclusion is that “George R. R. Martin is not working for you.” This undoubted truth is not really on point, though.

By the way: I am not one of the people who are chewing their nails down to their elbows waiting for the next “Song of Ice and Fire” volume. I read the first book, liked it a lot (though certain plotlines moved with what seemed to me glacial slowness, I wouldn’t say that’s necessarily a bad thing). But I resolved not to read any more until he was done with the thing, because I was sure it would take a significant chunk of a working lifetime to complete and I didn’t want to suffer through the agonizingly long wait between installments.

I do, however, buy each one as it comes out, for the benefit of a SoIaF addict I live with. I’m not suggesting that GRRM owes me anything, except the book I’m actually buying when I plonk coin down for one of his books. But neither do I or the other coin-plonkers have to go on plonking our coins.

Fan entitlement may indeed be pernicious, but it can only exist in the presence of a fan base which is a good thing. It doesn’t seem to me that directing abuse towards GRRM’s fan base does GRRM any long-term favor.

On Heroes and Humiliation

On Heroes and Humiliation

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Oh where have you been, Lord Randall, my son,
Oh where have you been, my handsome young man?

Not to the greenwood, that’s for sure, and not eating eels and toadstools, though sometimes the job application process (not to mention the writing career) can feel like it. Let’s just chalk up my recent absence from this space to life generally and move on. Though, parenthetically, it’s strange how fragments of ballads you haven’t heard in decades can suddenly breach the darkness. Now I can’t get the impossible-to-sing tune out of my head….

We read together as a family at my son’s bedtime and have been making our way through Lloyd Alexander’s Chronicles of Prydain. It wears well after all the years (I won’t say how many) since I first read it. We also recently saw Paul Blart: Mall Cop. That was not an experience I want to repeat in the decades to come, but the momentary temporal conjunction of the two got me thinking about the humiliation of the hero as a trope. It’s an exceedingly common one in comedy, and I can think of a zillion examples in movies, everything from Bridget Jones’ Diary to There’s Something about Mary. That it’s uncomfortable to watch (at least I find it so) even while I’m laughing (sometimes, anyway) must have something to do with the cathartic value of comedy–the second half of the arc in that genre is success, especially romantic success, and among other things the hero’s humiliation makes his/her success all the sweeter. …

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Targetted Book Recommendations #2

Targetted Book Recommendations #2

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Part One of this enthralling series is here.

Finally, I shut my big mouth and show a few cards. Novels are what it’s all about, but not just any novels. We want something immediate. We want action and adventure. And although introspection and other, more literary qualities won’t be run out of town with the imprint of my boot on their buttocks, they must never, ever slow the story down. In short, we’re after books that embody the spirit of Black Gate.

Got it? Let’s see then… …

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It’s the End of the World as We Know It…

It’s the End of the World as We Know It…

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A few posts ago, I asked if, given current economic and political conditions, the next thematic trend in SF and fantasy will be a return to woeful tales of doom and disaster. Sure enough, lately I’m coming across signs that the zeitgeist might be finding a warm place in Cold War era end-of-the-world narratives.

In yesterday’s Wall Street Journal there’s a short review of Genesis by Bernard Beckett.  Yeah, I know, the title is cringe-inducing, but it actually fits (both the title and the author’s surname), at least according to writer Jeffrey Trachetenberg’s description:

…survivors in a world destroyed by nuclear and biological weapons are forced to re-think what makes the human species special…the issue of machine self awareness emerges as pivotal.

Not exactly original, but, then again, “nothing is new under the sun” as Ecclesiastes noted back in antiquity and, as Trachetenberg notes, revisiting this time honored trope is in part a result of “deep-rooted international concerns about such issues as global warming and the 9/11 attacks.”

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