Browsed by
Category: Blog Entry

Why isn’t Conan a Mary Sue?

Why isn’t Conan a Mary Sue?

Comments 14 comments

Conan Rogues in the House-smallHow is Conan not a Mary Sue?

The barbarian is pretty obviously Robert E Howard’s authorial self-projection into the Hyborian Age. Big, bellicose and amoral, but honourable and never mean. He’s mighty-thewed death on two legs, women fall into his arms, kingdoms fall at his feet. He male bonds when he falls into good company, and despite being a barbarian fish out of civilised water, he commands the loyalty of his men and the respect of those nobles worthy of respect.

He’s everything Robert E Howard was and wasn’t and might have been had the big Texan lived long enough to fight in WWII. (Imagine Howard as a veteran of Iwo Jima, and the great literature he would have written…)

Really, how is he not a Mary Sue? (He certainly fails a Mary Sue test)

And yet, Conan survived the oh-so-ironic later 20th century. One whiff of Thrud should consigned him to the company of Captain Future and Doc Savage: The emperor barbarian has no clothes on! He even weathered Terry Pratchett’s slash and burn through the genre.

Was it just that Howard invented Sword and Sorcery?

No. Conan’s literary longevity is more than just about being first with sandals on the ground.

…

Read More Read More

Disasterville U.S.A. :The Shockwave Rider by John Brunner

Disasterville U.S.A. :The Shockwave Rider by John Brunner

Comments 2 comments

If there is such a phenomenon as absolute evil, it consists in treating another human being as a thing.

Nick Halflinger in The Shockwave Rider

 

oie_1023133dHcFYNm5Cyberpunk appeared as a description of a sub-genre in the early eighties. The word first appeared in print in 1983 as the title of a story by Bruce Bethke and it was quickly adopted to cover the works of near-future science fiction by William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, Pat Cadigan, and others. The general connection between books like Gibson’s Neuromancer (1984) and Neal Stephenson’s Snowcrash (1992) was the depiction of high technology mixed into a crumbling, corrupt society.

Cyberpunk as a named thing might date to only 1983 or so, but as a movement in science fiction its roots are deeper. For years prior to the appearance of Neuromancer, usually thought of as the first cyberpunk novel, sci-fi authors had been writing about the dangerous effects — on society and individuals — of computers, communications, cybernetics, and related fields. In the UK, J.G.Ballard, and in the US, Philip K. Dick, laid a lot of the groundwork for the genre in books featuring rebels, man-machine interfaces, often lots of psychoactive drugs, and a general dystopian atmosphere. It’s little wonder that Dick’s 1968 novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, should become the basis for the film Blade Runner, easily one of the first cyberpunk movies.

English author John Brunner (discussed at great length here at Black Gate) started his writing career creating fairly standard space opera. In the mid-sixties he began writing stories in more contemporary settings, such as the 1965 novel, The Squares of the City. In it, a traffic engineer is hired to work in the newly-built capital of a South American nation (echoes of Brasilia). While there he becomes a piece, quite literally, in game of chess being played between two of the country’s power brokers.

This move to contemporary and near-future sci-fi culminated in the appearance of Stand on Zanzibar in 1968. Its portrayal of a wildly over-populated Earth, conveyed in the snapshot style of Dos Passos’ USA Trilogy, won Brunner the Hugo award for best novel. It also marks the start of what’s been called his Catastrophe Quartet.

…

Read More Read More

Where Do You Get Yours?

Where Do You Get Yours?

Comments 6 comments

NewtonThey say it’s the question most often asked of writers, but to be honest, no one has ever asked me where I got my ideas. Maybe I’ve been asked where a specific idea came from, but that was more of a “how did you think of that?”

Every idea comes from somewhere different. Harlan Ellison said he used to tell people he got his ideas from a post office box in . . . was it Peoria? Brooklyn? Sometimes how you got the idea isn’t very interesting, so you make up a good story to explain it when someone asks. Sometimes you can’t identify the somewhere until after the idea has been used. And sometimes you can’t identify it at all.

I’m fairly certain that Newton did start thinking about theories of gravity and motion by watching objects fall – though I’m not so sure about the part where the apple conked him on the head. Was he the object “at rest” when he came up with the laws that cover inertia? Did the equal-and-opposite-reaction stuff come from playing billiards? I don’t know. I know more about Berkeley than I do about Newton, and we all know where the Bishop got his ideas.

…

Read More Read More

Literary Wonder & Adventure Show: EPISODE 5: The Strand (Full Audio Drama)

Literary Wonder & Adventure Show: EPISODE 5: The Strand (Full Audio Drama)

Comments 1 comment

Literary Wonder & Adventure Show EPISODE 5 The Strand-small

I was three years old when Star Wars scorched movie screens with the force of a Death Star Superlaser. 2001: A Space Odyssey had already been out for almost a decade, Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock syndicated for twice the duration of their original mission. Sci-Fi, in other words, had already conquered both the big and small screens. Radio shows had been long superseded by new technology. Yet here I am in 2017, thoroughly enjoying the Literary Wonder & Adventure Show, a retro audio show streamed to me via a wireless router, via a cell phone tower shaped like a palm tree, and ultimately from the workstation of the talented Robert Zoltan.

His latest offering, “The Strand,” is short, compressed tale, which may have gone without a single commercial break back in the old days. Nonetheless, it contains all the ingredients of compelling drama — passionate characters, a setting bursting with possibilities, high stakes, and a very clever literary device which underpins it all.

The milieu of The Strand is only quickly sketched in, but it suggests a multiverse of planets, their populations going about their workaday existences ignorant of shadowy organizations doing battle to control the fate of them all. Agents of these organizations can travel between the dimensions. Yet agent Guy, the protagonist, is preoccupied with a more personal concern: in his travels, he met and fell in love with local girl Hope, and soon thereafter, they were forced apart into different planes. Now, Guy can only speak to Hope using a jury-rigged machine via a Strand — a wispy, elusive thread of electricity or astral energy or whatnot.

…

Read More Read More

The Traveller Central Supply Catalogue Page by Page: New Rules and Armour

The Traveller Central Supply Catalogue Page by Page: New Rules and Armour

Comments 0 Comment

csc-coverTraveller Rule 0 is, roughly, “The Referee Can Make S…tuff Up.”

Even so, in the case of equipment, it’s handy if somebody else has worked out the details, and if the stuff doesn’t just break the universe.

Edgar Rice Burroughs could put in Radium Rifles — fantastically accurate at fantastic distances — and then ignore the logic of their existence and write a Sword and Planet romp. However, if RPG players find a loophole, they will “exploit” it; and in a simulationist game such as Traveller, that’s what they’re supposed to do anyway. You can’t tell players, “be creative in your problem solving, but not in this or that area”.

This has to be especially true for rumbustious teenagers… which takes me to my son’s gaming group, for whom I’m planning to referee later in the summer. They’re not really interested in narrative or genre conventions, or even schooled in them. (Some of them — shock! — haven’t watched Firefly yet.) So they’re bound to break what’s breakable.

With this in mind, I asked Mongoose to send me a review copy of the Traveller Central Supply Catalogue.

It’s a 150 page hardback, with nice authoritative binding. There’s an index at the back (hurrah!), nice illustrations throughout, and a lots of equipment with supporting rules.

The expanded equipment lists also include items from the Core Rulebook, making it self-contained enough to just hand the thing over to players when they want to go shopping. The “players’ reference” angle more than justifies the use of paper real estate for amusing adverts and flavour images: the book is the game’s user end.

I have a few quibbles.

…

Read More Read More

May Short Story Roundup

May Short Story Roundup

Comments 0 Comment

oie_2764037nEltoy1EJust a short post this month. It’s that story-dry period between magazine issues that comes along a couple of times a year. Since I missed last month’s roundup, I thought I’d have two issues of Swords and Sorcery Magazine to review, but the June issue hasn’t come along as of June 25th. I do have a cool extra, though, that I’ll leave to the end.

Swords and Sorcery Issue 64 is a typical issue of the publication. That means two straight up swords & sorcery stories, just like in almost every other issue.

In “A Woman of Means” by James Edward O’Brien, an aging and mostly-retired thief named Shanley is approached by the titular character. She wishes to hire him, the only reliable independent thief in town, for a special job (isn’t that always the way?). Instead of the heavily guarded and magically warded sorcerers’ library, she wishes him to snatch some grimoires secretly produced in its bindery.

…

Read More Read More

Gaming Summer Camp

Gaming Summer Camp

Comments 1 comment

Dungeons and Dragons Players Handbook Fifth EditionMostly, those of us who are passionate about roleplaying games fell into the hobby in a fairly informal way. But as the hobby becomes more widespread, there have also become more formal ways of being introduced to the games. Conventions often have panels or gaming tracks that are specifically designed for introducing new gamers to either gaming in general or to a specific game system. I’ve even heard of college courses that include elements from roleplaying games as part of the curriculum.

An old high school friend of mine is doing his part, running a summer camp centered around Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition in Durham, NC. Unfortunately, he’s already completed the first of three weeks of the camp, but there are two remaining, so still plenty of time to get your kids involved if you live in the area. It runs from 11:00 am to 3:30 pm at the Dimensions Family School, with more information and registration available here.

In speaking with my friend, Brock, about what he had planned. He’s taught courses on Dungeons & Dragons at Dimensions Family Camp for 3 quarters now:

Each quarter I try something different. The first quarter was a multi-generational epic, where they played the same heroes, re-incarnated over and over, battling the same world-ending villain from the creation of the world until the climactic apocalype-averting battle at the end of class. The 2nd quarter was a world-hopping romp through the D&D settings, where they met all the most iconic heroes and villains from D&D history. The 3rd quarter was a “bottle episode”, where they spent almost the entire quarter in the same dungeon, over a period of only a few days, with a high body count and many tough ethical choices, rounded out with a grand finale involving the Deck of Many Things and the Tarrasque.

…

Read More Read More

Building Your Own Writing Master Class

Building Your Own Writing Master Class

Comments 1 comment

600x600bb I started writing seriously when I was 15 years old. At 46, I have almost twenty short stories published and one novel sold and more news I can’t talk about yet.

Most days, I feel pretty good about my skill level and experience matching what I’m hoping to do. But, I still spend an *enormous* amount of time in learning about the craft of writing.

I’m less concerned now about the mechanics (dialogue, editing, paragraphing, word choice, etc, although that took me a good 20 years to get right), but I still worry about giving an emotionally compelling and thematically meaningful story every time I go to the plate.

My main learning now, my kind of grad school of writing is listening to experts. I like podcasts and they fit into my lifestyle (driving, washing dishes, cleaning the house, etc). Lots of famous and skilled writers, editors, artists, directors, producers, etc are interviewed all the time for podcasts.

These luminaries also appear on panels, which are also recorded and published on the internet for free. The kinds of people speaking about story and form and theme are the kinds of people you’d seek out as you progressed from apprentice to journeyman.

I probably listen to 20-30 hours of podcasts a month in the course of living my life (think dishes…), and I do feel like I’m getting a masterclass out of my listening. I thought I’d share some of my free education in case writers out there wanted to take advantage of this too.

…

Read More Read More

What Do I Know?(1)

What Do I Know?(1)

Comments 0 Comment

Dick_FrancisMost of us have, at one time or another, been given the advice “write what you know.” Even people who don’t write themselves have heard it. Sometimes this advice gets people writing furiously away – and sometimes it leaves them scratching their heads, saying “But, um, I don’t know anything.”

I think it was Lawrence Block who pointed out that we all know something. We know what loss, grief, sorrow, joy and frustration feel like. We know what it’s like to be human, to be a sibling, a parent, a child, a lover, a person who’s been hired, or fired, and a person who didn’t vote for that guy. It’s when dealing with this kind of knowledge that we become most aware that story is king. Without a story to give this knowledge context, you got nothing.

People do mine their own professions for story and character backgrounds. Dick Francis was a jockey and a pilot. Dashiell Hammett was a Pinkerton detective. Patricia D. Cornwall was a medical examiner. Kathy Reichs a forensic anthropologist – and the list goes on.

…

Read More Read More

Patrick Swenson on Talebones, Fairwoods Press, and the Bad Old Days of Print on Demand

Patrick Swenson on Talebones, Fairwoods Press, and the Bad Old Days of Print on Demand

Comments 0 Comment

Patrick Swenson-smallThe Ultra Thin Man-smallPatrick Swenson has been a major figure in speculative fiction for decades, first as the editor of Talebones, and now as the editor in chief of Fairwood Press. Many still remember his semi-pro magazine as the market to send to if you had a story that fit nowhere, but was nevertheless amazing. He has an eye for such things.

Nowadays, getting published by Fairwoods requires more than a good agent or query letter. It is by invitation only, and to be invited, one has to be on Patrick’s radar, and to be on Patrick’s radar, one has to be excellent.

He isn’t just an editor and publisher, though. He’s a writer as well, and his career is both exciting to watch, and an excellent snapshot of modern day publishing. His first book, The Ultra-Thin Man, was published by Tor, but when they passed on the second book, The Ultra Big Sleep, he elected to publish it himself.

Patrick explained this to me while I was standing at his table during the mass signing at Mile-Hi Con. There on the table were both books, and no one who saw them would have been able to say which was self published and which was published by Tor. The quality of their covers and bindings were identical.

On top of all this, Patrick also runs the Rainforest Writer’s Retreat twice a year. This retreat is where:

Writers gather at a location of minimized outside interference or influence, ready to spend an intensive four or five days on their own work, with others involved in the same who were present for support and interactive development of written creative work as art, craft, and science. Balanced against this is a schedule of events aimed at supporting this process, with the number of retreat guests and attendees kept to a limit.

Held in a resort village on the Olympia Penninsula, it’s an opportunity unlike any other to give an added boost to one’s writing career.

…

Read More Read More