Amusing oddities

In the 4+ years that I've been an administrator over at wotmania, I've seen quite a bit of behavior that is in turns amusing and baffling to me. I just felt like writing a short, light-hearted post here devoted to the quirkiness that seems to make the SF/F fan what he or she is, so please don't take any of this personally, although I suspect a few of you might. C'est la vie and all that.

The first thing about the obsessed fan is the near-fanatical devotion toward matters of cover art. Judge a book by its cover? Perish the thought...or rather, perish the publisher that changes the art or those which print 'garishly SF/F art' on their covers. From the multitude of comments about how the Darrell K. Sweet WoT covers compare to the British ones to how people hate that the SOIAF covers have changed three times over four books to differences between the Canadian/American and British covers for R. Scott Bakker's The Prince of Nothing series, it would seem as though the 'typical SF/F fan' has to have the cover art JUST so.

Related to this is book size. Gotta wait an extra 8-24 months to own the tradeback/paperback edition (with the same cover, of course!), because the books must be of the same size and appearance! Heaven forbid if there's a hardcover that comes in the end part or that the composition of the paper used is thicker/thinner than before (you may think I jest, but considering the 'complaints' I read about George R.R. Martin's A Feast for Crows having 'thinner' paper than before, you'd be shaking your head as much as I am, perhaps), because we might have a few more heart attacks around this joint.

Then we have those amusing people who just have to have all of their books ordered just so on a bookshelf. Just reading a few posts around the web in recent months, it seems as though there is a legion of obsessed fanatics that arrange their shelves by book size, color, texture, etc. and therefore would become crazed if this said order would be compromised if an author were to release a book with cover art that is incongruous to that which has come before!

I guess whoever said that maxim about not judging a book by its cover never met a truly dedicated SF/F fan! I probably am leaving out more oddities, but I thought I'd just post this little bit in lieu of writing a more 'serious' article. Feel free to add more suggestions in the comments box.

Looking for a Story

One of the problems of being a voracious reader is that sometimes stories told by wildly divergent authors seem to merge and flow into one half-remembered mess. This is further compounded when the reader is bilingual and has read stories told in both Spanish and in English translation. I found myself today just sorting through some of my books, trying to reorganize my double-stacked bookcases and seeing what memories I had of those tomes and the stories told within.

Glancing at shelves where a Jorge Luis Borges sat beside an Angela Carter, or where China Miéville and Jeff VanderMeer shared space with a Thomas Wolfe or an Ernest Heminway, a world of literatures encapsulated within a five-shelf bookcase in which there were no distinctions made by genre or even language. As I glanced at this seeming mélange of various fictions and non-fictions (and even Derrida's Of Grammatology, fittingly enough), I started to find myself lost in thought.

I wonder if there were a story out there, one told in a first (or perhaps even a second person view) of a world in which some of Borges's ideas on labyrinths had been explored. A story which utilized the wit of a Jane Austen or perhaps the deep sympathy of a Charles Dickens. A tale in which humor abounded, perhaps not like Terry Pratchett's satirical works, but mayhap more akin to that of a W. Somerset Maugham. Such a story, if it exists, might have the beautiful flow of a Gabriel García Márquez, with his magical butterflies and tragic tales of tenderness to be found in the arms of a humble whore, or maybe the polemic of an Upton Sinclair.

Surely such a historia exists, somewhere, if not in English, perhaps in Spanish, German, Latin, or another language known or unknown to myself and others. I envision such a tale to have something, that je ne sais quoi, that would spark a reaction from its reader. Perhaps this story is found in prose form, or in a poem, or maybe even within a song lyric. I do not know. But I am looking for it. Have you seen a story, whether it be long or short, rich or poor, happy or sad, or all of the above and then some? If so, please share that story (or stories) with this humble reader, as he is looking for a part of himself that seems to be missing, out there.

Wondering about that Emotional Punch to the Junk

Over the past year or so, I've slowly become less and less inclined to read a work of overt speculative fiction, as I have become more and more enamoured recently with the works of a great many Latin American authors, from Jorge Luis Borges to my current read, José María Arguedas. I never really sat down and thought about why this was happening until I read a couple of pieces that made me wonder about what possibly could be missing from most contemporary speculative fiction.

I think what I miss most is that sense of connection, as if the plight of the characters were somehow important to me. Reading Arguedas's Los ríos profundos (Deep Rivers) has made me think about the oppression of the indios of Peru, of those impoverished, yet proud, descendents of the Inka, whose rich cultural tradition has had a layer of European architecture and values superimposed upon it as the streets of Cusco have Inka foundation and European storeys. Where is this sense of loss, this sense of an utterly human tragedy in most fantasy or science fiction stories? Where is the connection between the lives that the characters have lived (or died) and that of my own? Where is the realism that underlies our fantasies?

Is it because it is so very difficult to write a scene set outside our perceived world and have it become 'meaningful' to us? Can we truly experience such a sense of shared triumph or communal loss as some have while reading works such as Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front or Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises?

Recently, I was reading the comments over in wotmania's WoT messageboard in regards to the apparent 'insensitivity' that readers were showing toward a moment in the just-released latest WoT book, Knife of Dreams, that the author himself said should make people "gasp." The relative blasé attitude toward that stuck me as rather interesting - was it due to people being desensitized, or could it deal more with a greater difficulty in becoming emotionally attached to a fantasy world and its peoples and their struggles?

Is there something inherently lacking in the way that most fantasies and science fiction works are written that prevents us from associating ourselves, perhaps in cathartic fashion, with the characters being represented? It is a question that puzzles and troubles me.

Perhaps others reading this will have thoughts on this issue. Perhaps they can think of exceptions to what I have mentioned, or perhaps other ways of viewing this. Shall be interesting to see what the Blog readers here will make of this.

Well, time to get this blog active again vol.2, yes?

Seems to me there has been little to no activity here over the last few months. Too long for my liking...

Some of you might know me, others don't. I've come here partly to speculate and partly to complain.

Those of you, who recognize my name should remember I often expressed my strong opinion about the state of Western fantastic fiction. Negative opinion, I might add. For the last few years the number of interesting new writers and interesting ideas has constantly been decreasing. At the same time, I have been reading a growing numbers of opinions that Western scifi&fantasy writers are burnt-out. That of course, is the common opinion here, in Poland or perhaps in general to the east of the river Oder.

We strongly believe that Eastern European authors have more to offer today than those you are accustommed to. The reason? The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves... I don't want to elaborate this, I'm not the right person for that, but if I were to speculate, I'd go with different historic experiences, different cultural background or even ethnic origin. This all adds up to a unique blend of critical look at the modern society and its future and our own past. This doesn't mean typical, low-quality pulp is not available here. On the contrary. But we do get many interesting texts that wouldn't have any chance for being published where you live folks. And that brings me to what I intended originally.


I really loathe Western publishers. Oh, I do realise they need to earn a living and should publish those authors that offer a chance of good return on investment, but who said only Westerners have monopoly on profits, huh? While investments in foreign writers certainly require some spending, they may in turn result in income. As the example of Spain shows, different culture does not necessarily mean readers will be discouraged. In truth, a certain Polish writer (who happens to be the most popular fantasy writer in Poland), Andrzej Sapkowski, has recently gained huge popularity there and his books have been a great success (winning him some of the most important Spanish awards). Success of the first writer resulted in a decision to sign publishing deals with other authors from Poland and Russia.

Unfortunately, this doesn't even seem to be a light in a tunnel when it comes down to American and English publishers, two of the biggest book markets in the world. Given all the information I gathered, it looks that it's damn hard for Poles to find a publisher in the USA or even UK. It didn't even help a young but great Polish writer Jacek Dukaj, that a short animated film based on his fantastic novel, "The Cathedral", was nominated for Oscar two years ago. Translated by renowned Michael Kandel (the excerpt of the novel can be found here) together with another great story by Dukaj ("The Iron General", which in turn is available as an excerpt here) despite efforts couldn't find a publisher.

If a good translation and an Oscars buzz didn't help, what else will? Will the same happen to an interesting Russian writer Sergei Lukyanenko and the chance for international promotion he's having? A blockbuster hit, "Night Watch", based on his very good novel by the same title should hit cinemas in the West very soon. Will the merchandising oppportunities surrounding the film help to promote the book? Time will tell. I can definitely recommend this book to you.

Back to merchandising and Sapkowski I mentioned above. Some Polish computer games company is working on a possible major hit for computer games. The game called The Witcher is based on his hugely successful series of short stories and novels on witcher Geralt, a warrior trained from the early childhood to combat monsters. The early rave reviews suggest the game itself may be really successful, but I'm interesting in whether this would mean a chance for promoting Sapkowski. Again, time will tell. As of today there is no word on a possible translation of his works into English...

*sigh* Anyway, thanks for reading my ramblings. Perhaps anyone of you out there, who happens to read this post is on familiar terms with a publisher interested in new discoveries. If so, let them know there are great writers abroad waiting for a chance.

Ian Cameron Esslemont Interview

Over the past several weeks, I’ve had the pleasure to interview Ian Cameron Esslemont, author of the recently published novel, Night of Knives. NOK is novel set in the world first made popular by Steven Erikson in his novel Gardens of the Moon. NOK is a Malazan novel that focuses on the events of a single night in Malaz City, a night that reshapes the empire. For a full review of the novel: Night of Knives by Ian Cameron Esslemont: A Review

*****

Please, tell us a little about yourself. The blurb from NOK mentioned that you’re a Ph.D. student in literature. What are you working on for your Ph.D. dissertation?

I am a Winnipeg lad, though I have lived abroad from Canada for many years now. My (part time now) Ph.D. research could, generally speaking, be categorized as Victorianist. I am looking at the writings that come out of European expansion into the South Pacific, specifically by sailors, missionaries, traders and travelers. I am interested in stories of “culture contact” and this region offers particularly interesting, and challenging, narratives of European and indigenous contact, clash, and exchange.

I think interest in such questions can readily be seen in the world Steve and I created where we tell the story not only of the Malazan Empire, but also the stories of numerous peoples – the choices they have made (or have been inflicted upon them) and the consequences that follow.

What current novels/authors are you reading? These can be either related to your Ph.D. work or in your general reading, or both.

Currently, for my research, I am studying Herman Melville’s first novel, Typee. By way of secondary sources, I am looking at Nicholas Thomas’s Colonialism’s Cultures, and Victor Turner’s classic anthropological text, The Forest of Symbols. Naturally, all this work in research limits my recreational reading, but recently I have managed to get to [Harry Potter and the]Half-Blood Prince (and enjoyed it), a collection of Orwell essays, and Roger G. Kennedy’s Hidden Cities, an account of the systematic erasure of indigenous high civilizations in North America – fascinating and indicting.

What about the fantasy genre in specific or speculative fiction in general, draws you as a reader? As a writer?

What is it about the fantasy genre that draws me? Hmmm… A hard question to answer. I think an openness to the genres of fantasy or SF come from a childhood nurturing of imagination. The Little Prince is a space traveler, as is Peter Pan. This is not to belittle the literature, but rather to acknowledge it as a prerequisite, a foundation for an open and imaginative mind. “What if…?” is the question basic to all genres of speculative fiction. Being well nurtured in this regard I read voraciously then came to see within the genres the potential for addressing essential questions and concerns that mainstream literature is simply unsuited to grasp – eternal questions that in a secular culture must still be spoken to – questions of meaning and myth (myth has not gone away, it has simply morphed, as has meaning). All of the above makes up my attraction to the genre(s) both as reader and writer.

Do you have a set writing routine?

I used to have a writing routine but lately it has been disturbed by family and work. Ideally, I would have a good chunk of time – say four hours at a stretch – during which I would “write myself into the world,” to work on a scene. Usually, I prep myself for a writing period by reviewing & editing what I did last, then looking ahead to what scene or scenes are required next.

In your estimation, how has the response been to Night of Knives in both the critical and the general reception? Has the response been what you expected or hoped for?

Generally speaking, from what I have seen on the net, the reception of Knives has been just fantastic – better than anything I could have hoped for. I want to thank everyone who has taken the time to give their feedback. It took a lot of encouragement from Steve to get me to take the step to try to get published (after all, what an act to follow!). Now that I have a book out in the public domain I hope this will lead to more of my contribution getting out there.

What has been the primary challenge of writing a shared-world novel? What is the primary benefit?

This question allows me to wonder about just what constitutes a shared world. This category of novels, as currently understood by the publishing industry, seems to mean a shared milieu in which any author can be contracted to write. As a consequence it is also a category that suffers from an image problem (though this does seem to be slowly changing).

This is not what Steve and I have created in Malaz. I understand that a “world” cannot be copywrited, only individual works of creative art. Our milieu, the world of Malaz, came into being through the work of the two of us at the same time and so I think falls more within the definition of the usual single world--single writer, such as Lieber and Lankhmar, or Banks and the Culture, except in our case there are two creators.

The primary benefit of this, at least in my case, was tremendous creative synergy. I liken the process to that of jazz: two musicians, or writers, getting together and jazzing around, creating new sounds but always remaining in tune and on the melody. Oddly enough, no one seems to have a problem with shared creativity in a jazz group.

How do you approach this complex and rich world? Are there aspects of the cultures, locations, people groups, history, that particularly interest you? How does your approach differ from Steven Erikson’s?

Naturally everything in the world of Malaz interests me. The world reflects Steve’s and my shared interests: history, realpolitiks, cultural innovation, but above all, storytelling. We hoped to create narratives that were interesting and emotionally compelling in a world that felt as real as our own; one with a history that (for Steve and I) is in many ways more fascinating that the “present.”

As to whether my approach differs from that of Steve, in truth it doesn’t differ so much at all. Knives is something of a one-off in that it is very narrowly constrained in time and place; my other projects in Malaz are more similar to Steve’s broad canvases.

Having seen the success that Steven Erikson’s books have had over the past few years, has that created more pressure or expectations to get your writing published as well?

Has seeing the success of Steve’s books created more pressure or expectations for my own publishing? If anything, I would have to say the opposite. His work is just so damn good (in my so-unbiased opinion), how can I or anyone follow that? Yet I have stories to tell of this world as well, and they won’t get told if I don’t offer them so, with his encouragement, I will soldier on – with the understanding that my work in no way aims to compete against his – but rather that the world was made big enough for the both of us. As to getting any more of them published, that is largely out of my control but of course I hope to be allowed the opportunity to tell more of the world’s many stories.

What are your future plans for writing in this world? Can you give us any hints as to where or what you might write about? Is Night of Knives at all related to some of your other possible stories?

As to future projects of course I cannot be specific here. Steve’s books, and Knives, are all stand-alone. So too would any future books from me. We hope that before Steve finishes his series of ten books I will also have ones coming out, but this is in no way guaranteed. Whatever the situation, he will of course sculpt his ongoing books so as to extract the maximum he can from the world (with my blessings). The hope is that I will also be contributing for an even higher octane mix. However, I can say that Knives was one of five Malaz novels, all of which were sketched out alongside Steve’s ten. Three of the remaining four also use the Malaz Empire as the route of entry into the world, while the last is more of an epilogue to many of the main story threads in which remaining questions are answered (and surprising revelations are made, of course!).

This final question is a long-standing Other Fantasy tradition: If you owned monkeys, how many would you own, and what would you name them?

Pet monkeys? Funny you should ask this seeing as I have two! Two mischievous boys who empty drawers, pull down books, and mangle toys. The number of times I’ve found one of them happily bashing away at my computer keyboard is beyond count – the stuff I’ve lost! Aargh! In any case, the answer is two: aged five and two.

From everyone at Other Fantasy and Wotmania, thank you for your time and your thoughtful responses. We wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors.

Many thanks for the opportunity to talk more about Malaz. Always a pleasure. Keep those emails flying to Bantam!! Yours, Cameron.

*****

If you haven't yet and find yourself interested in buying Night of Knives by Ian Cameron Esslemont, you can look at the PS Publishing web site, in the links section of wotmania, or check out Clarkesworld Books

Is J.K. Rowling becoming the next Charles Dickens?

After finishing Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince last night, I was struck more and more by the reactions that readers at wotmania had regarding the final chapters. There was a mixture of surprise, alarm, sadness, and anger. Almost the whole gamut of human emotions were on display in these posts relating their interactions with the story. For those readers, Rowling's book was not just a well-told story, but something more, something more important to them than the words printed on paper and bound together.

Every so often, books appear that capture national or even international attention. Although the stories and characters may be different, although the setting and style may bear scant semblence to one another, there is just something, some je ne sais quoi, that links the story, the readers, and the time the story is written. Whether we are talking about the decadence of the Jazz Age/Weimar Era and how Thomas Mann (in The Magic Mountain), Ernest Hemingway (The Sun Also Rises), or especially F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Great Gatsby; Tender is the Night) or if we focus on the Victorians or the Beat writers or even 'children stories' such as Where the Red Fern Grows, some of the best authors have managed to create memorable and moving scenes that last beyond their immediate times to create immemorial images that have burned their way into our collective consciousness.

Judging by the way Harry Pottermania has struck the globe, from the books, the movies, the action figures, and other miscellaneous objects, one would be hard pressed to think of an author who has managed to have such a cultural impact on the world. However, there is one author from the past who comes to mind, one whose importance has only grown as we draw ever further away from his Victorian abode: one Charles Dickens.

When I thought about Rowling in conjunction with Dickens, I was not thinking about sales figures, the quaint turns of speech both employ to draw in the reader, or even the sometimes brilliantly insightful commentaries buried within large amounts of dross, but instead on how well each has managed to connect the reader to the events taking place in the book that he or she might be reading at the time. One Dickens story in particular reminds me so much of the current discussions involving the latest Harry Potter book: The Old Curiosity Shop. While this story is not as famous as Oliver Twist ("Please sir, I want more.") or A Christmas Carol, in its day, this serialized novel about a picturesque shop and the little girl Nell moved people. Whether it was due to the quaintness of the shop settings or the humaneness of Nell or something else, The Old Curiosity Shop was a runaway bestseller not just in Dickens's native Britain, but also in the fledgling United States. Every month at ports along the American Atlantic seaboard, there would be large crowds of people gathered around one reading scenes from the latest installment of Dickens's latest masterpiece. They would laugh at the oddness of some of the characters, or smile as Nell's sweetness came on display, but one day they received a shocking installment: Nell had become sick.

While they waited, there were debates as to whether or not Nell would survive and if things would continue along their merry way toward a happy ending. But Dickens surprised people by having Nell die. From London to Scotland to the American frontier, tens of thousands of people read her deathbed scene and her passing away and they just bawled. Imagine grown men today just breaking down and crying because a little girl died. Yet somehow, her fictional death, when placed amongst the greater backdrop of what was transpiring in a rapidly industrializing Britain, with its exploited boys and girls dying in great numbers from work injuries or from diseases such as cholera or smallpox, came to symbolize just how cruel and capricious this world could be.

It was this image that popped into my head as I read the final 100 pages of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. While I will not spoil what happens there, I can say that it appears that Rowling has taken quite bit of Dickens's purpose to heart: she has worked very hard over six books to create something that moves the spirit. It is as if she was holding up a mirror for us to gaze into, letting us see again, as if anew, just how unfair this world can be. The Harry Potter series is rapidly becoming much more than 'just' a series for children. There are moments in the past two books that invoke a much darker, more worried world behind the whismical fantasy backdrop. Perhaps we are reading a series worthy of the post 9/11 or post 3/11 or post 7/7 world, one in which children and adults can suffer, can grieve, and yet still can love and carry on.

Maybe it is time to just come to terms with the notion that J.K. Rowling has created something that is much more than the sum of its parts. And in that, she might truly become like Charles Dickens.

Sometimes, There's No Alchemistry in Dreams

I just finished reading a book that disappointed me a lot, Paulo Coelho's El Alquimista: Una fábula para seguir tus sueños (The Alchemist in English). The premise seemed interesting, a quest-type/dream tale of a shepard following a dream from the plains of Spain (minus the rhyme about the rain) to the pyramids of Egypt, because he had been promised that he would find a treasure there. According to what I had read elsewhere, Coelho's story was a combination of a Borgesian dreamscape with Blake's aphoristic/visual style, with touches of Hemingway thrown in as well.

However, the story just didn't work for me. The use of proverbs to relate truths just seemed to hinder the flow of the narrative and it neither had the power of Borges's great stories about the power of dreams nor did it pack the punch of Blake's wordplay. I was just left feeling that while individual sections read well, the story as a whole just was not strong enough to carry the story. Also, I couldn't help but feel that Coelho relied way too much on his influences and that this story at least fails to show the author possessing a strong, unique voice of his own.

While the story is adequate to even good at times and the moral tales worth considering, I just cannot recommend this story to those who like myself were hoping for something more transcedent.