Fiction in the Foreword

Forewords are odd bits of a book. You don’t see them a lot in fiction works, but when you do, it tends to be in books where the author is purporting to have “found” the manuscript somewhere and, through whatever means, is now sharing the manuscript with the masses.

Let’s take The Princess Bride. Excellent movie. Better book. If you read the book (which I highly recommend), you are treated to a long introduction by William Goldman about how his father (who was from Florin himself) used to read the story (written by one “S. Morgenstern”) to Goldman when he was a child, and he got his own son a copy but his son said it was boring, and when Goldman went to read it himself, he discovered his father had only read him the good parts. So The Princess Bride is just the “good parts” of Morgenstern’s story.

Except, of course, Morgenstern, his story, and the country of Florin don’t exist. (The deception actually goes deeper than that. Wikipedia informs me that Goldman doesn’t even have a son–just two daughters.) Goldman made it all up to enhance the story.

(He does it quite masterfully, too. I was pretty sure neither Morgenstern or Florin existed, but the longer he went on the less sure I became, and I did eventually take to the internet to make sure I wasn’t crazy.)

Goldman is probably the best example. I’ve read other stories where people attempt to do the same thing–make up something in the forward to enhance the story–but usually it doesn’t work as well. Sometimes it reads tacked on, like the author didn’t bother to put enough thought into it to make it at all believable.

All the examples I can think of involve “found” manuscripts. I read the first book of a mystery series starring Jane Austen, where the author said she found the “diaries” among some correspondence to Jane’s sister. And I recently finished The Legend of Broken where the author had “found” the manuscript and some accompanying notes by some 18th century historian or some such. (He actually had extensive end notes from this historian, explaining word etymology and historical customs and blah blah blah, and it made it read like a textbook. I had to bypass them completely to enjoy the story, and I felt bad because he put so much work into it, but honestly. Bleh.)

House of Leaves is another example, though at least the narrator’s story eventually blends into the found manuscript.

Most of the time, I think making up something in the foreword reads like a gimmick, or doesn’t ring true. How do you feel about it, Squiders? Any really good or really bad examples you can think of?

(But, seriously, go read The Princess Bride.)

The Enchanted Forest Chronicles Readalong: Talking to Dragons

Well, Squiders, here we are at the end of the Enchanted Forest Chronicles. The elaborate plan set up at the end of Calling on Dragons has been executed, Mendanbar has been freed, the wizards have been vanquished, and everyone is going to live happily ever after. (Or are they? Duh duh duuuuun…)

(I mean, I assume they are, because this is the last book. I kind of wish Ms. Wrede would revisit them, however. I imagine there’s rather a lot you could do with the next generation. I mean, assuming Daystar and Shiara do get married, what if there’s some sort of incompatibility between fire-witch magic and the Enchanted Forest’s magic? And so forth.)

(Moving on.)

Now, if at any point during this you say to yourself, “What the heck is she talking about?”, I want you to know that there’s two versions of this book. You see, this book was written FIRST. So you can actually think of (and, in retrospect, they kind of read this way) the other three books as prologues to this book. So she wrote the book, then went back and wrote the other three, and then changed this one to line up better with the other three. If, for some reason, you have a pre-1990 version of Talking to Dragons, you have the original and quite honestly I’m not sure what the difference is. So! I apologize if things don’t line up.

I am torn about this particular book. On one hand, I like it better in some regards. I like the story, the idea that the main character has no idea what he’s doing, because if he did it wouldn’t work. I like Daystar and Shiara (and I really like the name Shiara). But on the other hand, it doesn’t flow well from the other three, and I’m sure that’s because it was juryrigged at the end to fit into the rest of the series.

Cimorene seems really out of character at the end and it really, really bothers me. She seems to be pushing marriage on Shiara and Daystar and for someone who fought against her own so much, it rings really false. Morwen and Telemain continue to be awesome, though they don’t get a lot of screen time. (Page time?) Some of Morwen’s cats from Calling on Dragons seem to still be alive as well, even though it’s been 17 years. I mean, cats can live into their twenties. Maybe witches’ cats get added benefits, who knows.

So! Did you enjoy the series? Final thoughts, anyone?

We’ll be reading Howl’s Moving Castle next to see how a different author handles the whole fairy tale satire thing. If you’re highly motivated, you can also watch the movie, and then in the comments we can discuss how the two are nothing like each other but, yet, are both awesome.

The Allure of a Good Sea Yarn (And Why the High Seas are Like Space Travel)

I think I’ve mentioned before, Squiders, that I don’t really like historical fiction. It’s my least favorite genre. That’s not to say that it can’t be well done, and, indeed, I have read some very good historical fiction in my time (Pillars of the Earth is one of the best books I have ever had the privilege to read), but, in general, it rubs me the wrong way and I tend to avoid it.

That being said, in the last few years I’ve discovered that there is a particular subgenre that does appeal to me, and it is that of high seas adventure. Apparently all I need to float my boat, pun intended, is a well-researched story that takes place on a tall-mast ship, whether the ship is navy or merchant or pirate.

I suspect these stories appeal to me because they have direct correlation to science fiction (or, more likely, science fiction has direct correlation to them. It is probably arguable as to which came first, because some of those early creation stories and mythology have some very interesting and unexpected allusions.).

A lot of military science fiction is directly based off the Navy, after all. Even Star Trek is. It makes sense, after all. When you look at the armed forces, which has the most experience living for months/years at a time in a craft that spends most of its time in an inhospitable environment that could kill you if you stepped outside? I like to think of living on a starship as the space-equivalent of living on a submarine.

Anyway, the books tend to have a lot of tropes that cross over to science fiction, such as exploration, dealing with new cultures/animals/places, battles against dangerous enemies in an unforgiving environment, having to work together to survive, etc. And I suspect part of me appreciates all the technical terms. Sure, a mizzen-mast is a real thing where a flux capacitor is not, but they both trigger the same technobabble part of the brain.

What do you think, Squiders? Am I way off mark?

(Also, do you have any books to recommend? I am slowly making my way through the Hornblower series and I like them rather a lot.)

Anthologies: Pros and Cons

Ah, anthologies. I love to write for them. I am usually disappointed when I read them. It boggles the mind.

Just to make sure we’re all on the same page, an anthology is a collection of stories from different authors that all center around a theme. I just finished one where the theme was “fantasy tropes turned on their heads,” for example, though they called it something else. Basically, someone says “I want to put together an anthology about strong women with swords,” people submit stories that fit the theme, the editor(s) picks the ones they like, and then they publish the anthology.

(Themes can be any number of things, from clear cut things like “pirates” to completely arbitrary things like “I think this famous person may have been influenced by these stories” or “the best whatever of the year.”)

I love to write for them because I like the exercise of writing to a prompt, especially if it’s a little out of my comfort zone. I tend to not like reading them because by the time I get used to a story/character/voice/whatever, that particular story is over and it’s on to the next. It makes me grumpy.

The exception, for me, seems to be Shared World anthologies. Shared Worlds still are multi-author works, but the world, and in some cases the characters, are the same from story to story. Sometimes one story directly flows into the next. (Examples of this include the Thieves’ World anthology series, the Star Trek Corps of Engineers series, and Turtleduck Press’ Seasons Eternal.) Since I’m left with something to hold on to, I don’t find these as jarring.

Anyway, I promised Pros and Cons.

Pros

• Show many different authors’ interpretation of a theme
• Stories tend to be short, allowing for easy breaks in reading
• Can find new authors to try out

Cons

• No commonality between stories makes it hard to transition
• Open interpretation means stories can seem completely unrelated
• Story quality may vary and you might not find any voices you like

How do you feel about anthologies, Squiders? Love them, loathe them (either from a reading or writing point of view)? Any to recommend?

The Enchanted Forest Chronicles Readalong: Calling on Dragons

Nooooooooooo cliffhanger.

Well, Squiders, we’ve reached book 3. (I think this may have been the one I read first as a kid. It seems…more familiar than the others, if such a thing can be said about a series of books one’s already read multiple times.) You know, it’s a bit interesting to note that each book in the series is from someone else’s point of view. We had Cimorene’s, then Mendanbar’s, and now Morwen’s. (Talking to Dragons, Book 4, is from Daystar’s point of view. And also is first person.)

(Also, I would like to point out how strange it is for a supposedly quite practical person like Cimorene to name her child Daystar. But moving on…)

I’ve always rather liked Morwen, probably because she’s no-nonsense and has a lot of cats, though there were times that I felt there were too many cats. Cats in the garden, cats under the porch, cats in the windows…so many cats. At some points I almost agreed with Vamist about the sheer number of them.

(I know Morwen points out that more cats = more powerful spells, and perhaps that will be important in Talking, but she only used two cats at a time here.)

Right, plot. The wizards continue to be up to no good. I admit I feel like I don’t quite understand why they’re up to no good, though. I suppose they’re stealing magic, but I have to wonder what they need all that magic for. I mean, it seems like an awful lot of work, and they must want the Enchanted Forest’s magic really bad to go to the trouble, and I have to wonder if there isn’t easier magic elsewhere to suck up or if they’ve already sucked it all up and now must resort to desperate measures. Where does magic go after a wizard uses it, anyway?

Anyway. The wizards have stolen Mendanbar’s awesome sword! Which is bad, because it’s directly tied in the forest’s magic. And so Cimorene, Morwen, Telemain, Kazul, a couple of Morwen’s cats and a former rabbit that is now not a rabbit named Killer go in search of it. (Mendanbar has to stay in the forest to anchor the magic and is grumpy about it because Cimorene is pregnant and he doesn’t feel like she should be traipsing about fighting wizards. More on that in a second.)

Now, I have a couple of bones to pick here. They take Killer along with them because Telemain wants to use the spell on him to find the wizards, but then they never bother. Also, Morwen and Telemain say they want to test the transportation spell on Brandel before they go after the sword, and then, unless I skimmed over important information, they never do. I understand it’s hard to keep track of all your subplots, but come on, people, didn’t anyone notice that these had been dropped at the time?

Also, having recently been pregnant, I would guess Ms. Wrede never has been (and Wikipedia confirms my suspicions, woo). Cimorene does not act like a pregnant woman would act. In fact, that’s mostly ignored unless there needs to be a reason for someone to protest her doing something. Oh, and as an important plot point at the end.

Complaining aside, though, these books continue to be fun, and I like most of the characters, and even Killer didn’t bother me even though, you know, they totally forgot about the reason they brought him along. It is a bit odd for the third book in a series to be the only one that ends on a cliffhanger, but it all somewhat makes sense if you know that the fourth book is the one that was written and published first.

Hm. I think I shall lay off the questions, since it doesn’t seem like anyone feels like answering them anyway. What was your favorite part, Squiders? Anything you dislike thus far? Anything else you’d like to note or talk about?

This seems like a good point to talk about The Book of Enchantments, which is a related short story collection. Yea, nay? We’ll read it between the fourth book and Howl’s Moving Castle if we’re going to do it. And we’ll discuss Talking to Dragons on April 30th.

Where Has All the Hard Science Fiction Gone?

So, I recently finished reading Inherit the Stars by James P. Hogan, a hard science fiction novel from 1985. We talked about some of the things that were a little bit jarring a few weeks ago in the Old Science Fiction post (to that, I add: an apparent lack of the understanding of plate tectonics), but overall I enjoyed the book and found the science to be mostly solid, even if the characters didn’t figure out what must have happened for things to make sense scientifically until about 100 pages after I did.

That got me to thinking. In general, I like hard science fiction–it must appeal to the engineer in me or something–but all the examples I could think of that I’ve read are older books. Rendezvous with Rama was published in 1973. Ringworld is from 1970. Contact is also 1985, and The Andromeda Strain is from 1969.

Even looking at the Wikipedia and Goodreads lists of hard science fiction shows that there’s been very little of the subgenre put out in the last ten years (and Goodreads’ list is a bit suspect. I am pretty sure Ender’s Game is not hard science fiction).

Why do you think that is, Squiders? Is it because hard science fiction, being fairly dry, just doesn’t ever attract that many readers, meaning a limited number is published at any point of time? Maybe it’s not any slower than before, but there’s just not a lot of it in general. Or is it a representation of some changing tastes in readers and/or writers, where people don’t want to think about science unless it’s accompanied by  explosions and starship chases?

I don’t honestly know, my friends. I welcome any thoughts you have on the matter, and if you do have any good, recent hard science fiction recommendations, please share.

Research Makes a Story Richer

Ah, research. I know it doesn’t necessarily sound fun (unless you’re one of those people, like me, who goes, “Oh, I don’t really know anything about evil spirits. Time to go to the library! Glee!”) but a little realism can go a long way.

Even if it’s something as simple as looking at a map to see where things are in relation to each other, research can be the difference between taking your reader on a fantastic read and distracting them to the point where they’re pulled out of the story.

To continue on with the post from a few weeks ago, I have a book I’m editing that partially takes place in Greece. I wrote that section based off random tidbits I’ve picked up from pop culture over the years. However, one of my beta readers had been to Greece, and the whole section distracted her because she could tell how wrong I was.

But it’s not just places that can benefit from research. Mythology, science, history, societal customs, languages–all of these can bring richness and fullness to your story. It’s one thing to have a Hispanic character, but another to look into common customs in Hispanic households. Looking into mythology can teach you little known facts about legends that provide the direction you need to bring your story together. And it’s one thing to write about a Victorian-esque society, but actually knowing something about the Victorians will help you sell it.

So, how do you go about researching? Well, I recommend choosing the media that appeals to you the most. I always hit the books first because that’s my preference. (Assuming the library has books on the particular subject.) Then I head to the internet. I try to stick to somewhat legitimate sources, such as Wikipedia. But if you find it hard to pick up facts from the written word, you can listen to podcasts or watch movies.

Take notes as you go, or you’ll never remember everything you want to.

Any researching tips you’d like to pass on, Squiders? Any books you’ve read recently where someone obviously didn’t bother?

For Love of Old Science Fiction

Oh man, I love old science fiction. I’m talking anything earlier than 1980. I love it because it takes so many chances, sends its characters all over the universe, and because I love to see what they got wrong.

Am I weird? Oh, probably. But I love to see how people thought the world was going to turn out in comparison to how the world actually did. No one could have predicted the way technology has gone, with smaller and smaller components making impressively powerful computers fit in your back pocket.

(Actually, technology seems to have pulled inspiration from science fiction, making an interesting cycle.)

So instead you get giant vacuum-tube supercomputers. In the book I’m reading at the moment (Inherit the Stars by James Hogan, circa 1985 or so) you can rent jets instead of cars, but in order to get data from one place to the other, it has to be relayed through a truly dizzying amount of satellites. There was no internet, and the idea that you can sit down in your living room and talk instantaneously to someone in Australia probably seemed too far fetched.

(Also, the company president states that he’s willing to ruin the production schedule for a client because they provide several hundred million dollars worth of business in a year. I’ve worked in the aerospace industry, and for several hundred million, you’re probably going to get two satellites, if you’re lucky. Most satellite programs run in the billions, easily. But that probably only bothered me because I’m familiar with such things. Who knows, maybe in the future that the book comes from, inflation has gotten so bad that we had to pull a Mexico and lop off a few zeroes at the end.)

I love how sometimes they’ll get the technology pretty well, but completely miss the societal changes. For example, Jules Verne’s From the Earth to the Moon isn’t too far off on some parts of space travel, but I love that he couldn’t figure out that some of the territories in the middle of the United States (the book is from the 1860s) would eventually become states. (There’s 36 states in the book. Which is about how many there were at the time. Colorado become a state in 1876 and is the 38th state.) (Also, I understand that Verne was French, but come on.)

(Here, have a Verne-related comic.)

I mean, look at 1984. We’re almost 30 years past that, and, luckily, that totalitarian government has yet to come to pass. I think part of that is an attempt to make an impact. When you are commenting on society, I can see how setting your story in the near future can be important. “Look at where we will end up if we don’t change our ways!”

Do you like to read older science fiction, Squiders? What’s your motivation to do so? Any recommendations?

The Enchanted Forest Chronicles Readalong: Searching for Dragons

(Man, that’s a mouthful of a title, isn’t it?)

Well, moving right along here in readalong land, aren’t we? I think I managed to read this in about three hours. Maybe less. Personally, I liked it a lot more than Dealing With Dragons. I think I like Mendanbar a little more than Cimorene, though not sure what that says about me. It may be that teenage!me liked Cimorene because I identified with her not being quite sure what her place in the world was, and adult!me appreciates that Mendanbar generally knows what he’s doing with his life.

All right, let’s do a quick overview for those who aren’t actually reading along and so do not know anything about the series, so they don’t live in utter confusion for the rest of the entry. The first book, Dealing With Dragons, introduced us to Princess Cimorene, who was not a typical princess and continuously butted heads with her parents for trying to get her to do princess-y sorts of things. She runs off and becomes the dragon Kazul’s princess (a post that is rarely volunteered for), and manages to stop a plot involving the Society of Wizards to get a certain dragon crowned as king (with help). Kazul is crowned King, Cimorene is happy with her spot, and everything is lovely.

Here in Searching for Dragons, we have Mendanbar, King of the Enchanted Forest, who is generally quite happy with things except his steward really thinks he should get on with marrying. He goes for a walk and discovers a large area of the forest has been destroyed, seemingly by dragons. Morwen (oh, Morwen, you continue to be my favorite) recommends he go and talk to Kazul about it, because there’s something funny about the whole set-up. Mendanbar goes to do so, but alas! Cimorene informs him that Kazul is missing and talks him into accompanying her in search of said dragon.

Maybe because I’m older and genre-savvy, but I thought the plot was pretty obvious from the get-go. What I really like about this book is two things: 1) the fairy tale twists, and 2) the description of the magic.

Ms. Wrede takes great pleasure in twisting as many fairy tales as possible. There’s the giant that only eats Englishmen (never mind that there are no Englishmen, because there is no England), the dwarf who’s legally changed his name to Herman because he’s gotten stuck with two many children from people not being able to guess his name, the uncle who’s not actually evil but feels the need to pretend to keep up appearances, and so forth. It’s brilliant and I like it a lot. (Herman’s probably my favorite, though.)

And then the magic. There’s magic in the first book, of course, with there being dragons and wizards and witches, but here Mendanbar is so entwined with the magic of the Enchanted Forest that he can actually see the constructions of the spells (his and other people’s) which leads to some very interesting solutions to some problems. Spell construction has always been fascinating to me as a reader and a writer, and I love to see how other people go about doing it.

Right, onto the questions. As always, your own comments and questions are welcome.

1) Mendanbar comes across pretty genre-savvy himself, since he knows he needs to follow advice exactly as it was told him to avoid disaster. Do you think this is a consequence of growing up in the Enchanted Forest?

2) How exactly do you think one repairs a broken flying carpet?

3) Why do you think Mendanbar’s magic doesn’t seem to decrease significantly outside the forest? Do you think there’s a distance limit on how far away it will still work?

What is a Frame Story?

This seems to be the question of the week. At my writing group last Thursday we had a discussion of them, and just last night my husband asked me about them as well, though I’m not sure why.

So here we are. Frame stories.

For a simplistic definition, a frame story is the story outside a story (as opposed to a story within a story). To compare to a photograph, the main story is the picture and the frame story is, well, the frame. It serves as some sort of explanation as to why you’re getting the main story, and may even be as simple as an adult telling the story to a child (ala the Princess Bride movie).

It’s a fairly common literary device, and has been around for quite a while. TVTropes tells me that the earliest known example is an Egyptian tale from 2300-2100 BC. More classical examples include the Canterbury Tales, 1001 Arabian Nights, and The Comedy of Errors by Shakespeare. Oh, and the Odyssey, and Tolkien’s The Book of Lost Tales, Wuthering Heights, even I, Robot. Oh, and Jesus’s Parables in the Bible.

You get my point.

Frame stories seem to fall into two categories: 1) the frame story is a separate story to the main story, and 2) the narrator of the main story (as a character in the frame story) is directly tied to the main story, and, in fact, may merge the main and frame stories near the end.

I’ll give examples. For the first instance, a mother finds her son doing something stupid/dangerous/immoral, what have you. She tells him a tale about someone who learned their lesson never to do such things. At no point do the characters from the frame story directly impact the main story, or vice versa.

For the second, same set-up. Mother is telling her son this story, but at the end we learn that she knew and/or was there for the events of the main story, or even that the main story is still happening, at which point, the main story becomes merged with the frame, and events continue from there. (An excellent example of this is The Orphan’s Tale: In the Night Garden by Catherynne M. Valente.)

Personally, I prefer the second, when there’s more of a point to the frame story existing, when there’s some link between the two instead of just someone telling someone else a story. (Like in Frankenstein!)

What do you think, Squiders? Excellent literary device, or unnecessary addition? What are some of your favorites?