Teaching Magic by Alanna Cole is a fantasy novel set in a magic academy, but focused on the faculty rather than the students. The world-building is immersive and the character-driven plot excellent. This is the first book I’ve read by this author, but I hadn’t even finished it when I pre-ordered her next release, A Courtship of Dragons.
It’s been a few years since I read Helen Harper’s Highland Magic series and I enjoyed revisiting it. You can find the boxset here.
I must have been on a bit of a British kick this month because I also read Celine Jeanjean’s London’s Edge urban fantasy series. Why aren’t there more hyenas in fiction? Plus, I listened to a couple of episodes from the British comedian Tom Allen’s new podcast/YouTube show, Pottering. Jo Brand is a delight, as always!
When you’re writing, one of the most effective things you can do is evoke something familiar, and then, compel people to question it; to confront it anew.
Light and darkness are common themes, dualities, in fiction.
Fiat lux! Let there be light!
But light as a metaphor loses its impact when it’s always accessible, available at the flick of the switch. Even if electricity goes out suddenly, most of us have our phones near us and they provide sufficient light for us to grope around and find a flashlight.
When I look at a candle I remember how, for most of human existence, darkness was implacable. Flickering flames were all we could summon to push back the darkness.
A well-crafted story uses what we take for granted and shakes it up.
Now, it is not darkness, but light, that threatens and intrudes. Satellites watch us from on high, security lights illuminate us, cameras track us. We are always visible, always on the record.
Fiat tenebris! Let there be darkness.
Frightened animals hide in the darkness, they sleep in their burrows. If all our lives are visible, where can we hide from ourselves?
Science fiction and fantasy both explore impossible worlds. With science fiction, elements of the world may one day come true (still waiting on my flying car), but fantasy is purely imaginary.
Some people argue that we should believe impossibilities (conceive of them) so that we can achieve them.
I am really tired of people turning entertainment into utility. We don’t have to be productive all the time. Neither do we have to pursue constant self-improvement.
Imagining the impossible—inhabiting the impossible—is about being free.
Is it impossible for us to have wings? Maybe. Should we still dream of flying? Absolutely.
Many people blame Kindle Unlimited and its pay-by-pages-read remuneration system for the increased padding in novels: lots of description, limp banter, and holy socks! have you seen how litrpg novels pad out word count with repeated system statistics?
But in fact padding, or excess verbiage, is a reflection of current attitudes.
We’re used to accumulating stuff and we suck at getting rid of it. Have you seen how many storage unit complexes exist on the outskirts of our cities?
A good editor can help an author eliminate the dross, but that raises a different question: is it dross?
For as many people who hate limp banter, others adore it.
The system stats that I skip in litrpg novels fascinate other readers.
Excess isn’t always excess. It can be valuable to the right audience, and that’s often why it stays. Why eliminate something that someone may enjoy? (An argument remarkably similar to the argument for filling a new storage unit; that is, “we can’t get rid of that only slightly chipped teapot, someone might want it one day, if not to make tea in, maybe as a garden ornament. Wouldn’t it look darling with pansies growing in it?”).
And as an author, I’ll let you into a secret. That excess can make a really effective hiding place for clues you need to sneak in.
“Excep’ talk. I’d forgot that. You ain’t asked to talk more’n you’ve a mind to aboard the We’re Here. Keep your eyes open, an’ help Dan to do ez he’s bid, an’ sechlike, an’ I’ll give you—you ain’t wuth it, but I’ll give—ten an’ a ha’af a month; say thirty-five at the end o’ the trip. A little work will ease up your head, and you kin tell us all abaout your dad an’ your ma an’ your money afterwards.”
A century or so ago dialects and accents featured heavily in fiction. Then the fashion changed. Perhaps people found reading accents hard going, or realized that sometimes the dialogue was flattened by striving for effect or that the attempt was wildly inaccurate.
If you’ve ever heard Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins attempting a Cockney accent you’ll know what I mean.
Nowadays the flavour of an accent is hinted at, and at its best, achieved by the rhythm of the writing. Mary Jane Staples wrote pitch perfect Cockney.
Sammy, practical though he was, could not help being touched by the request. He said, “In consideration of you being a credit to me business, Miss Brown, I am happy to inform you I’ll use me highly regarded influence on your behalf.”
King of Camberwell by Mary Jane Staples (pseudonym for Reginald Thomas Staples)
Dialogue is difficult. When you’re writing it well a reader should be able to tell who’s talking even without tags. However, it’s possible to go too far in that direction and end up with a caricature rather than a character. Also, when a scene is moving swiftly, unobtrustive tags (who-saids and actions) are necessary to avoid confusion. Dialogue can’t do everything.
Basically I think of dialogue as poetry: when you get it right, it sings!
I think I can best describe the books I’ve read this month as “meh”. Some I finished. Many I DNF’d.
I can recommend Domination by Alice Roberts. I’m reading it slowly, enjoying both the history of the early Western Christianity church and its interweaving with political power and Professor Roberts’ style.
Since I don’t have any other books to recommend this month, I thought I’d mention a couple of podcasts.
If you’re interested in an author’s experience of publishing, with a focus on traditional publishing and the soul-sucking, disappointing reality, Dave Wragg is a guest on the SFF Addict podcast talking about the midlist death spiral. He’s a little bit sweary. It’s a good, honest account of the author experience.
For interesting science discussions enlivened by a guest comedian, the Infinite Monkey Cage hosted by Brian Cox and Robin Ince. Any episode! They’re all great.
(I can sew, but it drives me wild, so it’s one of the first hard-won skills I abandoned.)
Do you have any fashion resources you refer to?
On a related topic, if you ever get a chance to watch The Supersizers Go… grab it! This British TV show where Sue Perkins (comedian) and Giles Coren (food critic) dressed up and ate the food of an era is brilliant.
I haven’t done an official study, but I think fantasy is overpopulated by orphans.
The lone hero is a classic protagonist because they’re not tied down by familial commitments and are free to adventure. An orphan is also on a search (quest) for who they might be.
But for all the advantages offered by an orphan re plot development and character growth, I wonder if part of their appeal is due to our unacknowledged desire to escape intergenerational trauma. We’re all curious as to who we’d be if we weren’t shaped by the suffering of those who contributed to our genes.
In truth, genes are inescapable. However, in fantasy an orphan hero presents as a blank slate. Their experience, and their experience alone, shapes who they are.
And yet, hearing the stories of those who came before us could be the key to our own resilience.
I value fiction precisely because it offers an escape as well as a safe space to explore difficult issues. But life is challenging and as much as stories can be part of our healing, we all need help sometimes. Our stories are integral to us and should be shared carefully. In Australia you can find help from Lifeline and Beyond Blue. Wherever you are in the world, please be kind to yourself, respect your own needs, and choose wisely the people who will help you to tell your stories.
David Krakauer, President of the Santa Fe Institute, was a guest on StarTalk recently. He was talking about a lot of things, but the bit that caught my attention was the idea that language is just a thin layer over our evolutionarily ancient brains. So, when we sleep on a problem that vast part of us that isn’t defined or constrained by language gets to work.
What an intriguing idea.
If we don’t reason from language but from patterns I can imagine AI advocates arguing that AI is even better than us at pattern recognition, so woohoo! Go, AI!
BUT (yep, all capitals) we take in so much more information than an AI. It might be fed the internet, but we have bodies that are sensory hogs. We interrogate our environment constantly in ways we don’t understand, and hence, can’t replicate with AI.
Whatever “intelligence” emerges from AI it won’t be human because it doesn’t have our body, including our ancient brain.
I’m truly fascinated by the idea that so much of our self is unknowable. We are ancient, instinctive, communal yet forever locked into an individual bodily self. I’m currently asking my non-verbal brain, “who am I?” and it’s answering … “I am” by breathing and listening and being.
Was Descartes wrong to say, “I think, therefore I am”?
I had a great reading month this August. Here are the highlights. Please, share yours!
Hedesa by Rachel Neumeier – the 10th book in her Tuyo series. The first book in this series and the ninth, Rihasa, are my favorites, but Hedesa has the same thoughtful, immersive quality to the storytelling.
The Ninth Element by Sara Hatami – the first book in the Legend of Nohvan series. I’m not actually a big fan of trial fantasies, but the world building is solid and the protagonist’s insecurity compelling.
Towerbound by Samson Chui is the second book in a regression LitRPG series. The current rash of books where the protagonist starts out by dying/failing but then gets a chance of a do-over while retaining all their knowledge from the first time around fascinate me. This series, which celebrates the underdogs, is one of my favorites. There’s a roughness to the storytelling that suits the Scrap Rats, but it’s the compassion in the story that appeals to me.
Ilona Andrews published The Inheritance, which they’d previously shared in instalments on their website. It hit number one in the Kindle Store, which is awesome. It proves there are multiple paths to market. It’s also, simply, a great read. It’s a dungeon crawl with a mom as the protagonist … and I’m not sharing any spoilers!
I discovered that some of Phyllis A Whitney’s modern (as in written a few decades ago) gothic romances are in Kindle Unlimited and I went on a bit of a reading binge. I don’t love all of them, but they’re worth checking out. Hunter’s Green has a young American woman struggling to rescue her marriage to an English aristocrat in the Swinging ’Sixties.
Alex Karne released a new isekai novel (a Marine transported to a new world) that promises to be a series. It’s a little bit sweary and violent, but also funny and with a core of kindness and respect for Marine values. Magic Murder Cube Marine.
In non-fiction I read Homo Criminalis: How Crime Organises the World by Mark Galeotti which was fascinating for exploring the very blurry line between legal and illegal activity in different times and places. I’d already read his book The Vory: Russia’s Super Mafia and I thoroughly recommend it.
I also added a few things to the website. Most importantly, Ghosts Cry, the fourth book in the series is available for pre-order.
I have added three new character pages: Landry Alsop, Francesca Razon (manager of the Caldryn Parliament press office) and Acacia Morrison (CEO of a luxury concierge service and woman of mystery). And a new location: Toady’s.
