A few weeks ago in a fantasy group someone asked for non-fantasy book recommendations and I immediately thought of To The Hilt by Dick Francis. It’s a mystery/thriller from 1996 (I’m not sure if his son, Felix, co-wrote it). It’s a relatively recent book, but I’m still going to include Dick Francis in my Golden Age mystery author list because he has that style. His heroes are confident in themselves and the rightness (even righteousness) of their actions. The stories are also immersive. You live and breathe the (generally) horsey world.
Phoebe Atwood Taylor (who also wrote as Alice Tilton) is an American Golden Age mystery author. I particularly enjoy her books from the 1940s. Written during the war, they convey a sense of the world then without losing any of her appreciation of the absurd. Check out File for Record.
Talking of insight into WWII, Margery Allingham (one of my all-time favorite Golden Age mystery authors for her beautiful writing) wrote The Oaken Heart to explain to American readers the nature of life in England in the early years of the war. Tiger in the Smoke was my introduction to Margery Allingham’s writing and it is an awesome book. This is post-war London; damaged, smoky, enduring, and glorious. The characters are superb.
I grew up around horses, so to me they’re friendly creatures who’ll happily exchange slobber for apples. That familiarity—horses as pets—blunted the meaning behind the four horsemen of the apocalypse for me.
Historically, a horse and its rider were a terrifying war machine. Think of medieval knights or Mongol archers or the impact of mounted Spaniards invading South America.
To translate that terror into modern terms, substitute drones.
Pestilence.
Famine.
War.
Death.
All carried by drone.
But because they’re carried by drones, and our era is what it is (namely, connected via the internet) let’s add a fifth drone. Silence.
Silence is broken connection; a failure to communicate, a loss of trust, and the loss of bonds of community.
We have to keep talking and listening, creating and appreciating creativity, or we lose a fundamental aspect of human existence.
In 1962 Rachel Carson wrote Silent Spring. She was warning of the loss of life, the silencing, resulting from the use of dangerous chemicals. Silent was a powerful word then; a word that warned of loss; of ending. Today it is just as powerful.
People sometimes ask why there is so much dystopian fiction and so very little utopian fiction. Often the answer given is that utopian fiction is harder to write because the conflict is less, or less obvious.
Hmm.
I’ve written a dystopian fantasy series, The Faerene Apocalypse, and I agree that it was never hard to find sources of conflict in that world.
Novels (all stories) need tension to progress and to keep the audience engaged.
But tension can be subtle. The conflict in a utopian novel mightn’t hit you in the face, but it exists. The questions of what next and why and who, how they’ll do what they choose to do, all of these questions boil down to a fundamental tension of existence—free will.
In a utopia the characters may have built a system where free will is a positive force both individually and socially, but it still exists. Harmony isn’t frozen perfection. Entropy must be countered by creation.
So, no, I don’t believe that lack of conflict is the reason utopian fiction is rare. I think the issue is authority.
In dystopian fiction authority collapses. Either the story is set in a lawless land or the authority is corrupt.
Look at the Wizard of Oz (book or movie). The authority for that world is literally named in the title, and yet, he’s merely smoke and mirrors, collapsing on revelation.
In a utopian story the authority mustn’t collapse. The instant it can be questioned, the utopian bubble bursts. Doubt is the death of utopia—of course, handled deftly, the questioning of authority in a utopian novel can become the source of conflict for the story, and be triumphantly asserted in the ending, but…
(and here’s the point this post has been building to)
To write a utopian novel the author has to be confident in the authority that legitimises the utopian community. Belief in that authority underpins the utopia both in the fictional world and for the reader.
And let me tell you that, as an author, it is very, very, very hard to summon the sort of confidence to be all-in with a single authority.
The modern world lives by Lord Acton’s maxim that absolute power corrupts absolutely.
The authority that underpins a utopia has to be absolute. Anything less allows for cracks to form, beginning the fracturing of the utopia. Yet, absolute power itself corrupts. So, the authority of the utopia is the reason it will fail—unless the author presents an authority so compelling, so confident, that we can believe it transcends the limits of our lived experience of fallible humanity.
Imagining a utopia is, therefore, a political act. It requires the suspension of disbelief in pursuit of believing in a greater good, a cause. The author must convince the audience to sacrifice their doubt and embrace an authority that can deliver them from themselves.
It sounds a heck of a lot like a cult, doesn’t it?
Before anything else I have to say a HUGE thank you for reading, reviewing, and supporting me with your kind comments and messages during Hexes Fly’s release week. You are awesome!
I hit a few books that were just … almost worth finishing. I finished them, but I was underwhelmed. Some books I DNF’d. Hence my happy dive back into old favorites.
Fortunately, my non-fiction read was awesome. I thoroughly recommend Inventing the Renaissance: Myths of a Golden Age by Ada Palmer. It’s a long book, meticulously researched, and written with passion and humor. It’s setting me rethinking a lot of my historical assumptions—and some of my current day ones, too. Excellent book!
Welcome back to Caldryn Parliament! The Spring Ball is fast approaching. It marks the beginning of Spring Term. Vanda has big plans for the Warden’s office (to her keepers’ dismay) and some personal issues to address. Giddy is…well, Giddy is keeping secrets, but they’re for the next book, Rogues Lie, so I won’t mention them. I’ll just leave you in suspense because I am evil! There is danger, intrigue, and deep questions of identity ahead. The hexes are flying!
I hope you’re enjoy this slow development of an alternate universe. When the idea for Caldryn Parliament came to me it was partly because I wanted to capture the confident optimism of Golden Age mysteries, but also because I love peek-behind-the-scenes settings and parliaments are fascinating. Plus, the fantasy scene is ready to move beyond magic school and magic college settings to magical workplaces and the exploration of complicated issues.
In Hexes Fly the emphasis remains on the magic aspect of the Realm. The science fiction component will grow. Writing this series is an exercise in self-restraint. I have so many ideas, but they have to be introduced in their own time. Flowers have to be seeded far enough apart that they can all bloom.
A lot is happening in the Realm. We’re only just getting started.
I love romantasy. I adore the yearning, the action, and the imagined worlds. I was reading it before it became romantasy and one of the biggest selling genres in fiction.
But…
(oh, you knew there was going to be a but)
Have you noticed how many romantasy protagonists in recent releases suffer from self-loathing?
I was shocked when I realised that the emotional driver for the book I was reading was the hero and heroine’s mutual rescue of each other from self-loathing.
Once I put the cause of their angst into words — “I hate myself. I’m despicable. Nobody could love me.” — I realised that the previous romantasy I’d read had a similar vibe, although it only had one protagonist drowning in self-loathing and the other hauling them out.
What concerned me was that this is the emotion that resonates with readers. I love a good rescue story as much as anyone (I eat up Cinderella stories, although not as much as Beauty and the Beast ones). However, waiting for someone to love you so that you can love yourself is perilous.
To quote Maya Angelou, “You alone are enough.”
As soon as I started thinking about romantasy that featured this empowering vibe I came up with When Demons Walk by Patricia Briggs. Also Bride of the Rat God by Barbara Hambly and A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik (the third book in the Scholomance trilogy didn’t work for me, but I happily read and re-read the first two). Neverthornby Shannon Mayer is out today, and since her protagonists never wait around to be rescued I’m really looking forward to it (plus, dark academia! I love it).
What fantasy books would you suggest with strong characters, powerful conflicts, and a happy ever after?
Hexes Fly is out in just over a week – Saturday July 26. Until then I thought you might enjoy an excerpt. Rather than have the excerpt lost in the shuffle of blog posts and newsletters, it’s available on the Hexes Fly book page here on my website. Forever!
In other news, I’ve been suffering author envy. This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me by Ilona Andrews has yet another great cover from Tor. I often sigh over Tor covers, both as an author and as a reader. This cover makes me wonder if a new style of fantasy cover is coming. I don’t think I’ve seen an author’s name in a circle before. The entire cover is a really interesting stylistic choice.
Still talking Ilona Andrews’ news (and no, I don’t know them, I just enjoy their books) I’m looking forward to the release of their current serialized story (available on their website) as a book, The Inheritance. May it be soon!
I’ve attacked my Goodreads account after leaving it inactive for years. I haven’t gotten around to updating covers for my books yet, but I have deleted all my reviews. I know. Gasp!
I may change my mind, but at the moment my plan is to use my Goodreads account as a kind of “if you like my books then you’ll probably like books by these authors, too”. So, I’ll be gradually adding a book from each author I think readers of my books would enjoy. It’s the simplest way I can think of to do that kind of thing, and once set up, should be easy to maintain as I discover new authors.
A golden age is characterised by confidence. It may be confidence in society itself, in technology, in philosophy or art, or even in expansion. The key is that when people look back on it they see a clarity and power that they feel is missing from the present.
We desire that impression of past confidence even if the people who lived through the so-called golden age experienced it as chaos, coflict, and a fight for survival.
Will our era be seen as a time when humans looked beyond themselves to find (in the animal kingdom or in outerspace) sapience or to build it (as with generative AI)? Will this be the golden age of alien contact, whatever form that alien sapience inhabits?
I designed Caldryn Parliament to be a suitable setting for golden age fiction. The Realm’s first millennium is approaching. Its people have centuries of survival and success bolstering them. Its institutions have defeated or assimilated all challenges. It is a time of confidence, and yet, it is also a time of questions and of an invitation to change.
There is so much to explore that I’m frustrated I can’t write all the books, all at once.
A golden age promises answers, but its answers are compelling due to the chaos that spawns them.
Over on Facebook I was discussing how the word disorder is increasingly common in popular culture. We’re looking for certainty and finding possibilities instead.
Golden age fiction asserts its certainties and offers them as an ordering of the disorder.
I wish I could tie a nice, orderly bow and wrap up this post so that it’s a complete and coherent whole. Sadly, what you’re getting instead are my messy thoughts as I attempt to tease out how I’m using my writing to make sense of the world, and why I think golden age fiction has such an appeal.
As a teen I read and re-read Mary Stewart’s romantic suspense novels. They’re still fabulous. Such beautiful writing and neat plotting. I’d definitely include Mary Stewart on my list of Golden Age mystery writers.
If you can read The Moon-Spinners and not fall in love with Mary Stewart’s writing … well, I’m sorry for you! The movie starring Hayley Mills is magical, too.
Site Updates
You’ll find a search box at the bottom of the homepage. I can’t believe I missed this obvious feature originally. Sorry.
I’ve added a couple of recipes (chocolate cake and Devonshire scones) under the Forum City News page (which, itself, is nested under Background).
Potions & Prejudice: A Cozy Fantasy Romance by Tee Harlowe, the first book in the Moonflower Witches series. It has a cozy, sweet vibe with a lot of humour. I was a bit startled when it suddenly turned sexy-times, but this was an enjoyable retelling of Pride and Prejudice (venturing quite widely from the original plot).
The Witch Roads by Kate Elliott was every bit as good as I’d hoped! Great world building, mature characters (living with their choices, not afraid to make new choices) and a fast-paced plot.
The Healing Skies by Seth Ring. I don’t read a huge amount of litrpg, but I’m enjoying the Iron Tyrant series. This is the third book and it has some twists to it that I definitely didn’t expect. Very cool.
