Fantastic Advice
Kristopher/EOS
>
> In article <01bdac9b$4a5d9fc0$d726c8cc@n>,
> Shinyhat <shin...@rocketmail.com> wrote:
> >I may have asked this before, but I didn't, so here it is again, although
> >you've already heard it. .....where that came from, I dont know. Anyway..
> >
> >As some of you may know, I'm attempting a fantasy novel, and I'd be
> >interested to hear any advice you might have on the subject. Not general
> >advice like "be sure to characterize your characters" and "dont use passive
> >sentances" but personal suggestions, things that you'd like to see in books
> >of the Fantasy genre, or things you hate about it that you'd like changed.
> >That kind of thing. Thanks.
>
> Some things I'd like to see less of:
>
> 1) mock-medieval settings in general.
> 2) Bad translations from role-playing games.
> 3) 70's-80's-90's feminist views from the female characters, 1960's
> bohemian attitudes toward sex -- and no unplanned pregnancies or VD.
No kidding. It seems like when I plot out or actually right stories,
all the sex is somehow intended, on MY part, to cause somebody
somewhere problems.
I will admit to having a problem writing female characters that are
accurate to that sort of historical setting: submissive attitudes,
acceptance of social strictures, popping out kids, that kind of
thing. I know what I'm trying for on an intellectual level, but can't
get my creative process around the idea. A failing on my part.
Where should a "swords-and-(maybe)-magic" fantasy novel be set, if not
in a somewhat medieval setting?
Kristopher/EOS
PS: I like passive verbs, damnit!
Dan Goodman
Shinyhat <shin...@rocketmail.com> wrote:
>I may have asked this before, but I didn't, so here it is again, although
>you've already heard it. .....where that came from, I dont know. Anyway..
>
>As some of you may know, I'm attempting a fantasy novel, and I'd be
>interested to hear any advice you might have on the subject. Not general
>advice like "be sure to characterize your characters" and "dont use passive
>sentances" but personal suggestions, things that you'd like to see in books
>of the Fantasy genre, or things you hate about it that you'd like changed.
>That kind of thing. Thanks.
Some things I'd like to see less of:
1) mock-medieval settings in general.
2) Bad translations from role-playing games.
3) 70's-80's-90's feminist views from the female characters, 1960's
bohemian attitudes toward sex -- and no unplanned pregnancies or VD.
--
Dan Goodman
dsg...@visi.com
http://www.visi.com/~dsgood/index.html
Whatever you wish for me, may you have twice as much.
Dan Goodman
Kristopher/EOS <eosl...@net-link.net> wrote:
>Dan Goodman wrote:
>>
>> In article <01bdac9b$4a5d9fc0$d726c8cc@n>,
>> Shinyhat <shin...@rocketmail.com> wrote:
>> >I may have asked this before, but I didn't, so here it is again, although
>> >you've already heard it. .....where that came from, I dont know. Anyway..
>> >
>> >As some of you may know, I'm attempting a fantasy novel, and I'd be
>> >interested to hear any advice you might have on the subject. Not general
>> >advice like "be sure to characterize your characters" and "dont use passive
>> >sentances" but personal suggestions, things that you'd like to see in books
>> >of the Fantasy genre, or things you hate about it that you'd like changed.
>> >That kind of thing. Thanks.
>>
>> Some things I'd like to see less of:
>>
>> 1) mock-medieval settings in general.
>> 2) Bad translations from role-playing games.
>> 3) 70's-80's-90's feminist views from the female characters, 1960's
>> bohemian attitudes toward sex -- and no unplanned pregnancies or VD.
>
>all the sex is somehow intended, on MY part, to cause somebody
>somewhere problems.
>
>I will admit to having a problem writing female characters that are
>accurate to that sort of historical setting:
submissive attitudes,
>acceptance of social strictures, popping out kids, that kind of
>thing.
It's even harder than you might think -- because what was _written_
(mostly by men) about how women acted and thought in those times may not
be entirely accurate.
Women were _supposed_ to have submissive attitudes. And Americans are
_supposed_ to drive at or below the speed limit. I don't know how
submissive women actually were; but it was probably less than has been
reported.
I know what I'm trying for on an intellectual level, but can't
>get my creative process around the idea. A failing on my part.
>
>Where should a "swords-and-(maybe)-magic" fantasy novel be set, if not
>in a somewhat medieval setting?
To begin with, there's no reason a fantasy novel _has_ to have swords in
it. Why shouldn't the elves use pole weapons, or cannon, or AK-47's, or
rayguns, or personal nukes?
That said -- the problem with "a somewhat medieval setting" is that it's
usually fake, fake, fake! The authors get their knowledge of Medieval
Europe partly from reading fantasy novels -- and partly from
popularizations based on the sometimes-ridiculous notions of 19th-Century
historians.
And there are thousands of years of history before the Middle Ages to mine
for backgrounds. And a whole lot of places other than Europe.
For me, there are a couple of other factors:
1) I'm only a couple of generations away from a feudal society, and it's
not all that romantic to me.
2) After seeing the same stuff in story after novel after trilogy, I get
bored with it. Going into a slightly different field: if I know that an
alternate history novel has the South winning at Gettysburg and thus
winning the Civil War, I'm unlikely to read it.
I get tired of seeing the same good-guy thieves, kings whose governments
operate in ways no Medieval government was likely to, etc.
Michael
>>That kind of thing. Thanks.
>
>Some things I'd like to see less of:
>
>1) mock-medieval settings in general.
>2) Bad translations from role-playing games.
>3) 70's-80's-90's feminist views from the female characters, 1960's
>bohemian attitudes toward sex -- and no unplanned pregnancies or VD.
>
>Dan Goodman
>dsg...@visi.com
>http://www.visi.com/~dsgood/index.html
>Whatever you wish for me, may you have twice as much.
4) Less of the unpronouncable names, like "Sk'zlk'plagh" would be
nice.....
The Yank from Down Under.
Jonathan W Hendry
> >> 1) mock-medieval settings in general.
> >> 2) Bad translations from role-playing games.
> >> 3) 70's-80's-90's feminist views from the female characters, 1960's
> >> bohemian attitudes toward sex -- and no unplanned pregnancies or VD.
Might I add the caveat that these would be just fine in a campy
send-up. Especially if they're all combined. Austin Powers in
Middle Earth.
"Hey baby, wanna shag? Ooh, I dig those furry toes! Groovy!"
--
"... and subpoenas for all." - Ken Starr
Dan Goodman
Michael <d983...@mail.connect.usq.edu.au> wrote:
>
>>>That kind of thing. Thanks.
>>
>>Some things I'd like to see less of:
>>
>>2) Bad translations from role-playing games.
>>3) 70's-80's-90's feminist views from the female characters, 1960's
>>bohemian attitudes toward sex -- and no unplanned pregnancies or VD.
>
>nice.....
That one's easier if you remember that the p is silent.
Dan Goodman
Jonathan W Hendry <jhe...@shrike.depaul.edu> wrote:
><Attribution confused. Sorry!>
>> >> 1) mock-medieval settings in general.
>> >> 2) Bad translations from role-playing games.
>> >> 3) 70's-80's-90's feminist views from the female characters, 1960's
>> >> bohemian attitudes toward sex -- and no unplanned pregnancies or VD.
>
>send-up. Especially if they're all combined. Austin Powers in
>Middle Earth.
To distinguish that campy send-up from others already published, I would
suggest adding a few more anachronisms and improbabilities. For example:
Thieves go on strike, with bad effects on the economy.
Someone is given The Bloodthirsty, Mindwarping Sword which weakens its
owner every time it makes a kill -- and addicts its owner to killing. The
new owner then uses this weapon exclusively to chop vegetables.
The Evil Duke turns out to be a figurehead -- the _real_ mastermind is his
horse.
Gareth Wilson
> >As some of you may know, I'm attempting a fantasy novel, and I'd be
> >interested to hear any advice you might have on the subject. Not general
> >advice like "be sure to characterize your characters" and "dont use passive
> >sentances" but personal suggestions, things that you'd like to see in books
> >of the Fantasy genre, or things you hate about it that you'd like changed.
I'd like to see more basic thinking about the elements of the fantasy
universe. Why don't the wizards control everything? Is a dwarf really
suited to mining? If demons don't eat, where do they get their energy? I
may be the wrong person to answer this, because I'm not a big fan of
fantasy. I like the Terry Pratchett books and Larry Niven's "mana
shortage" stories, but I feel a lot of fantasy authors haven't really
explored their own mileu.
--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Gareth Wilson
Christchurch
New Zealand
e-mail gr...@student.canterbury.ac.nz
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Heather Rose Jones
: PS: I like passive verbs, damnit!
Um ... shouldn't that be, "Passive verbs are liked by me, may it be
damned!"
Heather Rose Jones
Graydon
Kristopher/EOS <eosl...@net-link.net> wrote:
>I will admit to having a problem writing female characters that are
>accurate to that sort of historical setting: submissive attitudes,
>acceptance of social strictures, popping out kids, that kind of
>get my creative process around the idea. A failing on my part.
Go read "The Wife of Bath's Tale". (Geoffrey Chaucer, just in case I need
to add that.)
--
goo...@interlog.com | "However many ways there may be of being alive, it
--> mail to Graydon | is certain that there are vastly more ways of being
dead." - Richard Dawkins, :The Blind Watchmaker:
Alma Hromic
>To begin with, there's no reason a fantasy novel _has_ to have swords in
>it. Why shouldn't the elves use pole weapons, or cannon, or AK-47's, or
>rayguns, or personal nukes?
because cannon and AK-47s and rayguns and personal nukes are not
fantasy. they are reality. and what you are writing is science
fiction, not fantasy. (and any elf you care to name who is caught dead
(if you'll forgive the phrase) toting a sawn-off shotgun in a fantasy
setting would be laughed out of court).
you may or may not like fantasy as a genre, or like WRITING fantasy as
a genre, but if you do you are constrained by the rules of that genre.
>That said -- the problem with "a somewhat medieval setting" is that it's
>usually fake, fake, fake! The authors get their knowledge of Medieval
>Europe partly from reading fantasy novels -- and partly from popularizations
>based on the sometimes-ridiculous notions of 19th-Century historians.
>And there are thousands of years of history before the Middle Ages to mine
>for backgrounds. And a whole lot of places other than Europe.
this, on the other hand, is very true, and as far as i know there are
plenty of novels out there which have used other settings as models -
roman, greek, norse, russian, arabian, byzantine, even early american
colonial (at a push) settings come to mind immediately. and i agree,
the trouble with the medieval thang is that it's been done to death.
HOWEVER, there is always the chance that a writer may do it WELL. <g>
don't get terminally prejudiced against the middle ages as soon as you
think of a fantasy novel. the fact remains that this was a time just
MADE for running round on heroic quests swinging swords and rescuing
damosels. this of course is the reason why so many fantasy writers
choose it - it's self-defining and they don't have to think too hard.
i do believe, however, that a writer has to do the requisite research
for a chosen setting - ANY chosen setting. and painting Hollywood
Normans and cartoon Elves helps neither the writer nor the reader
unlucky enough to be lured into the trap of such a bedevilled world.
>For me, there are a couple of other factors:
>1) I'm only a couple of generations away from a feudal society, and it's
>not all that romantic to me.
the middle ages, if you look at the truth of them, were hardly
romantic at all - but if you'te that one step removed from knee-deep
mud in the streets, rampant disease and concomitantly appalling
medicine, and unsanitary plumbing it isn't hard to tune these out and
see only the pretty dresses and the shining armour.
>2) After seeing the same stuff in story after novel after trilogy, I get
>bored with it. Going into a slightly different field: if I know that an
>alternate history novel has the South winning at Gettysburg and thus
>winning the Civil War, I'm unlikely to read it.
yep. there is that. some themes have been Done To Death and then some.
>I get tired of seeing the same good-guy thieves, kings whose governments
>operate in ways no Medieval government was likely to, etc.
so? get out there and create your own thieves.
me, i'm busy cutpursing my latest fantasy novel <g>
A.
***********************************************************************
--Skills are the flowers you get if you water your talent bush enough.
Arethusa (a.k.a Spider Robinson)
Quoted under the Spider Robinson Seal of Approval
**********************************************************************
WooF
On Tue, 14 Jul 1998, Alma Hromic wrote:
> On Tue, 14 Jul 1998 04:48:28 GMT, dsg...@visi.com (Dan Goodman) wrote:
>
> >To begin with, there's no reason a fantasy novel _has_ to have swords in
> >it. Why shouldn't the elves use pole weapons, or cannon, or AK-47's, or
> >rayguns, or personal nukes?
>
> because cannon and AK-47s and rayguns and personal nukes are not
> fantasy. they are reality. and what you are writing is science
> fiction, not fantasy. [snip discussion]
But this would exclude more than half the stories that appeared in the
magazine _Unknown Worlds,_ which is generally considered the best fantasy
magazine ever. Many many of the fantasy stories in those famous 39 issues
had contemporary settings.
George Scithers of owls...@netaxs.com
Alexander J Berman
I believe Alma is speaking of the "traditional" fantasy--quests, far-off
lands (like New Zealand, Alma?), wizards, witches, et cetera. While many of
these elements can be brought into contemporary or urban fantasy, Frodo
Steinbaum, Actuary, doesn't make much of a standard fantasy hero (though, to
be wholly honest, having typed that name and title, I'm already thinking of a
story). Likewise, elves fighting beside Ron Kovic or William Calley would be
pretty jarring.
Alex Jay Berman
"Yeah, buddy; I'm a vet." "Good ta meetcha, man--Mike Taylor, Da Nang, '67."
"Oloft Bolgenkrohn; Tir Na Nog, Seventeenth Solstice."
"That which is most needed is a loving heart."--Buddha
Sion Arrowsmith
Dan Goodman <dsg...@visi.com> wrote:
>Some things I'd like to see less of:
>
>1) mock-medieval settings in general.
>2) Bad translations from role-playing games.
And Diana Wynne Jones's _Tough Guide to Fantasyland_ will point
out precisely what is wrong when people do these. (For anyone
who's not met this book yet, please do so. It's a really fun
read and anyone even thinking of writing heroic fantasy should
study it very carefully first to find out where all the well-
trodden paths are.)
>3) 70's-80's-90's feminist views from the female characters, 1960's
>bohemian attitudes toward sex -- and no unplanned pregnancies or VD.
It's the prevalence of magic which allows it, you see....
--
\S -- si...@chiark.greenend.org.uk -- http://www.chaos.org.uk/~sion/
___ | 16th National Bisexual Conference -- http://bi.org/~bicon/
\X/ | "Frankly I have no feelings about penguins one way or the other"
<*> | -- Arthur C. Clarke
Nancy Lebovitz
Gareth Wilson <gr...@student.canterbury.ac.nz> wrote:
>
>I'd like to see more basic thinking about the elements of the fantasy
>universe. Why don't the wizards control everything? Is a dwarf really
For the same reasons that scientists don't control everything.
>suited to mining? If demons don't eat, where do they get their energy? I
>may be the wrong person to answer this, because I'm not a big fan of
>fantasy. I like the Terry Pratchett books and Larry Niven's "mana
>shortage" stories, but I feel a lot of fantasy authors haven't really
>explored their own mileu.
>
>--
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>Gareth Wilson
>Christchurch
>New Zealand
>e-mail gr...@student.canterbury.ac.nz
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
--
Nancy Lebovitz (nan...@universe.digex.net)
May '98 calligraphic button catalogue available by email!
Kristopher/EOS
>
> In article <35AAD773...@net-link.net>,
> Kristopher/EOS <eosl...@net-link.net> wrote:
> >>
> >> In article <01bdac9b$4a5d9fc0$d726c8cc@n>,
> >> Shinyhat <shin...@rocketmail.com> wrote:
> >> >I may have asked this before, but I didn't, so here it is again, although
> >> >you've already heard it. .....where that came from, I dont know. Anyway..
> >> >
> >> >interested to hear any advice you might have on the subject. Not general
> >> >advice like "be sure to characterize your characters" and "dont use passive
> >> >sentances" but personal suggestions, things that you'd like to see in books
> >> >of the Fantasy genre, or things you hate about it that you'd like changed.
> >> >That kind of thing. Thanks.
> >>
> >>
> >> 1) mock-medieval settings in general.
> >> 2) Bad translations from role-playing games.
> >> bohemian attitudes toward sex -- and no unplanned pregnancies or VD.
> >
> >all the sex is somehow intended, on MY part, to cause somebody
> >somewhere problems.
> >
> >accurate to that sort of historical setting:
> submissive attitudes,
> >acceptance of social strictures, popping out kids, that kind of
> >thing.
>
> (mostly by men) about how women acted and thought in those times may not
> be entirely accurate.
>
> Women were _supposed_ to have submissive attitudes. And Americans are
> _supposed_ to drive at or below the speed limit. I don't know how
> submissive women actually were; but it was probably less than has been
> reported.
>
> >get my creative process around the idea. A failing on my part.
> >
> >in a somewhat medieval setting?
>
> it. Why shouldn't the elves use pole weapons, or cannon, or AK-47's, or
> rayguns, or personal nukes?
>
> usually fake, fake, fake! The authors get their knowledge of Medieval
> Europe partly from reading fantasy novels -- and partly from
> popularizations based on the sometimes-ridiculous notions of 19th-Century
> historians.
>
> And there are thousands of years of history before the Middle Ages to mine
> for backgrounds. And a whole lot of places other than Europe.
>
> 1) I'm only a couple of generations away from a feudal society, and it's
> not all that romantic to me.
>
> bored with it. Going into a slightly different field: if I know that an
> alternate history novel has the South winning at Gettysburg and thus
> winning the Civil War, I'm unlikely to read it.
>
> operate in ways no Medieval government was likely to, etc.
I see. Personally, I'm trying to write my fantasy novel in a
quasi-Arabian setting, with a Islam/pre-Islam mix. Sort of history
meets Scheherazade, I guess. The problem is, it's harder than hell to
find good information on the medieval Near East, and even harder for
the non-Roman Near East prior to Islam.
Kristopher/EOS
Nancy Lebovitz
Dan Goodman <dsg...@visi.com> wrote:
>
>It's even harder than you might think -- because what was _written_
>(mostly by men) about how women acted and thought in those times may not
>be entirely accurate.
>
>Women were _supposed_ to have submissive attitudes. And Americans are
>_supposed_ to drive at or below the speed limit. I don't know how
>submissive women actually were; but it was probably less than has been
>reported.
>
suggests that women weren't very submissive. After all, we don't
make rules saying that things ought to fall down when dropped.
On the other hand, I've heard of studies showing that men talk
more than women. Mercifully, the "chattering woman" stereotype
has faded quite a bit, but if the stereotype was opposite to
the reality, it suggests that people were expecting women to
talk very little. Perhaps medieval women were fairly submissive
by modern standards, but not as submissive as medieval men
thought they should be.
Charles Kupperman
> It's even harder than you might think -- because what was _written_
> (mostly by men) about how women acted and thought in those times may not
> be entirely accurate.
Check out the Wife of Bath in Chaucer's _Canterbury Tales_ for one
decidedly un-submissive medieval women.
Charles
--
"Everybody's got an aura, it can either work against ya or it can work for
ya, Everbody's got a karma, if you're not careful it can harm ya."
-- Chaka Khan
PWrede6492
writes:
>because cannon and AK-47s and rayguns and personal nukes are not
>fantasy. they are reality. and what you are writing is science
>fiction, not fantasy. (and any elf you care to name who is caught dead
>(if you'll forgive the phrase) toting a sawn-off shotgun in a fantasy
>setting would be laughed out of court).
You mean like Poul Anderson's MIDSUMMER TEMPEST, Diana Wynne
Jones' Dalemark and Chrestomanci serieses, Joel Rosenberg's Guardians
of the Flame series, the Liavek collections, Caroline Stevermer's COLLEGE
OF MAGICS, Rosemary Edgehill's modern-fantasy series with the compound
titles I can never remember, Lois McMaster Bujold's THE SPIRIT RING,
Orson Scott Card's Alvin Maker books, and John M. Ford's THE DRAGON
WAITING, to name just a few books that have been published within
the fantasy genre and that all include guns and/or cannon? Or the
rather large number of "punk elf" modern fantasy novels I see on
the shelves these days? To say nothing of all the short stories that
include firearms of one sort or another and that manage to get published
in genre fantasy magazines and anthologies anyway.
You may very well find the concept of an elf with a sawed-off shotgun
to be ridiculous, taken out of context...but in the right book, by the
right writer, it wouldn't be ridiculous at all. Making unreasonable
things work is part of the writer's job. Certainly it is not, *by itself*,
a sufficient reason for an editor to reject a book.
>you may or may not like fantasy as a genre, or like WRITING fantasy as
>a genre, but if you do you are constrained by the rules of that genre.
I am not aware of any rules for writing genre fantasy, other than "you
have to write something that an editor is willing to buy and publish
as genre fantasy." Possibly you are referring to a specific sub-genre,
rather than to the fantasy field as a whole? But just because there
has been little "epic quest fantasy" published with a modern setting
doesn't mean that it's a ridiculous or unpublishable idea. And even
the various fantasy sub-genres don't have "rules" for people who
"want to write in them;" they're generally an after-the-fact marketing
classification.
Patricia C. Wrede
PWrede6492
(Heather Rose Jones) writes:
>Kristopher/EOS (eosl...@net-link.net) wrote:
>
>: PS: I like passive verbs, damnit!
>
>Um ... shouldn't that be, "Passive verbs are liked by me, may it be
>damned!"
Pedantic destinction: There's a difference between "passive verbs"
and "passive voice." "Passive verbs are liked by me" is written in
passive voice, which is a clearly defined grammatical concept.
"Passive verbs" is a term that somebody made up for a particular
type of verb, and I'm actually not at all sure what it is *supposed* to
mean because it is so often misapplied to every construction using
any variation of "to be," including all of the progressive tenses.
Patricia C. Wrede
Graydon
WooF <owls...@netaxs.com> wrote:
>On Tue, 14 Jul 1998, Alma Hromic wrote:
>> On Tue, 14 Jul 1998 04:48:28 GMT, dsg...@visi.com (Dan Goodman) wrote:
>> >it. Why shouldn't the elves use pole weapons, or cannon, or AK-47's, or
>> >rayguns, or personal nukes?
>>
>> fantasy. they are reality. and what you are writing is science
>
>But this would exclude more than half the stories that appeared in the
>magazine _Unknown Worlds,_ which is generally considered the best fantasy
>magazine ever. Many many of the fantasy stories in those famous 39 issues
>had contemporary settings.
I would also like to note that at least rayguns and personal nukes
_aren't_ reality. They're a maybe at best.
If chemistry is enough like what we're used to that they're recognizably
people and bread rises and such like, there isn't really an obvious reason
they _can't_ have gunpowder and metal casting and precision parts and
fission or fusion. It may take them some goodly while to figure out
_how_, and it might make things very differently difficult - casting,
frex, gets much much much easier if you can, as showed up in LMB's :The
Spirit Ring:, use magical energy to heat the melt _in the mold_.
Graydon
Nancy Lebovitz <nan...@universe.digex.net> wrote:
>talk very little. Perhaps medieval women were fairly submissive
>by modern standards, but not as submissive as medieval men
>thought they should be.
Well, just for starters, it would be a challenge to find a medieval who
seemed mannerly by modern standards.
Meek women were considered desireable for a long time, and this was pushed
heavily in the upper classes, becuase it was important that one's
daughters marry whom they were told to marry, but it's basically
impossible to argue that the ideal in question ever came into any wider
currency than any modern ideal of dress or conduct has.
Certainly, out of the nobility, women were running business and suchlike
through most of the medieval period; it wasn't until the 1400s when the
guilds really got going and started trying to squeeze women out of
business in England.
miketotty
>
>
> because cannon and AK-47s and rayguns and personal nukes are not
> fantasy. they are reality. and what you are writing is science
> fiction, not fantasy. (and any elf you care to name who is caught dead
> (if you'll forgive the phrase) toting a sawn-off shotgun in a fantasy
> setting would be laughed out of court).
But swords (and...daggers, polearms, hlbreds, scimitars) are
reality. Why would you limit fantasy to pre-gunpowder era?
>
> you may or may not like fantasy as a genre, or like WRITING fantasy as
> a genre, but if you do you are constrained by the rules of that genre.
I would disagree with your _rules_.
> HOWEVER, there is always the chance that a writer may do it WELL. <g>
> don't get terminally prejudiced against the middle ages as soon as you
> think of a fantasy novel. the fact remains that this was a time just
> MADE for running round on heroic quests swinging swords and rescuing
> damosels. this of course is the reason why so many fantasy writers
> choose it - it's self-defining and they don't have to think too hard.
> i do believe, however, that a writer has to do the requisite research
> for a chosen setting - ANY chosen setting. and painting Hollywood
> Normans and cartoon Elves helps neither the writer nor the reader
> unlucky enough to be lured into the trap of such a bedevilled world.
I don't know, they didn't really go on that many heroic quests in
the Middle Ages, so what makes it so much more applicable? The
conquistadors were the heroic quest type.
Fantasy writers choose it because 1. Tolkien 2. Arthurian legend
cycles 3. Tolkien.
miketotty
Steve Turnbull
Kristopher/EOS <eosl...@net-link.net> wrote:
> Where should a "swords-and-(maybe)-magic" fantasy novel be set, if not
> in a somewhat medieval setting?
Try Randall Garrett's "Lord D'Arcy" books for an answer.
--
Steve Turnbull (st...@turnbull.cix.co.uk)
http://www.cix.co.uk/~turnbull/
Sometime author and vagabond freelance editor
Dan Goodman
Alma Hromic <ang...@ihug.co.nz> wrote:
>On Tue, 14 Jul 1998 04:48:28 GMT, dsg...@visi.com (Dan Goodman) wrote:
>
>>To begin with, there's no reason a fantasy novel _has_ to have swords in
>>it. Why shouldn't the elves use pole weapons, or cannon, or AK-47's, or
>>rayguns, or personal nukes?
>
>fantasy. they are reality. and what you are writing is science
>fiction, not fantasy. (and any elf you care to name who is caught dead
>(if you'll forgive the phrase) toting a sawn-off shotgun in a fantasy
>setting would be laughed out of court).
Swords are _also_ reality.
As for being "laughed out of court" -- speaking only of fairly recent
stuff, that hasn't happened to Charles De Lint (I recommend _Somewhere to
Be Flying_, set in the wondrous magickal land of Canada), Mercedes Lackey
(I can't remember titles right now, but she has a series in which elves
race cars), Michael Swanwick (_The Iron Dragon's Daughter_), Rachel
Pollack (_Temporary Agency_ and others), Elizabeth Ann Scarborough (series
with "Godmother" as part of each title; latest is _The Godmother Web_).
>you may or may not like fantasy as a genre, or like WRITING fantasy as
>a genre, but if you do you are constrained by the rules of that genre.
Unless, of course, you can get away with breaking them.
And the rules are by no means as restrictive as you seem to think they
are: see above.
>>That said -- the problem with "a somewhat medieval setting" is that it's
>>usually fake, fake, fake! The authors get their knowledge of Medieval
>>Europe partly from reading fantasy novels -- and partly from popularizations
>>based on the sometimes-ridiculous notions of 19th-Century historians.
>>And there are thousands of years of history before the Middle Ages to mine
>>for backgrounds. And a whole lot of places other than Europe.
>
>this, on the other hand, is very true, and as far as i know there are
>plenty of novels out there which have used other settings as models -
>roman, greek, norse, russian, arabian, byzantine, even early american
>colonial (at a push) settings come to mind immediately. and i agree,
>the trouble with the medieval thang is that it's been done to death.
>HOWEVER, there is always the chance that a writer may do it WELL. <g>
>don't get terminally prejudiced against the middle ages as soon as you
>think of a fantasy novel. the fact remains that this was a time just
>MADE for running round on heroic quests swinging swords and rescuing
>damosels. this of course is the reason why so many fantasy writers
>choose it - it's self-defining and they don't have to think too hard.
>i do believe, however, that a writer has to do the requisite research
>for a chosen setting - ANY chosen setting. and painting Hollywood
>Normans and cartoon Elves helps neither the writer nor the reader
>unlucky enough to be lured into the trap of such a bedevilled world.
>
>>For me, there are a couple of other factors:
>>1) I'm only a couple of generations away from a feudal society, and it's
>>not all that romantic to me.
>
>the middle ages, if you look at the truth of them, were hardly
>romantic at all - but if you'te that one step removed from knee-deep
>mud in the streets, rampant disease and concomitantly appalling
>medicine, and unsanitary plumbing it isn't hard to tune these out and
>see only the pretty dresses and the shining armour.
>
>>2) After seeing the same stuff in story after novel after trilogy, I get
>>bored with it. Going into a slightly different field: if I know that an
>>alternate history novel has the South winning at Gettysburg and thus
>>winning the Civil War, I'm unlikely to read it.
>
>yep. there is that. some themes have been Done To Death and then some.
>
>>I get tired of seeing the same good-guy thieves, kings whose governments
>>operate in ways no Medieval government was likely to, etc.
>
>so? get out there and create your own thieves.
Don't like them enough to do them.
Dan Goodman
Sion Arrowsmith <si...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
>In article <EuAq1.1840$IA2.7...@ptah.visi.com>,
>Dan Goodman <dsg...@visi.com> wrote:
>>Some things I'd like to see less of:
>>
>>1) mock-medieval settings in general.
>>2) Bad translations from role-playing games.
>
>out precisely what is wrong when people do these. (For anyone
>who's not met this book yet, please do so. It's a really fun
>read and anyone even thinking of writing heroic fantasy should
>study it very carefully first to find out where all the well-
>trodden paths are.)
Unfortunately, that hasn't been published in North America.
>>3) 70's-80's-90's feminist views from the female characters, 1960's
>>bohemian attitudes toward sex -- and no unplanned pregnancies or VD.
>
>It's the prevalence of magic which allows it, you see....
Jay Random
>
> And Diana Wynne Jones's _Tough Guide to Fantasyland_ will point
> out precisely what is wrong when people do these. (For anyone
> who's not met this book yet, please do so. It's a really fun
> read and anyone even thinking of writing heroic fantasy should
> study it very carefully first to find out where all the well-
> trodden paths are.)
It is also out of print in North America -- gah! I've been trying
unsuccessfully for months to get hold of a copy.
--J. Random Toughly Unguided, D.G.F.V.
Dan Goodman
Alexander J Berman <smeg...@erols.com> wrote:
>In article <Pine.SUN.3.95.98071...@unix2.netaxs.com>, WooF <owls...@netaxs.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>On Tue, 14 Jul 1998, Alma Hromic wrote:
>>
>>> On Tue, 14 Jul 1998 04:48:28 GMT, dsg...@visi.com (Dan Goodman) wrote:
>>>
>>> >To begin with, there's no reason a fantasy novel _has_ to have swords in
>>> >it. Why shouldn't the elves use pole weapons, or cannon, or AK-47's, or
>>> >rayguns, or personal nukes?
>>>
>>> because cannon and AK-47s and rayguns and personal nukes are not
>>> fantasy. they are reality. and what you are writing is science
>>
>>But this would exclude more than half the stories that appeared in the
>>magazine _Unknown Worlds,_ which is generally considered the best fantasy
>>magazine ever. Many many of the fantasy stories in those famous 39 issues
>>had contemporary settings.
>>
>
>I believe Alma is speaking of the "traditional" fantasy--quests, far-off
>lands (like New Zealand, Alma?), wizards, witches, et cetera.
That's not what she said. It may or may not be what she meant.
While many of
>these elements can be brought into contemporary or urban fantasy, Frodo
>Steinbaum, Actuary, doesn't make much of a standard fantasy hero
How about an accountant? L. Sprague De Camp, _Solomon's Ring_.
(though, to
>be wholly honest, having typed that name and title, I'm already thinking of a
>story). Likewise, elves fighting beside Ron Kovic or William Calley would be
>pretty jarring.
>
>Alex Jay Berman
>"Yeah, buddy; I'm a vet." "Good ta meetcha, man--Mike Taylor, Da Nang, '67."
>"Oloft Bolgenkrohn; Tir Na Nog, Seventeenth Solstice."
Why?
Jay Random
>
> In article <9XB*SB...@news.chiark.greenend.org.uk>,
> Sion Arrowsmith <si...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
> >In article <EuAq1.1840$IA2.7...@ptah.visi.com>,
> >Dan Goodman <dsg...@visi.com> wrote:
> >>Some things I'd like to see less of:
> >>
> >>1) mock-medieval settings in general.
> >>2) Bad translations from role-playing games.
> >
> >out precisely what is wrong when people do these. (For anyone
> >who's not met this book yet, please do so. It's a really fun
> >read and anyone even thinking of writing heroic fantasy should
> >study it very carefully first to find out where all the well-
> >trodden paths are.)
>
It was published in North America, actually... & probably stayed in
print for the standard 30 days before the chains stripped & pulped it.
Bleah.
--J. Random Recycles _After_ Reading, D.G.F.V.
Dan Goodman
Graydon <goo...@interlog.com> wrote:
>In article <Pine.SUN.3.95.98071...@unix2.netaxs.com>,
>WooF <owls...@netaxs.com> wrote:
>>On Tue, 14 Jul 1998, Alma Hromic wrote:
>>> On Tue, 14 Jul 1998 04:48:28 GMT, dsg...@visi.com (Dan Goodman) wrote:
>>> >To begin with, there's no reason a fantasy novel _has_ to have swords in
>>> >it. Why shouldn't the elves use pole weapons, or cannon, or AK-47's, or
>>> >rayguns, or personal nukes?
>>>
>>> because cannon and AK-47s and rayguns and personal nukes are not
>>> fantasy. they are reality. and what you are writing is science
>>> fiction, not fantasy. [snip discussion]
>>
>>But this would exclude more than half the stories that appeared in the
>>magazine _Unknown Worlds,_ which is generally considered the best fantasy
>>magazine ever. Many many of the fantasy stories in those famous 39 issues
>>had contemporary settings.
>
>_aren't_ reality. They're a maybe at best.
>
>If chemistry is enough like what we're used to that they're recognizably
>people and bread rises and such like, there isn't really an obvious reason
>they _can't_ have gunpowder and metal casting and precision parts and
>fission or fusion. It may take them some goodly while to figure out
>_how_, and it might make things very differently difficult - casting,
>frex, gets much much much easier if you can, as showed up in LMB's :The
>Spirit Ring:, use magical energy to heat the melt _in the mold_.
The usual hand-wave is that you can't have magic and "science" (actually,
Renaissance and later material technology) both working in the same place.
A device which I find more plausible: If you have both nonmagical
technology which includes nuclear weapons, and the magical equivalent, you
soon get a situation suitable for discussion on
misc.survivalism.don't-bother-trying. Roger Zelazny used this in the
series which includes _Madwand_.
Dan Goodman
Kristopher/EOS <eosl...@net-link.net> wrote:
>
>I see. Personally, I'm trying to write my fantasy novel in a
>quasi-Arabian setting, with a Islam/pre-Islam mix. Sort of history
>meets Scheherazade, I guess. The problem is, it's harder than hell to
>find good information on the medieval Near East, and even harder for
>the non-Roman Near East prior to Islam.
A good place to ask about such things is soc.history.medieval.
Sometimes there _are_ books available which discuss such things in
language comprehensible to people who don't specialize in that topic.
You might want to read _The Crusades Through Arab Eyes_, edited by Edward
Said -- translations from Arabic documents of the time(s).
A tidbit from the introduction: When the Crusaders first took Jerusalem,
appeals were made to the Caliph of Baghdad to Do Something.
The Caliph appointed a committee to study the problem. The committee was
made up of Islamic scholars, I believe.
There _is_ such a thing as progress. The committee seems not to have made
any written reports. Today, such a committee would make written reports.
Jonathan W Hendry
> Unfortunately, that hasn't been published in North America.
Amazon.com will try to track it down for you.
--
"... and subpoenas for all." - Ken Starr
Jay Random
>
> Dan Goodman <dsg...@visi.com> wrote:
>
> > Unfortunately, that hasn't been published in North America.
>
> Amazon.com will try to track it down for you.
I've tried them. So far it's been a month, & they haven't tracked one
down... even though they could order in a new copy from the UK.
--J. Random Disappointed In Amazon, D.G.F.V.
Jonathan W Hendry
> Jonathan W Hendry wrote:
> >
> > Dan Goodman <dsg...@visi.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Unfortunately, that hasn't been published in North America.
> >
> > Amazon.com will try to track it down for you.
> I've tried them. So far it's been a month, & they haven't tracked one
> down... even though they could order in a new copy from the UK.
Are there any online bookstores in the UK? I've ordered some
CD's from over there and it went swimmingly.
Julian Flood
> it's
> usually fake, fake, fake!
But isn't it what the reader wants wants wants?
--
Julian Flood
jul...@argonet.co.uk
Life: much too important to be taken seriously.
Graydon
Dan Goodman <dsg...@visi.com> wrote:
>In article <6og0fp$6...@excalibur.gooroos.com>,
>Graydon <goo...@interlog.com> wrote:
>>If chemistry is enough like what we're used to that they're recognizably
>>people and bread rises and such like, there isn't really an obvious reason
>>they _can't_ have gunpowder and metal casting and precision parts and
>>fission or fusion. It may take them some goodly while to figure out
>>_how_, and it might make things very differently difficult - casting,
>>frex, gets much much much easier if you can, as showed up in LMB's :The
>>Spirit Ring:, use magical energy to heat the melt _in the mold_.
>
>The usual hand-wave is that you can't have magic and "science" (actually,
>Renaissance and later material technology) both working in the same place.
Yes. It is, as you note, a handwave, and not really credible, becuase
_bread rising or beer fermenting is high tech_. (Really old and
historically poorly understood high tech, but either they don't count and
nanotech doesn't either, or they're high tech.)
>A device which I find more plausible: If you have both nonmagical
>technology which includes nuclear weapons, and the magical equivalent, you
>soon get a situation suitable for discussion on
>misc.survivalism.don't-bother-trying. Roger Zelazny used this in the
>series which includes _Madwand_.
Why on the green earth would you expect that you would get _both_? It's a
magical world; the direct application of will can have material effects.
There won't be 'magic' and 'technology'; there will be 'technology', that
might include a smith singing to the iron to get the carbon put right, or
a brewer singing to the beer, or a choir of more than a thousand people
raising a cathedral, or technical difficulty measured in lives - standard
sacrifical sheep - or some such. The sharp division between magic and
science won't be there, and the two won't be seen as opposed by any
necessary innate difference, although some sort of cultural difference may
apply.
If individuals can produce nuclear fission or fusion, it's still not that
big a deal if a)defenses are easy - the way to induce fission is much
harder than the means to prevent it - of if the amount of energy liberated
is small. Wizards who can produce ~ten tons of TNT equivalent explosions
have military utility, sure, but they're not city levelers and they're
more useful for digging canals.
WooF
Dan Goodman
Julian Flood <jul...@argonet.co.uk> wrote:
> (Dan Goodman) wrote:
>> it's
>> usually fake, fake, fake!
>
>But isn't it what the reader wants wants wants?
Not _this_ reader.
And there are enough people who like something else to keep several
fantasy writers profitably employed.
PWrede6492
Goodman) writes:
>The usual hand-wave is that you can't have magic and "science" (actually,
>Renaissance and later material technology) both working in the same place.
Which is often a not-very-well-thought-out excuse, probably
originating in the tradition that elves don't do cold iron.
It is, however, far more likely that magic and technology will *interact*
in very interesting ways, especially if magic is cheap and/or common.
If you can keep food cold with a cheap spell, as in the Lord Darcy
books, you don't need refrigeration technology; if you can cure
diseases by sticking voodoo pins in models of bacteria, as in Anderson's
OPERATION CHAOS, you don't have nearly as great a need for
antibiotics. But if you have a lot of wizards who can only store
spells in high-grade steel wands, you are likely to have high-grade
steel being mass produced a whole lot sooner than in the real world.
Patricia C. Wrede
pd...@ddb.com
eosl...@net-link.net wrote:
> Dan Goodman wrote:
> >
> > Some things I'd like to see less of:
> >
> > 1) mock-medieval settings in general.
> >
> accurate to that sort of historical setting: submissive attitudes,
> acceptance of social strictures, popping out kids, that kind of
> get my creative process around the idea. A failing on my part.
Actually, that's a list of 1950's American attitudes. They existed in
varying degrees in earlier times, but the entire matter is considerably
more complex than that. Attitudes towards women, their place in the
scheme of things, and their duties, have varied almost all over the
map. And in any age and any society, there have been women who
simply said, To hell with this nonsense. They were generally
desperate, rich, or both, but they have always been there.
--
Pamela Dean Dyer-Bennet pd...@ddb.com
-----== Posted via Deja News, The Leader in Internet Discussion ==-----
http://www.dejanews.com/rg_mkgrp.xp Create Your Own Free Member Forum
pd...@ddb.com
ang...@ihug.co.nz wrote:
> On Tue, 14 Jul 1998 04:48:28 GMT, dsg...@visi.com (Dan Goodman) wrote:
>
> >To begin with, there's no reason a fantasy novel _has_ to have swords in
> >it. Why shouldn't the elves use pole weapons, or cannon, or AK-47's, or
> >rayguns, or personal nukes?
>
> because cannon and AK-47s and rayguns and personal nukes are not
> fantasy. they are reality. and what you are writing is science
> (if you'll forgive the phrase) toting a sawn-off shotgun in a fantasy
> setting would be laughed out of court).
You are missing out on an entire subgenre of fantasy -- urban,
contemporary, whatever you want to call it.
> you may or may not like fantasy as a genre, or like WRITING fantasy as
> a genre, but if you do you are constrained by the rules of that genre.
Excuse me? So Emma Bull's WAR FOR THE OAKS is not fantasy, because
the elves in it play guitars and drive cars?
Just who wrote these rules and why should anybody pay them any mind?
Man, if I'd known about these rules earlier I'd have equipped the
Queen of Elfland with an Uzi.
crth...@my-dejanews.com
Which, by the way, has to have been one of the worst books I've ever read,
second only to Saberhagen's _Merlin's Bones_. But the opinions expressed
herein are solely my own.
--Chad, who doesn't like the idea of industrialized elfdom.
Dan Goodman
PWrede6492 <pwred...@aol.com> wrote:
>In article <b8Nq1.1942$IA2.8...@ptah.visi.com>, dsg...@visi.com (Dan
>Goodman) writes:
>
>>The usual hand-wave is that you can't have magic and "science" (actually,
>>Renaissance and later material technology) both working in the same place.
>
>Which is often a not-very-well-thought-out excuse, probably
>originating in the tradition that elves don't do cold iron.
I recall a couple of Poul Anderson stories in which elves are _more_
technologically advanced. They have to be -- they're forced to use
substitutes like titanium. (Was this in _The Broken Sword_?)
>It is, however, far more likely that magic and technology will *interact*
>in very interesting ways, especially if magic is cheap and/or common.
>If you can keep food cold with a cheap spell, as in the Lord Darcy
>books, you don't need refrigeration technology; if you can cure
>diseases by sticking voodoo pins in models of bacteria, as in Anderson's
>OPERATION CHAOS, you don't have nearly as great a need for
>antibiotics. But if you have a lot of wizards who can only store
>spells in high-grade steel wands, you are likely to have high-grade
>steel being mass produced a whole lot sooner than in the real world.
Meanwhile, you're going to have people doing stuff which isn't either --
but which works.
Example: In certain circumstances, a _random_ decision is better than
what people will come up with if they think. For example -- the animals
in their current hunting grounds have figured out how they operate and can
avoid them. But people don't like to do anything they consider irrational
when something important is at stake.
So they consult an oracle. The oracle's answers are random; but its users
know the answers are _not_ random, but come from something wiser than
themselves.
I suspect there are successful investors whose "investment systems" work
this way.
Dan Goodman
<crth...@my-dejanews.com> wrote:
>In article <tTMq1.1938$IA2.8...@ptah.visi.com>,
> dsg...@visi.com (Dan Goodman) wrote:
>> Michael Swanwick (_The Iron Dragon's Daughter_),
>
>Which, by the way, has to have been one of the worst books I've ever read,
>second only to Saberhagen's _Merlin's Bones_. But the opinions expressed
>herein are solely my own.
>
>--Chad, who doesn't like the idea of industrialized elfdom.
I would have preferred a more sympathetic protagonist -- Jeffrey Dahmer,
for example.
Russell Asplund
Try www.bookshop.co.uk. I was just able to place an order for it there.
It came out to about $18 US.
Russell
Julian Flood
> toting a sawn-off shotgun in a fantasy
> >setting would be laughed out of court).
We all manage to cope with FTL drives in fantasy - why not shotguns? At
least shotguns are real.
Rachael M. Lininger
On 14 Jul 1998, PWrede6492 wrote:
>Pedantic destinction: There's a difference between "passive verbs"
>and "passive voice." "Passive verbs are liked by me" is written in
>passive voice, which is a clearly defined grammatical concept.
>"Passive verbs" is a term that somebody made up for a particular
>type of verb, and I'm actually not at all sure what it is *supposed* to
>mean because it is so often misapplied to every construction using
>any variation of "to be," including all of the progressive tenses.
>
>Patricia C. Wrede
Which is why grammar checkers are really minions of Satan, of no use
whatever, and a serious argument against automated computer
translation.
That's one of the hypotheses for my thesis. It sounds good, but I
don't know how well it'll hold up. They can do amazing things with
AI....
Rachael
--
My newsfeed is antisocial, so please cc to my email account. Thanks.
Rachael M. Lininger
lini...@virtu.sar.usf.edu
Dan Goodman
>In article <35AAD773...@net-link.net>,
> eosl...@net-link.net wrote:
>> Dan Goodman wrote:
>> >
>> > Some things I'd like to see less of:
>> >
>> > 1) mock-medieval settings in general.
>> >
>> I will admit to having a problem writing female characters that are
>> accurate to that sort of historical setting: submissive attitudes,
>> acceptance of social strictures, popping out kids, that kind of
>> thing. I know what I'm trying for on an intellectual level, but can't
>> get my creative process around the idea. A failing on my part.
>
>Actually, that's a list of 1950's American attitudes. They existed in
>varying degrees in earlier times, but the entire matter is considerably
>more complex than that. Attitudes towards women, their place in the
>scheme of things, and their duties, have varied almost all over the
>map. And in any age and any society, there have been women who
>simply said, To hell with this nonsense. They were generally
>desperate, rich, or both, but they have always been there.
During the 1950's, various magazines carried articles about how European
women were better -- because, among other things, they were properly
submissive.
Of course, for all I know, there were European articles about how American
women were properly submissive.
Zeborah
> 4) Less of the unpronouncable names, like "Sk'zlk'plagh" would be
> nice.....
See, I can pronounce that. (with or without the silent 'p' Dan pointed
out)
(It's got three syllables: 's' and 'l' and 'a' are the respective nuclei
(the place where vowels go in English). _k'_ is a _k_ produced with
glottalic air-stream (just do a _k_ if it makes you happier), and _gh_
is to _ch_ in 'Bach' as _g_ is to _k_.)
Then again I sympathise with readers who haven't done linguistics, and I
realise that most authors who write "Sk'zlk'plagh" haven't either.
But, especially in sf, what is one to do when the darned aliens happen
not to have developed the vocal folds as we have, and so speak
exclusively in voiceless sounds, clicks, and a few whistles? The name
of their planet is !s, and they're called things like S||k' Qxh~sn
(which, incidentally, plays havoc with my spellchecker because it
doesn't accept ~ or || as a character).
On the one hand I feel that the reader should at least be grateful that
I transliterated the musical language so they can read "Langita" instead
of "Bsharp crotchet/D minim/G crotchet"; on the other hand I don't want
them throwing the book across the room.
Semi-mitigating circumstances:
1) the first time !s is introduced, the narrator points out that it's
often pronounced 'Tusu', and this is used from time to time.
2) there are only two !san characters semi-regularly mentioned, and if I
have to I can give them similar nicknames; but really the main
characters would call them by the proper name of S||k' Qxh~sn.
Help!?
Zeborah
Jay Random
>
> During the 1950's, various magazines carried articles about how European
> women were better -- because, among other things, they were properly
> submissive.
>
> Of course, for all I know, there were European articles about how American
> women were properly submissive.
No, there were European articles about how American men were proper
wimps.
--J. Random Reader, D.G.F.V.
Aahz Maruch
In article <NrSq1.54$AI4.2...@ptah.visi.com>,
Dan Goodman <dsg...@visi.com> wrote:
>
> [excretia deleted]
Was there some reason you x-posted to alt.skunks with no warning or are
you simply being even more fuggheaded than usual?
--
--- Aahz (@netcom.com)
Hugs and backrubs -- I break Rule 6 <*> http://www.bayarea.net/~aahz
Androgynous poly kinky vanilla queer het
Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.
Jay Random
>
> Try www.bookshop.co.uk. I was just able to place an order for it there.
> It came out to about $18 US.
Did that, thanks. Shipping came to more than the price of the bloody
book, so I ordered three copies. (£4.99 + £6.50 shipping for one, £14.97
+ £6.75 for three!) Now I shall have Christmas presents for my writing
friends this year....
--J. Random Gets Pounded In Sterling, D.G.F.V.
Dorothy J Heydt
Zeborah <fitc...@netaccess.co.nz> wrote:
>On the one hand I feel that the reader should at least be grateful that
>I transliterated the musical language so they can read "Langita" instead
>of "Bsharp crotchet/D minim/G crotchet"; on the other hand I don't want
>them throwing the book across the room.
Oh, heavens, yes, particularly since in the US at least musicians
haven't used the terms "crotchet" or "minim" since about the turn
of the *last* century. Are they still common terms in Britain and
the Commonwealth?
(They translate to "quarter note" and "half note", I *think.* I used
to have a kiddies' encyclopedia that taught some basic musical
theory using those terms; from the look of the clothes it dated
from somewhere between 1890 and 1905.)
Dorothy J. Heydt
Albany, California
djh...@kithrup.com
http://www.kithrup.com/~djheydt
_A Point of Honor_ is out....
Dan Goodman
> [p&e]
>
> In article <NrSq1.54$AI4.2...@ptah.visi.com>,
> Dan Goodman <dsg...@visi.com> wrote:
> >
> > [excretia deleted]
>
> Was there some reason you x-posted to alt.skunks with no warning or are
> you simply being even more fuggheaded than usual?
The comment chain started in alt.skunks.
Chris Barwick
>Oh, heavens, yes, particularly since in the US at least musicians
>haven't used the terms "crotchet" or "minim" since about the turn
>of the *last* century. Are they still common terms in Britain and
>the Commonwealth?
>
>(They translate to "quarter note" and "half note", I *think.* I used
>to have a kiddies' encyclopedia that taught some basic musical
>theory using those terms; from the look of the clothes it dated
>from somewhere between 1890 and 1905.)
>
Australia at least still uses the terms crotchet and minim. At least when I
did music in high school, about fifteen years ago. I doubt there would have
been any change.
Chris Barwick
keith
scraping,' 'going hither and thither through the Earth,' and just plain
sublimating the subliminal commands of their Overlords. Mobility is
energy, so fast, competitive demons stay alert and active, while slow,
lethargic, demons get their lights snuffed.
Sf authors should be more aware of classics like Flatland, i.e.
mathematical science fiction. Unique signs and signatures are no less
predictable than their Euclidean counterparts, e.g. fingerprints, if
individuals, are still conditioned by certain patterns. Thinking like this
makes elitist fascists, e.g B.F.Skinner, the social architect and failed
vice president Barbabra Marx Hubbard, and Hari Seldon. Regular geoometries
obtain randomness through rhyhthm, e.g. oscillations of elliptic
cross-sections scoring matter. Just watch Fantasia's interpretation of
Bach's Tocatta in Fugue.
An angelic circle can, through a slight miscalculation, warp into a spiral.
Thus goeth covalent, bonded, inorganics the way of the double helix.
Animals translate minerals via pi, or some more irreducible root,
ultimately personified by the EKG brainwave.
Gareth Wilson <gr...@student.canterbury.ac.nz> wrote in article
<35AAF2...@student.canterbury.ac.nz>...
> > Shinyhat <shin...@rocketmail.com> wrote:
> > >As some of you may know, I'm attempting a fantasy novel, and I'd be
> > >interested to hear any advice you might have on the subject. Not
general
> > >advice like "be sure to characterize your characters" and "dont use
passive
> > >sentances" but personal suggestions, things that you'd like to see in
books
> > >of the Fantasy genre, or things you hate about it that you'd like
changed.
> > >That kind of thing. Thanks.
>
> I'd like to see more basic thinking about the elements of the fantasy
> universe. Why don't the wizards control everything? Is a dwarf really
> suited to mining? If demons don't eat, where do they get their energy? I
> may be the wrong person to answer this, because I'm not a big fan of
> fantasy. I like the Terry Pratchett books and Larry Niven's "mana
> shortage" stories, but I feel a lot of fantasy authors haven't really
> explored their own mileu.
>
> --
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Gareth Wilson
> Christchurch
> New Zealand
> e-mail gr...@student.canterbury.ac.nz
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
Dan Goodman
Julian Flood <jul...@argonet.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> toting a sawn-off shotgun in a fantasy
>> >setting would be laughed out of court).
>
>We all manage to cope with FTL drives in fantasy - why not shotguns? At
>least shotguns are real.
Actually, if the story has an FTL drive in it, it's usually science
fiction.
If there are spaceships, it's science fiction. If there are elves, it's
fantasy. If there are both elves and spaceships? Let's discuss something
simpler, like "Is it still a murder mystery if the victim rises from the
grave?"
--
Alma Hromic
>> >To begin with, there's no reason a fantasy novel _has_ to have swords in
>> >it. Why shouldn't the elves use pole weapons, or cannon, or AK-47's, or
>> >rayguns, or personal nukes?
>>
>> because cannon and AK-47s and rayguns and personal nukes are not
>> fantasy. they are reality. and what you are writing is science
>> fiction, not fantasy. [snip discussion]
>
>But this would exclude more than half the stories that appeared in the
>magazine _Unknown Worlds,_ which is generally considered the best fantasy
>magazine ever. Many many of the fantasy stories in those famous 39 issues
>had contemporary settings.
yes but even if so they relied on magic to make their point, in some
way or another.
or mebbe i am just putting too fine a line on the definition of
fantasy, as a genre, for people to entirely agree with.
i read "contemporary" fantasy as *fiction*, not pure fantasy, that's
all.
A.
***********************************************************************
--Skills are the flowers you get if you water your talent bush enough.
Arethusa (a.k.a Spider Robinson)
Quoted under the Spider Robinson Seal of Approval
**********************************************************************
Alma Hromic
Berman) wrote:
>>> because cannon and AK-47s and rayguns and personal nukes are not
>>> fantasy. they are reality. and what you are writing is science
>>> fiction, not fantasy. [snip discussion]
>>But this would exclude more than half the stories that appeared in the
>>magazine _Unknown Worlds,_ which is generally considered the best fantasy
>>magazine ever. Many many of the fantasy stories in those famous 39 issues
>>had contemporary settings.
>I believe Alma is speaking of the "traditional" fantasy--quests, far-off
>lands (like New Zealand, Alma?), wizards, witches, et cetera. While many of
>these elements can be brought into contemporary or urban fantasy, Frodo
>Steinbaum, Actuary, doesn't make much of a standard fantasy hero (though, to
>be wholly honest, having typed that name and title, I'm already thinking of a
>story). Likewise, elves fighting beside Ron Kovic or William Calley would be
>pretty jarring.
>
like New Zealand, Alex <g> i'm writing something at the moment that
has a dash of classical greek, some venetian decadence, a pinch of
bucolic pastorale and a heroic condiment or two - and all set in a
recognisably New Zealand landscape. and damme, it works.
and it's *pure* fantasy, in the sense that i do not allow any
complicated machinery around.
Alma Hromic
>>>> >To begin with, there's no reason a fantasy novel _has_ to have swords in
>>>> >it. Why shouldn't the elves use pole weapons, or cannon, or AK-47's, or
>>>> >rayguns, or personal nukes?
>>>> because cannon and AK-47s and rayguns and personal nukes are not
>>>> fantasy. they are reality. and what you are writing is science
>>>> fiction, not fantasy. [snip discussion]
>>I believe Alma is speaking of the "traditional" fantasy--quests, far-off
>>lands (like New Zealand, Alma?), wizards, witches, et cetera.
>That's not what she said. It may or may not be what she meant.
i may have been imprecise. however, i would still maintain that the
only reason anything with a personal nuke in it would be called a
fantasy would be if it fell into the realm of "any sufficiently
advanced technology could be called magic".
case in point, if you like. the callahan stories of spider robinson.
would you consider those fantasy or science fiction? to me, they're
squarely SF - the fact that they sometimes have characters from the
realm of the Daoine Sidhe is neither here nor there. these are stories
whose antecedents include sophisticated concepts of time travel, space
travel and space aliens.
Alma Hromic
>>If chemistry is enough like what we're used to that they're recognizably
>>people and bread rises and such like, there isn't really an obvious reason
>>they _can't_ have gunpowder and metal casting and precision parts and
>>fission or fusion. It may take them some goodly while to figure out
>>_how_, and it might make things very differently difficult - casting,
>>frex, gets much much much easier if you can, as showed up in LMB's :The
>>Spirit Ring:, use magical energy to heat the melt _in the mold_.
>The usual hand-wave is that you can't have magic and "science" (actually,
>Renaissance and later material technology) both working in the same place.
>A device which I find more plausible: If you have both nonmagical
>technology which includes nuclear weapons, and the magical equivalent, you
>soon get a situation suitable for discussion on misc.survivalism.don't-bother-trying.
>Roger Zelazny used this in the series which includes _Madwand_.
eh. if you're going to invoke zelazny what about the fact that
gunpowder won't ignite in amber? <smile>
to have an equal "conflict" you have to arm the opposing sides in
equal ways - otherwise you get what happened when western settlers met
american indians. when you start fighting firearms with bows and
arrows you inevitably - EVENTUALLY - wind up coming off second best.
and the sort of magic that would be involved in creating some of the
more sophisticated weapons we can think of would *be* technology. by
definition.
A.
David C. Pugh
Dan Goodman wrote in message ...
(...)
>You might want to read _The Crusades Through Arab Eyes_, edited by Edward
>Said -- translations from Arabic documents of the time(s).
>
Sorry to pick nits, but you have a three-way confusion here. The book of
that title is by Amin Maalouf and is not composed of translations. There is
a book which is composed of translated sources, but that is edited by
Gabrieli and is called "Arab Historians of the Crusades". Edward Said is
mostly a political commentator and AFAIK has not written a book on these
lines.
(...)
David Pugh
Graydon
>Man, if I'd known about these rules earlier I'd have equipped the
>Queen of Elfland with an Uzi.
I suspect she still finds it more elegant to turn people into newts.
One of those automated clothing-cutter CAD systems, now _that_ I can see
being considered a useful instance of technology.
--
goo...@interlog.com | "However many ways there may be of being alive, it
--> mail to Graydon | is certain that there are vastly more ways of being
dead." - Richard Dawkins, :The Blind Watchmaker:
Alma Hromic
ooh - can anyone let me have any details on either of these? ISBNs,
publishers, anything? i'd love to track them down...
thanks!
WooF
On Wed, 15 Jul 1998, Dan Goodman wrote:
> In article <na.1fb8fb4865...@argonet.co.uk>,
> Julian Flood <jul...@argonet.co.uk> wrote:
> If there are spaceships, it's science fiction. If there are elves, it's
> fantasy. If there are both elves and spaceships? Let's discuss something
> simpler, like "Is it still a murder mystery if the victim rises from the
> grave?"
Yes, if the victim cannot identify the murderer from his/her ghostly
powers, and has to help the Great Detective in more limited ways. This
feels to me to be a rather neat idea, too.
Renenber that "The Christmas Carol" is clearly fantasy, though set in
then-contemporary England; if you want, you can call it "limited fantasy,"
which follows H G Wells's advice: introduce **one* fantasy element, and
place it against the commonplace world we all live in. This was the
technique for many of the great stories that appeared in the magazine
_Unknown_ (later renamed _Unknown Worlds_). It is N*O*T necessary to set
all (or even very many) fantasy stories in a standard-issue (obtained at
reasonable rates from a post office box in Poughkeepsie), elfy-welfy,
mock-medieval world -- or even "beyond the fields we know" (in Lord
Dunsany's phrase). One of his best stories is of a man, in contemporary
London, coming upon some rather odd-looking workmen taking up the pavement
in Picadilly Circus [a traffic circle]. He looked in the hole, saw empty
space with the distant stars spangling it. One of the workmen spoke to teh
effect that the place was entirely too noisy and dirty, so they were
taking it up -- taking it up altogether. It's a perfect example of coming
across one fantasy element contrasted with our work-a-day world.
George Scithers of owls...@netaxs.com
WooF
On Tue, 14 Jul 1998, Julian Flood wrote:
>
> > toting a sawn-off shotgun in a fantasy
> > >setting would be laughed out of court).
>
> We all manage to cope with FTL drives in fantasy - why not shotguns? At
> least shotguns are real.
And they're very useful in showing whether (or not, depending on your
story's premise) shotgun ammunition is effective on werewolves.
George Scithers of owls...@netaxs.com
Steve Turnbull
djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:
> In article <1998071512...@ppp186147.netaccess.co.nz>,
> Zeborah <fitc...@netaccess.co.nz> wrote:
>
> >On the one hand I feel that the reader should at least be grateful that
> >I transliterated the musical language so they can read "Langita" instead
> >of "Bsharp crotchet/D minim/G crotchet"; on the other hand I don't want
> >them throwing the book across the room.
>
> Oh, heavens, yes, particularly since in the US at least musicians
> haven't used the terms "crotchet" or "minim" since about the turn
> of the *last* century. Are they still common terms in Britain and
> the Commonwealth?
Minim and crotchet
Older terms for musicians
Are still used over here
(I really have got to stop this.)
--
Steve Turnbull (st...@turnbull.cix.co.uk)
http://www.cix.co.uk/~turnbull/
Sometime author and vagabond freelance editor
Jo Walton
dsg...@visi.com "Dan Goodman" writes:
> Meanwhile, you're going to have people doing stuff which isn't either --
> but which works.
>
> Example: In certain circumstances, a _random_ decision is better than
> what people will come up with if they think. For example -- the animals
> in their current hunting grounds have figured out how they operate and can
> avoid them. But people don't like to do anything they consider irrational
> when something important is at stake.
>
> So they consult an oracle. The oracle's answers are random; but its users
> know the answers are _not_ random, but come from something wiser than
> themselves.
>
> I suspect there are successful investors whose "investment systems" work
> this way.
This reminds me of one of my favourite short stories, which always makes
me smile to think of it, Harry Turtledove's "Secret Names".
It also makes me think of the way the Athenians elected their nine Archons,
or most important officials. They elected twenty democratically, all people
who the voters thought could do the job, then put their names in a pot and
drew out nine, letting the gods decide which of the 20 the people had picked
were the most worthy.
I still can't see anything whatsoever wrong with that, even if you think
the chosing was random chance.
--
Jo - - I kissed a kif at Kefk - - J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.bluejo.demon.co.uk - Blood of Kings Poetry; rasfw FAQ;
Reviews; Interstichia; Momentum - a paying market for real poetry.
Louann Miller
<199807141630...@ladder01.news.aol.com>,
pwred...@aol.com says...
> In article <6oeuig$cl7$1...@agate.berkeley.edu>, hrj...@uclink.berkeley.edu
> "Passive verbs" is a term that somebody made up for a particular
> type of verb, and I'm actually not at all sure what it is *supposed* to
> mean because it is so often misapplied to every construction using
> any variation of "to be," including all of the progressive tenses.
I had a writing teacher in college (not a stereotyped
academic, either) who rationed me to one 'to be' verb per
double-spaced page for a while. The rule was too strict for
permanent use, but it got me away from sentences like "He
was angry" to "He clenched his fist on the edge of the
table."
--
Our ISP is cyberramp.net -- you know the routine...
For media based fan fiction check out
http://www.cyberramp.net/~millers/
The Yank From Down Under
>(It's got three syllables: 's' and 'l' and 'a' are the respective nuclei
>(the place where vowels go in English). _k'_ is a _k_ produced with
>glottalic air-stream (just do a _k_ if it makes you happier), and _gh_
>is to _ch_ in 'Bach' as _g_ is to _k_.)
>
>Then again I sympathise with readers who haven't done linguistics, and I
>realise that most authors who write "Sk'zlk'plagh" haven't either.
* Snip-o*
>On the one hand I feel that the reader should at least be grateful that
>I transliterated the musical language so they can read "Langita" instead
>of "Bsharp crotchet/D minim/G crotchet"; on the other hand I don't want
>them throwing the book across the room.
>
>Semi-mitigating circumstances:
>1) the first time !s is introduced, the narrator points out that it's
>often pronounced 'Tusu', and this is used from time to time.
>
>2) there are only two !san characters semi-regularly mentioned, and if I
>have to I can give them similar nicknames; but really the main
>characters would call them by the proper name of S||k' Qxh~sn.
>
>Help!?
>
>Zeborah
Thanks, Zeborha. Kinda the same point I was trying to make, except
using a whole lot more words.....
Kudos.
(Thats pronounced like Deborah, isn't it <g>)
The Yank.
Cheers~!
Michael.
Happily attendiing to his BS with the help of
the wonderful folks at the Department of Sciences,
Nursing. University of Southern Queensland...
...with these to follow:
MS - (More of the Same)
PHd - (Piled Higher and Deeper)
or like some of my esteemed and over-worked instructors
ABD - (All But Dissertation)
Life is much too important to be taken seriously. ;]
The Yank From Down Under
Lebovitz) wrote:
>In article <35AAF2...@student.canterbury.ac.nz>,
>Gareth Wilson <gr...@student.canterbury.ac.nz> wrote:
>>
>. Why don't the wizards control everything?
>
>For the same reasons that scientists don't control everything.
>
>>
>Nancy Lebovitz (nan...@universe.digex.net)
>
>May '98 calligraphic button catalogue available by email!
Huh? Scientists control everything? Would that be before some
Military-type guns them down with an Uzi......
The Yank
The Yank From Down Under
>> 4) Less of the unpronouncable names, like "Sk'zlk'plagh" would be
>>nice.....
>
>
>--
>Dan Goodman
Daaaaannnnnnn!
Rachael M. Lininger
On 14 Jul 1998, Graydon wrote:
>In article <b8Nq1.1942$IA2.8...@ptah.visi.com>,
>Dan Goodman <dsg...@visi.com> wrote:
>>The usual hand-wave is that you can't have magic and "science" (actually,
>>Renaissance and later material technology) both working in the same place.
>
>Yes. It is, as you note, a handwave, and not really credible, becuase
>_bread rising or beer fermenting is high tech_. (Really old and
>historically poorly understood high tech, but either they don't count and
>nanotech doesn't either, or they're high tech.)
And don't forget wine. I read a very interestng article in one of
those high-cuisine mags about some Portuguese vintners who have gone
back to foot-treading and amphorae (actually "talhas," but they look
like amphorae). Seems the human body is the precise weight for
squishing grapes and _not_ squishing pips.
The arguement goes, well, the wines taste just as good as stuff made
by modern means--and they don't all taste the same. Not being a
wine=biber, I really couldn't say. The magazine liked 'em.
>>A device which I find more plausible: If you have both nonmagical
>>technology which includes nuclear weapons, and the magical equivalent, you
>>soon get a situation suitable for discussion on
>>misc.survivalism.don't-bother-trying. Roger Zelazny used this in the
>>series which includes _Madwand_.
>
>Why on the green earth would you expect that you would get _both_? It's a
>magical world; the direct application of will can have material effects.
>There won't be 'magic' and 'technology'; there will be 'technology', that
>might include a smith singing to the iron to get the carbon put right, or
>a brewer singing to the beer, or a choir of more than a thousand people
>raising a cathedral, or technical difficulty measured in lives - standard
New meaning for the word "manpower." Ick. (Though I've had, for a long
time, the image of a magically built castle mortared with blood.
Double ick.)
Note, too, that you can probably get the carbon alloyed in the
ordinary way--it's just easier, or has more control over the
strength/sharpness balance, or all of the above, so it doesn't get
done as much.
>sacrifical sheep - or some such. The sharp division between magic and
>science won't be there, and the two won't be seen as opposed by any
>necessary innate difference, although some sort of cultural difference may
>apply.
Yes--consider the way most people use bleach or pine-sol or whatever.
A religious ritual to prevent the spread of infectious demons. And
magic need not necessarily make things as much easier as some writers
posit (not that they're wrong; just that it can be a plotbreaking kind
of thing if not handled right).
And it can be made as exclusive as science is now--ordinary people
using the results, like magicked charms or prepackaged flashstones or
whatever--and researchers developing the tools for their creation. And
ordinary people needn't understand the magic any more than Joe Blow
off the street understands science here (and the researchers may have
theories that are completely and utterly wrong, or at least
incomplete). Quantum magic, anyone?
>If individuals can produce nuclear fission or fusion, it's still not that
>big a deal if a)defenses are easy - the way to induce fission is much
>harder than the means to prevent it - of if the amount of energy liberated
>is small. Wizards who can produce ~ten tons of TNT equivalent explosions
>have military utility, sure, but they're not city levelers and they're
>more useful for digging canals.
This suggests to me (don't ask how) a really powerful and frightening
kind of magic: willed catalysis. There are many chemical reactions
which are perfectly allowable but which take too long to happen to be
useful. I've got to think about this one...
Rachael
--
My newsfeed is antisocial, so please cc to my email account. Thanks.
Rachael M. Lininger
lini...@virtu.sar.usf.edu
Rachael M. Lininger
[cut out alt.skunks, since I have no idea why it's there]
On Wed, 15 Jul 1998, Alma Hromic wrote:
>like New Zealand, Alex <g> i'm writing something at the moment that
>has a dash of classical greek, some venetian decadence, a pinch of
>bucolic pastorale and a heroic condiment or two - and all set in a
>recognisably New Zealand landscape. and damme, it works.
Sounds like fun; let us know when it gets out.
>and it's *pure* fantasy, in the sense that i do not allow any
>complicated machinery around.
>
>A.
Well, that's very nice, but getting into gradations of fantasy purity
is wrong-headed, imho.
Because I have a car in my ghost story, does that make it science
fiction? Of course not. What about my deal-with-the-devil story, set
in a modern chemistry lab, where Dr. Nick offers to fix a broken NMR
for the usual price?
You may have an idiosyncratic definition of what you consider fantasy;
that's fine. But you need to be aware that it _is_ idiosyncratic, and
fantasy publishers will buy just about anything if it's good enough
and they think they can market it profitably.
Rachael M. Lininger
On Wed, 15 Jul 1998, Alma Hromic wrote:
>On Tue, 14 Jul 1998 18:08:07 GMT, dsg...@visi.com (Dan Goodman) wrote:
>>The usual hand-wave is that you can't have magic and "science" (actually,
>>Renaissance and later material technology) both working in the same place.
>>A device which I find more plausible: If you have both nonmagical
>>technology which includes nuclear weapons, and the magical equivalent, you
>>soon get a situation suitable for discussion on misc.survivalism.don't-bother-trying.
>>Roger Zelazny used this in the series which includes _Madwand_.
>
>eh. if you're going to invoke zelazny what about the fact that
>gunpowder won't ignite in amber? <smile>
As I recall, it does in some worlds. I haven't read it in a long time,
though.
>to have an equal "conflict" you have to arm the opposing sides in
>equal ways - otherwise you get what happened when western settlers met
>american indians. when you start fighting firearms with bows and
>arrows you inevitably - EVENTUALLY - wind up coming off second best.
But they don't have to have the _same_ weapons. And early firearms
were much inferior to bows and arrows--heavy, inaccurate, and
unreliable. Assuming equal competence with each, I'd rather have a
crossbow than an Elizabethan gunne. And so did they, for quite a
while.
>and the sort of magic that would be involved in creating some of the
>more sophisticated weapons we can think of would *be* technology. by
>definition.
>
>A.
Whose?
Take, for instance, TNT. You make it by sticking three nitro groups on
a toluene molecule. The first group is fairly easy; the next group
much harder; and the last group very difficult indeed, requiring
fuming sulfuric acid (at least in the lab; I don't know how industry
works this). If one can magically catalyze the last reaction, by sheer
will, so it goes quickly under mild conditions, then you've made a
sophistocated weapon, relatively easily. But not with any technology
I've ever heard of.
Sion Arrowsmith
PWrede6492 <pwred...@aol.com> wrote:
>You may very well find the concept of an elf with a sawed-off shotgun
>to be ridiculous, taken out of context...but in the right book, by the
>right writer, it wouldn't be ridiculous at all.
I was recently involved in a stage play of LotR, and amongst
the things discussed by mutinous cast members about How We
Would Have Done It Better was the suggestion of giving it a
WWII setting (ramming the point home a bit). If for no other
reason than having Boromir gunned down by a squad of
automatic-wielding orcs. The quoted text immediately made me
think of our Legolas pulling a sawn-off from a back holster
with vicious grin on his face. I *like* this image.
--
\S -- si...@chiark.greenend.org.uk -- http://www.chaos.org.uk/~sion/
___ | 16th National Bisexual Conference -- http://bi.org/~bicon/
\X/ | "Frankly I have no feelings about penguins one way or the other"
<*> | -- Arthur C. Clarke
PMccutc103
>Why on the green earth would you expect that you would get _both_? It's a
>magical world; the direct application of will can have material effects.
>There won't be 'magic' and 'technology'; there will be 'technology', that
>might include a smith singing to the iron to get the carbon put right, or
>a brewer singing to the beer, or a choir of more than a thousand people
>raising a cathedral,
I love that image.
Kings would raise great choirs of castrati to go into battle alongside the
cavalry and infantry to hurl bolts of lightening at the enemy forces.
--
Pete McCutchen
PMccutc103
>The Evil Duke turns out to be a figurehead -- the _real_ mastermind is his
>horse.
So Incatatus was the one really responsible for Caligula's misbehavior?
--
Pete McCutchen
Sion Arrowsmith
Rachael M. Lininger <lini...@virtu.sar.usf.edu> wrote:
>New meaning for the word "manpower." Ick. (Though I've had, for a long
>time, the image of a magically built castle mortared with blood.
>Double ick.)
I don't know how well documented the practice of putting
sacrifices into the foundations of major building projects
actually is. For someone doing it in a world where it makes
a difference, try Mary Gentle's _The Architecture of Desire_.
PMccutc103
>And they're very useful in showing whether (or not, depending on your
>story's premise) shotgun ammunition is effective on werewolves.
That's easy -- shotguns are very effective, but only if you use silver shot.
Jeez, don't you know anything, George?
--
Pete McCutchen
miketotty
>
> Dunsany's phrase). One of his best stories is of a man, in contemporary
> London, coming upon some rather odd-looking workmen taking up the pavement
> in Picadilly Circus [a traffic circle]. He looked in the hole, saw empty
> space with the distant stars spangling it. One of the workmen spoke to teh
> effect that the place was entirely too noisy and dirty, so they were
> taking it up -- taking it up altogether. It's a perfect example of coming
> across one fantasy element contrasted with our work-a-day world.
Seems to border on the magical realism, which is another kettle of
kumquats.
miketotty
miketotty
>
>
> It is, however, far more likely that magic and technology will *interact*
> in very interesting ways, especially if magic is cheap and/or common.
> If you can keep food cold with a cheap spell, as in the Lord Darcy
> books, you don't need refrigeration technology; if you can cure
> diseases by sticking voodoo pins in models of bacteria, as in Anderson's
> OPERATION CHAOS, you don't have nearly as great a need for
> antibiotics. But if you have a lot of wizards who can only store
> spells in high-grade steel wands, you are likely to have high-grade
> steel being mass produced a whole lot sooner than in the real world.
I agree. I think this is a great area for fantasy exploration.
Especially combinations like steampunk and sorcery.
miketotty
drago...@hotmail.com
dsg...@visi.com (Dan Goodman) wrote:
> In article <6og0fp$6...@excalibur.gooroos.com>,
> Graydon <goo...@interlog.com> wrote:
> >In article <Pine.SUN.3.95.98071...@unix2.netaxs.com>,
> >WooF <owls...@netaxs.com> wrote:
> >>On Tue, 14 Jul 1998, Alma Hromic wrote:
> >>> On Tue, 14 Jul 1998 04:48:28 GMT, dsg...@visi.com (Dan Goodman) wrote:
> >>> >To begin with, there's no reason a fantasy novel _has_ to have swords in
> >>> >it. Why shouldn't the elves use pole weapons, or cannon, or AK-47's, or
> >>> >rayguns, or personal nukes?
> >>>
> >>> because cannon and AK-47s and rayguns and personal nukes are not
> >>> fantasy. they are reality. and what you are writing is science
> >>> fiction, not fantasy. [snip discussion]
> >>
> >>magazine _Unknown Worlds,_ which is generally considered the best fantasy
> >>magazine ever. Many many of the fantasy stories in those famous 39 issues
> >>had contemporary settings.
> >
> >_aren't_ reality. They're a maybe at best.
> >
> >If chemistry is enough like what we're used to that they're recognizably
> >people and bread rises and such like, there isn't really an obvious reason
> >they _can't_ have gunpowder and metal casting and precision parts and
> >fission or fusion. It may take them some goodly while to figure out
> >_how_, and it might make things very differently difficult - casting,
> >frex, gets much much much easier if you can, as showed up in LMB's :The
> >Spirit Ring:, use magical energy to heat the melt _in the mold_.
>
> Renaissance and later material technology) both working in the same place.
>
> A device which I find more plausible: If you have both nonmagical
> technology which includes nuclear weapons, and the magical equivalent, you
> soon get a situation suitable for discussion on
> misc.survivalism.don't-bother-trying. Roger Zelazny used this in the
> series which includes _Madwand_.
>
What about the merged Phaze/Proton in Piers Anthony's Apprentice Adept
series? At the end of the series, the characters had super-science, and high
level magic. If you are careful about how you set things up, you can do it
quite well. Though you might want to give some thought on how science and
magic interact. Will one not affect the other, or will there be some
overlap, like in the Ghostbusters? Bad example, but I couldn't think of any
other good stories that combine the supernatural with tech as well.
-----== Posted via Deja News, The Leader in Internet Discussion ==-----
http://www.dejanews.com/rg_mkgrp.xp Create Your Own Free Member Forum
David Owen-Cruise
> ang...@ihug.co.nz wrote:
[snip]
>You are missing out on an entire subgenre of fantasy -- urban,
>contemporary, whatever you want to call it.
>
>> you may or may not like fantasy as a genre, or like WRITING fantasy as
>> a genre, but if you do you are constrained by the rules of that genre.
>
>Excuse me? So Emma Bull's WAR FOR THE OAKS is not fantasy, because
>the elves in it play guitars and drive cars?
>
Point of Order:
The one elf seen in a car mislikes it. The reasons he gives for misliking it
tell us a great deal about the fey and their thinking. His description of
a car is a delightful piece of writing as well.
I'll give you the guitars.
--
David Owen-Cruise
"Blessed are they who learn from their mistakes, for they shall make,
if not necessarily fewer of them, different and more interesting ones."
Dorothy J. Heydt
Graydon
Alma Hromic <ang...@ihug.co.nz> wrote:
>i may have been imprecise. however, i would still maintain that the
>only reason anything with a personal nuke in it would be called a
>fantasy would be if it fell into the realm of "any sufficiently
>advanced technology could be called magic".
In the beginning, there was a void.
The borders of the void were ice, in one direction--not any direction
you've ever heard of, just something that would have let anyone around at
them time call one portion of the void colder than another--and in other
other, fire.
Fortunately for us, fire and ice do not like on another, and took careful,
hedged, cagey steps away as they could, until the void snapped. Those
snarled bits of over-stretched void are all things; man, tree, and the
roots of mountains, all tiny curls of the disdain of ice for fire, layered
and wrapped and coiled about with the disdain of fire for ice.
Grow mighty enough, which is very mighty indeed, mighty enough to make
good beer by wishing, and you can unwind those tiny curls of creation.
Fire flees to the Fire, and what stands in its way is burnt and broken and
blown to fragments. Ice sinks down to the Ice, and takes with it to the
un-named cold all knowledge, so that no skill is enough to ask of the
fragments that are left what they were, or where they would go to be as
they were before the blast and the bright light and being rent in pieces.
So we may know the mightiest of sorcerors by their anger, as they go
plucking the guitar strings of creation out of their tuning pins.
Ze Frog
> Jonathan W Hendry wrote:
> >
> > Dan Goodman <dsg...@visi.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Unfortunately, that hasn't been published in North America.
> >
> > Amazon.com will try to track it down for you.
>
> I've tried them. So far it's been a month, & they haven't tracked one
> down... even though they could order in a new copy from the UK.
>
>
> --J. Random Disappointed In Amazon, D.G.F.V.
I've had the same kinf of experience with Amazon (the books did get to
me, though... after 12weeks ;-)
I've found Bibliofind.com (a group of used and antiquarian book stores)
very useful. You can compare prices, and those small booksellers *do*
provide personalized service. Most of them accept foreign orders and use
UPS International Priority, so it takes less than 7 days for the book to
get to you for a cheap price (US$ 2 per book).
Nathalie (i love *real* booksellers on the Net)
We're all in this together - by ourselves
(Lily Tomlin)
Steve Turnbull
ang...@ihug.co.nz (Alma Hromic) wrote:
> On Tue, 14 Jul 1998 07:29:56 -0400, WooF <owls...@netaxs.com> wrote:
>
> >But this would exclude more than half the stories that appeared in the
> >magazine _Unknown Worlds,_ which is generally considered the best fantasy
> >magazine ever. Many many of the fantasy stories in those famous 39 issues
> >had contemporary settings.
>
> yes but even if so they relied on magic to make their point, in some
> way or another.
>
> or mebbe i am just putting too fine a line on the definition of
> fantasy, as a genre, for people to entirely agree with.
>
> i read "contemporary" fantasy as *fiction*, not pure fantasy, that's
> all.
The way people view their own fantasy,
Is all down to personal taste, y'see.
What's good for the goose
Isn't fit for the moose.
It's a discussion that'll render us all at sea.
pd...@ddb.com
> >Queen of Elfland with an Uzi.
>
> I suspect she still finds it more elegant to turn people into newts.
Trees, actually.
Sometimes elegance is not what's wanted. Even by the Queen of
Elfland.
> One of those automated clothing-cutter CAD systems, now _that_ I can see
> being considered a useful instance of technology.
Emma Bull's elves would think that was stupendous.
I suppose mine might like being able to clothe her minions more
autocratically.
--
Pamela Dean Dyer-Bennet pd...@ddb.com
f...@creighton.edu
> Man, if I'd known about these rules earlier I'd have equipped the
> Queen of Elfland with an Uzi.
Sure could've changed the ending, eh?
If I'd known, Tam Lin,
what this night I would see,
I'd've taken my uzi
and shot you deader than a petrified tree.
- - - - - - - - -
Felix Strates "You're Hell's Angels? What chapter?"
f...@creighton.edu "REVELATIONS, CHAPTER SIX"
Omaha --Gaiman & Pratchett, GOOD OMENS
- - - - - - - - -
drago...@hotmail.com
si...@chiark.greenend.org.uk (Sion Arrowsmith) wrote:
> In article <199807141630...@ladder01.news.aol.com>,
> PWrede6492 <pwred...@aol.com> wrote:
> >You may very well find the concept of an elf with a sawed-off shotgun
> >to be ridiculous, taken out of context...but in the right book, by the
> >right writer, it wouldn't be ridiculous at all.
>
> I was recently involved in a stage play of LotR,
Was this something that you wrote yourselves, or did you get the script from a
publishing house? It might be interesting to get some more info on this.
Jo Walton
pmccu...@aol.com "PMccutc103" writes:
I've had a story idea wandering round for a while about intelligent
horses descended from the one who got taught to sing in a year -
(When year's end came they broke the stable door;
the man and horse together gallop yet
beyond the sunset's end, the pounding hooves
both harmony and beat for their duet.)
and how Incitatus was their attempt to get political power and
it went so wrong they gave it up. Regrettably I don't like horses
enough to write their POV very well.
Dan Goodman
Alma Hromic <ang...@ihug.co.nz> wrote:
>On Wed, 15 Jul 1998 10:38:17 +0200, "David C. Pugh"
><davi...@online.no> wrote:
>
>>>You might want to read _The Crusades Through Arab Eyes_, edited by Edward
>>>Said -- translations from Arabic documents of the time(s).
>>Sorry to pick nits, but you have a three-way confusion here. The book of
>>that title is by Amin Maalouf and is not composed of translations. There is
>>a book which is composed of translated sources, but that is edited by
>>Gabrieli and is called "Arab Historians of the Crusades". Edward Said is
>>mostly a political commentator and AFAIK has not written a book on these
>>lines.
>
>ooh - can anyone let me have any details on either of these? ISBNs,
>publishers, anything? i'd love to track them down...
You _do_ know that reading on such matters can become a fulltime job?
Which I suspect would be a problem even for a professional historian -- no
time to teach, writing one's own work needs wait till _all_ the relevant
material has been read....
--
Dan Goodman
dsg...@visi.com
http://www.visi.com/~dsgood/index.html
Whatever you wish for me, may you have twice as much.
Dan Goodman
Alma Hromic <ang...@ihug.co.nz> wrote:
>On Tue, 14 Jul 1998 18:08:07 GMT, dsg...@visi.com (Dan Goodman) wrote:
>
>
>>>If chemistry is enough like what we're used to that they're recognizably
>>>people and bread rises and such like, there isn't really an obvious reason
>>>they _can't_ have gunpowder and metal casting and precision parts and
>>>fission or fusion. It may take them some goodly while to figure out
>>>_how_, and it might make things very differently difficult - casting,
>>>frex, gets much much much easier if you can, as showed up in LMB's :The
>>>Spirit Ring:, use magical energy to heat the melt _in the mold_.
>>The usual hand-wave is that you can't have magic and "science" (actually,
>>Renaissance and later material technology) both working in the same place.
>>A device which I find more plausible: If you have both nonmagical
>>technology which includes nuclear weapons, and the magical equivalent, you
>>soon get a situation suitable for discussion on misc.survivalism.don't-bother-trying.
>>Roger Zelazny used this in the series which includes _Madwand_.
>
>gunpowder won't ignite in amber? <smile>
_Our_ gunpowder won't; but something from another Shadow will, and can be
used as gunpowder.
>to have an equal "conflict" you have to arm the opposing sides in
>equal ways - otherwise you get what happened when western settlers met
>american indians. when you start fighting firearms with bows and
>arrows you inevitably - EVENTUALLY - wind up coming off second best.
Examples of conflicts where the better-equipped side did _not_ win:
The US vs. North Vietnam and the Viet Cong
The USSR vs. various Afghani factions
Graydon
PMccutc103 <pmccu...@aol.com> wrote:
>gra...@gooroos.com (Graydon) wrote:
>>Why on the green earth would you expect that you would get _both_? It's a
>>magical world; the direct application of will can have material effects.
>>There won't be 'magic' and 'technology'; there will be 'technology', that
>>might include a smith singing to the iron to get the carbon put right, or
>>a brewer singing to the beer, or a choir of more than a thousand people
>>raising a cathedral,
>
>I love that image.
Kind of fond of it myself. Probably one or two famous buildings that no
one understands the architecture of because the choir director sneezed,
too. 'God must have wanted it that way'.
>Kings would raise great choirs of castrati to go into battle alongside the
>cavalry and infantry to hurl bolts of lightening at the enemy forces.
Well, if castrati can do the right kind of stuff; it might take being
fertile, not just whole, or to have sired or borne kids, or to be
pregnant, or any number of other stuff.
Infantry sang marching songs in this world, sometimes rather grim ones.
Think of a block of two thousand pikemen coming down the road, singing,
and anyone trying to ambush them being overcome by a desire to leap up and
caper and scream 'shoot me now!'.
Russell Asplund
pd...@ddb.com wrote:
> > I will admit to having a problem writing female characters that are
> > accurate to that sort of historical setting: submissive attitudes,
> > acceptance of social strictures, popping out kids, that kind of
> > thing. I know what I'm trying for on an intellectual level, but can't
> > get my creative process around the idea. A failing on my part.
>
> Actually, that's a list of 1950's American attitudes. They existed in
> varying degrees in earlier times, but the entire matter is considerably
> more complex than that. Attitudes towards women, their place in the
> scheme of things, and their duties, have varied almost all over the
> map. And in any age and any society, there have been women who
> simply said, To hell with this nonsense. They were generally
> desperate, rich, or both, but they have always been there.
>
>
I have a great book at home called "Uppity Women of the Middle Ages," that
details several examples of women who didn't fit the mold. Women who became
succesful scholars or blacksmiths. For those who want their characters to
break the standard mold, but still do so realistically, it is a great
resource.
Russell
Heather Rose Jones
: I have a great book at home called "Uppity Women of the Middle Ages," that
: details several examples of women who didn't fit the mold. Women who became
: succesful scholars or blacksmiths. For those who want their characters to
: break the standard mold, but still do so realistically, it is a great
: resource.
It's a delightfully entertaining book, but when I was considering it as an
addition to my "resources on non-traditional women in history" file, I
kept running into the sticking point that it was impossible to tell where
the author's research left off and her own imagination took up. (And then
there are a few real howlers, like the reference to Grainne ni Mhaille and
Elizabeth I "communicating in Latin and a bit of Welch [sic] Queen Liz had
learned". Now, while I'm willing to accept that Liz might have picked up a
phrase or two of Welsh, I'm mystified about where and why an Irish woman
like Grainne would have.)
Still and all, _great_ bathroom reading. (In the sense of coming in short,
independent chunks.)
Heather Rose Jones
PWrede6492
writes:
>In article <6ogr21$ckj$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, pd...@ddb.com wrote:
>>Excuse me? So Emma Bull's WAR FOR THE OAKS is not fantasy, because
>>the elves in it play guitars and drive cars?
>>
>Point of Order:
>The one elf seen in a car mislikes it.
So he rides a motorcycle instead. I think the point is still valid.
Patricia C. Wrede
Thomas R Scudder
: Infantry sang marching songs in this world, sometimes rather grim ones.
: Think of a block of two thousand pikemen coming down the road, singing,
: and anyone trying to ambush them being overcome by a desire to leap up and
: caper and scream 'shoot me now!'.
I'd think that the songs the infantry would sing would help more in
smoothing the road ahead and keeping the feet from hurting.
--
Tom Scudder aka tom...@umich.edu <*> http://www-personal.umich.edu/~tomscud
Squeezing flinthead trout If religion is the opiate of the masses,
in their massive jaws, sparks fly: does that mean Usenet is the artificial
Bears discover fire. sweetener of the masses? - rone
Steve Eley
>
>An angelic circle can, through a slight miscalculation, warp into a spiral.
> Thus goeth covalent, bonded, inorganics the way of the double helix.
>Animals translate minerals via pi, or some more irreducible root,
>ultimately personified by the EKG brainwave.
Thanks. I was wondering.
Have Fun,
- Steve Eley (who'll be standing WAY OVER HERE...)
sfe...@sff.net
David Owen-Cruise
fantasy at the moment, I'd better.
Had I felt the point was more than a quibble, I would not have labeled it a
"point of order."
<Insert vision of Dorothy's next title about virtual parliaments.>
I thought about adding technological details about musical instruments to
support Pamela, but I couldn't quite avoid spoilers. So I didn't.