Hi! Long time, no post. I'm sorry about that. I'll try not to let it happen again. Let me get back in the swing of things with something long, rambling, and lacking in concrete conclusions, eh?
I just finished reading Vast [1998] by Linda Nagata. It's the fourth book in a series called The Nanotech Succession. It's also the first book in the series that I've read. I chose to start with that book for three reasons*. The most relevant is that I was interested to see what it was like reading a sequel without any knowledge of its forerunners.
I should say that Vast isn't a sequel in the strictest sense, since it is intended to stand on its own. Nevertheless, I'm pretty sure that it shares at least one major character with earlier novels in the series, and that it heavily references events and places from them.
Nagata has done a wonderful job -- I really enjoyed the book. I never felt lost or confused, and I was always clear on the characters' motivations. The science fictional ideas that underpin the book were introduced naturally. There's a lot of looking backwards, but I think that's a deliberate choice, not an unintended consequence of being the fourth book in a series.
All the same, I never quite managed to shake the feeling that events in Vast would have had more impact if I'd read the earlier books in the series. That got me thinking about worldbuilding. A while ago I read a quote by M. John Harrison (via China Mieville and Warren Ellis), in which he laid into the whole endeavour. You can read the whole (short) thing here, but I'm going to repeat part of it:
"Worldbuilding is dull. Worldbuilding literalises the urge to invent. Worldbuilding gives an unnecessary permission for acts of writing (indeed, for acts of reading). Worldbuilding numbs the reader’s ability to fulfil their part of the bargain, because it believes that it has to do everything around here if anything is going to get done."
I love complex, rich worldbuilding -- it's part of the reason that I'm such a fan of Ian McDonald, China Mieville and Neal Stephenson**. But I wonder if the act of trying to write it all down and codify everything somehow deadens it a little. Could that perhaps be what I was picking up in Vast?
I think I believe that worldbuilding and backstory should exist solely to serve the present narrative, but how can they do that with complete freedom if they're already set in stone? Is some quality of Vast smoothed over by the existence of the earlier books in the series? I have no idea. Probably I'm just imagining that there's something there (or not there) because I know those other books exist.
But still, it does make me want to experiment. Build a world, and then write stories in it. Write stories in a world I haven't built yet. See if they feel different.
* The second reason was that Vast is the book set farthest in the future, and I particularly like far future SF. The third reason is that Alastair Reynolds spoke highly of it, mentioning specifically that it stood on its own merits. Call it a best case for my experiment.
** Maybe what I love about the worlds those authors build is that there's so much in them that I don't understand, or that isn't fully, laboriously, explained? Maybe that's also why epic fantasy isn't really my favourite thing?
I'm in the mood for space opera. So, here are two delivery runs for TransGalaxy Class D Freight crews -- the bravest, craziest, most desperate cargo haulers in the galaxy. Just add protagonists!
SHELL GAME
Summary: three TransGalaxy ships, three packages, only one of them legit.
Setup: the Silicon Sceptre is the symbol of the First Warlord of Aarn. Its bearer commands the Aarns, their armies and their glorious space navy. The current Grand Warlord, Hanaarn XXIV, has just died in his sleep. His son and heir, Hanaarn XXV, is across the Frontier Zone fighting as a mercenary in the Belt Wars. The old Warlord's brother, Hanaarn XXV's uncle, takes the opportunity to launch a coup, and seize the Sceptre for himself.
But the old Warlord's loyal batman sneaks the powerful artifact off Aarn, and rushes to place it in the hands of the rightful heir. Aarn security forces are in hot pursuit, and so three TransGalaxy ships are hired to hide the true bearer of the Silicon Sceptre.
Complications:
- Off to a bad start -- as the three TransGalaxy ship crews leave the briefing, Aarn security forces attack!
- Sabotage! -- there's a traitor on board, and he/she/it has rigged the reactor to blow!
- The exchange -- half way to the delivery point, the three TransGalaxy ships meet to swap cargoes, further complicating things for the pursuers. But one of the Captains is in the pay of the Aarns!
- "You’re the traitor!", "No, you’re..." -- tensions are high on board the ship.
- The Belt Wars -- the delivery takes the crew right into the middle of a war zone, in a dense asteroid field. Some fancy flying -- and fighting -- is required.
- "Thanks, but no thanks." -- they’ve found Hanaarn XXV, but he refuses to sign for the Sceptre.
THE GHOST FLEET OF BANDETH SECTOR
Summary: the Ghost Fleet is a myth. It isn't real. Nevertheless, the client wants a package delivered to its Admiral.
Setup: the Bandeth Sector is a shipping hazard. It's a complete mystery why ships go missing as they pass through it -- a black hole or other navigational hazard, or maybe pirates? The locals, though, swear it's the Ghost Fleet of Bandeth, led by the vicious (and long dead) Admiral Iron Xil.
In reality, the Sector is home to a huge Leviathan, a giant living creature attracted to radiation put out by fusion drives. Iron Xil is a crazy old Ahab, leading a small flotilla of ships on an endless hunt for the Leviathan. The myth of the Ghost Fleet is carefully cultivated to keep the galaxy's big game hunters away. Of course hunting a single beast for a hundred years will drive anyone a bit crazy...
Complications:
- The client -- just who is this guy anyway, and what could he possibly be shipping to a myth?
- "We don’t talk about that here." -- the crew arrive on the borders of the Bandeth Sector and start asking questions. The locals don't like talking about it.
- "Oh no, I’m not going back there!" -- the crew meet a survivor of a trip through the Bandeth Sector, with potentially useful information, but he's a little reluctant.
- Ship graveyard -- there's three things about the ships in this graveyard: first, they've been smashed by something huge. Second, they've been carefully stripped for parts. Third, they're dangerous to navigate!
- Leviathan! -- it's only a matter of time until the beast itself is attracted to the TransGalaxy ship!
- Boarding action -- okay, now the crew have tracked down the myth, how exactly do they get him to take the package?
- "Of course, now I can’t let you leave..." -- Iron Xil is revealed as just a man, and that's a secret he needs to protect.
Any comments?
Just a really quick one today, in which I steal content from elsewhere. I posted a little over a month ago about NPR's Top 100 Science-Fiction and Fantasy Books. The folks over at SF Signal have quite rightly pointed out that the list is long, consists of books that vary greatly in style and content, and doesn't come with a handy guide.
So, T. N. Tobias has prepared a nifty flowchart to help you find the sort of book you're looking for. Shrunk down really small, it looks like this:
Useful, no? Even if you've read most of the books on the list, it's always interesting to see how someone else chooses to sub-divide books. For example, I'm not sure I would have defined Iain M. Banks' Culture series by its humour. My favourite book in that series, Use of Weapons, was actually pretty grim.
Also: people seem to like their Military SF!
I was at Galaxy Books today, shopping for a gift. I've had a bit of a hankering for space opera recently, so I figured while I was there I'd pick up something to satisfy that urge. Naturally, I went looking for something written by a woman.
It turned out to be a real challenge. I don't often go into bookstores completely cold, but space opera has always been easy to find: just look for the books with spaceships on the cover. And, honestly, if you just cast your eye casually across a shelf in the science fiction section, you're bound to see lots of spaceships.
I noticed today that whenever I let my eye wander to a random section of shelf, I'd end up staring at a book written by a man. I eventually had to start working my way systematically through the shelves just to find the books written by women. Obviously I knew that there were more science fiction books written by men than women, but I think I've avoided being directly exposed to that fact this year by always going in prepared, with a list of specific authors I was looking for. Today really brought home how huge the gender discrepancy is in sci-fi publishing; suddenly, my male-dominated reading history seems a bit unsurprising. Which is sad.
(Also, is it just me, or are science fiction novels written by women much more likely to have people -- especially women -- on the cover than science fiction novels written by men?)
I ended up walking out the door with Undertow [2007], by Elizabeth Bear. I expect I'm going to enjoy it -- Dust [2007] and Chill [2010] have been two of this year's highlights for me -- but I confess I was a little disappointed. I already know Elizabeth Bear is great; what I was looking for was space opera written by somebody who was new to me.
So, if you're reading this, help me out! Throw your suggestions for good space opera written by women into the comment thread below. I tried Google, but I just came up with lots of lists of books written by men. What should I be reading?
Last time, I said this:
I can't actually think of any examples of myth-chasing plots in fantasy or sci-fi off the top of my head, unless you include the vast number of fantasy stories which feature prophecies.
I clearly wasn't thinking too hard about the sci-fi, because there's one obvious myth-chasing plot that turns up all the time. It's based on the Fermi Paradox, which basically goes like this: given the size of the universe, and even moderate probabilities for the emergence of intelligent life, where are all the aliens?
There's a huge amount of sci-fi on this topic, although a lot of it doesn't really qualify as myth-chasing. In David Brin's Uplift series, for example, the explanation for the Paradox forms the basis of the setting, but it isn't really a mystery. Sometimes, though, it's all about trying to chase down the solution to that puzzle. Alastair Reynolds' Revelation Space series is an excellent example, and perhaps that's why I like it so much. My recollection is that first book in the series -- Revelation Space [2000] -- even begins on an archaeological dig.
Oh, hey, look: Jo Walton wrote an article on the Fermi Paradox in science fiction for Tor.com. So there you go.
I've also been pondering the possibility that the Big Dumb Object story is somewhat related to the myth-chasing plot. There are obvious differences -- the Big Dumb Object isn't exactly something you have trouble finding! But the process of unravelling its purpose, and how it got from there (wherever there is) to here, is not entirely dissimilar to piecing together the truth behind a myth. Maybe that's a bit of a stretch, though. What do you think?
I blame Indiana Jones. Or possibly the The Goonies. If there's a plot that I'm a total sucker for, it's the one where the protagonists go off chasing a myth that -- gasp! -- turns out to be real. It's pretty clear I'm not alone, since this is a storyline that turns up again and again: the National Treasure movies, the Mummy movies, The Da Vinci Code [2003] by Dan Brown, the Uncharted video games, the Supernatural TV show, and probably dozens more examples.
So what's the appeal? The easy answer is familiarity. All of the things in the list above rely on that for their success, with varying degrees of cynicism. I think it's no coincidence that a lot of them aren't actually very good. "Everybody loves Indiana Jones, right? Let's do that, only different!" might be enough for a diverting 90-minutes (or 300 pages), but it's probably never going to be more than that.
I don't want to suggest, though, that the myth-chasing plot can never rise above the level of nostalgic light entertainment. I'm pretty sure I don't think that's true -- I mentioned my love for the Mellified Man story arc in my review of The Dervish House [2010] by Ian McDonald. It's a perfect example of this sort of plot. So what makes it better than the awful National Treasure movies (aside, obviously, from the quality of the writing)?
I think the first place that myth-chasing plots fall down is that they go for the obvious targets: the Ark of the Covenant, the Spear of Destiny, Shambhala. And then, of course, they add Nazis. A big part of the joy for me in reading about the Mellified Man was that I'd never heard of it before. History is absolutely full of neat little things like that, which provide excellent leaping-off points for this sort of plot. Take the Baghdad Battery, or the sixteenth-century mechanical monk. The best of these stories seem almost unbelievable. I love being surprised by history.
When they're done well, myth-chasing stories actually give you two interrelated narratives, both of which are important. The first is the myth itself: where did it start, how did it weave its way through history, how was it changed and distorted by that passage, how did it eventually pass out of sight. The second is the story of the myth-chasers, trying to piece together this damaged and fragmentary trail.
It seems to me that those two interconnected narratives leave you with a lot of scope for interesting structural tricks. They also demand that you write intelligent protagonists, since we're talking about puzzles that have gone unsolved for a long, long time. I'd say this is a pretty common failure point for myth-chasing plots.
I'm not sure where I come down on the need for realism. Clearly I'm not a stickler for it, otherwise my love for The Mummy wouldn't be so deep. But ambiguity is often much more interesting. It's never really discussed whether the Mellified Man actually has miraculous healing powers, because it's mostly besides the point. I suppose it depends on what sort of story you're trying to tell.
I'm particularly interested in how you might use this sort of plot in fantasy or science fiction. It's easy enough to write about the Holy Grail, but what if your setting doesn't contain familiar legends to fall back on? It's a much trickier game then, particularly in anything shorter than a novel. You need to build up the myth, and then take it apart again.
Incidentally, I wonder what the Holy Grail story might look like five hundred years from now? Does the arrival of Wikipedia mean these myths will essentially cease to evolve?
I can't actually think of any examples of myth-chasing plots in fantasy or sci-fi off the top of my head, unless you include the vast number of fantasy stories which feature prophecies. Can you think of any? Suggestions welcome in the comment thread, or via ambiguously worded postcard mailed to the usual address just before the Nazis snatch you!
The winners of the 2011 Hugo Awards have been announced, and just for future reference, I'm bad at picking them.
Actually, that's not really fair. Obviously when I was voting I went for the entries that I thought should win. If you'd asked me instead to pick the entries I thought would win, I think I would have guessed right in three of the four fiction categories (and I would have had no idea what to pick from the Best Short Story list). I really must remember to make predictions alongside my votes next year.
So here are my rapid-fire thoughts on the Hugo results, which I've had roughly an hour to digest. Let me get the facetiousness out of the way first: the Best Doctor Who Episode Hugo went to a Doctor Who episode, and the Best Girl Genius Story Hugo went to a Girl Genius story. To their credit, I understand the Foglios announced that they would be withdrawing Girl Genius from contention for the Best Graphic Story Hugo next year. It remains to be seen if that will turn it into an interesting category. My guess is if there's a Fables book eligible in 2012, it will win. Unless Neil Gaiman writes another comic book.
Best Novel
Winner: Blackout / All Clear by Connie Willis
Where I ranked it: didn't read it
My pick: The Dervish House by Ian McDonald
Where it came: fifth
I'm trying pretty hard to resist the temptation to comment on this result, since I didn't actually read Blackout / All Clear. I liked the one Connie Willis novel I've read, a whole lot, but 1100 pages just seemed excessive. I kind of feel like I should give it a shot now, though, so I can have an informed opinion.
It's somewhat disappointing to see my pick -- The Dervish House -- come in last, particularly since I think it was overwhelmingly the best science fiction novel (that I read) on the ballot. That last place result is a little misleading, though, since the official stats show The Dervish House came third after the first redistribution of preferences, and was actually only three votes behind Blackout / All Clear after the first count. I think The Dervish House was the most challenging book on the ballot (that I read), so perhaps it's unsurprising that it got killed on preferences.
Best Novella
Winner: The Lifecycle of Software Objects by Ted Chiang
Where I ranked it: second
My pick: "The Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers Beneath the Queen's Window" by Rachel Swirsky
Where it came: third
Okay, so honestly, I don't think I ever expected Rachel Swirsky's story to win. It's a fantasy story, for a start, and my feeling is that Hugo voters generally prefer the science fiction. There's also a bit of feminism about it, which is another thing that I think Hugo voters don't typically like. And to top it off, Ted Chiang is beloved of the Hugo voters: this is his eighth Hugo nomination, and his fourth win. I'm okay with this result. I don't think it's Chiang's best work, but it is an interesting story, for sure.
It is also interesting to me that "The Maiden Flight of McCauley's Bellerephon" by Elizabeth Hand came in last, fairly convincingly. I thought it was a pretty strong story, but it was (almost?) completely devoid of science fictional or fantastical elements, which seems to have ruled it right out of contention.
Best Novelette
Winner: "The Emperor of Mars" by Allen M. Steele
Where I ranked it: second
My pick: "Plus or Minus" by James Patrick Kelly
Where it came: third
I think the obvious love for the history of science fiction on display in "The Emperor of Mars" was a huge factor in its win, and you know, I can get behind that. It wasn't a challenging story, and to be frank I'd be surprised if it went down in history as one of the greats, but it did make me smile. I'm not sad to see it win.
The second place went to "Eight Miles" by Sean McMullen, which means the two stories paying direct homage to Edgar Rice Burroughs took out the first two places. Bodes well for the forthcoming John Carter movie, eh? I know I'll be going to see it, although I refuse to comment on whether that's because Taylor Kitsch is in it!
Best Short Story
Winner: "For Want of a Nail" by Mary Robinette Kowal
Where I ranked it: second
My pick: "The Things" by Peter Watts
Where it came: third
I really don't have much to say about this one -- I've already commented that I thought the Short Story nominees weren't particularly strong this year. In general, I like Mary Robinette Kowal's stuff, so I'm happy for her that she's taking home her first Hugo.
So that's it for another year. I think if I have a closing comment, it's to encourage you to look beyond the winners to the list of nominees. Blackout / All Clear won both the Hugo and the Nebula this year, but if you read only that one you'll be missing out on some really great novels.
Oh, and congratulations to all the winners!
