I apologize for being so late with this; I had some deadlines (one unexpected) to meet, and then needed to post about Nor Iron Bars a Cage, so I got this one in much later than I intended. I'll pre-date it and include a link; I hope that helps.
After an e-mail exchange with Mr. Overstreet, I thought I should post his explanation of the Keeper situation.
These were the lines I used in my last post about Auralia's Colors:
Her mouth moved, searching to name that creature, that force of water, wind, or fire the presence so clearly resembled. But after a timeless moment, she knew--it reminded her of everything. Or maybe, as she looked at the forest and the sky, everything reminded her of the Keeper. All things in the landscape seemed to yearn, leaning toward the creature the way flowers lean toward the sun. Through the Keeper, all things seemed to draw color and vigor. And for the Keeper, waves splashed, trees swayed, stones protected knowledge, and wind waited for orders. (p. 267; emphasis in original, please note)
Then the Keeper reared up, and a roar came from the trees above as if they had split their trunks from their crowns. But it was not a challenge, nor was it a threat. It was a roar of affirmation, of completion. She could not comprehend it, nor could she translate it into words. But she had been given an answer, one that dissolved all her fears, leaving only laughter.
Her name was in the music of that voice. She was part of its secretive scheme. It would not forget her, had never forgotten her. (pp. 268-269)
Overtstreet points out that these are from a dream, and they should not be pressed too far. That's a valid point. It is possible, for example, that God wanted to reveal himself to Auralia, and she interpreted that revelation in terms of the mightiest creature she knew: the Keeper. It's also true (as he pointed out) that stories and characters change in the telling. This could move toward the possibility I mentioned last time that the divine aspect was unintentional, though if introduced, it should be admitted.
I do have some problems with the explanation given, and the reader may sort out the arguments for himself.
1. While it is true that dreams are more symbolic than literal, they are also more dreamlike than the one described. You can have sheaves of wheat and heavenly bodies bowing down (Gen 37:5-10) and cows eating cows and stalks eating stalks (Gen. 41:1-7). The dream Auralia has is very realistic, without the usual trappings of a dream. Also, it is echoed later by a death scene with much the same format. Oddly, this scene has the same realism as the dream, but it is presented as a dream in the end and is written in the present tense--the only such scene in the book, as I recall. Yet it has details that are clearly literal, not symbolic, with a level of effectively irrelevant detail that fits neither dream nor vision. This is an important clue, I think.
2. It is odd in any case that this is essentially an area without a god. The closest thing to a god is in fact the Keeper. (On p. 93 we twice encounter "May the Keeper protect" someone, which in context certainly sounds like the invocation of a deity or at least an angel.) Given the fundamentally religious nature of man, I find that incredible: there should be A god or SOME gods, even if the biblical God isn't mentioned. The point is that if God wanted to reveal himself, he would likely make some kind of comparison to a mythical rival. If the Keeper is the closest thing to a god, I would expect there to be something that indicates that there is someone even greater. There is no such indication, only identification of the Keeper in divine terms. It is also interesting that those who are afraid of the Keeper or try to suppress the mere idea that it exists come off as irreligious, almost atheistic: they are the unbelievers. The sign of a righteous person in the story is usually belief in the Keeper. (Sometimes the question does not arise, but when it does, the response is always indicative.) Compare belief in unicorns: does it demonstrate righteousness in any way? No. Why then is the Keeper unlike other mythic entities?
3. There remains the problem that the tracks of the Keeper mark out the proper path for characters to follow--something that again suggests deity. We may emulate a godly person's behavior, but we do not truly follow their steps, which would imply trying to reproduce their journey and life.
From these points I would say that Overstreet unconsciously patterned the Keeper after God in Aslan style, but he consciously rebelled against that resemblance--yet without stripping the signs of deity. The result is a contradiction: he desperately wants the Keeper not to be what he has already said (if indirectly) that it is. If he continues in the course he mentioned in his e-mails, the contradiction will increase, and the Keeper will become impossible in more ways than one.
The unfortunate result is likely to be the perception that he is redefining God in ways more congenial to our relativist, revisionist age. (Such confusion is perhaps inevitable: there are places in the Chronicles of Narnia where the "theology" of Aslan is inconsistent, especially when comparing the later books with the first ones. This is one reason why I reject the idea of reading them in "historical" order rather than "writing" order: it obscures the development of Aslan, among other things.)
Now, the reason I had rejected such confusion as an explanation was that Overstreet normally seems very orderly in his analyses, such as his reviews. But then I encountered evidence of the confusion, and matters began to fall into place.
For example, though I had specified that the theological elements were the most mportant to me, he did advance an apologia for the problematic explosion I mentioned, and part of it was indicative. He observed that Yoda's lifting a small starship out of a swamp isn't good physics either. That's true. It is, however, good magic, which is what "the Force" is in the Star Wars universe. Magic means never having to say you're sorry about your physics, so when someone invokes magic, he's admitting that what follows doesn't work in the real world apart from miracles. That's why the idea of magically shaping stones by hand in Auralia's Colors didn't bother me: it was magic. Ditto for a character plunging into an inferno and emerging unharmed: it had already been implied that he had that curious ability.
Yet the explosion was presented and explained as real-life physics: there was no implication, however faint, that magic was involved. Yet absent magic, there is no explanation for the event. So again there is a kind of confusion at work.
For what it's worth, I think I would've dropped or minimized the Keeper unless I intended it to function like Aslan. That would make the most theologically interesting character Scharr ben Fray, the mystical teacher who acts almost like a prophet. The "ben" echoes Jewish names, where it means "son of," while "fray" is a Spanish-derived title for a monk. (Alternatively, the German root scharr refers to shredding and English fray to fraying, but neither reflects the character well.) It seems to me to imply a Judeo-Christian element breaking in. But regardless of the name, he is a mentor character, and he would in the absence of the Keeper serve as the theological focus of the story. That would probably have been a better path than the contradictions of the Keeper.
I'll amend my conclusion roughly back to what it was before the questions about the Keeper arose: I would recommend this with reservations, though I don't foresee a proper resolution to the contradiction. The book is good stylistically, and it's worth a look if only for that. Some of the ideas are likewise good, and if you can somehow ignore the language of deity and remember that the Keeper is NOT God, the follow-ups will probably be worth a look, especially if Overstreet removes such language from them.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Monday, January 21, 2008
Off-"Color"--and the end of this string of puns
I wrote these blogs ahead and intended to let them stand unaltered by others' posts, but this is important. Rebecca Miller pointed out that Overstreet himself denies that the Keeper represents God.
Poppycock, as one of my friends would say. Here are quotes that I think define the Keeper quite differently:
Her mouth moved, searching to name that creature, that force of water, wind, or fire the presence so clearly resembled. But after a timeless moment, she knew--it reminded her of everything. Or maybe, as she looked at the forest and the sky, everything reminded her of the Keeper. All things in the landscape seemed to yearn, leaning toward the creature the way flowers lean toward the sun. Through the Keeper, all things seemed to draw color and vigor. And for the Keeper, waves splashed, trees swayed, stones protected knowledge, and wind waited for orders. (p. 267)
Then the Keeper reared up, and a roar came from the trees above as if they had split their trunks from their crowns. But it was not a challenge, nor was it a threat. It was a roar of affirmation, of completion. She could not comprehend it, nor could she translate it into words. But she had been given an answer, one that dissolved all her fears, leaving only laughter.
Her name was in the music of that voice. She was part of its secretive scheme. It would not forget her, had never forgotten her. (pp. 268-269)
There are other references, but they require more context. Basically, though, the characters are to follow the "tracks of the Keeper" (pp. 312, 334) to fulfill their destiny, and in at least one case, the Keeper is present at the hour of death to take the deceased home (pp 312-313). That is why I consider Overstreet's protestations disingenuous.
The following is my original post for today, unchanged except the conclusion.
One of the problems I had with Auralia's Colors by Jeffrey Overstreet was errors of genre or physics.
Moderate Spoiler Alert!
There is a major explosion toward the end of the story. There shouldn't be. I'm not saying that it's bad in terms of the story; I'm saying it wouldn't happen if the story world has anything like our physical laws. The explosion is alcohol-based--or booze-based, anyway. But alcohol isn't generally explosive, just flammable. And that's technically the fumes more than the liquid. You can light up in a leaky wine cellar without sending the house overhead into orbit. Yet here, the blast is enough to topple buildings and incinerate people quite a ways off.
Overstreet must have realized that it was a bit much, because he later adds that some of the blast came from weapons stockpiles. But how did the fire reach them? There's a cute bit with a trail of clothing acting as a fuse, but even old-fashioned clothes without flame retardant didn't work well as fuses, especially over long distances. That's why people soaked rags in alcohol, added gunpowder, and so on.
Another problem is that right next to the wine cellar is a large and supposedly bottomless cavern. You see, an explosion involves something expanding rapidly and forcefully, sweeping aside obstacles. The real power of an explosion involves blowing things out of the way. So if you have a load of dynamite and put it next to a house, the result will be very different than if you put it in the house, especially in a closet, for example. The blast outside will mostly displace air, because the air will move more readily than the house. Very little damage will occur. The blast inside the house will displace whatever's handy, including not just air but doors, supports, and so on. The bottomless pit means that the blast (such as it might be) will occur effectively outdoors. It will burn those nearby, but the damage will be trivial: most of the force will simply displace the air in the pit. There is no chance that any fire released will incinerate someone hundreds of yards away through a maze of tunnels.
If I had to do this, I would ditch the booze and go right to the explosives. I would minimize the fire aspect and say instead that the structural damage to the already honeycombed foundation led to catastrophic failure and practically everything went into the bottomless pit.
End of Spoiler.
There is also a standard fantasy bug: gratuitous weirdness. Unlike Tolkien and Lewis (and many others), who presented a largely familiar world with a few strange elements, Overstreet seems to introduce a pointless oddity every chapter or so. I think he's flipping a coin. Thus we have various oddball animals: cawba birds, fangbears, vawns, plumspiders, and so on. Yet there are familiar elements as well, especially fruit such as apples and plums. Why?
Now, there is a type of fantasy that does this: weird or nonsense fantasy (Carrol's Alice books, the Oz books). But the feel of Auralia's Colors owes more to Tolkien than to Baum, so encountering a trick from another sub-genre just feels odd. (There are also some general conworld/conlang issues that bother me, but only a fellow geek would care. Linguistically, the story world is confusing, especially where names are concerned: English elements mingle with non-English ones in a way that would've made Tolkien hack up a hobbit.)
One of the examples of gratuitous weirdness occurred early, and I never quite recovered. The typical animal for riding is not anything horselike; it is a giant lizard called a vawn. Now, riding lizards is a sci-fi or sci-fantasy trope; you don't see it much in classical fantasy. (Part of the trouble is that horses are a deep-set literary image in Western culture, and even in much non-Western culture. It's almost like doing without swords.) What's even more curious, we eventually learn that horses do exist, but they are reserved for the very rich. (For some reason the Prince uses a vawn when we see him, though.)
Vawns aren't standard lizards, however. For one thing, they have hair--specifically manes--and it's evidently not a wig. But then, they also go traipsing about in the winter snow, which most lizards wouldn't do. They don't start on cold mornings.
Conclusion
There are definitely problems here, but Overstreet strives for moral balance and mostly achieves it. His writing is far better than average, but the story itself is problematic. I wasn't looking for an allegory--neither the Chronicles of Narnia nor The Lord of the Rings is allegorical--but I do look for a world where God exists, even if the author doesn't acknowledge him. In this case, given some of the author's own statements, I'm not sure that Auralia's Colors fits that. As Mr. Beaver said about humanity in creatures, "But in general, take my advice, when you meet anything that's going to be Human and isn't yet, or used to be Human once and isn't now, or ought to be Human and isn't, you keep your eyes on it and feel for your hatchet." (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, pp. 77-78) Substitute "Christian" (not the "wink-wink, nudge-nudge" kind, the kind that acknowledges God frankly), and you have my viewpoint and my disquiet summarized.
Following an e-mail discussion with Overstreet, I've modified my views slightly; I explain here.
Other reviews:
Brandon Barr
Jim Black
Justin Boyer
Grace Bridges
Jackie Castle
Carol Bruce Collett
Valerie Comer
CSFF Blog Tour
D. G. D. Davidson
Chris Deanne
Jeff Draper
April Erwin
Marcus Goodyear
Andrea Graham
Jill Hart
Katie Hart
Timothy Hicks
Heather R. Hunt
Becca Johnson
Jason Joyner
Kait
Karen
Carol Keen
Mike Lynch
Margaret
Rachel Marks
Shannon McNear
Melissa Meeks
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Mirtika or Mir's Here
Pamela Morrisson
Eve Nielsen
John W. Otte
John Ottinger
Deena Peterson
Rachelle
Cheryl Russel
Ashley Rutherford
Hanna Sandvig
Chawna Schroeder
James Somers
Rachelle Sperling
Donna Swanson
Steve Trower
Speculative Faith
Jason Waguespac
Laura Williams
Timothy Wise
Poppycock, as one of my friends would say. Here are quotes that I think define the Keeper quite differently:
Her mouth moved, searching to name that creature, that force of water, wind, or fire the presence so clearly resembled. But after a timeless moment, she knew--it reminded her of everything. Or maybe, as she looked at the forest and the sky, everything reminded her of the Keeper. All things in the landscape seemed to yearn, leaning toward the creature the way flowers lean toward the sun. Through the Keeper, all things seemed to draw color and vigor. And for the Keeper, waves splashed, trees swayed, stones protected knowledge, and wind waited for orders. (p. 267)
Then the Keeper reared up, and a roar came from the trees above as if they had split their trunks from their crowns. But it was not a challenge, nor was it a threat. It was a roar of affirmation, of completion. She could not comprehend it, nor could she translate it into words. But she had been given an answer, one that dissolved all her fears, leaving only laughter.
Her name was in the music of that voice. She was part of its secretive scheme. It would not forget her, had never forgotten her. (pp. 268-269)
There are other references, but they require more context. Basically, though, the characters are to follow the "tracks of the Keeper" (pp. 312, 334) to fulfill their destiny, and in at least one case, the Keeper is present at the hour of death to take the deceased home (pp 312-313). That is why I consider Overstreet's protestations disingenuous.
The following is my original post for today, unchanged except the conclusion.
One of the problems I had with Auralia's Colors by Jeffrey Overstreet was errors of genre or physics.
Moderate Spoiler Alert!
There is a major explosion toward the end of the story. There shouldn't be. I'm not saying that it's bad in terms of the story; I'm saying it wouldn't happen if the story world has anything like our physical laws. The explosion is alcohol-based--or booze-based, anyway. But alcohol isn't generally explosive, just flammable. And that's technically the fumes more than the liquid. You can light up in a leaky wine cellar without sending the house overhead into orbit. Yet here, the blast is enough to topple buildings and incinerate people quite a ways off.
Overstreet must have realized that it was a bit much, because he later adds that some of the blast came from weapons stockpiles. But how did the fire reach them? There's a cute bit with a trail of clothing acting as a fuse, but even old-fashioned clothes without flame retardant didn't work well as fuses, especially over long distances. That's why people soaked rags in alcohol, added gunpowder, and so on.
Another problem is that right next to the wine cellar is a large and supposedly bottomless cavern. You see, an explosion involves something expanding rapidly and forcefully, sweeping aside obstacles. The real power of an explosion involves blowing things out of the way. So if you have a load of dynamite and put it next to a house, the result will be very different than if you put it in the house, especially in a closet, for example. The blast outside will mostly displace air, because the air will move more readily than the house. Very little damage will occur. The blast inside the house will displace whatever's handy, including not just air but doors, supports, and so on. The bottomless pit means that the blast (such as it might be) will occur effectively outdoors. It will burn those nearby, but the damage will be trivial: most of the force will simply displace the air in the pit. There is no chance that any fire released will incinerate someone hundreds of yards away through a maze of tunnels.
If I had to do this, I would ditch the booze and go right to the explosives. I would minimize the fire aspect and say instead that the structural damage to the already honeycombed foundation led to catastrophic failure and practically everything went into the bottomless pit.
End of Spoiler.
There is also a standard fantasy bug: gratuitous weirdness. Unlike Tolkien and Lewis (and many others), who presented a largely familiar world with a few strange elements, Overstreet seems to introduce a pointless oddity every chapter or so. I think he's flipping a coin. Thus we have various oddball animals: cawba birds, fangbears, vawns, plumspiders, and so on. Yet there are familiar elements as well, especially fruit such as apples and plums. Why?
Now, there is a type of fantasy that does this: weird or nonsense fantasy (Carrol's Alice books, the Oz books). But the feel of Auralia's Colors owes more to Tolkien than to Baum, so encountering a trick from another sub-genre just feels odd. (There are also some general conworld/conlang issues that bother me, but only a fellow geek would care. Linguistically, the story world is confusing, especially where names are concerned: English elements mingle with non-English ones in a way that would've made Tolkien hack up a hobbit.)
One of the examples of gratuitous weirdness occurred early, and I never quite recovered. The typical animal for riding is not anything horselike; it is a giant lizard called a vawn. Now, riding lizards is a sci-fi or sci-fantasy trope; you don't see it much in classical fantasy. (Part of the trouble is that horses are a deep-set literary image in Western culture, and even in much non-Western culture. It's almost like doing without swords.) What's even more curious, we eventually learn that horses do exist, but they are reserved for the very rich. (For some reason the Prince uses a vawn when we see him, though.)
Vawns aren't standard lizards, however. For one thing, they have hair--specifically manes--and it's evidently not a wig. But then, they also go traipsing about in the winter snow, which most lizards wouldn't do. They don't start on cold mornings.
Conclusion
There are definitely problems here, but Overstreet strives for moral balance and mostly achieves it. His writing is far better than average, but the story itself is problematic. I wasn't looking for an allegory--neither the Chronicles of Narnia nor The Lord of the Rings is allegorical--but I do look for a world where God exists, even if the author doesn't acknowledge him. In this case, given some of the author's own statements, I'm not sure that Auralia's Colors fits that. As Mr. Beaver said about humanity in creatures, "But in general, take my advice, when you meet anything that's going to be Human and isn't yet, or used to be Human once and isn't now, or ought to be Human and isn't, you keep your eyes on it and feel for your hatchet." (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, pp. 77-78) Substitute "Christian" (not the "wink-wink, nudge-nudge" kind, the kind that acknowledges God frankly), and you have my viewpoint and my disquiet summarized.
Following an e-mail discussion with Overstreet, I've modified my views slightly; I explain here.
Other reviews:
Brandon Barr
Jim Black
Justin Boyer
Grace Bridges
Jackie Castle
Carol Bruce Collett
Valerie Comer
CSFF Blog Tour
D. G. D. Davidson
Chris Deanne
Jeff Draper
April Erwin
Marcus Goodyear
Andrea Graham
Jill Hart
Katie Hart
Timothy Hicks
Heather R. Hunt
Becca Johnson
Jason Joyner
Kait
Karen
Carol Keen
Mike Lynch
Margaret
Rachel Marks
Shannon McNear
Melissa Meeks
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Mirtika or Mir's Here
Pamela Morrisson
Eve Nielsen
John W. Otte
John Ottinger
Deena Peterson
Rachelle
Cheryl Russel
Ashley Rutherford
Hanna Sandvig
Chawna Schroeder
James Somers
Rachelle Sperling
Donna Swanson
Steve Trower
Speculative Faith
Jason Waguespac
Laura Williams
Timothy Wise
"Colors" True and False
In the previous post, I extolled the style of Auralia's Colors by Jeffrey Overstreet. Yet there are also problems. Some are errors of fact or genre, which I'll get to tomorrow. But now I'll mention some more general issues, including a theological knot or two.
The most striking problem for me was the Keeper, a strange entity that is supposedly just the bogeyman of children's nightmares, but that instead appears to be a god or divine messenger. The Keeper is described as a horse-headed, winged dragon with fingered feet--a hodgepodge of images. Despite what some have tried to argue, dragons are never positive images in the Bible; they represent pride, rebellion, and self-serving power. (The closest thing to a positive portrayal in the Bible is in Psalm 104:26, which almost makes Leviathan God's pet. Elsewhere, Leviathan/Rahab is the primal chaos dragon of the sea, an enemy God defeats.) Yet the dream in which the Keeper appears is much like the scenes where Aslan turns up for the first time in a Narnia book, and much of what is said is good. So while there are useful points here, my overall reaction is negative.
The apparent bad guys have some minor redeeming feature brought out on cue: these are not flat characters; they are good characters gone wrong. They may even regret their evil and do some minor penance. Unfortunately, that's right before they go screaming to their doom. (This is especially common toward the end of the book.) There doesn't seem to be much grace involved here. I know that God seldom eliminates consequences, but this is dire in places.
Sometimes the shifts work, however, though the main instance goes in the other direction. In one scene, the noble, virtuous, and all-around cuddly prince takes an overseer to task for being obnoxious to the workers. It has all the hallmarks of a cliché. But then the situation flips unexpectedly, and a trite moral becomes a strong lesson: it's one of the best scenes in the story.
As I read, I kept getting the impression that there was some ham-handed moralizing afoot, that there was supposed to be some modern-day relevance, perhaps in terms of politics and current events. This was exacerbated by a reflexive and sometimes preening political correctness: Oh, look! I have fully integrated roles, with soldiers and whatnot of both sexes!
The problem is that epic fantasy (which this most looks like) tends to be very conservative: it isn't about presidents and democracy but about kings, knights, and the occasional damsel in distress. Back-reading modern attitudes only works in parodies. If you would be taken seriously, be true to your sources, not to your times. For even when you have an Amazon, she is a novelty: the fighters will be men, because traditionally they are men, and epic fantasy is about what used to be--or what might once have been. Perhaps the various iconoclastic swipes at fantasy--the Shreks and other fairy tales gone modern--have dulled our ability to understand the genre. If that's so, then true fantasy is dead or at least dying, and only a zombie version remains to ape the original.
Other reviews:
Brandon Barr
Jim Black
Justin Boyer
Grace Bridges
Jackie Castle
Carol Bruce Collett
Valerie Comer
CSFF Blog Tour
D. G. D. Davidson
Chris Deanne
Jeff Draper
April Erwin
Marcus Goodyear
Andrea Graham
Jill Hart
Katie Hart
Timothy Hicks
Heather R. Hunt
Becca Johnson
Jason Joyner
Kait
Karen
Carol Keen
Mike Lynch
Margaret
Rachel Marks
Shannon McNear
Melissa Meeks
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Mirtika or Mir's Here
Pamela Morrisson
Eve Nielsen
John W. Otte
John Ottinger
Deena Peterson
Rachelle
Cheryl Russel
Ashley Rutherford
Hanna Sandvig
Chawna Schroeder
James Somers
Rachelle Sperling
Donna Swanson
Steve Trower
Speculative Faith
Jason Waguespac
Laura Williams
Timothy Wise
The most striking problem for me was the Keeper, a strange entity that is supposedly just the bogeyman of children's nightmares, but that instead appears to be a god or divine messenger. The Keeper is described as a horse-headed, winged dragon with fingered feet--a hodgepodge of images. Despite what some have tried to argue, dragons are never positive images in the Bible; they represent pride, rebellion, and self-serving power. (The closest thing to a positive portrayal in the Bible is in Psalm 104:26, which almost makes Leviathan God's pet. Elsewhere, Leviathan/Rahab is the primal chaos dragon of the sea, an enemy God defeats.) Yet the dream in which the Keeper appears is much like the scenes where Aslan turns up for the first time in a Narnia book, and much of what is said is good. So while there are useful points here, my overall reaction is negative.
The apparent bad guys have some minor redeeming feature brought out on cue: these are not flat characters; they are good characters gone wrong. They may even regret their evil and do some minor penance. Unfortunately, that's right before they go screaming to their doom. (This is especially common toward the end of the book.) There doesn't seem to be much grace involved here. I know that God seldom eliminates consequences, but this is dire in places.
Sometimes the shifts work, however, though the main instance goes in the other direction. In one scene, the noble, virtuous, and all-around cuddly prince takes an overseer to task for being obnoxious to the workers. It has all the hallmarks of a cliché. But then the situation flips unexpectedly, and a trite moral becomes a strong lesson: it's one of the best scenes in the story.
As I read, I kept getting the impression that there was some ham-handed moralizing afoot, that there was supposed to be some modern-day relevance, perhaps in terms of politics and current events. This was exacerbated by a reflexive and sometimes preening political correctness: Oh, look! I have fully integrated roles, with soldiers and whatnot of both sexes!
The problem is that epic fantasy (which this most looks like) tends to be very conservative: it isn't about presidents and democracy but about kings, knights, and the occasional damsel in distress. Back-reading modern attitudes only works in parodies. If you would be taken seriously, be true to your sources, not to your times. For even when you have an Amazon, she is a novelty: the fighters will be men, because traditionally they are men, and epic fantasy is about what used to be--or what might once have been. Perhaps the various iconoclastic swipes at fantasy--the Shreks and other fairy tales gone modern--have dulled our ability to understand the genre. If that's so, then true fantasy is dead or at least dying, and only a zombie version remains to ape the original.
Other reviews:
Brandon Barr
Jim Black
Justin Boyer
Grace Bridges
Jackie Castle
Carol Bruce Collett
Valerie Comer
CSFF Blog Tour
D. G. D. Davidson
Chris Deanne
Jeff Draper
April Erwin
Marcus Goodyear
Andrea Graham
Jill Hart
Katie Hart
Timothy Hicks
Heather R. Hunt
Becca Johnson
Jason Joyner
Kait
Karen
Carol Keen
Mike Lynch
Margaret
Rachel Marks
Shannon McNear
Melissa Meeks
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Mirtika or Mir's Here
Pamela Morrisson
Eve Nielsen
John W. Otte
John Ottinger
Deena Peterson
Rachelle
Cheryl Russel
Ashley Rutherford
Hanna Sandvig
Chawna Schroeder
James Somers
Rachelle Sperling
Donna Swanson
Steve Trower
Speculative Faith
Jason Waguespac
Laura Williams
Timothy Wise
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Overstreet's "Colors"
Auralia's Colors by Jeffrey Overstreet introduces the Expanse, an area settled centuries before the story opens and now divided into different "houses" or kingdoms. There's a small amount of low-key magic (strictly literary and non-occult) and some gadgetry at a late-medieval level. One of the kingdoms, Cent Regus, has already wiped itself out by ill-advised experiments that turned its people into beastmen.
This story concerns House Abascar, where the now-missing queen persuaded the now-aged king to confiscate anything particularly colorful or beautiful from the citizens. The items were supposed to be used to beautify the palace and improve the kingdom's status among its neighbors, but much of the loot is merely mouldering in a storage area by the dungeons.
Enter Auralia, a foundling with a gift for producing colorful items. She lives among the Gatherers, outcasts from the city of Abascar, but unlike them, she doesn't want to become a regular citizen confined within the city walls. But at sixteen, she is supposed to appear for the Rites of the Privilege to justify her existence and win admission to the city.
The major selling point of Auralia's Colors is the writing. I've read more modern fiction in the last few months than in the previous few years, and it was a relief to encounter a literate author. Most writers these days follow rules set up and enforced by ignorant and poetry-free Pharisees.
By those standards, Overstreet is a lousy writer. So are Tolkien, Lewis, and a host of others. (I could list the rules they break, but the rules are superstitions without linguistic basis.) The defenders of the rules say that rule-breakers can't get published. Overstreet shows that they are and should be wrong. His style is poetic, his vocabulary adult (in the good sense), and his sentences coherent. (Unlike others. Who break their sentences. Into fragments. For no apparent reason.) If you are a writer, you should copy some paragraphs from Auralia's Colors by hand until you get a feel for proper writing. If you are a reader who enjoys modern fiction, avoid this book at all cost; it may open your eyes to good style and ruin what you now prefer.
Other reviews:
Brandon Barr
Jim Black
Justin Boyer
Grace Bridges
Jackie Castle
Carol Bruce Collett
Valerie Comer
CSFF Blog Tour
D. G. D. Davidson
Chris Deanne
Jeff Draper
April Erwin
Marcus Goodyear
Andrea Graham
Jill Hart
Katie Hart
Timothy Hicks
Heather R. Hunt
Becca Johnson
Jason Joyner
Kait
Karen
Carol Keen
Mike Lynch
Margaret
Rachel Marks
Shannon McNear
Melissa Meeks
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Mirtika or Mir's Here
Pamela Morrisson
Eve Nielsen
John W. Otte
John Ottinger
Deena Peterson
Rachelle
Cheryl Russel
Ashley Rutherford
Hanna Sandvig
Chawna Schroeder
James Somers
Rachelle Sperling
Donna Swanson
Steve Trower
Speculative Faith
Jason Waguespac
Laura Williams
Timothy Wise
This story concerns House Abascar, where the now-missing queen persuaded the now-aged king to confiscate anything particularly colorful or beautiful from the citizens. The items were supposed to be used to beautify the palace and improve the kingdom's status among its neighbors, but much of the loot is merely mouldering in a storage area by the dungeons.
Enter Auralia, a foundling with a gift for producing colorful items. She lives among the Gatherers, outcasts from the city of Abascar, but unlike them, she doesn't want to become a regular citizen confined within the city walls. But at sixteen, she is supposed to appear for the Rites of the Privilege to justify her existence and win admission to the city.
The major selling point of Auralia's Colors is the writing. I've read more modern fiction in the last few months than in the previous few years, and it was a relief to encounter a literate author. Most writers these days follow rules set up and enforced by ignorant and poetry-free Pharisees.
By those standards, Overstreet is a lousy writer. So are Tolkien, Lewis, and a host of others. (I could list the rules they break, but the rules are superstitions without linguistic basis.) The defenders of the rules say that rule-breakers can't get published. Overstreet shows that they are and should be wrong. His style is poetic, his vocabulary adult (in the good sense), and his sentences coherent. (Unlike others. Who break their sentences. Into fragments. For no apparent reason.) If you are a writer, you should copy some paragraphs from Auralia's Colors by hand until you get a feel for proper writing. If you are a reader who enjoys modern fiction, avoid this book at all cost; it may open your eyes to good style and ruin what you now prefer.
Other reviews:
Brandon Barr
Jim Black
Justin Boyer
Grace Bridges
Jackie Castle
Carol Bruce Collett
Valerie Comer
CSFF Blog Tour
D. G. D. Davidson
Chris Deanne
Jeff Draper
April Erwin
Marcus Goodyear
Andrea Graham
Jill Hart
Katie Hart
Timothy Hicks
Heather R. Hunt
Becca Johnson
Jason Joyner
Kait
Karen
Carol Keen
Mike Lynch
Margaret
Rachel Marks
Shannon McNear
Melissa Meeks
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Mirtika or Mir's Here
Pamela Morrisson
Eve Nielsen
John W. Otte
John Ottinger
Deena Peterson
Rachelle
Cheryl Russel
Ashley Rutherford
Hanna Sandvig
Chawna Schroeder
James Somers
Rachelle Sperling
Donna Swanson
Steve Trower
Speculative Faith
Jason Waguespac
Laura Williams
Timothy Wise
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
Time Masters 1: Conclusion
(This thread begins here.)
So is it worth reading? I think so. There are rough spots, but it's quite good for a first book. The second will likely be even better. One reviewer suggested that those uninterested in the romantic angle skip the first story and wait for the second. This is a bad idea, because
1. The first book is rather intricate, and I expect the second to lean on the first considerably, and
2. Unless I am very much mistaken, the romantic angle is a large part of the overall story. While the focus may change, the succeeding stories will likely be every bit as "romantic" as this one. If romance bothers you that much, skip the series and enjoy your impoverished life as best you can. (How do you spend your spare time, anyway--trying to reproduce by fission?)
In fact, I'm somewhat surprised at the positive response from women. It seemed to me that TMTC had a very masculine viewpoint most of the time; I could've thought it was written by a man. So the book and series may not be as big a turnoff for men as some reviewers imagine. Most guys wouldn't mind the first few chapters, which I thought would drive off women, so just getting a guy through the prolog should give him enough momentum to finish the book.
I would especially recommend this for teens, as it gives some good role models. Parents should read it too, so they can discuss the topics raised.
As I've mentioned, the use of alcohol and violence (usually not together) will bother some people. However, the drinking is not excessive, and the violence is not generally gratuitous. (In any case, I find no basis for the ideas that Christians are to be abstemious pacifists, though I neither use alcohol nor get into punch-ups.) I doubt the book will stumble anyone, even impressionable youth.
So four out of five for me. It's a better read than Potter books, and the content's better too.
So is it worth reading? I think so. There are rough spots, but it's quite good for a first book. The second will likely be even better. One reviewer suggested that those uninterested in the romantic angle skip the first story and wait for the second. This is a bad idea, because
1. The first book is rather intricate, and I expect the second to lean on the first considerably, and
2. Unless I am very much mistaken, the romantic angle is a large part of the overall story. While the focus may change, the succeeding stories will likely be every bit as "romantic" as this one. If romance bothers you that much, skip the series and enjoy your impoverished life as best you can. (How do you spend your spare time, anyway--trying to reproduce by fission?)
In fact, I'm somewhat surprised at the positive response from women. It seemed to me that TMTC had a very masculine viewpoint most of the time; I could've thought it was written by a man. So the book and series may not be as big a turnoff for men as some reviewers imagine. Most guys wouldn't mind the first few chapters, which I thought would drive off women, so just getting a guy through the prolog should give him enough momentum to finish the book.
I would especially recommend this for teens, as it gives some good role models. Parents should read it too, so they can discuss the topics raised.
As I've mentioned, the use of alcohol and violence (usually not together) will bother some people. However, the drinking is not excessive, and the violence is not generally gratuitous. (In any case, I find no basis for the ideas that Christians are to be abstemious pacifists, though I neither use alcohol nor get into punch-ups.) I doubt the book will stumble anyone, even impressionable youth.
So four out of five for me. It's a better read than Potter books, and the content's better too.
Monday, January 7, 2008
Time Masters 1, Part Three: Negatives
(This thread begins here.)
From most to least important:
1. (Moderate potential spoiler) A dead spouse makes a cameo appearance. The idea is that the Muiraran marital bond has kept her connected despite death. From various scriptures, including Jesus' teaching on marriage and the resurrection in Matt 22:30 and Paul in Rom 7, this seems unlikely. But what troubles me is that I've seen other Christian writers with dead people wandering into a scene to explain some plot point. The idea is theologically difficult to say the least, yet it seems to be gaining popularity.
2. Muirarans are supposed to have two hearts (reminiscent of the Gallifreyan Time Lords, though theirs are actual blood pumps), one normal, the other figurative but no less powerful. Each Muiraran Maiden has some specific heart need: some require music, as Shona does, others beauty, and so on. Zara, the wife of the current Time Master regains her power through passionate sex--yes, with her husband; but see below. I'm sure this was added to avoid the appearance of prudery, but it raises some problems:
First, do I as the reader truly need to know such an intimate detail? For that matter, there's a certain amount of "wink-wink, nudge-nudge" whenever the fact is mentioned, especially if someone has just found out. Do they really need to know? In at least some cases, I don't think so. This undercuts the emphasis on purity with an occasional leer.
Second, while I'm not the World's Biggest Perv (I doubt I'm even the biggest on my block!), I do try to think through the implications. Shona, in the absence of music from her chosen one (or even from her CD player) can "self-feed" by singing to herself. Question: how would Zara self-feed? Keep your answer family-friendly!
3. The book needs editing badly. Or perhaps it was just edited badly. In any case, the better your English, the harder it is to read. For example, IIRC, every instance of "whomever" should be "whoever"--and all but one "whom" should be "who." Then there are the dialog tags: "This quote is actually the direct object of the following verb." He said. The quote should end with a comma; it is the direct object of the verb "said." (A lot of writers do this; I've no idea why.) Another common writing error shows up: overusing fragments. At best, a sentence fragment is like an exclamation mark: strong if used sparingly, annoying otherwise. A sentence is supposed to express a complete thought. Someone who writes in fragments not only presents the reader with thoughts "some assembly required" but appears incapable of coherent thought. Also, some of the fragments invite misreading.
If this book has a second edition, as I hope it will, it would be a good time to have it edited. Likewise the sequel will be better if properly edited. Even major publishers no longer do a proper job, so authors need to make sure it's done right.
4. There are some minor linguistic and scientific bugs. Kwaku, the current Time Master, is said to have an "African" accent. That's like an "American" accent: we all know Bostonians, Brooklyners, and Texans talk the same way. Anyhow, Kwaku replaces all instances of the sequence "th" with "d." Actually, he would replace voiced "th" (the sound in the, that) with "d" and the voiceless "th" (of thin, theory) with "t."
Then there's the place where stopping a forward-moving car suddenly throws Kitty and Shona back in their seats, not forward, as Newton says. Very odd.
Tomorrow's concluding post will likely be a bit late, owing to an extra hectic schedule.
From most to least important:
1. (Moderate potential spoiler) A dead spouse makes a cameo appearance. The idea is that the Muiraran marital bond has kept her connected despite death. From various scriptures, including Jesus' teaching on marriage and the resurrection in Matt 22:30 and Paul in Rom 7, this seems unlikely. But what troubles me is that I've seen other Christian writers with dead people wandering into a scene to explain some plot point. The idea is theologically difficult to say the least, yet it seems to be gaining popularity.
2. Muirarans are supposed to have two hearts (reminiscent of the Gallifreyan Time Lords, though theirs are actual blood pumps), one normal, the other figurative but no less powerful. Each Muiraran Maiden has some specific heart need: some require music, as Shona does, others beauty, and so on. Zara, the wife of the current Time Master regains her power through passionate sex--yes, with her husband; but see below. I'm sure this was added to avoid the appearance of prudery, but it raises some problems:
First, do I as the reader truly need to know such an intimate detail? For that matter, there's a certain amount of "wink-wink, nudge-nudge" whenever the fact is mentioned, especially if someone has just found out. Do they really need to know? In at least some cases, I don't think so. This undercuts the emphasis on purity with an occasional leer.
Second, while I'm not the World's Biggest Perv (I doubt I'm even the biggest on my block!), I do try to think through the implications. Shona, in the absence of music from her chosen one (or even from her CD player) can "self-feed" by singing to herself. Question: how would Zara self-feed? Keep your answer family-friendly!
3. The book needs editing badly. Or perhaps it was just edited badly. In any case, the better your English, the harder it is to read. For example, IIRC, every instance of "whomever" should be "whoever"--and all but one "whom" should be "who." Then there are the dialog tags: "This quote is actually the direct object of the following verb." He said. The quote should end with a comma; it is the direct object of the verb "said." (A lot of writers do this; I've no idea why.) Another common writing error shows up: overusing fragments. At best, a sentence fragment is like an exclamation mark: strong if used sparingly, annoying otherwise. A sentence is supposed to express a complete thought. Someone who writes in fragments not only presents the reader with thoughts "some assembly required" but appears incapable of coherent thought. Also, some of the fragments invite misreading.
If this book has a second edition, as I hope it will, it would be a good time to have it edited. Likewise the sequel will be better if properly edited. Even major publishers no longer do a proper job, so authors need to make sure it's done right.
4. There are some minor linguistic and scientific bugs. Kwaku, the current Time Master, is said to have an "African" accent. That's like an "American" accent: we all know Bostonians, Brooklyners, and Texans talk the same way. Anyhow, Kwaku replaces all instances of the sequence "th" with "d." Actually, he would replace voiced "th" (the sound in the, that) with "d" and the voiceless "th" (of thin, theory) with "t."
Then there's the place where stopping a forward-moving car suddenly throws Kitty and Shona back in their seats, not forward, as Newton says. Very odd.
Tomorrow's concluding post will likely be a bit late, owing to an extra hectic schedule.
Sunday, January 6, 2008
Time Masters 1, Part Two: Positives
(This thread begins here.)
The most notable positive in Time Masters: The Call is its emphasis on purity. Even Kitty Morgan, despite her boy-crazy ogling, is apparently a virgin, and this is taken as normal, not a surprise. There is a quirk to the purity angle, as we'll see next time, but it is a definite positive.
Beauchamp interweaves honor and righteousness in an old-fashioned way, so that the heroes are truly heroic: they do what is right because it is right, even if it means a lot of personal pain. These days, heroes practically apologize for heroism, or the author tries to explain it away. It's refreshing to see virtue in both the old and new senses presented as normal.
I haven't seen anyone else comment on this, but it's a major feature: the nature of male/female relationships, especially in marriage. There's sure to be some squawking, but the Muiraran Maiden's full power is only unleashed when she submits to her husband in love--and he responds in kind. Submission is a word with mixed associations; I prefer the term subordination (the Latin calque of the Biblical Greek term in question), because the connotations are clearer. Anyway, Beauchamp's views, though (because?) they are counter-cultural, are sound.
Although initially it's not completely clear that the "Creator" various characters refer to is the biblical God, by the end that's the most reasonable conclusion. And Dallan's resolution of the last big problem comes in answer to prayer, not from his own cleverness, unlike resolutions in many modern stories, even Christian ones.
I suppose that the common thread here is an appeal to the moral imagination. At a time when the immoral imagination is so prevalent, that's good news. Next post, however, I'll look at some problem areas, most minor, a few potentially major.
The most notable positive in Time Masters: The Call is its emphasis on purity. Even Kitty Morgan, despite her boy-crazy ogling, is apparently a virgin, and this is taken as normal, not a surprise. There is a quirk to the purity angle, as we'll see next time, but it is a definite positive.
Beauchamp interweaves honor and righteousness in an old-fashioned way, so that the heroes are truly heroic: they do what is right because it is right, even if it means a lot of personal pain. These days, heroes practically apologize for heroism, or the author tries to explain it away. It's refreshing to see virtue in both the old and new senses presented as normal.
I haven't seen anyone else comment on this, but it's a major feature: the nature of male/female relationships, especially in marriage. There's sure to be some squawking, but the Muiraran Maiden's full power is only unleashed when she submits to her husband in love--and he responds in kind. Submission is a word with mixed associations; I prefer the term subordination (the Latin calque of the Biblical Greek term in question), because the connotations are clearer. Anyway, Beauchamp's views, though (because?) they are counter-cultural, are sound.
Although initially it's not completely clear that the "Creator" various characters refer to is the biblical God, by the end that's the most reasonable conclusion. And Dallan's resolution of the last big problem comes in answer to prayer, not from his own cleverness, unlike resolutions in many modern stories, even Christian ones.
I suppose that the common thread here is an appeal to the moral imagination. At a time when the immoral imagination is so prevalent, that's good news. Next post, however, I'll look at some problem areas, most minor, a few potentially major.
Time Masters 1: The Call
Time Masters: The Call by Geralyn Beauchamp is speculative fiction about a race (Muirarans) living among us, able to assume human form, heal, and even travel through time. When they mate with humans, the result is a synergy of great power, as the human male can wield his wife's abilities.
Terran society in the fortieth century is in danger from an enemy's attempts to change time. Its current time master is about to retire, perhaps for good, and a replacement is needed. Shona, the Muiraran half of the pair with latent time-bending ability, has been kidnapped as a baby to the late twentieth century, and fortieth-century agents must unite her as an adult with her chosen mate, Dallan, a seventeenth-century Scotsman, before the couple's bond kills them both--and before her unknown kidnapper can do further harm. But the kidnapper has trained Shona to distrust men, and Dallan doesn't believe any of this nonsense.
The story is reasonably fast-paced and believable; the characters are generally well-developed, though oddly I found one of Shona's friends, the klutzy, boy-crazy Kitty Morgan, a stronger character than Shona proper. (It's implied that Kitty will return later, fortunately.) The humorous angle crops up a little late--if you're going for laughs, you should introduce that aspect early--but is well handled. There's also a fair amount of violence, though no real gore, and someone's sure to object that the good guys aren't teetotalers. I'd give it a mild PG and suggest it for high school and up. (The Potter books are more annoying in terms of gore and other problem content.)
In the next installment, I'll look at the positive aspects of the book; then I'll examine the negatives. Bowing to tradition, I'll then conclude with a conclusion.
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