Cyndere's Midnight 5: A Response to some responses, part two

This time I'll be looking at a comment from Robert Treskillard. It's a long comment, so I'll try to keep my responses short.

1) Your comparison of Cyndere and Ryllion. Ryllion's story we know, and we can see clearly he is "religious" and deceived. I think our modern American culture is also "religious" and deceived.

Cyndere, on the other hand, doesn't believe in the Moon Spirits (non-religious), but then again, she's been given nothing else to believe in. Sounds also like many modern Americans.

Both points are true, but there is a true faith in America as well. There is apparently none in the Expanse. Where is God? He isn't the Keeper, which is interesting because the Keeper must be God and yet is specifically said by the author not to be God. (Look at how the Keeper is described. I may go into this later, but the identification is unavoidable yet avoided.) So if Cyndere is given nothing to believe in, that's Overstreet's fault or God's. Flip a coin.

Even biblical pagans apparently were able to know God: Melchizedek lived in a pagan area and described God in pagan terms, yet he evidently knew God. Balaam was in a similar position, though he didn't make good use of the knowledge. I suspect Job is another example. So why doesn't even Scharr Ben Fray seem to know God even in an Old Testament fashion? I see morality (a little, anyhow) and ethics (lots of that), but no God. Why?

But her story isn't *done* yet. At the end of this book, she calls out to "whomever" will help her, she is seeking the truth and who she can trust in. And just because we don't see her convert in book 2 to "proper religion" (even in terms of the Expanse), we need to wait until the entire series is finished before we jump to judgment.

There is no "proper religion" in terms of the Expanse, unless you mean "knowing the Keeper," which doesn't work because the Keeper isn't God.

I did feel a brief uptick when Cyndere cries out for help, but the larger context argues against it. Since the general feel of the stories allows only a nebulous supernatural entity, I can't help finding a mere sop here. You say the story isn't done yet. True. But remember what Peter and John said: do you honestly believe that they could get through two books--700 pages or more--without a fairly solid reference to what they could not help talking about?

Nor do I see any hope of a change in the third book. The logic of the details given in the story thus far absolutely require that the Keeper in some sense be God--or else the Devil. There is no logical alternative. Yet Overstreet rejects the God option, and the Devil option would be nearly impossible at this point as well. This is why I can confidently "jump to judgment": there is a contradiction here that cannot be resolved unless the author retracts his expressed intention, which I don't see happening.

2) Your reference to C.S. Lewis brings up an excellent point, but you are forgetting about the example of Tolkien. I think the two of them gave us different examples, one who's work "rings true and shows a clear morality" yet does not include direct or clear references to God (Tolkien), and one who was much more clear about his Christian themes (Lewis). Both of their works show a Christian foundation, and I think Overstreet is following the Tolkien route. Are you saying Tokein was immature in his faith? Are you applying the same attacks to him? He was the one that led Lewis to faith.

This is complex for the following reasons:

1. It's untrue. Seriously, while there is no Evangelical Protestant message to speak of in Tolkien, that's because he was Catholic. No religion? Nonsense. What about the prayers and hymns to Elbereth, who I think must be seen as a Mary figure? If Overstreet had even that, I wouldn't be so bothered, despite my misgivings concerning overemphasis on Mary. But there is a "true faith" in Middle Earth, and a God who can be known, if only mediately. Where is that in Overstreet's work?

2. It's irrelevant. You're making a few invalid assumptions here. First, maturity and immaturity have nothing whatever to do with being used to lead someone to God. I've heard of people who have come to God through Jesus Christ, Superstar, which specifically claims that Jesus did not rise from the dead. If God can use something blasphemous to reach people, immaturity will prove no obstacle.

Second, you're assuming that Tolkien's and Lewis' works are equivalent. I see no evidence of that. While Tolkien's work is magisterial from a scholarly and literary standpoint, I find no reason to suppose that it is of particular spiritual or eternal merit. I suspect that from God's standpoint, Lewis is by far the more important writer. It's easy to find people who have been drawn to God through Lewis' work, rather harder to find such witnesses for Tolkien. (I don't say they don't exist; by my previous point I would expect them to. But in terms of overall spiritual impact, I would be astonished if Tolkien was anywhere close to Lewis.)

3) I feel like you're caricaturing Jeffrey Overstreet. To quote you: "hell bent ... to be different", an "individualist ... indistinguishable from others", unobvious faith in writing = immaturity, "camouflage [his] intentions", and "won't submit [his] imagination to God".

Now, its possible you were just railing against generic positions and not intending these things to be directed specifically at Mr. Overstreet, but it seems to me that this is directed at him.

Maybe it will help if I requote myself, adding the magic ingredient "context":

Unfortunately, this is something I see quite often, and usually in *writers* with above-average gifts. *They're* so determined (or more bluntly "hell-bent") that *they* are going to be different.

For the curious thing about these *individualists* is how indistinguishable *they* are from one another.

*Some* say that *they* have to camouflage *their* intentions to be read.

If *you* won't submit *your* imagination to God, *you* will inevitably conform to the world. [I'll grant that the immediate context here is ambiguous: I refer to "stories," which could technically be either Overstreet's or those of the group I was already describing. The overall context favors the latter.]

If I were a bit more paranoid, I might imagine that you changed the plurals (indicating a group--I've never accused Overstreet of Multiple Personality Disorder) to singular in an attempt to caricature me.

And I bet it would hurt if he read it, and I think its unfair. How do you know his motivations? How do you know how he lives his life? How he witnesses? How his books will end? Just because his writing isn't "obvious" (yet?) doesn't mean he is anything like your caricatures.

I'm talking very little about his motivations, life, witnessing, or ultimate plot resolutions. I'm talking about the available data. I do find it curious that you keep referring to the idea that some blinding flash of faith will yet illumine the Expanse. Perhaps so. But it's rather like holding out hope for a deathbed conversion: such things do happen, but in general there is a kind of momentum that leads those who have spent their lives rejecting God to keep doing so even in the shadow of the grave.

This is not so desperate a case, of course, but that momentum exists in stories as well. After a while, the writer is pretty much committed to maintain the established course. It's rather like Waiting for Godot, except that there it would be less surprising if Godot did turn up at the last minute. At least we've heard enough about him.

Will this hurt Overstreet's feelings? I actually hope not. He is, as I have said, a writer of unusual talent. I have read some of his non-fiction and found an inexplicable gulf between it and his fiction. I suppose it's really that which troubles me: if his non-fiction were as secular as his fiction, I would reach a different conclusion. But it isn't: and a paradox or contradiction results. Overstreet really doesn't belong in the group with which he now keeps company; may he leave it. But in the meantime it is reasonable to warn readers of the association.

Cyndere's Midnight 4: A Response to some responses, part one

Among the responses to my posts were a few that call for more than just a brief comment. Taking this in either post order or by "ladies first," I'll begin with Rebecca Miller's comment on the second post.

"I see the whole beastman thing as a metaphor for our sin nature."

That's clear enough, but mostly from a Christian standpoint. After all, not everyone in the Expanse is a beastman, and all of them are more or less flawed. Given the general secularism of the story, it's quite possible to see only a drug reference. For that matter, though my reasoning is rather involved, I halfway suspect a reference to jihadists and their cultural/religious "drug" of xenophobic hatred. But this leads to another point:

"But is that me thinking the way I think or is this actually what Jeffrey wanted to communicate through his story? Or is he writing a story without any intention, which allows for multiple interpretations?

"There's the crux of the problem of this current popular trend among Christian writers to eschew theme."

This is a problem, and it's particularly troubling that Christians are following the world here. It's pointless to ask what someone means when he means nothing at all, and it's selfish to deliver a story "some assembly required." That doesn't mean the theme has to be obvious, but it does need to exist. Otherwise it's a story without a point.

It's also true that we subconsciously create or find themes. As I have been writing "Pandora's Lamp," the origin series for the League of Superheroes,I've gained and lost themes. (That's also why I made sure I was mostly through with the origin series before the first book went to press.) But there's a difference between unintended developments and unintended purpose. The first derives from imperfect knowledge; the second stems from intellectual laziness.

The Christian must always ask, "What am I modeling?" We are made in God's image, and if we obey God, we will become like him. Does God create without purpose? Many modern Christians evidently think so, which is why they are keen to ignore Design in their own work. This has dangerous consequences.

I'm appalled when I see "Creation versus Evolution" presented as the ultimate crisis. It isn't. The real divide is "Design versus Chance." You see, pagan gods were creators too, but they usually created at random. And many Christians act as though God creates randomly as well. This is reflected in the "Aurelia Thread" series by (among other things) the reflexive and politically correct equation of men and women. Put another way, they are not simply equal but congruent: ignoring objective data about physiology, he asserts that male and female fighters co-exist routinely in a roughly medieval setting. That's nonsense on several levels, theological among them.

I believe in a Designer, not just a Creator. So where there are differences, as there certainly are between men and women, they are not happenstance. They are meaningful. And unless I understand the meaning, I cannot understand the differences.

Unfortunately in this and other points, Overstreet is roughly in the same position as an atheistic evolutionist: yes, differences exist, and they do derive from something--some factor lost in the fog of prehistory that, combined with a fortunate mutation, set the pattern for the sexes to work one way and not another. But the differences are neither designed nor currently relevant: we may, even should, ignore them. Trans-sexualism and transhumanism show that we can reverse-engineer ourselves. If there is a Designer, especially an omniscient, loving one, that's not a good idea. But a mere Creator may be improved on.

In any case, as agents of the Source of Meaning, Christian writing should be more meaningful than non-Christian writing: we should be overflowing in the midst of the secular drought.

In my next post, I'll take up a longer response from Robert Treskillard.

Cyndere's Midnight 3: Weak Points

So what are the weak points of Jeffrey Overstreet’s Cyndere's Midnight?

In terms of weak points specific to the book, nothing much. As in Auralia's Colors, there is the annoying fact that the mysterious Keeper is described in divine terms without being God. (Some claimed that I was looking for an Aslan figure in the earlier story, but that's ridiculous: my stories never feature Aslan figures, and I don't expect them elsewhere. It's only when a description leaves me no alternative that I decide an Aslan is present.)

On the other hand, there is a feature I'm seeing in a lot of "Christian" writing these days, and it troubles me. No, make that two features.

The first is the "wink-wink, nudge-nudge" factor. If I knew nothing whatever about the writer, I would conclude from the story that he was probably a vaguely religious person acquainted with both the fuzzier forms of Christianity and some kind of New Age teaching. Unfortunately, this is something I see quite often, and usually in writers with above-average gifts. They're so determined (or more bluntly "hell-bent") that they are going to be different. Today's Amazing Free Clue: if you want to be different, wear your pants/dress on your head. But if you want to be a Christian and really follow God, you'll be different, counter-cultural, and transgressive without changing your personal dress code.

For the curious thing about these individualists is how indistinguishable they are from one another. C. S. Lewis said that good, as it matures, becomes ever more distinct not only from evil but also from other good. Why isn't that happening here? For that matter, why do such writers look rather secular? If their writing reflects a greater maturity, shouldn't their faith be all the more obvious?

Scripture check:

Luke 8:16 No one lights a lamp and hides it in a jar or puts it under a bed. Instead, he puts it on a stand, so that those who come in can see the light.

Matt 12:34b For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks.

Acts 4:18-20 Then they called them in again and commanded them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John replied, "Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God's sight to obey you rather than God. For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard."

If Christ is your center, how can you hide that? How can you help but talk about him? The One who fills your heart will overflow into your writing--and not like a lamp hidden in a jar or under a bed, with an ambiguous glow from an uncertain source.

Whenever I bring this up, someone will always claim that it would mean that all writing would turn into cheesy tracts. No. That's where giftedness comes in. If you're a hack, whatever you write will be bad. But if you truly are a gifted writer, you can turn out beautiful fiction to the glory of God without a bunch of self-indulgent gimmicks. God is the source of your gift and creativity. If you turn your gift to his glory, how can that lead to ungifted, uncreative work?

Some say that they have to camouflage their intentions to be read. But God can turn people in the way he would have them go. Honor him, and he will honor you. Don't underestimate the power of the Story: for the Gospel, however expressed, is the eternal story, the one thought up by God himself. It's better than any story you will ever imagine. It's the only one that will matter a thousand or million years hence, the light that reduces all other stories to either submissive reflections or rebellious shadows.

The second feature is secularism. This is related to the first. If you won't submit your imagination to God, you will inevitably conform to the world. That's why these stories are so reliably secular and politically correct. It's also why they can be mistaken for the work of the unsaved. Look at the moral lessons here: putting your own wishes first can hurt others and ultimately you as well. Specifically Christian? No. Specifically religious? No. Specifically warm-fuzzy "inspirational," even if you're an atheist? Sure, close enough.

Okay, how about "organized religions and people who act on religious convictions are dangerous"? Take a guess. Ryllion is actually pretty evangelistic about his views. Cyndere despises religion (Yay!!), and Jordam has no religious/spiritual concepts to speak of. Sound familiar? If you partake of modern secular fiction, it should. And although it's true that some organized religions and their adherents are dangerous, in a time when CNN and other media outlets are equating "fundamentalist" Muslims with fundamentalist Christians, this is ill considered at best.

Well then, how about "art can have a religious function by empowering people to escape from their own ickiness without any external savior"? (Yes, I know: Auralia's work derives from a divine gift, so it is divinely empowered even if the deity in question remains anonymous.) This idea has been around for quite some time: there is something (Art, Knowledge, Altruism, Love--romantic, maternal, or platonic) that is noble and salvific by itself. Nonsense. Fallen world, fallen species, and everything on the list is tainted as well. Lewis again: the higher something is initially, the worse it becomes when it goes wrong.

Can God use Art to draw someone? (Okay, cheesy pun. It was getting too serious.) Of course. But God seldom uses just one thing, lest we mistake a path for the path--or worse yet, for the destination. Something will work once or twice, then totally fail. It helps us seek the treasure rather than the jar of clay. If God were using Art here, he would do so for a few people--and even then only a few times. Then it would utterly fail and so keep them from idolatry.

Conclusion. So, then: "Bad book! Bad book! Swat it with a newspaper!"? No. There are flaws, but the gift is there. If you're a writer, there's a lot to learn from, even if some of it is of a cautionary nature. And it is in general a good story, though I think it could easily have been better. Read it. Just keep your eyes open and ask questions the whole time. It's not a just-for-fun read; very little is these days. Books are battlefields too. Stay sharp and check for mines.

Try the probably less incendiary posts of other CSFF bloggers:
Brandon Barr
Keanan Brand
Rachel Briard
Melissa Carswell
Valerie Comer
Amy Cruson
CSFF Blog Tour
Stacey Dale
D. G. D. Davidson
Shane Deal
Jeff Draper
April Erwin
Karina Fabian
Andrea Graham
Todd Michael Greene
Katie Hart
Timothy Hicks
Jason Isbell
Jason Joyner
Kait
Carol Keen
Magma
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Eve Nielsen
Nissa
Wade Ogletree
John W. Otte
John Ottinger
Crista Richey
Alice M. Roelke
Chawna Schroeder
James Somers
Rachel Starr Thomson
Robert Treskillard
Steve Trower
Speculative Faith
Fred Warren
Jill Williamson

Cyndere's Midnight 2: Good Points

Jeffrey Overstreet’s Cyndere's Midnight has many of the same positives as Auralia's Colors. Specifically,

Writing Style. Overstreet still bothers to produce literate prose that feels like poetry, so the book can function as a modern chrestomathy for those wanting to improve their style.

Flow. This is actually better than in Auralia's Colors, which seemed to wander a bit. Although there are numerous viewpoint characters, the overall focus is strong. Part of the difference is that Jordam is simply a more compelling character than Auralia was. (Yes, Cyndere is okay as well, but this is really Jordam's book, regardless of the title.)

(I should probably mention that I had some misgivings over trying CM, and it took me almost a hundred pages to really get into it as a result. I think I would ordinarily have gotten into it a little sooner.)

Realistic Characterization. Cal-raven, Abascar's king, is still a bit headstrong, and though generally virtuous, he does react reflexively and prejudicially when he ought to shut up and listen. And Jordam, being in effect a drug addict--the beastmen are produced and sustained by the mutagenic "Essence"--struggles with his need for a fix.

Messages. Though most of these have been done before, they're still worthwhile: Drugs can warp you; tinkering with God's design as an "improvement" is a bad idea; following your dreams can lead you to run over other people, and so on.

Tomorrow I'll present some weak points in the story and try to produce a strong conclusion.

Meanwhile, check out the other CSFF bloggers:
Brandon Barr
Keanan Brand
Rachel Briard
Melissa Carswell
Valerie Comer
Amy Cruson
CSFF Blog Tour
Stacey Dale
D. G. D. Davidson
Shane Deal
Jeff Draper
April Erwin
Karina Fabian
Andrea Graham
Todd Michael Greene
Katie Hart
Timothy Hicks
Jason Isbell
Jason Joyner
Kait
Carol Keen
Magma
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Eve Nielsen
Nissa
Wade Ogletree
John W. Otte
John Ottinger
Crista Richey
Alice M. Roelke
Chawna Schroeder
James Somers
Rachel Starr Thomson
Robert Treskillard
Steve Trower
Speculative Faith
Fred Warren
Jill Williamson

Cyndere's Midnight 1: Intro

Jeffrey Overstreet’s Cyndere's Midnight is the follow-up to Auralia's Colors, which I reviewed a year ago. I'll refer back to those posts occasionally, which is only fair considering how often Auralia (or "O-raya") is mentioned in the current story.

Quick synopsis of the previous story: Long, long ago, in a galaxy far, far away, an unrelated story occurred. So we're stuck in the Expanse, where a bunch of kids rescued from a northern summer camp decided to set up rival kingdoms. One of them, House Abascar, is led by people who are depressed because they thought they'd run House Tabasco, featured in a much spicier tale. So they do the obvious thing and confiscate colorful stuff from all the citizens. Enter Auralia, a girl with a knack for colors. She tries to get them into the whole groovy colors thing (say it with me: "Wow, the colors!"), but they lock her away just in time for a horrible incident to pretty much wipe out the place. (The real story, unmentioned in AC, was that beastmen hijacked the Keeper and flew him into the palace, causing it to implode catastrophically and create ruins never once directly called "Ground Zero.")

Anyhoo... In this story we begin with Cyndere (pronounced "cinder" as in "Cinderella"--"Cinderella," "midnight"--get it?), heiress of House Bel Amica. She's been having a run of bad luck lately: her father was lost at sea; her brother is missing, presumed dead; and her husband has just done his part to alleviate the suffering of hungry beastmen. Yes, everything happens to Cyndere. So she hies herself off to Tilianpurth, where Ryllion, the only survivor of her late husband's expedition, is plotting plots.

Ryllion is into the moon spirits--not to be confused with moonshine, they are happy little sprites that say the end justifies the means and you've got to follow your dreams and desires, no matter how many people you run over in the process. Presidential material, in other words. He is allied with the Seers (motto: Better Living Through Chemistry), who are making the most of a culture without drug tests.

Meanwhile, Cyndere is wanting some closure, so she's going to burn a bunch of keepsakes from her lamented kin. Instead, she encounters a beastman who's half-tamed by a brush with Auralia's colors (the colors proper, not the book). His name is Jordam, and he's probably the most interesting character in the book. He has three brothers: Mordafey, the evil offspring of Mordred and Malfoy; Jorn, who's basically Richard Simmons with roid rage; and Goreth, who in another story would probably talk to "George" a lot and pet small mammals instead of the occasional turtle.

Mordafey is involved in an evil plot to take over the beastmen, who are essentially mutant steroid-abusers. But of course the plot extends far beyond him...

Will the beastmen destroy the remnant of House Abascar? Will Art and Niceness prove way more effective than cleaning someone's clock? Will the beastmen eventually be transmogrified into giant Care Bears?

Who knows? But it's a pretty good tale anyway. More about that tomorrow.

Meanwhile, check out the other CSFF bloggers:
Brandon Barr
Keanan Brand
Rachel Briard
Melissa Carswell
Valerie Comer
Amy Cruson
CSFF Blog Tour
Stacey Dale
D. G. D. Davidson
Shane Deal
Jeff Draper
April Erwin
Karina Fabian
Andrea Graham
Todd Michael Greene
Katie Hart
Timothy Hicks
Jason Isbell
Jason Joyner
Kait
Carol Keen
Magma
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Eve Nielsen
Nissa
Wade Ogletree
John W. Otte
John Ottinger
Crista Richey
Alice M. Roelke
Chawna Schroeder
James Somers
Rachel Starr Thomson
Robert Treskillard
Steve Trower
Speculative Faith
Fred Warren
Jill Williamson

Auralia's Colors Reconsidered

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.

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

"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

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