Every story you hear about llamas is the same. You see it in books: the poor doomed baby llama getting chomped up by its intemperate parent. On television: the massive tide of scaly llamas falling in a great, majestic herd into the sea below. In the movies: bad-ass llamas smoking cigars and painting their scales in jungle camouflage.

Because you’ve seen this story so many times, because you already know the nature and history of llamas, it sometimes shocks you, of course, to see a llama outside of these media spaces. The llamas you see don’t have scales. So you doubt what you see, and you joke with your friends about “those scaly llamas” and they laugh and say, “Yes, llamas sure are scaly!” and you forget your actual experience.

Art by Brenoch Adams

So you forget the llamas that don’t fit the narrative you saw in films, books, television – the ones you heard about in the stories.

What you remember is the llama you saw who had mange, which sort of looked scaly, after a while, and that one llama who was sort of aggressive toward a baby llama, like maybe it was going to eat it. So you forget the llamas that don’t fit the narrative you saw in films, books, television – the ones you heard about in the stories – and you remember the ones that exhibited the behavior the stories talk about. Suddenly, all the llamas you remember fit the narrative you see and hear every day from those around you.  You make jokes about it with your friends. You feel like you’ve won something. You’re not crazy. You think just like everyone else.

And then there came a day when you started writing about your own llamas. Unsurprisingly, you didn’t choose to write about the soft, downy, non-cannibalistic ones you actually met, because you knew no one would find those “realistic.” You plucked out the llamas from the stories. You created cannibal llamas with a death wish, their scales matted in paint.

It’s easier to tell the same stories everyone else does. There’s no particular shame in it.

It’s just that it’s lazy, which is just about the worst possible thing a spec fic writer can be.

Oh, and it’s not true.

I’m passionately interested in truth: truth is something that happens whether or not we see it, or believe it, or write about. Truth just is.

As somebody with more than a passing knowledge of history (All the Thing That Came Before Me), I’m passionately interested in truth: truth is something that happens whether or not we see it, or believe it, or write about. Truth just is. We can call it something else, or pretend it didn’t happen, but its repercussions live with us, whether we choose to remember and acknowledge it or not.

When I sat down with one of my senior professors in Durban, South Africa to talk about my Master’s thesis, he asked me why I wanted to write about women resistance fighters.

“Because women made up twenty percent of the ANC’s militant wing!” I gushed. “Twenty percent! When I found that out I couldn’t believe it. And you know – women have never been part of fighting forces –”

The Huntress, art by S. Ross Browne

He interrupted me. “Women have always fought,” he said.

“What?” I said.

“Women have always fought,” he said. “Shaka Zulu had an all-female force of fighters. Women have been part of every resistance movement. Women dressed as men and went to war, went to sea, and participated actively in combat for as long as there have been people.”

I had no idea what to say to this. I had been nurtured in the U.S. school system on a steady diet of the Great Men theory of history. History was full of Great Men. I had to take separate Women’s History courses just to learn about what women were doing while all the men were killing each other. It turned out many of them were governing countries and figuring out rather effective methods of birth control that had sweeping ramifications on the makeup of particular states, especially Greece and Rome.

Half the world is full of women, but it’s rare to hear a narrative that doesn’t speak of women as the people who have things done to them instead of the people who do things. More often, women are talked about as a man’s daughter. A man’s wife.

I just watched a reality TV show about Alaska bush pilots where all of the pilots get these little intros about their families and passions, but the single female pilot is given the one-line “Pilot X’s girlfriend.” It wasn’t until they broke up, in season 2, that she got her own intro. Turns out she’s been in Alaska four times longer than the other pilot and hunts, fishes, and climbs ice walls, in addition to being an ace pilot.

But the narrative was “cannibalistic llama,” and our eyes glazed over, and we stopped seeing her as anything else.

Language is a powerful thing, and it changes the way we view ourselves, and other people, in delightful and horrifying ways. Anyone with any knowledge of the military, or who pays attention to how the media talks about war, has likely caught on to this.

We don’t kill “people.” We kill “targets.” (Or japs or gooks or ragheads).  We don’t kill “fifteen year old boys” but “enemy combatants” (yes, every boy 15 and over killed in drone strikes now is automatically listed as an enemy combatant. Not a boy. Not a child.).

And when we talk about “people” we don’t really mean “men and women.” We mean “people and female people.”  We talk about “American Novelists” and “American Women Novelists.” We talk about “Teenage Coders” and “Lady Teenage Coders.”

And when we talk about war, we talk about soldiers and female soldiers.

Because this is the way we talk, when we talk about history and use the word “soldiers” it immediately erases any women doing the fighting. Which is it comes as no surprise that the folks excavating Viking graves didn’t bother to check whether the graves they dug up were male or female. They were graves swords in them. Swords are for soldiers. Soldiers are men.

It was years before they thought to even check the actual bones of the skeletons, instead of just saying, “Sword means dude!” and realized their mistake.

Women fought too.

Let’s just put it this way: if you think there’s a thing – anything – women didn’t do in the past, you’re wrong.

In fact, women did all sorts of things we think they didn’t do. In the middle ages, they were doctors and sheriffs. In Greece they were… oh, sod it. Listen. Foz Meadows does a better job with all the linky-links, for those who desire “proof.” Let’s just put it this way: if you think there’s a thing – anything – women didn’t do in the past, you’re wrong. Women – now and then – even made a habit of peeing standing up. They wore dildos. So even things the funny-ha-ha folks immediately raise a hand to say “It’s impossible women didn’t do X!” Well. They did it. Except maybe impregnate other women. But even then, there were, of course, intersex folks categorized as “women” who did just that.

But none of those things fit our narrative. What we want to talk about are women in one capacity: their capacity as wife, mother, sister, daughter to a man.  I see this in fiction all the time.  I see it in books and TV. I hear it in the way people talk.

All those cannibal llamas.

It makes it really hard for me to write about llamas who aren’t cannibals.

James Tiptree Jr. has a very interesting story called, “The Women Men Don’t See.” I read it when I was twenty, and I admit I had a difficult time understanding what the fuss was all about. This was the story? But… this wasn’t the story! We’re stuck for the full narrative inside the head of a man who does very little, who’s traveling with a woman and her daughter. Like the man, of course, we as readers don’t “see” them. We don’t realize that they are, in fact, the heroes of the story until it’s over.

This was the man’s story, after all. That was his narrative. It’s his story we were a part of. They were just passing objects, some NPC’s in his limited landscape.

We didn’t see them.

Art above by Jason Chan, Kimonas, & Tony Foti

When I was sixteen, I wrote an essay about why women should remain barred from combat in the U.S. military. I found it recently while going through some old papers. My argument for why women shouldn’t be in combat was because war was terrible, and families were important, and with all these men dying in war, why would we want women to die, too?

That was my entire argument.

“Women shouldn’t go to war because, like men do now, they would die there.”

I got an “A.”

Valkyrie, art by anndr

I often tell people that I’m the biggest self-aware misogynist I know.

I was writing a scene last night between a woman general and the man she helped put on the throne. I started writing in some romantic tension, and realized how lazy that was. There are other kinds of tension.

I made a passing reference to sexual slavery, which I had to cut.  I nearly had him use a gendered slur against her. I growled at the screen. He wanted to help save her child… no. Her brother? Ok.  She was going to betray him. OK. He had some wives who died… ug. No. Close advisors? Friends? Maybe somebody  just… left him?

Even writing about societies where there is very little sexual violence, or no sexual violence against women, I find myself writing in the same tired tropes and motivations. “Well, this is a bad guy, and I need something traumatic to happen to this heroine, so I’ll have him rape her.” That was an actual thing I did in the first draft of my first book, which features a violent society where women outnumber men 25-1.  Because, of course, it’s What You Do.

I actually watched a TV show recently that was supposedly about this traumatic experience a young girl went through, but was, in fact, simply tossed in so that the two male characters in the show could fight over it, and argue about which of them was at fault because of what happened to her. It was the most flagrant erasure of a female character and her experiences that I’d seen in some time. She’s literally in the room with them while they fight about it, revealing all these character things about them while she sort of fades into the background.

We forget what the story’s about. We erase women in our stories who, in our own lives, are powerful, forthright, intelligent, terrifying people. Women stab and maim and kill and lead and manage and own and run. We know that. We experience it every day. We see it.

But this is our narrative: two men fighting loudly in a room, and a woman snuffling in a corner.

The trouble is, it’s often hard to sort out what we actually experienced from what we’re told we experienced, or what we should have experienced.

What is “realism”? What is “truth”? People tell me that the truth is what they’ve experienced. But the trouble is, it’s often hard to sort out what we actually experienced from what we’re told we experienced, or what we should have experienced. We’re social creatures, and fallible.

In disaster situations, the average person will ask for about four other opinions before forming their own, before taking action. You can train people to respond quickly in these types of situations through vigorous training (such as in the military), but for the most part, about 70% of human beings like to just go along with their everyday routine. We like our narrative. It takes overwhelming evidence and – more importantly – the words of many, many, many people around us, for us to take action.

You see this all the time in big cities. It’s why people can get into fistfights and assault others on busy sidewalks. It’s why people are killed in broad daylight, and homes are broken into even in areas with lots of foot traffic. Most people actually ignore things out of the ordinary. Or, worse, hope that someone else will take care of it.

I remember being on the train in Chicago in a car with about a dozen other people. On the other side of the car, a man suddenly fell off his seat. Just… toppled over into the aisle. He started convulsing. There were three people between me and him. But nobody said anything. Nobody did anything.

I stood up, “Sir?” I said, and started toward him.

And that’s when everyone started to move.  I called for someone at the back to push the operator alert button, to tell the train driver to call for an ambulance at the next stop.  After I moved, there were suddenly three or four other people with me, coming to the man’s aid.

But somebody had to move first.

I stood in a crowded, standing-room only train on another day and watched a young woman standing near the door close her eyes and drop her papers and binder onto the floor. She was packed tight, surrounded by other people, and no one said anything.

Her body began to go limp. “Are you OK!?” I said loudly, leaning toward her, and then other people were looking, and she was sagging, and the buzz started, and somebody called up from the front of the car that he was a doctor, and someone gave up their seat, and people moved, moved, moved.

Somebody needs to be the person who says something is wrong. We can’t pretend we don’t see it. Because people have been murdered and assaulted on street corners where hundreds of people milled around, pretending everything was normal.

But pretending it was normal didn’t make it so.

Somebody has to point it out. Somebody has to get folks to move.

Somebody has to act.

I shot my first gun at my boyfriend’s house in high school: first a rifle, then a sawed-off shotgun.  I have since gotten to be pretty decent with a Glock, still terrible with a rifle, and had the opportunity to shoot an AK-47, the gun of choice for revolutionary armies around the world, particularly in the 80’s.

I knocked over my first 200 lb. punching bag with my fist when I was 24.

The punch meant more.  Anyone could shoot a gun. But now I knew how to hit things properly in the face. Hard.

Art by Michael Komarck

The women in my family were hardworking matriarchs. But the stories I saw on TV and movies and even in many books said they were anomalies.

Growing up, I learned that women fulfilled certain types of roles and did certain types of things. It wasn’t that I didn’t have great role models. The women in my family were hardworking matriarchs. But the stories I saw on TV and movies and even in many books said they were anomalies. They were furry, non-cannibalistic llamas. So rare.

But the stories were all wrong.

I spent two years in South Africa and another decade once I returned to the states finding out about all the women who fought. Women fought in every revolutionary army, I found, and those armies were often composed of fighting forces that were 20-30% women. But when we say “revolutionary army” what do we think of? What image does it conjure? Does the force in your mind include three women and seven men? Six women and fourteen men?

Women not only made bombs and guns in WWII – they picked up guns and drove tanks and flew airplanes. The civil war, the revolutionary war – point me to a war and I can point to an instance where a women picked up a hat and a gun and went off to join it. And yes, Shaka Zulu employed female fighters as well. But when we say “Shaka Zulu’s fighters” what image do we conjure in our minds? Do we think of these women? Or are they the ones we don’t see? The ones who, if we included them in our stories, people would say weren’t “realistic”?

Of course, we do talk about women who ran with Shaka Zulu. When I Google “women who fought for Shaka Zulu” I learn all about his “harem of 1200 women.”  And his mother, of course.  And this line was very popular: “Women, cattle and slaves.” One breath.

It’s easy to think women never fought, never led, when we are never seen.

Art by Michael Komarck

What does it matter, if we tell the same old stories? If we share the same old lies? If women fight, and women lead, and women hold up half the sky, what do stories matter to the truth? We won’t change the truth by writing people out of it.

Will we?

Stories tell us who we are. What we’re capable of. When we go out looking for stories we are, I think, in many ways going in search of ourselves, trying to find understanding of our lives, and the people around us.  Stories, and language tell us what’s important.

If women are “bitches” and “cunts” and “whores” and the people we’re killing are “gooks” and “japs” and “rag heads” then they aren’t really people, are they?  It makes them easier to erase. Easier to kill. To disregard. To un-see.

But the moment we re-imagine the world as a buzzing hive of individuals with a variety of genders and complicated sexes and unique, passionate narratives that have yet to be told – it makes them harder to ignore. They are no longer, “women and cattle and slaves” but active players in their own stories.

And ours.

Because when we choose to write stories, it’s not just an individual story we’re telling. It’s theirs. And yours. And ours. We all exist together. It all happens here. It’s muddy and complex and often tragic and terrifying. But ignoring half of it, and pretending there’s only one way a woman lives or has ever lived – in relation to the men that surround her – is not a single act of erasure, but a political erasure.

Populating a world with men, with male heroes, male people, and their “women cattle and slaves” is a political act. You are making a conscious choice to erase half the world.

Buy God’s War by Kameron Hurley: book/eBook

As storytellers, there are more interesting choices we can make.

I can tell you all day that llamas have scales. I can draw you pictures. I can rewrite history.  But I am a single storyteller, and my lies don’t become narrative unless you agree with me. Unless you write just like me. Unless you, too, buy my lazy narrative and perpetuate it.

You must be complicit in this erasure for it to happen. You, me, all of us.

Don’t let it happen.

Don’t be lazy.

The llamas will thank you.

Real human people will, too.

I happened across these maps a couple of weeks ago on the Fantasy sub-Reddit (enter at your own risk), and they haven’t left my mind. So, like any thought that won’t escape, I felt it’d be best to set it free so I can move on.These maps are hand-made, and gorgeously textured. The map-fetishist in me (and, frankly, the ol’ Warhammer fan) is madly in love. It’s been discussed to death, but there’s something magically tangible about a good map, one on paper, or leather and hung on a wall, and I’d love to see how these models appear in person.

Westeros

The artist, who goes by the handle Moonsinger on Reddit, estimated that the Westeros piece took about twelve hours of work, in addition to time for drying. More images of the maps can be found in two libraries created by the artist: Middle-earth, Westeros

At first glance [A Memory of Light] would seem to meet fan/reader expectations: there is a lot of action and movement, plus several characters have their arcs come to a close.

In reviewing A Memory of Light, many references will be made to the series as a whole and to specific plot/prose points, as the Wheel of Time series is designed as much to be a single “novel” (one that consists of over 3 million words) as anything else, as there is not as many episodic “closing points” vis-à-vis other massive epic fantasy novels of recent years. As a conclusion to Wheel of Time, A Memory of Light at first glance would seem to meet fan/reader expectations: there is a lot of action and movement, plus several characters have their arcs come to a close. Those who enjoy hundreds of pages of “battle scenes,” with good and evil characters pitted at each other in a series of personal and group duels, doubtless will be thrilled to know that there’s a single chapter of nearly 200 pages that covers much of the fighting. Those who wrote “theories” about possible plot foreshadowings almost certainly will be excited at which of their predictive guesses came true and which ones had surprising conclusions. In other words, those who read the series in order to place themselves as a sort of textual sleuth will find much more to like from this book than those who read books in order to enjoy the writing and the development of narrative, scene, and characters.

If The Gathering Storm and Towers of Midnight suffered because of an unwieldy narrative that saw massive time jumps (including scenes in consecutive chapters that were separated by nearly a month’s worth of narrative time; some characters would have done something in one scene while in the next they would have no knowledge of it, since that was in their “future”), A Memory of Light suffers from an odd compression/expansion of character action and dialogue that makes it difficult at times to focus on what is transpiring. For example, the first 250 pages or so of this massive 909 page novel are devoted to pre-planning for the prophesied “Last Battle,” with prior ally fault lines discussed in detail yet once again, only for there to be sudden mini-conclusions that make the events feel extraneous. There is a nasty habit throughout the series for the author(s) to re-explain what had already been covered previously. Scenes such as the one below, when the main leader, Rand al’Thor confronts in a dream his ancient foe (and apparently suddenly his old friend; this development is one of many that is not satisfactorily explained), have their narrative power weakened considerably with reiterations of previously-discussed things:

Moridin, like many of the Forsaken, had usually entered Tel’aran’rhiod in the flesh, which was dangerous. Some said that entering in the flesh was an evil thing, that it lost you a part of your humanity. It also made you more powerful. pp. 135-136

If Wheel of Time is to be viewed, as Jordan apparently wished, as a multi-volume novel, then its overuse of description weakens the effect of scenes considerably.

Jordan/Sanderson (from what I can tell, the majority of the first 2/3 of the novel is Sanderson’s writing) devotes too much time to reiterating past statements. If Wheel of Time is to be viewed, as Jordan apparently wished, as a multi-volume novel, then its overuse of description weakens the effect of scenes considerably. Instead of having this antagonist represent his threat through simple action, the author(s) instead have decided that it is best to have the PoV character think yet once again about the situation. While some might believe that this reinforces certain narrative events/character traits, what happens in most cases is that the character is stripped of his/her ability to convey a true sense of urgency because s/he has now slipped into a mini-soliloquy that detracts from the scene itself. If this were even only an occasional matter, it would not be too great of a hindrance, but it happens so frequently that it greatly wounds the narrative flow, reducing the internal action of the first half of the novel to a herky-jerky, sputtering mess.

Yet by roughly the halfway point, the narrative changes as the series of conflicts finally bubbles over. The bloated expansion of character monologues within their interactions with others is reduced, yet a curious reversal takes place. Due to the authors’ development of dozens of subplots and characters, the narrative tries to focus on a whole slew of angles on four different battlefields stretching over a few weeks’ time. The problem with that is that a great many of these get quick, cursory resolutions (usually death or maiming) that do not justify the great amount of time spent on them throughout the series. While it could be argued that these numerous subplots are necessary in order to underscore the main thrust of the Dark One/Dragon Reborn duel, that of the will to fight, the narrative would have benefited if it had been pared down to a handful or less other PoVs during the final 1/3 of the novel. There is an attempt at pathos, yet it falls well short of its potential because despite all of the verbiage spewed throughout the series, so many of these characters lack any true sense of character. Doubtless some will disagree and say that Characters X, Y, and Z moved them to laughter and/or tears, but can the same be said for the whole cast of hundreds? It is understandable that the authors compress these character thoughts/actions into shorter (often a paragraph or two moments) segments during the battles themselves, yet the end result is this unevenness of characterization that weakens the intended effect when several of them die.

It certainly does not help that the prose is perfunctory at best. Sanderson is not a gifted stylist, but having to work within the constraints of Jordan’s clunky prose does him no favors here. Too often, he tries to capture the essence of Jordan’s prose by emulating his detailed descriptions, but scenes such as the death of Gawyn suffer because the attention to scene detail detracts from the emotional aspect:

Somehow Gawyn managed to push himself up to his knees. His heart cried out; he needed to return to Egwene. He began to crawl, blood mixing with the earth beneath him as it seeped from his wound. Through eyes clouded with cold perspiration, he spotted several cavalry mounts twenty paces ahead, poking at blackened tufts of grass at their feet and tethered to a picket-line. After minutes of struggle, an impossible interval of time that left him drained, he pulled himself up on to the back of the first horse he could reach and untether. Gawyn hunched over, dazed, grasping its mane in one hand. Summoning his remaining strength, he kicked his heel into the animal’s rib cage. p. 664

To some, this might be acceptable, because it sets up the area around him and his struggle to live, but what happens in this scene and others is a reduction of the human struggle to a background element. There is no exploration of his thoughts, no insight into his character, no sense of regret over the foolish actions that led to a foolhardy duel. Instead, this paragraph is to serve as a commentary on Gawyn’s after-fight state, as the scene immediately shifts to another part of the battle. The chance of revealing more of his character through his futile fight to live is lost by the division of the main fight scenes into a lengthy, nearly 200 page chapter that does little besides emphasize the chaotic nature of fighting.

As a last volume in a series, its true beginning lies within the previous thirteen novels.

Many more examples could be cited here of the authors’ questionable choice of using overly detailed scene descriptions to serve in place of real, actual character development. However, there is the risk of losing sight of the novel’s other structural issues, that of how A Memory of Light is developed as a singular novel. As a last volume in a series, its true beginning lies within the previous thirteen novels, yet its form is that of a stilted 250 pages of pre-battle scenes followed by quick action scene after quick action scene. There are few good transitions; all are swallowed by the quickly-shifting PoV perspective moves, causing the narrative to lurch and stop-and-start its way forward, as certain strands are lost for 50 pages or more before resurfacing briefly. There is no elegance to it, nothing that feels smooth. Of course, some might argue that this is precisely the point when it comes to depicting a violent conflict, yet here in A Memory of Light, there is little actual movement beyond the fight. It means so little, outside of the scenes involving the Dragon Reborn’s duel. Compared to the final Malazan Book of the Fallen novel, The Crippled God, the fighting scenes here are weaker because it has taken so long to get to the point of fighting that it is so abrupt of a transition to the deluge of deaths. There is little of the Malazan book’s emphasis on the whys of the fight (outside of saving the world from evil forces); it feels paint-by-numbers in its initial sketchiness and in the quality of the narrative and thematic “paint” used to fill in the spaces.

Wheel of Time as a whole is a series that is not read for much beyond its ability to facilitate reader predictions and now that it is “complete,” there is very little to recommend it to readers.

When I reviewed Towers of Midnight, I commented somewhere that the sum of that novel was lesser than its parts. This certainly is also the case with A Memory of Light. It is understandable that fans who have awaited a decade or more for the series to be complete to be content or satisfied with knowing what finally happens. But novels aren’t judged solely by plot information. It is difficult to imagine re-reading this book for its prose or for its development of theme or characterization. It is a bloated work in a series infamous for its “fatness.” The writing does not serve the authors’ aims in developing the scenes and the dialogues largely feel stilted and devoid of any real depth of human emotion. Even the long-awaited conclusion suffers from its abruptness intermingled with unexplained actions that are designed more to keep the hardcore fans “theorizing” about their import than to provide any semblance of a tale that concludes at a proper resting point. Wheel of Time as a whole is a series that is not read for much beyond its ability to facilitate reader predictions and now that it is “complete,” there is very little to recommend it to readers. The writing is at best mediocre and often is very poor; the characterizations are tinny, leaving many readers with a bad taste in their mouths; the overarching themes regarding balance, the struggle of good and evil, and free will are presented in a hackneyed fashion that may only appeal to those who have not seen these issues treated by more talented and perceptive writers. The only good reason that I could give for reading this book is for readers to find out what happened next. It is not the sort that I would think would make for a rewarding re-reading experience, as there is virtually nothing to offer beyond readers trying to figure out the authors’ narrative game. But if you’ve read anything in this series, you already knew that, right? Recommendation to burn after reading it, if you must read it.

A dark-haired woman had taken the stage, her smile haughty and wild.

“Come!” she cried, her voice filling the darkness. “Gather near, my friends, or if you are faint of heart, move on. For our tale is one of grand adventure. Love, war, betrayal, and vengeance shall spill out now upon these boards, and I warn you not all that are good end well. Not all that are evil are punished.” Clara felt her throat growing thick, her heart beating faster. The words seemed like a threat. Or worse, a promise. “Come close, my friends, and know that in our tale as in the world, anything may happen.”
pp. 110 – 111

“Anything may happen.” This phrase, more than any other, exposes the heart of speculative fiction. Removed from the accepted and understood restrictions enforced by a real world setting, speculative fiction is allowed to explore themes, ideas and conflicts that might not naturally intersect in the more restrictive boundaries of traditional literature. This speculative playground is even more powerful when it is used to create a world, and fill it with conflicts and themes, that raise questions of issues that readers ask themselves about our own world. Few in-progress epic fantasy series do this as well as Daniel Abraham’s The Dagger and the Coin, further proved by its third volume, The Tyrant’s Law.

Speculative Fiction is allowed to explore themes, ideas and conflicts that might not naturally intersect in more traditional literature that has more restrictive boundaries to play within.

Though The Dagger and the Coin is set in a familiar European-inspired world, it sidesteps the pitfalls that plague so many of the genre’s endlessly bland and derivative works. By asking the right questions, and by building a world through a hard-nosed perspective that demands respect for the challenges present within ethnically diverse groups of people, The Dagger and the Coin allows Abraham to draw on the genre’s best tropes, while avoiding its most prominent failings, mainly homogenization and a lack of courage. Anyone, regardless of their ethnic background, or socioeconomic place in the world, will find something, or someone, that resonates with them in The Dagger and the Coin.

The Tyrant’s Law, the third volume in a five volume series, is plagued by the same issues often criticized in middle volumes of many fantasy series, such as an un-satisfying feeling of the story lacking a true beginning-middle-end structure (there’s mostly a lot of middle), and the awkward problem of having to juggle the timelines of several different characters and stories at a consistent rhythm (ensuring that nobody gets left behind.) It helps that the novel takes place over a large span of time (several months), but it is sometimes awkward to measure progress on a travelogue-style plot against a stationary, slow-burn political plot in a city, especially when screen time among characters is about even. Moreso than in the previous volumes, it feels like some of the characters, Cithrin in particular, might have benefitted from increased screen time, even if it meant lessened screen time for other characters. After waiting for a year to return to this world, The Tyrant’s Law feels in some ways like nothing more than a fleeting moment between friends, rather than a proper reunion.

Like those aforementioned middle volumes, it is difficult to accurately judge the standing of The Tyrant’s Law and its overall successes and failures while lacking full understanding of its context within the overall series. Judged on its own, The Tyrant’s Law is frustrating for asking more questions than it answers (and those that it does answer, such as the fallout from a major betrayal in The King’s Blood, play out in somewhat anti-climatic manner). The endings for each character make big promises for the fourth volume, The Widow’s House, but the waters seem muddier than ever, and the road to victory out of sight. Judgement on whether these promises pay off will need to be witheld until the final volume is released. At times, it can be difficult to tell exactly what everyone is fighting for/against in the grand scheme of the series. This, however, is only an attempt at framing The Dagger and the Coin in a way that is familiar, rather than allowing it to take its own path to the finish line, to carved its own path through the story. In a series that embraces so many genre tropes, it’s easy, but unfair, to expect it to follow a familiar plot structure. Despite these pacing issues, forgiveness can be given because it feels so good to be returned to this world, and to step in alongside ‘friends’ (even Geder), however fleetingly.

Thematically, Abraham continues to explore religion, clashing culture/society, and the mass manipulation of groups of people by individuals (or small groups) with motives of world-spanning power. One particular passage catches many of these themes into a few short lines,

Marcus saw himself reflected in the vast amber depths of it. He wanted nothing more than to run. There was no sense of threat from the vast eye. No malice. Only a danger as deep and profound as religion.
pp. 474-475

Even in his near sociopathic state, Geder raises a good question, one that Abraham is, layer-by-layer, attempting to answer:

“That can’t be right, can it?” Geder said.

Basrahip raised querying eyebrows.

“The three-year fire,” Geder explained. “A fire that went on that long would have left a layer of ash all over the world. And there are cities that stood where they are now since before the dragons fell.”

“If it must be, it must be,” Basrahip said. “But the fire years are truth.”

“But there are forests in Northcoast that have trees older than that. Not many, maybe, but I read an essay about how you can tell the age of a tree by the number of rings, and it said the largest of the redwoods in Northcoast—”

Basrahip shook his bull-wide head.

“You put too much faith in empty words. No forests live that were not planted after the fire years. All animals that live were sheltered by humanity in the fire years. If you say that the world must be built upon ash, then look for it, and you will find it. Or if you do not, you must find for yourself what became of it. But the fire is true.”

“It’s just in all the histories I’ve read—even the ones written within a generation or two of the fall—no one’s ever mentioned a catastrophe like that. You’d think they would have. I mean, the utter destruction of everything’s not the sort of thing I’d leave out if I were writing a history.”
pp. 28-29

The dogmatic and sometimes cult-like behaviour of extreme religious sects is right at the core of this series. It dictates and shapes many of the core conflicts being faced by the various characters who are trying to navigate through its war-torn pages, and, through the lines-in-the-sand often drawn by zealots and mad, power hungry people who use religion as a weapon, Abraham is able to create a world that is experiencing many of the same crises that we see reflected in our own world’s insecurities, reported nightly on the six o’clock news. In discussing The King’s Blood, I inspected Abraham’s purpose for building a world populated by so many different races, so different and yet so similar, and what that meant in the overall conflict nested in the conflict between the Dragons and the Spider Goddess. I said:

Like our own world, which is populated by billions of people, some of whom are tall, some short, some have dark skin, some have light, some an epithantic fold to their eye and black hair, others blue eyed with pin-straight hair the colour of hay. But they are all humans just the same, irregardless of race. I can hear a story about fellow humans, something funny or sad, something true or something fictional, and never once stop the person telling the story to stop and describe, at length and with specificity, what ethnicity these characters are, what colour their skin, or whether they had brown eyes or blue. In some cases, cultural tendencies might have an effect on the context of the story, but often not. Generally, none of it matters a lick to the story being told. So, what does it matter if a character in Abraham’s series has glowing eyes, porcelain skin, or walrus-like tusks growing from their mouth? As Abraham’s characters are wont to point out, the thirteen races of humanity all spawn from a single starting point and, despite their differences, and their own set of racial standards and prejudices, are all just humans. They are characters, and when I stopped trying to define them visually or pigeonhole them for being Timzinae, Firstblood or Kurtadam, I was able to fall further into the story.

“Being conquered is sometimes uncomfortable,” Ternigan said, and the issue was dismissed. p. 68

In this later volume, this picture begins to clear somewhat and readers, along with the characters, learn, slowly, that the war being fought in the present is little more than an extension of a war fought hundreds or thousands of years earlier by preternatural forces, and the divide among the thirteen races was, perhaps, once manufactured and manipulated for the purposes of those waging that long-ago war. My assumption above, that all the races were created equally, is called into question in The Tyrant’s Law and continues to add a level of thematic depth lacking in many series similar to The Dagger and the Coin. It’s easy to enjoy this series for its surface level success — characters, adventure, language — but, it’s even more satisfying to consider some of the questions that Abraham is asking between the lines.

Of the characters, Geder, and his maniacal decision-making, continues to be a core strength of the series as Abraham carefully pieces together the building blocks of a tyrant with the best of intentions. Marcus continues to follow the most archetypical ‘fantasy’ plot, his travelogue-like quest to find a magic sword taking him deep into a treacherous land. Cithrin takes a bit more of a back seat, at least early in the novel, as control over her place in the world is taken from her, but she makes one decision, right at the end of the novel, which is certain to send ripples of chaos through the world over the course of the final two volumes. Most interesting to me, again, is the story of Clara Kalliam, disgraced wife of the late Dawson Kalliam, who was a viewpoint character in earlier volumes. Her fall from grace as a result of her husband’s death was swift, and there’s a terrific resilience in Clara as she discovers that though her traditional place of authority has been stripped from her, a truer power has replaced it: freedom. Her ghostlike attack against Geder Palliako and the Severed Throne, along with a budding romance with a young man who represents all the strengths and virtues she needs to succeed, is masterfully handled by Abraham and a joy to read.

In many ways, there’s little in terms of direct conflict for the characters, and least in the physical sense. Most of the novel’s breaking points happen internally, as each of the characters confront themselves and struggle to figure out their place in an ever more tumultuous world. Those looking for something big and explosive might look elsewhere; but, then, if such is the case, you’re reading Abraham for the wrong reasons. Anyone who has grown to love these characters will feel genuine empathy and sympathy for them as they are faced with increasingly difficult decisions, now often directly affecting one another as the outcomes of those decisions play out. It’s difficult as a reader to watch the fallout of one favourite character’s decision harm another.

The Tyrant’s Law is a fine addition to one of Fantasy’s strongest series.

If you’ve read this far, you know what to expect from The Dagger and the Coin: terrific characters, strong and intelligent thematic roots, and silky-smooth prose. The Tyrant’s Law might plod along like a middle book, but the characters are so familiar, the world so interesting to explore, and the story so engaging that any of my frustrations can be blamed on having to wait another year to continue the story. Daniel Abraham continues to write quality novels that feel familiar and yet entirely unique at the same time, and The Tyrant’s Law is a fine addition to one of fantasy’s strongest series.

I find that these truly alien “Aliens” tend to make poor primary plot devices since readers need to make some sort of connection with antagonists in order for them to be effective enemies.

Aliens are portrayed usually in one of two ways. First, in the true sense, they are introduced as something completely foreign to Earth and our way of thinking. We tend to have a difficult time grasping their physiology, method of thinking, and purpose behind their logic. I find that these truly alien “Aliens” tend to make poor primary plot devices since readers need to make some sort of connection with antagonists in order for them to be effective enemies. Good storytelling requires the reader to sympathize or understand the characters in a book. Otherwise, the alien just devolves into being an antagonist for antagonists’ sake. Or in the words of Tropic Thunder, it’s like going “full retard.” The exception to that is if these antagonists are there only to serve as a plot device to reflect the focus of the story back onto the protagonist. It’s not about the goal, it’s about the journey sort of storytelling.

The second way that aliens are portrayed in science fiction is to make them not alien at all and uses them as a literary vehicle to explore social issues within our culture and society. Usually, the author does this a safe distance by hiding behind the façade of portraying an alien culture, but can delve deeply into lingering prejudices and social stereotypes.

Art by Ken Barthelmey

That is one of the things science fiction has always excelled at. It’s one of the most effective tools to analyze humanity and challenge social issues. Classics like The Left Hand of Darkness used alien culture to hem to explore several aspects of gender, politics, and religion. Several of Joe Halderman and Robert Heinlein’s books used alien wars as a vehicle to reflect the effects of war, totalitarianism, humanism, and PTSD on a society and its soldiers. There’s dozens of other examples that can be pulled. In movies, District 9 is a study on apartheid, Avatar reflects the struggles of Native Americans, Contact explores faith, and Transformers is a study of bad action sequences.

Let’s run all this down in an example:

James ran away from home at the tender age of sixteen. He joined the Mars Defense Force because he was homeless and hungry. However, he eventually learned to love the corp and believe in his duty to defend his loved ones and keep a free Mars from the corrupt tyranny of the Earth Conglomerate Corporations…. Yada yada yada.

The Earth Conglomerate Corporations on the other hand, simply want to profit from Mars and its rich deposits of Chutanium ore. Unfortunately for them, their stranglehold on the mining industry was broken when Mars colony declared their independence from Earth and now demands that all corporations respect their sovereignty and laws. Now, the corporations had spent trillions of dollars building the infrastructure of Mars, and they feel like they have a right to the planet and its rich mineral deposits. So therefore, they send their private military to invade the planet. Both sides get ready to throw down to the Chutown.

Easy peasy. Still with me so far? Jimmy’s motivations are straightforward and respectable. We as the reader understand what drives him to do what he does. He cares about his family, his home, and his duty. He believes he is doing the right thing and is willing to die for his cause.

The Earth corporations on the other hand, believe they’re in the right. It was their massive investment in colonizing Mars that made living on the planet possible. They had assumed a tremendous risk and had worked countless hours to see their mining base a reality. They believe based on the contracts they made with the various Earth governments that they own the colony as well as all the minerals being mined there.

Stories like [...] James Cameron’s Aliens effectively leverage such uses of unknown aliens [by focussing] on the development and relationships of the protagonist.

See, regardless of who you side with, you understand everyone’s motor. They’re very human thoughts that evoke human emotions. Basically, we get both sides. We might agree with one side more than the other, but the purpose, motivation, and drive of all the players involved are completely understandable.

Sprinkle in an alien invasion force that swoop in and ruin everyone’s party. If they were the first kind of alien, they’d be totally foreign. Neither faction would be able to communicate with them and would have any idea WTF they are doing here. In that example, these aliens aren’t relatable for the reader and serve the plot as only being the enemy. Stories like Ender’s Game, Starship Troopers, and James Cameron’s Aliens effectively leverage such uses of unknown aliens. In their cases though, it allows the author and film maker to keep the focus on the development and relationships of the protagonist.

Dead Space, art by Daniel Oldenburg

Now, what if we gave these aliens a purpose? [...] Maybe for the Chutanium? Or Earth’s water? Or our greatest prize of all, our women? Suddenly, these aliens become a mirror for how we reflect human society.

Now, what if we gave these aliens a purpose? Maybe they came for land. Maybe for the Chutanium? Or Earth’s water? Or our greatest prize of all, our women? Suddenly, these aliens become a mirror for how we reflect human society. Because if they’re after any of the above (especially the women), they start acting awfully human and lets the author to turn the table and allows the reader to view a social issue from an angle they aren’t familiar with. District 9 and Avatar are great examples of movies that pull this off very well.

Now, aliens representing Earth cultures are also the ultimate tool of laziness. We need not look any further than the two holy grails of science fiction. Due to budgetary reasons and complete lack of imagination on the creator’s parts, many of the aliens in Star Wars and Star Trek are used as a “foreign” culture that might appear foreign to the majority of the intended viewing audience or, in not so subtle terms, white people. That’s why we have Klingons being Japanese, Ferengi being Jewish people, Gunguns as tropical islanders, Nemodians (from the Trade Federation) as Asian with accents, and Wookies as Labrador Retrievers. In doing so, it can easily fall into the category of being downright racist.

In my debut novel, The Lives of Tao, the aliens, known as the Quasing, crash landed on Earth millions of years ago and survived by inhabiting the native inhabitants of Earth. They’ve had a hand in manipulating many of the major events in our history and are a huge reason why humanity is where we are at now.

In the book, I attempt to bridge both points. I admit to having that concern trying to keep the Quasing aliens completely foreign as well as relatable, from their gaseous physiology to their methods of communication to their motivations.

I had the benefit of writing them into the story with the Quasing having been on Earth for millions of years and being one of the factors that helped evolve humanity. In a way, they are more Earthling than the humans are since they’ve been on this planet much longer. I also go to extensive length to explain that these aliens had some human cooties rubbed off on them during their stay on Earth. The great length of time allowed me to show an evolution for the Quasing from being a completely foreign alien to someone the readers can identify with.

Buy The Lives of Tao by Wesley Chu: book/eBook

In fact, I have so much history and background on the war between the Prophus and Genjix that I’m planning on releasing a novella of the material that didn’t make it into the book. In my opinion, the difference in The Lives of Tao is they’re not so much an antagonist as they are a vehicle for the relationship within the book between Roen, the protagonist, and Tao, his Quasing alien. In the end, The Lives of Tao is about them as two individuals, not about aliens.

At the end of the day, aliens are fantastic sources of conflict for science fiction novels because they offer us a tool to not only explore the unknown, but reflect upon our society through different colored lens. And as all tools, it can be easily misused and abused. However, if used properly, by using our imagination to search past our solar system, we have a chance to learn more about ourselves.

That’s my two cents. Would you like your change?

Art by Yuko Shimizu

The Melancholy of Mechagirl features fantasy-inspired short fiction by Valente about Japan, including the Hugo Award-nominated novella Silently and Very Fast and “Thirteen Ways of Looking at Space/Time,’ both of which were originally published in Clarkesworld Magazine. She described ‘The Melancholy of Mechagirl’ as ‘a philosophical confessional poem about anime and giant robots.’ Fans of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, a popular anime, will recognize the name. You can read it in Issue 26 of Mythic Delirium. Valente lived in Japan for a number of years, and the people and stories of the country are deeply rooted in much of her fiction. She discussed her relationship with Japanese culture in a 2006 interview with Bookslut:

How did living in Japan affect your writing and your life?

Oh, that’s a big question! I think Yume no Hon is probably one long answer to it, but I’ll give it a shot here.

Japan was very hard for me — my husband, a naval officer, was gone for 19 out of the 25 months we lived there. I was alone in an extremely alien culture, unable to speak the language, without friends or family. I lived alone with my dog and wrote. It was as close to a garret as you can get in the 21st century. I had never experienced loneliness like that before, and I’ll probably be processing it for awhile yet.

However, I came to interact with Japanese culture on my own terms, relatively stripped of the assumptions fostered stateside by anime and other memetic exports. I found my own way to loving it, and though it is a hard-won love, I won’t lose it soon. I lived like a hermit for a year and a half — if you don’t come out of that with some kind of zen, you go crazy.

So instead I wrote. And a lot of what I wrote in that time involves Japanese culture, because that was what I lived with every day. I wrote a novel about a lonely woman slowly losing her mind — not a very subtle allegory, I’ll admit — and another about the Shinto creation myth, and quite a lot of poetry. As a white woman living there, my relationship to Shinto was divided at best — I felt very strongly about it, and traveled all over to visit shrines, yet I always felt like an outsider, which is perhaps appropriate. The gaze of the outsider is part of all of my work, I think.

Part of me will probably always be in Japan, but it will be awhile before I write another Japanese novel. There are always new worlds to devour.

She speaks further about Japan, and particularly the Shinto religion, in an interview with Clarkesworld:

The mythology of Japan will always be with me—the Shinto faith, the syncretic culture, the jungle right up close to the urban sprawl. Some part of me will always be there, always looking for fox-statues in the forest, watching the jellyfish suck at the sides of boats in the harbor. I will never stop being fascinated by it, and processing what it means in relation to me and my work and my internal landscape. It was a hermitage, and I learned all the things good hermits are supposed to learn: how to be alone, how to quiet demons, how to sweep the halls and keep the wolves at the door.

Japanese history and mythology is rife with many stories and themes that resonate through the Fantasy genre. It’s wonderful to see authors like Valente, and collections like this in particular, celebrate a facet of myth and Fantasy that isn’t so beaten to death as the Euro-American stuff, particularly faux-Medieval England. Since learning as a kid that a lot of videogames came from Japan, I’ve been mildly obsessed ever since. This is right up my alley.

And, good golly, that cover art. I said that Joey Hi-Fi should take home an Inky Tentacle for his cover for The Lowest Heaven. He’s not eligible, so, damnit, let’s give the award to The Melancholy of Mechagirl, shall we? Artist Yuko Shimizu certainly deserves some applause for her body of work. Absolutely stunning stuff.

The Melancholy of Mechagirl will be released on July 16th, 2013 by VIZ Media LLC. It is currently available for preorder.

It’s been reported by Elio Garcia, co-author of the book, that The World of Ice and Fire, a companion book/encyclopedia about George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire, slated for a Fall 2013 release, has been delayed by a year. Garcia says,

Yes, [The World of Ice and Fire] won’t be out this year… but that’s because it’s becoming rather cooler. More pages, more new history and details, more art. Like the story of the fall of the Tarbecks and the Reynes, the surprising person from whom the Lannisters are descended, more history of the Vale and the arrival of the Andals, and a good deal more. We’re working quick as we can, but there’s also more art to commission and that means it’d be safest to aim for next year.

In the past, these volumes, related to Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time and Terry Brooks’Shannara series, have been released to some criticism, much directed toward the poor art included inside. In addition, these books were published midway through the series and feature large gaps and lack coverage of the later volumes, which is a shame. This will, of course, be the same here for A Song of Ice and Fire, but an additional year will at least give contributors some extra room to wriggle and, hopefully, allow the book to age a little better than its predecessors.

Adam Whitehead of the Wertzone suggests that the twelve month delay, rather than a shorter delay simply to complete the extra content, is to ensure that the book remains in its pre-Christmas publication slot, when coffee table-style books have the best chance of selling copies. With Game of Thrones continuing to break records for HBO, one can’t see the popularity of Martin’s work waning anytime soon, so, hopefully, this delay is for the best for everyone involved. Except those salivating fans who have to wait another year to get the book in their hands.

Each story in The Lowest Heaven is themed around a body in the Solar System, from the Sun to Halley’s Comet. Contributors include Alastair Reynolds, Kaaron Warren, S.L. Grey, Lavie Tidhar, Jon Courtenay Grimwood, Sophia McDougall, Maria Dahvana Headley, Adam Roberts, E.J. Swift, Kameron Hurley and Doctor Who’s Matt Jones.

The stories are illustrated with photographs and artwork selected from our world-class collection, while the book’s cover and overall design are the work of award-winning South African illustrator Joey Hi-Fi. Joey has provided us with an exclusive Q&A about how he created the design for the cover artwork.

In collaboration with Royal Museums Greenwich, Jurassic London is publishing this anthology on June 13th, 2013 to celebrate the mysteries of our solar system. I’m a great fan of what Perry and Shurin are doing at Jurassic London, and this appears to be one of their most accomplished publications yet. In discussion with the, artist Joey Hi-Fi, explains where the idea for map-styled art originated,

With The Lowest Heaven being an anthology, the brief was to create a piece of artwork that would tie all the stories together. Since the book features stories based on various celestial bodies in our Solar System – creating a bespoke solar system map seemed like an interesting way to do that.
Plus, having a fascination with all things cosmic (bordering on Kosmikophilia), I couldn’t resist. I used to draw maps of alien solar systems as a kid – peppered with space battles of course. So this is a childhood dream come true.

I was inspired by the wall hangings in the National Maritime Museum collection. These were produced by the Working Men’s Educational Union in the 1850s and based on astronomical themes. The hangings were printed lithographically on cotton, which gives them an interesting appearance. I liked their simple, yet striking design. One in particular (see jpeg) formed the basis of my design.
I just took a more modern approach – if you can call it that. My map has more of a 1950s aesthetic as opposed to one reminiscent of the 1850s.

It’s… gorgeous. Ethereal, mysterious, adventurous and worthy of hanging on a wall. Now, the big question is, can The Lowest Heaven, published by Jurassic London, which is co-founded by Jared Shurin and Anne Perry, the same duo behind the Kitschies, win an Inky Tentacle at the Kitschies for ‘Best Cover Art’? ‘Cause, well, there’s a damn good chance that it’ll deserve it. I’ve said it before recently, and I’ll say it again, I’d be hard-pressed to find a current cover artist who’s doing better, more consistent, and astonishing work than Joey Hi-Fi. Everything the guy touches is golden.

The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legends fade to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again.

This quote, which opens the main sequence of every single The Wheel of Time book, can, with some alterations be applied to reading, memory, and the impressions formed (and altered) from the commingling of the above. I am not by nature someone who trusts wholeheartedly my first impressions; too often they change with time and further reflection. I have found this to be the case with this now-thirteen-volume epic fantasy series. When I reviewed the twelfth volume (and the first where Brandon Sanderson wrote most of the material in place of the deceased Robert Jordan), The Gathering Storm, I perhaps was a bit too forgiving of that book’s shortcomings because I reviewed the book after not having read most of the other volumes since 2000. Certainly my memory did not jibe too well with my experiences re-reading the first eleven volumes this past spring and writing commentaries on my impressions. In short, it was a slog re-reading this series. Not merely because of the myriad subplots nor because there were repetitive and yet shallow social commentaries, but also due to the creaky, non-graceful prose and uneven characterizations that often left me feeling cold. Despite the change in authors and the plot developments that one might expect in the penultimate volume of such a ponderous multi-volume series, Towers of Midnight, after some reflection, is a flawed volume in a very flawed series.

Oh, I don’t have to endure the repetitive thoughts on how this male or female PoV character states their bafflement at the opposite sex! Sweet!

Most reviews of a thirteenth volume naturally will be the thoughts of fans (or former fans), intended more for those who are going to read the volume regardless of the reviewer’s reactions than any such essay being targeted toward those who are unfamiliar with the series. When I agreed to receive a review copy and to consider writing a review of this book, I did so largely to see just what my reaction would be to the latest instalment in a series that has diminished in my esteem over the past decade. Interestingly, my initial reaction was mostly a sort of backhanded compliment, something along the lines of “Oh! Sanderson has eschewed having faux bondage scenes in here! And hey! I don’t have to endure the repetitive thoughts on how this male or female PoV character states their bafflement at the opposite sex! Sweet!” rather than being wowed by the mechanics of the story. However, in the interim of time between me receiving a the book and the writing of this review those initial positive reactions have faded while my unease at the structure of this novel increased.

Doubtless, most fans of the Wheel of Time series are just excited to discover that “stuff happens!” It is true that on a plot level, there are several important reveals that either further or conclude several plot threads, some of which had been left hanging since the earliest volumes of this series. For those that treat this series as merely an extended Wikipedia summary, doubtless the developments here (from the starting of major combat operations up north to battles in the world of dreams and one male character growing a pair and admitting his own nature to a long-expected rescue of a character left for dead eight volumes ago) make Towers of Midnight an exciting must-read for them. But for those readers such as myself who wish there would an elegance to the writing or at least a sound structure that limits herky-jerkiness to a minimum, this book might be one of the most poorly-written volumes in a series that is infamous for its sometimes-execrable prose.

In previous reviews, I have noted, if usually in passing, that Sanderson’s prose rarely is more than “serviceable.” There is nothing inherently wrong with aiming for “invisible prose”; I just have different preferences. However, in this volume and much more so than in the previous, Sanderson’s prose inclinations clash noticeably with those scenes originally written by the deceased Jordan. Time after time, there would be several pages or chapters full of prose that is short, staccato, and focused more on getting from Point A to Point B as quickly as possible when suddenly the tone would shift (often, this would be when a character moves to a different locale) and then there would be more ornate descriptive prose. After a while, it became irritating, often because I would be jarred out of my accustomed reading rhythm just so I could process these narrative shifts before the flow would turn back to the staccato rhythms of before.

Jordan’s narrative structure had become unwieldy several volumes before, making it near-impossible for anyone to keep things 100% true.

Although I am far from a superfan (or WoT-head, as some call those fans who obsess over the minute details of the series), it was irritating to see continuity errors. From how some of the main characters were portrayed (particularly in their interactions with other main characters) to a few of the small details I recalled from re-reading the series a half-year ago, those mistakes in terminology, in characterization, and even in long-established plot lines, these errors contributed to the sense that the writing was uneven at best and poorly-constructed at worst. These faults are not necessarily all Sanderson’s; Jordan’s narrative structure had become unwieldy several volumes before, making it near-impossible for anyone to keep things 100% true to each and every one of those minute developments in plot and character. However, it is telling when they are numerous enough that they grate on someone who doesn’t devote much time at all to thinking about this bloated series.

Furthermore, the character developments were often too abrupt. At the end of the last volume, the reader sees the Dragon Reborn’s epiphany on Dragonmount. But when Rand appears first, he has morphed into a sort of messianic figure; there is a sense of falseness that rings in that scene and subsequent ones because it is so jarring and it goes against the grain of the previous few volumes. To a lesser degree, this is seen in Egwene and Perrin’s scenes. Despite writing a nearly 900 page book, Sanderson has written a volume that lacks adequate character transitions. This failure lessens the power of the transformations that do occur in this volume, as they feel flat and less emotional than they perhaps should have been, due to the lack of development that sets up these drastic changes.

One of the most problematic books in the entire series. Recommended only for those who are committed to finishing this series to the (perhaps) bitter end.

This sloppiness and sketchiness even appears in the internal chronology of scenes. Without much in the way of explanation, several subplots in Towers of Midnight are a month or more behind others that were treated in The Gathering Storm. In one memorable moment, the character Tam al’Thor, the adoptive father of Rand, appears in two distinct places (and times) within a span of a handful of chapters, with virtually nothing in the way of referring back to events in the previous volume that set up those situations. It’s the little things like this that dampened my initial enjoyment of this book. Almost every subplot contains these little problems. Individually, they would not effect my reaction to the story, but cumulatively they downgrade Towers of Midnight from an enjoyable addition to the Wheel of Time story to being one of the most problematic books in the entire series. Recommended only for those who are committed to finishing this series to the (perhaps) bitter end.

The Whitefire Crossing, Schafer’s debut novel, is an adventure novel about smuggler Dev, his human cargo Kiran, and a blood mage looking to escape his powerful mentor. A mountain climber herself, Schafer spends most of the novel in the Whitefire Mountains, her characters crossing the natural barrier between two nations with very different ideas about the proper use of magic. There’s a joy to the writing that comes from Schafer’s own love of the outdoors, but more than that there’s a general sense of wonder and excitement to the entire project. The Whitefire Crossing ends on an intriguing note, with Dev and Kiran now in the urban jungle fighting a political enemy somewhat divorced from their previous conflict.

Adventure and sense of wonder are about the last words I’d use to describe anything McCarthy writes. Germline was a Hunter S. Thompson and Michael Herr mash-up of embedded reporter Oscar Wendell on the front lines of a future war between the United States and Russia. Controversial usage of female germline super soldiers, who’ve been programming as cold killing machines, is the technological development around which much of the novel turns. His follow-up, Exogene, featured a germline unit named Catherine who shirks the genetic programming that would see her dead at 20 and pursues life, or a screwed up approximation of one.

Where McCarthy’s first novels are focused on the narrator and their personal conflicts, Oscar’s fear of life and Katherine’s fear of death, Chimera expands the scope to the wars’ effects on society. Told again in a self contained first person narration, Chimera begins back home with Stan Resnick trying to live a normal life and failing. While the struggle is a personal one, McCarthy parades others through Stan’s awareness, interacting with individuals from all levels of society. It provides the context and depth that I missed in Germline and Exogene, thus tying together a natural and satisfying conclusion to one of the more relevant pieces of science fiction in years (a subject Jared Shurin at Pornokitsch discusses at the end of his review).

Is The Tainted City relevant? Certainly not in the same way. As I mentioned above The Whitefire Crossing ends on a note promising an underdog struggle against a political juggernaut. I also had an irrational hope for more mountaineering that I found so engaging. I was disappointed then when Schafer chose to go another route, fast forwarding past those promised moments to the near future where Dev and Kiran are able to largely resume their fight from the first novel, which is more magical romp than understated drama.

Lacking relevancy to some larger discussion doesn’t in anyway diminish how much fun The Tainted City is to read. It’s compelling in fact, without succumbing to some of the tricks McCarthy uses to accomplish the same. For a modern fantasy novel, The Tainted City (and The Whitefire Crossing as well) has a conspicuous absence of visceral violence. People die, occasionally in less than pleasant ways, but there isn’t a ‘weapon’ to be seen. Juxtaposed to McCarthy’s work, the two might as well be night and day.

For a modern fantasy novel, The Tainted City (and The Whitefire Crossing as well) has a conspicuous absence of visceral violence.

Stan symbolizes the impact of the war on the human condition, an anesthetized compartmentalized monster of a cautionary tale

Chimera, to an even greater degree than Germline or Exogene, potrays unrelenting graphic violence. It erodes compassion in the reader, embedding him inside the skull of Stan Resnick who is perhaps the only man in the world unchanged by the things he’s seen and done. It makes Chimera a difficult read, and something I would question ever being referred to as fun. But, McCarthy makes good use of it, using shock value to elicit emotional responses to the nature of war, or at least the nature of his war. More than any of his previous novels, the narrator is a cipher. Stan symbolizes the impact of the war on the human condition, an anesthetized compartmentalized monster of a cautionary tale who despite all his suffering would still choose war over the stifling reality of peace.

If I had to sum up in one word why Chimera and The Tainted City succeed it would be ‘conviction.’

I can’t say anything like that about The Tainted City. Schafer’s books aren’t wired that way. And yet, it’s a highly successful piece of fiction in the same way that McCarthy’s is. Chimera is built around Stan. It is all Stan. His thoughts, his feelings, his hate. McCarthy gets so deep inside his head that there is no where else to go. Despite Stan’s loathsome qualities, McCarthy lets him take control of the story, going where it’s important for him to go and to do what his character demands. It reads authentic, as though Stan himself were writing his story. The Tainted City is just the same. For all its failures to go the directions I wished it to go, I never once doubted Dev and Kiran’s actions as anything but their own. Schafer doesn’t work her characters to fit her plot; she lets them go, to find the solutions for themselves. The result isn’t just a fun novel, but a composed and interesting one. If I had to sum up in one word why Chimera and The Tainted City succeed it would be ‘conviction.’ I am convinced that my readers will feel that too if they give McCarthy and Schafer a chance.

For years I had this idea in my head that every new book I wrote had to be completely different from the last, different from anything else that’s ever been written! Sigh. It took a while, but eventually I accepted that this is impossible. Well – at least incredibly rare and not always desirable. (Readers often want “more of the same”, and why not?) Virtually everything that can be written about already has been, and will be again, over and over. And that’s fine: many themes are universal because we can all relate to them. Love, birth, death, survival, finding the place we truly belong, war, crime and justice, the hero’s journey, and so on, are timeless and resonant. They don’t have to become clichés, as long as the author can bring an individual voice, pull something fresh from a well of compassion, wit or wisdom that engages the reader.

All writers can really do is stop worrying about the “invisible critic” peering over our shoulder, and write to please ourselves. That’s what made me start writing and it’s the only way I can proceed! As I went from finishing Grail of the Summer Stars to re-editing an older book (A Taste of Blood Wine, a gothic vampire romance republished by Titan Books) I was quite startled by the similarities of theme. In some ways, Stevie in Grail bears a resemblance to Charlotte in Blood Wine. They’re both unconventional, troubled, feeling out of place without quite knowing why. And both, of course, destined to meet an interestingly tall, dark stranger who is about to pull them out of their safe everyday worlds – albeit with very different outcomes.

Brutal worlds where females are secondary to the action, mere chattels or bargaining counters, may be realistic, but they’re not for me. I aim to write women who are genuine.

So one theme I note is that of female equality in my stories. I don’t write the sort of fantasy that has elves, orcs, dragons and evil overlords… (okay, maybe the occasional evil overlord…), nor the sort where a lone swordsman puts the world to rights, seduces the wenches in the local tavern, then vanishes on his way. Brutal worlds where females are secondary to the action, mere chattels or bargaining counters, may be realistic, but they’re not for me. Nor are kick-ass heroines. I prefer my characters, male and female, to operate as equals. I aim to write women who are genuine, like those I know in real life – quirky, intelligent, eccentric, brave, capable of making mistakes, and of learning and growing up.

In contrast, I seem to be fascinated by the image of the cold patriarch in an isolated tower – almost a Dracula-like figure. For example, Kristian in A Taste of Blood Wine, Lawrence in Elfland, Albin in Grail of the Summer Stars. These figures can be dangerous, fascinating, controlling, ultimately poisonous. Sometimes they can be redeemed. Sometimes there is nothing to do but destroy them.

One of the major themes that seems to crop up in almost everything I’ve written is the concept of discovering magical pathways to other worlds. That CS Lewis has a lot to answer for! I think that ever since I followed those children through the back of a wardrobe to Narnia, I’ve never got over the enchanting fantasy of finding a way into another world. My Blackbird books, The Rainbow Gate, The Amber Citadel, my Blood Wine series, even my Richard III novel The Court of the Midnight King – it’s always there, and of course hugely in Elfland, Midsummer Night and Grail. What’s that about? A symbol for escaping into the wondrous world of the imagination, I feel, where anything can happen.

I rarely write about magic in the waving wands, Harry Potter sense. Usually “magic” isn’t even mentioned because it isn’t a separate power, it’s part of the natural world.

Undercurrents of ancient earth magic weave beneath the surface in most of my books. I rarely write about magic in the waving wands, Harry Potter sense. Usually “magic” isn’t even mentioned because it isn’t a separate power, it’s part of the natural world. For example, my Aetherials can change shape, but they don’t go through a special ritual to do this. They find their way along hidden paths to their other-realms, which they call the Spiral. They can even change the geography of those realms by working together in “webs” to distort reality – but they still don’t think of this as practising magic. It’s just what they do.

And this leads into another common theme of mine: transformation. In A Taste of Blood Wine, Charlotte (I don’t think I’m giving the plot away) becomes a vampire, which is both more wonderful and more terrible than she could have dreamed. Although my human-looking Aetherials can transform themselves, this doesn’t define who or what they are. How can I put it? Although they can change shape, they are not “Shape Changers”. Not werewolves, not were-anything. Rather, they each transform in their own individual ways – some change drastically, others manifest no more than a subtle inner glow. The bodily shift acts as an outward definition of their inner selves. What truly transforms Stevie is learning about her own past, and who she used to be, and who she actually wants to be.

Thus shape-shifting becomes the physical manifestation of a psychological journey… to me, the most fascinating quest of all. And on that note I’ve said enough and I hope you’ll travel through the strange landscapes of my Aetherial Tales with me!

Shea Ohmsford has had quite enough of quests. A year after surviving a harrowing odyssey, he is still plagued by troubling memories and dreams. A mysterious trafficker in spells and potions provides a restorative nostrum for the stricken Shea . . . along with a warning: Shea will break his vow to never again leave Shady Vale. And then the potion-maker’s prophecy comes to pass.

A thief, adventurer, and notoriously charismatic rogue, Panamon Creel unexpectedly appears in the Vale with a request for his long-time friend, Shea—journey into the untamed Northland, infiltrate the stronghold of a sinister dealer in stolen goods, and capture a precious artifact: the sacred Black Irix. Creel wishes to return this treasure to its rightful owners. Shea cannot refuse such a just cause. But what lies behind the black castle walls they must breach? And will this quest truly be their last?

This sounds kind of fun. Especially for Brooks fans who have stuck it out with his novels, through all the ups-and-downs, since his 35-year-old debut, The Sword of Shannara, which ‘The Black Irix’ is a direct sequel to. As Brooks returns to fan-favourites to tell a series of short stories set in his Shannara world, the Four Lands, it has been an enjoyable opportunity to rejoin old characters who Brooks hasn’t written of in years. Panamon Creel is one of the high points of The Sword of Shannara, and revisiting him on a crazy adventure is something fans have looked forward to for years. And this adventure seems kinda crazy. I mean, Creel’s decision to enlist Shea Ohmsford who, even after the end of The Sword of Shannara, is still a fairly typical and inexperienced inn-keeper’s son, is questionable, but the dynamic between Creel and Ohmsford has always been fun.

It’s also interesting to see that Brooks is exploring an area that is often left untouched by Fantasy writers: the repercussions, especially emotional, of untrained civilians (esentially) being thrust into dangerous, traumatic experiences. Myke Cole recently wrote a terrific essay on PTSD, and I think it’s encouraging to see someone like Brooks set a story in the uncomfortable aftermath of his hero’s ‘victory.’ It’s also somewhat amusing to see, after all the criticisms of Brooks’ first novel, that post-Sword of Shannara Shea Ohmsford suffers from something of the same ailment that eventually led Frodo Baggins to seek the Undying Lands at the end of Lord of the Rings. I guess Brooks just can’t get away from that story, no matter how hard he tries.

In all, I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the first two volumes in Brooks’ Paladins of Shannara collection, particularly ‘The Weapon Master’s Choice,’ and look to ‘The Black Irix’ with some excitement and disappointment. I’ll be sorry to see Brooks leave this concept behind. It’s been nice to revisit old friends from my youth.

Orbit Books announced today that Matthew Stover’s Acts of Caine novels, beginning with Heroes Die, will be arriving, as eBooks only, in the UK for the first time. They say,

All four books in the Acts of Caine series – HEROES DIE, BLADE OF TYSHALLE, CAINE BLACK KNIFE and CAINE’S LAW – will be released digitally in the UK & ANZ on 27th May 2013.

This is good news for reading in the UK. I’ve not read the series (SHAME ON ME!), but they come highly recommended and the ebay prices for the earlier novels are, well.. outrageous. I should really sell my copies. Releases like this, eBook only, are a great way for out-of-print books to come back into circulation and find a new audience among those who previously couldn’t find (or afford) to read them. It’s also one of those fun times to think about the fact that publishers continue to try to convince the world that eBook publishing costs are similar to hardcopy publishing and distribution costs. The novels are already available as eBooks in the US and Canada.

But, can we please talk about these covers for a moment. I mean, I’m fairly certain that I’m being very specifically trolled by the art department at Orbit Books UK. Four hooded, bodiless men staring pensively menacingly at the reader, daring them to read what, underneath, must only be the most bro-tastic, grimdark, grimy, gritty, dudebro novels in the world? WTF. But, well, with a lineage like this, can I really expect any less?

One of the most sprawling, character-intensive epic fantasies of the past twenty years.

Debates such as these point to some intrinsic quality of the series that barely allows for there to be a middle ground. There is something for almost everyone, depending if one likes an action/adventure tale, political intrigue, social commentary, or even elements of a puzzle novel. Sometimes, there is too much of it all, and readers who enjoyed the earlier volumes might end up finding the past few volumes to be rather plodding, tedious affairs. After reading the eighth and ninth volumes, The Path of Daggers and Winter’s Heart, I found myself going years before even thinking of picking up the tenth volume, Crossroads of Twilight, which was perhaps the most difficult book to complete reading of them all at the time.

Would Sanderson manage to capture Jordan’s narrative “voice,” warts and all, and [would] the conclusion be worthy of the time invested in the series?

But then a tragic event happened. Jim Rigney, the person behind the Robert Jordan pseudonym, contracted a rare blood disorder, amyloidosis. Rigney spent the final eighteen months of his life battling the disease, while attempting to complete the conclusion to the series. Sadly, he succumbed to the disease on September 16, 2007. Fans were devastated, as for nearly three months, the matter of who would complete the series, or even if the series would be completed, was up in the air. Toward the end of the year, Rigney’s wife, Harriet McDougal, announced that she had chosen young author Brandon Sanderson, whose work to date had been three adult fantasies (Elantris and the first two Mistborn novels) and two young adult novels. Wheel of Time fans were probing for information, trying to decide if Sanderson was the “right” choice, if he would manage to capture Jordan’s narrative “voice,” warts and all, and if the conclusion would be worthy of the time invested in the series.

Sanderson’s interpretations of the two main characters of this story, Rand al’Thor, the Dragon Reborn, and Egwene al’Vere, the rebel Amyrlin, are almost pitch-perfect.

Depending on what you enjoy most about the series, Sanderson largely succeeds in this thankless task. For those wanting to know if Sanderson would manage to capture the essence of the late Jordan’s writing style or if his passages would integrate well with the ones Jordan had completed before his death, it will be difficult for most of the time to discern which author wrote which passage. Sanderson’s interpretations of the two main characters of this story, Rand al’Thor, the Dragon Reborn, and Egwene al’Vere, the rebel Amyrlin, are almost pitch-perfect. What I found interesting about Sanderson’s treatment of the characters is just how well they are integrated with Jordan’s earlier development of them.

Rand in particular has a very good character development arc in The Gathering Storm. Hurting from his myriad mental, emotional, and physical wounds, he is a near-complete wreck. Increasingly paranoid and worried that he is not “hard enough” to face the Dark One in the prophesied Last Battle, Rand’s character displays many traits in common with soldiers suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder during the Vietnam War. This is no accident, as before his death, Rigney discussed how he himself faced a decision in Vietnam if he was to desensitize himself to the horrors happening around him or if he would fight to keep from becoming a sociopathic killer. Rand’s development from the first chapter, “Tears from Steel,” to the last, “Veins of Gold,” is one of the more intriguing in the entire series. It is perhaps for me the most personal of all the mini-plots in this mammoth series and the authors do such a good job of showing Rand’s descent into darkness, both figurative and literal, as well as setting up the decision he makes at the end of this book that is in many ways as important thematically as the cleansing of saidin was in Winter’s Heart.

Paralleling Rand’s development and his struggles to integrate his past and present memories is that of his childhood sweetheart, Egwene. Captured at the end of Crossroads of Twilight and forced to undergo numerous punishments at the hand of her rival for the head of the Aes Sedai organization, Elaida, Egwene presents a clear contrast to Rand’s choices early in the novel. Instead of trying to harden herself by means of shutting out friends and even one’s own emotions, Egwene comes to accept her situation, viewing matters such as hurt and grief not as something to avoid or to manipulate, but rather as things to accept and to use to improve one’s self. This change from the rather ambitious, self-righteous girl of the earlier volumes into a leader who realizes the importance behind the very name of “Aes Sedai,” stands in sharp opposition to that of Elaida, as the authors go to great lengths to make clear in the second chapter, “The Nature of Pain.”

There are even more parallels between the characters along the lines of examining the choices people make in regards to themselves and others. It is debatable whether or not Jordan would have been quite as direct as the final draft came to be, but several times over the course of the novel, characters ranging from the two mentioned above, Perrin, Mat, and members of the Black Ajah and the Forsaken are shown via the choices they have made. The selflessness of one clashes with the self-centered greed of another. The desire to be viewed as being important contrasts with one who humbles herself, placing her own soul in risk of eternal perdition so the machinations of others can be revealed to others. These parallels, which were either lacking or were not adroitly done in the past several volumes, helped make The Gathering Storm one of the better Wheel of Time volumes I have read in the past twelve years.

Mat’s chapters [...] felt rather sketchy, as if Sanderson had not decided what to do with the character in the allotted space.

Despite this, there were several problems that I had with the text. Although Sanderson eschewed the character “blocks” that Jordan used in the past few volumes, there were times that the pacing of the plot still suffered. While Rand and Egwene’s subplots were developed well and each concluded within narrative minutes of one another, Perrin and Mat’s were underdeveloped and appear to be days or even weeks behind the first two. In addition, their characters were not as well developed as were Rand’s and Egwene’s. Perhaps this is in part due to the limited number of chapters each appears, but Mat’s chapters, despite a near-horrific chapter occurring in a backwoods town near the kingdom of Andor, felt rather sketchy, as if Sanderson had not decided what to do with the character in the allotted space. Perrin’s arc was rather anti-climatic and it is hard to guess where he will be heading in the next volume. Despite the near-certain protests from fans of those characters, The Gathering Storm might have been better served if those arcs had been withheld until the next volume, even though that alternative certainly would have risked backlash from those burned by the eighth and tenth volumes of the series.

The pacing was mostly good, although there were times that events long foretold in the series unfolded so quickly that there was a sense of a letdown. But perhaps reader expectations had been built up too much from the narrative molehills, so it is hard to say particularly which events (ranging from what occurred outside a castle in Arad Doman to the use of a certain item discovered in The Shadow Rising) were done too hastily and which events were done purposely at such a breakneck pace in order to set up future character development. For myself, the two events I allude to above served to develop Rand’s character in ways that were at once surprising and logical in hindsight (especially as it relates to how he parallels Moridin more and more now in thought and action). But others might view these scenes differently, wishing that Sanderson had spent more time setting up the events so that there would be a stronger emotional reaction. There is something to be said for this argument, but I suspect if there had been further development of these two set scenes, the pace of the narrative would have slowed to the near-glacial creep of the previous novels.

Prose is something I value highly in a novel. The previous eleven volumes of the Wheel of Time series were uneven to me, as powerful scenes would be offset by descriptions of clothing, of how to wash silk, and even lengthy scenes set in a bathtub. Sanderson’s prose in his novels tends to be rather too sparse at times, attempting to be too “invisible” when the occasional use of more florid language might serve to vary the prose enough to make it more interesting. Thankfully, for most of The Gathering Storm, Sanderson managed to achieve a happy medium between his own preferred style and that employed by Jordan. There are places where the narrative still feels clunky or choppy, but these are fewer than what I recall being present in Sanderson’s own work. The too-long descriptions of places and dress still occur on occasion, but thankfully they are reduced. The male characters’ self-conscious thoughts about their abilities with women is also much reduced, doubtless to the delight of numerous readers. While certainly not written in a style that would lend itself to being studied by writing students, the prose here was at least acceptable and at several times, very well-written.

Highly recommended for Wheel of Time fans and recommended for those who might have become disillusioned by the previous four volumes.

The Gathering Storm certainly is not an ideal beginning place for readers curious about the Wheel of Time universe, but for those who were disenchanted by the perceived lack of plot and character development over the past few volumes, it certainly is one of the faster-paced, better-written volumes. While I would not consider it to be among the best works released in 2009, it certainly is one of the best epic fantasies that I have read. The Wheel continues to turn and thankfully it appears to be cranking a bit faster and toward a more intriguing conclusion than I had suspected when I had suspended my reading of the series back in 2000. Highly recommended for Wheel of Time fans and recommended for those who might have become disillusioned by the previous four volumes.

If you’re read this blog for any length of time, you’ll know that I’m something of an unabashed Tad Williams fanboy. He’s best known for his long (long, long, long) fiction, like Memory, Sorrow and Thorn or Otherland, multi-volume epics that would make most other authors weep at their length, but it’s often overlooked that some of his most finely crafted and powerful fiction is actually found among his shorter works. If this collection, coming from Tachyon, is, indeed, the ‘very best’ of his work, readers are in for a treat. The art on the cover is by Kerem Beyit, and is just lovely.