Who Do You Own?

I haven’t posted anything in a bit.  I would apologize, but John Scalzi once told me two things: “don’t touch my sandwich” and “never apologize for not posting content.”  So I’m not going to apologize.  No, instead, you should apologize to me for not bringing this crazy shit to my attention earlier…you jerk.

Anyway, if you ever hang out on Westeros, that Hive of Literature and Villainy, you may have seen what I refer to lovingly as a Nerd Fight which reached the point where it could be accurately described as “Balls-Out” as Wert, Pat, Speculative Horizons and a Dribble of Ink went into a sort of a Final Fight free-for-all in which Richard Morgan was clearly Mayor Mike Haggar and Wert was probably that weird guy based off of Andre the Giant with a purple leopard-spotted tank top…Aidan might have been Jessica.

Ten Sykes Dollars* if you got all of that reference.

I digress, though.  Being far too much of a coward to engage them on their own home turf, I have decided to lift parts of their argument and twist it, as I might slowly twist a person locked in my basement through years of psychological torment**, to my own horrifying ends.  Specifically, these ideas as voiced by Richard Morgan sent the small turtle that is my brain chasing the carrot tied to the stick.  Behold:

There’s the possessive controlling dynamic that Harrison mentions in his essay – as if everything written under the vast, vague umbrella of fantasy belongs to you, can be pigeonholed by you, and then assigned an absolute value depending on how much it ticks your boxes.

…

Said vast field of fantasy is now, it seems, to be divided into two camps (reminds me of the joke about there being two kinds of people; those who make sweeping generalisations and those who don’t), and if a book doesn’t land in one or the other, why, ’tis shit.

You might recall, when I wrote my past blog Voices of the Dead, at being annoyed at the apparent inevitability of comparing authors who have nothing to do with each other beyond writing in the same field.  This essentially follows the same formula, though angled toward a slightly different philosophy, that being the sort of latent tribalism that seems to pervade a lot of fantasy readership.

It’s no secret that George R.R. Martin has a lot of fans.  Nor is it any secret exactly why he has a lot of fans.  He writes excellent books, he’s a very personable fellow and he takes the time to share an intimate embrace, complete with back-rub, with anyone who asks for it (and sometimes if they don’t ask for it) at his signings.

Likewise, there are a few authors out there for whom it is no secret why they don’t have a lot of fans.  Usually, it’s not the quality of their writing.  More often, it’s the fact that they tend to be complete jerks in person, online and refuse to give even the simplest of hugs if you very specifically state that you’d really like one*** because you’ve had a really hard day and the bills are piling up and there’s so much work to do and the guy in the basement escaped and you just feel like you could…

…sorry, what was I saying?

Like Morgan says, we wind up with two camps: “Our Guy” and “Not Our Guy.”

You can see this as the case in the linked thread, where some people cite a dislike of M. John Harrison’s Viriconium as being caused by a dislike of M. John Harrison.  I don’t know the man personally, but I doubt he minds if a few people don’t like him.  Not that he doesn’t want to be liked, he probably just doesn’t begrudge some people not liking him for who he is.  And indeed, there’s nothing wrong with a personal distaste for an author affecting one’s decision to buy his book (not that I’d know anything about that, what with my personality being so sparkling it actually blinds people).

What becomes a problem is when we stop having readers and start having tribes.  And I don’t mean one of those charming tribes you see on the National Geographic channel where the men tie their organs to their belts and the women don’t wear shirts and you think that’s kind of hot but you can’t tell anyone because seriously man.  No, these are more the tribes that live deep underground, that fear the sun and gather around their idols, groaning long and vicious chants, kidnapping intrepid explorers and offering them up as sacrifices to their dread gods.

It’s about the time we start lashing people to altars that we have a problem.

It’s about the time “Our Guy” becomes “The Only Guy” that we have a serious problem.

This, I believe, is what Morgan was referring to.  We have our favorite authors and that’s great; you should absolutely have authors you prefer over all others, otherwise you’re just not having enough fun.  But we should also be open to other authors, to new stories and new experiences.  And by “open,” as I’ve said in Voices of the Dead, I mean enjoying them without saying “HE’S NO MARTIN.”  But beyond even that, we should be able to applaud the books that didn’t work for us, so long as they pushed the genre forward, be it by a new breed of character that we found offputting, a new setting that we found too alien, a new style that just rubbed us the wrong way.

This is probably one of the most diverse genres out there.  We’ve got everything from Old Weird to New Weird, Black and White to Black and Blacker, Epic to Heroic to Flawed to Gritty to Vaguely Fetish Fueled.  And it’s a genre that thrives on innovation and experimentation.  To cling to one author like a rock in a rising tide is not only harmful to you, it’s harmful to the genre as a whole as it discourages authors from trying new stuff and publishers from buying them.

China Mieville (I can’t figure out how to do accents on my keyboard.  Sorry, China) is widely regarded to be one of the most innovative and creative authors out there.  His books don’t always work for people (and indeed, he was considered to be one of the least accessible authors for awhile), but they were always lauded for their creativity and innovation, as well they should be.  Now imagine what would happen if forums were filled with how much they despised his style, him as a person.  Imagine if his inbox was filled with messages from various anonymous sources saying how much they wished he would write more like another author.

No need to imagine at all!  I actually did spam him with several throwaway accounts, mostly from the Ozarks, asking him to write more like Dan Brown.  After learning that, after running out of tears of actual salt, he began weeping tears of blood, I sent him an email under my true name saying: “SURPRISE!”

…he was not soothed.

…he filed a lawsuit.

…Joe Abercrombie is representing me.  We are dead.

Anyway, am I saying you should give a cuddly, “good for you/A for Effort/at least you tried” pat-on-the-back/reach-around for every book out there?  Absolutely not.  Some books just don’t work and don’t add anything to the conversation.  Some books do add something to the genre but you find it completely reprehensible.  And sometimes, stuff is just blarghgalgadnadnefbdhghdfjffgggggghgppphhhhbbbbt.

Nor am I saying you should rush out and buy something you’re certain you’ll hate.

What I am saying is that we shouldn’t be so quick to flee to our idols.  We should be more willing to accept things that aren’t quite our style.  We should still have “Our Guy,” but we can also have other guys.  It’s a liberated society, after all!  You can have as many guys as you want!  Big guys, thick guys, small guys, guys that are only three inches…

I know what you’re asking yourself.  “Is he still talking about books?”

Stay tuned.

*Worthless at all participating and non-participating locations, except Blake Charlton’s house.

**Seriously, Phil, breaking out was not at all cool.  Come back and I promise I’ll stop running episodes of Doogie Howser in the cell.

***Sam Sykes will always give you a hug if you ask for it and he is physically capable.  He’s the man who “cares too much,” according to Nebraska police.