Featured

HELLO FRIENDS I HAVE THREE ARCS (ADVANCED READING COPIES) OF BLACK HALO

WOULD YOU LIKE ONE OF THESE ARCS (ADVANCING ROARING CARTHAGINIANS)

IF YOU ARE PURE OF HEART YOU WOULD and if you are not pure of heart i will basically punch you right in your butt

SO HOW DO YOU GET ONE OF THESE ARCS (ADVANCED READING CRITERION) OF BLACK HALO

IT IS VERY EASY

DO ONE (1) ONE (ich) ONE (un) ONE (juan) OF THE FOLLOWING

1.

THINK OF A GOOD REASON YOU DESERVE THIS ARC (ADVANCED RUMBLING CRUISE)

WRITE IT DOWN

EMAIL IT TO ME

2.

DRAW THIS DOG

EMAIL YOUR DRAWING TO ME

MAYBE WIN ARC (ADAMANTLY RAUNCHY CRUSTACEAN)

3.

MAKE THIS FACE

TAKE A PICTURE

EMAIL IT TO ME

MAYBE WIN ARC (AARDVARKS RAVISH CATS)

HERE ARE SOME RULES

ONE CATEGORY.  ONE ENTRY.  NO WRITING A REASON AND THEN MAKING A FACE.  DON’T DO IT.

CREATIVITY > ACCURACY (seriously)

EMAIL IS ON FRONT PAGE OF SITE FOR CONQUERING FEARS

(but in case you are shy it is also sam.sykes66@gmail.com )

DEADLINE IS END OF FEBRUARY (that is this month!)

ALL NATIONS ARE ELIGIBLE

I WILL EMAIL YOU IF YOU ARE WINNER

OH GOD DO IT DO IT DO IT

OR I WILL DIE

and that is not that great okay guys

In general, I like fantasy tropes.  I like my villains, I like my heroes and I like my bands of misfits (cough).  Even the ones I don’t like, I can usually find some way to enjoy.  And whether I like them or I hate them, I enjoy talking about them.

I seem to have a habit of drawing on the same sources for inspiration, but Pornokitsch’s review of Brandon Sanderson’s The Way of Kings left me more than a little interested in what he had to say, particularly about the trope of The Chosen One.

It’s been in nearly everything that’s had a right to call itself a work of Science Fiction or Fantasy: the thought that there are certain people who should lead, certain people who are blessed, certain people who are fit to rule…and the average working-class schmuck gets no particular say in who gets to be chosen.  No, that’s in the hands of the Gods or Fate or Prophecy or (usually) the Author.  It’s a well-worn classic, a venerable trope.

And I kind of hate it.  For two big reasons.  It’s a two-pronged hate.  A hate fork pinning down a steak of spite while a bitter, dull knife saws away a fatty piece to stuff into my gob (the spite steak tastes like poo, too).

On a purely literary level, I think the idea of The Chosen One tends to diminish my favorite word ever: conflict.  Conflict still drives a story and you can never stack enough of it on.  The Chosen One (in its most common iteration) removes a crucial part of a conflict: the hero.  If he’s been Chosen by Whatever, he can safely assume that he is right and everyone else is wrong, that he does deserve to rule and get the girl and exterminate the orcs and whatever.

Presumably, we’re involved in a book because we’re involved in the character.  To be involved in the character, we need the conflict of his own morality.  You’d think that in science fiction and fantasy, where people are routinely resorting to violence as an answer (if not the first answer) to solving their problems, there would be at least a moment when someone paused and thought “wait, why?”  The answer to that question compounds the character’s conflict, which invests us further in him.  Every dead orc from that point on is significant, further supporting the conclusion he’s reached, and we watch him abandon his ethos or fight to save it.

But in terms of philosophy, I sometimes wonder if the whole concept of The Chosen One isn’t a toxic one.  I occasionally wonder if it’s right to put the concept of someone utterly infallible in all that he does out there, if it’s right to put up this concept that birth matters more than effort.  Or, at the very least, if it’s right to put it out there without questioning it.

I was amazingly pleased to talk to N.K. Jemisin about this, someone who’s done more thinking about tropes, how they speak to our society and how we use them than anyone I’ve ever met.  She put everything I had been thinking of far more eloquently and swear word-free than I ever could:

My quickie response:  Chosen Ones are toxic if you think various flavors of authoritarianism are a problem.  *I* do, but then my political views are decidedly left; I think rule by anything short of a large representative elected body is a problem. But there are a lot of folks in the fantasy readership who find a certain comfort and simplicity in concentrated authority.  We all succumb to the urge to admire a strong, decisive leader, I think; the problem lies in giving that person too much power.  Even the best-loved king is still a dictator, in the end.

And Chosen Ones who are “select people” or have some birthright to leadership are even more problematic, because then you get into eugenics.  If some people are *meant* to be rulers, then that means some people are meant to be ruled — and the latter group can therefore never be allowed to have the power to self-govern.  Why give it to them if they’re genetically or magically or psychologically less fit for leadership?  And while you’ve got two divisions of people (“select people” and peons, patricians and plebians, whatever you want to call them), why stop there?  If some people are especially fit to rule, why not decide that some people are especially fit only for combat, and some only for skilled trades, and some only for intellectual pursuits?  And maybe some people aren’t fit to do anything but die, because they’re old or disabled, or because some of your industries (e.g., mining) are especially dangerous and you can’t spare anyone *valuable* to do that kind of work.  You’ve just created a eugenicist caste system, whee.

And that kind of societal division is going to have to treat the non-ruler people as inferior, and enforce that message of inferiority, in order to keep them from getting any ideas about replacing the select people, especially when they’re hungry or tired of being sent off to war.  So the members of the underclass become “lazy” or “craven” or “feebleminded” or whatever, while the ruling class becomes “hardworking” and “courageous” and “smart”.  (Ever notice how we use “noble” as a synonym for “good” and “handsome” and so on?)  So now you’ve got classism. Or maybe you can break it down by some other method than skill set; that would be more fair.  So what can you use to divide people instead?  Hmm.  Well, some of them *look* different from each other…  Aaaand you’ve just created racism, sexism, ableism, and probably some other “isms” I don’t even know the names of.

Most fantasy novels elide all this by making their Chosen Ones “good rulers” or “blessed by [deity]” or somehow superior, or by making the people-to-be-ruled somehow happy to be stuck in a system they can’t control, and happy to have yet another (good) dictator. But most of the fantasy novels we’ve heard of are British or American, and most British and American people are unexamined or enthusiastic classists, so most of us *don’t* have a problem with it.  It’s what we’re used to.  As long as there are writers and readers who feel this way, the Chosen One narratives will still have a place.

For those who do have a problem with it, though, there’s also room for Chosen Ones to be reimagined.  For example, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Chosen One who was ugly, lazy, physically unfit, or dead stupid, who stayed that way to the end, and was the *good guy* (since he’s usually a “he”; another thing to be reimagined).  Closest I can think of is Donaldson’s Thomas Covenant, who was a rapist, but I stopped reading the damn book after that scene so I don’t know what happened to him.  Rothfuss did a Chosen-ish One who gave it all up to become a bartender, but I suspect (haven’t read the second book) that’s a temporary condition.  My soon-to-come “Dreamblood” duology has Chosen Ones who are given power because they’re schizophrenic or sociopathic; it’s the source of their magic (as long as they don’t have a psychotic break).  I’m sure there’s other ways to play with the concept.

It *is* discouraging.  But that’s all the more reason to question it with fiction, for those of us who are writers and have the power to do so.  🙂  I mean, yeah, Chosen Ones are problematic as hell, and it’s creepy and depressing that the fantasy readership rewards this narrative with bestseller sales without seeming to question it.  That’s because the fantasy readership is *conservative* at its core — tradition-obsessed, change-resistant, and more than a little bigoted.  And yeah, if you want to be a bestseller, then to some degree you have to cater to this core.

But I think it’s possible to cater to this audience while also poking a finger at its shortcomings and saying, “Yo, your fly is unzipped, might want to do something about that.”  I get all kinds of shit about having written epic fantasy stories with female protagonists, protagonists who aren’t white, etc. — but that doesn’t stop me from writing them.  It didn’t stop me from trying to publish them, though it took me awhile to do so.  So if the inherent creepiness of the “Chosen One” narrative disturbs you, then try writing an epic fantasy in which the creepiness of the Chosen One *is* questioned.  Brandon Sanderson did a little of this in his “Mistborn” trilogy, although IMO he short-circuited his own message by revealing that the Lord Ruler — supposedly the “Chosen One” of his own legend — really *wasn’t* the Chosen One.  So ultimately Sanderson ended up affirming the idea that Chosen Ones are proper and true, you just need to make sure you’ve actually got the *right* Chosen One before you stick the guy on a throne.  But if Sanderson hadn’t pulled his punches at the end of the first volume, his trilogy could’ve been a devastating excoriation of the very idea of a Chosen One.   No reason another author can’t tackle the same theme in a more daring way.  *I* would certainly love to see it.  🙂

So, in general, we agree that there’s a lot of room for reimagining.  And one can’t help but wonder if the time is right to reimagine by beginning to question, to theorize and maybe even to let the reader be let down by The Chosen One.  Conflict is never a bad thing in stories, new ideas are what the genre is all about.

Let’s talk about Black Halo, shall we?

You remember this motley fellow, don’t you?  An aggressive schizophrenic with a sword and water on fire?  He’s treated you to some good times and I suspect he’d appreciate it if you read on to see what happens to him!

So, when is it out?

March!  Early to mid-March, even.  Street dates tend to have a little leeway.  Either way, you should definitely expect it out by then.

What’s it about?

Black Halo picks up where Tome of the Undergates left off (duh), with the companions in control of the book that can open heaven and hell alike.  A swift and sudden tragedy strikes, though, as the companions are bound for Port Destiny to return the book to their enigmatic benefactor, Miron Evenhands.  Separated, a horrid realization begins to dawn on them: as much as they might have professed to loathe each other, each other was all that was holding them together.  Striving to find one another and sinking deeper into their own personal hells all the while, they remain unaware of the danger hunting them.

How was that?  Striking enough?

Moar.

What?

MOAR.

Netherlings!  Wizard-hunting secret agents!  Greenshicts!  Sea serpents!  Berserk headhunters!  Sexual Darwinism!  Twisted romances!  Violent hallucinations!

Wait, sexual what now?

Hush.

Will you be anywhere to celebrate this?

Yes, actually!  I will be at the Tucson Festival of Books to sign, schmooze and generally slap anyone who desires a signed copy on March 12th!  If you’re in Arizona and you don’t want me to be sad, you will come!

Okay, so are we ever going to get some excerpts?

Yes, in fact!  In the very near future, you will see the FIRST THREE CHAPTERS ABSOLUTELY BUTT-FUCKING FREE at Tor.com.

HOLY SHIT.

Wow!  Incredible!

I know, right?

Will there be more Lost Pages?

Yes, in fact.  They are in production as we speak.

And what about the third book?

The Skybound Sea is currently in production.  I’d love to tell you more, but…you know, it’d spoil some stuff.

Anyway, that’s about all there is to tell right now!  I hope you will enjoy the shit out of it.

Because if you don’t…

…he will find you.

Hey!  HEY!

Why don’t you check THIS out, buddy?

No, madame, you are not dreaming.  That is the German edition of Tome of the Undergates as published by Penhaligon. And this is its cover…

What do you think?  Denaos is looking pretty sweet there with his dagger and his hood (fact: all covers are designed to give Aidan Moher an aneurysm).

And THIS…

Is the two-page spread they used to advertise it in their catalogue (also pictured: some sexy knee).

And thus does Sam Sykes begin a long, slow march across time and space to conquer the known world, much like a cosmic tortoise who speaks to the dead.

Rejoice, motherfuckers.

HA! Look at that title!  It’s funny because people are starving.

Some people fear turning into their parents.  I sometimes fear that I’m turning into Joe Abercrombie (don’t bother, the paternity test proved negative) in that I’m committing the cardinal sin of not finding a lot to read in my own genre lately.  Having eaten a lot of the big names and not really zazzed by anything else, I’ve turned to a genre that I’ve not really looked at for awhile: memoirs.

Specifically, memoirs regarding North Korea.

I found them purely out of chance, but the more I read, the more interested I became.  People routinely complain that we’ve nothing more to explore, that the map is entirely filled out.  The very fact that North Korea exists proves them wrong.  A nation completely closed off from the rest of the world, North Korea is the last frontier of civilization: a world where we may never see and which exists in myth as much as it does in reality.

And the reason we don’t know about it is that it’s not quite as romantic as the great wilderness we typically imagine when we think of “frontier.”  What with the starving people and backwards society and violent Stalinist police state and all.

Still, there is nothing more worth knowing than something someone doesn’t want you to know, so I read three books regarding the nation and was very impressed by them, though in varying orders.

North of the DMZ: Essays on Daily Life in North Korea by Andrei Lankov

This was the last one I read, but the one I was least involved in.  It’s not that it wasn’t informative.  Lankov goes in-depth on exactly what he claims to: daily life in North Korea.

Everything about the book relates to the humdrum activities in North Korea: transportation, relationships, etiquette under the watchful eye of Kim Jong Il, life as people live it when they are starving and closed off from the rest of the world.  There is pretty much everything here to describe exactly how North Korea’s citizenry works, how it plays (not much) and how it keeps itself running.  Lankov is a citizen of the former Soviet Union and thus was given a unique insight into the nation’s workings, comparing them to other Stalinist regimes and predicting its downfall.

It’s outstandingly informative…about everything except the people.  It wasn’t Lankov’s fault, of course, for having been read after the other two books in my kick, but I was sort of hoping for more of a personal edge instead of the glut of impersonal information about structure and society than I got.  I got those, after all, in the other two books with the added bonus of people I could relate to and get involved in.

Beyond that, though, a common issue I found in books about the nation was that it has changed a lot (for the worse) in the last twenty years.  So while Lankov was commenting on a quirky, oppressive society that he predicted would end soon, the reality of the situation is something far worse and more horrifying.

The Aquariums of Pyongyang by Kang Chol-Hwan and Pierre Rigoulot

The Aquariums of Pyongyang is an amazingly heartbreaking and interesting story about the people of North Korea and how they were betrayed by their own government.  Following the author’s life, from the moment his Korean-born Japanese-emigrated left-wing grandmother convinced the family to go to the North to the moment his family was found guilty of trumped-up anti-nationalist crimes to the moment he was imprisoned in a labor camp to the moment he was let out and escaped to the South, it’s basically a series of events illustrating the horrifying conditions in the nation’s network of “secret” labor camps.

And it is horrifying, friends.  To his credit, the author is emotionally involved without being grotesque or his views being compromised.  I was concerned, slightly, about the book’s academic integrity when I read the foreword that looked heavily into the author’s religious views, but he treats the subject with as much of an unbiased look as he can…you know, having been unfairly convicted and sentenced to subhuman and inhumane conditions.

It’s an incredible look into something a lot of us suspected the world left behind after WWII and the conditions and acts that go on will probably likely shock a lot of readers.  As I said, though, it’s not at all gratuitous and the aim is not to disgust or offend but to inform.  It’s definitely worth looking into if you’ve ever been at all curious as to what goes on behind the scenes.

Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick

This was the first book I read in my kick and, as it turns out, the best.  Demick, a journalist in South Korea, spent years collecting stories from six defectors from the regime to North Korea.  Their walks of life couldn’t be any more different: a privileged man from a good family background destined to rise in the regime’s power, a doctor betrayed by her own nation, a mother who believed wholly and unabashedly in the regime’s righteousness and her daughter who couldn’t disagree more, a troublemaker and vagabond who grew up without father or future in the regime and a young girl from a disgraced family background destined for the worst the nation could have offered.

There’s an immense amount to praise in this book: the fact that it’s told from the stories and perspectives of these people who grew up within a regime lends it a startlingly emotional element while, at the same time, it refuses to pull any punches and coddle the reader.  It follows the defectors from birth to present day, including the shockingly difficult transition into South Korean society that grips until the very end of the book and leaves you hoping that these people find their way.  And beyond that, it goes into the stranger parts of the country: how a society claiming to espouse the Communist ideals of egalitarianism still very much supports and encourages the idea of familial background and status being integral to a person, the bizarre forms of dating and romance etiquette, the systems designed to encourage neighbor to despise neighbor and family to distrust family.

But what makes this book really the best out of the three is the fact that it’s so recent.  Demick’s defectors were around from the time when the North enjoyed relative prosperity after being propped up by the USSR and China to the time when food was so scarce that people had to eat tree bark to survive.  This gives a distinct arc to the book that lets us follow the decline of the nation and how it affects the defectors’ lives and each defectors’ pivotal moment when they realize there is a world beyond their own is incredibly moving.

I can’t recommend this book enough, whether you’re at all interested in the subject or not.  If you are, it’s informative, detailed and authentically insightful.  If you’re not, it’s an incredible story about people living in lies and discovering an entirely different world.  I don’t mean that in a romantic comedy way, either, where some privileged white chick discovers Italian food or some stupid shit.  This book will freak you the fuck out.

At the risk of seeming prone to nepotism, Porno Kitsch is quickly becoming one of my favorite people to talk to on Twitter (the best of you better amp up your game a little).  Specifically, their insight on fantasy tropes is providing some excellent discussions, such as when we chatted about the use of racial analogues in fantasy as evidenced in their review of Brandon Sanderson’s The Way of Kings.

Today, we’re going to talk about fantasy races and we are briefly going to touch upon race in fantasy.  Mind, I’m more concerned with the former than the latter, but there is a nigh-inexhaustible source of insight on the latter subject in the form of N.K. Jemisin.  An avid fan of her discussions, I highly recommend checking her out.

So, anyway, I hear that J.R.R. Tolkien once severely regretted not making the races more ambiguous and complex in The Lord of the Rings. Probably wise of him, since his portrayal of elves, orcs, men and dwarves is generally held up as fodder for criticism of racial portrayals in fantasy.  It’s true that a lot of readers are demanding our fantasy races to be a little more involved these days.  We dislike orcs that are out and out evil, we dislike elves that are perfect and benevolent.

The reason for this, of course, comes back to the heart of a story: conflict and how to invest our readers in it.

Clearly-painted races remove us from this.  If the orcs are evil and the elves are good, then…there isn’t really a conflict, is there?  We don’t know why the orcs are doing what they’re doing or why the elves feel compelled to stop them.  And without motive, we don’t really have a keen insight into the conflict and we’re less invested in it.

Beyond that, it’s just not realistic to portray a fantasy race that wants to kill everyone just for the sake of killing them.  There has to be a logic (not necessarily logic, as it doesn’t have to make sense to us) that drives the motive.  Do the orcs need the elves’ land?  Do the orcs want to avenge themselves?  Do the orcs view the elves as a threat to their way of life?

With the right logic, you certainly can have races with a clear moral distinction, but I tend to dislike them, as they tend to make the answers to them a little too obvious and thus they’re not as explorable as a people with a little more complexity.

Really, though, this is kind of just regurgitating things that are largely known.  Where the real meat of the discussion comes from is the idea of using clear racial analogues in fantasy.

It’s become a bit more common lately: a race in a fantasy world that’s a bit too close to a race we already know in our daily lives, following their culture, using their traditions, portraying their world.  There may be different names, but we often end up with something resembling…

In the eras following the Great Warring States, we find that Bliro, a proud Blapanese man from Blapan and heir to the ancient Blirobito Blynasty is experiencing troubles with the distant land of Blina and the Blinese.

The above is something of a rather gross exaggeration, but it’s also a pretty good indicator of why I dislike this sort of fantasy race-crafting.

I’ve heard arguments that the use of cultural analogues is a more genuine way of stating something in a book than inventing an entirely new one.  After all, presumably all books say something about society, whether we intend for them to or not.  And, indeed, having the cultures more relatable through clear analogues might be a better way of exploring them.

But the difficulty is, you often see these analogues used in conjunction with the former issue: a lack of moral ambiguity.  And that’s kind of the issue: when the cultural analogue isn’t explored fully and just portrayed as they are seen through the eyes of another race (frequently, their enemy), it can come off as grievously offensive.

I’m definitely not accusing anyone of putting a distinct racist agenda in their work.  But it’s something that I feel is worth discussing and it’s something I don’t agree with.

But, as I’ve said, I’ve heard of authors who use it to great effect and authors who use it whose work is greatly praised.  I certainly liked The Way of Kings, anyway.  Maybe I’m just entirely full of shit.

What do you think?

I should warn you, things are about to get a little meta here.

The Cape sucks.  This is inarguable fact.  If you liked it, you are a categorically bad person and I will bury you in six different countries (one of them will be Norway).

I just watched this and this idea just hit me so I won’t waste a lot of time poetically leading up to the why it sucks (unless you count this sentence…and this one…and this one…and–you know, let’s just do it.)

PHILOSOPHY.

Characters are defined by past and motive.  With heroes and villains, though, they require something a tad different than motive.  Motive is what guides a character from event to event, what shapes his reactions to other characters and what happens to him.  Philosophy is what guides a hero or villain through his life, what shapes his reactions to himself and to his actions.  That might sound a tad vague, but let’s compare (briefly) the philosophies of THE CAPE.

In THE CAPE, the main character is a cop.  A cop who loves his family dearly.  A cop who is faithful and true to his duty.  A cop who sleeps in his son’s bed when his son has a nightmare.  A cop who releases his anger by hitting a heavybag.  This cop is done wrong by a maniacal villain.  The villain takes over the city with his private army of policemen and banks!  The villain is the face of a shadowy corporation!  The villain wants nothing more than total power and control!  The villain is above no means to get what he wants!  Also, he’s British, like all villains…ever.

Does this sound familiar?  Well, probably, because it’s pretty well-worn.  Hero wants to maintain status quo, villain wants status quo shifted in his favor.  Either way, not a lot is changing, is there?  The city doesn’t really suffer under the villain and we can see he actually runs it pretty efficiently.  We’re just told to believe he’s evil because he’s cackling and he’s British.  There’s no real conflict in it for us, so not a tremendous amount of stake.

The philosophies don’t really work, do they?

So let’s look at something that does.

Batman’s stories are, essentially, philosophical debates.  Nearly all his villains represent an ideology or philosophical point of view and none of them is more recognizable than the Joker.  He’s gone through several iterations (several of which will undoubtedly be examples countering what I’m saying here, but that’s the nature of comics), but there’s been a few points that have remained largely the same about the Joker: he doesn’t really want power, he doesn’t really want money, he wants to prove a point.

That all machines, institutions and constructs of society are illusions, fragile things that can break and frequently do under pressure (usually applied by him).  Thus, the world is as crazy as he is, pretending it’s something it isn’t.  He’s in on the joke.  It’s everyone else that needs it explained to them, so he does.  Batman’s viewpoint is that these are things that are real, that they have to be maintained and respected, even if they don’t always make sense (hence why he does it himself rather than entrust it to police).

Every fight, every scheme foiled, every plot is a debate, point-counterpoint.

This is what makes a hero satisfying: his consideration of his own point of view against others.  This is what makes villains three-dimensional: their desire to see things done a certain way for the reason they think are right.  This is what makes a conflict interesting: the fact that you, the reader, can invest in a point of view and decide for yourself who is right.

But Sam!

Look, I was just about to wrap this up, so–

Aren’t your characters lacking philosophy themselves?  Are they not in it purely for survival?  Is that not more instinct than philosophy?

Hm, you raise a good point, voice in my head.

I would justify my own characters by saying that “I’m not sure” is a valid philosophical point.  Many philosophical inquiries end in it and a character can experience the same.  A character can be a philosophy-in-progress, an argument unto themselves.  You see this frequently, in fact, from some of the most intriguing characters who are frequently pitted against themselves.  Sometimes, seeing the philosophy being created is as interesting as seeing the philosophy in action against someone else.

It occurs to me that this might be a tad heavy, perhaps something that will take a lot more thought on all our parts before we can apply it to our own writing.

But, whatever.  We’ve got time.

Those of us not on deadlines, anyway.

Look at that title up there.  Yeah. That just happened.  We’re going to get into a serious thing here.

So, I have several gurus in my life: people whom I can count for solid advice without having to pay for the privilege.  One such guru is my friend John, who has been the guy I have hurled story ideas at with the thought that he will hurl back whether or not they’re interesting.  Typically, he hurls back a useful answer hidden amidst a pile of feces.  And so, when I wanted to talk about what was coming up with Black Halo, I turned to him.

“So, what happens?” he asked.

“In the book?”

“In your urethra.”

“…so, in the book, a lot of the questions raised about the characters are answered.  We see more of what makes Dreadaeleon tick, we see a bit into Denaos’ past and the vision he had on the Riptide, we learn more about Asper’s condition and Kataria as she relates to the shicts when she meets the s’na shict s’ha (one of my favorite bits).”

“And Lenk?”

“Oh, totally.  We learn more about his voice and what makes him open to–”

“No, you fuck.  What about Kataria and Lenk?  Do they get together?”

If you haven’t told, John is a pretty manly man.  A man so manly he has threatened to sodomize other men for the sheer fun of it.  He watches sports on television, he drinks beer and he eats pizza and poops in sock drawers.  And while he is so manly that his exact language was not “get together,” he’s interested in the dynamic between Lenk and Kataria.

And he is not the only one.

Romance has always been present in fantasy, I think.  And men have always read fantasy.  But men have rarely read fantasy for the romantic elements.  Frequently, a woman is a throwaway character, something for the male protagonist to do (hurr hurr) when he’s not kicking ass and being a general anus to the forces of evil.  Because of this, romance in fantasy, from the male perspective, has sort of been considered a throwaway subplot.

Listen to any marketing or publicity associate in publishing and you’ll typically hear about the great gender divide.  Women buy more books than men.  Women won’t read military sci-fi.  Men won’t buy a romantic subplot.  Men won’t read strong women characters.  Women love romance.  Men hate romance.  Women hate fighting.  Men fucking love that shit.

Garbage.

Women and men like different things, it’s true, but that’s because people, in general, like different things.  I’ve met plenty of women who enjoyed Tome for its romance and many whom liked Gariath stomping a man’s crotch into his anus.  Likewise, John isn’t nearly the only man who’s asked about the relationship and that’s due to something that may come as a shock to a lot of people.

Men actually like romance.

Holy crap.

To be specific, men like the dynamic.  Men like seeing how it matures and how it evolves and how they eventually get together.  In the end, that’s pretty much what the romance element boils down to, isn’t it?  It’s a story, same as seeing how the hero overcomes the forces of evil.  We want to see the protagonists end up together as much as we want to see them save the world.

And the reason it hasn’t really worked up until now is because there hasn’t been an entire lot of classic fantasy that has relationships that capture the imagination.  And, sadly, that hasn’t happened because a lot of that part of the story that has long been considered the throwaway part: the female character.

It’s not shallow to have a female character want a male character.  It is quite shallow to have her want a male character and do nothing about it.  She has to be active about it, be it struggling with her desire or struggling with something external.  And he needs to be active, as well for it to be interesting.  Their actions don’t have to be identical (and probably shouldn’t be, otherwise there’s no conflict) or even equivalent, but it’s got to be there.

And the action, I think, is what we all want to see.  We want to see how it all happens, how they struggle with each other and themselves.  That can’t happen when one character is passive and that can’t happen when one character’s list of character traits begins with “the girl.”  They have to act on their own, they have to have motive to do so, they have to deal with the consequences of those actions.  It’s the same as writing anything else.

And that’s pretty much the sole rule of a story: everything should have consequence, everything should have meaning, nothing should be throwaway.

Fuck this divisive garbage.  Don’t shy away from exploring a complicated romance in your epic swords and sorcery story.  Don’t cringe at the thought of putting violence in your fantastic romance.  Do what you love and the audience will love it, too.

<3

I looked forward to Christmas a lot.

I trusted in all the old traditions: the man in the red suit, driving a chariot pulled by feral beasts of yore, meting out justice and vengeance to the worthy and unworthy.  Back then, though, we had happier names for them.  Santa Claus.  Rudolph.  Naughty.  Nice.

And I heeded their rules.  I left out a cookie for Santa and a glass of milk.  I also left out a carrot for Rudolph, too.  My father didn’t like carrots, though.  So when I came down the next morning, I found the cookie and milk gone, but the carrot still there.  I was upset.  What had I done to offend him?  Why had I been snubbed by Rudolph?  I was depressed for as long as it took to open my first present.  A fleeting moment, but one that did not go unnoticed.

When the next year rolled around, I went down to the living room.  The cookie was gone.  The milk was gone.  The carrot was gone.  All that Rudolph had left behind was a steaming brown turd, long gone cold.

My father has a peculiar sense of humor.

For the next four years, my Christmas had a new tradition.  The presents were anticipated.  The old ways were obeyed.  And each Christmas morning, my sisters and I would rush to the living room and be excited beyond belief that there was a giant piece of shit above our stockings.

Merry Christmas to those who celebrate it.  Happy Channukkah.  Happy Kwanzaa.  Enjoy your family if you’ve got it.  Enjoy the time off, regardless of what you’ve got.  Be excellent to each other.

Or I will fucking kill you.