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Kind of a slow day today, but there are some things we should go over.  I was asked by many (one) people (person) about the ARC Giveaway Contest (shameless self-promotion) and decided (was forced) to elaborate (fling poo) for (at) them (the jerk).  This shall be done in the form of a Q&A with myself, the very same defense that both exonerated me from many civil libel suits and once got me imprisoned in a Turkish asylum.

Thanks for coming to the Q&A, Sam.

Thanks for having me, buy my book!

Okay, you little corporate whore.  Let’s save it for later, eh?  First of all, tell us how long the ARC Giveaway Contest extends to.

We’d like to have all submissions in by August 22nd, 2010, when the Hurlyburly’s done, so that our celebrity guests can have adequate time to judge them.

Woah, celebrity guests?  I thought you were judging these yourself!

I have never done an honest day’s work in my life and, as you know, I am terrified of having an opinion I might have to one day defend.  Rather, Mark Newton, Joe Abercrombie and Sarah Pinborough have volunteered to help out by choosing their favorites.  Of course, when I say “volunteer,” I mean that one of them is tied up in my basement.  Guess which one and you might win a prize!

I would, but every time I email you, I keep getting ignored!  Why won’t you reply to me?  Is it my face?  It’s my face, isn’t it?  Do you want to punch me in the face right now?

Kind of, but that’s not the reason I don’t respond!  Mostly, it is because I am a SUPREMELY BUSY MAN and I have no idea what to say beyond “hey, thanks broseph.  Yo, do you remember Ducktales?”  And that’s just going to lead to a conversation that will sap my resources intensely, since local legend confirms that the only way to keep Sam Sykes from stealing your face is to talk with him about Ducktales until the sun comes up and turns him to stone.

But anyway, remember that your reasons are all being noted and Sam Sykes loves you very much.

Well, that’s pretty good.  Will my one good reason be published on your blog that has HUNDREDS OF VERY IMPORTANT PEOPLE VISITING IT AS WE SPEAK?

I don’t know, man!  Probably, if it’s really good!

That’s all the time we have for today.  Thanks for coming, Sam, you Sexual Lorax, you.

Why, thanks, pal.

Anyway, onto other business…

YOU MIGHT HAVE NOTICED that the Facebook link on the main page, thanks to the infinite patience of Jeremiah Tolbert, ACTUALLY LEADS TO A FACEBOOK PAGE!  HOLY GOD!  DO YOU KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS?

We can be FBBFFBs (the last ‘B’ stands for ‘BFYOBFB’).  And more importantly, you can see me threaten other authors who are also on Facebook!  Holy crap!

Yes!  Go befriend me now.  If you’re a pornbot, though, you better be nasty.

And finally, we have our first victim contender to the Bravest Challenge reporting in on his challenge!  You might remember that Graeme Flory was supposed to read Terry Goodkind’s Wizard’s First Rule. He has finally reported back in on this mighty challenge.  The result?

FAILURE.

I gave it my best shot but ‘Wizard’s First Rule’ has gone in the ‘charity box’, possibly never to be seen in this house again. I really wanted that ‘Raging Rothfuss’ award as well… But you know what? Sometimes life really is too short to be plugging away on something that just isn’t going to work for you.

Well, at least you tried, Graeme!  And for that, we who are about to read worse, salute you!

As you were, soldier!

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.

Poetry doesn’t belong to those who wrote it.  It belongs to those who need it.

How do you like that?  Pretty deep, isn’t it?  It’s from the movie Il Postino and it’s a little misleading because we’re not going to talk about poetry at all!  But if you came here for the poetry and want to leave now, you’re far too late.  You are trapped.  Now sit there and enjoy this discussion about text, subtext and intent as it applies to authors and their readers.

If you have been at all keeping up on The Book Smugglers (and you probably have if you have been threatened, like me, by Ana and Thea), you might have seen their interesting review of Sisters Red by Jackson Pearce. For those of you who haven’t, I suggest you do so now (there’s some pretty sweet fighting at the end of the comments).  Go ahead.  I’ll wait…

…

…oh my GOD, that was NUTS, right?!

Anyway, you can probably get the gist of what I’m talking about after reading the review.  The book didn’t work for the Smugglers because of the perceived subtext and they spoke out about it.  Pearce came out and defended her intentions.  And from there, people added their own thoughts as they came and went.  The central point addressed between all of them being: who is right?  The Smugglers and their interpretation of the subtext or Pearce and her intentions?  Were the Smugglers over-analyzing, taking things out of context, attributing character motive to author motive?  Was Pearce overly defensive and aiming to quash negative commentary?

Does this book belong to the author or the reader?

If you’ve been asking yourself these, it’s my opinion that you’re asking the entirely wrong sort of question and I hate you for it.

Let me say that I sympathize greatly with Pearce here.  It can be extraordinarily frustrating when someone takes something from a book you didn’t intend.  Not only that, it can be particularly hard to deal with should the accusation be of a sensitive subject.  Note that I’m not saying the Smugglers did accuse Pearce, but let’s look at her options.

Ideally, you don’t respond to critics unless it’s to thank them and/or discuss the text.  You can’t begrudge people their opinions and you can’t argue your intent without sounding condescending.  I agree with this, generally, and I’m not a fan of blaming the reader for their dislike of a book.  “You just didn’t get it” is not a helpful suggestion and it doesn’t really do anything to help the reader or the author understand anything.

But at the same time, it’s astonishingly hard to see someone accredit a social problem to your book and not say anything.  In this, I greatly understand Pearce’s desire to speak up.  Sitting back when someone doesn’t like your book is one thing, sitting back and letting people assume (even if the review didn’t say it) that you’re supportive of a victim-blaming mentality is quite another.

This isn’t to say that the Book Smugglers are wrong, either.  They found what they found in the book and provided evidence to support their findings.  The author owns the writing experience, but the audience owns the reading experience.  It’s a shared experience which can be truly phenomenal to experience.

Basically, the book is fairly evenly owned.  And with that said, I’m actually (mostly) quite pleased with how the discussion on the Book Smugglers turned out.  Ana and Thea took a very sensitive subject and approached it with sensitivity to audience and author.  Pearce took something that could be highly emotional and approached it with the ideal civility, explaining her intent and respecting the Smugglers’ opinion.

I’d love to see more of this sort of thing, really.  I’d like the walls between author and critic to come down a little and perhaps even see the reviewers invite the authors to come offer their own insight into the interpretation.  As I said, it’s a shared experience and the best way to keep sharing it is to involve audience, author, reviewer and Nixon alike.

However, looking at the comments on some reviews, one can see why an author might not be too eager to come out and talk to people who get pretty hateful about a book they’ve never even read.  I thought the commentary on the review wasn’t too bad.

But they weren’t talking about my book.

As a brief note before we begin: we should have fixed the contact form for those of you still interested in the ARC Giveaway, but if it doesn’t work you can email me at sam.sykes66@gmail.com.  The contest goes to the end of August and all you have to do is email me one good reason why you deserve an ARC of Tome of the Undergates.

Now, then…

If I have one complaint for reviewers, it’s that they occasionally tend to find their comfort zones and settle into them.  As such, they start getting a little predictable.  We start seeing certain blogs going into routines: they review the same books, they give the same scores and no one’s learning anything.

First, there is inspiration.

Then, there is stagnation.

And finally…there is THE BRAVEST CHALLENGE.

Twelve bloggers from around the net have agreed to partake in this glorious and violent fury of a contest, accepting a book that I have chosen for them, knowing their habits well enough to think that such a thing will genuinely give them a challenge or at least an aneurysm.  Either way, should be fun to watch!

Victory is defined as having successfully read the book and completed a fair-as-possible review of the book, which they will put on their site.  All winners will receive a RAGING ROTHFUSS trophy!

Failure is defined as having not made it through the book and/or going completely ape on the review.  All losers receive the WEEKS OF SHAME trophy!

Our challengers await below…

ROUND ONE

The Book Smugglers vs. Robert Newcomb’s The Fifth Sorceress

Ana and Thea have the distinct honor of being two of the more socially conscious reviewers out there, highly concerned with issues of racism and sexism present in the world of fantasy and YA.  The Fifth Sorceress is a book whose greatest criticism is that it tends to steer toward some pretty distinct anti-female themes.  But are these real or imagined?  The Book Smugglers are determined to find out!

ROUND TWO

Floor to Ceiling Books vs. Gene Wolfe’s Shadow and Claw

This one should prove to be quite an interesting point.  Gene Wolfe is considered to be one of the fathers of fantasy, his stuff being cited alongside Tolkien’s as the greatest in the world.  This tends to synch up quite nicely with Amanda’s quest to read the various masterworks series.  As yet, she’s mostly reviewed newer stuff and, as we all know, she is a gentle creature with sensitive feelings.  Can she withstand a book that is proudly called “difficult” and possibly rough?  WE SHALL SEE!

ROUND THREE

LEC Book Reviews vs. David Bilsborough’s The Wanderer’s Tale

Louis is a guy who enjoys a lot of things: fast action, deep plot, characterization out the wazoo.  Why not pit him against a book that experienced harsh criticism against all three?  I never read The Wanderer’s Tale, but it’s said that it’s very Tolkien-inspired.  Perhaps Louis, with his shiny new fantasies, will succumb to its ancient influence?

ROUND FOUR

Lurv A La Mode vs. Andy Remic’s Kell’s Legend

Personally, I happened to like Kell’s Legend a whole lot.  It had everything I enjoy in a fantasy: flawed characters, gritty action and M-M-MEGAVIOLENCE.  It is fact that reading Kell’s Legend will cause you to grow a beard, which resulted in several lawsuits which Remic won by cutting off the plaintiffs’ heads.  Kenda Montgomery, of the New Jersey Montgomerys, however, is a gentle soul who enjoys her paranormal romances and fantasy heroines.  Can she survive the pure testosterone of Kell’s Legend?

ROUND FIVE

Graeme’s Fantasy Book Reviews vs. Terry Goodkind’s Wizard’s First Rule

Believe it or not, there was a time when Goodkind was a leading name in fantasy and you could utter his name without Westeros burning you at the stake, and the man still has many fans who will swear by his books.  Even those who no longer follow him claim that his first book, Wizard’s First Rule, is still an excellent story.  Graeme actually requested this one.  He’s never read any of Goodkind’s work and I saw this as a good experiment in Reputation vs. Quality.  Can Graeme, ignoring the venom that will undoubtedly be heaped upon him, find quality in this story?

ROUND SIX

Kamvision vs. Hannu Rajaniemi’s The Quantum Thief

My knowledge of Hannu is limited to the fact that he was a string physicist and has a handshake like a vise grip.  My knowledge of his book is limited to the fact that it is HARDCORE SCIENCE FICTION, something that I full well know Jason will have difficulty with.  This is emotion versus knowledge!  Physics versus Scrutiny!  HANNU VS. JASON.

ROUND SEVEN

Temple Library Reviews vs. Bernard Cornwell’s Agincourt

This one isn’t fantasy, of course.  However, the circumstances were just too good to pass up.  Harry Markov came to me and asked if he could get in on the Bravest Challenge.  “Well,” I said, “what do you have trouble with?”  “Not much,” he replied.  “I like just about anything that isn’t dry…or historical…or a war story.”  BAM!  Cornwell’d!

ROUND EIGHT

A Dribble of Ink vs. M. John Harrison’s The Pastel City

If you happened to wander over to Westeros the past few days, you might have noticed a hardcore episode of Blogger Fight Club going on over M. John Harrison.  Long rumored to be the anti-fantasy fantasy, it seemed right up Aidan Moher’s alley, who is genuinely interested in broadening his horizons.  Seeing as The Pastel City is one of his more accessible novels, we watch with great interest as Aidan sees if he can swallow the stuff.

ROUND NINE

Neth Space vs. Mercedes Lackey’s Arrows of the Queen

Ken, as we all know, is the epitome of the dignified fantasy reviewer: his tastes are refined, his mind is honed to a razor’s edge and his eyes are scrutinizing enough to pick parasites off krill.  I’ve never read Arrows of the Queen (though I do like some of Lackey’s other stuff), but an associate of mine who wishes to remain nameless described it as: “Telepathic ponies that are your special BFF!!!! Oh-so-spunky and rebellious heroine!  It’s every 12-year-old girl’s fantasy!”  Have fun, Ken.

ROUND TEN

Mad Hatter Review vs. R.A. Salvatore’s Homeland (and possibly The Orc King)

Like many kids growing up on fantasy, I loved Drizzt.  As I grew, the distinct lack of moral ambiguity and general lack of motive tended to wear on me until I stopped reading him.  Still, the drow that launched a thousand knock-offs holds a special place in my heart.  But is that place deserved?  Michael is here to find out.  I know two things about Michael: he likes moral ambiguity and he’s never read “tie-in” fiction.  I’m recommending Homeland as the quintessential Drizzt novel, explaining origins and basically everything that makes him who he is.  Given that the Drizzt novels are fairly quick reads, though, I’m also putting in a possible recommendation for The Orc King, which is generally where a lot of people agree that Salvatore lost his stride.  Good hunting!

ROUND ELEVEN

The Yeti Stomper vs. M. John Harrison’s Viriconium

If The Pastel City is considered to be the escargot of fantasy, hard to digest but a genuine delicacy, then Viriconium is the deadly pufferfish, delicious but capable of killing a man who bites it improperly.  And Patrick is just the man with death wish enough to try it.

ROUND TWELVE

You, The Reader vs. EVERYONE

Yes, my adoring public, I issue you the EVERYMAN’S BRAVEST CHALLENGE.  I don’t know your tastes, so I can’t recommend anything specifically, of course.  But my challenge is a lot simpler than that: find a book that you put down, for any reason, and try to finish it.  Email me with your results (whether you finished it and were surprised at how good it was or whether it wound up sucking anyway) and I’ll post them on the blog.

These should go through toward Christmas, with various bloggers balancing their schedules to fit these in, so keep watching this space for who succeeds and who is sharkmeat!

When someone disagrees with you, is your first reaction to punch them in the genitals?  Have you ever once, with a straight face, called a beaver a spy?  Do you remember when Mel Gibson single-handedly fought back the British with the stars stripes instead of when he went all nuts and probably became a cannibal?

If you answered yes to any of these, you are probably American and thus, you are probably a pretty cool guy or girl to hang around!  But more than that, you are eligible to WIN A SIGNED ADVANCED READING COPY OF TOME OF THE UNDERGATES BY SAM SYKES HOLY CRAP DID YOU JUST HAVE A HEART ATTACK SOMEONE CALL A DOCTOR.

Please read the following italicized questions below in a shrill, nasal voice with tears in your eyes (but imagine the answers below them to be answered in my trademark booming, ursine baritone).

What the heck is this, Sam Sykes, you handsome devil?

What the crap does it look like?  It’s an ARC giveaway for lucky readers in AMERICA before the book goes on sale in two months!

Well, I’ll be!  I’M an American!

I thought your hair was looking quite shiny today.  What conditioner do you use?

That’s besides the point, Sykes!  How do I enter?

I’m glad you asked (because I wasn’t going to tell you, otherwise).  Entering is easy!

Just give me ONE GOOD REASON why you deserve this ARC.

That’s it!  Just email me through this here site and give me exactly one good reason why you deserve an Advanced Copy of Tome of the Undergates!

This seems awfully simple.  Is there any catch?

None that you will know until it’s far, far too late.

Now see here.  I’m an Austrian holdout from the Crimean War, huddled deep inside a bunker as I wait for news from the outside.  Am I eligible for this contest?  Is the war over?

Well, your day is about to get a lot worse!  Sadly, this particular contest is for my bros in the United States only, as the Patriot Act forces me to give it up once in awhile.  Also, I’m pretty sure you lost.  Wait…how do you have internet?

Details!  This means WAR between us, Sykes!

Well, that doesn’t make me feel any better!

But you might, if you enter today!

So do so!

Or I will RIP YOU APART.

So I’ve been a published author for roughly three months now and it’s sometimes a little staggering to realize how much I was unprepared for.  To name one (of many), I used to think of the word ‘worldbuilding’ as sort of the consolation prize of complimentary books.  To say a book had great worldbuilding (and indeed, had it emphasized to the highest compliment) suggested to me that a book lacked in character and plot.

However, I’ve recently come to think on this a little more thanks to a review of Tome of the Undergates by James Long that I’m quite pleased with.  In it, one of his chief complaints is the rather skimpy setting.  It’s true, Tome of the Undergates is not a particularly far-ranging adventure and I can’t really take a beef with his gripe with it.  It was an intentional point on my part and it didn’t particularly work for him.  That’s fine.

What interested me was this statement from his prior review of Shadow Prowler by Alexey Pehov regarding monsters.

Worse, Pehov feels the need to tell the reader everything about a particular creature when we meet it for the first time. So, Harold will find himself in a confrontation with a peculiar creature, but before the action can commence, we have to put up with several paragraphs giving us a brief run-down of the creature’s habits and characteristics (get used to it, as this trait appears as early as the second page).

You might think I’m trying to confront James here.  Well, you couldn’t be more wrong.  Honestly, sometimes you leap to conclusions so swiftly you just make me want to slap you. But I still love you, baby…I still love you.  We can work this out.

Rather, James has the unfortunate honor of being nailed to a cross and raised up as a banner of discussion in my evolving thoughts about worldbuilding.  He serves only to act as two examples that support the question, that one being how do we go about worldbuilding?

We’ve seen excellent examples of it.  George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire is set in the midst of high-rolling, power-playing nobles with grudges and ambitions that affect the whole world and this lends it an excellent reason to explore the vast and detailed world he’s created.  Scott Lynch’s The Lies of Locke Lamora revolves around a city that’s basically its own character, and we’re just as happy to know it as we are to know Locke and Jean.

And we’ve also seen poorer examples.  Some people will decry The Wheel of Time series for its encyclopedic references to things that don’t affect the story (while others embrace the series just for that).  And there’s always going to be those who point to a new book and say: “He’s no Tolkien.”

But, then again, this is my blog and I am an emotionally-crippled manchild with a desperate need for attention, so presumably you’ve come to see what I might do.

As I said, the relatively close focus in Tome of the Undergates was a conscious decision on my behalf.  Rest assured, the world I’ve created is quite big and I fully intend to beat each and every inch of land into your skulls…but only when they apply to the characters.

I take a “Chekov’s Gun” approach to worldbuilding.  That is, I only bring to attention that which is pertinent to the characters.  There might political power struggles over a throne elsewhere in the world.  There might be revolutions going on, power plays, famine, drought, crises of all manner.  But that doesn’t always matter to people the same way.

Our world, this one in which we plod across in meaty shells, has been pretty messed up for the past every God damned year, but a lot of crazy crap is going down these few days.  We’ve political scandals and environmental crises at home.  We’ve got military dictatorships and terrorists abroad.  Serial killers walk the streets, the media is dishonest and pointless, one man tells us the value of art is decreasing because no one likes him while another one says that his generation is a cesspool in which certain breeds of shit just aren’t welcome.  The world is going straight to hell and no one seems to care…but for good reason.

Somewhere in a little apartment, a place with white walls and the cans of paint he intended to wash away the blandness with, with a glass table picked up from Pier 1 Imports and four cheap wicker chairs that were intended to convey a sense of cultural awareness for any culture but the one he was born into and a bottle of imported wine that is barely touched because he didn’t like the taste of it, a man is about to commit suicide.  He’s got the gun in his hands right now, he’s staring down the barrel as his self-preservation instincts scramble against a much better organized sense of overwhelming despair.

His death is meaningless, really.  He works at Lowe’s Home Improvement (he got the paint at a discount), he votes like the angry people on the street tell him to vote and he’s never hurt anyone and meant it, though he’s always intended to.  The reason for his death is even less important: his girlfriend left him.  This is ridiculous, of course.  There are millions more women in this world, much better-looking, much smarter.  There are women who won’t criticize him for buying wine that he has no intention of drinking, women who will let him buy folding chairs instead of these expensive wicker pieces of shit, women who will come home and find that he has no idea how to make the complicated dinner he had planned for her birthday.  Maybe they’ll smile and sigh at him, too.

His death is insignificant, the reason for it moreso.  Against the countless tragedies unfurling outside his apartment, the deaths, the illnesses, the poverty, the agonies, the fact that he can no longer be with one specific woman amongst many for the immediate future is utterly pointless.  There is true tragedy, there are true problems out there.

And he doesn’t give a shit about any of that.  His whole world is the gun in his hands and the empty space on the bed.

Maybe I’m doomed to never have anything more to say than this, but it always, always goes back to character.  What’s important to the world is not important to a man questioning his own sanity.  The fact that her God is supposed to be vigilant to suffering does nothing for a woman who suffers.  Kings are made and faiths are shattered and the man whose lost his sons doesn’t care about anything else.

That’s my reasoning, though.  You might have one that goes differently.  I’d love to hear it.

Before you complain about the title of this blog post, please know that my first choice was “Sam Sykes Touches Women.”

You’re welcome.

Anyway, as he and I are both wont to do, my good friend Mark Newton has posted a discussion and I, the literary mosquito that I am, have swooped down to thrust my proboscis of opinion into his jugular and gorge myself on his intellectual blood so that I might lay my malaria-ridden blog eggs.  As Ana, of the Book Smugglers, points out in her very positive review of his new book, City of Ruin, fantasy is one of those genres possessed of instances of female characters that are…underwhelming or unconvincing.  Though I quite like Ana’s descriptions of heroic vaginas and men with breasts.

Anyway, that mosquito metaphor has undoubtedly put you in the mood for a good discussion about female characters, so let’s have ourselves one.

In my opinion, if there are going to be problems with an author’s female character, they typically rise at the inception of said character.  More specifically, the problem occurs when a writer sits down, furrows his brow thoughtfully and asks: “How do I write a great female character?”  If this conversation revolved around a car at a repair shop, this question would be the rough equivalent of the mechanic reaching into your engine, pulling out a dead cat and saying: “Well, there’s your problem.”

As I said in Mark’s discussion, the idea that there is some magic, elusive idea of femininity that can be grasped, boiled down into a stew and force-fed the character doesn’t sit well with me because it relies on the patently false idea that all women are the same.  In order for you to write someone identifiably female, you’d have to write someone that fulfilled certain obligations that were well-acquainted or synonymous with what we thought women to be.

You’ve undoubtedly figured it out already, but that’s called stereotyping.  This is not a good thing.  Besides the extreme offensiveness to whoever you are stereotyping, it’s insulting to the reader that you might they couldn’t tell the difference.  And beyond all that, it commits that most heinous sin of diminishing tension in the story and thus diminishing the story itself.  If someone is easily identifiable as a stereotype, you can probably predict everything they do as easily as you could predict the punchline to a lame joke.  It’s not a good idea.  It makes people angry and it’s sloppy writing.

How do we go about writing women, then?  It’d probably be more accurate to say, how do I go about writing women, since all I can offer you is my own process and account (if someone else wants to give me their own, I’d love to hear it).

As ever, it all goes to motive.  I’m going to have to ask you to stay calm for a moment and read on past what I’m about to say, but this is the most accurate way I’ve heard it explained.

Girls fart, too.

If you haven’t shut down your browser out of anger or rushed off to confirm this statement, let me explain: there is no such thing as gender-exclusive motives.  We might lean one way or another (in our society), but a lot of the times, women and men desire the same things: love, power, acceptance, success, life, safety and so on.  What makes the character interesting is how they react to those desires (and gender can certainly come into play here).  At any rate, the character’s foremost motive should probably not be: “lol im a girl”

In short, to write a good female character, write a character first and a female second, not the other way around.

There’s another problem we often see, though: the total denial of femininity.  This is where the “men with breasts” issue comes into play.  You write a good character and she avoids everything you know is bad: she doesn’t pine over men (she might even be a bad-ass, man-hating Amazonian), she doesn’t wait for men to come rescue her, she performs every bit as good as the men…and she’s still not very popular.  Why?

Because the character is still not a character first at that point.  Her motives are still based off of what men do and thus, she rings hollow, with no real desires for herself.  It’s unrealistic and stupid to have a women exist just to provide men something to do, but it’s just as silly to have her act as though men don’t exist at all.

Some girls like boys!  It’s true!  I’ve seen it happen in my own house. And people like to read about girls liking boys, and boys liking girls, and people just liking people.  Romance is popular for a reason: we like to see people fall in love.  It makes us happy.  And in fact, if a woman wasn’t interested in men (or anyone) at all, we’d probably think she was mighty weird and unless there was a reason for that weirdness, we’d quickly lose interest because we just couldn’t relate to her.

Romantic tension, resolved or unresolved, is a big reason why we get involved in characters.  We want them to succeed in everything and, usually, if they can’t save the world or even themselves, we’d like to at least see them happy with someone for awhile.  Hell, you can even that someone be the chief motivation for a female character, but you (and the reader) has to know why that is her motivation.  It can be as easy as her being utterly smitten (though that might not satisfy a lot of people), to her rebelling against someone else, to her just connecting with them real well and she wants to protect that dearly.

As a brief addition: someone brought up the idea that women in the medieval societies are based off of aren’t equal to men and that it’s not always genuine to act like they are.

It’s fantasy.  You can make your own society.  That can even be a society where men and women aren’t equal, but you need a reason and a motive for it.

Basically, what applies to female characters applies to all characters.  You can have them do literally whatever the hell you want, so long as their motives are sound.  It’s when they lack motive that readers have a problem, because if they lack motive, they lack purpose, and if they lack purpose, why the hell are they are?

The answer?

“lol shes a grl obv”

(Someone is going to be pissed off by this.  Someone always is.)

I’ve got a friend named Carl.  As one of my friends, Carl’s jobs are mainly to listen to me talk about stupid things, complain about video games and give me advice.  As an adviser, Carl’s job is to scream “WRONG, WRONG, YOU’RE WRONG, YOU’RE SO WRONG, HOW DID YOU GET THIS JOB, WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU, I DON’T KNOW BUT YOU ARE SO DAMN WRONG, WRONG, WROOOOOOOOONG” except in a nice way and with more words.

So lately, being avid fans of both, we’ve been discussing Science Fiction and Fantasy (which largely boils down to me cursing a lot and Carl swearing to secrecy over what I’ve said) and this (para)phrase came up from my good friend:

The strength of science fiction has always been in…the exploration of fantastic ideas that are simply not conceivable in a realistic setting, but are too interconnected with the human experience to make it in fantasy.

I thought about this for awhile and liked the general idea of it.  Science Fiction allows us to look at social issues from a backward perspective.  The author offers a unique vision of the future (typically) that serves as commentary on the present.  The outcome of the author’s story offers his solution to the issues that face us in modern society by means of showing what we’ve done right (utopia) or done wrong (dystopia).  Basically, if we are at Point A, the author shows us how we reached (or will reach) Point Q.  The story, in part, follows Points B through P.

I like that idea.  Granted, it doesn’t apply to all of Science Fiction and some do it a lot better than others, but it was overall an idea I could get behind.  It was also an idea, Carl pointed out, that made Science Fiction more “tolerable” to the mainstream crowd (for the record, I don’t give a shit what the mainstream crowd thinks, but let’s roll with it for awhile).

But, a thought occurred.  He mentioned that Fantasy was inherently disconnected from the human experience.  This sort of thing didn’t settle well with me, providing one of those “you’re wrong, but I’m not sure why you’re wrong” moments that I’ve only now become able to put into words.

All books provide commentary on the human experience, through the writer and the audience’s perception of the writing.  This is how it is and what makes writing and reading a deeply personal experience.  There’s a little bit (or 2.5 metric craptons) of the author’s viewpoint in whatever he writes.  There’s some of the reader’s viewpoint in how he perceives this (yes, I know South Park might have said this in a more entertaining way, but let me finish).  All writing is connected to the human experience, it’s just generally been the perception that Fantasy, with its frequently and sometimes misinterpreted moral structures and social constructs, just doesn’t have as much to say on it as usual.

This might have been true at one point, when Fantasy was chiefly about the Good Humans Who Are Beautiful and Gorgeous Because They are Good and Good Because They Are Accepted By Society against the Bad Orcs Who Are Ugly and Live Underground Because They Are Evil (even this says something about the author’s experiences, as you can probably find in one of many, many online debates).

But we haven’t had that a lot lately.

We’ve had Orcs (or Orc-like things) and we’ve had Humans.  We’ve had Good and we’ve had Evil.  But we haven’t really seen that construct in awhile.  More often, it’s less about moral and more about motive these days.  It’s about why an Orc does what he does and why people think he’s Evil for it.  It’s about why the Humans are Good and whether they deserve that particular title.  It’s about what we see as Good, what we see as Evil and whether or not our definitions need to change.

And this is what Fantasy has to say.

It’s hard to comment on society as it is today and be able to reach people with it.  The stakes are too high and the lines are too firmly drawn.  We translate our opinions to who we are and to listen to disagreement to those opinions is to compromise what we are.  Sure, you might change minds (and, hopefully, you’ll change them because your arguments are sound and your evidence is clear), but a lot of the times, commentary on society as it is means you’re simply talking to people who already agree with you.

Basically, Fantasy has the potential to talk about society as it is somewhere else and provide the author with an outlet for it.  It’s not so much a discussion on what will be or what might be so much as it is a commentary on what’s going on and why it’s happening.  It’s a discussion of philosophies as they’re evolving, psychologies as they’re being formed and the reasons societies are rising as they do.

As loathsome as it is to speak his name, I’d cite Joe Abercrombie’s novel Best Served Cold as a good example of commentary.  Particularly, the character of Shivers (my personal favorite) serves as an excellent example of society’s pressure on the individual and how he chooses to react.

Here we have a man who is good at what he does: killing.  Here we have a man who is living in a time where killing is actually in high demand.  The conflict occurs when we have a man who actually doesn’t want to do much killing anymore but is constantly presented with the opportunity to do so.  Despite what people might say about Joe’s penchant for black endings, I think Shivers is actually a pretty good example of the optimism in people.  He’s a dude who is good at what he does in a time when what he does is not only socially acceptable but the chief means of social mobility amongst other people who only want him to do what he does best and by doing so he will get what he wants…but he doesn’t want to do that.

Is it a rebellion against fatalism?  Is it a discussion of how man reacts to society?  Is it a discussion of what man’s ultimate fate is when he tries to resist the natural path?  I got a pretty interesting conclusion out of it.  I can’t share it with you, since I don’t want to spoil it for you (so read the book.  Steal it if you can; he’s got enough money), but chances are you’ll come away with something very different than what I did.

And the setting by which we discuss this, Abercrombie’s world, means we can reach, in many ways, a more honest verdict than we could if we were discussing something else.

Am I reaching?  I might be.

Granted, not every story has as much to say on the matter as others might.  Granted, not every opinion is going to reach every ear and not everyone’s going to make the same conclusions as everyone else (or even the author).  But the same can be said of any other story.  This is what makes the story personal (which I already told you, you’ll recall).

But, if you’re not convinced, get five people to read a fantasy book (or steal Best Served Cold) and see what their opinions are.  Then wait a month.  Then make up a news story in which the same thing happens in whatever’s new and controversial in the news and see what happens.

I’m interested in seeing what everyone comes up with.

Yes.  Black Halo, second book in The Aeons’ Gate Trilogy, is done.  It has just returned from my outstanding editor, Lou Anders, with a glowing review and a death threat (the third one he’s sent me, I believe).  You can expect it roughly around March/April of 2011, be you American or British.  But you might be wondering: if it’s done, why so long until it comes out?  Well, there’s a few reasons for that.

See, authors have their own language, a language chiefly designed to throw angry editors and inquisitive readers off our trail.  In this particular language, the word “done” has several different meanings.  And while it might earn me the ire of my fellow authors to break this special code, I will translate a small portion of this language for you as we explore the various phases of done.

“It’s done” : “I know how everything fits.  What?  No, I haven’t written it yet.  I’m actually not even halfway.  But I know how it ends…unless it changes.  Anyway, I certainly know how everything happens…unless I get a better idea for it toward the end.  But trust me, it’s pretty much solid and will definitely meet the deadline unless I have to rewrite everything to make it fit this great scene that I know absolutely has to happen right the hell now.”

“It’s done” : “Okay, I wrote everything down.  This is how it’s all going to work.  I’m extremely, 100% satisfied with how this whole thing turned out.  It’s great.  It’s fantastic.  It’s complete…now, to rewrite it.”

“It’s done” : “Off to the editors!  I’m sure they’ll love it…unless they don’t.  Oh wait, it’s back.  They love it, except for this part.  That’s great.  That’s perfect.  Wait, that’s the part that took me three months to write.  Oh well.  As they say: ‘kill your babies.’  What?  What do you mean ‘who says that?’  EVERYONE says that.  It’s…it’s a writer thing that we say.  All the time.  Look, it’s not weird, it’s just a metaphor for not becoming so attached to a scene that you can’t bear to see it hacked to pieces and recrafted as some shambling abomination, pieced together from the souls of a thousand different scenes like some horrific golem of flesh and words, always crying out for death and decrying the belief of a merciful God that refuses to grant him any peace…what was I talking about?”

“It’s DONE” : “After many fine, furious trips to the editors, the manuscript has returned as a lean, mean, fantasy genre machine.  It’s outstanding.  It’s incredible.  It’s proof positive that I’m in the right business, that I was meant to be a writer.  It’s…oh, hey, it’s back from the copy editor.  Let’s take a look…wait, I misspelled ‘ridiculous.’  Wait, how many times did I use the word ‘thunder?’  Holy shit, did I really describe a kiss as ‘two sharpeis straining to discover the function of a toothbrush?’  WHAT MADE ME THINK I COULD DO THIS?”

“And…it’s done” : “There.  It’s gone.  The cover is in.  The editing is done.  It’s out of my hands now.  Fly well, little book, and bring much suffering to my enemies.”

“I’m done” : Last two words the author shrieks over the phone to his editor before his bookie’s enforcers break down the door and snap his neck at his desk.  Typically followed by a call to the Gollancz Salvage Crew to go out and see if his brain can’t be preserved and later put in Joe Abercrombie’s body, as we did when Richard Morgan died…shit, that part was supposed to be a secret.

Anyway, Black Halo is currently at the third stage of that.  This week is all about getting edits done and sending it off.  Granted, my fate is in the publisher’s hands, but we might just see it released a little earlier if we get it done on time.

So, what can you expect from Black Halo?  I think a lot of people will be pleased with how it turned out.

Those people that loved Tome of the Undergates’ violence, characterization and fury will find it vastly improved in this series.  The combat is more intense and we go ever deeper into the minds and the secrets of the characters as their pasts return to them.  What do I mean by that?  Seven-foot tall, xenophobic, long-eared, green-skinned headhunters advise Kataria on her love life while quietly crunching on frogs that they believe will make their blood venomous.  Yeah.

Those people that had problems with Tome of the Undergates’ pacing and anger will also find a much smoother, much swifter experience in Black Halo. The action is more intense, yet paced evenly so that we’re rarely in the same scene for an overly long time.  I think a lot of people will enjoy this.

Anyway, keep an eye out for it!  Of course, this probably means more to you if you’re in the United Kingdom or Australia.  If you’re in America, you’re still waiting for Tome of the Undergates’ September release!  But trust me, the wait’s worth it on both counts.