it begins...

[lagilman]

the monthlong blitz on e-harlequin for Staying Dead, that is. The Luna boards are quite active, and each month in addition to the usual discussions they set up a new thread specific to that month's release, where the author plays host.

Mine just went live this morning, and it's already getting busy.

They also have me doing a chat (possibly two, if I can get my act together)and I'm going to be running a contest (which anyone can enter, not just the Lunatics. More on that when the page goes live [hopefully today]).

Mind you, none of my other deadlines have gone away. Look for me to get a little... crazier the next few weeks. Oy. In a good way. *grin*

and, for those who're interested, my Luna essay "In Defense of Fantasy."

Comments

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Lovely article. And surprisingly timely for me, as the review book du jour is Ferrenz' Worse Than Death and the soon-to-be-corpse is running around torquing off an established horror author for "writing romances that pander to the lowest common denominator while serious authors can't be heard in the market." (Nevermind that serious still involves vampires, which leads to your romance vs. fantasy smackdown.)

What surprizes me is Atwood; I didn't know that she so vehemently refuses the supposed taint of genre. She writes about a world that hasn't happened but it's not fantasy? Does she think it *will* happen?

[lagilman]

I sweated that article, so thanks for the feedback. :-) And yes, Atwood has tried very hard to distance her self from the "ray guns and BEMs" of science fiction.

And under the category of "small world, innit?" Ms. Ferrenz is not only a friend of mine but is on lj. So you've likely just given her palpitations... *grin*

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Well, Atwood doesn't write ray guns and BEMs, and someone who wants the rubber monster du jour won't like her stuff. So that part of the distance is fair enough. However, fantasy is an infiniately bigger tent than that. (I know, preaching to the choir, considering that's the theme of your article!)

Hell, Utopia was a fantasy novel. Also Gulliver's Travels and Flatland. GT is possibly the best example of fantasy as social commentary - and Atwood cannot possibly deny that she does that side of the genre. (Honestly, it's like a hardboiled mystery writer snippily pointing out that they don't write cozies. Nope - but you're still writing mysteries!)

Although, on sober reflection, I could argue that Atwood doesn't write fantasy, she writes horror.

Ms. Ferrenz is not only a friend of mine but is on lj. So you've likely just given her palpitations... *grin*

I want to know what her screenname is *after* I've finished the review (and you can tell her mine). But this extremely early in the book (I'm around page 10), I'm really enjoying it. Which is a refreshing change from the "want to spork my eyes out" books I've had a run of. (Damnit, The Italian Boy could have been good, and should have been good. But they screwed up, big time.)

[lagilman]

Well, Atwood doesn't write ray guns and BEMs, and someone who wants the rubber monster du jour won't like her stuff. So that part of the distance is fair enough

Except you're buying into her premise that SF is specifically "ray guns and BEMs" and it isn't. In fact, the ray guns and BEMs were often just SF's way of working through intense sociological questions about culture and paranoia and discrimination and hate during the 1940's and 1950's.

Then again, I'd also say that, oh, 1984 and A Clockwork Orange were SF, too. So I'm a wild-eyed genre radical. /fe

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Except you're buying into her premise that SF is specifically "ray guns and BEMs" and it isn't.

Wrote the next two paragraphs, realized they weren't really addressing what you're really saying, left them 'cause I like them. Pick up at "To loop..." for actual response.

Well, then we get into slippery slopes. Where is the line drawn in SF? Technically, it's supposed to be about science, which Atwood isn't. But then, equally technically, there's no actual science in Matrix, Star Wars, even the original Frankenstein, in that it's not an outgrowth of applied science, they've just lumped the impossible into "machines that..." and gone merrily on with the plot. (Whereas 1984 does build on known techniques...)

But then, IMO arguing the exact Mason-Dixon (mason-dragon?) line between F & SF is getting into angels-dancing-on-pins territory. (Which rather depends on the dance, after all - you cover more ground in a tango than doing the bump.)

To loop all the way back to the discussion, although much SF discusses culture and sociology, sometimes a rubber monster is just a rubber monster. And the folks who just want a dragon for a dragon's sake are not going to want to read Atwood's spec fic. That's all I'm sayin'. But it's still speculative fiction about the social outgrowth of certain attitudes, and that lands her directly in the company of 1984, I Robot, and dozens of others I could list, except I'm going to lunch.

[lagilman]

I would disagree with you that SF is about science. I would say that it's about the impact on humanity by things of a technologial nature, which is a much broader area than "science" can cover. So it would cover not only, say, cloning, but the social rights of clones. And not only population explosions caused by better science, but the impact on who and what is valued by that population explosion. Etc.

Lunch. Yeah. Good idea.

About this caffeine habit of yours....

[alfreda89.livejournal.com]

About this caffeine habit of yours....

...are we hanging from the ceiling today? Hummm? %^)

I hope you are enjoying playing author this month--release month is crazed, fun, and frustrating, as you already know (shown by your excellent essay defending fantasy--I hope you're going to post this on your web site, and think about sending it to the BULLETIN for publication.)

Well, then we get into slippery slopes. Where is the line drawn in SF?

Someone mentioned where is the line drawn? Warren Norwood loves to cause trouble with this--he always suggests that SF is a sub-genre of fantasy. When people hotly dispute this, he says "Clarke's 'The Nine Billion Names of God' " and then just waits.

A lovely little story, even with the "period" computers, though I haven't read it in years. But those of us who ask "What if?" don't question the value of what we write--or should not question it. How we do it, why we do it, yes--but that it has value? I hope that we've all gained too much from reading our field to question it.

One of the greatest things I think fantasy/SF/horror can give us is a place to examine concepts we flinch from in the "real" world. I often think of myself as a mapmaker--"Here there be dragons" and that sort of thing. I go to this place, and I map out the trail, so that others can go there after me. If you really read Tolkien, for example, you learn a lot about prejudice--things he meant for us to learn, and things he didn't intend for us to learn, so to speak--but the author reveals through the writing.

Sometimes I think of fantasy like prayer. If you're serious about pursuing where it will lead you, it can and *will* change you. (I wrote an essay about it once, as I recall.) And this goes double for those of us who try and write good fantasy.