I’m going to give this another try but instead broaden the scope of this blog to include all things fantastical: literature, but also roleplaying games, especially Dungeons & Dragons, and also the general topic of imagination, creativity, culture, etc.

The “Novel Beginnings” project didn’t get very far, mainly because I haven’t been reading (novels) much. Over the last year and a half since the last blog post I think I read three or four novels; off the top of my head I can think of: The Thousandfold Thought by R. Scott Bakker; The Eros Project by David Zindell (unpublished); Memories of Ice by Steven Erikson; and A Secret Atlas by Michael Stackpole (not quite finished).

I might get back to Novel Beginnings as I think it is a good idea, one that has merit for my own writing. I will also discuss my recent re-interest in roleplaying games (RPGs), and the book that I am currently reading, Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks by Ethan Gilsdorf.

More to come. Really.

Hopefully.

Here is the first batch of Novel Beginnings.

ERIC BROWN – HELIX (2007)

I haven’t read Eric Brown before but have seen his name around; his most current work, Kethani, also looks intriguing. Anyways, Helix starts off with a good opening line:

The year was 2095 and planet Earth was dying.

That got me to at least read on; the first chapter set the stage–describing a planet that’s resources have been exhausted by Culprit Numero Uno: humankind. The main character, Hendry, a retired ship technician (or pilot, it isn’t entirely clear early on), lives alone in the remnants of a small commune in Australia. He ends up joining the interstellar ship Lovelock on a search for a new home for humanity (or at least a few thousand folks). Classic sci-fi stuff. I read the first long chapter of the novel, Graveyard Earth, through page 46 (each chapter is comprised of smaller “sub-chapters” with number titles, so that One – Graveyard Earth is comprised of sub-chapters 1-5). Yet on page 47, Two – Agstarn, the narrative switches, presumably to the
planet Agstarn, describing an all-too-human-like alien culture. At this point I began to lose interest. I read the first sub-chapter, but have not as yet continued. Will I? Perhaps. I am somewhat curious, but not enough so that–about a week later–I haven’t picked the book up again.

This loss of burning interest illustrates a problem many novels face, as I see it: Switching viewpoint characters periodically, and early-on as in Helix. The set-up of Agstarn didn’t really excite me, perhaps because it was too human. Perhaps Brown has some surprises in store for us, and I am just curious enough that I might read on.

JACQUELINE CAREY – BANEWREAKER (2004)

Carey is best known for her Kushiel books, which I was never drawn to read, for various reasons. But after reading the review on the excellent SFReviews.Net I was curious enough to give Banewreaker a shot (despite the, admittedly, poor title). The premise is catchy: Take a Lord of the Rings-esque world and tell the story from the perspective of the–presumably at least somewhat misunderstood–Bad Guy. In some ways I am reminded of the role-playing game setting Midnight, in which the designers set out to create a world based upon the premise of “What if Sauron had won?”

I tend to find it annoying when authors are so obviously aping Tolkien, even when they are doing so consciously and deliberately, and not just as an “homage” like the infamous mockery Iron Tower books by Dennis McKiernan, but, ahem, subversively, as is (seemingly) the case of Carey’s The Sundering duology.

Don’t get me wrong, the book is good–or at least what I read of it was (the prologue and first chapter). The writing is good, the atmosphere is dense, the characters are intriguing enough. I just had the sense that Carey was writing for the disenfranchised and the marginalized; namely, the Vampire the Masquerade-playing angsty goth geeks that might have picked up Kushiel’s Dart in the first place, and identify more with the Dark-and-Gloomy Sauron Satoris than the seemingly-good-but-really-dictatorial Manwe Haomane.

Anyways, the prologue was very Tolkien-esque, but with its own unique twists; sort of a White Wolf Publishing version of the opening chapter or two of The Silmarillion. The first chapter, in which the story really begins, was better. We are introduced to the misunderstood Bad Guy, Satoris, in the flesh, and more importantly the more interesting protagonist, Tanaros Blacksword, one of Satoris’s Big Three.

Was I sufficiently titillated to read on? Probably. Again, like Helix, I will give it at least another chapter.

IAN IRVINE – A SHADOW ON THE GLASS (1998 )

I really wanted to like this one. I appreciate the rarity of creating a secondary world that is relatively unique with no obvious fantasy tropes (elves, dwarves, dragons, etc) and no clear analogues to either our own world or previous fantasy worlds. The backstory is interesting, if not spectacular. But the writing is sub-par, and then some. The characters lack tone and texture. I gave it fifty or sixty pages and couldn’t go on. Maybe I’ll try again? I would like to but this is my third try and, being a husband, father, starting a new career, and working on my own novel, it is highly unlikely at this point. Ian Irvine, in baseball the third miss is a big out.

MICHAEL A. STACKPOLE – A SECRET ATLAS (2005)

I was intrigued by some of the elements that are relatively rare in fantasy: cartographers as protagonists, a kind of magic that is so integrated into the world that it emerges through the perfection of a craft or skill, a post-apocalyptic world that…OK, that isn’t all that rare in fantasy, but I still like it.

So far I’ve read the first three chapters and while there is nothing really that stands out, except for a few ideas, I’m going to continue for awhile and see where it goes. The characters are fair, although the mysterious swordsman Moraven Tolo is the type of character that 11-year old boys, and 34-year old boys alike, just love. The world has textures of feudal Japan, with wandering samurai-like xidantzu, but with more of Renaissance Europe overall feeling (thus the title of the series, Age of Discovery).

Craft or character-wise, A Secret Atlas isn’t a better book than Banewreaker or Helix, but it fulfills more of what I’m looking for in a book now. Given my recent track record, we’ll see how long it lasts.

What a terrific article. I love it when another writer better explains my view on something than I have.

A couple quotes:

Which brings me to my point. If you want to read books that tackle profound philosophical questions, then the best — and perhaps only — place to turn these days is sci-fi. Science fiction is the last great literature of ideas.

From where I sit, traditional “literary fiction” has dropped the ball. I studied literature in college, and throughout my twenties I voraciously read contemporary fiction. Then, eight or nine years ago, I found myself getting — well — bored.

Why? I think it’s because I was reading novel after novel about the real world. And there are, at the risk of sounding superweird, only so many ways to describe reality. After I’d read my 189th novel about someone living in a city, working in a basically realistic job and having a realistic relationship and a realistically fraught family, I was like, “OK. Cool. I see how today’s world works.” I also started to feel like I’d been reading the same book over and over again.

And on why science fiction (and fantasy, presumably) isn’t take seriously in literary circles:

So, then, why does sci-fi, the inheritor of this intellectual tradition, get short shrift among serious adult readers? Probably because the genre tolerates execrable prose stylists. Plus, many of sci-fi’s most famous authors — like Robert Heinlein and Philip K. Dick — have positively deranged notions about the inner lives of women.

Read the article. ‘Tis good.

(This post was formerly entitled “First Chapters,” but I thought Novel Beginnings was a bit more catchy, with its double meaning and all).

If I write an intro to this blog, it will be on the “About” page, so look there. But to get things started I’d like to dive into a reading project. As I am in the process of packing up my house and moving, I am overwhelmed by the number of fantasy and science fiction novels that I own but haven’t read (or have tried to read but not finished, but only barely sipped). Of late I have had a difficult time finishing books: A combination of, I think, a hectic life, increased pickiness, and a healthy dose of plain old-fashioned laziness. So as part of my ongoing writing education I thought I would read at least the first chapter of every unread novel I own, as well as some novels that I am interested in reading but do not own. This is largely an exercise in learning Craft: specifically on how to improve my own novel’s beginning through better understanding what I Iike and don’t like, what draws me in and makes me want to read more, and how I might be turned off or simply not interested in a given book.

There are no hard and fast rules. If there is a prologue I might only read the prologue. I will continue reading for as long as I feel compelled to. But I will at least read the first chapter (and/or prologue), and then post my comments on this blog.

Below is a semi-comprehensive list of the books I will include in this project. When I read and write about one, I will place it in bold-face; I may add books as I go along.

THE LONG LIST

Abercrombie, Joe – The Blade Itself

Aldiss, Brian W. – The Malacia Tapestry; Starswarm

Anderson, Kevin J. – Hidden Empire

Anderson, Poul – Boat of a Million Years; Fire-Time;Tau Zero

Attanasio, A.A. – Dragon and the Unicorn

Baker, Kage – The Anvil of the World

Barclay, James – Dawnthief

Barker, Clive – Imajica

Barnes, John – A Million Open Doors

Baxter, Stephen – Coalescent

Beagle, Peter S. – The Innkeeper’s Song

Bishop, K.J. – The Etched City

Bisson, Terry – Wyrldmaker

Bradbury, Ray – Dandelion Wine

Brown, Eric – Helix

Brust, Steven – Jhereg

Bujold, Louis – Curse of Chalion

Calvino, Italo – Invisible Cities

Carey, Jacqueline – Banewreaker

Clarke, Arthur C. – City and the Stars

Clute, John – Appleseed

Cook, Glen – The Black Company

Cowper, Richard – The Road to Corlay

Crowley, John – Little, Big; Engine Summer; The Deep

Dann, Jack – The Man Who Melted

De Angelis, Davide – The Seed

Eistenstein, Phyllis – Sorcerer’s Son

Elliott, Kate – King’s Dragon; Spirit Gate

Engdahl, Sylvia – Enchantress from the Stars

Eschbach, Andreas – Carpet Makers

Friedman, C.S. – Black Sun Rising

Frost, Gregory – Shadowbridge

Garfinkle, Richard – All of an Instant

Gilman, Felix – Thunderer

Grant, Richard – Saraband of Lost Time

Hamilton, Peter K. – The Reality Dysfunction

Harrison, M. John – Viriconium

Heinlein, Robert A. – Stranger in a Strange Land

Henderson, Zenna - Pilgrimage

Hesse, Hermann – The Glass Bead Game

Holdstock, Robert – Mythago Wood

Irvine, Ian – A Shadow on the Glass

Jones, J.V. – A Cavern of Black Ice

Joyce, James – Ulysses; Finnegan’s Wake

Kenyon, Kay – Bright of the Sky

Kushner, Ellen – Thomas the Rhymer

Lee, Tanith – The Birthgrave

Le Guin, Ursula K. – Gifts; The Left Hand of Darkness

Lessing, Doris – Briefing for a Descent Into Hell

Lewis, C.S. – Out of the Silent Planet

Lynch, Scott – The Lies of Locke Lamora

McAuley, Paul J. – Four Hundred Billion Stars; Eternal Light; Child of the River

McCarthy, Cormac – The Road

McDevitt, Jack – Deepsix

McDonald, Ian – River of Gods

McKillip, Patricia – The Book of Atrix Wolfe

Mieville, China – The Scar

Miller, Walter M. – A Canticle for Leibowitz

Modesitt, Jr, L.E. – The Eternity Artifact

Munn, H. Warner – Merlin’s Ring

Nicholson, William – Seeker

Nylund, Eric S. – A Game of Universe

O’Leary, Patrick – The Gift

Park, Paul – Soldiers of Paradise; Celestis

Powers, Tim – The Anubis Gates

Reed, Robert – Marrow

Roberts, Adam – Polystom

Sanderson, Brandon — Mistborn

Schweitzer, Darrell – The Mask of the Sorcerer ; The Shattered Goddess

Shaw, Bob – Orbitsville; The Palace of Eternity; A Million Tomorrows

Silverberg, Robert – Across a Billion Years; To Open the Sky

Simmons, Dan – Ilium

Smith, Clarke Ashton – Zothique

Stackpole, Michael – A Secret Atlas

Stross, Charles – The Family Trade

Sturgeon, Theodore – Venus Plus X

Swanwick, Michael – The Iron Dragon’s Daughter; Stations of the Tide

Valente, Catherynne M. – The Orphan’s Tales: In the Night Garden

Vinge, Vernor – A Fire Upon the Deep

Watson, Ian – The Book of the River; The Jonah Kit; Miracle Visitors

Westerfeld, Scott – The Risen Empire

Williams, Tad – Shadowmarch

Wolfe, Gene – Latro in the Mist

Woolf, Virginia – To the Lighthouse

Wren, M.K. – The Sword of the Lamb

Zebrowski, George – Macrolife; The Omega Point Trilogy

Zelazny, Roger – This Immortal; Creatures of Light and Darkness

Zimmer, Paul Edwin – The Lost Prince