“Has Fantasy Forgotten the Consequences of Violence?” by Adam Callaway

By June 17th, 201341 Responses
MTG_Pacifism_II_by_Radium_Eyes
Has Fantasy Forgotten the Consequences of Violence?
By Adam Callaway

It got me to wondering why there aren’t more fantasy (or science fiction) novels that deal with issues outside of violence?

I’m working on an idea for a secondary world urban fantasy about a young man who enters a very opulent city looking to become a master chef. The story follows his journey through various culinary-related careers — farmer, butcher, fisherman, baker, patissier, commis — until he opens his own restaurant and becomes a known quantity within the city. Although it doesn’t even sound like it would need to be set in a fantasy city, I’m still making it a fantasy because I’m comfortable with fantasy and I also want to explore the magic in food. Outside of writing and reading, cooking is a passion of mine.

However, as I’ve been outlining and drafting this novel (working title: Stock), it occurred to me that I was writing a fantasy novel with almost no violence (outside of a fistfight or two). The plot is resolved through hard work and cleverness. It got me to wondering why there aren’t more fantasy (or science fiction) novels that deal with issues outside of violence? Continue reading

Gimme, Gimme: The Girl with All the Gifts by M.J. Carey

By June 14th, 20136 Responses

The Girl with All the Gifts by M.J. CareyYesterday, Orbit Books released the cover and first blurb for The Girl with All the Gifts by M.J. Carey. Early impressions (mostly from within Orbit, it seems, and those who’ve read unbound galleys) are extremely positive. Given how far release is, this sort of hype and raised expectations is expected, but, golly, that cover and early teaser blurb are mighty enticing. I generally associate Orbit with their more traditional fantasy and science fiction releases, like Brent Weeks, N.K. Jemisin and Daniel Abraham, but I’m always pleased to see them go out of their way to find quirky, off-the-beaten path genre novels.

Melanie is a very special girl. Dr Caldwell calls her ‘our little genius’.

Every morning, Melanie waits in her cell to be collected for class. When they come for her, Sergeant keeps his gun pointing at her while two of his people strap her into the wheelchair. She thinks they don’t like her. She jokes that she won’t bite, but they don’t laugh.

Melanie loves school. She loves learning about spelling and sums and the world outside the classroom and the children’s cells. She tells her favourite teacher all the things she’ll do when she grows up. Melanie doesn’t know why this makes Miss Justineau look sad.

The first thing to come to mind when reading the blurb for The Girl with All the Gifts is Irrational Games’ Bioshock Infinite, released earlier this year for Xbox 360, PS3 and PC, which features a similarly confined girl, manipulated and educated by her captor in an effort to gain access to whatever secret power lies within her. Most intriguingly, the blurb doesn’t call on any outwardly SFF elements, but there’s just enough of a hint in the final paragraph, and the obvious efforts at guarding Melanie, that, though she might not realize it, and the blurb doesn’t say so, uncovering Melanie’s origins and the threat of her power, even in the body of a young child, will be central to the plot.

M.J. Carey is a pen name for Mike Carey, best known for his work in comic books, including 2011′s crossover series, Age of X , and the Felix Castor novels, which begin with The Devil You Know (buy: book/eBook).

Yesterday won’t be soon enough to get my hands on this book. The Girl with All the Gifts is set for a worldwide release in 2014 from Orbit Books.

The Daggerspell Reread and Review Series: Part Two

By June 12th, 201322 Responses
Daggerspell by Kathrine Kerr
The Daggerspell Reread and Review Series: Part Two
By Aidan Moher

Welcome back to the Daggerspell Reread and Review Series!

If you’re interested in learning more about Kate, me or this project, please take some time to read ‘Introducing: The Daggerspell Reread and Review Series, with Kate Elliott’, where we discuss our experience with Kerr’s work (None for me! Lots for Kate!), and our expectations for this reread/review series.

Last time around, we began reading Daggerspell and covered the first 196 pages. In that time, we were introduced to a feisty girl with an unlikely destiny, her worldweary father, an herbman who is much more than he seems, and a 400 year old tragedy that still resonates through their lives and the world of Deverry.

Kate explored the world of Deverry and unpacked why Katharine Kerr was able to create such a compelling and deeply lived-in fantasy world:

One of my favorite things about the Deverry series is that rather than being written in tight third person point of view, it is actually written in omniscient. The entire sequence is narrated by an outside narrator who has a specific point of view. She is clearly writing in the “future” of the world; that is, the narrator is a writer in Deverry writing historical fiction about her own world. Throughout the series she makes asides reminding the reader how a city has grown or that certain lands weren’t yet cultivated. Because of this there is a constant living sense of a world that is changing as places do. Both through the device of the narrator inserting brief explanatory reminders and through the use of the reincarnated lives by which the reader moves back and forth through time via the “past life” sequences and sees the same places in different centuries, Kerr depicts a slowly-changing culture and landscape. Deverry is never a static world.

So, return with us to the world of Deverry as we rejoin Jill, Cullyn and Nevyn as well as meet some new friends and enemies!

Spoilers Galore!

Continue reading

Review of The Oathbreaker’s Shadow by Amy McCulloch

By June 11th, 20131 Response
The Oathbreaker's Shadow by Amy McCulloch

The Oathbreaker's Shadow

By Amy McCulloch Hardcover Release Date: 20130606 Pages: 416 Publisher: Doubleday Children ISBN: 0857531816 Buy: Book/eBook

I’m going to say some stuff about Young Adult fiction. Some of it’s going to be really wrong, but I’ll hedge by saying it’s my interpretation. Let’s try not to crucify me for it.

For me, what makes a book Young Adult isn’t the age of its protagonist, simplicity of story, or basic themes. Instead, it requires some didactic aspect. For example, Paolo Bacigalupi’s Shipbreaker isn’t just a fucked-up coming of age story, but a teaching tool for conceptualizing climate change, as well as refining mores for peer group interactions. I would argue the weakest part of the novel is its plot and protagonist, both of which feel cookie-cutter. What makes it successful for young readers is what it imparts. Thusly, I would argue, until I’m blue in the face, that Raymond Feist’s Riftwar Saga or David Edding’s Belgariad are not Young Adult. I would prefer to call them fiction for all ages. In other words, they tell a story that’s easy to understand for young readers, but does absolutely nothing to recommend it as something that ought to be targeted to them. I make this distinction because Amy McCulloch’s The Oathbreakers Shadow is a Young Adult novel, and a fine one at that. Continue reading