Friday, January 30, 2015

How to Tell if You Are in a High Fantasy Novel (from The Toast)

Excerpts below from a recent post on The Toast entitled How To Tell if You Are in a High Fantasy Novel.
The Elders would like a word with you.
Something that has not happened in a thousand years is happening.
Certain members of the Council are displeased with your family’s recent actions.
A bard is providing occasional comic relief; no one hired or invited him and his method of earning a living is unclear.
The High Priest is not to be trusted.
Someone is eating an apple mockingly.
It is the first page, and you are already late for something. Your mother affectionately chides you as you gulp down a few spoonfuls of porridge; she will be dead by page forty-two.
The real trouble began the day you arrived at court. Every last nobleman hides a viper in his smile. How you long for the purity of life in your village, which is currently on fire or something.

Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Will Red Mars FInally Make it to TV?

According to Tor.com, Spike TV now has real plans to adapt Kim Stanley Robinson's novel Red Mars for television. From their January 22nd blog post:
Finally, Spike TV took over the rights—and according to Deadline, they’ve signed on Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski to adapt Red Mars...
“The heart of this series tackles the question of what it means to be human—and can we sustain our humanity under incredible duress,” said Sharon Levy, Spike TV’s Executive VP of Original Series. Robinson will serve as consultant on the series, which is being produced by Game of Thrones co-executive producer Vince Gerardis.
I hope this isn't another false hope... 


Friday, January 23, 2015

Book Review: The Integral Trees

Larry Niven
1983
Awards: Locus
Nominations: Nebula, Hugo
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ –

Larry Niven has done it again: created a clever, original, self-contained, outer-space habitat of strange configuration and enormous scope. It may not be as fully realized as his Ringworld, but it is still unique and impressive.
                                                  
Niven’s new bio-zone exists in a binary star system thousands of light years from Earth. One of the stars is a tiny, almost defunct neutron star. The neutron star is orbited by an enormous torus of gaseous cloud, which is probably the remnants of a large gas planet destroyed when the star went nova. The whole package—gas torus and central star—orbits together around the system’s other star, a bright yellow dwarf.

The gas torus is filled with oxygen and completely hospitable to a wide variety of life forms. The only catch is that there is no real gravity in the torus, just strong winds blowing around it which create tidal pulls: west-to-east on the inner rim and east-to-west on the outer rim. All indigenous fauna have adapted accordingly, each species having their own form of winged or expelled-gas-driven locomotion. I loved the strange native beasties that Niven created for this gravity-less environment.

And there are a number of neat places for the torus’s inhabitants to live. There are ponds: large globules of water drifting slowly around in the winds. There are jungles: conglomerations of plants and vines held together by a web of their own roots and branches. And there are trees: trees with enormous trunks, some a hundred kilometers tall, growing radially out from the central neutron star to the outer edge of the torus. The trunks are completely straight and smooth except for a small tuft of leaves and branches at each end. These tufts blow in the wind, eastward at the inner end and westward at the outer end, so that from afar, the entire tree looks like an integral symbol.
 
These various habitats are home not only to many native species, but also to humans—perhaps hundreds of them. These humans are the descendants of a handful of Earth space explorers who emerged from cryo-sleep far from home, mutinied against their ship’s oppressive AI guardian, and fled in research modules to start a new life of freedom in the torus. Centuries have passed since the original mutiny and the mutineers’ descendants have forgotten most of their history and science and now live as rudimentary farmers, hunters, and artisans.

I have to admit that I thought this was all a bit goofy at first. But I was sucked in to the story despite myself.

The story starts on one of the enormous integral trees, Quinn Tree, which has recently been pulled into a dry lower zone of the torus by the gravitational field of a passing planet remnant. The tree is dying, suffering from drought, and so is the human settlement on its inward tuft. The chief administrator of the settlement orders a troupe of nine misfits to climb up the trunk to try to find new sources of food and water for their starving village. After the misfits cross the midpoint of the tree they run into another population of humans they never knew about, which has completely different customs and taboos. The two groups fight, but the rotting tree bursts apart during their skirmish, casting the Quinn settlement misfits and one of the strangers adrift. They are all left floating together in the air, clutching a large piece of bark as a life raft.

Through creativity and cooperation, the bark-raft refugees survive and eventually make their way to a jungle. They only just start making friends with the humans living there when the jungle is invaded by a more technologically advanced group of humans from another tree. The whole batch of them—the original Quinn Tree misfits, the same-tree adoptee, and their new jungle allies—are all taken prisoner, brought to the invaders’ London Tree, and made into slaves and/or prostitutes. There they all suffer to varying degrees, trying to survive and doing what they can to stay in touch with each other, and carefully waiting and watching for a time when they can make their escape and get to a tree of their own.

The Integral Trees is almost Asimovian in that there is very little actual action, and that the story keeps you involved instead by having characters that are sympathetic and interesting, and constantly giving those characters new and complex problems to solve to survive. When there is action, it is exciting, but most of the book is exposition, conversations, problem-solving, journeying, and discovery.

The one character that didn’t really seem to have much of a point was Sharls Davis Kendy, the cyber-copy AI on board the original colonists’ ship, who has been locked in orbit for the past 500 years, waiting for the mutineers to come back so he can discipline them. The Quinn Tree misfits come close to him at one point, and even talk to him briefly, but in the end nothing comes of it and he is relegated to his waiting role once again.

But the rest of the characters and the rest of the story more than make up for the Kendy dead end. And the best thing about the book is the message running throughout about the importance of inclusiveness and the benefits that diversity brings. The original nine from Quinn Tribe are continually thrust into new life-threatening situations, but they overcome every obstacle by opening themselves up to new friends and allies, by working together, and by learning about and making good use of everyone’s skills—even the oldest and the most seemingly physically incapable. Their journey is really all about building a new tribe that includes members from all the varied places they come across, where they all can be free and be themselves. It’s an optimistic and uplifting message, and it doesn’t really ever get too hokey.

Saturday, January 10, 2015

Suggestions for Narragansett Brewing Company's Line of H.P. Lovecraft Beer

According to a recent story in Boston Magazine, the Narragansett Brewing Company in Rhode Island is  coming out with a series of beers memorializing H. P. Lovecraft. From the story:
Narragansett will release their new Lovecraft Honey Ale on January 19, the birthday of Lovecraft’s biggest literary influence, Edgar Allan Poe. The collaboration with Revival Brewing, another Rhode Island product, will be the first “chapter” in a four-part series of beers celebrating Providence’s most famous native son.
Not being a big fan of hoppy beer, Cthulhu is skeptical of this first offering, but is nevertheless excited about the new product line in general. Eager for a nice porter or cream stout, some Lovecraft aficionados of my acquaintance came up with these other suggestions for the remaining beers in Narragansett's promising new line. What do you say, NBC?
Unspeakable Oathmeal Stout (gibbous in color, unnamable in taste)
The Black Book Porter
Mi-Go Space Mead
Impossible Geometry IPA
Yellow Sign Weissbier
Mountains of Madness Ice Beer
Miskatonic Blueberry Ale
Eldritch Ichor Dunkelweiss
The magazine says that the next beer in the Lovecraft series will be an Innsmouth old ale. Hopefully it will not taste too much like Atlantic codfish. 

Friday, January 2, 2015

Iconic Novels of Sword and Sorcery: A Comparison Study

George R.R. Martin's Locus-winning novel A Game of Thrones is often compared to T.H. White's tale of King Arthur, The Once and Future King. But a quick study of the facts shows us another classic novel of high fantasy to which it also owes a great deal.


The Lord of the Rings
The Once and Future King A Game of Thrones
Author J.R.R. Tolkien T.H. White George R.R. Martin
Plot summary Young man destroys a token of power, unifies the countryside Young man pulls sword out of a stone, unifies the countryside Rival clans vie for power, attempt to unify the countryside
Year(s) published 1954, 1955 1958 1996
Award(s) won International Fantasy Award; Prometheus Hall of Fame Award
Locus Award; Ignotus Award
More than one initial used in author’s name Yes Yes Yes
Author has/had a beard
Yes Yes
Book adapted for film or television Yes Yes Yes
Map at front of book Yes         
Yes
Kings Yes Yes Yes
Queens Yes Yes Yes
Knights Yes Yes Yes
Ghostly/undead kings and/or knights Yes
Yes
Queens having illicit love affairs with knights of the king
Yes Yes
Dwarves Yes
Yes
Wizards and/or witches Yes Yes Yes
Sword-fighting women Yes
Yes
Bastard sons
Yes Yes
Rough horse-riding tribes of warriors Yes
Yes
Jousts
Yes Yes
Incest
Yes Yes
Spooky forests inhabited by mythical beasts Yes Yes Yes
Important swords broken and then repaired Yes          Yes Yes
Daggers named after a pointy object given to short people as a first sword Yes
Yes
Rotund, peace-loving characters named Sam used as loyal friend of main character Yes
Yes
Good people dying horribly Yes Yes Yes