On the first day of Quarantine my true love gave to me,
a channel full of Disney...
Or rather she gave it to herself and took me along for the ride, no matter what I said, which truthfully wasn't much as I don't really care too much what's on TV most of the time.
Let me tell you something that occurred to me in the last few weeks.
Going by most definitions of Fantasy out there, nobody is bigger in modern Fantasy than Walt Disney. Not Tolkien, not Gygax, not Dunsany, not Rowling, not Del Rey, but Disney. His work, and the work done by those following his legacy and template, has reached more people, and covered more fairy tales and myths and stories about fantastical happenings, than any other. And they do so younger. Children the age of four and five know and love powerful sorceresses like Elsa and folk-heroes like Maui. Is his work influential outside Disney, in a literary sense? I cannot think of examples easily but I suspect wiser people than me would not struggle. And if there aren't any, then frankly we are staring at the biggest opportunity in Fantasy literature ever; the Fantasy book that will resonate with the audience reared on Disney.
And nobody has a bigger mythological interpretation than Marvel with Thor (which boils my piss to say the least). Or probably a bigger single franchise in SFF geekdom, one that will go on to leave little traces of influence everywhere like LotR and Star Wars before it, both in terms of elements and pacing. Somebody linked to a story template the other day that reads as heavily influenced by the MCU. I doubt its the only one. Sure, its not deviating much if any from the Hero's Journey to begin with, but there's a particular MCU-specific slant.
This isn't talked about much in most of the corners of SFF fandom I inhabit. They're popular but I love in book specific corners, and they're not books. But if there's one thing I think Fantasy authors and those thinking about the genre should be wise to right now is the ever increasing level of cross over between the various forms of media that constitute the genre, and genres in SFF. FF7 is as influential as the Wheel of Time, Sandman as influential as, er, Neil Gaiman's other works... and I don't have a movie because the books feed the screen in Fantasy. But the screen has a greater reach and takes on a life of their own; see Game of Thrones. See the MCUverse.
I think that the most important thing about this is that readers will see tropes, stereotypes and cliches from Disney and Marvel in the Fantasy books they read. If you want to write a story about a snarky genius inventor or ice sorceress scared of their powers, convinced that's fresh in Fantasy, it's not going to be fresh to most of the market at all. Which also means you can riff on them. But there's probably tons of ramifications I'm not getting and in any case, I didn't write this really to talk about what it means for the genre - that, or maybe what these two franchises do for the genre that's good, is a different tale - but more to share my revelation.
Wednesday, 15 April 2020
On Picking Books
I am currently not reading anything.
Well. For a given value of not reading anything. I actually have several books unfinished that I'm going to finish, honest - Hackwith's Invisible Library, Crowley's Aegypt, a factual book called Outlaws Inc, one of Buroker's Emperor's Edge novels, a wuxia novel with elves - but none of them that I intend to pick up and read some point today. I would like to start something, probably a re-read, but this involves me making a choice.
Which is where the problems start.
Many of my family members will tell you I'm indecisive. This isn't true. 60% of the time I just don't care and also don't care to deal with the backlash of picking wrong for someone else. 35% of the time it's a hard decision that takes time and internal deliberation. 5% of the time I pick just fine. Nothing indecisive about that. And that doesn't even count work, where I've no problem at all!
Picking a book to read usually falls into the 35%.
Let's start with the process by which a book gets onto my bookshelf (or table, or floor, or one of the countless places I stick books to my wife's frustration) before getting onto the whole picking a re-read thing.
Very few weeks go by when I don't look at acquiring a book in some form. If its not visiting a book shop (monthly), it's nipping into a second hand book shop (monthly), or looking at the book share at the work (formerly daily), or going to the library (every time I'm no longer allowed to renew), or looking at NetGalley (bi-monthly), or books posted in deal threads on forums (weekly), or even the odd review request in my email (trick question, I don't read my email, I need a better way to get these). And if its none of those, then there's good old fashioned looking up a book thanks to word of mouth or recommendations or being friends of some sort with the author.
Which reminded me that Blackwing and The Court of Broken Knives are also on my started but in abeyance list.
Back to the topic though - the point is I look at far far too many books to ever read them all. Frankly I buy and borrow too many books to ever read them all. I am picky to begin with but that knowledge makes me even pickier.
My first contact with a book will be one of the following:
a) Someone talking about it, online or otherwise
b) The title and author
c) The title, author and cover
Let's skip over A for now. B and C - mainly B - are my most common first contacts with a book. I'll walk along a shelf, I'll click on a link with a name (or not) - the name is pretty much all I've got to be going with unless the author has an awesome sounding name. Is there anything that draws me in a title? Honestly, sometimes generic works better than anything fancy. I once picked up a book called The Horse Lord because I felt pretty safe assuming it'd be my type of fantasy. But generally I'm attracted to books with a hint of poetry or humour to their title. I picked up Kerr's Daggerspell based on the name. Ditto Hughart's Bridge of Birds. Incongurity works too - I'm pretty sure I picked up Davies' The Silver Pigs as a kid for this reason. Turn-offs? I guess maybe certain overused words. I very nearly didn't buy Barker's Age of Assassins because meh assassins.
The book cover, if I'm honest, doesn't play a huge part. I once noticed a book thanks to its fantastic art on Twitter... and I can't remember the name of the book in question. A lot of the books on my shelf have very simple abstract designs.
Shortly after any of those introductory points comes the blurb. That's the universal. And honestly, it often means quite a lot to me, which is weird. Sometimes I'm just looking for an absence of "oh dear". But often I'm looking for some sign that the author is with me on some wavelength. A hint of humour. A tease of mystery. Or just a clever bit of phrasing. Some flavour. I've put down so many forgotten books because there was no sense of flavour. Flavour can be very simple:
"It is the only route by which an army can pass through the mountains. Protected by six outer walls, it was the stronghold of the Drenai Empire. Now it is the last battleground, for all else has fallen before the Nadir hordes.
And the only hope rests on the skills of that one old man."
The prose is stark, matter of fact, straight to the point. It has a flavour. I can't recall if I read Legend's blurb all those years ago but it would have got my attention.
We then get to the all important stage of reading a few pages. I don't always do this - Amazon book sales, books by friends, and library books by highly reputed authors often skip this stage - but frankly I should. I don't know if I'm abnormally attached to prose style and voice but if I don't like it, I don't like the book. That's probably a better than 99% accurate prediction. There's probably an author where I was lukewarm on their voice but got used to it and learned to like it. Give me a year and I might remember who. This is the real acid test. Everything before this is me whittling down the numbers to manageable levels.
Now that I've waffled long enough - how do I pick which book out of the huge pile to read? Which re-read am I going to do this time?
I think it's here that people talking about a book really matters to me. Chat might get me to pay attention but it would get the sale - the steps above are what does that for me. Even if one of the people whose taste I regard as being very close to my own raves about a book it doesn't matter that much as to whether I'll buy it. But in terms of keeping a book in my mind and ramping up my enthusiasm for it once I've got a taste, it really does matter. Which is why it's always good to keep talking about books, and not just whoop it up at their release and forget.
Has anybody been cooing over anything in on my shelves recently? No. Bugger. Next step. Is there anything corresponding to my mood? I'm toying with the idea of picking up Cornwell's The Winter King but it feels a little too fresh in my mind, a little too remote and long winded. Similarly, I could carry on a re-read of The Empire Trilogy but again, a little long winded. More over, I'm not in the mood for the weirdnesses of the romantic relationship there. Maybe a Discworld or a Sharpe? I'd like to re-read Age of Assassins but for some reason the idea of re-reading on kindle really doesn't work for me. The answer is I'll probably only decide when at the shelves.
Well. For a given value of not reading anything. I actually have several books unfinished that I'm going to finish, honest - Hackwith's Invisible Library, Crowley's Aegypt, a factual book called Outlaws Inc, one of Buroker's Emperor's Edge novels, a wuxia novel with elves - but none of them that I intend to pick up and read some point today. I would like to start something, probably a re-read, but this involves me making a choice.
Which is where the problems start.
Many of my family members will tell you I'm indecisive. This isn't true. 60% of the time I just don't care and also don't care to deal with the backlash of picking wrong for someone else. 35% of the time it's a hard decision that takes time and internal deliberation. 5% of the time I pick just fine. Nothing indecisive about that. And that doesn't even count work, where I've no problem at all!
Picking a book to read usually falls into the 35%.
Let's start with the process by which a book gets onto my bookshelf (or table, or floor, or one of the countless places I stick books to my wife's frustration) before getting onto the whole picking a re-read thing.
Very few weeks go by when I don't look at acquiring a book in some form. If its not visiting a book shop (monthly), it's nipping into a second hand book shop (monthly), or looking at the book share at the work (formerly daily), or going to the library (every time I'm no longer allowed to renew), or looking at NetGalley (bi-monthly), or books posted in deal threads on forums (weekly), or even the odd review request in my email (trick question, I don't read my email, I need a better way to get these). And if its none of those, then there's good old fashioned looking up a book thanks to word of mouth or recommendations or being friends of some sort with the author.
Which reminded me that Blackwing and The Court of Broken Knives are also on my started but in abeyance list.
Back to the topic though - the point is I look at far far too many books to ever read them all. Frankly I buy and borrow too many books to ever read them all. I am picky to begin with but that knowledge makes me even pickier.
My first contact with a book will be one of the following:
a) Someone talking about it, online or otherwise
b) The title and author
c) The title, author and cover
Let's skip over A for now. B and C - mainly B - are my most common first contacts with a book. I'll walk along a shelf, I'll click on a link with a name (or not) - the name is pretty much all I've got to be going with unless the author has an awesome sounding name. Is there anything that draws me in a title? Honestly, sometimes generic works better than anything fancy. I once picked up a book called The Horse Lord because I felt pretty safe assuming it'd be my type of fantasy. But generally I'm attracted to books with a hint of poetry or humour to their title. I picked up Kerr's Daggerspell based on the name. Ditto Hughart's Bridge of Birds. Incongurity works too - I'm pretty sure I picked up Davies' The Silver Pigs as a kid for this reason. Turn-offs? I guess maybe certain overused words. I very nearly didn't buy Barker's Age of Assassins because meh assassins.
The book cover, if I'm honest, doesn't play a huge part. I once noticed a book thanks to its fantastic art on Twitter... and I can't remember the name of the book in question. A lot of the books on my shelf have very simple abstract designs.
Shortly after any of those introductory points comes the blurb. That's the universal. And honestly, it often means quite a lot to me, which is weird. Sometimes I'm just looking for an absence of "oh dear". But often I'm looking for some sign that the author is with me on some wavelength. A hint of humour. A tease of mystery. Or just a clever bit of phrasing. Some flavour. I've put down so many forgotten books because there was no sense of flavour. Flavour can be very simple:
"It is the only route by which an army can pass through the mountains. Protected by six outer walls, it was the stronghold of the Drenai Empire. Now it is the last battleground, for all else has fallen before the Nadir hordes.
And the only hope rests on the skills of that one old man."
The prose is stark, matter of fact, straight to the point. It has a flavour. I can't recall if I read Legend's blurb all those years ago but it would have got my attention.
We then get to the all important stage of reading a few pages. I don't always do this - Amazon book sales, books by friends, and library books by highly reputed authors often skip this stage - but frankly I should. I don't know if I'm abnormally attached to prose style and voice but if I don't like it, I don't like the book. That's probably a better than 99% accurate prediction. There's probably an author where I was lukewarm on their voice but got used to it and learned to like it. Give me a year and I might remember who. This is the real acid test. Everything before this is me whittling down the numbers to manageable levels.
Now that I've waffled long enough - how do I pick which book out of the huge pile to read? Which re-read am I going to do this time?
I think it's here that people talking about a book really matters to me. Chat might get me to pay attention but it would get the sale - the steps above are what does that for me. Even if one of the people whose taste I regard as being very close to my own raves about a book it doesn't matter that much as to whether I'll buy it. But in terms of keeping a book in my mind and ramping up my enthusiasm for it once I've got a taste, it really does matter. Which is why it's always good to keep talking about books, and not just whoop it up at their release and forget.
Has anybody been cooing over anything in on my shelves recently? No. Bugger. Next step. Is there anything corresponding to my mood? I'm toying with the idea of picking up Cornwell's The Winter King but it feels a little too fresh in my mind, a little too remote and long winded. Similarly, I could carry on a re-read of The Empire Trilogy but again, a little long winded. More over, I'm not in the mood for the weirdnesses of the romantic relationship there. Maybe a Discworld or a Sharpe? I'd like to re-read Age of Assassins but for some reason the idea of re-reading on kindle really doesn't work for me. The answer is I'll probably only decide when at the shelves.
Tuesday, 14 April 2020
New Noise
Bryan Wigmore (author of the Fire Stealers series) foolishly asked me to write a blog every day to keep him entertained. I will find a way to make him regret that somehow and it starts with lots of blogs.
And happily after yesterday's blog, there was a topic I wanted to talk about, that being the idea of what differentiates today's Fantasy from yesterday's. When I said that today's Fantasy has deliberately made itself more challenging, it was a thought that spawned while writing and that I didn't have much time to think about. So let us think.
First, let me define what I mean by yesterday's Fantasy and today's Fantasy. Yesterday's is Brooks, Eddings, Feist, Jordan; the titans of the first wave of Fantasy authors who proved back in the 80s that there was a mass market for Fantasy that borrowed from Tolkien. It doesn't include Jack Vance's Lyonesse or Sir Pterry's Discworld (both published 1983), or Wolfe's Book of the New Sun (published 1980) or a bunch of other similarly famous Fantasy works published around this time (War for the Oaks, Aegypt, Mythago Wood, the Black Company etc.etc.) because by and large, when other people talk about reacting to yesterday's Fantasy they seem to mean the collective sort of style of the former four and not everything put together. Maybe I'm wrong but that's the definition I'm using. And I feel it's an important definition to make as the difference between that type of Fantasy and all Fantasy written in or near the 80s is huge and oft-forgotten.
I didn't mention any women with a similar style such as Lackey, Weis or (kinda) Wurts, Pierce or Kerr, because none of them are remembered as titans of the style and that very fact is in itself one of the things people are reacting to.
And today's Fantasy? I would identify a halfway bridging point typified by Martin, Hobb and Erikson; books that notably have a lot in common with BEFJ but also have some notable points of difference. I would identify also the growth of other sub-genres that have helped to create a perception of Fantasy being wider than Epic and the odd S&S (particularly Urban and Fairytale retellings); the push for a more diverse author-base and group of stories; a burgeoning YA market; and Grimdark, the push onwards from Martin/Hobb/Erikson led by Abercrombie and Lawrence.
Or in other words, it is a big sprawling beast that is very difficult to characterise. What does Erin Morgernstern have in common with Nicholas Eames, and what is their link to Aliette De Bodard, and is this point of commonality going to stick with Jim Butcher? Before even considering the presence of JK Rowling? I think I'd very much struggle to come up with one thing that I could then use to say "and that's different from BEFJ". The sheer diversity of the beast is a point of difference in itself, but then it would be when people focus on such a small part of the past. It's not quite such a difference when compared to the full gamut of what passed before, but that's not quite the comparison and even so, there is definitely a difference in terms of how much more ethnically diverse the genre has become. But that's all I've got for now.
So let us perhaps concentrate on the other end. What are the commonalities for that quartet? Certain borrowings from Tolkien, namely the emergence of unlikely heroes from rural backgrounds to fight a resurgent dark lord that seeks dominion over what is not theirs through a mix of quest and politics. Maybe a slight borrowing from Star Wars in the usage of the young hero of uncertain parentage and a big destiny (not so much Brooks). But to home in on the crucial point; we see the clash of good vs evil in huge, sprawling multi-PoV series.
Good vs Evil. Literature seen as unchallenging. Is there a link? I've seen it made. In particular how easy it is to kill an irredeemable enemy as proven by countless dead Zemochs, Trollocs, Pantathians and Demons. To my mind this only concentrates on a part of the whole and ignores the possible complexities. Forging peace and friendship with an enemy once seen is difficult. Seeing them as human and being willing to trust them is difficult. Dealing with the paranoia of the enemy is difficult. And of course, dealing with the pain that war puts people through is difficult. Robert Jordan in particular gave a bravura performance on that one; there are still very fantasy protagonists who go through as hard a mill.
Lets look at another angle to this; the complexity of decision making. When against a do-or-die enemy, the list of choices become greatly fewer both in terms of the morality and the strategy. This theory falls down a little for me when put against Robert Jordan and the difficulty faced by Rand & co in binding an army against the Dark One. It's not unlike the struggle faced by Jon Snow against the Night King, or Temoc against the forces of modernisation in Last First Snow.
Raising Last First Snow brings me to another angle. The battles of Good vs Evil contain many interesting metaphors and parallels but it doesn't feature straight up recreations of the pressing issues of today in the same way some modern works do, particularly in YA. It is far easier though to think of books that do not do this though.
In terms of content, I don't really see a huge difference between what was then and what was now. There are differences of course, and meaningful ones, but they are not so vast as to not prevent people taking these stories to similar destinations. Yet it would be blind ignorance not to note that stories are often going to different destinations.
So where does this sense of challenge come from? Before I'd go on, I'd like to go back to something else I noted - huge sprawling epics. Eddings' flagship story ran to 12 books with a world building book and that put at the most modest of the bunch by a fairly considerable distance. Who in modern Fantasy is stretching out like that? Sanderson, obviously. Butcher. Abercrombie will be up to nine in the world of the First Law come the end of his current trilogy. But these are exceptions and not the rule.
And authors have contracted their stories to meet this change. They don't go the length and breadth of the whole world. They don't meet every King and Queen. They don't go through problem after problem, which means they can stay focused on one single problem longer. Their stories are far more personal in scope, far closer to Swords & Sorcery or A Wizard of Earthsea. Their format lends themselves better to deeper character dives. It's not that you can't do it with huge Epic Fantasies. See Wheel of Time. It's just that getting readers to buy into it for 14 books is hard. See Wheel of Time.
And here is the big difference for me. Not that authors have intended to challenge readers more - although I do think this deliberate decision is part of it and that publishers are running with it - but that they are writing Fantasy with a far more personal focus. That is part choice and part swaying with the wind in which publishers are less excited about backing gigantic series. Among the many by-products, it has led to stories that focus a lot more on characters' pain and trauma. Of course, it is a choice to focus more on trauma than on trouble and joy (and maybe I am underselling this choice and where it comes from) but the intensely personal stories make it a possibility in a way that the big sprawling Epics didn't. To me, the authors' choices are the building, but slimmed down personally focused stories are the foundation that make it.
Part of me wonders where we go next. Do we see more authors get name recognition and decide to try doing the huge epic? Does it go out of fashion? Do we go even further down the slim-line route with novellas and short stories becoming more the norm? I doubt that, as I think there's still an appetite for huge stories and getting to stay with characters and storylines for a long time, but whether that can be sold as Fantasy books I don't know. Have I completely misread this and simply ignored a dearth of big name authors getting their break between 95 and 05, maybe squeezed out by a generation of big name authors that dominated the market? I haven't even thought of that. One day I should try drafting these articles rather than uncovering conclusions as I go.
But for today, my conclusion is that the biggest difference between now and what we think of as then is a generation of authors that decided to drill deep into characters' personalities. Not an interest in pain and darkness, or the spread of difference thinking thanks to voices from non-Caucasian backgrounds, or even simply the search for new pastures and a desire to challenge readers glutted on a stupefying feast of Epic, important as all of them are. Just a structural change in telling stories to the personal, saying in detail what once might have been implied, and making our heroes and villains as human as know how. And that's no bad thing.
Monday, 13 April 2020
On Introducing Readers
Something I've seen sporadically over the last few months is a mixture of questions and harumphing at the tendency for people to recommend a very classical looking list of books as ways to get people hooked on Fantasy. You could also substitute very classical with out of touch; short of recently published books, short of diversity among authors. Very heavy on Tolkien to Martin.
Relatively little of what I've seen has been on the Why of this and most of the Why hasn't looked much beyond the idea of older readers reflexively looking back to what introduced them. I know that's about as far as I got last time I looked at it and that's because it's a very obvious, very correct answer. But while it is part of the truth, is it the whole of it? After all, something people make a point of when talking about this is that Fantasy has changed. It is why people feel the need for the list to be up to date. But have we considered all of the ways the genre has changed when talking about why people keep going back in time for their ideas of good Fantasy to introduce people with.
Recently I've been going through a huge reading slump; nothing I've read has captured my attention. There's been a lot of highly touted recent fantasy tried in that period but none of it stuck (although I may yet finish and rave about it). On Sunday though I picked up Daughter of the Empire for a re-read and tore through it. Similarly a re-read of Moving Pictures also went speedily and enjoyably. Are they better books than those I've struggled to get into? No. But they are written rather differently to today's fantasy.
I'll concentrate on Daughter of the Empire. It is a book that gets some cult recognition (not least from myself), mainly for the East Asian inspired world, political focus, and highly intelligent heroine, but that feels mostly forgotten compared to most of the behemoths of 80s/90s Fantasy (despite having Feist's name on the cover). And on re-reading there's definitely some flaws and some things that are very out of fashion. In a way, I feel Daughter of the Empire is stuck between two stools, not executing its focus to the level that modern authors do today (the politics feel great though) and not giving the very traditional male-led North-West European focused fantasy that has such a large fanbase. It is a tad unfair that this is what may have happened, but such is life.
And a certain level of its unfashionableness might lie with its prose too. The PoV meanders, both from character to character and from character to omniscient narrator. The opening chapter consists largely of what could be considered as an info-dump and there's several times the narrative slips into large paragraphs of PoV character just considering certain historical facts or once, their own appearance.
But something else the prose is is that it is very straight forwards and easy to read. It invites swift reading. And this is the part that relates to maybe why people look back to the classics. Eddings, Jordan, Feist, Brooks - all of them have unaffected prose. None of them are particularly involved to read or, maybe Eddings aside, particularly accented. Other authors of their time with ornate and accented prose, like GGK or Vance or Kerr, don't get mentioned nearly as often.
When I compare their prose to those I read during my recent reading slump, most of it was far more like GGK or Kerr or Vance or whoever. There was some very fine prose. But quality of effect and quality of readability aren't always the same thing. And if I start thinking of other authors I've read recently and by and large, they're in this bucket rather than the Eddings/Jordan/Feist/Brooks bucket. Which modern popular authors are in that bucket? Sanderson, certainly. Lawrence and Lynch, maybe. But the likes of Abercrombie and Butcher come with a strong accent. Jemisin and Rothfuss have ornate prose.
Modern Fantasy has very few big name authors with unaffected prose. There's probably a few more I'm failing to name among the big American YA authors but the reason for that is YA Fantasy has become very hived off. People comment on the YA-ish nature of Eddings and Feist and by modern standards indeed they are, but they were always sold in the adult section. Who's got that today? Chakraborty?
I do not think the lightly sketched theory here is the whole of the truth either. It mightn't even be the barest part of it, given how people think and select. That said, I do think there is something to the idea that when we think introductory texts we think light and relatively unchallenging, and that modern Fantasy doesn't exactly provide that in huge amounts. Indeed, arguably, modern Fantasy's point of declared difference from the time of Jordan is that it has sought to make itself far more challenging in terms of, well, everything. Which is not a great trait for introductions. I probably should have said that at the beginning, but it took me a little time to grope towards it.
In any case, I'm intrigued to hear if this rings any bells for anyone else. Let me know what you think.
Relatively little of what I've seen has been on the Why of this and most of the Why hasn't looked much beyond the idea of older readers reflexively looking back to what introduced them. I know that's about as far as I got last time I looked at it and that's because it's a very obvious, very correct answer. But while it is part of the truth, is it the whole of it? After all, something people make a point of when talking about this is that Fantasy has changed. It is why people feel the need for the list to be up to date. But have we considered all of the ways the genre has changed when talking about why people keep going back in time for their ideas of good Fantasy to introduce people with.
Recently I've been going through a huge reading slump; nothing I've read has captured my attention. There's been a lot of highly touted recent fantasy tried in that period but none of it stuck (although I may yet finish and rave about it). On Sunday though I picked up Daughter of the Empire for a re-read and tore through it. Similarly a re-read of Moving Pictures also went speedily and enjoyably. Are they better books than those I've struggled to get into? No. But they are written rather differently to today's fantasy.
I'll concentrate on Daughter of the Empire. It is a book that gets some cult recognition (not least from myself), mainly for the East Asian inspired world, political focus, and highly intelligent heroine, but that feels mostly forgotten compared to most of the behemoths of 80s/90s Fantasy (despite having Feist's name on the cover). And on re-reading there's definitely some flaws and some things that are very out of fashion. In a way, I feel Daughter of the Empire is stuck between two stools, not executing its focus to the level that modern authors do today (the politics feel great though) and not giving the very traditional male-led North-West European focused fantasy that has such a large fanbase. It is a tad unfair that this is what may have happened, but such is life.
And a certain level of its unfashionableness might lie with its prose too. The PoV meanders, both from character to character and from character to omniscient narrator. The opening chapter consists largely of what could be considered as an info-dump and there's several times the narrative slips into large paragraphs of PoV character just considering certain historical facts or once, their own appearance.
But something else the prose is is that it is very straight forwards and easy to read. It invites swift reading. And this is the part that relates to maybe why people look back to the classics. Eddings, Jordan, Feist, Brooks - all of them have unaffected prose. None of them are particularly involved to read or, maybe Eddings aside, particularly accented. Other authors of their time with ornate and accented prose, like GGK or Vance or Kerr, don't get mentioned nearly as often.
When I compare their prose to those I read during my recent reading slump, most of it was far more like GGK or Kerr or Vance or whoever. There was some very fine prose. But quality of effect and quality of readability aren't always the same thing. And if I start thinking of other authors I've read recently and by and large, they're in this bucket rather than the Eddings/Jordan/Feist/Brooks bucket. Which modern popular authors are in that bucket? Sanderson, certainly. Lawrence and Lynch, maybe. But the likes of Abercrombie and Butcher come with a strong accent. Jemisin and Rothfuss have ornate prose.
Modern Fantasy has very few big name authors with unaffected prose. There's probably a few more I'm failing to name among the big American YA authors but the reason for that is YA Fantasy has become very hived off. People comment on the YA-ish nature of Eddings and Feist and by modern standards indeed they are, but they were always sold in the adult section. Who's got that today? Chakraborty?
I do not think the lightly sketched theory here is the whole of the truth either. It mightn't even be the barest part of it, given how people think and select. That said, I do think there is something to the idea that when we think introductory texts we think light and relatively unchallenging, and that modern Fantasy doesn't exactly provide that in huge amounts. Indeed, arguably, modern Fantasy's point of declared difference from the time of Jordan is that it has sought to make itself far more challenging in terms of, well, everything. Which is not a great trait for introductions. I probably should have said that at the beginning, but it took me a little time to grope towards it.
In any case, I'm intrigued to hear if this rings any bells for anyone else. Let me know what you think.
Monday, 9 March 2020
On Reading Slumps and Aegypt
This blog has been very quiet recently and that's because (mainly) there's not been a lot to input. Dear few and faithful readers, yours truly has been in a reading slump. And I figured I'd talk about it because... well, why not? I'm bored and have nothing better to do. And don't actually feel like reading, despite having picked up a book to read moments before.
I was going to talk about reading slumps but realised I've little new to say there. So I'll talk about the book I've read most this month - John Crowley's Ageypt. I asked for it for Christmas in attempt to broaden my knowledge. Famous, well thought of author (if little mentioned these days); a fantasy work drawing from real world occultism and a form of fantasy in the modern world that was more the average urban fantasy. It's not the only book I've been reading (and I've been doing a lot more writing than reading anyway) but its the main one.
And if its the main book I'm reading in a reading slump, do I really like it? I mean, I saw it lying on the bedroom floor and didn't even bother putting it in my bag this morning.
Yes and No.
Let us cover some of the Yes. I was talking recently with a friend (the wonderful Bea, mod at the Fantasy Faction forum) about why we gravitated towards Fantasy rather than any other genre and summed it up as stories are usually more interesting for a dragon or two in them. Crime, Spy Thriller, Historical Fiction... have you considered putting a dragon or two in there? But it's not just that for me. What Aegypt has helped me realise and remember is I started to fixate on Fantasy because I found books where ordinary modern people lived ordinary modern lives deeply boring. Particularly the slower, more literary ones, driven more by sharp prose and acute character observations than any plot. As a part of the dish I can enjoy it but as the whole I struggle. The Fantasy genre more or less excluded those books at the door and that is why I love it.
Except for Aegypt.
I'm past the halfway point now and most of Aegypt has been taken up with a few days worth of life (there's just been a time elapse to jump to the next few). Most of its about a young-ish, not particularly noteworthy academic fleeing the indignity of not being offered tenure and a rough patch in life in which he spent all his money financing his girlfriend's ambitions as a cocaine dealer. The rest is about a housewife who's divorcing her husband out in some rural spot. It is the embodiment of the type of fiction I have always had least use for. And while I grow and change, it's not been by that much.
The barest hint of expanded reality has just crept into the book at the point at which I am. There's some segments lifted from a fictional book that the housewife is reading in which John Dee is being John Dee. There's the historian's book idea, a book looking at all the alternate histories of the world and how they came to be (like why do people think Gypsies can read fortunes?) that his agent wants to expand into something more occult. There's a very accurate fortune teller using astrology. That's it. This wouldn't matter too much if the book skipped along with a captivating plot. It doesn't. Aegypt is dry and long-winded and almost ostentatiously short of drama and action.
What it does have though is very sharp prose and observation, written from a place so deep within the character's psyche you feel like you're learning about them just from the way they talk. I might wish there were more hard choices for them, more lights thrown on the contradictions of their selves, but there is still enough there that I feel the need to know what happens to them. The gradual unveiling of the idea that maybe there is something to the characters' Age of Aquarius beliefs does also leave me with a definite need to know. I've written a few times on this blog about stories that work on the slow accretion of detail and constant redefining of what we and the characters know. This is one of them. And I love it as much as I hate stories about ordinary people doing ordinary things.
Which puts me in a pickle. Here is a book I feel compelled to see to the end (not just because me mum brought it for me) and yet really struggle with reading. It is a book almost designed to produce a reader slump (especially when combined with other events). The current top review on Goodreads helped crystallise my thoughts about this book a great deal, in which the reviewer cites her husband (whose favourite book it is) as admitting that it's not a particularly fun read. Bingo. It's not. I could go on a long time listing all the various ways this is not a fun read.
But it is engaging. It is challenging and clever, a pleasure more akin to a good crossword than most books. It might seem madness to read a book that's not fun and I'm not sure I can really argue with those who say so but there's enough non-fun enjoyment there for it to work. I have been considering for a while the idea that some books are more fun to remember than to read (and vice versa) - ever since I read The Poppy War. I think that Aegypt will be one of those books. I certainly hope so, as it'll be the only time I do. But I do definitely want to do it.
Even if it is part of my slump.
I was going to talk about reading slumps but realised I've little new to say there. So I'll talk about the book I've read most this month - John Crowley's Ageypt. I asked for it for Christmas in attempt to broaden my knowledge. Famous, well thought of author (if little mentioned these days); a fantasy work drawing from real world occultism and a form of fantasy in the modern world that was more the average urban fantasy. It's not the only book I've been reading (and I've been doing a lot more writing than reading anyway) but its the main one.
And if its the main book I'm reading in a reading slump, do I really like it? I mean, I saw it lying on the bedroom floor and didn't even bother putting it in my bag this morning.
Yes and No.
Let us cover some of the Yes. I was talking recently with a friend (the wonderful Bea, mod at the Fantasy Faction forum) about why we gravitated towards Fantasy rather than any other genre and summed it up as stories are usually more interesting for a dragon or two in them. Crime, Spy Thriller, Historical Fiction... have you considered putting a dragon or two in there? But it's not just that for me. What Aegypt has helped me realise and remember is I started to fixate on Fantasy because I found books where ordinary modern people lived ordinary modern lives deeply boring. Particularly the slower, more literary ones, driven more by sharp prose and acute character observations than any plot. As a part of the dish I can enjoy it but as the whole I struggle. The Fantasy genre more or less excluded those books at the door and that is why I love it.
Except for Aegypt.
I'm past the halfway point now and most of Aegypt has been taken up with a few days worth of life (there's just been a time elapse to jump to the next few). Most of its about a young-ish, not particularly noteworthy academic fleeing the indignity of not being offered tenure and a rough patch in life in which he spent all his money financing his girlfriend's ambitions as a cocaine dealer. The rest is about a housewife who's divorcing her husband out in some rural spot. It is the embodiment of the type of fiction I have always had least use for. And while I grow and change, it's not been by that much.
The barest hint of expanded reality has just crept into the book at the point at which I am. There's some segments lifted from a fictional book that the housewife is reading in which John Dee is being John Dee. There's the historian's book idea, a book looking at all the alternate histories of the world and how they came to be (like why do people think Gypsies can read fortunes?) that his agent wants to expand into something more occult. There's a very accurate fortune teller using astrology. That's it. This wouldn't matter too much if the book skipped along with a captivating plot. It doesn't. Aegypt is dry and long-winded and almost ostentatiously short of drama and action.
What it does have though is very sharp prose and observation, written from a place so deep within the character's psyche you feel like you're learning about them just from the way they talk. I might wish there were more hard choices for them, more lights thrown on the contradictions of their selves, but there is still enough there that I feel the need to know what happens to them. The gradual unveiling of the idea that maybe there is something to the characters' Age of Aquarius beliefs does also leave me with a definite need to know. I've written a few times on this blog about stories that work on the slow accretion of detail and constant redefining of what we and the characters know. This is one of them. And I love it as much as I hate stories about ordinary people doing ordinary things.
Which puts me in a pickle. Here is a book I feel compelled to see to the end (not just because me mum brought it for me) and yet really struggle with reading. It is a book almost designed to produce a reader slump (especially when combined with other events). The current top review on Goodreads helped crystallise my thoughts about this book a great deal, in which the reviewer cites her husband (whose favourite book it is) as admitting that it's not a particularly fun read. Bingo. It's not. I could go on a long time listing all the various ways this is not a fun read.
But it is engaging. It is challenging and clever, a pleasure more akin to a good crossword than most books. It might seem madness to read a book that's not fun and I'm not sure I can really argue with those who say so but there's enough non-fun enjoyment there for it to work. I have been considering for a while the idea that some books are more fun to remember than to read (and vice versa) - ever since I read The Poppy War. I think that Aegypt will be one of those books. I certainly hope so, as it'll be the only time I do. But I do definitely want to do it.
Even if it is part of my slump.
Friday, 7 February 2020
Friday Five - Comfort and Challenge
Review time!
Empire of Sand by Tasha Suri - Starting with the challenge here as Tasha Suri's book is quietly a rather unique take on the traditional fantasy set up of "Outcast teenager finds out they have magical powers and gets into all sorts of trouble against a mighty villain". Mehr, said teenager, is stripped of the power to effect change for most of the book due to powerful societal and magical coercions in a way I wasn't expecting. I was expecting something a lot more traditional and it threw me for a lot of the book. It also provided a platform for Mehr to show she's as indomitable and protective as a protagonist gets; she's the star of the book in every possible way.
Ultimately Empire of Sand didn't quite work for me and I don't know if that's due to thrown expectations, or it just didn't quite execute the premise for me. It's probably a little bit of both. The most similar book I can think of The Tombs of Atuan and I think I understood what I was reading quicker there; but I also found more of a sense of wonder and growth there. I like Mehr, but she starts strong and stays strong. However, anybody out there who sees that ToA comparison and is curious or likes what I've said should definitely give it a try.
Sorcerer's Legacy by Janny Wurts - I've decided this is going from most challenging to least challenging (with a non-fic at the end) and Wurts' debut novel, the one that led to her Empire Trilogy collaboration with Feist, isn't the easiest read. It is dense with detail of every kind - magic, prose, mystery - and fast moving. There's also a casual time paradox thrown in but the main difficulty is knowing exactly what's going on. Our heroine, Elienne, is thrown from one world to another early on and never really fully gets her bearing and neither do we.
I did rather enjoy exploring the murk with her - she's rather like Mehr in terms of being indomitable and protective - but what didn't work was the slightly thin, rather stereotypical characterisation. This is exacerbated by the romance subplot that doesn't involve the two lovebirds spending a lot of time together. But for someone looking for a good old trad fantasy that's more about the adventure than anything else and doesn't mind some stereotypes, this is a good book to pick up.
Summerland by Hannu Rajaniemi - So. I was excited to pick this up as it was sold as John Le Carre with added ghosts (or spooks - hah!). And the first chapter read interestingly enough. But this never really swept me up in its momentum. This is possibly due to reading it after The Traitor and being devastated by everything non-perfect. It is possibly due to subconsciously comparing it to Le Carre, which is full of rich detail in a way Summerland isn't.
I think that at least partially though Rajaniemi simply never sold me on why to care about the characters. This led to a vicious circle where lack of engagement led me to nitpick the dramatic moments where characters changed their minds, which then led me to not seeing the sort of adversity that makes characters interesting. It's a shame, but Summerland was an interesting idea with good writing that just never came to life for me.
The Ruby Knight by David Eddings - My reaction to The Traitor and Summerland was to go for a nice comfy re-read to purge any book hangover. This was the first paperback I could find that fitted the bill that I hadn't read recently. It took me a day to read (mostly en route to a rugby game) and I spent a lot of it laughing at the corniness. Poking fun at Eddings' flaws could be a blog post in its own right and I always seem to find something new to wtf at. This time it was a minor character out of nowhere complaining about not being allowed to rape the local peasants. WTF?
The thing is though that I really enjoyed it. It's just a big dumb fun adventure, simultaneously poking fun at the stereotypes and embracing them, and full of heartwarming human relationships. It is unabashedly modern, weird barbarian moment detailed above aside, and in a world full of solemnly near historical books there's something refreshing about that. I can never really quite bring myself to say Eddings is good, but he's so much fun if that sort of thing is your bag, and this is not the last time I'll read this.
What It Is Like To Go To War by Karl Marlantes - This book is ronseal - it does exactly what it says on the tin.
And a huge amount more.
Marlantes comes across as a very honest, thoughtful man, one with more integrity than most and wise and humble enough to admit when it comes to an end. What he tells is done with eloquence, with clever use of anecdote and supporting evidence to the universality of his experience, and unflinching openness.
More than describing the process and experience though, he makes arguments for -
Why sometimes it is right and moral to kill for your tribe and how better education will make the process less painful for those who do and those who love them
Why bad wars aren't right and moral and how better education would make it more difficult for them to happen
For acceptance and forgiveness of the shadow of humanity without dropping standards on stopping its excesses
Most crucially, it argues about the power of transcendence and self-sacrifice, and how to channel that impulse, and to return from it. It is a borderline sacred text. Make no bones, as somehow who badly wanted to be a soldier and was barred through an awful medical record (lied my way into the OTC, but no further) I am the ideal target audience, but I there's a huge truth for everyone willing to listen. This book has changed my mindset on a lot of things in life in a few short days and hopefully, with some work on my part, for the better.
Empire of Sand by Tasha Suri - Starting with the challenge here as Tasha Suri's book is quietly a rather unique take on the traditional fantasy set up of "Outcast teenager finds out they have magical powers and gets into all sorts of trouble against a mighty villain". Mehr, said teenager, is stripped of the power to effect change for most of the book due to powerful societal and magical coercions in a way I wasn't expecting. I was expecting something a lot more traditional and it threw me for a lot of the book. It also provided a platform for Mehr to show she's as indomitable and protective as a protagonist gets; she's the star of the book in every possible way.
Ultimately Empire of Sand didn't quite work for me and I don't know if that's due to thrown expectations, or it just didn't quite execute the premise for me. It's probably a little bit of both. The most similar book I can think of The Tombs of Atuan and I think I understood what I was reading quicker there; but I also found more of a sense of wonder and growth there. I like Mehr, but she starts strong and stays strong. However, anybody out there who sees that ToA comparison and is curious or likes what I've said should definitely give it a try.
Sorcerer's Legacy by Janny Wurts - I've decided this is going from most challenging to least challenging (with a non-fic at the end) and Wurts' debut novel, the one that led to her Empire Trilogy collaboration with Feist, isn't the easiest read. It is dense with detail of every kind - magic, prose, mystery - and fast moving. There's also a casual time paradox thrown in but the main difficulty is knowing exactly what's going on. Our heroine, Elienne, is thrown from one world to another early on and never really fully gets her bearing and neither do we.
I did rather enjoy exploring the murk with her - she's rather like Mehr in terms of being indomitable and protective - but what didn't work was the slightly thin, rather stereotypical characterisation. This is exacerbated by the romance subplot that doesn't involve the two lovebirds spending a lot of time together. But for someone looking for a good old trad fantasy that's more about the adventure than anything else and doesn't mind some stereotypes, this is a good book to pick up.
Summerland by Hannu Rajaniemi - So. I was excited to pick this up as it was sold as John Le Carre with added ghosts (or spooks - hah!). And the first chapter read interestingly enough. But this never really swept me up in its momentum. This is possibly due to reading it after The Traitor and being devastated by everything non-perfect. It is possibly due to subconsciously comparing it to Le Carre, which is full of rich detail in a way Summerland isn't.
I think that at least partially though Rajaniemi simply never sold me on why to care about the characters. This led to a vicious circle where lack of engagement led me to nitpick the dramatic moments where characters changed their minds, which then led me to not seeing the sort of adversity that makes characters interesting. It's a shame, but Summerland was an interesting idea with good writing that just never came to life for me.
The Ruby Knight by David Eddings - My reaction to The Traitor and Summerland was to go for a nice comfy re-read to purge any book hangover. This was the first paperback I could find that fitted the bill that I hadn't read recently. It took me a day to read (mostly en route to a rugby game) and I spent a lot of it laughing at the corniness. Poking fun at Eddings' flaws could be a blog post in its own right and I always seem to find something new to wtf at. This time it was a minor character out of nowhere complaining about not being allowed to rape the local peasants. WTF?
The thing is though that I really enjoyed it. It's just a big dumb fun adventure, simultaneously poking fun at the stereotypes and embracing them, and full of heartwarming human relationships. It is unabashedly modern, weird barbarian moment detailed above aside, and in a world full of solemnly near historical books there's something refreshing about that. I can never really quite bring myself to say Eddings is good, but he's so much fun if that sort of thing is your bag, and this is not the last time I'll read this.
What It Is Like To Go To War by Karl Marlantes - This book is ronseal - it does exactly what it says on the tin.
And a huge amount more.
Marlantes comes across as a very honest, thoughtful man, one with more integrity than most and wise and humble enough to admit when it comes to an end. What he tells is done with eloquence, with clever use of anecdote and supporting evidence to the universality of his experience, and unflinching openness.
More than describing the process and experience though, he makes arguments for -
Why sometimes it is right and moral to kill for your tribe and how better education will make the process less painful for those who do and those who love them
Why bad wars aren't right and moral and how better education would make it more difficult for them to happen
For acceptance and forgiveness of the shadow of humanity without dropping standards on stopping its excesses
Most crucially, it argues about the power of transcendence and self-sacrifice, and how to channel that impulse, and to return from it. It is a borderline sacred text. Make no bones, as somehow who badly wanted to be a soldier and was barred through an awful medical record (lied my way into the OTC, but no further) I am the ideal target audience, but I there's a huge truth for everyone willing to listen. This book has changed my mindset on a lot of things in life in a few short days and hopefully, with some work on my part, for the better.
Monday, 3 February 2020
Tagging, Diversity and other Hot Topics
I usually take the stance there's enough chefs in the kitchen when it comes to the big subjects of the day but for once, I feel like I've got something to say when it comes to the two constantly taking up my twitter right now - Tagging and Diversity. And while I'm gonna hit up some detail, it boils down to "It's crap when you're doing something because you think it helps and people make you feel like you're a bad person, but it's wise to put ego and hurt aside and listen".
For example, tagging authors in reviews. When Elizabeth Bear said "Don't do it, its rude" and Neil Gaiman backed her up, it caused quite a lot of dismay. A lot of it seemed to come from a place of "I'm putting a lot of time and effort into my reviews, so more people can love your books, and now you're telling me that me doing this and me trying to make sure as many people see it as possible makes me the asshole?"
Certainly, that was a little of how I felt and I half-ass this a lot, I've got nowhere near the investment in this some people do. Quite a few book bloggers felt the need to talk about how this isn't all fun and games, and why are they feeling so under pressure for something they do for free, after that. I think that's a trend that existed before but it was exacerbated by the statements. Others lashed out. I saw talk of Gaiman being entitled, of people removing them from their TBRs.
It is straight up legit to be hurt by that. I just don't think its helpful to stay there, or to stay pissed off at great authors. Book bloggers are not the assholes here, but neither are Bear or Gaiman. And while Bear shouldn't have spoken for all authors, because Twitter is littered with other authors pointing out she doesn't, that doesn't mean her opinion is without value here. Ditto Gaiman saying authors know where to find reviews, because a lot of new authors like having them delivered to their doorstep. They don't want to be tagged because for them, it makes life harder not easier. It is not hard to imagine why a famous author who gets lots and lots of tweets directed at them a day, more than they can handle, doesn't want to feel like an asshole either. I appreciate dedicated book bloggers don't really want an extra task, but do we want to make the authors we love feel like assholes? Even if they made us feel like assholes themselves?
Me, I think that for now I'd check the author's profile and see if they regularly interact with reviews. I think Womble suggested asking publishers. I particularly like Hiu Gregg's idea in this thread of a DNT stuck in an author's profile. Maybe there needs to be Twitter profiles dedicated solely to boosting reviews of certain authors so we don't need to tag them to get the boost.
In any case, I think once we stick the totally legitimate hurt aside, I think there's an easy solution here. And authors do have the right to limit their interaction with fandom, just like we have the right to be appreciated for what we do. Nobody needs to be the asshole here. Which is arguably the big moral of a lot of internet arguments.
What is less easy is the arguments about Diversity. I'm not going to touch Diversity in terms of publishing, possible quotas, etc.etc. as I do not know a huge deal about what's going on there. But in terms of what's going through a writer's mind?
I think there's a few possible motivators that go through a writer's mind when they decide on what to write, none of them exclusive from each other. I really want to write about this. It might make me rich and famous. I want to challenge myself. I feel like I should write about this. Writing about this would be a good deed done for the world.
The latter two crop up a fair amount when people talk about writing Diversity. There's a sense that authors feel obligated to do their bit to move literature's portrayals away from a heavy focus on the traditional middle/upper classes of the Anglosphere i.e. white, straight, man of the house. And that this means we're back to some writers feeling like them putting those characters in is a good deed, and feeling hurt when PoC start putting conditionals on it - and stop listening to them as a result.
Now, again, there are huge amounts of this argument that I'm not going to touch because I don't know all of it - the impact of bad portrayals, of stereotyped portrayals, writing careers dashed due to not being given exposure etc.etc. - but there is one part I do feel I can talk with some confidence on and that is what makes a good book. Good books overwhelmingly come "I really want to write about this". Which means that whatever other reasons a writer might have for an idea, they need to be transmuted into "I want to write this!"
And if you really want to write about being smuggled from Mexico to the US, or growing up in the housing estates of Totty, or coming out to your strict homophobic family... why don't you want to get it right?
Getting it right means listening to the people who've gone through it or for whom it is part of their immediate cultural history and who've read some bad fiction about it, which frequently means the writers. They won't always say what people want to hear, they won't always help as much as people want them to help, they will have their own lives and desires and so on - but there's still so much out of there that they have shared that will help. And the more people respect their boundaries, and don't ask crap out of nowhere, the more help they'll probably give.
The more people talk to them, and read what they've written, the fuller a picture you can get. Sometimes it feels like nobody wants other people in their cultural yard. That we get tweet threads like this that prove completely otherwise. We need a depth of knowledge.
And sometimes to get that depth of knowledge, we just need to put aside our hurt, and listen to what's being said.
For example, tagging authors in reviews. When Elizabeth Bear said "Don't do it, its rude" and Neil Gaiman backed her up, it caused quite a lot of dismay. A lot of it seemed to come from a place of "I'm putting a lot of time and effort into my reviews, so more people can love your books, and now you're telling me that me doing this and me trying to make sure as many people see it as possible makes me the asshole?"
Certainly, that was a little of how I felt and I half-ass this a lot, I've got nowhere near the investment in this some people do. Quite a few book bloggers felt the need to talk about how this isn't all fun and games, and why are they feeling so under pressure for something they do for free, after that. I think that's a trend that existed before but it was exacerbated by the statements. Others lashed out. I saw talk of Gaiman being entitled, of people removing them from their TBRs.
It is straight up legit to be hurt by that. I just don't think its helpful to stay there, or to stay pissed off at great authors. Book bloggers are not the assholes here, but neither are Bear or Gaiman. And while Bear shouldn't have spoken for all authors, because Twitter is littered with other authors pointing out she doesn't, that doesn't mean her opinion is without value here. Ditto Gaiman saying authors know where to find reviews, because a lot of new authors like having them delivered to their doorstep. They don't want to be tagged because for them, it makes life harder not easier. It is not hard to imagine why a famous author who gets lots and lots of tweets directed at them a day, more than they can handle, doesn't want to feel like an asshole either. I appreciate dedicated book bloggers don't really want an extra task, but do we want to make the authors we love feel like assholes? Even if they made us feel like assholes themselves?
Me, I think that for now I'd check the author's profile and see if they regularly interact with reviews. I think Womble suggested asking publishers. I particularly like Hiu Gregg's idea in this thread of a DNT stuck in an author's profile. Maybe there needs to be Twitter profiles dedicated solely to boosting reviews of certain authors so we don't need to tag them to get the boost.
In any case, I think once we stick the totally legitimate hurt aside, I think there's an easy solution here. And authors do have the right to limit their interaction with fandom, just like we have the right to be appreciated for what we do. Nobody needs to be the asshole here. Which is arguably the big moral of a lot of internet arguments.
What is less easy is the arguments about Diversity. I'm not going to touch Diversity in terms of publishing, possible quotas, etc.etc. as I do not know a huge deal about what's going on there. But in terms of what's going through a writer's mind?
I think there's a few possible motivators that go through a writer's mind when they decide on what to write, none of them exclusive from each other. I really want to write about this. It might make me rich and famous. I want to challenge myself. I feel like I should write about this. Writing about this would be a good deed done for the world.
The latter two crop up a fair amount when people talk about writing Diversity. There's a sense that authors feel obligated to do their bit to move literature's portrayals away from a heavy focus on the traditional middle/upper classes of the Anglosphere i.e. white, straight, man of the house. And that this means we're back to some writers feeling like them putting those characters in is a good deed, and feeling hurt when PoC start putting conditionals on it - and stop listening to them as a result.
Now, again, there are huge amounts of this argument that I'm not going to touch because I don't know all of it - the impact of bad portrayals, of stereotyped portrayals, writing careers dashed due to not being given exposure etc.etc. - but there is one part I do feel I can talk with some confidence on and that is what makes a good book. Good books overwhelmingly come "I really want to write about this". Which means that whatever other reasons a writer might have for an idea, they need to be transmuted into "I want to write this!"
And if you really want to write about being smuggled from Mexico to the US, or growing up in the housing estates of Totty, or coming out to your strict homophobic family... why don't you want to get it right?
Getting it right means listening to the people who've gone through it or for whom it is part of their immediate cultural history and who've read some bad fiction about it, which frequently means the writers. They won't always say what people want to hear, they won't always help as much as people want them to help, they will have their own lives and desires and so on - but there's still so much out of there that they have shared that will help. And the more people respect their boundaries, and don't ask crap out of nowhere, the more help they'll probably give.
The more people talk to them, and read what they've written, the fuller a picture you can get. Sometimes it feels like nobody wants other people in their cultural yard. That we get tweet threads like this that prove completely otherwise. We need a depth of knowledge.
And sometimes to get that depth of knowledge, we just need to put aside our hurt, and listen to what's being said.
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