Many Thanks

Thanks to all participants of the August 2013 GoodReads giveaway for SufferStone. We had 633 entrees for 18 paperback books.

Watch this space for a new giveaway in October!

Also see:
HeartStone: Book II of the Dolvia Saga
StrikeStone: Book III -- released in July 2013
SignalStone: Book IV -- due out in January 2014
SeaStone: Book V -- under construction

The Thief: a Master Class in Pacing

I read The Thief on recommendation from Lois McMaster Bujold who claimed in a FaceBook post that she was frustrated with finding a good read so she returned to something familiar that she knew was good.

I wanted to review The Thief for the Worlds Without End 2013 reading challenge for Women Writers in Genre Fiction, but Megan Whalen Turner was not on their list of women writers, probably because as a Young Adult (YA) writer Turner had won none of the name sci-fi awards.

Of course, with a recommendation for Lois McMasters Bujold, who needs the awards system?  I always thought the awards ran in trends anyhow. The current trend is castle stories.

The narrator of this castle story is the thief named Gen who keeps secrets from his companions and from the reader until the end. For a YA book, this reader is relieved to find little assassination gore and few battlefield scenes. The dungeon scene is about deprivation more than torture.

The Thief is economical in that all elements are used to work out the plot, and the story unfolds as it must for exposition while four adventurers (who know each other slightly) journey to find a stone that lends immortality to the holder.

For my writing students, I recommend this book as a master class in pacing for inserting elements at the right moment. The story is kept small since the four travelers must avoid towns to remain secret. The quirks of each character are revealed through pranks of one-upmanship. A system of gods is introduced through campfire stories, and the back story of each character, while relevant to the plot, is meted out in morsels only.

Because of the first person narration, the scene about how Pol sacrifices himself to get rid of the traitor in their group was glossed over (since Gen wasn’t there). Pol’s internal struggles to fulfill his mission were interesting but undeveloped.

A satisfying read with believable special skills for the travelers and different-but-familiar gods. Three more books complete the series. Highly recommended, especially for young readers.

Louise Erdrich: About the Unreliable Narrator
by Stella Atrium 2/16/13
_______________________

Louise Erdrich has written a series of novels about a Native American extended family trapped in poverty and fear on the reservation and in Minneapolis (called Apple Town due to the vowel sounds). In The Antelope Wife, revolving narrators bead together  events apparently to bind patterns over generations – fates of twins, lost babies, lustful wives. Since the level of diction of each narrator is identical with lazy grammar, interjected native words, and self-centered vision, the use of he-she-they gets confusing for relations among the cousins.

My reading of The Antelope Wife was different from other reviewers who took the first narrator in chapter one as the center. I found the central character to be Cally who struggles to find meaning in the advice, myths, strange gestures, broken dreams of her parents-stepfather-cousin-grandmas-ancestors. The details Erdrich presents of their disassociated lives are unsparing and often funny. For example, Cally wonders about the choices of a cousin who pre-salts her food since salting before tasting is an indication of general dissatisfaction with life.

Cally moves to Minneapolis and works in the family bakery, asking each client if she has seen the twin grandmothers who are Namers and have a reputation among the tribes. The grandmothers visit much later for Christmas while listing all their digestive complaints. Cally’s main frustration is with a distant mother who seems tortured by a lustful past and troubled by judging ancestors. After her botched second wedding, this Calico Wife cooks for hungry ghosts so the ancestors and a lost daughter will feel full and leave.

There’s no stream of current events from TV or even military service to anchor the reader, and no structured reasoning for any character gained from books or technical training. The stepfather tries to duplicate a cake made by an outsider without recipe or reference to books. Each character tries to divine meaning from the ignorant acts of others – willfully ignorant as though the Native Americans refuse to learn from the larger culture for fear of losing spiritual contact with the prairie.

Throughout the reading, I was often reminded of the Mexican novel Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel that has a central love story, a fear of vengeful ancestors, and an ironic take on the fates of family members. Recipes were said to hold the spirits of ancestors, and service to family was an organizing theme.

But Erdrich offers short vignettes, often from the POV of non-family members, even a dog, as part of her beading, constructing a unique and gritty backstory tied to the land. The effect is like a child’s watercolor as viewed through a window streaked with rain. Although the colors were once strong, the current outlines are blurred and runny, made void of the sought-after deeper meaning.

Since this story was in the cache for the Worlds Without End 2013 Women of Genre Reading Challenge, I wondered again at the loose categories for genre writing. The unreliable narrators and the Native American stories about troubling spirits don’t constitute a genre subcategory. I would rather shelf this novel and all of Louise Erdrich in literature, although Like Water for Chocolate is often shelved with Ethnic Studies.

Study Fantasy Series by Maria Snyder: A Review

Stella Atrium
___________

Ideas for story elements are like grapes.  We can devour them off the vine for the sweet pop in the mouth and feel pleasure.  Of course, we need to consume several to feel satisfied.  We can allow ideas to grow wrinkly and discolored and devour them later as raisins that provide pleasure and also are longer lasting – in storage and in nourishment.  We can allow story ideas to ferment tangent to other ingredients and age in a dark cool place, and use them up later as wine when they provide long lasting pleasure and also maybe a giggle or two.

I’m in favor of the wine.

I have been reading the Study Series by Maria Snyder and have enjoyed following the antics of Yelena Lliana Zaltana.  I didn’t think I would ever make this next statement, but there’s too much magic in the stories. 

Everybody has magic, even the leader of the district that killed all the magicians. The two seemingly untalented characters, who only study plants for derivatives and distill perfume, are parents to the most powerful apprentices.  How is that possible since it was established that magic follows the bloodlines?  Also these parents are introduced in a domestic environment, but later are referred to as king and queen of the clan that only has clan leaders, not royalty.

The stories are bad guy driven, but the bad guys are wholly craven and unrelenting.  The good guys are wholly loyal and hiding a secret heart of love.  Oh-hum.

My real complaint, though, is that the writer got tired of her story and her otherworld. The third story is weighed with exposition explaining past events, and the plot line jumps from one fire to another – literally. Action scenes are related after the fact, and some secrets are held but only until the next chapter. Preventing death at the hands of the bad guys is all-consuming – almost a substitute for character development. There’s no breath for festival days or growth with age or mentoring sisters.

And everybody has magic, even the horses – like a cloying dessert (with raisins) that makes you reach for a cool glass of water.

I enjoy these books and sat up late at night reading them, the true test for the fantasy genre.  I regret the writer lost patience, rushed through intriguing scene set-ups, and used and dropped characters.  What happened to Fisk and his street urchin army? How did he know clan legacy taught in the schools? Was he a latent magician too?

What happened to Captain Star? Will she appear in the next installment as a confidant to Valek? I wanted wine and I got raisins.

Didn’t Make It Past Page Four:  Poor Writerly Choices for 99¢ eBooks

by Stella Atrium
_________________

I try to read books recommended by friends on GoodReads, although I’m continuously disappointed with eBooks for 99¢. Since I didn’t spend my lunch money on the book, it’s easier to set down the Kindle Fire and never return to that cover image on the bookshelf.

My genre is fantasy, and I’m forgiving for grammar when the magic or otherworld elements provide surprise; like Robin Hobb and dragon warming stations – too funny! But sometimes I don’t make it to the surprise, or even past page four. 

The reading has to go easy.  This is for fun, right?

1) Who is they, or he?  When I find myself tracking back through a dense description to identify who is speaking or acting, my patience evaporates.  There’s nothing wrong with repeating the character names.  If three characters are in dialogue, use their names!

2) Pronoun agreement counts.  “The soldiers reached for their swords” is correct.  “The hero wondered if their home was still intact” is incorrect.  This error signals that your text did not benefit from a round of proofreading. 

3) Leads in opening scene named Mark, Luke and John.  Name one Tres and another one Jessup.  Additionally, a smoldering look is NOT adequate character description.

4) Too many foreign names. Conversely, don’t hit the reader with the clan loyalties in the first chapter, like a pie in the face.  Dole out the structure of the society in layers like expensive truffles for nibbling.

5) Missing single point of view. The first chapter should be an action scene; readers expect that. Relate this scene from a single point of view, with a single emotive response – like fear or jealousy or expectation.  The other characters can display emotion in chapter two.

6) Physically impossible action. If the jetpack ignites underwater, I accept that.  If the jetpack propels the hero to the surface ahead of his bubble stream, I worry about getting the bends.

7) Clichés, and more clichés.  If you borrow from other writers twice before page four, you just lost me.  Think up your own magic tricks.

8) Sentence Variety.  “The hero entered the bright and warm room, carrying his heavy and dirty sword, looking for the funny and pretty heroine.”  I have a left and right brain headache now.  

9) Preteen with skills beyond her age.  Can a 14-year-old wield an 18-inch sword? Can she ride a horse into battle in full armor and win? 

10) Talking dragons, teenage vampires.  Embrace the next trend, not the previous trend that’s about to burn out (one hopes).

These are red flags that make the reader wonder about investing time in the next chapters of your story.  Respect the reader and don’t expect her to plow through these poor choices, even for 99¢. 

Left to Tell: A Review with Partial Answers

by Stella Atrium 12/28/11
_______________

Did you ever sit with a big question for a good long time? Maybe you found the easy answer, or the glib answer, or the partial answer from an outsider. But the truth about motivation and outcomes still doesn't fit.

I have puzzled over the big questions often, a pleasant way to spend the quiet time.  Like, why does the Great Plains have no trees? The soil is deep and fertile, made verdant by centuries of buffalo dung deposits in the gazillions. So why are the Great Plains not called the Great Forest?

I actually found an answer for that question that sits well with me. A forest was burned away when the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs crashed into the Gulf of Mexico off the Yucatan.  There's a petrified forest, in fact, in Arizona with tree trunks that were made into rock by the event. Then the grazing animals, eating all the seedlings, rose in great numbers before the trees could overtake the acreage.

One puzzle piece of my world fits snugly into place.

The cyclic massacres of the Tutzis and Hutus in Rwanda was another big question that came around in quiet moments. How could neighbors who were cousins indulge in widespread massacres every 12-18 years? What was the motivation? What were their explanations for the outcomes?

This is a heavy topic, not light banter for the dinner party. I could just ignore the question of relative motivations. Or I could explore the grievous actions and utilize some underlying truth to provide motivations for characters in my novels. The issue is relevant in many countries just now.

I read different partial answers that fit the rhetorical stance of the writer or organization more than the participants. I read much later the neo-Malthusian chapter by Jared Diamond in Collapse.  His argument called for more trees and fewer babies, and the relative responsibilities of developed countries.  But the example illustrates his articulated themes, rather than some open-ended investigation of inductive reasoning.

But what about the participants in the Rwandan massacres?  A GoodReads friend suggested that I read Left to Tell by Immaculee Ilibagiza in which she describes her experience as a Tutsi hiding in a Hutu's bathroom with six other women. To my surprise, this was a book of Catholicism and the power of faith, except the proofs of faith were thin. 

Immaculee claims a Hutu killer turned away when he saw her face, I suppose like the visage of Moses could bring conviction in the spirit.  She claims that God helped her onto a path of compassion and forgiveness so she could get past urges of revenge. The author was remarkable indeed, but what about the other Rwandans who participated, and will participate again in a decade or so?

The author claims that her prayers covered her friends so the killers didn't attack the defenseless group while she hurried toward them with French peace-keepers.  Except this scene happened late in the four-month-long massacre when passion was burned out and outside soldiers were armed with guns, not machetes.

I enjoyed the writer's descriptions, and I thanked God more than once for my easy lifestyle. Her statement of faith seemed true but too glossy in print form.  I'm certain Immaculee Ilibagiza is an inspiring motivational speaker, and I admire her work with orphans and raising international awareness through the UN.

One woman's answer for how she survived the nightmare doesn't speak to how we, the human race, can indulge this horror or how we prevent future massacres among neighbors and cousins.

Unfortunately, I'm still seeking that big answer for my big question.

Seven Christmas Things I'm Surprised I Don't Like: My Grinch List

by Stella Atrium 12/20/11
____________________
In the spirit of writing a blog as a list (the newest route to securing blog traffic), I thought I would write out my Grinch list.  There's a plethora of these lists circulating, so please view mine with a grain of salt.

1)  Articles Written as Lists:  Too obvious to explain.

2)  Andy Williams Christmas Specials: When I was a kid (I'm giving away my age here), we waited all day for the hour of the Andy Williams Show with the in-jokes and set decorations and his colored voice that everybody recognized.  The Osmond Brothers were introduced on that show. Now a mock-up of William's voice is used for Target ads.  The old hour-long episodes are faded and jaded, looking sadder than "Lawrence Welks" or "Sing Along with Mitch" from a decade before. 

3)  Christmas Blow-out Giveaway on Twitter:  Think about lead time, folks!  Twitter is for last minute planners, I know, but a Christmas list is not.  Any woman who plans for a large family knows the gift packages were wrapped ten days ago.  She's now in the stage of polishing silver and making fruitcake before the real cooking begins.  She may not return to Twitter until time to return gifts starting on Monday.

4) Politically Correct Stance against Saying Merry Christmas:  Deal with it, and may God bless...

5) Warnings about a Hard Chicago Winter: Supposedly, the hardest winter in twenty years is coming, touted with images from last year's blizzard just for good measure, when it's 44 degrees outside. This is why everybody's so dissatisfied; the doom and gloom of the news broadcasts.  We had one hard freeze and no snow. The grass is still green and making buds. Let's enjoy the moment. 

6) Over-cheerful Helpers at the UPS Store wearing Santa Hats: Don't you just want to slap them? They're celebrating the slow death of the US Postal Office so they can charge three times as much for the same services. 

7) Dry, Smelly Christmas Trees; The Most Grinch Dislike of all:  At least the men no longer chain smoke in the same room, because I make them go outside. Next year the men can decorate a tree outside, and maybe light the gas grill and cook their own holiday meal.  Just my luck, though, it will snow in Chicago in December 2012.

Merry Christmas, all!

Ella Sykes: Why no Bio-Pic?

Stella Atrium 12/12/11
_________________________

Why am I surprised that on the same day I stumbled across two women who are ignored for developing bio-pics about their adventures? 

Ella Sykes traveled widely with her brother, Sir Percy Sykes, on his diplomatic missions in central Asia. She was the first western woman known to have ridden from the Caspian Sea to India, and published five books on the topic. 

Ella Sykes paid two visits to Persia, spending nearly three years there in all. The first took place in October 1894, when Percy Sykes invited her to accompany him on his trip to the districts of Kerman and Baluchistan, where he was being sent to establish British consulates. She spent two years in the interior of Persia and was one of the first European women to visit these parts. Ella also traveled with her brother on his subsequent missions along the Persian Gulf, visiting the major coastal settlements on the way, and spent the winter of 1896-97 with him in Tehran before returning to England at the end of February 1897. She paid her second visit to Iran some ten years later when she stayed with her brother in Mashad.

Ella shared her brother's interest in and affection for Iran and its people. This is evident in her three books about the country. In, Through Persia on a side-saddle (1898),she vividly describes her first visit, her long horseback travels and life in Kerman where she was probably the first European woman ever seen. The book received favorable reviews as "a very readable narrative" (The Times, p. 7) The Story Book of the Shah (1901), intended for young readers, recounts some of the legends in the Shah-nama. The book is well illustrated and has decorated chapter headings by her sister Ethel. Persia and its People (1910), was written after Ella's visit to Mashad and is a useful, though dated, introduction to the country, with chapters on its history, government, religion, antiquities, flora and fauna, Mashad, etc. Subsequently, she published several articles and lectures including "Persian family life" in the Journal of the Royal Central Asian Society for 1914, where she had been a founder member since 1905 and was twice elected to its council, in 1916 and 1921.

In 1911, wishing to discover what opportunities there might be in Canada for Britain's "surplus" of educated women, she worked there as a home-help for six months. In the spring of 1915, she again accompanied her brother, this time to Chinese Turkestan where for six months he was in charge of the British Consulate-General in Kashgar. Ella did not marry or have children and towards the end of her life gave much time to volunteer work with girls, primarily as honorary secretary of the Girls' Friendly Society in South Kensington. She died at her home in London on 23 March 1939.

SOURCE: http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/sykes-ella-constance



Through Persia on a Side-Saddle is a notable travelogue of the first recorded land journey of a western woman from the Caspian Sea to India. With a keen eye toward the lives of women she encountered on her way, Sykes wrote a detailed account of an adventure that no other woman had experienced. The freshness of her observations comes through in her fluid and empathetic style. Starting her observations with the preparations in London, Sykes takes the reader on a lavishly descriptive journey of a world that no longer exists. Tracing her route to Tehran, she offers a full disclosure of her experiences in the capital of Persian. From there the reader is taken along to India and back to Tehran, and eventually, London. Giving a woman's perspective on an ancient center civilization, this volume proudly joins the Gorgias Historic Travels in the Cradle of Civilization series.

Ella Constance Sykes (d. 1939) was a world traveler and the first female member of the Geographical Society. She was also a member of the Central Asian Society and served as secretary to the Royal Asiatic Society.

Mildred Cable: Why no Bio-Pic?

Stella Atrium 12/12/11
__________________________

And here's another adventurer who was overlooked for a bio-pic because she was a woman -- actually three women who explored China and the Gobi Desert for 20 years and wrote extensively about what they learned there as missionaries.

Midred Cable, Eva French and Francesca French worked together as  missionaries with an inspiring story largely related in Cable's book "The Gobi Desert".

From an early age Mildred wanted to be a missionary in India. However in 1902 she went to China . Eva French was already there, she had joined the China Inland Mission before the Boxer rising of 1900 in which many Christians were killed. Her sister, Francesca joined them later on.

The three women worked in China for nearly twenty years, setting up schools and a rehabilitation centre for opium abusers. But they began to feel the need to take the Gospel to new areas where the missionaries had not been to.

In 1923 the three women went to Kanchow, traveling on the Silk Road and evangelizing as they went. There they trained Christians and traveled throughout the region holding tent meetings. But they knew that their destination would be the Gobi desert, a most inhospitable place with few inhabitants who were scattered throughout the area.

In 1926 they returned to England and their story caught the public imagination. Less than two years later they returned to the Gobi desert and stayed until they were forced to leave in 1936 during a time of political uprising. They had survived in a hostile environment and successfully proclaimed the Gospel of Jesus Christ throughout the region.

The three women returned to England after 36 years in China and worked for the British and Foreign Bible society for the rest of their lives.

SOURCE: http://www.christianheroes.com/people/christian_heroes_mildred_cable.asp


Learn more by following a group of today's adventurers who are undertaking a similar journey. 

Threads in the Sand

http://www.greenkiwi.co.nz/footprints/frames/ts.htm

Feminism in Science Fiction
posted 9/2/2011 by Stella Atrium 
author@stellaatrium.com,  www.StellaAtrium.com
________________

A personal polemic about approaches to writing action adventure stories with women protagonists:

As a young person, I struggled with the label of feminism. I could not identify with leaders of the movement among wealthy married liberal (white) women who expressed outrage at being excluded from high-paying jobs. I also didn't embrace the liberal causes that allocated my limited resources for new citizens or to the less fortunate.




What really burned me (then and now) is that liberal women claim to speak for all women. I know advances for health care and job opportunities have been gained due to their work, but the organizations actively REJECT views from women with different political agendas.

I could not call myself a conservative, though, since I embraced independence for women in areas of finances, pay rates, travel, property ownership, and reproductive rights. I spent time as a young person arguing for nuanced definitions about the differences between liberated and liberal.

Additionally, since I live in Chicago, many groups for women were populated by women of color who brought with them old rhetoric from the civil rights movement, like they are locked in a time warp or something. I felt unwelcome, more than pushed out, since I was viewed as automatic competition for the few empowerment jobs the movement could carve out on a local level.

Just the same, in my stories I was actively solving problems for female characters  and how they perceive/ define/ object to/ and address the world outside of family circles. I wanted to spout the party line for empowerment; I just didn't agree with it.

The few principles I had identified and wanted to implement in my stories included:

• Women make decisions in groups so the reader needs to meet the sister, auntie, daughters, cousins and friends of the heroine
• Stories about women take place over decades and are often resolved by a grown son who finally addresses a long-simmering outrage
• Women must solve problems using limited resources and with no voice in the public square
• Women are often undercut by other women
• With all these obstacles, women draw culture through hard times (while the men are killing each other) and make-do with the remnants of holocaust

Recently, I have been heartened by what I find among feminist bloggers in the sci-fi world who have noticed the slights toward women in formula stories that are the daily fare of sci-fi novels and movies. Here our views about empowerment of women overlap.

One example is the Bechdel test that demands more scenes in movies where the female characters interact with each other.

Another discussion asks why sci-fi stories that take place on new worlds ignore where babies come from and why that's important.

Time was... the outrage I felt when reading a novel or viewing a movie in my favorite genre was not reinforced by friends. The classic example is Princess Leia in Star Wars who, as it turns out, was a twin to Luke Skywalker. In the first movie, Darth Vadar, later identified as their father, held Leia hostage on the unfinished death star and ordered her torture. Vadar didn't feel movement within the force while in her presence even though he was aware of Luke from two solar systems away. Go figure.

My recent exploration of the expanding world of book bloggers has been a delight. While I am glad to find I am not isolated due to my ideas about how female protagonists see/feel/address the world, I began to suspect I had found a cache of women among sci-fi feminists who as a group are isolated.

Part of the reason I cannot call myself a feminist is because I fear the adults will send us to another room to complain while they go about the business of managing the world. Until you have been disregarded in a business setting as not ready to sit at the table where decisions are made, or automatically called a trouble-maker, this sense of righteous indignation may escape you. I make no apology.

Professor Kay Vandergrift from Rutgers University supplied a few answers that settled my suspicions, especially about women and literary criticism.

"In the past several decades both literary criticism and the theory that supports that criticism have shifted from a base in the literary community of readers and writers to the scholarly community of professors and university students. In the process, literary theory has become more fragmented and, many would say, more isolated, both from the literary works themselves and from the readers and writers connected to those works in the non-academic world."

Vandergrift offers a few parameters [bullet points added] for developing literary criticism, talking most closely about stories for young people.

• "Theories are judged by their applicability and their usefulness.
• As new phenomena are created or discovered or existing ones perceived in new ways, theory is revised to assimilate this new information...
• Each theory opens our eyes to new perceptions and new perspectives, but
• [each theory] conceals as well as reveals certain aspects of the literary work and the literary experience.
• Each offers a system of useful, but incomplete, organizing constructs which continually lead to new solutions, new problems, and new theories."

These standards articulate the measures by which I want to critique stories about women, and the standards offer good direction for how I want to develop action adventure stories with female protagonists.

For example, a few stories find an audience because they are about the silence of women. The first that comes to mind is The Piano.

SYNOPSIS: A mute woman along with her young daughter, and her prized piano, are sent to 1850s New Zealand for an arranged marriage to a wealthy landowner, and she's soon lusted after by a local worker on the plantation. (source: internet movie database)

A good friend claimed the story was about a woman who was raped, so he didn't have to care since the movie belonged in the category of women's issues. One sequence in the movie does show a sexual assault by the husband before he cuts off one of the mute wife's fingers so she can no longer play the piano.

In truth the story is about how Ada McGrath (the Holly Hunter character) overcame oppression. She overcame sleepwalking. She gained security for her daughter. She gained the lover she wanted. She gained a better living situation where she could indulge her musical talent. The rape was an act of control from the husband and only symptomatic to the larger oppression.

So stream of incidents don't classify The Piano as a rape movie similar to The Accused where Jodie Foster's character is gang-raped in a bar.

Can you describe movies that meet a similar standard for changing attitudes toward women? Let's discuss...