Authors/Artist/Other: Will you donate?
Going through my blogroll I discovered this post over at Wands and Worlds. On February 5, 2008, a terrible tragedy struck when a tornado swept through central Arkansas. Among those killed by the tornado were a beautiful 10-year-old girl named Emmy Grace Cherry, along with both of her parents, Dana and Jimmy. Emmy was a sweet, caring girl who loved animals and books, and wanted to be either an astronomer or a veterinarian. Her favorite author was Erin Hunter, author of the Warriors series. (Erin Hunter is a pen name for a team of writers who write the Warriors books: Victoria Holmes, Kate Cary, Cherith Baldry, and the newest Erin, Tui Sutherland. ) The result of the above, after a lot of support from the online community, is the creation of the Brightspirit Relief Fund. The Erin Hunter/s have donated six books, all signed by the original Erins, and they’re looking for more things to help drive donations to the fund.Check out the link above and if you happen to have anything you could donate, or perhaps you would like to have your own auction and donate the proceeds, then please do so. Any help would be greatly appreciated on this. (Don’t click the read more, there isn’t any more after this!)
Should SF/F authors read in their genre?
Apparently this is the next big issue that people are discussing across the blogosphere, and likely elsewhere. It all started, so it seems, with an interview Pat over at Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist did with David Bilsborough. Some people have taken great offense with certain things Mr. Bilsborough said and it has sparked a bit of a feud in the genre world about whether or not authors should read within their genre. Now, to what Mr. Bilsborough said that apparently has some people in a tiffy, and has other people raising their defensive walls: I don’t see why it [fantasy] should be respected. With the obvious JRR exception, (and possibly Bernard Cornwell’s “Starkadder / Vargr Moon”) I have to say that I’m not the greatest fan of fantasy, at least not the swords & sorcery tradition with all its preposterousness and banality. I’ve read a fair few fantasy books in my life, and am always surprised that such stale, hackneyed and vapid pulp should get published at all. I particularly have problems with US fantasy; there are definite exceptions, of course, but in my opinion the Americans just don’t get it, with their phony Olde-Englishness, green tights, bucket boots, square-jawed ‘Rone Garet’ heroes, pretty-but-with-a-hidden-fire ‘Fern Leah’ love interests, hissing insidious black-robed ‘Sith Mordax’ villains, or whatever it is they harp on about in their hollow regurgitations of Conan, Star Wars or Buffy. Is it any wonder spec. fiction has so little respect? This is what has got people upset, and rightly so. What really hits home is his apparent disdain for the genre. He specifically says, “I am not the greatest fan of fantasy.” How much clearer does it have to get that this guy pretty much hates the genre, with some very minor, and, albeit, obvious exceptions. Everyone says Tolkien is fantabulous, because to not do so is akin to telling Christians that the Bible was written by Satan worshipers. And then you throw out Cornwell, another who has quite a bit of respect in the same fashion as Tolkien due to the types of stories he tells. But, anyone can toss those names out without having read them, presuming that liking said authors is an indicator of one’s worth. And then there’s that opening line: “I don’t see why it should be respected.” Excuse me? You’re writing in a genre you don’t feel should be respected? So, by default, we should just look at you as another of those hack writers that you so despise, because, hey, fantasy doesn’t deserve any respect? I don’t really care if you read within the genre. That’s pretty much pointless to me. John Varley told me in an interview he reads mostly mysteries, but he writes science fiction. And he’s good at science fiction. One doesn’t have to be superbly versed in genre to write in it. I simply have problems with this presumption that just because the genre has quite a few writers who basically write derivative garbage that it should be treated with no respect whatsoever, with exception to a pair of writers who only until recently began pushing out of the land of “crap literature” into the literary academia (the supposed “good literature”). If that’s so, then all literature, by extension, deserves no respect. Literary fiction isn’t graced with a tremendous amount of originality, nor has it been founded upon only great books. There are plenty of crappy, completely useless and utterly pointless novels that have been under the label of “literary fiction” (and I have read quite a few of these crappy lit fic novels). The same can be said about every single genre that has been created and will be created. There are great and crappy science fiction novels, horror novels, romance novels, mystery novels, detective novels, etc. There’s no such thing as a genre of perfection, one in which all the novels are great. Yet we give respect to certain genres while shunning others (“we” being the literate and educated, primarily the academia), despite their imperfections and unoriginality. Of course fantasy has an abundance of what one might call “lesser literature”. Yet this is what people want. They enjoy it. It’s entertaining and that’s it’s purpose. Shouldn’t we respect it for that? Just because you don’t like a specific set of writers, or a specific class of fantasy, doesn’t mean we should shun it to the bottom of a well, forsaking it to be consumed by people who, I suppose, have to be mindless nitwits simply because they like such things. Sometimes entertainment is all you need. That doesn’t make those that read it particularly idiotic or mindless. We should be thankful that they’re reading at all, and even more thankful that it’s because of the people reading “such stale, hackneyed and vapid pulp”, as Bilsborough says, that we even have an industry revolving around the act of writing. Entertainment value, no matter how desperately you want to argue against this, is keeping literature alive. So I say celebrate vapid pulp, because without it there wouldn’t be a fantasy genre, or if there was one, it would be so small and under-appreciated that nobody would really care if Bilsborough released a new novel. Lastly, of course, is the comment about Americans, and I put this last for a reason. It doesn’t bother me all that much. Yes, I think it’s rather offensive that because I was born in America I’m suddenly devoid of taste, and that my choice of reading is cause for ridicule. What does being American have to do with it? That’s my question. This is a lot of that “Brits are better” attitude that I find to be rather silly. I think it’s an inborn pride that has never let up, and, of course, Americans have a similar attitude (or some of us anyway). Some of the discussions about the American comment have been somewhat ridiculous, in my opinion. While I would agree that calling Americans phony and essentially useless is offensive, I
Twitteriffic Stuffs
Here’s my random twitter nonsense for the day: 23:22 I just wrote Ch. 1 for The Mysterious House of Mr. Whim. Working on Ch. 2. Feeling much better about it now that I’ve rewritten the start. # 23:38 Today has been interesting. I’m fiddling with a new style of narrative for me, and writing a lot of new things. Fun. # 01:00 @LoopdiLou You know, you could just hang out with cool people like me 😛 # 11:38 I want to write three more chapters in The Mysterious House of Mr. Whim today. Not sure why, I just do. I’ve added new characters! Yay! # 11:55 Just sent two emails requesting review copies (in response to emails asking me if I wanted them…of course I do! More books!) Ha! # 20:31 @LoopdiLou Excuses…excuses. :P. Just sell her and get a new one. I hear they’re pretty cheap in certain countries these days…kidding. # Thanks for not exploding. Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter (Don’t click the read more, there isn’t any more after this!)
Racing To Nowhere
L. E. Modesitt, Jr. has a fantastic post regarding our “race” to maintain what we have and our desire to work harder for it, even though it isn’t working. The real Red Queen’s race is the one that has been around since the beginning of civilization — and one whose effects have been largely mitigated or delayed in the industrialized west for the past century or so. Simply put, we have now reached the point in the development of our civilization where it will shortly become obvious to all levels of all societies that, technology and ingenuity notwithstanding, we cannot physically provide the very best in health care, commodity goods, services, housing, and food to very individual, or even to a sizable fraction of our populations. Good stuff. (Don’t click the read more, there isn’t any more after this!)