Whew, professions, influence.

[mrissa]

I now seem to be getting all of my e-mail, or at least I don't know of mail I'm not getting. Whew.

We had a worry about my grandfather's health that now looks like it is a minor and fixable issue, so that's a larger source of Whew.

We are the proud owners of all the groceries. All of them. It's very easy to get to the point where you have more groceries than you have mrissa when you fill the cart and the bottom of the cart and then also buy two 40-pound bags of water softener salt. Sometimes my grocery shopping sort of runs away with me -- I mean to be getting a lot of things to feed to specific people on specific occasions, and while I'm in that aisle to get one thing I see two more things we know we'll want to have in the pantry, and one thing we might want to try, and...it snowballs. Rapidly. Oof.

Ista does not approve of me being gone to get my back fixed and go to the pharmacy and take things to the battery/electronics recycling center and get groceries, so she is now draped over my lap, sighing impatiently when I wiggle too much.

I got an interesting rejection today: the editors -- who are thoughtful editors, editors I like -- felt that the story had switched from SF to fantasy halfway through a rather short story. I didn't think that the story was ever SF, so I was wondering: would you assume that a story set at a scientific research station was SF? Would you find it confusing to have a story with scientist characters turn out to be fantasy? What about programmer characters? Engineer characters?

I'm thinking about the perpetual complaint that I have about Charles de Lint's work and a few others, where everybody is some kind of artist in their fantasy novels. I'm wondering if this is partly because other professions are signaling other genres to people. That would frustrate me immensely, but it'd be good to know if it's actually going on.

And one more thing: I am, as many of you are, sad to hear of the death of Lloyd Alexander. The Kestrel is one of my favorite books in the world, and one of the books most important to what I'm doing now. I loved the Prydain books and the Vesper Holly adventures, but the Westmark trilogy, particularly The Kestrel, hit notes in my heart that nothing else has ever quite found. I'm glad that, from all reports I've heard, Lloyd Alexander had a good death in his old age -- but I was still hoping against hope that there might be one more word from Westmark someday, and now there never will be. Earlier today I asked about musicians and authors who felt like they'd always been a part of your life, and Lloyd Alexander is and will always remain one of those for me.

Comments

[kythiaranos.livejournal.com]

I'm so sad to hear about Lloyd Alexander. I can relate to that feeling of wanting more words from one of his worlds and knowing there won't be more. *sigh*

As for your story question--I think it might be confusing, to have a story set on a scientific research station turn out to be a fantasy (at least if it was a very short story, where there wasn't a lot of time to set up auxilliary weirdness, if that makes sense). I mean, as an editor and reader I'd love to see more stories that challenge the standard fantasy settings and character types, so the idea of scientists in a fantasy works on that level. But I can see where it might be disconcerting. (It's hard to judge, not having read the story. But I'd be willing to take a look and give my opinion if you like.)

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

I have to admit I'd expect SF. If it's a science-y profession, in a science-y setting, then I will expect science-y fiction. But I won't be upset if I'm wrong; frex, there's plenty of stories with science-y setups that turn out to be horror. How well I feel the two fit together will depend on the story, the type of fantasy it is, etc. But the expectation would be there.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

I really should make sure I'm done talking before I hit "post."

I hear you on the de Lint thing, and it irritates me a little, but it also shapes my expectations; if a story starts off with an artist, I'm more likely to think it's fantasy than SF. I think part of it is that, if a character's profession is brought up in a story, I expect it to be relevant, and SF that is out there tends to have little to do with artists, and the fantasy that is out there has little to do with scientists.

Mind you, I have a novel-to-write that's an urban fantasy with a geneticist for the main character, so clearly this is not always true. But often enough for my brain to react in certain ways until told to do otherwise.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I think there's a lot of room for good SF about artists. There's a lot of room for SF about artists where the art and the futurism both matter. But I agree that there isn't all that much of it.

There are stories of mine (and will be more in the future) that are both SF and fantasy -- that is, that feature speculative science as well as magic. But this isn't one of them. It's a present-day Arctic research station setting for a fantasy novel.

[aszanoni.livejournal.com]

I agree. I do not think, when I read a story, "Ah-hah, an artist, this will be fantasy," which may just be how my mind works.

I was thinking that _Cowboy Feng_ has artists in it, and is sf, and I just waited for the story to tell me what flavor it was. But I'm not sure that I waited. I was galloping through the story because I wanted to know what would happen next.


I just read a story in _The Green Man_ anthology. I don't know how to describe it. It was fantasy in the way that poetry is fantasy. I though it would be grim and it was not, although it was about oppression. (The title had paint in it - painting or paint the sky.) Yet it felt a bit like the way Ray Bradbury sometimes writes.

It also felt like a fairy tale. But Tepper's _Beauty_ is a fairy tale, and it never felt like fantasy.

I would wait for the story to give me a mood rather than a setting or a character to define it, I think.

- Chica

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

If a story starts out with an artist, I'm likely to think it's flaky.

But I am a snarkypants, scarred by slush. :p

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

This isn't horror, per se, but it isn't...it isn't as much not horror as most of what I write.

[mamapduck.livejournal.com]

I want a fantasy book about a baker or a school teacher or a refrigerator repairman. You are quite correct that there are an *awful* lot of artists/musicians/etc. in fantasy books.

[sethb.livejournal.com]

I'd be inclined to believe that a story set at a scientific research station is sf; but it wouldn't take much to make me believe it's fantasy.

There are plenty of fantasies involving characters with technical jobs.

[orbitalmechanic.livejournal.com]

Lloyd Alexander was one of mine too. Couldn't think of him, of course, because then it wouldn't really be the answer to your question, you know?

I would initially assume it was SF if there was no apparent fantasy, but this ties into a different question, how you code for non-realistic whatever-it-is in the first place. Is your research station doing not-currently-real science? Like--I read it first as "research space station" and that certainly would look like SF to me. But some Darkover novels have magic science and that's clearly shown to be magic. (Of course, that series kind of does switch from SF to F partway through but I tend to think that's a plus.)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

No, it's an arctic research station, studying walruses, and they could as easily be doing the same work with walruses now -- are, I believe.

[dsgood.livejournal.com]

Perhaps you could have some indication at or near the beginning that this is fantasy?

Stories containing both spaceships and magic often get classified as science fiction these days; they used to be called "science fantasy". (Unless the magic was called psi.)

Trends in characters, settings

[angeyja.livejournal.com]

I don't think I've read too many artists. I know that was something about the Sean Stewart book I liked because the artist felt real, and that added to the story, if that makes sense?

I've had stretches where it seemed like there were a lot of student environments, maybe because of that being a transtional space, or because of the coming of age story. Maybe just coincidences of publishing like when years when there's several books dealing that ref Beauty and the Beast.

In terms of setting, no it wouldn't signal SF to me. But, there's times where science and magic were more close than now? I like the idea of a science setting. And sort of following that thought a little, it seems to fit well with other reading or trends I had been noticing the last few years. Rather than have to segment things, drawing together, like some of the cross discipline programs, or studying soemthing like flow state.

That's as a general. Further, I think you'd have to see the story itself?

Glad to hear about your whews. Ben showed up tonight just as Cole and I came home from a walk. Done with freshman year. Whew! and whoot!

Re: Trends in characters, settings

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

It's not that all books with artists in them are bad. But if the art itself isn't important -- if the details of it aren't important -- then it's a shortcut to thematic resonance, and like all shortcuts can easily become a rut. Especially if the creative people are always so superior to those drones over there. It can get self-congratulatory fast without the author noticing it.

And whoot for Ben indeed!

[rosefox]

I'm noticing that a lot of writers are saying that Lloyd Alexander had a profound influence on what or how they write. I'm one of them; there was just something about his books--especially the Westmark books, which I love to tiny tiny pieces--that said "You could do this too, you know". Prydain is to me what Middle Earth is to a lot of fantasists, the place that comes to mind when I think of worldbuilding with one foot in folklore and one in pure imagination.

I wonder whether he intended that.

I also wonder whether anyone is doing that for the current generation of kids. I don't know enough about YA to say. I hope someone is, though. It was an absolutely essential experience.

(And of course it's not the same, but yuletidetreasure.org has the only Lloyd Alexander fanfic I've ever found, including a brief Prydain story by yours truly.)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I think the YA field is pretty darn healthy right now. There's a lot of stuff that's very, very shiny. It's not Westmark, but it's itself.

[rosefox]

I've been hearing that there's a lot of good YA out there, and it's good to hear it again. I was specifically thinking of things that have that particular spark for young writers.

In some LJ discussion--perhaps chez sartorias? or here?--a commenter mentioned the moment of realizing that books didn't just spring into being but were written by people. It's not a big step from there to thinking that one could be the sort of person who writes books. Being the child of writers, I always knew that books came from people, but the Prydain and Westmark books gave me the feeling that I could write books that were something like those books, and that was, I think, a similar sort of revelation. I would have thought that was unique to me, except that I've been seeing those sentiments expressed a lot today about Lloyd Alexander's work. Umpty-ump years from now, I imagine a new generation of writers will look back and say "Oh yes, this person's work inspired a lot of us to write", and I would love to know who that person is.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

As a small child, I had the strong sense that writers were people like myself but sadly less competent.

Sigh.

[aszanoni.livejournal.com]

I hope they look back at people like Garth Nix, and Diane Duane, and Diana Wynne Jones, and Frances Hardinge...

Not to disparage any of you nice people reading this - but I don't know that you want me to go on and on.

And, for that matter, I hope they look back on a certain writer who combines hockey sticks and fairies. Because that's a book I want on my shelf some day!

- Chica

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Awww, thanks!

[merriehaskell.livejournal.com]

would you assume that a story set at a scientific research station was SF?

Well, 'member the time that I referred to Thermionic Night as science fiction? Just because there were vacuum tubes?

Some of us are not always Too Swift On the Uptake. I don't think that means you should cater to Us, though.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

It's not just you.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

I have perpetrated story with programmer central character that turns out to be fantasy once, and intend to do so again in the near future; I think basically because I have done enough being a programmer myself that it makes a good default line-of-work I can put someone in if their line of work is not actually central to the story and know I will get the details right. Though the first time I did that it was with wanting to poke at what happens when a world with a magic system meets someone who thinks of systems as things to hack. I wonder whether people who do everyone as artists - by default, I mean, rather than to some actual purpose as in The Sun, the Moon and the Stars - do so from that being what they have most familiarity with.

Hmm, professions that my protagonists have undertaken; aristocratic warrior/government, programmer, games designer, psychiatric counsellor of the sort who sees it as like debugging only with humans, readjustment counsellor for people awakening from long-term cryosleep, confusing figurehead position in government of society run by complete loons, explorer of alien star systems, directionless dilettante [ rather a lot of those ], burger flipper in a McAbomination, manning the desk at a bureau de change in a major railway station - both those last as time-filling ways of keeping a roof over their heads while they either do something a lot more important or are directionless dilettantes about exactly what a lot more important is worth doing respectively, research wizard, supervisor of official angelic/demonic presence on Earth, Lord Captain of His Draconic Majesty's Musketeers. I think that's a reasonable spread.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

It certainly looks like a reasonable spread to me.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

The genre of "contemporary fantasy" ought to allow people to have actual modern jobs and lives -- but yeah, it tends not to. Especially the jobs.

If you've got a character in a clearly technical situation, you either need to signal very early (and pretty strongly) that it's fantasy, or else plan for people to be jolted when it becomes apparent later, IMAO. Either could work out just fine.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Two emails bounced a little while ago again. Something seems not to have stayed fixed.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Sigh. Thanks for letting me know in multiple ways.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

You're bouncing mail from me again now. Or possibly "still".

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

I wasn't at all sure the gmail would get through, and it occurred to me that there was discussion of the issue on LJ so I could be on-topic if I posted there.

It's strange that the failure is to bounce immediately; that means the connection is being made, and the mail receiver is rejecting the email.

[aet.livejournal.com]

would you assume that a story set at a scientific research station was SF? Would you find it confusing to have a story with scientist characters turn out to be fantasy? What about programmer characters? Engineer characters?

Well, unless you have forgotten you already know my answer. And answer most Russians would give - after all, "Monday begins on Saturday" by Arkadi and Boris Strugatsky (English translation available online here (http://www.russiansifiction.com/translated/strugazckie/monday/index.php) ), has both a research institute filled with researchers and program engineers and full set of Russian folktale characters like fire-breathing dragons and house on hen's legs ...

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Having books available as counterexamples doesn't mean people won't make assumptions, though. Maybe it means that they shouldn't, but it doesn't mean that they won't. So knowing that those books feel like the rule rather than like exceptions is a useful thing; thanks.

[aet.livejournal.com]

"Maybe it means that they shouldn't, but it doesn't mean that they won't."

OK, this drove me into corner.

As, from one side, may-be when those people KNOW they shouldn't, they will feel too ashamed of having such a rigid mind to tell you.

But, from other side, if they are the ones that are supposed to buy your stories AND now they still do not buy, but are also too ashamed to tell WHY they feel uncomfortable, that may mean a loss of further postal fees for you.

Also, as long as they are not ashamed to own up that they just cannot see science and magic in same story, it is possible to educate those buyers, so that they will at least know that many readers have less rigid minds and/or LIKE to be surprised by unexpected turns a story takes.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

What I'm trying to find out -- in an admittedly unscientific way -- is whether many readers do have less rigid minds, or at least less rigid assumptions. (Many of the people who would assume it's SF are not offended if it isn't.) Because if the assumptions are pretty strong that way, I need to work around the readers to a certain extent and not only demand that they work around me.

[aet.livejournal.com]

"... in an admittedly unscientific way ..."

You mean you used MAGIC?! There was a SPELL included in your entry!

I should have known if Marissa contains science + fiction, there is also magic to be expected!

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Hee!

[pixelfish.livejournal.com]

I loved Westmark, Vesper Holly, and Prydain. Man, it just feels like part of my childhood died today. (Maybe this is what my parents felt like when C.S. Lewis passed, except that it was the same day as Kennedy's assassination, so they probably missed it.)


Re: Science fiction turning into fantasy. I have a short story that is set in a research laboratory.....but which is definitely fantasy, because the ENTIRE laboratory happens to exist in one of the fantasy phaseworlds that open onto other worlds. The establishment of the fantasy aspect comes about two paragraphs in though.

I do think that the genre is currently very tolerant of science fiction disguised as fantasy (re: Anne McCaffrey's dragons, or Dave Duncan's The Coming of Wisdom--both start off with fantasy elements but it is later discovered that the things that look magical are brought about through technologies) but perhaps less open to things that look like they are flowing the opposite direction. When I was younger, I got the impression that the science fiction folk looked down upon fantasy a little--that it was softer, fuzzier, not rooted as much in logic, and while that impression has waned over time, I have to wonder if there is still some prejudice against fantasy with science fiction trappings.

We love to quote Clarke's law about how "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic," but I think that you should be allowed to play with the idea that the magic is the technology. That alchemy and performable magics have been studied and refined over the years, and that there is a scientific method ruling them as well. I like stories that buck against the "everything has been the same for thousands of years" cliche. I like the idea of magicians in lab coats, titrating chemicals, and writing research papers. It's no odder than magic being performed through music (the most common cliche).

I do note that Robin Hobb's latest book has her main character studying engineering, although, alas, it does not factor into his magical talents as much.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

We love to quote Clarke's law about how "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic," but I think that you should be allowed to play with the idea that the magic is the technology. That alchemy and performable magics have been studied and refined over the years, and that there is a scientific method ruling them as well.

I've been saying this for long enough that I finally got fed up and started writing it myself, because while I have seen magic-as-industrial-technology done rather well [ notably WJW's Metropolitan and City on Fire ] there's really not anything out there that does magic-as-science that captures the genuine excitement of being on the cutting edge of scientific research; what I am hoping to capture is magic going through paradigm shifts on a scale comparable to those science has gone through in the twentieth century.

[pixelfish.livejournal.com]

(Maybe this is one of the reasons I like Discworld so, because the new institutions and discoveries change the landscape....like the clacks lines and the postal service and the newspaper and so on.)

What I would like to do, is follow a society as both magic and technology evolve.....have one story set in sort of a magical Renaissance, then another later in a sort of Industrial revolution, and then another advancing even further. It seems to me that even when people approach magic-as-technology, they tend to stay within a certain established time period for the entirety of the exploration.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Stick with me, kid. I've just begun, but I'm trying that sort of thing.

(I hope "Stick with me, kid," is parsing as a whole phrase and not as me attempting to call you kid separately.)

[tewok.livejournal.com]

fantasy-inna-lab: I might start off thinking it would be SF, but I don't think it'd bug me if it turned out to be fantasy. Unexpected juxtapositions (if not relied on exclusively) can be really interesting.

CDL and artists: I have that same complaint about CDL. Artists and musicians, though I expect you were grouping them together. I don't get the feeling he uses artists to signal fantasy so much as to signal intelligent person who is open to the magic around them. There also feels like some of the superiority you mentioned in a reply to angeyja.

Professionally, I work in network security and also am a semi-professional musician. (Well... piper, actually, and there are those who don't include pipers in the class of musician. :) Having played at music festivals and renfaires, and taught at arts and music camps, I've gotten to know a good number of musicians and artists. From my experience, you can't make a generalization that musicians and artists are more likely to believe in magic than non-musicians and non-artists. There are certainly those who might see it; there are certainly those who'd think you are full of crap if you mentioned it. The same goes for techies.

CDL's use of artists was reasonable a time or two. More than that and it ends up being a convenient short-hand that is as useful as most other stereotypes.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Which is why I liked Widdershins: because instead of dealing with another near Jilly Coppercorn clone, it dealt with the actual Jilly Coppercorn, and in a way I liked, too.