David R Slayton

Oct192011

There’s always a door that’s not to be opened…

There’s always a door that’s not to be opened.
A thing you promised you would not do.
A warning, unheeded, instinct ignored.
The person you said you wouldn’t become.
Not quite seen,
Chasing after you.

With autumn and the first snow looming over Colorado, I’m reading the Shining with a couple of friends. It’s my first exposure to Stephen King’s fiction, and I find myself looking over my shoulder and double checking the locks on the doors at night as he builds to the inevitable thing that’s coming for his characters.

I see now why King is considered a master of suspense: the three characters, a tight little family, struggle with their personal demons or limitations in the narrowing window of a looming external threat. What might be strengths in the outer world are turned against each character as they’re isolated and marooned amidst the deep mountain snowfields. Each is given multiple warnings as the plot advances, multiple hints that their course is unsafe, and each fails to heed the voice telling them not to go.

The son, Danny, has the strongest voice. Five years old, precocious and psychically gifted, he can’t read the warning signs as they’re presented to him. His age limits his vocabulary and understanding, preventing him from being able to communicate his dread or help his parents. Wendy, the mother, is haunted by the specter of her own hideous mother, and the fear of that woman overrides Wendy’s maternity and instinct for self-preservation. Jack, the father, a writer reminds me of the dark cave in the Empire Strikes Back: the demons he finds in the Overlook Hotel are the ones he brought with him, packed tight in the spacious hallways with his wife and son.

Bluebeard comes up more than once, and the reference is more than passing. There’s more than one door in the Overlook that should not be opened, whether it’s the hotel’s past, revealed in a morbid scrapbook Jack digs out of the hellish basement, the inner door to Danny’s burgeoning psychic powers in his own mind, or locked door to room 217: in which the question of whether the unreal things in the Overlook can truly harm you or not is answered.

King’s talent lies in a twisted form of magical realism where the mundane, and everyday things, can be deadly. I’ve never seen a better transformation of a simple thing, an old-fashioned fire hose, into something to fear. But this too, like Bluebeard’s tale, is something we can all remember when we were Danny’s age: things in the shadows that might be a lurking devil face. An item we first mistook for one thing that proved to be another. In reality, we always find the face was just a shirt hung to dry. In the Shining, it’s quite likely not a shirt at all. And that chill you felt, that sense that you can be hurt by something that first appeared quite innocuous? You should have listened to your instincts.

Oct182011

Saving the World One Parasol at a Time

I took a long road to my Lit degree: four schools in two states over fifteen years to be exact. While I earned my History degree somewhere inside that, I never felt like I’d finished my undergraduate schooling until the Literature degree was in my hand.

Every school attended found a reason to consider my knowledge of British Literature inadequate. In the end I completed six Brit Lit and two Brit Drama courses. I am well acquainted with Austen, Donne, Shakespeare, Marvel, and many others.

Reading Gail Carriger’s Alexia Taraboti novels takes me back to my Brit Lit immersion. I laugh out loud as she weds comedies of manners and paranormal romance with bits of steampunk window dressing and snappy dialogue.

Alexia is an outcast in Victorian society: half Italian, too big, and a spinster at twenty-five. Soulless, the first book, starts in media res with a vampire slaying whose silent victim is a treacle tart the voracious Alexia had been eyeing.

While the romance elements in the first book dive into the sexual (an essential component of paranormal romance), they are a culmination after a novel’s worth of awkward flirting which isn’t recognized as flirting for a long while.

My favorite element is the language: Carriger captures the Victorian overspeak and neatly weaves in facts I’d forgotten, like novels being considered lowbrow, popular, entertainment. Soulless has a bit of a mystery to its plot, as the vampire Alexia dispatches is neither registered nor part of the regular, well-dressed supernatural community permeating and ruling London society. Soulless is a satisfying read.

While I felt like Changeless, the second book, loses some of the first’s steam in a journey to Scotland, it does introduce an excellent new character and delves nicely into Alexia’s nature. More mysteries are set up, some of which aren’t resolved until the end of the fourth book, Heartless.

The third book, Blameless, continues the second’s book travel theme. Alexia flees to Italy, getting deeper into her own history and that of her rakish father. The chase, adventure, and conflict resolution is quite satisfying.

Fourth, and as strong as the first in my opinion, is Heartless. Several long boiling mysteries come to fruition. Alexia has physical challenges to her goals of protecting kin and country that I’d rather not spoil; but she manages it with the intensely pragmatic nature of the Soulless.

The series has me hooked, and I’m quite ready for the fifth, which is out next year. If you’re looking for a charming read with quick wit and a fun take on the tired paranormal tropes of vampires and werewolves, bring a cup of tea, take a seat, and spend some time in the world of the Soulless.

Sep32011

Bone Shake, Rattle and Roll

When her son takes off into the ruins of Civil War Seattle, Briar Wilkes packs up her father’s rifle, her gasmask, and her polarized goggles to go in search of the boy. But Seattle is walled off for a reason. A disaster brought the city low, infesting it with poison gas and the walking dead, a disaster caused by the husband Briar left for dead sixteen years ago. To get her son back, she’ll face all that and the specter of her past: a specter in the form of a man claiming to be her dead husband.

There’s an elegance in two points of view that tangle, overlap, and eventually converge. When it’s done correctly, you jump from train to train with a building sense that the two will soon collide. You wait with baited breath at every near miss. When the two finally come together, it feels organic, natural, and often explosive.

Boneshaker, by Cherie Priest, isn’t just a great steampunk read: it’s a well-oiled machine. Priest locks down every bolt as Briar and her son, Zeke, slide towards the conclusion. Secrets get dosed out in just the right amount, and Priest brings her alternate history alive without burying you in exposition or description. The first chapter, a little light on action and a bit heavy no backstory, get the necessities out of the way. From there Boneshaker hums along. We follow Briar’s desperate search for Zeke even as we’re treated to his perspective as he foolishly enters the ruined city. Priest slows things just right at the end, and the conclusion holds a few more surprises while feeling altogether natural.

Jul302011

Multiple Masks: Hero, by Perry Moore

Thom Creed is keeping two secrets from his father, and it’s a toss up on which one’s revelation will cause the most disappointment: Thom is gay, and he has superpowers. His father’s past as a masked crime fighter is responsible for one being a problem, his desire for a family legacy, the other. Yet Thom can’t help either fact. When an aborted runaway attempt brings him to the attention of the League, the world’s premier superhero team, Thom is soon juggling his own dreams against his father’s. Family secrets, including the cause of his mother’s disappearance will get outed, and Thom will have to choose between doing the right thing and losing his anonymity along with his father’s love.

Perry Moore’s Hero is yet another book, highly recommended, award-winning, and endorsed by no less than Stan Lee, that I’ve meant to read for a long while. I finally pulled it off the shelf this week and found myself deeply engrossed. It’s not often I finish a book, put it down, and contemplate immediately cracking it open again.

Hero draws a lot on themes of romance, being an outsider, and the search for a parent’s love and approval; but they’re given a good twist in the protagonist’s dual secrets. Moore weaves a world deeply inspired by those drawn by DC and Marvel. He lets the super-hero motif come to life with all the camp that spandex and capes imply. Moore writes frankly, imbuing Thom with honest commentary on his sexuality while perfectly capturing many awkward young adult moments. I cringed at a lot of these, because they often felt so genuine and familiar. The romance, a slow burn, is touching and difficult, as only first love can be. Thom’s need to be his own person while keeping his father’s respect is the central conflict, and it’s that issue which resonates the most.

Hero was especially hard to read knowing that Moore recently died and that we won’t be getting a follow up to Thom’s adventures or see any other great stories. I’m sad to see such a voice silenced so young and with so much potential. I will re-read Hero. It’s earned a permanent place on the shelf. This, and a strong recommendation, are the best testaments I can give.

Jul292011

Our Ancestors Were Us, but They Also Weren’t

“The past is a foreign country.” It’s a quote many of my History professors were fond of. What they meant of course is that the culture differences between us and say, the ancient Romans, are vast. Religious practices, sexual mores, familial relationships all might see familiar, but there’s a danger in ascribing modern perspectives to people who lived thousands or hundreds of years ago.

While accepting the differences, it’s also important to remember that they had the same minds, the same capacity for belief and treachery, love, and betrayal.

I’ve been a long time listener of Mike Duncan’s History of Rome podcast. It’s been a great way to remember details I’ve forgotten since my History degree and for filling in many blank spots. The audio book recommendations, couched in a plug for Audible.com, given at the start of each show have really rounded out my library. A recent fiction recommendation was the Silver Pigs by Lindsey Davis, a Roman noir novel.

Marcus Didius Falco literally collides with a fresh case in the Forum. The girl he saves from a pair of thugs knows far less than the full plot, but Falco is soon protecting the lady while avoiding his landlord, an aggressive Aedile, and his overbearing mother. Despite her innocence, the girl is tangled up in a crime whose reach crosses the Roman empire.

Davis does a fun job of weaving the ancient with more modern detective conventions. Falco has a big case to solve, and the job will take him from Rome’s seedier districts to the emperor’s palace and across the sea to Britain, a place he hoped to never see again.

Written in 1989, the Silver Pigs is a bit older, but you can do far worse in a detective story. There’s a bittersweet flavor to the ending that I really enjoyed, and if I happened to learn a bit about ancient history, well, that’s just a bonus.

Jul132011

On Voice and Language: You say Les-tat. I say Les-tah.

You know you’re a writer, or at least obsessive compulsive, when you wake up at 4 am with the thought: Did I use ‘sodden’ correctly in my Facebook wall post? Language is our biggest tool as writers. We study grammar and punctuation, knowing all the rules and following them before deciding when and where to break them. (Strict and proper comma usage is usually the first victim). But being able to spell or write a well-formed sentence doesn’t make one a good writer or create lucid prose. There’s a particular alchemy that occurs when you first write something that springs to life beneath your fingertips. Grammar provided the bones, but somehow you managed to tack on flesh and imbue the work with breath. It’s been compared to divine possession and called inspiration, but what you’ve done is feel the first stirrings of voice, the elusive, creative quality every writer seeks to find, retain, and master.

Language is the framework in which we play, and if we’re very good, we get to color outside the lines from time to time. In fantasy, there’s a strong tendency to twist language into lovely, unpronounceable forms. I’m guilty, and in all honesty, original names are one of my favorite elements of the genre. Yet at the same time, there’s a certain useful simplicity in naming your main character Will, Sally, or Brandon. Your reader isn’t thrown out of the story every time they see the name in print. Sometimes I listen to an audio book and when I see the protagonist’s name later. I can’t even recognize it, though I’ve heard it aloud a thousand times.

So what’s the answer in my opinion? It’s the answer I always give: balance. Keep it accessible. Don’t send me scurrying to the Internet to look up Old Norse phonetics unless you’re clever enough to sneak in some clues along the way. If your character has a much clearer nickname, just make that their common name. You can tell me they have some meaningful, twisty name later. You might be sacrificing some of the depth, but your reader won’t notice because they’ll be more deeply engrossed in your story.

Jul132011

A Hel of a Ride: Hammered by Kevin Hearne

Deicide is a serious affair. If you’re going to take down a god, especially one on Thor’s level, you’re going to need a pretty big sword and some serious cojones. Kevin Hearne’s Hammered, the third book in the Iron Druid Chronicles, takes things to a whole new threat level. Atticus O’Sullivan has a couple of promises to keep, and doing so will put his very long existence in danger as both commitments involve a trip to Asgard and a confrontation with the Norse pantheon. Worse, in Asgard, he’s outside the protection of his own gods and things back on earth aren’t going so well as the area of Arizona under his protection suffers a vampire invasion and attack from a group of Kabbalah practitioners out for his head.

Hammered is a great ride. We get some new companions for Atticus, a cameo from a major deity, and a clever recounting of backstories in a style reminiscent of Chaucer. Putting more pieces on the board serves Hearne well, because not everyone makes it out alive. Hearne isn’t afraid to raise the body count and says goodbye to some supporting cast members, a trait other urban fantasy writers could study. My only complaint is that we have to wait for the fourth book, Tricked.

Jul102011

Death Takes a Holiday – Torchwood: Miracle Day

Death is the simplest and most obvious threat your protagonist can face, but you generally can’t kill them. In some fantasy it’s possible to get them back with magic, but first person point of view isn’t going to work so well if your main character is taking a dirt nap. (I’m very anxious to see where the Dresden Files takes this in the next volume).

It’s easy to raise the stakes in a book or movie by killing off members of the supporting cast. I have a hard time thinking of many action movies where the hero’s girlfriend survives. Family members are usually a goner the moment they walk on screen. In television, an ensemble cast is relatively safe. Headliners don’t die unless the actors are leaving. Then you get one or two fatalities as the seasons drag on. One show where you get the sense that no one is safe is Torchwood.

By the end of the third series the cast had been whittled down to two headliners and a few second tier characters. Now Torchwood is back, in a partnering between BBC and Starz. They’re certainly giving it some solid promotion. Even Denver has billboards advertising it.

Torchwood benefits from being a British series. Its seasons, or series, are shorter, meaning we don’t get stuck with a lot of padding. Conflict can remain at the forefront. Whene an American series might stick in twenty episodes to create a season, the BBC format is fine with six to thirteen.

The first episode of the new series, Miracle Day, changes the rules of life and death on us. People cease to die, regardless of their injury. Complicating things further, the immortal Jack Harkness can suddenly be hurt, indicating that the writers aren’t afraid to sacrifice even him if the story calls for it. By offing the rest of the cast from the first two seasons, Torchwood let us know that anyone can be a target. Putting Jack’s mortality in play also helps to break up one of the problems of immortal characters in television (usually vampires): the current crisis is always related to some aspect of their past. If Jack is no longer immortal then the cycle of unfinished business always coming back to bite him can end. I’m glad Torchwood is back, but I suspect the body count is going to rise again, so I’ll be holding on to my seat.

Jul92011

Savants Make Me Nervous

I’ve never quite trusted people for whom things come too easily. Anything I’ve ever found worth doing took patience, practice, and craft. When another writer asks about my work, they aren’t asking about my leisure. Granted, the effort of writing a book is mitigated by the sense of enjoyment it gives me and the love I hold for it, but the sweat still falls. The apprenticeship doesn’t end, regardless of your success. This holds true for most things: effort and struggle are not only the rule of life, but they bring results.

This sense of reward for effort, the goal achieved after endless practice, is what makes me leery of over-powered protagonists. We’ve all seen them: the unbeatable swordsman, the uncatchable rogue or the mage who effortlessly slays demons and binds gods with his spells. Sometimes a protagonist embodies all of these types. He’s so powerful that he might as well not bother with companions. After all, he’s smarter than anyone else in the party, stronger too. Companions are only there to reflect upon how powerful and perfect he is. No matter what conflict arises, you never truly believe that the super-protagonist will be defeated, and this makes his epic journey (and it’s always epic) a terribly hard read.

When I read about an unbeatable protagonist, I never buy his backstory of poverty or struggle. He’s a savant, a natural hero destined to save the day. I put the book down, and then I think about Frodo.

Lord of the Rings kicked off our genre with a protagonist whose very people were the weakest, slightest, and least warlike in the world. Tolkien didn’t just saddle Frodo himself with some serious handicaps, but the other hobbits share them. Gandalf, the most powerful member of the Fellowship of the Ring gets his ass kicked pretty early on, letting us know the odds against Frodo’s mission to the Cracks of Doom is no cake walk.

Tolkien might have really stacked the deck against Frodo, but you do need some sense that a protagonist is truly facing a challenge. The antagonist or adversary needs to feel like a real threat. That’s the essence of conflict, and without it you’ve got a very boring book.

Jun272011

Into the Deep: Learning to Swim by Sara J. Henry

Troy Chance thinks she knows who she is. She’s got a comfortable life, with all the right people at just the right distance. She’s safe. When an impulsive act of good sends her diving off a moving ferry in search of what might be a child thrown overboard, her previous self is washed away. Troy is soon balancing this upheaval against the mystery of the child’s abandonment, but solving it threatens to take away the catalyst of her new life.

Sara J. Henry’s Learning to Swim is just my kind of thriller: an intense opening with a mystery complex enough to keep me guessing and a thinking protagonist I can relate to. Henry gives Troy a rational mind, and even when she goes off half-cocked, there’s calculation in her actions. It makes her a nice change from main characters who act without thinking or against their better judgment.

The door Troy opens when she takes that dive changes everything. She’s soon reevaluating relationships and choices while trying to protect a discarded five-year old. The who and what of the mystery are too good for me to spoil, so I recommend just picking up the book. I couldn’t put it down, and it’s rare I find an old-fashioned page turner this intriguing.

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