J.R.R. Tolkien – Page 4 – One Thousand And One Parsecs

Extra Sci-Fi S3E3: The Two Towers

This episode of Extra Sci-Fi got me to thinking about a speech that Orson Scott Card gave when he visited BYU back in 2007. He said a bunch of interesting things that have stuck with me over the years, including (to paraphrase) “conservatism is the new counterculture.” He was probably ten to fifteen years before his time on that one. But the thing that struck me the hardest was this:

Fiction is the culture talking to itself.

This goes along with what I talked about in my commentary on the last Extra Sci-Fi episode: that every generation reinvents the world. How do they reinvent it? Through story. And because there’s a necessary give-and-take as part of the process, the bestselling fiction that a culture produces is a reflection of that culture’s values, the issues of the day, and the zeitgeist as it changes and evolves over time.

We can see this in the themes discussed in this video. While Tolkien denied that Lord of the Rings was allegorical in any way, I agree with the folks at Extra Credits that the world wars and the rise of fascism almost certainly influenced his depiction of good and evil. It’s probably also true that the conflict between industry and nature influenced the book too. This isn’t because Tolkien set out to tell a story about these things; rather, because Tolkien himself was a product of the culture of his day, that culture shines through in his works.

This makes me wonder about the stories that don’t become bestsellers. Are there lots of amazing, well-written stories out there that don’t succeed simply because they’re out of step with the ongoing cultural conversation? Kind of like Orson Scott Card’s argument, back in 2007, that “conservatism is the new counterculture.” He made that argument a decade before we reached peak social justice, and got pushed more or less into cultural irrelevance because of it.

Card might not be the best example, because of his role as a culture warrior as well as his fiction writing career. With his Ornery American column, he was basically a shitposter before shitposting was a thing. But I wonder: what are the stories that aren’t getting traction only because they don’t really speak to the culture?

Or is it even possible to write a story that doesn’t speak to your own culture? Since you are a product of the culture that you live in, does that mean that your stories will be a product of that culture too? That certainly seems to be the case with Tolkien. Hindsight is 2020, though, and it’s really tricky to account for unknown unknowns.

I don’t know. I guess the big takeaway is that if you want to be a sucessful writer, you should do everything you can to immerse yourself in your own culture, not only because that’s the best way to improve your storytelling instincts, but because all of the most successful stories contribute something meaningful to the culture’s ongoing conversation with itself.

Extra Sci-Fi S3E2: The Fellowship of the Ring

Another fascinating episode from Extra Credits, this one focusing on the themes of generational passing and the diminishing of ages that is present in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. I have a lot of thoughts on this episode, but they all basically boil down to one thing:

Every generation reinvents the world.

It’s a theme that’s also present in my favorite novel of all time, The Neverending Story. The Childlike Empress of Fantastica is dying, and the only way to save her is for someone from the human realm to give her a new name. Fantastica, of course, is the realm of all fictional stories, and the Childlike Empress receives a new name when the next generation makes the old stories their own. There is nothing new under the sun.

This is also a theme present in Star Wars: The Last Jedi. I’m not a huge fan of the movie, but the best argument I’ve heard in favor of it basically boils down to this theme: that the old generation has to pass away in order for the new one to rise and take its place. I’m still not entirely convinced that The Last Jedi did this well, but I can see how someone who loved the movie would see it that way.

As a writer, this theme weighs especially on me because I feel that I’m personally living it with ever book that I write. All of the greats of the genre, like Tolkien, Herbert, Heinlein, Asimov, Bradbury, Card, Le Guin—the list goes on and on—loom over me every day. With their passing, the world feels somehow diminished. They left us with a great gift—their books—and yet as time passes and the old world crumbles into dust, these gifts from the previous generation feel increasingly out of place. It is time for a new generation to rise and give the Childlike Empress a new name.

I want my books to be a part of that. I hope that one day, mine will be one of the voices that helps to reshape the world. I hope to one day leave behind a gift as great as the ones that we were given: stories and books that made us feel deeply and taught us meaning and love. Is there anything greater than this? Raising a family, perhaps, but that too is a form of generational passing.

I’m sure this theme of generational passing applies to a lot of fields too, not only in the arts, but in trades, and crafts, and sciences too. Indeed, it is a fundamental part of the human story, because of this singular truth: that every generation reinvents the world. There are curses as well as blessings that are passed down from generation to generation, but it is up to each of us to decide whether those curses and blessings stop with us, or whether we will continue to pass them down.

Lots of interesting stuff to ponder and think about. That’s part of what makes Tolkien so great. He spent an entire lifetime writing Lord of the Rings, and that time was not wasted.

Extra Sci-Fi S3E1: Tolkien and Herbert, the World Builders

So I really enjoyed the first two seasons of Extra Sci-Fi, and since they’ve just started up with season three, I’d like to do a blog series where I react to the episodes.

From the first episode, it looks like the main focus of this season is on Lord of the Rings and Dune, two SF&F classics which I’ve read twice. While I have read The Silmarillion as well, I have to admit that I haven’t read any of the Dune sequels yet. Ah, the woes of a horribly massive TBR list.

In any case, the discussion of intentionality in world-building is quite interesting. The way they contrast it with the pulps got me to thinking about the direction science fiction and fantasy are headed in right now.

With the advent of indie publishing, the era we are living in right now is much more akin to the age of the pulps. The way most indies make a living is by following Kevin J. Anderson’s advice to be prolific—really, really prolific. That doesn’t mean that all books published these days lack the intentionality and depth of the great classics of the genre, but the pendulum seems to have swung in the other direction.

Here’s the problem: I’m sure there are books that are just as finely crafted as Lord of the Rings that are sitting on someone’s hard drive right now, or perhaps hanging out somewhere above the 500,000 ranking on Amazon. Perhaps some of these books are even more masterfully crafted, with greater intentionality and even more depth. Why aren’t they selling?

Lots of reasons. Perhaps the author hasn’t yet mastered the craft of writing. Perhaps the story isn’t compelling enough—the equivalent of a 50 cc engine in the body of a Harley.

Or perhaps it has nothing to do with the quality of the writing or storytelling, but the author’s lack of marketing acumen. The greatest product in the world is worth nothing if nobody knows it exists. Likewise, the worst product is worth at least something if everyone knows about it.

Harsh truths, but that’s the world we live in. I’m not so cynical that I believe that writing is a zero-sum game, but there is a lot of competition, especially with how many books are being published these days. That’s why I say that the pendulum has swung back in favor of pulp-style writing: because the writer who can put out a book a month and put it out to an email list of 10k or more has a decisive advantage over the writer who painstakingly crafts a magnificent epic over the course of an entire lifetime, as Tolkien did.

When will the pendulum swing back? I don’t know, but it’s actually not as daunting of an issue as the guys at Extra Credits make it seem.

The first time I read Dune, I was in high school. The second time, I was in college, where I’d already studied Arabic for a couple of years and become somewhat proficient at it. Studying Arabic pulled back the curtain a bit, and made me realize that Herbert’s world-building wasn’t quite as intentional as it seems at first glance.

There was still a lot of depth and intentionality in the major stuff, like the Bene Gesserit, the mentats and Orange Catholic Bible, and of course the ecology of Arakkis and the Spacing Guild. However, on some of the minor details, he occasionally cribbed or made up stuff, he just did a really good job of disguising it. Even the wider arcs of his world-building have borrowed heavily from the real world, such as the rise of the Fremen (which is basically the Rashidun Caliphate in space) and the politics and economics of the spice trade (which is basically a sci-fi version of the petrodollar).

This is why I’m not too worried. A masterful writer can produce on the level of the pulps, and still write with depth and intentionality—or at least, fake it so well that it feels that way. Writing that well requires skill, but once you’ve figured out all the levers behind the curtain, you really can pull off some truly amazing stuff.

I’m not quite there yet, but I’ve seen behind the curtain, and I’m figuring out how it works. Until now, I’ve leaned more toward the pulp-style of writing, just to get my writing career off the ground, but I hope to get to the level of Herbert and Tolkien before too long. It’s definitely possible, but can it be profitable too? That’s the tricky part.

Trope Tuesday: Our Dwarves Are All the Same

Yes, you saw that right: Trope Tuesday is back, at least for the next few weeks. I dropped out for a number of reasons, most of them having to do with my own interminable disorganization. I really love writing these posts, though, and you guys seem to love reading them, so I’ll do my best to keep the series alive. Here goes!

Say the word “troll,” and you could mean one (or more) of a thousand different fantasy creatures. The things same goes with gods, demons, vampires, fairies, goblins, and to some extent, elves. But say the word “dwarf” and we all instantly know what you’re talking about. As tvtropes puts it:

You know them. Gruff, gold-loving, industrious, blunt-speaking, Scottish-accented, practical, Viking-helmed, booze-swilling, Elf-hating, ax-swinging, stout, long-bearded, stolid and unimaginative, boastful of their battle prowess and their vast echoing underground halls and mainly just the fact that they are Dwarves … An entire race of miners and blacksmiths, with names like Dwarfaxe Dwarfbeard and Grimli Stonesack, who are overly sensitive about any perceived slight, always spoiling for a fight, unable to speak two sentences in a row without calling someone “lad” or “lass,” and possessed of a love of gold and jewels that drives them to live in Underground Cities where they dig deep and greedily, (often with catastrophic results).

The defining characteristics of this fantasy race basically include:

Short. Should be self-evident from the name of the race.
Expert in smithing, forging, metalworking, and crafting priceless artifacts.
Prefer to live underground, mining for ore and precious metals.
Bearded to the extreme. Even their women often have facial hair.
Fond of alcohol, and often rowdy or violent when drunk.
Weapon of choice is a battle axe (or perhaps a war hammer).

In other words, Tolkien set the standard and everyone since has followed it with little, if any, variation. Tolkien himself got it from Norse mythology, which had a few key differences (for example, Norse dwarves would turn to stone if they were exposed to sunlight), but once Lord of the Rings hit the bookshelves, all dwarves would ever after be the same.

Why is this? Well, as fantasy races go, dwarves tend to be more like supporting characters than members of the main cast. Sure, there are plenty of series that focus on dwarves and dwarven culture, but the cultures that shape world history the most are usually human or elvish. Dwarves are often content to stay in their dwarven halls and do their own thing, far beneath the surface of the earth.

Brandon Sanderson has an interesting take on this question, which he explains in his famous essay “How Tolkien Ruined Fantasy” (which has since been renamed). Basically, he argues that the fantasy before Tolkien was all “low” fantasy, or fantasy that loosely uses our own world as a template. This sort of fantasy may have wizards, or magic, or monsters, but the setting itself looks a lot like something out of the pages of a history book. Tolkien was the first to really write “high” fantasy, where everything about the world is built from the ground up, and he did such a good job of it that we’ve all been copying him since. Rather than writing high fantasy in an original vein, most authors have switched out the real world for Tolkien’s and have been writing low fantasy in a Tolkienesque world (at least until the last decade or so).

It’s an interesting argument, but I’m not quite so sure how valid it is. The process that Sanderson describes basically happens in every genre: someone writes an extremely popular book, and for the next several decades (centuries, in the case of Treasure Island) everyone tries to go back to it in some way. And yet, how many different kinds of vampires are there? How many different kinds of cops, or detectives, or spies?

Perhaps Lord of the Rings had a much more overshadowing impact than Dracula or Frankenstein ever did, but consider some of the other fantasy races he basically invented. Ents never really took off anywhere outside of Tolkien, and trolls never universally became the big, dumb, evil, brutish creatures that they are in The Hobbit. Elves, which really were popularized in a huge way by Tolkien, have taken on a life of their own, differing fairly significantly from the immortal angel-analogues in Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion. Orcs, too, are becoming more like “green klingons” in games like World of Warcraft, with an extensive honor system and intelligence on par with humans and elves.

Is there something about the Tolkienesque dwarf that fulfills a deeper storytelling need, transforming the stereotype into an archetype? Or am I wrong, and dwarves just haven’t had the same makeover as elves and orcs? I don’t know. But I like dwarves, and I’m a political nerd, so I’ll leave you with a fascinating Marxist analysis of Dwarf Fortress, and an interesting picture of a female dwarf.

Tarin Portrait by =RachelleFryatt on deviantART

Y is for Yesteryear

They say that the golden age of science fiction is about twelve years old. That’s definitely true for me.

My first exposure to the genre was Star Wars: A New Hope. I saw it when I was seven, right around the height of my dinosaur phase. Everything about the movie completely blew me away, from the Jawas and Sand People of Tatooine to the stormtrooper gunfights and lightsaber duels. After watching Luke blow up the Death Star, I spent the next few hours running around the yard pretending to fly my own starfighter.

In a lot of ways, I’ve never really stopped.

My parents made me wait until I was nine to watch The Empire Strikes back, because it was rated PG. Without any exaggeration, I can say that those were the longest two years of my life. I was literally counting down days by the end, and to pass the time without going crazy, I read up on all the books about space that I could possibly find.

My father bought the original X-wing flight simulator game somewhere around then, and I soon became totally engrossed in it. Since the 386 was our only entertainment system (no Super Nintendo–I had to visit a friend’s house for that), X-wing became the defining game of my childhood. I spent hours and hours on that game, to the point where I knew exactly which simulated missions the characters from the books were flying and how to complete them faster and easier.

I thought The Empire Strikes Back was a little slow the first time I saw it, but it’s since grown on me, to the point where now it’s my favorite film in the whole series. Thankfully, my parents let me watch Return of the Jedi the next day, and for the next few months my life felt utterly complete.

Around this time I discovered the Star Wars novels and soon immersed myself in them. The Courtship of Princess Leia by Dave Wolverton soon became one of my favorites, as well as the Heir to the Empire trilogy by Timothy Zahn and the X-wing series by Michael A. Stackpole.

But it was Roger Allen McBride who first introduced me to a different flavor of science fiction with his Corellia trilogy. As I mentioned in V is for Vast, those books had just enough of a touch of hard science to intrigue me about the other possibilities of the genre. That was the last Star Wars series that I read before branching out into other works of science fiction.

The Tripod trilogy by John Christopher was my first introduction to the dystopian / post-apocalyptic genre, depicting an enslaved humanity after an alien invasion. Those books really captured my imagination for a while. The Giver was also quite interesting and thought provoking, though since it didn’t involve spaceships or aliens it wasn’t nearly as compelling.

I read a lot of fantasy in my early high school years, including Tracy Hickman, Lloyd Alexander, and (of course) J.R.R. Tolkien. While I enjoyed those books and immersed myself in them for a while, my true love was still science fiction. For almost a year, I watched Star Trek: Voyager religiously with my dad. And every now and again, I’d pick out a science fiction book from the local town library and give it a try. That’s how I discovered Frank Herbert’s Dune.

In eleventh grade, my English teacher had us choose an author and focus our term papers solely on their books for the entire year. She suggested I choose Orson Scott Card, but I chose Cormac McCarthy instead. I’m not sure if that was the worst decision of my high school career, or the best decision, since assigned high school reading tends to make any book feel like it sucks. I discovered Ender’s Game the following summer, and finished it in a delirious rush at 3am the morning after checking it out from the local library.

More than any other book, Ender’s Game cemented my love for the genre, and showed me just how powerful and moving the genre could be. It opened so many insights into the world and human nature, reading that book made me feel like I’d opened a pair of eyes that I didn’t even know I’d had. Looking back, that was probably the moment when I knew I would be a science fiction writer. I’d known I was going to be a writer ever since I read A Wrinkle in Time at age eight, but to be a science fiction writer specifically, that goal was probably cemented by reading Orson Scott Card.

After high school, I served a two year mission for my church, during which I didn’t read any novels or watch any TV or movies. When I came back, though, Orson Scott Card and Madeline L’Engle helped me to ease through the awkwardness of adjusting back to normal civilian life. When I left for college, I expanded my horizons even further, starting with Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series and Edgar Rice Burrough’s Princess of Mars.

When I discovered Pioneer Books in downtown Provo, I knew I’d found my favorite bookstore in Utah Valley. I have so many fond memories sitting cross-legged on the floor in the science fiction section, browsing through the musty used books for hours at a time. That’s where I discovered C.J. Cherryh, Arthur C. Clarke, Robert A. Heinlein, Ursula K. Le Guin, and numerous other authors who are among my favorites today.

When I discovered Spin, Robert Charles Wilson soon became one of my favorites. I picked up that novel as a free PDF from Tor, and read it over the summer while studying abroad in Jordan. Once again, that same hard sf sensibility I’d gotten from Roger Allen McBride touched me in an unforgettable way. But it was the human element of that book that really moved me–in fact, it’s always been about the human element. The world building in Downbelow Station was great and all, but the romance of Merchanter’s Luck had a much more lasting impact. Starship Troopers had some good ideas, but it was Mandella’s personal journey in The Forever War that moved me almost to tears. The intrigue of the Ender’s Shadow series was quite entertaining, but it was Ender’s Game and Speaker for the Dead that really taught me what it means to be human.

I finished my first novel, Genesis Earth, shortly after returning from that study abroad, and tried to capture the same sensibility from Spin as well as the intimately human element. Since then, I’ve written several more sci-fi novels, some of them tragic, some triumphant, but in all of them I’ve tried to get as close as I can to the personal lives of the characters. I don’t know if I’ll ever write a character portrait so intimate as Shevek’s in Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed, but I certainly hope to someday.

For me, science fiction started out as a wonderfully exciting entertainment and turned into something much more meaningful. If there’s anything the genre has taught me, though, it’s that the two aren’t mutually exclusive–that you can have your adventure and learn what it means to be human as well. Indeed, the more imaginative the adventure, the greater the truths I’ve taken from it.

Because of that, even though I’m almost in my thirties now, I can’t possibly foresee a time when science fiction isn’t a major part of my life. It’s a love affair that’s grown just as much as I have, and continues to grow with each new author I discover and each new book I write. When I’m old and grizzled and pushing eighty, I’m sure there will still be a part of that twelve year old boy in me, still running around the yard flying his starship.

Trope Tuesday: Rebellious Princess

You know that innocent and beautiful fairy tale princess, with the tricked out dress and the power to summon woodland creatures? The one with a tendency to get kidnapped, but who always ends up happily ever after with her prince charming?

Yeah, that’s not this princess.

A rebellious princess would just as soon puke if she were any of those things. She hates being royalty–she’d rather be one of the common folk, or at least be out doing something (which is why she’s often involved in politics). She hates all those frilly dresses and tends to wear her hair in a tomboyish ponytail. Rather than wait for her white knight to save her, she’s much more likely to be an action girl in disguise, or at least something of a badass. When she grows up, she may become a lady of war. Invariably, she hates whatever marriage has been arranged for her and often scandalizes those of her class to marry for love (if she even marries at all).

As you might have already guessed, this trope is extremely common, not the least because the princess classic has largely been discredited (at least, outside of Disney). There’s a lot of variation on it too, with some stories featuring the rebellious princess as the love interest, and others showcasing her as the hero.

George R.R. Martin (Song of Ice and Fire) deconstructs the trope with Arya, who eventually becomes something of a sociopath, and Brandon Sanderson (Elantris) subverts it with Sarene, who very much has the personality but uses her royal position to her advantage. Frank Herbert (Dune) zigzags with Lady Jessica, who is undylingly loyal to the Atreides family but rebels against the Bene Gesserit. As you might expect, J.R.R. Tolkien plays it straight, not once but twice: Éowyn in Lord of the Rings, and Lúthien in The Silmarillion.

It transcends cultures, too. In Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Jen might not technically be royalty, but she is the governor’s daughter and she does reject an arranged marriage to run away and become a wandering warrior. And in classic RPGs, especially the old Japanese ones from Square, this trope is everywhere. The princess in the picture above is Marle from Chrono Trigger, who fits this trope to a T.

So why is this trope so prevalent nowadays? Probably because the modern feminist movement led us to discard most of our old-fashioned feminine ideals, as well as the characters who were held up as shining examples of them. That, and rule of drama. Everything ultimately comes down to rule of drama.

In my own work, Hikaru from Stars of Blood and Glory is an example of this trope, though she’s more of a president’s daughter than a hero or a love interest. She does have her own story arc, though, and I’ve got a sequel in the works with her as the main character. Scientists aren’t exactly royalty, but they do consider themselves elites in Genesis Earth, which means that Terra has echoes of this trope. And in Heart of the Nebula (as-yet unpublished), I’ve got a character who isn’t exactly rebellious, but she does qualify as a badass princess (though the society in question is a perfect techno-democracy and not a monarchy).

Trope Tuesday: Deus Ex Machina

This one is by request. A Deus Ex Machina, or “God from the Machine” ending, is basically when the author writes himself into a corner and pulls something out of his butt to resolve the story.

The term comes from ancient Greek theater, which often employed this technique–probably because the audience was known to get violent when the show didn’t end the way they wanted it to. Basically, a crane–the “machina,” or machine–would lower an actor playing the role of one of the gods–the “deus”–who would then resolve everything and tie up all the loose ends without the heroes having to do anything.

Sound unsatisfying? Yeah, I think so too. That’s why it’s often used as a derogatory term, much like Mary Sue. HOWEVER, it can be done well. As always, your mileage may vary, but here are some examples that pull it off:

WARNING! SPOILERS!

Watership Down: A girl saves Hazel from her cat. Satisfying because it makes sense from the girl’s point of view, and humanizes the story by showing that it really does take place in our world.
The Hobbit: The eagles arrive out of nowhere to turn the tide of the Battle of Five Armies just at the critical moment. Satisfying because it’s a cavalry ending as well, though some fans don’t like it.
Lord of the Rings: Again, the eagles swoop down and save the day, this time by rescuing Frodo and Sam from the fires of Mount Doom. Satisfying because after coming this far, we really don’t want a downer ending.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone: Harry is saved by his mother’s love. Satisfying because of the symbolism and the power of love.
Lord of the Flies: Just as the boys are about to kill each other, a military ship arrives out of nowhere and rescues them. Again, satisfying because of the symbolism, as well as the collective “what have I done” moment.
Schlock Mercenary: Many, many occasions. Satisfying because it’s brilliantly lampshaded.
Monty Python and the Holy Grail: “…the animator had a fatal heart attack! The cartoon peril was no more!”
Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Nazis capture Indiana Jones and get the Ark of the Covenant, but when they open it, a supernatural force kills them all. Satisfying because it squares with Indy’s general MO and his pattern of spectacular failures.
The War of the Worlds: The humans are utterly powerless to stop the aliens, but they all die off from germs. Satisfying because of the underlying message.

Does this mean that it’s a good idea to write off any criticism that your own work suffers from a Deus Ex Machina? Probably not. This is one of those things that readers tend not to notice when it’s done well. If your readers notice it, chances are that something is broken.

As you might guess, there’s a lot of gray area as to what constitutes a Deus Ex Machina, and what is actually something else. Generally, if the ending is properly foreshadowed, either by a Chekov’s Gun or by good character development, it’s not a Deus Ex. The foreshadowing removes the “out of nowhere” aspect that readers find so unsatisfying.

Foreshadowing is one way to fix a Deus Ex Machina. Another way is to toss out the ending and rewrite it from scratch, starting at the point where hero starts getting sidelined. According to Dan Wells’ seven point story structure, the hero should typically spend the first half of the story reacting to the villain, and the second half getting the villain to react to him.

There are lots of other ways to fix a Deus Ex Machina, but those are probably the biggest ones. If you have any other suggestions, by all means, suggest away.

Trope Tuesday: Bittersweet Ending

WARNING! CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR AMERICAN GODS, LAGAAN, LORD OF THE RINGS, TREASURE ISLAND, AND CROUCHING TIGER HIDDEN DRAGON.

And he sang to them, now in the Elven-tongue, now in the speech of the West, until their hearts, wounded with sweet words, overflowed, and their joy was like swords, and they passed in thought out to regions where pain and delight flow together and tears are the very wine of blessedness.

Tolkien, J.R.R. The Return of the King.

I love bittersweet endings. I love stories that warm my heart even as they make me cry. There’s something about reading them that makes me feel alive, and something about writing them that makes me feel like I’ve truly told a story worth telling.

The tvtropes page claims that bittersweet endings fall more to the cynical side of the sliding scale of idealism vs cynicism, but I disagree. Without tasting the bitter, how can we know the sweet? Too many of our modern stories are like high fructose corn syrup, where everything gets tied up with a pretty bow and the characters remain essentially unchanged. I firmly believe that it’s only through sacrifice that we can know true joy, and stories that follow this often end up being bittersweet on some level, even if they are idealistic.

The tvtropes page lists six types of bittersweet endings, which are:

Did Not Get the Girl: When the hero either loses the girl or has to give her up to win the day. American Gods is a good example of this, I think: Shadow never actually gets back with Laura, even though he spends most of the book looking for a way to bring her back.
The Greatest Story Never Told: When the hero fades into obscurity after winning the day. Lagaan, one of my favorite Bollywood movies, is an excellent example of this. The last line of the movie is the narrator explaining how after the events of the story, the village faded into history until it was forgotten.
End of an Age: When the triumph over evil transforms the world so completely that there is no going back to the way things used to be. Lord of the Rings is the best example of this: after the one ring is destroyed, all the other rings lose their power, and the elves must pass into the west.
Heroic Sacrifice: When victory comes only after the death of many or all of the main characters. This is basically every David Gemmell book ever written, which is why I can’t get enough of him.
Only the Leads Get a Happy Ending: Where life is great for the main characters but everyone else ends up suffering. I can’t think of any examples where this is done well; it’s probably just bad storytelling.
Karma Houdini: When the bad guy doesn’t get what’s coming to him. The best example of this is probably Treasure Island, where Long John Silver gets away with the treasure in the end, leaving the good guys to say “I can almost find it in my heart to hope he makes it.”

It’s important to point out that this trope is not simply a tragic tale with a heart-wrenching twist. Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, for example, is a straight up tragedy: even though Mu Bai confesses his love to Shu Lien, he promptly dies, and Jen commits suicide. It’s an awesome ending to an awesome story, but there is no sweet in it.

When done poorly, a bittersweet ending can feel confusing or anti-climactic. When done well, however, I think it adds a wealth of depth and feeling, as well as a degree of believability and realism. After all, how many of our victories are complete? How often do we have to give up something good for something greater?

So yeah, I love this trope.

Merchanter’s Luck by C. J. Cherryh

He was a down and out merchanter, the captain, crew, and sole proprietor of a run-down bucket of bolts spacecraft. She was a daughter of one of the finest starfaring clans, with seven hundred cousins standing between her and the one thing she wanted more than anything else: command of a starship.

They met at Pell during the height of the Company War–the key strategic point on the border between Union and Earth. Their fateful meeting would affect not only the outcome of the war, but the course of their own lives–for the starship Lucy of Wyatt’s Combine was not at all what she seemed to be.

Before I review this book, I need to issue a disclaimer: you probably aren’t going to enjoy it very much unless you’ve already read Downbelow Station. Cherryh isn’t the best at easing her readers into her worlds, and without the background on Union, Alliance, and the Company War, you’ll probably be hopelessly lost.

That said, I absolutely loved this book.

The premise is so awesome. Space adventure hardcore, with a beautiful love story set amidst an epic interstellar war, where alliances are constantly broken and no one can be trusted…oh man, I LOVED this book!

While the premise seems pretty standard, C. J. Cherryh transcends the well-worn tropes and cliches of her genre by intimately developing her characters and working their motivations into the story until they are the ones driving the plot, and not the other way around.

Every character is unique, and though they act in ways that may seem strange to our modern sensibilities, there are always reasons for everything they do, cultural or otherwise. As windows into their far-future spacefaring culture, they give the reader a wonderful view of Cherryh’s unique and marvelously constructed universe.

The thing that surprised me the most, however, was the sharp contrast between this book and Downbelow Station. While Downbelow Station traces the epic arc of the Company War through the viewpoints of a large cast of characters, much like Tolkien or Dune, Merchanter’s Luck focuses more on the characters themselves, in much the same way as David Gemmell or Ursula K. Le Guin. In other words, while Downbelow Station is comparable to “high” or epic fantasy, Merchanter’s Luck would fall closer to “low” fantasy or sword & sorcery.

The interesting self-realization I took from the book was that I’m much more interested in the intimately personal stories than the sweeping epic tale of the Rise and Fall of cultures and civilizations. I suppose that’s why I’m more of a David Gemmell nut than a Tolkien fanatic, and perhaps why I’m more into space opera and military sf than epic fantasy. In all of my novels, the focus is always on the individual characters and their personal conflicts, and whenever I get sidetracked and focus too much on the overworld story, it always falls apart.

Merchanter’s Luck definitely doesn’t get sidetracked, and that’s why I loved it so much. I fell in love with the characters almost from the very first page–from the blurb on the back cover, even. And most of all, I fell hopelessly in love with the starship Lucy:

You know you’re doing science fiction right when your readers bemoan the fact that they weren’t born in the 26th century, when they could command their own spaceship. C. J. Cherryh is an amazing writer, and if I had the chance, I would teleport into her Union-Alliance universe in a heartbeat.

If you love well-crafted far-future worlds and stories about the people that live in them, check out Downbelow Station (or really, just the first chapter–that’s all you need for a solid grounding) and read this book!