why we write – Page 8 – One Thousand And One Parsecs

Go to Tor.com and read this.

Brandon Sanderson’s story of how he decided to become a writer is very interest. It goes back to elementary school, when he hated books and reading in general. A wise teacher put a copy of Barbara Hambly’s Dragonsbane in his hand, and it started a chain reaction that led to him becoming a bestselling writer.

As one of Brandon’s students, I’ve heard the story several times. However, I had no idea how significant a role that Michael Whelan, the illustrator of that book, played in it all. Tor commissioned Michael Whelan to do the cover for Brandon’s next book, The Way of Kings. In response, Brandon wrote a blog post at Tor.com explaining how significant it is to him that Mr. Whelan was chosen to do the cover art for The Way of Kings.

It’s an awesome and moving blog post. You should check it out.

In unrelated news, I am 110 pages into outlining Bringing Stella Home 3.0 and enjoying the process immensely. I’ve got some awesome first readers. Even with all the honest criticism, I’d much rather be writing than doing office work at my internship. Ah, well, April 15th will be here before we know it.

As for graduating and finding myself in the real world…not quite as thrilled about that. More like scared s***less.

It’s full of stars!

I have a confession to make…

I should have been writing these past three hours. I really should have been writing. But a couple of days ago, I downloaded this awesome program called Celestia. And when I say awesome, I mean awesome!

Imagine Google Earth. Now, imagine Google Earth…for the Universe.

I told you it was awesome.

Anyway, I just downloaded all the messier objects , gps satellites, and some other random addons, and spent the last two hours playing with them when I should have been writing. Gah!

Oh well, I guess you can call it research. 🙂

My goodness–words cannot describe how cool this stuff is. It’s like…like a planetarium on my computer. I’ve never felt so small in such an incredibly vast universe! And oh my heck, do you know what it’s like outside of our galaxy? No stars–just blackness everywhere! It’s so freaking scary! And inside of those massive globular clusters, like M13–holy cow! What would it be like to live on a planet in one of those clusters??

I should probably stop rambling. But…but…it’s just so awesome!

This is the kind of stuff I’ve been writing all my life! Stars and galaxies and planets, other worlds–and now, at last, I can get some kind of a tiny picture of what it all looks like. I feel like the nexus 6 soldier from Blade Runner: “I’ve seen things…” Seriously, this has the potential to revolutionize my writing. The things I’ve seen…

But anyway, time to get my mind off the stars (at least temporarily) and write!

Thoughts on future career

Just a few quick, scattered thoughts before I run off to work.

Working a desk job has convinced me that if at all possible, I want to make my full time living as a novelist. I don’t see myself doing what I’m doing in this internship for the rest of my life, or even for a major part of it.

Don’t get me wrong–WINEP is a great place to work. The people are great, the organization is prestigious and very well run, the public events are fascinating and frequent, and the stuff we produce is good, well-researched material. I’m not writing this in response to anything specific I’ve encountered at the institute–just a realization after being immersed for two weeks in an office environment.

I’ve only been averaging about 500 words a day since I came here–but I’ve been writing every day, because now, more than ever, I see this as the path I want to take. The path I need to take. I don’t want to be stuck in a desk job the rest of my life.

The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin

Urras and Annares, a world and its moon, separated by the gulf of space and two hundred years of mutual contempt. On Urras, capitalist and socialist nations vie for dominance over the world’s rich and abundant resources. On Annares, the anarchist exiles scrounge for a meager living, but live in peace–and in hope.

Shevek has never known any other world than the anarchist utopia of Annares. His life’s work is to develop a unified theory of simultaneity–a tremendous feat that will rework the paradigm of space travel and communication. When the people of Annares reject his theory, however, he voyages to Urras in the hopes that by offering his theory as a gift to all nations, he can bridge the gap between the worlds.

Hopelessly inexperienced in the cutthroat ways of the propertarians, Shevek has no idea what he is getting himself into. In his gilded prison, with nations vying for control of his person, can he find allies who share his idealistic, utopian vision? Or is he alone in a world of greed, lies, and murder?

This is, quite possibly, one of the most impressive and beautiful works of literary science fiction that I have read. It may be the best novel I’ve read all year. Le Guin’s characters are so deep, her ideas so compelling, her worlds so rich, her writing so poetic and beautiful that I hardly know where to start.

One of the many things that made this book so good was the depth of Le Guin’s character development. The story had a plot, and Le Guin dropped just enough pieces of it here and there for you to know that there was one, but more than anything this book is a portrait of an incredibly interesting man, Shevek.

The book actually contains two stories that merge into one in the end. One taking place in the present, after Shevek arrives at Urras, and the other is a series of flashbacks showing how he arrived at that point. Le Guin alternates brilliantly between past and present to reveal insights into Shevek’s character that would otherwise remain unexplored. By the end of this novel, I felt that I knew this man–and loved him–better than anyone in real life, including myself. It blew me away.

Le Guin’s worldbuilding, too is incredible. Before reading this book, I didn’t consider myself an anarchist, but after spending so much time in the utopian society of Anarres, I almost want to become one. Le Guin meticulously extrapolates her world from her highly perceptive understanding of human nature, paying such attention to detail that her anarchist world is not only surprisingly plausible, but enviable as well. This is the kind of world that I would like to visit, explore, and perhaps even settle down in and live.

Her ideas, like her world, are meticulously well thought out and incredibly compelling. In the Hainish cycle, Shevek is the inventor of the ansible drive, the technology that eventually enables peaceable diplomatic missions to other worlds, such as the one chronicled in The Left Hand of Darkness. Shevek’s struggle is to find a way to let this technology bring peace and break down walls, rather than empower tyrants to conquer and destroy. Time and again, Shevek’s egalitarian, anarchist values come to the surface, clashing not only with those of capitalist Urras, but with our own.

All of this would be enough to make this a compelling, memorable story–but Le Guin’s stunning, beautiful prose puts this book into a league of its own. The rhythm and beauty in her words made every page a joy to read, with descriptions that kept me entranced and dialogue that made her characters leap off of the page. Above all, her prose conveys with powerful and compelling clarity the many life-changing ideas and themes of this story. The book’s last words still haunt me.

The Dispossed is, without a doubt, is one of the best works of Science Fiction that I have read. I would even go so far as to claim that it is a superior book to Le Guin’s better known work, The Left Hand of Darkness. If I could read a book this insightful every month, I would be a much better man, and have a much deeper and imaginative understanding of the world than I presently have. This book is a true masterpiece.

A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr.

It was said that God, in order to test mankind which had become swelled with pride as in the time of Noah, had commanded the wise men of that age, among them the Blessed Leibowitz, to devise great engines of war such as had never before been upon the Earth, weapons of such might that they contained the very fires of Hell, and that God had suffered these Magi to place the weapons in the hands of princes, and to say to each prince: ‘Only because thine enemies have such a thing have we devised this for thee, in order that they may know that thou hast it also, and fear to strike.’

But the princes, putting the words of their wise men to naught, thought each to himself: ‘If I but strike quickly enough, and in secret, I shall destroy those others in their sleep, and there shall be none to fight back; the earth shall be mine.’

Such was the folly of princes, and there followed the Flame Deluge…

In the new dark ages of man following the nuclear apocalypse, an order of Catholic monks preserves the last vestiges of civilization: a shopping list, an electrical diagram, and other assorted scraps of a long-dead world. As mankind rises from the dust, inevitable tensions arise between the church and the world, between Jerusalem and Babylon, Christ and Lucifer.

This book is epic. Epic. I can’t begin to describe how incredible it is. Virtually every page, especially towards the end, is packed with meaning. A cautionary tale of the folly of man in this fallen world, this story held me captivated right up to the chilling final chapter. Bravo.

As I understand it, Walter M. Miller Jr. wrote this book in the late 50s / early 60s, during the height of the Cold War. Science fiction at that time was both sweepingly visionary and frighteningly pessimistic about the future of mankind, and this book successfully captures both extremes. Like Asimov’s Foundation series, it reads more like a collection of elongated short stories, but Miller’s characterization and attention to detail is superior, in my opinion, to Asimov’s.

The most fascinating aspect about this book is the way that Miller hearkens to the past to give us a vision of our future. Many of his ideas are straight out of Augustine and Aquinas–indeed, in several places, the story feels like it’s set in 3rd or 4th century Europe, which only adds to the delicious irony.

Yet, while this book has a strong Catholic feel, I never felt alienated or excluded from its intended audience. Maybe it’s because my Mormon heritage is more compatible with Catholicism than other religious beliefs, but I don’t think it’s just that; the issues in this book are human issues, not just religious issues, and by focusing on that fact, Miller makes the story much more universal.

Even with all the deep, philosophical elements, this story is wonderfully entertaining. Irony abounds, especially in the first section, in which a young novice takes a simple electrical diagram from the pre-deluge world and, completely unaware of its significance (or lack thereof), spends the rest of his life making a beautiful illuminated manuscript of it. Even though the sections were short, I quickly fell in love with the characters in each one, and connected with them almost instantly.

The final scene, in particular, was incredibly touching. I won’t spoil it for you, but let me just say, if you are or ever have considered taking your own life, read this book, just for the final scene. The degree to which the last abbot clings to life, even in the face of so many good reasons to give up, is just incredible. And the final scene, in which…I won’t ruin it for you. Just read it!

A Canticle for Leibowitz is one of the most powerful, meaningful books I have read in my life. It is more than a good read, more than epic. I class it as one of the best works of fiction this genre has ever produced. If you have ever wondered about the destiny of mankind, or the proper relationship between the secular and the spiritual in our modern age–read this book!

Thoughts after finishing A Canticle for Leibowitz

Wow. Wow.

This book is INCREDIBLE. I’ll review it later, but first I want to put down some of my initial thoughts.

With any great book, you come to a point where you realize, consciously or not, that it just can’t get any better. The story, the characters, the world, the ideas and stakes, the overarching conflict–it combines so perfectly that you don’t think you could possibly ask for more.

And then, if it’s a true masterpiece, it crosses that threshold and gets even better.

A Canticle for Leibowitz did that. Somewhere in the second half, after I was completely caught up in the story, it exceeded my expectations and went to a whole new level. I remember the exact passage where it happened:

They shook hands gingerly, but Dom Paulo knew that it was no token of any truce but only of mutual respect between foes. Perhaps it would never be more.

But why must it all be acted again?

The answer was near at hand; there was still the serpent whispering: For God doth know that in what day soever you shall eat thereof, your eyes shall be opened: and you shall be as Gods. The old father of lies was clever at telling half-truths: How shall you “know” good and evil, until you shall have sampled a little? Taste and be as Gods. But neither infinite power nor infinite wisdom could bestow godhood upon men. For that there would have to be infinite love as well.

I love books like this: books that not only have a good, entertaining story, but that have a deeper, more thoughtful dimension. Stories that make me think and reflect on the real world, that open my eyes and help me to see things in a new way. It’s what I read for.

Yes, the story was somewhat didactic and preachy…but it worked. Even though it was trying to make an explicit point, so much of the symbolism and metaphor was open ended that the readers could draw their own conclusions–and see a number of things that perhaps went beyond the point the author was trying to make.

I guess there’s two ways to write didactic fiction: the open approach, and the closed approach. With the open approach, the author uses a lot of symbolism and allegory, but in a way that explores principles and themes rather than building up to a predetermined point. Good examples of this (in my opinion) include The Chronicles of Narnia and The Neverending Story. The closed approach involves consciously working everything around a conscious agenda: examples of this include His Dark Materials and Lord of the Flies.

I don’t care much for the closed approach–I can’t stand it even when I agree with the underlying ideology (as in Orson Scott Card’s Empire). Those kinds of books don’t stimulate genuine thought or reflection. The open kind, though–that I can appreciate. Even though I disagree with many of Heinlein’s views, I can appreciate his books even when they’re preachy because they make me think.

Anyways, those were some of my thoughts after finishing A Canticle for Leibowitz. This book is epic–truly epic. It wowed me just as much as David Gemmell’s Legend. This is a book I’m going to remember for a long, long time.

If you care at all about the role of faith in forming our society, or the complex interplay between religion and politics, or the ultimate end of humanity–you have got to read this book!

Why I love Robert Charles Wilson

From Mysterium, which I plan to review here soon:

“Do you ever wonder, Howard, about the questions we can’t ask?
“Can’t answer, you mean?
“No. Can’t ask.”
“I don’t understand.”
Stern leaned back in his deck chair and folded his hands over his gaunt, ascetic frame. His glasses were opaque in the porch light. The crickets seemed suddenly loud.
“Think about a dog,” he said. “Think about your dog–what’s his name?”
“Albert.”
“Yes. Think about Albert. He’s a healthy dog, is he not?”
“Yes.”
“Intelligent?”
“Sure.”
“He functions in every way normally, then, within the parameters of dogness. He’s an exemplar of his species. And he has the ability to learn, yes? He can do tricks? Learn from his experience? And he’s awarer of his surroundings; he can distinguish between you and your mother, for instance? H’es not unconscious or impaired?”
“Right.”
“But despite all that, there’s a limit on his understanding. Obviously so. If we talk about gravitons or Fourier transforms, he can’t follow the conversation. We’re speaking a language he doesn’t know and cannot know. The concepts can’t be translated; his mental universe simply won’t contain them.”
“Granted,” Howard said. “Am I missing the point?”
“We’re sitting here,” Stern said, “asking spectacular questions, you and I. About the universe and how it began. About everything that exists. And if we can ask a question, probably, sooner or later, we can answer it. So we assume there’s no limit to knowledge. But maybe your dog makes the same mistake! He doesn’t know what lies beyond the neighborhood, but if he found himself in a strange place he would approach it with the tools of comprehension available to him, and soon he would understand it–dog-fashion, by sight and smell and so on. There are no limits to his comprehensions, Howard, except the limits he does not and cannot ever experience.
“So how different are we? We’re mammals within the same broad compass of evolution, after all. Our forebrains are bigger, but the difference amounts to a few ounces. We can ask many, many more questions than your dog. And we can answer them. But if there are real limits on our comprehension, they would be as invisible to us as they are to Albert. So: Is there anything in the universe we simply cannot know? Is there a question we can’t ask? And would we ever encounter some hint of it, some intimation of the mystery? Or is it permanently beyond our grasp?”

This is the kind of science fiction that I love: the kind that brings me right up to the limits of human knowledge and makes me feel naked in the face of the unknown. The kind where the aliens truly feel alien, not like an unusually bizarre race of human beings. I want the aliens to surprise me–I want to feel that there’s something about them that is completely beyond my comprehension. Something sublime, something romantic.

In all of his books that I’ve read, Robert Charles Wilson captures this feeling spectacularly. So does Arthur C. Clarke, C. J. Cherryh, and Orson Scott Card. Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, John Scalzi and Alastair Reynolds are excellent writers, and I’ve genuinely enjoyed their books, but their aliens are too…understandable. Too clear cut, too defined. After a while, you don’t feel that there’s anything left to surprise you, anything that is so alien it’s beyond your grasp.

In some ways, I think this boils down to the author’s worldview. Those with a more positivist worldview believe that the world is fundamentally understandable, and that every phenomenon can be modeled and predicted, provided that we have a sophisticated enough understanding of natural law. The interpretivist worldview, on the other hand, posits that while truth may exist, there are limits to our understanding–that some things are inherently unpredictable and impossible to model.

I used to think that I was a positivist. Then I took Poli Sci 310 with Goodliffe, and it turned my world upside down. Genesis Earth is, in some ways, a product of that personal worldview shift. I don’t think I’m anywhere near on par with my aliens as Wilson, Clarke, and Card are with theirs, but I hope I’m on my way.

Bimbos of the Death Sun by Sharyn McCrumb

It’s that time of year! Elves, Klingons, slave women, gamers, computer geeks, aspiring writers, and superfans are converging on Rubicon, the annual science fiction convention. Mild mannered citizens beware!

Newest among the motley crew is Jay Omega, a young, local computer professor and first-time author on a mission: make sure that nobody he knows in real life finds out that he is the author of Bimbos of the Death Sun. Fortunately, his friend and secret lover (but only a secret to him), Marion, is there to promote his book and keep him from getting hopelessly lost.

But then, Appin Dungannon, famous author of the prolific adventure series of Tratyn Runewind, is found dead in his hotel suite. Who could possibly want him dead? Turns out, just about everyone: Appin is also famous for hating the series more than any other person on the planet, and for treating his fans like slime.

As the convention threatens to fall apart, Jay takes on the case and tries to answer: who killed Dungannon, and why? In a world where fantasy has more power than fact, however, the answer is stranger than anyone in theiTr right mind would expect.

This book was hilarious. Sharyn McCrumb explores science fiction and fantasy fandom the way a drunk anthropologist would explore an aboriginal jungle tribe. Even though her characters are all shallow caricatures of the real thing, their clumsy interactions turn the story into a wonderful farce that is as entertaining as it is educational.

There were only a couple of parts that bothered me. At one point, McCrumb gets into the head of an overweight, hopelessly ugly fangirl cosplayer and shows her thought process as she pursues a romantic relationship with an equally ugly and socially incompetent fanboy. I didn’t feel that McCrumb authentically portrayed the character’s own thoughts–it sounded more like a person from the outside giving their take on the experience. Then again, McCrumb was going for humor, not true character depth.

Besides that, this book is definitely dated. The computer technology in the novel is ridiculously primitive, on par with the Commodore 64, the Tandy 400, and the trusty old 386. In other ways, too, this book is solidly 80s–any science fiction convention nowadays would probably have less Trekkies and more Anime cosplayers. However, the dated aspects only make the novel more endearing, in my opinion. Who wouldn’t be nostalgic for the good old days of the 386?

This book isn’t high literature, and Sharyn McCrumb would probably be the first to admit it. It was, however, wonderfully entertaining, one of those rare and beautiful books that made me laugh out loud, heartily. For someone like me who is just starting to become involved in science fiction and fantasy fandom, it was a hilarios and helpful primer to this fascinating subculture. As McCrumb states in her foreward:

Science fiction writers build castles in the air; the fans move into them; and the publishers collect the rent. It’s a nice place to visit, but please don’t try to live there.

That said, I find it telling that it was people in fandom who recommended this book to me. Good to know that at least a few of us don’t take ourselves too seriously.

Thoughts after finishing Legend by David Gemmell

I just stayed up a bit late, finishing Legend by David Gemmell. Wow.

According to his wikipedia entry, Mr. Gemmell wrote Legend in two weeks while waiting to hear if his cancer diagnosis was terminal. After reading this book, I can definitely see how that influenced the writing.

This book is incredible, one of the most authentic, thought-provoking things I’ve read. It is…just incredible. I’ll articulate my thoughts better when I write the review, but let me just say that reading this book made me a better man.

I want to quote the passage that impacted me the greatest, because it has to do with some of my more existential thoughts about being an aspiring writer–no, being a writer and aspiring to be an author.

“All things that live must die,” said Vintar. “Man alone, it seems, lives all his life in the knowledge of death. And yet there is more to life than merely waiting for death. For life to have meaning, there must be a purpose. A man must pass something on–otherwise he is useless.

“For most men that purpose revolves around marriage and children who will carry on his seed. For others it is an ideal–a dream, if you like. Each of us here believes in the concept of honor: that it is man’s duty to do that which is right and just, that might alone is not enough. We have all transgressed at some time. We have stolen, lied, cheated–even killed–for our own ends. But ultimately we return to our beliefs. We do not allow the Nadir to pass unchallenged because we cannot. We judge ourselves more harshly than others can judge us. We know that death is preferable to betrayal of that which we hold dear.

I don’t want to write books just to entertain. I don’t want to fill pages with words just so I can get paid and take care of my temporal needs. Both of those are important, of course, but I don’t want to write “good reads” that people put down and completely forget about after a few months.

At the same time, I don’t want to write just to express myself either. I don’t think I deserve any special treatment for being a writer, and I don’t suffer under the delusion that I’m somehow gracing the world with my genius (at least, I hope I don’t). The world owes me nothing, and I’m certainly not the most qualified person to be out doing this kind of thing, making the world a better place by telling stories.

What I do want to do, however, is write books like Legend, or Mistborn, or The Neverending Story, or Ender’s Game, or Spin, or any number of other books. Books that you read and remember, because they changed or inspired or impacted you in some profound way. Books where you read the last hundred pages in a breathless sprint, because you connect with the story in a deep and personally moving way. Books that help people to understand the world better, to appreciate its beauty, to see the people in your life in a new light, and connect with them in new ways.

I can tell you exactly when I crossed the threshold from childhood to adolescence, down almost to the very day. I crossed that threshold by reading a book: Absolutely Normal Chaos by Sharon Creech. For what I was going through at that pivotal time in my life, that book had a profound, formative impact. It helped me to see my family members in a new light, to understand a little bit better the changes I was experiencing in my own life, and to get through an emotional period that was particularly rocky. When I read that book, I changed as a person.

That’s the kind of stuff I want to do as a writer: pass something on. Something meaningful. Something that will make this world a better place by connecting with someone, anyone, on a deeply personal and intimate level. Something that will help peope to stand tall and live their lives more fully.

I don’t know if I’m getting this across effectively, but those are my thoughts at this time. Legend is a damn good book. It’s in good company, along with all the other books that have just made me go “wow.” Someday, I hope something I write will be up there on the same level for someone else.

“Why people read”

Dave Farland puts out this great e-newsletter called “Dave’s Daily Kick-in-the-Pants.” For the kick today, he suggested the following exercise:

You probably have a good idea about what you want to write—horror, mainstream, fantasy, historical, romance, westerns, religious fiction, and whatnot. Sit down for ten minutes and on the left-hand side of your paper, list five things that you feel you most like in the fiction you read. On the right-hand side of your paper, list the biggest potential danger that you see in trying to create that effect.

Doing this exercise will help you understand who your potential audience is, and some of the challenges that you may face in reaching that audience.

This was my response:

Why I read:

1) To meet interesting characters and get lost with them in an exciting fantastic world.

2) To think deeper about fundamental truths I see in my own life.

3) To feel like I understand another person and connect with them.

4) To be reassured that true heroism is real, alive, and within the realm of possibility.

5) To experience beauty in the language and metaphor, the imagery and tension.

Potential dangers:

1) Trying to write about a world without a story–all info dumps, exposition, lacking interesting characters with whom the reader can journey and experience the world. Story IS experience, and experience does not exist independent of the person doing the experiencing.

2) Waxing allegorical or didactic in the writing–trying to force the message instead of leaving it open for the reader to discover multiple layers of meaning.

3) Focusing so hard on the character that the plot lacks the structure and tension to keep the reader interesting. Characters do not exist separate from plot or setting; they change and grow in reaction to both.

4) Creating a hero whose struggle is so far removed from the real world or our real life experience that the reader feels that this type of person could only exist within the pages of a book. Or, trying so hard to follow the monomyth structure that the story falls flat (ie Star Wars I, II, III).

5) Thinking that poetic license frees you from basic rules of style and grammar. Creating metaphors that are so unusual that they are merely non sequiturs. Writing prose so thick and “literary” that it kicks the reader out of the book.