Women in SFF

Tor.com recently sent out their weekly email with its attendant blogs, stories and news.  And Liz Bourke wrote an interesting column and interview following a piece I did not read.  There seem to be several points to her post, and the one previous, which I will first sum up.

1) There is a bias against female SFF writers
2) There are fewer new female SFF than male authors each year because of it
3) There is a bias amongst reviewers that indicates the same
4) Does it matter?

I wanted to add my own two cents here.  I'm going to make a little list.

My feelings:

1. If I am guilty of reviewer's bias, it is certainly not a conscious one.  Unfortunately, that doesn't make it any less of a bias. 
2. I certainly am guilty of reader's bias.
3. I like central male characters, a bias that has nothing to do with the sex of the author, but my own preconceptions about viewpoint have, in ignorance, played to that point.
4. Publishers have to play to their audiences.
5. Yes, it matters, and yes we should at least make the occasional effort to expand our horizons.

1. To start, that there is a bias amongst reviewers clearly holds with me as well.  I have reviewed only Dragonsdawn by Anne McCaffrey, and Azure Bonds, by Kate Novak and Jeff Grub.  Both of which are at least twenty years old.  So, keep in mind, I don't review "new" titles.  My reviews are long-winded, seldom read, and I have no particular following to keep up with.  When I find a book particularly bad or good, or thought provoking, I write a review.  If I have time.  Publishers don't send me books hot off the presses (please do publishers! I've been using the friggin' Library for the past six months!) The selection process is random at best, and stilted, heavily leaning to books already in my collection at worst.  So I don't have the same kind of operators that Stefan Raets, or Renay, neither of whom I had ever heard of before today.  As all three of the bloggers, Raets, Bourke and Renay point out, the fact that I'm not consciously choosing titles according to author sex is still a bias, and a grievous one.

2.  I had to think, in my history, what else have I read by female fantasists?  Certainly almost the entirety of Margaret Weis's collection.  Raistlin Majere is certainly one of my favorite fantasy characters of all time, and he was her creation.  Recently, I read Robin Hobb's series, Assassin and Magic Ship, and Fool, or whatever the three series are called together.  And, I just found out that C.S. Friedman was a female, and I loved her Coldfire Trilogy.  All three of these women wrote incredibly strong, very detailed, and very interesting male central characters.  Did I think them less genuine because of that?  Not at all.  I was impressed by Robin Hobb's epic, but I confess, it wasn't my cup of tea.  I don't know if that had anything to do with the sex of the author.  It was a problem, or question of the theme.  I just left feeling somehow disastisfied.  I also read some C.J. Cheryh back in the 90s.  That's about it.  As I confessed years ago, I typically pick out books by the covers.  So if the publisher laid out for a good bookcover, and the book was at least four-hundred pages... there was a pretty good shot I'd try it. 

3.  Even though I quite like Jim Butcher's Furies series, I find the parts with Amara and her husband Bernard saccharine to the point of distaste.  I am a man, and the story has to appeal, find common ground with me.  I know a number of people who hated Rand al'Thor and the Ta'veren Trio, but his story always had a great deal of appeal to me.  Particularly as the 'nice' boy began to fade, and rage began to consume him in the ladder half of the series.  And I've spoken to some female fandom who find all three of them, Rand, Mat and Perrin inherently boring.  Still given what I pointed out above at the capacity of female authors to write excellent male characters, I suppose this bias really must end.

4.  I had this conversation with a female anthropology professor (not my wife) once, regarding the sexualization of female body parts in comic book characters.  And she showed me this image:

It is a pretty funny image, but she looked thoughtful when I told her that most of the readership of comic books are men, and that they wouldn't sell much if their characters all had bubble butts like this!  I also said, to say that male characters aren't over sexualized is ridiculous.  They don't frequently have gratuitous butt shots like those above, sure, but they all have tight abs, large shoulders, strong chins, cheekbones, large packages, and let's not forget, tight asses.  Interestingly, that's not to sell to women.  That is to play to men's insecurities about our own bodies.  I told her that if she were to look at any of the comicbooks from the eighties, their pages are filled with ads for muscle enlargement, how to get women, etc.  Their consumers were skinny, weak white dudes, and that was why you saw covers like this!  Still though, if you don't know about the HawkEye Initiative, check this out.

 

To apply that to fantasy authors, I honestly don't know what the breakdown is.  I was told about five years ago that men are reading less and less.  That was true then, of the overall market.  But SFF is a genre, and can the same be said?  If the majority of the consumer market is male, than publishers and reviewers choosing titles that best reflect their clients needs, is pretty if not fair, than standard practice.  I have lately seen more women than men reading in the genre, but that might also be a product of a completely different bias.  I didn't have the courage to be seen reading a fantasy book all through Highschool.  I kept them in my bag, and went off to secluded corners of the library to read them.  I frequently had my books stolen and ripped up.  I even had to chase them through the cafeteria from time to time because it just wasn't cool.  I'm not sure women and girls had to face the same bias in fantasy, though they certainly had to face a number of other ones.

5.  None of that matters.  The critics are right.  An effort must be made, it is simply the right thing to do.  I have three library books in my possession right now, all male authors.  But my next review, I promise will be by a female author.

Furies of Calderon - Jim Butcher

Jim Butcher is a name that has haunted me for some time, his Dresden series has been out for almost two decades, but I was not the target audience. Not so the Alera Codex.

So here it is, Book One, the Furies of Calderon

1) Character. Butcher's characters are well drawn, if a trifle hasty. Hasty? Well from page one, this book has been an action thriller; and while the characters are intelligent, believable and deep, in between fighting, fleeing, flying and furycrafting (the four Fs of the Codex) there really isn't much time for in depth character analysis. What a comparison to my last review of Way of Kings, which plodded between boring character soliloquies. That said, I would have preferred a slower build. The character which is probably the most complete is the young Cursor Amera. A Cursor, somewhat unusual for a fantasy novel, is an intelligence agent with a license to kill.  She is finishing her years of study and graduating what amounts to spy school. Her mentor is another excellent character, the masterspy and cold-hearted killer Fidelias. Fidelias is an unusual type of villain, and it is to Butcher's credit that all three of the evil usurpers top mercenaries are, if not always like able, certainly understandable. Of course the central character is a 15 year old boy named Tavi. Tavi's character is at once the most interesting and the most unbelievable. Making an unusual choice, what makes Tavi special is that he is the only person in the kingdom to not have a Fury. More on what that means later. Suffice it to say, what makes Tavi special is his ordinariness, and that he must rely on his wits, curiosity and courage, where others can simply use magic. Sometimes though Tavi's courage seems enough for ten men, and this is what makes his character just a tad hard to believe. Still, you want to believe in him, and as one of the story's main voices--it isn't hard to do so.  Fantasy novels are often built initially on a gimmick.  And though the choice to make Tavi the only non-magical being in the kingdom is unusual, it is not entirely without precedent.  Still the choice feels very much like a gimmick.  I can see Butcher in a coffee shop, pencil tapping his chin.  What about a magical land where everyone had special powers but the main character?  That said, and this is a big "that said," I absolutely do not have a problem with a good gimmick.

Tavi and Kitai, by Dystopiaworld at Deviant Art

2) Cliche. So the most obvious cliche, continuing with Tavi, is the Coming of Age cliche. Young Tavi starts the action by ignoring his duties to get a kiss from a girl. This is a truly great fantasy cliche, and almost every book uses it. Boy, small and ashamed, faces fears, adult terrors, great extremities and becomes a man. Interestingly, I'm not entirely sure that Tavi does grow, or at least his growth is well contained. It is after all book one, and he is only 15. Another cliche, less seldom used in fantasy is The Ugly Duckling. Amara is described as a girl with golden skin and golden hair, faintly boyish with a face somewhat severe. When her arc begins she considers herself unattractive, but by the end, she has found a man who thinks she's beautiful and indeed, many men have always thought so. The ugly Duckling cliche is unfortunate some of the time and disingenuous the rest of it. It would have been better if she'd actually been ugly, or actually pretty and aware of it.

 

The unbeautiful beautiful Amara, Sandara at Deviant Art

As for typical fantasy cliches, though it receives little note in this volume, there is a Shield Wall, very reminiscent to George R. R Martin's wall in that a group called the Icemen dwell beyond it. That said, they are not the overwhelming enemy-at least not in this volume. Another cliche used by Butcher is the Innate Power Cliche. This is such a common fantasy cliche that it needs little explanation. Think Aes Sedai and their ability to use the One Power, think Raistlin of DragonLance, or the Will and the Word of the Eddings books. The idea is simple, magic is innate. Some people are special some people ain't. Of course the foil for these powers, at least in traditional fantasy is that those who were physically weak could use the occult powers to even the playing field. There is also a cliche for long lived people, but they don't live hundreds of years. They are the magic users who bonded with water elementals and as they are the worlds healers they preserve and regenerate their own bodies as a matter of course. There is one fantasy cliche that Butcher employs with a broad brush. Magic is divided into the standard four elements, Fire, Earth, Wind and Water, with some unusual additions. While that sort of cliche is a little tired, Butcher does some novel things with it. But more of that in magic. No elves or dwarves, but there are giant spiders!

3) Scope: so when I first heard about Jim Butcher it was with all the gushing excitement of a thirteen year old on the Tor website. They made it sound like he was the second coming of Robert Jordan. I was skeptical, but figured I'd get around to him eventually. My skepticism has proved well founded. What made the worlds of Jordan, Martin and Erikson so remarkable was their scope. This is why scope is a signal element to a great fantasy. When you step into a world of someone's making and, to your delight, find it every bit as detailed as your own--it's exciting on a level so deep that every chapter almost throbs with life. How does one achieve it? To be honest, I am still working on that. It's not the number of books, or size of the words on the page, its not a world map with continents of people. It's not the number of characters-though that has something to so with it. It's not the number of political parties, or factions or world destroying g forces. It's literally about how the book is written.

Jim Butcher's world is large, and I already took the next two books out from the library. But the scope... Is merely pedestrian. I wrote a scene recently in a Jordan fanfic that I work on, and in it I have described in detail the vintages of wine from Tear, Cairhien and Altara (three separate nations in the Wheel of Time) I also described three works of art from no less than three different Ages. I'm not tooting my own horn, Jordan's world supplied the framework for this level of detail. I could create the same in Butcher's world, but it would be of entirely my own creation, and it would be a desecration of his work to add such detail. But Jordan's world is different, from book one we were provided tantalizing glimpses into the history of this continent, glimpses from time periods as disparate as twenty years prior to a thousand years before the present! That is depth.

Butcher chose to begin these tales in medias res. and it works, the book is a fun, fast read. But starting a political drama at the center of a world leaves little room to grow. We know that the present King is old and heirless, we know that there is much unrest, and that there are "many" people trying to take advantage. But the plot, SPOILER, is based on just one Lord's efforts to unseat the crown. After book one of Game of Thrones, you knew Cersei was a bitch, but you had no idea that the next book would detail the first year of the War of Five Kings.

 

Gratuitous picture of Queen Cersei by Teilku

There just isn't the level of detail necessary in the Codex of Alera to do that, not in book one. Which leads me to your next objection. You say, but surely scope must be in some way dependent on size, book two and three will add detail. True, but without the proper set up, you run into what I call the Wizard's First Rule Problem. Terry Goodkind's series was very successful, but when a friend once told me that you could either be a Goodkind girl or a Jordan girl, but not both, I was offended. Both men's first novels were designed to be stand alone books. Both morphed into ten book series. Only the smallest part of Jordan's world was explored in that first book, but much was alluded too. Goodkind's kingdom and its Big Bad Lord Rahl were dealt with in that first book, to fix the error he had to invent a threat from a whole other continent. A place that had simply not existed in that first novel, it wasn't until the second novel that he layed down the seeds for a saga. The device lacked the cohesive foresight of WoT. Butcher has indeed left room to grow, the mystery of Tavi's parentage, the mystery behind the slave Fade, the First Lord's wife (SPOILER) having an affair with Lord Aquitane, etc.  Clearly there is much going on, and I am excited to continue reading.  But as of now I have no desire to visit Alera.

An Earth Fury by MctChapman at DeviantArt

Magic: where would we be without it? The source of magic in Alera at least for the local humans are elemental spirits that bond with them. These spirits or furies, vary in strength and some furies have physical manifestations, while others are more ephemeral.  The stronger a fury, the higher in the caste strata a man can rise.  That said nobility remains patriarchal and passes on from generation to generation.  An interesting point is that power over Furies does seem to be hereditary.   The Furies are divided up into the standard element cliche, Fire, Earth, Wind, Wood, Water, and though there doesn't seem to be a physical fury for Metal, they seem to exist in many people, particularly in blacksmiths and swordsmen. Likewise a man can be bonded to more than one Fury. So Wood and Earth furies are common in at least two of the main characters. Unusual for the genre, Butcher doesn't spend too much time describing his system of magic, which provides solid evidence against one of Sanderson's guiding fantasy principles. Namely that magic must be rigorously standardized and adhere to its own rules. Butcher's furies are capable of new and novel things and the lack of explanation doesn't truly inhibit the power of the story. So Woodcrafters can move the forest to cover their tracks. They can guide arrows to targets. Earthcrafters are strong but they can also sense things both above the ground and below it, they can build walls and roads. Windcrafters can basically do all the things that the X-man Storm could do, fly, cause storms, lift targets, etc.  One neat thing that Butcher uses to enliven this cliche is that the elements can combine in natural and intelligent ways. A windcrafter can't start a fire, but as fire requires air, she can propel one a long distance or make a fire into a conflagration. A watercrafter is a healer, and unlike most magical healing, that merely binds wounds, eliminates viruses or bacterial infections, etc. it can actually restore lost limbs. Another trope that Butcher breaks is that healers can't heal themselves. In Alera, healers heal themselves first.  In fact their furies do it without conscious effort, and thus Watercrafters can live for one to two hundred years. As I said earlier, the furies are somewhat undefined. They exist as beings that bond to people but, it is revealed in the second book that many humans do not bond with individual furies, or at least that the ones they bond with contain little individuality. City folk furies are like this, country folk name their furies and seem to have a relationship with them. Inconsistencies abound in the Fury lore, but while this was somewhat irksome to me at first, I sense that one of the overall plot devices for the trilogy will unravel some of these mysteries. Suffice it to say, it is a clever use of a cliche, and a novel new form of magic.

Theme: last and hardest to define. Butcher's world uses slavery. I'm not sure why slavery has become endemic to modern fantasy writers, Sanderson's new story uses it, as does Butcher's. Slavery existed in medieval Europe, but it existed as serfdom, which was different. Serfs were the lowest of the caste society but they were still part of the society. Slaves are not part of the society, they are alien and not accorded the basic rights of humanity. They exist outside the social structure which is why their rights can be restricted in ordinary men's minds. It adds a dimension of darkness to any realm. That said, while Butcher's world contains dark elements such as sex slavery, it doesn't feel dark. This is in part because of the main character Tavi. Tavi represents what is perhaps the ultimate fantasy cliche, he is Good. And he's smart, which makes him much more likeable than say Sam or Frodo who just seemed too saccharine and idiotic to be more than patsies. But Tavi, like The Ta'veren Trio, is good and pure in a way that makes every chapter in which he belongs a delight to read. There is one thing, a nit really, but it does alter the theme. There is sex in this novel. I'm not sure how comfortable I am with that. Without getting gross, let me say, I love sex, and eroticism. But I can't square the circle of seeing it in my swords and sorcery. I don't know if it's because it's too "sweet" or that it seems disingenuous, but I just don't feel it. Here or elsewhere. I guess it adds a component of adulthood to the text, which reminds me to warn you that there is a brutal rape scene. It added little to the story but did at the very least demonstrate the depths of depravity of slavery.

Suffice it to say: the Theme of Calderon is entirely wrapped up in the viewpoints of its three largest characters: Tavi, Isana, and Amara. All three of whom believe in what is good, what is kind, what is right, and the importance of the rule of law.  And those themes are good enogh for me.

Do yourself a favor, get the first four books altogether.  It's hell trying to wait until I can get my hands on a copy of the fourth book.

Marat, by Sandera at Deviant Art, a beautiful illustration of the Marat horde moving toward Alera.

Brandon Sanderson's Way of Kings

My review of The Way of Kings, must start with certain caveats. First, I must cop to a certain envy of Brandon Sanderson, a man younger than myself, who is incredibly prolific, and talented, and successful, and... hand picked by Harriet Jordan to complete the Wheel of Time. My own attempts to start my career in fantasy have been thwarted mostly by myself. So, it is important to view my criticisms of his writing through a slightly jealous veil.

That said, I do have certain valid criticisms, of his writing style, and his view of fantasy. Also, looking at his essay on magic, though well intentioned as a guide to young writers, it doesn't quite fit the facts of some very successful sagas.

One thing is undeniable, Sanderson is a formidable story teller. I have read several of his Mistborn series, and Elantris, and each book is a well laid out, truly engrossing story. The same must be said for Way of Kings. And though his writing may not be my cup of tea, I certainly intend to finish the series, unlike Mistborn, which I did not complete.

I think I must state outright that, I think his writing lacks the sophistication of Martin, the breadth of vision of Jordan, the complexity and sublety of Erikson, the familiarity of the Eddings team, the cohesiveness of Weiss and Hickman. Any reader should know that going in to one of his stories. But maybe, Sanderson doesn't need to do that, he's made his own place in the starry sky of modern fantasy.

Let's go to the fantasy five.

Character: this is one of the things that I think Sanderson falls down on. The hero of this epic is a young soldier/slave named Kaladin. The book is over a thousand pages, probably 20% of that is given to describing Kaladin's state of mind, chiefly his depression. As Kaladin is as deep as a teapot, this makes for some boring reading. My wife has a saying that she used to describe certain boys when she was on the market: "darkness is not depth: do not mistake depression for intelligence, charisma, wisdom, or introspection". Kaladin has some decent reasons for being down, but for whatever reason, the constant vacillating on his state of mind, really just bores. That said, I found Dostoevsky's  Underground Man similarly irritating, and Notes from the Underground is considered to be one of his seminal short stories. In Way of Kings, even on page 600, Sanderson has Kal again teetering on the brink of his boring depression. Again. I don't have anything against depression, and for all I know the writer himself may have struggled with it, but it does not for concise story telling make, and Way of Kings would be a better book if it were about 200 pages shorter.

A beautiful illustration of Kaladin with Syl, by Dixon Leavitt, http://dixondoodles.blogspot.ca/2010/10/kaladin-meets-syl.html

Kaladin's history is told in increments through out the novel, culminating in the secret reveal in the last 100 pages. Several secrets revealed. One of which was worth it, the other of which, the reason for his depression, was, frankly not.

However, I am an optimist, and I do like Kaladin. And it was his story, not Shallan's, not Dalinar's that made me want to complete this novel.

Shallan's story, told in a different country of the same world was almost useless. I won't waste too much breath on Shallan. Much was made of her wit, by Sanderson, but to me, her wit was a slug-like thing next to the satirical utterances of Tyrion Lannister, or even Jaime Lannister. For some reason, Sanderson's editors at Tor (I love you darling people, so don't hate me for saying this) thought it was a good idea to keep the entire length of a poorly written essay by Shallan in the text of the book. It was not. It is a bad essay, and any non creative writing professor, and a few of them as well would have reduced it, and Shallan to shreds.

One neat note: I suspect Sanderson is an artist, because he describes the process of drawing, in so far as it works for me, very well. And all of the book's illustrations are quite good, though I haven't bothered to find out if they are his or not.

The other epic hero is Dalinar, who, interestingly is a much older man than usual in fantasy. He has to be about fifty, with a 20 year old son. That's good. As a man getting older myself, I find myself frustrated by the fact that say, all of Jordan's central characters are between the ages of 18 and 22.  Rand al'Thor frequently acts impossibly mature for his tender 22 years.  However, Dalinar suffers from the same problem that all of Sanderson's characters do, he's one dimensional.

You can get an idea of what I'm talking about from a casual sampling of his "extras". Sailors are crude but happy, blacksmiths are big and jolly, priests ingratiating, standard nobles are feckless, you get the picture. As I've written ad nauseum, tropes are a necessary part of writing, yet... It doesn't work for Sanderson. His characters are Saturday morning cartoon versions of what ought to be a made for HBO series.

Cliche: Sanderson is not a believer in the use of standard fantasy cliches. I don't have a problem with that necessarily. There are no dwarves or elves, and the magic, which I'll discuss in depth, seems to be original. However, as I've suggested, Sanderson's lack of character depth means that the central characters all rely on the bad sorts of cliches, the types that are unintentional and indicative of bad writing.

Sanderson breaks with standard cliches in the following ways. There seems to be no central awful evil one, not by the end of the first book at least. We know that there were, thousands of years ago, crazed beasts called the Voidbringers, which sounds a lot like the beasts that destroyed the land of the Never Ending Story, the Nothing. The races that populate this world, are nothing like the other races we have come to love, they are different colours, but carnival colours. Class and caste are determined by eye color. Size differences are slight, and poorly delineated. The biggest cliche that Sanderson dispenses with is the simple air and water his characters live on. The continent in which the action takes place, is like the ocean bed from The Little Mermaid. I kid, but Sanderson's imagination runs wild with this world. This was truly inspired. A funny example is that there are chickens in this world, but they are rare and exotic. People eat crustacheans only and grow seaweed from rock pods. Pretty neat, though it trends toward science fiction. 

A Warg from the Never Ending Story

As I wrote, Sanderson is invested in some cliches, standard story type cliches, thus sloppy writing cliches. It's one thing to call to mind a sailor with his lewd mouth and ruddy complexion, it's another thing to make him act like an after school special, version of himself. I think that's one way other writers successfully use cliches. The Belgariad's Durnik, was exactly the sort of man you'd expect to be a smith, as is Perrin from the Wheel of Time. Yet, each of these characters had a subtle sense of originality. durnik's heartbreaking devotion to Polgara, Perrin, slow to rage, yet given to his wolven nature of blood frenzy.

Speaking specifically about the story's main hero, Kaladin, SPOILER ALERT, I mentioned the Coming of Age cliche, and the Hero's Redemption, cliche. I think one of the greatest examples of the Hero's Redemption is Mad Mordigan from the film Willow, whose first appearance is having been locked in a cage and left to rot. The first time we meet Kal, he is a proud and strong soldier, a few years later he is an escaped slave, recaptured and bitter, but not broken. Gradually we see him enliven, and boy do I mean gradually.

Mad Martigan from Willow as we first see him, in chains like the scoundrel he is.

Another familiar cliche, The Am I Going Crazy cliche, is used for the story's older hero Dalinar, the old warrior who begins to have prophetic visions. I think this works rather well for Sanderson, even if it is somewhat tired, and the answer to the cliches question, is simply "no". When Jordan used the Am I Going Crazy Cliche in Lord of Chaos, it was to describe The emergence of Lews Therin Telamon in Rand Al'Thor's mind. Jordan showed his depth with that one, and the answer was much more complicated than simply yes or no. Still, the novel is already too long, and even more boring soul searching would have further dragged the novel down.

Scope: The best thing Way of Kings has going for it, are its magic and its scope. Little Mermaid with gigantic swords, is actually a great start to a story. And the book is full of interesting little details, for example, the female nobility of Alethkar, keep one hand, their "safe hand" hidden as is only proper for a lady of good breeding. Men and women have acceptable norms for behaviour. Men should study war and be fighters, women, should study music and reading and writing. In fact, men are intentionally illiterate, typically having their wives scribe for them, reading books aloud, or writing messages out for their husbands. I like this, not because I don't like equal rights in my fantasy, but because sexual dimorphism is a real thing. I am constantly surprised by the number of really powerful women fighters in Steven Erikson's novels, and he is an practicing anthropologist! I don't mind the idea of it, but if you have them, then they can't allbe thin wisps, most of them would have to be like Martin's Brienne of Tarth, big, or ugly, and literally built like a man. Swords are heavy, armour is even heavier.

The Maid of Tarth, played excellently by GWENDOLINE CHRISTIE, who happens actually to be quite pretty in real life.

But i digress, the scope of this planet is large, and you get the feeling that Sanderson spent considerable time developing it. that said, it isn't deliverd particularly skillfully. One of the things that made the world of the Wheel of Time so compelling, was that it started out small, in a small village called Emond's Field, far from anywhere else. But Jordan didn't declaim as Author, "the people of this subcontinent eat fillet of fish," or "the people of this continent only eat fried bugs," what we learned, we learned through the omniscient story telling voice of whatever characters were central at that time. The villagers of Emond's Field knew that far to the south, a city named Tear existed, but they wouldn't have been able to tell much more than that. Jordan made damn clear, almost annoyingly so by page 7000, that people learn by rumor, by word of mouth, and even the omniscient voice was frequently wrong about the facts.

Emond's Field, the cover of the Wheel of Time's first installment, The Eye of The World

All of which to say, Sanderson throws a lot at you at once. It is nice that the action takes place in several kingdoms at once (though I would have nixed Shallan as a character altogether) but, at this early early stage of the game, it's sort of unnecessary and distracting. The main story is about Kaladin, and that takes place on the Shattered Plains, where Chasm Fiends roam like giant lobsters. With flashbacks to his homeland, just over the border. Kaladins fellow slaves are from all over the world, and are thus incredibly diverse, showing just how much Sanderson has in store for us. And yet--I don't buy in.

A beautiful rendering of a Chasm Fiend, by Mighty5cent, and courtesy of http://bookswithoutanypictures.wordpress.com/2011/08/29/way-of-kings-readalong-part-iv/

It takes a singular talent to make new races, new peoples, and to introduce them in such a way as to hold to the reality of the world. Because that is what we are talking about ultimately with fantasy. The world bends or breaks the laws of Earth, and the Galaxy in general, but it must adhere to its own rules. Sanderson knows this, indeed a portion of essay on magic systems stems from observations bout internal consistencies. Sanderson is rigid about making sure his system works, and I commend his outstanding creativity.

The world of Way of Kings is truly ground breaking. Still, it might have been nice for him to explain some of its intricacies through the characters, and not through bland references to far away kingdoms and customs. A good example of this idiot tactic, is Kaladin's blithe reference to Corinne's slave rules.  I guess there is some nation named Corinne, or person, or state, where they've established laws that govern slavery.  While it is absolutely fascinating, and a worthy endeavor to detail such laws, that's not what Sanderson did, he threw this supposedly obscure reference in to add depth, I know its bad writing because I do it myself.  It just comes off as amateurish.  When Jordan does the same thing, a good example would be Birgitte Silverbow, who has lived countless lives as she is attached to the Wheel of Time as one of its greatest heroes.  She makes fun passing analogies, like, "Elayne's always looking down her nose like some Tovan Councilor."  But the context for Birgitte has been established, she has lived dozens of times, and each time she was born and died a member of a different nation, in a different land, it's only natural for her to mention names we've never heard of.  And, even better, Jordan will bring up those references, miniscule as they are, later when we find out hundreds of pages further along that a Tovan Councilor is a really snooty elder from a nation that died during the Trolloc Wars.  I sincerely doubt that we will ever see reference to the Corinne Rules again.  That is not to say he doesn't always get it right.  He did do a neat job with describing chicken. Naturally, these crustacean devouring Alethkari, think it the most exotic food, and, he even includes a random trading scene where chickens are acquired (somehow relevant to the plot, but I can't say how.)

image by quargon http://grand-fantasy.tumblr.com/post/36947495502/shardblade-concepts-by-quargon-conceptual-art-of

Magic: not to be out done by his own system of allomancy in the Mistborn saga, the Stormlight Archive, the proposed name for the saga Sanderson hopes will be his opus, uses several systems of magic. There are Sheardbearers, men who wield gigantic swords reminiscent of he blades from manga comics. The swords are magic and weigh little to their owners. I must say I enjoy this particular brand of magic, a child of Dungeon and Dragons, and Final Fantasy video games, I am much enamoured of magic swords, and they are not as common as you might think in contemporary fantasy. It was the openings scene of this novel, which I read in a Tor newsletter sample over two years ago that made me want to purchase this novel two begin with. That opening scene featured a dozen of these gigantic blades rammed into the ground after a megalithic battle. That opening had real promise, sadly, the book itself has not measured up to its glorious beginning.

But I digress again, there are other forms of magic: Stormlight, soul casting (which is creating matter out of thin air) and some power called Lashing, that uses Stormlight (Sanderson's source of Magic are these massive high storms that pass through every week or so. The power gathers in gems, which powerful people use to power their magic items). Lashing uses some of the facets of Allomancy, namely, the push me pull you method of moving. It is a singularly scientific manner of creating a system of magic, people who are flying aren't defying gravity, so much as using methods of force and trajectory, with the allocations of various elements. In Mistborn, allomancers use different kinds of metals to perform different actions, and the metal "burns" during use, such that it disappears. Because magic always has to have limits. Similarly, gems lose their light after infusing the caster with Stormlight.  Interesting that Sanderson's opus uses such a similar method of magic, Stormlight, as his last trilogy. It harkens to another fantasy cliche, Fire and Ice. In all final fantasy games, and in many manga epics, including Naruto, the earth is divided into elements that complement each other: fire and ice, earth and wind, lightning and water (much as that ancient Greek philosopher Thales did). I don't think this was intentional, but the magic system of Mistborn clearly was "earth" while the magic of Way of Kings, is "lightning". As I've said dozens of times, I see nothing wrong with the use of cliche. It enhances a story, it says without saying, implies without utterance.  In this case, I think it novel.

One of the things at which Sanderson excels, is his technical treatments of magic and battles. The second prologue in Way of Kings, (I call it a prologue, because it proceeds the main action of the story by five years, not because Sanderson designates it as such) has a fantastic scene during which a minor but pivotal character, the Assassin in White, is introduced. It is a phenomenal battle scene, and reminds me about of some of the battles in the science fiction epic, Enders Game, where gravity and perspective are thrown to the four winds. Good work Sanderson, good work.

Last...we have Theme. As usual it is the hardest to define, and the most important piece of the puzzle. Oftentimes, We know what we like, the second we see it. Sometimes, we have to do a thing, or see a thing many times before we know that. What is the difference? Does it matter? I knew I liked the Wheel of Time immediately. A song of Ice and Fire, (Game of Thrones) I hated at first, because I was young, and having my favourite characters killed was awful. But successive rereads over the years have made me love Game of Thrones dearly. I did not like Harry Potter at first,  I thought the writing childish and simplistic (and its teenie bopper lit, so that's not wrong) but the cleverness, and growth of the characters in successive books made it well worth it. I knew the second I cracked the cover of The Black Company that it was awesome.

 But where does Way of Kings fit in all of that? I look forward to the second book, published in a matter of days I believe. But... as you may have guessed, I'm not a Sanderson groupie. There is just something about the writing that puts me off. In Fires of Heaven, when Rand al'Thor stares off into the mountains and asks Asmodean if he knew what those distant ruins were, Asmodean shrugs and says he doesn't know, that the world has changed too much. But I believe Jordan knew. Or, if he did not, he could have fit those nameless ruins into his epic without upsetting the story, or world history. I do not have that same confidence with Sanderson. Nor did I with Goodkind.  If I had to define Sanderson's theme, it might be, I see him as a fantasy cover artist who had a gift with words, who can visualize and depict incredibly intricate worlds, but does not have the depth of a great game changing writer. And he definitely tries, there's enough, faux pholosophy and character analysis to indicate that if he could do it, he would have.  He is the John Grisham of his genre, that's not too cold I don't think. Grishams novels are vastly entertaining, and they will keep you on the edge of your seat, waiting to find out what happens next, but they won't educate you, they won't enlarge your experience, and they won't make you a better person. And sadly, I think that must be true of Way of Kings as well. Which is sad, because the title of the book is named after a book that was aimed at doing precisely that.

Great Moments in Fantasy - Anaster's Grief

So, I hate to do this, but there are so many good moments in Memories of Ice.  I had to choose two great moments which I will post separately.  Both involve the character Itkovian, the Shield Anvil to the God Fener.

The first, I call Anaster's Grief.  In my previous post on Memories of Ice, you probably noted my reverence for the character Itkovian.  I won't go into it in depth here, and the moment below explains what he is, and what he does pretty adequately.  What you may not know is that Anaster is what they call, a "Child of the Dead Seed" his mother, (one of the first witches of the Pannion Seer) is a fanatic, who slept with a dying soldier on the battlefield.  The Pannion Seer preaches, of course, that the Dead Seed is holy, and that children born of such a union are his personal shock troops. Anaster was the first Child of the Dead Seed, and is its leader. He's a young man with empty eyes.

-----

Anaster by Luktarig at Devaint Art

Itkovian studied the young man, and saw what he had not expected to see.  'First Child,' he said.  'There is despair within you.  I will take it from you, sir, and with it your burdens.'


Anaster jolted as if he had been physically struck.  He drew his knees up, climbed onto the seat of the throne, face twitching.  A hand closed on the strange obsidian dagger in his belt, then fliched away as if the stone was hot.


His mother screamed, clawed up her son's outstretched arm.  Snarling, he pulled himself free.  She sank down ot he floor, curled up.


'I am not your father,' Itkovian continued, 'but I shall be as him.  Unleash your flood, First CHild.'


The young man stared, lips peeling back to bare his teeth. 'Who -- what are you?' he hissed.


The captain stepped forward. 'We forgive your ignorance, sir,' she said. 'He is the Shield Anvil.  Fener knows grief, so much grief that it is beyond his capacity to withstand it.  And so he chooses a human heart. Armoured. A mortal soul, toa ssume the sorrow of the world.  The Shield Anvil.


'These days and nights have witnessed vast sorrow, profound shame -- all of which, we see now, is writ as plain knowledge in your eyes.  You cannot deceive yourself, sir, can you?'


'You never could,' Itkovian said. 'Give me your despair, First Child.  I am ready to receive it.'


Anaster's wail rang through the main hall.  He clambered still further up the throne's high back, arms wrapping around himself.


All eyes held on him.


No one moved.


Chest heaving, the First Child stared at Itkovian.  Then he shook his head. 'No,' he whsipered, 'you shall not have my -- my despair.'


The captain hissed. 'This is a gift! First Child--'
'Not!'
Itkovian seemed to sag.  Sword-pont wavering, lowering.  The recruit moved close to support the Shield Anvil.
'You cannot have it!  You cannot have it!'
The captain's eyes were wide as she turned to Itkovian.  'Sir, I am unable to countenance this--'


The Shield Anvil shook his head, slowly straightened once more. 'No, I understand. The First Child - within him there is naught but despair.  Without it...'


He is as nothing.

----

It's easy to feel pity for Anaster here, despite the atrocities he and his 'family' have committed.  The slaughter of innocents, the mass cannibalizations of entire subjugated cities.  He was raised by an insane woman, worshipping an insane religion, being cynically controlled by the Crippled God.  A God who wants everyone to feel the pain his own crippling caused him.  His entire birth was an abdomination, and yet--somehow he is an innocent.  And the Shield Anvil can see it, deep within his soulless body.  Well played Erikson.

Azure Bonds by Kate Novak and Jeff Grubb

Now this is really the beginning of the Forgotten Realms Novels.  You might remember my complaints about Darkwalker on Moonshae. It was a fairly shallow piece of princely do-goodery, that really said nothing about the Realms or their history.

Azure Bonds is everything I hoped for.  It has the beginnings of characters who were well known to me, long before I started reading the Realms, action, adventure, and humor.  If there was no romance, that's ok.  This time.  When I was a young kid, Dungeon & Dragons, attempted to compete with the already-past its prime moment of "Magic the Gathering" with a series of cards called "SpellFire".  Given that TSR, owned the rights to much of the famous Dungeons and Dragon's artwork, they had a ready supply of easily choppable art for these cards.  And they often kept characters more or less intact.  I had the Alias card, the lusty redhead above.  I always thought she was crazy sexy, and so I was curious about who this person was.  Well, now I know.

As a side note, I actually saw people playing Magic the Gathering a few weeks back, in a pizzeria on the Upper East Side.  The guy was actually showing off for a girl.  He had every single card in a thick, clear, possibly bullet proof, plastic container.  Which is crazy.  That's a "back away slowly" kind of dude.  I keep my Spellfire cards under lock and key.  If I showed them to my wife, she'd probably divorce me.
Let's get back to the Fantasy Five, something I've ignored in my ardor over the Malazan Book of the Fallen.

1) Character
2) Cliche
3) Scope
4) Magic
5) Theme

Character:

Azure Bonds is definitely a plot driven story.  But it has some interesting philosophical points, as any fantasy and science fiction novel must, that help define character.  I won't ruin it for anyone who wants to reread this classic, but the nature of the main character is a central dispute of the novel.  Regardless, the main character, a warrior woman named Alias, is an extremely likable character.  She's sarcasic and clever, but at the same time cares for her companions.  Her supporting adventurers are also extremely likable, and somewhat genre breaking, save for the Halfling Thief.  The wizard, though is a what Alias calls, "A Green Grocer" a merchant of magic, and not a true wizard with the long white hair, and the mysterious airs.  The halfling, though stereotypically a thief, is a fun and enjoyable character.  Mostly, characters are skin deep in Azure Bonds.  That said, we do learn some things about Alias, and her father, that provide some interesting character insights.  Unfortunately, I can't talk much about them without spoiling the book.  Of course, the best character, is Elminster, the very essence of quixotic wizard.  And though the character of Elminster is minor, and fairly cliched, you can't help but love the fiercely powerful, irascible old coot.

Cliche:

Azure Bonds takes place in the Dungeons & Dragons, rule-based system, and in the Forgotten Realms Universe, that comes with all of the Dungeons & Dragons cliches.  That said, Novak manages to make the magic and combat systems seem completely natural and not stilted or forced.  Which makes sense, I mean, the original 2nd Edition Rules were supposed to make combat realistic.  If it didn't involve so much THACO and Armor Class shenanigans, it wouldn't have been such a trying game.  Regardless, Forgotten Realms also made several cliche's of its own.  One of the mega villains, a fantastic creation called Moander, a dark God, who is literally a living wall of reanimated detritus, was used by the UbiSoft developers in the Heroes of Might and Magic series of video games.  Used in both Three and Four, here he is reimagined.  Of course, Kate Novak's Moander looks nothing like this undead piece of work, but the developers paid homage in many respects to both D&D, DragonLance, and Forgotten Realms. In terms of character cliche's there are relatively few.  The character of the halfling thief was fairly trite, but she's a non-essential character (though her actions are important). 

Scope:
The scope of Azure Bonds provides a narrowness of focus that gives ample detail about the Forgotten Realms, while not being needlessly compartmentalized as Darkwalker was.  The action starts in the town of Suzail in the nation of Cormyr.  One thing that the Realms reminds us is that the writ of law is only as strong as the nation that rules.  And the Realms are relatively small fiefdoms, with various small time Kings.  There isn't the sense of international politics that there is in Jordan's or Martin's epics.  There are some political upheavals, but so far, things are pretty local.  Sometimes I like that.  It takes an awful lot of memory and concentration to understand the politics of dozens of fictional nations.  I know that Tear sold grain to Illian and Cairhien despite a trade embargo on the one, and civil war on the other.  That's pretty messed up.  I know about as much or more about those three nations as I do Iran, Iraq and Syria.  One thing that bothered me though, was the interplanar warfare that occurs later in the book.  The concept of planes is very neat, and it is central to Ed Greenwoods original concept of what the Realms were--but in this case, it seems like too much of a convenience for a writer to engineer an exciting ending.  I like that the Realms are fairly grounded.  The magic has limits, and even though there is a much more diverse panoply of creatures to choose from, they are all bounded by the rules of a game, making them less.  Boundaries are important in fantasy, you have to adhere to the rules you set.

Magic:
I've covered this in some part.  Spells take time to cast, they use a variety of scrolls and components, they need to be memorized before each use, etc. etc.  The magic is covered by the Dungeons & Dragon's cliches, however, it still comes across as a novel, not the mechanical manifestation of spell casting in video games and in the old paper and pencil method.  But...there are times when the magic wielded does seem to completely bypass the rules altogether.  Given that Novak and Grubbs were writing when fantasy fiction was in its adolescence, this rookie mistake can be glossed over.  It's a genuinely entertaining story.

Theme:
That Azure Bonds qualifies as fantasy fiction is unmistakable.  The themes are all there, companions, loyalty, friendship.  Likewise, the evil triumvirate, greed, pursuit of immortality, and the pursuit of power, plagues the supervillains in this novel.  One theme however, permeates the Realms in a way that other mega epics fail.  The stories of the realms, Azure included, reinvigorate the notion of the quest.  In all the big serialized fantasy worlds, there are a small set of characters who pursue a goal for thousands of pages.  The goals change, but they're all in pursuit of a larger purpose.  The Realms, unlike the world of DragonLance, a war torn world with heroes and an evil goddess, were designed to be episodic, referential without commanding a single story line.  This is a concept that has been lost by modern fantasy.  And it's sad.  Because the quest doesn't always have to be epic, it can sometimes be as hard as a paralyzed man learning to wiggle his toes, or a pair of skinny kids freeing their sister from a den of Orcs.

Overall, I encourage readers to dust off this 1988 special.

Anne McCaffrey - Dead

Just a brief note to mourn the passage of a childhood writer of mine, Anne McCaffrey.  I've written a review of Dragonsdawn, and given her a Great Moment in Fantasy.  The Dragonriders of Pern is a series that has been imprinted indelibally on my mind.  She was a formidable writer, and I hope an excellent human being.  Certainly in her writing, her stories and characters, she exemplified the hallmarks of what good fantasy is all about: kindness, self-sacrifice, love, and the courage to weather the storm.

Michael Whelan, her illustrator for years, and who painted the right side of my webpage banner speaks eloquently on her departure.  And some of Whelan's best work is posted at the above link.

The Walking Dead Season 1 v Walking Dead Comic

So, I'm a great fan of Zombie fantasy, fiction, comedy, horror, you name it.  And so I was thrilled that someone had made a TV series about the Zombie Apocaplypse, The Walking Dead.  I had never heard of the comic until then, and I didn't watch the series until far after it came to the screen.  Also, as a full disclosure, I have not read to where Season One ends in the comic, though I have already been told that the CDC plays absolutely no role in it.

Anyway, I wanted to write today--not a review, but a commentary, on zombie fiction and in particular about the divergence between the Walking Dead comic and series.

First of all, some definitions.  Let's say that there are five separate Zombie genres at work here, though most movies use several different definitions of zombie type at once.

Zombie B-Horror.
This is the movie that we've all seen.  Radioactive waste falls off a truck in a small, depressed western town.  The good guy gets the girl, and the town drunk/rapist/plutocrat gets it in the end--happy ending.  The zombies either end up all dead, or the military successfully cordons off the town and bombs the shit out of it.  Last frame:  One zombie escapes: future unknown.  Themes:  Guy gets Girl, Evil is Punished, Zombies are Gross, Suspense.  Examples:  Zombies, Zombies Zombies, and Evil Dead.

Zombie Apocalypse.
Though this genre was started in effect by George Romero, the Dawn of the Dead movies have always had a B-Movie flair to them, evincing little of the serious nature of films like 28 Days Later.  The Zombie Apocalypse is sweeping in scale, and crosses over into regular Apocalyptic themes of isolation and alienation. Zombie Apocalypse movies are scary, but they're not going for cheap laughs or basic horror flick thrills.  The thrill instead, is the thrill all of us get at seeing the entire world laid to waste.  Why is that a thrill?  Subject of another post my friends, another post. Themes: Isolation, alienation, Ludditism, anti-consumerism, survival in a post-apocalyptic world, anti-government.

The Rare Disease Zombie
The rare disease zombie is a cross over genre, and it's ultimately the more modern type of zombie.  Let's call it the accepted zombie rule at present.  Gone are the days when a zombie could be created by an evil necromancer, of which The Evil Dead movies have plenty.  Of course a film like 28 Days Later borrows from both the Rare Disease and Zombie Apocalypse genres.  Other films like Legend, use the same sort of class for typing zombies.  They aren't undead, or dead at all, they're merely changed to where they are no longer human, and need constant violence to survive. This presents a problem however, and requires some creative shooting.  A main component of what makes zombies scary, is the fact that they're decomposing.  Dead things = yuck.  So while Rare Disease zombies no longer feel pain, they are not really stopped by the things that would stop a living being. Bleeding out, sepsis, loss of limbs, etc.  Themes: Perfectly explainable zombies, no cure, hopeless, anti-science. Examples: I am Legend, 28 Days Later.

The Magic Zombie
Mentioned above, you NEVER see magic zombies anymore.  Why?  Who believes in magic?  For some reason, the belief in Rare Disease Zombie is perfectly acceptable.  Of course, in fiction, the Magic Zombie is unalive and well.  Particularly in the Malazan world of Steven Erikson.  In some ways, I think the Magic Zombie makes more sense than the Rare Disease Zombie.  After all, zombies are scientifically impossible.  The miracle of complexity that keeps our bodies motoring cannot exist without all the moving parts working more or less ok.  They might as well be motored by some force external to them.  Themes: Zombies are Gross, Zombies Defy Explanation, External Zombie Creation

The RomZomCom
These movies are awesome.  There is a lot of humor in the field, and Zombie B-Horror encapsulates a lot of that.  Movies like Evil Dead, and Dawn of the Dead are famous for their campy humor.  However, of late, a new genre, the RomZomCom has uprooted the old failsafes. These are very modern movies, with very smart sophisticated characters.  This is important to the genre, because B-Movie Zombies typically involve one or more bimbos and dumb jocks.  The zombiness isn't really explained, but it isn't really important either.  What's important is that the guy gets the girl.  Themes: Guy gets Girl, Jocks are Punished, Zombies are Gross, Survival. Examples: Shawn of the Dead, Zombieland.  By the way, if you haven't seen Zombieland, do it.  It's awesome.

Now that we've established our definitions, I think its safe to say that The Walking Dead is a hybrid Rare Disease Zombie, and Apocalyptic Zombie.  Our first thrills are seeing the empty hospital, the town completely ransacked.  The utter silence.  These things set up the exact type of expectations we would have for a Rare Disease Apocalyptic Zombie.  Already we know science has failed, the government has completely failed to control the situation, dogs and cats living together, you get the picture.  And Walking Dead does not disappoint.  Again and again, we see the dissolution of the world, the empty streets, the undead children, the broken windows.  Also, we see the failed actions of the government.  Rows of body bags, furnaces choked with semi crisp corpses.  Tanks and dead soldiers with machine guns lay willy-nilly.  This is an important aspect of the genre.  It says "Government Failed You."

Our hero is a family man.  This is a definite sign that this ain't no RomZomCom.  He has a wife and son, and they're missing.  So we have a direction.  Find the family.  This is fairly mundane to me, it's a common apocalypse theme.  And I totally get it, but it does make for a boring hero.  It makes for a particularly boring hero because you know that A) he finds his wife, or B) he finds his wife is dead, or C) he finds his wife and then she dies, or D) he finds his wife, and then he has to "kill" her.  Of course, in a Guy Gets Girl situation, you know that there's only one option, but the sexual tension, and eventual seduction provide endless entertainment.

While looking for his wife, a survivor bats him over the head, and we learn a few things.  A) we have no idea what happened, but it happened fast.  B) News reports told the people to flee to the cities.  Ok. I have a problem with this.  Almost every major disaster includes a plan to evacuate cities.  Why evacuate the countryside?  The answer is that "the government" decided that citizens would be easier to protect grouped together.  That's milarky.  And of course, as we find out later, "reality" bears this out as milarky when we discover that Atlanta was a warzone. And then an undead graveyard.  Frankly, I think it unlikely that people would be willing, or even able to flee to cities. Or that governments would urge people to go to them.  Rather, I think the government would issue two types of warning.  One) Stock Up, Lock Up.  Two) Set up Safe Zones and Facilities.

So he goes to Atlanta.  As someone who nearly moved to Atlanta, I was intrigued.  Atlanta is not a walking city.  From what I learned, you pretty much need a car to get around.  And so of course, he gets a horse.  This is the Luddite philosophy at work.  Man back to nature.  Of course, the horse gets eaten, and he survives by hiding out in a tank.  I have to say overall, the series was very entertaining.  So entertaining that I decided to read the comic book.

This was a mistake.  If the TV series is slightly right of center, the comic book is downright libertarian, conservative even.  The authors make it devastatingly clear that they don't trust the government, all men are cruel beasts just beneath the surface, think that children should carry guns, criminals should be punished with death, cities are awful, personal freedom is the only freedom, etc. yada yada.  The gun control thing is one of the more annoying aspects of the comic.  The mom and the dad have an argument about giving the kid a gun, and four pages later, the kid saves the mom's life with the gun.  Come on, Robert Kirkman, can't we leave politics out of the zombie apocalpyse so we can all enjoy the brain eating fun?

Lastly, apocalypse fiction is typically a little bit right of center.  Since a mainstay is the idea that without the strong arm of the law, chaos would reign, it follows that the heroes of such epics must be strong arms themselves.  Else how would they create order and safety in the Post-Apocalyptic world?  I object to this notion.  As anyone who reads Gods of Dark, or my politics blog, Ravingleftatic will know.  I'm essentially an optomist who believes in the good that men do.  And I think I have all of human history to prove me right.  Atrocity is NOT the norm.  Yes, the poor citizens of Syria are getting murdered by their government, but the history of the world is moving away from mobilized warfare to local, smaller stages.  I think this is a point in my direction.

I love Apocalypse fiction too, but for a different reason.  I like the survival aspect, the rebuilding aspect, the isolation aspect.  There are so many people in this world, what a strange thing it would be if you woke up one morning and the entire city was empty?  Not because I hate or distrust people, but because think of the wealth of wonderful people, personal histories destroyed.  I think about Pompeii sometimes, and how an entire civiliation was extinguished in mere moments.  There were husbands and wives, and children, and politics and crime, and love, and desire, all the elements of human drama, all gone, in an instant.  Thinking about those extinguished lives, and stories is why I love the genre, not from a fundamental belief that Hobbes was right and that the lives of men really are, nasty brutish and short.