Author: KC Winters

Book Review: “The Secret Commonwealth” (by Philip Pullman)

KC Winters

It’s hard to convey just how excited I was when I found out that Philip was writing a sequel to his wildly successful and influential His Dark Materials. I’d loved those books so much, and the prospect of returning to the world–to say nothing of once again following the adventures of Lyra and Pantalaimon–was almost too much.

And then La Belle Sauvage was published, and it was everything I wanted. Though set several years before the events of The Golden Compass, it was just so wonderful and enchanting to be back in the same quasi-Victorian novel of that first book, and to see the tumultuous events that led up to Lyra being granted sanctuary at Jordan College.

I absolutely loved the first book and, if possible, I loved the sequel even more.

The Secret Commonwealth takes place several years after the events of His Dark Materials. Lyra is now a student at Oxford, though she has increasingly found herself in conflict with her beloved dæmon Pantalaimon, who believes that she has lost her powers of imagination. Meanwhile, the Magisterium is up to its old tricks, with the sinister and cunning Marcel Delamare manipulating events and attempting to find Lyra. And then there is Malcolm Polstead, a Scholar at Oxford and part of a secret service organization known as Oakley Street, who attempts to both help Lyra and work against the repressions of the Magisterium.

One gets the feeling reading this book that Pullman is, to a degree, writing the story that he first envisioned when he finished The Golden Compass. I’m sure that I’m not the only one who felt that the story sort of went off the rails a bit in both The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass, which are so different from the first book that it’s sometimes hard to remember you’re reading part of the same series. (Let me be clear. I LOVED those books, but they were also not at all what I thought they were going to be when I finished The Golden Compass). Here, however, we stay strictly within Lyra’s world, and I personally loved that aspect of it.

The Secret Commonwealth is a bit more sprawling than other entries in the series, and we actually get to learn a bit more about what makes the Magisterium tick, largely through the perspective of Marcel Delamare. (We also get some fascinating glimpses into his personal connections to Lyra). I actually enjoyed these parts of the book quite a lot, not just because I love it when we hear from the villains (though I love that) but also because we learn a little bit about the history of this sprawling and increasingly repressive organization.

As with His Dark Materials, The Secret Commonwealth contends with some of the most pressing issues of our time. While, of course, much of Pullman’s biting criticism is reserved for organized religion and its dogmatism, he also gets in a few well-aimed digs at postmodernism, moral relativism, and rigid rationality. In terms of its critique of religion, Pullman has also expanded the range a bit, and the inclusion of “men from the mountains,” who happen to be from the Middle East and are repressive, dogmatic, and violent, seems sometimes to be a bit too on the nose in its correlation to certain groups in that area (their resemblance to ISIS is surely not an accident).

For all of its criticisms, however, the book is essentially an act of humanism. Pullman has a profound faith in the essential goodness of human nature, and there is no better illustration of this than the character of Lyra. Though she has grown up quite a bit from when we last saw her, there is much about her that accords with what we learned about her in His Dark Materials. She is still impulsive and brave and sometimes foolhardy, but she is also deeply sympathetic as a character, and she has a drive to be kind to others less fortunate than herself.

Yet Lyra can also be tremendously frustrating, and her growing rift with Pan is the greatest example of this. By the time that the novel takes place, she’s been falling into the trap of those new thinkers who argue either that there is no meaning to the world or that one should only use logic and reason. Though Pan tries to talk her out of this, she is so much under their sway that they end up fighting more often than not. And, as the novel makes clear, the events of the previous trilogy continue to cast a long shadow, particularly her decision to leave him beyond in the Land of the Dead.

By the end of The Secret Commonwealth we are presented with almost as many questions as we have answers. One of the narrative cruxes of the novel involves a certain variety of rose, which may provide some sort of elevated form of consciousness, and while many of the characters talk about it, it remains unclear exactly what it is or why the Magisterium wants it. We also don’t quite know much about the legendary city that Lyra seeks, except that it is supposedly the abode of dæmons who have been separated from their people. Assuredly, many of these–though probably not all–will be resolved by the end of the final volume.

All told, The Secret Commonwealth reveals that Pullman is still a master storyteller, writing at the height of his powers. I found myself absolutely enchanted by the story from the first page to the last, and as always this is a world that you can truly lose yourself in. The novel, at least for me, was a very quick read. While I wanted to take my time and savour it, I ultimately finished it far too quickly. I have a bad feeling that it’s going to be quite a while until we see the concluding volume. Sigh. Looks like it might be time to re-read the original trilogy again.

On the Pleasures of World Building

KC Winters

Ask any fan of epic fantasy what they enjoy most about the epic fantasy, and they will almost certainly tell you that they love seeing the way that epic fantasy authors create their own secondary worlds,

Certain fantasy authors have become famous for their ability to craft secondary worlds that have a level of depth and sophistication that are truly the envy of all of those who write in epic fantasy. Tolkien, of course, tops the list, if for no other reason than that he even provided his fictional people with a language all their own (and, of course, there is the fact that he created a fictional history that’s literally thousands of years long). Other, more recent authors have become giants in their own right. Brandon Sanderson is famous for his ability to create worlds that are as delightfully complex as our own, and George RR Martin has shown again and again that he has a very firm grasp on the convoluted histories of his own fictional world (even if he doesn’t always have the same grasp of his primary narratives, but that’s a different blog post). And of course Terry Brooks, in his sprawling Shannara series, has shown the ways in which an epic fantasy can have impacts that echo through numerous generations of a single family.

As we’ve embarked on our own epic fantasy story, we’ve found that one of the things we’ve enjoyed the most (aside from crafting our story, of course) has been the ability to create a world that’s entirely our own. From cosmology to countries, from customs to conflicts, we’ve begun putting the flesh on the bones of this sprawling secondary world (a term from Tolkien, by the way). It’s a little like being able to create your very own toy chest, with all of the attendant joys and perils.

Part of the pleasure for us comes from our love of history. The advantage of writing epic fantasy rather than historical fiction means that we can draw upon historical reality, even while we don’t have to have the same level of fidelity that a true historical novelist does (we don’t have to worry, for example, that some reader is going to criticize us for not adhering to history). At a broader level, it’s also fascinating to watch the ways that events that happened in the distant past in our created world have effects and consequences that echo down through the generations. In that sense, writing a history of your world is a little like writing actually history in that you gain a more nuanced understanding of how events and choices in one particular period can echo down the ages, changing everything that comes after that.

Another enjoyable aspect of world building is the excitement of discovery. Though of course we have a pretty extensive set of histories already built, any author will tell you that there are times when you’re writing a narrative when you accidentally find out that something happened in the past–whether that of a character of your fictional world–that totally changes how you thought about things. Just as importantly, it can sometimes radically change how you conceived of your plot and, while this is certainly a good thing a lot of the time, it can also be quite a challenge.

I guess you might say that fantasy-world building is a bit like playing God. After all, it’s entirely up to you what your world is going to look like, how its people are going to worship (assuming that you pay attention to matters of religion), how magic works (and what its history looks like), and how all of this impacts the characters that, presumably, you’ve already created. And, of course, you’ve got to make sure that your story meshes with your fictional history in a way that makes logical, organic sense. It’s all quite a lot to keep straight in your mind.

Because, of course, there are some more challenging parts of the whole world-building process. It’s very easy–for us, at least–to just sort of tumble down the wormhole. Sometimes, we get so invested in the creation of our world and all of the things about it that we forget that there’s actually a story that we’re trying to tell that’s set in this world. It’s hard to really explain this to someone who doesn’t either read or write epic fantasy, but it really is difficult sometimes to give the stories that are set in the present the love that they deserve. On the other hand, spending so much time building up a secondary world does give us opportunities to explore more stories in the future, so there’s always an upside.

Overall, world building is definitely one of the most satisfying and challenging aspects of writing epic fantasy. Just as you often find yourself both falling in love with and getting frustrated with the characters that you create, you often find your world taking on a bit of a life of its own. Sure, you may start off creating a theocracy loosely modeled on the Byzantine Empire, but soon you find elements of the Crusaders and the Templars moving in and that, in turn, begins to inflect the entire way that you had conceived of the essential conflict at the heart of the story. Sure, you start out with an empire sort of like Rome, but then it becomes a little something different, far more permissive of female empowerment than its historical predecessor. These are the sorts of changes that make world building such a pleasurable part of writing epic fantasy.

As we move forward with our series, we look forward to continuing to discover more about this world and the peoples that inhabit it. Just as importantly, we’re also looking forward to thinking about not only the past of this world, but also the future. There are so many stories that we’ve already started developing in this world, and we look forward to sharing all of them with you.

On Writing Queer Characters in Fantasy

KC Winters

There’s no doubt that as a genre fantasy has made some great strides in terms of representation. Even epic fantasy–notoriously conservative in its depiction of gender, sexuality, and race–has begun to catch up with the times, with women and people of color (and even some queer folks) finally staking their claims. It’s really quite refreshing to see the enormous diversity of voices that have come into their own as the genre has entered into a new phase, that it’s begun to move beyond its very Euro-centric biases.

However, to our eye it’s still pretty rare to find queer people as the heroes of their own stories. There are some recent exceptions to this rule–Tessa Gratton’s Lady Hotspur is one notable example–and of course the Kushiel books have a lot of queerness in them. However, it still seemed to us that epic fantasy needed its own queer couple to root for, a pair of heroes that were very much in love, indeed whose love would prove to be absolutely vital in their epic journey.

Thus, when we set out to write The Filliquian Chronicle, we knew from the beginning that we knew that our leads-Nicholas and Alric–were going to be lovers, and that what began as basically a one-night stand (with profound political consequences). However, as their journey has unfolded, we’ve found that simply having them engage in sexual encounters with men was not only repetitive; it also seemed like a betrayal of the religious system that we’d developed. So, with each of the books that we’re writing, we’re really asking our characters, particularly Nicholas, to think outside of the boundaries that have been imposed upon him and which he has taken to heart.

In that sense, The Filliquian Chronicle is itself a questioning not only of the ways in which people use faith to (often hypocritically) restrict and punish the expressions of healthy human desire, but also of the categories that we use when we talk about the expression of gender and sexuality. After all, the world that we’ve created doesn’t have to operate according to the same rules as ours does. Thus, in a nation like Troyeis, monogamy, even in marriage, is something of an anomaly rather than the norm. Indeed, as we’ve begun to follow Nicholas (who’s something of an ingenue), we find him experiencing the full range of human sexuality (even when he’s not comfortable doing so at first).

Indeed, it’s transpiring that, despite the many struggles Nicholas and Alric have endured and the many challenges their relationship has faced, that they do truly love one another. Though we still haven’t quite figured out the ending of the series as a whole, part of us hopes that these two characters will become the sort of figures that people can get invested in. After all, part of the reason we started writing this series was to fulfill the gaps that we sensed when we were younger fantasy aficionados yearning for queer heroes.

As we’ve begun to sketch out the later threads of our narrative, we’ve found that we need to add in more characters in order to capture the full range of human sexual and gender expression (or at least as full as we can come within the scope of one series). Indeed, when we started writing the storylines for the second major arc of our story, we found that there were a number of characters that were just clamoring to get their own voices heard. Some of these were characters that had already introduced in the first arc, but a number of others, including a young woman who is pansexual and a character that would probably identify as trans in our world, suddenly began to make appearances.

We want to emphasize, however, that we’re not interested in tokenism, and we’ve working very hard to avoid that particular fictional trap. We don’t want these characters to be defined exclusively in terms of their gender or sexuality, though of course that is a key part of who they are and we make no apologies for that fact. However, we also want our readers to see and to understand them as fully-fledged characters in their own right, with complex realities and ways of looking at the world. And, while some of them are heroes, some are decidedly not. To our mind, it’s high time that we have some unequivocally queer villains out there.

All of this, of course, is quite political, and we are very much aware of that fact. Representation matters, and it matters that our characters are queer (in all of the many ways that that word is defined). We’re almost making a concerted effort to include people of color in this world, not just as window-dressing and not just as dispensable characters. In fact, Alric is what we in our world would be called biracial, since his father is from the France-like nation of Troyeis, while his mother is from one of the southern kingdoms. What’s more, it matters that they engage in explicitly queer sex. We’ve made clear from the beginning of this process that we wanted to write an epic fantasy that was a fantasy in all the senses of the word, and we like to think that we’ve succeeded.

Are we going to get everything “right?” Almost certainly not. We understand that there are a lot of risks in including various minority groups in our fiction, precisely because, though we are queer ourselves, we recognize that there are many types of experience that we will never inhabit. However, what we hope to keep doing, as we work on The Filliquian Chronicle (as well as our various other projects), is to provide our readers, and ourselves, an opportunity to really and truly explore the world in new ways. If we happen to stumble a bit along the way, we hope to be able to make them learning experiences. And through it all we hope that you, dear readers, will enjoy reading our books as much as we enjoy writing them.

What We’re Reading (October 2019)

KC Winters

Since every good writer is always reading, we thought we’d share with some of you what we’re reading (and sometimes why).

Naamah’s Blessing (by Jacqueline Carey)

Since we’ve been making our way through the rest of the Kushiel series over the last several months, we’ve at last come to the final volume, in which Moirin must contend with the consequences of her previous actions. Though we’re not very far through it yet, there are already signs that this is going to break our hearts by the end. As always, Carey has a keen eye for sensual (and sexual detail), and you cannot help but feel yourself swept up in the grand adventure of it all.

The Ruin of Kings (by Jenn Lyons)

This was one of those 2019 fantasy releases that basically begged to be read. It’s quite compelling reading so far, though it does sometimes get a bit difficult to navigate the complex interweaving of temporalities that the author puts into play to tell her story. However, there is no doubt that she’s constructed a fascinating world for the story to inhabit, and the characters, particularly the hero, are compelling and sympathetic.

Oh, and did we mention that there are footnotes?

Lady Hotspur (by Tessa Gratton)

We both enjoyed Tessa Gratton’s debut adult novel The Queens of Innis Lear so much that when we saw that Lady Hotspur was soon to be available as an ARC we leapt at the chance. So far, it’s a delightful read, a bit lighter in tone than the very melancholy and at times rather dreary Queens. Based on the various plays that constitute Shakespeare’s Henriad, the book follows Prince Hal as he struggles with both his new position as heir to the throne and his feelings for Hotspur.

Though it’s still early going, we’re finding ourselves drawn into this story, and we especially dig the queering of the story, so that there is a decidedly erotic aspect to the relationship between Princess Hal and Lady Hotspur.

Marie Antoinette: The Journey (by Antonia Fraser)

Having finished Lady Fraser’s fascinating biography of the wives and mistresses of Louis XIV, we thought we’d turn to her famous biography of Marie Antoinette (the basis for Sophia Copola’s film of the same name). Fraser has a compellingly readable style and, unlike some other popular historians who seem to think that throwing a lot of material detail into a book is somehow illuminating, Fraser keeps the pace going and doesn’t allow her narrative to get too bogged down in detail. That being said, she does give us a fascinating and look at the glittering and dangerous court of Versailles, as well as the tortured politics of the period.

This is one of those books that is, at least in part, research for our projects, as one of the great nations of our fictional world, Troyeis, is based on France. We’re not quite sure yet how we might use this, but rest assured that it will come up at some point!

Royal Charles: Charles II and the Restoration (by Antonia Fraser)

This book, also written by Fraser, is a magisterial biography of King Charles II, who would go down in history as “The Merry Monarch.” We’re not really sure if any of this will come to play a part in the various tales that we’re in the process of telling, but that’s one of the great joys of reading of this sort. You never quite know when some little seed that’s been planted by your reading will end up bearing fruit.

So there you have it. The fantasy titles on this list will, we hope, find their way onto this blog in the form of a review, so stay tuned!

Book Review: “The Testaments” (by Margaret Atwood)

KC Winters

Warning: Some spoilers for the novel follow.

When I heard that Margaret Atwood was writing a sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale, I have to admit that I was a little afraid. Would she be able to pull off returning to this world that she created with such piercing and devastating clarity decades ago? Would it feel a bit stale and warmed-over? These, to me, were the questions and anxieties I had going into The Testaments.

Fortunately for me, and for all of those who enjoyed the first novel, Atwood has crafted a superb sequel that answers some of the questions posed by The Handmaid’s Tale, even while it raises others.

The novel is almost breathlessly paced, drawing you in from the first page and not letting you go until the last. It toggles between three very different perspectives. Agnes is a young woman who has been raised under the Gilead regime and, aside from some distant memories, has no recollection of any life before it. Nicole, on the other hand, has been raised in Canada and is horrified by the abuses that she theocracy to the south continues to perpetrate and becomes part of a mission to bring it down. And, lastly, there is Aunt Lydia herself, who emerges from this story as a potential fifth column from within Gilead.

Nicole and Agnes, each in their different ways, help shed a light on what it’s like for the second generation of those coming of age after the rise of the Sons of Jacob. For her part, Nicole has an outsiders’ perspective and this, combined with her very spiky and prickly nature, means that she views it with nothing but contempt. Agnes, on the other hand, has been raised to believe in its strictures, though she, too, comes to have significant doubts about the rightness and sanctity of it, particularly after she begins her training to become an Aunt. Atwood does a fine job of conveying her divided loyalties, torn as she is between her own independent spirit and the injunction to obedience that is so much a part of Gilead’s culture.

As interesting as both Nicole and Agnes are, however, the most fascinating character in the novel is, as perhaps Atwood intended, Aunt Lydia herself. Lydia has always been one of the figures that towers over all the forms of this story (Anne Dowd’s portrayal of her in the TV series is one of the most terrifying things about it). Here, she is at once more human than her earlier counterparts and also more sympathetic and, in her own voice, we learn about the choices she had to make as she began her ascent into the upper echelons of power.

And yet, there is also something sphinx-like about her. We’re never quite sure about her motivations. Assuming that it is really Lydia–and, given the postscript we can be forgiven for having some doubts about this–we are left to wonder why, exactly, she is doing so much to bring about the end of the order that she helped to bring into being. Is she doing it because the upper echelons have become hopelessly corrupt (which is what she suggests), or does she have some other purpose, some sense of guilt, perhaps, at what she has done and at the lives that she has ruined (and taken) along the way? The novel is rather vague about these points and, to my mind, that is all to the good.

As with its predecessor, we never get a full glimpse of the world of which Gilead is a part. We don’t get a strong sense, for example, of just how far its borders go, though there are tantalizing glimpses of what the country outside of Gilead looks like. We are informed, for example, that there is such a thing as the Republic of Texas (though why a place like Texas wouldn’t jump aboard a theocracy is a little unclear).

As breathlessly paced as it is, The Testaments is even more scathing than its predecessor in showing the essential hypocrisy at the heart of Gilead. Commander Judd, for example, is fond of younger women and, even more unfortunately, has a bad habit of killing his wives when they get too old to stimulate him. And, of course, Aunt Lydia’s fellow Aunts are as vindictive and corrupt as everyone else, and it is only through her own relentless and ruthless manipulation that she is able to stay one step ahead of the game.

The Testaments is, overall, a significantly more optimistic novel than its predecessor, and one gets the sense that this optimism is in part a response to the much bleaker political reality in which it was produced. After all, while its predecessor emerged during the early days of the Religious Right’s rise to prominence, The Testaments has come about in an age in which the future that Atwood originally envisioned has come ever closer to being a lived reality. In allowing these characters to have more agency to change the world in which they live–and in allowing Aunt Lydia the chance to redeem herself–the novel suggests that no one is beyond redemption, that even the most corrupt society can be returned to normalcy.

The Testaments is also like a similarly-themed work of recent vintage, the television series Years and Years. Both works seem to take the view that it is always darkest just before the light, that even in the midst of what seems like hell on earth, there is a brighter future just around the corner. It may seem a little trite to some, but for those of us who sometimes struggle to see a brighter future, novels like The Testaments are a reminder that it is always darkest just before the dawn. When I was finished with the novel, I felt much more optimistic than I had in a very long time indeed. For this, if for nothing else, Atwood’s The Testaments deserves all of the praise that it receives.

Fantasy Classics: “Naamah’s Curse” (by Jacqueline Carey)

KC Winters

Warning: Some spoilers follow.

I’ve now finished the second volume of Jacqueline Carey’s third trilogy, Naamah’s Curse. It probably goes without saying, but I really enjoyed this novel and I am, of course, hard at work reading the third.

The novel begins with Moirin setting out on her journey to catch up to her beloved Bao. Though she finds him, she is soon kidnapped and sent north into the vast country of Vralia. What follows is a series of adventures in which she meets a fanatical Yeshuite patriarch, his sensuous and sensitive nephew, a powerful witch who commands a deadly jewel, and a lord of assassins. Through it all, she must rely on her love of Bao to see her through, as well as her native powers and abilities.

Much as I wanted to savour this novel, to take my time and really lose myself in its sumptuous prose, as always I found myself pulled inexorably along by the story. Like its predecessors, it is largely episodic, in that Moirin goes from mishap to mishap, learning more about herself and about the world in which she lives with each iteration. Here, we learn more about the burgeoning power of Vralia, which has continued to grow in power and importance. In particular, we see that the vengeful patriarch has plans to use Moirin to launch a terrible crusade against Terre D’Ange. Given that I’ve often wondered how Carey’s world would look with a Christian nation, I found this development rather exciting and, while Moirin manages to circumvent the zealot’s efforts, it does suggest that there might yet be a confrontation between two of this world’s great powers. This storyline thus serves as a cautionary tale about the destructive power of religious zealotry and the reactionary condemnation of the pleasures of the body.

Like any unwilling epic heroine, Moirin finds herself caught up in forces and events much greater than she can at first imagine, and this is certainly the case when she pursues Bao into this world’s equivalent of the Himalayas. There she must confront a woman known as the Spider Queen, who has managed to take control of a powerful gem that has the power to command desire. There are echoes in this story of Phèdre’s journey into the heart of Drujan. Like her predecessor, Moirin finds herself faced with a truly dark magic, one that, while temporarily locally contained, has the potential to expand and damage the world. And, like her predecessor, she recognizes the fundamental humanity at the heart of this seemingly evil creature, showing us that even those who seem beyond the pale of comprehensibility have their own reasons (both good and bad) for doing what they do.

Much as I liked the stories about both Phèdre and Imriel, I identify with Moirin in ways that I never completely did in the case of the other heroes of the Kushiel saga. Moirin, for better or worse, gives her heart very quickly and easily to those with whom she comes into contact. Whether it is Bao (arguably her one true love) or any one of a dozen others, Moirin always gives freely of herself and of her gifts. Of course, this means that she frequently finds herself in scrapes that it takes quite a lot of effort to escape, but this is part of what makes her such a compelling and sympathetic hero. After all, it’s not necessarily a bad thing to give one’s love freely, even if the costs to oneself are frequently harsh and exacting.

Though the novel is largely full of joy, there are a few moments of genuine sadness, such as when Moirin hears that her beloved Jehanne has died in childbirth. Given that we have already been led to understand just how deeply she feels for the Queen of Terre D’Ange, this is a particularly devastating blow (the fact that it is delivered by the vengeful Vralian patriarch makes it all the more difficult to hear). This is one of those moments in the novel that is a profoundly human and universal one, as we are led to feel Moirin’s anguish that she wasn’t able to be there for the woman that she loved at the end of her life. The fact that Jehanne’s shade manages to visit her in her dreams only partially offsets the tragedy of this storyline, though it is rather nice seeing Moirin get at least a little bit of closure.

I have one minor complaint about the novel, and that it falls a little too much into the white savior narrative that is such a problematic aspect of the west’s relationship with the cultures of the east. In this case, Moirin’s disgust at the caste system that operates in this world’s equivalent of India/Nepal is, from a western perspective, understandable, as is the fact that she is the catalyst that sees the beginning of the undoing of the oppression of the untouchables. As gratifying as this is, however, I do think that we should be wary of these sorts of fantasies that allow western characters to be the primary catalyst for social change.

Despite those flaws, Naamah’s Curse is a stirring reflection on the power of desire to provide a balm to the human spirit. As always, Carey’s command of her prose is powerful, and the sex scenes in this book are even more intense and visceral than in the other installments of the series. However, the true emotional heart of the novel is the relationship between Bao and Moirin. Much as the Kushiel series shows the power of desire, it also shows us how much a part of the human condition love is, and how central it can be to the ultimate triumph of good over evil. Carey excels once again at making us feel just a little bit better about the world.

I have to say, though, that I’m approaching the final volume of this series with some trepidation. After all, it will mean the final farewell to this beautiful world and all of its enchanting mystique.

TV Review: Carnival Row: “Unaccompanied Fae” (S1, Ep. 6)

KC Winters

As all of you know, I’ve been growing more than a little impatient with Carnival Row and the snail’s pace at which it has, so far, seemed content to move. Thankfully, things have started to heat up in the sixth episode of the season, marking a turning point (or several) in the overall arc of the story.

In the episode, Mr. Agreus and Imogen attend an art auction, at which the Puck thoroughly humiliates some of Imogen’s enemies by outbidding them for a priceless piece of art, Rycroft is eventually arrested and accused of the murders, Vignette is imprisoned for attending a museum exhibit closed to Fae, and Jonah Breakspear and Sophie Longerbane form the beginning of an unusual political partnership.

To my mind, this episode marks the first time in the entire season that we’ve finally begun to feel some forward momentum with any of the storylines. Of course, Rycroft’s is the most significant, as this marks the moment when his own “friends” turn against him, both those in his personal life and those in the police department. It’s a useful reminder–if any were needed–about the brutally and violently xenophobic nature of the Burgue and its inhabitants. One begins to wish that there really were some dark god wakening in the bowels of the city, and that it will eventually rise up and destroy the humans who have already caused so much misery.

It also marks the first time that I began to feel myself become genuinely interested in the Imogen/Agreus storyline. Mostly, I suspect this is because there now feels to be at least a modicum of chemistry between them, both the characters and the actors. Though I’m still struggling to see exactly what the point of this relationship is–i.e,. how it connects to the other stories, if at all–but I will say that this important moment marks one of the few times that I found myself actually caring about what happened between the two of them.

And, of course, there is the poignant scene where Vignette discovers that her beloved library has been dismantled and reassembled in a museum. It’s a moving scene for many reasons, not the least of which is the fact that it reveals how it feels to be one of the colonized, forced to watch one’s sacred trust debased and rendered into nothing more than a commodity. To me, this might just be one of the most interesting moments of the series in terms of its critique of colonialism. One can hardly blame Vignette for her outburst of rage at the Burgue residents who so casually come in to view this sacred space, and the outrage is only made worse by the fact that she’s arrested.

I’m still a little frustrated by the Jonah/Sophie storyline. I’m honestly not sure why they haven’t made the two of them a more central part of the narrative, since there is a.) obvious chemistry between the characters and the actors; b.) Sophie is an amazing character and c.) it would help to up the political stakes of the story. One gets the sense that their relationship, and its political consequences will come to play a greater role in season 2.

Overall, I thought this was a much stronger episodes than most of its predecessors, and I cannot wait to see what lies in store in the ones to come.

TV Review: Carnival Row: “Grieve No More” (S1, Ep. 5)

KC Winters

I’m slowly but surely making my way through Carnival Row, and I’m now over halfway done with the first season. Rycroft continues to investigate the brutal deaths, Vignette makes inroads with the Raven, and Imogen schemes with Agreus to earn his money in exchange for her introducing him to society.

I have to admit, I’m getting a little frustrated with this show. The various plot threads are still ambling along, and none of them seem to have any particular destination in mind. That’s fine for a while, but when nothing seems to ever really move forward, it becomes increasingly difficult to care about these characters in the way that we’re presumably supposed to. For the life of me, I still do not care about Imogen and her family’s struggles against poverty, and the Puck Agreus’ motivations remain as inscrutable as ever (and, much as I like David Gyasi, his overly-mannered delivery is becoming almost unwatchable).

Part of the problem is that Carnival Row keeps throwing in more character arcs as it goes along. Whereas before we were basically supposed to be interested in three separate strands: the chancellor and his family; Vignette and Rycroft, and Imogen, now we’re supposedly supposed to also care about the showman and his kobolds as well as a Puck who was fired from the Absalom’s service (who appears to be in the midst of a religious conversion). I’d like to be able to give the series the benefit of the doubt and believe that these stories will end up somewhere, but I’m increasingly finding that a difficult proposition. If, however, the show can do the heavy lifting of making these plot arcs a central part of the final resolution, then I will be very impressed indeed.

Don’t get me wrong. The episode was enjoyable as far as it went. It’s nice to get a little more detail about Rycroft’s background–including some important revelations about his birth and a particularly haunting flashback depicting the amputation of his wings when he was a baby–and the acting continues to be top-notch. There are glimmers of an interesting story with the stuff surrounding the Breakspears and the newly-emergent Sophie Longerbane, but there’s so little detail given to them that it’s hard to really get invested (which is truly a shame, since it appears that they’re wasting the considerable talents of both Jared Harris and Indira Varma).

Of course, this doesn’t mean that I’m not going to finish it out. After all, I’ve only got three episodes left, and I still don’t quite see what the end game is, and I have the sinking feeling that I am going to be left disappointed by the ending (especially since there is already a season two announced, so most likely it will end on a cliffhanger). To my mind, the greatest challenge facing this series is the inescapable conclusion that there is a truly fascinating concept, and maybe even a truly great series, yearning to be born from a rather mediocre one.

Maybe by the end of the season it will succeed, but I’m not holding my breath.

The Benefits of Writing out of Your Comfort Zone

KC Winters

As anyone who knows us is well aware, we’re passionate fans of big, sprawling epic fantasies. We’re talking about books that could easily double as doorstops (think Robert Jordan, Brandon Sanderson, and George R.R. Martin). We love seeing the way in which they manage to bring together various narrative strands, we love the world-building, and of course we love the epic heroes and heroines. And, to be honest, we just love the sheer physicality of an epic fantasy novel.

And, of course, most of our writing to date has been located squarely within this tradition. Both The Filliquian Chronicle and our other writing adventures (which are, as of now, still in the early stages of writing) are epics, even if the former is told in a serialized form. Given how much we love reading epic fantasy fiction, it just seemed that the genre was our natural home when the writing bug bit us.

However, both of us have started to think about other forms of fantasy that we want to work in. In particular, we’ve started to develop some ideas in both dark fantasy and gaslight/gaslamp fantasy, both sub-genres with which we are familiar but in which we have yet to write anything (until now, obviously). We have, of course, read in these genres: both of us were and are fans (if conflicted ones) of Stephen King’s dark fantasy series The Dark Tower, and at least one of us enjoyed the gargantuan gas-lamp fantasy Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. And so, to give ourselves an outlet for some our other creative energies, we started working on stories set in these genres.

At present, we’re hard at work on a number of short projects. These include: a short story in the gaslight fantasy genre (about a Japanese princess sent to marry the Prince of Wales who’s kidnapped by a group of renegade angels); a dark fantasy set in a post-apocalyptic Appalachia that features a young woman known as a Pureborn who must go on a deadly journey; a novella/novelette about the three sisters of King Arthur and their conflict with the Lady Nimue after his death; and last, but certainly not least, a number of short stories set in the world of The Filliquian Chronicle but focusing on a number of secondary characters (at the moment, Stefan the stableboy and Julian the Corsair).

This list makes it clear that we’re really trying to stretch our wings in terms of our writing, both in terms of genre and form. Both of us are more comfortable reading and writing epic fantasy, but we we are very excited about these new ventures. For one thing, it gives us a little bit of a break from our continuing work on The Fillquian Chronicle. As much as we love that world and the characters in it, we’ve both found that we can keep ourselves fresh and sharp by working on multiple projects at the same time, and it definitely helps if at least a few of these aren’t epic fantasy.

For all of the limitations imposed by a reduced word count, there is also something refreshing about it. When you’re writing an epic, word count is less of an issue, precisely because those who enjoy the genre do so because of its sprawling stories and enormous world. With shorter projects, meanwhile, the pleasures–for both you and your reader–are significantly different. You must always be wary of introducing new plot threads (and characters) that you cannot possibly explore in any detail within the confines of a short story.

Don’t get us wrong. For two people with an epic temperament–particularly KC who, it must be said, tends to be verbose–it can be very challenging indeed to both tell a smaller story and do it in a very short form. However, writing within the confines of a short story means that you have to be especially attentive to each and every word that you’re using, since you have such a small canvas. Needless to say, honing this skill is also very useful for when you expand to larger projects, and it (hopefully) helps you avoid the sort of narrative and expositional bloat that so often beleaguers epic fantasists as they move further into their own series (we’re looking at you, George RR Martin).

There is also something liberating about writing outside of one’s generic comfort zone. Generically, it makes you consciously evaluate what it is that makes the various sub-genres of fantasy work. What’s more, understanding, say, dark fantasy and its conventions and mechanisms, allows you to also gain a richer and deeper understanding of epic as well. You find new things that you can bring into your own writing, new facets of the fantastic that can enliven your epic fantasy, giving it a richness and a depth that might otherwise have lacked.

Writing these short pieces is still very much ongoing, and we have many more ideas that we want to continue exploring. However, we already feel like we’ve learned a great deal, both about our own writing processes and about the genres that we’ve chosen to explore. When you get right down to it, we’ve found that we truly love writing fantasy in all of its forms, and we look forward to sharing our work with all of you.

Of course, for right now our focus is going to continue on epic fantasy, but we’re very excited to be working in a number of other forms and genres. Though we know it’s a lot to ask, we hope that our readers will continue with us as we take this journey into the unknown. We haven’t yet decided what we’re going to do with most of these projects (the short stories set in the world of Filliquian will most likely be available on Amazon). In all likelihood, we’ll submit some of the others for the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Contest and, if they don’t win, we’ll publish them either on Amazon or here on the website.

TV Review: Carnival Row: “The Joining of Unlike Things” (S1, Ep. 4)

KC Winters

Warning: Spoilers ahead.

I finally got back into watching Carnival Row last night, so I wanted to share my thoughts on the fourth episode today before I attempt to watch the fifth tonight.

Having established the backstory between Vignette and Rycroft, the story switches back to the present day. Rycroft continues his investigation of the mysterious deaths plaguing the city, and he learns that the deaths might have been caused by an undead amalgam of various Fae creatures. Meanwhile, Vignette must contend with the politics of the Raven and in the process is responsible for the death of another member of the gang. Meanwhile, Imogen plots to attain the financial assistance of Puck Agreus, and Absalom Breakspear finally manages to regain his son.

The episode marked some significant developments in character development and helped to move some parts forward, though not quite enough for my taste. I’m still waiting to see why exactly I should care about Imogen and her impending destitution. Marchant does the most with what she’s been given in the script, but I can honestly say that I find this particular storyline the most tedious to get through. Similarly, while I find the Puck Agreus fascinating as a character, as of yet the show hasn’t developed him enough for me to either understand exactly what his arc is nor why I should.

Now, in terms of both Rycroft and Vignette, things are a little better.

One gets the sense that Vignette’s forced killing of one of the other members of the Raven is going to have significant consequences on her development as a character. Unlike almost everyone else in the Burgue–Fae and human alike–she has managed so far to cling to some vestige of her moral compass. This, however, seems to be changing. Vignette is a bit of a loose canon, devoid of the things that once allowed her to understand her place in the world. And, of course, it’s pretty clear that she still loves Rycroft, and one gets the feeling that he may hold the key to her ultimate salvation.

For me, the highlight of this episode was twofold. One, the advancement of the Chancellor plot, in which the Absalom’s son is finally recovered from his captivity and the son’s realization that his mother was responsible for his kidnapping. The means in which this is revealed–he recognizes the sound of her heels clicking on stone–was, I think, one of the finest scenes the series has yet produced. And, of course, Jared Harris is always a pleasure to watch; I just wish the show would give him a bit more time to stretch his wings and help us to understand what makes him (and his wife Piety) really tick.

The other highlight was Rycroft’s encounter with the creature that is probably responsible for all of the murders, as well as the revelation that it is in all likelihood a golem fashioned of dead Fae. The scene with the haruspex, in which he has to provide his seed in order for her to work the magic to create a similar creature, is both disturbing and oddly sensual. This is one of the few times that we’ve seen the workings of magic in this world, and hopefully this means that we’ll see more in the future.

My major complaint with Carnival Row remains the same as it has from the beginning. While I can see some connections among the various disconnected storylines, the series hasn’t done a great deal so far to bring them together into any kind of coherent whole. For the most part, it can’t quite seem to decide which of them is the most important, and so it’s a little difficult to get emotionally invested in any character other than the primary duo of Rycroft/Vignette.

Overall, this was a satisfying episode, though I am starting to wonder just how much of the many mysteries that it has put into play it is going to satisfactorily solve by the time that the season ends.