Writing: February 2011 Archives

In comments on previous posts I've mentioned that I have never considered myself a part of fandom. I haven't been avoiding fans, and I don't have any aversion to them (as far as I can tell so far). It's just that every time I would see a flyer advertising a convention, there would be that admission fee. I don't doubt the event is worth sixty dollars or whatever, but that doesn't mean I was prepared to part with so much cash. I imagine a BMW is worth the price, but the cost puts it out of reach.

Anyway, this meant that, as I ventured onto the internet, I stumbled upon a whole bunch of writers and readers who already knew each other, and they seemed to be having these ongoing conversations.

But there was one conversation I kept seeing that I'd been exposed to before: "Science fiction readers are smarter than fantasy readers, because, you know, science."

Here's how I came across it: Seattle used to have a big annual event called NW Bookfest. It's been defunct for a few years now, but it used to place over a chilly weekend, numerous authors of every type were invited to be interviewed or to appear on panels, and the place was filled with publishers and booksellers from all over the region.

I loved it, even if they typically only had one genre panel each day (if I was lucky). One year I dropped over a thousand dollars on books and I always went home with a T-shirt.

Anyway, there was a single sf/f panel taking place one day and it was pretty crowded. I managed to find a spot in the middle row. I'm not going to mention any authors by name (in consideration of point 5 of the moderation policy, just in case) but one of the authors began talking about how much he loved science fiction, and how much he hated fantasy.

He was kinda nasty about it, too. He thought wizards and the like were lame because they were trapped on one planet. He'd tried to write fantasy but was so annoyed with it he wanted to throw the wizard into a sun. And so on.

While he complained, I heard a woman behind me say quite clearly "I don't even know why they're shelved together." Immediately I thought Oh my god, I'm trapped in the middle of them! Don't turn around or draw their attention! I wasn't even completely sure who they were but I knew they weren't friendly to me or my kind.

Eventually the author really got down to it. He told the audience that he read science fiction because he wanted to live in those futuristic worlds, with the robots and space ships and so on. Not only did he not want to live in a pre-industrial agricultural setting, but he explained that he'd already tried it. He'd lived on a farm with no modern conveniences, and it was really, really hard work.

What fools these fantasy readers were for wanting to live in an environment like that!

Now, maybe it's a common fandom experience to be sitting in the audience at a panel thinking WTF is this dude going on about? I wouldn't know. But I know I was looking at him like he had decided to impress everyone by farting out soap bubbles.

Hey, if someone wants to create a Star Trek future where I get a holodeck and replicator corned beef hash for breakfast every day, I'm there. See a Martian sunrise? Love to. Robots that will keep house? I'll take two. But when I pick up a novel to read, it's usually a mystery or a fantasy.

We all know it's common for readers of adventure fiction to imagine yourself in the story. (At least I think it's common; if I'm a one-of-a-kind freak don't tell me.) I would have been quite happy to accept a teaching position at Hogwarts. Hell, I'd go there as a Muggle to teach Muggle Studies as long as I was allowed to pack a pair of Desert Eagles under my robes (First lesson: nuclear weapons and why wizarding kind should stop kidding themselves about "their rightful place").

Sometimes, when I'm reading A Song of Ice and Fire, I burn with the desire to leap into the pages and have a Very Serious Talk with the characters about what they ought to be doing (then leap out again because... yikes.) A pleasant tour of post-Sauron Middle Earth would be cool and Silver Age DC universe would make for a fun jaunt.

And as much fun as it would be to fly like Superman or ride a giant eagle, would I, myself, move to those places? Live there? Hell no. I no more want to start a farm in the Shire than I want to dress like a bat and try to terrify the criminals of downtown Seattle.

And don't forget all those mysteries I read. Does Mr. Panelist think I read police procedurals because I hear a little voice inside whispering subject header above? Or that I read detective novels because I want to go out of my house to talk to three dozen people, some of whom think I'm an interfering sleaze ball? Please. I don't like to ask my waiter if the drinks come with free refills; you know I won't be prying into some senator's extra-marital affair.

My point here is that nearly everyone in the whole world would like to live in an advanced techno-utopia. Just because you like to read about them too doesn't mean you're a clear-eyed rationalist living amongst herds of sheeple. It means you're interested in science fiction, period. It doesn't make you stand out as a lonely supporter of human progress and it's not a marker of moral virtue. Which isn't to say that you're not a perfectly wonderful person; I'm sure you are! But it's not the books you read that make you wonderful.

And just because I'm reading a mystery novel doesn't mean I'm hoping to get into a gun fight in a grimy alley. It's a story I enjoy, not a life I wish I were living.

In my next post I'm going to talk about diagnosing my mental illnesses (over the internet) based on nothing but my positive response to a book.

I thought I'd lead off here by talking about something I occasionally bring up on my own blog: Thrillers.

I grew up reading fantasy, thanks to my older sister. Sure, I dabbled in horror and science fiction, but most of the books on my shelves were about dudes with swords taking a long trip. And even though I was completely unconnected with fandom, I managed to pick up a few genre-specific terms anyway, and while I'm sure I don't have to explain "high fantasy" and "low fantasy" to readers here, I'll skim over them for completeness' sake.

High Fantasy: fictional settings, kings, empires, armies, generals, palace wizards, GvE, big magic, monsters and non-human species are commonplace parts of the setting, plots with an epic scope.

Low Fantasy: real/historical settings, common citizens as characters--especially criminals, shopkeepers, beggars and police, small amounts of magic (usually), monsters or non-human species regarded as unusual elements in the setting if they exist at all, plots that may include the fate of the world (just like high fantasy) but which have a much smaller scope.

Now, fantasy novels aren't lag bolts. They're works of art (we can argue whether they're good or bad art, but stories = art), so these aren't strict categories. A book can be comfortably placed in "high fantasy" without checking every box on the list. I say this to forestall discussions of edge cases and "Well, what about [X]?" where [X] is a book that matches every low fantasy indicator except that it has a prince in it or something. Pointing out works of art don't neatly fall into a category doesn't refute the category or demonstrate that the category isn't useful. These are descriptive labels, and we don't have to be strict about them.

Back to thrillers: Wikipedia is nice enough to provide a list of subgenres, but for my own purposes I split them into high thrillers and low thrillers.

A high thriller concerns people in power--not kings, but Presidents, CIA officials, FBI investigators, DEA agents, etc. It's unlikely to be set somewhere fictional the way high fantasy is, but it's very likely to take place in settings that the average reader doesn't/can't visit: Ten Downing Street, A cell in Guantanamo Bay, etc. It has big stakes, recognizable good and bad guys, lots of scope and a major part of the appeal is that it gives a peek into the way the very powerful operate.

Want to know how the president stays in touch while on Airforce One? Want to know how a Mossad agent files reports securely? Want to know how your government secures fissionable material? A high thriller makes an implicit promise to the reader that the writer has researched the book to the degree that, while the characters and the dangers are fictional, the depiction of these people and agencies is as accurate as possible. In fact, that research is at the foundation of the genre's appeal.

In addition, I'd suggest that the resources and authority high thriller characters employ is equivalent to magic in high fantasy: it's how they exert their agency. It's often the source of their problems (especially when it doesn't function correctly or is co-opted from within). It's often arcane in its operation. Finally, it offers readers a sort of wish-fulfillment depiction of the exertion of power.

By contrast, a low thriller avoids powerful people in favor of low-level criminals or regular citizens in danger. While a high thriller might involve an international terrorist plotting an attack on U.S. soil, a low thriller would be an insurance actuary's black sheep brother turning up after 15 years with some pissed off criminals on his trail. Or a low-level mobster who discovers he's been betrayed. Or some oddball criminal types try to pull off one last job, with comically disastrous results.

David Morrell and Donald Westlake wrote these sorts of books, along with many, many others. They can be noirish or comic, the characters are rarely wholly good or bad (although the villains are often Genuinely Awful) and the final confrontation is more likely to take place in a motel or boiler room than the Oval Office or Aswan Dam.

Which isn't to suggest that low thrillers aren't carefully researched, or that the research isn't part of the appeal. But typically, the research isn't there to give the reader a glimpse at the tools and methods of power--you're more likely to find out how an insurance actuary does their job.

Charlie writes high thrillers, by my measure. Halting State deals with high-powered corporate types, law enforcement [spoiler], [spoiler], and [spoiler], too. The way these, er, let's call them something generic like "story elements" operate is extrapolated from his research rather than straight-up researched because it's an sf book, but the effect is similar. The Laundry is, of course, explicitly set within a made-up government agency, and you don't get more high thriller than that.

Me, I write low thrillers. The setting is generally commonplace and localized, most of the characters are regular folks, and the plot is played out through the exercise of personal agency rather than cultural or organizational power. In fact, one of the most persistent criticisms of my books has been that they don't have a high thriller insider's view of the Twenty Palace Society.

What can I say? I have preferences.

Obviously, this model could cover all sorts of thrillers. Is the lawyer protagonist of this courtroom thriller making his case before the Supreme Court or working out of an understaffed public defender's office? Is the hapless schmo ensnared in this erotic thriller the Prime Minister or a beach bum drop out?

I guess it takes a lifelong reader of fantasy--a genre obsessed with questions of power and the political exercise of it--to separate thrillers this way, but that's what I do.

What do you think? Is this a sensible way to examine thrillers? Is it a useful tool for looking at other genres?