Fun stuff for a change!

We all work so hard (and I am still up to my neck with UNI marking and publisher deadline) that we forget how important it is to have fun. This is a no-holds-barred fun post.

I spent the weekend at Supanova, a massive pop culture event. And tomorrow I fly out to Melbourne for next weekend's Supanova. You should see the costumes, everything from Manga to Doctor Who and Predator. Here I am being threatened by a Stormtrooper.

Took over 200 copies of my books along and sold out. Yay!

Now I know what it feels like to be a celebrity. The guest bus arrived and when we got out people cheered and flashes went off as they took photos. I thought I better enjoy this. It's not like I'll ever experience it again. LOL

Funniest moment: Going over to the venue in the bus and two of the Buffy stars doing an on-line Buffy quiz to see if they knew the answers.

So that is where I'll be next weekend. Hope my books sell out again!

Have you let your hair down and had fun recently?

Confessions of a TV series addict.

Okay, I admit it, I'm a TV series addict. Especially, if they are spec fic based. If you are into lists, here's a site with the 10 worst SF series ever. See if you agree. It is a bit hard to know because some of these have never made it out to Australia. And, while I do trawl sites looking for interesting TV series, I won't buy one that's bad just to see how bad it is. I'm not that far gone ... Not unless it gets to Ed Wood stage ... gasp, I am almost that far gone.

I guess you can tell by the illustration that I think one of the all time best TV series was Firefly. Go, Joss Whedon. I really enjoyed Buffy, found Angel took itself too seriously and thought Dollhouse was only just getting into its stride at the end of the first series. The problem with Dollhouse was that it was too hard to connect with the female protagonist because she changed each episode (she was a Doll who assumed a new personality for clients). It wasn't until we started to see the workings of the Dollhouse that the show lifted a notch.

Back in the entertainment desert that was TV before we had VHS and then DVDs, there was always Doctor Who. For me the quintessential Doctor Who has to be Tom Baker and his companion would have to be Leela, the girl in the leather bikini who liked to resolve disputes with her knife. And then there was Blake's 7. Oh dear, I thought Servalan, the evil super sexy Supreme Commander was luscious. For all those teenage boys who grew up in the 70s, here she is. Give me an intelligent, powerful woman any day. And there were so few in those days.

OK, time for confessions. What were your favourite TV shows growing up?

For me, Bewitched in the 60s. I wanted to grow up to be Samantha.

70s -- Doctor Who with Tom Baker and Blake's 7.

80s --Gee, I can't think of a spec fic TV series in the 80s. I discovered The Young Ones, but they were absurdist rather than spec fic.

90s -- it would have to be Absolutely Fabulous (not really spec fic) and Red Dwarf.

I didn't discover Buffy until about 2 years ago, which meant I could buy the whole series and pig-out watching it one episode after the other.

What are your favourite TV series and why?

The 'What the?' Moment.

Now you're wondering what I mean. The 'What the?' moment comes in a book set in our world, a 'trespass' book as Scott Westerfeld puts it.

Scott says, 'In “Trespass” stories, a stranger comes to town. Something fantastic—whether The X-Files’ aliens or Anne Rice’s vampires—invades our familiar world of credit cards and disposable razors. Reality is shown to have cracks and fissures we haven’t seen before.'

The 'What the?' moment is when the protagonist realises something is not right, he/she is still in Kansas, but something that shouldn't be in Kansas, is there with them. It might be vampires, werewolves, or aliens. Scott Westerfeld has a great article here on the topic.

I was doing a manuscript appraisal for someone. They'd written a 'Narnia' type book, where a child goes through a portal to another world. And they'd spent a long time building up to accepting that the portal was there. I said to them, the story doesn't start until the child goes through to the other world. Your reader knows what sort of book this is from the blurb on the cover, they are going to get bored with the build up, they just want to get into the story.

If I wanted a book where I was wallowing in contemporary life, I'd read that kind of book. If I pick up a trespass book about the weird and wonderful coming to the mundane world, then I'm not going to balk at accepting that vampires are real. I want to get on with the story. It annoys me when a character refuses to see what is right in front of them.

My favourite 'What the?' moment came from Buffy. In the episode when Oz is bitten by a werewolf and starts to turn, the clues point to another agressive male student but it turns out, Oz was bitten by his nephew, Timothy (?). When he rings his uncle to find out what's going on you only hear his side of the conversation. From memory Oz says something like 'So Timothy is a werewolf.' Like that explains a lot and there is no Gosh Wow, moment of denial. It was such a delicious moment, I laughed aloud.

Can you think of good 'What the?' moments in books or films that handled the introduction of the outre cleverly or amusingly?

Vampires and Werewolves and Ghosts, Oh My!

Like many Americans over a certain age, my fascination with vampires and werewolves began with the Dan Curtis soap opera Dark Shadows. I'm talking the original series that ran every afternoon from 1966 - 1971. Looking back on it now, it probably set into motion my quest for good novels that place these mythical creatures in every day situations where their special abilities became both a boon and a bane.

And that brings me to the eternal question: What is the difference between Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance?

On the surface, the answer seems simple enough, especially with regard to paranormal romances. To fall into that category, your heroine falls into lust, and then love, with either a vampire, a shapeshifter of some sort, maybe even a ghost. There's sex, romance, more sex. A book for women, in other words (don't throw anything yet. I'm not through.) Urban fantasy, on the other hand, has a smart ass narrator who is usually involved in solving some sort of crime with a supernatural bent to it. He, or she, is either assisted by a supernatural creature or the bad guy is the evil vamp, shifter, etc.

Like I said, simple. Right?

Wrong, with a capital WRONG!

So, how do you know if you're writing, or reading, a paranormal romance or an urban fantasy? Agent Nathan Bransford has written a blog post about genre distinctions. He recommends going to your local bookstore and checking out where books similar to what you are writing are shelved to help determine how to classify the book when marketing it. That is sound advice for most genres and even most sub-genres. But it doesn't really work in the case of urban fantasy and paranormal romance.

Take Laurell K. Hamilton's books for example. Her Anita Blake series is nominally Urban Fantasy. I say nominally because it started out firmly in the UF corner before Anita's sex drive took center stage for a number of books. I've seen that series shelved in Horror as well as in SF/F. The latter makes sense, especially because UF is a sub-genre of SF/F. But horror? Then there's the Sookie Stackhouse books by Charlaine Harris. I've seen them in SF/F and Mystery. See my dilemma?

Laura Miller has an excellent article about this at Salon.Com. One observation she makes in the article is one I've heard discussed, and have discussed myself, over and over again: that the fan reaction to the increase in Anita's sexual escapades in direct correlation to the decrease in her kick ass, mystery solving activities "exemplifies a perennial argument in urban fantasy: the ratio of crime to sex, or more broadly, of mystery to relationships."

So, where do we draw the line? Or do we draw the line?

Miller goes on to write that the best urban fantasies don't "just set a detective story in an alternate world where vampires, werewolves, demons and fairies are real. Like "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," it also uses the supernatural material to reimagine the challenges of young adulthood...Class as much as sex is an urban fantasy preoccupation...Where working-class characters in literary fiction are often depicted as tragic and helpless, the urban fantasy heroine gets to surprise everyone by using her talents to save the world...."

While this definition fits a number of books that are classified as UF, it also fits those classed as paranormal romance. And it causes confusion when a reader picks up a book termed UF, expecting these factors and finds something else.

For example, Nocturnal Origins, a book I shopped around as UF (and which I'm waiting to see if it is picked up by a certain editor), brought about a comment from one reader who wanted to know if my main character, a female cop who is, to her horror, a shapeshifter, liked guys. The reason for the question -- there was no sex in the book. Sure, she enjoyed looking at a good looking guy here and there. But, because it is UF, this reader thought it had to have sex in it. Forget that it followed the kick ass, smart assed female lead. Forget the crime/mystery that had to be solved, all the while Mac was having to accept and adjust to the fact that she sometimes shifted into a jaguar.

Another example of how wide open the genre is, is Kate's ConVent. It is filled with mystery, humor -- lots of humor -- and a cast of supernatural creatures ranging from angels to vampires to succubi to werewolves to demons. Oh, and let's not forget the human fen. But no sex. At least none on-screen, so to speak. Oh yeah, one more little thing. Her narrator is male.

I think John Levitt said it best in a Genreville post last November:

...defining UF is an exercise in futility. Everyone has their own particular take. Mine is simple – it’s like the old quote about pornography from Justice Potter Stewart, where he admitted he’d be hard pressed to define pornography, but nonetheless, “I know it when I see it.” Jim Butcher is classic UF. Neal Gaiman, who also sets his fantasies in contemporary society, is not. Rob Thurman is. Sean Stewart is not.

Now there’s another line of UF that owes much to Romance. Rachel Caine, Charlaine Harris, and early Laurel Hamilton come out of that tradition – smart mouthed, kick ass heroines who owe a lot to Buffy, and are not to be trifled with. But the romance tradition is clear – no matter how complex the world building is, no matter how convoluted and surprising the plot, an essential element always remains about whether or not it’s a good idea to do the vampire, werewolf, or both.

So, is there a clear line demarking the difference between UF and PR? No. Just like Justice Potter Stewart and pornography, I'll now it when I see it. The only thing is, what I see and what you see may be two very different things.

Now that I've thoroughly muddied the waters, what is your favorite UF novel? How about PR novel? Do you see any difference between urban fantasy and paranormal romance. Finally, and from a writer's standpoint, WHERE SHOULD THEY BE SHELVED AT THE BOOKSTORE?

Characters, bent is better.

Characters -- I prefer characters that are slightly skewed, odd ball people who don't quite fit in.

I'm a Buffy fan, not Buffy so much but as her supporting characters. I've just started watching TrueBlood, the Sookie Stackhouse series. I'm up to episode 6 and enjoying it. I couldn't help compare the characterisation. I'm thinking aloud here ...

Sookie is a sincere southern waitress, who just happens to be able to hear people's thoughts. She's a little but acerbic, which is nice.

Buffy's answer to everything is 'tell me how and I'll kill it'.

Even though we are only just into the first series, I prefer Sookie's characterisation.

Bill the vampire's back story is very straight. He was a poor but honest Confederate soldier, who was turned into a vampire and had to walk away from the family he loved.

Compare this to Spike the vampire's back story. He was a bumbling clerk who wrote bad poetry because his romantic soul outreached his ability.

The Spike character had the advantage of quite a few series to develop his character before his back story was invented and revealed, but I prefer the Spike backstory because he would risk all for love, while Bill would give up everything for love.

For me it is the odd ball person who sees the world in a slightly different way, who is the most interesting.

Are you into odd ball characters?