Don't judge a book by its cover, but we do!

I've been thinking a lot about covers recently. For one thing The King's Bastard (cover art by Clint Langley) is up for a Ravenheart Award. (See here). YAY!


For another, I've had to prepare a resonance file for Solaris who are getting Clint to do the covers for The Outcast Chronicles. (Have seen a cover rough which I can't flash around yet. Very exciting! Go Clint!).

And then I came across these two posts. Malinda Lo talks about books and characters of colour and whether the covers reflect this. She says:

'A lot of commentary laments the low percentage of books with people of color on the covers (and yes, it is low), especially in comparison to the huge number of YA novels (fantasy and otherwise) featuring slim, attractive white girls.'

Did you follow the ruckus last year about Justine Larbalestier's YA book Liar's cover? The protagonist was coloured and they put a white girl on the cover. The book was re-released with a cover that reflected the character more honestly.

Melinda Lo goes on to say: 'Even if a book cover doesn’t echo the diversity within the book, that doesn’t erase the diversity. It hides it a little, yes, but the cover is not the story. The cover is an advertisement. (And in most cases, it’s removable.)'

And over at the Enchanted Inkpot they do a summing up of winter YA covers, analysing what is appearing from close-ups of pretty girls to iconic images. But these are all YA covers, I hear you say. What about fantasy covers?

Here we have the Orbit 2008 Vs 2009 cover trends. Swords are still big, but I suspect hoods will have made big gains. (I can't find anything for 2009-2010). And here's the Urban Fantasy analysis. Apparently Stilettos are out. LOL

So there you have it. Next time you go into a bookstore, take a look at the covers and see if you can spot the trends. Does it annoy you if the protagonist is coloured but on the cover they appear to be white?

The Fantasy Foliage Dilemma

I have been plotting a new fantasy novel lately, and have run into a familiar dilemma. In describing the natural environment, do I fall back on the typical earthly descriptions i.e. elms, oaks, willows etc or do I create a completely new ecology?

This is a kind of a double dilemma for me because I grew up in the southern hemisphere with wattles, wallum heath, eucalypt forest and saltbush. If I described all these in my fantasy book it would look weird to people who recognised them and would probably just be bizarre to readers from other climates.

The other problem I have is that although I am more than comfortable using my own native flora and fauna in urban fantasy and contemporary fantasy, it does not have a classic fantasy feel to me. All the fantasy and heroic fantasy fiction that I have really enjoyed has drawn the setting from Europe and the northern hemisphere, with oak groves, willows and aspens etc.

Yet as I writer I do not want to just recreate this northern setting, despite how familiar it feels. So am I stuck. If I go the route of creating a completely new ecology, I may have to sacrifice some of the evocative natural descriptions I love simply because I did not have the extra few months of free time needed to create all the name lists and really dream it all up properly.

As it is, I will probably go for an invented ecology, probably sprinkled with a few familiar terms.

How do you handle the Fantasy Foliage Dilemma?

The Fantasy Economy - What do you mean lifestyle matters?

And no, I don't mean the one politicians of all kinds are always making noises about.

What I'm talking about here is something that just about everyone gets wrong - usually because most of us are so used to the way things have worked since the Industrial Revolution that it's invisible. The changes the Industrial Revolution kicked into overdrive had already been happening, but in the space of fifty to a hundred years they went from upper class only to ubiquitous, and rearranged European society in the process. The other thing about the Industrial Revolution is that most of the changes were economic. The industry side was the means, not the end.

I'm going to start by reduction: it's easier to see the differences this way. Besides, we've all got a more or less reasonable idea of how "the economy" works nowadays. We know you earn money at a job or selling stuff and spend it on the things you need and want, hopefully in that approximate order.

The screamingly obvious first. Say goodbye to electricity, piped gas, and the car. For light, you're using either candles (expensive) or some form of oil/fat/grease light. More often than not, you're going to bed when it gets dark and getting up when it's light. Anything happening at night probably involves a full or at least three-quarter moon because that way there's a decent amount of light out. Cooking means a fire, which you've got to watch constantly and makes things miserable in summer. No cars means everything perishable is coming from close by, if you didn't grow it yourself. You're not going anywhere that's not in walking distance unless you can afford and have space for horses or there's a coach service. For most people, the effective 'range' is three to five miles for general errands, maybe ten miles if you're going somewhere and staying there, and if you've got access to good horses, fifty miles is a day's journey, more or less. Oh, and you're getting water from a well - yours if you're lucky, otherwise it's by bucket from a communal well, and the quality can be pretty iffy since there's no sewage system either. A bath means heating water bucket by bucket and pouring it into a tub as it boils. By the time you've filled the tub what you've got is - hopefully - warm water. If you're in a large family, everyone uses the tub water and the poor sod who goes last gets cold, dirty water to wash in.

Now get rid of mass-produced furniture and whatnot. Your dishes are probably wood, because for those all you have to do is cut down a tree and make it yourself. Nails are expensive because a blacksmith has to make them, individually. The old joke about granddad's axe isn't a joke any more - everything you own gets used, re-used and repaired endlessly. Your roof is probably shingle or thatch because you can do that yourself with local material, and you have to fix it constantly. Furniture-wise, you've got maybe a bed a table, and some stools or benches. Unless you're wealthy - which usually means you own a lot of land - you made it all yourself, or someone in your family did. If you're doing well, you've got some chickens and pigs, maybe even some cows or sheep. You don't usually see money at all: instead, you barter with whatever you have surplus or your skills. Money is for the wealthy. Even your taxes get paid in kind rather than in money. That's life for most people.

If you're one of the relative few who lives in the (rather small by our standards) cities, you probably still keep chickens and possibly pigs, and you might have a small garden that keeps you in vegetables. For flour, honey and such, you go to the markets. Also for cloth, since you haven't got space to grow flax or hemp or raise sheep. Cotton is rare and expensive because it's a sub-tropical crop and needs a lot of intensive labor. Mostly what you buy is some version of linen or hemp cloth or wool. There is no such thing as ready-made. You or your family make it yourself. You probably have two sets of clothing: one for everyday, and one for Sunday. Washing your clothes means dunking them in boiling water and beating the dirt out of them - soap hasn't been invented yet.

Trade means non-perishable goods - high quality fabrics, metals, gemstones, wood, dyes, spices (which are typically dried and will keep for a long time unless they get wet), lace (hand made by skilled artisans), and such. It's all expensive - your family might own one lace collar, which the lady of the house wears to church on Sundays and treats with extreme care. If you're a trader, chances are you live on the edge because travel any distance is dangerous and you could lose a fortune if your goods are stolen or the ship sinks. You probably specialize in one type of trade because of the specialized knowledge you need for it. If you're a skilled artisan, you're selling mostly to the relatively few wealthy people, or to traders, and you're probably fairly well off yourself (unless you're a blacksmith, in which case how wealthy you are depends a lot on where you're working and how specialized you are - a really good swordsmith or armorer makes a lot more than a village smith). Jobs as we understand them don't exist: most people are basically subsistence farmers or managing a little above that. People who are 'employed' are generally servants or slaves who live in their master's homes, or they're apprenticed to a merchant or artisan and learning their trade. There were a few 'open' trades - keeping an inn or tavern (which generally was done as an extra by someone who was a bit better off than his neighbors), prostitution, and hired muscle of all flavors. One of the things that kept this structure relatively static was a variety of laws that banned moving above the class you were born to.

All of this added up to a finely tuned economy that mostly excluded the majority of people. Farms and villages had their own micro-economies based on barter, with occasional luxuries like blankets being brought in by traveling peddlers and usually bartered. National economies relied heavily on how much precious metal could be mined or traded for, and on taxing trade (other taxes generally got paid in kind). Nations that were foolish enough to debase their coinage with base metals suffered inflation and lost trade. Standing armies were rare. More typically, a monarch had a small personal guard, and raised an army from the populace with promises of loot and easy victory. They only did this when they needed to - or thought they could win quickly or cheaply - because once they took people away from their normal livelihood they had to pay them. A long war could cripple a country's finances.

I'm not touching what magic does to this kind of system, because it depends on what kind of magic and what it can do. Similarly, I'm not getting specific anywhere - but pretty much all pre-Industrial cultures fit this general model, although late pre-Industrial you start having factory production and hugely uneven changes in social standing, wealth, and customs (which can and often did destabilize things). The assorted 'Daily Life in...' books offer a decent thumbnail guide to get started with. After that, I'd recommend good translations of material from, and preferably about, the period your setting is most like. Archaeological reproductions help too, as do re-enactor materials. The basic idea with this is to get the general feel of how things worked, dig out enough specifics that you can include the corroborating details (things like peeing in a bucket for your launderer tend to be more effective for Heinleining than things like the exotic carpet in Lord Sonso's manor because they illustrate the differences in everyday life).

Oh, and if you want a really good insight into war, politics (and underlying it, economics) read Machiavelli. Start with The Prince, then the Discourses to get perspectives on absolute vs republican rule in ancient and medieval times, then move to the Art of War. For double bonus points, start estimating how familiar your favorite authors are with Machiavelli. Heck, for modern war all you really need to do with Machiavelli is update the weaponry.

The Problem With Politics

Politics in fantasy and science fiction, that is. I'm not going near the tar pit that is modern politics in any country.

Something you notice when you read a lot is that most people haven't got a clue how politics actually work, leading to what could be described as Tough Guide to Fantasyland political systems (If you haven't read the Tough Guide, find it and read it. It's hilarious, and boy does it skewer shoddy the fantasy cliches). Sadly, the same kind of thing also shows up way too often in science fiction, complete with the fantasy memes of the Evil Empire - it doesn't matter what it's actually called, if it functions as an Evil Empire, it might as well be one - the noble, heroic anti-imperial forces, usually horribly outnumbered/out-weaponed and so forth.

Part of the problem with imagining other forms of government is that English is actually a very egalitarian language. Over centuries we've lost any distinction between formal and informal address, much less anything more complex. Compare this to some of the European languages where there are formal and informal forms of "you", or some of the Asian languages which have multiple forms of address depending on rank, level of intimacy, level of formality, and so forth. To most native English speakers that kind of distinction is beyond confusing and heads rapidly into the realm of utterly incomprehensible - with the result that we find it very difficult to truly understand the kinds of protocol that go with any highly class-conscious society.

A rather length aside here - even English royalty is remarkably egalitarian. The rule for speaking with any member of the English royal family is burned into my memory, courtesy an incident from when I was part of a choir in Australia. The choir was singing at a college graduation where the Duchess of Kent (as patron of the college) was presenting the degrees. One of my sisters was graduating, so naturally the whole family was there - me and my mother in the choir, the graduating sister in with the other graduates, and the rest of the horde in the general audience (Yes, my family is a horde. I'm the oldest of 5. Back in the bad old days when the Queensland Government restricted public gatherings, we used to joke that we needed a permit to go anywhere as a family). Security, naturally, was tight, but we choristers were told that if by chance we did end up speaking with the Duchess, the rule was to address her as "Your Grace" the first time you said anything, and "Ma'am" after that. I wouldn't remember this except that... mum is a mad keen photographer and she wanted a photo of the Duchess. So, after the graduation is finished and everyone else has gone home (it was well after midnight) mum manages to find out which elevator the Duchess is going to be using and positions herself there - and gets permission from the security people, who basically said photos were fine so long as she stayed behind this line. I'm hanging back - figure painfully shy mid-twenties in dorky choir uniform and you've got it. Besides, mum's the outgoing, impossible to embarrass one, so if any of the horde gets to talk to the Duchess, it's her. The elevator opens, the Duchess sees mum with camera and pauses long enough for mum to get a nice photo, then heads straight to me. I'm not sure how long I was the very picture of gobsmacked, but it was probably a lot less time than it felt like! There was this moment of pure panic followed by a thought along the lines of "Oh, crap, what were the rules?" Fortunately the Duchess is a very gracious lady who knows how to talk to painfully shy, overwhelmed people - we ended up having a short but relatively sensible discussion about the choir she's a member of, the policies of both choirs about what jewelry the women can wear for performances, how much fun it is to sing certain works and so on. But after being singled out - I suspect because she saw me hanging back and I was in the choir uniform (so was mum, but she was waving the camera around, too) - I'm never going to forget that rule!

Anyway, back to fictional governments and forms of protocol that go with them. What you could call the 'default fantasy' setup involves a king, some number of usually not very well defined nobility, mostly parasitic, and everyone else. It doesn't take too much thinking about the setup to realize it not only doesn't work, it can't work. Part of the function of class distinctions is to define responsibilities - the higher the class or rank, the higher the responsibility. Slaves are responsible for whatever their job happens to be. Serfs (slaves tied to land rather than people) are responsible for feeding themselves and their families fed and usually having enough surplus for the land owner's requirements. Free farmers are responsible for feeding themselves and their families, usually providing at least one armed man for whatever purposes are needed, and paying taxes to their lord in either money or goods. In towns, the various merchants are responsible for making enough profit to keep their families fed, paying taxes to both the town upkeep and the lord, and usually some form of guild association as well. The 'noble' class - ranging from relatively small land owners to control of several cities - are responsible for keeping everything they own in good running order, collecting the taxes for those higher up the chain, enforcing the laws and where necessary making their own laws for problems specific to their regions. Royalty is responsible for keeping the nobility in order, relationships with other countries, maintaining law and order, and generally keeping the whole thing running - which is a huge simplification. In a fantasy setting, the effective limit of a country's size is based mostly on how long it takes to travel from one end to the other. Anything more than a few days becomes very difficult to manage unless there are trusted governors/nobles/whatever in each district who can act as royal proxies if needed. China overcame the distance issue by imposing a common culture on conquered peoples. Russia didn't reach its full extent until the late 1800s, when rapid communication by telegraph was possible. The British Empire managed to hold on to territory all over the world by a combination of local governors with vice-regal authority (that is, they could act as if they were the monarch) and relatively fast shipping which allowed them to reach pretty much any part of the Empire in six weeks.

To successfully deal with all the complications that arise in anything like this, you need to know who is in charge of what, because the actual distribution of control/responsibility gets pretty diffuse in anything large or complex. The whole system might be pretty much invisible to Joe Average - but it needs to be there, or you get the Tough Guide effect where it all seems to exist on tourism from adventurers.

On the science fictional side of the coin, it's often even worse. Those star-spanning civilizations connected by whatever macguffin is used to permit space travel? Impossible, even with the handwavium of faster than light/wormholes/whatever. Here's why: in any sufficiently technologically advanced society, knowledge is the key to wealth, and currency is typically a nominal unit of value rather than the 'hard' currency of less technologically based cultures. One of the things that makes this possible is effectively instantaneous communication, which can be done on a single planet. Over several light years? Not likely. To have a functional currency through a multiple star empire, you need to be able to withdraw money from a bank on planet A, and have that balance reflected instantly in the database on space station Z. I've yet to see anything that takes this into account.

Then you have the lunacy that is standard SF trope interstellar war. By using a quasi-Napoleonic environment, some authors make this sort of limp along, but space is effectively boundaryless. Your space empire or republic or whatever is effectively a collection of discrete islands surrounded by a whole lot of buggerall. If you've read anything about the problems of naval warfare during World War Two, you've got some idea - just extrapolate to three dimensions instead of two, and expand the scale from "big" to "so utterly freaking huge it's mind blowing". The Napoleonic analogy is probably as close as you can get, but even so, the assumption behind that analogy is still one of scarcity of resources when most planetary systems have more than enough of everything for a sufficiently advanced technological base to leverage - and that's without the extremely high likelihood of some degree of replication or fabrication.

Without near-instantaneous communication, there can't be any viable star-spanning anythings - instead there'll probably be a series of effectively self-sustaining/self-contained settlements and settlement clusters, each with its own economic systems and rules - making life very interesting indeed for the space traveler. The likelihood of this generating any kind of empire, much less an Evil one, probably has so many zeros after the decimal point it might as well be zero - except that there's a 100% chance some lunatic will try to form one. (There's a large historical precedent for this. Practically every attempt at building a utopian society anywhere falls into this category, because people aren't perfect and trying to make them fit the vision usually ends badly.) Not to mention that, like the fantasy realms, they're not going to be homogenous. There'll be misfits, eccentrics, leaders, followers, predators and prey, because every society has them.

All things considered, I'd better leave it here, because if I get into economics and how that works - or doesn't - in the vast majority of science fiction and fantasy, I'll have to write a book-length rant, and I'd much rather just write a book that does get it more or less right. I hope.

Who do you think does get it right, or close to right? What do they get right?

Magic Systems

OK, this is geek time now. What are some of the choices in creating magic systems in fantasy?

For originality, Steven Erikson's idea of the Warrens was really something different. I enjoyed his Malazan books of the fallen, but they eventually got a little bogged down in the storyline, or maybe the characters didn't grab me as much as some of the earlier novels (Gardens of the Moon is a classic). The originality in the magic did not abate though.

As much as I liked David Gemmell, his magic was pretty straightforward and fairly familiar from the SFF spectrum.

I guess as fundamental distinctions go, one of the most basic is Innate Magic Vs Learned Magic. For example in the Earthsea books, or Wheel of Time series, the talent was there from birth, whereas in other books - I think one of the Lawrence Watt-Evans's books comes to mind - it is a skill that can be learned, a bit like learning what needs to go into a science experiment in our world to make it work according to our physical laws.

I remember a great little scene (not sure what book this was from) - this skinny, white-bearded, yet very fit Mage, pounding away with his feet on some sort of platform to generate the energy for his spell. The idea here was a sort of conservation of energy, where the Mage had to first generate the energy with his own sweat before he did the spell. That was kind of neat. He also got to burn off lots of calories.

You can have a blend as well. In my fantasy novel The Calvanni, there are innate magic-users (Sorcerers) who are quite powerful, yet rare, while most others can be trained in other less powerful forms of magic (Druids, Priests and Priestesses). The premise was that the Sorcerers came to dominate their world and formed a magic-using nobility. The power in the upper classes - feared and hated by many - waned over time and the Druids took control, forcing a purge of the now 'evil' Sorcerers and monopolizing magic.

Another fundamental distinction is just how Powerful is Powerful? Is the pinnacle of magic the ability to obtain a vision, or perhaps influence a person's thoughts - as in shamanism - or can an 'Adept' wipe out armies with the wave of a hand (Pug from Fiest comes to mind)?

I think some books take the ultimate power of the Mage way too far. I like it better when the magic-user is limited, and has to pay for the use of his power.

What magic systems from fantasy literature take your fancy?

Brand Names and World Building

I write book length fantasy and near future SF in short story length, so I build worlds. It will sound nerdy but I love it. I love reading about history and sociology. The study of linguistics for instance and how language can not only define your place in the world, but how you see the world fascinates me.

Because I write science fiction and fantasy, I don't write much that is set in our contemporary world. But recently I've been reading books from the incredibly popular Dark Urban Fantasy genre (DUF). These have been fun and easy to read, with good pacing and likable characters.

Coming fresh to the DUF genre, one of the things I noticed was the use of brand names in the narrative. In theory it is like writing in short hand. The author doesn't need to explain what the car/watch looks like, they just give the brand. This brand name will tell the reader the character's social status and wealth or lack of it.

As long as the reader knows the brands. I don't.

I found some of the books so heavy on brand name usage that it was like reading an SF book, where the author introduces a lot of invented nouns. At least in an SF book the author will plant clues in the narrative to explain the meaning of the invented nouns. With brand names the author assumes you know all the associations.

Brand names in contemporary narratives. What do you think of this?

Sunday snippet: sample chapter from THE BETRAYAL

Sample from The Betrayal copyright © 2008 by Pati Nagle and Del Rey Books. All rights reserved. No part of this text may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission of the author. Exceptions are made for downloading this file to a computer for personal use.

Alpinon

A footfall on the forest floor below brought Eliani's head up sharply. The scroll in her hands curled back into itself. She had not been reading it-her thoughts had drifted long since. The Lay of the Battle of Westgard had failed to entrance her today.

She leaned out from the branch where she sat and peered down between the leaves of her favorite oak, seeking the sound's source. A shadow of movement below, the edge of a cloak curling out of sight. Not a kobalen, then. Nor could it be a guardian, for Alpinon's patrols were always at least three strong.

Eliani laid a hand against the oak's trunk-slender here, near its top-and closed her eyes. The tree's khi was slow and deep. She sent her own khi through it and out into the forest: roots running strong into the earth, whisper-fine grasses moving with each light breeze, small creatures dwelling in branch or under root. A much brighter, stronger pulse of khi reverberated through the wood, one that could only be ælven. Eliani drew back from it, as the ælven did not trespass upon one another's khi.

She opened her eyes and carefully set her scroll in a notch of two branches where she had stored little treasures since childhood. She loved the old ballad-heroic mindspeakers and soul-consuming alben warlords still thrilled her despite her inattention today-but her curiosity about the intruder was more immediate.

She moved stealthily down to the oak's lowest limbs, making no sound at all, for she could have climbed the tree blindfolded in any direction. Peering on a lower branch, she saw a solitary figure walking away northward: tall, male, pale-haired.

She caught her breath, thinking for an instant that it was an alben. Fear set her heart pulsing before reason reminded her that an alben would not be walking in daylight, even if he dared to cross the mountains into Alpinon.

No, it was a Greenglen, his hair not white but pale blond, as was common to his clan. He wore a cloak of Clan Greenglen's colors-sage lined with silver-and carried a long bow slung over one shoulder.

Greenglens were rarely seen in Alpinon, though their homeland of Southfæld shared a nearby border. Eliani had met only a handful of them in her short fifty years, and none recently.

She smiled a hunter's silent pleasure. She would track this foreigner, try to glimpse his face, see how long she could follow him unnoticed. It was the sort of game she most enjoyed, and she was good at it, having spent the last two decades in Alpinon's Guard. She felt a moment's wistfulness, reminded that soon she would become the Guard's commander. The other guardians would call her "Warden" instead of "Kestrel," the nickname they had given her.

Tomorrow, on Autumn Evennight, she would be confirmed in her majority and formally named heir and designated successor to her father, Felisan, Governor of Alpinon. The command of the Guard would pass to her as well. This was her last day of youth and irresponsibility. A little mischief might be forgiven her, this last time.

Grinning, she turned her attention to her quarry. She tensed her thighs, balanced carefully, and sprang to the forest floor, making no more sound than the falling of a leaf.

~~~

Turisan walked at his ease, enjoying the rich earthen smell and myriad colors of autumn leaves, only mildly curious at first about his pursuer. He was not quite certain how long he had been followed.

He was not averse to meeting a patrol from Alpinon's guard. In fact he half hoped to encounter one, for he had not previously been in this realm and did not know the way to Highstone. His pursuer, however, though certainly ælven, was evidently not a guardian. Such a one would have challenged him, not stalked him. He therefore continued to stride through Alpinon's fair woodlands, which were full of life and untouched by ælven hands, as unlike as could be to his home in Glenhallow.

Pausing to examine a spray of scarlet leaves, he saw a flicker of movement above. His brow creased in a slight frown. It was impolite to treat a visitor so, whether or not they knew who he was. He began to tire of the game.

And now he could hear his father berating him for not bringing along an escort suitable to his dignity. Had he been accompanied by ten of Southfæld's Guard, as Lord Jharan had wished, no zealous Stonereach would have dared to stalk him. In Jharan's view, a member of Southfæld's governing house should never travel unattended, though he walk through the most benign lands. Indeed, he should not walk. He should ride a finely caparisoned steed, or better yet take his ease in a chariot emblazoned with marks of state, surrounded by a mounted escort.

It was such excess of ceremony that made Turisan long so often to be gone from the court at Glenhallow. The more he learned of the intricacies of governance, the more he yearned for the simplicity of a wild wood, a clear stream, and the flicker of stars through leafy branches.

This journey was in part an escape from court formalities, though at the end of it they awaited him again. His father had sent him here on a visit of ceremony, to pay respects and carry messages to Lord Felisan, the governor of Alpinon, and to witness the confirmation of his heir.

Turisan had made no objection to this errand, for he knew it to be his duty as his father's nextkin. Lord Jharan's eyes, so often stern, grew soft with fondness whenever he spoke of Felisan, and that alone made Turisan curious to know him. He also expected the visit to Alpinon's woodlands to satisfy his longing for wildness. Yet even here in the forest he was to have no peace, it seemed. Annoyed all at once, he turned in mid-stride and nocked an arrow to his bow, aiming it amidst the branches overhead.

"You have followed me half the afternoon. Come down and declare your business with me, or begone."

A moment's silence. Then a rustle in the branches, and a lanky ælven female in worn and dusky hunting leathers emerged, landing softly before him. She brushed a strand of nut-brown hair from her green eyes and stood gazing at him.

"Peace to you, friend. I meant no harm. We seldom have visitors from the south."

Turisan lowered his bow. "And who are you?"

The little chin went up, then a corner of her mouth curled. "I am called Kestrel. I am kin to Lord Felisan."

Surprised, Turisan paused to return arrow to quiver while he reevaluated her status. No rustic this, whatever her appearance. Even a lesser relative of Lord Felisan deserved his respect, though she had not given her true name. He bowed.

"It is to bring messages to Lord Felisan that I have come. Will you honor me by guiding me to his house?"

The green eyes lit. "Messages? From Southfæld?"

Turisan smiled. "From Glenhallow."

He had thought mention of Southfæld's seat of government would thrill her. She drew a breath, as of deep pleasure, then surprised him by replying with quiet dignity.

"It will be my honor to guide you."

She turned and with a friendly glance over her shoulder, started northward. Turisan hastened to come up with her. Though not as tall as he, she had a guardian's purposeful stride. She looked at him sidelong as they walked apace.

"Forgive my discourtesy, I pray. What visitors we do receive from Southfæld generally come by the trade road."

Turisan smiled to show he held no grievance. "I prefer the woodlands."

"So do I. You have no horse? Glenhallow sends its messengers on foot?"

"I have a horse. I left it with the guardians at Midrange, thinking to enjoy a walk this fine day. I believe it is not far to Highstone?"

"No, not far." She smiled, her mouth twisting up in some private amusement.

Not a rustic, and not quite so young as he had first thought. Turisan observed her while she answered his polite questions about the land through which they walked.

She was fair of face and form, her coloring middle-dark as was common in the Stonereach clan, her figure well enough though leaner than the gently-bred maidens of Glenhallow's court. Turisan, being accustomed to receive the open admiration of every maid he met, was intrigued and somewhat abashed to realize that this female seemed more interested in his messages than in himself.

It would be a lesson to him, he acknowledged silently. He had indeed dwelt too long at court.

The woodlands, all ablaze with autumn, grew denser. Turisan's legs told him they were climbing, though at first the slope was scarcely noticeable. It became a true hill before long, and led to numberless others increasing in size, greenleaf trees giving way to tall pines as they proceeded from foothills into the mountains proper. Though he would have enjoyed a rest, his guide seemed unweary and he followed her onward, reflecting that the day he could not outmarch a slip of a Stonereach girl was the day he should renounce his heritage and become a magehall acolyte.

The mountain air took on a chill as evening fell, and warm glints of light had for some time been showing through the trees when they reached a road that sloped upward along one side of a pine-filled valley. It led to a town centered on a level shelf of rock, where houses spread out from an open public circle and clung to the steep, rocky walls above and below. A pale river cascaded through the chasm to the north, and he heard the distant roar of a waterfall.

His guide paused at the edge of the circle. "Welcome to Highstone."

This was Alpinon's chief city, then. Smaller than Turisan had expected. The houses were built of stone with steep, slated roofs to shed snow. Their ornamentation was minimal and rough compared with that of Glenhallow's graceful buildings, but after the long walk the glow of their lighted windows in the blue-shadowed dusk was especially welcoming.

The grandest structure was a long hall situated on an outcrop commanding the valley a little way above the public circle. Its roof timbers were carved with stag's heads, the token of Clan Stonereach. A row of tall, arched windows gave a muted glow through tapestries already drawn for the night.

"Felisanin Hall. Come, they will be at table. We are in time to join the meal."

"I would not intrude on Lord Felisan. Will you show me to a place where I can await his leisure?"

She grinned. "We are not so formal here. He would berate me for keeping an honored guest waiting. Surely you are tired and hungry?"

"Ah-yes."

"Come, then."

She led the way across the circle with a backward glance to see that he followed, and started up the steep stone stair beyond that led up to the governor's hall. Reflecting that a lack of formality did not necessarily imply a poor table, Turisan hastened after his guide.

~~~

Eliani could not wait to see the faces of the household when she introduced their exotic guest. She was certain now that he was high-ranking. Elusive, too; he had said little about himself, and had turned aside a probing question or two with practiced ease.

She had longed to question the visitor about his homeland and what was happening outside Alpinon, but as he had clearly not wished to discuss such things with her, she had refrained. When asked the same questions by her father he could scarcely refuse to answer, and so she would hear the news all the same.

Pausing in the hearthroom that served as entrance to Felisanin Hall, Eliani warmed her hands by the welcoming hearth and looked more closely at the stranger while he gave his cloak, bow, and small pack into the keeping of the attendants who came forward to welcome him.

He was tall and slim, though his firm shoulders told of strength with bow and sword. The hunting clothes he wore were of fine, soft leather, dyed in subtle shades of green and richly embroidered. The silver clasp that pinned his cloak was intricate in design and bore a large, glinting white stone. He left it in the cloak as it was taken away, as if its possible loss would mean little to him, though it was finer than any jewel Eliani possessed.

How rich his life must be! How simple he must think what she deemed grand and fine. She felt as if she were watching a creature out of another world entirely, one to which hers bore no comparison. Even his person was of rare and unusual beauty-fine features, long graceful fingers, hair of rich gold, eyes like dark pools of shadow.

Abruptly he glanced up at her and smiled. Caught in her curiosity, she returned the smile and stepped forward.

"May I know your name, so that I may give you proper introduction?"

He seemed to hesitate for an eyeblink, then answered quietly. "It is Turisan."

"I have heard that name." Eliani gazed at him, frowning slightly, certain they had never met. "I do not remember when."

His lips twitched. "It matters not. I am ready, if you will lead me in."

She started into the hall, pushing the tapestry aside. No doubt he was used to much grander feast halls, but at least she need not be ashamed of her house's hospitality.

Torches burned brightly, musicians played in a corner of the hall (for Lord Felisan was very fond of music), and the household talked merrily around the long table. Eliani was glad to see that the meal was not very far progressed. Her father looked up and beckoned to her, but instead of taking her place beside him she strode up to his chair, bowed formally, and stepped to one side. The conversation fell away as the household became aware of the stranger she brought with her, thus it was to the accompaniment of music alone that she made her announcement.

"Lord Felisan, I bring you a visitor from afar. May it please you to welcome Turisan, who bears tidings from Glenhallow."

The murmur that followed confirmed the importance of their guest. Her father rose, and she was pleased to see that he wore one of his better robes of deep blue velvet, broidered with gilt thread and pinned at the neck with a large violet stone. No doubt he had put it on in honor of their kindred Beryloni, who was to be handfasted three days hence.

Felisan glanced at Eliani, his eyes glinting mischief. The next moment it was gone as he turned to greet Turisan.

"Welcome indeed!" Lord Felisan smiled broadly as he offered his arm. "I was present at your salutation-day, but you will not remember that, of course. Lord Jharan does me honor to send his own son with his tidings."

Eliani drew a sharp breath. She hoped it would go unnoticed, and quickly assumed a disinterested smile. As Turisan clasped arms with her father she thought his glance flicked to her.
Lord Jharan's son, was he? Heir to the governance of Southfæld, the second-oldest and second-largest ælven realm. She closed her eyes briefly, silently chiding herself for not remembering where she had heard his name.

"I thank you, Lord Felisan, and crave pardon for arriving unheralded."

Felisan waved dismissal. "Jharan and I have been friends for centuries. There is no need of ceremony between our houses. Come, sit beside me and give me news of your father! These are all my household, I will not trouble you with their names just now. And two of my theyns, Luruthin and Gharinan, there at the end. My daughter you have met."

Eliani, standing beside her chair, was gratified to see Lord Turisan glance up at her in surprise. Her suspicion was correct, then-he had thought her of little importance. She returned a sweet smile, and he acknowledged her with a bow before taking his seat. This appeased her somewhat. Even more so did the kind thanks he made to the cousin who gave place to him.

Eliani helped herself to warm bread from the basket before her, listening to the pleasantries that passed between her father and his guest. Lord Jharan's messages would be given later and in private. She intended to be present, and Lord Turisan might make of that what he would.

"Your mountains are beautiful. I have seldom seen such richly timbered woods, and some of the prospects are breathtaking."

Felisan looked pleased. "You have yet to see the best of them, having arrived from the south. Ask Eliani to show you the Three Shades. It is a high fall of water not far from here, a very pretty spot, with some interesting legends attached to it."

Turisan's gaze shifted to Eliani and he gave a solemn nod. "I would be honored if Lady Eliani would show it me."

Eliani felt color rising to her cheeks. No one had called her "lady" before. That honorific was reserved to governors and their heirs, the masters of guildhalls, and other persons of high responsibility. She was not yet formally her father's nextkin.

She returned Turisan's nod, then glanced away and took a sip of wine. She did not know why she should find Lord Jharan's son any more disconcerting than she had found a nameless high-ranking Greenglen, but so it was. Perhaps because she had always thought of the people of House Jharanin as stately beings, dwelling in luxurious palaces and occupied with lofty concerns of governance.

Turisan did not fit this picture at all. What governor-elect of any self-importance would undertake a day's journey on foot and alone?

She would. She laughed and choked a little on her wine.

~~~

THE BETRAYAL is a March 2009 release from Del Rey Books. More about the book and links for ordering at aelven.com

Sean Williams talks Shop

Sean Williams (courtesy Cat Sparks)

Sean is a prolific speculative fiction Australian writer, with 16 Aurealis Award nominations and 8 wins, a Phillip K Dick Award nomination, four New York Times best seller lists, including one that debuted at #1, plus he’s an all round nice guy.

A few years ago when I was running the EnVision workshop I asked Sean to come along to talk to the aspiring writers about what it means to be a professional writer. And he told a story I’ve never forgotten …

Sean: It was ten years ago, or thereabouts. I'd just sold my first fantasy series to Harper Collins and received a major Australia Council grant to write it. The three books were due across a two-and-a-half-year period, which didn't seem too onerous. Having just quit my day job, I knew I'd have time to spare. Easy.

At about the same time I managed to interest Ace in a new space opera trilogy, co-written with Shane Dix, with delivery dates spanning those same two and a half years. That made six books, giving me around five months per draft. That was a slighter brisker pace, but as half of them would be collaborative novels, I figured that would still be doable. (Anyone who's collaborated knows that such work nets half the money and takes twice the time, but we'll gloss over that to get to the meat of the story.)

Six books, signed for but not delivered. Then my agent called in the middle of the night to say that Shane and I had been offered the chance to write for Star Wars. And not just one novel, either. A whole trilogy.

My agent said, "Oh, in the next couple of years or so, I think." I said, "That makes nine books in two and a half years. I don't know if I can write that fast."

He said, "Do you know you can't write that fast?" I said I didn't.

He said, "Well, let's just sign the contract and see what happens. If you fall to pieces, we'll work something out."

I did the maths. I added up the number of books and divided it by the number of days. That came to about 1375 words per day, every day, for 30-odd months. That was daunting, but not too daunting. After all, I'd already proven that I could write fast when I had to. Furthermore, if I aimed for 1500 words, that'd give me a small sanity-break between books.

Next I mapped out the due dates on a calendar. Three books of these nine were due the same month, but it was possible to stagger the drafts and get them all in on time, even when including the time Shane needed to work on six of the books. Some would even be ready early.

So I said yes. And started writing. To some people 1500 words a day may sound like a lot, but it isn't for everyone, once you get into the swing of it. Especially if that's all you're doing, every day. What I hadn't counted on was that it wasn't remotely all that I was doing every day. I hadn't counted on publicity, writers' festivals, interviews, all the mail from Star Wars fans, and three sets of page proofs, say, all turning up in the same week. And so on. The last six of those thirty months were

pretty hellish, but I did get it done. By taking the challenge, I learned what I was capable of.

I usually stop the story here, even though it isn't quite finished yet. My major concern was not with getting the words down: it was that I would drop the ball and release a crappy book. I don't regard myself as a book factory, you see. Being a writer who can work fast isn't enough, because being a writer at all means not just maintaining a baseline quality, but challenging yourself as well. The three series I wrote in those thirty months were very different to each other, and each of those nine books was a challenge in some way. I'm proud to say that, even as the pressure mounted, the quality of the writing went up too. The nine books earned two awards, seven nominations, and three New York Times bestseller listings. One of the last of the nine was recommended by Locus in the same category as Neil Gaiman and Isabel Allende. That's what really makes me proud.

Q: You have 8 book series published or due to be published as well as four independent novels. Some of your books are for adults, some for young adults, some are fantasy, some space opera, some near future noir. And you’ll have had 75 short stories published by the end of this year. If you had to describe yourself as a writer, how would you phrase it? (Other than busy!)

Sean's latest anthology.

Sean: I'm almost as eclectic in my writing as I am in my reading, but that isn't a particularly helpful response to your question. Given that I'm about to move into thrillers and crime fiction as well, I really have no idea how to categorise myself. I just write what I'm most passionate about, and I hope that the market will find a way to accommodate it. Writing under a pseudonym has always appealed to me, so maybe I'll explore this possibility in times to come.

For all my genre-hopping, though, there are themes and ways of storytelling I constantly return to. Speculation, sure--hence all the SF. Australian landscape--overflowing from my fantasy. The blurring of identity--hence crime fiction. Definitions of humanity and the limits of physics--space opera's the perfect vehicle for both of these. People of all shapes and ages--should go without saying for any writer.

Q: You have a long history of collaboration behind you--ten novels with Shane Dix, several short stories with Simon Brown--but just lately you've been concentrating on solo work. Was the transition hard to make? Do you have any plans to collaborate again?

Sean: I do enjoy collaboration, and that's one of the reasons I keep coming back to the Star Wars universe. No, it's not just about the money and the sales, or even clinging to the dreams of my faraway youth. It's working on part of a much larger story, with dozens of other authors, in a universe that is always expanding, always surprising. That's one of the key delights/terrors of collaboration: you can never be entirely sure what's going to happen next. Given that authors traditionally work in a garret with no feedback at all until the book reaches the editor, it's quite a jump into the unknown. I think it's a good thing for writers to take that jump every now and again.

Sometimes the leap has to go the other way. Certainly, working with Shane was a lot of fun and became a very familiar way to write space opera. I'd already begun the process of weaning myself from the collaboration with the Geodesica books, but he was still there to hold my hand. Astropolis was where I finally walked off into that big, bad universe on my own, with no one but myself to blame or give credit to when the book came out. That was terrifying in a whole new way, and just as invigorating.

Future collaborations are not impossible. Shane and I would like to write a fourth Evergence novel one day (The Roche Limit) and I'm working with a couple of people on film projects. Whether they come of anything, time will tell.

Q: You’ve support the writing community by serving on the management committee of the South Australian Writers Centre and now you have nominated for the management committee of the Australian Society of Authors. You’re a busy, successful writer, why do you take time out from your career, to serve the community? Do you have personal goals you would like to see? Eg. Genre writing achieving more respect?

Sean: I do spend a lot of time on committees, these days. I'm also a founding board member of the Big Book Club Inc. and I'm just finishing up a term as Chair of the Arts SA literature advisory panel. I judge for competitions like Writers of the Future and Somerset, and I teach as well. Why?

I guess it's because in the past I've been helped quite profoundly by other writers filling similar roles, in their own time. The late Peter McNamara was a great role model in this regard. He was a publisher, writer and an editor, and passionately committed to improving the lot for every other publisher, writer and editor in the wider community. Not just SF. Not just South Australia. Everywhere he could reach. He did things I could never do. But he did demonstrate how important even the attempt was. I don't think it's saying too much that the cohesion we currently enjoy in the Australian SF scene owes a large part to his efforts, and the example he set. So every time I'm invited to be involved in a large or small way in the betterment of other writers, I can't help but ask what Peter would have done, and to remember what a difference it made to be on the receiving end of such efforts.

Garnering respect for the genre is something I do rail about, but that I suspect is a battle that can't be won by anything other than writing good books. Humanity's natural desire to speculate about the other is gradually overtaking the critics, academics and readers who regard our field with disdain, and that's why we see it creeping more and more into the mainstream. I do worry that SF is becoming a "genre of the gaps"--turning its back on everything that becomes popular or is widely accepted, like Star Wars or The Time Traveler's Wife, simply because these works don't conform to some idea of what the genre should be--but that's not really a matter for such committees. I mainly want to make sure that good books reach a wide audience, and that good writers are rewarded by being paid.

Q: You’ve tutored at Clarion South several times now. (Clarion South is based on the US Clarions. It’s a 6 week boot camp for writers of spec fic. Each tutor comes in for one week). This must be incredibly exhausting but also inspiring. Can you share some insights with us?

Sean: I frequently harangue my students with m "10-and-a-half Commandments".

That's what I call them, but they aren't really commandments as such. They're more like first principles, along the lines of "If you want be a writer, here are some guidelines that will work for everyone." I've bounced them off dozens of people until I feel like I know them by heart.

When I rattled off the list to a group of wonderful writers in Melbourne last year, I was absolutely floored when one of them put up her hand and suggested that all of these first principles rest on one that was even more fundamental. I was stunned. A Zeroth Commandment, one I'd never even considered! It was a revelation.

That's why I like to teach. It forces me to examine anew everything I take for granted, each time I stand up to say something, and it forces me into contact with people possessing their own ideas, their own insights. I learn as much from my students as they learn from me, be they first-timers or practically hacks in their own right, like the WOTF or Clarion crowds. What I get out of the process is more than balanced by what I put into it.

The Zeroth Commandment, btw, was commitment. If you're not committed to being a writer, if you aren't absolutely sure that this is what you want to do, then no amount of first principles will help you. You might as well give up now and get a real job (as Charles Brown of Locus once advised me, way back when), and save you and everyone around you a whole lot of grief.

Q: I notice you write for YA and adult, plus you write across spec fic genres. Some might argue that this dilutes your readership. Based on experience, would you agree or disagree?

Sean: My experience doesn't reveal anything about this question, to be honest. The readers seem to work it out. Having good covers help, of course. There's no mistaking The Grand Conjunction for The Scarecrow, for instance. The difference is obvious just by looking.

One always hopes, of course, that the vast audience for Star Wars will drift across to original books by the same author, and to a certain extent that is true. But there's not a huge crossover. I have a Star Wars audience, a SF audience, and a fantasy audience. That's how I tend to think of it. And now, I guess, I have a fantasy audience that's split into kid, YA and adult age-groups, if those distinctions really mean anything. I basically count myself as fortunate to have any at all audience for the stories I love to write.

Q: In 1984 you won the Young Composer's Award for a theme and three variations for string quartet with flute, oboe and trumpet soloists called "Release of Anger". Its original title was "Cowled they the Rampant Gargoyle Down" which sounds like Angry Young Man music to me but I can’t reconcile this with a string quartet. Do you listen to music as you write? Does each separate book series have a musical album or suite of albums in your mind? And do you ever see yourself getting back into music in a big way?

Sean: I say that I would love nothing more than to have the time to take three months off writing each year and work solely on music. If I'm honest with myself, though, I'm not sure that's such a good idea. Maybe it's been too long. Maybe I only ever dabbled and simply don't have the skills now to do anything of value, so I'd just be wasting my time.

But what is this "value" I speak of? How hard can it be to re-learn the skills? What's wrong with dabbling in the first place?

I think I'd still love the opportunity to see what would happen if I did give it a go. I'm getting more and more ideas for musical projects as time goes on, and I guess that creative energy has to go somewhere eventually.

These days I write almost exclusively to experimental ambient music, cycling through all sorts of artists and sounds (never vocals, rarely structured in a conventional way, never ever boring) but usually coming back to the maste Steve Roach at some point. Quite often one track will stick through a project, triggering the right neural nets in my brain as I sit down every day. Just lately I wrote a novel while listening to a single track by Brisbane muso Deepspace, aptly titled "Another Empty Galaxy". At this very moment I'm listening to a couple of collaborative albums by Ryuichi Sakamoto and Alva Noto. They'll cycle around until the next ambient space opens up, as required.

Q: What’s inspiring your writing at the moment?

Sean: Apart from music, Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey & Maturin opus, which I'm halfway through. Garth Nix and others have been telling me to read these books for years. I can't believe it took me so long to pay attention! When I picked up the first one last year, I was instantly hooked me.

Q: Where do you see yourself in 5 years, and in 15 years?

Sean: Hmm. That's a tricky question. It was much easier in the early days. The goals were more clearly defined, then. "Finish a short story." "Sell a short story." "Finish a novel." "Get a novel published." I mean, is there anything quite as important as that? "Sell a novel overseas"? "Win an award"? "Publish in hardback"? "Be a natcon GOH"? "Write for Star Wars"? "Appear on the New York Times bestseller list"? They're all good things, but I wouldn't count them as goals as such. They're just things that happened along the way.

These days my goals relate to maintaining the career, because if I can't eat, I can't write. Maintaining the career, though, isn't just about keeping the cheques rolling in, whatever it takes. I need to keep learning new skills and conquering new fears. Romance? Check. Sex scenes? Check. Kids? Check. Realist setting? Working on that. Humour? Still far too chicken to try.

So in five years time I expect to be facing challenges I can't imagine now or still dealing with some familiar ones that I haven't conquered. I do hope to be writing more than one book a year only by choice, not because I have to, as is currently the case. I'd like my kids' books to have reached an audience overseas, as is currently not the case, so I can keep on writing them. I'd also like to have finished my PhD and at least dabbled with writing some new music.

In fifteen years, who knows? Maybe I'll have slowed right down, creatively, and taken up teaching as a career path. (Not that teaching isn't creative in its own way. It absolutely should be.) Maybe I'll have sped up. Maybe I'll be working in film or TV (two areas that seem to be creeping back into my life at the moment). I doubt I'll have retired completely, since I enjoy it so much.

Anything's possible, though. I'm fully open to the idea of going back to uni to study maths.

Q: I hear you can make a mean curry. Do you have a favourite recipe you'd like to share with us?

Sean: Ah, curries. I'd eat them every day, given the chance. One of my favourite recipes is a simple but deliciously spicy marinated chicken curry, which you can find in the Women's Weekl y Easy Curry cook book (my secret revealed--gasp!). We have a teenager in the family, Seb, who from the age of two refused to eat anything more complicated than steamed veges or a hot dog. At about 12, though, he started expressing interest in more lively food, and with great nervousness he tasted a teaspoon of this curry. He absolutely loved it, which is a sign of how delicious it is. Don't hold back on the coriander, and it'll taste even better if you have the time to grind the spices yourself. Like all things in life, the more you put into it, the better it'll be.