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Lurking Musings

~ Musings of a newly published writer

Lurking Musings

Tag Archives: Terry Pratchett

Irony in Fantasy #MancsterCon

13 Thursday Aug 2015

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Musings

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clichés, Dwarves, elves, Fantasy, Gary Gygax, Magician, MancsterCon, Quattrofoto, Ravenchilde Illustrations, Raymond E Feist, Realm Fantasy Wargame, Terry Pratchett, tropes, William Shakespeare, Wizards


So, on the 29th August MancsterCon will be upon us and that will see myself and a few other authors sitting on a panel discussing fantasy. Specifically fantasy tropes and clichés.

Sparkles!

Sparkles!

Now, fantasy is ripe with lots of juicy cliché. In fact, the years PT (Post Tolkien, a dark time which encompasses most of the 70s and 80s) were filled with trilogy after endless trilogy in which elves lived in forests, dwarves lived in mountainous mines and there was a need for a quest to go somewhere dangerous and do something with a rare artefact that would save the world. Even some of the most well respected authors were prone to these tropes. Raymond E Feist’s Magician, for example, is one of my favourite books from my childhood and one I can still stand to read today. It had some very innovative ideas for the time about magic and many other wonderful concepts. However, in my opinion the presence of elves and dwarves in the world building, particularly ones so close to the Tolkien ideas,  was not one of them. It was almost as if they were put in there because the publisher demanded it or because the author did not think a book without elves and dwarves would sell. I feel that a lot of fantasy in the 70s and 80s suffered from this very assumption. You had to have dwarves and elves and wizards to be fantasy. It was only in the mid to late 90s I feel the Tolkien effect began to wear off and popular fantasy veered away from many of the tropes he established.

Elves and Dwarves as portrayed  by Ravenchilde Illustrations

Elves and Dwarves as portrayed by Ravenchilde Illustrations

Partly to blame may be Gary Gygax who used a lot of the Tolkien ideas in D&D and later AD&D and as they turned into major concerns, many other Roleplaying games and Wargames fed from them.  There wasn’t even really much of an attempt to make things hugely different and this I think led to things spiralling to the point where it was expected that RPGs/Wargames had these concepts because they were in novels and novels had them in because they were in RPGs/Wargames and it kept on ad infinitum. When Serious Lemon asked me to write the background for the wargame Realm, I was basically given the brief to maintain the ‘standard races all fantasy fans expect’ but to try to make them different to the usual tropes. Not sure how well I managed that, though I was particularly proud of my fascist (and actually quite evil in an ‘it’s all for the greater good’ way) Roman elves and the ‘British’ Navy Halflings turned pirate following the destruction of their island kingdom by Cthulhu. However, the point is that the ‘received wisdom’ seems to be that the readers/players expect to see the old favourites and you cannot change them too much lest you alienate your target audience. This risk averse attitude, something which Hollywood is also accused of having, might lead to effective sales (sometimes) but also might stifle creativity. I guess finding the balance between those two points may well be a kwy to success – different enough to be seen as original but with enough familiarity to keep your audience in their comfort zone.

Terry Pratchett, of course, thrived on cliché. His Discworld stories are full of tropes and the subversion of those tropes and he managed to walk that creative tightrope very well. One of my favourites is Cohen the Barbarian, the octogenarian Barbarian hero who first appeared in The Light Fantastic, and his infamous Silver Horde, who debuted in Interesting Times. They manage to be both a subversion of a cliché and a cliché in themselves. On the one hand they subvert the Arnold Schwarzenegger school of barbarianism, which creates a wonderful piece of cognitive dissonance as you imagine a wiry old man swinging a sword far too big for him while wearing a loincloth and little else. On the other hand, they are also everything you come to expect from clichéd old men, including complaints about aches and pains and always having peppermints. Not to mention the wheelchair with blades on the wheels. A lot of layers there.

Pratchett’s treatment of elves and dwarves also shows these two approaches. His elves (as seen in Lords and Ladies) are a subversion as they appear on the surface to be typical Shakespearean fey as seen in A Midsummer Night’s Dream because of the effect of their glamour. However, they are actually completely emotionless sociopaths who enjoy tormenting and killing just for the fun of it. On the other hand his dwarves are an exaggeration of all the things you come to expect from them – including (at least in the animated versions) comedy regional accents for all the regions in the UK known for mining (Yorkshire, Wales and the North East). They mine, they talk about mining, they sing about gold (at one point they even sing the Hi Ho song, yes that one…) and they get into fights when drunk*. Oh and they get sensitive about their height. Pratchett’s use of cliché is, I feel, a successful one. He uses the expectations of his audience, lulls them into a false sense of familiarity, then bludgeons them on the back of the neck with the half brick in a sock that is the unexpected subversion of that cliché. This is one way to use cliché and a way I have talked about in the past.

Happily I think we are in a better place creatively than we used to be. It now seems possible to write a whole fantasy trilogy in which there are no pointy eared wood dwelling elves, no bearded mining dwarfs and no long bearded wizards. You can even have a whole long series of books in which the races are based on insects which has to be a step forward. Dwarves in fantasy now have to be the scarred and bitter dispossessed sons of cruel noblemen who have developed a clever wit as a defence against all the taunts they have endured in their life because GRR Martin is now this century’s JRR Tolkien. I am sure we can expect there to be many copies of the concepts in A Song of Ice and Fire in the future. The stagnation that had been in place throughout the PT years is no more, though I suspect we are now entering the PM (post Martin) period… Though personally I would like to see the advent of the PP (Post Pratchett) period.

So, this is written with the intent of starting a debate. I am looking for ideas and concepts to discuss at the panel… If you have a thought on clichés in fantasy, please comment below. Alternatively, please vote on one of the polls I am posting to facebook or contact me in another manner to voice your opinion…

*Well, most of them do… in Wyrd Sisters there is the playwright Hwel, portrayed with a solid West Midland’s accent in the animated version to accentuate the relationship to Shakespeare, who is a non-bearded creative dwarf who has no interest in normal dwarf pursuits.
Some of the images used here were created by Ravenchilde illustrations and Quattrofoto. Please thank them for their efforts by visiting their sites.

D.A Lascelles is the author of Lurking Miscellany, Transitions (Mundania Press) and Gods of the Sea (Pulp Empires). He lives in Manchester UK. You can sometimes see him writing about Zombie porn on https://lurkingmusings.wordpress.com/ but he mostly blogs about books, vampires, science fiction and Terry Pratchett. He is inordinately proud of the fact that one of his Pratchett articles was referenced on the French version of the author’s Wikipedia page.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DaLascelles

Twitter: @areteus

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[Vampire Month] A stake in the heart

30 Monday Mar 2015

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Vampire Month

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A.J Campbell, Alex Campbell, Ann Rice, Bram Stoker, Jennifer Ponce, R.A Smith, Terry Pratchett, Vampire apocalypse, Vampire Month


Waiting for Dawn

Well, that is Vampire Month over with for another year. I’d like to extend my thanks to all the talented writers who have contributed to the fun this month and made this the very special event that it always is.

I’d also like to thank Ste and Izzy of Quattrofoto for supplying some of the photos we have showcased this year including the lovely one above of me as a Buffy style Watcher. They do weddings and other special occasions too and promise to only add lightening bolt special effects and demon horns to your wedding memories if you ask them to.

We’ve learned a lot this year. How to date a vampire, why they are so appealing, a little of the history of Vampire literature and why Alex Campbell rarely gets any sleep (because of all the famous vampires knocking on her window). I was going to contribute a post of my own to add to this collection but frankly I’m in awe and would feel out of place amongst such great articles. Also, the evil time goblins stole all my free hours. Oh and I did my Pratchett obituary and revealed how this blog helped stop the vampire apocalypse, so that was sort of my slot anyway.

Vampire month will be back next year. Same Vamp month, same Vamp url. If you want to get involved, feel free to contact me. We accept contributions from any writers, artists or academics with an interest in the topic of vampires. The format rarely changes – an interview and a guest post, spread over the course of a week. Four victims a year, repeat offenders welcome. First four to contact me get the four slots.

Also get in touch if you want to make suggestions about how to make Vampire month even more awesome than it already is. Suggestions for article topics feedback on posts… anything you want to talk about. You can email me on: dalascelles-writing@yahoo.co.uk, leave a comment below or find me on Facebook or twitter

I’m still waiting for Ann Rice, Rachel Caine or Bram Stoker to get in touch… Though Stoker is proving very difficult to contact for some reason. He doesn’t even seem to have a Twitter account…

[Vampire Month] The Vampires of my life by A.J Campbell

26 Thursday Mar 2015

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Musings, Vampire Month

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Angel, Bram Stoker, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, David Boreanz, David Cameron, Dracula, Francis Ford Coppola, Gary Oldman, Otto Criek, Pratchett, Spike, Terry Pratchett, The Little Vampire, Twilight, Vampire, Xander


For her guest post, Alex gives us this quirky little play… Spot the not so subtle political metaphor for bonus points…

Scene: A bedroom, at night. Long white curtains billow at a casement window. Three redhaircandles, in a tall wrought-iron stand gutter threateningly in the draft. Our protagonist lies, in a gauzy nightgown, on the high four-poster bed. Suddenly, she awakens to a rapping at the window.  

Protagonist: Who’s there? What is it? [Through the window enters a small, scruffy boy, ghostly pale with small fangs poking over his bottom lip.]

Boy: Muahahaha! I am here to suck your blood!

Protagonist: What? Who the… Oh, it’s you.

Boy: [Strikes a pose] Yes! ‘Tis I. The nightmare of your childhood! The creature who gave you sleepless moonlit hours and began your life-long fascination with the denizens of the night!

Protagonist: You’re The Littlest Vampire, aren’t you? When did you learn a word like “denizens”?

LV: Ah… you remember me!

Protagonist: Yes, I remember you. I remember hiding your book as far away from me as possible in my room so you wouldn’t crawl out of the pages and nibble on me in my sleep. I was still in junior school at the time though.

LV: [Looks pleased with himself] And since then? Do I still terrify you?

Protagonist: Are you kidding me? I used to think that sleeping with a scarf on would stop you being able to get to my neck. You were a good first introduction to the genre, but the only thing making you scary was the fact that I was a bit too young when someone gave me your book to read.

LV: [Subsides, crestfallen] Oh.

Protagonist: Go on. Go home before it gets light.

[The Littlest Vampire exits, and our protagonist settles back down to sleep, but is soon awakened once more by a knocking at the window.]

Protagonist: Littlest Vampire? I thought I told you to go home.

Sultry Voice from Outside: “Littlest” Vampire?

[At the window, David Boreanaz appears, doing his best to smoulder.]

Protagonist: Oh my… What are you doing out there?

DB: I can’t come in unless you invite me.

Protagonist: Oh yes… I remember that little bit. That’s about the first thing that stopped me being quite so terrified of Vamps. The idea that they couldn’t get at me unless I let them in. Problematic idea, really, tallying with notions of victim-blaming and bad things only happening to bad people. But it’s very much a case of a little knowledge being a dangerous thing, only able to be countered with a lot more knowledge. Like the time we did the Black Death in school, and I had nightmares for weeks until Mum told me about Penicillin.

DB: So…

Protagonist: Oh no, you’re not getting an invite. You can stay right there, mister. I remember Angelus. And your Irish accent Sucks.

DB: You’re a… fan then?

Protagonist: Oh, I used to love Buffy. Still do. It’s a cult classic. Makes me feel very old knowing it finished over ten years ago now. It was something of a defining feature of my teenage years – forget Edward or Jacob – the question was always whether you fancied Angel or Spike more.

DB: Which team were you on?

Protagonist: I was a geek. I fancied Xander.

DB: Oh. I should probably go then. See, I had this whole bit worked out about coming in, representing your every teenage fantasy, showing you how sexy vampires can be…

Protagonist: Nah. Sorry. Not tonight. Whilst it might be fun someday to revisit my burgeoning youth, I just want to crack out this article and get to bed.

DB: Another time then?

Protagonist: Perhaps. Shut the window on the way out?

[Boreanaz blows a kiss, and exits. Our protagonist again addresses herself to sleep, when a further knock on the window disturbs her attempt at slumber…]

Protagonist: Again? Really? Who is it this time?

[A tall, immaculately dressed Victorian gentleman appears at the window, incongruous only because of the small, round, black-tinted spectacles he is wearing.]

[Guest Post] What is Horror? by Rebeka HarringtonProtagonist: [Squealing like a completely star-struck fan-girl] Oh My God, it’s Garry Oldman as Dracula… Oh, this is the Francis Ford Coppola version! I remember this! I’d just read Bram Stoker’s book, and thought it was the best thing since sliced bread! My English Teacher at the time had this theory that if Stoker was alive today he would have published the book as an interactive work – just a box full of diaries and notes and newspaper clippings and “phonograph recordings” which would probably be MP3s or something these days. You’d get the entirety of Dracula on a USB stick and have to piece it all together. Wow! And I saw that film, and I was thinking, I don’t remember all those sexy bits in the book, but I was seventeen, so I didn’t care, and… and… and… Keanu Reeves was a perfect Johnathan Harker, because he has all the acting ability of a wet dishrag, and that’s absolutely fine, because Johnathan Harker is a wet dishrag – seriously, who cuts themselves shaving, watches a grown man that he’s only just met lick the blood off the razor and then hurl the mirror out of the window, and his only thought is “That’s most inconvenient, I’ll have to get a new shaving mirror.”? Oh my God, I am amazingly psyched to meet you, sir, this is fantastic.

GO: [Mildly perturbed] Are you going to be like this all evening?

Protagonist: I’m sorry, I may settle down soon, but I’m not at all certain.

GO: In which case, I think I’d probably better go. It was a pleasure meeting you. [He tips his top hat]

Protagonist: No, don’t go! See, that’s exactly why you were amazing, you showed how vampires could be suave and sophisticated, yet also menacing and creepy and sexy and… and… [realises how over the top she is being.] Ok. I get it. You probably should go. I’m really sorry, I’m not usually like this. I don’t know what’s come over me…

[Gary Oldman turns into a bat and flies away, blowing the entire special effects budget in the process. With a sigh, our protagonist once again turns to the bed. She has not long laid down when there is a clicking sound, like that of a camera shutter, and a doctorwhotwilightsmall flash of light.]

Otto Chreik: Vonderful! Simply vonderful! Ze vay ze candlelight shines on ze flowing curtains, and ze hair spread like zat on ze pillow! Ya, ya, von more! Svoon please! Ya, more svooning, zat is perfect!

Protagonist: Otto?

Otto: Ya? Von second please… [he takes another picture, then puts down the camera.] Can I help you?

Protagonist: Otto Chreik? Otto: Ya, ya, it is me?

Protagonist: You must be here to represent my Pratchett phase. Which, in fairness never really ended. It’s wonderful to see you. I’m so, so sorry about Sir Terry. He was a master of the genre, this must be a terrible time for you.

Otto: Ya, ya… Vell, unlife goes on, as they say.

Protagonist: Pratchett’s vampires taught me so much about the genre… Count Magpyr and his family – the fact that the worst villains are those who pretend they’re doing this for your own good…

[A spectre of David Cameron floats lazily past]

Cameron: Don’t mind me, I’m just a metaphor.

Protagonist: [after his retreating back] Now there’s a vampire I could quite happily stake.

Otto: Indeed.

Protagonist: Even the comic vampires – I’ve always loved comedy, wish I could write it myself, but I tend to overdo it. Comedy is the best teacher, because it allows learning to sneak in round the edges while we’re laughing. Even a character like yourself can show us that there is so much that vampires can teach us about the nature of humanity, the nature of evil – your own comic persona being just that, hammed up round the edges deliberately to seem non-threatening, because we all know where we are vis a silly accent, and we forget about the blood.

Otto: [Bows slightly] Vell, I’m glad to haf been of service. But now, I really must be goink, I haf a scoop to catch for ze evenink edition.

Protagonist: Send me a copy of the pictures, won’t you?

[Otto exits with a dramatic flourish.]

Protagonist: Well, that really must be everyone – I can’t see how…

[At this point Edward Cullen pops up at the windowsill]

EC: You know, you’re like my own personal brand of…

Protagonist: No! No, no, no, no, no! You can fuck right off! I had to read your books when I was considering writing my PhD, but that was only ever so I could rip them apart!

EC: But teenage girls love me! Protagonist: Yes, and I probably would have done so when I was fifteen, but I’m a lot more savvy now, and I’ve discovered feminism, so screw you and the dodgy paperback you rode in on! You’re as bad as Fifty Shades of Grey, what with teaching impressionable young girls that stalking is the basis of a good relationship. And I don’t even think you’re a real vampire – you’re some sort of crystalline blood-powered golem anyway. Vampires don’t sparkle!

EC: I’m only sparkling because I love you…

[At this point, our protagonist punches Cullen square in the face, causing him to fall out of the window. There are loud cheers. She then pulls down the casement and locks it firmly against any further night-time intrusions. Finally, she manages to get a good night’s sleep, though what she dreams about is anyone’s guess…]

Bio

Alex Campbell was born in the wilds of Northumbria, and from an early age cut her teeth on legends like that of the Lampton Worm, which formed the inspiration for her first book, Wyrm’s Reckoning, out later this year..

She obtained a degree in English and Creative Writing at the University of Warwick, then in a shameless attempt to avoid Real Life, followed this up with two Masters Degrees in Science Fiction and in Writing from the University of Liverpool and Liverpool John Moores respectively.

Now, she lives in Portsmouth, at what she insists on referring to as the “wrong” end of the country, with her fiance and a number of dead house-plants. She is a keen gamer and LARPer, for which she makes many of her own costumes. She is not ashamed of being a geek

You can find her on her blog:  https://galacticavoice.wordpress.com/ and also on her facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/AJ-Campbell/1525096601059912

[Vampire Month] Alex Campbell Interview

24 Tuesday Mar 2015

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Vampire Month

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Durham, Gail Carriger, Lampton Worm, Lampton Wyrm, Neil Gaiman, Northumbria, Sunderland, Terry Pratchett, Vampire


redhairOur final entry into the Vampire Month interrogation suite (four interrogators, no waiting) is Alex Campbell. I’ve known Alex for a few years now but was not aware until I did this interview one thing we had in common – the region we were both born in.

Alex is currently working on her debut novel, Wyrm’s Reckoning which is due out in the summer. We’ll be seeing more of her when that happens.

Oh and if you are wondering where you may have seen Alex before… well, look back at our past fantasy photoshoots with Quattrofoto where she modelled as a psychotic elven Empress and an undead sorcerer. In real life she is not anywhere near as evil.

  •  What is the earliest memory you have of writing? What did you write about?

I actually still have my first “book”. I wrote it when I was about 3 – probably a little older, but the writing is about one sentence to a page, so not much older. It was a very twee little story about woodland animals going on a picnic. It was genuinely awful.

  • When did you decide to become a professional writer? Why did you take this step?

I’ve always wanted to be a writer – I can’t remember a time when I didn’t write, and it’s always made me happy being able to share that writing with other people. Even from the days of GCSE physics class, which I mostly spent writing Pratchett pastiches and passing them round the bench. I made several attempts down the years to go pro, but it wasn’t until last August that I finally managed to find a publisher. I think, in my heart I’ve always been a professional writer, but it’s probably still going to be some time before I’m making enough money from writing for it to be my only career.

  • What would you consider to be your greatest strength as a writer? What about your greatest weakness? How do you overcome this weakness?
Photo courtesy of Quattrofoto

Photo courtesy of Quattrofoto

Greatest strength… probably the fact that I’m an avid reader and always have been. It’s left me with an extensive vocabulary, and also a good sense of the flow of prose, so I can instinctively tell if something feels natural, which helps a lot. As to my weaknesses – an inability to judge subtlety. I either tend to make things glaringly obvious or completely overlooked, and finding a happy medium is a challenge. Overcoming it is basically all about practice.

  • Tell us about the place where you live. Have you ever derived any inspiration from your home or from anywhere you have visited?

My current novel is actually set where I grew up, in Northumbria and Tyne and Wear. It’s inspired by a folk-tale from those parts – the tale of the Lampton Worm – and I’ve tried very hard to root the story in the area. Sense of place is very important to me, and almost every scene in the book features, or is inspired by locations from Up North – Penshaw Monument, Belsay Castle, the beach by Tynemouth Priory… it’s a beautiful part of the world, and it’s one that doesn’t get a lot of press. People think of Newcastle as a very grey city, full of football supporters and flat-caps and an unintelligible accent, but like anywhere, there’s far more to it than the stereotype suggests.

  • Which book, if any, would you consider to be your greatest influence and inspiration?

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman. For this particular book at least.

  • What drove you to write about Vampires?

They’re such a staple really. I wanted to include a lot of fantasy elements to the novel, and I couldn’t leave them out. I’ve always found them interesting, and you can do just about anything with them. In my case, that translated to East-European gun-runners, but I’m looking forward to playing even further with the tropes in later books.

  • What do you think is the attraction for Vampire fiction? Why is it such a popular topic?

Lots of reasons. Vampires allow us to talk about the big questions of what it means to be human, what it is to be evil, and how the two collide. But I think a lot of it comes down to sex. Vampires (well, the good ones at least) are suave and charismatic and dangerous, and there’s something very primal about them. They look just like us, but they’re not, they’re other. They’re predators, and yet so very seductive and compelling… in a lot of ways they’re a metaphor for the allure of the opposite or sometimes the same sex. They’re forbidden fruit, and so they’re always going to be popular.

The Lampton Worm, a popular North East legend

  • In a fight between all the greatest Vampires of fiction, who do you think would come out on top?

The Old Count Magpyr from Pratchett’s Carpe Jugulum. He might not actually win in a physical fight, but he’d make sure he’d win the war, through patience and knowing how to play the game.

  • What about in some other contest such as sexiness or dress sense? Who would win that one?

Sexiness is all about personal preference, but for dress sense I’d go for Lord Akeldama from Gail Carriger’s books.

  • How well do you think one of your characters would fare against the winner(s) of the above?

Probably quite badly. They’re currently taking time out from a war, so they’re not in any condition to take anyone on in a fight, and dress sense… well unless refugee chic is a thing…

  • Tell us the basic premise behind your latest novel.

It’s a modern-day urban fantasy set in the North East. At his uncle’s funeral, Richard Lampton suddenly finds himself heir to a deadly curse; he is being hunted by the Lampton Wyrm, a monster from the Dark Ages set on annihilating his bloodline. He has a week to shape up and become a hero, with a little help from a packed cast of weird and wonderful characters he meets from myth and legend, and a fledgling Jackdaw called Bobble.

 Bio

Alex Campbell was born in the wilds of Northumbria, and from an early age cut her teeth on legends like that of the Lampton Worm, which formed the inspiration for her first book, Wyrm’s Reckoning, out later this year..

She obtained a degree in English and Creative Writing at the University of Warwick, then in a shameless attempt to avoid Real Life, followed this up with two Masters Degrees in Science Fiction and in Writing from the University of Liverpool and Liverpool John Moores respectively.

Now, she lives in Portsmouth, at what she insists on referring to as the “wrong” end of the country, with her fiance and a number of dead house-plants. She is a keen gamer and LARPer, for which she makes many of her own costumes. She is not ashamed of being a geek

You can find her on her blog:  https://galacticavoice.wordpress.com/ and also on her facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/AJ-Campbell/1525096601059912

Terry Pratchett 1948 – 2015

12 Thursday Mar 2015

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Musings

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

GRR Martin, Leonard Nimoy, Obituary, Pratchett, Sourcery, Terry Pratchett


Over the last few months it is becoming increasingly clear who is writing 2015. With so many popular characters leaving us for the great VIP party in the sky, Nimoy and now Pratchett, it can only be GRR Martin calling the shots. In light of today’s sad passing, it is I feel appropriate to briefly interrupt Vampire month to mark this occasion.pratchett quote

I first encountered Pratchett when I was at school. There was a brief extract from Pyramids in a roleplaying magazine I bought frequently and an article on how to run a Discworld style roleplaying game. I was intrigued and bought a copy of Pyramids and later a copy of Good Omens. The same year I went to a signing at Dillon’s bookshop in Newcastle and met the man himself. Since then I have bought pretty much every book he has produced and seen his development into a great author. I have in the past commented on how his writing developed – from the blatant parody of The Colour of Magic to the subtle satire of his later books – a in particular how Ankh Morpork moved from a copy of Lieber’s Lankhmar to something akin to a cross between Regency London and modern New York.

His books have influenced my life. Each one he produced getting better and better. I remember buying a new one every weekend and reading it in an afternoon. Even though I read them so quickly, they never seemed to end. Nor did they ever lapse in quality. As a writer myself I have always been impressed by this level of output and I am sure many other writers, published or otherwise, would love to be able to replicate this. The style he wrote in was also unlike any other author I have ever seen. He rarely used chapters, he wrote in his own unique stream of consciousness narrative, he added footnotes! To fiction! As if it were some form of academic essay! What a way to break the rules in style! I think that the daring and ability to break the rules so blatantly is a sign of true genius.

When I was running the Vampire LRP at Manchester Metropolitan University in the mid 90’s there was an ongoing theme in the In Character rumours published in our newsletter over Pratchett (and his Hat) dancing at Rock World with Neil Gaiman (and his leather jacket). Players of that game may or may not be surprised to learn there was actually no plot significance to these just me nerding out at two of my favourite authors. I very much doubt any of the copies of those newsletters still exist…

And if you are in any doubt about how much he meant to me, you can consider that earlier this week I was teaching about inspiration and creativity in science and this quote was in my mind all through the lesson:

“It is a well-known established fact throughout the many-dimensional worlds of the multiverse that most really great discoveries are owed to one brief moment of inspiration. There’s a lot of spadework first, of course, but what clinches the whole thing is the sight of, say, a falling apple or a boiling kettle or the water slipping over the edge of the bath. Something goes click inside the observer’s head and then everything falls into place. The shape of DNA, it is popularly said, owes its discovery to the chance sight of a spiral staircase when the scientist’s mind was just at the right receptive temperature. Had he used the elevator, the whole science of genetics might have been a good deal different.*

*Though certainly a lot faster and only licensed to carry 4 people”

Terry Pratchett, Sourcery.

And with that I close my remembrances and raise a glass to the memories of childhood reading.

D.A Lascelles is the author of Lurking Miscellany, Transitions (Mundania Press) and Gods of the Sea (Pulp Empires). He lives in Manchester UK. You can sometimes see him writing about Zombie porn on https://lurkingmusings.wordpress.com/ but he mostly blogs about books, vampires, science fiction and Terry Pratchett. He is inordinately proud of the fact that one of his Pratchett articles was referenced on the French version of the author’s Wikipedia page.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DaLascelles

Twitter: @areteus

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[Vampire Month] The return of the undead never dying month

01 Sunday Mar 2015

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Musings, Vampire Month

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A.J Campbell, Blood Curse, Cranberry Blood, Elizabeth Morgan, Jennifer Ponce, Oblivion Storm, Quattrofoto, R.A Smith, Ste Manns, Terry Pratchett, Vampire, Wyrm's Reckoning, Xychler Publishing


So here we are again, another year, another March, another month of dark posts about evil blood sucking parasites with a strong aversion to sunlight and the vampires they write about.Vampire

This year looks to be an interesting one, not least because I filled all the available slots way back at the end of last year rather than the usual last minute panic. The keen is strong in the writers we have this year and I think there may well be some fascinating topics covered in the guest posts.

The line up (in no particular order) is:

Jennifer Ponce, author of Blood Curse and its upcoming sequel.

R.A Smith, author of the Grenshall Manor series. Book 3 is currently in the process of being written

A.J Campbell, a newly published author with her debut novel, Wyrm’s Reckoning out soon

Elizabeth Morgan – author of Cranberry Blood

We are also featuring the photography of Ste Manns from Quattrofoto, who you may remember from the Realm fantasy shoots.

Waiting for Dawn

 

###

D.A Lascelles is the author of Lurking Miscellany, Transitions (Mundania Press) and Gods of the Sea (Pulp Empires). He lives in Manchester UK. You can sometimes see him writing about Zombie porn on https://lurkingmusings.wordpress.com/ but he mostly blogs about books, vampires, science fiction and Terry Pratchett. He is inordinately proud of the fact that one of his Pratchett articles was referenced on the French version of the author’s Wikipedia page.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DaLascelles

Twitter: @areteus

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The truth is out there?

11 Thursday Jul 2013

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Musings

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

alien civilisations, aliens, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Douglas Adams, Dyson sphere, E.T the Extra-Terrestrial, Eukaryotes, Europa, images of aliens, Independence Day, Io, NSA, Prokaryotes, Pulsars, Science, SETI, Spring-Heeled Jack, Star Trek, Terry Pratchett, UK SETI, Vulcans


I used Grammarly to grammar check this post, because even primitive, prokaryotic parasites should display good grammar.

My trawlings of the internet brought this article to my attention:

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/new-hunt-for-aliens-who-%E2%80%9Cmove-stars%E2%80%9D-150112482.html

It seems that the British version of the SETI project (UK SETI research network) is focusing its efforts on finding evidence of aliens capable of moving stars or building giant structures in space. This being in addition to SETI’s usual activities of eavesdropping on potential alien communications like some interstellar version of the NSA*.

This sort of research is great for reporters. It makes good copy and impresses the readers with lots of imaginative images of alien civilisations and the advanced technology their no doubt superior intelligence has created. As a society, modern humanity has been brought up on the Hollywood stories of E.T, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Independence Day. Aliens in these stories are intelligent with highly advanced technology including ships that are capable of achieving the near impossible (according to current human understanding of physics) speeds necessary to travel the vast interstellar distances needed to get here from our nearest neighbour. They also have some form of interest in Earth – whether as a target for conquest, often to mine for our plentiful resources, or as a potential ally (however junior) in some form of galactic federation (for example the Vulcans in Star Trek). They can also be obsessed with capturing and probing helpless humans either for scientific research or, according to Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams, as the alien equivalent to Cow Tipping. These are our common held beliefs about alien life, mired in stories of the fantastic that range back even so far as the tales of Spring Heeled Jack.

There are, however, a lot of assumptions in those images of aliens. They assume that not only are they sentient and civilised but that they are infinitely more intelligent and civilised than we are. Why should this be the case? Given that the greatest chance we have of identifying life on other planets might currently be finding bacteria or even just the remnants of bacteria deep in the oceans of Europa or hidden in the rocks of Io, why should we expect any other alien species to be any more than that? These alien bacteria are unlikely to blow up the Whitehouse or give us access to the secrets of eternal life or warp drives. Even if an alien race were more complex than our own earthborne prokaryoates**, to the extent of being multicellular and sentient, then why should they be necessarily more advanced? Could there not be a race of quiet, unassuming aliens out there somewhere in the universe, sitting in caves, drawing on walls and hitting rocks together in the vague hope of one day discovering fire? Given that our entire strategy for finding aliens is predicated on the assumption that they are at least as advanced as we are (to the extent of using EM radiation to communicate and entertain) there is very little chance we’d find any evidence of our extraterrestrial cavemen. Considering that there has been, to date, approximately two hundred thousand years of human existence on earth and we have only been transmitting EM waves from our televisions and radios for just over 100 of these, how likely do you think it is that some other civilisation is going to be producing such waves themselves or picking up on ours? Assuming, of course, that they do utilise EM radiation in the same way we do and don’t communicate using some other method that we have never considered. While the chance of alien life actually existing are a lot higher than previously believed, the universe is so vast in both time and space that the chances of us picking up on each other are very low indeed.

There are, of course, several reasons why we have these assumptions about alien life. The main practical ones revolve around the fact that we basically have no hope of finding any form of life more primitive than 20th century humans. Until we ourselves get to the point of being able to travel to other planets to look for ourselves, we are somewhat limited by our ability to detect things like EM waves and interpret them in some way. Sometimes we can’t even do that right and mistake something like a pulsar for evidence of alien life. There are potentially hundreds of thousands of years worth of alien development that lack such obvious signs but we cannot detect them unless there is a major shift in our technology. So we are limited to what we can detect and that assumes aliens with technology at least as advanced as our own. Also, any alien civilisation that came to visit us would be definitely more advanced because they would have to have developed the appropriate methods of interstellar travel.

However, these prosaic reasons pale in comparison to those based on human nature and wish fulfilment. We have always looked to the

An artists idea of what a Dyson sphere may look like. For scale consider that the yellow thing in the middle is a star like our sun.

stars and wondered about them. In the past we made them the home of the gods, now we consider them the home of aliens. Some theories even conflate the two by stating that the aliens came to earth and became our gods. A number of science fiction franchises are even based on this theory including both the original and more recent Battlestar Galactica series. Psychologically, humanity appears to feel the need to have something bigger than it out there to look up to. Having risen to the top of the foodchain on earth, we offset our responsibility for the planet and all who live on it by deferring it ‘upstairs’ – to superior beings be they gods, aliens or even abstract ideals such as the Fates.

Also, aliens with vastly superior technology and intelligence make for far better stories than quiet ones who just want to get on with discovering fire or inventing the printing press. When we defeat the former we look like epic heroes valiantly battling against impossible odds and a superior foe***. Defeat the latter and we are colonialist dicks imposing our ‘superior’ ideals and technology on the poor defenceless natives and frankly we have done enough of that in our time. In the absence of any other concrete evidence at all about aliens, we will naturally tend to default to an assumption where they are bigger and better than we are. All in all, it is far better for our psychological well-being for aliens to be more advanced than we are.

So, while scientists are busy out there trying to eavesdrop on alien telephone conversations or looking for Dyson spheres, spare a thought for the simple prokaryoates potentially clinging to a semblance of organic life on some volcanic vent deep on an extrasolar planet or the spear wielding, eight armed, crocodile headed people of Arachnia who have not yet heard of Marconi or Alexander Graham Bell and wouldn’t even know how to build a Dyson vacuum cleaner never mind a Dyson Sphere.

* All this talk of the NSA eavesdropping on the internet and not one person thinks to stand up for the rights of aliens to their privacy. Typical humanocentric attitude. Someone should seek to regulate SETI’s privacy invading practises.

** Prokaryotes, for those without knowledge of A level Biology, is a posh science word for the group of organism that include bacteria. It refers to a Kingdom of living organisms that lack a nuclear membrane among other features I won’t go into here. Eukaryoates, which is what we are, do have a nuclear membrane. It is generally considered that Prokaryotes are a more primitive form of life in evolutionary terms. Certainly all the multicellular creatures on earth have nuclear membranes, though as this grouping includes several humans who believe in some very silly political ideas it may seem a little disingenuous to call them ‘advanced’.

*** Or at least having superior pathogens, as in the case of War of Worlds. We humans may not have interstellar travel or heat rays but we sure know how to cultivate a deadly cold virus.

[Amwriting] The City and The City

30 Tuesday Oct 2012

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Guest posts

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

#amwriting, Ankh Morepork, China Mieville, City, Fantasy, Firefly, Fritz Lieber, guest blogging, guest posts, Joss Whedon, Lankhmar, New Crobuzon, Personality, Terry Pratchett


In my first post for the newly ressurected Amwriting site I talk about how the personalities of cities vary and give examples of three fantasy cities that are very similar in some ways and yet very different…

http://amwritingblog.com/wordpress/archives/15471

If anyone has any ideas as to which city is shown in the first photograph of that article, feel free to comment to reveal your knowledge and I may tell you if you are right or wrong… here is that photograph again for you to look at….

Guess the city… answers in a comment, please…

Weird Worlds [AW Blog chain for June]

11 Monday Jun 2012

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Musings

≈ 20 Comments

Tags

Deus ex machinae, Discworld, fantasy worlds, g k chesterton, gaming, god, Magic, magic and religion, pedants, Terry Pratchett, World design, worlds of wonder, writing


Worlds are difficult.

On the one hand, writing a story set in the real world has a host of issues involving

One of the strangest fantasy worlds in existence…

research – especially if you want to make sure that all the details are accurate to prevent pedants from picking holes in your creation. On the other hand, setting your tale in a made up world means you have to make up all those details in order to create things for pedants to get picky about. You could sit and debate about which is the most difficult but, in my opinion, they are both as difficult as each other – assuming you do both properly.

In terms of made up worlds, there is a belief that ‘it is only fantasy’ – meaning that you can get away with a lot of things because of the existence of magic or advanced science or whatever. However, this is not true at all. While there is scope for some strangeness in the make up of a world it is actually a really bad idea to mess around with a world higgedly piggedly and then claim that it’s fine because ‘magic can make anything happen’. The truth is that magic can do nothing of the sort.

Or, to be more precise, the human mind which we use to study the world in which we live and which we naturally also apply to the study of any worlds we encounter, including made up ones, likes to see rules in place. From the earliest humans looking up at the stars and wondering what they were right up to modern man sitting at his computer, we have attempted to make sense of everything. In the early days we created the rules of magic and religion to explain some of the phenomena that we could not explain – gods made it rain, therefore it is a good idea to sacrifce to the god of rain to keep them happy so it would rain when we wanted it to and not when we didn’t. In other words, we not only created the rules, we tried to use them to change the universe.

Rules therefore are important. As G.K Chesterton said “Art consists of limitation. The most beautiful part of every picture is the frame”. I take this to mean that, in writing, it is the limitations which drive the story. Characters thrive on the challenge and adversity of not being able to do what they want, drama and emotion spring from their need to achieve something that cannot be had without a great deal of effort. The existence of magic in the world does not mean that you can ignore the rules. Fairy tales tell us what some of them are – there are only three wishes allowed (and no, you cannot ask for an infinite number of wishes), you have to stick to the path when walking in fairie, the ogre can always be outwitted… And what about other occult laws such as the doctrine of signatures or the threefold law of return? Even in worlds that are as outre and fantastic as Terry Pratchett’s Discworld there are limitations on magic. Wizards there have to be careful to avoid using it in case they attract the denizens of the Dungeon Dimensions, they are not allowed to use the number 8 because of a connection with Bel Shamaroth (and coincidentally with the 8th colour of the Discworld rainbow – Octarine) and old magic items like books and scrolls are treated like unexploded nuclear bombs – carefully shielded in lead and buried in case they go critical. This sort of thing does not happen in worlds where magic is free to run riot over the laws of the universe without some payback.

So, the lesson here is to examine your magic system carefully. Is it too easy for characters to achieve things just by using their magic? Is magic too cheap? Too easy? To lacking in consequences? Can every plot line be solved with a character simple waving their hands and declaiming ‘Deus ex machinae’?* Magic is a force which usually requires time, energy, effort, expense and many other things to achieve. There should be expensive materials (gems are common, as are things made of gold or silver or rare herbs and spices that are hard to obtain), lots of confusing and esoteric research in libraries, elaborate preparations (drawing circles, dancing, chanting, purifying yourself and your ritual space), exhausting and dramatic rituals (drumming, screaming vocals to the heavens, blood sacrifice) and all sorts of other gubbins of that ilk. To paraphrase Pratchett, by the time you have spent all your life learning the spell to summon naked women into your bedroom you are too old, tired and have a body too damaged by exposure to dangerous chemicals to do anything worthwhile with them….

Overall, it makes for a far more ‘believable’ magical world than one where ‘just anything can happen’.

*as god does, in fact, do at the end of one Simpson’s episode… but he is god, he is sort of allowed to Deus ex machinae things by dint of his job description. Though, it is best not to use this approach too often save in parody…

Ok, you know the rules on this by now. You have to visit the other people in the chain or little goblins will come out in the night and eat your shoes. And then die of leather poisoning because goblins are not supposed to eat shoes (they have intolerances, poor little dears) and it will all be your fault you heartless gits… So, to save the life of a goblin today, please read and comment on the following excellent blogs:

dclary (comic) – www.hardhobbittobreak.com (link to this month’s image)
orion_mk3 – http://nonexistentbooks.wordpress.com (link to this month’s post)
Proach – http://desstories.blogspot.com/ (link to this month’s post)
pyrosama – http://matrix-hole.blogspot.com/ (link to this month’s post)
areteus – https://lurkingmusings.wordpress.com/ (link to this month’s post)
Diana_Rajchel – http://blog.dianarajchel.com/ (link to this month’s post)
writingismypassion – http://charityfaye.blogspot.com/ (link to this month’s post)
randi.lee – http://emotionalnovel.blogspot.com/ (link to this month’s post)
magicmint – http://www.loneswing.com/ (link to this month’s post)
Sweetwheat – http://gomezkarla.blogspot.com/ (link to this month’s post)
AFord – http://writeword.blog.com/ (link to this month’s post)
Nick Rolynd – http://30minfiction.wordpress.com/ (link to this month’s post)
dclary (blog) – http://www.davidwclary.com/ (link to this month’s post)
MelodySRV – http://createamelody.com/ (link to this month’s post)

Terry Pratchett: Tracing the evolution of a writer

24 Thursday Nov 2011

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Musings

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Captain Vimes, developing as a writer, Discworld, Fafhrd, Fritz Lieber, Havelock Vetinari, Jane Austen, Lankhmar, Pride and Prejudice, Publication, Rincewind, Snuff, Terry Pratchett, The Colour of Magic, The Gray Mouser, The Patrician, traditional publishers


This is something I have been thinking about for a while now. In fact, I’ve been thinking about this ever since I started reading fantasy and science fiction. I have been pondering the ways in which a writer develops. Not particularly thinking about how they improve their writing to the point where they become good enough to be published but rather considering what happens to your writing after you get published.

After all, none of us are static. No one is born a great writer and it is ludicrous to assume that the progression of the writing craft simply comes to a stop once the first novel hits the shelves. Instead a good writer is always looking to improve on what they did before and this is what I want to discuss today. To do this, I am going to use the example of Terry Pratchett.

Now, for those of you who have been in a cave for the last 20 years or so and don’t know who Terry Pratchett is, I suppose I should enlighten you. Those already up on Britain’s most popular and prolific fantasy comedy writer may feel free to skip this paragraph altogether and move onto the good stuff later…

Terry Pratchett is the writer of far far too many to count novels set in the  Discworld – a fantasy world which sits on the back of four elephants who are sat on the back of a turtle. As a world with such ludicrous metaphysics, naturally strange things happen there (many of them powered by that elusive element never found in the real world – Narrativium) and this leads to comedic situations. Pratchett has also written a number of novels set in other worlds – Strata, the Bromeliad trilogy (Truckers, Diggers and Wings), Nation and, of course, The Carpet People (his first publication in 1971). He has an OBE, a Knighthood and a number of publishing awards to his name. He is largely considered to be a very prolific writer with an average speed of one book a year. In 2007 he announced that he had been diagnosed with Alzeimers and, as well as making generous donations to various charities for that disease he has also stated his support for the right to die. He has stated that he intends to take steps to end his own life before his disease progresses to a critical point.

So, brief biographical information out of the way. If you want to know more, feel free to look him up on his Wikipedia page Time for the real meat of this piece. How has Pratchett developed as a writer since his first publication?

In order to keep things simple, I am not going to discuss The Carpet People or any of the non-Discworld novels. I am keeping thing solely in the province of his best known creation. The first Discworld book was entitled ‘The Colour of Magic’. It was published in 1983 – which totally blows my theory about the origin of its name being due to either a pun on the title of the novel, The Color of Money (published 1984), or the Robert De Niro film of the same name (released 1986). The Colour of Magic introduces us to the Discworld as a vibrant and chaotic fantasy realm and takes us on a travelogue which spans a significant part of the disc. We meet one of Pratchett’s most memorable characters – the cowardly wizard, Rincewind – and are introduced to a plethora of characters and plotlines, each of which parodies an element of fantasy literature. For example, the character of Hrun the Barbarian is your typical  musclebound thug of an adventurer, the classic Conan the Barbarian stereotype, while Bravd the Hublander and the Weasel (two characters who have brief appearances in the story) are clearly derived from Fritz Lieber’s Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser. A part of the intention behind the Discworld is also to subvert many of the fantasy cliches and so Rincewind, our main hero for the first few books, is a wizard who is neither brave nor capable of casting spells. Admittedly, the last one is due to him being unable to learn spells due to one of the eight, great spells that helped create the universe being stuck in his head, but even after he later gets rid of that impediment he still has a major problem actually using any magic. We also later (in the sequel, The Light Fantastic) get Cohen the Barbarian, the ludicrously wonderful subversion of the Conan schtick in the form of a barbarian hero who is still adventuring well into his eighties.

From these parodies in the early books, there slowly develops a complex and involved world. As the series develops we see more and more of the world and meet more characters. For many of the early books there is still the sense that Discworld is a parody of a fantasy realm and that Ankh Morepork, Pratchett’s fantasy city, is a play on the concept of Lieber’s Lankhmar.

At some point, however, things change. It is a slow change and a subtle one, taking place over a number of novels and with the development of several storylines and characters. I think it begins properly with the first Night watch book, Guards! Guards!, as Pratchett clearly needed a grittier and more realistic setting for the somewhat noirish adventures of Captain Vimes and the members of the Night Watch. This series takes the ruler of Ankh Morepork, the Patrician, and turns him into a more rounded character by planting him in the position of the ‘City Mayor’ as popularised by many a US cop show. It also rounds out the city, letting readers see the seedier side of the streets and goes into more detail regarding the role of the Thieves Guild in enforcing the law. At some point between Guards! Guards! and the latest offering, Snuff, Ankh Morepork ceases to be a parody of Lankhmar. Instead it becomes something more akin to a strange hybrid of Lankhmar with London and New York of the early 19th Century. The characters take on a decidedly Regency cast to them, something which is emphasised in Snuff’s parodying of Austen’s Pride and Prejudce, and there are themes inherent in the storylines which harken to concepts of the industrial revolution and the social, political and economic changes which eventually led to the Victorian era. These issues are especially apparent in the Moist books – Going Postal, Making Money and the soon to be released, Raising Taxes – where Vetinari is seen to be actively in the process of modernising the city and such issues as mobile phone companies and the gold standard are challenged with satire.

In other words, Discworld represents Pratchett’s evolution as a writer from someone who only wants to poke fun at the fantasy trends of the time to someone with the confidence and ability to tackle serious, real world issues by poking fun at examples from literature and history.  I believe that all writers undergo this process of maturation. Initially, in a desire to get published, many writers are conservative about what they want to write about – seeking popular topics which may allow good sales. However, post publication, they begin to gain more confidence and feel as if they can stretch their muscles more and be experimental in what they write. In Discworld, Pratchett gives us the opportunity to see that process in action in a way that is not possible with many writers. We have 28 years of books, all set in the same world by the same writer, to show it.

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