Do It Yourself

 Like Sci-Fi, Fantasy can sometimes hold a mirror up to our own world, by showing one in which things are nearly the same, but often worse. A writer can get away with Mad Mage of Zog Empire saying something you can't have the President say.

 It's a bit hard at the moment. I can't see how we could have a Fantasy allegory of today's politics, it would be ridiculous. Readers wouldn't believe it. I'd do better with Mad Mage and the Zogs. Good name for a 60's pop band, now I think about it.

 In truth, it's very hard anyway. Politics is labyrinthine, a mess of ironies and contradictions that only make sense to us (well, a bit of sense) because we live in the middle of it all. We pick up the little quirks as we go along, so we have a frame to fit everything into. It's not like that with ancient Rome, say. We might know some important figures like Emperors and writers, but we don't know the hundreds of minor issues that cropped up day by day. We can't really imagine them, so it's tricky to write a political Fantasy novel unless you go into tedious detail explaining everything all the time.

 Robert Graves did a wonderful job of this with I, Claudius, by the way. Read it if you can.

 The best we can do is broad strokes. I do some of that in the Songs of Sorrow books, which tell of the struggle to survive of a small religious group threatened by a much larger one. One character here to show such-and-such, one character there to show blah-blah, and leave it at that. Sometimes in writing the trick is to leave detail out and let the reader fill it in for himself. That way every reader has a subtly different mental image of the story, but isn't that why a book is nearly always better than the film version?

 I'm going to try to ignore the real world's politics for a while. Tough ask, in the middle of a General Election, but I'll give it a go. I think I prefer the struggle of the Ashir, and speaking of that, I'm closing in on finishing the final edit of Fanged Fish. The cover's being designed as I write this and we have a tentative publication date of November this year - a scant 6 months away. Meanwhile Kai is trying to change his people's culture to help them survive, and others are trying to stop him and cling to what they know.

 Politics, eh?

Revolution Baby

 Now and then, the world changes.

 Sometimes it's sudden and obvious. The nuclear bombs in Japan in 1945, or the attacks of 9/11 in 2001. Other times it's harder to see, the effects uncertain for a while, like when Muhammad started preaching in 610 AD. Who would have said his teachings would spread so far and last so long?

 Or you can look at the 1960's, which are still seen as a sort of epochal change in attitudes. The decade gave us greater equality and Civil Rights, but in the end faded away with its dreams unfulfilled. That happened before, in the 1840's for example. People can live through social upheaval and think it's changing the world, only to find at the end that the same people hold the same power in the same places.

 That might be happening now.

 Americans are so disillusioned with politics that they elected a President who was never a politician. France might yet elect Marine Le Pen, of the far right. Later in the year Italy could elect a Five Star/Northern Alliance government that will take the country out of the EU. Of course Britain recently voted to leave, and we're now holding a general election that will either cement that decision or undermine it. All looks very impressive, doesn't it? The old power bases are crumbling. Change hangs in the air.

 Or does it? Big political movements come and go, and big political parties outlast them. Upheaval passes to leave the largest companies untouched, as secure as ever. The sons of rich men still go to the best schools. The gap between the richest and the rest still widens. What, exactly, has changed? Anything fundamental?

 This is how society works. Any social organisation starts because the people need it, but pretty soon it reverses, and the organisation uses the people to survive, to perpetuate itself. Close behind that comes coercion. Everyone is coerced. You, me, the neighbours, everyone who voted for the other guy... all of us. We always will be, though maybe not as badly. We can bring change. But it means tearing up society's rules and starting again, because otherwise the new boss will be just the same as the old boss.

 Understanding this is key to writing about ancient cultures. (See? Writing does come into the blog if you stick with it.) When threatened the holders of power always strike back. Maybe not at first, maybe not in plain sight, but they don't give up their wealth and status and walk away. So when a story's protagonist stirs the pot, someone always gets burned.

 By the way... watch out for the power brokers to react to today's populism. The Establishment Strikes back. It will.

Something New

 My last post, about the Inca nearly winning against the Spanish, got me thinking about times when history changed course. It's an old theme for me, but there are not many times when we can point to it clearly.

 The loss of the Native American civilisations is one, though. What if smallpox hadn't ravaged them? It would have been very hard for Spain to defeat them then, and we'd now live in a world with distinct societies and religions in the Americas. Maybe not Inca, but their cultural descendants. A second occasion is the Battle of Tours in 732AD, when Charles Martel defeated the Islamic Caliphate and stopped forever its expansion into Europe. If he'd lost, and France had fallen, Rome would have been taken soon after and that might be the end for Christianity.

 But then, we can always play 'what if'. Maybe the asteroid doesn't hit earth 65 million years ago, and dinosaurs evolve into birds before mammals can grow strong. The world now might be one of large flightless birds, small birds scavenging their eggs, and so on. You can play that game every time a species goes extinct, or a new one appears. History has only a few points when it might have changed in some fundamental way, but evolution has millions.

 This gives huge opportunities to Sci-Fi writers, who invent new species every time they create a new world. So why not Fantasy?

 We've got stuck in a rut. Non-humans are nearly always the same. Wise elves in the deep forests, grumpy dwarves under mountains, swarming goblins, dragons... seen it before. We've read those stories. Why not something new?

 A species descended from birds, all twitch and quiver, who roost in great halls. Maybe creatures like fish which come onto land every few years to breed, and while there hold councils to decide whatever issues they have. If expanding human peoples build a town on the council grounds, whew, that would get nasty. What about a collective consciousness, like a vast plant that can bud off parts of itself to move around? Sci-Fi is comfortable exploring races like these. Fantasy should be too.

A Few Fables

 I admit, some of my recent posts haven't had much to do with writing. That's OK, because if I burbled on about my work time after time I'd bore myself, let alone you merry lot. But the launch of Black Lord of Eagles is close now, April 7th, so I really ought to chat a bit about that.

 The story is inspired by the Spanish invasion of the Inca Empire in 1532. This is the last time that two cultures met with no previous knowledge of each other, having developed along completely different lines, The Inca thought at one point that the Spanish must be eating all the gold they stole, because they couldn't think why else they'd want it so much. It was an encounter with the Other - a completely alien culture.

 It ended in tragedy, with the Inca all but wiped out and their culture destroyed. But it was close. In 1536 the new king attacked the Spanish at Cuzco, and wiped out four relief armies before he was defeated. In the end it took until 1572 for the Spanish to kill the last king. If it hadn't been for the ravages of smallpox, the Inca might well have won.

 Imagine that tomorrow, we discover an invisible people that has been living alongside us humans all along, and now they want to conquer us. Their technology is better than ours and they're right here among us before we know they exist. Everything we thought was true about the world was nonsense. We would be shocked, stupefied, hardly able to think. That's what happens to the Ashir in Black Lord of Eagles, when they discover an alien culture on the border of their land. The invaders shouldn't exist. But they do, and the Ashir have to find a way to deal with that blow before they can begin to defend themselves.

 I love the Ashir. Their warriors are tattooed with society markings, wear their hair in crests and adore jewellery. People eat bread rolls filled with peppers or squirrel meat. They tell fables of monkeys who longed to be eagles, and of a lost people who carved the great stone heads which litter the land. They're hopeless romantics. Now me, I'm a cynic to my bones, but there's a part of me... a little whisper in my heart... that doesn't want to be. A part that wants some of the fairy tales to be just a little bit true.

 The Inca lost. Maybe the Ashir will too, when it all comes down to the last of the struggle. (What, did you think I'd spoil the ending?) But if they leave a few fables, and a sense of wonder, then we'll owe them something. I think that's largely what Fantasy is for, and it's what I aimed for with Black Lord.

 I really hope you like it.

Clever Clogs

 Well, this is odd. Michigan University research has apparently found the key characteristics of intelligent people.

 They are that you learn from your mistakes; you argue intelligently (i.e. without being confrontational;); you don't believe you're intelligent; you like sick humour; you enjoy being alone; you are physically lazy; you have used illegal drugs; you're an atheist; you don't post inspirational messages on Facebook; and you're the eldest child in your family.

 Really? Then basically, a first-born fatso who can't be arsed with going out because he's spent all his money on weed is a frickin genius.Especially if he has a taste for jokes about the Yorkshire Ripper.

 These claims are so generalised that they don't mean anything. It annoys me that people take a study like this seriously because it was done by 'scientists'. It's as though the white coat confers some sort of divine right to have all the answers, but y'know, that's priests, if you believe in that sort of thing. (Which means you're not clever, apparently). The truth is that some science is good, like evolution, and some is really bad, like homeopathy, which isn't really science at all but bollocks wearing the ol' white coat.

 In the same way, some clever people might be co-operative and low-energy, but others are confrontational Christians. People are different. Why this weird urge to compartmentalise and pigeonhole? Our greatest human attribute is the richness of our diversity. If you think people fit into this kind of neat packaging, go watch Susan Boyle's audition for Britain's Got Talent. Might change your mind a bit.

 Oh, and by the way, Black Lord of Eagles is due out in less than a month now, on April 7th. I promise to concentrate more on that next time.

 Cheerio.

A Mobius Strip

 Hi all. This blog's been a long time coming, because for some reason my 'New Post' page refused to load. Sorry for that. I'm not a tech guy so it might have been due to pixies as far as I can tell.

 While I remember, I'm not on Twitter as @benblakeauthor. I have a dismal 20 followers and feel a wee bit overshadowed by these show-offs with hundreds or more. Help a poor chap and like my page, eh?

 OK, well the launch of Black Lord of Eagles is now a bare month away. I'm quite excited and also a bit nervous, because while I can write well enough (hopefully), that's done alone. Speaking in public is not, and at the launch I'll have to talk for 20 or 30 minutes and not make an utter jackass of myself. I do tend to wander off the subject, so there's a real risk of blather. I'll just have to focus, I suppose.

 I'm already editing volume two, title Tales of Fanged Fish. I need a cover for it too, and that book will also be published through Blue Poppy Publishing, either in November or the New Year. It feels weird to be talking about the coming New Year when March has only just begun, but plans need to be best-laid... or as best I can, anyway.

 I think then I'll work on Starfire. Volume one is finished, two and three are blocked out and plotted, and the story has potential to carry on for a long time beyond that. It could go a bit like the Shannara series, which reminds me of a Mobius Strip - it goes on and on without ever reaching an end. Starfire could reach between worlds though, because underlying the series is a mythic link between realms. I like that idea. It would let me incorporate all manner of weird and wonderful peoples and places into one story, told over generations but still continuous. When I felt like it I could come out and write a separate tale, like Isles of Eternity or The Pyramids of Saqoma. And that, my friends, is the rest of my writing life mapped out... unless I change my mind.

 Which I do. Quite a lot.

 Don't bank on anything much after Fanged Fish. There's no telling what a writer will do next.

Getting Close

 The house move went well. We're in and (sorta) settled, though there are still a few cardboard boxes stuffed into Bella's room. And we found time for a day trip to Dartmoor Zoo for Bella's birthday. It isn't very big - it doesn't even have penguins (gasp!). But you get really, really close to the animals they do have - about 5 feet, in the case of the tigers.

 This chap is so friendly he scent-marked an unfortunate girl standing to my right. That, my friends, is getting close. He's also 2 years old, and will get a lot bigger.

 I have decided I like fences. Fences are my friends.

 They have a Close Encounters room too, where you can handle animals like snakes and tortoises. And also, as it turned out, spiders. I turned my head to find a spider as big as a man's hand being held right behind me, and speedily left the room. Hate spiders. What are all those legs about, eh?

 With all this going on, writing time has once more been limited. But I start a new job tomorrow, as a porter at the local hospital, It pays more than my old job and also the hours will be better, with less travelling time too. So I'll be able to get more work done. That's important because the launch for Black Lord of Eagles is less than two months away now. I already have copies at home, and I love them - the cover looks fabulous. But I have to appear on the radio, put up posters, talk to the local papers... lots to think about, and it all needs time.

 Oh, and I have to buy wine for the book launch. Can't do it without wine. Gosh.

 Got to go now. It's an early start tomorrow and I need a quiet night. Cheerio.