Eight books for Christmas

This is a newsletter I sent to my readers' list, so a few of you might have already read it. You may disregard, in that case. But remember, when you can, to patronize your local independent bookstore!

Hi, friends:I'm writing this on the day after Thanksgiving, called Black Friday by retailers. The traditional explanation for the name is that this is the shopping day that puts retailers in the black. Here's a different take: according to http://thecitydesk.net/ there was a Lawrence Black who was a famous salesman for Osberger's Department Store, which is now Macy's. He always wore a black suit, and was respected by everyone in the trade. When he died late in November in 1964, clerks all around the city wore black as a tribute to him. The next year, on the day after Thanksgiving, they wore black to remember him, and thus the tradition began.Black Friday always means it's time to think about Christmas gifts.

I hope you'll think about books, for young and old alike. I had the great good fortune to attend a science fiction conference in Nantes, France this year, and through that event and others I've found some new writers (to me) and won new respect for writers I already know well. So here's a short list of books I recommend, with tags for the readers I think will most appreciate them. I had three books of my own come out this year--including one reprint--and those are here, too.

And please, when you can, order from your local independent bookstore! It's not always possible, of course, not even for me. But it would be nice to do all we can to stop our independents from disappearing.

Here's my Black Friday list, in no particular order:

Miracle and Other Christmas Stories, Connie Willis: charming, funny, and moving holiday stories for adults and young adults of all interests. Not a new book, but one I bring out every year to enjoy again.

Bright of the Sky, Kay Kenyon: big, colorful space opera with a great hero and a fantastic new universe. This book has that Kenyon edge, and is a great read for lovers of really good science fiction. Got a starred Publishers Weekly review, too!

Singer in the Snow, the paperback version. It makes a good gift for young adult readers in this affordable format. And by the way, the original trilogy of The Singers of Nevya is due to be reprinted in 2009! I'm thrilled about that, and I'll let you know. (I'd also love to know if you think an omnibus or three separate books would be best.)

Old Man's War, by John Scalzi, is an entertaining piece of military science fiction. I don't usually read much in that genre, but I enjoyed this, and it made a great birthday gift for my brother-in-law who is a veteran. He liked it a lot.Last Summer of the Apocalypse, by James Van Pelt. Fabulous novel, which is getting a lot of critical attention--a coup for the small press (Fairwood) which published it. A refreshing character-driven take on the post-apocalyptic genre.

Absalom's Mother & Other Stories, which Fairwood also published. This is a collection of my short stories, everything from time travel science fiction to musical fantasy. Most have been published before, but there are two new ones. I think these are best for adults, although young adults who read at a high level will also enjoy them.

The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls. This is NOT science fiction. In fact, it's all true, a memoir, one of the most compelling reads I've ever picked up. I just have to pass it along. I think it's an outstanding choice for women readers on your gift list. I loved it, my mom loved it, and my sisters loved it.

Last but not (I hope) least, Airs and Graces, the second book in The Horsemistress Saga, by Toby Bishop. Toby is me, of course. Airs and Graces should be suitable for adults or older young adults (there's a bit of offstage sexual inference--my teenage students thought that any concern about that was pretty funny, but just so you know!)

I wish you peace and joy through this whole season. I hope you'll let me know if you enjoyed some of these special books!

Louise

The crap we put out

There's a principle in fiction, ably outlined by Don Maass in his book WRITING THE BREAKOUT NOVEL, which states that when things are going badly for your characters, make them worse. I doubt anyone follows this rule more closely than Stephen King, and though I don't read much horror, there are some of his pieces, CARRIE in particular, which I admire. But honestly . . . the movie based on his novella THE MIST takes the rule much too far. To quote my mentor, another writer I admire deeply: Greg Bear said once, when I was his student at Clarion West, that "we have to take responsibility for the crap we put out." Director Frank Darabont has a lot of crap to answer for.

Here's what happened: Beloved husband and I went to the theater to see ELIZABETH, which had unaccountably already departed. Because it was beloved husband with me, I agreed to see the only other film that even came close to being interesting, and it was THE MIST. Blech. Dreck. Intriguing only because of what it did wrong.

Now, this is just opinion, and it comes from someone who thought that THE KITE RUNNER's plot was unfailingly bleak and nearly sadistic. I tell you that to give you perspective. But after Darabont took the essence of King's novella and blew the fun right out of it, he decided--on what authority I can't imagine--to change the ending. Okay, in case you just have to see the 2007 version of a 1950's creature feature, I won't tell you how he changed it. Suffice it to say that as we walked out of the theater people were either 1)laughing (that was us) 2)snarling at what a bad movie it is, or 3)shaking their heads in confusion.

Principles are fine, but judgment is good, too. We writers can go too far.

Beowulf and the Lord of the Rings

Gary Kamiya, in a lengthy article on Salon.com, (see http://www.salon.com/) writes a scathing review of the new film Beowulf, while at the same time illuminating the meaning of this old, old poem (probably written around the year 1000 A.D.,looking back on a story already five hundred years old.) He quotes from an essay by Tolkien, who dismisses the pedantic sophistry of critics of the epic poem:

"Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics," published in 1936, marked a turning point in critical studies of the poem. Before Tolkien's essay, most scholars regarded the unknown poet's use of supernatural elements -- the monster Grendel, his equally monstrous mother, and the dragon -- as primitive or childish. Arguing that these "trivial" themes failed to do justice to the poem's exquisite language, they saw "Beowulf" as being primarily of historical, not artistic, interest. As the scholar W.P. Ker wrote in 1904, "The thing itself is cheap; the moral and the spirit of it can only be matched among the noblest authors."

Tolkien overturned these assumptions. He argued that the poem should be read as a poem, and recognized as a great one. The fantastic elements in "Beowulf," far from being faintly embarrassing, were inseparable from its majestic artistry. In a famous allegory, Tolkien compared the author of "Beowulf" to a man who, inheriting a field full of ancient stones, used them to build a tower. His friends, recognizing that the stones had belonged to a more ancient building, tore down the tower "in order to look for hidden carvings and inscriptions." What they did not realize, Tolkien ends, was that "from the top of that tower the man had been able to look out upon the sea."

Tolkien's point is that the fantastic elements in "Beowulf" are ancient archetypes that have deep roots in human beliefs, fears and wishes -- myths, in other words. And in "Beowulf," he argues, these myths are an essential part of a tragic tale whose theme is "man at war with the hostile world, and his inevitable overthrow in Time." The greatness of Beowulf derives from the fact that it is a poem created in "a pregnant moment of poise": It is balanced between a Christian worldview, in which death and defeat are ultimately themselves defeated by Christ, and a Germanic, pagan one, in which fate rules all and man's courage alone confers nobility. It is, Tolkien writes, not a primitive poem, but a late one. The pagan world is already past, but the poet still celebrates its vanished power. The fact that a poem written more than a thousand years ago was itself looking back at a lost world gives the poem an uncanny double resonance to the modern reader: "If the funeral of Beowulf moved once like the echo of an ancient dirge, far-off and hopeless, it is to us as a memory brought over the hills, an echo of an echo."

Tolkien's brilliant essay can be seen as a ringing defense not just of "Beowulf," but of the work he was soon to embark on, another great tower composed of ancient stones. And the themes of lateness, of heroic loss, being caught between one age and another (his world is not called "Middle-earth" for nothing), are the deepest and most sublime parts of his own epic: They are the haunted metaphysical atmosphere through which his characters -- men, elves and hobbits alike -- must make their way. The coming disappearance of the elves, the hard dawning of the age of men, represent a disenchantment of the world identical to the disenchantment Tolkien found so unbearably moving in "Beowulf."

By introducing this dark note, Tolkien gave artistic expression to the doubts that he himself may have felt about the myth he had created -- and so transcended them."

As a genre reader and writer, I found this particularly cogent. Kamiya compares the Hollywood cartoonish representation of Beowulf with Peter Jackson's deeply respectful version of Lord of the Rings in a way that makes sense to me. It's no accident that the images and ideas of Tolkien have so permeated modern life, even harkening back, as they do, to an earlier time. It's worth reading the whole article.

Second matron lit book report

I'm thinking this genre just isn't for me, except for my friend Catherine's wonderful story. I've just tried to read THE LADIES OF COVINGTON SEND THEIR LOVE, as part of my commitment to you, the readers--so you don't have to.

There were a few moments in this book when I thought, okay, I see the charm. But they just didn't last. In yet another example of why Louise Marley does NOT have her finger on the public pulse, I found the writing sophomoric, the story obvious and unsubtle, and the characters labored.

You need to know, though, that the book was successful enough to spawn a series, so clearly not all readers suffered my reaction. Call it boomer lit, granny lit, or Catherine's wonderful moniker elder chick lit--I'm two titles down the list now, and I'm still not getting it. (In case you missed the earlier post about this new genre, the article that inspired my search is here: http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0202/p14s01-legn.html

On the other hand, on my recent trip I finally got to read Connie Willis' TO SAY NOTHING OF THE DOG. It made me lament once again the assertions of so many readers that they "never read science fiction." Connie's fabulous novel succeeds on every level: sophisticated prose, terrific character development, exquisite historical detail, laugh-out-loud humor, and an outstanding illumination of a scientific principle, in this case, chaos theory. It's simply tragic that Connie isn't sitting in the mainstream section with Gregory Maguire, Audrey Niffenegger, and yes, even Margaret Atwood. The reading public is missing some remarkable literature.

IMHO. Ahem.

PW Best Books of the Year

I knew Kay Kenyon was on to something when my twenty-something son couldn't put her new book down. And now, stunningly, Publishers Weekly has named BRIGHT OF THE SKY to its Best Books of the year list! This is huge. There are only seven sf novels on the list.

PW reviewed over 6,000 books this past year (did you know three thousand books are published daily in this country? Brrrrr.) Out of those 6,000 PW choose 150 (no, I'm not missing a zero) and Kay's wonderful romp of a book, with its drop-dead gorgeous Stephan Martiniere cover, is on that short list!

If you'd like to see the whole thing, in preparation for your Christmas shopping (!!!!!) here's the link: http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6496987.html

And by the way, Stephan's work is quite well-known in France, I learned. Deservedly so. Kudos to Lou Anders at Pyr Books for this achievement, and for recognizing excellence when they see it.

Plus ca change . . . sf in Europe

In discussions with the French editors and publishers at Les Utopiales, Richard Paul Russo, Greg Keyes, and I learned over a VERY late dinner that the same issues that challenge science fiction publishing in the States are nagging at the genre in France. The biggest difference is that their 7% slice of the market (ours is 7% also in the U.S.) is 7% of a considerably smaller pie. Science fiction and fantasy writers in France don't make a living. Period.

It was the one question we were all asked: "Do you make a living by writing?" Of course, the answer varied for all of us, but I think we could all more or less say yes--some more definitively than others! (See my brave smile when I say that.)

I would have thought, seeing this conference with its thousands of attendees, that the situation was different in France, but no. And in Italy, evidently (this is all anecdotal, except for my tours of several bookstores in Milan) the situation is even tougher.

So what's selling best in France? Not bookstop fantasies, apparently, but space opera! That at least seems to be a slightly different trend than in the U.S.

I felt such a nice connection to all of these people, publishers, editors, and writers alike. We're rowing the same boat. The great thing is, we all like the boat just fine.

Les Utopiales

I'm back. Sigh.

This conference was impressive in every way. Organization, the fan base, the contributors, the editors and translators who were there, and the fact that an entire conference devoted to addressing global climate change was--wait for it--UNDERWRITTEN BY THE GOVERNMENT. Not ours, of course. France's.

I met some marvelous new fans for THE GLASS HARMONICA, in Thibo's translation.

And I met a pack of young editors who are both smart (speak very good English) and chic (always a winner for me.) I swear, if they'll have me back, I'll triple the amount of French I speak! Most of my reasonable conversations were with cab drivers and waiters.

Many thanks to my French-speaking buddy, Catherine Whitehead, for keeping me company. And it was lovely to spend time with new friends John Scalzi, the amazing Jim and Cathy Morrow, the charming Greg Benford (who you may know is a reasonably intelligent man) :-) and of course, my good friend Richard Paul Russo. I know I'm forgetting someone, but my head is still full of all the information I picked up on my whirlwind research trip to Milan and La Scala.

I had over three hundred e-mails to deal with when I got home. Mostly spam and politics, of course. If you e-mailed me and I haven't answered yet, hang on!