Author Archives: Morgan Mussell

King of Morning, Queen of Day by Ian McDonald: An Appreciation

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My recent discussion of unlikely mentors and guardians http://wp.me/pYql4-1J8 reminded me of Tireseas and Gonzaga, two “mystical vagabonds” (book jacket description) in one of the best fantasy novels I’ve ever read.

Ian McDonald, a visionary author who lives in Belfast, published  King of Morning, Queen of Day in 1991.  I still pick it up to read certain passages or a random chapter, to study and enjoy the ideas, the writing, and characters.

The narrative follows three women of three generations who are alternately attracted and attacked by creatures of the Mygmus, a technical name for the infinitely overlapping worlds of Faerie.

“The Mygmus may be viewed not so much as a place, a spatio-temporal relationship, a quasi-Euclidean geometrical domain, but as a state.  The concept is a familiar one in modern quantum physics, in which time is not considered a dynamic process, but a succession of recurring states eternally coexistent.  Such thinking liberates us from our essentially linear concepts of time, with past, present, and future.”  So reads a manuscript given to one of the women by a strange group of deformed, “Midnight Children.”

The first of the women, romantic, Edwardian Emily, dreams of a faerie lover and seeks him out.  First her rapes her, and then she disappears.

Gonzaga and Tireseas help Emily’s daughter, Jessica, battle free of the otherworld threat, which is personified by her mother, who has become a demonic force.

Jessica’s daughter, Enye, modern young woman in Dublin, battles Otherworld manifestations at night with martial arts swords.  Gonzaga and Tireseas charge her blades with high tech wizardry as well as ancient charms that allows her to win her way into Faerie, redeem her grandmother, Emily, and return to modern day Dublin.  The author gives the ending a contemporary twist that I won’t reveal here.

McDonald’s characters are among the most vivid in any novel I can remember, painted with a sure touch both in broad stroke and detail.  Every December, for instance, I reread “Enye’s soliloquy” – my name for it, with a nod to Molly Bloom.  It’s her internal monologue, in response to the question, “Wouldn’t it be nice if we could have Christmas all year long?”  It’s a long single sentence paragraph – not quite as long as the one that ends Joyce’s Ulysses, but then Joyce doesn’t make me laugh out loud.  I’ll quote the whole thing next December.

With his first book, Desolation Road, 1988, Ian McDonald won critical acclaim, and an Arthur C. Clarke award nomination.  Like other cyberpunk authors at the time, his vision of the impact of  technology at the birth of the internet age continues to amaze.  As a quick aside in King of Morning, Queen of Day, McDonald throws out a challenge to fantasy writers that has largely remained unanswered in the 21 years since it was written.  In the same manuscript that defined the Mygmus, Enye reads:

“I have this dread that…somehow we have lost the power to generate new mythologies for a technological age.  We are withdrawing into another age’s mythotypes, an age when the issues were so much simpler…and could be solved with one stroke of a sword called something like Durththane.  We have created a comfortable, sanitized pseudo feudal world of trolls and orcs and mages and swords and sorcery, big-breasted women in scanty armor and dungeon masters; a world where evil is a host of angry goblins threatening to take over Hobbitland and not starvation in the Horn of Africa, child slavery in Filipino sweatshops, Colombian drug squirarchs, unbridled free market forces, secret police, the destruction of the ozone layer, child pornography, snuff videos, the death of whales, and the desecration of the rain forests.

Where is the mythic archetype who will save us from ecological catastrophe, or credit card debt…where are the Translators who can shape our dreams and dreads, our hopes and fears, into the heroes and villains of the Oil Age?”

Ian McDonald

I haven’t kept up with the work of Ian McDonald in the two decades since I first read King of Morning but returning to the book via the characters of Tireseas and Gonzaga reminded me to do so. McDonald published Planesrunner, his first YA fantasy, in December, 2011. Here’s the blurb:

“When Everett Singh’s scientist father is kidnapped from the streets of London, he leaves young Everett a mysterious app on his computer. Suddenly, this teenager has become the owner of the most valuable object in the multiverse—the Infundibulum—the map of all the parallel earths, and there are dark forces in the Ten Known Worlds who will stop at nothing to get it.”

I don’t know about anyone else, but this is my very next read.

An Interesting Take on the Publishing World

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I’ve been following Kristen Lamb’s blog for a while.  I’ve picked up some useful writing tips, like the recommendation that led me to Save the Cat. http://wp.me/pYql4-1BC.

Ms. Lamb is also a keen observer of changes roiling the publishing industry, and her latest post is worth a look by anyone with an interest in that world.  The post is called,  “Bracing for Impact – The Future of Big Publishing in the New Paradigm.” http://warriorwriters.wordpress.com/2012/02/15/bracing-for-impact-the-future-of-big-publishing-in-the-new-paradigm/

The author makes several key points:

  1. The music industry was the first to get steamrolled by new technology.  They buried their heads in the sand and thought their customers were music stores when they really were music lovers.  I don’t buy CD’s anymore, do you?
  2. Kodak went bankrupt because management thought they were a film company.  They forgot the vision of George Eastman, their founder, who knew their customers cared about pictures, not film.
  3. Finally, Ms. Lamb quotes a startling line in an Author’s Guild report:  “For book publishers, the relevant market isn’t readers (direct sales are few), but booksellers.”   I read this a few times and found the analogy to a car wreck very appropriate. 

Ms. Lamb offer suggestions to traditional publishers – the same message she sent to their headquarters in the past, to no avail.  For instance, what if the Big Six developed their own ebook divisions where new authors could get a launch, and a print contract later if online sales were strong?  Why couldn’t they design apps for smart phones and e-readers, and set them up so that indie bookstores could help customers with downloads and get a commission in the process?

There’s much in this post of interest, including a link to another blog that details the latest turf war between Amazon and everyone else.   Everywhere you look are signs that traditional publishing has hit an iceberg.  Kristen Lamb, among many other things, does an excellent job in helping us sort this out.

Angels Incognito

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The local California Writer’s Club branch hosts an annual short-short story contest every year.  I hadn’t intended to enter until this morning when one of those end-of-the-night inspirations slipped into awareness.  A story idea:  A reprobate is convinced that “they” are stealing our memories, and he is probably right.

I wrote the opening with relative ease.  We’ll see how it goes; openings are easy, but I also have a great fondness for this kind of character – the guardian or the wise one whose appearance is humble or even repulsive.  You meet him – he is most often male – in various guises in movies and fiction:

Mel Gibson in "Conspiracy Theory," 1997

He is found  in myth and scripture.  John the Baptist is a classic example, who must have dismayed a lot of the city people who came out to hear him.

John the Baptist

Tilopa, (989 – 1069) one of Tibetan Buddhism’s greatest teachers, was expelled from a monastery and made his living as a sesame pounder, a pretty low rung on the social ladder.

Tilopa

Once in a while, you meet someone like this in real life.  I read an account by a man who wanted to go to India in search of a guru, but then found his teacher, a Zen master, earning his living by fixing washing machines in a laundromat 12 miles away.

When my wife was a social worker at Loaves and Fishes, a local center that helps the homeless, she was startled one day as a small hispanic man climbed out of a dumpster in a parking lot. Significantly, his name was Jesus. Mary’s eye’s still light up when she tells what a joyful man he was.  The meeting was so unexpected, but left such a vivid memory, that she thinks of him whenever the subject of angels comes up.

These reflections led me to think of one of my all time favorite fantasy novels, King of Morning, Queen of Day, by Ian McDonald, 1991.  The story features a pair of otherworldly guardians who look a lot like bums as they craft powerful magical charms from bottle caps and debris.  McDonald came to mind when he published his latest novel in December.  I haven’t yet read the new one, but I’ll discuss King of Morning next time.

Meanwhile, has anyone else encountered an angel, a wise man or woman, a mentor or a guardian who showed up disguised as an “ordinary” person but then turned out to be anything but?

Gaia’s Secret by Barbara Kloss: A Book Review

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I met Barbara Kloss a year ago at a California Writer’s Club workshop. We talked during the breaks, and later traded a few emails, based on a shared interest in young adult fantasy, but we lost touch when she and her husband moved to Phoenix.

Last fall, when Barbara emailed that she had published her first novel to Smashwords, I offered to review it here.  Due to the holidays and a penchant for multi-tasking, I am only getting to it now.

Daria Jones lives on a ranch outside of Fresno.  Her biggest worry is talking her overprotective father into letting her go away to college – that is, until her father disappears, and two non-human creatures show up at the ranch to kill her.  Family friends she has known all her life hustle her through a portal into Gaia, a world where magic not only works but can easily get you killed.

Gaia’s Secret introduces an appealing heroine whose 21st century sensibilities do not mesh well with the her destiny as a “special” child who was hidden away for her own safety.  Daria reacts as we might, with anger and fear, as all of her certainties crumble.  She doubts herself, her sanity, and her friends in turn.  It is her human failings, her pouts and impetuous actions, that make her so appealing, and save her from the “secret princess” cliche of so much YA fiction.

Early in the story, an ally of Daria’s father plays chess with her as her party hides from pursuit.  “You learn a lot about a person by their strategy,” he says.

“What about a person who has none?” Daria asks.

“Having no strategy is still a reflection of character,” her father’s friend replies.  “You’re impetuous and you don’t understand the consequences of your actions.  And you don’t have the patience to learn, which prevents you from making good decisions.”

Daria fumes but later admits that he’s right as her party ventures farther into a magical world where bad decisions become increasingly dangerous.

Structured along the lines of Joseph Campbell’s hero story, Gaia’s Secret also appeals as a quest tale and a romance, thought Daria’s temper and “bad decisions” lead to muddles on all fronts.  They ultimately deliver her into the hands of the traitor who started by sending assassins to kill her on earth.

Can Daria harness her newly emerging and uncontrolled magical powers in time to save herself, her father, and friends?  Since Ms. Kloss has said on her website that she is working on the sequel, I don’t think it’s a huge spoiler to say the answer is yes. http://scribblesnjots.blogspot.com/

Author, Barbara Kloss

Daria attains her quest in the end.  She and her father are reunited in safety.  She and her heart throb finally admit their love for each other, but that doesn’t mean things end happily ever after.

The world of Gaia is ruled by a king, and though it’s a magical world, as a young woman at court, Daria has far less freedom than she did in Fresno.  When temper overrules caution, and she mouths off to the king, she winds up with guards outside her door – for her “protection,” and no chance to marry the man she loves.  Good thing a sequel is coming.

A click on the book at the top of this post will take you to Smashwords where you can read the opening pages.  Those who enjoy  YA fantasy will probably choose to download the rest of this lively story with its feisty and endearing heroine.

An Excellent Article on the Occupy Movement

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“It is no longer sufficient to appeal to government to put things right; a corrupted system will not reform itself. We must create new systems, new modes of decision-making and interaction, and new forms of economic behavior to replace the old.”  

These words of Carne Ross, a former British diplomat come from an article in the Feb. 27, 2012 edition of The Nation, “Occupy Wall Street and a New Politics for a Disorderly World.” http://www.thenation.com/article/166122/occupy-wall-street-and-new-politics-disorderly-world

Thanks to blogger, Henry David Thorough for the link: http://deliberateobserver.wordpress.com/

A Great Site With Free Books, Courses, Movies, and More

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http://www.openculture.com/

How about a website with four hundred free online classes from well known universities like:

  • “Introduction to Visual Thinking,” from Berkeley
  • “Virgil’s Aeneid,” taught by a Stanford professor
  • “Game Theory,” from Yale
  • “Science, Magic, and Religion,” from a class at UCLA

What if the same website had classical audio books:

  • Poets like Eliot and Ginsberg reading their own work.
  • MP3’s of numerous authors:  Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Fitzgerald.  Mary Shelley, Frank L. Baum.  Wanna hear Beowolf, The Iliad, or Moby Dick on the morning commute?
  • Or perhaps as you sit there in traffic you’d like to while away the time with Gibbon’s complete Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

On open culture you will also find free ebooks by a similar set of authors.

And 450 free movies, much like you see on TCM, but with some hard to find gems, like Luis Bunel’s 1930’s surrealist classic, L’age d’Or, or the 1902 French science fiction clip, A Voyage to the Moon.

On Openculture, you can also find free language lessons, free textbooks and other goodies.

But wait, there’s more!

I found the Openculture link on a wonderful WordPress Dailypost by Sylvia V., who lists a total of six sites where she goes for inspiration.  Now, thanks to her info, we can do the same.  http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2012/02/07/inspiration-that-clicks/

Go I Know Not Whither, Bring Back I Know Not What – Part 2

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We left Fedot standing outside a tall mountain at the end of the world.  The ancient frog who had been his companion couldn’t carry him further, but she was able to tell him how to proceed.  She advised him to enter a cavern, hide himself, wait for two men to appear, and do exactly what they did.

Everything happened as the frog foretold.  Two old men entered the cavern and called out, “Shmat Razum!  Come and feed us.”  Light blazed from candelabras, a feast appeared at the table, and the two men ate their fill.  When they were done, they cried, “Shmat Razum, take it all away.”  The feast disappeared and the lights went out.

When the men left, Fedot called “Shamat Razum, give me some food.”  Instantly a feast appeared.  Then Fedot did something exceptional.  He said, “Shamat Razum, come, brother, and sit down with me, let us eat and drink together. I can’t stand eating alone.”

The spirit – for that is what he was – thanked the hunter and told him the old men had never once asked him to share a meal in the 30 years he had served them.  Fedot said, “Come and serve me.”  Shamat Razum agreed and they left the cave together.

All along, Fedot has shown two attributes that will save him, qualities that are keys to success in many fairy tales.  Courage and conventional strength are not enough.  First in importance, Fedot is willing to listen to all “the spirits,” all the creatures who offer help and advice.  He also treats them courteously, as welcome guests and friends.  It makes little difference whether we call them spirits or archetypes.   Through his long career, James Hillman, the post-Jungian founder of Archetypal Psychology insisted we treat the figures in our dreams and fantasies with the same respect we would show to any flesh and blood visitor.

In modern terms, Fedot’s journey leads him steadily into the deeper layers of psyche.  His dove-woman wife is closer to the human realm than her mother, and her mother is closer  than the frog.  More distant from everyday life than any of them is Shamat Razum, a spirit whose nature and shape we never know, even though Fedot calls him, “brother.”  These are the critical characters of the story – the only two who are named.  Shamat Razum is the “I know not what” of the story’s title.  Through the rest of the tale, Shamat Razum manifests many qualities.  He is prophetic, he is a spirit of wind and air, and above all, he is a trickster.  The myths of many indigenous groups begins with a trickster who is their world creator.  For some Native American tribes, history begins when Coyote dives into the ocean to bring up the soil to make land.  No spirit is more fundamental.

Fedot and Shamat Razum leave the frog with the mother-in-law and journey on toward Fedot’s home.  When the hunter says he’s too tired to walk, his spirit brother picks him up like a strong wind and carries him through the air.  Shamat Razum finally stops at a small island where he lays out a scam to steal some magical implements.

“Three merchant vessels will sail by and stop at the islet,” he says.  “Thou must invite the merchants hither, hospitably entertain them, and exchange me for three wondrous things which the merchants will bring with them. In due time I will return to thee again.”

The two of them pull off their con job, reminding one of Hermes / Mercury, the classical trickster god, who is also the god of thieves.  We’re not in a world of classical heroes – no knights in shining armor.  Fedot’s life depends on letting go of illusions like that.  Shamat Razum has foreseen that the king will meet him with treachery, so he helps Fedot cheat the merchants out of objects that allow him to raise an army and navy.  In the final battle, Fedot’s kills the king and scatters his troops.  The people choose Fedot and his wife, who was hiding in the forest as a dove, to be their king and queen.  Together they rule the land with “wisdom, peace and grace.”

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James Hillman once said, “If we had more stories when we were young, we’d need fewer therapists as adults.”  In his PBS series on myth, Joseph Campbell showed millions of viewers the treasures of wisdom that hide in old tales.  So what do we make of  Go I know not wither?

I think we have to approach interpretation with something like the courtesy with which Fedot meets the spirits.  In stories that are alive for us, we don’t start by asking what things mean.  We don’t ask what hobbits signify, or what part of the psyche orcs represent.  If someone has written a dissertation on Batman and the Riddler, I’m in no hurry to read it.  Older tales, like this one, are far enough removed in time and space that they’re not alive for us in that sense.  I think it makes sense to ask what it means – carefully.  Everyone has a right to their own answers.  Here are some of mine.

I look at this tale from the point of view of transition points in our lives.  When life and excitement drain from what we are doing, what then?  I believe this story suggests we listen to the small creatures of dreams and fantasy.  That we ponder the little impulse, the little whisper, the voice that says, “Wouldn’t it be nice to…?”  It means not giving in right away to our “rational” voices, the ones that say we have no time for such nonsense.

In speaking of “voices” we’re not talking of taking these things literally.  James Hillman insisted that literalism is the enemy of a soul-centered life, and Fedot does not wind up on a street corner, talking to imaginary friends.  According to St. Paul, the ability to “distinguishing between spirits,” is a gift from God ( 1 Cor 12:10), yet one that people like Campbell suggest we can learn to some degree.  Simply exploring and thinking about old stories, or keeping a dream journal, are ways to begin.

It’s a good bet that the answers we find, the paths we are shown, will not be ones we expect.  Shamat Razum, the way-shower, is a trickster, as hard to pin down as the wind.  If the answers to the turning points in life we’re easy to find, stories like this one would not have told for generations.  Carl Jung once said, “We make all the important decisions in life on the basis of insufficient information.”   Hearing the old tales and listening to imaginal voices may be one more way of getting a clue.

I welcome the comments of anyone who has read this far.  What did you make of this story, and what of you make of old tales in general?  Do you have any favorite collections or authors on the subject?  Please take a moment to post them and leave your impressions.

Go I Know Not Whither, Bring Back I Know Not What – Part 1

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The title of this post comes from a Russian fairytale that has intrigued me for many years.  Like much Russian folklore, it’s complex and winds through many episodes, but the title summarizes the story.  Fairytale protagonists routinely draw difficult assignments – find the name of the little man spinning straw – but the task in this story seems impossible.  Life periodically sends us riddles like this.  At times we find ourselves on a quest for something, but we don’t know what it is or where to look.  This is a story for moments like that.

Illustration for Go I Know Not Whither by Ivan Bilibin (1876-1942)

Most folktales deal with the problems of youth – finding a place in the world, or a spouse, while avoiding giants and trolls.  Go I know not whither belongs to another class of tales that deal with the problems maturity brings.

Fedot, our hero, is an accomplished soldier, marksman, and hunter.  The king “favored him above all other soldiers.”  He’s at the top of his game – in other words, at the point in life where a mid-life crisis can hit.  But crises of disorientation don’t just visit at mid-life.  Fedot’s story relates to any time when the wheel turns, when life’s old answers no longer work, and the way forward is dark.

Ivan Bilibin illustration

Fairytale humans always need helpers – always.  These helpers are usually creatures that others despise, like wrinkled old women, dwarves, and frogs.  To succeed, a hero must see beyond appearances.  Courtesy is also a must to win the help of these beings who prove essential.

When Fedot wounds a dove in the forest and hears the little bird beg for its life, he listens.  The bird gives him special instructions.  When he obeys, the dove becomes a beautiful woman.  “You have won me,” she says.  “I shall be your wife.”

Fedot’s wife, lovely, clever, and skilled in the arts, soon draws the unwelcome attention of the king, who schemes to get rid of Fedot by sending him on a series of impossible quests.  Fedot’s wife is skilled in magic and helps him succeed in all but the final challenge, designed by the king with the help of the Baba Yaga, a notorious Russian witch.  On pain of losing his head, Fedot must “Go I know not whither and bring back I know not what.”

Though she cannot advise him, Fedot’s wife sends him to visit her mother, who also is at a loss, but calls the birds of the air, the creatures of land, and those of the sea, asking for guidance for her son-in-law.  By now, those who know Joseph Campbell’s work, will recognize a critical stage of the hero quest that Campbell called, “Meeting the Goddess.”  Fedot has met her in two aspects.  His wife first appeared as a dove, sacred to Aphrodite.  Now his mother-in-law is revealed as the Great Mother, for all creatures do her bidding.  Like her daughter, she doesn’t know the way, but she locates one who does.  A wrinkled old frog, with her deep and primitive wisdom, knows the way to “I know not whither.”

The frog leads Fedot to the end of the world where a river of fire surrounds a great mountain.  She carries him past the flames, then announces that she can go no farther.  Fedot must go on alone.  With all of his helpers inadequate to the quest, where is he going to turn?

Because this is a long story, I am going to break this post into two parts.  If anyone wants to peek at the outcome before then, here is the text of the story on Project Gutenberg:  http://www.gutenberg.org/files/34705/34705-h/34705-h.htm#ch7.  Enjoy!

To Be Continued