moving away from the genre

[kaigou]

Finished reading Night of the Jaguar, by Michael Gruber, and it was as fantastic as his first book. Now reading Hard Rain, by Barry Eisler, about John Rain, a Japanese-American working as an assassin in Tokyo. Wow, on both counts. Gruber has a doctorate in marine biology, and peppers his stories with intense academia that make me wonder if there should be a bibliography at the end -- the first, anthropology about Yoruba, the second, ecology and the rain forest -- and Eisler's former CIA, a martial artist, and lived in Japan for a number of years. Each has a definite solidity to the writing, not just in good plots but imperfect characters who are very, very good at what they do but human despite that.

Thing is, I also went looking for urban fantasy to read, and did pick up the second book in the Dresden Files -- Fool Moon, by Jim Butcher. But the majority of the urban fantasy out there really disappoints me, and the revival of the whole werewolf/vampire schtick, thanks to L K Hamilton, bores me to death. I want stories that are somewhere between the grit of Eisler's world, and the fantastic elements in a solid fantasy, but without the gloss of glamour in DeLint's book where even the dirt is pretty, and could we please stop with the unspoken rule that at least two characters in any urban fantasy book must, by default, play part-time in a frickin' Celtic band? At least once, give me a heavy metal guitarist or a bluegrass banjo player or maybe someone who just fiddles around with the koto on odd days and doesn't play it very well. But enough already with the damn "they're in a Celtic band together" crap.

Gruber is probably the first -- if not only -- solid thriller that's somewhere between magical realism, Grisham-style thriller, and fantasy. No surprise he's in the mainstream literature/fiction section: how else could you possibly categorize a series in which the lead character is both cop/detective...and the son of a woman dedicated to Yemaya, in which knowing voudoun helps solve a mystery that's only partly possible and a good bit of impossible without the help of magic, gods, or both? It's almost as if, to some degree, this impossibility is so perfectly possible in Jimmy Paz' world that I don't even see it as 'fantasy' so much as an expansion of the thriller-suspense genre.

And my inclination to enjoy that more makes me really wonder about the tone I take in my own writing, the lure I feel for something grittier, more realistic, rougher, harsher, than the usual urban fantasy lines. Is the lack of urban fantasy, over all, an indication that it's not as popular as, say, Martin's alterno-world, or Bujold's, or any of a number of other well-known and popular writers? Does it mean we only like fantasy to trip over our real world if it's vampires and werewolves and things that are -- in a word -- created, rather than born? Do we prefer fantastical creatures riding the Metro only if the story contains a hint that in the right place and time and after charming the right person/thing, we might be that fantastical creature, ourselves? Is it easier to suspend disbelief if the fantasy happens in a world where these things are taken for granted, that the author builds it from the ocean floor up, and thus if there's magic/fantasy, this is simply the world's way -- but that we can't stop knowing our world isn't like that, long enough to accept a new interpretation of it?

So I wonder a lot about Gruber. I think if I were to write something and people were to compare me to him -- as opposed to the names in the SFF genre -- that I would be phenomenally complimented and ecstatic, really. He brings together such a concrete awareness of place (always of huge importance to me, and the reason I'm already caught up in Eisler's descriptions of the Tokyo neighborhoods), along with an undercurrent that the world may seem placid and consistent on the surface but that magic roils underneath. I can't get enough of that, honestly.

But would too much of the fantasy element irritate a reader who prefers thrillers/suspense, or would too much of the thriller/suspense and high action irritate someone who enjoys fantasy?

Comments

[petenshi.livejournal.com]

Your comments about Night of the Jaguar reminded me of John Burdett's Bangkok 8. It takes place in Bangkok (obviously) rather than Tokyo but I found his setting to be amazingly incisive and colorful. It also deals with Buddhism and mysticism while being a thriller at the same time.

It was a fast read, but I enjoyed it more than I expected to.

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

I'll put that on my to-read list, which seems to be expanding into genres I've never really explored -- I mean, outside the random Grishan novel when in desperate straits at an airport.

Although I do like a solid thriller/suspense, when the supernatural comes into it, it's often "something else" that's the supernatural, with that part remaining either unsolved, or being fully explained by the end of it. Not really the magical realism treatment (such as Gruber gives it) where the supernatural is, in itself, natural, and simply just so.

Certainly not too many thriller/suspense works out there where the main character is him/herself a supernatural being -- unless you count the endless number of vampire/werewolf knockoffs. Sigh.

[petenshi.livejournal.com]

Certainly not too many thriller/suspense works out there where the main character is him/herself a supernatural being -- unless you count the endless number of vampire/werewolf knockoffs.

Granted, I haven't been to a library in two years but I can't actually think of a single one at the moment.

[cosplayeriori.livejournal.com]

Hey..if you ever come across a vampire series that isn't super cheese toss it my way. Heh..I used to read the Anita Blake series (Hamiltons books) but that was back in High School...when there was MAYBE 4-5 books. I keep going back to the book store and I swear each time I go, there is ANOTHER one and I can't help but thinking "shit, its not over YET?!" Also I can't even bring myself to even try and read it again. I've become so lazy as a reader, also now I want my gayness in a series. Thridly I also don't want to waste money on a book i might only half like or not like and never finish. I like the urban fantasy thing, just nothing ever grabs me when I go to the book store. I might have to try both books you mentioned at the begining of the post. Cause shit, I need to start reading again (and not just harry potter..even though i haven't even finished that. Short attention span much?)

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

Butcher's series is set in Chicago, and Harry Dresden is the only professional wizard in the city -- he's flawed, a bit snarky, screws up, is human with an attitude, but it's an enjoyable read.

Gruber's work was much more intense in that you read the parts with the anthropologist and your brain is going OMG HURT HURT because Gruber packs so much in, but it feels like how an anthropologist would think: the academia & trivia of her studies show up in nearly every sentence. It just felt so real, so spot-on, and I had to wonder how many months he spent studying Yoruba and Santeria, how many people he had to talk to. His detective, Jimmy Paz, is Afro-Cuban, and the issue is more that of never really fitting in, at least for Jimmy, who covers by being a really snarky asshole but he's likeable despite that.

Hrrmmm, a little gayness in the urban fantasy, and I'm honestly drawing a blank. Well, outside the random Mercedes Lackey, which I found utterly disappointing, really, for reasons I won't go into now. But if I find anything good, I'll pass it along.

Oh! I did enjoy the werewolf book, hrm, can't recall the name, though I'm pretty sure I did review it. Did have a gay werewolf, and I did appreciate the fact that werewolves are described as somewhat misogynist and narrow-minded, very pack-oriented, patriarchial, matching the way real wolves operate, and (for once) not making the 'closer to nature' supernatural creatures all enlightened and shit. Though I did view with some skepticism the bit about supernatural creatures coming out of the woodwork & being integrated. It just felt a little pat, but eh, whatever.

To bed, now. Guh! Past midnight...

[rurounitriv.livejournal.com]

At least once, give me a heavy metal guitarist or a bluegrass banjo player or maybe someone who just fiddles around with the koto on odd days and doesn't play it very well.

Would it get me killed if I told you that in the most recent Bard books by Mercedes Lackey, one of the characters actually is a bluegrass banjo player, and another wants to be a drummer in a rock band? XD

I suspect that the banjo player's going to be taking over the series, actually - the general thread of the last one was kind of suggesting that the (yes, Celtic by preference) flute player who started off as the main character is getting too settled and not inclined to go off adventuring and risking his neck, his girl and his little brother.

But, you're not overly fond of Lackey, so... ah well.

[branchandroot]

This post reminds me of what ursulav says about fantasy--that she really wants it to be unapologetically fantastic. Weird. Unexplained. That most fantasy authors have this horrible urge to exposit on the history and background of any magic/creature they have. And so they wind up explaining things to death and all the magic goes stale.

I think the /real/ problem with that urge is that most authors have only the most shallow grasp of history and sociology and anthropology and so the explanations of the gorgon/tanuki/selky or magic is horribly plastic and thin. And rubber stamp, at about the level of a college Intro to Anthropology for Idiots course.

(D&D hasn't helped, either. Now everyone thinks in terms of making a magic system. And that tends to produce levels and color-coding and a fixed number of abilities, and then it just goes to hell.)

I think it's /possible/ to get people to swallow weirdness in our own world, but it takes a much more delicate touch than most people want to (or, possibly, can) bother with. Similarly, I think you can braid together thriller and fantasy, but it seems like it would work best if you could actually erase the line between the two, in your own mind.

On the other hand, I think you might like the Borderlands anthologies, if you haven't read them already. Kind of post-apocalyptic urban fantasy.

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

I saw this post on, hrm, last night? and thought a lot about it on the flight home today. Mostly I thought about the sociology of how we see immigrants -- or how we don't, for that matter -- and the old joke about "all you ___ look alike", which is a cruel joke on some levels but on others it's true; if you're not raised with a set of facial features, it's hard to place it as something other than "not familiar". To my Asian friends, identifying European features as German, Swedish, French, Spanish, Irish is nearly impossible, but many of my Anglo friends see an Asian face and can't tell if those are Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese features.

In the world I'm writing (based in the US), all people are a mix of human and non, just as all Americans are a mix of longer-stay (all the way back to indigenous) and relatively recent arrivals. Those who have learned (or not learned?) to see immigrants wouldn't see nonhuman elements, either.

I really dislike worlds in which the fantasy/fairy element is so divided as to be its own entity; it seems more likely that any such world would exist parallel and interdependent to ours just as the Asian immigrant community down the street from me shops at the same grocery stores, is right there geographically, but somehow distinct/distanced if purely by custom and language. Such worlds are there, but we don't see/find them not because they're behind a huge gate but because we never really have the need/want to go looking, and even if we did, the cultural boundaries are greater than any wall ever built.

I'm trying to remember who wrote the Borderlands anthologies -- was that the author who ranted for three pages online about the horrors of fanfic? I seem to recall she co-wrote Gypsy with, hrm, Brust (?) and I was so seriously not impressed, which was a bit of a disappointment.

[branchandroot]

*thinks* Windling's never ranted that I know of; she did post a letter including basic fic guidelines, but it actually gives permission to use her characters in fic. (http://www.player.org/pub/u/nathan/border/letter.html) Lessee. Windling is the editor. Some major contributors were Emma Bull and Will Shetterly, Midori Snyder, Ellen Kushner and Bellamy Bach the corporate nom de plume. A bunch of others did one-off stories for the books.

But yes. It seems like a lot of fantasy writers do treat their fantastic elements like recent-immigrant-populations, but naively--taking that cultural barrier as some kind of Natural Law and not permeable under any circumstances. I think the kind of variable permeability you're describing makes a lot more sense.

[maldoror-gw.livejournal.com]

Does it mean we only like fantasy to trip over our real world if it's vampires and werewolves and things that are -- in a word -- created, rather than born? Do we prefer fantastical creatures riding the Metro only if the story contains a hint that in the right place and time and after charming the right person/thing, we might be that fantastical creature, ourselves?

That's an interesting thought; you could have hit upon something there. Because now that I think of it, all the urban fantasies I read (not a whole lot) do seem to have the theme of 'normal human thrown into supernatural mess where he/she becomes something much more powerful and proceeds to kick ass' and on to the realms of projection. Which is maybe okay the first ten times it's done, but after that, it gets tiresome.

Regarding the fantasy/thriller blend: it depends who the book is marketed to. People who buy thrillers might be irritated by too much fantasy; they might have fairly strict expectations on what they want and are about to read. But fantasy is a hugely broader genre, so you'll have the De Lint fans *yaaaaaaaawn - sorry, maybe it's just me* but you'll also have the people who like action and violence and suspence, in a fantasy setting. I'm the latter. I don't pick up thrillers generally; I find them too same-ey. But a fantasy-thriller (especially with solid research and work in the background that does not slow the action, but adds depth)? I'm there.

Where do you get your book list from, by the way? I would never have touched a book called 'night of the jaguar' with a ten-foot-pole unless heartily recommended; the title sounds like a bad James Bond knock-off. I'm looking for a website that gives good reliable reviews on books, particularly SFF and related, and it's not easy. Right now, the most reliable I've found is your LJ ^^; (I liked the Naomi Novik Temeraire series, for instance; and I've added Gruber and Eisler to my wish list)

[kraehe.livejournal.com]

As you know, the only SFF author I read these days is Terry Pratchett. I'm not sure I read him because of the genre -- I read him because I appreciate the wordplay, and because he relentlessly pokes fun at just about everything and doesn't take himself too seriously. His books are getting a bit more serious in terms of politics -- but they're still a darned good read. Just lent them to a friend who's home recovering from abdominal surgery, because that's when you want something funny, quick-paced, entertaining -- not, for goodness sake, the latest tome on women and the patriarchy in 18th century colonial America, even though the damned thing has been sitting underneath a pile of magazines on your bedside table for the last year, dammit.