moving away from the genre
20 Jul 2006 10:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaigouFinished 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?
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?
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Date: 21 Jul 2006 05:11 am (UTC)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...