It’s been twenty years since I read A Beginner’s Guide to Constructing the Universe, but it came to mind again when writing this week’s post for the New Worlds Patreon. Numbers have meaning; numbers are magic, for both good and for ill.
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Just inhaled the first season of The New Legends of Monkey on Netflix, and I wholeheartedly recommend it.
It’s loosely based on Journey to the West, insofar as it has the recognizable characters of Tripitaka, Monkey, Pigsy, and Sandy, and characters heading vaguely west in search of some kind of important written thing — and that’s about where it ends. The setting makes no attempt to be Ancient China; it’s best described as “vaguely post-demon-apocalyptic wherever.” The show was filmed in Australia, and about half the characters have distinct Australian accents. The main actress (because Tripitaka is female here) is of Tongan ancestry; Monkey’s actor is of Thai ancestry. The cast overall is mixed enough that I’m pretty sure the show’s creators had no pre-set notions of what ethnicities they wanted in which roles, and just cast whomever appealed to them.
If so, it was a good decision. The central characters are mostly great (the exception being the villains, who are a little weak) — I particularly adore Sandy, likewise female, who strikes the note of being a little off-kilter without obxiously “look at how crazy I am!” The setting is 500 years after the gods disappeared; demons rule the earth now, and humanity’s only hope is to find and free Monkey, and then get him to show them where he hid the seven sacred scrolls. But the way Monkey is remembered may not be exactly what he’s like in reality . . .
The show is ten episodes, each less than half an hour. You can watch the whole thing in a long evening — I know because that’s what we did. It’s fun and good-hearted, and I hope they do more!
From the very physical realm of combat, we move toward something more spiritual in this month of the New Worlds Patreon, starting with the idea of language as magic. It’s an old idea — but oddly, one I think has been falling out of fashion in fantasy lately . . .
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As a card-carrying black belt, I felt obliged to close out a combat-focused month of essays in the New Worlds Patreon with a discussion of unarmed fighting: what it is and isn’t good for.
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I recently got into a conversation with someone who wants to do more/better photography, and as such things usually do, the conversation went immediately to “what camera should I buy?”
Which made me realize there might be value in writing up a post about how that isn’t where most people should start.
It’s easy to see photography as a matter of gear: if you have better gear, you’ll take better pictures. There’s some truth in this, of course; your light sensor is your light sensor, and if you have a bad one you’re going to get crappy low-light pictures. You can’t take a good telephoto picture without a telephoto lens. Etc. But the way I see it, that’s, like, step three in the process of becoming a better photographer. If you’ve taken steps one and two already, then by all means let’s talk gear — but if you haven’t, then let’s back up for a moment and talk about what comes before that.
This week the first season of Born to the Blade hits its midpoint with the sixth of eleven episodes, written by yours truly. It’s called “Spiraling,” and that tells you about how well things are going for our characters . . .
I’ve talked before about how some of my stories have pivoted on pieces of music, with lyrics or just the general feel making my subconscious decide which way the plot needed to go. And the entire Great Cataract sequence in The Tropic of Serpents? That came from a photo of Iguazu Falls. So it’s no particular surprise to me that not just the initial inspiration but the spark of life for Kate Heartfield’s Armed in Her Fashion came from a painting.
***
Kate says:
My debut novel, Armed in Her Fashion, was inspired from the beginning by a piece of art: Dulle Griet by Pieter Bruegel. I suppose it was only natural that when I got stuck, near the end of the first draft, I returned to the painting for fresh inspiration.
Bruegel was a 16th century painter in the Netherlands. He was influenced by the monstrous, surreal visions in the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch, a century before. But Bruegel merged those grotesque imaginings with images of ordinary peasant life, and in Dulle Griet, we see a very ordinary-looking woman, holding a frying pan, leading a raid on the mouth of Hell.
Griet herself, a traditional Flemish figure who sometimes represents greed or shrewishness, was the beginning of my story. I wanted to know what would lead a woman to raid Hell; what was she looking for? What could she hope to gain? What could she teach us about how women have provided for themselves and their families throughout human history, and about how their communities saw them?
I set my own version of Griet in the Bruges of 1328, in a city under siege. Margriet de Vos is very ordinary: a wet-nurse, and a widow. Determined, pragmatic, sharp-tongued and old enough not to care what names people might call her.
But the weirdness in the background of Bruegel’s painting influenced the novel’s world. This is an alternate version of 14th century Bruges, in which monsters are very real. The Hellbeast in my novel is a literalization of the Hellmouth that appears in Bruegel’s painting, which is itself a late version of the Hellmouths that appear in medieval European art. As I considered the amalgamations of human figures with musical instruments, birds and devices that appear in so many Bosch and Bruegel paintings, the novel began to explore the promise of body modification, and the horror of non-consensual weaponization of the body.
As I neared the climax of my plot, I knew what had to happen, but I didn’t know why; I didn’t know what events in the world of the story could force my plot in the direction I needed. One day, I glanced at Bruegel’s painting again, and I realized there was one element I had not yet included in the novel: Eggs. They’re everywhere in Bosch and Bruegel. Maybe they’re an alchemical symbol, or maybe they signify greed, or gluttony, or fragility, or the promise of new life. Probably all the above. I knew what they signified for me: a deeper level of world-building, and a new twist in my plot. They represented change and renewal, and I knew right away what these eggs were and why they mattered to my characters.
Like many writers, I often turn to the art created by others when I feel my creative well running dry. Often, that means putting on a piece of music or watching a movie. But when I really need to recharge, I go to the art gallery.
***
From the cover copy:
In 1328, the city of Bruges is under siege from the Chatelaine of Hell and her army of chimeras. At night, revenants crawl over the walls and bring plague and grief to this city of widows.
One of those widows, Margriet de Vos, will do anything to make sure her daughter’s safe, even if it means raiding Hell itself.
Kate Heartfield is the author of Armed in Her Fashion, a historical fantasy novel from ChiZine Publications, and The Road to Canterbury, an interactive novel from Choice of Games, set for release in spring 2018. Tor.com Publications will publish two time-travel novellas by Kate, beginning with Alice Payne Arrives in late 2018. Her fiction has appeared in magazines and anthologies including Strange Horizons, Podcastle, and Monstrous Little Voices: New Tales from Shakespeare’s Fantasy World. Kate is a former newspaper editor and columnist and lives in Ottawa, Canada. You can find her at her website or on on Twitter.
From weapons, the New Worlds Patreon continues on to armor! Which people did not generally wear while running around town, contrary to what my favorite video games would have me believe.
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As of yesterday, Born to the Blade is five episodes into its eleven-episode season. The first plot arc concluded with “The Gauntlet” last week, written by Michael R. Underwood; this week Malka Older enters the arena, meaning that everyone on the writing team has now done at least one ep. So if you want to try the story out without committing to the full season, this is a good, solid, representative chunk — and I believe the way Serial Box handles things, if you buy episodically at first and then decide partway through to go for the whole thing, they pro-rate your season purchase to account for what you already own.
Next Wednesday I’ll take the field again with the sixth episode, “Spiraling.” I’ll also be in France when that happens, so I may not be as on top of things as I normally would. So mark your calendars now!
I’m currently participating in a science fiction and fantasy BookSweeps giveaway, with my short story collection Maps to Nowhere. The setup is that you enter by following one or more of the participating authors on BookBub. They’re a promotional service that offers lots of deals, but what following an author there does is notify you when they release a new book, which I find really handy.
The giveaway itself contains eighteen ebooks and a chance to win a Nook Tablet or a Kindle Fire. So if that sounds shiny to you, head on over here to take part! You have until Wednesday, May 23rd.
The New Worlds Patreon discussion of weapons continues on with the social forces that shape what people use to attack each other. What are you allowed to carry? What are you trying to do with it? Do you even know how to use that thing?
Comment over there!
If you’d like to own the entire (Hugo-nominated!) Memoirs of Lady Trent series in ebook, now it’s easier than ever to do! Just head on over to Barnes and Noble, Google Play, iTunes, Kobo, or Amazon and pick up The Complete Memoirs of Lady Trent, an ebook omnibus of all five titles.
To head off two questions people are likely to ask: no, this isn’t available in the UK, because it’s something my US publisher decided to do, and at the moment it is ebook only. We may have a print omnibus eventually, but among other things it faces the inconvenient problem of how to group the books: you can’t bind all five of them together very easily, so does Voyage of the Basilisk (which also happens to be the longest book) go in the first half or the second? Ebooks do not pose these problems, so an ebook omnibus it is, at least for now.
It’s no secret that I have an interest in combat. But it’s taken me until the second year of the New Worlds Patreon to start discussing that corner of worldbuilding, beginning with the materials and application of different kinds of weapons. Comment over there!
Also, we keep dancing along the threshold of the next funding goal. So if you’ve been thinking of becoming a patron, now is a great time to start!
The immediate motivation for this post is John Scalzi’s response to Infinity War, and it’s going to have spoilers for that film. So if you haven’t seen it yet and wish to avoid spoilers, go no further.
I’ve known about this for a while, but today the news went live: Within the Sanctuary of Wings has won the 2017 RT Reviewers’ Choice Award for Best Fantasy Novel.
Sadly, I won’t be able to attend the convention in Reno, as I’ll be in France at Imaginales that weekend. (“Sadly.” Gotta admit, this is one of those “upgrading to a better class of problem” situations.) But it’s an honor nonetheless!
If the word “library” makes you envision a spacious, airy, well-lit room overseen by stern ladies who will guide you to the right books and hush you when you talk too loud, your mental image is very modern. This week the New Worlds Patreon discusses how libraries have changed over time!
“Ask Me and Three Other People Anything” doesn’t quite have the same catchy ring as “Ask Me Anything,” but the concept is the same! The creative team for Born to the Blade (myself, Michael R. Underwood, Cassandra Khaw, and Malka Older) are all doing a joint AMA over on Reddit today. So far we’ve been asked everything from what it’s like working on a collaborative project to who would win in a bare-knuckles brawl, Merry & Pippin on one side and Sam & Frodo on the other. If you have anything you’d like to ask, whether it’s of me or someone else or the team as a whole, head on over and let us know!
This week I enter the field of combat with the second episode of BORN TO THE BLADE: “Fault Lines”!
If you haven’t already checked out the pilot episode, “Arrivals,” that’s free to read or listen to. In “Fault Lines,” Michiko deals with the fallout from the Golden Lord, someone new comes to Twaa-Fei, Penelope has some momentous news, and Bellona seeks to drive a wedge between Quloo and Rumika in advance of the Gauntlet.
Last week I discussed collaboration at Book View Cafe, because 2017 really was the year of me jumping into it feet-first, between my work for Legend of the Five Rings and Born to the Blade. I also have a piece up at All Things Urban Fantasy on “post-cynical optimism,” which was our mission statement for this series: telling a story in which people face hard choices and sometimes bad things happen, but things like honor and friendship and trust are more than traps for the guillble. Our lead writer Michael Underwood wrote about fight scenes (of which we have more than a few) at Barnes and Noble. And if you’d like to check out some reviews, Primm Life has covered “Fault Lines,” and Paul Weimer at Skiffy and Fanty has reviewed the whole serial.
This week the New Worlds Patreon is talking about books! And also about scrolls and stelae and other methods of organizing the written word.
By the way, we’re also just $1 shy of the next funding goal, which would allow me to make a print edition of the gathered volumes (Year One is out now in ebook, with more to come). So now is a great time to become a patron!
I should have posted about this yesterday, but, er, I was playing hooky from work. >_> (A friend of a friend was in town and had access to a sailboat. Of course I wasn’t going to pass up that chance.)
Born to the Blade has begun to air*!
For centuries the Warders’ Circle on the neutral islands of Twaa-Fei has given the countries of the sky a way to avoid war, settling their disputes through formal, magical duels. But the Circle’s ability to maintain peace is fading: the Mertikan Empire is preparing for conquest and the trade nation of Quloo is sinking, stripped of the aerstone that keeps both ships and island a-sky. When upstart Kris Denn tries to win their island a seat in the Warder’s Circle and colonial subject Oda no Michiko discovers that her conquered nation’s past is not what she’s been told, they upset the balance of power. The storm they bring will bind all the peoples of the sky together…or tear them apart.
You can check out the pilot for free right now. Next Wednesday my first episode will debut!
* If that’s the right verb to use. Obviously this isn’t a broadcast situation, but on the other hand, Serial Box’s projects are structured enough like TV shows that I default to the language of that medium.
