Sime~Gen Inc. Presents

ReReadable Books

May 2005

"Standing For The Group Mind"

Searching for the next popular mythology which may manifest as a cultural value, in March and April we looked at the fictional heroes who stand against the larger Group Mind – the country, the world, the galaxy, prevailing society, championing the rights of the individual against the majority.

Now let’s look at fiction that advocates the opposite stance, joining a small, intimate Group Mind and defending it. Three TV Series come instantly to mind; Joan of Arcadia, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Angel.

In her articles in Seven Seasons of Buffy and Five Seasons of Angel, my sometime collaborator, Jean Lorrah, draws us a portrait of these two television series as the stories of small groups that choose to relate to each other as family members, not just business associates or adventurers.

Joan of Arcadia appears to be the exact opposite of Buffy and Angel. (For those who don’t follow these shows, you can find all the information at www.tvtome.com/ ) It’s about a normal suburban family – no demons, dark forces, vampires, werewolves, etc. But the daughter, Joan, is visited by God in the guise of various normal mortals. He gives her assignments and (protesting like a teenager) she does them. And things work out to the benefit of all.

Like Brady Bunch and The Waltons, this show depicts a functional family sticking together against challenges. In the episode titled The Cat, God has Joan adopt a wild cat; Joan’s Mother’s Aunt Olive has a stroke while visiting; Will calls Internal Affairs against his colleagues.

Like the best written fiction, all three sub-plots are tied together by a strong theme. The cat, Aunt Olive, and Will’s boss, are all in denial. The cat is feral, succumbs to the lure of being domesticated, then runs away. Will’s boss is a good cop wanting to run a clean precinct, and can’t see that two of his cops are dirty until Will forces him to. And Aunt Olive is the key to understanding this complex episode.

She is a loner who travels the world at whim, visiting the family every few years. On this visit, she has a stroke and is confined to a wheel chair, cared for by the family. She tells the story of how, on her honeymoon, her new husband drowned. And then we know why she’s so stand-offish, so hostile to any close relationship with the family.

She has spent her whole life denying her grief, refusing to let herself know just how much she wanted a family of her own. With that wall in her mind, she hates anything that smacks of a family tie. Yet subconsciously she reaches out (making these visits). She is a feral family member, lost because she doesn’t know how to grieve, to confront her internal pain and heal.

Reduced to dependence on the family, she finally cries for her lost husband and the family they will never have, and heals enough to accept membership in the family. She gives Joan’s mother, her niece, a treasured family recipe. Then, like the feral cat, she escapes back to her old life.

She is not the Hero standing against the Group Mind. And she is not a member of the smaller group of family or community. She’s a maverick, a loner, who is neither for nor against, but simply independent, though lonely.

The thematic discussion of the composition of family around an intimate group mind makes this episode a sharply defining moment in the development of this show. But, noting that this show is on CBS, we see an underlying trend in the larger group mind of the United States.

Family formation and child rearing are major demographic trends occupying much of our output capacity from the early 1990’s through today. Our fiction, televised and printed, is examining the various aspects of our deepest, primal yearning for that connection – the bonding to another adult, the raising of children, the search for the identity we find in ancestry.

The current debate about the legal definition of "marriage" is just one symptom of this overall trend, defining "family" via biology not Group Mind Formation.

As with Joan of Arcadia, SF/F premises are spreading into all genres of fiction. Notably, Best Selling author, Susan Krinard has been working in the "paranormal" and "futuristic" genres of Romance. "Romance" has usually been only the story of what happens before a family is formed. Today it covers a lot more territory in life’s experiences.

In Kinsman’s Oath, Krinard leaps into the far future to tell the story of a human man, a telepath, raised among aliens who now returns to human civilization as a desperate refugee. He is rescued by a woman who captains a starship, and has no idea what needs for bonding lurk suppressed within her (as with Aunt Olive).

Smooth, well written, compelling and fast-paced, this novel is just the sort I wish had existed when I was first discovering science fiction. Of course, if it had, I might not have chosen to go into this field and invent this kind of story! This is Intimate Adventure at its best.

Dime Store Magic by Kelley Armstrong tells the story of a young woman who must take up her mother’s position as leader of the Witch’s Coven she was raised in. The Coven is the family for these Witches. In that role, she adopts a young girl about to come into her adult witch’s power, a feral girl by Coven standards for she was raised by a Witch who practiced Sorcerer’s spells. And as Joan tried to domesticate the cat and her Aunt, Paige Winterbourne has to try to domesticate this young witch.

She succeeds in laying the foundation for a small family group mind only when love opens her heart to a young Sorcerer – also the heir to a position of authority among Sorcerers. The three totally unrelated and independent minds form a natural three-some; thesis, antithesis and synthesis. You just gotta read this book.

In Choice of the Cat, Book Two of The Vampire Earth by E. E. Knight, we read of the initiations and maturation of a young Warrior who fits the archetype of the "feral" from Joan of Arcadia.

Choice of the Cat is part of a series, set against a future earth that’s been invaded by a nasty vampire-like alien. See my previous reviews of E. E. Knight – extremely strong writing, good tight thinking behind it all.

In this book, David Valentine wins the invitation to become one of the uniquely skilled commando units, a Cat. The Cats have had additional changes made to their bodies to allow them to perform superhuman feats. It is a commitment to use this power to defend humans from the aliens – a Warrior’s Initiation. The normal yearning for small-group-mind-bonding such as forming a family is replaced here by the formation of a unit. This book is worth studying.

Metsy Hingle brings us a Romance that has the setting and plot twists of a mundane horror novel. Yet she tells the story of a woman who, unknown to herself even, must search for her true identity amidst the fragments of memory escaping into her dreams.

A traumatic event in her past has shaped her current ideas of what she wants from life – living as a loner, a feral, -- and she doesn’t even know it as Aunt Olive knew it. Again, if you never read Romance, this is the kind of book to start exploring the new Romance Genre – it’s well written and substantive with heroic characters dealing with more than just a heavy Neptune Transit.

Next I have two novels that fit this motif, both from one of my all time favorite authors, Margaret L. Carter. Both are available as e-books, and also Print on Demand Trade Paperbacks. Child of Twilight tells the story of a vampire-human hybrid girl facing adolescence without her father’s help. The violence erupting from within her clashes with who she thinks she is, and (like Aunt Olive) she must admit her desire for what she can’t have and grieve before she can possess herself of her new adult identity.

From the Dark Places takes a contemporary woman through the traumatic discovery that Magic is real and Magical creatures are after her and her daughter who has great Power. In defending her bond with her daughter, she forms a new bond with a man she has to dare to love. This is a novel of substance and goes considerably beyond the wedding night with valid Magic and searing Karma.

Watch Joan of Arcadia and ponder these six novels to piece together the clues to the next Myth that could govern our international politics if the premise put forth in my January 2005 column has any validity.