Sime~Gen Inc. Presents

Recommended Books

October 2003

"The Evil Hero, the Devil Card and the Right Hand Path"

Looking for more good vampire novels? Check my August column for some great ones. You’ll find it on lightworks.com or www.simegen.com/reviews/

Does the protagonist always have to be a better good-guy/gal than the reader?

Reading, at its best and most memorable, is an exercise in Magic in which the reader dons a persona and lives through an Initiation vicariously.

To achieve this state of mind in such a way that the initiation actually "takes" and affects the course of the reader’s life, the reader must identify with at least one of the characters who undergoes a major change in soul-level because of the events in the story. (writing students, pay attention – the operative word there is "because")

Every well constructed novel that takes the reader on such a journey also structures the journey very much the way a Ceremonial Lodge constructs its initiatory journeys.

Opening a novel is like knocking on the door of a Lodge in session. It signals "voluntary suspension of disbelief."

Reading the jacket copy or first pages is like the ritual questioning – who goes there? What is your purpose?

A novel (or tv show) which "admits" you to its sanctum will hook your interest in that first introduction of the subject. A novel which seems dull, uninteresting, boring, or ridiculous has its wards up against you, and has shut you out. You are not the person this novel was written for. Or perhaps you’ve already had this initiation but aren’t ready yet to be the Initiator.

The novel must begin by setting the scene and inducing the right emotional pitch – high tension, riveted attention, apprehension, anticipation, uncertainty, fear of what must be confronted.

The novel continues by setting the reader on the protagonist’s journey. By the middle of the novel, the reader has made it through the first major stations on this journey, and now shares the protagonist’s darkest hour.

At this point the reader sees the protagonist’s problem and is rooting for the protagonist to see, understand or do something to solve this problem.

As the protagonist chooses, the reader internalizes that choice, anticipating certain results, fearing others.

And in the end, when the results of the protagonist’s actions are evident, the reader should be able to see how the beginning, the decisions, and the ending are connected. That vision is easy because the protagonist is not the reader. The protagonist is someone who can be viewed objectively.

During our own life-based initiations, that isn’t possible, and so the results are not so easily apparent. However, with novels or a tv show, we can always find other members of this "lodge" – our fellow readers/viewers – to discuss our experiences with. Such discussions can produce leaps and bounds of progress on the spiritual paths.

This month sees the publication of Seven Seasons of Buffy, an anthology of articles about Buffy The Vampire Slayer. The contributors include Sarah Zettel, Lawrence Watt-Evans, Laura Resnick, Jacqueline Lichtenberg, Jean Lorrah, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, Nancy Kilpatrick, Margaret Carter, Christie Golden, Charlaine Harris, Sherrilyn Kenyon, Marguerite Krause, and Michelle West. And of course, as I mentioned in my June column, my own vampire novel, Those of My Blood, is an October release also from BenBella Books. (www.simegen.com/jl/ or look me up on amazon.)

The thesis of my article, "The Power of Becoming," in Seven Seasons of Buffy is that this tv show is "Great Literature" because the characters grow and change. That growth is a result of magical Initiations they undergo as we live their lives with them. Character growth is one of the major signatures of Great Literature. To illustrate this point, I contrast Buffy and Willow as they seek to gain power and learn to use that power.

We first met Buffy and Willow as ordinary people just like ourselves. This drew us into identifying with them, and suffering with them as each fights for control of their Power. We were Willow as she wrestled with the initiation of the Devil Card she experienced in the last two seasons. The Devil Card often represents the "scripts" and emotional "developmental deficits" from childhood (see my article for details). It represents one of the greatest and most maturing of Initiations.

We still identified with Willow – even when she inevitably turned "Evil." Why? Because eventually, she rejected the Left Hand Path and struggled to retrace her steps, to make a new choice. But it took experienced Initiators to bring her through to safety.

In my own vampire novel, Those of My Blood, (sorry no cheap pb yet but this is better than the $80 the hc goes for among collectors) I focus on a vampire who has fought off the domination by his Sire in order to live on artificial blood. At the beginning of the novel, he considers himself a "good guy." But, to protect Earth from aliens, he confronts his Sire once more, taking on his Devil Card. Enmeshed in the webs of evil cast by the elder vampire, he fights doubts, and then must choose a lesser Evil and act, with the woman he loves and all humanity at stake. Does he dare let his Sire live?

To get the widest possible audience, which is necessary for an expensive tv show, you must start with a character who is as much like the viewer as possible, and only gradually reveal differences. If you go too far, you will lose a major part of that broad audience.

With a novel however, you only need a much smaller audience, so you can experiment. Dhampir by Barb and J. C. Hendee is one such experiment. The main protagonist is a con artist who has earned a vast reputation as a mercenary vampire slayer. She uses (and in certain ways abuses) her partner, a half-elf, who impersonates a vampire and pretend to die at her hands.

Her ambition is to retire from the life of crime, so at the beginning of the novel, she buys a bar in a thriving port town and settles down.

The problem she never anticipates – she actually does have a real magical ability to slay real vampires and this little town has some in residence who have heard of her faked reputation and believe it is real.

This is a fast, entertaining read about people who are far from perfect, far from admirable, far from heroic – and yet who are struggling to be the best they can be, even if they are vampires – or a slayer who fakes a power she actually has.

Paladin of Souls by Lois McMaster Bujold is the sequel to The Curse of Chalion reviewed here in June 2003.

Paladin is an aptly titled and totally riveting novel about the essence of soul. Ista de Boacia, the Dowager Royina of All Challion, one of the minor characters in Curse of Challion, released from the gentle captivity of her family who thought she was insane rather than merely cursed, takes off across the countryside on a trip to enjoy her freedom from the Curse of Challion. She encounters the growing plague of evil creatures invading through a dimensional rift.

The evil creatures exist by possessing, "riding," other beings, animals and humans. The possessed human loses chunks of memory and pieces of soul because of the possession – and eventually dies, whereupon the parasitic Evil leaps to another animal or human. At each leap, it grows, more human.

People so possessed acquire vast magical power the use of which is wildly addictive and erodes the soul. With each use, the person becomes more under the creature’s influence and more like Willow With Black Hair.

Through a veritable tangle of feudalistic relationships, politics and potent curses, Ista confronts an invading army "ridden" by these evil creatures. She must once again confront the forces that generated the curse that held her in a mental dungeon of insanity.

Before the fateful marriage that sucked her into the Curse of Challion, she was just an ordinary, over-protected young noblewoman. Like Willow in Buffy The Vampire Slayer, she had never been through the Initiations of Power that forge the will of steel a magician needs.

Now, having fought clear of a curse that ruined her life, she must reach for real Power, find the steel within her soul and wield power for the good of all. This novel is the story of her initiatory journey through fear into mastery and should not be missed because there has to be a sequel. There just has to be!