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Sime~Gen Inc. Presents

ReReadable Books

(November 2006)

"Your Life as a Work of Art"

By

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

 

 

 To send books for review in this column email Jacqueline Lichtenberg,jl@simegen.com  for snailing instructions or send an attached RTF file.  
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Dragon Champion by E. E. Knight, RoC, Dec. 2005

Daughter of Ancients, Bk4 of The Bridge of D’Arnath by Carol Berg, RoC Fantasy, Sept. 2005.

Another Scandal in Bohemia, & Chapel Noir, & Castle Rouge, all by Carole Nelson Douglas, Forge Mystery pb, Feb 1994, Sept. 2002, Sept. 2002.

Karavans by Jennifer Roberson, DAW Fantasy HC April 2006

Neptune, which we’ve been discussing all year, rules the natural 12th House, and has to do with summation, the end of matters.

When you get to the end of a process and look at the result, you are able to perceive patterns that were invisible before. Perhaps you imagine or misinterpret the meaning of a pattern, or maybe you get it right. To understand something at the Neptune level is to apperceive it as a whole on a very high level of consciousness.

Communicating that whole, patterned vision of transcendent understanding is what Artists do for a living.

Art can fulfill a need that cannot be articulated. What is that need? Perhaps it is simply the need to see the pattern of our lives – to understand Life as meaningful, to know what we did to deserve this and how to get out of this pickle by understanding the pattern we are so embedded in that we can’t see it.

If that’s so, then it could explain why the field of Adult Fantasy has proliferated. Fantasy allows you to stand outside reality and look back at it, to see the whole pattern.

Last month we looked at Urban Fantasy, a field that depicts our everyday reality as a thin film above something Other. Now let’s look at Fantasy set in an Alternate Universe.

Reading Alternate Universe Fantasy about adult characters facing adult challenges – from commanding governments to falling in love with the wrong person – can let us glimpse the pattern behind our own lives. With that glimpse, we may be equipped to craft our own everyday lives into an artistic pattern of beauty.

Alternate Universe Fantasy is, like Urban Fantasy, a means of creating a model of the universe, a visualization of the macrocosmic All, that empowers us to command the pattern of our own reality. Or failing command, at the very least knowing how to avoid the worst hazards.

First let’s look at Dragon Champion, E. E. Knight’s first volume in a new series, The Age of Fire. This is a blend of C. J. Cherryh’s haunting evocations of what it would be like to be a non-human, and a fantasy world where Magic lies within most Dragons. Here we become a young dragon hatchling, orphaned traumatically, who makes his way through his world, learning it’s complexities and dangers while seeking a teacher – only to replace that teacher. The story is of mythic proportions but the character of the "different" young dragon is so well developed you can indeed fly a mile on his wings.

RoC does not label Dragon Champion as Fantasy – and it could well be SF. Knight blends the two very well.

Carol Berg’s 4th novel in The Bridge of D’Arnath universe, Daughter of Ancients, sustains the fast action, inevitable plot logic, and profound character development of the first 3 novels. This is an achievement for the story becomes ever more complex with each volume. I have read the previous books, and reviewed some here, so I might be wrong, but I believe this book can be read out of context and still be very enjoyable.

In the D’Arnath universe, we travel back and forth between two dimensions of reality, one where Magic works and one where it does not. The two civilizations are interdependent, sharing energy. Historically, a war was fought and ended in nearly separating these dimensions, except for the "Bridge." Now that Bridge is being crossed again, and people from each side are developing conflicts and Relationships. Berg handles this complex background with finesse. The reader’s understanding of it all unfolds in a logical manner, for the people bring you into the story.

In January, 2006, I reviewed 4 of the Alternate Sherlock Holmes series by Carole Nelson Douglas. I’ve now read another 3, Another Scandal in Bohemia, Chapel Noir, and Castle Rouge. Here the main character is Irene Adler, a walk-on character in Doyle’s mysteries. She has become a detective in her own right and often crosses paths with Sherlock on various quests. There is a sizzling admiration/distrust building between them.

This series, like Carol Berg’s, has a sustained quality from book to book, the story arc is dense and satisfying, the characters develop to depths that can’t be reached in a single novel, and the relationships make perfect sense.

The current proliferation of Sherlock Holmes alternate history series, often with a woman as the central figure, (Laurie R. King’s Mary Russell series reviewed here in Oct and Nov. 2000, July ’04, and Jan. ’06), gives us a broad insight into the Need among USA women to re-imagine History, and even re-create contemporary fantasy worlds to "correct" the pattern we see. We find it easy to believe that women of the 19th and early 20th centuries could command the shape of their lives – as we strive to do today. Still, it seems that the women of Sherlock Holmes being written today are not likely to have lived in Doyle’s day.

Consider also, Sherlock Holmes as most of Doyle’s works, was actually Urban Fantasy. So with these new Holmes rewrites, we now have Alternate History Urban Fantasy – a relentless search for a life that’s a work of art.

As an example of a Fantasy that is set in a world (apparently) disconnected from our own, we have a new novel from a supremely talented writer, Jennifer Roberson whose Cheysuli novels captivated me (see Aug. ’97 column). Karavans is set among small Kingdoms where one King is conquering far and wide, subjugating people. People guide their lives by the predictions of Diviners – who are often right, some more than others.

Diviners are hired by Caravans to predict the path of least danger. A family is traveling to a far land because Diviners have said their baby must be born there. A sentient forest starts to pick up and move, closing the way, devouring all in its path. Determined, the family forges ahead and the woman ends up somewhere "else" – perhaps in another dimension – with a new protector, her husband’s and other children’s fate unknown.

Karavans shows us the forces in play when we craft our lives as a work of art based on courage and the vision of others. It could be argued that a theme in this novel is that fate overwhelms choice in the crafting of a life. The Cheysuli novels were based on the fulfillment of a Prophecy, so perhaps "fate" is an ongoing theme with Roberson.

Douglas’ Irene Adler/ Holmes series shows us how a life can be crafted from innate talent, even by an orphan. It only takes will, determination, guts – and endurance, the kind of endurance we discussed in the last few columns, endurance founded in solid Relationships rooted in honest communication.

Douglas’ Irene Adler had no parents, but she was brought up by a large group of people who lavished love, discipline and opportunity upon her, even as they exploited her talent for stage performance. When she takes her life into her own hands (something "not done" in polite society by a woman) she crafts a work of art resonant with the echoes of her stage roles.

Carol Berg’s D’Arnath series plumbs the depths of a life crafted of responsibility, honor, and obligation. Here people set out on hare-brained rescues with barely a misgiving, doing what they must because the stakes are much larger than any one person’s life.

So in the rich depths of Berg’s world we find an interplay of Fate and Responsibility, along with ancient legends, distant heritage, and current crisis.

E. E. Knight, in one short novel, gives us the full panoply of a mythic coming of age tale, taking a hatchling dragon who is physically "different" and thus outcast, through a journey of initiation to become the generator of legends and prophecies.

We usually read these Fantasy tales with absorption, keyed into the characters, and no more able to see the overall pattern of their lives than we are our own. But when a reader strikes a series or an author whose characters walk off the pages into the reader’s dreams – when the reader becomes the creator of new stories about these characters or their world, magic happens. Art happens.

The reader is interacting with the writer to craft a new artistic masterpiece, a "model" (in the sense discussed these last few months) of the reader’s own life. It is a magical act – dreaming. Take a good, solid fantasy that transports you, write yourself into it, and "find yourself." You may discover that this is a tool you can use to re-craft your actual real life, to become the Hero rather than the victim or the pawn of your tale.

To send books for review in this column email Jacqueline Lichtenberg,  jl@simegen.com for snailing instructions or send an attached RTF file.  

 

 

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