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Recommended Books

December 2001

"Vibrating a Word"

By

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

 To send books for review in this column email jl@simegen.com for instructions. 
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Foreigner by C. J. Cherryh, DAW hc 1994

Invader by C. J. Cherryh, DAW hc 1995

Inheritor by C. J. Cherryh DAW hc 1996

Precursor by C. J. Cherryh DAW hc 1999

Defender by C. J. Cherryh DAW hc ? (now available)

Heaven and Hell, Winifred Halsey ed., pb. Speculation Press Dec. 2001 (to be available on amazon.com & in stores)

I've been re-reading the above Cherryh series. I only recommend books in this column that are worth rereading, - and discovered the newest book in the series.

Ordinarily I don't review books in December, to opt-out of the artificial and unhealthy buying-season frenzy. I'm making an exception this year to point you to a truly important series for magicians to study. I've reviewed each of these novels except Defender (which I haven't read yet) in previous columns, but reading them again in rapid succession reveals something else that needs your attention.

How does this series fit into the breaking of the trend of Trendlessness? It's good, solid, social/anthropological SF -- not fantasy, -- and has no magic whatever in it in any overt way (except some numerology and feng shui in the alien's religion.)

I've also been watching all the Fall 2001 sf/f shows on TV. For some time now I've noted two trends trend in televised sf/f. 1. There's a lot more Intimate Adventure than there was before TV Guide pointed out to Hollywood that what the fans love about Star Trek is the reality of multi-dimensional Relationships that drive the plots. 2. This season a long-standing trend has come into sharp focus -- a "motif" of a sort -- that to get a script made for TV, you must drive the main characters into screaming - mouth-wide, eyes terrified, voice piercing, sheer unadulterated SCREAMING!

In the hands of a bad writer, this becomes simple noise -- emotionally meaningless to the character, and something that does not impact their Identity. In the hands of a truly skilled writer, the screaming motif becomes a magical confrontation with the individual's Worst Nightmare -- i.e. an Initiation.

The particular Initiation involved is usually Facing The Devil -- not Temptation though that is sometimes involved, but finding your strength and Identity by facing down your personal, innermost demons -- the Devil Card and Death Card.

In the process of Initiation, it is necessary to raise the candidate's personal energies to a plane where ordinary daily habits don't operate -- to break them out of a paralysis very like that which gripped the USA prior to 9/11/01. This is often done with fasting, ritual, sleeplessness, and the judicious application of fear. A good sharp jolt of adrenalin alters the brain chemistry so that new patterns may be acquired. High emotion of many sorts can achieve this effect. (It can be achieved by reading a good novel.)

On the Path of Initiation leading to Priesthood, it is necessary to learn about the power of The Word -- I've discussed this previously in this column, pointing to many books that can give you a whole new idea of what language is about, what it's for, and why it is the root of all Magick. The Word created the World.

This Screaming Motif I've been noticing is actually tiptoeing around the edges of the Magickal process known as Vibrating -- a form of pronouncing and enunciating Words of Power using Magickal Voice. Actors in general just mimic Vibrating -- and the flattening of electronic sound wipes out most of what they achieve. But I've heard real screams -- and after 9/11/01, so many more people have become personally acquainted with The Scream.

The Scream often occurs at the moment when one must face one's innermost demons head-on in a life-or-death situation. Why do people scream in that situation?

Not everyone does or would. Some become mouse-quiet and still under terror. Those who do Scream may in fact do so from past-life Initiations -- and the abiding understanding of the Universe that shows us clearly how The Voice can Vibrate in such a way as to affect the substrata of reality. And sometimes The Scream works and the demon is vanquished once and for all.

C. J. Cherry's Foreigner Series deals, as many of her novels do, with the innermost secrets of Language itself -- of how the brain/mind interfaces with Language.

She posits a lost human colony on a planet where the natives, the atevi, are so very, very much like humans -- but hardwired to a sort of herd-based emotional structure. Their language and linguistic interactions, their cultures, their technological civilization is all based on the View of the Universe conditioned by that herd-emotionality (not mentality).

The atevi brains do mathematics at an instinctive level no human can reach, and their whole language is based on numbers -- as is their religion.

In the first 4 novels, she depicts what happens inside a human brain/mind when it must encompass, internalize, and think with that atevi View. She shows us that moment familiar to all those who become bilingual in adulthood -- where all language deserts the person who has been immersed entirely and helplessly in an environment where their native language is not spoken (the Ulpan approach to language-learning which I have experienced). She takes us through the moment when, switching back to the native language causes an absolute white-out of all vocabulary and ability to think in any language.

That is an Initiatory Moment -- it is like Castenada's "Stopping the World."

During the first 4 novels, the sociological situation has the human and atevi cultures completely separated, and communication mediated through one human who resides on the atevi side of the border. Then she begins to tackle the process of the atevi learning human language.

It is one thing to Vibrate a Scream -- a very powerful thing indeed. But it is much more powerful, much more life-changing -- to Vibrate an actual word. A Word of Power -- such as the Ineffable Name ups the ante enormously. But to Vibrate any Word, one must have the total inner apprehension of the Language behind that Word that comes from acquiring the language, not learning it.

C. J. Cherryh here calls "fluency," the ability to think in a language, to apprehend the shape of reality within the structural constraints of that language and verbalize thoughts without pondering vocabulary. Fluency comes only after total immersion and being wholly cut off from communicating in one's native language or any learned language.

If you are mono-linguistic, speaking fluently only one language as most in the USA do, you need to read these novels -- to immerse yourself in the emotional reality of the main character, the human translator to the atevi, and let yourself come to understand what it is to transcend the linguistic barrier inside yourself - a barrier you can not even sense until or unless you achieve fluency in another language.

Given that comprehension, you can then address the necessity of acquiring fluency in whatever magical language you intend to use. You cannot Vibrate a Word to its full effectiveness without complete fluency in the language behind and beyond that Word.

I think the reason for the increasing popularity of this series lies in the way it addresses the Screaming Motif and the concept of Language. C. J. Cherryh's background in language and anthropology makes her uniquely suited to pilot us through this initiation.

I mention the anthology Heaven and Hell here simply to point you to a story in one of my vampire series -- Vampire's Friend. It's in a solid anthology, with humorous stories by Jody Lynn Nye, Shalanna Collins, Stuart Barrow, Tom Dullemond, Sharon L. Nelson, Susan Sizemore, Jennifer Dunne, H. David Blalock, Terri Beckett, Michael McShay, Michele Hauf and me.

Ever since I wrote "Through The Moon Gate" for Andre Norton's Tales of the Witch World #2, I've wondered what the Vampire, Dorian St. James (a.k.a. Malory Avnel, Arnaud Lemieux and many other names), did to deserve falling through a gate into Andre Norton's Witch World where he can walk in sunlight. "Vampire's Fast", a short story available at www.simegen.com/jl/, explores his origins and nature long before he fell into the Witch World. "True Death," also posted at www.simegen.com/jl/, brings Dorian and David Silver into direct conflict with the demon Xlrud who works for the god Dorian's first life was sacrificed to. These two stories were originally published in the revived Galaxy Magazine.

"Vampire's Friend" tells of the crisis of conscience David Silver (now known as David Silberman) has because of his involvement with a Vampire, and brings him a Messenger from his own God who bestows the initiation of laughter after David is exposed to a Yom Kippur service with "Vibrating." It was written before 9/11/01.

To send books for review in this column to: Jacqueline Lichtenberg, email jl@simegen.com for instructions.

 

 

Send books for review in this column to: Jacqueline Lichtenberg,

 

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