The Twenty Percent True Podcast
Season 1: Modern Monsters
Episode 4: Shenanigans
Edit: Sorry for the wrong link. Everything should be in working order now.
April 27, 2017
Modern Monsters, Episode 4: Shenanigans
The Twenty Percent True Podcast
Season 1: Modern Monsters
Episode 4: Shenanigans
Edit: Sorry for the wrong link. Everything should be in working order now.
April 25, 2017
Sunshine Review
This week's novel is Sunshine by Robin McKinley. Vampires! Cinnamon rolls!
Sunshine, a baker at her family's coffee house known for her cinnamon rolls, drives out to the lake one day, where she is attacked by vampires. They chain her to the wall of a ballroom in an abandoned mansion as tempting food for the prisoner chained to the opposite wall: a rival vampire. After two nights and a day imprisoned together, Sunshine uses the magic her grandmother taught her, magic she hasn't though about in years, to escape and help her cell-mate escape too. She escaped, but now her friends and family are all concerned that she disappeared for two days and came back traumatized, the police in charge of controlling supernatural activity don't believe her when she says she can't remember what happened, and the vampire gang that kidnapped her wants revenge.
The voice makes this book. Sunshine is so engaging and describes her world and the people in her life with such humorous honesty that it makes even long sections of bakery drama and descriptions of her traumatized wooziness entertaining. Her voice is colloquial, interrupting herself to hum and wonder how she should phrase things, especially delicate things.
This is a secondary world fantasy with modern(ish) technology, which I am all about. Everyone knows about the Others, who are various kinds of supernatural monsters, from vampires to demons to were-beasts. They've recently come out of a war against the Others that has left them in a semi-post-apocolyptic state, where a large part of the population was lost and large sections of land are unusable. But at the same time, Sunshine's family runs a little bohemian coffee house in a quirky neighborhood that's working to hold off gentrification. There's a branch of the police that deals with supernatural activity and a thriving business in charms and wards.
I also appreciated that Sunshine's vampire ally is never described as boyfriend material. She always describes him as her partner when they start working together to combat the rival vampire gang that's after them. She makes it clear that just being in the same room as a vampire puts you so on edge that it's like being stalked by an apex predator. She makes it clear that people are only drawn to vampires because they have mind control powers if you look them in the eye, and those instances of coercion are jarringly strange. With a bit of clarity, Sunshine recognizes that her vampire ally is unattractive in the extreme. He looks dead with pasty skin and the way he unnaturally moves and unnaturally breathes make her uncomfortable. It's a nice twist on the vampire story I've always heard, that they're unnaturally attractive.
I enjoyed the side characters and Sunshine's relationships with them were complex and respectful and mature. Sunshine and her mom bicker constantly, often exploding into screaming matches, but at the same time they love one another unconditionally. At one point it comes out that Sunshine's best friend has been working for the supernatural police, recruited in part to keep tabs on Sunshine. But instead of that ruining their relationship, Sunshine hears her out and they start working together to track down the vampire gang. Sunshine's boyfriend, Mel, gives her space when she doesn't want to talk about her trauma and wakes up in the night screaming, and Sunshine realizes that he's not sharing everything with her either. She questions if it's a good thing that they give each other so much privacy, but instead of ditching him for her vampire partner, they agree that no matter who they are or what they're hiding, they're always friends and will always support one another.
***
Next week: Ghost Talkers, World War I with ghost soldiers, by Mary Robinette Kowal.
Sunshine, a baker at her family's coffee house known for her cinnamon rolls, drives out to the lake one day, where she is attacked by vampires. They chain her to the wall of a ballroom in an abandoned mansion as tempting food for the prisoner chained to the opposite wall: a rival vampire. After two nights and a day imprisoned together, Sunshine uses the magic her grandmother taught her, magic she hasn't though about in years, to escape and help her cell-mate escape too. She escaped, but now her friends and family are all concerned that she disappeared for two days and came back traumatized, the police in charge of controlling supernatural activity don't believe her when she says she can't remember what happened, and the vampire gang that kidnapped her wants revenge.
The voice makes this book. Sunshine is so engaging and describes her world and the people in her life with such humorous honesty that it makes even long sections of bakery drama and descriptions of her traumatized wooziness entertaining. Her voice is colloquial, interrupting herself to hum and wonder how she should phrase things, especially delicate things.
This is a secondary world fantasy with modern(ish) technology, which I am all about. Everyone knows about the Others, who are various kinds of supernatural monsters, from vampires to demons to were-beasts. They've recently come out of a war against the Others that has left them in a semi-post-apocolyptic state, where a large part of the population was lost and large sections of land are unusable. But at the same time, Sunshine's family runs a little bohemian coffee house in a quirky neighborhood that's working to hold off gentrification. There's a branch of the police that deals with supernatural activity and a thriving business in charms and wards.
I also appreciated that Sunshine's vampire ally is never described as boyfriend material. She always describes him as her partner when they start working together to combat the rival vampire gang that's after them. She makes it clear that just being in the same room as a vampire puts you so on edge that it's like being stalked by an apex predator. She makes it clear that people are only drawn to vampires because they have mind control powers if you look them in the eye, and those instances of coercion are jarringly strange. With a bit of clarity, Sunshine recognizes that her vampire ally is unattractive in the extreme. He looks dead with pasty skin and the way he unnaturally moves and unnaturally breathes make her uncomfortable. It's a nice twist on the vampire story I've always heard, that they're unnaturally attractive.
I enjoyed the side characters and Sunshine's relationships with them were complex and respectful and mature. Sunshine and her mom bicker constantly, often exploding into screaming matches, but at the same time they love one another unconditionally. At one point it comes out that Sunshine's best friend has been working for the supernatural police, recruited in part to keep tabs on Sunshine. But instead of that ruining their relationship, Sunshine hears her out and they start working together to track down the vampire gang. Sunshine's boyfriend, Mel, gives her space when she doesn't want to talk about her trauma and wakes up in the night screaming, and Sunshine realizes that he's not sharing everything with her either. She questions if it's a good thing that they give each other so much privacy, but instead of ditching him for her vampire partner, they agree that no matter who they are or what they're hiding, they're always friends and will always support one another.
***
Next week: Ghost Talkers, World War I with ghost soldiers, by Mary Robinette Kowal.
April 23, 2017
Agency in Young Adult Fiction
There's a natural tension in young adult fiction: the main characters are the same age as the readers (teenagers), and yet in order to have a story, the characters need enough agency, enough freedom from adult supervision to have an adventure. This creates a handful of tropes that can work really well, or can trigger my eye rolling.
1. The parents are dead. This worked well in The Reader, which was a recent review here on the site, because her father's murder deeply affected her and sent her on a vengeance spree. Also she was trying to rescue her guardian and therefore working towards regaining some supervision. But often enough, killing the parents is a way to shuffle them off so we never have to think about them again. Sometimes the loss of parents happens well before the story starts and doesn't even seem to affect the kid at all. I've learned that orphans in the English countryside have whacky, lighthearted fun!
2. The parents are criminally negligent. This crops up a lot in contemporary YA, where the parents are too wound up in their own things to remember they have wild teenagers or to notice that those teenagers talk to demons. You also see parents who travel for long periods of time for work and leave their kids home unsupervised in an empty house. I've learned that this is a recipe for your kid getting their group of friends together in your living room to have a séance and do battle with a poltergeist.
3. Related to 2: when the adults know that the kids are about to face grave danger and instead of stepping in, say, "No! It has to be you!" I will forever hold up the sixth and seventh Harry Potter books as an example of this. Even though Harry did not graduate magic high school and has no idea what he's doing or how to do any of the magic involved, even though he has the whole Order of the Phoenix (which is full of some of the best, most experienced witches and wizards, all of whom will drop what they're doing to help him in any way possible) at his disposal, no, no, he's the chosen one and it has to be him. Let that child go muck around and be in danger, and drag his friends into it to boot. Not only is it child endangerment, but it's a bit of a logical stretch that a kid will be able to defeat the dark lord for you.
I make fun of these, but I completely understand why they happen. Another recent review here on the blog was The Rhithmatist, and in it the adults did a good job sheltering the kids and keeping them away from the danger. This resulted in the stakes being really low as the main character's conflicts revolved around failing to make friends and bickering with the friends he had and not liking one of the new professors, instead of the conflicts revolving around kids being kidnapped and possibly murdered by terrifying chalk monsters. The big danger was not front and center for the main character so it wasn't front and center for the reader. Before I put my finger on what was happening, I thought the book was skewing younger, leaning towards being a middle grade book. The adults behaved appropriately in that one and so the main character had less agency.
It wouldn't be much of a story if the parents do all the adventuring and the kid is their sidekick. Although, that's sort of what happens in The Girl from Everywhere and not only did it work great, but that was an awesome book.
So now I want a book where the kid is the chosen one, but the kid's mom says "Nope," and does everything they can to keep their baby safe. It'd be from the mom's point of view, making it not a young adult book, and then...I don't know who would read this but me.
1. The parents are dead. This worked well in The Reader, which was a recent review here on the site, because her father's murder deeply affected her and sent her on a vengeance spree. Also she was trying to rescue her guardian and therefore working towards regaining some supervision. But often enough, killing the parents is a way to shuffle them off so we never have to think about them again. Sometimes the loss of parents happens well before the story starts and doesn't even seem to affect the kid at all. I've learned that orphans in the English countryside have whacky, lighthearted fun!
2. The parents are criminally negligent. This crops up a lot in contemporary YA, where the parents are too wound up in their own things to remember they have wild teenagers or to notice that those teenagers talk to demons. You also see parents who travel for long periods of time for work and leave their kids home unsupervised in an empty house. I've learned that this is a recipe for your kid getting their group of friends together in your living room to have a séance and do battle with a poltergeist.
3. Related to 2: when the adults know that the kids are about to face grave danger and instead of stepping in, say, "No! It has to be you!" I will forever hold up the sixth and seventh Harry Potter books as an example of this. Even though Harry did not graduate magic high school and has no idea what he's doing or how to do any of the magic involved, even though he has the whole Order of the Phoenix (which is full of some of the best, most experienced witches and wizards, all of whom will drop what they're doing to help him in any way possible) at his disposal, no, no, he's the chosen one and it has to be him. Let that child go muck around and be in danger, and drag his friends into it to boot. Not only is it child endangerment, but it's a bit of a logical stretch that a kid will be able to defeat the dark lord for you.
I make fun of these, but I completely understand why they happen. Another recent review here on the blog was The Rhithmatist, and in it the adults did a good job sheltering the kids and keeping them away from the danger. This resulted in the stakes being really low as the main character's conflicts revolved around failing to make friends and bickering with the friends he had and not liking one of the new professors, instead of the conflicts revolving around kids being kidnapped and possibly murdered by terrifying chalk monsters. The big danger was not front and center for the main character so it wasn't front and center for the reader. Before I put my finger on what was happening, I thought the book was skewing younger, leaning towards being a middle grade book. The adults behaved appropriately in that one and so the main character had less agency.
It wouldn't be much of a story if the parents do all the adventuring and the kid is their sidekick. Although, that's sort of what happens in The Girl from Everywhere and not only did it work great, but that was an awesome book.
So now I want a book where the kid is the chosen one, but the kid's mom says "Nope," and does everything they can to keep their baby safe. It'd be from the mom's point of view, making it not a young adult book, and then...I don't know who would read this but me.
April 20, 2017
Modern Monsters, Episode 3: The Spider Woman
The Twenty Percent True Podcast
Season 1: Modern Monsters
Episode 3:The Spider Woman
April 18, 2017
A Thousand Pieces of You Review
This week's novel is A Thousand Pieces of You, YA sci-fi with travel through alternate universes by Claudia Gray. This one was recommended by the Writing Excuses Podcast as one of their books of the week.
Marguerite's genious, physicist mother not only proves that alternate universes exist, but creates a prototype device that will allow travel between these universes. When Paul, one of her grad students, erases all their data, steals the device, kills Marguerite's dad, and escapes to an alternate universe, Marguerite and Theo (the other grad student) set out of an adventure across universes to find him and seek their revenge.
Even though there are a whole lot of physicists in this book and a whole bunch of science going on, nothing leaps out at me as THAT'S NOT HOW THAT WORKS. Which is awesome. Great job, Gray! I think this is because Marguerite has no interest in how or why anything works and when people give her an explanation, she tunes it out. Since we're seeing this adventure from her perspective, her explanations of "because SCIENCE!" and "it's all very technical" ring true. I buy she doesn't know what's happening and I buy that something is happening that's technical. There's no trying to dig into pseudo-science to explain. And she does get a lot of the culture and the pitfalls in trying to get funding correct, which is something a scientist's kid would know about.
The universes she travels too are also really interesting. They vary tremendously from a world with advanced technology where she lives in London with her aunt, to a world with technology behind ours where she is a Romanov princess in St Petersburg. It's a wild ride through different environments. But then she goes to a world eerily similar to her own, and that's creepy in its own right. Everything was vivid and interesting.
It quickly got into the ethics of interdenominational travel. When you travel, your consiousness inhabits your body in that universe. That means you can't jump into a universe where you don't exist. It also means you're taking over the body of a version of yourself and hijacking their life. You have to fool their family and friends to impersonate them, and doing something out of character could ruin their life. So how ethical is that?
Then there's the question of how similar all the different versions of you are. If you love a grad student in one universe, do you love him in every universe? If a grad student is evil in one universe are their counterparts in every universe evil or do they all just have that capacity deep inside? It's an interesting look at how situation and chance can affect personality, and this gets at it from several different directions.
It was a lot of fun, but that said I did guess the twist in chapter 2.
***
Next week: Sunshine, cinnamon rolls and vampires by Robin McKinley.
Marguerite's genious, physicist mother not only proves that alternate universes exist, but creates a prototype device that will allow travel between these universes. When Paul, one of her grad students, erases all their data, steals the device, kills Marguerite's dad, and escapes to an alternate universe, Marguerite and Theo (the other grad student) set out of an adventure across universes to find him and seek their revenge.
Even though there are a whole lot of physicists in this book and a whole bunch of science going on, nothing leaps out at me as THAT'S NOT HOW THAT WORKS. Which is awesome. Great job, Gray! I think this is because Marguerite has no interest in how or why anything works and when people give her an explanation, she tunes it out. Since we're seeing this adventure from her perspective, her explanations of "because SCIENCE!" and "it's all very technical" ring true. I buy she doesn't know what's happening and I buy that something is happening that's technical. There's no trying to dig into pseudo-science to explain. And she does get a lot of the culture and the pitfalls in trying to get funding correct, which is something a scientist's kid would know about.
The universes she travels too are also really interesting. They vary tremendously from a world with advanced technology where she lives in London with her aunt, to a world with technology behind ours where she is a Romanov princess in St Petersburg. It's a wild ride through different environments. But then she goes to a world eerily similar to her own, and that's creepy in its own right. Everything was vivid and interesting.
It quickly got into the ethics of interdenominational travel. When you travel, your consiousness inhabits your body in that universe. That means you can't jump into a universe where you don't exist. It also means you're taking over the body of a version of yourself and hijacking their life. You have to fool their family and friends to impersonate them, and doing something out of character could ruin their life. So how ethical is that?
Then there's the question of how similar all the different versions of you are. If you love a grad student in one universe, do you love him in every universe? If a grad student is evil in one universe are their counterparts in every universe evil or do they all just have that capacity deep inside? It's an interesting look at how situation and chance can affect personality, and this gets at it from several different directions.
It was a lot of fun, but that said I did guess the twist in chapter 2.
***
Next week: Sunshine, cinnamon rolls and vampires by Robin McKinley.
April 13, 2017
Modern Monsters, Episode 2: Demons
The Twenty Percent True Podcast
Season 1: Modern Monsters
Episode 2: Demons
April 11, 2017
The Reader Review
This week's novel is The Reader by Traci Chee. This one was on NPR's list of best books of 2016.
In a world where reading is magic, the world's only book is a closely guarded secret. The books ends up in Sefia's possession after her father is murdered by a mysterious organization. Sefia's on the run with trackers and assassins on her tail. She's determined to find her kidnapped aunt, avenge her father, and find the book's secrets,teaching herself to read and use magic as she goes. She finds help from a mute boy who was forced into gladiatorial battles, and a famous crew of pirates.
This is the first book in a trilogy, and it does not stand alone. The story of finding Sefia's aunt and discovering who the mysterious organization is and what they want are resolved, but the later is clear well before the end of the book. The book ends with the rest of the story arcs (probably) about a third complete: the story of the pirate crew's famous trip to the Western edge of the world, their current endeavor to find the Tomb of Kings, the boy coming to terms with what he's done and who he is, Sefia's quest to stop the mysterious organization and end the war that is coming. Since these all only get about a third of the way through, it feels like this book is a lot of set up and like the story doesn't get started until towards the end. I'd recommend waiting for all three books to come out and then reading them together, because it will probably feel less slow if it's packaged differently--as one long story instead of three shorter stories.
That said, I like all the characters and I appreciate how much time they got to spend forming their relationships. I liked the ships and the sailing and the fantastical high seas adventures. It felt real and kept an edge of excitement even though it's a travel story (and we know how I tend to get bored with travel stories because I am a plebeian). But the world building of cultures with extensive trade and complicated politics who have not invented writing rings a bit false. The world is too advanced for no one to be keeping ledgers.
***
Next Week: A Thousand Pieces of You, YA dimension jumping sci-fi by Claudia Gray
In a world where reading is magic, the world's only book is a closely guarded secret. The books ends up in Sefia's possession after her father is murdered by a mysterious organization. Sefia's on the run with trackers and assassins on her tail. She's determined to find her kidnapped aunt, avenge her father, and find the book's secrets,teaching herself to read and use magic as she goes. She finds help from a mute boy who was forced into gladiatorial battles, and a famous crew of pirates.
This is the first book in a trilogy, and it does not stand alone. The story of finding Sefia's aunt and discovering who the mysterious organization is and what they want are resolved, but the later is clear well before the end of the book. The book ends with the rest of the story arcs (probably) about a third complete: the story of the pirate crew's famous trip to the Western edge of the world, their current endeavor to find the Tomb of Kings, the boy coming to terms with what he's done and who he is, Sefia's quest to stop the mysterious organization and end the war that is coming. Since these all only get about a third of the way through, it feels like this book is a lot of set up and like the story doesn't get started until towards the end. I'd recommend waiting for all three books to come out and then reading them together, because it will probably feel less slow if it's packaged differently--as one long story instead of three shorter stories.
That said, I like all the characters and I appreciate how much time they got to spend forming their relationships. I liked the ships and the sailing and the fantastical high seas adventures. It felt real and kept an edge of excitement even though it's a travel story (and we know how I tend to get bored with travel stories because I am a plebeian). But the world building of cultures with extensive trade and complicated politics who have not invented writing rings a bit false. The world is too advanced for no one to be keeping ledgers.
***
Next Week: A Thousand Pieces of You, YA dimension jumping sci-fi by Claudia Gray
April 9, 2017
Camp NaNo Letter to Home
This week I hit a scene that sets up the stakes and the main character's motivations. It turned out to be a delicate balance to have his motivations seem justified and his actions not seem like he's making a really stupid decision because he's a stupid guy. The whole novel falls apart if this initial buy in falls flat. There would be little reason to continue if I can't get this part. So I ended up working it and reworking it over the course of the week, and I've got it where I'm pleased with it (for a first draft). The down side of this is that I'm way behind my word count goal, but I don't feel terribly bad about that.
Today, April 9th: I have 8,156 words
Next week, April 16th, I will have 19,818 words for a first goal
26,666 words for a second goal
In other news, the first episode of the The Twenty Percent True podcast went up on Thursday. The sad news with that is that while it went up here on the blog on time, I underestimated how long it would take to get it approved by iTunes and Stitcher. It is now up on Stitcher (where I'm having formatting problems that should be fixed shortly), so you can subscribe, rate and review there. But I'm still waiting on iTunes. All in all, kind of a deflated opening.
I was also a guest host on my friend, Jim's, podcast NaNoWriPod. We talked about Camp NaNo and our projects. Check it out if you have time.
Today, April 9th: I have 8,156 words
Next week, April 16th, I will have 19,818 words for a first goal
26,666 words for a second goal
In other news, the first episode of the The Twenty Percent True podcast went up on Thursday. The sad news with that is that while it went up here on the blog on time, I underestimated how long it would take to get it approved by iTunes and Stitcher. It is now up on Stitcher (where I'm having formatting problems that should be fixed shortly), so you can subscribe, rate and review there. But I'm still waiting on iTunes. All in all, kind of a deflated opening.
I was also a guest host on my friend, Jim's, podcast NaNoWriPod. We talked about Camp NaNo and our projects. Check it out if you have time.
April 6, 2017
Modern Monsters, Episode 1: There's Nothing but Bass in the Lake
The Twenty Percent True Podcast
Season 1: Modern Monsters
Episode 1: There's Nothing but Bass in the Lake
The blog: Twenty Percent True
Twitter: @CaryAndTheHits
April 4, 2017
The Rithmatist Review
This week's novel is The Rithmatist by Brandon Sanderson. I found this one recommended on a list of books about magic schools.
Joel is obsessed with Rithmatisits, people who can draw lines in chalk that have magical properties. Although he goes to one of very few schools that teach Rithmatists, none of them will give him the time of day, and he's taken to sneaking into Professor Fitch, the only friendly Rithmatics professor's, lectures so he can learn. When Fitch is challenged and loses a Rithmatic duel to an up and coming faculty member, he loses his teaching position and Joel loses his only way to study Rithmatics. Except that now Fitch has the time to be assigned to investigate the disappearance of Rithmatics students and Joel is now allowed to be his research assistant.
The magic system is new and refreshing. Rithmatists draw circles of warding, with bind points at select places where they can attach defensive or offensive chalk monsters or lines that block or more warding circles. But the circle has to be drawn exactly right or it will be weak where the curvature is off. The binding points have to be in exactly the right place or it will make a weak point. And some of the positioning of the binding points require a fair bit of geometry involving the altitude of a triangle. All this in itself wasn't new, but the fact that the functioning of the magic was explained was new. This is done with illustrations at the beginning of each chapter that are pages from Joel's notes, so it made sense and the characters could talk about the pros and cons of each variation and about why some drawings went wrong.
Maybe this would be boring for people who don't breathe in math, but I loved it. I wanted it to be even more complicated. I doubt it could have been done without illustrations, which isn't something you see often.
There was also an emphasis on how little people actually understood Rithmatics. This comes across in that Joel loves the math and the rote procedure and logic behind drawing, but he can't find this kind of quantitative analysis when dealing with chalklings, defensive of offensive monsters that the Rithmatist draws. Joel makes friends with a Rithmatist student named Melody, who is terrible at drawing perfect circles and finding bind points, but draws amazingly detailed and well behaved chalklings, which Joel can't make sense of because it's not like "more detail=stronger" it's more like "more beautiful=stronger" and that's subjective and it drives him crazy.
It comes up again in that the kidnapper is using new Rithmatic lines that no one has seen before and no one knows what they do. There are wild chalklings, with which the Rithmatists are constantly at war (they get shipped off to the front when they're done with high school), and no one knows where they come from or how they work. It sets up a great dichotomy when the Rithmatists act like know-it-alls who are revered by normal people, and at the same time it's a science of which they understand very little.
Despite all this pervasive, nuanced magic system, there were aspects of the world building were just THERE. I've discovered that I can usually suspend disbelief for one big thing (magic chalk drawings). Then here there were related additions: North America was uninhabited when the Europeans arrived because the wild chalklings prevented anyone from settling or drove them out. Europeans came to the New World to escape from the invading forces of Asia (what part of Asia? Who knows). For me, this is stretching it, but it turns out that the English King who came to America discovered Rithmatics there, so it's related to our main source of suspension of disbelief and there's also some neat world building where they have a much more British culture and are part of the Church of England (of which Rithmatics is a major part). Also "Italian food" is eaten with chopsticks, and spaghetti is noodles with Chinese spices.
But then there's the fact that North America is an archipelago, with most islands more or less corresponding to states. But why? This relates to nothing and has little to no influence on the story or the characters. It's just there. And that's odd to me.
I've heard Brandon Sanderson talk about how there is no upper limit on cool things to add to a story, and if he has an idea, he'll throw it in. But that turns into a problem when it doesn't affect anything. The geography of North America is too big of a deal to have no bearing on the story.
***
Next week: The Reader, YA high seas, magical adventures by Traci Chee.
Joel is obsessed with Rithmatisits, people who can draw lines in chalk that have magical properties. Although he goes to one of very few schools that teach Rithmatists, none of them will give him the time of day, and he's taken to sneaking into Professor Fitch, the only friendly Rithmatics professor's, lectures so he can learn. When Fitch is challenged and loses a Rithmatic duel to an up and coming faculty member, he loses his teaching position and Joel loses his only way to study Rithmatics. Except that now Fitch has the time to be assigned to investigate the disappearance of Rithmatics students and Joel is now allowed to be his research assistant.
The magic system is new and refreshing. Rithmatists draw circles of warding, with bind points at select places where they can attach defensive or offensive chalk monsters or lines that block or more warding circles. But the circle has to be drawn exactly right or it will be weak where the curvature is off. The binding points have to be in exactly the right place or it will make a weak point. And some of the positioning of the binding points require a fair bit of geometry involving the altitude of a triangle. All this in itself wasn't new, but the fact that the functioning of the magic was explained was new. This is done with illustrations at the beginning of each chapter that are pages from Joel's notes, so it made sense and the characters could talk about the pros and cons of each variation and about why some drawings went wrong.
Maybe this would be boring for people who don't breathe in math, but I loved it. I wanted it to be even more complicated. I doubt it could have been done without illustrations, which isn't something you see often.
There was also an emphasis on how little people actually understood Rithmatics. This comes across in that Joel loves the math and the rote procedure and logic behind drawing, but he can't find this kind of quantitative analysis when dealing with chalklings, defensive of offensive monsters that the Rithmatist draws. Joel makes friends with a Rithmatist student named Melody, who is terrible at drawing perfect circles and finding bind points, but draws amazingly detailed and well behaved chalklings, which Joel can't make sense of because it's not like "more detail=stronger" it's more like "more beautiful=stronger" and that's subjective and it drives him crazy.
It comes up again in that the kidnapper is using new Rithmatic lines that no one has seen before and no one knows what they do. There are wild chalklings, with which the Rithmatists are constantly at war (they get shipped off to the front when they're done with high school), and no one knows where they come from or how they work. It sets up a great dichotomy when the Rithmatists act like know-it-alls who are revered by normal people, and at the same time it's a science of which they understand very little.
Despite all this pervasive, nuanced magic system, there were aspects of the world building were just THERE. I've discovered that I can usually suspend disbelief for one big thing (magic chalk drawings). Then here there were related additions: North America was uninhabited when the Europeans arrived because the wild chalklings prevented anyone from settling or drove them out. Europeans came to the New World to escape from the invading forces of Asia (what part of Asia? Who knows). For me, this is stretching it, but it turns out that the English King who came to America discovered Rithmatics there, so it's related to our main source of suspension of disbelief and there's also some neat world building where they have a much more British culture and are part of the Church of England (of which Rithmatics is a major part). Also "Italian food" is eaten with chopsticks, and spaghetti is noodles with Chinese spices.
But then there's the fact that North America is an archipelago, with most islands more or less corresponding to states. But why? This relates to nothing and has little to no influence on the story or the characters. It's just there. And that's odd to me.
I've heard Brandon Sanderson talk about how there is no upper limit on cool things to add to a story, and if he has an idea, he'll throw it in. But that turns into a problem when it doesn't affect anything. The geography of North America is too big of a deal to have no bearing on the story.
***
Next week: The Reader, YA high seas, magical adventures by Traci Chee.
April 1, 2017
Camp NaNo Begins
Today is the first day of Camp NaNo. For those of you that don't know, NaNo (or NaNoWriMo) is short for National Novel Writing Month, a writing challenge to write a 50,000 word novel in the month of November. Camp NaNo is similar in that it's a writing challenge to write a novel in a month, but you can set your own word goal and it's camp themed. It was originally made for kids to do NaNo over the summer, so it's more lax, the forums are less extensive, and people get less dramatically enthusiastic about it.
I'm keeping my word goal at 50,000 and giving the Firebird story a re-write. I'm giving it one more shot and if I don't like where it's heading at the end of the month, I give myself permission to let it go and move on to something else. That said, I have some ideas for how to fix it--ideas where the clouds parted and the sun shone down on me and my eyes widened as I said, "Yessss. That will solve that problem. And that problem. And that problem!" I'm condensing the time frame a great deal, and piling the complications on top of one another, overlapping and never letting up. I'm giving it less room to breathe to keep the main character's anxiety high, and so his revelations come out in explosive spurts instead of ruminations while cooking. I think this piling on will also allow for the many different strands happening in this story to feel more like this guy has a lot going on at once and it's wearing on him, instead of that I have too many ideas. That said, I'm also giving myself permission to drop unnecessary threads. If they don't fit in this re-write, I'm not married to them and they can get lost. This has dropped some of the themes that I was leaning on heavily in earlier attempts, and dropping them has been shockingly freeing.
I managed to have good timing, because I have Modern Monsters in good shape, and I'm ready to turn to something different and ready to write.
Yesterday, I spent a few hours getting a sketchy outline together. Scene will set up the emotion for scene Y, so scene Y makes sense. And since scene X is part of story thread 1 and scene Y is part of story thread 2, their interactions will connect the two threads. That kind of thing. In a few places I have blank boxes where I need an event to set wheels in motion and get everyone where they need to be in their character arcs, but I'm not too concerned right this second that I don't have those pinned down yet. They'll come to me when I get closer, and the important part is that I have a sense that something needs to be there.
Today, I cleaned up the first chapter and a half of what I wrote for the last iteration, which is all still usable as long as I shift the emphasis. It's sort of cheating, because I didn't write a lot of new words today, but 1. the next scene that I write will be all new and 2. it's Camp NaNo and cheating is relative. I'm getting work done.
On day 1, I'm at 4,486 words
On day 8, I should be at 13,333 words as a low-level goal
and 16,153 words as a mid-level goal
I'm keeping my word goal at 50,000 and giving the Firebird story a re-write. I'm giving it one more shot and if I don't like where it's heading at the end of the month, I give myself permission to let it go and move on to something else. That said, I have some ideas for how to fix it--ideas where the clouds parted and the sun shone down on me and my eyes widened as I said, "Yessss. That will solve that problem. And that problem. And that problem!" I'm condensing the time frame a great deal, and piling the complications on top of one another, overlapping and never letting up. I'm giving it less room to breathe to keep the main character's anxiety high, and so his revelations come out in explosive spurts instead of ruminations while cooking. I think this piling on will also allow for the many different strands happening in this story to feel more like this guy has a lot going on at once and it's wearing on him, instead of that I have too many ideas. That said, I'm also giving myself permission to drop unnecessary threads. If they don't fit in this re-write, I'm not married to them and they can get lost. This has dropped some of the themes that I was leaning on heavily in earlier attempts, and dropping them has been shockingly freeing.
I managed to have good timing, because I have Modern Monsters in good shape, and I'm ready to turn to something different and ready to write.
Yesterday, I spent a few hours getting a sketchy outline together. Scene will set up the emotion for scene Y, so scene Y makes sense. And since scene X is part of story thread 1 and scene Y is part of story thread 2, their interactions will connect the two threads. That kind of thing. In a few places I have blank boxes where I need an event to set wheels in motion and get everyone where they need to be in their character arcs, but I'm not too concerned right this second that I don't have those pinned down yet. They'll come to me when I get closer, and the important part is that I have a sense that something needs to be there.
Today, I cleaned up the first chapter and a half of what I wrote for the last iteration, which is all still usable as long as I shift the emphasis. It's sort of cheating, because I didn't write a lot of new words today, but 1. the next scene that I write will be all new and 2. it's Camp NaNo and cheating is relative. I'm getting work done.
On day 1, I'm at 4,486 words
On day 8, I should be at 13,333 words as a low-level goal
and 16,153 words as a mid-level goal
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