But Enough About Me!

I write fantasy and science fiction novels. I tend to write epic in length and scope, and would call myself a writer of Epic Fantasy.

Many have attempted to define “epic fantasy” as a subgenre, most recently in this extensive roundtable at Clarkesworld Magazine. Obviously I am not one who agrees with those who dismiss epic fantasy as “consolatory fantasy” or the last great hope and refuge of reactionaries secretly in love with the aristocratic system. I think epic fantasy ought to defy definition. Certainly, I see a great many differing sorts of “epic” being written, especially these days as I see a more diverse group of writers emerging who are playing with the landscape of epic.

With the understanding that I don’t identify one pure and true definition, or think that epic fantasy can or should be boiled down to one thing, I do rather like Adam Whitehead’s (The Wertzone) discussion of epic fantasy being an examination of power.

He writes: "At its root, a lot of the subgenre seems to be about the possession and distribution of power and authority, whether that is power over a family, another person, a business, a religion, a kingdom, an empire or a whole world. The clash of those people with different agendas seeking (or avoiding) power drives many works in the subgenre." [His entire post is well worth reading]

I consistently examine power and authority in my novels. One element in the “possession and distribution of power and authority” across the centuries is the predilection of human groups to engage in armed conflict and warfare to achieve their aims. Another is the way in which hierarchy supports entrenched power and in what circumstances entrenched power structures are overthrown or destabilized. Most of these societies historically are patriarchal, which I will simplistically define here as societies in which legally and by custom men have a superior societal position to women purely because of perceived or created gender hierarchies.

Like most people, I really don’t like to read about rape.

I tend to dislike when sexual violence is portrayed as a vehicle through which the female protagonist becomes scarred and/or stronger because she survives it, or when a rape victim “just gets over it” almost as quickly as if she had stubbed her toe.

I get tired of depictions of rape being endemic in much epic fantasy even though I myself argue in this post that there is a reason for its inclusion. I suspect my dislike stems from much of the sexual violence in epic fantasy being seen through a male gaze. While this can in theory and occasionally in practice be done well and realistically, it tends to define the victim as the object of rape rather than the subject of rape, which for me is a crucial distinction in terms of seeing women (especially) as people rather than as plot tools or sexual receptacles.

Obviously, men can be raped too, although I see such depictions far less often and am more likely to notice points where the writers chose, say, to beat up men rather than rape them (as in Battlestar Galactica the Reboot) whereas in a similar situation female characters would have been raped. I confess: I’m guilty of making this choice myself.

Despite my dislike and my unease, however, for me to write about war, slavery, and entrenched hierarchies maintaining their power and NOT to include how rape figures into that cycle and those institutions is to look away from, to make invisible, the horrifically real experiences of both living and long-dead people.

This doesn’t mean I feel I have to or want to write about rape in every story I tell.

I don’t, and I won’t.

But when I’m writing about war and hierarchy, I feel I can’t ignore the reality of how rape is used as a form of social and gender control, of terror in war, as a human rights violation in the specific context of war and armed conflict (something people are still struggling to get rape defined as), or simply unthinkingly in the dehumanizing shackles of slavery, where a person’s body is property to be used as the owner wishes.

Rape remains persistent in most cultures, unfortunately, and as always the most powerless are most at risk.

Shadow Gate, the middle novel of the Crossroads Trilogy, deals in part specifically with rape as a tool of oppression and social breakdown. It’s a grim book. I was driven in part by current events, the truly awful and heart-rending reports from regions broken down by civil war like the Balkans and the Congo. I can’t bear to look away from these truths because they are so bitter and because we have too often shamed the victims, not the perpetrators or a system that leaves such perpetrators in power or lets them go unpunished.

The story of Liath in Crown of Stars begins with her inability to escape from debt slavery and the attentions of a man who intends to control her and her burgeoning power. I based my portrayal of the man in question, Hugh of Austra, in part on an account of an abusive, controlling husband whose behavior one of my sisters had witnessed because the wife in question was an acquaintance of hers.

I have on occasion been taken to task for writing about rape. It has been suggested or implied that I have written the story the way I do for the cheap dramatic punch rather than because I have something to say about the way hierarchies oppress those without the power base of kinship or wealth to protect themselves, or the ways in which people look the other way when abuse is going on because the structure of society protects the abuser, not the abused.

I posit that it is exactly this degree of assumptive judgment--the assumption that there can be nothing but lurid and shallow dramatic consideration behind such a choice--that is part of what creates lesser visibility for female writers in the field.

For one: Why are the larger thematic and analytical elements within the story ignored so easily in favor of seeing the shallowest level?

For two: Why should these stories remain invisible?

I think we can’t get past the disjunction, the privileging of the male gaze and the unrelentingly patriarchal male vision of so much epic fantasy (not to mention other literatures as well as the visual media) when it comes to the portrayal of women and sexual violence, until the uncomfortable stories told from the women's perspective are seen as important and worthwhile and not as offensive or whiny or trivial.

With Liath in Crown of Stars, with Kirit/Kirya and the unnamed women in Shadow Gate, I am in part trying to give visibility to experiences we would prefer to look away from especially as we--and we do--glorify the nobility of war and warriors and the inevitability of violent conflict.

But I’m also trying to suggest that what has happened to these women (and children) is part of the fabric of the societies in which they live and therefore only one part of their greater lives as human beings. That is, the rape is not the story nor does it define them. Their suffering is not The Story. It is part of their story. It is something that happens to them, and there are reasons it happens and reasons it should never have happened in a more just world, the world they don’t live in which is also the world we don’t live in but which maybe we strive to move toward.



ETA: I wanted to add this link (via fjm on Rape as a weapon of war against men [warning: graphic and disturbing] and how rape of men is also used as a weapon of war and why it is so rarely discussed.

My Crown of Stars septology is so long and densely layered that I don't often talk about the things that went into it. The mere thought of doing so can be overwhelming.

I like reading thoughtful reviews of CoS, because readers find perspectives that quite bowl me over with how perspicacious they are, usually about elements of the emotional or thematic plot that I didn't consciously work toward.

In this recent review of the first two and a half books, the reviewer says: There's constantly a sense that the problem is not the person, but the role that they've been put in - that the people who are causing so much suffering could be doing good, if they weren't in a position designed to bring out the worst in them.

Reading that, I thought, "Whoa! That's right!"

I can't say I did that on purpose--that is, consciously, with intent. But there it is.

In the comments section, a reader wonders (quite reasonably, given how over the top the depiction may at times seem) what I was up to with "Beautiful Hugh."


The short simplistic answer is three-fold:
1) to get away from the beauty=good and ugly=bad white hat/black hat breakdown
2) to show how abusers often get away with what they are doing if they have status and power and charm
3) to show how in this hierarchical world there are few if any ways for some people to get what we would call justice (still too often the case in our world today, alas)

But the actual answer, while including those above, is a little different and has to do with world-building and cultural immersion. I was wholesale stealing from the Ottonian era, basically 10th and 11th century Germany, for my base culture (obviously we see a lot more of the world in the course of the series, but for the moment I'll stick with Ottonian Germany).

They had their own issues--such as we can even know what they are given the principle of the past being a foreign country--and their own expectations and assumptions. Bearing in mind, as we must, that most of the records that come down to us are written by and deal with an extremely narrow segment of that society.

So let me quote, at length, from C. Stephen Jaeger's The Origin of Courtliness: Civilizing Trends and the Formation of Courtly Ideals- 939-1210, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1985.

The following scheme can serve as a pattern for describing the person and development of a chaplain/bishop prior to his assuming church office. He is of high nobility . . . his promise as well as his personal gifts are apparent from his earliest days: physical beauty, quickness of mind, ease of speech, and graceful manners. . . . He excels in his studies and quickly leaves all his fellow students behind. At school he shows himself to be diligent, learned, wise, and eloquent, friendly to all men and beloved of all . . . [examples of how he is raised by stages up in the court] Various lord, secular and ecclesiastical, compete with each other for his services. The king hears . . . [etc]

In the vita [life] there is often a description of the young man's appearance and his character and virtues . . . He is tall, handsome, and well-proportioned. His character and conduct are praised, then his virtues: he is discreet and wise, farsighted, diligent, and skilled, but at the same time humble, meek and gentle, patient, and pious. Other personal qualities frequently mentioned are--

Get the picture?

Jaeger goes on to write:

An impressive appearance was all but a requirement for a bishop.

He notes the example of Gunther of Bamberg (d. 1065) who, it was said, so far surpassed other mortals in "formae elegantia ac tocius corporis integritate" that in Jerusalem great crowds gathered around him wherever he went in order to marvel at his beauty.**

I'm not making this stuff up, people. In fact, I'm not sure I could.

Thus, I give you: Beautiful Hugh.




** I totally stole this bit, when Hugh is in Darre.

This falls under the five things make a post department.

The fabulous Ken Scholes alerted me that we both have novels (his Lamentation and my King's Dragon) that are finalists for the prix Elbakin.net, in the translated fantasy novel division. You can find the announcement here, in French. Very cool.

Another review of Cold Magic can be found at Fantasy Book Critic. Honestly, you know, when I read a comment in a review or on a message board like "Kate Elliott writes fantasy for the brain-dead," I may inadvertently memorize it but I also find it amusing because it so clearly represents a reader who doesn't resonate with my stuff at all. But this review is of a kind that can actually intimidate me a bit as I work on the next volume. No pressure. . . .


As many of you know if you read this blog regularly, I paddle outrigger canoes with Manu o ke Kai Canoe Club. (btw, it translates to "bird of the sea")

Team paddling (OC-6 as opposed to OC-1 and OC-2) here in Hawaii basically runs in three seasons: the "winter" season which is more of a recreational or maintenance season, running from mid-October through late February; regatta season running from March - July in which there are usually 7 regatta competitions followed by an "association"** championship followed by a state championship; and then the long distance season from August - October which ends with the Molokai - Oahu races (one for women and one for men), considered the "world championship" of long distance outrigger canoe racing.

The regatta consists of, um, about 38 or 39 races in categories like Masters Women (4), Mixed Novice B, Girls 18, and etc. Big clubs field crews in most of the races; small clubs many fewer.

Manu was established 26 years ago and in all that time has never won an individual regatta on points.

Today, in the fifth regatta of the season, this one at Hale'iwa Beach Park sponsored by North Shore Canoe Club, we did.

Imua Manu!



** (our association Na Ohana o na Hui Wa'a has, um, 18 or 19 clubs, of varying sizes--that is, number of paddlers and thus number of crews they field for each regatta; there is another paddling association on Oahu, and then each of the larger Neighbor Islands has an association as well)


"imua" means: "go forward"

Recently my spouse, hereafter to be known as J, and I flew halfway around the world to West Africa, specifically, Mali and Burkina Faso. More on that another time.

Meanwhile, we spent 4 days in Paris, in January (wow, was it cold), because 1) we had to change planes there anyway, 2) neither of us had ever visited Paris, and 3) as it happened and entirely coincidentally (I think), the wonderful French publisher Bragelonne was launching my novel King's Dragon in a French edition with their imprint Milady. (How I wish I spoke and read French!)

More on the publisher later.

As for Paris: who knew Parisians were so friendly? J and I took the train from CDG airport into the heart of the Left Bank, seeking a hotel recommended to us by ellenkushner at which we had made reservations. We staggered (much jet-lagged and hauling our not too commodious luggage) some ways down a main drag. No sooner had we paused at an intersection seeking the correct way to turn then a Polite and Friendly Person stopped to help us. Even walked us a short way in the direction we needed to go. What? I remember thinking. Is this Tokyo or something? (a similar thing happened to us in Tokyo, when a nice couple stopped to help us and actually turned around and walked us back the way they had come to show us where our hotel was)

Relatives who live in Switzerland were waiting at the hotel, and we spent the weekend with them seeing the sights. They had been to Paris before. It was bitterly cold (did I mention that?) but quite lovely, although I admit I would like to see Paris in a warmer time.

What struck me most about Paris was what a lived-in city it is. While there are old buildings and an aura of history and monuments and the Louvre and all that, it is a city where people really live. I know, I know: that sounds kind of dumb and obvious--aren't all cities lived in?--but there did seem to me something uniquely (yes, yes, I know all cities are unique; just bear with me) Parisian about Paris's lived-in-ed-ness. You know, forex, I really love London; I love to visit London, see the sights in London, explore London. But although naturally we did go around to see the sights in Paris, I felt like Paris was more properly a city one hung out in.

We did spend a couple of hours in the Louvre (it's big)(and, look! It's the Winged Victory of Samothrace!). We went inside Notre Dame (a fine cathedral). I was charmed by the blocky and sentimental over-the-top monumentalism of the Pantheon. We saw a fabulous exhibit of King Arthur cycle related manuscripts at the National Museum, and an interesting if somewhat limited exhibit at a branch of the Louvre on Teotihuacan (had to go to that because J's academic specialty is Mesoamerican archaeology).

And I gotta say, the Eiffel Tower is purely cool.

But mostly: what a lot of fabulous vistas and intriguing places to walk and interesting architecture. All that, and I appreciated the city DESPITE the awful cold. Which means it really was quite lovely.

Whoops. This got long.

More on Bragelonne, Milady, Jasper Kent, and Le Dragon du Roi tomorrow.

lnhammer

When you initially conceived of the Crown of Stars as a trilogy, how did you imagine the events of the story would be divided up by book?

The material that makes up the Crown of Stars series was originally intended to be a trilogy with a sequel trilogy to follow. That’s all I remember, and I cannot for the life of me find my original synopsis, if there even was an original synopsis, which I doubt, that would give an actual outline of what I was thinking at the time. I’m pretty sure that the original trilogy wasn’t anywhere near as big conceptually as the story I ended up writing. This is very much a case, for good or for ill, of a story that expanded its boundaries as I was writing it.

I did find a synopsis of book four, clearly written before I wrote what became Child of Flame. This synopsis states that Book Four will be the final book. The synopsis then goes on for page after page after page of complex interactions, events, situations, and character development, which I somehow strangely believed at that time that I could fit into a single volume. Reading back over it, it is clear to me that this “book four” cannot possibly fit into a single volume story, not given the way I conceived of the material I wanted to write about.

Finally, and I know this is not at all what you were asking but it does relate to some comments I have seen about the series: The material that constitutes the seven volume Crown of Stars trilogy could not, I think, fit into a trilogy if only I ‘cut it down’ (which is not to say that it could not have been improved by judicious cutting, which is a different thing). Written as a trilogy, it would be a different story because the emphasis would be quite different due to the need to thereby constrain the story in ways that would have privileged certain story lines over others, limited the scope, and eradicated much of the counterpoint created by having multiple storylines commenting on each other and illuminating many layers of the larger narrative arc. That’s neither here nor there; it might have been a better, worse, or merely different reading experience in that case.

I note that with the Gate trilogy of the Crossroads series I had a very clear narrative arc in mind, with constrained boundaries, before I began writing it. Spirit Gate and Shadow Gate are long novels by any standard, and even after I cut 50,000 words from the first draft, Traitors’ Gate is monstrously long but, I believe, trimmed down to the bones of the story (if you go along with my way of telling a story). I clearly did not have such a constrained boundary with Crown of Stars; that’s why it grew.

cedunkley asks

I've been curious about how you came up with the chapter construct for the Crown of Stars books. Was that something you developed after the novel was written or did you have that in mind from the beginning?

I hope I am understanding your question correctly. If you read this answer and I’m not, then ask again with more elaboration. Otherwise, here we go.

I played piano as a young person. I really love piano, the sound, the action, the music, and I love the Western European tradition classical music written for piano (or the earlier keyboard instruments). One of the things I love about this music is its structure. It appeals to an undefined and perhaps undefinable architectural scaffolding in my brain, and I believe that playing piano in my youth (together with being taken by my parental units to loads of Shakespeare plays) influenced the way I structure my writing.

This means I tend to find or create “formal” structures in my novels of one kind or another, although readers won’t always know they’re there.

For instance, The Sword of Heaven (in two parts: An Earthly Crown and His Conquering Sword) is structured kinda sorta as a five act Shakespearean play, with a point in the middle where the line of the plot gets turned over (that’s where I cut the book in half, actually).

The chapter construct in the Crown of Stars books is simply a manifestation of that, admittedly a somewhat artificial one. Look! Four fours! Look! Halves, with sevens!

In some cases the book’s plot seemed to lend itself to a halves situation (King’s Dragon and The Burning Stone instantly come to mind) in which a set of circumstances plays itself out, and then there is a change of direction or status and the characters are plunged into a different set of circumstances that are an outgrowth of the earlier situation. So, forex (spoilers ahead.….)


Liath escapes Hugh; Liath and Sanglant get married against the wishes of the king.


Usually it’s not just one thing but several things, or reversals, or major changes, which set up movement into a new situation (thus, a second half).

Other of the books have the four fours situation, or in the case of Child of Flame, Four Parts but more chapters in the third and fourth parts. This construct to me reflects a plot that has more of a progressive balanced feel, a steady forward motion with (one hopes) the tension rachetting up higher as you move deeper into the book. The part division reflects that by being more balanced.

The Gathering Storm is the exception. It’s a two parter, with a changeover separating the two parts, only with an add on at the beginning (not counting the prologue and epilogue which every novel has) which is kind of a super-prologue, I guess.

The King’s Dragon structure suggested itself because of the nature of that book’s plot. Prince of Dogs needed a different structure. The Burning Stone clearly had a changeover plot, while Child of Flame, with its expansive journeys into other worlds, needed the more balanced Four Part structure. The Gathering Storm is kind of the anomaly, and I guess I must have to some degree superimposed the Four v. the Halves structure on In the Ruins and Crown of Stars (7) because they were originally written in one go and later split because together they are rather overlong to be published as a single volume.

I hope that answers the question you asked.

I want to thank all my fellow authors whose books have done well in France for opening the door for me. It seems French publisher Bragelonne has acquired King's Dragon and Prince of Dogs for translation rights. We'll see if they ever want any others, but for the time being: Whoo-hoo!

Also, I forgot to mention this because I had forgotten that Orbit UK had only acquired two (rather than four) Crossroads books back in, um, 2004 or whenever I initially sold the series to Tor Books in the USA and Orbit UK, but Orbit UK has acquired Crossroads 3 & 4 now as well. Traitors' Gate is #3, and is already complete, of course.