Category: cabinet of curiosities (Page 2 of 3)

The Golden Age of Geekdom

June 27, 2017 / JennyDetroit / 0 Comments

I decided to set my series, Merlin’s Last Magic, in the 1980s because, for me, the 1980s were the “golden age” of fantasy-related stuff: Conan. Red Sonja. Labyrinth. The Dark Crystal. The Last Unicorn. The Neverending Story. Ladyhawke. Dragonslayer. Legend. The Dragonlance Chronicles. HeroQuest.

I grew up in the 80s, and because fantasy seemed to be everywhere during that decade, my imagination was fertilized by all of these movies, books, and board games. In writing Merlin’s Last Magic, I wanted to give a little nod to the decade that nurtured me.

But as I was preparing to write this post, I realized that perhaps the 1980s weren’t really the golden age. Or, if they were the golden age, then perhaps they’ve given birth to an even more exciting and fertile age for fantasy genre stuff: Right now.

I contend that perhaps it wasn’t the 80s at all that were THE decade for fantasy lovers; perhaps that time is now. Perhaps we are living in the true golden age at this very moment (the Platinum Age, perhaps). Just look around: fantasy and science fiction have never been more mainstream or popular, from HBO’s Game of Thrones to the Marvel movies to fantastic writers like Patrick Rothfuss, Brandon Sanderson, and Neil Gaiman (all of whom are being courted by Hollywood for big-budget adaptations of their work).

Being “Geek” is cool. Nerds no longer hide their obsessions but display them proudly. San Diego Comic-Con (not to mention the dozens of other conventions that have gained prominence in the last decade) has become Mecca not just for comics nerds and sci-fi geeks but for big-name celebrities and the mass media at large. When I was twelve, I tried to hide my love for J.R.R. Tolkien and Middle-Earth; when I turned twenty, Peter Jackson’s The Fellowship of the Ring was debuting in theaters, and suddenly, I didn’t have to hide anymore.

I think this new geek renaissance can be credited to both Jackson’s films and the Harry Potter phenomenon. Without either of these two creations, my fellows geeks and I would most likely still be part of a niche genre, something that the “wider world” looks down on with slight disdain. But because Jackson’s movies were incredible international hits, and because Harry Potter continues to be a straight-up juggernaut in the film and literature worlds, suddenly being “geeky” was cool. The media at large (and the people who consume it) are always gravitating towards what makes money, what sells. And starting with Harry Potter and the Lord of the Rings movies, fantasy started to sell, and sell hard.

The success of the Game of Thrones TV show has cemented fantasy as a genre that adults can and should enjoy. Now we have TV shows like The Magicians, Vikings, and American Gods, (not to mention the Marvel and DC superhero shows), and no one is hiding their fandom for these SFF stories anymore. We are allowed to like (and even love) fantasy and science fiction in a way that was just not possible in the 1980s.

But we can’t dismiss the decade of my childhood. The golden age of geekdom that we are experiencing now is a direct result of the fantasy and sci-fi of the Reagan Decade. What do so many of today’s popular novelists, showrunners, and screenwriters have in common? We came of age in the 1980s (or at least, many of us did). We grew up soaking in the realms of Krynn and Fantasia and Thra. Our heroes were Conan and Molly Grue. We played endless hours of D&D and HeroQuest and Warhammer and turned all of those adventures into our first, fumbling stories and novels. Without the incubation of the 1980s, the golden age of today wouldn’t have happened.

For my own part, The Thirteen Treasures of Britain and the Merlin’s Last Magic series wouldn’t exist without the countless hours I spent reading Rosemary Suttcliffe’s Arthurian books, watching Excalibur when I was probably too young to be watching it, and playing Pendragon role-playing game (which, technically, I first discovered in 1990, but who’s counting). I learned to tell stories — and I learned to love telling stories — from reading MERP and RuneQuest and other fantasy RPGs, and then creating my own fantasy worlds in which to role-play. I fell in love with the realms of heroes by devouring books by Raymond E. Feist and Tracy Hickman & Margaret Weis. I became lost in the kingdoms of Faerie by watching Labyrinth, The Neverending Story, and Willow like they were on an unending loop.

The stories I write now are the children of the stories I wandered in during my childhood. We are in an incredibly fertile age for fantasy and science fiction. But we cannot discount the debt we owe to the 80s. The cheesy special effects, the cliche story lines, the underground and misfit-like nature of these movies and books are there for us to see, in the hindsight of 30+ years. But these things do not diminish the magic and sway these stories still hold over us. If the future looks bright for SFF, it’s only because our destinies were forged in the fires of the gloriously geeky 80s.

The Things That Shaped Me: Lone Wolf RPG Adventure Books

August 11, 2016 / JennyDetroit / 4 Comments

IMG_20160418_171337_829 I’m an incredibly nostalgic person.

It also seems I’m not alone, judging by the popularity of stuff like Stranger Things and Ready Player One.

In order to feed my ever-ravenous nostalgia, I’ve spent many an afternoon on eBay tracking down copies of the old tabletop role-playing games I used to own as a kid: MERP, the TMNT role-playing game, Pendragon.

I loved RPGs as a kid. Every time I went to Waldenbooks, I seemed to leave with another game tucked under my arm. But buying and reading a role-playing game is very different from actually playing one. I learned early on that RPGs only work when there are other people interested in playing them with you.

This became a problem for me. Occasionally, I could rope my brother or some of my cousins into a game. Other times, my brother and his friends down the street would play Battletech and I’d try to shoehorn my way in (unsuccessfully). Most of the time though, I just sat in my bedroom and re-read the rule books. I made up various adventures, characters, and campaigns that I never got to play.

Then, on a day I cannot remember with any clarity, I stumbled upon the Lone Wolf Adventure books. It must’ve been in a Waldenbooks, but honestly, I can’t remember.

IMG_20160418_171607_374 The Lone Wolf books were perfect: Choose Your Own Adventure meets solo-RPGing.

Unlike a typical Choose Your Own Adventure, I got to make choices even before the page-flipping began. I could “create” my character: choose his skills, his items, his weapons.

Perhaps best of all, there was a method for combat. The Random Number table served the same function as the twenty-and-twelve-and-ten-sided dice of normal tabletop role-playing. It was far more interactive than a typical CYOA, and it was high fantasy with a dark, D&D-kinda feel. I felt very grown-up playing the Lone Wolf books; almost like I was a teenager. They helped satisfy my desire to play a “real” role-playing game. I still longed to find someone willing to play RuneQuest with me, but Lone Wolf was enough to keep me happy.

IMG_20160418_172037_031 Unfortunately, in the pre-Internet age, it was hard to find many Lone Wolf books. I’m not sure I ever found more than two. Just as quickly as I had found them and loved them, I had met a dead-end.

Flash-forward to today: I had completely forgotten about the Lone Wolf books.

Then my husband came home from work carrying three rough-edged mass market paperbacks on top of his stack of paperwork. (Important note: my husband works for a charity that runs a bunch of resale stores.)

“Found these in one of the thrift stores today,” he said. “Thought you’d like them.”

I looked at the books. The dawning realization that I’d seen them before — somewhere in the distant reaches of my childhood — overwhelmed me.

“I know those books,” I said, awed.

They were the Lone Wolf Adventure books.

IMG_20160418_171112_623 Then I laughed almost hysterically. It was like seeing a long-lost best friend while standing in line at the DMV.

Books 3, 14, and 17.

IMG_20160418_171826_890 I started with Book 3. Every page was dripping with nostalgic memories: the map at the front, the “Action Chart,” the “Combat Results Table.” I resisted the urge to look up anything on the Internet about how to “win” the adventure. I wanted my experience to be fresh, untainted.

I started the adventure on a Saturday afternoon, and by Saturday evening I had fought with ice barbarians, survived the attack of a crystal frostwyrm, made my way through the underground depths of Kalte, and defeated the evil wizard Vonotar without once having to start over. I was stoked. I immediately went to Amazon.com and ordered Books 4 & 5.

Even though I had scoured the interwebs to find copies of the old RPGs I used to own, I still hadn’t been able to find anyone else to play them with me (the story of my life, alas). That’s the trouble with tabletop RPGs: they aren’t made for solos. But the Lone Wolf Adventure books are the antidote for the lonely RPG-enthusiast. They fed my need for role-playing as a kid, and now as an adult, they’ve nourished my ever-hungry nostalgia.

I’ve got Book 4, The Chasm of Doom all queued up, and frankly, I can’t wait.

Swords, Dragons, and the Iconography of Fantasy

May 20, 2016 / JennyDetroit / 0 Comments

DragonsofAutumnTwilight_1984original I am in the midst of reforging my relationship with fantasy literature. As a youngster, I read a lot of fantasy but fell out of the habit until I hit college. In college, I rediscovered Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, as well as myth and folklore, but it wasn’t until I read G.R.R.M.’s Game of Thrones and Patrick Rothfuss’s The Name of the Wind that I finally got back into reading fantasy that had been published within the last forty years.

Since beginning this blog and restarting my writing career, I’ve been thinking a lot about fantasy as a genre and why we as readers are attracted to it. In one respect, my interest in this question is born out of insecurity. When I was a kid, fantasy lit was decidedly uncool. Being into fantasy lit was the kiss of social death, and for a girl it was even worse. “Female Geek Culture” was not a thing when I was younger. The stigma I experienced from being into “knights and stuff” has carried itself with me even into adulthood. I embrace my fantasy love now and proudly proclaim it to any who care to listen, but I’m still obsessed with legitimizing the genre. I still need my love for fantasy to be validated.

I also see trends happening in the genre that I’m not entirely sure I like. Not for any larger social/cultural reasons, but simply because my personal tastes seem to be out-of-step with some (but definitely not all) of what’s happening in the genre. To be a little less cryptic: I like my fantasy to be a little more wondrous and a little less mundane. More on that in posts to come.

For now, I want to focus on the “old school” fantasy that I experienced in the 80s and early 90s, and what that fantasy had to offer for me as a bookish kid who for some inexplicable reason had a passion for swords and dragons. Because swords and dragons (and knights, wizards, orcs, giants, castles…) are the very things I want to expound upon.

“Fantasy” as a genre is hard to pin down. On the one hand, the word evokes images of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, of the standard medieval-ish high fantasy that involves quests and monsters. But on the other hand, fantasy can also include a classic film like It’s a Wonderful Life. After all, It’s a Wonderful Life has “magic” in it (Clarence the angel and his ability to erase George Bailey from existence). There is no scientific or realistic explanation for how George gets erased from everyone’s lives; the angel grants George’s wish, and suddenly the film enters this alternate-universe where everything has gone terribly wrong. This is fantasy.

Fantasy can also include contemporary and urban settings — worlds where things of magic (fairies, goblins, werewolves, etc.) exist alongside contemporary things like cars, skyscrapers, and guns. This too is fantasy.

And yet, when I feel the desire to experience a “fantasy story,” I don’t gravitate towards the It’s a Wonderful Life or I Married a Witch variety of fantasy, but instead seek out the Tolkienesque. Occasionally, I’ll seek out urban fantasy, like Lost Girl or the Dresden Files. Sometimes I’ll look for wizard schools like Hogwarts, or hidden worlds like Fantastica. When I want fantasy, I go looking for dragons, not Bewitched.

What I’m proposing is this: The official definition of “fantasy” is not necessarily what fans of the genre are looking for. I would contend that what fantasy fans want is both a certain kind of feeling and a certain kind of iconography.

In other words, we want dragons and swords.

Things can stray from dragons and swords a bit, but the further they stray, the less they satisfy that pure desire for other-ness that fantasy promises. An urban fantasy can still scratch the itch for a fantasy fan because even if the hero fights with a gun, she’s still fighting red caps and giants and ghouls, and Baba Yaga lurks in the shadows of the dark, garbage-filled alleyway. But even when fantasy combines with another sub-genre, it still needs the things of fantasy. A reluctant hero may find a sword stuck in a tree or he may find a revolver hidden in a suitcase, but only one of these images holds within it the allure of fantasy.

We might complain about “too many elves” in the thousands of Tolkien-ish knockoffs that litter the fantasy shelves, but nevertheless, we still want something… elvish. Call them the Fey or the Tuatha or the Fair Folk, but we want human-like, immortal otherbeings who possess a naturalistic kind of magic and a haunting power over those of us who hail from the world of men. We might complain about “another f***ing orc,” but we still want monsters who come from the same deep recesses of human imagination as Grendel and his kin. We might gripe about the glut of fantasy that is too Euro-centric, but the heroes and creatures and monsters of ALL cultures share in the inexplicable qualities of strangeness, of mystery, of “other-ness,” that fantasy fans crave. The djinn and the leprechaun may be worlds apart, but they both spring from the same well of human imagination that seeks to conjure up something beyond the ordinary world.

This entry into something beyond the ordinary — this desire for fairies and their magic — is what I’ve been seeking lately. I want to go back to the classic tropes, to the skies filled with dragons and the dusty roads traveled by surly dwarves. I’m reading the Pern books for the first time. I’m going to be rereading The Lord of the Rings. I’m making my way through the Dark Is Rising sequence. I’ve got A Wizard of Earthsea on my to-read queue. I’m currently on the hunt for original editions of the Dragonlance Chronicles. I’m re-reading some old copies of the Lone Wolf role-playing adventure books. I finally picked up and read The Neverending Story — a book I’ve wanted to read since I was twelve.

As much as I want the fantasy genre to expand and to refresh itself (simply so that it doesn’t stagnate and calcify into something boring), I don’t want to see the classic iconography of the genre disappear either. I still want warriors on horseback, wielding swords and spears, fighting dragons and goblins in dark forests and ancient castles. The things of fantasy matter. They are the blood and guts of the genre, even if we often dress them up in different skins. These are the things I’ve been craving lately; I want dark lords and even darker crystals. I want dragons. And perhaps, most of all, I want a sword of my very own — a sword with spells woven into the blade, with powers from the otherworld, with an ancient history beyond the mists of time. A sword to vanquish a dragon, or to enchant one.

Loving Fantasy Literature

July 15, 2015 / JennyDetroit / 0 Comments

Sometimes it starts with the cover of a book. The colors, the creatures, the young hero swinging a sword. There’s a promise of adventure, of something strange, of hidden worlds that await just behind a tree trunk or a closet door or a looking-glass. There’s a promise that our mundane, everyday world is not the only one out there, that there are worlds upon worlds waiting to be discovered. These places might not be anything more than an illustrated cover or words on a page — but they are as real as any world we inhabit.

Sometimes it starts with a title. The lyrical, whimsical, powerful, magical. Things both earthy and ancient. Things that are imagined and things that are dreamed. Cauldrons and dragons and kings and gardens and cities and seas. Sometimes the titles are enough; we don’t even need to read the book to experience the fantasy. Example: The Last Unicorn. This is a world and a story and a feeling already contained in a title. It is its own fantasy, one that I imagined even before I read the one inside the covers. The Black Cauldron — there is an entire myth contained in that one phrase. A darkness and an oldness. The story which goes with it is partly of my own imagination; I wrote the story in my head long before I read the story on the page.

Sometimes it’s the experience of searching the shelves — the bookstore, the library, my own bookshelves — and seeing the spines glimmer like jewels in a dwarf hoard, and knowing that each is a key that will unlock another door to distant worlds. It’s also the warmness, the giddiness which comes with knowing that I’m not alone. That others have wanted the same adventures and the same escapes from ordinary reality. That there are people out there who also love to imagine and create and tell stories about monsters and heroes and faeries and gods.

I can’t quite explain the effect a fantasy story has on me. The mediocre ones satisfy my need for swords and magic. They scratch the itch I have for high adventure and monsters. But the great ones make the world — our own world — something brighter, something more alive than it was before. And they make me want to live more fully. They infuse the real world with some of the magic of their imagined worlds. I think Tolkien wrote about this in his essay “On Fairy Stories.” That the talking trees of Faerie somehow make our real trees more beautiful. And the really great stories — the ones that I think about for days after, the ones that transform my imagination — they feel like they’ve come straight from the Realm of Story itself, the origin of all great tales, so that when I read them, I am connected in some way to that larger place. And it is this connection that makes me want to write my own fantasy stories. I want to tie my own tales into this Realm of Story, to join my fantasies with these eternal ones.

I guess this all sounds ridiculous to those who don’t love fantasy literature. Maybe it is. But to those of us who love the realm of fantastical fiction, to those of us who yearn for an escape to Faerie, I bet this doesn’t sound strange at all. It starts with a sword or a monster or a piece of magic. A book cover. A title. It starts when we open that jewel-covered book for the first time. And if we’re open to it, if we’re lucky, if we’re ready for the adventure, the journey through the fantastical changes us. Like magic.

The Things That Shaped Me: The Prydain Chronicles by Lloyd Alexander

July 7, 2015 / JennyDetroit / 0 Comments

If you asked ten-year-old me to rank her favorite fantasy series, I would definitely have put the Chronicles of Narnia at the top. But a very close second would have been the Prydain Chronicles. Not as well-known or iconic as the Narnia series, the Prydain series nevertheless felt as exciting, magical, and original as Narnia, especially for me, a kid who obsessed over knights, dragons, magic, and all things fantasy. The names, the mythology, the magic, the creatures — the Welsh-ness of Prydain made it feel different, a little bit stranger and therefore more wondrous than the typical English-y fantasy. I would later discover just how much Arthurian legend originated in the Welsh tradition, but as a kid, the weird names and Welsh flavor of the Prydain Chronicles made them seem exotic compared to the fantasy and medieval legends I normally read.

Of course, the real beauty of the Prydain Chronicles is in the story and characters. I LOVED Eilonwy and Taran. I LOVED Fluedder Flam. I LOVED the relationship between Taran and Coll, and wonderful Dalben, and yes, even (sometimes annoying) Gurgi. Each of the five books had a unique story that introduced unique and amazing characters. And the villains were creepy and truly dangerous. This was a world in which bad things can and do happen, in which characters can and do die. It was a fantasy world filled with menace and evil in a way the Narnia stories (and even The Hobbit) never were. I must have read and re-read the series at least half a dozen times when I was younger. And I’ve reread them since, as an adult, and still find them to be charming. This, to me, is the mark of a great storyteller.

Looking back on the series now, I’m most fascinated by book 4, Taran Wanderer. As a kid, it wasn’t my favorite. It didn’t have a strong, scary villain. Its quest wasn’t magical enough. It was just Taran going around learning crafts and meeting with ordinary people, trying to find his heritage. Where were the battles? Where was the epic struggle between good and evil? And yet, as an adult, I realize now how bold it was to make the fourth book in this action-adventure fantasy series into a somber, quiet quest for identity and maturity. Now, when I reread the books, I get so much out of Taran Wanderer. It’s a story that continues to resonate.

Is it any wonder that the book I’m writing now is based on Welsh mythology? Is it any wonder that my imagination is steeped in the world of Gwydion and the Black Cauldron and the kingdom of Llyr? It’s funny to me that the Prydain Chronicles don’t seem very well-known, and yet when I mention them to fellow readers, I find so many people who also grew up reading about Taran and Fluedder and Eilonwy and Doli and Henwen and all the rest. Why the series is not more well-known is a mystery. It’s kind of unbelievable that we haven’t gotten a live-action movie franchise out of them (the less said about the animated Disney movie the better). But then, would we be able to trust a movie studio to do justice to the darker elements, to the themes of humility and sacrifice, to the subtleties of Taran’s journey from pig-keeper to high king? I’m not sure what a studio would do with a book like Taran Wanderer. Probably add a lot of unnecessary action sequences.

One of the things I’m most looking forward to as a parent, is the day I get to introduce my children to The Book of Three. Hopefully, it will stir their imagination as much as it did mine. Two decades after I first read the series, it still stirs my imagination.

Bucket List Authors

March 1, 2015 / JennyDetroit / 0 Comments

My husband and I were discussing the concept of “bucket lists” the other day, and I have to confess, I don’t really have a bucket list of grand things I’d like to do before I die. I’m lucky enough to have traveled to Europe twice, and I’ve been to a bunch of U.S. states, and other than going to the British Isles, there’s nowhere I’d regret not seeing. I have no desire to sky dive, or run a marathon, or get a tattoo. I’ve eaten pasta in Italy, ridden in a gondola in Venice, been to Times Square, and I already play the guitar. So the popular bucket list items don’t cast any spell over me.

But in reading this interview with Neil Gaiman over at the Barnes & Noble Sci-Fi and Fantasy blog, I realized that I do have a “bucket list” of sorts. It’s not a list of things I’d like to do before I die; it’s a list of authors I want to read before I die. These are authors that I’ve always been intrigued by — that I’ve always planned to read — but for one reason or another, I’ve never gotten around to them.

Such as Diana Wynne Jones (who was mentioned in the Gaiman interview). She’s just the sort of novelist that I would want to read and it still amazes me that I never have. The titles alone are alluring: Witch Week, Howl’s Moving Castle, Dark Lord of Derkholm, The Ogre Downstairs, A Tale of Time City. Why haven’t I read any of her stuff??? She’s on the bucket list.

Next is Agatha Christie. I was a huge fan of mysteries as a kid — so much so that my parents got me a subscription to the Alfred Hitchcock Magazine when I was ten-years-old — but the grand dame of mystery fiction somehow never ended up in the reading pile. She’s definitely on the bucket list (and I just downloaded one of her books to my kindle).

Graham Greene is another bucket lister due to several reasons:

1. He was Catholic and wrote about Catholic themes (though in an awesome way, not in some lame, preachy, bad-art kind of way). I am also Catholic, so I’m keen to read him.

2. He wrote screenplays for The Fallen Idol and The Third Man, two of my favorite British films from the 1940s.

3. He also wrote film reviews, so I feel an affinity for him as a cinephile.

4. I need to read more non-fantasy/sci-fi fiction and his books all sound interesting.

Anne McCaffrey’s Pern books are also on my list. Mostly because my husband loved them as a teenager, and they meant a lot to him and I want to share that with him. But also because I once had an old copy of McCaffrey’s Dragonsinger that my aunt gave to me but that I never read. I started to read it once, but then I put it down (for whatever reason). And then I lost the book. And yet the cover art has always haunted me and seeing it takes me back to cold November days at my grandmother’s house (which is where my family lived for awhile) when I was only nine or ten, and I lived and breathed fantasy adventures, role-playing games, King Arthur, and Tolkien, and my aunt and uncle would come over and we’d order Chinese food and play the Dark Tower board game.

I wish I still had that copy of Dragonsinger. And I plan to one day read Anne McCaffrey. She’s on the bucket list.

Finally, I feel like I really need to read some Tolstoy. Anna Karenina sounds more appealing, but I’m down with reading War and Peace too. I’ve often heard he’s one of the greatest novelists, so I’d like to see for myself. Plus, I like Russian stuff.