Well, duh

How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy
Orson Scott Card
Non-fiction 140 pages
Writer's Digest Books, 2001

 Ever read something so obvious that you go, “Well, duh?” Maybe you reacted that way because the information was so right, so intuitive, and so self-evident that you thought you already knew it. Perhaps you did, or perhaps the information arrived so naturally that you failed to realize you received a lesson. That’s how this book works.

Card begins with an explanation of what constitutes science fiction or fantasy, and the differences between the two genres. On the surface, it seems obvious, but there’s more to it when you look a little deeper. Readers may not care what genre they’re reading, but it’s important for authors to know what genre they’re writing. This is especially true now that mixed genres are becoming popular. However, mixing genres is not the same as muddling genres. Muddling results in genre pollution. For example, I can’t think of anything vaguely scientific about zombies, yet there they are muddling up the science fiction genre.

Authors also need to know the difference between genres in order to set, and follow, the rules pertaining to the worlds they create and write about. Knowing how starships travel, or how magic is worked, brings credibility to stories, even if the information is never mentioned in the story. This principal applies to other elements of a story as well. When an author knows his character’s background, the history of the story’s milieu, etc., then his story is more believable, even if this information is not shared with readers.

There are four story types, Card maintains. These are: milieu, idea, character, and event types. Authors need to know the differences between each type, and must be certain that the type they start a story with, is the same as the type with which it ends. Otherwise readers are baffled and disappointed.
Story worlds should be built with exposition techniques that don’t interrupt story action. Card uses another author’s story to explain how effective and unobtrusive exposition is accomplished.

The final quarter of the book addresses a writer’s lifestyle and business practices. Although Card offers good advice, similar advice is available in other writing how-to books. Some of the information is outdated and fails to address the rapid changes occurring in the publishing industry. But don’t let that stop you from reading an otherwise excellent book.

Tightrope Ride

Farewell Horizontal

K. W. Jeter

Fiction 249 pages

There is only the building, cylindrical and huge. And, choices are few. Most live a dull and conventional life on one of the horizontal levels. Others live a creative, yet precarious, vertical existences on the building’s exterior.

Ny Axxter has chosen a freelancer’s life on the vertical. It has its risks, including starving or drawing fire from a corporate tribe fighting for control of the building. The vertical life offers hope as well, hope of fortune and hope of freedom.

There is much that Ny doesn’t know. He knows there are stars above him, but he does not know what lies beneath the cloud wall below him. He doesn’t know what’s on the night side of the building, or what horrors live within its sealed center. He sees angels flying in the distance, but knows little about them.

However, Ny is no more ignorant of the building’s secrets than the majority of its other denizens. This is how things have been since the war. No one seems to know how things were before the war. Moreover, no one seems interested in finding out.

Ny Axxter lives in a cyberpunk world, dystopian and corporate controlled. He’s just another gutsy punk trying to cut it on the fringes of a society run by faceless corporations. His journey is fueled by the need to survive. If he’s lucky, he might learn something on his journey, but in the end his hard gained knowledge will only scratch the surface of the unknown. However, only by surviving another day, and growing slightly wiser, does progress occur. It’s an exciting journey. Come along for the ride.

Noted British explorer serves up literary appetiser

Vikram and the Vampire; Classic Hindu Tales of Adventure, Magic, and Romance
Richard Francis Burton (Author), Isabel Burton (Editor)
Fiction 134 pages


Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton translated 10 volumes of the Arabian Nights proper, plus half as many volumes of supplemental material. However, his translation of Vikram and the Vampire only includes 11 of the original 25 stories. Not only is it a quicker read, its writing style is far less archaic than that of the Arabian Nights translation. Even so, it does not read like a contemporary bestseller, but, then again, it’s old stuff, but that adds to its charm.

This collection of folk tales, written in Sanskrit, and compiled in the 11th century, is the oldest known work to showcase stories collected around a framing device. As such, it predates other framed story collections, including the Arabian Nights, the Decameron, and the Canterbury Tales, by several centuries.

Perhaps King Vikram should not have given his promise to the yogi. Now it’s too late to withdraw it. He has agreed to retrieve a corpse, but there’s a catch — the corpse is possessed by a baital (or vetala) — an Indian demon or vampire. On the chosen night, Vikram and his son enter the cemetery where they find the vampire hanging upside down from a tree limb. After some effort, they capture the vampire, but it escapes. The vampire then strikes a deal with Vikram: He’ll allow himself to be carried while telling a story, but at its conclusion, a riddle will be asked. Once Vikram answers correctly, the vampire escapes. And so, story after story is told through the long night until finally Vikram is stumped for an answer.

The stories are witty, satirical and fantastic. In one, three suitors attempt to animate the remains of their intended bride. One carries her ashes, another carries her bones, and a third recites an incantation to bring her back to life. If they succeed in reviving the beauty, which suitor will marry her? Vikram knows and so will we.

In another story, a thief laughs during his execution. Why? Again, Vikram knows the answer. Yet, the vampire has another answer. Regardless, Vikram’s answer is close enough to allow the vampire to escape. Once again, Vikram must retrieve him from the tree limb in which he hangs in bat-like fashion.

In a story about a learned scholar and his three sons, ‘atheist’ receives four definitions. Of these, the most common is that an atheist is someone whose beliefs are different from one’s own. A bit of philosophical meandering follows, and then there’s a speech, “so stuffed with erudition that even the writer hardly understood it.” Such excesses of scholarship can only result in disaster. After the inevitable occurs, Vikram correctly names which of the four is the greatest fool.

The final story takes place several hundred years after Vikram’s death. Pale-skinned invaders will come from the north to conquer Vikram’s kingdom with “fire weapon(s), large and small tubes, which discharge flame and smoke, and bullets … And instead of using swords and shields, they will fix daggers to the ends of their tubes, and thrust with them like lances.” This reference to British soldiers makes one wonder if the original author, possibly Somadeva, was prophetic, or if, as N. M. Penzer claimed in 1924, Burton embellished the original with fictions of his own.

At the conclusion of the final story, the vampire allows Vikram to take him to the yogi, but not without first revealing the yogi’s evil purpose and the means of his defeat. Does Vikram defeat the yogi? You will have to read it for yourself.