SFFSat 28/6/14 - Sorrel in Silver

This is my snippet this week for SFFSat. SFFSat is a place where a number of authors post snippets from their written works, and give the opportunity for comments, support and encouragement. Please also explore the other blogs that are part of this set - you can find the information here. 

I'm delighted to report that I've completed the draft manuscript for Sorrel in Silver, the third volume of Sorrel's saga. It needs editing and tidying up, but the plot is complete. To celebrate, I'm going to post half a dozen snippets from the new book over the next few weeks, with luck to build up everyone's interest before it is published.

This time Sorrel realises that the world around her is not as solid and stable as she thought...

The ground began to shudder under us. At first it was just a slight shiver, making the water ripple wildly. Then there was a deep rumbling roar, like heavy balls rolling on a wooden bowling ground, and I saw the trees begin to shake. The water was splashing, the Cygnet tilting from side to side. I had my legs well apart, trying to keep from tumbling over. Griffyn had stumbled to the ground already, and Wrack was struggling to stay upright. In the distance I saw the west tower of Tolgrail shiver, and then slowly, agonisingly, slump out of sight as it crumbled. With an ear-splitting screech, one of the trees on the bank of the river toppled sideways and slammed into the water.

The ground was still shuddering, if anything moving more. Griffyn's face was white, and he was shouting something, but over the roar of the tortured earth I couldn't make out his words. The light changed around us, shadows suddenly moving – I looked south, and realised in disbelief that one of the gigantic lantern trees, over a mile from us, was toppling. I couldn't hear the sound of its plunge into the jungle, but the world was suddenly darker around us as its illumination was extinguished.

As always, comments appreciated!

Under-rated dragons 3 - Dragonflight

I'm planning to talk about various fantasy novels involving dragons. My choice this week is Dragonflight, by Anne McCaffrey. I'm not certain it deserves to be described as an under-rated dragon, but having started in that vein I'll stubbornly stick to it.

In 1968, Dragonflight was astonishing. It was a novel involving sympathetic, telepathic dragons, ridden into battle against a peril that fell from the skies threatening a civilisation that was apparently primitive but which at one stage had travelled between the stars. Now, there are numerous novels that use the same ideas and images, but when it first appeared, Anne McCaffrey's original novella, Weyr Search, was like nothing else then in fiction.

If it had only had that inventiveness it would still have been successful. But it also had a strong female central character who does not need rescuing, who makes her own future and who wins against all the odds – and has sex with the handsome male lead as well.

The feel of the early books is firmly that of a fantasy setting. The science fiction rationale for Pern which becomes far more visible in later books does not prevent the books being primarily fantasies, rather than SF.

I have seen detractors claiming the books are just poor fantasy soft-core erotica. Absolute rubbish – they are good stories, with strong characters and an ever-more complex world. There are flaws – Terry Pratchett, in the Colour of Magic, mercilessly lampoons the bland characterisation of the dragons themselves, and there are aspects of McCaffrey's world that she hadn't thought through fully. (I take my hat off to her for recognising the inevitable effects of the telepathic links between the male riders of green – female – dragons, and accepting the effect and being open about it even though it detracted from the masculine image she wanted for her dragonriders).

McCaffrey wrote a string of sequels and parallel novels set in the same world. The first of the Pern novels I read was Dragonsong – which didn't make a vast amount of sense to me at the time, but persuaded me to read some more. None of the others have quite the impact that Dragonflight has – it deserves its status as one of the all-time best fantasy novels.

SFFSat 21/6/2014 - Black Ice part 10

Welcome to SFFSat. SFFSat is a place where a number of authors post snippets from their written works, and give the opportunity for comments, support and encouragement. Please also explore the other blogs that are part of this set - you can find the information here. 


This is the final part of the Anton deGama story, Black Ice. If you haven't read the preceding parts, this probably won't make a lot of sense (but the rest of the story is still on the blog, so you could always start at the beginning!). Anton has, against all the odds, driven the crawler over the trench, escaping the sliding ammonia ice.

   Anton slowed the engine, letting the tracks get a grip on the mercifully solid ground beyond the trench. He looked back as the ammonia frostslide continued to tumble into the depths, and briefly thanked his lucky stars.

    He sealed his suit and picked up a can of screen gel, before coating the stars in the crawler's canopy. He could not replace the harpoon until he got back to Groundstation. He glanced at the chart. The trench bisected the range of hills neatly, and he was on the wrong side from the weather station. 

   He sighed, and started the engine. He had a long way to go. After all, he needed the money. And he doubted Groundstation would accept that a minor problem en route justified abandoning the trip.

 As always, comments appreciated!

Under-rated dragons 2 - The Dragon and the George

I'm planning to talk about various fantasy novels involving dragons. Next time my target is Dragonflight (and I know it is supposedly science fiction, but it is SF with a strong fantasy style). This time, though, my subject is the Dragon and the George, by Gordie Dickson.

First published in 1976, this took the well-known trope of the young man from our world who finds himself in a fantasy realm trying to rescue an imperilled heroine, and turned it on its head. This time, the hero was not trying to deal with the dragon – he is the dragon. The reasoning behind this is relatively thin (a mind transference project that went horribly wrong) but is simply the means to the author's end – setting up an extraordinary situation for the hero to cope with.

And cope he does. Jim Eckert is a reasonably competent hero who manages, after a few troubles, to cope with his new shape. He – as is traditional in this sort of story – picks up a rag-tag of companions, including the talking wolf, Aragh (probably the best character!), Danielle, the sexy archer-maid, an incompetent knight, and a couple of other dragons. Their main opponents are the Dark Powers, a rather bland and character-less ultimate evil that is out to change the balance of the natural order within the world.

Advising Jim – or Gorbash as his dragon-form is named – is an aged wizard, Carolinus, who wants to be Gandalf but comes across more as Rincewind. And the quest is to travel to the Loathly Tower to rescue Jim's imperilled girlfriend, Angie, another transferree from the real world.

Reading it now, the book doesn't seem as extraordinary as it was in 1976, but it is still a good, entertaining read. It has a broad strand of comedy flowing through it, and certainly doesn't need taking seriously. It also has a reasonably good plot though it fades a little in the finale. It isn't as lengthy as many fantasy tomes, and the characterisation isn't exceptional, but for a light-hearted fantasy with a slight air of self-mockery it works very well.

SFFSat 14/6/2014 - Black Ice part 9

Assuming you've all survived the terrors of Friday the 13th, welcome to SFFSat. SFFSat is a place where a number of authors post snippets from their written works, and give the opportunity for comments, support and encouragement. Please also explore the other blogs that are part of this set - you can find the information here. 


This is part nine of the Anton deGama story, Black Ice. Anton's crawler is sliding towards a deep trench on Titan. Anton blew a gigantic boulder of ice in front of the crawler, but it did not stop the slide. So Anton fired a harpoon with cable into the boulder. The cable pulled at the boulder for a few moments - and then snapped...

The end of the wire whiplashed back, striking the plexiglass canopy and spreading a network of stars across it. The tough material did not break, but Anton doubted it would last very much longer without repair. He struggled to see through the crazed windscreen, feeling the tracks churning as they lurched onto the boulder he had blown into the crawler's path. The brief moment the cable had lifted the boulder had been enough. Instead of tumbling down into the trench, it spanned the trench in a bridge, of sorts. 

Anton spun the crawler's treads, going with the pressure of the permafrost behind him, trying to steer across the unstable, uneven chunk of ice.

For a moment, the crawler teetered on the brink of the drop, and Anton felt the boulder slip. He gunned the engine recklessly, ingrained habits making him reach for the harpoon key as well before he remembered that the cable had broken. The weight of permafrost slithering after the crawler over the bridge shoved the vehicle forward, past the lethal darkness below, as the boulder crumbled and disappeared into the depths soundlessly.

A word of advice - don't try this at home...
I'll post the final part, to round off the story now the danger is past, this time next week. As always, comments appreciated!

SFFSat 7/6/2014 - Black Ice part 8

This is my snippet this week for SFFSat. SFFSat is a place where a number of authors post snippets from their written works, and give the opportunity for comments, support and encouragement. Please also explore the other blogs that are part of this set - you can find the information here. 


This is part eight of the Anton deGama story, Black Ice. Anton's crawler is sliding towards a deep trench on Titan. Anton's effort to evade inevitable doom involved detonating a methane explosion against a giant tumbling boulder of ice. He blew the huge rock in front of the crawler - but the boulder has not stopped the ice-slide...

 

Anton stared at the trench ahead – and then flung himself into the crawler again, jumping forward, using every second the low gravity saved him to get to the controls. He had no time to repressurize, let alone get out of the suit: fortunately, the cockpit was designed so that a driver could do simple maneuvers when suited up. 

Not that this was going to be simple. The crawler was only ten metres now from the narrow gash of the trench. The boulder, sliding directly in front of the crawler, was going to tumble into the gap first. Anton aimed the harpoon with careful haste, and fired. 

The harpoon soared over the boulder, falling back to dig deeply into the solid ammonia at the far end. Anton put all the crawler's power into the winch. The front of the boulder lifted slightly, as it went over the lip of the trench. The whine of the winch filled the cockpit, deafening Anton even through his helmet, as the crawler took the entire front weight of the gigantic boulder. 

Anton had not expected Vauxhall-Douglas to win such an uneven contest: the cable snapped viciously after only a couple of seconds. 

 As always, comments appreciated!

 

Under-rated dragons 1 - Tea with the Black Dragon

Over the next few weeks I'm planning to highlight half a dozen fantasy novels that concern dragons and deserve to be more well-known. Next time I intend to talk about the Dragon and the George – but this post is about Tea with the Black Dragon, by RA MacAvoy.

The novel is set in modern-day San Francisco, where Martha MacNamara is looking for her daughter, a computer programmer. (I would add this novel is from an age when computers were still rare and extraordinary). Whilst searching, she meets Mr Long, an oriental gentleman of considerable style and intelligence. As the story progresses, we are led to wonder whether Mr Long is actually an ancient oriental black dragon with a face like a chrysanthemum. He has five fingers, which is the mark of a scholar. Part of what makes the novel work so well is that we never actually know for certain that Oolong is a dragon (though it seems more than likely). The fantasy elements creep into the novel delicately and subtly, and work extraordinarily well.

Mayland Long himself is a lovely character with bags of personality. To be fair, Martha is also a very strong character, too, and the interplay between them works extremely well. The actual plot is relatively straightforward, but the character of Oolong is the greatest strength of the book.

I enjoyed the book immensely – and found out much later that it was included in David Pringle's top 100 fantasy novels of the twentieth century. And it deserves its place in that august company.