Glenda Larke

The other day, I was sitting talking with a group of friends and I told a story about my childhood. One long time friend then said, “Oh, Glenda – why don’t you write that sort of thing instead of this – this other stuff?” This other stuff being fantasy. Despised pulp, less than literature, childish drivel, or whatever. What on earth can you say in reply to a remark like that?

I was on the Purple Zone this morning (the great online forum over at the website of Harper Collins Voyager Australia) and read what one writer was told when registering with the lecturer of a writing course: ‘Well, there’ll be people writing serious stuff and they may not want to read your work. But don’t worry, there’s always a couple of people writing genre stuff in each class who stick together in the corner!’

This prompted Alma Alexander/Hromic into an excellent reply on her blog.

And I feel a rant coming on, too.

We all start by reading fantasy. Cinderella. Fairy Tales. Mother Hubbard rhymes. Local stories of taking animals. All those delightful kids’ stories that have charmed generations of children, and the modern tales that are just as good. We all have a background in myths and legends from whatever the culture of our upbringing. Religious stories are – almost by definition – full of the fantastic.

Then somewhere along the line, people seem to drop out and start reading what is supposedly “real” (even though it is fiction and not real at all). Unfortunately, many do it under the mistaken belief that fantasy is only for children.

Er, why?

Because only kids have the imagination to appreciate it? Come on.

Or maybe you think fantasy is poorly written. Er, what have you been reading, ever? There is enough top notch fantasy writing out there to keep you reading a book a day for a year and never be disappointed by the quality. If this is what you think, then you are choosing the wrong books. Or is it, dare I suggest, that you actually don’t read fantasy and are just guessing???? Shakespeare wrote fantasy. So did Dante, Noel Coward, Oscar Wilde, Rushdie, Dickens, Isobelle Allende…

Maybe you think that when you’ve read one fantasy book, you’ve read them all? Excuse me while I roll around the floor laughing. That’s like saying I don’t watch TV/go to the movies because it’s all the same. Fantasy can be modern, medieval, ancient, futuristic. It can be in this world or any other. It can be sad, funny, tragic, happy, violent or romantic; it can be about love or war or passion or principles or education or …anything.

Maybe you think fantasy has no relevance to your world. Rubbish. That’s like saying we have nothing to learn from “Animal Farm” because it was all about animals. Of that Tolkien had nothing to say about the human spirit because he wrote about Hobbits and Middle Earth. All modern successful fantasy books are successful because people can relate to the story they tell.

There was a lovely article in The Guardian (Saturday January 21, 2006) where an author, Francesca Simon, (who loves “literature”) and her son (who loves fantasy) challenge one another to read the other’s favourite. Mother heads off to read Robin Hobb’s Assassin trilogy. Son ends up with Trollope.

End of experiment: son is absolutely sure Barchester Towers is not for him. Mother is hooked on Robin Hobb and goes out to buy the next book in the trilogy. It was no contest.

I have nothing to be ashamed of because I write fantasy.

And you – if you have never read it, you don’t know what you’re missing. If you tried once and hated it, then try again. You didn’t give up on mainstream books because you happened to hate one, did you? That’s like giving up on oranges because you had one sour one.

And bear in mind, we fantasy readers and writers do get tired of being scorned by people who don’t even read the genre.

My husband just came back from Kalimantan in Bornean Indonesia. He took a plane from Banjarmasin to a place with the unlikely name of Slippery Rock (in translation). As the twin-engined prop came in to land, he realised they were coming down on the road…

There was a policeman at either end of the “runway” to stop the traffic. Guess that’s what is known as an economical use of facilities.

And out on the blogs there is some tearing of hair over UK’s plan to introduce ID cards. Can’t be done, say some! Why, every time you lose a card, get married, die, change your name, change your address, get older, etc you have to alter the card…how will the registration offices cope? And how will the guy on the street cope with having to produce the card every time they do something? Reading Charlie’s Diary (Charles Stross the Sf writer), you’d swear they were right. It sounds like an impossible task.

And then you realise, hey, wait a moment. Malaysia does that. In fact, we have just re-done all Identity Cards to go from the old type to the new computer chip “smart” cards for everyone over 12 years old. We have to produce the darn thing to open an account, get a license, buy a house, vote, register for anything at all, go to a hospital, enter a govt office…the list is quite endless. And we do it. It’s second nature.

Over on the horror writer Poppy Z. Brite’s blog (met her at Continuum in Melbourne last year), there’s a look at New Orleans 8 months after Katrina – and it is appalling (see the entry entitled “Not OK” March 31st). This is the USA and they can’t get something as simple as rubbish collection back on track after 8 months? You know what? I don’t think that would happen here. In fact I’m damn sure it wouldn’t, not if so many people were affected so badly. We don’t have the resources of money and facilities that the USA has, but we have something else…not sure what it is. A certain capacity to deal with whatever life throws at us? A better, more workable system of government? Maybe it’s just an absence of Dubya!

You know what? In Asia – for all its chaotic surface – there are times when things get done a damn sight better and/or more quickly that in the western world.

Malaysia Boleh

The rain is bucketing down – lightning tripped the circuit-breaker an hour ago in the middle of the storm – but the bucket in my dining room has remained dry. This, after 3 visits from the roof guy who muttered all the while about people who ought to know when they have to shell out for a new roof. I don’t think he believed me, especially as we were only talking about half the roof, when I said we can’t afford it yet a while.

So the lack of a leak was a plus. Second plus, it seems we may have found a small apartment in Kota Kinabalu – with, would you believe a view of Mount Kinabalu, surely one of the world’s most spectacular and memorable mountains, rising as it does – like Kilimanjaro – so far about its immediate surroundings. 4095 m, 13,435 ft.

Even so, today I am a firewalker on hot coals…can’t stay still. My latest baby is out there in the world, on its own for the first time, and no one has yet told me how lovely it is. Or how puking awful. Or anything.

I wanna be a playwright. They don’t have to wait days or weeks to find out what everyone thinks of their offspring.

And, there is absolutely no connection between all that and the fact that a category four cyclone (hurricane), Cyclone Glenda, is on the rampage in Australia, heading into my home state.

I was interviewed by Tan Cheng Li from The Star newspaper last week, and today the article came out. And a very good article it is too, to counterbalance some of the wild statements that have issued forth from the mouths of the ignorant in this country. There was even one state politician who seemed to be suggesting that we kill all migratory birds.

There is far more evidence to suggest that wild birds do NOT spread bird flu than there is evidence to suggest that they do. Interesting, eh? Especially when so much of governmental investigation is aimed at wild birds. One hopes they are also committing the same amount of resources to the illegal transport of poultry, illegal import/sale of caged birds and cock-fighting birds, import of organic manure, organic fish-food and poultry feed – all of which have been heavily implicated elsewhere.

I don’t want to die of bird flu. I want the truth about its causes and how it is spread. And while people point the finger only at wild birds – thereby avoiding blame for their/our human stupidity – then we are not searching for the truth.

Over at Ben Peek’s blog here and at Elizabeth Bear’s here , there are great lists on what they have learned as a writer…

So here’s my ten things I have learned as a fantasy writer:

1. No matter how brilliantly you write, there will still be people who will assume you write crap because it’s fantasy.
2. There is no way a fantasy writer can answer the question, ‘What’s it about?’ without sounding like an utter idiot.
3. There will always be the odd person who thinks you write the other kind of fantasy.
4. No matter how much you think people who read speculative fiction of any kind must be in search of writing that is sharply different, imagination-challenging and intellectually stimulating, the truth is that, by and large, what sells best is the comfortable stuff that wouldn’t challenge a Barbie doll.
5. There is no way a fantasy writer can answer the question, ‘Will they make a film out of it?’ without sounding like you’re making excuses for not being good enough.
6. It’s better not to look at the expression on the face of the person who has just said, “Fantasy? Oh, you write children’s books!” as you try to explain that no, you actually write stuff for adults.
7. Fantasy writers stutter a lot when speaking to people who don’t read fantasy but want to know all about it.
8. Science fiction writers are not always kind about fantasy books or fantasy writers.
9. Any sff book that achieves success in the wider world of literary fiction gets called something else – like “magical realism” or “surreal fiction” or “fabulist” or “a visionary portrayal” or “an allegorical look at the modern world” or “a futuristic tale of…” You get the picture. Never science fiction or fantasy.
10. Marketing people think dragons on the cover sell books, even if there’s no dragon in the story. Likewise with wolves, chain-mail (especially on women), swords (especially wielded by babes), castles on crags, bearded ancient sages with staffs, eagles, stormy skies, ravens…