Call Me a Dreamer

My Dad's Saturday routine includes going to the Westside branch of the El Paso Public Library, where he enjoys researching investments. This routine had been interrupted by my brother's death, but last Saturday we were able to follow the routine. The last time I went to the library with him, probably twenty years ago, his research was conducted with print materials, but now he logs onto Value Line, to which the library has a subscription. I suspect, but don't know for sure, that he was reading a print version of Value Line two decades ago.

Wanting access to the computers, as well as to the books, I spoke with one of the librarians about my situation and was granted a library card, even though I didn't have any local IDs. Hooray! for a system that works on a human basis and doesn't throw bureaucratic rules in the way.

The first thing I did with my new card was to sign up for a computer and, once I'd dealt with my email, to visit LiveJournal. My Saturday post (sorry, currently friends-locked) was made from the library. When my hour was up, all too quickly, I wandered the shelves in search of new reading material, having completed everything I brought with me, either on the train trip here, or in the all-too-limited bedtime reading I manage before I fall asleep. I could have perused the home library, but there's something alluring about a public library whose shelves you haven't wandered in decades.

I wound up checking out two books. The first was White Night by Jim Butcher. Jim Butcher and his wife, Shannon, will be co-Guests of Honor at TusCon, this year, so this seemed like a good time to reacquaint myself with his work. Besides, my eldest son and a number of his friends are huge Dresden Files fans, and my son has been at me for years to read more of his work. (I'd only read the first in the Dresden Files series, Storm Front, and while it was fun enough I hadn't kept up with the series. I enjoyed White Night and was pleasantly surprised to discover that I'd retained enough of the first book that there was a sense of continuity. I was also pleased that I didn't feel that picking up a book mid-series was a problem, as any references to prior events were handled so that they left me neither confused, nor feeling that the story had been interrupted for an infodump of the backstory. I read the first half of the book that evening, in the living room of some of my dad's friends, while he and they played Bridge. Most of the rest of it I finished Sunday morning, while my dad slept in. I really needed the relaxation and I was very grateful to have something to keep me happily occupied while I relaxed.

The other book I picked up was the second edition of The Annotated Wizard of Oz. (The cover isn't as decorated as the one on GoogleBooks, but it's still a very attractive book.) I've been enjoying it immensely, although I doubt I'll finish it before I return to Tucson.

In the Introduction—which may just be the longest introduction I've ever read, finishing on page cii (102) and including a brief biography of Baum, a history of his many publications with an emphasis on the Oz books, and a discussion of criticism of the Oz books— the editor Michael Patrick Hearn writes, "Of course, fairy tales and especially American fairy tales are not for everyone, for, as E. M. Forster wrote, 'Fantasy asks us to pay something extra.'"[Emphasis ] ^[1], ^[2].

As a reader and writer of fantasy, I found that line intriguing. Intriguing enough to write this long essay, as much to be able to mention the extra cost or effort required of fantasy readers, as to share with you the events leading up to that mention. It seems to me, that if fantasy (and its close cousin science fiction) requires greater effort upon the part of readers, that readers would read such works only if they feel they get something more from fantasy or science fiction.

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1. Hearn, Michael Patrick. Introduction. The Annotated Wizard of Oz. By Baum. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2000. xcix-c. Print.
2. Hearn's footnote for the Forster quotation, 38. on page c: "In Aspects of the Novel (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1927), p. 109." You can see the quote in context in the electronic version on Google Books.

Echoed manually (and belatedly) from http://pdlloyd.livejournal.com/79948.html.

Arriving at TusCon 36 around 5 p.m., I checked in and got my participant packet. Pulling out the schedule, I saw that my options for the next hour included a panel (Star Trek: Heresy or new revelation?) or a reading by David Lee Summers, the editor of Space Pirates, the anthology in which my collaboration with Karl, "Ship's Daughter," appeared. Guess which option I chose.

( David Lee Summers )

I arrived a few minutes late, so I missed the opening of "Electric Kachinas", a story published in Science Fiction Trails #2, According to David, this story is also part of Owl Dance, a novel currently in progress. His second reading was a selection from his novel The Solar Sea. Both stories were a lot of fun. David's a good reader, too, and some of his books are available in audio formats. I discovered that his novel, The Pirates of Sufiro, is available in a free audio version from Podiobooks, so you might consider giving it a try.

( Elaine Charton )

Now that I was in the reading room, I hung around for the next reading, by Elaine Charton. She read from her novel The Man in the Mirror, which is currently out of print. The Man in the Mirror, which combines fantasy and romance. Another fun read and I was glad I stuck around.

After that, it was off to the Meet the Guests party, which I will cover in another post.

I'm back from TusCon 36. It was a good con & much fun was had by all. I took plenty of pictures (more Blurry Cell Phone Pictures(tm)), went to lots of readings and some really fabulous panels. The participants were really sparkling this year. (I hope that doesn't mean we've had an invasion of teenage vampires.)

I'll be taking the rest of the evening to recuperate, but will be making a full report over multiple posts, as well as finishing up my report on Tucson Comic Con, in the near future.

It has been nearly a month since I posted anything. Bad me. I must make myself heard more often.

I am still looking for a new position. Last weekend I attended an Adjunct Faculty Job Fair held by Pima Community College. I learned that they have already filled most of the vacancies for the Spring semester; I think the job fair was mostly to get new potential faculty into the system, since PCC requires a fairly lengthy certification process. I noticed that most of the people attending in hopes of teaching still needed to go through the certification process; fortunately, I completed this process last year, so should they suddenly find an opening for me, I'll be prepared to step right in. I was able to make some contacts and have a tentative appointment to meet with someone about tutoring in early November, after she returns from a conference.

I'll also be one of the participants at TusCon. I've been assigned to two panels and a reading, all on Saturday, November 14, 2009. I had an additional panel on Sunday, but due to a programming error, it had to be removed from the schedule.

My Schedule:

Time	Location	Topic
11:00 a.m.	McArthur	Retelling Fairytales: How does the medium and the culture affect the story?
4:00 p.m.	El Dorado	Reading
5:00 p.m.	Gold Ballroom	Teaching Old Tropes New Tricks: Making formulae interesting.

Of course, I'll also be attending the Friday evening Meet the Guests reception at 7:00 p.m. in the Gold Ballroom.

During the autographing session at TusCon, a gentleman came around passing out bookmarks advertising a new website: Storycasting. The basic conceit, as I understand it, is that authors and fans can suggest the actors that they think should be cast, should a book be made into a movie.

I'd almost forgotten about this until I came across a reference to the site in athanarel, when lady_notorious posted a link to the story cast for Sherwood Smith's (sartorias) Crown Duel.

Exploring the site a bit, I discovered that a number of authors and their works are listed, but have not yet had casts assigned. Out of curiosity, I checked for works by Lois McMaster Bujold and Emma Bull (coffeeem), but neither had been cast, yet. I'm not enough of a movie buff to feel comfortable suggesting a cast for any of their books, but maybe some of you will have some ideas.

My first panel was scheduled for 5 p.m. Friday evening. I arrived about twenty minutes beforehand, picked up my badge and materials, and headed upstairs to the El Conquistador meeting room. The panelists were Janni Simner (janni), Jill Knowles (jillykat), Yvonne Navarro (yvonnenavarro), and myself <--New website. Our topic was, "What is urban fantasy today?" We acknowledged the early writers, of whom I remember Charles de Lint and Emma Bull (lj user="coffeeem">), because their works are among my favorites, although there were others mentioned. We discussed some of the changes, with urban fantasy moving toward a darker and more romantic palette. The other panelists were adamant that Tim Powers' works didn't feel like urban fantasy and, therefore, weren't. While I agree that they feel very different, I remain on the fence about whether they should be included, because they are very urban and very fantastic, but if I demurred at the panel I did so quietly and I'm not sure it was noticeable. While we did attempt to distinguish the differences between early urban fantasy and the urban fantasy of today, we also stumbled over the issue of defining urban fantasy. We didn't come up with an exacting answer, but fell back on that old standby: "I know it when I see it."

I'll be heading over to the InnSuites in just a few hours for TusCon 35. For information about my schedule, see my post: Tuscon 35 Program.

ETA: Karl and I will be reading this evening at 8:30 p.m. Although I don't know how much we'll actually get through, we're planning on doing a joint reading of "Ship's Daughter," with additional readings by each of us, which may include both prose and poetry. It should be a fun evening. :)

Before I begin this post, I feel it's important to acknowledge that I am not an expert on the Great American Novel and would be hard-pressed to define the concept, aside from a general impression that such an novel must address multiple aspects of what it is to be American, as well as being a book of extremely high caliber.

Last November, at TusCon, the local science fiction convention, one of the topics discussed on a panel was whether a fantasy novel could ever be a Great American Novel. (Note that this may not have been the official panel topic. Also, it's possible that the discussion also included science fiction as a category unable to be included under the GAN heading, but I don't remember whether this was so.) During the course of the discussion, one of the panelists very insistently made the claim that it was not possible for a fantasy (or science fiction?) novel to be a Great American Novel. Now, categorical statements of this nature tend to irk me, so this claim, which I believe to be not just fallacious, but silly, has been niggling at me ever since.

Plus, as I was listening to the discussion, Will Shetterly's novel, Dogland, came to mind. Now, I didn't speak up and propose that this novel might be a Great American Novel, even though I believe it to be an excellent American novel. And I was tactless enough to mention this to Will and his wife, Emma Bull (another fine novelist). So that is something else that has niggled at me. Why didn't I mention the book during the discussion?

Ultimately, I think I realized that as much as I love the novel, with its wonderful quirky setting in a roadside attraction in Florida, it has elements that aren't sufficiently mainstream-American enough for me to classify it as a Great American Novel. And, yes, those elements are very much tied up in the fantastic elements of the story. Yet, I don't think it is their fantastic nature that prevents the story from GANness, but the fact that these elements are based on a mythos that is not tied sufficiently closely to the American psyche as I feel they should be in order to accept the GAN classification.

Even so, I really wish I'd mentioned the novel during the panel, not so much as an example of a Great American novel, but as an example of just how close at least one fantasy novel has come to being a Great American novel. This novel hit just the right notes time and time again. Dogland, the attraction, is so quintessentially American that just about anyone who has ever taken a road trip in America will respond to it. (I have to admit that the time and place were particularly poignant for me, because of the many road trips my family took to Florida, starting just a few years after 1959, the year the novel is set.) Luke Nix's wild stories reminded me very much of my own father, who loved to tell tall tales to his children and still brags about having fooled us into believing he had fought in the French and Indian War. Grandma Bette's adamant rejection of any claims that the family is not of pure European extraction has been played out in many American families and the conflict around the hiring of Ethorne Hawkins, a black man, in the rural South is another classic American theme. This book is complex and goes far beyond its genre classification. Which is brings me back to my original pet peeve.

Why is it that people treat genre classification as if it defines all aspects of the novels so branded? For that's all it really is, a marketing tool, a label, created by publishers and book sellers to help sell books. How sad that genre has also become an albatross around the neck of many truly fine writers whose works are dismissed as somehow inferior on the basis of how they're sold in a book store or shelved in a library. Genre is subject, but not substance, the cover, but not the book itself. And it is the book—the story and how its told, the evocation of mood, ambiance, and spirit, the ability to inspire thought and dreams—that is truly of the greatest importance when we are attempting to evaluate the quality of a novel.