A Kind of Magic

 

Magic, in fiction, has rules.

 

Here's one highly recommended discussion of rules.

https://ianmchugh.wordpress.com/on-writing/on-the-definitive-rules-for-writing-magic-or-some-shit-my-writers-group-made-up-one-night/

 

Magic also has, or ought to have, limitations.

https://proofreadingpal.com/proofreading-pulse/writing-fiction/guide-to-writing-believable-magic-limitations/

 

It has a cost, and a downside. For instance, perhaps it does not work.

https://hollylisle.com/fantasy-is-not-for-sissies-real-rules-for-real-worlds/

More often than you might expect, the twist in the tale in a magical story is the final prize which is to reverse the magic, or negate it and live without it. Arwen renounced immortality (LOTR). So did Connor MacLeod (Highlander).

I can think of at least two different ways for an alien to be invisible without actual magic, and they don't involve mirrors or tiny cameras.

Here is an excellent discussion of the real life camouflage technology used in the James Bond film Die Another Day.

https://www.wired.com/story/james-bond-invisible-car/

The downside and limitation for that Aston Martin was that it only works in deserts or snowy wastelands. Had it been a spacecraft, the technology would have worked, and I used that thought for Virtual Invisibiity in Forced Mate.

In Knight's Fork, the king of the Volnoth was able to be invisible because his skin was like that of an octopus or squid and could change color at will. The downside for him, and anyone else who saw him when he wasn't trying to hide, was that he had to be naked.

My rogue royal secret agent twins, Devoron and Demerrill, have another way of being invisible which is yet to be explained but which might fill in a possible plot hole in Insufficient Mating Material.

While writing this, my browser crashed to install an update. It's a kind of magic, too. The internet and computers. One of my services has been out for a week. My landline is still out... that's not magic!

Even if one understands about miniaturization, and writing code, the internet is a wonder and a marvel but some of its downsides include bad actors, scams, identity theft, surveillance, 1984 stuff, addition, dependence, and the chaos that will ensue if the grid goes down... because how many people could not get out of their cars or into their homes, or access their money, or fuel their cars, or navigate from one place to another if we were on the receiving end of an EMP attack.

https://www.airuniversity.af.edu/Wild-Blue-Yonder/Article-Display/Article/3674518/usaf-role-in-the-electromagnetic-pulse-vulnerability-of-the-united-states-criti/

Without my landline, two-factor authentication has become a personal mini-nightmare for me. What would you do when the magic dies?

PS. I'm publishing this a day early because... Murphy's Law.  It "got" me last weekend.

All the best,

Rowena Cherry

SPACE SNARK™ 

http://www.spacesnark.com/   

http://www.rowenacherry.com

 

Dangerous Gifts

The solstice is upon us! There's hope that within a few weeks darkness will stop falling at 5 p.m. Happy winter holidays!

It might seem natural that if people with arcane psychic talents existed, they would dominate the ungifted majority, whether officially or not, overtly or subtly, gently or cruelly. They might constitute a ruling class like the laran-wielding aristocrats of Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover, an order of official problem-solvers like the Heralds of Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar, or an autocratic clique like the sociopathic tyrants of the STAR TREK episode "Plato's Stepchildren." More often than not, however, far from holding exalted status, fictional possessors of such talents are regarded with ambiguity or hostility by their societies.

For example, the Slans in A. E. Van Vogt's classic 1946 novel face relentless persecution because of their powers. Fictional vampires surely inspire deeper horror than many other imaginary monsters because of the hypnotic mind control that renders their victims helpless and even unwilling to resist. Zenna Henderson's People, refugees from a distant planet living secretly on Earth, although benign, are often confronted with suspicion or fear when ordinary earthlings discover their powers. In the Sime-Gen series by Jacqueline Lichtenberg and Jean Lorrah, Gens regard the much less numerous Simes with terror not only because they drain life-energy but because they're suspected of occult abilities such as mind-reading.

Historical romance author Mary Jo Putney recently published the first novel in a new series called "Dangerous Gifts." In this book's slightly altered version of Regency England, psychic powers are known to exist but often viewed negatively. The hero lives happily among a circle of people who share similar gifts, and he works for the Home Office using his abilities for the good of his country. As a child, though, he was brutally rejected by his father because of his wild talents. At the beginning of the story, the gifted heroine is being held prisoner by villains who keep her mind clouded as they plot to use her powers for their nefarious goals. Putney has also written a YA series about an alternate-world Britain where magic is considered a lower-class pursuit, a shameful defect if it shows up in a noble family. The magically endowed heroine's upper-class parents send her to an exclusive but very strict academy that exists to train gifted young people to suppress their powers.

In fiction, miracle workers in general often inspire fear and revulsion rather than awe. Consider Mike, the "Martian" in Heinlein's STRANGER IN A STRANGE land. In real life, too, such people sometimes meet violent ends.

Margaret L. Carter

Please explore love among the monsters at Carter's Crypt.

Karen S Wiesner: {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories by Susanna Clarke

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories by Susanna Clarke

by Karen S. Wiesner

 

In my past review of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, I talked about how the author Susanna Clarke signed up for a writing workshop in which students attending were expected to come with a short story they'd written. All Clarke had were "bundles" of materials for Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. She extracted a piece of it about three women secretly practicing magic who are discovered by Jonathan Strange. That story is the title one in this collection of eight short stories, The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories, set in the same world as the larger novel, a fictionalized 18th/19th century England in which magic is becoming popular again, thanks to the efforts of Mr Norrell and his pupil (and later rival) Jonathan Strange. In that very in-depth novel, the duo themes are 1) that magic is given or bargained for from powerful and not necessarily moral beings that exist in another realm (faerie) and 2) that magic sometimes manifests in ways the wielder isn't intending.

In all the stories in this "off-shoot" anthology, the overwhelming themes are 1) the commonalities of magic in different time periods, 2) the undeniable (and, at times, even more diabolical) power of "women's magic", something that was taboo in this world, and 3) the ways in which faerie folk infringe on the real world--as if their own isn't exciting enough (and that may well be the case, considering their mischievous deeds).

In the title story, Jonathan Strange visits his brother-in-law, a country parson, where he's challenged by three female magicians. The author has said of this story that she wanted to find a place for these characters within the larger novel but, having read it now, I'm convinced it simply didn't and couldn't fit there. As a short story on its own, it has a compelling connection to the novel that made the author famous.

The second story, "On Lickerish Hill", is an interesting retelling of Rumplestiltskin. The unfortunate, young bride is placed in the demeaning role of wife to a monetary-seeking groom and has to find a clever solution to save herself. While the "archaic spellings" of the plucky heroine's speech were hard to read and decipher, the twist on one of my favorite fairy tales was particularly satisfying.

In "Mrs. Mabb" (the Queen Mab),  an abandoned woman is determined to get her fiancé free of black magic while everyone around her assumes she's hysterical (after being jilted) or insane, which was very common to presume about women of the day.

Interestingly, "The Duke of Wellington Misplaces His Horse" is actually set within the village of Wall, which has its origin in Neil Gaiman's Stardust novel. (For those who didn't read my review of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, the workshop co-host that read the extraction of Susanna Clarke's work from her novel was so impressed by her work, he sent an excerpt to his good friend, fantasy author Neil Gaiman who was astounded by her "assurance" as a writer: "It was like watching someone sit down to play the piano for the first time and she plays a sonata."). In this particular story, I was fascinated by what was considered common women's work being utilized by a pompous duke to bring about a fantastical conclusion.

"Mr. Simonelli, or the Fairy Widower" was a favorite of mine in this anthology, as an amoral faerie aristocrat has to be put down (by his own bastard son!) in order to save five sisters that strongly resemble the distinctive Bennetts from Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice.

Three other tales cover fairy culture, including a fictionalized account of Mary, Queen of Scots, learning how to use magic to undertake her political machinations, along with featuring a central character in Jonathan Strange (John Uskglass, aka the Raven King) as Christian peasants revolt against pagan faerie.

While Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell was both compelling and unforgettable, this anthology of parallel stories that were published (separately) while the novel was being edited and prepared for publication and later (after the novel became a hit) collected in one place are much lighter and certainly more subtle--nevertheless, they're undeniably enchanting in their own right.

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor 

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

Considering Adaptations

That is, one adaptation in particular: CONJURE WIFE, by Fritz Leiber. It was first published as a magazine serial by UNKNOWN WORLDS in 1943, later revised and expanded for reprint in book form (in a trio of novels bound together in 1952, then as a stand-alone paperback in 1953). The 1943 version is the one Amazon sells in Kindle format. Wikipedia lists three movies inspired by CONJURE WIFE, the best-known (and the only one that seems to be available) being BURN, WITCH, BURN, with a script by classic horror writers Richard Matheson and Charles Beaumont. Spoilers ahead, although surely the statute of limitations on spoilers has run out for an 80-year-old novel.

The protagonist, Norman, a sociology professor at a small, private college, discovers his wife, Tansy, has been secretly practicing witchcraft to advance his career and guard both of them against the malicious magic of certain older faculty wives. He persuades her to let him burn her protective charms. With those defenses gone, they're assailed by the full force of hostile spells. Norman repeatedly tries to convince himself they're facing only coincidental accidents and the mundane hostility of his professional rivals' wives, as evidence to the contrary piles up. Finally, to save Tansy's life and soul, he has to work a complicated spell himself under her direction. Although the story feels dated at points because of the Freudian approach to psychology Norman and his colleagues take for granted, the quiet horror remains unforgettably chilling.

Aside from the deletion of a few references to World War II, the main thrust of the rewrite tends toward adding ambiguity. The original starts with a discussion among three older witches on whether Tansy knows about them. The book includes several other brief scenes from their viewpoint. As a result, the reader knows from the beginning that witchcraft is real and evil forces are plotting against the protagonist and his wife. The expanded novel, on the other hand, is narrated entirely in the tight third person viewpoint of Norman. He constantly questions and second-guesses apparently magical incidents, regardless of his contrary feelings in the moment and the fact that, by the end, the reality of the supernatural within the text is perfectly clear to the reader.

Even after Norman experiences supernatural evil firsthand in the final confrontation with the older witches, in the revision doubt resurfaces in his mind afterward. In the original version, he concludes by accepting the fact of witchcraft and assuming they're not done with it: “There’s more behind this matter of the Balance than we may realize. There’s a lot we’ll do with this, but we’ll want to go slowly and test every step of the way.” At the end of the rewritten edition, Tansy asks whether he seriously believes in everything that has happened or finds himself reverting to the idea that the whole prolonged ordeal arose from coincidence and delusions. His reply, which constitutes the final sentence of the novel: "I don't really know."

The film BURN, WITCH, BURN deviates from the book at several points. For the most part, I realize why Matheson and Beaumont chose to make the changes they did. On the basic narrative level, naturally much of the background we get from Norman's stream of consciousness in the novel has to be revealed through dialogue in the movie, mainly the competitive tension underneath the smoothly polite conversations in the early scenes with his colleagues and their wives. The script omits most of the small mishaps Norman suffers, to highlight larger potential disasters. Most significantly, the entire climactic episode of Tansy's soul being captured by the senior witch is omitted, no doubt to streamline the plot to fit into the length of a feature film. Also, the writers might have thought that situation too complex to convey effectively through action and dialogue. Probably they figured a magical arson attack was more visually dramatic. Still, I was sorry to lose the deeply horrifying moment at the end of chapter fourteen (ten in the original) when Tansy, as a soulless automaton, answers Norman's magical summons. And, above all, we lose the novel's core premise, that all women are witches even if many of us don't fully understand or wholeheartedly believe in our own powers.

I'd love to see the book fully and faithfully adapted as a miniseries, but that seems like a farfetched daydream. BURN, WITCH, BURN, however, does come pretty close. Any fans of vintage horror would find it well worth their time.

Margaret L. Carter

Please explore love among the monsters at Carter's Crypt.

Karen S. Wiesner {Put This One on Your TBR List}: Wildwood by Colin Meloy; illustrated by Carson Ellis

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: Wildwood by Colin Meloy; illustrated by Carson Ellis

by Karen S. Wiesner

Wildwood is the first book in The Wildwood Chronicles, a 2011 children's fantasy series written by Colin Meloy (a member of the indie folk-rock band The Decemberists), illustrated by his wife Carson Ellis.

I found this beautiful little book with quirky artwork in an even quirkier bookstore. When I initially started reading it, I was reminded of a similar English children's series that I'd read to my son when he was young. Although it came out around the same time the Series of Unfortunate Events books were being released, I can't find them in my own library or in any successful internet search. In any case, the point is that I've never forgotten these uproariously hilarious stories filled with unlikely, improbable, and outlandish characters and situations. Everything in these tales was so ludicrous, there was nothing to do but laugh until you felt like your sides would split.

The crazy humor of the characters in Wildwood was a bit like that, enough to hope that good things were coming. But the thing this unforgettable series that I ironically can't remember the names, titles, or author of had one thing that I didn't find in Wildwood: There was a built in believability factor to them. I can't really explain why it was in that outlandish series other than that the reader was just never given a choice about swallowing the premise or any other part of those books. You went with it, and the fun insanity of it all carries you through the story without questioning the events that transpired.

Undeniably, Wildwood was well-written and I especially liked the unique illustrations interspersed throughout the off-beat tale. But the introductory scenario was one I just couldn't accept. In the opening chapters, a 13-year-old girl named Prue was handed off her baby brother by their parents to care for all day and night. This is done as if 1) it's Prue's job to do so, and 2) she has the degree of responsibility to do such a thing, whether she volunteered or not. Prue has a weirdly shocking sense of humor, which was appealing, and her laidback attitude was also a good setup. However, she had a blasé attitude about her brother. She thrusts Mac (an infant from what I'm understanding) in the naked "bed" of a red wagon which is attached to her bicycle. Prue proceeds to pull the wagon like a bat out of hell all over Portland. Readers are apparently supposed to believe no children could be seriously harmed in this way.

I found it harder and harder to suspend belief as the reader followed Prue around on her careless trek with a brother she didn't seem to want to be taking care of, nor really exercised any care in babysitting. I wasn't surprised because the back cover blurb of the book told us that Mac was stolen, plucked right out of wagon, by a murder of crows and taken into Portland's Impassable Wilderness.

I have a sense of humor. But, if any of this was supposed to be amusing, it simply wasn't written that way. But that's not the end of it. Add to this disturbing scenario yet another, equally unsettling and unbelievable one: Prue decides the best course of action after her brother is kidnapped is to go home, fool her parents into thinking Mac is already asleep in his crib, and she'll get around to rescuing him tomorrow.

First, I couldn't imagine the parents of an infant not checking on him personally before retiring for the night themselves, instead taking their teenage daughter's word for it that he was fine, fed, and off in la-la land, not to be woken by fawning parents.

Second, that Prue didn't think to involve her parents, immediately, who should have called the police, immediately, put me off entirely for anything like a fun, breathtaking fantasy fairy tale with a protagonist fitting the description of a young girl with an "admirable and amazing independent streak". (Prue is based on the author and illustrator's niece, who has these qualities, according to them.) While I was initially intrigued by Prue, I found that she didn't develop as a character in the ways I wanted her to. Yes, she did go after her brother eventually, proving that maybe she cared for him, though she initially seemed more concerned about getting in trouble for losing him, from what I could tell.

Perhaps Prue's unwelcome sidekick, Curtis, would have been much more sympathetic, compelling, and worthy main character, but he did get his share of pages in this first book of the series.

Explanations that could and should have come earlier in the story probably would have convinced me to invest more in the story, to see it as hilarious and entertaining instead of negligent and alarming. I think people of various ages who have no children might enjoy this sometimes violent, shocking story, but that begs the question: Who is the target audience? I wasn't entirely sure at any point, least of all now.

Aside from those aspects, the fantasy setting of Wildwood, which is based on the real Forest Park and much of its actual terrain, should delight lovers of Neil Gaiman-like, parallel world fiction. There are two more Wildwood series titles available now, along with rumors that it's being made into a stop motion film, coming in 2025 boasting a cast of all-star voice actors.

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog 

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

Karen S. Wiesner {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke

by Karen S. Wiesner

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke is an epic "alternative history" fantasy that was the author's debut novel. Clarke spent ten years writing the book, which has an interesting history of its own. Clarke first developed the idea while she was teaching English in Spain (lol). She'd had a waking dream about a man in 18th-century clothes…and felt strongly that he had some kind of magical background--he'd been dabbling in magic, and something had gone badly wrong."

Shortly after returning to her home country, she signed up for a writing workshop, co-taught by a man she would eventually become romantically involved with. Students attending the workshop were expected to come with a short story they'd written, but all Clarke had were "bundles" of materials for Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. As the tale goes, she'd extracted a piece of it about three women secretly practicing magic who are discovered by Jonathan Strange. (Later, this tale was published in the Starlight 1 anthology as well as included in the author's own collection called The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories.) The workshop co-host was so impressed by this work, he sent an excerpt to his good friend, fantasy author Neil Gaiman who was astounded by the author's "assurance": "It was like watching someone sit down to play the piano for the first time and she plays a sonata."

Interesting to note that Clarke's agent sold the unfinished novel in 2003 to Bloomsbury. They were so impressed with and certain it would be an international bestseller that they gave her a £1 million pound advance as well as printing an unheard of number of hardcover copies in three separate countries simultaneously while having 17 translations begun before its first English publication.

Learning how Clarke went about writing this book explained a lot to me. Apparently, she didn't write it start to finish but in fragments that she then had to "stitch" together. I found everything about this long novel meticulous and well-written, if a little slow moving and, at times, lacking in finely honed purpose and action. It was also written in the style of many 19-century books, like those written by Jane Austen. Not surprisingly, I love stories like these, and Clarke's felt authentic to me right from the first page, as it's set in a 19th-century "alternate" England around the time of the Napoleonic Wars. At the time the story opens, magic use has faded into the past, but Mr. Norrell intends to bring it back. How he does that involves raising a woman from the dead in a highly public way that puts magic back in fashion, as well as summoning an army of ghostly ships that terrify the country's enemy. Another novice magician (introduced much, much later in the book, other than in a footnote in the first chapter) emerges in opposition to the first, and one who is the very antithesis of Norrell.

In what I consider a stroke of genius, the author puts her own invented magical history in 200 footnotes throughout the book, something that apparently Clarke didn't expect to be published but which added an authenticity that the story might have otherwise lacked without it. The author believed that grounding magic in real life surroundings was what produced realism in the fantasy aspects of her story.

I don't deny that some reviewers and readers were put off by how "the plot creaks frightfully in many places and the pace dawdles" and insisted that trimming was necessary. Still, others like myself found it an engaging read filled with imagination and style. The origin and/or the source of magic has thus far almost always been left uncredited in countless works of fiction, as if somehow magic just appears in the fingertips of some people. How can that not beg a thousand questions about where it came from and what was done to put it there? Here in this novel, we're at last clued into the fact that magic is given or bargained for from beings that exist in another realm. That's one of the things I liked best about this book. Additionally, there's an exploration here concerning how magic sometimes manifests in ways the wielder isn't intending. These two concepts make Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell the logical favorite of mine because there's an eerie backdrop that questions the morality and lack of responsibility magicians give their art as a whole.

One other slightly off-putting aspect of this story is the way it ends. To me (and other reviewers and readers), it felt like the story was started here; by no stretch of the imagination was it finished. After I read it, I was fine with that because I assumed the author intended either a sequel or a series. I've since learned that Clarke had begun a follow-up novel in 2004 (the year the first was published) set a few years after Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell ended, continuing the tale. Because it took her ten years to complete the first, it made sense that the second might also take at least that long. But, with Clarke being plagued by chronic fatigue syndrome, she chose to write a simpler story that required less of her, and that became her second novel in 2020 (16 years after her first). As to the fate of the sequel, the author herself says it's still “a long way off” completion. Or it may simply not be forthcoming at all. I've made my peace with that, even if I hope the author has the strength to complete it someday. I suspect part of my disappointment with the way the novel ended was that I simply didn't want it to end. I wanted more of the characters and their story. However, that doesn't make the novel any less tremendous. It's one that lovers of magic and fantasy would be remiss if they didn't pick up. If the 1000-page-plus novel intimidates, the book was very faithfully adapted for a BBC miniseries in 2015, and that is also definitely worth watching.

Check out my newly released novel!

 

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/bloodmoon-cove-spirits-series.html

https://www.writers-exchange.com/bloodmoon-cove-spirits-series/

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

SF Versus Fantasy

At this year's ICFA (which I wrote about last week), one of the free goodies distributed at meals was a copy of the March/April 2020 ASIMOV'S magazine. It happened to include a provocative article by David D. Levine called "Thoughts on a Definition of Science Fiction." The author takes an approach to distinguishing science fiction from fantasy that never occurred to me before.

Of course, this perennial and never-settled question has many proposed answers. And many works cross genre boundaries; SF is a "fuzzy set." Anne McCaffrey's Pern and Marion Zimmer Bradley's pre-rediscovery Darkover, although science fiction, have a fantasy "feel." S. M. Stirling's Emberverse series, beginning with DIES THE FIRE, clearly near-future or alternate-history SF, also includes something like magic. Diane Duane's Young Wizards series focuses on the protagonists' learning and using magic—which they prefer to label "wizardry" to avoid the implication that it can do anything, unbounded by rules—yet they visit distant planets and make friends with extraterrestrials. Cases like these are part of why the term "speculative fiction" is so useful.

Levine suggests that the distinction between fantasy and science fiction rests on a fundamental difference between worldviews. Science fiction arises from an Enlightenment worldview and fantasy from a pre-Enlightenment worldview. In SF, "the universe is logical, predictable, and understandable, governed by rules that are impersonal and have no moral dimension." Fantasy, on the other hand, inhabits a universe that "has a moral compass, and is governed by rules that, though they may be understandable, are not necessarily always consistent, logical, or predictable in their application." For example, fantasy contains swords that can be drawn only by the "pure in heart" (a moral dimension). As an extension of this definition, Levine focuses on the central importance of "the means by which characters affect the world," whether by technology or by magic. Using this principle, he maintains that the later Star Wars films, after the original movie, slip further and further into fantasy territory because of the way the Force becomes more powerful and less scientifically plausible (e.g., action at a distance).

While I admire his theory, it doesn't align completely with my own concept of the SF-fantasy divide. I've always seen the distinction as—perhaps too simplistically—primarily a matter of authorial intent as it appears on the surface of the text. If the text claims a scientific rationale for its phenomena, it's science fiction. If not, it's fantasy. Edgar Rice Burroughs's interplanetary adventures count as science fiction, even if most of the science is obsolete. Randall Garrett's Lord Darcy mysteries, set in an alternate-history England in a world where magic plays a commonplace role in society, are fantasy even though the rules of magic are systematic and predictable. What about works such as Madeleine L'Engle's A WRINKLE IN TIME and its sequels and spinoffs, invoking scientific principles, featuring visits to other worlds, and marketed as SF, but containing some elements of apparent magic as well as a religious worldview? Or C. S. Lewis's Space Trilogy, wherein the superhuman intelligences ruling the other planets are also identified as angels? The Wild Sorceress trilogy, co-written by my husband and me, starts as apparent fantasy, to be revealed as SF at the end of the third book. Well, that's where the flexible terms "science fantasy" and "speculative fiction" come in handy.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Sufficiently Advanced Technology

As we know, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" (Arthur C. Clarke). Conversely, many magical events in older fiction can be duplicated today by mainstream technology. A century and a half ago, someone who witnessed a translucent human figure floating in midair and emitting eerie moans would unquestioningly recognize it as a ghost. Now we'd respond with, "Cool special effect. I wonder how they did that?" Just such an apparition appears in Jules Verne's 1892 novel THE CARPATHIAN CASTLE, on the cusp of the shift between the two probable reactions. The local people think the vision of a dead opera star at the titular castle is her spirit, when it fact it's produced by a sound recording and a projected photograph.

In George du Maurier's 1894 novel TRILBY, the villain, Svengali, uses hypnotism to transform an ordinary girl who's tone-deaf into a famous singer. She can produce exquisite melodies only in a trance. When Svengali dies, she instantly becomes unable to sing. At the time of the novel's publication, little enough was known about hypnosis that this scenario doubtless looked scientifically plausible. Now that we know hypnosis doesn't work that way, Svengali's control over Trilby seems like magic, and to us the story reads as fantasy.

Several decades ago, I read a horror story about an author who acquires a typewriter that's cursed, possessed, or something. He finds that it corrects his typos and other minor errors. Gradually, this initially benign feature becomes scary, as the machine takes over his writing to an ever greater extent. He narrates his experience in longhand, since if using the typewriter he wouldn't even be able to demonstrate an example of a misspelling. At the time of publication, this story was an impossible fantasy. Now it would be merely a cautionary tale of a word processor with an excessively proactive auto-correct feature. From the beginning of J. D. Robb's Eve Dallas science fiction mysteries, set in the late 2050s and early 2060s, almost everybody carries a handheld "link," a combination communications device and portable computer. When the earliest books in the series were published, that device was a futuristic high-tech fantasy. Now the equivalent has become commonplace in real life. But another tool Lt. Dallas uses in her homicide investigations still doesn't exist and remains problematic. Police detectives employ a handheld instrument reminiscent of Dr. McCoy's tricorder to gather data about murder victims. One of its functions is to pinpoint the precise time of death to the minute. That capability would seem to run counter to the intrinsic limitations arising from the nature of the decomposition processes being analyzed. Therefore, the exact-time-of-death function strikes me as irreducibly quasi-magical rather than scientific, something the audience has to accept without dissecting its probability, like the universal translator in STAR TREK.

The distinction between science and magic can get fuzzy when nominal SF has a fantasy "feel." Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover series takes place on an alien planet inhabited partly by descendants of shipwrecked Terran colonists. Strict "hard science" readers might not accept psi powers as a real-world possibility, however, and the common people of Darkover regard laran (psi gifts) as sorcery. Anne McCaffrey's Pern series, also set on a planet colonized by migrants from Earth, features fire-breathing, empathic, teleporting, time-traveling dragons. Although these creatures have an in-universe scientific explanation, they resemble the dragons of myth and legend. Robert Heinlein's novella "Waldo" blends SF and what many if not most readers would consider fantasy. The title character lives on a private space station because of his congenital muscular weakness. Yet he overcomes his disability by learning to control his latent psychic talent under the guidance of an old Pennsylvania hex doctor who teaches Waldo how to access the "Other World." Incidentally, "Waldo" offers an example of how even a brilliant speculative author such as Heinlein can suffer a lapse of futuristic imagination. Amid the technological wonders of Waldo's orbiting home, Heinlein didn't envision either electronic books or computer games; a visitor notices paper books suspended from the bulkheads and wonders how Waldo would manage to play solitaire in zero-G.

I've heard of a story (can't recall whether I actually read it) whose background premise states that, in the recent past, the wizards who secretly control the world revealed that all technology is actually operated by magic. The alleged science behind the machines was only a smoke screen. If such an announcement were made in real life, I wouldn't have much trouble accepting it. For non-scientists, some of the fantastic facts science expects us to believe—that we and all the solid objects around us consist of mostly empty space; that the magical devices we used to communicate, research, and write are operated by invisible entities known as electrons; that starlight we see is millions of years old; that airplanes stay aloft by mystical forces called "lift" and "thrust"; that culture and technology have advanced over millennia from stone knives and bearskins to spacecraft purely through human ingenuity—require as much faith in the proclamations of authorities as any theological doctrine does.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Worldbuilding For Fantasy Part 1 - Paranormal Detectives

Worldbuilding For Fantasy

Part 1

Paranormal Detectives

This Series on Worldbuilding for Fantasy is inspired by some very original worldbuilding in the Rivers of London Series (8 books as of 2020) by Ben Aaronovitch.  Book 7, Lies Sleeping brings together many of the mysteries we've been probing, "Love Conquers All," "Happily Ever After," and whether you need Magic or a Paranormal premise to understand Happiness?  Is Happiness supernatural?  What exactly is happiness?

One would expect building a world to house a fictional drama would be the same for Science Fiction, Romance, Mystery, Western, Historical, or Fantasy.

The process is, actually, mostly the same, at least at the beginning where the story Idea first blossoms.  The process diverges later, as you decorate with symbols, visuals, and plot-clues, foreshadowing, and then sketch out the whole rest of the world beyond the story-venue.

The most efficient way to build a world, destined for any (or all) genres, is to start by studying your audience's everyday existence, their "world" - the boundary between what they know to the point of boredom and all the "here be dragons" boundaries of their world.

Thus children's books are easy to world build for, but much-much harder to write.  You have to be careful not to talk down to children, while at the same time imparting a vision of what the next stage of their maturation is all about.

The same is actually true of adults.

The work-a-day adult actually lives in a fairly small world, associating with a few people, maybe a couple hundred, commuting the same route, shopping the same stores, grabbing fast food at the same stand-up counter.

That is changing rapidly now, as circumstances have boosted the use of work-from-home.  Working online both reduces the number of people you see daily, but increases the number you interact with.

The Romance Writer must change with the times.

Thus today's working-stiff population is trending toward having a larger view of the world, via Facebook etc., knowing what's going on in the lives of people they barely know.

Many read Romance mixed with almost anything - Victorian  Dukes, Cowboy Drifters, -- unexpectedly different but intriguing men attracted to women of strong character, driving ambition, determined to achieve a goal.

If you have a story to tell of Alien Romance -- meeting up with a VERY "different" sort of person from somewhere you've never heard of and can't imagine, Science Fiction is a natural choice.  But Fantasy, alternate-reality worlds where Magic is Real, is also a great venue to place a story of Impossible Love.

Love Conquers All.

The cliche is a cliche because it's true.

So if you want to tell the tale of an Impossible Love with a story-arc that transforms the impossible into the possible, that moves the border around your reader's life, that enlarges the known world, Paranormal Romance is a natural.

In other words, take our Real World, change something we take for granted, and build an entire world around that one difference.  And you'll have your alternate-reality where one of your characters grew up.

Now, bring that Character into the reader's reality and spur his adjustment.

This describes Gini Koch's ALIEN series,

and the feature film STARMAN - as well as THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL.

Those are all technically science fiction.

What makes a World you Build into a Fantasy world?

When we insert a Paranormal element (ghost, magic, gnomes), the publishing establishment labels the result Fantasy.

But what, exactly, is Paranormal?

Google the word.
--------
par·a·nor·mal
/ˌperəˈnôrm(ə)l/
Learn to pronounce
adjective
denoting events or phenomena such as telekinesis or clairvoyance that are beyond the scope of normal scientific understanding.
"a mystic who can prove he has paranormal powers"
-----

And further down the Google results, note:

---------

What is the difference between paranormal and supernatural?
The paranormal genre includes creatures like zombies, werewolves, aliens, and ghosts, as well as phenomena like telepathy and time travel. “Supernatural” refers to phenomena that are forever outside the realm of scientific explanation, such as god, the afterlife, and the soul.Jan 21, 2020

 ---------

Note how neither explanation of the word is useful to a writer attempting to craft a world that at least several publishers would buy to be published under a Paranormal or Fantasy imprint.

The vocabulary of the English language is under as much swift, drastic change as is our general lifestyle.

Wikipedia offers this modernized take on the word, Paranormal:

-----quote------
Paranormal
Description Paranormal events are purported phenomena described in popular culture, folk, and other non-scientific bodies of knowledge, whose existence within these contexts is described as beyond normal experience or scientific explanation.

------end quote------

Note the very non-dictionary choice of wording, prejudicing the reader before the definition is offered.  "Purported" and "non-scientific" both telegraph the writer's opinion that anything called Paranormal is in fact non-existent, non-sensical, or only uneducated people would be so gullible as to think any of those things could happen.

"Popular Culture" or just "Popular" also telegraphs the writer's opinion that such ideas are beneath notice, unworthy of the educated who would never be part of "the populace."

If you, as a developing writer, haven't yet studied semantics and the semantic loading of words, do so before attempting to craft a Paranormal Novel.

If you note how "Paranormal" is used to designate movies (study the movies with that label), you'll see how the meaning of the word is warped and reshaped by common usage.

You can do that with the World you build -- you can take everyday English words and redefine them with a different emotional impact, a different semantic loading.

The most easily available laboratory for learning to do that is today's News Headlines -- almost every one you see, including CNN and Fox News, contains some word that telegraphs to the reader how to evaluate and respond to the information in the item. Become sensitive to that and you will improve your Paranormal Worldbuilding ability a hundred fold.

Another way to explore how modern publishers are re-defining vocabulary is to read novels.

I want to point you to a very popular writer who has built a complex "Paranormal" world with science fiction-detective style plots, where the detective is a Magic User and able to detect where "magic" (which is never actually defined) has been used.

The RIVERS OF LONDON series by Ben Aaronovitch (set in an alternate but not very different London) is from DAW Books -- very prominent Science Fiction and Fantasy publisher I sold a few books to when it was under previous management.

The advent of DAW publishing is a whole phenomenon all by itself - the first publisher of its kind.

Aaronovitch has painted a picture of "reality" that includes the personification of a River who can have sex with the Main Character, a Detective who can detect magic traces after the fact.

The Magic specialty division of law enforcement is after an Arch Criminal who has given them a lot of trouble, and who is building a magic artifact, a giant bell.  It's unclear what the results of letting that bell ring might be, but the indications are that it would bring an entity from another dimension that would then "rule the world" (megalomaniac style, rule).

The Rivers of London Series is a huge best seller, but is structured like an ordinary Detective Novel.  The personality of the Detective is what carries the story, but the world he lives in holds many astonishing surprises for the reader.

The science fiction overtones come from the adroit handling of some of these astonishing surprises -- just like the Characters on Star Trek, the Characters in LIES SLEEPING just take the astonishing factoids for granted.

They use their magical tools to track down and thwart the villain.

But there is a sterility to the story telling, very much like a Colombo episode, rather than anything like the Decker/Lazarus series by Faye Kellerman (that I keep reviewing here -- a series you should study for the HEA depiction).


The Main Character has a "thing" going with a female avatar of a River, but there's no conflict or story advancement there.  The plot is all about chasing the Villain, unraveling his plot, putting the kibosh on his plans to use Magic.

There is no penetrating thematic argument asserting WHY this alternate Reality is essential to the well-being of our everyday reality.  There is no actual conflict having to do with the way the Characters are embedded in their reality.

Note, by contrast, how Jim Butcher, in his Dresden Files Series, has chosen a Character who is embedded in, irked by, shaped by, challenged by, his environment.  His identity as a Wizard gives him only one way to earn a Living - basically as a consulting detective, or Paladin for Hire. His work brings him athwart the Great Powers running his world.

He is very conspicuously a Native of that alternate reality.

Ben Aaronovitch's Detective, who actually works for a government agency, officially, floats apart from his world. It doesn't shape his character, even when he takes advantage of it.  He shrugs off the bizarre reality of having shacked up with a River (I mean a real one, flowing water and all -- with an Avatar that is never explained properly).

Now Lies Sleeping is part of a Series - and if you drop into the middle here, you wouldn't expect all the explanation that went before.  But there should be more than there is.  The absence of these connecting links leaves us with an interesting Character - who floats disconnected from his reality.

Note carefully -- RIVERS OF LONDON is an international best selling series. People keep buying installments for a reason.

There might be an appetite for stories about people just coping their way through a world that is irrelevant to them.

Paranormal Fantasy lends itself easily to this sort of novel - disconnected from our reality, with Characters as disconnected from their Reality as we feel we are from today's reality.

There are a lot of "magic using detective" novels selling very well these days - and that might be because Detective Procedurals are traditionally about an objective onlooker (the Detective) prying into affairs disconnected from their personal life.

Detective novels hold particular appeal for those who want a rest from drowning in "soap opera" reality with husband, kids, cousins, clashing personalities, demanding bosses, etc.

Solving a puzzle external to the Self provides a much needed respite from Reality.

Science Fiction as a genre usually pivots around a mystery -- a scientific mystery that needs explaining by a discovery, by learning that some impossible thing is actually real.

Science Fiction is about confronting The Unknown.

Paranormal is about confronting The Unknown.

Romance is about confronting The Unknown (hence the popularity of the Arranged Marriage, or governess-marries-Duke).

And all of them are about making The Unknown into The Known.

That's what "adventure" is -- going OUT into The Unknown, and learning it so it isn't unknown any more.

The Happily Ever After state of existence is more "Unknown" than "Here Be Dragons" ever was.  It is considered completely impossible.

The Paranormal Romance writer's job is to take the Reader on an adventure into a realm where the HEA is known, Normal, attainable, but perhaps at a cost, at a risk, with every high stakes.

A Magic using Detective - using paranormal powers to pry into affairs not his own (think about Apple refusing to hack into an Apple phone belonging to a deceased terrorist), is the perfect plot-vehicle to discuss how to discover and attain the HEA.

Does it take MAGIC to understand HAPPINESS?  Or do you, as a human, need to marry a River?

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Reviews 37 - Ilona Andrews Magic Shifts

Reviews 37
Magic Shifts
byIlona Andrews 

The Reviews series has not been indexed yet.  And I have messed up the numbering, resulting in two posts numbered 34. I'm not planning to fix that, as I think this is the only duplicate.

The first Reviews 34 is:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2017/11/reviews-34-implausible-made-real-by.html

The second Reviews 34 is:
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2018/05/reviews-34-by-jacqueline-lichtenberg.html
Today we again raise the topic of what, exactly, is Paranormal Romance?

In fact, it would be good to ponder the abstract problem of what Romance really is.

The best way to figure out where you, the writer, stands on these two questions is to read-read-read.  Read reams of non-fiction, yes, but loads and loads of fiction outside your target genre.

It is painful, I know, but as you did in High School and College, read things you don't enjoy.  Yes, you must read for enjoyment because enjoyment is your stock in trade, what you have to sell, and if you don't have any enjoyment, you can't sell any.

You must have an overflowing reservoir of enjoyment in your heart.  Therefore, read Ilona Andrews (all titles).  Pay special attention to the Kate Daniels novels.  If you read them already, just because they are best sellers - read them again as a set.

At the same time, to convey that enjoyment in your heart to others, to purvey that enjoyment you have collected over years, you must understand more about story structure than your reader does.  You must make the structure of your story as invisible to your readers as the great writers you've been reading make their story structure invisible to you.

Therefore, today we take up a relationship-driven Action-Romance-Paranormal by a husband/wife collaborating team.  There are a few like that working in the field today, but the Ilona Andrews byline is the best example at my fingertips right now.

MAGIC SHIFTS is a "Kate Daniels Novel" -- and the 8th in the Series.

The collaboration is seamless -- there is no jarring shift from one writer's style to the other.  It is a blended style, probably done somewhat the way Jean Lorrah and I collaborate, with every word gone over by both.

They have mastered the trick of "pacing" -- the narrative moves smoothly from cerebral to action scenes.

They have SHOW DON'T TELL down pat. The Characters do not tell you what they are feeling (and the novels replete with conflicting feelings).  Even if you have not read the previous novels, you know what these people are feeling.

The two main Characters, a retiring Alpha pair from a shapeshifter Pack, are not yet married, but yes they are very married, oh, very very married.

This is a Couple novel -- an after-the-Romance novel, which does ask the question, "Can this couple ever get to Happily Ever After?"

The answer seems to be Yes, but maybe not "ever-after" -- as there are still problems to be solved.  They are now living in typical suburbia, adjacent to acres of wild forrest to run in, with houses on the block inhabited by other shapeshifters who have left the Pack to follow the Alpha Couple out of loyalty or other personal necessity.

Yes, I recommend the previous novels in this series, and yes, I have read them.  If Shapeshifter novels are your passion, you must know all your readers will have a familiarity with these works.

But the Kate Daniels universe has another, vastly interesting, quirk.  Here is not a choice between magic and technology, not a World Bridge to cross to go from where Magic works to where Technology works.  Here, Magic washes over the Technology based normal world you know, and disables all our devices and gadgets.  Civilization adjusts, and we see our world in semi-ruins but life goes on, with Magic working sometimes and Technology working other times.

The shifts can be dangerous.

Meanwhile, Magical creatures rampage and must be stopped.

Plenty of monster hunts, and battles, and plenty of mysterious puzzles to solve.  The latter gives this the flavor of a Mystery/Detective series while the puzzles themselves work a lot like science fiction.

So, just don't miss reading Ilona Andrews titles.  It is a trustworthy,, go-to byline.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacqquelinelichtenberg.com

Reflections on "THE MARTIAN" (Science Is Plot)

THE MARTIAN

author- Andy Weir

publisher  Broadway Books 

paperback

978-0-553-41802-6

SCIENCE IS PLOT.

A botanist and mechanical engineer is impaled by a javelin-like projectile during a Martian sandstorm and blown away by a windgust of up to 175 kph. His spacesuit is punctured and decompressing. According to his cardiac telemetry, he is lifeless. The five surviving astronauts must--and do-- evacuate the red planet before their one and only Mars Ascent Vehicle is destroyed by the force of the storm.

Mark Watney regains consciousness and discovers that he is well and truly skewered. Chance and science saved his life. (Spoiler) Spilt blood turns to gunk in the hostile Martian atmosphere, and gunk clogs.... He still faces impossible odds. Science may save him, but (like Magic) the application of Science comes with its own costs and dangers.

That is why Science IS Plot (or at least, creates plot). Mark can make water (scientifically), but the chemistry involves fire and potential explosions. Mark can solve the problem of the deadly Martian cold, but only by risking cancer. He can generate solar power, but not enough to breathe and drive and cook, and communicate and everything else he'd like to do. For every solution, there is a trade-off, and every solution or trade-off may lead to unanticipated consequences and new perils.

Sometimes literally, Mark Watney lurches from one cliff-hanger to another. The primary narrative is "Captain's Log" diary-style, spiced with transcripts of different methods of interplanetary communication from Morse code using rocks to binary to near-normal email, interspersed with real time scenes on Earth and on the mothership. A riveting read!

Rowena Cherry 

Reviews 10: Shadow Banking in Fantasy And Reality by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Reviews 10:
Shadow Banking in Fantasy And Reality
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

The old saying "If you want to understand what's really going on: Follow The Money." holds especially true in Fantasy novels or where Magic is involved.

Gordon R. Dickson tacked the financial economics of Magic in The Dragon And The George.



And now Simon R. Green (one of the best writers of campy Fantasy working today) has added a novel to his ongoing series called SECRET HISTORIES about the Drood family policing the unseen world around us, buried under our feet, and in the Nightside.

This one is titled CASINO INFERNALE -- and it's a breezy fast read, told entirely from one point of view, Eddie Drood aka Shaman Bond.  It's very James Bond like, except with fantasy creatures.



It's not a Romance, but it has a whopping good LOVE STORY, and a definite "relationship" axis to the plot.  This is a man and a woman who team up, using different skills, to confront enemies much larger than both of them, and win.

The plot of Casino Infernale is pretty simple: Shaman Bond's mission is to break the bank at an annual gambling casino financed, run by, and profited from The Shadow Bank.  If he can pull that off, he'll stop a magic-fueled war.

The Shadow Bank's actual operators, owners, and policy makers are revealed at the end, so I won't tell you about them.

The term Shadow Bank is sprinkled liberally through the book.  It's attributes shadow our real-world Shadow Bank.  The whole novel is political satire wrapped in James Bond camp and a pure send-up of the serious view of the world.

I do highly recommend all Simon R. Green titles, but particularly the Secret Histories and the tales of the Nightside.

Green has accomplished just what I described in the series of posts on Depiction.

Part 1: Power in Relationships
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/09/depiction-part-1-depicting-power-in.html

Part 2: Conflict and Resolution

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/09/depiction-part-2-conflict-and-resolution.html

Part 3: Internal Conflict

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/09/depiction-part-3-internal-conflict-by.html

And he has done all that while "ripping from the headlines" -- as I've described that process in many prior posts here.  If you aren't a technician of writing craft, a wordsmith, very likely you will never see him doing any of this.  All you see is a rip-roaring good read.

Here are some of the places to learn about the real-world Shadow Banking system and how that interweaves with Politics.

Remember, when writing a Romance Novel, Romance by itself will produce a very bland and placid product.  Add religion or politics, and you add a spark to your tinder. Splash on the accelerant of sex, and stand back!)  But the most potent ingredient in Romance is Money, a real-world proxy for Power.

"Love" is 7th House, Libra, Venus, and all things peaceful and beautiful.

"Sex" is 8th House, Scorpio, Pluto, and all things secret, dark, underground, interior, and, ancient tombs with cursed buried treasure, disruptive when revealed.  8th House is other-people's-money, other people's values, thus Inheritance and taxes.

8th House is opposite 2nd House - and both are about the tensions and Powers of Money.

2nd House is Banking.  8th House is Shadow Banking.  They are inextricably intertwined in very mystical ways -- Simon R. Green has revealed mysteries for you.

Here are some websites where you can find information on Shadow Banking in our real world.  If you dig, you might come across some funding trails that lead to politics. 

http://qz.com/175590/five-charts-to-explain-chinas-shadow-banking-system-and-how-it-could-make-a-slowdown-even-uglier/

Here is a google search -- look at the images, not just the websites.

https://www.google.com/search?q=Shadow+Banking+Diagram&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=5g2fU_G3E862yASJ7oCICQ&ved=0CDIQ7Ak&biw=1679&bih=758

And in particular this diagram from
http://www.brianhayes.com/2010/11/

Where it says:
----------Quote----------
This week, a senior banker friend gave me a poster entitled The Shadow Banking System. It was shocking stuff.

The graphic depicts how money goes round the modern world. Most of the poster is dominated by shadow banking systems. These flows are so extraordinarily complex that hundreds of boxes create a diagram comparable to the circuit board.

It should be mandatory reading for bankers, regulators, politicians and investors today, a reminder of clueless investors, regulators and rating agencies.

“After all, during the credit boom, there was plenty of research being conducted into the financial world; but I never saw anything remotely comparable to this road map.”

-------End Quote---------

And the larger image is from
http://seekingalpha.com/article/238140-how-big-is-the-shadow-banking-system

Seeking Alpha is a legitimate and very insightful, informative and very often correct source for information on how our Stock Market moves and why.  They "follow the money."  And they try to get ahead of vast movements to show you where you can find profit investing in companies that have volatile stocks.

Here's my favorite chart. You can stare at this for hours and still find new connections.

There are many graphs posted on the web.  Dig through Google and Bing to find more.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com
https://flipboard.com/profile/jacquelinelhmqg

Believing in Happily Ever After: Part 1, Stephen King on Potter VS Twilight

 In July, I was invited to Google+ by one of the Chat moderators on Twitter who runs #Litchat (which I recommend to readers and writers -- find times by following http://twitter.com/#!/LitChat )  Today, Google+ is open to anyone.  Back then you needed an invitation to beta-testing. 

Immediately, I had a whole raft of writer friends turning up on google+ via the #Litchat connection so I made a circle for those folks, and before I knew it, here came a marvelous post with a quote from Stephen King -- this was just before the weekend when the last Harry Potter film was released.

So I'm trying to learn how to construct links that will lead you to elements on Google+.  So far, no dice. 

So here's a link that might lead you to the jpg with the quoted words on it.  It works for me.

 https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-z_XZoXQ5ugw/Th8BjOHXwdI/AAAAAAAABlw/DlYX2rScJEo/w402/tumblr_llhraiIQ4v1qbqtzko1_500.jpg

This quote jpg of text is posted on:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/115660915549619552182/posts/fpQjLS9Rfy8

Brandon Withrow, who got this interesting post from someone else on google+ known as Adm Chrysler, posted that image linked above, which had apparently already "gone viral" and which is a quote attributed to Stephen King.  It says:

"Harry Potter is all about confronting fears, finding inner strength, and doing what is right in the face of adversity.  Twilight is about how important it is to have a boyfriend." -- Stephen King

I commented on Brandon's post, saying:

------quote---------
I admire Stephen King for his true professionalism. I met him once and learned he does what he does on purpose! However, I disagree with his summation here only because it leaves out some important words.

Twilight is about how "confronting fears, finding inner strength, and doing what is right in the face of diversity is necessary in order to have and maintain normal Relationships, even if you or your boyfriend aren't exactly normal people."

Potter is about dealing with the situation you are in through no fault of your own; Twilight is about choosing your situation and committing to see it through no matter what happens as a result of your choice."
---------end quote--------

Kate Shellnutt commented with another reference to what Stephen King has said, and Brandon Withrow answered:

------------quote----------
I suppose being a big HP fan skews his objectivity, where Jacqueline is giving a more even-handed take on the two. Not to geek out on it, but fan intensity for one or the other reminds me a bit of the Star Trek vs. Star Wars type of thing.
------------end quote---------

So of course I had to say:

--------quote---------
Oh, but I love my geeks! And of course you know I'm a very emphatic Trekker, having been primary author on the Bantam paperback STAR TREK LIVES! which outed ST fanfic (which I contributed to by creating the Kraith alternate universe for Trek fanfic). But actually, you're right, there's two takes on this, and I think it might be worth a blog post. I'll copy your quote and see what comes of it -- that would be late Sept/ early Oct for the topic on aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com where I post on Tuesdays on writing craft, and THIS quote is definitely a "craft" and "romance genre" related quote!
-------end quote-----------

Kraith is, as you know, posted for free reading on http://www.simegen.com/fandom/startrek/ 

Both Harry Potter and Twilight are Romance based.

Potter's parents were obviously deeply in love, and battling toward a Happily Ever After and didn't make it.

Potter then recapitulates their battle, and becomes involved at the teenage romance level with admirable women, and  then "notices" such an admirable girl his own age.  And presumably things will go to the HEA for Potter. 

Twilight is more star-crossed-lovers, possibly more like the story of Potter's parents in the no-win situation where only their descendents make it to the HEA.

As a matter of "taste" - I think your concept of Evil and where that fits in the overall universe you live in - determines which you like better, Potter or Twilight.  They're both seminal discussions of the plight of good swamped by Evil.

I suspect King seems to prefer Potter simply because Potter is battling Evil head-to-head, and in his world Evil is an accepted social element (studied in school as a magical discipline).

I don't "buy into" that concept, so I have to work to suspend my disbelief to 'get into' the Potterverse -- which I have no problem doing because that's what being a Science Fiction fan, reader, and writer is all about. 

I can buy into the Twilight universe a little more easily simply because it extends my own view of the whole Vampire mythos that I've been a devotee of since my teen years.

Both universes are rooted in the discussion of whether the HEA is "plausible" in real life.  Both have the HEA as "the stakes" in the plot, as King pointed out. 

But the Potterverse says graphically that HEA isn't a given.  Potter's parents got killed by Evil, and that proves the HEA is not a real element in that universe.  Yet Harry is set up to go for another try at it. 

King's assessment of Twilight is correct, too, because in the Twilight universe, the HEA is at least plausible, reachable, imaginable, and the most "Evil" creatures strive for it because it is apparently there.

So King has nailed (I'm not surprised) the philosophical nexus of the entire discussion you and I have been having on aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com for a few years now. 

The reason the Romance genre isn't widely respected as a genre is that the HEA is not seen by the general public as realistically plausible. 

The plausibility of the HEA is based on the philosophical concept that Love Conquers All - an absolute axiom of my existence for a huge variety of reasons.

When you believe (not "those who believe" but "when" you believe because it's mood-based for many) that Love Conquers All, then the HEA seems the inevitable if hard-won and high-priced result of the battle between "Good" and "Evil." 

When you don't - the HFN (Happily For Now) is the best you can hope for, and that's what Potter's parents had.

So the question becomes, "Why does it seem plausible that Love can't conquer Evil permanently?" 

Oh, this is a deep topic, and the richest source material for Romance writers looking for "conflict" building themes.

This is the main study of writers in all genres, but especially Science Fiction and Romance, PNR, writers.

Science Fiction is "The Literature of Ideas" and so requires a deep study of philosophy, and a system of relating that abstract subject to today's reality.

Romance is maybe "The Literature of Love" and so requires a very deep study of philosophy, and a system of relating that abstract subject to LIFE in today's world. 

These two, not at all disparate, subjects naturally crystallize into the thematic base of Science Fiction Romance, where as all good SF does, the story poses knotty questions about the value of "having a boyfriend/girlfriend" and how to acquire the character traits required to achieve a Happily Ever After union.

SF has long written of the process of acquiring those traits, as King points out -- though Potter is ostensibly Urban Fantasy.  King nails the process: Harry Potter is all about confronting fears, finding inner strength, and doing what is right in the face of adversity. 

And that's what every good Horror, SF, or Romance novel is always about, isn't it? 

Ah, but what is fearful?  Where does strength come from?  Which way or action is "right" and which "wrong?"  What really does adversity consist of, and what is just an annoyance?

We have a lot of work to do on the process of tossing all previous Romance genre work onto "the Potter's Wheel" and shaping it like wet clay into Science Fiction. 

That work is what leads to the skill sets needed to handle Theme.

See Part 2 of this BELIEVING IN HAPPILY EVER AFTER series here next Tuesday when we'll look at the power of Theme-Plot Integration.  

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com