Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: Timeline by Michael Crichton by Karen S. Wiesner

 

Oldies But Goodies

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: Timeline by Michael Crichton

by Karen S. Wiesner  

 

Be aware that there may be spoilers in this review. 

I confess I'm not a fan of time-travel fiction, other than The Time Machine by H.G. Wells, but that's a worthwhile exception. Basically, every other time-travel story tends to get very convoluted (as the second season opener of the otherwise enjoyable Loki proved to me almost beyond a shadow of a doubt), especially when these stories are usually accompanied by an impossible "convergence" which has to be perfectly timed to pull off. What are the odds? Too astronomical to calculate. The incredulity is more than I can believe, let alone bear, in almost every case. However, Michael Crichton's 1999 time-travel thriller Timeline combined the usual things I love about his books: scientific and technical authenticity, high action, incredible characterization, and (for this particular one) quantum and multiverse theory. Finally, I love anything medieval. My biggest regret as an author intending to retire by 2025 is that I never got to write a series set in a medieval time period. I had some ideas for one and had even named the saga and the individual titles in it, but I have no plans to ever write it, despite that I continue to collect books about medieval lore left and right. Sigh. In any case, given that Crichton almost never fails to live up to my expectations and that the medieval world he created in Timeline is so fantastic, there was really no way to lose in betting I would enjoy this story the first time I read it. 

Travelers through the desert happen upon an elderly man and take him to a New Mexico hospital, where doctors discover before his death that he's an ITC company employee and that all hell has broken lose in his blood vessels. 

Meanwhile in southwest France, a team of archaeologists and historians study fourteenth-century Castelgard and La Rogue. They make disturbing discoveries, including the very modern lens from their leader Professor Edward Johnston's glasses and a message from him that appears to be over 600 years old. Graduate students Chris and Kate, along with assistant professor Andre, and technology specialist David are flown to their funds' provider ITC's headquarters in New Mexico. There, they're told that Johnston traveled to the year 1357--an extremely dangerous medieval time period--using their quantum technology. They're forced to go back in time to retrieve him. 

Not surprisingly, the time-travel transit pad is damaged upon their arrival to the place and time their leader was last deposited by the technology. Returning to their own time period might be impossible if it's not repaired. The locals are involved in political strife and war (the Hundred Years' War) that the time-travelers are inadvertently pulled into and become emotionally embroiled in with the key figures they meet. The only way to prevent suspicions that they're not who and what they say they are, which could get them killed in such a superstitious age, is to go along with the events as they play out, all while hoping the opportunity to get home comes soon. 

Crichton said about writing this story that it took twice as long to write as Jurassic Park, what he considered his last adventure story. What he found the most fascinating about it matches my own assessment--the medieval setting he wanted to be brutally authentic. When recalling the development process, he commented that he'd uncovered a world where you might be killed if you picked up a fallen glove, you risked death just by claiming you're gentle, where pastry was designed to look like animal intestines, where monasteries were utilized as tennis courts, where women were killed just for cutting their own hair short, and where wet gunpowder exploded. 

This story is tightly woven, the situations in the present and past fascinating, and the characters are ones readers can't help but root for. A film adaptation came out in 2003 but wasn't well received, though it's not bad--simply not as good as the book version. 

Whether or not you've read or watched this story before, you might want to consider it if you're looking for a fast-paced, well-developed tale with depth from a master of the fantastic. 

Next week, I'll review another Oldie But Goodie you might find worth another read, too. 

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/

Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: Eaters of the Dead by Michael Crichton by Karen S. Wiesner

 

Oldies But Goodies

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: Eaters of the Dead by Michael Crichton

by Karen S. Wiesner 

 

Be aware that there may be spoilers in this review. 

The original title of Eaters of the Dead, a1976 novel by Michael Crichton, was Eaters of the Dead: The Manuscript of Ibn Fadlan Relating His Experiences with the Northmen in AD 922 {gasp!}. At some point, that was wisely shortened to just Eaters of the Dead and, to coincide with the wonderful film adaptation starring Antonio Banderas in the lead role, to The 13th Warrior. The focus of the story is the journey of a 10-century Muslim Arab that traveled with Viking warriors to their settlement. In the book's appendix, the author states that the book was based on the first three chapters of Ahmad ibn Fadlan personal account. Beyond that, the story is touted as retelling of Beowulf, the Old English epic poem that's a forerunner of supernatural literature, and an all-time favorite of mine. 

In this historical supernatural fiction novel, the main character confronts many different worlds from his own, as he and the Vikings clash culturally yet danger creates a permanent bond between them. Along the path there are lethal creatures that also transform the protagonist in ways he could never have imagined previously. Aptly described as "an epic tale of unspeakable horror", I devour this story every few years, unable to put it down once I delve into its pages. The characters, settings, and scenarios are so vivid, authentic, and terrifying. Crichton left nothing out of this nearly perfect tale that may give you nightmares, just as the movie adaptation will.

Whether or not you've read or watched this story before, you might want to consider it if you're looking for a fast-paced, deep and well developed tale of the fantastical variety. 

Next week, I'll review another Oldie But Goodie you might find worth another read, too. 

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/ 

Language in Historical Fiction

I've just finished watching Season Four of THE CHOSEN, the streaming series about Jesus and his followers. (It seems likely the title refers to the latter.) I find it captivating, although naturally it's not perfect. In the first season, the Roman soldiers sometimes act like the Gestapo in a Nazi-occupied country, whereas from what I've read, the Roman occupation was more like the British Raj in India. The Pharisees are portrayed as if they wielded official authority, when in fact they were a self-appointed religious-political pressure group promoting strict observance of the Law. What the series brings to mind for me at the moment, though, are linguistic issues. How should characters in a historical novel or film talk in order to seem approachable by modern audiences yet also quasi-authentic or at least not blatantly anachronistic?

If a historical person's speech includes jarringly contemporary slang -- unless it's humorously meant as parody, of course -- it throws the reader or viewer out of the story. On the other hand, characters who speak "forsoothly" can feel emotionally distant rather than engaging. Worse, some writers have a tenuous grasp of archaic language and season their texts with random peppering of "thee," "-est," "-eth," etc., with no regard for the actual grammar of premodern English. Obsolete words can lend the narrative an authentic flavor but, if the meanings aren't obvious from context, may confuse the reader. I admire the way Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's Count Saint-Germain novels refer to clothing and some other everyday items by the terms used in the respective historical periods rather than substituting modern approximations. But, then, Yarbro is an expert with many decades of experience, and even so, I'm not always certain what a particular article of clothing looks like; her skill, fortunately, always gives the reader enough to go on with.

Then there's the issue of narrative and dialogue meant to be understood as translating from a foreign language. Some old war movies show enemy soldiers speaking with German accents, as if they're foreigners to themselves. The new miniseries adaptation of SHOGUN makes the bold decision to have Japanese dialogue spoken in that language with English subtitles, immersively realistic but rather demanding on the audience. The filmmakers do give us a rest by letting the European characters talk to each other in English when they're presumably speaking Portuguese. In my opinion, THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER made an excellent choice with scenes on the Russian submarine. For the first few minutes, the actors speak Russian with subtitles. Then we have a conversation when the captain (Sean Connery) is reading aloud from a book written in English. His spoken dialogue segues from Russian into English, and thereafter Russians talking among themselves do so in English "translation." When foreign languages in historical fiction are "translated" into English, as in most novels and movies, it seems appropriate to render casual speech from the supposed original language into colloquial modern English rather than making the characters talk in an unrealistically stilted, formal style. With one precaution -- the writer should take scrupulous care to avoid anachronistic references, such as metaphors based on technology that didn't exist in the particular past era, e.g., "like a broken record" before the 20th century. But how far should the dialogue go in the direction of informality to be accessible without the intrusion of jarringly modern slang?

I'm ambivalent about the way THE CHOSEN handles that question. Mostly I like the casual, colloquial dialogue, but sometimes the characters use trendy phrases that I think make them sound too much like contemporaries of our Gen-X children. I don't object to words such as "okay," though. That's been around since before the mid-19th century. As for accents, it puzzles me that the locals speak with what I guess is meant to be a Middle Eastern accent, again as if they're foreigners to themselves. Logically, the Jewish characters should speak unaccented English and the Romans, as the outsiders, should have an accent -- maybe a hint of Italian? I winced, by the way, when a Roman soldier stumbles over the name "Peter." It's Greek, the common language of the eastern Roman empire; of course he would know it means "rock"! (Furthermore, for maximum realism the disciples should address Peter by the Aramaic word for rock, Cephas.)

The regional and class issue should also be taken into account, in my opinion. Dorothy Sayers, in the introduction to her radio play cycle THE MAN BORN TO BE KING, discusses accents in this context. Should Jesus and his disciples speak more correctly than the working-class people around them, as if the disciples weren't part of the same population? Jesus and his mother need to share the same accent, but would it make sense to have them talk differently from his followers? Sayers also brings up and dismisses the complication of regional dialects. THE CHOSEN doesn't allow for that, either. I wish they'd taken into account the fact that Jesus, his mother, and several of the disciples come from Galilee. Since inhabitants of that area were considered uncouth by people from around Jerusalem, the dialogue should reflect that difference. I'd like Jesus, Peter, et al to have a distinct regional accent, maybe a tinge of Scottish or Irish, something I've never seen in any film version of the Gospel story. I wonder how THE CHOSEN will handle the moment during Peter's denial scene when a bystander recognizes him as a disciple by his Galilean accent?

Writers of fiction set in past eras or foreign cultures need to strike a delicate balance between annoying purists and baffling casual readers.

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 Mrs. Quent Trilogy by Galen Beckett

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: The Mrs. Quent Trilogy by Galen Beckett

by Karen S. Wiesner

Galen Beckett is the alter ego of fantasy author Mark Anthony, who's best known for his Dungeons & Dragons offerings in some of that series' most iconic settings. His original novel fantasy series, The Last Rune, proved his interest in witches in unexpected places with heroine Dr. Grace Beckett, who traveled from a modern setting into the alternative reality of Eldh and learned she was capable of manipulating the shape of natural energy called the Weirding. Similarly, the heroine in The Mrs. Quent Trilogy, Ivoleyn "Ivy" Lockwell, possesses a power that's forbidden in the time and place this sequence is set in. Women aren't allowed to do magic, but Ivy's been drawn to it since she was a child. As the unmarried, eldest daughter of a poverty-stricken family after her magician father inexplicably went mad, she's studied magical history for as long as she can remember, in part hoping to find a way to help her father, who lives his life in a kind of fugue that Ivy alone seems to be able to penetrate. Ivy's power is taught to her directly by the trees in the primal, partially sentient groves of the Wyrdwood (as in "weird"; the Old English term "wyrd" loosely translating as "destiny"; hence Ivy's ability is to shape fate).

The Mrs. Quent Trilogy could be categorized in many ways: A Victorian epic with fantastical elements, romantic historical gothic mystery, even "retro-modernist fantasy" fits. The author began the project by binge reading 19th Century novels, and that influence is very prominent here in each of the installments. In fact, it's what drew me to the first book, The Magicians and Mrs. Quent. As a teenager, I couldn't get enough of gothic romances with the dark heroes who could easily have been villains. In my late 20s, I fell in love with Victorian era novels that displayed an almost over the top picture of a society trying to balance polite formalities and courtesies against darker under dealings and even some political intrigue. I loved these stories with piquant humor, fashionably bedecked men and women that placed such a high import on money and social class, and elaborate dating dos and don'ts that rarely worked when combined with passionate, romantic temperaments. The settings were always so enchanting as well: From stylish streets in the city to windswept, rugged moorlands where sprawling family estates were many times dark and terrifying and populated with mysterious characters that made you wonder who was the hero, who was the villain.

The Mrs. Quent Trilogy encompasses all that I've come to adore about these genres and stylized novels. With magic and ancient forces thrown in aplenty, I knew within moments of reading the very familiar first sentence ("It was generally held knowledge among the people who lived on Whitward Street that the eldest of the three Miss Lockwells had a peculiar habit of reading while walking.") that I would be captivated by this series. Beckett's motivation for the original story that carried into the two sequels was: "What if there was a fantastical cause underlying the social constraints and limited choices confronting a heroine in a novel by Jane Austin or Charlotte Brontë?" That is, in essence, the framework of this series.

Setting is one of the most fascinating aspects of The Mrs. Quent Trilogy. Long ago, Altania had been covered by the Wyrdwood, an ancient forest, and its rule was total until men in ships landed on the shore, intent on making room for settlements. The Wyrdwood fought back after witches awakened the power of the wood, compelling it to rise up. The forest's fury was only subdued by the first great magician of old. In the "modern times" the series is set, only a few ragged patches of the Wyrdwood remain.

On the island nation of Altania, reality is subtly different in part because of outlaw magicians dabbling with uncertain forces they seek to control. Ancient forces have begun to insinuate into the government, changing the world as arcane powers take hold. Days and nights are far from consistent. Each family consults an almanac that allows them to prepare for the unpredictable long or short umbrals, but, as forces prevail, the almanacs' forecasts begin to fail. I absolutely loved this detail that heightened the shift from lumenal to lumenal, umbral to umbral.

Befitting a saga of this type, three sisters--one romantic, one prophetic, and one studious--are coming of age. With the family fortune's dwindling and their mother without a head for budgeting and finances, Ivy must give up any romantic notions about marrying well, if at all, even after she finds herself charmed by a perfectly jaded rapscallion of a gentleman, Mr. Rafferdy, a very resistant descendent of one of the seven Old Houses from which all magicians originated from. Filled with the bitter disappointment at having her hopes for a match that could have been both beneficial to her family's financial well-being along with her own silent wish for true love dashed, Ivy is compelled to become a governess for the reclusive Mr. Quent and his charges at the country Heathcrest, which is directly in the heart of the Wyrdwood. Here, Ivy learns of her own magical power as well as discovering more about her family; much more about her father's mysterious, magic-related malady; and diabolical plots taking place in Altania's government involving an underground web of robbers, revolutionaries, illusionists, and spies.

The House on Durrow Street, Book 2, continues with Ivy entering high society based on her and her new husband's decision to act courageously to save Altania from those scheming to subvert it. Temptations and secrets infused with high magick amongst genteel society created a whirlwind of adventure and suspense that carried into the concluding volume, The Master of Heathcrest Hall, Book 3. To save her father, her family, and the world she loves from certain eternal darkness, Ivy allies with those that could be dangerous to mingle with and even speak of in whispers as the unrest claiming Altania's every corner spreads.

Each of the characters that make up this lush landscape is finely depicted and spellbinding, drawing intrigue and sympathy. Their courage and spirit were compelling. Even when I questioned the intentions of some of them, I couldn't help understanding the depth of their emotions and conflicts. I even loved how the author made me root for the romantic attachments which seemed utterly impossible at so many turns.

One aspect of fantasy novels that tends to be what I consider its greatest downfall and the thing that usually keeps me from reading more of them is the sluggish pace that strikes me as being at odds when juggled with the extreme bouts of action--as in, there is almost no middle ground between these two states of being. I will note that I'm not a huge fan of action-packed sagas that lack "downtimes", since that makes them both unrealistic and exhausting to me. As a general rule, most of the fantasy novels I've read are authored by writers with undeniable skill. Mark Anthony is one such author. His writing style is nearly flawless. In fact, it's part of the reason why, after only having gotten a few chapters into The Magicians and Mrs. Quent, I bought the next two books in the series as well as all the books in his The Last Rune Series. I read The Mrs. Quent Trilogy compulsively over the course of only a week or two, finishing them very quickly despite that each one is massive (the hardcovers I purchased were all in great excess of 500 pages). I was endeared to The Mrs. Quent Trilogy despite that it was a leisurely, sprawling story that took its time building momentum and suspense from one book to the next. Every page of the three books held my unwavering engrossment. It struck just the right balance with riveting characters, plot, and tension despite being such enormous volumes which might have otherwise been intimidating. I believe a lot of readers will love all of Mark Anthony's literary offerings and should try them. It was, however, his alter ego Galen Beckett's writings that ultimately captured my attention. This particular series makes me eagerly look forward to the prospect of future similar gifts from this alternate identity.

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/

Based on a True Story

Historical fiction typically places invented characters and plotlines against the backdrop of real events, sometimes including encounters with famous people of the past. But historical novels of another type retell actual episodes from the past and differ from straight history or biography by introducing made-up incidents and characters without violating the recorded facts as generally accepted. Then there's the oxymoronic "nonfiction novel," exemplified by works such as Truman Capote's IN COLD BLOOD and Alex Haley's ROOTS, purporting to report history as it happened but in novelistic style, also with the insertion of invented walk-on characters, minor incidents, and dialogue:

Non-Fiction Novel

Wikipedia remarks that the definition of the form can be "flexible." Judging from the range of their examples, the word I'd use is "fuzzy." Some of the books they mention strike me as simply standard-model historical fiction. So the difference between that genre and the so-called nonfiction novel seems to be one of degree.

Sharyn McCrumb has written several novels based on murder cases in American history, notably THE BALLAD OF FRANKIE SILVER, THE BALLAD OF TOM DOOLEY, and THE UNQUIET GRAVE. She includes afterwords supplying the real-life background of the stories. In the author's afterword to THE BALLAD OF TOM DOOLEY, she answers the question of how much is true with, "As much as I could possibly verify." In the story itself, she fills in the gaps with her own conjectures based on what she considers the best evidence. THE DEVIL AMONGST THE LAWYERS, while also retelling an actual trial, takes some liberties with history, as McCrumb explains in her afterword.

Barbara Hambly's novel about the later life of Mary Todd Lincoln, THE EMANCIPATOR'S WIFE, with flashbacks to the former First Lady's youth and her marriage to Lincoln, follows a similar narrative strategy. It adheres to historical facts as known while creatively expanding on them.

Alternate history is a different thing, making deliberate changes in critical events to create a counterfactual world. For instance, S. M. Stirling's currently running series based on the premise that Theodore Roosevelt regained the presidency in the 2012 election is one outstanding example. Secret history, on the other hand, tells stories of critical events that fall between the cracks in documented history, without contradicting recorded facts (e.g., magical combat between British and German witches during World War II in a world otherwise resembling our own past).

What about autobiography? CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN, by Frank Bunker Gilbreth Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey, has been labeled a "semi-autobiographical novel," although from what I've read about it, the contents are factual. The book does skip around chronologically, however, and it omits some facts, mainly that the Gibreth family never had twelve children living at the same time. The death of one daughter in childhood is not mentioned. The "All Creatures Great and Small" series, by James Herriot (real name Alf Wight), shifts further toward the fiction category. While the incidents in the books really happened, names and other identifying characteristics of people in the episodes have been changed.

How far can a work that claims historical accuracy go with author-created elements before it crosses the line between straight history or biography and fiction?

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Linguistic Anachronisms

I'm reading an enthralling new vampire novel, THE GOD OF ENDINGS, by Jacqueline Holland. The first-person protagonist grew up in the 1830s in a small town in New York, as the daughter of a gravestone carver. Her parents, her brother, and she herself all died in an epidemic of tuberculosis. Thanks to her Hungarian grandfather, however, she didn't stay dead. Over the course of her unnaturally prolonged life, she seems to have acquired an excellent education. (In the 1980s, she's the head of an exclusive preschool.) The novel's style is a pleasure to read, evocatively descriptive, almost lyrical. So far, I haven't come upon a single grammatical error or typo, a rarity nowadays even from major publishers. But then -- at one point the narrator breaks the spell and outrages my suspension of disbelief by using "snuck" for "sneaked," an irregular form that I don't recall ever hearing in my own youth, much less reading in any older prose regardless of its informal tone. How did the author miss that error, considering the in-depth research that seems to lie behind her story? Is that lapse a case of not knowing what one doesn't know?

THE CHOSEN, a streaming series whose first three seasons I enjoyed very much (and I'm waiting with impatience for the next season, not due until sometime in 2024), made me wince at a couple of points for a similar reason. It's a retelling of the life of Jesus with an ensemble cast, focusing on the apostles and other prominent people in the Gospels. It imaginatively creates personalities and backstories for them while expanding on what little information the Bible supplies. As a side issue, I wonder why every non-Roman character speaks with an accent, as if the Judeans and Galileans are foreigners to themselves. instead, shouldn't the Romans, as outsiders in the country, be the people with the accents? That's not my main complaint, though. To make the characters relatable, the script has them talking in colloquial American English. That's fine as far as it goes, even the inclusion of "okay." We can assume their dialogue is being translated from the terminology of their own culture into expressions we're familiar with. But now and then a phrase or figure of speech that would have been impossible in that time and place shatters the illusion of realism. The most blatant example is a character referring to some action "pushing" somebody else's "buttons." That metaphor could not have existed much before the twentieth century, maybe at the earliest in the era of the telegraph. Cringe.

Of course, sometimes words feel anachronistic when they aren't. The case of "Tiffany," a modern-sounding feminine name that in fact dates back to the Middle Ages, is a well-known example. One anthology editor told me not to write that a character "scanned" a room in a story set in the 1890s because that image referred to the action of a video camera. Later I found out "scan" was indeed used in that sense before the invention of movies. I once chided a fellow author for having an eighteenth-century character in a work-in-progress call another man a jerk; I was abashed when she pointed me to a source that confirmed the word did exist as an insult in that period. Should an author of historical fiction refrain from using a term that's accurate for the period but might sound wrong to most readers?

Do you notice that kind of thing in fiction? If so, how much does it bother you?

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Crossing Genres

A publisher called Obsidian Butterfly is assembling an anthology to be titled "NecronomiRomCom," comprising Cthulhu Mythos romantic comedies:

Obsidian Butterfly

Working on a story to submit to this project reminded me of a panel at this year's RavenCon about mixing genres. A panelist asked what would be the most unlikely combination of genres. Of course, many mashups of classic novels with horror exist, such as PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES, SENSE AND SENSIBILITY AND SEA MONSTERS, and LITTLE WOMEN AND WEREWOLVES, but I'm not sure they count, consisting mostly of slightly revised texts of public-domain originals with horror content tacked on. Paranormal romance and various permutations of historical, SF, or futuristic romance have become recognized subgenres in their own right. Historical mysteries are also commonplace, as a natural outgrowth of the quest for fresh settings in which to place unsolved murders. Historical fantasy and horror aren't much of a stretch, either. Mystery is compatible with many other genres, and a romance subplot can be included in almost any kind of fiction. Randall Garrett's Lord Darcy series combines alternate history, fantasy, and mystery. Effective, credible crossovers of that kind require the setting and the magical rules to be clearly and consistently laid out for the reader, with no cheating.

Novels of secret histories that transform famous people of the past into fighters against supernatural evil demand more suspension of disbelief. Authors have made Abraham Lincoln a vampire slayer and Queen Elizabeth the First a hunter of demons. A duology by Cherie Priest, MAPLECROFT and CHAPELWOOD, pits Lizzie Borden, in her reclusive later years, against Lovecraftian monsters. (In this version of her life, she really did kill her father and stepmother, but only because they were possessed by eldritch entities from the sea.)

The Cthulhu Mythos seems to be a favorite candidate for genre-blending. The anthology SHADOWS OVER BAKER STREET merges the worlds of Lovecraft and Sherlock Holmes, a not terribly unbelievable combination. There's at least one anthology of stories set in a postapocalyptic world where HPL's extradimensional monsters have conquered Earth. Plunging into the realm of the absurd, SCREAM FOR JEEVES, by Peter H. Cannon, retells several of Lovecraft's best-known stories by inserting P. G. Wodehouse's characters and style into them. Probably the most incongruous cross-genre mashup I've ever encountered, however, is an anthology titled THE CALL OF POOHTHULHU--H. P. Lovecraft meets Winnie-the-Pooh.

Or how about colorful Lovecraftian board books for small children? A Mythos alphabet book is one of several cute products from the "C Is for Cthulhu" project:

C Is for Cthulhu

Has anybody here run into an unlikelier combination?

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Real People as Characters

I've just finished reading the ten Catherine Le Vendeur novels by Sharan Newman, mysteries set in twelfth-century Europe (mostly in France). Catherine begins as a novice at the Abbey of the Paraclete and a student of Abbess Heloise. At the end of the first book, Catherine leaves the convent, rather than taking final vows, and gets married. Thus she's not only an intelligent young woman but highly educated for a lady of that era. Like any reluctant amateur detective, she frequently stumbles over corpses or gets entangled in events that endanger her family and friends. She applies the logic she learned from her teacher to probe these mysteries. Over the course of her adventures, she crosses paths with many distinguished historical figures in addition to Heloise, Peter Abelard, and their son, Astrolabe. (Yes, that was actually his name.) Significant historical events such as important church councils, with the associated political controversies, provide backdrops to the stories. Judging from Newman's afterwords to the books and her expertise in medieval studies, she clearly took care to place the real people in the series at locations where they're known to have been or could have been in the given year and not to show them doing anything that conflicts with their documented personalities and behavior.

I once read a post on Quora that vehemently objected to including people who actually existed, regardless of which century they lived in, as characters in fiction. That attitude baffled me. I can't think of a valid reason to consider such fiction disrespectful, and a lot of excellent works would never have been written if authors accepted that prohibition as a rule. Several of Sharyn McCrumb's Appalachian "Ballad Novels" tell stories based on real events—for instance, THE BALLAD OF TOM DOOLEY, whose afterword explains that the narrative sticks as close to reality as she could manage. Since it's a novel, though, McCrumb was free to speculate about motives and invent incidents and dialogue. Barbara Hambly does the same in THE EMANCIPATOR'S WIFE, about the later life of Lincoln's widow but with flashbacks to earlier periods. I see no problem with portraying historical persons in fiction if the author does conscientious research, sticks to the recorded facts except when filling in gaps where creative license is appropriate, and doesn't show the subjects behaving in ways incompatible with their known characters.

Writers of alternate history and secret history, of course, have much greater scope for invention. "Secret history" refers to fiction that doesn't change the facts of the past as generally known and accepted but inserts other events, often supernatural, occurring behind the scenes: Vlad the Implaler was a vampire. Lincoln was a vampire slayer. Elizabeth I was a demon hunter. Wizards on both sides shaped the course of World War II. I can enjoy these kinds of novels as long as the depictions of historical figures stick close to their true-life personalities. Otherwise, why bother writing about them at all instead of inventing your own characters?

The closer we get to the present, it seems to me, the more problematic it becomes to use actual people as protagonists. Successful books, however, have been published on plot premises such as H. P. Lovecraft and Robert Howard on a road trip to confront eldritch horrors or C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien fighting the forces of evil. Personally, I might have qualms about making fictional protagonists of people with still-living relatives and friends who remember them.

I do draw the line at the use of live, present-day celebrities as fictional characters, except as walk-on "extras" or as part of the cultural background. (E.g., the protagonist attends a concert by a famous singer or watches a presidential debate.) There's a subgenre of fan fiction, "real people" fanfic, that consists of stories about celebrities such as singers and actors. It even includes, incredibly, slash scenarios between living individuals. While I'm adamantly opposed to censorship and therefore don't advocate making this sort of privacy invasion illegal, one would think it would be precluded by good taste and simple courtesy.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt