Round and Flat Characters

Here's a very lucid essay from WRITER'S DIGEST about the differences between flat (two-dimensional) and round (three-dimensional) characters:

Flat vs. Round

It defines the two types with lists of the principal traits of each, followed by analyses of several well-known examples from literature.

This article brings up a few points I hadn't thought of before:

An archetype is often a flat character. Although the article doesn't say it in so many words, this type of character's larger-than-life traits lend themselves to the "flat" treatment.

A flat character can be a protagonist. "Generally, the main characters are round, and the supporting ones are flat—but you’ll soon see this isn’t always the case."

"Round" and "flat" are not identical to dynamic versus static. Not all rounded characters change over the course of the story.

Some points not explicitly discussed that are worth emphasizing: Flat characters aren't necessarily stereotypes or cliches. A flat character can still be a believable individual. Not all the people in a work of fiction have to be rounded; trying to accomplish that goal in a full-length novel would be not only exhausting for both author and reader but, in fact, unrealistic. Most of the people we meet daily in real life remain "flat" to us. One typical trait listed for flat characters is that their responses and actions are predictable, a premise I'm dubious about. Sydney Carton's self-sacrifice at the end of A TALE OF TWO CITIES, for example, would probably come as a surprising plot twist to a reader unfamiliar with the story. Also, the two types may be seen as falling on a continuum rather than fitting into a strict binary distinction. Sydney Carton, while "flatter" than Charles Darnay in that novel, is "rounder" than Madame Defarge. David Copperfield's great-aunt Betsey is less rounded than David but more so than Mr. Micawber or Uriah Heep.

One classic literary figure presented in the essay as an example of a flat character is Sherlock Holmes. As the central figure in his series, he's fascinating, but without the complexity and depth of a fully rounded character.

Can a character transform from one type to the other? It could be argued that Hannibal Lecter is mainly flat in RED DRAGON and SILENCE OF THE LAMBS but becomes a rounded character in HANNIBAL and HANNIBAL RISING (a shift many readers and critics consider a change for the worse).

Margaret L. Carter

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

Hmmm

 

Hmmm. It's the sound of human thought expressed in writing, but could also denote humming. This week, I read ten compendia of the legal blogs and could not find anything inspiring. Of course, the Writers' and Actors' strike over the potential for AI to infringe their rights of personality and their copyrights is being widely discussed. 

 

There is even an article about resurrecting James Earl Jones's voice from past libraries of recordings in order to have the famous Darth Vader voice in new movies in DISCOVER magazine

On the other hand, if humming (but not hawing) is my theme, I've been watching a lot of BBC programming. The singing sands of Africa --according to one of David Atttenborough's documentaries-- make a sort of humming, or booming, when sand shifts.

https://sand-boarding.com/singing-sand/

Facinatingly, the BBC filmmakers showed time lapse film of a desert taken over a year-and-a-half. The dunes rolled like tidal waves. Apparently, a sea of sand in Africa is useful because the dust blows across the Atlantic and fertilizes the Amazon rain forest... which latter may not (IMHO) need as much fertilizer since so much of it has been logged.

Apparently, there are remains of petrified forests in the Sahara. That area was once lush forest, which makes me wonder about Mars (the planet).

 

The book-made-into-a-movie, The Martin is fiction, of course, but we know that humans want to go there to see if there is a chance of life there.

Which brings me to a question. Why would human masterminds consider a seven-month (approx) trip to Mars? Why wonder if Mars could be terraformed, or perhaps restored to a long ago condition that it might have been in, when no one has tried to restore the Sahara, or even a part of the Sahara (not counting the Sahel, about which I wrote a few weeks ago), to a condition it might have been in 6,000 years ago?

If tracts of the Sahara are not available for turning back time, there are surely places that are hot and dry and not home to precious, naturally-space-suited ants.

https://www.sciencefriday.com/articles/how-silver-haired-ants-beat-the-desert-heat/

Or maybe not. The American deserts are not wastelands and cannot be compared to Mars.

https://www.worldatlas.com/deserts/the-major-deserts-of-the-united-states.html

While it is noteworthy that sewage can be purified until it is potable, what would be the effect of dumping quantities of it, not into the oceans, but onto baking desert sands? Would the result be mutant scorpions?

In The Martian, raw sewage is pretty much --if you will pardon the adjective-- what the hero used to grow his potatoes. Possibly there are other plants that grow faster.

 

David Attenborough discussed the resurrection plant. Others are interested in it for its anti-oxidant properties. More interesting than The Martian's potatoes, this plant seems to drop seeds within hours of its dessicated tumbleweed-like body rolling into a puddle, and after subsequently being rained on. Once heavy raindrops liberate seeds and knock them into wet ground, these seeds seem to sprout and grow very quickly. But are they edible?

Changing the environment under which a plant grows can change the properties of the plant, so much research is needed. Research into the resurrection plant indicates that, where environmental conditions are not harsh, the plant produces lesser quantities of anti-oxidant. For instance, with potatoes, everyone knows that one does not eat "the eyes" or the green parts, or the parts scarred from a spade, because potatoes have defense mechanisms, and some parts are poisonous. 

 

For many people who suffer from arthritis, if they just stopped eating potatoes for a few months, their pain and swelling and deformation should subside. Possibly, a lot of people would suffer a great deal less if they purchased and prepared their own potatoes from scratch. Potatoes are members of the deadly nightshade family. Other potential poisons are tomatoes, vegetable peppers, aubergines or egg plant, also insufficiently cooked lectins. 

The links are luke-warm on whether or not what I just wrote is accurate, but, bear in mind, arthritis is big business and palliatives that cost nothing at all are not helpful to "society".

I'm just a tree-hugger, a bit of a sponge for information, and inquisitive.

Presumably, missions to other planets would be based on the idea of living in geodesic domes, especially if there is no oxygen. I imagine it probably would be somewhat like living for years on a low-end cruise ship (with no shore excursions, no sunbathing, and no walks on the decks), run by an unelected dictator who is an employee of someone far far away.

All the best,

Rowena Cherry

Karen S. Wiesner {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: The Expanse Series by James S. A. Corey

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: The Expanse Series by James S. A. Corey

by Karen S. Wiesner

I started reading The Expanse Series when I found the boxed set with the first three novels in Orbit Books newsletter. I love science fiction, especially when it's combined with horror, similar to the Ridley Scott Alien franchise, which, not surprisingly, was a major influence for this particular series. The short story, "Drive", is the prequel to the entire series, and James S. A. Corey (authors Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck, using the joint pen name) offered a free download of it from their website, which I printed and read after I'd finished the first three novels. From that point on, I purchased each novel and short story/novella as it was released. In the years the authors actively worked on this series, I followed it, purchasing each book in hardcover, since that was the fastest way to get it ASAP after release.

The premise of The Expanse Series is that future humanity has colonized most of "The Solar System", but they don't yet have interstellar travel. Mankind has settled in the asteroid belt (Ceres and Eros), Mars and the moon with domed settlements; and some outer planets (several Jupiter moons including Ganymede and Europa; Saturn's Phoebe; and Uranus's Titania). In the time the series is set, tensions are rising. Earth's United Nations and Mars' Congressional Republic are the superpowers that exert their combined hegemony over Belters--those who populate the asteroid belt. Because of the low-gravity environments they live, their bodies tend to be longer and thinner than other humans. Belters (who use a form of modified Creole speech) are the blue collar workers of the galaxy, working to provide the system with the natural resources needed by all, and, as such, they're disrespected by other humans in the galaxy. In order to fight exploitation at the "Inners" hands, Belters have formed loose military groupings within the Outer Planets Alliance (OPA). The OPA is considered a terrorist organization by other humans.

In Leviathan Wakes, Book 1, readers are introduced to several of the core characters in this series. James "Jim" Holden, a former UN Navy officer from Earth, is XO of an ice hauling ship called Canterbury along with chief engineer Naomi Nagata, a Belter; pilot Alex Kamal, who's a Martian navy (MCRN) veteran; and engineer Amos Burton with a background that, let's just say, grows more interesting with each installment. These four become the original members of the Rocinate or Roci, a state of the art Martian frigate they claim as their own. A distress signal leads them to a derelict transport vessel, the Scopuli, and from there to Julie Mao, the rebellious daughter of a wealthy magnate.

At the same time, a washed-up detective named Josephus "Joe" Miller, a Belter from Ceres Station's Star Helix Security, is also searching for Julie Mao.

The investigation of Jim and his crew and Miller converges on Eros, where Julie is found…afflicted with an alien organic biohazard growth that quickly spreads across the entire station. Life as anyone knows it will change from this moment forward when humanity gains access to thousands of new worlds via the use of an artificially constructed ring network created by a long-dead race of aliens. The number of directions that this series goes as it explores all of this potential boggled my mind as the saga became bigger and bigger with each book.

While the characters mentioned above comprise the major players, there were so many fascinating, richly embellished, unique cast members. While Jim Holden always came across as a good, incorruptible man and, as such, was my favorite, so many of the characters were so complex, it was hard to pin short-sighted labels like "good" or "evil" on any of them. They were each completely human with all the moments of cringe-worthy regret and heroic larger-than-life altruism. Amos was another favorite who compelled me to think deeply as he evolved into the person he became at the end.

Some other intriguing players that make frequent appearances throughout the books are Bobbi Draper, a Martian gunnery sergeant in the MCRN; the foul-mouthed Chrisjen Avasarala, UN Assistant Undersecretary of Executive Administration on Earth; Fred Johnson, the leader of the OPA, who's a former UN marine (and the subject of the short story "The Butcher of Anderson Station"); Marco and Filip Inaros, father and son with Marco commanding a radical OPA branch called the Free Navy; Camina Drummer, chief security of Tycho Station; and Clarissa Moa, another daughter of the magnate that Amos calls Peaches.

The first installment in the series is the one that I binged-read in a matter of days because the biohazard aspect utterly fascinated me, as did pretty much anything Jim Holden did from start to finish in every story he was in. But several other stand-out offerings were "The Churn" novella and the eighth novel in the series, Tiamat's Wrath.

At the announcement of the last one, Leviathan Falls, I know I wasn't the only obsessed reader who felt we'd only touched the tip of the iceberg in exploring all the saga had to offer. The series left me wanting more while at the same time satisfying all my main requirements. I simply wasn't ready for it to end, though I suspect the main crew of the Roci might have, given what they went through in the countless years that encompass the whole of this exciting sequence.

As most probably already know because many sci-fi readers prefer a more visual medium over book format, The Expanse became a TV series that went through countless upheavals and ended far too soon, not covering as much ground as the book series did. The perfectly chosen cast gave it their all, and I applaud the show for how well they portrayed something so big, it was hard to contain it the way they had to. Both the novel and TV series are well-worth your time, and they've got a permanent place on my keeper shelves. Comic versions, board and roleplaying games are also available for the series.

One of the most defining factors about The Expanse was just how realistic it all seemed. I was sold completely on the premise, and I can easily imagine so many aspects of the "science" and politics to this series happening in the near future just as they're portrayed in this saga.

I do have to comment that the titles of the novels are annoying obscure and really have nothing whatsoever to do with the stories within them. Whenever I try to remember which story belonged in which novel, I'm completely lost--and that's a direct result of the fact that the titles that were saddled on the novels in the series seem arbitrary and not clearly defined. If there was a trick to understanding why they were named as they were, the authors should have given readers a clue what it was to prevent us from becoming lost and confused. That is the sum total of my complaint with this series. Incidentally, the shorts all had titles that made sense and described the stories contained within.

A quick word about the book order, which is a bit of an issue since short stories and novellas were published between the main novels that don't necessarily follow the main storyline chronologically. Frequently, the shorts covered past events as well as pivotal character backgrounds. The publisher suggests reading them in the order they were published since that way characters first introduced in the novels gain further background characterization through the shorts. With prior knowledge and familiarity, the novellas can be enjoyed and understood in context. Also, the shorts may contain spoilers to the novels, which could be a deal-breaker to some. That said, the suggested reading order is this:

1.     Leviathan Wakes, Book 1

2.     "The Butcher of Anderson Station" (set before Leviathan Wakes)

3.     Caliban's War, Book 2

4.     "Gods of Risk"

5.     "Drive" (set before Leviathan Wakes)

6.     Abaddon's Gate, Book 3

7.     "The Churn" (set before Leviathan Wakes)

8.     Cibola Burn, Book 4

9.     Nemesis Games, Book 5

10.  "The Vital Abyss" (set between Abaddon's Gate and Cibola Burn)

11.  Babylon's Ashes, Book 6

12.  "Strange Dogs"

13.  Persepolis Rising, Book 7

14.  Tiamat's Wrath, Book 8

15.  "The Last Flight of the Cassandra" (set during Leviathan Wakes)

16.  "Auberon" (set between Persepolis Rising and Tiamat's Wrath)

17.   Leviathan Falls, Book 9

Note that all of the shorts are all published in a compilation called Memory's Legion that's well worth investing in for collectors.

 

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/

Predicting versus Contesting

Few, if any, readers and writers of science fiction believe it exists to predict the future. Strikingly on-target foretellings of future events and technology are occasional, serendipitous accidents. Rather, it speculates on the questions "What if...." and "If this goes on...." Cory Doctorow's latest LOCUS essay delivers a slightly different, more radical perspective on what science fiction does:

SF Doesn't Predict

This article consists of the text of a speech he gave in June 2023, when receiving an Honourary Doctor of Laws from York University’s Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies in Toronto. He begins with an anecdote from his educational career. At the age of seventeen, already professionally selling short science fiction, he inquired at York University's humanities department about getting into the creative writing program. He was turned down because, as he was told, "they only teach literature." I had a similar, although less blunt and final experience, as an undergraduate. After taking the introductory course in creative writing, I enrolled in an advanced, workshop-type fiction writing course. At the end of the first semester, the professor hesitated to let me into the second semester because I'd submitted only fantasy and horror. He reluctantly let me continue, and I dutifully wrote a slice-of-life story about a military wife coping with a toddler and a baby while her husband was deployed. Nobody could have asked for a more spot-on "write what you know" work. As far as I can recall, it was an okay story and certainly didn't lack vividness or realism. But that wasn't the path I wanted to follow; the marketplace abounds in writers of realistic fiction, and I knew I'd never measure up to most of them. While I sometimes enjoy reading about contemporary settings and characters with no trace of the fantastic, I have no interest in trying to write that genre. (Yes, even though it claims the status of "mainstream," it's a genre.)

Doctorow later rejoiced in belonging to a community, the tech realm, whose members didn't view his science-fiction output with disdain. Rather, he "was surrounded by people who thought that SF writing was literally the coolest thing in the world." The rest of this blog explains why he agrees.

He defines optimism and pessimism as "just fatalism in respectable suits. . . .Both deny human agency, that we can intervene to change things." He subsumes both under the category of "inevitabilism, the belief that nothing can change." This attitude, according to Doctorow, is "the opposite of SF," whose purpose is to imagine alternatives. What it contests is the assumption that there's no alternative to the status quo or the predicted future, that "resistance is futile." He lays out several examples, climaxing with his metaphor of a bus speeding toward the brink of a canyon--unless we take the risk of swerving. The essay concludes, "Hope begins with the ability to imagine alternatives. And there is always an alternative."

That affirmation reminds me of something that irritates me about the fantasy and SF shows I watch on the CW network. A continually recurring line of cliched dialogue laments, "We haven't got a choice!" (I've often wondered whether the same writers compose the scripts for all of those series.) I keep wanting to yell at the screen, "Yes, you featherbrain, you always have a choice."

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Galaxy: 5 Stars For Sale?

Not for the first time, I wish to talk about dishonest reviews. It's not sour grapes on my part. It's relevant. 

If one solicits five-star reviews, and perhaps offers a meaningful incentive to the potential author of the review (with the explicit condition that the review must be for four or five stars in order to qualify for a rent rebate, a pearl necklace, a valuable --or not-- gift) one might be in legal jeopardy.

Authors do it. Student housing does it. 

They may think that no one will notice or care, but the FTC is cracking down. That's why I think it is worth summarizing --again-- what's new on the legal blogs on the matter.

See example #4 on page 6/84 of this:

https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/p204500_endorsement_guides_in_2023.pdf

It is about "repurposing reviews".

How many have taken the most favorable line or two from a prestigious review (even if the rest of the review might have been lukewarm about the work) and used it to promote ones book? Aparently, doing that could be deceptive.

Jeff Greenbaum, reliable authority and long time legal blogger for the Global Advertising Lawyers Alliance, writes this on so-called fake reviews:

http://blog.galalaw.com/post/102iieg/ftc-releases-updated-endorsement-guides-and-proposes-new-rule-on-fake-reviews

and also this:

https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=f5c7c726-b136-487b-ac42-bd9a0fc79d8b

The government's frowning interest is not confined to prose reviews. Even "likes" could potentially get one into trouble.

Rebecca B. Lederhouse of the law firm Baker McKenzie discusses endorsement advertising guides, influencers and "fake" reviews. While the general principles have not changed, much has now been clarified with specific examples. Grey areas are not so grey.

"The general considerations have not changed, namely, that endorsements must reflect the honest opinions, findings, beliefs, or experience of the endorser and that advertisers are subject to liability for misleading or unsubstantiated statements made through endorsements or for failing to disclose unexpected material connections between themselves and their endorsers."

Lexology link: 

https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=211d2036-34e9-48a1-b0ea-1c4ceb8740e2

 

Original link (took up too many lines of pink text, so please click on the text link).

 

Finally, for my third source, legal blogger Daniel Kaufman of Baker Hostetler LLP and the AD-ttorneys

Law Blog writes a fast-paced summary of the steps that the FTC is taking to regulate online review practices.

 

https://www.adttorneyslawblog.com/ftc/five-stars-for-speedy-delivery-ftc-takes-a-quick-and-major-step-toward-regulating-online-review-practices/#page=1

 

He also mentions last year's Roomster case, and the sting involving an offer of a cat-friendly room in a three bedroom, downtown home.... in a US Postal Service address!

Daniel Kaufman offers particularly helpful explanations of the seven pitfalls, namely creating or buyign fake testimonials; repurposing reviews; giving conditioned incentives for persons to write good reviews; using insider-generated reviews; controlling a site for reviews of ones own product or service; suppressing negative reviews; and fake social media indicatiors. 

 

All the best,

 

Rowena Cherry

SPACE SNARK™

http://www.spacesnark.com/ 

 

 

 

 

 

Karen S. Wiesner {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: The Dark Elf Trilogy by R.A. Salvatore

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: The Dark Elf Trilogy by R.A. Salvatore

by Karen S. Wiesner

I came into the character of Drizzt Do-Urden through a side door. I hadn't read the author R.A. Salvatore's first trilogy, Icewind Dale, featuring this dark elf (or drow), nor did I have the slightest experience with the world of Dungeons & Dragons Forgotten Realms campaign setting, or the Underdark, one of its most popular locations. Nor had I ever played any of the videogames set within this realm. Apparently, arguably, Drizzt was the most famous and most influential dark elf within the fictional settings created for and by these mega popular games and books. Yet I knew absolutely nothing about him when I purchased a used, very old collector's edition of The Dark Elf Trilogy. By that time, the drow had already become a legend.

Salvatore says that the idea for this iconic character came to him in his office while he was at his day job. He'd been asked to write the second Forgotten Realms novel and the senior editor at that time wanted him to create a new sidekick for the character of Wulfgar, a young barbarian in the region of Icewind Dale, where Drizzt had settled. Salvatore said he'd get right on that…but the editor didn't have time to wait a week. She was heading into a meeting at that very moment and she needed to sell this proposal. On the spot and off the top of his head, Salvatore came up with a drow ranger named Drizzt Do-Urden of D'aermon N'achezbaeron, Ninth House of Menzoberranzan. The author intended him to be nothing more than a sidekick, like Robin to Batman. Instead, after writing the first chapter of The Crystal Shard, the first installment in The Icewind Dale Trilogy, Salvatore knew a star had been born.

I had no expectations for The Dark Elf Trilogy--a prequel to Icewind Dale that tells the origin story of Drizzt--when I opened the massive 805 page collector's edition which had all three novels inside it. I will admit that I tend to stick with the fantasy series I've known and loved most of my life--Tolkien's Middle Earth and Terry Brooks' Shannara and Landover series novels. While I've always found most fantasy novels to have some of the highest quality of writing, there's something about the sprawling, enormous tomes that intimidate me, and I think the culprit is that fantasy novels tend to be intricate and slow-moving with an almost oxymoronic amount of high action that seems totally at odds with just how plodding they tend to be in terms of their meticulous setting and character building. In fantasy stories, nearly everything has to be created from scratch--and that absolutely demands that readers have patience in allowing the development required to tell such a complicated tale.

The Dark Elf Trilogy is no exception to everything I said in the last paragraph. However, I was instantly sucked into the first story, Homeland, in no small part because the Underdark absolutely enthralled me. Imagine if you will a prodigious, connected subterranean network of labyrinthine caverns and tunnels that run beneath entire continents and form an underworld for places on the surface. The prelude of Homeland begins with a description of the setting:

Never does a star grace this land with a poet's light of twinkling mysteries, nor does the sun send to here its rays of warmth and life. This is the Underdark, the secret world beneath the bustling surface of the Forgotten Realms, whose sky is a ceiling of heartless stone and whose walls show the gray blandless of death in the torchlight of the foolish surface-dwellers that stumble here. This is not their world, not the world of light. Most of who come here uninvited do not return.

               Those who do escape to the safety of their surface homes return changed. Their eyes have seen the shadows and the gloom, the inevitable doom of the Underdark.

               Dark corridors meander throughout the dark realm of winding courses, connecting caverns great and small, with ceilings high and lower. Mounds of stone as pointed at the teeth of a sleeping dragon leer down in silent threat or rise up to block the way of intruders.

               There is a silence here, profound and foreboding, the crouched hush of a predator at work. Too often the only sound, the only reminder to travelers in the Underdark that they have not lost their sense of hearing altogether, is a distant and echoing drip of water, beating like the heart of a beast, slipping through the silent stones to the deep Underdark pools of chilled water. What lies beneath the still onyx surface of these pools one can only guess. What secrets await the brave, what horrors await the foolish, only the imagination can reveal--until the stillness is disturbed. This is the Underdark.

               There are pockets of life here, cities as great as many of those on the surface…

You can read more of an excerpt at any book distributor's website. This world and the city of Menzoberranzan are unlike anything I'd ever read before this point. But it wasn't just the gasping setting descriptions that drew me into this story. The drow who live in this place worship the Spider Queen Lolth. In this dark locale of cunning, scheming, unscrupulous politics, there is no room for concepts such as honor, love, or even friendship. Drizzt was born into this society and was fated to be a sacrifice to the Spider Queen at birth. When one of his brothers kills the other, Drizzt becomes the second son, sparing his life, which is already laid out before him. Disobedience is not an option. Yet Drizzt is nothing like the others that make up this arena of ruthless and senseless violence. He's strange to those around him, an almost cheerful little boy with purple eyes and an unfathomable compassion and defiance against the norm in his disturbing world. After he's given to his sister to raise, she sends him to the finest weapons master to be had--Zaknafein--his own father, who allows Drizzt the forbidden: To think for himself.

One of the biggest reasons I was so fascinated by this trilogy was that, in normal stories, good characters are in a place where basically good is done and expected by all. A villain enters and disrupts that equilibrium. But in The Dark Elf Trilogy, we have a good character surrounded by the worst kind of evil, in a location where all of society and its' mores is centered on cut-throat survival of the fittest. This trilogy turned the anticipated right on its head and made for compulsive reading from start to finish.

Homeland leads into Exile, Book 2, and Sojourn, Book 3 as Drizzt's innate moral code is tested, develops, and leads him inexorably to the light. The fascinating characters he meets along the way only added to the intrigue of this trilogy and all the many Drizzt stories that follow. Some favorite characters of mine are Zaknafein; Guenhwyvar, the magical panther "statuette" companion that Drizzt can summon; a blind human ranger named Montolio Debrouchee; the dwarven king Bruenor Battlehammer, and his adopted human daughter Catti-brie.

I went on to read many of the other Drizzt stories, and I'll include a list of those available below, but the Dark Elf Trilogy is the one that will always hold a special place on my keeper bookshelf.

Below are all the Legend of Drizzt books in chronological order:

The Dark Elf Trilogy

1. Homeland

2. Exile

3. Sojourn

The Icewind Dale Trilogy

4. The Crystal Shard

5. Streams of Silver

6. The Halfling's Gem

The Legacy of the Drow Series

7. The Legacy

8. Starless Night

9. Siege of Darkness

10. Passage to Dawn

The Paths of Darkness Series*

11. The Silent Blade

12. The Spine of the World

13. Servant of the Shard*

13. Sea of Swords

*Book #3 of this series, Servant of the Shard, was moved to the The Sellswords Trilogy written by R.A. Salvatore, which includes Servant of the Shard, Promise of the Witch-King, and Road of the Patriarch and focuses on main characters Artemis Entreri and the Basadoni Guild instead of on Drizzt or his usual companions.

The Hunter's Blades Trilogy

14. The Thousand Orcs

15. The Lone Drow

16. The Two Swords

The Transitions Series

17. The Orc King

18. The Pirate King

19. The Ghost King

The Neverwinter Saga

20. Gauntlgrym

21. Neverwinter

22. Charon's Claw

23. The Last Threshold

The Sundering

24. The Companions

The Companion's Codex

25. Night of the Hunter

26. Rise of the King

27. Vengeance of the Iron Dwarf

The Homecoming Series

28. Archmage

29. Maestro

30. Hero

The Generations Series

31. Timeless

32. Boundless

33. Relentless

The Way of the Drow Series

34. Starlight Enclave

35. Glacier's Edge

36. Lolth's Warrior

The Collected Stories: The Legend of Drizzt Anthology contains stories written by Salvatore related to the Legend of Drizzt setting.

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/

Should Animals Have Human Rights?

I've recently reread Sharyn McCrumb's mystery novel IF I'D KILLED HIM WHEN I MET HIM, which includes a subplot about a woman who wants to marry a dolphin. That character argues that dolphins are intelligent, sensitive beings who should be treated as persons under the law. She also maintains that such a relationship wouldn't be animal abuse because male dolphins are quite -- assertive -- and have not infrequently attempted to mate with their keepers.

The upper intelligence range of some animals, such as dolphins, chimpanzees, octopuses, crows, and parrots, is said to overlap the lowest intelligence range of some human beings. Given this overlap, should highly intelligent nonhuman animals be granted rights equivalent to ours even though they don't belong to our species?

The Treehugger site discusses the concepts of rights and duties; it also distinguishes "animal rights" from the position of animal welfare. It states that animal rights advocates don't "want nonhuman animals to have the same rights as people":

What Are Animal Rights?

It defines the philosophy of animal rights as "the belief that humans do not have a right to use animals for our own purposes."

This page defines the basic tenets of animal rights, discusses specieism, and argues against the uniqueness of the human species:

Basic Tenets

This case from 2015 proposes legal personhood and the right to sue in court for chimps "detained" in a zoo:

Chimpanzee Detention

The article includes several relevant outside links and a timeline of some important animal-related cases in legal history.

Famed utilitarian philosopher Peter Singer, author of ANIMAL LIBERATION, goes further than the Treehugger article in some respects but less so in others. (His position allows for meat-eating and animal experimentation in some circumstances.):

Peter Singer

He holds that "the boundary between human and 'animal' is completely arbitrary," a belief that could plausibly be extended to an argument that nonhuman animals should have the same legal rights as Homo sapiens. This debate could gain urgent practical relevance if we ever meet extraterrestrial aliens who don't look anything like us.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Tilting At Windmills

Don Quixote tilted at windmills, which is to say that he leveled his lance at a windmill, spurred on his horse to the greatest speed of which his horse was capable, and drove the point of his lance at the flailing building.

Some quests may be delusional. Some may be futile. Sometimes, the perceived enemy is not really an enemy, and sometimes the perception might be correct, but is ridiculed. 

Here is a lecture about tilting at windmills given by Professor Ryan Prendergast of the University of Rochester.

https://www.sas.rochester.edu/mlc/news-events/news/2019-03-24_prendergast_last_lecture.html

Here is a link to an excellent article by Christopher Gravett that tells you almost everything you might ever want to know about jousting. 

https://www.livescience.com/jousting

For even more information as to how a jousting tournament relates to "tilting", Sudelely Castle has a great dictionary.

https://sudeleycastle.co.uk/news/jousting-dictionary-everything-need-know

For the estoteric, since the tilt was originally a length of cloth or cloth covering, later wood, used to divide the oncoming knights into two lanes to add a little orderliness to the joust, "tilting" is probably an example of metonymy,  where a part replaces a whole: such as "he is fond of the bottle", or "all hands on deck".

By the way, if one looks at pictures of the Quintain, the idea of attacking a windmill suddenly makes more sense. 

Metaphorically speaking, we writers and friends of writers can all tilt at windmills, and perhaps if enough of us sign the Authors Guild petition, some good may come of it, notwithstanding the overwhelming unlikeliness of the addressees doing "the right thing".

https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/authors-guild-open-letter-to-generative-ai-leaders

Happy Fourth!

All the best,

Rowena Cherry

SPACE SNARK™  

http://www.spacesnark.com/   

http://www.rowenacherry.com

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

Inescapably Unromantic

There are some scientific facts about space travel that are inconvenient. Again, I am talking about astronauts and their bodies. 

First, it should be said since my usual topic on this platform is mostly copyright-related, one cannot copyright titles, one cannot copyright facts. What one can copyright is the "expression" of those facts or information.

Fair Use of someone else's copyrighted and published article might include reportage, critique, educational regurgitation, or parody.

For more information, here's a resource that one might describe as the horse's mouth: https://www.copyright.gov/fair-use/

The March/April issue of DISCOVER magazine, about "science that matters" contains an article on SPACE AGING by Dave Williams and Elizabeth Howell, with illustrations by Kellie Jaeger (which are unique works that cannot be copied).

Here are ten inescapably unromantic facts about space travellers, reported in no particular order.

a) Astronauts are more likely to grow kidney stones, including very large ones.

Here is an article (from somewhere else) about Urinary conditions suffered by NASA astronauts. https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/20150020958

b) Astronauts' feet grow very soft in space, owing to disuse.

Well, I suppose soft-soled feet aren't all that unromantic

c) During a six-month stint in zero or microgravity, an astronaut can age by up to twenty years, and upon their return to earth, astronauts can be relatively feeble.

d) Spines elongate in space.

e) Legs become spindly (thin).

f) Bones become brittle, which is attributable to premature osteoporosis. 

(The building blocks of bones migrate to the urinary system, hence the painful and previously mentioned kidney stones.)

g) Faces and necks can become unattractively "puffy".

h) Arteries stiffen.

i) Hearts change shape.

j) The senses, especially vision, deteriorate.

k) Being in space can mess with ones insulin resistance.

These passion-killer facts need not ruin a good story. Here's a video about the international space station, and there is some enlightening commentary attached.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=im-JM0f_J7s

For the rest, that's what imagination is for... or reading scientific magazines and watching lots of David Attenborough/BBC documentaries.

All the best,

Rowena Cherry 

SPACE SNARK™  

http://www.spacesnark.com/   

http://www.rowenacherry.com

EPIC Award winner, Friend of ePublishing for Crazy Tuesday