Reviews 64 - Transgressions of Power by Juliette Wade

Reviews 64

Transgressions of Power

by

Juliette Wade

Transgressions of Power is not a Romance, but it is intrigue with Relationships as the story driver, political revolution as the plot driver.  It is a suspense novel set amidst palace intrigue, and all about "power."  

Wade has spent the most time, words, and energy on describing and illustrating the social stratification of a civilization, rather than examining the human compulsion to acquire power over others. Power is the goal of the characters, and the author assumes the reader understands everything she wants to say about power rather than explaining and discussing power-mongering in the root theme.

The external "threat" is a species of flying somethings that kill people on the planetary surface but don't kill people who are in caves, underground.  So the civilization has built buildings in a large cavern with a river flowing through it (noise does not seem to be a problem).  

One (of several) lead characters is a woman who has excelled at killing the flying things on the surface, and loves the outdoors, but has been "rewarded" by being assigned a prestigious ceremonial guard position entirely underground.

Other characters are nobles of this civilization struggling over the succession for the "throne" or dictator position while engineering a revolution to overturn the caste stratification.  

Everyone we meet interacting with these characters seems satisfied with the caste system, but some nobles want to destroy it. There is no explanation of where the system came from, why it should be overturned (other than that it is a system, and one gains power by destroying systems) or what army will do the overturning and what that army will replace the caste system with that is better (and why it is better).

The author spends most of the book describing the involuted caste system with forgettable names and functions and never addresses any of the obvious questions.

Thus the married couple of nobles trying to overturn the system seem vacuous.  They intend to arouse a populace that is satisfied with their system (even when it leaves them trapped in poverty).

The highly skilled soldier is not satisfied with the ceremonial position, learns something odd is going on among the nobles, and gets herself appointed to be a spy on the nobles.  Nothing in her character makes becoming a spy any sort of triumph or defeat of her personal purpose in life. She's not made of the fabric of a Hero such as we have discussed previously:

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2019/02/theme-character-integration-part-16.html

The lack of show-don't-tell discussion of these points encoded into the worldbuilding and thematic underpinnings, illustrated symbolically, throws this novel into a category I could only designate as a polemic or possibly a screed.  The novel seems to be expressing disgust for a caste system, a disgust based on nothing. This makes it seem that the author doesn't actually have an opinion of her own on the topic of caste-structured-society, but has simply adopted someone else's opinion.

In other words, the novel has no theme. It is a statement of opinion about caste and maybe somewhat about political power.  

Possibly future novels in the series could reveal that the author has thought all this out. Possibly these deficiencies could simply be lack of writing craftsmanship.  But this is the second published book in The Broken Trust series, and I expected more.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

In Your Teeth

If I were to suggest that you could whiten your teeth by gargling with your first-of-the-morning urine, and you decided to try it and it made you ill, you probably could not sue me successfully.

At least, not in Europe, and not for disinformation or misleading advertising, if I correctly interpret a recent case about applying horseradish to bare skin.

 

Legal bloggers Russell Williamson and Ayah Elomrani for the international law firm Bird & Bird (twobirds.com) explain the interesting issue of what happens if you believe everything you read in the media and are hurt by it.

 

Original link:

https://www.twobirds.com/en/news/articles/2021/global/pass-the-mustard-incorrect-advice-found-in-a-newspaper-regarding-a-horseradish-herbal-remedy-is-not

Lexology link:

https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=b32f1726-9889-494b-bc40-a2f431d54daa&utm_source=lexology+daily+newsfeed&utm_medium=html+email+-+body+-+general+section&utm_campaign=lexology+subscriber+daily+feed&utm_content=lexology+daily+newsfeed+2021-04-30&utm_term=

By the way, for those who enjoy some of the strange law stories found on the best legal blogs, you might like the anthology "No Law Against Love" by Deborah MacGillivray, Jacqui Rogers et alia.

Which has very little to do with teeth.... or the dubious effectiveness of urine as a beauty regimen, but here are a couple of interesting links:

Dr. Charles Gemmi of Philadelphia gives us eight shocking facts about teeth:
https://www.orthodonticslimited.com/teeth/8-shocking-facts-about-teeth-2-are-particularly-strange/

Kristin Lewis, for Scholastic compiles dental stories from a three-thousand-years-old musician named Djed, who died of dental disease to more recent dentistry scams. It's a highly entertaining read.

https://scope.scholastic.com/issues/2017-18/100117/the-history-of-teeth.html

For something more visually inspiring, Google "weird teeth". Speaking for myself, others may be more thorough, and with the exception of vampire romances, I've not noticed a lot of interest in alien dentition in fiction. Like visits to the bathroom once the seat is down, the contents of a hero's mouth are just not that romantic.

 

Teeth are deeply important to primates, and not just as a signal of a potential mate's health, strength, temperament, prosperity, ability to provide, pleasantness to be around, fitness as a mate.

As a matter of survival, primates have always had to read facial-grimace language for welcomes, warnings and other cues about how to stay safe.  There is a PEAK game where you have milliseconds to identify friendly faces out of a mass of questionable tooth exposure, and also closed-lip smiles. I am exceptionally good at it.

 

On "toothy grins":  

"Our results indicate that, contrary to previous assertions, detection of smiles or frowns is relatively slow in crowds of neutral faces, whereas toothy grins and snarls are quite easily detected." 

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120614182554.htm

On "friend or foe" subliminal reactions (to teeth displays)

Ron Dotsch, formerly of Utrecht University in the Netherlands, describes how the unconscious mind processes human faces and the two types of faces it chooses to consciously see, namely: those associated with dominance and threat and, to a lesser degree, with trustworthiness.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/12/171219110043.htm

Probably, if someone bares his or her teeth to such an extent that the molars are visible, that is a full-mouth snarl, and the onlooker should beware, particularly if there is no obvious provocation for the anger display.

It is weird that in many Western cultures, "toothy grin" is a pejorative. One does not see heroes described as having toothy grins. Yet, private and public figures undergo great expense and long term discomfort to achieve disproportionately large teeth.

The Cassell-published, 1981 version of Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase & Fable catalogues important cultural uses of "tooth" and "teeth" in the then-modern idiom.

This is not it, but it might be close:

https://chambers.co.uk/book/brewers-dictionary-phrase-fable/

By the skin of one's teeth.

From the teeth outwards.

He has cut his eye-teeth.

To draw one's eye-teeth.

His teeth are drawn.

In spite of his teeth.

In the teeth of the wind.  (In the teeth of opposition. "To strive with all the tempest in my teeth." Pope.)

To cast into one's teeth.

To get one's teeth into something.

To have a sweet tooth.

To lie in one's teeth. 

To put teeth into....

To set one's teeth on edge.

To show one's teeth.

To take the bit between one's teeth.

With tooth and nail.

So, dear reader, what's in your teeth?

All the best,

Rowena Cherry 

SPACE SNARK™ http://www.spacesnark.com/  http://www.rowenacherry.com

Beginner's Mind

This week I watched a video lecture on creativity delivered by Kermit the Frog. It started with a celebration of the Big Bang as the original creative act (although without references to a Deity). Kermit gave inspirational advice on ideas such as inspired craziness and thinking outside the standard rules. He speculated on why we're put in this world and declared our purpose is to be creative, for everybody is creative in some way. Here's the video in case you want to listen to it. (It's fairly long.)

Listening to a Talking Frog

One of the concepts discussed in the talk, "beginner's mind," particularly struck me.

The Beauty of Beginner's Mind

As I understand it, this means approaching experiences without being bound by preconceptions, as far as possible. The short essay on this page (a teaser to lure the visitor into deeper exploration) says the "wisdom of uncertainty frees us from. . . the thicket of views and opinions." As a result, "When we are free from views, we are willing to learn." The person in this frame of mind is compared to a child, who sees the world with fresh eyes.

That page doesn't explicitly link "beginner's mind" to the creative process, as Kermit's lecture does, but the connection is clear. An artist or inventor who embraces this mindset can hope to generate fresh, individual work not quite like anything that has gone before. The concept resonates with me because it reminds me of my creative process and emotions when I originally started writing stories. I produced my first writings, aside from class assignments and a couple of allegedly humorous science-fiction skits, at the age of thirteen. Reading DRACULA at age twelve had turned me on to vampires, horror, fantasy, and "soft" SF of all kinds. Because I was limited to the offerings of the local public library and one store that sold paperbacks, I got a solid grounding in Victorian and Edwardian classics and the vintage works of the major pulp authors before I ever read much recent speculative fiction or viewed any horror films—a circumstance I consider very fortunate. This reading inspired me to want to write my own fiction, since I couldn't afford to buy many books and the sources available to me didn't have enough of the kinds of stories I wanted—mainly relationships between human and "monstrous" characters. So I had to create them for myself.

Incidentally, my impulse to start writing didn't spring from internal drives alone. It had a technological catalyst, too: I got access to my aunt's old typewriter, left in my grandmother's house. Finding a textbook from my aunt's high-school typing class, I taught myself the rudiments of touch-typing. Whenever I stayed overnight or longer at my grandmother's, I typed stories (until my parents gave me a portable typewriter of my own, and I could compose fiction at home also without the constraint of handwriting). Similarly, the much later advent of word processing with our first computer in the early 1980s sparked my creativity anew by eliminating the necessity to retype whole pages, or even multiple pages, to correct small errors or insert minor revisions. The computer removed a barrier between my creative impulses and their concrete expression, making it possible to refine my work further. (No more qualms about whether changing a word or two was worth retyping a page.)

When I started producing stories, I had the "beginner's mind." I didn't know any of the conventional "rules" for fiction, only the basic grammar and spelling I'd learned in English classes. In fact, when I eventually submitted my first book to a publisher, I didn't know anything about publishing except that submissions had to be double-spaced on one side of the page and include a SASE. But that stage came later, of course. For the stories I wrote as a teenager, I imitated the elements I loved in the horror and speculative fiction I avidly read, while tweaking the themes and tropes in accordance with my own fantasies. Because I wasn't inhibited by knowing what I was "supposed" to do, the words flowed almost faster than I could get them onto the page. The process of writing itself enthralled me, and I spent as much time on it as I could spare from school, chores, and other obligations. My third completed piece was a single-spaced novelette over thirty pages long, in the form of the journal of a man inadvertently changing into a vampire.

Now that I know the "rules" and have more experience in recognizing flaws in my own writing (and that of others), I work slowly and laboriously. I proceed like the centipede who has trouble walking because he can't decide which foot to move first. I don't often enjoy the first-draft process very much, although I do like brainstorming, outlining, proofreading the nearly-finished outcome, and the fulfillment of "having written." I sometimes miss the "first, fine careless rapture" of my teens and early twenties. On the plus side, my work has grown far better than it was when I had no idea what I was doing. I finish novels rather than bogging down in the middle because I haven't plotted in advance. I produce fairly polished first drafts that don't elicit heavy revision requests from editors. If only one could keep the "beginner's mind" along with the benefits of learning and experience.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Afterthoughts Part 1

Afterthoughts 

Part 1

In anticipation of there being more afterthoughts - plus a number of reviews and commentaries on long series of books - I put PART 1 in the title.  

At the moment, my everyday task list to keep life going smoothly takes up most of my time and all of my energy, but it is all getting done.

I have maybe 20 minutes of reading time a day -- not getting through books as fast as the best ones are published.  My life is very un-organized right now.

I have a bunch of Kindle books in to-be-read-and-reviewed.

I also did manage to watch (in short snatches) Episode 2 of Season 3 of HAWAII-5-O (the original series), which is about an astrologer -- but presents phony astrology along with a bit of actual factual astrology.  

I do love that show, but mostly for the casting. 

The watchword here is adding sex to science doesn't make it Science Fiction Romance. 

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Size Matters

If yours is small, April 26th is your day to shine.  

"Yours" meaning your IP enterprise. Why, because April 26th is World Intellectual Property Day, and for the entire week, the world is promoting and celebrating small and medium-sized IP- related enterprises.

https://www.wipo.int/ip-outreach/en/ipday/

If you offer services to copyright owners, you can visit an interactive world map and add your details. So far, there are a smattering of IP attorneys, but if you support authors, this is a great promo opportunity.

https://smesupportmap.wipo.int/map

Don't wait for Monday to put yourself on the map. You might not be seen by the early birds.

Authors, maybe scramble to do a blog or organize an Event in celebration of Intellectual Property Day 2021.  You can promote it to the world here:

https://www.wipo.int/ip-outreach/en/ipday/2021/events_calendar.html

The Copyright Alliance is hosting a couple of events. 

On Tuesday April 27th, at 1.00 pm Eastern, they have "Creative Enterprises: Small  Business, BIG Impact", and on April 28th, at 1.00 pm Eastern, they have "Small Enterprises Making a BIG Difference; Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts." If you did not know that there are lawyers who will help creators for  free, look out for the VLA panel discussion.

For lots more information, events, ideas, and possible promo ops for members of the Copyright Alliance, click here: 

https://copyrightalliance.org/trending-topics/world-ip-day-week-2021/

If you only watch one message from a politician, check out Thom Tillis who has been a strong supporter of IP rights for authors. He is on the copyright alliance page, second down and is very succinct.

All the best,

Rowena Cherry 

SPACE SNARK™ http://www.spacesnark.com/  http://www.rowenacherry.com

EPIC Award winner, Friend of ePublishing for Crazy Tuesday   

Ownership of Ideas

Volume 31, Issue 1 of the JOURNAL OF THE FANTASTIC IN THE ARTS includes an article by Dennis Wilson Wise on the literary development of EPVIDS (evil, possessed, vampire, demonic swords). He begins with the trope's modern origins in the works of J. R. R. Tolkien and Poul Anderson, who borrowed motifs from Finnish and Norse legends, which in turn share common roots. Wise then analyzes the uses of sentient, demonic swords by Michael Moorcock and other more recent sword-and-sorcery authors. The article fascinatingly highlights how the different writers incorporated the same archetypal concept into their fictional worlds in their own individual ways.

Editor John Campbell is said to have sometimes proposed the same plot or theme to several different contributors at once. Each writer would come up with a unique story, unlike any of the others. There are no completely "original" fiction ideas. Robert Heinlein claimed that only three basic plots exist. Space for creative "originality" lies in the execution of the idea.

I know of at least two anthologies based on filk songs that illustrate this principle. The fantasy anthology LAMMAS NIGHT, edited by Josepha Sherman, comprises a variety of stories based on Mercedes Lackey's song of that title. The volume begins with the lyrics of the song, followed by Lackey's own conversion of the poem into a prose narrative. The rest of the stories develop the premise in many different directions. CARMEN MIRANDA'S GHOST IS HAUNTING SPACE STATION THREE, edited by Don Sakers, plays a similar game with a Leslie Fish song. Long ago, I read an anthology weaving variations on the plot of "The Highwayman," the classic poem by Alfred Noyes (unfortunately, I don't remember the book's title).

Vivian Vande Velde's single-author collection THE RUMPELSTILTSKIN PROBLEM explores six different angles on the traditional fairy tale, offering explanations for the details that don't seem to make sense. (For example, if the little man can spin straw into gold, why would he care about getting the heroine's ring and necklace as rewards?) And other authors have created their own versions of Rumpelstiltskin, such as Naomi Novik in SPINNING SILVER. Among countless re-imaginings of "Beauty and the Beast," Robin McKinley wrote two, and Mercedes Lackey has published three.

These works demonstrate a truth Lackey repeats over and over on Quora, in answer to questions from naive aspiring authors: "You cannot copyright an idea."

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Theme-Character Integration Part 17 Building a Lead Character from Theme

Theme-Character Integration

Part 17

Building a Lead Character from Theme

Previous posts in this Theme-Character Integration series are indexed here: https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/07/index-to-theme-character-integration.html

The essence of story is CONFLICT. 

If you have a "story idea" - the key to developing the Characters who live out and thus illustrate (show don't tell) your story idea is to answer the question, "Who would have to conquer (insert story idea problem) in order to live Happily Ever After?" 

Plot (as I use the term throughout these Tuesday posts) is a series of events connected by "because." Plot is all about what people do in response to stimuli in their environment -- "environment" being the world you build for the characters which stimulates the particular character to live out the events that illustrate your story idea.  Sometimes a novel first surfaces in your vision as a Plot Idea. 

Story is the sequence of changes a Character undergoes while living out the events of your plot which is the result of the environment the Character is embedded in.

The Romances I love best start with the Lead Character departing their environment and plunging (often willy-nilly) into a new environment they have to figure out as they go.

Re-read the opening of THE LORD OF THE RINGS - it is iconic. The most interesting part of a lead character's life starts when they leave their Hobbit Hole.

So a change of environment (going on vacation, being evicted from an apartment, divorcing, marrying, quitting a job, being "head-hunted" by a firm giving you a job way over your head)  makes a human much more keenly aware of environment, and brings long-held routine choices done subconsciously up into conscious choices.

Conscious choices cause actions which are the events of the because-line of Plot.

The way a Character handles change of environment depends almost entirely on their ability to judge other people -- and that ability accurately assess others is a product of the previous environment.

The ability to assess others accurately (insight) is a learned ability - usually learned in the school of hard knocks, for example marrying the wrong person then getting divorced and having children's lives displaced.

The process of learning to judge others accurately, and thus move smoothly through life, managing difficult situations generates plot which reshapes Character, producing Story.

For example, pulling a group together to produce a salutary result (e.g. organizing the parents of the PTA to pressure the school board to increase college opportunities for the system's Science Curriculum graduates) would make a first book in a Romance Series with a powerful heroine destined to be elected Governor, maybe President, over decades -- lots of novels.

We're talking LEADERSHIP here. 

What does it take to be a leader? 

What element of Character do you need to propel your Theme into the stark, clear, questioning hearts of the readers?

One indispensable trait of Leader Characters is the ability to see into the heart and soul of Others -- to understand what is going on inside others and then place those others into positions where their short-comings actually become major assists in the project.

In other words, the Leadership Trait that you, the writer, get to develop in your Lead Character is the ability to develop more Leaders.

THEME: Human society must mature to where every individual is a Leader.

CHARACTER: The victim of an online Bully, despised by parents for not fighting back effectively, secretly wins a Scholarship to Harvard and leaves home to earn a way into the Space Program.

To compete at Harvard (or pick a School with high standards), you not only have to be smart, you have to gain an understanding of the hearts and souls of your competition.

What you choose to do with that understanding reveals your strength of character. 

And there's your story generating plot -- the character destined to become a Leader gains a little power by understanding the competition and chooses to behave differently than HS classmates or parents behaved when they had power over the character. 

Why do they choose differently, and what difference do they choose to impose on their behavior? That's the story.

The plot is all about the consequences of those choices and what HAPPENS as a consequence of the consequence.

Is that beginning to sound like Harry Potter?

Here is an article to read about judging others, and how the ability to judge correctly can be employed.  Read to the bottom of the page to discover why it is titled DOUBLE STANDARD.

https://www.chabad.org/therebbe/article_cdo/aid/4032797/jewish/Avot-16-Double-Standard.htm

Note particularly what you can do in a Romance with a Character who sees in another a piercing Truth the other is not aware of.  

----------quote---------

Judge every man to the side of merit

Ethics of the Fathers, 1:6        

   

On the most elementary level, this means that if you discern a negative trait in your fellow or you see him commit a negative act, do not judge him guilty in your heart. "Do not judge your fellow until you are in his place," warns another of the Ethics' sayings, and his place is one place where you will never be. You have no way of truly appreciating the manner in which his inborn nature, his background or the circumstances that hold sway over his life have influenced his character and behavior.

However, this only explains why you should not judge your fellow guilty. Yet our Mishnah goes further than this, enjoining us to "judge every man to the side of merit." This implies that we should see our fellow's deficiencies in a positive light. But what positive element is implied by a person's shortcomings and misdeeds?

Differently Equal

An explanation may be found in another Talmudic saying: "Whoever is greater than his fellow, his inclination (for evil) is also greater." - a rule crucial to our understanding of a fundamental principle of Torah, man's possession of "free choice" regarding his actions.

Indeed, how can we consider a person's choices to be free and uncoerced, when there is so much inequality in life? Can we compare the moral performance of an individual whose character was shaped by a loving family, a stable environment and a top-notch education with that of one who has experienced only rootlessness, violence and despair? Can we compare a person who has naturally and effortlessly been blessed with a superior mind and a compassionate heart to one who has no so been privileged? Are their choices equally "free"? Are they equally accountable for their actions?

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

There are several hundred Science Fiction Romance SERIES of long novels wrapped up in this very condensed outline of a question about Character vs Action, about Story vs Plot.

The essence of story is Conflict. Inner conflict generates story -- external conflict generates plot -- THEME connects the two.

Why is this a principle of ART -- of novels? Because that is the structure of the universe which we recognize subconsciously but just can't quite grasp consciously.

In fact, consciously, humans tend to fight this idea is if it is an existential threat.  

The idea that those with the potential for greatest good have that potential for true great-goodness BECAUSE they also have an equally gigantic potential for Evil -- and that CONFLICT within the great leaders, movers and shakers, (such as Elon Musk?) is what generates their life story, and the public life's plot.

To become a fully mature species able to take a productive place in Galactic Society, humanity may need a social structure which cradles, buffers, develops and supports Leadership in everyone, but particularly those with the strongest inclination toward Evil.

If we could take our worst villains and point their energies at a productive target (colonizing Mars?), and cheer them on shouting their praises for doing GOOD, perhaps Evil would be vastly diminished -- to the point where the UFO people watching us from afar might invite us into Galactic Civilization.

If that's your theme, find the Character with the potential to settle that internal conflict in such a way that it reconfigures the external (public) conflict into a peaceful resolution.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com