Steal the Newsletter: Earthsea's Chapter 1, War with Art mini: On Experts, and my Cyberpunk thriller
New worlds. New Inspirations.
A First Chapter read: Ursula K. Le Guin’s A Wizard of Earthsea
While in San Franciso recently, a friend asked if I had read A Wizard of Earthsea. I was sad to say the only Le Guin I had read was The Left Hand of Darkness (which I found interesting).
I took his question as a dare (this is the way to live, friends), and plunged in.
I can’t remember an opening chapter with so little dialogue. 10 lines in the first 17 pages…which includes such diatribes as:“Come with me”
“Speak!”
“I promise.”
&
“Wuluah! Atwah!”
Still, it works perfectly. You feel like you’re reading something classic and weighty. Diving into a world where magic feels so dangerous and unruly. Evil.
The story here is a refreshing twist on the farmboy beginning. Gunny, our agriculturally grounded protagonist, instigates the story by innocently mimicking a rhyme he heard his witchy aunt use to control a goat. When it works(!), a minor success with one goat, he decides to recite louder for all the goats to hear.
It's a chilling moment that heralds the dark side of power. Delicious.
Then, in a desperate bid to protect his village from marauders, he tries the same thing with the fog(?!) shrouding his village in a protective embrace. The toll of using such power is to be trapped in a silent fog in his own mind… only to be released by the power of a true wizard.
Yes... an opening worthy of envy. That sets the stage for a tale of magic—raw, enslaving, and fraught with consequences. It's not just a story; it's a warning and a promise, I think… but I won’t know until I read the rest.
I also picked it up from an amazing independent bookstore in San Francisco called Borderland Books. Support local when you can :)
“War With Art” Mini thought
“They muddy the water, to make it seem deep." - Friedrich Nietzsche
In a past writing class, my "literary" instructor dismissed genre fiction (fantasy, horror, sci-fi) as something lesser. Emphasizing that profound exploration of the human condition comes from literary fiction and went on to lecture the class on how “important” techniques (don’t fall asleep!) are used in literary fiction…. things like: Germination, Diegesis, Mise-en-scene, Prolepsis, Ars Poetica, Exegsis, Euphony, and Denouement. The class seemed a bit stunned by it all.
I didn’t argue too much with him about the value of speculative fiction, at times you let the professor profess even when skeptical of the message (yes, even when you’re full of counter-examples). That said, when he questioned us on our knowledge of terms, I did point out that Mise-en-scene is “staging” and Prolepsis is more or less “foreshadowing” (while agreeing that denouement is a good term).
What’s my point?
Nietzsche was right and my instructor, bless his literary heart, was wrong.
Don’t let jargon, experts, and other nonsense stand in your way when trying to learn more about your craft, discipline, or really anything. Things worth learning are usually simple in concept but difficult to master. Said another way, true knowledge is powerful in its simplicity.
If you want more thoughts like this (with more episodes to come soon, I promise): check out the War with Art.
Cyberpunk Thriller
Speaking of genre fiction, I’m into the last revision of Aardehn: Awakenings (that’s the working title at least).
How about some details as artist Eric Vedder and I get closer to release?
The Setting: The neon-drenched megacity of Torin, where everything is literally powered and paid for with blood.
The Hero: Celeste, an agent whose only connection to the past is the samurai sword she has holstered to her hip. Working for the THP, a government agency that polices the illegal blood trade, Celeste is on a mission to hunt down a notorious terrorist named The Teardrinker.
The Challenges:
Celeste’s main squad mates, two cybernetically enhanced officers, have a puzzling agenda beyond the mission.
The Teardrinker has captured a secret weapon that Celeste thinks can be used to destroy the city
Celeste’s own shattered memory and the secrets behind the weapon she wields.
…and all that is complicated by her romantic entanglement with [redacted], and of her bizarre relations with [redacted as well].
The delivery: This is a cinematic novella(TM).
The book is loaded with my prose and Eric’s amazing art. It has sections of comics, illustrations, and graphic design elements to immerse you in our world… we’re getting pretty excited about releasing it this year.
Check out the current Cover (work-in-progress).
Meanwhile, beyond the Jeweled Lands
“To Steal the Sun” was at Raid’s booth at the Toronto Comic Con.
It was really cool to see a new review for the book go up.
Amazon.com reviews for TSTS sit at 4.5, which I enjoy seeing and seems to be grabbing a lot of new readers and newsletter subscribers (welcome!).
Looking forward to being a guest at the East Coast Comic Con in Moncton on June 8th. Will have a stash of books and goodies with me, so if you’re going, please come by and chat.
That’s it for now. If you’ve read Earthsea or have thoughts on Nietchze, Aardehn or To Steal the Sun—please comment (I’d love to talk to you).
S.M. Carter
P.S.
I’ve been playing Cyberpunk 2077 of late, wonder why?
P.S.S.
In case you were wondering, the simplified version of the terms: Germination (Ideation), Diegesis (Narration), Mise-en-scene (Staging), Prolepsis (Foreshadowing), Ars Poetica (Writing about writing), Exegesis (interpreting), Euphony (pleasant to read), Denouement (a cool term for the resolving the plot threads. You might even call it “the ending,” but, that might be a bit too simple.)
I like the short-hand that some of these terms give, and I think that more specificity is a worthy aim that you get from using the right word. My point, again, is that terminology shouldn’t ever be used as a barrier to understanding.