It's amazing what you can find on the internet:Originally Posted by Angie Gallant
Author's Note
This is, as you may have gathered, a special novel, the first of several unrelated projects I have had in
mind for some time that are of more consequence than my fantasy. From inception to completion was
about seven years, because I did not pursue it until I was satisfied about its nature. It is technically a
monster story, concluding with a suggestion of the horror to come when alien fireflies who understand
man are loosed on the world. If one ignorant monster could cause such mischief, what of the
knowledgeable ones? I have no sequel in mind; the reader may imagine that aspect for himself. The
essence of this novel is in the characters, especially OEnone. I am of course in love with her, as I am with
all my leading ladies, and I hope you are too, if you are male, and that you understand her if you are
female. She represents the triumph of imagination over dull reality or quiet desperation, and I think there
are many women like her to some degree. This can be an ugly world.
This novel addresses more than peripherally the problem of abuse. It occurs in many forms, physical and
emotional, and is exacerbated by the insensitivity, ignorance, or downright malice of others. It does
happen in "nice" families, and much of it is not of the screaming rape type. It may be subtle and
persistent, yet it can be hellish. The games five-year-old Nymph played with Mad were a joy to her at
the time, but it was nevertheless abuse by our society's definition (not necessarily by that of other
societies), and her life was significantly colored by the experience thirty years later. What happened to
May is unfortunately also not that rare. I don't know what to do about such problems, but surely there
will be no genuine solutions until there is a proper recognition of the situation.
The setting for this novel is my home; OEnone used our guest bedroom. The house, cabin, landscape,
roads, trees, and wildlife are as described, except for location; my avocation is tree farming. I believe
that the salvation of the world well may lie in trees, and not just the commercial varieties. The
community of wild creatures resides in the noncommercial wilderness.
One of the included stories was written by Santiago Hernandez, in prison for pedophilia. This is one of
the few nonsexual, nonromantic entries: the one about two professors pondering exchanging their
spouses, concluding with a reference to me: the ogre in the Flower State near the cartoon-comic city.
This is the story OEnone did not tell; Geode dreamed she was telling it, so it was a product of his own
imagination, and came out completely different from any she would have told. The point is that later,
when the monster starts telling him stories, he knows it really is OEnone, because he can not invent
anything similar himself. I know this one is not the kind I would devise, because I did not; to me it is
mostly incomprehensible, as a wild dream might be.
But this is another bit of evidence of the problem in our society: as far as I know, Santiago Hernandez
did not hurt anyone. He just happens to be sexually attracted to small boys. We assume that the only
normal state is adult heterosexuality, and certainly this is my own preference, but I am in doubt whether
other types of interest are not also natural to our species. Homosexual men, for example, are not likely to
produce many offspring, yet around the world the percentage of homosexuals remains fairly constant at
about ten percent. I suspect there is a similarly constant percentage of bisexuals, and of other supposedly
deviant preferences. There seems to be a broad spectrum of human desire, and what we call normal is
only the central component. May's sadistic husband was sexually normal by the standard definition. It
may be that the problem is not with what is deviant, but with our definitions. I suggest in the novel that
little Nymph was abused not by the man with whom she had sex, but by members of her family who
warped her taste, and by the society that preferred to condemn her lover rather than address the source of
the problem in her family.
Those who feel that OEnone's stories represent abnormal taste should read My Secret Garden by Nancy
Friday, which details some of the sexual fantasies of women. Neither is Nymph an invention; similar
cases are all too frequent. These aspects were from my research rather than my imagination. I don't
know what is right and what is wrong; I merely hope to raise some social questions along with the
entertainment provided in the novel. I suspect our priorities are confused. We have problems enough
with world hunger and injustice, without making more by punishing people for deviant but perhaps
harmless behavior.
I've only read Alexander's Prydain series, so I'll have to check out the Westmark trilogy some time. I re-read the Prydain series a few months back and IMO it holds up really well. The first time I read the books (I'm thinking early teen years) Taran Wanderer was my least favorite. I know I re-read them a few years later, but we're talking over 15 years ago since then.
Taran Wanderer was my favorite this time.
Piers Anthony sounds like a mangaka. You know, one of those who move "up" from rapey dating sims to Love Hina.
I remember disliking that one because of the lack of Eilonwy but when I reread them, yeah, that one moved up.
The High King still makes me cry.
Louis C.K.: Genius.
Except if anything, he did it in reverse: started out with mildly kinky sex farces before graduating to full-blown fetishism and pedo impulses.
I think that's why a lot of people appreciated his stuff as kids. On the face of it, it's pretty light-hearted and funny fantasy instead of serious end of the world stuff. But these days, even creepy sex stuff aside, I think there are just better options out there. There's a whole bumper crop of youth-appropriate fantasy in the last few years. Off the top of my head, all of Terry Pratchett's stuff is similar in tone, less creepy, and better written.
I know this is sort of unnecessary to point out, but the problem I had with Xanth, even as a kid (although I couldn't identify it at the time), is that there's no consistency to the magic system, so there's no good way to plot a story arc, because whatever is convenient suddenly exists as long as there's a pun for it.
Terry Pratchet. Good call for a kid's series. Start with Colour of Magic or maybe one of his standalone books...?
Or one of his actual kids books, such as The Amazing Maurice or Wee Free Men.
Last few years? There always has been good kid's fantasy books out there: Madeline L'engle, Lloyd Alexander, Susan Cooper, Roald Dahl, Norton Juster, L Frank Baum, Lewis Carroll, etc.
Those are all authors I cut my teeth on as a kid, and I think are all age-appropriate pre-teen books.
The more recent "bumper crop" books are crap like Eragon and an endless supply of Harry Potter knockoffs, although the Inkheart and Ember series are supposed to be good (and of course Pullman's stuff.)
What rape is there in Lovecraft? There are plenty of allusions to miscegeny, something that apparently freaked him out, and he was certainly bigoted in various ways, but I don't remember any characters in any sexual situations at all offhand. Of course, I haven't read his complete works.
There've been plenty of allusions to rape in the mythos, but not by Lovecraft himself. If anything, his works give the distinct impression that sex in general, and specifically vaginas, scared the living shit out of him.
That was my impression too.
There was a really funny one man skit put on a couple of years ago at the H.P. Lovecraft festival where in a school age H.P. is confronted with a drawing of a vagina on a chalkboard in a sex education class.
Absolutely hilarious, I believe there is a dvd or sumsuch, but the name escapes me*.
*Late Bloomer which seems to be a more fleshed out version of the skit I saw, can't say how good it is.
Because nobody demanded it - a trailer for Late Bloomer
Last edited by BlueJackalope; 04-02-2010 at 07:43 PM.
If it did happen, it was "off-screen," so to speak. Consensual sex occurred somewhat more often, IIRC.
*nods* Yep, I think the first thing I read of his was Split Infinty. Loved his stuff as a kid and read everything he wrote for years.
Not to defend Anthony (because he's terrible), but just to play Devil's Advocate -- Lewis Carroll?
Or Lovecraft. I'd argue his paranoid and rabid racism maybe made him a more effective horror writer.
It's possible for a writer to be a horrible human being and produce things that are still worth reading. Piers Anthony, of course, is a horrible human being AND a horrible writer, so no help to him.
Interesting you should bring this up. There's a Smithsonian article about this subject that I read this month.
I think some of it is a matter of us looking at a 19th century man from the 21st century. A quote from the article:
His image as a man of suspect sexuality “says more about our society and its hang-ups than it does about Dodgson himself,” Will Brooker says. We see him through the prism of contemporary culture—one that sexualizes youth, especially female youth, even as it is repulsed by pedophilia.
Last edited by Athryn; 04-02-2010 at 10:24 AM.
Heck yeah. L'Engle's "A Wrinkle in Time" series got me through grade school.
Insert mandatory reference to the Sonia Greene (a.k.a. Mrs. Lovecraft) quote about how he was "an adequately excellent lover".
I love Pratchett to bits, but I've never been able to discern a difference between the style of his 'kids' books and everything else. I mean 'Equal Rites'
has a young protagonist, but it's not in the 'kids books' section... eh, you can't really go wrong with him.
...
My two year old daughter is having lunch right next to me and I just had a little happy thinking of all the cool books I can give her to read :)
We'll probably have eye implant readers available by then. Or maybe the iBall.
The kids' books have chapter breaks.
I read On A Pale Horse as a teenager and really enjoyed it. The series rapidly went downhill, and I never made it past the third or fourth book and I lost interest in Anthony.
From the rest of this topic, looks like a good thing.
The sixth book was by far the worst, as the entire plot of the book hung on stupid wordplay, wherein it was revealed that (spoilers, but honestly if you care about spoilers at this point, you're not reading this thread) the character named "Natasha" was actually an anagram for "Ah, Satan".
You can imagine how book-throwingly awesome it was to see J.K. Rowling use this exact plot point in the Harry Potter books.
Louis Cypher approves.
"In the year 1999, the world will be run by a computer known as 'S.A.-TAN', a clever concealment of the name 'Satan'"
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