Authorial Intent (Part 1)

I'm not at all ashamed to admit that I used to read and write fanfiction; I still get pangs from time to time but try and convince myself that if I'm writing I should put my efforts towards original stories (and end up writing nothing at all). Hell, I've even got a couple of fics that I can read today without cringing at their consummate awfulness (and some that are so terrible I can't bring myself to read em, but eh). An interesting aspect of fanfiction (perhaps due to the fact that many fic authors are female) is that it is very concerned with pairing off characters, and often in ways that the original creator did not intend.

As a former "shipper" (the name given to people who are particularly fond of a certain pairing, for example Ginny x Draco in Harry Potter) I'm acutely aware of this whenever I try and write a platonic friendship between a boy and a girl. What would be perfectly normal actions in real life can translate to simmering sexual tension in the eyes of a shipper.

I should take this time to point out that many shippers are quite, quite mad, choosing to see love and/or lust in the most mundane of things, deliberately misunderstanding the dynamic between some characters, declaring a typical resentment to be grounds for love/hate (which in itself is quite mad behaviour) and outright fabricating connections when there aren't any (see the above Draco x Ginny example; have they ever even said a word to each other, canonically?). Accounting for them is like trying to predict English weather, but I try nonetheless.

I also feel that to make a good story you need to put a lot of yourself into it, and that the best stories are ones that share a little something of a person's worldview. I think it was a Tim Rogers quote that said that said how you have to be vain to be a novelist, because you have to believe what you want to tell people is something that they should hear. At the same time however, I feel that this shouldn't get in the way of the story, instead complimenting it subtly. Of course, leaving things too open allows for misinterpretation, with people deriving entirely the wrong point from the message you were trying to convey.

Re-reading His Dark Materials I was surprised at quite heavy-handed Pullman was, which is rather saying something when you're talking about a book where God dies. It's a hard decision to make and an even harder balance to strike - the strength of the characters and writing meant that it didn't seem the wrong choice in HDM, but I very much doubt that I'd be able to do the same thing. Reading my own original work, my characters always seem to be very blatant copies of me, and the tone of the novel seems very deliberately trying to get a point across, but maybe it just seems that way to me as the creator.

This post was originally made back in like August and I've long since lost the train of thought, but it's an interesting topic I'd like to come back to. Let's call this Part 1!

A Dance with Dragons - Review

I often find that while I'm often initially very enthusiastic about something, this tends to wane over time due to contemplation, further experience and discussion. This is something of an abnormal attitude on the internet where people always seem to be 100% assured of their own opinion and can rarely be dissuaded, but I think it's helped me organise my thoughts better; there are a great many people more eloquent and observant than I am after all.

With that in mind, here follows my review of George RR Martin's A Dance with Dragons, the fifth book in his A Song of Ice and Fire series - written significantly after release so I've had time to marshal my thoughts (and forget some, like as not). I've kept it as spoiler-free as possible, due to many people being introduced to the series through the show.

For some fans, it has been a five year long wait for this book. I can count myself lucky; I started the series late last year and was unable to bring myself to finish the fourth book until earlier this year, shortly before the show started. DWD had a lot riding on it – it had to make up for A Feast for Crows’ departure from familiar characters and environs, move the story forward (the period covered in four and five was originally planned to be a time skip until Martin realised that there was too much that would need explaining) and justify the long wait.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t quite manage to fully accomplish any of these tasks. It starts off very well and has some genuinely excellent moments throughout, but for most of the middle it gives the feeling of not progressing. The ending is somewhat typical Martin shock fare, though by this point we’re rather accustomed to it and cannot get into it too much in any case, as unlike the events in the previous books we don’t get follow-up chapters that show the fallout, so the outcome remains ambiguous. With the bait-and-switch having been used too much, it’s hard to do much more than roll your eyes, especially with how long it took the instalment to come out. That said, Martin ending it as he did shows a certain confidence that he can release the next book in a timely manner, and a commitment to continuing on his current track.

A personal factor for me is that I find it hard to form attachments to Martin’s characters. Atypically, it’s not to do with the fact that they are underdeveloped; rather, it’s because the surviving cast have been through so many hardships that have changed them for the worse. Indeed, one of the main perspectives in DWD was so embittered by the events of A Storm of Swords that I couldn’t enjoy his chapters, despite him formerly being one of my favourite characters.

Structurally, DWD has three “main” perspectives who get the lion’s share of appearances, with the rest of the cast generally having two to four chapters each. The cast of characters covered totals an impressive sixteen, though some make rather a better showing of it than others. Of the four (if I recall correctly) new perspectives, while they all move the story forward only one I feel truly acquits himself well; of the others one is relatively dull despite being of significant import to the game of thrones, the thread introduced in AFfC is uninteresting and concludes in a disappointing manner, and one actually damages the mystery surrounding the character.

My biggest issue with DWD is that so much of the focus is away from the location we’ve invested the most time in and care about – much of the book is concerned with Meereen rather than Westeros and the Wall.

DWD is by no means a bad book, but when held up against the events the first three and the change in tone of the fourth book, it feels very lacking. It returns to many of the perspectives we last saw in a Storm of Swords and attempts to continue their story, but save for a few core arcs a lot of it feels superfluous, as if the story is treading water. It's a shame as I felt that it started very well; it's just that after the impressive beginning not much happens until the end. There's also the fact that after several thousand pages I'm rather used to Martin's tricks, so something that might have shocked or had me gripped before instead causes me to roll my eyes.

I also think it suffers from rather too much fan-pandering.  There was also one character who showed up quite literally for a single chapter only, and did nothing save acknowledge some setup from AFfC. That said, many of returning cast of characters were a treat to read, doing rather more with their handful of characters than the big players did with their many.

Something worth noting is that Martin's writing style feels as if it has changed slightly; some dialogue feels more modern and he rather overuses repetition of key phrases and certain words, which took me out of the experience a little whenever it cropped up. His world-building remains as strong as ever though, with the descriptions of food still bordering on pornographic.

All in all, Dance is one of the weaker books in Martin's series, and frustratingly ends just as it feels as if things are about to pick up. All this is understandable when you take into consideration the fact that it was meant as a transitionary book, but this is scant comfort when you're left wanting more at the end.

Monstrous Regiment - Review

I have three main problems with Monstrous Regiment.

1. It is boring. Polly is not an interesting character. She has one underlying motivation – to find her brother – and that is all. She likes her hair I guess? Okay. The rest of the cast is no better, save perhaps Blouse. So she becomes leader of a group just like hers, and takes up a Jackrum-like persona. Um, okay?

2. It is pointless. We are transported to an area of the world we have never heard about even vaguely, and a good deal of effort is expended trying to flesh out this awful location. The watch are completely superfluous here. The country is embroiled in a pointless war, and the little squad doesn’t change anything. The deaths they cause are needless, and if the characters hadn’t even joined up the ending would have been the same.

3. It is preachy. I believe the best stories have a message to share, but Pratchett is unusually heavy-handed here – it’s all message and no story. It squeezes in a lot of awful clichés – the abusive priest, the Victorian-esque workhouse for girls, the evils of blind faith, hypocrisy, censorship and propaganda, women being treated as inferior to men, the terrible things people are driven to in war. All of these issues he has tackled before, and far more eloquently. Angua, the witches and Susan are excellent proponents of feminism, Small Gods is an interesting take on belief and so on. There are too many ideas he's trying to explore in this one book.

I remember it coming out around the time of our actions in Iraq, so there’s also the fact that Ankh Morpork is only intervening because the clacks towers and the mail road are being destroyed, to serve their own interests. I thought it pretty blatant at the time and re-reading it hasn't changed my mind. Still, I did like the end of it when the general grimness was lightened, the obvious "oh they're all girls what a surprise" was out in the open and interesting stuff could actually happen.

It had the bad luck to come out between Night Watch and Going Postal, two excellent Pratchett stories. I guess they can't all be gems.