a-cubed.info

In three pieces of fiction involving heaven and hell (relatively) recently, I’ve come across a similar kind of concept: the idea of a place outside the influecen of heaven and hell. Is this a new meme bubbling up in fiction or is it just an old trope I’ve not recognised before? The three in question have very different versions of the idea, though:

• Mike Carey’s Lucifer series starts with Lucifer gaining an exist from God’s creation to “the void” beyond;
• Simon R. Green’s Nightside is explicitly created to be outside the power of both heaven and hell, although both angels and demons do visit it when the plot demands;
• Liz William’s The Shadow Pavilion introduces a new element to her classic Eastern mythology with Between the places in the cracks where inspiration comes from.

I’ve always liked supernatural thrillers, although they were few and far between until recently. Starting with Laurell K. Hamilton (there were others writing such stuff before her but she seems to have been the first really high profile success – and yes, I’m ignoring Anne Rice here) and her Anita Blake series, there has been a growing sub-genre of urban gothic. It usually posits a re-emergence of some or all of the traditional ghosts and ghoulies into society, either completely openly or partly hidden.

However, being a fan of the supernatural thriller elements in this fiction, I’ve ended up reading a bunch of stuff which has a 180 page supernatural thriller buried inside a 500 page book filled out with kinky sex. I don’t mind the odd sex scene in my fiction. Sex is part of life and including it in fiction can round out the emotional content. However, I find that many of these books are descending into what I’ve decided to dub “Thrills and Moon”, where the sex becomes the principle story and the thriller element becomes a sideline. Here is a list of some of the books in the supernatural thriller category I’ve read, with an indication of how much Thrills and Moon element they contain (all in my opinion of course).

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Someone just linked to the Lolthulhu site from User Friendly comment board. I’d not come across this one before. Great fun.

Autopope wrote a post that attracted over a hundred replies, trying to explain to believers what it’s like to be an unbeliever. I was one of the repliers, with something I’ve been meaning to post something about for a while.
My favourite book is “Lord of Light” by Roger Zelazny. This is for a number of reasons. One is his absolutely wonderful writing. Anyone who can write a line as simple as ” Yama poured more tea. Ratri ate another sweetmeat.” and have it perfectly convey an immensely complicated mood, was an utter genius.
Another of the reasons I love this book is that Zelazny encapsulated my feelings on religion so well:
“I fail to see what difference it makes whether it be supernatural or not…”
“Ah, but it makes a great deal of difference, you see. It is the difference between the unknown and the unknowable, between science and fantasy – it is a matter of essence. The four points of the compass be logic, knowledge, wisdom and the unknown. Some do bow in that final direction. Others advance upon it. To bow before the one is to lose sight of the three. I may submit to the unknown, but never to the unknowable. The man who bows in that final direction is either a saint or a fool, and I have no use for either.”

I’ve known Charlie Stross since about 1990. Steve Glover introduced us. When I first met him, I think he’d had one short story published in Interzone. He was struggling to become a fiction writer. A decade later and he’d made it into print numerous times in the major SF magazines (particularly Asimov’s) and finally got a book contract. I kept meaning to read some of his stuff, which we chatted about when we met at cons and elsewhere. When I went up to Edinburgh for the Computer Law World Conference last September, I met up with Charlie and his spouse Feorag. When I mentioned to Charlie that I really did intend to read some of his stuff real soon now (he’d sent me a copy of Accelerando in electronic form and asked me to see if I could spot any techno-gotchas, but I hadn’t had time) he very kindly supplied me with a full set of his books. I raced through them before Christmas and was mostly very impressed. His most recent SF (he also publishes a pseudo-fantasy series and a horror-detective series with different publishers) was Glasshouse, set in the same universe as Accelerando, which suffered as a novel from being a fix up of nine short stories in three groups of three. When it appeared on the short list for this year’s Hugo Award for Best Novel, I figured I’d actually buy a copy of one of his books, and I ordered a copy from Amazon. I just read it. Read on for a review.

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Congratulations to Charlie Stross on getting another novel Hugo nominated. Eventually, maybe he’ll win “the big one”. Still, it is, as they say, an honour to be nominated.

SciFi channel started a new show in January 2007 called The Dresden Files, about a wizard PI in modern day Chicago. This is based on a series of books by Jim Butcher. I don’t know who got me into these books. I remember picking up a copy of the third book Grave Peril when visiting someone and having nothing to read. Despite being the third book in the series and only having time to read a chapter or so I was really impressed so I’ve been buying them since. (more…)