A week or so ago, the editorial staff at work enjoyed a visit from several of our contributing artists, who wooed us with strawberry and cream croissants. During a lull in the conversation (we were all licking our fingers, I’m sure), my boss, Jenny Doh, asked us each to reveal our favorite words. I wish I could relate some of the other favorites, but I was too busy wracking my brain trying to figure out what my own favorite word is to make good mental notes.

Finally, though, when it came to my turn, I had to admit that I didn’t have a favorite. I still don’t. There are so many great words out there, distinguished by their meaning or their sound or both, that it’s impossible to choose among them. More than that, since every word is, at one time or another, the perfect word, how is it possible to start arranging them preferentially? My admiration of any word is fluid, depending upon the context, my mood, or the time of day.

And then, too, there’s the fact that even when my fancy is caught by a particular word, after a few hours or days it is buried under so many other words that I loose track of it. The sparkly gem is forgotten within a pile of other sparkly gems.

Jenny laughingly called me a Word Snob, but I suppose I am more of a Word Smith, recognizing the utilitarian value of any writer’s most basic tool. A carpenter does not value nails less because they lack the twisting elegance of a screw!

I probably would not be blogging about this, except that earlier today Annie posted her list of things that make her happy. I thought about it, and I thought about the elusive nature of “favorite” words, and realized I could make my own list and keep it here where I can update it so often as the words require. Won’t it be nice to have a be nice to have a record of all these sparkly gems, captivating, encapsulated wonders of sound and sense, all in once place? Then I will be able to go back over it whenever I want and, no matter the limits of my faulty memory, recall all the amazing words that have tickled my fancy at one time or another.

I invite you to join me in this enterprise by sharing your own favorite words in the comments (and for this, my LiveJournal friends, I must ask that you come to the actual Artifacts site to comment). I will put a link to this post in the sidebar, and you can come and add a word at any time in the future you feel so inspired. Let’s see what sort of catalog of wonderful words we can assemble together!

To start off, here’s a few that have caught my attention today:

elixir
astute
elusive
shiny

What’s yours?

P.S. I apologize for the carpenter metaphor!

Yes, it’s that time of year again.

I skipped out on my weekly writer’s group meeting last night to attend a signing by Lois McMaster Bujold at Mysterious Galaxy in San Diego. I debated about going for a few days, because San Diego is a long way, gas is not cheap, and it was a school night. But when I didn’t manage to talk myself out of wanting to go, I decided to make the trip, and am very glad I did.

Ms. Bujold was a very engaging speaker and answered a lot of questions from what I feel was a very enlightened audience. I’ve been to a lot of signings where the audience asked a lot of questions about the content of the books — why did this happen, what about that character, etc — but this group were more interested in her process and experience as a writer. Very interesting stuff, from this writer’s point of view. It was recorded for a podcast, so within a few weeks you can hear it yourself if you like.

There’s one point in particular that I’m glad she brought up, which had caught my attention while reading an interview with her last week:

I have come to believe that if romances are fantasies of love, and mysteries are fantasies of justice, F&SF are fantasies of political agency. (Of which the stereotypical “male teen power fantasy” is again merely an especially gaudy and visible subset.) (Source: Fantasy Book Critic

I think it’s an interesting observation, but I am not sure I entirely agree. Or maybe it’s that I disagree that fantasy should be that way, though it certainly seems to be the case with the bulk of modern popular fantasy. I’m currently preoccupied with the labels we apply to the different genres. Typically, we classify them according to their dressing — this one is fantasy because it has magic, elves and dragons, that one is SF because it has spaceships, time travel and alien viruses. But with all the cross-over and blending, this way only leads to madness and an eternally growing list of sub-genres. Maybe we need to start labeling stories according to the kind of story they tell, instead … but that’s a topic for another post, when I have a better grasp on what it is I actually want to say.

After the signing (I had my ARC of Passage signed, along with my copy of Paladin of Souls and a second copy of Passage that will be a gift for my eldest sister) I got to enjoy a long Girl Geek Gab. I paused on the way out to tell Sam, who works at the store and who is also the co-host of the afore mentioned podcast, Adventures in SciFi Publishing, that I was a fan of the show — this is a very out-of-the-box action for me, since it is not always easy to get my introverted self to initiate conversation, but it really paid off.

We were joined by two other attendees (whom I had conversed with previously while in line to get my books signed) and spent the next hour talking about just about every major SF&F fan topic that you can think of, with topics ranging from whether it was Eowyn or Merry who killed the Witch King, why it was probably a good thing that The Golden Compass didn’t do well at the box office, and a comparison of the relative sizes of particular body parts of certain Jedi knights (”May the Schwartz be with you.”) It was GREAT!

I don’t often get the opportunity to converse about this sort of stuff anymore. My co-workers are great, but none of them are into the SF world (except for the owner of the company, who surprised me by being a Firefly fan) and only look at me strangely when I burst out in defense of Star Wars at a company luncheon. Oh, they all have their own fannish pleasures, so they understand, but their different fandoms so we can’t really share them. My social contacts outside of the office are very slim to none (I’m such a houserat). How rare a treat to be able to say, “Have you seen Viggo’s photography?” and have them know exactly what I’m talking about!

So it was a good night, and not too late (I was home by 11), and hopefully Lost was taped properly so I can watch it over the weekend without having to download it. Next week it will be back to the writer’s group (another group of people I enjoy talking with, but also not into SF-dom) and maybe, just maybe, I’ll have something to share for critique.

Vera Nazarain has posted an interesting essay at Fantasy magazine about how popular, formula-driven urban/paranormal fantasy (in the mode of Anita Blake, with vampires, were-whatevers, etc.) loses the sense of wonder (and thus her interest) at the fantastic when the characters in those stories regard magical encounters as ordinary, everyday, mundane events. It’s an interesting read, and I think she nailed my own reasons for not being a fan of that sub-genre, though I’ve never explicitly defined those reasons before. What’s the point of fantasy, after all, if it ceases to be fantastic?

That is the underlying question that Nazarain’s essay doesn’t quite reach: what’s the point of fantasy? What is it about that sense of wonder that is so compelling?

In an essay that appeared recently in the Telegraph, fantasist Mark Chadbourne suggests that the appeal of the fantastic is in its irrationality, that readers crave this antidote to the increasingly rational boundaries of our everyday lives. “It’s about turning off the mobile phone and the computer and remembering who we are in the deepest, darkest parts of ourselves.” I can’t say I disagree, at least with the last half of that statement. (The article doesn’t have much more in depth to say, but it does provide a good overview of the evolution of the modern genre.)

In my opinion, though, I wouldn’t say that its computers and cell phones (and the general technologizing of our society) creating those rational boundaries. My gut feeling is that it’s the secularization of society, the decline of the importance of religion and myth as an active force in how we perceive our relationship with the universe. As the world grows smaller physically (because of technology) and philosophically/spiritually (thanks to the work of comparative religion scholars such as Joseph Campbell) I think more and more of us find it harder to use religion as a doorway to the collective unconscious — a doorway it is necessary to go through in order to evolve individually and as a tribe.

Fantasy, using the same language as myth and dream, opens the doorway for a more rational (or maybe just embittered) mind, without requiring belief. Religion and myth create awe in those who believe in them, because they provide a glimpse at the magic and wonder and awe-fulness of the universe, and so should fantasy that is functioning properly — there’s something True even if it’s all impossible.

Ergo, I would go on to conclude that this sort of urban paranormal fantasy (though it can happen in any sub-genre I suspect) that is stripped of awe and wonder and replaced magic with mundanity is no longer functioning as fantasy. It’s romance, it’s horror, it’s crime fiction, it’s whatever … it’s just using fantasy tropes to tell its story. But putting fairies in a story doesn’t make it fantasy anymore than putting cowboys in a story makes it a Western.

I have burbled happily about Lois McMaster Bujold’s fantasy novels here before (I’ve yet to sample her SF — can someone recommend where to start?), but not about her newest series, The Sharing Knife, which first appeared in 2006. I read the first volume, Beguilement when it came out, right after I first read The Curse of Chalion, and remember feeling a little disappointed in it. It was well written, and the characters had all the intrinsic appeal that Bujold conveys so well; in fact, I was quite engrossed in the tale until I was about 20 pages from the end, well into denouement territory, and I realized that nothing much had happened, story-wise. The climax of the book, if it can even be called that (and I won’t say what it was, for the sake of those of you who haven’t read it), was pretty low-impact, not the sort of “wowee wow wow” explosion (and I mean that most metaporically) of Chalion (and of Paladin of Souls though I hadn’t read that yet). Clearly, as I finished the book, the story was meant to continue, and in fact I found out later that books one and two were supposed to be one volume — they split it up for production cost or some such excuse.

Well, by the time the second volume, Legacy, came out last year, the urge to know what happened next had faded a bit, and because it was in hardcover, I put off buying it. But a few weeks ago, a chance came up (via the Eos books blog) to get an ARC of the third volume, Passage, in exchange for writing a reader review by the time of the book’s release on April 22nd. Never one to pass up on cool free stuff, I jumped at the opportunity. Nevermind the fact that this meant I had to go out and buy Legacy first, in hardcover because it’s not been released in paperback yet. Free is still free, no matter how much it costs you.

Whew. I need to learn to cut down this introductory blather.

Because I read the two books one on top of the other, it’s hard to talk about them separately. And really, that’s how it should be. In fact, I would go so far to say that to really understand and appreciate these books, we’re all going to have to wait until book #4 comes out in a year or so, because my sense of the story being told is of one comprehensive arc, not three or four independent stories that happen to come one after the next.

Now, a lot of people might call these books “romantic fantasy”, because of the heavy emphasis on the relationship between the two main characters, Fawn and Dag. Another term that might apply is “domestic fantasy,” since the emphasis is on ordinary folk doing more or less ordinary things (as opposed to kings, gods, wizards, etc. faced with extraordinary times, as comprises so much epic or high fantasy). I think Passage does a good job of shaking off both these labels. Yes, the romance is still important, but now we see that it is merely an essential catalyst that initiates the real story, which is about resolving the differences that divide the two cultures that Fawn and Dag represent, and very possibly (we’ll have to wait for book 4 to prove me right or wrong on this) resolving or at least better understanding the underlying evil that plagues both societies. As for domesticity, there’s till plenty of that (maybe too much, but more on that later) but Fawn and Dag are no longer even attempting ordinary lives in Passage, and much of the plot is taken up with their decidedly un-ordinary actions and events spawned by them.

I know, if you haven’t read the other books you’re helplessly confused right now because, really, I’m a terrible review writer. So let me try to explain succinctly and without giving away too many spoilers. The setting of The Sharing Knife books is remarkably similar to a pre-industrial Ohio, geographically and technologically, with the exception that there are no firearms. It may, in fact, be a post-apocalyptic Ohio — we learn of a long-ago magical disaster that wiped out much of civilization and still has repercussions in the land, in the form of “malices”, evil beings that are (apparently) spontaneously generated in random locations, and can suck the lifeforce from everything in the vicinity. Fawn is one of the farmer folk, who as a whole fear and mistrust Dag’s people, the Lakewalkers, semi-nomadic tribes who use magic (though they don’t call it magic) to battle the malices and keep the land safe. In the course of the first two books, Fawn and Dag meet, fall in love, and then try to make a life for themselves amongst all those who are against their relationship. The primary tension through these volumes is whether or not their relationship will survive despite all odds.

Now, I can’t talk about book three without spoiling for you that, yes, they do manage to stick it out together. I’ll try not to give away more than that, though. In book three, the pair set off (with an oddball collection of others) to see something of the wider world and, hopefully, find a place where they can settle into it. The bulk of their journey takes place along the Grace (cf. Ohio) river, and the story takes as leisurely a pace as the river current does — which is definitely not a bad thing. I enjoy the way Bujold lets the story unfold, letting her characters come to events instead of forcing events upon her characters. It doesn’t hurt that her characters, primary and secondary, are so well-drawn that just watching them be themselves is plenty entertaining. It is not a anxious-making page-turner in the usual sense (”Oh my gosh, what’s going to happen next?!?”) but I kept turning pages because it was just plain fun to read.

Bujold’s writing style throughout the books is a rolling, back-country cant well suited to the setting she’s writing in. It gets in your brain though, like watching a Firefly marathon will do, only you’ll be saying “blight” all the time instead of “gorram” (I did think blight was a bit overused … we have a lot more variety in standard English). Just don’t be surprised if you end up talking like a hick for a while after reading it (no offense meant to all my hick friends in the world!).

If I have one gripe with the book(s), it is a feminist one. Early in book one, Fawn seems poised to be a dynamic female lead — she is smart, curious and unafraid; her decision to leave home initiates the story, and she even takes out one of the malices herself. However, after that, her role in the story seems to drop off to little more than helpmate to Dag. In book 2, she spends a lot of time spinning and sewing and cooking and coddling of her mate — the one definitive action she takes (setting off on her own to go to him when he’s in trouble) only puts her in a position that allows him to solve the current dilemma. She herself is just a bystander, a position that becomes even more pronounced in Passage, when her role becomes little more than to inspire and encourage Dag as he explores his burgeoning powers and confronts some of the mysteries that make up their world. Even throwing her in the direct line of danger is only an excuse to test Dag’s abilities — she just stands around and waits for him to rescue her. I like Fawn, don’t get me wrong, I’d just like her to have the chance to do something notable in her own right.

As far as typical fantasy goes, this one is pretty anti-fantasy. The familiarity of the setting (at least for an American audience), the nature of the magic in use, and the very un-epicness of the narrative, create a unique niche for this book. It’s something that I’d feel easy recommending to people who are a bit leery about trying fantasy literature (wizards and dragons can be daunting, you know), and those already devoted to the genre will find it a pleasant revision of the familiar tropes. All in all, I was very happy with the book, and am now anxious for the fourth and (I believe) final volume to come out. While I have no idea what Fawn and Dag are going to do next (the narrative had no suggestion whatsoever), I do have a lot of suspicions and I want to see if they will hold out or not. Mostly, though, I just want to enjoy more of Bujold’s smooth prose, irresistible characters and compelling storytelling.

Just announced for the NBC fall lineup:

MERLIN – “Merlin” brings to life a new legend for a modern audience. “Merlin” is an exciting, hour-long fantasy series set in the mythic city of Camelot — but inspired by 21st Century storytelling. Before Merlin (Colin Morgan, “Doctor Who”) and Arthur (Bradley James, “Lewis”) became legends, they were ambitious young men looking for adventure, hoping to live up to their family’s expectations, discovering love and finding their own true destiny, making mistakes along the way. The innovative, action-packed drama has cross-generational appeal and paints a picture of Merlin and Arthur’s early life that audiences have never witnessed before. Anthony Head (”Buffy the Vampire Slayer”), Richard Wilson (”A Passage to India”), Angel Coulby (”Magicians”) and Katie McGrath (”The Tudors”) also star. A FremantleMedia Enterprises distribution of a Shine production for BBC. Source

Now, I’m all for the proliferation of fantasy on TV. I’m also for giving the Arthurian legend a serial presentation, instead of trying to compress the whole epic into a two hour cinematic format. A thorough retelling of the whole tale could easily fill half-a-dozen standard television seasons.

But I’m also very, very nervous when anyone actually tries to do fantasy on TV, because if it’s done poorly it just means that much less of a chance that anything good will be given an opportunity to do it right. And then there’s the fact that no one has ever really done a great screen version of the Arthurian legend. Excalibur comes closest, but I don’t think it’s aged very well. As much as I love Monty Python and the Holy Grail I think it’s a little sad that it’s the best movie that’s been done. And as for television — well, let’s just not go there.

So I’ll be anticipating this with the same sort of trepidation as I waited for SciFi’s Earthsea, hoping for the best (hoping that phrases like “new legend for a modern audience” and “inspired by 21st century storytelling” aren’t as foreboding as they sound), but not really counting on it.

Maybe they’ll have pretty costumes and sets anyway. And horses. Horses are good.