Advertising yet another wonderful YA book that inspires me. Here's the summary of Gifts by Ursula K. Le Guin:

"When a young man in the Uplands blinds himself rather than use his gift of 'unmaking'--a violent talent shared by members of his family--he upsets the precarious balance of power among rival, feuding families, each of which has a strange and deadly talent of its own."

This summary doesn't quite do the book justice. Gifts is a dark, captivating coming-of-age story. The book explores a heartfelt father-son relationship set against a backdrop of tribalism fueled by superstition. Plenty of intrigue here, most of which takes place outdoors in a landscape resembling feudal Scotland, a refreshing change of pace from castle intrigue.

Anyone who is familiar with Le Guin's solid body of work should know that this is among her best Young Adult novels, right up there with The Earthsea Cycle. The third and last book of this series, Powers, is on par with this one in quality. A companion novel with a new cast of characters, it tackles the subject of slavery, and has the most "epic" feel of the series. I'm sorry to say the middle book, Voices, is not quite as good. I've read it twice now and each time I had the same opinion of it: good story, a little slow, definitely too didactic. This tends to happen to fantasy literature when you intentionally draw parallels to the current religious-political conflicts of the Middle East.

But I can't recommend Gifts and Powers highly enough. If you love intelligent YA fantasy, if you are looking for a non-white cast of characters, and perhaps a realistic male who is not a ridiculous sparkly vampire, these books are worth a read.

  

You can snag your own copy here. And here is Ursula K. Le Guin's website.

I wanted to share my favorite poem of mine, inspired by the science fiction stories I was writing at the time. Wait, inspired by...my own stuff? Yeah, I rely on my stories when trying to branch out into unfamiliar territory, like poetry or songs. ;) Anyway, it seems to be a crowd favorite among people who have read my poetry. I keep trying to incorporate it into a song lyric, but so far the melody is just out of reach.

Dragons

In the orchard,
everyone keeps
their own
growing
tree,
which branches out
from a single trunk
and drops fruit
sweet and sour.

Sometimes an angel
will watch your work.
"You have worms in your orchard,"
she says.
"Kill them all,
before they grow
into dragons."

Dragons can happen to anyone.
When they grow too large,
they fly out in herds
and carve up the earth
like pieces of fruit.
There's not enough for them all,
and so they spit
balls of fire,
that their enemies' trees
won't grow.

But a tree that survives fire
is a twisted and brittle thing.

One of the things I want to do on this blog is recommend some amazing books to fantasy/SF aficionados like myself--books that maybe flew under the radar--in the hopes of getting more people to discover these wonderful novels, and maybe generate some discussion about them. :) First up: Sharon Shinn. 

Even among fantasy readers, Sharon Shinn is sort of an obscure writer; people who have read her usually remember her Archangel science-fantasy series. I love most of her books, but my favorite by far is her first novel, The Shape-changer's Wife. Here's the summary from her website:

"Aubrey is a young magician who wants to learn the dangerous skills of transmogrification, so he comes to study with the renowned wizard Glyrenden. But the mysterious Glyrenden runs a household that is even stranger than he is, filled with mute and misshapen servants. One member of the household fascinates Aubrey more than all the others: the wizard’s wife, who might not be what she seems."

Neither as dark nor as kinky as it first appears, and more than a little predictable, it is nevertheless the eeriest of Sharon Shinn's works and the most lyrical. It gives me a haunted, Last Unicorn sort of feeling. I highly urge any fan of romantic fantasy to read this one.

I mean, look at that gorgeous cover:

You can find more detailed reviews of this book here on Amazon:

And here is Sharon Shinn's website. Like I said, any of her books are a good place to start, but start reading her you must.

Fiction writers everywhere, let's think about point of view. :)

Sometimes I wish that third person omniscient hadn't gone out of style as a legitimate storytelling voice, since it's often the most cinematic and can really capture a visual setting like no other POV. Third person limited is what I usually strive for in any given scene for the majority of my books, but to me, there is nothing more tiresome than forcing yourself to be stuck inside a character's head when the story longs to breathe, expand a bit and show the reader an insight they won't otherwise see, at least for a paragraph or two.

Vintage fantasy and SF often walks a balanced line between omniscient and limited POV with great effect. I find this lends the story a mythic weight that is missing from modern fantasy--at least where young adult literature is concerned.

I'm having issues with this right now. I was trying to rewrite a chapter from a work-in-progress, and I'm longing to write in omniscient for a bit, just to panoramically scan the camera across the scene before seeping into my character's head. If I were writing fantasy in the 70's, I wouldn't question this choice.

Here for example is the current opening line of Daughter of the Skies:

"Two suitors came to Alhimins Hall, to the mountain stronghold of the Jötnar, to woo the Skylord’s daughter."

Even for the genre I'm writing in, this is decidedly old-fashioned. The newly published stuff in Barnes & Noble reads more like this:

"Ellisif's life changed forever the day Wotan rode into her father's hall."

Or, the recently popular first person present tense, of which I am not a big fan:

"From the tower window, I can see the crow-man in the garden. He is waiting to talk to me. Or rather, to my twin sister. I still haven't corrected him. Ellisif frowns at me from across the room. I know she disapproves, but..." etc. etc.

Yeah, this is obviously a caricature and not the best example I could come up with, but that's more or less an approach I see a lot in YA, especially those paranormal romances and dystopias. There's nothing wrong with these books. They get the plot started faster than I do. But they're so...modern. Colloquial, even.

My sentence is quaint, but without it, I lose something vital that I want in that story. I lose the resonance of the diction, the feel of an old legend unfurling. Most importantly, if I begin in limited third with my heroine, I lose the word "two."

The last words of the book, completely out of context, are as follows: "...learning once again to be whole." My choice is not merely an effort to sound archaic. I begin the novel with the word "two": duality, schism, a choice of options. I end on "whole": oneness, unity, selfhood.

I can't do this if I begin the story inside my heroine's head, in limited third. Most of the book is indeed in limited third, alternating between the two sisters' POV's, for immediacy and relatability. I reserve at least a paragraph or two at the beginning to set a mood, an atmosphere, but maybe literary agents won't agree with me when I start submitting this manuscript. We'll see.