Tongues of Serpents, and House of Leaves
by Naomi Novik on Jan.06, 2010, under Naomi Novik
First, to fulfill my promise from yesterday — the next volume of the Temeraire series, Tongues of Serpents (set in Australia!), is coming out July 13, and the fabulous cover by Dominic Harman and the excerpt have just gone up on my website:
On to Morgan’s question:
Can you think of any fantasy novels where the fantasy world looked very distinctive from chapter to chapter, depending on which point-of-view character was on center stage?
Arguably this isn’t a fantasy novel per se, but one example that I think does truly brilliant worldbuilding with point of view and narration is Mark Danielewski’s genius House of Leaves — what’s amazing about what Danielewski does is that we have the base horror-story narrative of the House, which itself offers completely different experiences from the different characters, but he then extends that same experience to us by undermining his narrator and ultimately his whole story.
I would say Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell does her worldbuilding almost the exact reverse way — she has the consistent omniscient narrator of the footnotes, who is also the voice of the narrative, and then her characters are all drawn upon this canvas; they all have their own distinct voices and personalities but to me the world they inhabit feels consistent, and the puzzling-pleasure comes from the richness of the detail she brings to the world and how much we learn about it in carefully-doled-out bits and pieces.
In a comment from yesterday, Joanne writes:
Viewing the world as a character might can be challenging though, specifically when the character’s views are less than politically correct or overly biased.
This is definitely an issue, particularly with historical fiction, and the trick as a writer is to convey clearly that it is the character’s view — that even the narration is distinct from the author’s own viewpoint, which I think is actually more satisfying in historical fiction anyway than getting the author’s viewpoint, as we are of course not from the period ourselves.
Tomorrow: a new short story from my website! \o/ (With thanks in advance to Jeff Vandermeer for letting me post it, from the Fast Ships, Black Sails anthology.)
All comments and questions welcome, including on Tongues of Serpents, though I may not be able to answer all of those.
Related posts:
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- Worldbuilding and narrative voice I thought I'd tangent off Patrick's stint by talking about worldbuilding in historical fiction & fantasy as opposed to thrillers, and specifically about narrative voice, which is one of my personal favorite techniques for setting the stage....
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- tactics and slinging slang Before diving into some questions, I wish to report that it is perilously easy to lose track of time playing Dragon Age: Origins. Laura asks: (easy question first!) When is the audiobook of Tongues of Serpents due out? I can’t guarantee this, but if I recall correctly, my publisher has...
- Authenticity in World Building Naomi, you say, “they set up the steampunky universe and vaguely-bruiser Holmes well both in the trailers and in the opening — the whole thing had a brush of fantasy.” I started thinking about your own work and how you integrate the familiar (Britain, China, etc.) with the fantastic to...
January 6th, 2010 on 6:42 pm
Ooooh, cool cover! *__* (golden dragon~~) It looks a bit caduceus-like, huh? Was that intentional?) Actually, don’t tell me–I’m still on BPW and am trying not to spoil myself. LoL! (juicy excerpt, I’ll just have to come back for you…)
My question for you doesn’t relate directly to today’s entry, but I was wondering–as an accomplished historical fantasy writer who’s been praised for creating authentic, in-the-time-period-sounding dialogue for her characters, what do you think of fantasy stories that used anachronistic vocabulary/speech styles in character dialogue?
For instance, say a fantasy novel has a setting that looks like our medieval age—do you think it would be strange if characters used modern-sounding phrases like “shut up” or “forget it,” etc? I know this sort of thing is completely taboo in a historical/historical-fantasy novel, but since fantasy novels often take place on other worlds, do you think readers would be okay with it? Have you read novels that did this successfully?
January 7th, 2010 on 1:30 pm
What an outstanding cover! I love it.
January 7th, 2010 on 11:48 pm
That’s a beautiful cover! I can’t wait to read the book.
To pick up on a comment from Cy, dialogue really does help make or break a story sometimes, especially if it’s an attempt to affect some kind of dialect specific to the character’s world. Sometimes I think there’s too much effort and am put off by a mouthful of difficult or awkward speech. Instead of drawing me into a story, it pulls me out. I find myself concerned with being able to navigate the dialogue instead of the story. Language is hard enough as it is, but inventing slang and cadence that removes us from out world at the same time it invites us into the new is difficult. Not to mention whether or not readers can understand it!
January 8th, 2010 on 11:33 am
Ahhh, back to the classic cover style of books 1 thru 4, making 5 now the odd one out
Also, yay Australia! Living in this country, interested to see your/’the series’ take on it for the era.
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Also, and I can’t remember the name of it, but there was a horror/murder-mystery book I read some years ago. Each chapter was it’s own self contained story of the viewpoint a character (using everyone only once, including the poor murdered sod).
No actual ending/conclusion on what the real events were IIRC. And since I can’t remember the name of it, I’ll pour through my bookshelves shelf.
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January 27th, 2012 on 11:21 am
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