Babel Clash

In Holly’s last post, she discussed how the idea for her latest novel, White Cat, came from a fairy tale (read the post for the tale itself, which is very weird). But White Cat is also based on history, in a way. It’s set an alternate version of contemporary America in which magic is both real and contraband. Basically, magic is like alcohol during prohibition—illegal and controlled by a few close-knit crime families, but most people use it anyway. So we have both the echoes of real history (organized crime and prohibition) and of a fairy tale (the mysterious white cat, magic). It’s a juxtaposition of two very different mythologies, that of gangsters and that of magical transformations.

Here’s a warning I always give young writers: Novels can’t do just one thing, they have to do several things. Don’t just write an alternate history about crime families and con men, also base it on a fairy tale. Having only one concept in your story is like eating dinner alone. It might be nutritious and even good-tasting, but it’s also a bit lonely.

This leads us (segue!) to my latest series, Leviathan.

We all know how World War I started: the Archduke Ferdinand and his wife Sophie were assassinated, and then the all countries of Europe went nuts and attacked each other. Because of these two deaths, millions of people died, countries disappeared, and the twentieth century found itself off to an unpleasant start that would only get worse. In short, the world broke.

I was thinking about this one day and asked myself, “What would it be like if Archduke and his wife were your parents?” You’d have to watch your personal tragedy would spread across the entire world, and you’d probably feel that this massive war was your family’s fault. And yet, in a way, it might not be so different from many people’s experiences. Because no matter who you are, when your parents die it feels like the world is broken.

So I decided to write a WWI book from the point of view of the son of the Archduke. I figured the effect of seeing a tried-and-true bit of textbook history from a personal perspective would be very interesting indeed.

But like I said above, novels can’t have just one idea, so I added two completely new kinds of technology to my World War I. One side, the Clankers (i.e. the Germans and Austrians,) use giant diesel-powered mechas . . .

And the other side (the Darwinists: Britain, France, Russia) uses the living machines created after Charles Darwin’s discovery of DNA in the 1850s . . .

Also, you will note that the book is illustrated. There are 50 of these pictures inside, all by the amazing Keith Thompson. Because the OTHER element I wanted to add was that the Leviathan series would feel like a book from 1914, when most novels (for kids or adults) were illustrated. So it would operate as a tiny time-travel machine, taking you back to that unreal moment in history.

So that’s three basic ideas: history retold from a personal viewpoint, radically alternate technologies for that historical period, and recreating the physical format (an illustrated book) of that period. The magic happens (hopefully) when these things all bounce against each other.

But what does this all have to do with Zombies Versus Unicorns? Well, clearly Holly and I are flogging our latest books. But this post also touches on the way that ZvU operates as a book.

ZvU isn’t just an anthology about zombies, or an bunch of stories about unicorns, or both of those things put together for the same low price. It’s a juxtaposition of two mythologies: the mall versus the forest, the ravening versus the sparkling, the shambling inescapable versus the majestic hopeful. Zombies and unicorns both get better when the other is nearby to lend some contrast.

So maybe that’s the real meaning of “versus.” Ideas get better the more ideas you have.

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