Babel Clash

Thanks again to Amber and Anton.

Tune in tomorrow to find out the topic of our next conversation with Tom Lloyd and Joel Shepherd.

Also, there’s some exciting Babel Clash news to share.  Find out more tomorrow.

I just wanted to thank Morgan for letting me guest blog this past week or so here at Babel Clash.  I’ve enjoyed harassing my fellow book brother, Anton Strout, and weighing in on the sexual proclivities of the Urban Fantasy creatures I read about.  I hope none of our babel-clashing as offended and, instead, as inspired you to take a peek at our books, Cat’s Claw, and Dead Matter!  -amber

Amber and Anton, thank you for contributing to our discussion on Babel Clash.  Please take this opportunity with your last couple of posts to share any information with us that you’d like regarding Cat’s Claw and Dead Matter.  Also, please feel welcome to share any news regarding other upcoming projects.

Both titles are now available online or at your local Borders or Waldenbooks store and on Borders.com.

In the spirit of our conversation about “reluctant adults,” please check out the urban fantasy blog where Anton contributes, the League of Reluctant Adults.

Lots of Urban Fantasy questions on my mind today.  Anton and Amber, feel free to respond to any that you choose.

Urban fantasy is the hot genre in the SF&F category, and that’s been the case for the past few years.  Do you see that changing anytime soon?  Do we have a timeless formula here?  Keep in mind that I use “formula” loosely, sort of like how Robert Jordan and Terry Brooks follow the Tolkien epic fantasy “formula.”

In epic fantasy, we sometimes see rival camps.  There are those who like their high fantasy epic and optimistic, like Tolkien, and those who crave some blending of weirdness and grim realism, like Moorcock.  Do you see camps forming along those lines in the urban fantasy fan base?  If there are, do fans line up behind the sexy stories (like Laurell K. Hamilton’s) or the more action-packed (Jim Butcher, for example)?

Is it important that UF remain rooted in familiar cities, such as San Francisco or Chicago?  If the setting shifts to someplace more fantastical, is it still the same genre?  Does it matter to you?

A Calliope/Simon throw down, huh?  Somehow I think it would be a draw.  Simon is too chivalrous to hit a girl and Callie, well, she wouldn’t want to break a nail…just kidding.  She’d probably want to hook up with Simon rather than give him a right hook to the face.

I like what Morgan is implying, though.  I think we gotta get these characters chilling in a book together.  My sex-addled heroine and Anton’s hero who can’t touch anything without having a psychic orgasm, oops, I meant to say psychic ‘flash’ - sorry about that.  Yeah, these two could get in a mess of trouble.  Although, I really think Callie would drive Simon crazy.  She’d question his every move and harass him about his choice in women - and I think that would drive any guy nuts.

One thing that’s nice about both Anton’s books and my own are that neither of them are your ‘traditional’ Urban Fantasy offerings.  I get worn out from all the rough werewolf sex and, please, someone needs to give the poor vampires a break from all the sexy, scantily clad human (or half-human) ladies with ambiguous (and possibly deadly) motives who won’t stop chasing them around.  I like a good blood-letting as well as the next guy, but it does get same-y, same-y after a while, ya know?

You’ll find aspects of that world in our books, but you’ll also find a lot of humor, too.  Simon is a super funny guy and the fact that he’s a guy, period, makes him rather unique in the Urban Fantasy cannon.  Callie is unique in her own way, too.  She doesn’t deal with vamps or werewolves in season, but instead hangs out with mythological characters and goes on crazy quests - with lots of chick-lit absurdity thrown-in for good measure.

(My God, I love it when I do spell check and the little message pops on saying ‘no misspellings’!!)

Anton and I are offering a welcome segue way from the norm - check out our strange worlds for a little fun and relaxation - then you can go back, happy and itching, for a little werewolf on vampire on fey on witch action.

Go Supernatural Sex, ho!

Do you remember the Thieves’ World series from back in the late ’70s and early ’80s?  Robert Asprin created the city of Sanctuary and then invited all of these other authors (Poul Anderson, C. J. Cherryh, Marion Zimmer Bradley, etc.) to write stories set there.  They wrote both anthologies and novels.

So this talk of a loose confederation of writers (the League of Reluctant Adults)  leaves me dreaming of an urban fantasy version of Thieves’ World.   Yes,the geek in me loves the idea of Simon Canderous crossing paths with Calliope Reaper-Jones, or Anita Blake and Harry Dresden teaming up, like in comics when Batman and Superman buddy up or  Iron Man fights the Hulk.

Imagine a fantasy melting pot with all of the angels, demons, vampires, werewolves, psychics and wizards that a fan could want.  We don’t see this kind of collaboration often, and it would be a great way to discover new writers.

Is anyone with me here, or is this just impractical crazy talk?

And one last question in the spirit of Iron Man vs. the Hulk, who does win in a fight between Simon and Callie?

So I’ve been thinking more and more about the whole reluctant adult thing, which got me in turn thinking about growing up geek.  What I realize is that being geek is a passion- one for obsessing over things that some find trivial or simply don’t get.  With passion, however, also comes great anxiety.

For instance:  First there was The X-Files, for which I had to tune in each and every week!  My mid 90s Saturday night consisted of settling in at the TV.  It was time for the Action Pack, which featured Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena: Warrior Princess for two hours.  When Herc went off the air, it became the Back2Back Action Hour with Xena, Jack of All Trades and Cleopatra 2525.  I watched, I obsessed, I met at conventions, I loved.  But, as the title of the last episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation implied, all good things must come to an end.  Shows (and also books tying in to all those properties) I was passionate about wrapped up.  What was I going to do with my geek time NOW?  Much anxiety ensued… as I think it does with most of those cut from my cloth. WHAT WAS GOING TO FILL MY VOID OH GOD I CAN’T BELIEVE  THEY ARE OVER??!

But then we got the new Star Wars series and the Lord of the Rings Trilogy and, Jar Jar aside, part of the wound was closed.  Then came a little show called Buffy the Vampire Slayer, followed by Angel, followed by Firefly(there are a billion more shows I could list, but I’d like to finish this post today).  For awhile, I was a happy boy, but we all know how those all ended to. AND SO THE ANXIETY RETURNED ALONG WITH THE VOID!

We are geek.  We are passionate.  We are always looking for that next fix.  I’m anxiously awaiting season three of True Blood and some more Iron Man.  Part of me cannot fathom what will fill the void that Lost wrapping up will leave.  I always panic, but there is always something to fill the void.  You think I’d calm down by now, but that is not the way of the geek.  Ours is to twitch and fret and drink up every drop, flame wars about deviation from books or comics in film and television be damned! I am curious about Amber’s perspective, having experienced it as a different part of the geekdom which hasn’t died down if I am to judge by the lengthy line at her New York Comic-con autograph session last year…

In a roundabout way this is my way of suggesting perhaps that the Back2Back Action Hour be reinvigorated as the Back2Back Urban Fantasy Hour with two one hour shows a week that chronicle the adventures of one Simon Canderous and the lovely Calliope Reaper-Jones.  That would raise my geekly twitching to a whole new level, have no doubt.

Following up on what it means to be a reluctant adult, Carolyn Crane asked:  Where exactly did the name of Reluctant Adults come from? Was it meant from the start as a counterpoint to serious literature?

My livejournal was where I had first used the name the League of Reluctant Adults, an obvious play on one of my fave graphic novels the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (not so fave movie, tho).   When a group of us urban fantasy and paranormal romance writers invited me to join their group blog, I threw it out there as a title and voila!  It stuck.   There’s a sense of fun to the phrase… it’s inclusive, covering a growing expanse of us who think that toys and films about fighting robots and Neo Tokyo and ghosts and goblins aren’t just for kids.  Is there a need to grow beyond those things?  Not anymore.  Reluctant adults embrace them.  We don’t take things so seriously.

Speaking of taking thing seriously and going back to part of the theme of my last post, I remember Guy Gavriel Kay’s speech from the 2007 World Fantasy Awards, where he adressed the disparity between the two worlds.  Luckily I found it in whole thanks to the Interwebs.  He said:

There has always been a tension between writers who aspire to high art, enduring work, and those who pursue popular success, defining themselves as entertainers. The literati disdain the commercial while envying their bank accounts, and the bestsellers often regard the artistic as elitist and unreadable and the twain don’t do a lot of beer-drinking together.

It inspired a nervous laugh throughout the room, but it was true.  I think that in any community there’s a wish to stratify oneself, a desire to define.  Everyone tries to figure out if they are the cream of the crop or the cream of the crap.

About Chik-Fil-A and about how there can be this disconnect between mass market writing and “literary” writing.  As far as I’m concerned, if the story entertains then it’s done it’s job.  Sometimes, I read this so-called contemporary literature and am bored out of my mind.  Just because your novel is 8 million pages doesn’t make it good – superfluous paragraphs of literary drivel are superfluous paragraphs of literary drivel even if they come with a Booker Prize.

With that said, I love well-written literature.  Give me Dostoevsky, Austen, Hesse and I am a happy camper.  You can also give me Neal Stephenson or Neil Gaimen and I am in heaven, too.  If I am transported out of my humdrum life for a little while, if I am utterly engaged by what I’m reading, if I laugh and/or maybe cry then it’s a good book.

And I’ll be the first person in line for the sequel.

Welcome to the Amber and Anton hour, err two week, at Babel Clash.  *slips Babel Fish in ear*  First and foremost, I’d like to thank Borders and Morgan for inviting us.  Amber promised this would be as good a place as any to harass me, but she’s such a sweetie, so I’m sure she was kidding.  At least, I hope she was.

So the first question that Morgan threw to us was:  Does reading science fiction and fantasy make you a “reluctant adult”?  What about the authors working in these genres?  Should these “reluctant adults” tackle “serious literature” instead?  How’s that for a loaded question?

As a founding member of The League of Reluctant Adults, I am clearly biased about this.  For years, most of us who engage in fandoms of any kind always got dirty looks from outsiders.  Even now people walk by my office, look at all my geek posters and fifty or so action figures on my desk like they are visiting the two-headed goat with the traveling carnival.

But I do think that thanks to the internet and the number of television channels on the dial these days, cultural awareness of our nerdly niches have become more mainstream.  Why?  I think much of it has to do with gaining understanding.  Outsiders can read up, ask questions, explore geekdom on their own, and at the end of all that, i think they find themselves able to identify with a lot of what they encounter.

Take True Blood or Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  Yeah, they have vampires and all that paranormal stuff, but at the heart of them, what drives them?  Relationships, trying to get through their daily lives, problems that people can identify with…

I mean, I’ve always dreamed of being a sexy Louisiana waitress that falls for vampires… but I digress.

As for should us reluctant adults tackle “serious literature” instead?  I’m going to go to food for this one.  Sometimes you want to go to Morimoto’s restaurant.  he’s an Iron Chef and the food is exquisite, pricey and worth every penny.  Sometimes I hanker for Chik-fil-A, which is fast food, not pricey and I have no idea who dropped my waffle fries in the oil.  Regardless, Chik-fil-A is exquisite in its own way.  It fills my need.  I don’t really wonder if the chefs at either restaurant should be changing roles. I’m just happy they excel at what they do and that it feeds me.

I see a lot of flame wars out there where the literary authors poo poo the mass market writers and the mass market authors poo poo them as well.  I don’t see the need for it.  I think the differences are what help to keep everyone fed out there, depending on their appetite.  I strive to write the best books I can, but are they literary?  Hell to the no.   I won’t pretend that I go there, but hopefully they are damn fine entertainment.