If you’re interested in hearing what I’m up to regularly, here’s your chance to sign up.

Posts Tagged ‘guy gavriel kay’

Distinct Style

It’s beautiful here in Boston, and after spending all morning writing (something I think is going to be awesome & I can’t wait to share with y’all) and all afternoon editing (another awesome thing I can’t wait to share) I’m about to take a walk and enjoy the remains of the day.  And I don’t mean the Kazuo Ishigo novel.  Or the film for that matter.

On Sunday, with a glass of lightly cut Aberlour and some very nice chocolate, I burned through the end of the Fionavar Tapestry, which was AMAZING and over the top in all the right ways, like the rest of the trilogy.  This series has sold me on Guy Gavriel Kay.  Then, yesterday, jonesing for fiction, I grabbed a copy of Pattern Recognition—I’m a little behind on Gibson.  The contrast is intense, like when you sprint into surf and trip due to how it’s different moving your feet through water vs. air, only in reverse.  I’m constantly impressed by the range of writing styles, even between people working with exactly the same toolset.  Lines, and words, and grammar, remain mostly constant if you don’t want to get all experimental and oulipo about it (not that there’s anything wrong with that)—yet you won’t find two people who use them in exactly the same way.

Not sure if there’s a point to that outside of vive le difference (la difference?).  Writing’s awesome, and so is the weather, and I’m headed out from enjoying one to enjoying the other.

 

Short Fiction + Kay

I tend to write more long-form stuff than short.  Still, it’s been very nice over the last couple days to chisel this weird short post-singularity-space-opera-war-in-heaven-art-and-culture story out of nothing—one of the many virtues of short fiction is that I can deal with an idea and move on to the next in three days as opposed to three months.

Also, I’m about halfway through Guy Gavriel Kay’s Fionavar Tapestry.  Portal fantasies generally don’t excite me much, but this one’s different.  Since most of the book takes place in an ultraCeltic high fantasy land populated by mythical supermen, the presence of a bunch of folks ‘just like us’ gives the story extra emotional power, which Kay uses absurdly well.  The book depends on my being able to feel exactly the way our fish-out-of-water, Jen, Kim, Dave, Kevin, and Paul, feel at various key moments, and man does it succeed.   Riveting.  Aslo, incredibly fast-paced.  SO MUCH HAPPENS per book.  Trying to describe the plot to my wife last night, I realized I sounded like I was describing an epic metal album cover.

You know, something like this:

Only with more blood sacrifice and magic.  Intense.  A cursory review of the Webs reveals a shortage of Fionavar concept metal, which is a shame.  Someone who can play guitar should get on that.