Trapdoor Books

The Ninth Avatar reviewed at Only the Best SFF

SFFworld regular and prolific book reviewer Seak has posted a review of The Ninth Avatar over at Only the Best Science Fiction and Fantasy. Here's an excerpt: "...overall The Ninth Avatar delivers for me and I was compelled to dive back into the story every chance I had. I am really looking forward to seeing Newton's progression after this debut novel." Read the full review here.

Writing as Communication, Todd Newton's guest post at LiteraryEscapism.com

Recently, I was invited to guest post over at LiteraryEscapism.com, a popular Fantasy and Paranormal book review site. Here's a taste of the post:

Writing as Communication

Oddly enough, authors aren’t always great at communication. We’re reclusive, eccentric, and generally a strange bunch of people. There are many possible explanations for this, but I prefer to think it’s because we just don’t communicate in the same manner that most people do. We communicate best through writing; allegory, simile, analogy, plot, and characterization are our methods.

Read the rest here, and leave a comment if you like.

The site is giving away a copy of The Ninth Avatar, as well!

The Ninth Avatar - Goodreads.com Giveaway

Three Hardcover copies of The Ninth Avatar are now up for grabs on Goodreads.com! Click here to enter This contest will only last until July 18, 2010 so enter today!

Two faces of a Hero

A hero can originate from myriad circumstances. I wish to highlight two today, what I refer to as the falling hero and the rising hero. First, the fall. As I mentioned yesterday, I've recently been exposed to the magic and wonder that is The Dresden Files by reading all 3 books in rapid succession. Harry Dresden is a fascinating character, looking either through the lens of his current actions or his past ones. Where he begins, at the start of Storm Front, is a place of relative success. He has a chosen career, a very solid sense of self, and enough power to back up his wants and desires. He is, then, frustrated by the circumstances of each story. Brought low, if you will, by the actions of his enemies (and, in some cases, his friends). Harry Dresden presents the attitude that he already possesses the skill and finesse to do whatever is necessary at the beginning of each tale. He's Harry Dresden, for crying out loud, and he's seen worse. And yet, Butcher manages to throw him a couple of curve balls during the course of the story so that he has to work for that glorious conclusion. Physical injuries and ailments, vindictive faerie godmothers and vampires, and even plain suspicion hinder the character until he reaches the low point in the hero's journey and begins the agonizing and exciting climb back out. He is, for all intents and purposes, caused to fall so that he can rise in a crescendo of action and revelation. Contrast this against a character like Starka, from my novel The Ninth Avatar. Starka begins the story at a low point. She's already an outcast. Her brother, the only person she ever loved, disappeared one year prior without any real trace to speak of. Starka subsists, waiting for some glimmer of hope to shine in her otherwise dull and sad life. Then comes the prophecy. In one respect, her life suddenly goes from bad to worse because of this vision. She's thrust into the spotlight, and subsequently sent out into the big bad world to find some method to stop it. Starka is woefully unprepared for this journey, and its mission, but she doesn't refuse it. This is because, in another respect, she has reclaimed a sense of value, of self-worth. In fact, she has regained her identity. Without her brother, Starka was lost. Wandering, purposeless, through each day with no goals and no concerns over eating and sleeping. Now, with the arrival of the prophecy, she has been given something to strive for. Though she is somewhat of a damsel-in-distress, Starka's character actually experiences a rise throughout the story. This is in tandem with her own personal growth, which leads her to many imperative realizations about herself and the world at large. It's all uphill from where she begins; a lowly, cast-off girl with no prospects for the future but an old maid's death. These are but two of the many circumstances that give rise to our heroes in fiction. Can you think of any characters who rise, any who fall? (By the way, I also blog over at http://initialdraft.blogspot.com. Stop by sometime.)

Now Available: The Ninth Avatar Chain Grid Fill puzzle by The Griddle

I'm pre-empting Chris on this post because I saw it on Twitter first thing this morning! Trapdoor Books and The Griddle have collaborated on another fun and challenging puzzle. You don’t need to buy and read The Ninth Avatar to solve it, but why not? Click here for a printable version.

Must you be a "geek" to enjoy Fantasy?

Before the pitchforks and partisans go up, give me a chance to explain what I mean by that title. [caption id="attachment_2148" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="from geek-orthodox.blogspot.com"][/caption] The signs of a Fantasy Geek are fairly well-known. They're the ones who dress up, either in Cosplay form, or LARP (Live Action Roleplay) form. Sometimes they attend movie premieres this way, sometimes they go grocery shopping this way. Not all Fantasy Geeks do this, however. Some simply play MMORPG's (Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game, MMO for short) like World of Warcraft or the famously addictive Everquest and it's sequels. Some hang out on MUDs (Multi-User Dungeons) which are just text-based MMOs. Others play Dungeons & Dragons, which is like an MMO minus the computer/internet, or other tabletop games like Warhammer and Magic: the Gathering, while still others simply read the genre and enjoy a good story. I fall into this last group. It's not for lack of trying, though. I've never been a huge fan of stereotypes, particularly pertaining to myself but also in the sense of labeling others, but I have tried my hand at the various listed clichés. I was terrible at D&D; played twice and was swiftly killed both times. Perils of being a noob. I used to enjoy MtG, but it's an expensive hobby and hard to play when you move to a new area and don't know anyone to play with. I've been a "builder" on a MUD, which means I created "areas" for text-based adventurers to adventure in, including items and weapons for them to collect and monsters to fight (a definite precursor to my novel-writing efforts). MMO's are incredibly time-consuming, though, so for the sake of my social life I swore off them for all time. But I love Fantasy. I emphasize the word "love" because I truly mean it. Fantasy is practically all I read, with a few SF books here and there for good measure, and a rare biography or pop fiction title just for fun. Fantasy, though, is the only genre that really awakens my imagination. Even if it has singing unicorns and pink dragons, getting to know a world entirely separate from our own with its own rules and cultures is one of the things I find most exciting. I can't get enough of shows like The Guild. Hell, I'll watch Fantasy films (and television shows), even if they're dismissed as "terrible," simply because I can't get enough of the genre. Becoming an author has added an entirely new dimension to this for me, however, since a book must be read to be appreciated. I must, somehow, connect with fellow Fantasy fans across all stages of the spectrum. Should my D&D ineptitude somehow impede me from doing this? Should the fact that I don't have a level 50 Barbarian "tank" in reserve exclude me from the club? There are a ton of Fantasy novels I haven't had the chance to read yet, so should I crawl into a cave for a few years until I'm caught up (and have an opinion) on them? I don't even know how to pronounce my name in Elvish. How far do you have to go to enjoy Fantasy? Is it necessary to fully "geek out" to properly appreciate it?

"The Nine Pillars" Explained

Today, I'd like to pull back the curtain for you on an important part of The Ninth Avatar's world. "Fantasy" as a genre grew out of traditions of mythology and, as such, each world comes with its own gods, goddesses, and cultural roles borne from those concepts. I agree with John Marco's recent post that "a fantasy story needs to have some element of magic" and "the magical element (or elements) need to be organically threaded into the world." In The Ninth Avatar, those elements stem from The Nine Pillars of Magic. Rather than just a "magic system," though, the Nine Pillars concept functions as more of a religion -- just a very misunderstood one, particularly by those of the Mystian faith. While a Wizard's invocations are offered to each of the Nine, they don't "worship" or "pray to" each Pillar in the traditional sense. An offering of force (magical force or life force, whichever is available) is made, but it is much like "praying for rain" rather than "praying to the Rain God." To invoke some kind of alteration, a Wizard would appeal to Valesh, the Pillar of Change and Transformation. The party responsible for answering that call is not a "being" in the traditional sense, but an abstraction of a natural force. It is this distinction that separates the practices of Wizards from those who worship Myst or Serené. Each of the Pillars (labeled loosely as Change, Speech, Life, Doom, Body, Fate, Justice, Secrets, and Darkness) represents an aspect of existence. Beings live and then die, all the while encased in bodies that grow or wear away based on their fortunes. They may choose to communicate openly or value their privacy, require restitution for what is taken from them, and wrestle with the unknown. With human intervention, however, comes the inevitable issue of balance. Some will always have more while others have less, but on a global scale this can produce disastrous effects. What if all living things died at once, or never died? What if no beings could communicate with each other? What if no beings could see well enough to hunt for food? This is why the Avatars are necessary. As an immortal embodiment of magic, an Avatar speaks for the power it represents. Rather than some sort of Godhead for each Pillar, though, the Avatars merely influence global circumstance to secure a balance of power. They rarely take direct action in human affairs, and even more seldom interact directly with humans, but it is only the Avatars who can bend the rules of the natural order. Each Avatar must remain impartial, for if one were to achieve dominance it would disrupt the very source of their power and endanger all of existence. During the course of human history, only eight Avatars have ascended to their place of power. How and when the Ninth Avatar will join them, and who it might be, is the mystery of the modern age.

Movies: Post-Apocalypse

It's difficult to convey exactly how much I love movies. I grew up watching movies, like the 1986 classics No Retreat, No Surrender (purely a "period piece" now) and Three Amigos. These are just two of the movies I've seen more times than I can count. Want more? How about Last of the Mohicans, Terminator 2: Judgement Day (the best sequel ever), and Rambo 3? I can quote them throughout. Today I'm going to talk about a peculiar sub-genre of speculative fiction, the Post-Apocalypse story. By its very definition, post-apocalypse deals with what might happen on Earth after some catastrophic event (or series of events) has destroyed many of the things we take for granted. Films that deal with this subject matter are usually pretty heavy, as mere "survival" is usually the primary goal of the main character, but they're not always done well. A classic piece of cinema is Mel Gibson's Mad Max "trilogy," though I'm sort of at a loss as to why it holds that status other than being unique for its time. For a long time, the common cause of the "apocalypse" was a nuclear holocaust (thank the Cold War for that), but nowadays we see far more stories dealing with the immediate aftermath of zombies. It's the former scenario that I'll be talking about today; perhaps I'll discuss zombies in the future. First, I present The Book of Eli. Thirty years after a "hole in the sky" set fire to pretty much everything on Earth, a man wanders westward carrying the last Bible on the planet. Originally, I approached this film with trepidation -- no advance information indicated exactly why that particular book was the central focus of the film. Even after watching its entirety, I'm still a little skeptical, but at least it had a decent twist at the end. Eli's possible future is a world full of roadside rape and murder, where children are not taught to read (most books are burned, anyway) and water is the most valuable resource. Humanity seems to care only about day-to-day survival, ignoring most of the evolutionary discoveries that made us a sedentary population in the first place. Only one "city" is shown in the film, a loose conglomeration of folks under the thumb of the film's villain who only has power because he knows where the water is. It's portrayed as a world without hope, which maybe speaks to why the Bible is pushed so strongly to the forefront of the conflict. Another constant theme? Cannibalism. We only meet two people during the story who went down this path, however. Even more of a world without hope is the even more gruesome The Road. A man and his son wander through desolated America in a constant search for food, water, shelter, and meaning. I say this film surpasses Eli's lack of hope because suicide is a consistent lurking possibility. No matter how many times it happened, and it happened more than once, it was difficult to watch a father discuss suicide with his son, even in one case illustrating exactly how to do it. This film is based on a critically-acclaimed novel, which I have not yet read. Its constant flashbacks of the father with his wife both before and after their son was born serve to flesh out certain details of how the living pair got to that point, but on the whole the film lacks a lot of character development. The son, in all honesty, is presented as a whiny brat -- about as useful as Dakota Fanning's character in War of the Worlds -- lacking even a sliver of the hardship-bred toughness required to survive in a post-apocalyptic world. At some parts catatonic, other parts carried (literally) by the father, he serves as little more than an anchor screaming "Papa!" at every turn. Roadside rape is only hinted at, while the fears of roadside murder and cannibalism are overtly apparent in the father's ever-present distrust of everyone. In one scene, the protagonists stumble upon a locked cellar where people are actually being stored alive for later consumption. On the whole, this film is incredibly difficult to watch, but it is a far more realistic and believable view into a bleak, plausible future. Similar to The Passion of the Christ, The Road is not what I would call a "popcorn movie." Are there any post-apocalyptic films that you particularly enjoy? Have you ever seen one that does something far different from what's been described?

Movies: The Twist

I love movies. Not just watching them, but discussing them and getting involved with the worlds they create. I semi-frequently blog on ways The Matrix could have been improved, probably for no better reason than hindsight is 20/20. Recently, I've been seeing more movies than usual and it's provoked a few thoughts. Today I'm going to talk about the twist. Probably the most famous (infamous?) director when it comes to twists these days is M. Night Shyamalan. Who can forget The Sixth Sense, when we find out the main character has been dead the whole time, or Signs, where the aliens are damaged by water (and yet still chose to invade a planet 70% covered with it). The twist is a device of suspense--it reveals that the movie (or novel, etc.) has been making you believe one thing, while the truth is something completely different. Usually, these revelations have an integral and immediate bearing on the events and character actions that led up to them. The recent film Pandorum actually tried its hand at two major twists, in my opinion. I can boil the plot down to it being a horror film in space where thousands of colonists from Earth are stuck in cryo-sleep while malevolent forces run amuck. A detail lost amid the frightening confusion is the name, age, and identification of the flight crews. This leads to the first major twist and ties the film to its title; Pandorum is a mental disorder brought on by paranoia from long periods of space flight. Add to that a side effect of severe memory loss from extended cryo-sleep, and you leave the audience wide open for shock when the truth is actually revealed. I don't want to give anything away, but it's one of those "Who is the real villain?" twists. Though the second twist ties into the first, it had a bit more impact to me. The assumption is that they are traveling through space because they're in a spaceship. Space is dark, so when the "windows" are opened and it's dark beyond them, there's no real surprise. And yet, when someone asks "Where are the stars?" things begin to fall into place. The ship has been traveling for so long, unbeknownst to its slumbering passengers, that it arrived at its destination some centuries before and has been stewing at the bottom of an ocean ever since. There's a twist you don't see everyday. In this regard, a film like Gamer pales in comparison. Think Death Race without cars but with guns; where the Death Row inmates compete, but are ultimately controlled through a video game simulation. At the beginning, we know the main character has a wife and daughter. It's revealed, slowly, that the wife lost custody of the daughter after the wrongly-accused main character went to prison. Lo and behold, the person who has custody of the daughter just happens to be the Puppet Master man controlling the game itself. This is a weak attempt at a twist, ultimately adding no more weight to the final showdown than was already there (meaning if the main character died, he wouldn't have been able to see his daughter again anyway). The film ended so simply that I was almost caught off guard by it. With so many possibilities in a world like that, I half-hoped the villain would actually just be a puppet himself--controlled by someone more powerful and evil. I understand that this is a slippery-slope, eventually ending in an infinite loop of possibilities, but come on--they didn't even try. It's true that not every story needs to have a twist, but, with a narrative so straightforward as to need irrelevant filler scenes, it would have helped. Are there any classic "twists" that will always stick with you? Have you seen any films where the opportunity was grossly missed?

The Next Generation ... of E-Readers

I was hoping to beat Chris to the punch on this one, as I know he loves to stay current on the latest and greatest gadgets. I saw an article this morning linking to a preview of devices to be shown at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2010, complete with a preview image that I can only describe as "sexy." [caption id="attachment_1705" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="The Plastic Logic QUE"][/caption] Read the full article here.

Written And Directed By

Anyone familiar with film has read the words "Written and Directed by" during the opening or closing credits of someone's vanity project. These don't always turn out to be the highest-grossing, poignant, or even coherent films produced--because being able to write doesn't necessarily mean you can direct. Or does it? Authors must be able to do both in their projects. In his recent post, David differentiated between "great writing" and "great storytelling." I believe "storytelling" speaks to the author's ability to direct the piece. In my younger years, I never noticed how the director affected a film. Many people probably never do. I blissfully watched the Academy Awards, failing to understand why there was even a category for Best Director. Becoming a writer has changed that. It has forced me to dissect things, to pay closer attention to concepts I might have missed out on before. Part of it is age, of course; when I watch (and read) the same things I did as a child, a lot of the jokes actually make sense now. Now, I watch for the subtleties--because every writer/director will tell a story differently. For example, take a scene of an adult couple having an argument. An emotionally charged scene, to be sure, but how could we subtly ratchet up the tension? Why not show the scene through the eyes of their 4-year-old son? The dialog still happens, but how will the boy interpret it? To do the same in film, a director might place the camera 3 feet off the ground instead of 6. It makes the scene more impactful, whether or not we see the young boy character, simply by altering the angle by which we see the characters in it. Changing the perspective of a story can completely alter its nature, depending on whose eyes you look through. Recently, someone "retold" the high concept of The Wizard of Oz to spin the plot in a completely different direction. I'm paraphrasing, but it went something like: "A young girl transports to a strange land, kills the first person she meets, and teams up with three strangers to kill again" Not exactly the wholesome tale of "there's no place like home," is it? Authors and directors must always keep in mind what serves the story best as they go along. Each stroke of their brush must be calculated if it is to elicit the intended reaction. Readers (and watchers) may not always consciously notice each idiosyncratic bit, but the ability to make these decisions of what to include and how to include it is one of the most vital skills we have.