Long Books, Short Stories

  Just finished my monthly roundup of S&S and heroic fantasy short stories for Black Gate. Some good yarns (and poems) this month. Go check out HFQ and S&S Magazine for yourself and read some good, new stories.
I just picked Gonji: The Soul Within the Steel back up and noticed that's it's pretty long compared to most of what I've been reading for the past few months (making myself read a book a week for Black Gate's encouraged me to read shorter books). One of the things about e-books is that unless you pay attention to the location number at the bottom of the screen and have an understanding of what it means you don't really know how long it is in pages. That's still what defines a book's length to me.  Looking at the ISFDB, Gonji:TSWtS is over 425 pages long and most of the books I've been reading lately are only 200+ or so.
 I just picked
   I've harped about the ridiculous length of fantasy books these days many times.  It's a rare book that needs to be longer that long. Now at 425 pages or so, the Gonji books are longer than I often read these days (if only DAW's 200+ page books were the norm again), but they don't feel padded or rambling. Same for James Enge's Morlock books. Very different writers, but both kept me riveted. Neither slapped on side plot after side plot or gave me the life story of the ratcatcher's mother's second-cousin who once saw a dragon do something nasty in the woodshed.
   On the other hand, look at Tad William's Memory, Sorrow and Thorn. In paperback its four volumes (and it's four 'cause they had to cut #3 in half!), average 780 pages for a grand total of 3117 pages. I liked the series, even reading it when stuck riding the outside deck of the SI Ferry in the cold. At some point, though, I felt like one of Napoleon's grognards staggering out of Moscow.

   Unless Williams was so in love with his world that he couldn't bear to leave it, in which case I'll forgive the man his obsession, there's no real excuse for that length. The book reads like LotR might if Tolkien had fully developed every part of the appendices and added them to the text. Too much plot, too many characters, and too distracting.
   There are too many other series like that. Fantasy seems to create them

like so many maggots out of roadkill. Alright, so that's harsh, but more than a few are by writers who might be great at a shorter length but feel compelled by market to drone on for ten volumes. Instead of sharpening their storytelling skills, they spin things out like Scheherazade struggling to stave off execution. Every grain of sand needs to be catalogued, every horse shod described and all the thoughts of everybody who might be involved in the plot to steal the emperor's treasure.
   I admit, it's a matter of taste. I don't really want "epic fantasy that I can get lost in for days, not hours" (as Locus wrote of William's tril(quadrol)ogy). I prefer my escapist reading to move and a with story anchored to four 800-page books it gets a little tough to build up any momentum. Put one down for more than a day or two and you're going to start asking who was that character again.  There's too much stuff getting in the way.

   It'd be silly to say there's no good doorstoppers.  Personally, I like big chunks of Steven Erikson's Malazan stuff.  Based on sales of it and similarly thick books, they're what a majority of readers want (unless places like HFQ are getting some sort of monstrous level of readership they're keeping secret). The contemporary fantasy audience wants to get lost for days on end. I remember reading about someone at Black Gate, the writer Howard Andrew Jones I think, having the magazine dismissed at a con by some fans because they only read fat books not short stories. Somewhere anthologists like Lin Carter must have shed a tear.
   I'm always surprised when I read negative review of books I like such as Glen Cook's Black Company series or Michael Moorcock's Eternal Champion series citing a lack of character development when compared to Game of Thrones or the Wheel of Time books. There's this misconception that mere length means better character development. I always thought it was the quality, not quantity, of the writing that did that. 

   I've also just thought that maybe gaming is to blame for some of the changed expectations of younger readers. In Michael Moorcock's The Vanishing Tower there's a battle between two summoned races, the female Elenoin and the male Grahluk. If memory serves there's barely a paragraph of explanation about them and then they're gone, never to be mentioned again. Now, 
   I believe gamers want to understand all the nuts and bolts operations behind every monster and character. As RPG gaming became less and less free-form, players and refs wanted everything to "make sense". Games require magic to be systematized so it's predictable and consistent. Just look at the Steven Erikson's RPG-derived magic. Every bit is mapped out and explained. Each component fits into a larger scheme. His wizards might as well have level numbers stamped on their heads. 
   I fell under this spell myself back when I still gamed. When I reffed I had to know the populations, the economies, everything, about every part of my world. When I played, I expected a similar level of detail, so I'm no stranger to this phenomenon myself. 

At some point this became the normal expectation from many readers and many writers were more than ready to fulfill it.  I suspect the epic-quest template from Tolkien also helped bloat books. It wasn't enough that Conan faces some lions, climbs a tower, fights a spider, and talks to an alien. Now it has to involve an epic slog across thousands of miles of landscape, a struggle to overthrow a corrupt ruler and numerous flashbacks to the hero's childhood running with wolves or something. Bigger is better. 
   All of this was hammered home, for the gazillionth time, when I was finishing off the short story review for Black Gate. There's so much good, even great, writing being done these days. Some of it's from brand spanking new writers with no credits to their name and some's from grizzled old hands like Joe Bonadonna (what, you haven't you heard me exclaim how much fun Dorgo the Dowser is and bought it already?). 
   If you like fantasy, and heroic stuff in particular, there's no, let me I repeat, absolutely no reason to limit yourself as a reader. If you're hesitant then dip your toes in with a single-character collection like Mad Shadows or Dossouye. Pretend it's an actual novel, not a fix-up. The next time you can read a themed anthology like Return of the Sword or Swords & Dark Magics. Finally, and I understand this might take some time, a magazine. Trust me, it's worth the work.

Sword & Soul Amazon - Dossouye by Charles R. Saunders

 To date, I may have written more about Charles Saunder than any other writer on this blog.  Part of the reason is that he's  one of only a handful of authors from the swords & sorcery renaissance in the seventies still working the field AND he kicks massive backside.  The other is that I only discovered him late in the game. It's only thanks to the late and lamented Heroes of Dark Fantasy site created by Dale Rippke that I learned of Saunders and his hero Imaro.  

   To come across such an exciting S&S writer and character that I'd never even heard of seemed impossible.  Clearly, since I hadn't, it wasn't.  Within six months I'd tracked down the original Imaro books and was hooked.  Over time I got my hands on some of his stories published in various anthologies.  Not only was he writing S&S worthy of mentioning in the same breath as Conan, Fafhrd and Kane, Saunders was showing how to expand the field's horizons.

   Later I learned about the problems Saunders had suffered getting Imaro into print and keeping him there.  Just reading about his experiences is frustrating.  I was disappointed to learn he'd more or less left the genre and turned to journalism.  

   When Night Shade Books (let's all bow our heads in silence for a moment while keeping our fingers crossed) announced they were not only planning to reprint the original Imaro trilogy but brand new volumes as well I sent them my money as soon as they'd take it.  When the NSB stuff fell apart before the third book, "The Trail of Bohu", was reprinted due to low sales I was pissed off greatly.  I wanted to read new stories from Saunders and now it looked like there was to be nothing.  Personally, I would have just given up at that point.

   Fortunately, Charles Saunders was made of sterner stuff than I am.  He'd also returned to S&S just as the whole publishing business was changing.  Over the next few years he put "The Trail of Bohu" back in print and published its sequel, "The Naama War".  Since then there have been new shorts stories and a two-fisted pulp novel, "D'amballa" from a writer who'd been away for far too long.
   Saunders also resurrected and continued the adventures of a second original character, the ahosi Dossouye, a woman soldier in a royal army.  Back in 1979, he had created a sword & soul heroine to walk alongside Imaro (metaphorically, at least).  Dossouye's first story, "Agbewe's Sword", appeared in Jessica Amanda Salmonson's landscape altering "Amazons!".  She reappeared on the pages of several volumes of Marion Zimmer Bradley's "Sword and Sorceress".  Until a reprint of "Gimmile's Song" in the first "Dark Matter" anthology and a new story in the second, she'd been away from public view for nearly twenty years.

   In 2008 the fix-up "Dossouye" appeared.  It collected the original Dossouye stories and added a brand new one, "Obenga's Drum".  Its cover art by Mshindo I. Kuumba was a ferocious image of Saunder's heroine in mid attack.  Produced by the machinery of self-publishing house Lulu and Sword and Soul Media and filled with exciting stories, "Dossouye" was everything a sword & sorcery book should be.
   Dossouye is an ahosi, a female soldier in the army of Abomey.  The concept is taken from the ahosi warriors of the historical West African kingdom of Dahomey.
   At the book's outset, Abomey is preparing for an invasion by the warriors of Abanti and that kingdom's bukur, a terrible practitioner of evil magic.  Only possession of the legendary sword of Agebwe can prevent Abomey's fall.  Chosen in a dream, Dossouye is sent out of the kingdom to find and recover the sword.
   "Agbewe's Sword" is a mini-epic complete with a quest, betrayals, powerful magics and stunning fights and giant battles.  Dossouye appears as an almost meek servant of her king and emerges a powerful figure ready, even if reluctantly, to find a new path in an unknown world.
   In the end, jealousy brings disaster on Dossouye.  Tradition and fear of the prestige she wins in the war against Abanti force her to leave Abomey.  The exiled ahosi is drawn by circumstance into the great forest that covers much of interior of the great continent of Illodwe.
   The stories that follow are as small in scale as "Agbewe's Sword" is vast.  Instead of focusing on Dossouye's quest to recover a magic sword and defend her homeland, they're about her efforts to find her place in world where the traditions her identity was built on have been destroyed.
   In "Gimmile's Songs" and "Marwe's Forest" Dossouye finds and loses love.  In "Shimenge's Mask" and "Yahimba's Choice" the ahosi is forced to make decisions with possibly terrible results.  In the new and final story, "Obenga's Drum", she learns of and is tormented by the consequences of one those decisions.
   In "Marwe's Forest" and "Obenga's Drum" there are beautiful images of the great forest and its deepest, most hidden regions and inhabitants.  In "Obenga's Drum" the trees are "so tall that their foliage appeared only as a jade cloud".  It's a place teeming with life.  Troops of monkeys swing through the lower branches and high above, the great apes.  In the heart of the forest, man is noticeable only by his absence.
   In the first story, Dossouye meets an ancient, supernatural being and for a short time finds peace and love.  In the second tale, while traveling through the gigantic mtuni god-trees in the rain forest's heart she rescues and, in turn, is rescued by the diminutive Emibiti people.  Here too she finds a measure of peace, given it in return for her actions.
   Now, don't think what I'm describing are just hearts and sunshine tales.  These are still stories with plenty of action and excitement.  There are several types of demons, brutal bandits, shapechangers and dinosaurs.  Oh, and Dossouye rides a great war-bull named Gbo.
   Charles Saunders' isn't writing poetry, but stuff that's bold and vivid.  Whether he's presenting the clash of armies:

"Even as sheets of arrows flew overhead, the cavalry of both armies were the first forces to engage, crashing against each other like opposing ocean waves."

or a single warrior's engagement:

   "Dropping the war-bull's reins, she gripped the hilt of her sword in both hands.  Then, with all the strength coiled in her back and shoulders, she swung at the neck of the mokele-mbembe as though she were chopping a tree." 

he's sure to grab and hold you with his words.

   In several of the tales Saunder's creates some of Dossouye's adventures from real-world elements.  In "Yahimba's Choice", Dossouye confronts the practice of female genital mutilation.  She helps a young woman uncover the reasons behind its continued practice  and lay the groundwork for ending it.  "Obenga's Drum" the sorrowful and evil story of Ota Benga is used for that of the spirit-man, Obenga.

   "Dossouye" is not just a collection of adventure stories.  Saunder's is using Dossouye to explore how someone reacts when their fundamental beliefs are shown to have little reality.  When the fedi tree that Dossouye believes houses two of her three souls is felled, she believes she has lost the connection to her ancestors and deities and will become a zhumbi.  When that doesn't happen, she begins the journey that will take her into the great forest and lead her to search out a new version of herself.
   Time and again Dossouye meets others in places similar to her own.  Several of her encounters are with people bound by traditions that bind too tightly or are built on untruths.  Guided by her own sense of right and wrong and armed with bravery and a sharp sword, she steps forward to help them.  For nearly every adventurous event in these stories there's one about moral or emotional choices.
   Now as even cursory visitors to this blog must know, I'm a champion of the straight ahead S&S story.  Gimme a strong armed hero, a well hefted axe and a monster or two and I'm a pretty happy camper.  However, when done right, and Charles Saunders does that, there's a place for more ruminative stories.  He proves a genre's only as limiting as an author is limited.
   The most basic I like and recommend these stories is they're well told tales of adventure.  The fights are exciting, the world is colorful and well depicted and there's a nice dash of horror thrown in as well.  Charles Saunders knows how to hook you into the story and snap you back and forth like a great amusement park ride.
   The second, is that Dossouye's not just another sword-swinger.  Saunders has created an increasingly complex character who isn't just searching for the lost golden macguffin but for how to rebuild her soul.
   Finally, I love that he's continuing to create venues for his stories different from the more usual European or generic fantasy ones.  It's done without a whiff of exoticism.  I have to admit, part of me doesn't even care about the inclusiveness or boundary expanding components of Saunder's writing and all the other swords & soul authors.  I'm a little bit selfish and I just want stories that don't contain the same old overworked elements one more time.  That said, the other stuff is pretty cool too.
   Four years later a full length Dossouye novel appeared.  Titled "The Dancers of Mulukau", it looks to be a continuation, if not completion, of the exiled ahosi's search for herself.  I hope to get to it soon and report back when done.