Rabia Gale

alchemical fantasy

TV & film

childhood influences: why I write what I do

In the past few weeks, I posted about why I think I write science fantasy. When that turned out to be a discussion on how to define the genre, I went on to elaborate how the different languages and vocabularies of fantasy and science fiction are blended in science fantasy.

Today I have a confession: The reason why I write science fantasy has very little to do with a reasoned, thoughtful approach to writing fiction and everything to do with my childhood influences. Behold.

(Note: science fiction elements in red, fantasy in blue, science fantasy in purple)

Exhibit A: ThunderCats

Feline humanoids with super powers flee their dying planet in spaceships and crash-land on another planet. There they encounter new friends  (unicorn-herding sorcerers, warrior maidens, galactic cops, and robotic fruit-harvesting bears), make a powerful new enemy (a five-thousand-year-old living mummy), and build a fortress and a cool tank. Their leader, a hotheaded young warrior with a magic sword, is constantly in and out of trouble.

 

These robotic bears must run on ethanol

 

Exhibit B: Rainbow Brite and the Star Stealer

A magical girl who brings spring to earth travels across the universe to confront an evil space princess who is bent on adding a diamond planet to her collection of jewels. Features talking horses, both real and robotic, robots and spaceships, lizard creatures and magical belts.

I may have been one of the few people who, upon learning of the discovery of this planet, exclaimed, “They found Spectra!”

 

“Nobody can own Spectra! It’s the light of the whole universe!”

 

Exhibit C: Warriors of the Wind

I know, I know this is the horribly-mangled English-language version of Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, but I loved it as a kid and I don’t care that it cut out all the heavy-handed environmentalism. I’m grateful to the newer English version of Nausicaa for clearing up some plot points that had always puzzled me, but the dialog of Warriors of the Wind was funnier and I knew most of it by heart.

So. Blurb: In a post-apocalyptic world taken over by a toxic jungle and giant insects, a small peaceful kingdom is brutally attacked by a warlike state (with airplanes, tanks, and guns) when an ancient weapon is uncovered within its borders. Nausicaa, the princess of the Valley of the Wind, who has a strange connection with the giant insects, struggles to bring peace between the nations, and between humanity and the denizens of the jungle. There is also a prophecy.

 

I covet that glider.

 

It’s no wonder that I write genre soup, happily tossing fantasy and science fiction elements into my fiction.

What were your childhood influences? How have they affected your writing or other art?

are you my genre? on defining science fantasy

There is no doubt that I write fantasy. The whole secondary-world settings kinda give that away.

The trouble starts when I try to narrow my work into a sub-genre.

My stories don’t have the scale and scope of epic fantasy. They don’t have the the coming-of-age themes or adventures of heroic fantasy. I stay away from writing in a historical or alternate Earth setting, so those genres of fantasy (including steampunk) are out. Some of my work is obviously based on fairy tales, but a large part is not. YA fantasy is a nice catch-all, but my protagonists are mostly older and I write with an adult audience in mind.

But, Rabia, why not call your genre traditional fantasy and be done with it?

Well, see, that’s what I started writing, way back when. My first novel was set in a pseudo-medieval world, with its attendant attitudes and technology. But since that book, my worlds have become more modern. They feature indoor plumbing and firearms, trams and trains, elevators and radios. My societies perform great feats of science and engineering, whether its using a radioactive element to punch portals into other worlds or hanging an artificial sun on a track made from the skeletal remains of a cosmic dragon. I have magic in my worlds, but my sorcerers are just as likely to be scientists as they perform genetic experiments and create mechanical constructs.

And not only that, but I have a fixation with what goes on in high above the ground. My first novel featured a sorcerer-made flying fortress. I love to deprive worlds of their suns and create weird universes. The back stories of many of my races has them traveling from other planets. Events on my worlds are affected by what comes from the sky, whether it’s space dust or the aforementioned cosmic dragons.

You could blame all this on too many episodes of The Universe. But truth is, science fiction elements have always crept into my stories and woven themselves into the background.

Can it be that I’m really writing science fantasy?

Turns out that it’s not too easy to define what science fantasy is. It’s a fluid genre with fuzzy boundaries. Often it looks to be straightforward fantasy, with the science fiction elements so well-hidden that they come out either in later books or in bonus material. Or it might look like science fiction until the elves and dwarves show up.

Take for example, Anne McCaffrey’s Pern book. The first book, Dragonflight, has a pseudo-medieval and low-technology setting that is familiar to readers of traditional fantasy. It contains dragons, another classic fantasy element. Yet the threat to Pernese society comes not from Dark Lords rising from their underground tombs, but in the form of Thread falling from the skies when the Red Planet draws near to Pern.  In later books we learn that the dragons were genetically engineered to fight Thread and that the Pernese people can trace their origins back to our Earth.

The Star Wars movies are often classified as science fantasy, and I can see why. When you take fantasy conventions (princesses, a brotherhood of mage-monks with arcane powers, swords–even if they are made out of lasers and called sabers) and plunk them into a universe with spaceships, firearms, and tanks, you’re blending the two genres. I think one could even put Cameron’s Avatar in the same sub-genre.

I love both science (chemistry and anything space-related) and the humanities (literature and history). When I write science fantasy, I’m free to draw inspiration from both these wells. And that makes for a happier writer and better stories.

Do you read or write science fantasy? Do you have any other examples of the genre? How would you define it?

once upon a time: thoughts on the season finale

ALERT! ALERT!

HERE BE SPOILERS.

You have been warned.

Seriously.

Don't make me force this apple into you!

So. Season One of Once Upon A Time is over.

WHAT DID YOU THINK??

Okay, since it’s my blog, I’ll go first. In random order:

* I was pleasantly surprised by how much they moved the plot along by the end. I was totally convinced that they were going to s-s-s-s-t-r-e-t-c-h out the revelation of why Regina had it in for Snow, what Rumpelstiltskin’s game plan was, who August was, when Emma would FINALLY believe, and then add in more stretching out until the curse was broken, everyone’s memory was restored, and then we could go back to living happily every after.

Instead, they gave it all to us in the first season. Except for the living happily every after part. Erp?

Now what? The curse is broken, but everyone is still in Storybrooke with a giant purple cloud descending on them. Magic is BAAAACK in the world again (okay for the first time in our world). Uh oh. What are the magic users–who happen to be our antagonists–going to DO with it? Lots of evil stuff, I hope. Judging by Regina’s expression at the end, she’s already spinning plans.

Personally, I’d love to see a melding of Storybrooke and Fairy Tale World, where the boundaries between them have gotten fuzzy and permeable. So that on your way to Granny’s Diner for your morning doughnut you might (oops!) fall into a siren’s pool. Or run into a werewolf. Or take a wrong turn into the Infinite Forest.

* You know, they went to a lot of trouble to make Regina sympathetic, but really? Having it in for Snow all those years? You do realize that she was a KID at the time and that her intentions were not at all malicious?And maybe, if you were going to run away with the stable boy and a kid knew of the plan, perhaps you might want to watch the kid more closely and make sure your evil mother was never alone with her. And then you tell Snow that your stable boy crush ran away to spare her feelings, but you go ahead and murder her father and send a hunstman to carve her heart out anyway? Wha–? *blink blink* Soooo, hurting feelings = bad. Carving out heart = acceptable. Mmm.

In short (too late!) the scriptwriters did not do an adequate job of convincing me of the motivations behind the Evil Queen’s vengeance.

(Speaking of which, what happened to the evil mother? Is she going to show up next season? I’d have expected Regina to have done away with mommy dearest, but it would be COOL if she showed up as as antagonist.)

* I still love Mr. Gold. Favorite character. Complex. Dry humor. In control. Hidden depths. I was SO looking forward to his learning that Belle was still alive. Unfortunately, they missed the mark on that one. Sure, Mr. Gold was reunited with Belle, but it happened in the middle of all that other stuff going on and lost much of its emotional impact. That, and it didn’t CHANGE Gold’s actions in any way. He betrayed Regina and Emma before he even knew Regina had locked Belle up. After meeting up with Belle, he went ahead and did what he was going to do anyway. So, she might as well have stayed locked up and Regina could’ve used her as a weapon against Gold next season, much as it would’ve pained me to have to wait. I think the writers dropped the ball there.

* Nice to know that there’s still a lot of Fairy Tale backstory we don’t know yet. Like how Snow and Charming managed to wrest the kingdoms away from King George and Regina. I hope that this backstory gives Regina more believable motivation for cursing all the fairy tale characters to a hideous, miserable existence in–small-town Maine?

* Also, I think Baelfire is Henry’s dad. And my reasoning behind this? Because I’m a writer, and that’s what I would do. 😀

* I like that the true love that broke the curse is maternal love. Nice to see something other than romantic love get its day in a Love Conquers All scenario.

Your turn. Thoughts?

once upon a time, or fluid fairy tales

Writers have been retelling or fracturing fairy tales for a long time. Now the film & TV industry have gotten into the fray big time, with two Snow White movies releasing this spring and a couple of fairy tale-inspired TV shows. The one that I’ve been faithfully following is Once Upon A Time.

Storybrooke, Maine is your average idyllic New England small town–with one difference. Every inhabitant is a fairytale character, brought into this world by the Wicked Stepmother from Snow White (Snow White, again! What’s with the popularity of that particular fairy tale this year?). They remember nothing of their former lives, and they’ve been trapped in time for 28 years, ruled over by Mayor Mills, aka Evil Queen. No one comes to Storybook, and bad things happen to anyone who tries to leave. The Evil Queen’s revenge on Snow White (now separated from her Prince, and a school teacher) is complete. Until the day the mayor’s adopted son brings his birth mother into the small town–and time moves forward once more.

Snow White, as she is Fairy Tale Land

 

Er, I mean this of course:

While the framing story is that of Snow White, Once Upon A Time draws from a number of fairy tales, blending them so that they are all part of the same tapestry of events. These are fluid fairy tales, fairy tales without boundaries, where Hansel and Gretel find themselves at the Gingerbread House on an errand for the Evil Queen, Cinderella bargains away her first-born child to Rumpelstiltskin for a chance to go to the ball, and Beauty’s Beast is–well, I won’t spoil that little detail here. Secondary characters get their own subplots, and backstories are fleshed out. Each episode has a Fairy Tale Land thread and a Storybook thread, which, for the most part, work well together, revealing not only the changes happening in Storybook but also the mysteries of the past (like why the Evil Queen enacted such a bizarre curse on everyone in the first place–which is a season-long, if not series-long, mystery).

The writers pepper the Storybrooke narrative with little clue as to the true identities of its inhabitants. Snow White is Mary Margaret Blanchard, Rumpelstiltskin is Mr. Gold, and the Evil Queen is Regina Mills (thus making me believe that she’s the original miller’s daughter from Rumpelstiltskin, and is yet another indicator of how fluid the boundaries of the fairy tales are in this show). Because the Queen has replaced everyone’s memories (breaking up relationships she found offensive, I suppose), their happy endings have turned into never-afters. Cinderella is a pregnant teen whose boyfriend’s father won’t let him see her. Hansel and Gretel are the results of a brief fling. And Snow White and her prince may feel they belong together, but he’s married to someone else, and their attraction only bring lies, betrayal and heartache.

Snow White, in Storybrooke

There are some parts of the worldbuilding that are hard to swallow. If everything’s stayed the same for 28 years, why has the mayor’s adopted kid managed to grow up while his schoolmates haven’t aged a day? And I only realized a couple of episodes ago that the creators of Lost are behind this series, so I’m not at all confident that they can keep the storylines under control and nail the ending.

Do you watch Once Upon A Time? What do you think of it?