The New York Review of Science Fiction Issue 310, June, 2014

by Kevin J Maroney

  It is fair to say that there was no shortage, during the brief boom in roman scientifique that occurred in the first decade of the twentieth century, of truly bizarre works. Indeed, until one has studied the full spectrum of that work (admittedly, not many people have), one cannot really appreciate the extent to which the exemplars of American science fiction, which imposed themselves on Europe in the wake of World War II, confined the model of how speculative fiction ought to be formulated in narrative terms and how much broader its own spectrum might have been. Even by the high standards of grotesquerie set by such contemporaries as Jarry, Apollinaire, André Couvreur, Fernand Kolney, and Edmond Haraucourt, however, Henri Austruy was exceptional, and he continued to write such fiction, albeit sporadically, long after most of the others had given up or died. Only Couvreur’s career—similarly confined to periodical publication in its later years—ran parallel to his for the whole distance, and although it is not short of black comedy and calculated flamboyance, it keeps a good deal closer to conventional expectations.

  In terms of his political views, Austruy must have had sympathizers as well as people who loathed him, but there is another notable feature of his literary work that was calculated to put readers off in a more fundamental manner than its satirical targeting. He comes across in all his works as a man who does not believe in happy endings, not merely in the sense that he does not use them in his stories but in the more fundamental sense that he really does seem convinced of their utter impossibility. On the occasions when he features successful love affairs as in L’Eupantophone and “Un Samsâra,” he does so specifically in order to bring them to a cruel end and then to describe their awful aftermaths.

  The early 1900s were a period in which the artistry of the conte cruel reached its climax in France, and there was obviously a considerable audience prepared to delight in sadistic twists of fate, but there can have been few readers who did not think the downbeat conclusions of Austruy’s stories—without a single exception—distinctly discomfiting. The brilliantly weird “Miellune,” in which an entire town is transformed into an Edenic paradise, takes the philosophy to its logical limit; the inhabitants, being far too human to endure a paradisal life for long, eventually march en masse into a literal inferno.

  Austruy surely realized that he was not doing himself any favors by refusing to pander to reader expectations in that fashion and others, and he must have considered the fact that a third novel advertised in L’Ère “Petitpaon” as “en preparation,” entitled Les Joies de vie et de la mort (The Joys of Life and Death), was never published, presumably because the publisher felt that his fingers had been burned by the reception of the earlier endeavor. It is not entirely surprising that seventeen years were to pass before Austruy published another novel or that he moderated the tone and content of his later work somewhat—but he did go back to it and ultimately refused to compromise in his methods or his world-view.

  “L’Olotélépan” does return in its early chapters to the relative amiability of the early chapters of L’Eupantophone, and it omits the hostility to religion that must have put some readers off much of Austruy’s early work, but that was as far as Austruy felt able to go by way of concession. Even though Félix Gigolus avoids the dire fates Austruy normally reserves for his sympathetic characters, the book still ends with a bloody massacre in which Gourdebec and the rest of the cast perish horribly. “Un Samsâra” is much gentler in handling its minor characters, but all of its major characters meet tragic or ignominious ends—some of them, as the title suggests, more than once. That policy was never likely to win the author remembrance, let alone fame and fortune, no matter how enterprisingly wrought his stories were or how adept some of their anticipations of future technology turned out to be.

  In spite of everything that Henri Austruy failed to do to increase the likelihood that somebody would read “L’Olotélépan” in the distant era when its prophetic merits could finally be recognized and applauded, however, the fact remains that he is a genuinely interesting writer of fantastic fiction who really does deserve modern investigation in that context. He is quirky, and he is challenging almost to the point of perversity, but those are certainly no bad things in a genre such as the one that ultimately coalesced around the kinds of work he was doing. I would like to think that, if he had been enough of a prophet to anticipate that his work would one day be rediscovered, reappraised, and translated into English, he might have been quite pleased, even though he would undoubtedly have had reason to regret that it was only by me, a kindred spirit in far too many ways. Given my own penchant for perverse fantastic fiction, I like to imagine I might one day join his shade sitting on the infinite hard bench of Eternity, whereupon he might flex his elbows and say to his next-door neighbor on the other side: “Move up a bit, Cassandra—and for God’s sake stop blubbering, girl; there are plenty of people worse off than you.”

  Brian Stableford lives in Reading. The complete fantastic fiction of Henri Austruy will published in three volumes on 1 June 2014 by Black Coat Press as The Eupantophone and Other Stories, The Petitpaon Era and Other Stories, and The Olotelepan and Other Stories.

  The Black Prism (Lightbringer Book 1) by Brent Weeks

  reviewed by Aidan-Paul Canavan

  New York: Orbit, 2010; $25.99 hc; 640 pages

  The Black Prism marks the first book in Brent Weeks’s second fantasy series, Lightbringer. Having reached popular acclaim with his first fantasy series, the Night Angel trilogy, which appeared on the New York Times bestseller list, Lightbringer was hotly anticipated by epic fantasy fans. Initially conceived as a trilogy, Lightbringer has now been reframed as a tetralogy. Set in an entirely new fantasyland, The Black Prism focuses on the story of the mage-king Gavin Guile and his discovery of an illegitimate son, Kip, starting from the civil war that placed him in power through the rise of new civil unrest under the banner of a rebel leader. The story is relayed through several point-of-view characters, and is told in a fairly straightforward chronological sequence with the occasional flashback adding a little variance to the narrative. As a result, the novel is a blend of magery, battle, and political intrigue, and the story is delivered with energy, vigor, and enthusiasm. Those familiar with Weeks’s previous work will recognize many of the same strengths and weaknesses of his writing in this book.

  Two of the major strengths of Weeks’s writing have been his ability to create strong, likable characters who engage the reader and dominate the page as well as compelling, cinematic action sequences on both small and large scales. While not a “grimdark” author, Weeks still manages to create a sense of tension and scope in his action sequences, and he is not afraid of placing characters in jeopardy and having them perish, if only rarely. However, it is really through his major characters that Weeks captures reader attention and engagement.

  Gavin Guile, the central protagonist, is no exception. Gavin is the Prism, the semi-religious ruler of the Seven Satrapies, who serves as a religious focus, chief mage, and titular ruler of the land. His power is checked by the ruling Council of Colors, essentially a secular political council which shapes the mundane and practical aspects of government and prevents the Prism from having absolute power and control. Gavin initially appears to be the stereotypical, overly powered magic-using ruler, but as the story develops, he grows in depth and complexity. His presumed arrogance is justified both through his effortless command of enormous power and his frustration at the constraints placed on him by the ruling council. In fact, his interactions with both his bodyguards and the petty political councilors provide several great character moments as well as some much-needed levity. Weeks is careful to explore Gavin’s personality slowly over time so that the reader must assess and reassess assumptions and presumptions repeatedly throughout the narrative. The political maneuvering, the family ties and secrets, the personal obligations, as well as Gavin’s irreverent sense of humor add multiple layers to his character that are peeled back chapter after chapter. This sense of revelation
never feels artificial or contrived but is a natural consequence of getting to know Gavin better.

  Gavin’s personal history, the conflict with his brother, and his familial and interpersonal relationships prove to be engaging and also have dramatic repercussions for the realm at large—in particular, his relationships with Kip, his acknowledged bastard son, and Karris Whiteoak, his onetime fiancée and now bodyguard. Not only does this introduce an important dynamic to the story but it thrusts Gavin unexpectedly into the role of father to a teenage boy, and adding further tension to his already strained relationship with Karris. Both Gavin and Kip are depicted as attempting to navigate the bonds (real and supposed) associated with the revelation of their kinship, and Weeks explores many of the steps and missteps such a dramatic change in status and relationship can wreak on the individuals and, through Karris, those around them.

  Kip, himself, is not as strongly drawn as Gavin, but again Weeks has been at pains to avoid stereotype and cliché. An overweight, clumsy yet verbally quick character, Kip subverts many of the assumptions of hero-in-training or “chosen one” status often piled on young fantasy heroes. Unfortunately, while he is at times realistically drawn, there is an unevenness to his portrayal. Initially and frequently cowardly, he conveniently gains heroic courage at the most opportune moments and, despite lacking any formal training in magic, is a miraculously capable and powerful drafter (mage). Some of this is implied as hereditary and thus falls into the “chosen one” trope, while other moments feel like narrative necessity forced on the character rather than natural reactions Kip might have. However, there is a sense that the relationship between Kip and Gavin will continue to evolve and grow more complex over the succeeding novels and that Kip will continue to grow and solidify as a rounded character.

  Weeks has also managed to include several well-drawn secondary characters; not the least is Karris Whiteoak, a drafter and onetime lover of both Gavin and his brother Devin. Despite the temptation to view Karris as a simple love interest torn between two brothers, Weeks allows her to develop a real personality and character of her own. As a Blackguard and an accomplished drafter, Karris holds her own in the action sequences, but it is her depth and the hints of complex backstory that allow her to hold her own against the other characters. As with Gavin and Kip, Karris is given the page length to flesh out hints of backstory, and explore aspects of her evolving personality and complex history. However, it is Gavin who remains the focus of the narrative and the most developed and interesting of the characters.

  One of the greatest weaknesses of The Black Prism is also one of its strengths: the magic system. In the creation of chromaturgy, essentially a magic system based on the spectrum of light, Weeks does not strike a balance between the system being part of the world and the system dominating the narrative. Weeks explains much of the inner workings of this innovative system in an attempt to familiarize the reader with the new concepts. He also gives over significant proportions of the narrative to exploring its potential and occasionally inconsistent limitations. As a result, the text overemphasizes new terms such as drafting, chromaturgy, and the associated language of the system in a manner that would not be necessary and would be viewed as clumsy if a more traditional system had been utilized. The system itself uses the spectrum of light: sub-red (infrared), red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and supra-violet. Each color can be drafted by chromaturgs who can shape the light into solid matter called luxin or can create direct effects from light. Each color possesses its own attributes and abilities, and drafting has repercussions for the drafter. For instance, drafting blue light distances the drafter from emotion, making them more thoughtful, logical, and, if used to excess, obsessive. So while the concept of different magical abilities being drawn from different colors is not that new or startling, Weeks manages to create a fascinating and fairly rigorous system from these humble beginnings. The inventiveness that Weeks brings to the creation of the system and its use is a high point of the novel. As Gavin experiments with novel uses for chromaturgy, Weeks manages to impart a real sense of adventure and excitement of a character pushing the bounds of accepted knowledge and practice. We also learn that any chromaturge can only draft a finite amount of light in their lifetime before descending into madness and becoming a color “wight”—a monstrous version of themselves warped by the magic—which imbues the magic system with a sense of its importance, cost, and limitations.

  Unfortunately for Weeks, this innovative system becomes too much a focus of the narrative and not simply part of the world. Despite this form of magic ostensibly being part of the world, none of the characters use informal or slang terminology to describe the art, its effects, or its practice. Given the ubiquity of the magic in the world, one would expect at least the occasional use of a slang term, especially between the rival chromaturgs to denigrate the others. Non-magic users especially would likely have terms to describe magic users as a simple matter of course. In our own world, slang propagates faster than a dictionary can keep track of the terms, but apparently in Weeks’s world, several hundred years of chromaturgy is not enough for slang and insult to evolve. This lack of integration of the magic system into the worldbuilding is exacerbated by another telling fact. While Weeks’s narrator makes it plain that chromaturgy is an exceptionally rare ability, almost every single featured character, important or not, is a drafter. For something so supposedly rare, it is appallingly commonplace. As a result, it removes some of the novelty from the practice of the magic and undercuts some of the believability of the fictional reality.

  Despite this, however, Weeks has created an engaging narrative, fascinating characters, and he has planted enough plot hooks to guarantee solid development for the rest of the series: the complex backstory relating to civil war between Gavin and his brother, the ongoing civil conflict with the rise of a new challenger to the title of Prism, and the interpersonal relationships among characters as they navigate fairly substantial shifts in their private and personal lives, the abundant action sequences that range from well-constructed individual fights to large-scale battles. There is a lot to enjoy in Weeks’s writing, and he continues to prove he is one of the strongest of new fantasy authors.

  A. P. Canavan lives in Liverpool, England.

  See This

  recently seen and recommended by Jen Gunnels

  Thunderbird at the Next World Theatre—a staged reading with music, by Andrea Hairston, music by Pan Morigan.

  Poised between the script and its fullest realization as a complete production, few things are more fascinating (and exciting) than a staged reading. With the work of Andrea Hairston, a staged reading can give the audience member a more complete understanding of the work in progress. Hairston, artistic director for Chrysalis Theatre, has garnered awards and attention for her dramatic work as well as her endeavors in fiction, both of which have long been firmly entrenched in sf.

  I had the pleasure of seeing a staged reading of her latest and perhaps best work to date at one of the NYRSF Readings events in May, and Hairston will be giving another staged reading at this year’s Readercon in Boston. Attendees should make every effort to see the performance for the chance to participate in the artistic process—audience is an important part of a staged reading—and because Hairston’s clever melding of language and music shouldn’t be missed.

  Thunderbird at the Next World Theatre illustrates what has always happened when an oppressive regime takes power: the takeover of all forms of news media and the closing of the theatres. Wonder why the theatre always receives such criticism? At its best, theatre is dangerous, subversive, and seditious. Thunderbird follows two actors, Benny and River, outlaws in the eyes of the new order, who like others of their kind, attempt to salvage not just props and costumes but myths and ritual and words. In this post-apocalyptic world, the government watches everyone while forbidding gatherings and skin-to-skin contact. People are expected to only “read and write screen,” libraries are blown up along with arts districts, and dr
ones blow myths out of the sky. Hairston’s compelling commentary on the potential price of wiring-in shouldn’t be missed.

  Disorders of Magnitude: A Survey of Dark Fantasy by Jason V. Brock

  reviewed by Don Webb

  Latham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2014; $80.00 hc; 320 pages

  *

  Jason V. Brock’s survey of dark fantasy is limited in scope—mainly dealing with American works in literature, film, music, and art since the 1930s. Mainly it focuses on the work of male writers and filmmakers, and, of these, mainly on the West Coast. Brock has been doing a good job interviewing the great old men of the field before they become the late old men of the field. The survey would be stronger if the limitations of its scope were stated, perhaps with a subtitle of “Folks in California who scared the crap out of us.”

  This weakness being pointed out, this book has a very important strength. It deals with dark fantasy in America holistically. Writers do not exist in separate bubbles from each other, the world, or other media. If one writes and hopes to make any livable money out of it, one looks to Hollywood and TV. As you grow up, your journey of imagination does not begin with the great works of the field—it begins with what you watch on TV, what movies and comics you read. And one’s growth does not begin with clear notions such as how Rod Serling’s liberalism shaped the Twilight Zone. It begins with the hidden mechanism—for instance, that Twilight Zone led viewers to liberalism. For me, as for many of my readers, an understanding of the human condition did not come from Plato but from Night of the Living Dead. Brock does not view writing (or film or weird music) as a standalone phenomenon, but as the expression of a community bound together by experience, by choosing (and being chosen by) mentors, and by economic and geographic forces. Best of all, he does not belabor his points by stating his own theories but by allowing the great old men to talk.