Asimov's SF, August 2011

by Dell Magazine Authors

  And then the feud begins: “Blood is Paid for with Blood,” declares Chapter CXXVI of the tenth section of the Kanun. We are told that under the old Kanun only the murderer himself incurs the blood-feud, but the later Kanun—and this decree is the core of Kadare's novel—"extends the blood-feud to all males in the family of the murderer, even an infant in the cradle.” Cousins, nephews—everyone is at risk as the feud unfolds, each side claiming a life in vengeance for the last life taken, though ultimately reconciliation can be achieved through the intervention of the parish priest or by the tribal chiefs. If such reconciliation is achieved, “the ‘meal of the blood’ occurs when the mediators of reconciliation of blood, together with some relatives, comrades, and friends of ‘the owner of the blood’ go to the house of the murderer to reconcile the blood and eat a meal to observe that reconciliation,” after which the “owner of the blood” carves a cross on the door of the murderer's house, and—the final touch—"It is a law that the tool—the adze—with which the cross is made must be thrown over the roof of the murderer's house."

  The Kanun in its current edition is a book of 269 large pages, with Albanian and English text on facing pages. It covers not only feuding and sheep-rustling but all other sources of conflict in tribal Albania. Chapter LVII of Section Four, for instance, proclaims that “land boundaries are not movable.” Boundary markers must be “large, towering rocks thrust into the earth and exposed above it.” A special ceremony solemnizes the establishment of a boundary line, and it thereby is fixed for all time. “In the view of the Kanun, the bones of the dead and the boundary stone are equal. To move a boundary is like moving the bones of the dead.” Once the final oath has been sworn, the clan elder places his hand on the boundary stone and declares, “If anyone moves this stone, may he be burdened with it in the next life.” But there are consequences in this life, too: “He will be punished with dishonor and will also bear the cost of the damage that he caused by creating this discord. If a murder results from the mischief relating to the moved boundary, the person who caused the mischief must be fined one hundred sheep and one ox, and is executed by the village."

  It's a fascinating document. I could quote from it all day: the regulations concerning trade, the sanctity of guests (you must avenge the murderer of your guest as though he were a member of your own family!), damage done by pigs, the laws of marriage and inheritance, and on and on and on. Any SF writer looking for ready-made rules for some alien culture could easily plunder it—without fear of incurring a feud—and find all the strange laws and customs anyone would need. But the Kanun is no alien artifact. It's a set of rules governing a very real community living in a tough, merciless environment right here on our planet, and, though obedience to it was severely punished by Albania's former Communist government, its use has been revived in the hill country in post-Soviet times, and there are people who live by it in this very century. Science fiction is, yes, a literature of imaginary wonders and marvels, and more power to it; but Earth itself, our far from prosaic native planet, serves up plenty of real ones of its own.

  Copyright © 2011 Robert Silverberg

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Department: ON THE NET: WRITING LESSONS by James Patrick Kelly

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  reading

  It's sad that I never really had the chance to read Asimov's the way you do, assuming, dear reader, that you harbor no secret dreams of publishing in these pages. When this magazine debuted in 1977, I was one year out of the Clarion Writers Workshop [clarion.ucsd.edu] and burning with ambition. Overjoyed to have a new market to conquer, I fell immediately to deconstructing Asimov's stories for content and craft, thinking that I might thus decode the secret editorial formula for selling here. Alas, it was a doomed enterprise, as any experienced hand could have told me, and I spent six years collecting rejection slips until Shawna McCarthy [en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ ShawnaMcCarthy] took over as editor. But even now, I can't turn these pages without being puzzled by missed creative opportunities or astonished by clever new techniques that I need to steal study further.

  I did not always read like a writer, and now I look back on those wonderful years of pure reading enjoyment with fondness and regret. It was my fate to catch the writing bug early, however; even in high school I dreamed that I might someday sell stories. Of course, I also dreamt of playing power forward for the New York Knicks [nba.com/ knicks] and becoming an astronaut and of running for president —and we all know how those dreams worked out.

  Clarion changed me forever as a reader and a writer. Back in January, I was reminded that it has had a similar effect on literally hundreds of my colleagues. Clarion and its sister workshop, Clarion West [clarionwest.org], were in the midst of their application season and I decided to try to start an internet meme to promote the two programs. I posted “Five Things I Learned at Clarion” on my Facebook page and challenged Clarion grads from both programs to do the same. What followed was an outpouring of advice across the web that stunned me in its honesty and wisdom. I thought I'd share a bit of what they learned here, selecting just one “lesson” for each writer. Some of the Clarion grads you will already have heard of; some you will be hearing from shortly. One common theme to note is how often they are thinking of you, dear reader!

  learnings

  Andy Duncan [beluthahatchie. blogspot.com] I learned that reading my stuff aloud is a great revision technique, and a great test of whether it's finished. I learned this by reading aloud, to a blind classmate, my manuscripts in progress.

  Paul M. Berger [paulmberger.com] Sometimes a nice complex sentence structure can feel so wrong it pulls the reader out of the story, even if it's grammatically correct.

  Megan Kurashige [immobileexplorations.blogspot.com]. If you smash apart the dull, chronological line of cause and effect and replace it with story, you can start stringing together the tiny, pinprick lights of theme into a narrative of meaning. You can also more effectively lure the reader into the character's skin.

  Ferrett Steinmetz [theferrett.livejournal.com] You have to shoot high. There are a thousand stories that are pretty good. That's not good enough. The kind of story you're looking to write is the story the reader is still musing upon in the bathtub three days later. That kind of tale is hard to create indeed, which is why selling a pro story is a real challenge.

  Ken Schneyer [kenschneyer.live journal.com] If there's no reason for the character to care about the outcome, then there's no reason for the reader to do so.

  Collin Piprell [collinpiprell.com] Ignorance can be a real virtue.Don't collect too much in the way of information and ideas before you begin writing. With academic theses, feature stories, and science fiction alike, it's often best to spin as much of the story as you can before you do most of your research. Ignorance simplifies things enormously, since you have fewer elements to synthesize from the outset. Wait till you've got the story up and staggering about before worrying too much about incorporating all the ideas in the world. It's easier to be selective, at that point, and much easier to organize all the ideas now that you have a basic framework. The storyline can always be revised in light of new information.

  Emily Jiang [emilyjiang.blogspot.com] (Emily is a poet and wrote her Five Things in haiku)

  Embrace your weirdness.

  Transform your poems

  into arias, and sing.

  If you've always lived in mainstream communities where you've been constantly told that you're a little weird, and suddenly you are surrounded by people who will actively debate with you on which is the better Star Trek series, quote Star Wars lines at you, and/or will totally sing Disney songs with you at the drop of a hat, it is an amazing feeling. The weirder the better.

  Sue Burke [mount-oregano.livejournal.com] Only one miracle per story, and the first sentence should point to it.

  Kathleen Howard [strangeink.blogspot.com] Writing is a job. Show up for work. When I taught this fall, three of my writer friends came in and gu
est-lectured for me. Every one of them was asked how they deal with writer's block. Every one of them answered: “Writing is my job. I don't get to have writer's block.” If you're going to be a writer, in the words of John Scalzi [whatever.scalzi.com] (teaching at Clarion this year), “find the time or don't.” Don't wait until your life is awesome, or the muse visits, all smiles and seductions, or until you know what happens next. Put your butt in the chair and write.

  Theodora Goss [theodoragoss.com]When told that most aspiring writers won't make it, decide they're not talking about you.

  Damien Walter [damiengwalter.com] Your writing has as much depth as you do. It's not possible to reach beyond the emotional range of your own experience. You have to live fully and explore your humanity before you stand a chance of writing stories that help others do the same. That doesn't mean exploring unknown continents necessarily, it does mean exploring the unknown hidden in your everyday experience.

  Jason Erik Lundberg [jasonlundberg.net] There is no secret handshake, only hard work and constant improvement.

  Leslie What [sff.net/people/leslie.what] If you are writing a plotted story, brainstorm three ways your story might end. Then write the fourth.

  Tim Pratt [timpratt.org] Trying to think about “plot” and “character” (and even setting!) in isolation isn't much good. They rely on complex interactions and are inextricably entwined, and you can't change one without affecting the other(s). For example, once you really know a character, and understand what they'd do in a given situation, the working-out of the plot largely takes care of itself.

  Emily Mah Tippetts [emilymah.com] What is the difference between a science fiction writer and a large pizza? (A large pizza can feed a family of four.)

  Monica Byrne: [byrne.typepad.com] Anger is useful. At last count, I've gotten about 240 rejections in the time since I left Clarion . . . along with six story sales, a grant, a full-scale play production, two residencies, and a major travel fellowship. Those artists you admire who seem to collect sales and prizes without effort? They work their asses off, and they get rejected all the time; or did, once. I still do, and every time I get a rejection I think, “Really? Really!?” and send it out again on a fresh wave of righteous anger.

  Cynthia Felice [travisheermann.com /blog/?p=179] Start as close to the end as possible.

  Daniel Pinney [yourwordsmatter.wordpress.com] One should never feel like they have to apologize because they want to write SF/F. It's as respectable a writerly ambition as it is to be the next Rick Moody or Ernest Hemingway. In fact, it might even be more respectable. In any event, though, it's okay to write this stuff. It's more than okay.

  Gra Linnaea [gralinnaea.com] There's a fine line between pushing yourself out of your comfort zone and pushing yourself to write stuff that doesn't excite you.

  Nicole Taylor [nicolemtaylor.word press.com]No one is going to give you permission to be a writer.Don't wait for some magical time when you think you're old enough or have “earned it” or something. Write, send stories out, fix stories, repeat, repeat, repeat. Um . . . until you die, I guess. I went to Clarion and I looked at myself and thought “why the hell am I not sending stories?” Because I thought someone else was going to tell me when I was ready. No one can do that, nor should they.

  Matt London [truthoffiction.wordpress.com]There is a difference between mystery and ambiguity. Mystery is when you don't know what is going to happen next. Ambiguity is when you don't know what just happened. Mystery is good; ambiguity is almost always bad. People often confuse the two. If someone (you don't know who) does something (you don't know what) the reader will never connect to the story.

  Gregory Frost [gregoryfrost.com] Never name your protagonist “Fred.” (Actually, Greg writes that this was Gene Wolfe's [ultan.org.uk] first rule when he taught Greg at Clarion. So I'm letting Greg offer another lesson.) Don't write about professions and people you haven't bothered to research. No one will believe you know anything about them.

  Dana Huber [dien.gather.com] Your plot should never hinge on Stupid. (I.e., your plot should never depend on a character doing something the reader can plainly see is dumb and is only being done for the sake of the plot.)

  exit

  Many of these writers’ complete posts are gathered at the Clarion blog [clarionfoundation.wordpress.com].I wish my own post had been asinteresting as those that followed it, but I was just trying to get things started, not move the universe. Just so you know, Five of the Many Things I Learned at Clarion are:

  1) It's never too soon to start foreshadowing.

  2) Adverbs are the enemy.

  3) If possible, pick a life partner with money.

  4) Rejectomancy is a waste of writing time.

  5) You have less than a page to grab your reader—and your editor.

  Isn't that right, Sheila?

  Copyright © 2011 James Patrick Kelly

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Novelette: THE END OF THE LINE by Robert Silverberg

  Our resident Grand Master, Robert Silverberg, is a long-time professional writer and winner of many Hugos and Nebulas who lives in California. His latest story is a new Majipoor tale that predates the events that took place in “The Time of the Burning” (March 1982). “The End of the Line” will be the first story in a new collection called Tales of Majipoor.

  "If you really want to learn something about the Shapeshifters,” the District Resident said, “you ought to talk to Mundiveen. He lived among them for about a dozen years, you know."

  "And where do I find this Mundiveen?” Stiamot asked.

  "Oh, you'll see him around. Crazy old doctor with a limp. Eccentric, annoying, a mean little man—he stands right out."

  It was Stiamot's second day in Domgrave, the largest city—an overgrown town, really—in this obscure corner of northwestern Alhanroel. He had never been in this part of the continent before. No one he knew ever had, either. This was agricultural country, a fertile land of odd greenish soil where a widely spaced series of little settlements, mere scattered specks amidst zones of densely forested wilderness, lay strung out along the saddle that separated massive Mount Haimon from its almost identical twin, the equally imposing Zygnor Peak. The planters here ruled their isolated estates as petty potentates, pretty much doing as they pleased. The region was in its dry time of the year here, when everything that was not irrigated was parched, and the wind out of the west carried the faint salt tang of the distant sea. The only official representative of the government was the District Resident, a fussy, soft-faced man named Kalban Vond, who had been stationed out here for many years, filing all the proper reports on time and stamping all the necessary bureaucratic forms but performing no other significant function.

  But now the Coronal Lord Strelkimar, who had grown increasingly strange and unpredictable in his middle years, had taken into his head to set forth on a grand processional, only the second one of his reign, that would take him on a great loop, starting from the capital city of Stee that sprawled halfway up the slope of the great central Mount and descending into the western lowlands beyond, and through these northwestern provinces, out to the sea via Sintalmond and Michimang, down the coast to the big port of Alaisor, and inland again via a zigzag route through Mesilor and Thilambaluc and Sisivondal back up the flank of the Mount to Stee. It was traditional for the Coronal to get himself out of the capital and display himself to the people of the provinces every few years, Majipoor being so huge that the only way to sustain the plausibility of the world government was to give the populace of each far-flung district the occasional chance to behold the actual person of their king.

  To Stiamot, though, this particular journey was an absurd one. Why, he wondered, bother with these small agricultural settlements, so far apart, ten thousand people here, twenty thousand there, where the government's writ was so very lightly observed? This was mainly a wilderness territory, after all, with only this handful of plantations interrupting the thick texture of the forests. The Coronal, Stiamot tho
ught, would do better directing his attention to the major cities, and the cities of the other continent, at that, where he had never been. Over there in distant, largely undeveloped Zimroel, in such remote, practically mythical places as Ni-moya and Pidruid and Til-omon, was the Coronal Lord Strelkimar anything more than a name? And what concern did their people have, really, with the decrees and regulations that came forth from Stee? He needed to make his presence felt there, where a huge population gave no more than lip service to the central government. Here, there was little to gain from a visit by the Coronal.

  The chosen route was not without its dangers. The valley towns, Domgrave and Bizfern and Kattikawn and the rest, were mere islands in a trackless realm of forests, and through those forests flitted mysterious bands of aboriginal Metamorphs, still unpacified, who posed a frequent threat to the nearby human settlements. The Metamorphs constituted a great political problem for the rulers of Majipoor, for in all the thousands of years of human settlement here they had never fully reconciled themselves to the existence of the intruders among them, and now seemed to be growing increasingly restive. There were constant rumors that some great Metamorph insurrection was being planned; and, if that was so, this would be the place to launch it. Nowhere else on the continent of Alhanroel were humans and Metamorphs so closely interwoven. It was not impossible that the Coronal's life would be at risk here.

  But it was not Stiamot's place to set royal policy, or even to quarrel with it, only to see that it was carried out. He was one of the most trusted members of the Coronal's inner circle, which was not saying much, for Strelkimar had never been an extraordinarily trusting man and had grown more and more secretive as time went along. Possibly the irregular way he had come to the throne had something to do with that, the setting aside of his kindly, foolish, ineffectual cousin Lord Thrykeld, a virtual coup d'etat. In any case, a counsellor who contradicted the Coronal was not likely to remain a counsellor very long; and so, when Strelkimar said, “I will go to Alaisor by way of Zygnor Peak and Mount Haimon, and you will precede me and prepare the way,” Stiamot did not presume to question the wisdom of the route. He was not a weak or a passive man, but he was a loyal one, and he was the Coronal's right hand, who would never even consider rising up in opposition to his master.