Blake Charlton Answers Questions Five

Blake Charlton is another one of those debut authors getting a bit of buzz this year. His first book, Spellwright (Book Depository, Powell’s Books, Indiebound) has just been released by Tor to a fair amount of positive acclaim, including a bit of my own. He’s been beating the ground over on Twitter to get his name out and has an amusing (and informative) blog. Blake also has an interesting background for newbie epic fantasy writer – he went to college at Yale, worked a few odd jobs and is now in medical school at Stanford, where he also teaches creative writing to a bunch of would-be doctors. And he’s done all this while being dyslexic, which is a big inspiration for Spellwright.

Thanks again to Blake for taking the time to amuse himself with Questions Five.

Blake, after reading many of the interviews and other posts on your blog, I’m lead to the conclusion that you must speak with yourself quite often. How has the tendency of talking with yourself (or possibly imaginary friends) influenced your life and fiction?

BC: You know, it’s funny you mention that. The self dialogue has been popular on my blog. But I hardly ever talk to myself anymore. I mean, like, there was that one stretch of time, all those years ago, when I found the One Ring at the bottom of a river…and it poisoned my mind over five hundred years before I lost it to a cheerfully fellow found of riddles who—judging by his stature and the hair on his feet and similar findings I later discovered on his young cousin—was probably coping with a rare familial endocrine condition. But after the so called “Crack of Doom” incident on the great volcano of Orodruin, I don’t talk to myself hardly at all. Well, ‘hardly’ means I do, but just a little. Which is to say, no I don’t, but maybe yes I do. Because really your question presupposes a definitive modality of the verb “speak.’ Which only encourages a dizzying intellect. And commits one of the classic blunders typified in getting involved in a land war in Asia. But also includes trusting a Sicilian when death is on the line. So, clearly, the answer to your question is no but also yes.

What’s your favorite hair style (note: should actually contain hair)?

BC: David Bowie. You might think that’d be a person, not a particular hairstyle, but you’d be WRONG: he’s a hair philosophy. Hair is generally frightening stuff, unbecoming of an adult male, and collecting Lovecraftian nests of bits of soap and belly button lint in bathtub drains across the world. However, if you must exude the strange flouncy, proteinaceous stuff from your head, you should try to be David Bowie and go for flair. Let’s all take a moment to remember him in Labyrinth and his album Ziggy Stardust and suddenly you see the light.

If Spellwright were a fortune cookie, what would its fortune be?

BC: If Spellwright were a fortune cookie, once you broke it open, small firecrackers would go off, a gargoyle made out of silvery sentence with antlers would dance around you, and the incandescent words of the fortune would float up out of said cookie and it would read:

Into all occasions, put much thought and consideration, but when the time is right, party!

And then the exclamation point would shoot away to strike a tiny gong to let you know a small piece of wisdom just came to you in cookie form.

How would you interpret this fortune if it were your own?

BC: I’d take it to mean that intellectual pursuits are well and good, deep heavy emotional consideration is well and good, but some of the best parts of life happen when you don’t take yourself or anything too serious and you go out and have fun.

Why should Spellwright be the next thing that everyone reads?

BC: Let’s go back and smell the rose that is “when the time is right, party!”

Spellwright is different from a lot that’s out there now in that its primary goal is to have a lot of butt-kicking classic fantasy fun. A lot of people think that can’t be done well anymore, or has been done to death. I’m looking to prove otherwise. So, the book’s not a doorstop of an epic that’s about amoral characters spilling physiologically dubious amounts of blood out of the sympathetic characters. (Although, I do love reading a quality little-magic-lots-of-bloodshed fantasy.) Rather, Spellwright is reviving the classic fantasy model with sympathetic protagonists struggling with disability, a fast-paced quest, a murder mystery, and a crowd-pleasing mega-watt magic system.



Bonus question for inclusion in The SFF Literary Pub Crawl:

Please recommend a favorite pub or similar establishment – it doesn’t have to be local to you, but that is encouraged and if you can’t limit to just one, recommend more, but try to keep it to 3 or less. And don’t forget to say why it’s so great.

BC: Antonio’s Nut House in Palo Alto: closest thing you’re going to get to a dive bar anywhere near Stanford University. So…not very divvy, but still it makes a respectable attempt. The place is covered with pool tables, stools, knick-knacks, neon signs, and strange Americana. The jukebox alternately rocks out Jonny Cash and Dr. Dre. A Mexican restaurant shares one side of the bar and you can get good enchiladas until around 11pm. The floor’s covered with peanut shells because they’re free on the house. You just have to fish them out of a barrel that’s in a cage with a giant gorilla suite. The gorilla used to be automated to move when someone came near, but too many of the non-regulars would freak out and jump away from the gorilla and into a pool game. Best part is the crowd, which is about one third town locals, one third Stanford grad students, and one third bar hopping types (some bikers) from up and down the peninsula. Sometimes a glut of undergrads will take it over, and that’s kind of a drag (unless you are one, I suppose.) But normally conversation topics range from quantum physics to football to Desperate Housewives to beer. Actually, everyone’s always talking about beer. I like the high geek ratio and that everyone in the place is pretty different and that they mix with each other, especially around the pool tables and dart boards.

Review: Spellwright by Blake Charlton

What happens when you cross dyslexia, molecular biology, stuffy elitist universities, magic, demons, deities, grammar and an undeniable love of epic fantasy? You get Spellwright by Blake Charlton (Book Depository, Powell’s Books, Indiebound) – a classic-feeling epic fantasy with an imaginative magic system and intelligent writing.

Nicodemus Weal was once believed to be the prophesied savoir, but hopes and dreams were crushed when it was discovered that he suffers from cacography – the inability to spell correctly in magical languages. Now in his mid-twenties he languishes as an apprentice with little real hope of becoming even a low-level wizard in spite of his impressive fluency in magical languages. The murder of a wizard from a misspelled spell lands Nicodemus and his master as prime suspects as they struggle to clear their names and discover what evil is loose. And Nicodemus may be the prophesied savior after all… or the prophesied destroyer.

The magic system Charlton develops for Spellwright is simply wonderful, though it does take a bit of patience to fully understand and appreciate. Words are literally magic – they can peal off books, skin or whatever medium appropriate for the language and literally become spells – the words themselves are the magic. Those born with the ability to wield magical languages are known as spellwrights. Spelling, prose, grammar, and linguistic knowledge all take on new meaning and importance in this world. And it presents the opportunity for Charlton to be very creative with his own writing – intelligent, witty, and thankfully not too full of pun and wordplay as to become tiresome. This added flexibility of Charlton’s prose and how it interplays with his magic system was immediately apparent, and full of potential. At times it is uneven and uninspired and sometimes just a bit too clever, but overall Charlton does well, making for a fun and intelligent read.

It’s this magic system that allows for Charlton’s true inspiration to shine through. In a world where spelling is vitally important and misspelling can alter a spell enough to invoke deadly consequence, what are the implications of a dyslexic spellwright (known as a cacographer)?

Charlton himself is dyslexic and he overcame his ability by reading science fiction and fantasy, eventually landing at an Ivy League university and Stanford Medical School. Nicolas is very much a combination of Charlton’s own struggles with dyslexia and sort of a childhood wish-fulfillment of being a hero in a fantasy story. For the most part it works well and is a heart-felt representation of the struggle with disability, knowing one’s self, and the prejudice of others. However at times the wish-fulfillment comes across too much, crossing the line of clever homage, and simply annoys. Thankfully, the academic setting of the novel does not invoke the elitism of the Ivy League or feel derivative of Hogwarts, the new standard in wizardly education.

Charlton’s version of epic fantasy channels what feels now like an older breed – the epic fantasy of the ‘80s and ‘90s when the good were good and the evil, evil. Demons seek to take over the world and recreate humanity and are aided by human demon-worshipers. The good include the general wizardly community who vow to prevent demons from taking over and a more clandestine alliance of deities who seek to breed a savoir from the blood of an ancient imperial family – just as the demons seek to breed a destroyer from those same bloodlines. The world is full of magic and magical constructs, beasts, wizards, gods and demons (and presumably ordinary people, but we don’t see many of those). There are rival political factions and other complications, but at its heart, Spellwright is a story of good vs. evil with both a prophesied savior and destroyer.

In this Charlton readily embraces many of the common tropes of epic fantasy with only a small shift here and there for variety. Fans and critics are often too quick to praise subversion and condemn use of these tropes. In reality cliché and trope alike exist because they speak to the hopes and desires of people – and while epic fantasy purely derivative of these tropes is simply bad, quality epic fantasy that embraces trope and tells its story well can be great. Spellwright may not be great, but it’s far from bad – and it’s clear that Charlton is a true fan of epic fantasy.

Spellwright is the first book in the Spellwright Trilogy and does not stand on its own. The story arc does come to a resolution of sorts, but it’s not a complete resolution and much more remains to be told. The good news is that Spellwright is full of potential for the remaining books and much is hinted at that could make for an interesting future. However the end of Spellwright drags on much too long. The additional ~15 pages after the main climax reads as part epilogue and part bridge to the next book, but overall feels like a let-down. Spellbound is the next entry in the trilogy, expected in Fall 2010, and the tentatively titled Disjunction should close out the trilogy sometime in 2011 – but I think that we can anticipate much more from the Spellwright world, which has a rich, intriguing history (and presumably future) to be explored.

Spellwright is another 2010 debut that has been getting a fair amount of buzz. Its greatest strength is in the creative magic system that Charlton crafts and homage to a more traditional-feeling epic fantasy. There are a few bumps along the road and larger annoyances, but the overall result is positive and full of potential. 7/10

Related Posts: Blake Charlton Answers Questions Five

Links to Stave Off….

It’s been a mix of a ‘blah’ kind of week and extremely hectic with lots of work to do. And I’m not finding near enough time to watch curling. Anyway, here are a few links.

As the picture shows, I got mail from Patrick Rothfuss – how cool is that? I won prize in for donating to his Heifer International Worldbuilder’s charity fundraiser, which raised nearly $200,000. I got a signed copy of The Way of Shadows by Brent Weeks (Book Depository, Powell’s Books, Indiebound, my review) – free signed books are always cool, but I wish it were a book I didn’t already have. Not that I’m complaining.

SyFy is Time Magazine’s third worst corporate name change.

The Republic of Thieves by Scott Lynch (Book Depository, Powell’s Books, Indiebound) won’t be published in the US until Spring 2011 at the earliest – hopefully there’s still a chance of 2010 release for the UK.

A snarky interview with authors Blake Charlton and Gail Carriger.

I was mind-melded again at SFF Signal – this time about SFF TV shows that should be remade. I have no qualification for this at all, so I attempt humor.

Mark Charan Newton has an idea, a crazy idea. It’s an opportunity for writers to plagiarize remix his fiction. Personally, I’m holding out for Pride of Newton and Zombies – clearly a best-seller.

Author Sam Sykes interviews some bloggers (supposedly I’m in line – last I believe). An aside – what would you do if you found out that this guy lives in the same area as you?

And last, since I am a geologist and landslides are cool…