LNH/REVIEW: Kid Review's Roundup - February 2014

Andrew Perron pwerdna at gmail.com
Sun Mar 2 18:06:54 PST 2014


On Sun, 2 Mar 2014 22:29:59 +0000 (UTC), Tom Russell wrote:

> On Sunday, March 2, 2014 10:35:50 AM UTC-5, Andrew Perron wrote:
> 
>> "Another HCC42 entry, this one deals with a man suffering from (I think)
>> severe anxiety problems who gets suddenly pulled from the main Eightfold
>> universe into another, seemingly identical to our own, with no superhumans
>> and no alien invasions."
> 
> The blogger is intended to be female, but I can see that I never really
> specified one way or the other.

Hmmmmmmm! Interesting assumption on my part.

>> "It was interesting and reasonably painful reading through this. Though I
>> don't suffer from anxiety problems myself, I know some people who do, and
>> from a second-hand perspective, this seems gut-wrenchingly accurate. In
>> other words, I JUST WANT TO GIVE HIM A HUG."
> 
> Thank you for the kind words. It drew from experience, both personal and
> borrowed.

*huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuug*

>> "That said, I can't agree with his assertion that his characters wouldn't
>> work if moved into another genre. Are we simply collections of reactions to
>> the world around us? I think not; we have our own identities, and although
>> they are shaped and informed by the things that happen to us, we are, at
>> core, ourselves."
> 
> Yes, but that's where it gets knotty. Who can say how much is nature and
> how much nurture, and what aspects of a person come from what? Someone who
> goes to war, who loves, who becomes a parent, who fails, who succeeds can
> be markedly different from the "same" person who never had those
> experiences.

That's the thing, really - that's one of those things that I quite like to
play with in stories like this.

> One of my pet peeves about stories that take place in the past is when
> they take place generically in the past. Stories, for example, about
> medieval times that mention the King or Queen-- but not which King or
> Queen. Because for me, that matters: the culture, the events, the laws, the
> goings-on for one reign (or even year) will not necessarily be the same for
> another. History is specific and particular, and in some ways I strongly
> feel that fiction should be the same way.

Oh, god, I know, right? The details of the past are almost always more
interesting than the genericized version of history.

> The current run of Jolt City stories takes place very specifically, and
> very deliberately, in the year 2008. I think, even at a distance of a
> paltry five or six years, that we can see 2008 is something of a watershed
> year, at least in American history. In many ways, Martin is firmly a
> creature of the world before 2008. A little damaged, tired, cynical,
> bitter, depressive. And Derek is a creature of the world after-- mostly
> optimistic, forward-thinking, problem-solving, tech-savvy. But also
> discouraged at times, disappointed at times, angry at times.

That makes sense.

> And to me, at least as regards my writing, the genre itself is something
> of a hugely important environmental factor. Heck, this even shows with
> regards to the actual fiction part of NONFICTION # 2: part of the anxiety
> she suffers from might come from a natural tendency within herself, but a
> big part of it is the world she was living in, which would be absolutely
> terrifying. Once it's removed (or rather, she's removed from it), things
> start to calm down for her.

Oh, absolutely. And that's an important point. I think Saxon's also hit on
that, to a certain degree.

> I also think that while no one is a typical person, or a typical
> representative of a nationality, ethnic group, religion, or even gender,
> that there are certain zeitgeist-y traits that are entirely
> environmental/historical in nature. Not every American distrusted the
> government and protested the war during the sixties and seventies, nor did
> they all get high and give their babies names like Sagittarius, but there
> were people like that; those are some of the ways you would describe those
> people and their natures; those specific personalities could not exist a
> hundred years before, and likely will not exist a hundred years after.

See, I think that's one of the interesting things to be explored here - how
different sets of circumstances can produce similar things. Convergent
evolution.

> I think one of the most interesting questions is that of who we are and
> why we are, and I don't think one can say, it's all this thing or all that
> thing. If it was all essential nature, then no one would ever really
> change. And I know enough of people, and of myself, to know that isn't
> true. If it was all environmental, then people have no agency; I don't buy
> that, either. It's a strange and ill-defined alchemy, and I sometimes have
> different answers to the question at different times. :-D

Indeed! <3 Much agreed.

> All that being said-- I think people are always in motion, always
> changing, reacting, reinventing themselves. Maybe the reason I had a hard
> time imagining Martin and Derek outside their genre is that I'm writing
> presently, and know fairly well, the Martin and Derek of August and
> September 2008. And they are different people than the Martin and Derek of
> July 2008, and the Martin and Derek of October 2008. If I were to describe
> them, a lot of the words would overlap from one set to the next, and I
> guess part of that is their essential nature, but another part is all the
> things that have happened to them and, more importantly, all the things
> they have done.

That's a good point - the character's personal evolution is a tricky thing,
and keeping multiple versions of that spinning is exponentially trickier.

> What I'm saying, I guess, is that (and this might be one of my failings as
> a writer) I am capable only of describing/showing/chronicling specific
> people at a specific point in time in specific situations. And it proved
> quite difficult for me to imagine them in another situation/place/time that
> didn't draw on and build from this.

Fascinating! That's entirely fair. (I wonder if this had anything to do
with the dislike of alternate universes you once had?)

> And, all *that* being said, as I noted in the essay, I think this is an
> important truth as least in regards to my own approach to fiction and the
> genre. An incredibly important thing that I'm very glad to have learned.
> Once again, Andrew, you have my thanks.

Aw! <3 No problem at all!

Andrew "NO .SIG MAN" "Juan" Perron, I'm super glad to help!


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