Re: Stephenie Mayer -- the next J. K. Rowling

Andrew Plotkin wrote:
> Here, Andrew Wheeler <acwheele@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>>Peter Knutsen <peter@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>>>Actual fantasy is that which requires the reader to utilize the fantasy
>>>genre reading protocl,
>>
>>Achtung! Fantasy novel approaching, Fritz! Break out the Fantasy Novel
>>Reading Protocol!
>>
>>As others have said, here you're just asserting things that no one else
>>agrees with.
> 
> I agree with him, to a degree, although nobody seems to have picked up
> on that part of the thread.
> 
> "Protocol" is too rigid a term; I say "conventions", but I believe
> there *is* a point beyond which if you don't know the conventions you
> can't even make a dent in the book. And a lot of SF published today is
> beyond that point.

It seems to me that protocl usage becomes more intense, the later 
science fiction is published. Like if you compare a novel from the mid 
1950s with one from the mid 1980s.

Or perhaps it has much more to do with when the author was born? Perhaps 
younger authors utilize the protocol better than older authors?

>>(The way one reads a secondary-world fantasy, most urban fantasy,
>>alternate history, and most future-set SF is not all that different from
>>the way one reads a mystery novel -- keep a close eye out for telling
>>details, and try to figure out what those details imply.)
> 
> They're analogous skills, yes. But if you're expecting to apply those
> skills to the plot, and the author expects you to apply them to the
> protagonist's lifestyle and culture, you may be in for a train wreck.

Exactly.

> Another element which is subject to strong genre conventions is *how
> much* of the book is spent on this or that. SF and fantasy blow a lot
> of words on setting, society, laws of physics/magic/psionics/whatever.
> When it's done crudely we call it "infodumping" and when it's done
> well we call it "inclueing", but that doesn't question the expectation

And when it is done well, the mundanes are left behind. They *can't* 
read the darn thing.

On the other hand, when it *is* done crudely, the mundane can - and they 
might even do - read it, whereas we experience acute physical pain.

> that the book should *do* that work.
> 
> Whereas this "paranormal romance" that a friend lent me a couple of
> months ago was set in the near future, but did only a modest amount of
> world-building. Enough to hold up the plot elements, but not enough to
> make me believe in a working society back there. Instead, it spent a

It's not only about believing in a working society, but also very much 
conveying to the reader information about what is and is not possible 
within the world, so that technological (or magical) solutions will 
appear right to the reader when they show up, instead of being assumed 
to be plot devices.

> whole lot of words on how attractive each of the protagonists found
> each other. From my point of view, that was hammered in with the
> subtlety of a big lead hammer, scene after scene. But what would a fan
> of that book have thought of the endless Big Dumb Picaresque scenes in
> Iain Banks's _Matter_?

I still have around 75 pages to go on that one, so no spoilers please. 
But Banks (with an "M.", please) *is* very good at utilizing the genre 
protocol, and there are a few parts of his science fiction that I simply 
can't read if I'm very tired (especially the parts from the airsphere in 
"Look to Windward").

> Similarly, the Stephenie Meyer book which survives, zombie-like, in
> the subject line of this thread. I haven't read it. I've read a lot of
> energetic and entertaining skewering of it (see, e.g.,
> <http://the-red-shoes.livejournal.com/tag/twilight_s****k>).
I gather
> it spends *lots* of words, I mean buckets, on describing sparkly-
> vampire-boy as sparkly, gorgeous, perfect, sparkly, obsessed with Girl
> Hero like unto no other human being in history, and continually
> (depending on the plot's coinflip) either tearing buildings apart to
> save Girl Hero or teetering on the edge of doing something unspeakably
> awful to her (but never quite doing it because he would *never*).
> And Girl Hero is barely described at all -- just a vague impression of
> somebody who never in a million years deserves wonderful-vampire-boy.

You seem to be on to which buttons various genres push (or try to push). 
Science fiction tries to push one category of buttons. Romance tries to 
push another category of buttons (although there may be a few that they 
have in common). That's not what I'm talking about.

> In short, I am told, we have a supersaturated solution of Bad Boy
> poured into a Petri dish of Mary Sue, all aimed at the teenagers who
> hold that as their ideal of romance but don't believe it will ever
> happen to *them*.
> 
> That's a hook, not a protocol. (Just like the overlooked boy who turns

Yup.

> out to be awesomely powerful and im****tant is the hook of Harry
> Potter.) But the book then caters to the hook with a tonal balance of
> *all sparkle boy, all the time*; and desiring that or rolling your
> eyes at it is something like a reading protocol.

Not really. A protocol for reading science fiction (or fantasy) is about 
defiphering information that is not dumped directly on top of you so as 
to disturb your reading process. Or from the author's point of view, it 
is about elegantly and subtly conveying necessary information to the 
reader, about how the story's world differs from the reader's world, in 
terms of what is and is not possible (physically, magically or even 
socially).

-- 
Peter Knutsen
sagatafl.org