Results tagged “michael chabon”

Bookseller Molly Bolden, author Cherry Adair and I did a critique of manuscript first pages at the Jubilee Jambalaya Writers Conference last weekend in picturesque Houma, Louisiana. Participants (anonymously) handed in the first page of whatever work they had in progress, and American Idol-like we took turns commenting on what was good and bad about each one. Hopes were raised, dreams may have been crushed, but I believe that most attendees gained by listening to others’ work and applying our comments to their own.

“You need a stunning first sentence, or an editor is just going to set your manuscript aside,” seems to be the common wisdom right now among aspiring writers. That’s not necessarily so; it’s also possible, by using an overtly provocative sentence, to come across as trying too hard. In another session at the same conference I spoke about the importance of a strong opening more in terms of the first scene and first chapter, after which one is not allowed to slump, of course, but must continue to hold the reader’s attention as the story continues. As a general rule, I do not care to hear about the prevailing weather conditions as the story begins. If there’s a tornado a block away and the protagonist is heading for the basement stairs, that’s relevant. Otherwise, start with something more revelatory about the characters and their situation.

So what does make a strong opening sentence? Let us look to the work of the masters. Here’s a little quiz to see if you can match the first sentences of these popular Del Rey authors to their prize-winning/bestselling novels. (Answers after the jump.)

1. There was no doubt about it: there was a fox behind the climbing frame. And it was watching.

2. For numberless years a myna had astounded travelers to the caravansary with its ability to spew indecencies in ten languages, and before the fight broke out everyone assumed the old blue-tongued devil on its perch by the fireplace was the one who maligned the giant African with such foulness and verve.

3. This is my favorite book in all the world, though I have never read it.

4. “Send up another, damn you, send them all up, at once if you have to,” Laurence said savagely to poor Calloway, who did not deserve to be sworn at: the gunner was firing off the flares so quickly his hands were scorched black, skin cracking and peeling to bright red where some powder had spilled onto his fingers; he was not stopping to wipe them clean before setting each flare to the match.

5. Questions, always questions. They didn’t wait for the answers, either.

6. Brigadier General Clarence Potter crouched in a muddy trench north of Atlanta. Overhead, U.S. bombers flew through what looked like flak thick enough to walk on.

THE CHOICES
a. Elizabeth Moon, The Speed of Dark
b. Harry Turtledove, In at the Death
c. China Miéville, Un Lun Dun
d. William Goldman, The Princess Bride
e. Naomi Novik, Empire of Ivory
f. Michael Chabon, Gentlemen of the Road

So this student named Tomas Nilsson had a school assignment to re-interpret the classic tale “Little Red Riding Hood”—and this is what he came up with:

Slagsmålsklubben - Sponsored by destiny from Tomas Nilsson on Vimeo.

Now, I can understand if you think: Hey, Suvudu — this isn’t science fiction.

Wrong.

I take a broad view of science fiction and fantasy, because I tend to find people are a lot less inclined to look down upon it if they realize how much great literature (you know: stuff they teach in schools) is technically sci-fi: speculative, fantastical, and often both.

So I’m the kind of person who sees Ayn Rand and George Orwell as writing sci-fi, just Homer and Shakespeare were writing fantasies. How else would you describe 1984? Dystopian?

But doesn’t that sound sci-fi’ish anyway?

What about A Midsummer Night’s Dream? It’s purely fantasy—and has no pretensions to the contrary. And yet, I know people who might hem-and-haw at this: Oh, well, it’s imaginative, surely, but it’s a fairy tale, a dream-world, a …

…fantasy?

In conjunction with next week’s trade paperback publication of Gentlemen of the Road, the swashbuckling tale of adventure by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, I asked Michael Chabon to provide a list of his all-time favorite adventure stories. He didn’t confine himself to ten; instead, here is

THE DASHING DOZEN: CHABON’S FAVORITE WORKS OF ADVENTURE FICTION

CAPTAIN BLOOD, Rafael Sabatini
The “Kull” stories, Robert E. Howard
The Fafhrd and Grey Mouser stories, Fritz Leiber
AGAINST THE DAY, Thomas Pynchon
The Brigadier Gerard stories, Arthur Conan Doyle
THE CHINESE BANDIT, Stephen Becker
THE ICE SCHOONER, Michael Moorcock
THE ENGLISH PATIENT, Michael Ondaatje
THE THREE MUSKETEERS, Alexandre Dumas
FLASHMAN AT THE CHARGE, George MacDonald Fraser
KING SOLOMON’S MINES, H. Ryder Haggard
The “Jirel of Joiry” stories, C.L. Moore

Michael’s list got me thinking of my own favorite novels from over the years. It’s my opinion that one can glean insight into another’s personality by knowing their favorite books. See what you can make of these.

Gateway, Frederik Pohl
Land of Laughs, Jonathan Carroll
The Anubis Gates, Tim Powers
The Reality Dysfunction, Peter F. Hamilton
Walk to the End of the World and Motherlines, Suzy McKee Charnas
Parable of the Sower, Octavia Butler
Riddley Walker, Russell Hoban
Anything at all by Terry Pratchett

It was with no small excitement that I read, in a recent issue of Wired, an article
about Neal Stephenson’s new novel Anathem, which is in stores today. And though the details about the novel were tantalizing enough, my imagination soon caught fire from something else—and I felt perhaps something like the dizzying opening of the mind that Neal Stephenson himself might have felt when he first heard about about the Clock of the Long Now.

The Clock of the Long Now is just that—a clock. But it inspired Neal to write Anathem. This is, in a strange way, exactly what this clock—which will take sixty years and tens of millions of dollars to construct—was designed to do.

More after the jump…