/So, the Courtship of Princess Leia, one of the more infamous books from the old Star Wars Expanded Unverse, is being rightfully torn a new one over at Das_Sporking./
Indeed. I don't know what the hell Wolverton was thinking with that book, and I don't really want to know.
/So we start off in media res, with two characters, a man named Veriasse and a woman named Everynne. And I suddenly remember that, as a kid, I'd often have to reread paragraphs that featured Everynne because I'd misread her name as "Everyone" and then go "wait, what?"/
Smart move there, Wolverton. I'll just call her "Everyone" anyway. Also interesting to note that these people get fancy fantasy names. I've got a suspicion it's because they're just more special than the common folk.
Also, hi there, Star Wars people.
/Veriasse could taste the scent of vanquishers in the crisp mountain air./
"Vanquishers". Not the most inspired name, but not all that bad either. And yay for aliens in the Scottish highlands! This book is certainly A Thing, although I really don't know what.
/Veriasse raised his hands. The olfactory nerves running up his wrists could detect the subtlest smells. He could taste a person's nervousness from across a room, detect the scent of an enemy across a valley. Now, he could smell a man's fear behind him, along with the acrid odor of a vanquisher./
Ugh. I'd think smelling things with your hands would quite suck, too. Although I must say it's new.
/he whistles "like a thrush" in three short calls/
How do the Star Wars people know thrushes? It makes sense for Scottish people from 1850 to know of thrushes (I see that the MistleThrush lives throughout Scotland, for example), but not really from people from a galaxy far, far away. (Yes, they're probably not literally from that universe, but I'll keep calling them that.) Except if they've stayed there for a while, which doesn't seem the case. So, I'll go for omniscient narration.
/Okay, so already there's something about their interaction that sets my teeth on edge. I can appreciate the context clues that this is a crisis and that they can't afford to wait and help Calt. And I understand that there probably isn't much time to talk about it. But there's something about how he slaps her horse (when she's apparently an inexperienced and inept rider no less) and grabs the reins that just bugs me./
Me too. It smacks way too much of "smarter, older man tells younger, dumber woman what to do". And I quite hate that.
/He could see no easy way to topple it, so he fired his incendiary rifle into the planks. Stark white flames erupted for fifty meters across the bridge. /
Star Wars tech ahoy! And how does this thing work? It just fires flammable chemicals? It somehow sounds as if someone must have invented this during World War I. O_O
/He looks back to see the bridge burn, and the "giant form of a green-skinned vanquisher in battle armor" staring at the river in dismay./
Yup. Evil aliens and Star Wars people in 1850's Scotland. I hope it works out.
/We switch scenes here now to a local: a man named Gallen O'Day. He's probably a main character, on account of how we IMMEDIATELY segue into a flashback about how, at five years old, his father took him to get a kitten./
Real smooth, Wolverton. Might as well have started with the flashback.
/I like that. There's a stereotype that boys' beloved pets should be dogs. But why shouldn't boys like cats too?/
EXACTLY. This boy likes cats, too.
A picture of my own cat. She's really in love with me.
/including the fact that many local children believe that she's a witch and claim the priest drowned her babies for being leprechauns. Egads./
What purpose does that serve, besides shock value?
/and her house, which is apparently "grown from an ancient, gnarled pine tree"./
Grown how? I'm reminded of Inheritance's elves, who also grow their houses from a forest that's inexplicably 95% pine trees (at 35° north latitude), and in their case, it's really gross.
/Her father had been a merchant and once bought seven olive presses down in Ireland, thinking to retire./
The fuck? How would he have made olives grow up in Scotland?? I don't think he could have made a greenhouse, so, barring magic, I really don't know what he wanted to do.
And this quite confirms the book is set in Scotland, as the only place north of Ireland, close by enough, and fitting the description, is Scotland.
/ He'd taken the whole family with him, but a storm blew them into uncivilized lands where wild Owens roamed—hairy men who had lost their Christianity and now wore only brass rings piercing their nipples./
Where the heck would those lands be?? This is the 1850's!
And the description of the Owens reminds me uncomfortably of stereotypes that depict the Celtic peoples who lived there as "uncivilised barbarians", and Wolverton plays it straight with zero sensitivity. I should be surprised, but I'm not.
/The wild Owens ate her family, but held the widow prisoner on a rocky isle where they brought their dead along with gifts of food every full moon, leaving the corpses for her blessing. She'd have to feast for days before the food rotted, then she'd starve afterward for weeks. The island's soil was white with the bones of dead Owens. The widow survived for a summer in a haphazard shelter under a leaning slab of marble, teaching herself to swim until she could finally brave the vast waters./
Was all of this seriously necessary? It reads like a typical "I was captured by primitive/cannibalistic "natives"/"Indians"/"Eskimos"/"Africans"/"barbarians"" story from the late 19th/early-to-mid 20th century.
Awwww, cute kittens. That's a nice touch.
/*the philosophy stuff*/
Hmmm. I'd like to think of myself as the third kind of person, and in a way you could say that I indeed live different lives, which is tied up with the concept of a "persona" (basically that you cast yourself in different roles, depending on the social situation and such). In my case, you'd have my "normal" life, and another life where I really admire some animals (birds, for example) and want to connect to them. And I also look to the future.
/We get an example in a new flashback: Gallen at age seventeen, with a neighbor named Mack O'Mally, gets accosted by highwaymen wearing sacks to cover their heads. He's able to think very quickly, and turn the sacks around on them, so that they're blinded and easy pickings./
Well done, Gallen!
/No, I suppose that if one were to tell it right-and it's a tale that demands to be told in whole-one would have to continue the story two years later./
I'm pegging Gallen's birthday at 1831, then. Also, hi there, anonymous narrator!
/He had taken up a friendship with a black bear named Orick,/
It's a lir! Okay, it does sound really awesome.
Although, how would there be bears living in Scotland in 1850? I've checked, and bears went extinct on Great Britain around 500 CE, so I don't know where they'd come from... Then again, other things are evidently different, too, so I can accept this. It's got me wondering whether there'd be snakes on Ireland, too.
/I will forgive a lot for "with his friend Orick the bear". He's at an alehouse drinking with his friend Orick the bear. Who doesn't want to be in an alehouse drinking with their friend Orick the bear?! I don't even drink and I want to be in an alehouse drinking with my friend, Orick the bear!/
Me too! I don't drink either, but I'd still do so if I could be with my friend, Orick the bear! He really makes things much better, doesn't he?
/and blacksmithing (he'd rather not work so close to a horse's rump) - the latter reason makes Orick the bear laugh. I want to make a bear laugh./
This is quite good, and quite funny, actually.
/A bear priest is an awesome idea,/
I really hope Orick becomes a priest later on.
/It SEEMS to be some vaguely middle-aged version of Ireland, based on the mention of Christianity and the names./
I'd argue that it's Scotland, based on the mention of Ireland as a seperate place. As qua time, I'd go for around 1850, not for a specific reason, but more for the whole aesthetic. And 1850 also seems like a good time period to put vaguely modern stories in, especially around Scotland, as at that time, it's close enough for readers to relate more fully, but the area hasn't really been reached by the Industrial Revolution yet, and it's also far enough back in time to lend a mysterious feel.
If you'd really want to capitalise on that, it could be possible to shift the story to the Hebrides, as they're even further out, and because they're rather thinly populated. Setting a story even into the 1900's could work that way, then.
For real this time: Part 1
Indeed. I don't know what the hell Wolverton was thinking with that book, and I don't really want to know.
/So we start off in media res, with two characters, a man named Veriasse and a woman named Everynne. And I suddenly remember that, as a kid, I'd often have to reread paragraphs that featured Everynne because I'd misread her name as "Everyone" and then go "wait, what?"/
Smart move there, Wolverton. I'll just call her "Everyone" anyway. Also interesting to note that these people get fancy fantasy names. I've got a suspicion it's because they're just more special than the common folk.
Also, hi there, Star Wars people.
/Veriasse could taste the scent of vanquishers in the crisp mountain air./
"Vanquishers". Not the most inspired name, but not all that bad either. And yay for aliens in the Scottish highlands! This book is certainly A Thing, although I really don't know what.
/Veriasse raised his hands. The olfactory nerves running up his wrists could detect the subtlest smells. He could taste a person's nervousness from across a room, detect the scent of an enemy across a valley. Now, he could smell a man's fear behind him, along with the acrid odor of a vanquisher./
Ugh. I'd think smelling things with your hands would quite suck, too. Although I must say it's new.
/he whistles "like a thrush" in three short calls/
How do the Star Wars people know thrushes? It makes sense for Scottish people from 1850 to know of thrushes (I see that the MistleThrush lives throughout Scotland, for example), but not really from people from a galaxy far, far away. (Yes, they're probably not literally from that universe, but I'll keep calling them that.) Except if they've stayed there for a while, which doesn't seem the case. So, I'll go for omniscient narration.
/Okay, so already there's something about their interaction that sets my teeth on edge. I can appreciate the context clues that this is a crisis and that they can't afford to wait and help Calt. And I understand that there probably isn't much time to talk about it. But there's something about how he slaps her horse (when she's apparently an inexperienced and inept rider no less) and grabs the reins that just bugs me./
Me too. It smacks way too much of "smarter, older man tells younger, dumber woman what to do". And I quite hate that.
/He could see no easy way to topple it, so he fired his incendiary rifle into the planks. Stark white flames erupted for fifty meters across the bridge. /
Star Wars tech ahoy! And how does this thing work? It just fires flammable chemicals? It somehow sounds as if someone must have invented this during World War I. O_O
/He looks back to see the bridge burn, and the "giant form of a green-skinned vanquisher in battle armor" staring at the river in dismay./
Yup. Evil aliens and Star Wars people in 1850's Scotland. I hope it works out.
/We switch scenes here now to a local: a man named Gallen O'Day. He's probably a main character, on account of how we IMMEDIATELY segue into a flashback about how, at five years old, his father took him to get a kitten./
Real smooth, Wolverton. Might as well have started with the flashback.
/I like that. There's a stereotype that boys' beloved pets should be dogs. But why shouldn't boys like cats too?/
EXACTLY. This boy likes cats, too.
A picture of my own cat. She's really in love with me.
/including the fact that many local children believe that she's a witch and claim the priest drowned her babies for being leprechauns. Egads./
What purpose does that serve, besides shock value?
/and her house, which is apparently "grown from an ancient, gnarled pine tree"./
Grown how? I'm reminded of Inheritance's elves, who also grow their houses from a forest that's inexplicably 95% pine trees (at 35° north latitude), and in their case, it's really gross.
/Her father had been a merchant and once bought seven olive presses down in Ireland, thinking to retire./
The fuck? How would he have made olives grow up in Scotland?? I don't think he could have made a greenhouse, so, barring magic, I really don't know what he wanted to do.
And this quite confirms the book is set in Scotland, as the only place north of Ireland, close by enough, and fitting the description, is Scotland.
/ He'd taken the whole family with him, but a storm blew them into uncivilized lands where wild Owens roamed—hairy men who had lost their Christianity and now wore only brass rings piercing their nipples./
Where the heck would those lands be?? This is the 1850's!
And the description of the Owens reminds me uncomfortably of stereotypes that depict the Celtic peoples who lived there as "uncivilised barbarians", and Wolverton plays it straight with zero sensitivity. I should be surprised, but I'm not.
/The wild Owens ate her family, but held the widow prisoner on a rocky isle where they brought their dead along with gifts of food every full moon, leaving the corpses for her blessing. She'd have to feast for days before the food rotted, then she'd starve afterward for weeks. The island's soil was white with the bones of dead Owens. The widow survived for a summer in a haphazard shelter under a leaning slab of marble, teaching herself to swim until she could finally brave the vast waters./
Was all of this seriously necessary? It reads like a typical "I was captured by primitive/cannibalistic "natives"/"Indians"/"Eskimos"/"Africans"/"barbarians"" story from the late 19th/early-to-mid 20th century.
Awwww, cute kittens. That's a nice touch.
/*the philosophy stuff*/
Hmmm. I'd like to think of myself as the third kind of person, and in a way you could say that I indeed live different lives, which is tied up with the concept of a "persona" (basically that you cast yourself in different roles, depending on the social situation and such). In my case, you'd have my "normal" life, and another life where I really admire some animals (birds, for example) and want to connect to them. And I also look to the future.
/We get an example in a new flashback: Gallen at age seventeen, with a neighbor named Mack O'Mally, gets accosted by highwaymen wearing sacks to cover their heads. He's able to think very quickly, and turn the sacks around on them, so that they're blinded and easy pickings./
Well done, Gallen!
/No, I suppose that if one were to tell it right-and it's a tale that demands to be told in whole-one would have to continue the story two years later./
I'm pegging Gallen's birthday at 1831, then. Also, hi there, anonymous narrator!
/He had taken up a friendship with a black bear named Orick,/
It's a lir! Okay, it does sound really awesome.
Although, how would there be bears living in Scotland in 1850? I've checked, and bears went extinct on Great Britain around 500 CE, so I don't know where they'd come from... Then again, other things are evidently different, too, so I can accept this. It's got me wondering whether there'd be snakes on Ireland, too.
/I will forgive a lot for "with his friend Orick the bear". He's at an alehouse drinking with his friend Orick the bear. Who doesn't want to be in an alehouse drinking with their friend Orick the bear?! I don't even drink and I want to be in an alehouse drinking with my friend, Orick the bear!/
Me too! I don't drink either, but I'd still do so if I could be with my friend, Orick the bear! He really makes things much better, doesn't he?
/and blacksmithing (he'd rather not work so close to a horse's rump) - the latter reason makes Orick the bear laugh. I want to make a bear laugh./
This is quite good, and quite funny, actually.
/A bear priest is an awesome idea,/
I really hope Orick becomes a priest later on.
/It SEEMS to be some vaguely middle-aged version of Ireland, based on the mention of Christianity and the names./
I'd argue that it's Scotland, based on the mention of Ireland as a seperate place. As qua time, I'd go for around 1850, not for a specific reason, but more for the whole aesthetic. And 1850 also seems like a good time period to put vaguely modern stories in, especially around Scotland, as at that time, it's close enough for readers to relate more fully, but the area hasn't really been reached by the Industrial Revolution yet, and it's also far enough back in time to lend a mysterious feel.
If you'd really want to capitalise on that, it could be possible to shift the story to the Hebrides, as they're even further out, and because they're rather thinly populated. Setting a story even into the 1900's could work that way, then.