| pdf | epub | mobi | print UK | print US |
The Fantastic Soul
I was planning to write an editorial for this issue about the idea of the soul, and how it is used in fantasy fiction. I’ve found myself receiving a lot of submissions lately that concerned souls, in one way or another (both for this publication and for Dark Horizons). One of those stories was, in fact, up until the point where the point where the soul came into play, one of the best stories that has ever been submitted to this magazine, but I ended up rejecting it.
I began to wonder: at what point does a bugbear become a bigotry?
I’m an atheist, a rationalist and a humanist. I have a bit of a problem with stories about souls. Soul collectors. Souls wandering the earth. Souls going to heaven. Lost souls. They all bug me. I can’t get behind the Cartesian idea of the soul as a separate entity that can fly off to new adventures once the body has gone. It doesn’t make any sense. For example, in rejecting a very decent piece of writing recently I asked: "how does [the ghost] see without eyes, hear without ears, taste without a mouth, breathe without lungs, or think without a brain? I wouldn’t be able to do any of those things!"
Is that criticism at all relevant to a piece of fantasy writing?
Cartesian duality may be a hopelessly outdated idea, but then surely so are things like vampires, zombies, werewolves, gods and witches. Why do I object to souls and not those other things?
Part of it, I think, is that I believe I have a responsibility as a writer and editor, and sometimes I might take it a little bit too seriously. (I’m not serious about many things, so I hope you’ll allow me this one peccadillo.)
If I publish a story about vampires or werewolves, few people are going to be reinforced in a potentially dangerous worldview. The soul, on the other hand, stands somewhat apart from those other fantasy staples: it’s an old-fashioned idea, that doesn’t have any place in current scientific thinking, but is still fixed in the popular imagination, encouraging all sorts of odd beliefs: spiritualism, heaven and hell, astral projection, reincarnation, possession, and so on. It’s very much a part of the mainstream, and one whose influence I think is rather unfortunate. Imagine if women were being drowned for witchcraft: would responsible editors publish stories about evil witches? Probably not – and children have died in modern Britain as a result of their parents believing them possessed.
As an example of what I would call irresponsible writing, one line in the recent pilot of Fringe made me cringe: about to take a huge dose of LSD and have a spike shoved into her head by a mad scientist, the FBI agent is asked, "What makes you think this will work?" She replies, "What makes you think it won’t?"
To me that seems a hugely irresponsible attitude, one likely to encourage the desperate to hand their money over to hucksters and charlatans. What makes you think this crazy get-healthy-rich-pregnant-quick scheme will work? What makes you think it won’t? It’s the responsibility of the person making crazy claims to prove them, not the responsibility of sensible people to disprove them.
I do think the makers of Fringe are responsible – to a degree – for what principles people may draw from their stories. However, their first responsibility is to tell a good story. The story would have come to a standstill if the FBI agent had shook her head and said, "This is crazy – I’m going back to my desk."
In the early days of The X-Files I had a huge problem in this regard. Every time Mulder opened his mouth to profess belief in some ridiculous hoax I felt like throwing something at the television. But in the long term I couldn’t let that get in the way of enjoying some superb and terrifying drama. In the end, after all, Mulder was right. In his world, all of those things really do exist. In his world, there is evidence, and Scully is the irrational one.
Anyway, I decided against writing that editorial – though clearly I now have! I didn’t think there was much mileage it it, and my ideas (as you can see above) were rather vague and contradictory. What prompted the change of heart?
Well, I’ve been reading recently about an editor who allowed his bigotry to show through when rejecting stories, and that got me worrying about my own prejudices all over again.
A writer, Luke Jackson, posted on a blog a rejection email he had received from William Sanders, senior editor of Helix (an online zine), on a blog, asking for advice on interpreting it. Readers of the blog were rather more interested in Sanders’ obiter comments about Muslims and Arabs.
The story was that of a would-be terrorist. If, when Sanders referred to "the worm-brained mentality of those people", he meant terrorists and fundamentalists, it would be easy to agree with him. But then he went on to say that "he’s being mendacious (like all his kind, he’s incapable of honesty)" and that "most of the SF magazines are very leery of publishing anything that might offend the sheet heads". Which puts it in a rather different light.
Talking of that "worm-brained mentality" Sanders said that "at the end we still don’t really understand it, but then no one from the civilised world ever can". If he was still talking about terrorists, and he said that no civilised person could understand them, I would have been right there with him. Apart from anything else, killing people indiscriminately to achieve a political goal is just rude. Civilised people don’t do that – they write pointed letters to the newspaper. But there are civilised people in every country in the world who share each other’s bafflement at the horrors inflicted by their more brutal cousins.
If you say that there is a "civilised world" it makes your belief in an "uncivilised world" quite clear, and there’s no doubt here which part of Sanders’ world is full of the worm-brained, mendacious sheetheads.
Ironically, Luke posted the email completely unaware of how people would respond to it, and has now become one of the editor’s prime apologists in the matter – two things that say quite a lot about him. So he seems to be something of a blunderer, but if a more principled writer had done the same thing with the intention of blowing the whistle on something similar I would have supported them outright.
Unsurprisingly, lots of other writers and editors have had something to say about all of this, although a lot of the initial discussion was focused on the idea of whether rejection letters should be posted online at all, regardless of content. Gardner Dozois, for example, was critical of Luke Jackson for making the email public, but later said, "I like to think I’m not seething with racial hatreds, but even if I were, I wouldn’t put any expression of them into a rejection letter; that’s acting unprofessionally as well."
Tobias Buckell, on the other hand, said that he wouldn’t usually post rejection letters, but he would "make an exception if a rejection contained a racial epithet … because it would just blow my flipping mind if one ever did".
Jeff VanderMeer wondered "why there wasn’t an instant, complete, and sincere apology from all involved from the very first moments of this coming to light".
Few people accused of racism ever seem to say, "Yeah, you’re right. I just don’t like brown people." Or even, "I went a bit too far and said more than I mean. I’m sorry." There’s always an excuse. They’ve always been quoted out of context. Racism is always redefined on their terms to mean precisely nothing. The reaction is never to look in at oneself, but instead to complain about the complainers.
In short, it’s easy to spot a racist: they’re the ones who say they aren’t racist, not even one bit… Everyone else knows that we all come pre-loaded with a thousand prejudices that we have to acknowledge and work against. Everyone says off-colour things from time to time – whether it’s about race, gender (which is where I tend to go wrong, despite my best feminist intentions), the disabled, or people with ginger hair, or whatever – and we all get a bit blustery and embarrassed when it’s pointed out. You shouldn’t apologise for saying it in front of someone it offended, or get angry that it leaked out: you shouldn’t have said it in the first place. You should either stand by what you said or apologise for it.
Like Jimmy Carr says, if you have to look around before telling a joke, you shouldn’t be telling it at all.
I don’t think I would get too angry if anyone posted my rejections online, as long as they were posted in full. It would be a bit rude of someone to do it without asking, or at least letting me know, and I would certainly be more guarded with them in future, but I don’t say anything in email that I don’t mean (though I can be terribly gossipy).
On the other hand, if it was posted with a comment from the author saying, "Look at these comments – what a jerk this editor is", it would be a different matter. I’ve sent a couple of rejections out which have made me think, "Hmm, I can see this ending up on a forum under a Political Correctness Gone Mad! heading." But as long as the criticism was posted in full anyone reading it might be as likely to take my side as the other.
For example, someone who posts a response from an editor which says "this gives the impression of an author full of hatred of women, which I’m sure is inaccurate" (to paraphrase and conflate a couple of rejections I’ve given in the past) would be unlikely to get many supporters – or at least not ones about whose opinions I would care (although it always hurts when people are unkind).
That brings me back to my rejections, and whether I need to change my ways. Do I let my anti-religion/pseudoscience/new age bigotry show through in my editing?
It can’t help but come through, I think. If I think angels, souls, reincarnation, heaven, hell, ghosts, and what have you are daft in real life, I can’t help but think them daft in stories.
But I hope that when presented with a story that makes something good out of them, I can see through my prejudices to recognise how good it is. A good story can be built on any premise. I’ll never be a Christian, but I love The Omen II and The Exorcist III. My dislike of all that soul business is as stated above, but Buffy the Vampire Slayer is one of my all-time favourite programmes, and that’s full to the brim of people turning evil once their souls are missing. So are a hundred other fantasy films, tv shows, comics and books.
On the flipside, Uncanny X-Men is the world’s most misleading guide to evolution, but is still fab. (You and I might know that the sudden evolution of mutants in the Marvel universe results largely from the tinkering of cosmic beings, and vibranium, and whatnot, but anyone watching the movies or the cartoons would deduce that evolution means going to bed a fish, and waking up an amphibian…)
What I have to look out for is saying, "This story is rubbish because the idea that we have a soul is rubbish." That is missing the point, and taking the time to push my own views when I should be talking about the story – a story, of course, that like The X-Files, doesn’t necessarily take place in our world, or in our universe, or in our dimension. In the next dimension along, maybe humans do have souls. (I’d imagine them as little Mr Mind type creatures who live inside our heads, and when we die they move on to the next host.)
Whether the concept of a soul or a vampire or a ghost holds water or not isn’t always what matters in a fantasy story: it’s how they allow for good fiction, whether they lead to drama, whether they are dealt with consistently within that story. It’s the integrity of the story that matters, not the integrity of the idea.
And I’ll try to remind myself of that as I deal with the next batch of submissions...
As a postscript to last issue’s editorial, Ralan’s Specfic Webstravaganza has now listed Horror Literature Quarterly as a dead market (though on Duotrope it’s just said to be closed to submissions). I hope it’s the latter.
And sadly, Apex Digest, which I used last time as an example of a new magazine making a real effort to one day be commercial, has stopped publishing – on paper, at least.
They’re now going to pay pro rates and publish online for people to read for free. Good luck to them; presumably they’ve worked out that it’ll cost less overall than it does to pay semi-pro rates plus printers plus distribution. I hope it’ll thrive online. I imagine they’ve worked out how much they’re willing to spend on the first year or so and they’ll keep their fingers crossed re advertising and referrals.
Apex (in print) was a very well put together magazine – Jason was kind enough to send me review copies, and I was very impressed. I really admired his ambition. The covers were exceptional (apologies to P.S. Gifford and his TQF-submission-guidelines-plagiarising Glutenlump’s Chilling Tales, but Apex was shamefully robbed in that category of the Preditors & Editors awards) and what I got around to reading of the fiction was of a very high quality. I feel rather bad for not having done my part by reviewing the issues properly...
Launching a commercial fiction magazine is clearly a very difficult proposition. Launching an uncommercial one, on the other hand, has never been easier. The question is just how uncommercial you want to make it!
Why continue to publish his asinine rubbish, you might ask, when TQF gets so many other wonderful contributions nowadays?
Well, the novels of Howard’s Saturation Point Saga were one of the foundations of this magazine in its early years, and if there’s one thing I know about construction, it’s that if you take away the foundations the building falls down. Plus, I know for a fact that Howard will be here, year after year, plugging away with his novels, long after all the other writers we publish have moved on to greener pastures. He’s my cow. I can keep on milking him as long as I want. The milk might be sour, but once it’s in the bottle who will know? One day, if he keeps on trying, perhaps he’ll make some milk worth drinking, but "it hasn’t happened yet", as wonderful William Shatner would say.
It’s a shame that this issue’s other contributors have to share the space with Howard – let’s hope that the stink of his shed does not attach itself to them.
In "The Brass Menagerie", Aaron Polson asks how much our happiness depends upon our ability to ignore the unhappiness of others.
In "The Hungry Apples" Lyon and Offutt describe a terrible duel beneath deadly apples! It’s a story with an exceptional sense of place, and deadly apples! What more do stories need?
And John Greenwood brings more Newton Braddell. By this point you probably know what to expect, and, yes, it’s more of the same. That is to say: twists, turns, surprises, character development, hilarity and death!
Lest readers be amazed by the sudden improvement in my art, I should admit that I’ve been helped in the production of this issue by my four-year-old daughter. I didn’t have time to do my own illustrations, so she has stepped in on my behalf. I’m sure you’ll agree that she has done a bang-up job! I’ll offer a few notes to help you enjoy them to their fullest extent.
In the picture on this page she shows me being assaulted by two monsters. One of them is hitting me with a bat, while the other is hitting me with scrambled eggs. That, of course, is why I am bleeding. The most terrifying thing is the way they smile while hitting me. For page forty-nine I asked her to draw a moon with blood on it, and she obliged, before going on to add a "scary man from the shadows". The picture on page fifty-six is not as abstract as you might think: she has drawn a city (complete with inhabitant) and the mountain beneath which it sits. If you are having trouble connecting the picture on page sixty-four to the story it accompanies, it’s because my sweetie decided to draw some camels and eggs, rather than the lovestruck robot for which I asked. Perhaps I should have gone back to Aaron and asked him to work more camels and eggs into his story… My favourite illustration is that on page sixty, showing the protagonists in combat beneath the threat of the titular hungry apples.
Contents
Editorial
- The Fantastic Soul, by Stephen Theaker
- Contributors
News & Comment
- New from Telos Publishing
- Riveting Reads of Fantasy
- Raw Edge – Final Issue
- Sad News from Ralan and Rimbaud
- Shatner in the Royal Institution
Science Fantasy
- The Day the Moon Wept Blood, by Howard Phillips
Science Fiction
- Newton Braddell and His Inconclusive Researches into the Unknown: You Can’t Beat City Hall, by John Greenwood
Fantasy
- The Hungry Apples: a Tale of Tiana, by Richard K Lyon & Andrew J Offutt
Horror
- The Brass Menagerie, by Aaron A Polson
The Quarterly Review
Books
- The Art of Warhammer
- The Black Veil & Other Tales of Supernatural Sleuths
- The Cosmic Ordering Service
- Doctor Who: Earthworld
- Dracula’s Guest & Other Tales
- Earthworks
- Enemies of the System
- The Homecoming
- The Paladin Mandates
- Shadows Over Baker Street: New Tales of Terror!
- Sherlock Holmes and the Plague of Dracula
- The Tangled Skein
- Thorns
Comics
- Aliens Omnibus Volume 1
- Battle of the Planets: Trial By Fire
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer Omnibus, Vol. 3
- DC Universe: The Stories of Alan Moore
- Ex Machina, Vol. 2: Tag
- Ex Machina, Vol. 3: Fact v. Fiction
- Ex Machina, Vol. 6: Power Down
- Lucifer, Vol. 1: Devil in the Gateway
- Modesty Blaise: The Iron God
- Modesty Blaise: Mister Sun
- Modesty Blaise: Uncle Happy
- Star Wars Omnibus: X-Wing Rogue Squadron Vol. 1
- Showcase Presents Teen Titans, Volume 1
Magazines
- McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern #13
Movies
- Southland Tales
Contributors
Let’s see who was tricked into eating our magical artichokes of submission this time around…
Aaron Polson is a high school English teacher and freelance writer who dreams in black and white with Rod Serling narration. He currently resides in Lawrence, Kansas with his wife, two sons, and a rather sturdy – almost supernatural – tropical fish. His short fiction has appeared in various places, including Reflection’s Edge, GlassFire Magazine, Big Pulp, Johnny America and Permuted Press’s upcoming Giant Creatures Anthology. You can visit him on the web at www.frozenrobot.com. To this issue of TQF he contributes "The Brass Menagerie".
John Greenwood has made contributions to most issues of TQF following his return from a round-the-world trip, and was ultimately made co-editor in recognition of his efforts. To this issue he contributes a further episode in the life of the universe’s least favourite peripathetic astronaut, Newton Braddell.
Richard K Lyon is a semi-retired research scientist/inventor whose hobbies include collecting pulp SF magazines and writing. He has also published numerous short stories and novelettes. A collection of the latter, Tales From The Lyonheart, is available from Barnes and Noble, etc. In collaboration with Andrew J Offutt, famed author of My Lord Barbarian, he wrote the Tiana trilogy (Demon in the Mirror, The Eyes of Sarsis and Web of the Spider), and Rails Across the Galaxy for Analog. To our magazine they have contributed "The Iron Mercenary" (TQF#19), "Arachnis" (TQF#22), "Devil on My Stomach" (TQF#23), and, this issue, "The Hungry Apples". This story previously appeared in Flashing Swords 1.4.
Stephen Theaker is the eponymous editor of Theaker’s Quarterly Fiction, and this issue’s cover artist. (This issue’s illustrations are by his four-year-old daughter.) He wrote most of this issue’s reviews. He is also the editor of Dark Horizons, the journal of the British Fantasy Society. Some of his current favourite musicians are Foals, Sebastien Tellier (ever since his appearance on the Eurovision Song Contest) and Los Campesinos. He likes to dance to the current single by N*E*R*D, Everybody Nose, and to Lose Control by Missy Elliott. He has recently read excellent books by Brian Aldiss and Frederik Pohl & C.M. Kornbluth. Some of his favourite movies are The Voyage Home: Star Trek IV, The Wedding Singer, The Matrix Reloaded and The Darjeeling Limited.
Howard Phillips was once a promising science fiction poet, but unfortunately he fell into a downward spiral of drink and self-hatred, the horrid fate of all too many versifiers. Being given the job of marketing manager with Silver Age Books in the late nineties did much to put him back on an even keel. He still had good days and bad days, but he achieved some level of stability in his personal life. His efforts at writing poetry and fiction during this period proved unsuccessful (a succession of novels were announced; none were written), but he achieved a level of musical success with his band, The Sound of Howard Phillips. In 2005, having left the band to fend for themselves, and in the midst of a second nervous crisis, everything changed forever: a vision set him off on a quest to assemble the world’s greatest band. He has chronicled that quest in a series of novels, all of which have been serialised in Theaker’s Quarterly Fiction. "My Rise and Fall", the first part of the as yet incomplete first novel, The Ghastly Mountain, appeared in TQF#8. His Nerves Extruded (2006) appeared in TQF#9 thru 11. The Doom That Came to Sea Base Delta (2007) appeared in TQF#16 and 17. In this issue we present in its entirety the fourth novel in the sequence, The Day the Moon Wept Blood.
Rafe McGregor is a crime fiction author who spends far too much of his time rereading the work of H.P. Lovecraft and M.R. James. He lives with his wife in a village near York. More details can be found on his website (www.rafemcgregor.co.uk). To this issue he contributes several book reviews.
No comments:
Post a Comment