Author Archives: ogresan

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About ogresan

Richard Parks' stories have have appeared in Asimov's SF, Realms of Fantasy, Fantasy Magazine, Weird Tales, and numerous anthologies, including several Year's Bests. His first story collection, THE OGRE'S WIFE, was a finalist for the World Fantasy Award. He is the author of the Yamada Monogatari series from Prime Books.

Something Like Progress

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Darling Du Jour, or Just to Show That I AM SO working on the sequel to Black Kath’s Daughter. The working title is Power’s Shadow. Subject to change, of course.

In this scene, Marta and her companion Sela are getting a report from Longfeather, a once and future pirate who, for Marta’s convenience, is currently a goshawk:

            It wasn’t long before Longfeather also returned from his scouting mission. He landed on a nearby pine branch and gave his report. “There’s not a lot of activity at the docks just now. There are two merchant ships making ready to set sail, but of course they aren’t going anywhere near the Five Isles. They’ll hug the coastline until they reach Borasur.”

           There was an aspect of the debt-bond that made it difficult, even painful, for the one who was in bond-service to work against the interests of the one who held the debt, in this case Marta. She could see how uncomfortable Longfeather was, and she easily guessed the reason.

                “Is that really all you saw?” Marta asked, and she put the power of the debt-bond behind her words.

                “No,” Longfeather finally admitted. “There was someone else.”

                The way he’d phrased his response wasn’t lost on Marta. Not ‘something else’ but rather ‘someone else.’ “No more dancing around the subject, Longfeather,” Marta said. “Tell me who you saw at the docks.”

                “I saw a vessel called Blue Moon. Her captain is a woman named Callowyn. She’s mostly a smuggler and does errands for Boranac, and so operates under his protection, but she’s a pirate, too, at opportunity. I do not trust her.”

                “And is there a pirate or smuggler that you do trust?” Marta asked.

                “Well…no,” Longfeather admitted. “Most of them are like me.”

                “So why did you feel it necessary to point out this particular lack of trust?”

                Longfeather apparently gave up. “This Callowyn…we have a history, of sorts.”

                   “What sort?” Sela asked. “Or shall we guess?”

                   Longfeather shrugged, and briefly displayed his wings. “She’d probably cut off my privates with a dull knife and spike them to her mast as a trophy before bothering to chop off my head  for the reward. That sort.”

                Marta smiled then. “A woman of taste and judgment. I think I like her already. But do not worry, Longfeather. She’s not going to see you. She’s going to see a goshawk.”

                Longfeather sighed, which was a very strange sound indeed, coming from a goshawk. “She’ll figure it out. I know she will.”

Yeah, Though I Walk Through the Valley of Uncanny

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Our text for today is “The Uncanny Valley.” No, it’s not the title of the latest pseudo-scientific romance or a herald of the return of the gothic novel. It’s a rather intriguing theory proposed by the Japanese computer scientist Masahiro Mori in 1970, and it goes something like this: as robots are made more and more human-like, they are perceived more and more positively by actual humans until they reach a point in the curve where they are almost but not quite fully human-appearing, and it is at that point that the positive reaction quickly changes to feelings of revulsion, repulsion, even horror. It is only when the robot is fully human in appearance does the effect reverse itself. This sudden sharp drop in the graph is what Mori referred to as “the uncanny valley.”

Considering mankind’s very slow progress in robotics, it shouldn’t be a surprise that the bulk of anecdotal confirmation for Mori’s theory came first from computer graphics rather than robotics. It’s almost trivial these days for a good CGI artist to make a realistic-looking human figure rendered in 3D, but animating that figure equally as realistically? That is another story and it turns out Mori might have been on to something—there’s something wired into our lizard-brains that means humans are extremely sensitive to perceptions of “almost but not quite right.” Something wrong with the way the mouth moves, the sheen on the skin, the eyes that forget to blink, and we’re thinking alien, undead, pod-person, whatever. More recently, computer scientists have come to question the entire notion of “the uncanny valley,” saying there’s no scientific evidence for it. True. All anecdotal, as I said. Still, I tend to think there’s something there.

It also explains the effectiveness of some approaches to dark fantasy and horror, where there’s someone there who isn’t quite right. The protagonist can’t quite get a grip on it, but there’s something wrong with the new neighbor. Unease builds on little incidents, little hints, until the secret is revealed—OMG, he’s a vampire! Or Democrat. Or Republican Or vegetarian. Some inexplicable OTHER. Probably overused, but then cliches get repeated for a reason.

All of which is a round the world way of saying that now I finally understand why I can’t stand to play Elder Scrolls: Oblivion on my PS3, and why I haven’t picked up Skyrim. Despite the game’s many good points, I can’t bear to look at it for long. All the characters creep the heck out of me.

*Nothing says “Monday” like starting a post with a typo.

It’s Not Complicated

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Recently I was reading an account of a roundtable discussion by some writers and critics on the nature of certain genres, among other things. It was a fairly interesting discussion in itself, but that’s not what got my attention. It was this offhand remark made by one participant, with no special argument or justification, as if it were a done deal: “Good books are complex.” If I’m being vague on the source, that’s because it doesn’t matter. I’ve seen this same attitude in enough other places to know it’s a common one, and likewise applied to a lot of fiction of less than novel length. Of which, I….well…

RANT MODE ON.

Excuse me, but that deal’s a looong way from done. I’m not going to be dogmatic and say what a good book has to be, but I know one thing it doesn’t have to be, and that’s “complex.” Is A Wizard of Earthsea complex? Firelord? Our Lady of Darkness? Ulysses? (Ok, I’ll grant that the last named is a confusing and often difficult book, but complicated? Not especially). Deep? Yes. Nuanced? Certainly. Ambitious? Most definitely. Complicated? No. Which is perfectly fine with me, because I do not accept the premise–complexity is an attribute of a particular work, not a virtue. If the best expression of a work requires complexity, then by all means it should have it, but let’s face facts here–if complexity was the prime virtue, or even a virtue, then a book of scripts from your average soap opera would have swept the Nobel Prize in Literature long before now.

I ran into the same sort of thing when I was listening to a band of Taiko drummers not that long ago. Rhythms in sync with the human heartbeat, drum music in the key of life. I later mentioned to a friend how much I’d enjoyed the concert, and got this response– “I can’t get into Taiko. Latin rhythms are much more complex and interesting.” Now, arguing in matters of taste (de gustibus, anyone?) is a waste of pretty much everything, but to priviledge one form over another primarily on their relative complexity, and again to my way of thinking, is missing the point in grand and glorious fashion. I also think it reveals a persistent strain of unconscious intellectual Calvinism–nothing can be worthwhile unless it takes a long time and is very hard to do. You know, as if your corn’s no good unless you first had to roll the boulders off your field, and then plant with a pointed stick (oh, in my day we used to dream of pointed sticks!).

Good books and stories like good music can be complex, but that’s either a consciously chosen technique or just an attribute of the way a particular writer works. Good fiction, imo, tends to have some common traits such as depth, and emotional and intellectual honesty, and are almost always about more than they appear to be about on the surface, all of which means they generally stand up to re-reading better than lesser work. But complex? A book isn’t good unless you need a flowchart to follow the plot? Your themes have to have themes? Complexity a virtue? Clarity the enemy?

Codswallop. With a side of liver and onions (because it’s good for you, dammit!).

RANT MODE OFF.

For now.

Scenes From a Marriage #7

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Sitting with Mrs. Ogre in a local fast food restaurant having sort of breakfast before starting a busy busy day. A group of cyclists had walked by (or I had walked by them while bringing out the food, the record is murky) and I overheard a snippet of conversation about how to identify birds “The females are easy to spot. They’re ugly.” (Note that this was a female cyclist talking). Well, I disagreed with that statement. Female birds are not ugly, they’re inconspicuous and with good reason. I tried to mention as much to Mrs. Ogre.

Me: “When that cyclist said that female birds were ugly…”
She: (interrupting) “What cyclists?”
Me: “There was a group. They walked by a minute before.”
She: “I didn’t see them.”
Me: “Well, they were there.”
She: “How did you know they were cyclists?”
Me: “They were wearing those funny bicycle pants.”
She: “Did they ride up on their bicycles?”
Me: “No, they were in the van that pulled in before us. Their bikes were strapped on the back.”
She: “I didn’t see that. Are you sure you’re not imagining them? Sometimes you have converations in your head (guilty) and forget what part’s real (not guilty).”
Me: “They were there. I promise.”
She: “Are you sure?”
Me: “Yes.”
She: “Ok. What about them?”
Me: “Never mind.”

No wonder our marriage has lasted. It really is all about communication.