Philosophy in Fantasy

I found something to watch with Sophie - The Dragon Prince on NetFlix. She watched it because it has dragons in it, specifically a very cute baby dragon. I watched it because it's a pastiche of every fantasy epic ever - there are direct lines and scenes swiped from Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings (including "One does not simply walk into..."), and a dozen other films. It feels like homage, but I'm worried that when Sophie's generation watches those original sources they'll think they are riffing off of The Dragon Prince.

The film is pretty clearing aimed at kids, keeping the bloodshed to a minimum, the romances to holding hands and kissing, and the logistics to entire armies showing up just when they're needed (especially in a scene that totally riffs off of Sansa showing up at the Battle of the Bastards, which of course itself riffed off of Gandalf showing up at Helm's Deep). Despite that, the jokes were well-delivered, the plot was coherent, and the characters were nuanced. In particular most of the tragedy is shown to stem from bad choices made for good reasons.

At one point, however, the show leaps ahead of all of its peers. The king explains Lady Justice has three aspects: the sword, the scales, and the blindfold. He chooses the blindfold so he can know what justice is, and in doing so expresses John Rawl's Theory of Justice in a paragraph. (For those of you who have forgotten, I essentially credit Rawl's theory as the entire underpinning of all morality).

A little research shows I wasn't the only one who noticed this, and as it turns out the author had taken a class with John Rawls. So now I'm jealous and impressed.

I whole-heartedly recommend the show. Its YA-orientation doesn't put me off like His Dark Materials does, for reasons I can't quite name but probably because TDP knows it's for kids and winks at it. And I welcome this trend of real philosophy showing up on TV. Maybe The Good Place has started something.

Podcast with Beyond the Trope

I did a podcast with the lovely team over at Beyond the Trope. They were a lot of fun to talk to! Check it out if you have the time - they have a half-dozen ways to listen.

Black Harvest

Got my author copies today - they look great! I am very excited about the conclusion of this series. I hope everybody enjoys reading it as much as I did writing it. And thanks so much to Rene and Pyr for seeing the series to the end.

There is one rather egregious typographical error, however. On page 33, when it says, "Then Christopher noticed the queen was coming," it's supposed to say, "Then Christopher noticed the ants were coming," I am mortally embarrassed that this slipped through our editing process, but even more so at how utterly confused anyone who reads that line will be. Please, tell your friends - or if you see a copy in a bookstore, take out a pen and scribble "ants" over the word "queen." You'll be doing everyone a favor. :)

EDIT: An astute reader points out another mysterious typo. On page 43 a character introduces herself as "Jenny" and in the very next sentence is referred to as "Claire." I must have changed her name at some point and missed that one, but I can't even remember it - she's always been Jenny to me.

Spoiler: How Game of Thrones ends

First, of course, lots of murder: Jon, Dany, and Gendry all have to die, as all of them have clear and obvious claims to the throne. Tyrion needs to die because he's useless now and selling out Varys was just sad. Arya isn't even human (who feeds a man his own children?) and as the second most powerful weapon after Drogon (she can wipe out whole noble houses!), she has to go or it just becomes "Game of Arya." Sansa is disqualified from the Iron Throne because she's a woman and far too smart to be sucked into that maelstrom of doom.

That leaves Bran. The perfect ruler, in that he has no desires, already knows everything, and is megachill to boot. As they lift him out of his wheelchair on to the Iron Throne, his eyes turn blue... and gives that little smirk we know so well. The camera pans outside, where the snow begins to fall heavier and heavier, until all of King's Landing is buried under a white shroud. Because Bran WAS THE NIGHT KING ALL ALONG, which is why Jon's stupid plan worked and why Arya could get so close and stop him. His "death" was just the termination of one of his incarnations. And now that he sits on the Iron Throne the winter will never end.

The moral is clear: as long as we fight among ourselves, climate change wins. And it holds to the theme of Martin's book: humans suck. All of his characters compromise themselves, sabotaging their noblest goals for their fears and desires. It's the only ending that makes sense and I trust Dan & Dave will deliver it, as they must.

EDIT:

I was half right. But for all the wrong reasons. The best analysis I've seen points out that Westeros started out with a king who was not interested in ruling and had no legitimate heirs while being run from the shadows by a Lannister, thus leaving a power vacuum that ignited civil war. And now, Westeros is... ruled by a king who has no interest in ruling and cannot produce heirs while a Lannister runs the kingdom from the shadows.

So in other words, everything we watched, all the struggle and suffering, just made things worse. Which would be a fine commentary on human futility, but along the way we also saw legit miracles - people coming back from the dead, dragons being born, spells being cast - all to no purpose. What would be different if Jon had stayed dead and Dany had burned up in a fire? A lot of people would still be alive. Other than that... ? So apparently it's a commentary on divine futility too?

The case of the vanishing e-books

My publisher switched distribution chains and as a result all of my e-books temporarily ceased to exist. Including pre-orders for Black Harvest, which apparently have been cancelled and refunded.

This should be resolved in a day or two and the e-books should reappear, although I'm guessing the pre-orders will still be cancelled. I extend my publisher's apologies.

The Bookbub Affair

My new publisher, Start Media, sprung for a Bookbub promotion. They send out emails to their subscribers, alerting them to deals and sales on e-books. It's apparently not easy to get on the Bookbub list; they're selective about which books they will feature. I signed up (it's free) and I have to admit, getting a notice once a day that a different book is on sale is pretty neat. I can see myself buying two-dollar e-books faster than I can read them. Note to self: tell my brother about this. He's going to love it.

The results of the marketing are pretty good too. Sword of the Bright Lady is the highest it's ever been on Amazon, as you can see:



This is awesome, if a bit mystifying. There aren't any dragons in this book, and I personally would not have classified it as Romance, no matter how romantic it is to have a guy pining worlds away for his wife.

But as they say, the artist cannot control their work once it leaves their hands. What the audience makes of it is up to them. I'm just glad they're reading!

Dave Duncan

I just found out Dave Duncan passed away in October.

There are three authors I collect: Jack Vance, Ursula Le Guin, and Dave Duncan. He read my first novel and provided a very nice quote for my first published novel. I almost gave up writing after reading his "Hunter's Haunt," which was such a tour de force of authorial voice that I was afraid I would never measure up.

If you have never read Duncan, I recommend starting with Reaver Road and Hunter's Haunt for fantasy, or Hero for science fiction. I also strongly recommend the series The Seventh Sword and A  Man of His Word.

Thank you, Dave, for all you did for us.

Verdict on Crimson Fields published

Apparently in-between running D&D games I had time to write a book, and it's out now. Verdict on Crimson Fields is for sale!

I am two chapters into the 5th and final book, Black Harvest. Time to get cracking!

The Portal

OK, it's played for laughs, but man, I wish they made real movies like this:

The Portal

Amazing production values for a short. Makes me remember why I love fantasy.

Edit:

Ask and ye shall receive!

Riftworld Chronicles

How did I not find out about this until now?

Double edit:

ARGH! It's only the pilot episode. They're still trying to swing a TV deal.

There is a scene in this pilot, involving the classic "hurt comfort" scene and a trash can, that is deeper and more morally significant than anything in TV fantasy outside of Game of Thrones. Other than that, it's mostly tropes and cliches, but the leads are so appealing I don't even care. And that one flash of veritas gives me hope they could do something actually interesting.

Doggy deceit

Another note for the Orion's Dog files (my SF work-in-progress). Dogs can lie


Yahzi was accomplished at lying. I saw him try to blame a crime on the cat once. He'd trick other dogs into having a fit and then act innocent. On a camping trip he wanted a sandwich I was eating; when I didn't give him any, he started staring off into the distance; when I stared the same way, he made a lunge for the sandwich.

The Kassa Gambit for $2.99!

There is now an electronic edition of The Kassa Gambit for $2.99. It was put together by NLA Digital and looks fantastic; Gregory Manchess let us re-use the wonderful cover he originally painted for TOR.

Judgment at Verdant Court reviews

A couple of nice reviews for the new book:

"...I’m really pleased with this plot twist."
The Illustrated Page

"Then the good stuff happens."
SF Crow's Nest

"Aided by a sombre and heroically humble military veteran, Karl, and a slew of other memorable allies..."
Timothy at Goodreads

Good catch! Christopher is the protagonist of the story; but Karl is the hero.  The most self-realized character I have ever written; I remember being surprised when I first met Karl in the narrative. Which, given that I was writing it, was a bit surprising.

Judgment at Verdant Court review & give-away

Publisher's Weekly gave me a very nice review:

Fast-paced…. Planck’s writing is as straightforward and clever as his protagonist. Fans will enjoy diving headlong into the action.

And Pyr is running a give-away on Goodreads:

 https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/205734-judgment-at-verdant-court

Woot!

Sword of the Bright Lady on sale

Barnes & Noble selected my book as part of their "start a new series" promotion, and since everything is electronic these days, Amazon price-matched the ebook.

So now you can buy Sword of the Bright Lady for $2.99. (Oddly, for $2.99 AU in Australia, too, despite the exchange rate).

It only lasts for a week, so start clicking!

In other news: Judgment at Verdant Court will be out Dec 9, and I am 40K words into Verdict on Crimson Fields. Planning on having it finished by Dec, but that means I need to stop watching "BrainDead" every night.

It Happend One Doomsday

Got a copy of It Happened One Doomsday by Laurence MacNaughton in the mail today. It's a fun, fast read about the Apocalypse being delivered in demonic muscle cars. Urban fantasy isn't my usual fare, but I liked this one, and I'm looking forward to the next one.

The Kindle Revolution's dark underbelly

Magician of the first category is #923 in Paid Kindle store right now. It's a self-published book by a Russian author. For all I know it's a great story; but as a book it is a total failure. Here is some actual text from the first page:

"What we are all potential war criminals and we cry a military tribunal. Therefore, the only way for us to remain silent in a rag, and pretend to be rags. This manual arguments. On our side, n rivodilis following arguments. In the first place, but we are on the drum."

Dropping foreign texts into Google translate does not count as publishing, self- or otherwise. This kind of nonsense clogs the channel; it's like turning on a faucet and getting muddy water. It just puts people off the whole reading thing. The fact that this book is higher on the Paid Kindle list than any of my books ever have or will be is, I think, a sign that there is something seriously wrong with the ranking system. I mean, say what you will about my writing, but at least it's in English.

E-book on sale!

You can get Sword of the Bright Lady for $2.99, this week only, thanks to Barnes & Nobles New Year, New Series sale. Woot!

Review of GTiS

A great review from Bullspec.com. I particularly appreciate that they recognized the world is gritty, even while it's not dark. There are nice people in my world, even if they do suck your brains out after you die.

Well it's finally the 13th in the USA, so my book is out now. Yay! Of course we Australians got it yesterday. But we're cool - we won't spoil the ending for you.

Gold Throne in Shadow

SF Crow's Nest gave me a promising review. Sounds like they might read the next one!

"...leaving the reader eager for the next chapter in this story." SF Crow's Nest