Here is where to find all the posts from A Class Above: D&D Classes in Books. Enjoy!
A Class Above: D&D Classes in Books- Fighters and Barbarians
A Class Above: D&D Classes in Books- Paladins, Clerics, and Druids
A Class Above: D&D Classes in Books-Rogues and Rangers
My blog has been focusing on the idea of hope in the fantastical lately. It’s a theme found over and over throughout fantasy and science fiction (as well as other genres) and I was curious what authors would have to say about it. Luckily, several authors were generous with their time and opinions.
Today, I’m excited to feature a guest post from Joanna Maciejewska, author of Pacts Arcane and Otherwise.
Hope, Friendship, and Epic Fantasy
Hope is one of those feelings that often keeps us going when things turn dire, and when the world becomes a shade too dark for us to cope, we escape into fiction. That escape might take different forms: to find comfort in learning that there are worlds more cruel and darker than ours, or to find comfort in exploring worlds full of wonder and magic.
Yet, it seems like there’s no middle ground, and our choices are limited to going “all grimdark” or “full high fantasy”, and it’s hard to find worlds that carry the realism of the world live in and at the same time can provide a genuine injection of hope.
When creating a world and a story, it felt like a hard balance to strike, and my solution was… friendship. In the real world, I’m lucky to have a handful of wonderful friends. Not only are they there for me when I need support, but they offer their companionship, experience, and time. Thanks to them, things rarely feel hopeless.
That’s why I wanted to preserve that feeling in my story. The world of Pacts Arcane and Otherwise is full of things we know too well: evil, cruelty, betrayal, lies, corruption, petty people… you name it. There are even otherworldly creatures who are more violent and brutal than humans meddling in human matters and manipulating their human pawns.
With all of that, my books could easily take the grimdark turn, but I think putting friendship in the focus of the story softened the hard edges of the unforgiving setting. Kamira and Veelk, the main characters and best friends for years, go through a lot, together and alone, facing dangers and difficult choices, but their friendship never comes into question. At any point, either would gladly give his or her life for the other, and they keep no secrets.
I think that promise of the friendship never broken is what helps my books to be hopeful while avoiding the feeling of sugarcoated issues or lack of realism. And thus it helps to carry hope, that feeling we often need to survive, off the pages of the series and into the real world, because most of us has at least one close friend we can confide in and who stays by our side through the worst storms. And if Kamira and Veelk, working together, can stand against anything, maybe we could as well. This kind of hope is what I want to bring to my readers.
About the author:
Joanna might be a bit too cautious to do anything even remotely daring or dangerous herself, so she writes about daring adventures and dangerous magic instead. Yet, she found enough courage to abandon her life in Poland and move to Ireland, and then some years later, she abandoned her life in Ireland to move over to the US. She’s determined to settle there, once she finally chooses which state to reside in.
When she’s not writing or thinking about writing, she plays video games or makes amateur art. She lives the happy life of a recluse, surrounded by her husband, a stuffed red monkey, and a small collection of books she insisted on hauling across two continents.
More about the series and purchase links: https://authorjm.com/books/pacts-arcane-and-otherwise-series
Direct purchase link for By the Pact (first in series): https://books2read.com/ByThePact
Website: https://authorjm.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorJMac/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/authorjmac/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AuthorJMac/
Mastodon: https://indiepocalypse.social/@AuthorJMac
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/authorjmac
I’ve been focusing on the idea of hope in science fiction and fantasy lately. It’s been a common theme over the years, appearing in many forms. I wondered what hope looks like in grimdark: is it an important theme? How is it portrayed? Why does it matter? Of course, I needed to talk with someone knowledgeable about this subgenre.
Today I’m lucky to be chatting with the incredibly awesome Beth Tabler, head honcho of Before We Go Blog, and an expert in fantasy, particularly grimdark. Thanks for talking with me!
WS: You read a lot of grimdark. I know that people tend to view grimdark as the opposite of hopeful, but you have a different viewpoint. What does hope look like in grimdark?
BT: Hope is a shining light in the darkness. It can be a small flickering ray you see once, but that one time can sustain you throughout the story. Or, it can be a bright light. People view grimdark as lacking anything good, nihilism, and death. While yes, there is nihilism and often death in grimdark, those things are a part of life. What characters do or say, often in the form of gallows humor, shines a small ray of light on things. It is where we get the right choice for the wrong reasons or the wrong choice for the right ones.
WS: Why is it important?
BT: I’ll give you an example of a remarkable grimdark book with hope—The Gray Bastards by the brilliant Johnathan French. The blurb reads, “Jackal and his fellow half-orcs patrol the barren wastes of the Lot Lands, spilling their own damned blood to keep civilized folk safe. A rabble of hard-talking, hog-riding, whore-mongering brawlers they may be, but the Grey Bastards are Jackal’s sworn brothers, fighting at his side in a land where there’s no room for softness.” Except the best part of this series is the brotherhood, that is light. These are not nice “men and women,” they can’t be, or their world would eat them alive. However, even in the face of everything, they form a bond with each other. That is genuinely exceptional grimdark to me. That is the light that shines in this world. It doesn’t take the reader on a journey through the muck and mire and leave them to rot. There is a small thing to latch on to so that when you get done reading this book, you do not hate the world. Instead, you are clamoring for the next book in the series.
What is also compelling about grimdark is to read about characters that have choices. Grimdark gives characters autonomy in their character arcs. They are not bogged down in “the hero’s journey” or “good versus evil.” Instead, we have no idea what the hell they are going to do. Evil is just a matter of perspective. No one thinks of themselves as the bad guy, as they are all just folks making choices.
WS: Where do you think the idea of grimdark being the opposite of hopeful comes from?
BT: Its origins. Grimdark became popular with Warhammer 40k. Warhammer is not known for its gentleness. It did not originate there; you can go back to the 80s and find books that fill the grimdark definition. But it became popular with Warhammer and widespread with GRRM, Abercrombie, and Mark Lawrence.
WS: For me personally, the subgenre of fantasy I find myself reading kind of correlates with *gestures at everything*. I’ve been reading more cozy fantasy lately, and I think some of that comes from burnout with the negativity in the real world. Does your subgenre of choice ebb and flow with current events?
BT:
Absolutely. During the lockdown, I was surrounded by ARCs of plague and end-of-the-world novels and almost had a heart attack. I had to nope out for my mental well-being. I flow back and forth between how stressed I am. For instance:
Youtube videos = Someone pass me a medicinal kitten.
Romance = super stressed
urban fantasy = nail-biting
grimdark = Bring it
WS: Okay, when it comes to reading grimdark with themes of hope throughout, what are some books to pick up?
BT: OOhhh, I do love a good list.
The Gray Bastards by Johnathan French
The Maleficent Seven – Cameron Johnston
The Dark Tower – Stephen King (debatable if grimdark)
The Builders – Daniel Polanksy
The Silent Gods series by Justin Call
About Beth Tabler:
Elizabeth Tabler runs Beforewegoblog and is a lead on Grimdark Magazine. She was at one time an architect but now lives in Las Vegas, Nevada, and as many book worlds as she can get her hands on. She is also a huge fan of Self Published fantasy and was on Team Qwillery as a judge for SPFBO5, and is a judge for SPFBO7.
You will find her with a coffee in one hand and her iPad in the other.
Lately, my blog has been focusing on the idea of hope in literature, particularly in fantasy and science fiction. Hope is something that can be found in many fantasy and sci-fi books in one shape or another.
I’m happy to be able to discuss the theme of hope in the fantastical with Michael Lortz, author of Curveball at the Crossroads.
WS: Hi Michael. Thank you for agreeing to talk with me about hope in the fantastical.
ML: Thank you for having me. Always a pleasure to talk about what inspires us.
WS: Curveball at the Crossroads is described as being about second chances. What led you to write a book with such strong themes of hope and second chances?
ML: Good question. Let me talk about second chances first. I read several real-life stories of sports injuries and being a big fan of blues music and the crossroads folklore, I wondered what would happen if I put the two stories together. If someone’s dreams were ripped from them, what extent would they go to get those dreams back?
Now to the hope part. What if a deal you made cost you everything you grew to love? My main character makes a deal with the Devil. As he matures, he doesn’t want to lose his soul. That’s the main conflict. The Devil is possibly the most powerful antagonist in all of fiction. It would be very easy for the character to give up and the Devil to win and the book is over. I did think about that ending as I wrote. The challenge for me as a writer was to figure out how the main character could defeat the Devil.
This might sound weird, but I took a lot of influence from professional wrestling in writing the conflict. In professional wrestling, the bad guy always commits a moral violation. He might cheat or hit the good guy when he is not looking. He is a rule breaker. The crowd cheers for the good guy to reset the moral balance. If the bad guy was weak or beatable, resetting the moral balance would be easy. There would be no challenge. The goal is to make the bad guy as strong as possible, but still beatable. This gives the audience – in our case, the readers – hope that the good will win out. Pro wrestling fans, like many readers, believe in comeuppance.
WS: That is an interesting comparison. It seems like, in your book, you have obstacles to hope that are both internal (JaMark’s emotional state) and external (the deal with the Devil). Was one struggle more difficult to write than the other and why?
ML: Wow. I never thought of one conflict as harder to write. But the more I think about it, the internal obstacle was probably the harder of the two to write. The reason for this is because as a writer, you put yourself in the character’s mind state. JaMark is lost before he makes a deal with the Devil. He knows it and his family sees it. In order to write that and make it believable, I had to put myself into the mind of my own struggles. That realism is important, especially in regards to dialogue. There are parts of the story where he talks with other characters about his struggles. That has to be as real as possible in order to bring in the reader.
One of the important parts of the book (no spoilers!) is that a deal with the Devil can impact both your external and internal state. Do you keep it a secret? Do you tell people all of your interactions with the Devil? The Devil is a cunning, devious antagonist who will make life nearly impossible if you go it alone.
WS: Your main character, JaMark, loses something incredibly important to him and it changes the trajectory of his life. Was it difficult to write a character who faces such big setbacks while keeping a hopeful tone?
ML: In my book, JaMark loses his ability to play baseball and with that loss, he loses his hopes for a better future. I set the story in rural Mississippi, the poorest part of the United States. JaMark has pinned his dreams on his left arm. When his arm breaks in his final amateur game, his life spirals downward. He eventually makes a deal with Devil to return to his dreams of playing professional baseball.
I wanted that strong ebb and flow of hope and setback. There are a lot of ups for JaMark, but there are also a lot of downs. At one point, he takes to alcohol and pills to ease the pain. But he realizes, through the help of key side characters, that there are no shortcuts in life. With their help, he is able to gather the strength, courage, and hope needed to face the Devil.
WS: Do you feel that themes of hope are important in the fantastical?
ML: Definitely. In the fantastical, authors can create evils of unlimited power. With a strong antagonist, the only way good can prevail is through hope. I mentioned the Devil as a strong antagonist. I am also a fan of the Star Wars Universe and that was definitely an indirect influence. When you look at Darth Vader, he looks unstoppable. But the main characters never lose hope. The challenge as writers is creating a situation for the protagonist so all they have left is hope.
WS: How do you define subgenres such as noblebright (or hopeful fantasy) or “cozy” books? Is it possible to have strong themes of hope in darker books?
ML: Honestly, I had to look up noblebright. Very interesting. From noblebright.org, “The world of a noblebright story is not perfect, and indeed can sometimes be quite dark. Actions have consequences, and even good characters can make terrible mistakes. But a noblebright story is generally hopeful in tone, even if there are plenty of bad, grim, dark things going on in the world.”
I think that is a really good definition of Curveball at the Crossroads.
I think there is a lot of darkness in our own world, where sometimes hope is all we have. Take world hunger, for example. I hope we can solve that one day. It helps to be positive. As a big music fan as well, I believe dark music, like dark novels, is for us to relate to, and eventually rise above. Curveball at the Crossroads has a lot of blues music influence. The blues is a music heavily based on relatability through bad times. If you have no money, you have the blues. At one point or another, many of us can relate to having no money.
But in relating to others, we are able to dissipate our pain or find someone who has gone on the same journey. And that’s where we find hope. Sometimes the hope is obvious. Sometimes hope is in the understanding that we are not alone in dark times. In Curveball at the Crossroads, the main character definitely finds that out along the way.
WS: I like what you mentioned about sometimes hope is the understanding that we are not alone during dark times. Do you think that a side character is often the more hopeful one in books? Why or why not?
ML: Yes. Definitely. A perfect example in fantasy is Frodo and Sam in Lord of the Rings. As the Sparknotes.com page on Lord of the Rings states, “If Frodo’s burden is to carry the ring, Sam’s is to carry Frodo.” That’s perfect.
The side characters in Curveball at the Crossroads were often the most fun to write because of their interactions with JaMark. Not all had to be as directly involved as Sam to Frodo, but I like when side characters help guide the journey. If they care about the main character, they probably see the conflict. Some might even have seen the conflict occur in unwritten backstories. Maybe it becomes a Wizard of Oz scenario where they form a group and strength in numbers to solve all of their problems. Whatever their involvement, their energy can be vital to the main character.
WS: Do you gravitate toward books with a hopeful tone?
ML: In the books I read, I think I do prefer those with a hopeful tone. As I mentioned, there is too much darkness in the real world for me to read books with a bleak worldview. Although I do appreciate stories or sections of stories that leave me worried about how or if our hero will save the day. As a Star Wars fan, I call those “Empire Strikes Back” endings.
WS: That makes perfect sense! I think you need those moments of uncertainty to really appreciate the themes of hope.
About the author:
Michael Lortz received his BA in Creative Writing from Florida State University. After getting a day job in the defense industry, he started writing about sports and music in his spare time on his personal blog. He has now written for many of the most popular baseball sites and covered music for local news media. His baseball writing and research has been quoted in USAToday, on ESPN.com, and at local county commissioner meetings. Michael lives in Tampa, Florida and Curveball at the Crossroads is his first novel.
Purchase Link:
Lately, I’ve been exploring the idea of hope in literature, particularly in fantasy and science fiction. They seem to be incredibly common themes and I’ve been mulling that over. I wanted to get some other opinions on hope in the fantastical and, luckily for me, several guest authors were willing to oblige me.
Today I’m sharing a guest piece written by JCM Berne, author of the Superhero Space Opera Wistful Ascending. Wistful Ascending is available now, so be sure to pick it up!
Plotting the Path to Happiness: Hope in Fantasy
Like almost everybody, I’ve been through some dark times – not more than the average person, and perhaps fewer; but I’ve been bullied, lost people, and had periods where I felt helpless, hopeless, powerless, and alone.
That’s a lot of bad feelings.
I shouldn’t speak for everybody, but I will anyway. Everyone goes through dark times. When they do, I’m sure they also feel all those things, in various proportions, at various times. And that’s all a normal part of life.
What I’ve found is that while everybody’s the same, everybody is also different (yes, my birth name is Yoda). Bad feelings don’t follow rules—not everybody who loses a parent feels the same way. Ditto people who are bullied, or suffer breakups, or watch the news. All people suffer in these situations, but we all suffer differently.
The feeling I suffered from most, in the long term, is the sense of powerlessness or helplessness. The sense that I had bad feelings I couldn’t control or bad circumstances I couldn’t affect. That was what bothered me—specifically me —the most.
And when your world is dominated by feeling powerless or helpless, what kind of narrative do you want to hear? In my case, and in the case of many others, it’s a narrative about someone gaining efficacy and changing their life. Kung fu movies where our plucky hero trains hard and avenges his fallen master. Fantasy stories where our plucky hero trains hard and slays the dragon that wiped out his village. Science fiction stories where our plucky hero trains hard surrenders to the Force, and destroys the Death Star. You see where I’m going with this.
When I feel bad, what I need is a story that tells me (even if it’s a lie—no, especially if it’s a lie) that with the right attitude, courage, and hard work, I can overcome whatever crappy situation I’m in. That’s what helps me cope. And that’s what a hopeful fantasy story provides!
I’m not saying that everybody in a dark place needs, or wants, that type of story. If you’re suffering and feeling isolated and alone, perhaps what you need is just a story about other people who feel the same way to alleviate that sensation of loneliness. If you’re a fatalist, maybe you need a story where things turn out badly, because otherwise you can’t suspend disbelief. If you feel like you’re in the lowest possible place, maybe you need a story about people who are in a worse situation than you.
And if you think humans are garbage, maybe you need to read stories where all the characters are garbage, else you toss the story away in disgust.
Let’s be honest – if people didn’t often gravitate towards stories with happy endings, romance wouldn’t be outselling SFF by such a huge margin. And if everybody always liked happy endings, there wouldn’t be such a large market for grimdark.
Different people need and respond to different types of stories. Sometimes the same people need different stories at different times. That’s okay!
Because I like to read hopeful books, that’s what I write as well. In my books, the heroes will always win (you might not be sure of how they’ll win, but you can be confident they will), good will triumph over evil, and while things might get bad along the way, they won’t get too bad. That’s my brand.
That brand clearly doesn’t work for everyone. I’m sure some readers would read my book full of generally nice people who are generally trying to do the right thing and be totally turned off by it. And as I’ve said before, that’s okay! There are other books.
But if you’d like to spend some time in a world where things are mostly better and turn out better still, feel free to give Wistful Ascending a try.
About the author:
JCM Berne codes by day. By night he retreats to his secret lair and fights the deconstruction of the superhero genre by writing stories where the heroes are trying to do the right thing and, for the most part, succeed. He spends far too much time on Twitter, discord, and Instagram, whispering to himself that scrolling through one more set of pictures of expensive watches will somehow further his writing career.
Purchase Link:
My blog is focusing on the idea of hope in the fantastical: what it means, why it matters, and why it will never go out of style. Today I’m pleased to welcome Raina Nightingale. Raina is the author of several fantasy books including Heart of Fire, which is available for preorder now.
WS: Welcome, Raina! Thank you for joining my blog to talk about hope in the fantastical.
RN: It is a pleasure! When I saw you were asking, I thought, “Oh my stars, this is exactly what I am interested in! Exactly what my books are about, and what I look for when reading, too!” So I could not be more pleased to be here!
WS: I know your latest book, Heart of Fire, is available to preorder right now. Will you talk a little bit about it?
RN: So Heart of Fire is, in some ways, my oldest work. I first got the basic idea for it when I was eight or nine. So it’s been around for a while, and it’s the only thing I’ve rewritten half a dozen times without it changing so much in the rewrites that it’s not recognizably the same thing. It’s probably my most epic, and maybe my most high, fantasy book/series to date, and the dragons in it are everywhere! It began with the image of Camilla and Radiance’s personalities and bond, and it’s really always been the story of who Camilla thinks she is and her determination to fight evil – and win. It’s definitely a lot more developed now than it was when I first tried to write the whole story out at eleven though! I just wasn’t ready then, and I knew it on some level, though I didn’t know that was what it was about.
WS: The blurb mentions that the main character has been brought up to think that her race is inferior, but she never believed that. What gives her hope and confidence despite everyone’s attempt to crush her down?
RN: What does she think gives her that hope and confidence, or what’s the reality? Camilla is not … terribly introspective in certain ways (she is thoughtful in others), and she likes to believe that all her virtues are solely due to herself and how awesome she is. It’s too dangerous, it makes her feel too vulnerable, to consider otherwise. In reality? Who she is is definitely important, but her mother – and perhaps her father, though he died a long time ago – is a big influence on where she is in life. It also helps that she has had some solid evidence for a while now that some of what she was told is nothing but lies.
WS: How important is it to have hope in fantasy and do you think all fantasy books include these themes to a greater or lesser degree?
RN: I think it is very important, but I can’t speak to whether all fantasy books include these themes without reading them all! I think I’ve seen one or two that I couldn’t see the hope in, but that does not mean someone else would not.
WS: Why do you feel hopeful books will always have an important place in the genre?
RN: Hope is an essential part of being human. We might not call it that, and we might not represent it in the same way, always. For example, hope is often associated with a future state where everything we hope for is realized, but I don’t think that works as well for all people. But that sense that what’s good, what we value, whether we call that love or beauty or something else, is real, that it has meaning and substance no matter much horrible things appear to crush it at the moment, I think that is something everyone craves. That belief that something is worthwhile, worthy of everything we are, and victorious in some sense simply because it is, I think that’s something we all resonate with, even if we’re sometimes afraid to think about it. I think it’s what gives us the strength to survive, to more than that, live, in a world where there is so much fear clamoring to get our attention, and the dread that unthinkable things might happen or be able to happen. And I think it’s what gives us the strength to have compassion, too, instead of being crushed by the fear and believing in evil.
So I think humans will always return to using fantasy to think about hope, what it means to them and what it means in their world, or what they perceive their world to be.
WS: Are there any authors that influence your writing? And who are some of your
favorites?
RN: I think the main influences in a lot of ways have been Anne MacCaffrey and George MacDonald. I read The Harper Hall trilogy by the former and The Princess & The Goblin by the latter quite early on, and stylistically –and in other ways as well – I think both have left a mark in how I write. George MacDonald is definitely one of my favorite authors. Perhaps the only author where, if he were alive and writing today, I would buy whatever he wrote without feeling the need to check it out first … as it is, he’s written so much I haven’t got around to all of it yet! One of the cases where I over-binged on someone’s writing …. Anne MacCaffrey occupies a sort of odd slot, where her writing and books are really special to me, in a way nothing else is, but not really a favorite! Other favorites include Mercedes Lackey, and so far (at least right now) S. Kaeth and JCM Berne! I came across all of these much more recently and in the order in which they are listed.
About the author:
I (Raina Nightingale) have been writing fantasy since I could write stories with the words I could read (the same time that I started devouring books, too). I now write “slice of life” and epic dawndark fantasy, for fiction lovers interested in rich world-building, characters who feel like real people, and spiritual experiences. I think giant balls floating in space can have the same magic that fairytales teach us to look for in oak trees and stars. I have a lot of universes and while not all of them have giant balls floating in space, most of them have dragons of one sort or another!
Author Website: https://enthralledbylove.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Areaer_Novels
Preorder Heart of Fire: https://books2read.com/raina-heart-of-fire
All My Books Here: https://books2read.com/raina_books
Continuing my blog series about hope in the fantastical, today I am delighted to feature a guest post from Ricardo Victoria. Ricardo is the author of the excellent hopepunk series, The Tempest Blades (you can read my review of book 1 here). Here are his thoughts on hope in the fantastical.
When I was a kid, I often wondered why the last thing to come out from Pandora’s box was hope. After a myriad of evils, hope comes up. What can a tiny bird can do in what’s basically a screwed-up world with deities that border on evil?
It’s a question that even today I make myself, with different answers every time. Especially this time as I’m writing this post on hope in the fantastical. Why even write about hope, or even include it as a main component of your books, when the world is going to hell in a handbasket?
I can only think of one answer: because as with the tiny bird, hope is always there, in the back row, on the bottom of the box, waiting to jump off, to be noticed, to be remembered. So someone has to write about it. I kinda touched on this very topic at my blog during the toughest time of the COVID pandemic (so if you want to read about that, here is the link: The Power of Hope).
I’m well aware that one of the modern trends in fantasy is grimdark, this –and apologies for the succinct and probably inaccurate- depiction of morally grey characters barely surviving an uncaring world. Power to those who like it (the farthest I got into grimdark was GoT), and more power to those that have the fortitude to write it. I just can’t. And I tried. My most ‘morally ambiguous’ story ended with no ambiguity, rather more like with the hope of redemption for the character.
So that’s why I latched onto hopepunk, which is kinda the opposite of the aforementioned trend. A common misconception of hopepunk is that everything is sunshine, candies, and happiness. Nah, it’s not like that. Hopepunk is more about finding hope and using it to keep moving, to keep fighting, to keep living, even amidst the direst of circumstances. Paraphrasing the message of the superb third episode of “The Last of Us”, it’s not enough with surviving. You have to live. Which I think is the actual message of hopepunk and of writing hope in your fantasy stories in general.
There is no denying that both in real life and in fantasy stories, things can get dark, very dark, before the light at the end of the tunnel is glimpsed. The main cast of Lord of the Rings, the granddaddy of modern fantasy, is always on the verge of total failure, and yet somehow, the quest gets solved by a series of events that started way back in The Hobbit. Hope is sneaky like that. Like a ninja.
And like a ninja, will always jump at you even when you least expect it. That’s why hope hasn’t gone out and probably will never get out of fashion, at least when it comes to fantasy. Maybe it’s because humans need hope to process real-life struggles as part of trying to remain somewhat functional. Because we have to believe that in real life, as with our favorite characters in fantasy, things can and will get better at the end of the day, and the end of the story. I would even dare to say that having hope is essential for our mental health. This is why we use stories to process trauma, fears, dreams, aspirations, desires. Fantasy is not just about escapism –though it can be part- nor is less “worthy” than “literary fare”. Fantasy is about what can inspire us to keep fighting against the dark forces of our demons, against the pressures of our daily lives. It’s about giving us a chance to believe that things can improve, that maybe, in our small trenches, we can contribute to make a better world, with perhaps something as mundane as smiling at that retail worker that has been enduring rude customers all day.
Fantasy and hope are allies, are companions, are the weapon and shield we take on our dangerous journeys. Are about finding solace when we need it the most. And that’s the importance of hope in fantasy, I believe. Hope is at the end of the day, an inimical part of the human psyche, the root of faith, the fuel of willpower, the foundation of creativity. And that’s why at the end of the day heroes like Superman, like Captain America, the goody two shoes speak more to use even if we don’t actually listen -and are probably the hardest to write because not many writers get them, shock value and cynicism is easier to write and sell than actual hope against all odds-. Thus I tell you, don’t dismiss hope in fantasy as a childish thing. Hope in fantasy is the foundation on which we can build a better world, fight for a better one. Heck, as Pratchett showed us in the Discworld series, hope can even feed the kind of silent, slow-burning righteous rage at the state of the world that makes try to make it right, even if it never will be, because the other alternative is to fell into despair. And if we allow that, then all will be truly lost. As long as hope remains, you can get up for another day and live.
I write hopepunk, yes, in part due to my own mental health circumstances, but also because as much of a cynic as I can be, I want, I need to believe that you can get out of problems, change things somehow if you believe you can (and has served me well). My characters, like those from LOTR, see defeat closer than victory at the most critical moments. Yet they get up and keep going at it, as long as they can draw a breath (and sometimes even when they can’t) because for them the alternative is losing their heart and with it, the world.
And that’s where I believe that the true value of hope in fantasy resides: it’s to keep our metaphorical heart beating so we can keep moving and improve the world, in the measure we can.
So maybe like with Pandora’s box, that hopepunk book you just get when you were looking for something else, was there for a reason. Don’t dismiss it, just read it and form your own opinion, because paraphrasing Walt Whitman: Sometimes, Life doesn’t give you the books you want, it gives you the books you need.
About the author:
Ricardo Victoria is a Mexican writer of science fiction, fantasy, horror, and a mix of all of them. He’s the author of the hopepunk science fantasy series Tempest Blades, of which book 3 will be released on June 13th of this year, by Shadow Dragon Press, an imprint of Artemesia Publishing.
He is one of the co-founders of Inklings Press, a small publisher of thematic anthologies, has written episodes for The Wicked Library podcast, and has been nominated to a Sidewise Awards and two New Mexico-Arizona Book Awards. He has written and published over a dozen of short stories.
He also holds a Ph.D. in Design –with an emphasis on sustainability- from Loughborough University, and a love of fiction, board games, comic books, and action figures, especially Ninja Turtles. He lives in Toluca, Mexico with his wife and pet dogs and works as a full-time lecturer and researcher at the local university.–
Ricardo Victoria
https://ricardovictoriau.com/
https://scifantastique.com/
Purchase links:
The Tempest Blades series
To pre-order book 3:
Below are the links to each guest post/interview on hope in the fantastical.
Conversations on Hope in the Fantastical: Featuring Dorian Hart
Conversations on Hope in the Fantastical: An Interview with DH Willison
Conversations on Hope in the Fantastical Featuring Ricardo Victora
Conversations on Hope in the Fantastical: An Interview with Raina Nightingale
Conversations on Hope in the Fantastical Featuring JCM Berne
Conversations on Hope in the Fantastical Featuring Joyce Reynolds-Ward
Conversations on Hope in the Fantastical Featuring Michael Lortz
Conversations on Hope in the Fantastical: An Interview with Beth Tabler
Conversations on Hope in the Fantastical Featuring Joanna Maciewjewska
This year I’m participating in a reading challenge with my teenage son. We’re taking part in Read Christie 2023, which is a year-long Agatha Christie challenge. Each month features a different theme and a book list to choose from. January’s theme is jealousy and my son and I chose The Murder on the Links.
We will be sharing our thoughts below and the format will be a little different than usual. I really really love discussing books with my son!
My son: “Recently, I read The Murder on the Links and I really enjoyed it! Here are my thoughts on it. The first half of my review will be spoiler-free, and the second half will have ALL the spoilers! Let’s begin!”
Me: “Sounds fair. Here we go!”
My son: “I’m just going to come right out and say it: I think Captain Hastings is my favorite character in The Murder on the Links. He had some stiff competition too! Hercule Poirot is a classic, sure, but there’s just something about Captain Hastings that’s just fun to read!”
Me: “I thought Hastings was a blast too, but I still have to stick with Poirot as my favorite. As you said, he’s a classic. I like how particular he is and it’s interesting to see his thought process (although it’s often hard to parse out what he’s thinking in the moment).
My son: “As for the other characters (i.e. the suspects), I think that most of them were somewhat simple background types who I found easily forgettable. All except one who I mention in the second half of the review. I won’t name any names but I thought she was a fun character if a bit less important/prominent as Hercule Poirot and some of the other, more involved characters.”
Me: “That’s an interesting point. I can see where you’re coming from: the background characters aren’t as fleshed out say, say, the zany characters from the movie Clue. I think they’re meant to be more archetypes than anything. I do agree that there is one character who is definitely more memorable than the others! I’ll avoid mentioning her name too since you’d like to save that for later on.”
My son: “Next up is the pacing! I thought that the book had a good steady pace overall. It did get a bit faster toward the end, which was simultaneously exciting and easy to get confused by, as the story moved very quickly and changed direction suddenly towards the end. At least, in my opinion.”
Me: “I’m right there with you! The pace definitely ramped up toward the end with a lot being thrown at the reader very quickly. I have read a fair bit of Christie so I saw that uptick in pacing coming but it can be hard to follow. I can’t read it when I’m tired or it will go right over my head!”
My son: And about the location, I’m afraid that once again I found it to be somewhat unimportant when it wasn’t being actively investigated. If you’re looking for an Agatha Christie book with an exciting location [refers now to the review readers], I’d recommend either Murder on the Orient Express (if you’re looking for more Hercule Poirot) or And Then There Were None. The latter is my mom’s favorite Christie book, but I found the ending disagreed with me slightly.”
Me: “I still can’t believe And Then There Were None didn’t just blow you away! I abhor your reaction, my friend (but I love you anyway)! Joking aside, I think that the setting was okay here, but nothing to write home about.”
My son: “Switching topics a bit here, I also really enjoyed the mystery itself. I can’t go into too much detail here in the first half (because so much of what made it interesting are spoilers) but I can assure you, I am a big fan of this one! The twists are very twisty, the crime is very criminal, and so on and so forth.”
Me: “The twists are very twisty! I thought some of them were a bit over the top. I like mysteries where I can go back afterward and pick up the threads of clues that I wasn’t smart enough to catch the first time around and I’m not sure they are there in this case. Maybe they are and I’m just not observant enough. As Sherlock says, “You see but you do not observe” (I’m mixing my detectives now). That quote describes me pretty well.”
—From here on out, there will be spoilers! Tread with caution!—
My son: “All right, time to get down to business. Here are my real opinions on The Murder on the Links. Spoilers ahoy!”
Me: “Ooh, time for the nitty gritty!”
My son: “First off, I really enjoyed how Agatha Christie carefully laid clues out that we (the readers) could follow, then added in new information to completely change everything. The second Cinderella “fainted” in the shed near the weapon and the weapon was discovered missing, I was immediately suspicious of her. I think I might’ve suspected even earlier than that, even! A few chapters later, I found out my suspicions were simultaneously valid and incorrect. It was really exciting having my theories confirmed then almost instantly tossed out the window with the discovery of new information. Which, funnily enough, was heavily reliant on a window to present itself. I guess you could say that the information chose a very fortunate window of opportunity. Ha ha! Oh man, that wasn’t really that funny…”
Me: “Hey, I thought it was funny! The faint was very suspicious indeed. Remind me later and I’ll tell you about the time I fainted (well, your dad says I did. But I really didn’t. I just decided to accidentally tilt dramatically). I love having suspicions confirmed! I was so busy being suspicious of everything (I’m sure there was even a shifty squirrel in there somewhere) that I didn’t settle on her over anyone else. Well done!”
Me: “So, any thoughts on the theme of jealousy?”
My son: “I really didn’t notice, to be honest.”
Me: “Fair enough.”
My son: “Anyway…I personally think that Agatha Christie did a fantastic job writing an interesting and compelling mystery, which I really enjoyed! Of course, writing good mysteries is nothing new to Miss Christie. I personally think that overall, The Murder on the Links might be one of my favorite Hercule Poirot mysteries (Murder on the Orient Express is some pretty tough competition, though)!”
Me: “Wow, that high praise! I didn’t love this one as much as you did, but I’m still glad I read it. Not least because I get to talk about it with you! I can’t wait for next month’s book! Thanks for doing this challenge with me!”
No Monster’s Manual would be complete with a creature that is at least a little draconic, although once again my guest author pulled out all the stops. Virginia McClain,author of both the Gensokai series and the Victoria Marmot series, puts a new- and incredible- spin on a massive serpent, showcasing a creature from her next book, Eredi’s Gambit!
Twisted Monsters or Twisted Tropes?
As much as I enjoy “proper monsters” (killing machines that don’t have much motivation beyond wanting to eat the hapless adventurers unfortunate enough to cross their paths) one of my all-time favorite tropes is the monster that secretly, well, isn’t.
Even going back to when I first started playing D&D (around age 8—which was…a long time ago…shhh) I preferred it when our party ran afoul of creatures who had some motive for wanting us dead besides hunger/unexplained hatred of everything around them. Whether it was accidental, “You idiotic humans just got between me and my babies! Perish, foolish mortals!” Or intentional, “I may look like an average bugbear, but I am actually a minion of this super sneaky mindflayer that lives just around the next bend, so why don’t you chase me and see what happens?”
I was fortunate to have a DM (my big brother) who also liked giving motivations to his monsters, so we had some delightfully interesting campaigns even when we were at the age where cannon fodder monsters would have been perfectly standard. Perhaps that’s why I have always leaned into the fantasy books that question the existence of monsters that it’s always morally unobjectionable to kill.
As a kid and into my teens R.A. Salvatore’s Drizzt books were some of my favorites for precisely that reason. Despite the constraining rules of writing within the Forgotten Realms, Salvatore did his level best to question how an entire group of people could be any one thing, especially if that thing was “evil.” I loved that. I loved it so much that the first novel I ever finished a complete draft of was a pretty solid Drizzt knock off, set in the Forgotten Realms, and with my own original characters, but… let’s just say it was derivative enough that I don’t have any plans to publish it. (Though if Wizards of the Coast ever comes knocking I’d be willing to dust off that old manuscript and see what’s salvageable — just sayin’.)
These days I make my own worlds, and I delight in creating characters that look like traditional monsters but who are in fact quite pleasant once you get to know them. Meanwhile, certain perfectly average looking humans (along with the systems they create/sustain) are the true monsters. I like to keep my readers guessing.
Take, for example, this big ol’ sea serpent.
She looks intimidating. You probably would be pretty freaked out if you were on the deck of that ship she’s in front of. And, as she can’t speak any of the human languages, most of the humans she encounters take her vocalizations for the rage filled cry of a monster hellbent on destruction.
Mostly she’s just shouting out questions to try to figure out why the pesky humans are approaching her territory. Why she bothers she isn’t sure. The humans seem far too stupid to answer her, and always attack her rather than engaging in a simple conversation. Lately though, one of those pesky spirits has been convincing her friends to attack humans that aren’t even in their territory. Horribly rude.
Needless to say, when these misunderstandings lead to humans attacking her, she’s forced to defend herself. To say it doesn’t generally go well for the humans or their ships is… a bit of an understatement.
I suppose you probably want some stats for this monster who isn’t a monster though, eh? I mean, I don’t generally roll up characters sheets for anyone in my books because as deep as my D&D roots go, I prefer the freedom of creating people and worlds outside of those rule sets. That said, if this sea serpent were going to show up in a D&D campaign, she’d have stats similar to a dragon. Sea serpents in this world are essentially water dragons anyway. So very high hit points, a water breath attack, a crushing attack, a bite attack, and a tail lash. All of those would deal massive damage, but a human would have a decent chance at saving against said damage by using evasion. Bryllth (that’s her name for the purposes of this sheet) is very large, but not so fast that you wouldn’t be able to dodge if you could see her clearly. Of course, she can hide underwater, so you won’t generally see her coming unless she wants you to.
In other words, she’s bad news for the people who try to fight her. Still, she’s very much misunderstood by most humans, and certainly her first appearance in Sairō’s Claw doesn’t make her seem like the calm welcoming creature she *can* be.
But I’m delighted to report that we’ll learn more about her, her motives, and the people who are actually able to communicate with her (and thus clear up a few misunderstandings) in the next book – Eredi’s Gambit.
Here’s the character sheet I worked up for her pretending that she was a very high level dragonborn ranger.
I went with a character sheet rather than monster stats as Bryllth is one of the protectors of her people and absolutely has a life of her own beyond sinking ships that show up uninvited and start attacking her without any explanation. That said, a lot of this character info is slightly off, because she’s much larger than any dragonborn, and she’s a natural swimmer with a water attack rather than a cold attack. But it was the best I could do with a free digital sheet from D&D Beyond.
I hope you’ve enjoyed learning a bit about Bryllth, and if you’d like to see her in action, you can find her first appearance in the very final pages of Sairō’s Claw. Bryllth is just one example of the way I enjoy twisting monster tropes; you can find more in pretty much all of my books.
About the Author:
Virginia McClain is an author who masqueraded as a language teacher for a decade or so. When she’s not reading or writing she can generally be found playing outside with her four-legged adventure buddy and the tiny human she helped to build from scratch. She enjoys climbing to the top of tall rocks, running through deserts, mountains, and woodlands, and carrying a foldable home on her back whenever she gets a chance. She’s also fond of word games and writing descriptions of herself that are needlessly vague.
To Purchase:
Chronicles of Gensokai
Sairō’s Claw: Gensokai Kaigai Book One
Victoria Marmot and the Meddling Goddess
Middle Grade & Childrens' Books Reviews
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one guy's endeavor toward adding to the fray without just making noise
Fantasy Author
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