Author Topic: PC199: A Suitable Present for a Sorcerous Puppet  (Read 14261 times)

Wilson Fowlie

  • Hipparch
  • ******
  • Posts: 1475
    • The Maple Leaf Singers
Reply #25 on: March 15, 2012, 05:21:49 AM
I somehow got the impression that most of those empires, kingdoms and realms mentioned no longer exist, and the council whom they claim to represent is also either non-existent or powerless. I think in one of the stories Sir Hereward was ruminating over this.

I believe that was "Sir Hereward and Mr. Fitz Go To War Again."

That's what I vaguely recalled, too, but I didn't want to take the trouble to go back and check. So, that being the case, how do we know that they're keeping to the tenets of whatever code they were sent out under? Or, even if they are, what if the world has changed in the years (centuries?) and that code no longer is appropriate?

(Fortunately, that sort of situation never happens in the real world.)

Anyway, those sorts of questions are certainly ways that Mr. Nix could introduce tension, even about the fate (emotional, at least) of the heroes, without making us worry about the fate of their ongoing task.

"People commonly use the word 'procrastination' to describe what they do on the Internet. It seems to me too mild to describe what's happening as merely not-doing-work. We don't call it procrastination when someone gets drunk instead of working." - Paul Graham


wintermute

  • Hipparch
  • ******
  • Posts: 1291
  • What Would Batman Do?
Reply #26 on: March 15, 2012, 12:32:45 PM
I somehow got the impression that most of those empires, kingdoms and realms mentioned no longer exist, and the council whom they claim to represent is also either non-existent or powerless. I think in one of the stories Sir Hereward was ruminating over this.

I believe that was "Sir Hereward and Mr. Fitz Go To War Again."

That's what I vaguely recalled, too, but I didn't want to take the trouble to go back and check. So, that being the case, how do we know that they're keeping to the tenets of whatever code they were sent out under? Or, even if they are, what if the world has changed in the years (centuries?) and that code no longer is appropriate?


From Sir Hereward and Mr Fitz Go To War:
Quote from: Garth Nix
"In the name of the Council of the Treaty for the Safety of the World, acting under the authority granted by the Three Empires, the Seven Kingdoms, the Palatine Regency, the Jessar Republic and the Forty Lesser Realms, we do declare ourselves agents of the Council [...]"

Neither felt it necessary to change this ancient text to reflect the fact that only one of the three empires was still extant in any fashion; that the seven kingdoms were now twenty or more small states; the Palatine Regency was a political fiction, it's once broad lands under two fathoms of water; the Jessar Republic was now neither Jessar in ethnicity nor a republic; and perhaps only a handful of the Forty Lesser Realms resembled their antecedent polities in any respect. But for all that the states that had made it were vanished or diminished, the Treaty for the Safety of the World was still held to be in operation, if only by the Council that administered and enforced it.

Science means that not all dreams can come true


Unblinking

  • Sir Postsalot
  • Hipparch
  • ******
  • Posts: 8729
    • Diabolical Plots
Reply #27 on: March 15, 2012, 01:26:38 PM
A possible source of tension is the question of whether the secondary characters (the pirates or the nuns or whoever's in the particular story) survive. This is, of course, only a source of tension if the author has made us care about them.

Another potential source is the question of what will be sacrificed in order to bring the offending godlet to heel. In "Pirates" an entire ancient city - of interest to historians if the initial exposition is to be believed - was, if not destroyed, then badly damaged. In this story, a lovely old instrument, with no actual enchantment of its own, had its neck broken.

Maybe SH/MF (my acronymic preference) need to learn to have a deeper sense of concern about collateral damage. After all, presumably they're exterminating these entities because they're bad for the people and places around them. Are the 'heroes' much better if they leave a swath of destruction behind them?

Which raises* another question: to whom are they answering? Are they actually accountable to anyone or absolutely autonomous? Does the organization for which they claim to act (only to each other, I note) still even exist any more or are SH/MF the last (or among the last) outdated remnants of a long-defunct system? If the former, are they behaving in accordance with their code (if any)? Are they reporting back to anyone (doesn't seem like it)? If not, should they be and who's going to bring them to account for it, and how?

There can be plenty of consequences that don't spell the end of the series, but that can create tension, both for our heroes, the characters they encounter and their readers.

*but does NOT beg

All good examples!  There are lots of ways to introduce tension, but in this story I didn't feel it.  More tension please!



Wilson Fowlie

  • Hipparch
  • ******
  • Posts: 1475
    • The Maple Leaf Singers
Reply #28 on: March 15, 2012, 02:09:25 PM
From Sir Hereward and Mr Fitz Go To War:
Quote from: Garth Nix
"In the name of the Council of the Treaty for the Safety of the World, acting under the authority granted by the Three Empires, the Seven Kingdoms, the Palatine Regency, the Jessar Republic and the Forty Lesser Realms, we do declare ourselves agents of the Council [...]"

Neither felt it necessary to change this ancient text to reflect the fact that only one of the three empires was still extant in any fashion; that the seven kingdoms were now twenty or more small states; the Palatine Regency was a political fiction, it's once broad lands under two fathoms of water; the Jessar Republic was now neither Jessar in ethnicity nor a republic; and perhaps only a handful of the Forty Lesser Realms resembled their antecedent polities in any respect. But for all that the states that had made it were vanished or diminished, the Treaty for the Safety of the World was still held to be in operation, if only by the Council that administered and enforced it.
[/quote]

Cool. Thanks!

"People commonly use the word 'procrastination' to describe what they do on the Internet. It seems to me too mild to describe what's happening as merely not-doing-work. We don't call it procrastination when someone gets drunk instead of working." - Paul Graham


Max e^{i pi}

  • Hipparch
  • ******
  • Posts: 1038
  • Have towel, will travel.
Reply #29 on: March 15, 2012, 10:30:17 PM
Back to the tension thing? Fine.
I think I didn't make my point well enough, so I'll try again.
It's not that Mr. Fitz has no fear and therefore there is no tension.
It's just that tension cannot exist in such an environment. It's like you're hanging with the guys (or gals, as the case may be) and things get awkward, or silent or there's just tension in the atmosphere. Most groups have either the joker who diffuses the tension with humor, or the laid back person who diffuses tension by simply refusing to acknowledge its existence.
That's how Mr. Fitz is. He is so laid back that there simply can be no tension when he is around. He's so cool you can keep a side of beef in him for a month. He's so hip he has trouble seeing his knees. He's so with it that they are legally married in several countries.
Anyway, I cannot imagine any circumstance involving Mr. Fitz and tension, because of who he is, and I am perfectly OK with that.

Cogito ergo surf - I think therefore I network

Registered Linux user #481826 Get Counted!



Unblinking

  • Sir Postsalot
  • Hipparch
  • ******
  • Posts: 8729
    • Diabolical Plots
Reply #30 on: March 16, 2012, 01:20:37 PM
Back to the tension thing? Fine.
I think I didn't make my point well enough, so I'll try again.
It's not that Mr. Fitz has no fear and therefore there is no tension.
It's just that tension cannot exist in such an environment. It's like you're hanging with the guys (or gals, as the case may be) and things get awkward, or silent or there's just tension in the atmosphere. Most groups have either the joker who diffuses the tension with humor, or the laid back person who diffuses tension by simply refusing to acknowledge its existence.
That's how Mr. Fitz is. He is so laid back that there simply can be no tension when he is around. He's so cool you can keep a side of beef in him for a month. He's so hip he has trouble seeing his knees. He's so with it that they are legally married in several countries.
Anyway, I cannot imagine any circumstance involving Mr. Fitz and tension, because of who he is, and I am perfectly OK with that.

If I believed that were true, then I would say that any and all Mr. Fitz stories would be boring to me.  But I don't, so I won't.  Wilson listed good examples of the kind of tension such a story could have, any of which might be compelling.  This story didn't have any, so I found it pretty dull, but I don't believe at all that a Mr. Fitz story could not have tension, it's just that this one didn't.  The Pirates story had some tension, for instance--I assumed the plan would go horribly awry, but it added some tension for me to try to guess what would go wrong and when.

So I don't think it's that you didn't explain yourself well enough.  I think it's just that I don't agree with you.  :)



Max e^{i pi}

  • Hipparch
  • ******
  • Posts: 1038
  • Have towel, will travel.
Reply #31 on: March 16, 2012, 02:38:47 PM

So I don't think it's that you didn't explain yourself well enough.  I think it's just that I don't agree with you.  :)

As you are perfectly entitled to.  8)

Cogito ergo surf - I think therefore I network

Registered Linux user #481826 Get Counted!



Fenrix

  • Curmudgeonly Co-Editor of PseudoPod
  • Editor
  • *****
  • Posts: 3996
  • I always lock the door when I creep by daylight.
Reply #32 on: March 16, 2012, 06:43:47 PM
This was my introduction to the characters, and it worked for me. I laughed out loud twice (once where Sir Hereward learned of the vow attributed to him, and the other when they fell onto the bed after banishing the monster).

I'm going to grab the other two and set them in the queue for all of them to be enjoyed sequentially. I'm looking forward to it.

All cat stories start with this statement: “My mother, who was the first cat, told me this...”


benjaminjb

  • Hipparch
  • ******
  • Posts: 1389
Reply #33 on: March 17, 2012, 05:57:33 AM
I don't know if I liked this story as much as the other in the series I heard (I'm unsure, I hope to listen to them all again), but I do enjoy the framework, as far as I understand it, which I take to be something like this:

Mignola:Lovecraft :: Garth Nix:Robert E. Howard

So Mignola takes some of the big cosmic monsters in Lovecraft--the ones that filled Lovecraft's doomed narrators with dread--and Mignola adds a bluff, can-do adventurousness to the stories. So, in Howard, Conan is usually stumbling on some ancient evil and vanquishing it (those panther-like thews sure come in handy) but usually with some cosmic depression. By contrast, Sir Hereward takes more of a Fafrhd & the Gray Mouser approach of cheerfully facing cosmic evil.

But then again, I haven't heard the other stories recently, so maybe I'm totally off-base.



Gamercow

  • Hipparch
  • ******
  • Posts: 654
Reply #34 on: March 19, 2012, 03:02:25 PM
I for one certainly liked this story.  It rang of Douglas Adams to me, and that's always a good thing.  Slightly daffy, self-effacing, and generally a light-hearted romp. 

The cow says "Mooooooooo"


InfiniteMonkey

  • Lochage
  • *****
  • Posts: 483
  • Clearly, I need more typewriters....
Reply #35 on: March 20, 2012, 03:48:05 AM
Ah, here's the story I forgot to respond to.

I liked it. I think the complaints that it's weaker or lacks tension lies (IMO) in the fact that this story is more humorous and more "mundane" for the pair. It's almost as this is just another day for them. Certainly Mr. Fitz doesn't seem to think this is anything unusual, and the action never leaves Sir Hereward's sickbed.

I liked the fact that the original enchanters were incompetent both as wizards and as merchants.



Unblinking

  • Sir Postsalot
  • Hipparch
  • ******
  • Posts: 8729
    • Diabolical Plots
Reply #36 on: March 20, 2012, 02:00:02 PM
I liked it. I think the complaints that it's weaker or lacks tension lies (IMO) in the fact that this story is more humorous and more "mundane" for the pair.

I didn't really find it that humorous either.  Call me contrary.  :P  I am willing to forgive any number of faults if a story gets me laughing.



Scattercat

  • Caution:
  • Hipparch
  • ******
  • Posts: 4904
  • Amateur wordsmith
    • Mirrorshards
Reply #37 on: March 20, 2012, 02:33:53 PM
I liked it. I think the complaints that it's weaker or lacks tension lies (IMO) in the fact that this story is more humorous and more "mundane" for the pair.

I didn't really find it that humorous either.  Call me contrary.  :P  I am willing to forgive any number of faults if a story gets me laughing.
Perhaps "wry" rather than humorous?  It feels more like an episode of a (fantasy-themed) sitcom and less like a short-form epic fantasy, is what I think people are getting at.



Unblinking

  • Sir Postsalot
  • Hipparch
  • ******
  • Posts: 8729
    • Diabolical Plots
Reply #38 on: March 20, 2012, 04:11:32 PM
I liked it. I think the complaints that it's weaker or lacks tension lies (IMO) in the fact that this story is more humorous and more "mundane" for the pair.

I didn't really find it that humorous either.  Call me contrary.  :P  I am willing to forgive any number of faults if a story gets me laughing.
Perhaps "wry" rather than humorous?  It feels more like an episode of a (fantasy-themed) sitcom and less like a short-form epic fantasy, is what I think people are getting at.

I don't think "humorous" is a bad label, humor being as subjective as it is.  It didn't tickle my particular funnybone is all I'm sayin. 



Lionman

  • Peltast
  • ***
  • Posts: 148
  • Next time, I'll just let sleeping dogs lie.
    • The Practice of IT.
Reply #39 on: March 27, 2012, 11:53:36 AM
To some degree, I have to agree with ElectricPaladin, in that this really is the "weakest" of the stories in the series, because it feels short, compact, slow to start, quick to end.  Now, that said, I did really enjoy the story, simply because the characters therein have strong history behind them, so there's already details in the listeners mind that need not be re-hashed.  We know these two are always getting into intersting trouble, that's what they do.  And the end of the story is such a tease. I can only hope we get to hear much, much more about what Mr. Fitts has uncovered!

Failure is an event, not a person.


Listener

  • Hipparch
  • ******
  • Posts: 3187
  • I place things in locations which later elude me.
    • Various and Sundry Items of Interest
Reply #40 on: May 02, 2012, 01:59:22 PM
Now, that's not fair. Kirk and Hereward don't have that much in common. A certain tendency towards philandering, but other than that... I mean, come on, Kirk is able to handle some degree of responsibility.

I think we've had this argument before, but I feel your statement is highly debatable since Kirk only became Captain through cheating.

No, Shatner!Kirk defeated the Kobayashi Maru through cheating. He received a commendation for original thinking. Then he had a relatively distinguished but not wholly abnormal Starfleet career, up until he started saving Earth from just about everything (V'Ger, the Probe, etc).

Pine!Kirk did the same thing, but I don't think he was going to get a commendation. However, the whole Bane mess gave him the opportunity to shine, and he became captain through some crazy-ass promotions that I'm sure had Uhura, Sulu, and Chekov all pretty ticked off because he jumped from academy graduate to captain in about a week, whereas Uhura (for example) graduated as a Lieutenant and was still one when the film ended.

/giantdork

"Farts are a hug you can smell." -Wil Wheaton

Blog || Quote Blog ||  Written and Audio Work || Twitter: @listener42


Zuishness

  • Palmer
  • **
  • Posts: 21
Reply #41 on: May 12, 2012, 09:15:42 PM
One note that always jars in the way that the reader pronounces the name.
Hereward is an old English name and is not pronounced "here-ward" but "heh-reh-ward"

When I say it it almost sounds like 'Hairywood'.

But I'm weird.

When I googled 'Hereward' to see if there was a pronounciation example online, I stumbled upon the 'Hereward and Worcester Dyslexia Association', which made me smile.