Where Am I Going and Why Am I in this Handbasket

"And you may ask yourself

Well . .  how did I get here?"

Talking Heads

 

 

 

It should come as no surprise to you that I have a story about how I ended up here. I'm an Air Force brat. Dad was in the military long enough ago that we moved often. Post assignments were generally for two years rather than the four or more they are now. That meant that either you were moving or the kids you'd made friends with were moving. Nothing was permanent. You learned early how to not get attached to place or to people because you were a perpetual tourist, flitting in for a short bit before being blown out on the breeze of Uncle Sam's whim. It had benefits - we saw amazing sights and had one of kind experiences.

 

But a military kids live always leaving or being left.

 

Kids handle that in one of two ways - they either learn to make friends with anyone and everyone very quickly. Most do this by becoming joiners. My sister went this route. On the other path, the military brat learns not to count on other people. She becomes self-contained. Has a tendency to sit on the sidelines, hanging back, both intellectually and emotionally isolated. I went that route. Less disappointment, sure, but lonely. Not that I *wasn't* that kid that no one wanted on their kickball team. Sports were not I and there wasn't a word for 'geek' in those days. Well. The word existed, it just didn't mean what it does today. Yes. I am that old. Shut up.

Books were my friends. They were reliable. They were friendly and I didn't have to be anything more than I was - a sickly kid who nearly got shipped to Germany for major surgery because the base doctors didn't think I'd survive Iceland. Horse books got me through that. Swampfire. A Pony Called Lightning. I still measured my age in single digits and I was on a serious Western kick. Roy Rogers was my hero. And maybe The Lone Ranger. So try to be generous while judging 9 year old me.

 

Books kept me company when my cousins and my sister ditched me alone at my grandparents' house. My Aunt Betty brought me a box of tattered paper backs, every last one of them written by Andre Norton. Ordeal in Otherwhere was the very first of hers I read. I promptly read every last one of the books in that box and went to ask for more and even began collecting Andre Norton books, myself. Aunt Betty and I had a friendly competition going for years over who had more. Got a note from her several years ago after her house burned down. It said, "You have more Andre Norton books than I do, now."

 

The thing I don't know how to convey is that books have been unfailing friends. Through good times, through times I wasn't certain I could survive, a book in my hands saw me through often with renewed determination and with new courage. Isn't that what friends are supposed to do?

 

How did I get here? Stories are still my nearest and dearest friends. I need them to survive. And if anything I write can be someone else's friend, I'll maybe have paid the kindness forward.

Bright, Shiny Childhood Reads

Okay. Y'all knew I was an odd Word-Whore, right? Up to now our favorite children's books have been safe for all audiences. Then you get to me and that comes to a crashing halt. *Squints*. Yeah, I don't see any surprise in your faces.

Maybe it's because I was sneaking out of bed when I was 5 to watch the late night scifi/horror show with Dad (The Omega Man, The Fly, The Incredible Shrinking Man - you know - all those happy, feel good movies guaranteed to sear weeks of nightmares into an impressionable 5 year-old brain) but my favorite books as a kid weren't . . . well . . . entirely cheery.

I adore(d) H.M. Hoover. The Children of Morrow was the first of her books that I read. Nuclear war has shattered life on earth. A tiny pocket of survivors cling to life in a village that worships an old nuclear bomb still in its underground silo. Two children witness (and *might* have caused) the death of one of the elders, sending them running for their lives from the only family they've ever known. This book is tough to find. It was first published in 1973. I picked it up about that time while I still measured my age in single digits. I still own this book. Somewhere. I moved to a boat, but I kept this book. It's that good. Funny thing, though. None of my nieces or nephews were at all interested in this one or in This Time of Darkness by the same author. Can't understand why.

Andre Norton also wrote a ton of kid's books. Although I started reading her adult books first (while still a kid), the kid's books are more than worth it. Lavender-Green Magic is a prime example. It was one of the first books (but not the last of hers) with protagonists who are people of color. I wish that weren't remarkable, but when I read the book in the late 70s, it mostly certainly was. Sadly still is today. This one isn't quite as grim as the first book. . .but it has its moments. The kids in the book get word that their father is MIA in Vietnam. Their mother, trying to cope, sends them to stay with their grandparents. The lavender-green reference is for an overgrown garden labyrinth that ends up being the kids' doorway to magic, time travel and trouble (but not necessarily to finding their father.)


Also firmly slotted in the Books Nobody I Know Wants to Read: Anything by John Christopher. Another author I adored. The Tripod series is still one of my favorites. Because, you know, every fourth grader should be reading stories about aliens invading and enslaving humans. . . or turning them into static museum exhibits.

Oh sure there are more. Some creepier than others. Some less so. (See Andre Norton, The Prince Commands - dated as it was written in the late 30s or early 40s - but this is The Three Musketeers meets The Werewolf - all fun, no creepy.) Susan Cooper wrote a series I still love that starts with The Dark is Rising - a riff on Arthurian legend. The list is long and the hour is late so I'll stop.

Does this semi-grim childhood reading list explain everything?

Otherwhere

Andre Norton.

That could be the end of my blog post today. Because, really. I blame her more than anyone for leading me into scifi/fantasy fiction. I don't recall how old I was. Young. We were at my grandparents' house where I had more cousins my age than I could count. But something had happened - the geek sign had been hung around my neck or something. I was no longer okay to hang out with. So I spent a lot of time be ditched and subsequently hanging out by myself reading horse books which had been the passion of my single digit aged youth.

Then I ran out of books.

Enter my Aunt Betty. She had boxes and boxes of Andre Norton books which she offerd to let me read. I'd read I, Robot at my father's urging and was pretty lukewarm on scifi at that point - because, of course, when you measure your age in the very low double digits, one author is completely representative of an entire genre, right? Thing is. I was desperate. So I looked through the books and I found Ordeal in Otherwhere. The story was mostly told from the heroine's point of view. It was clearly her story. And she had a telepathic cat. Sold.

I opened the pages, and I was gone. I'd wandered into an alien world where the aquatic natives were staunchly matriarchal - to the point of actively discriminating against their males. The males had banded together and gone to war to destroy the existing heirarchy. It was up to the human heroine and a Patrolman to defuse the situation and show the natives that they were stronger together male and female than they were apart. (So, too, were the humans - though the romance was only ever hinted at - never, ever acted upon on the page. Dammit.)

I read as many of those books as I could cram into our stay. Another favorite: Forerunner Foray. The Year of the Unicorn. I didn't care what whether her books were fantasy, science fiction or young adult. Andre Norton seemed to handle them all spectacularly well. I did eventually find stories of hers that I liked less than others, but even in those, the tension, the sense of danger, and the hint of romance drew me in. Interestingly enough, the series for which she is best known: The Witch World series, is my least favorite. Individual stories within the series are good, but...no accounting for taste, I guess.

Were there other influences? Absolutely. This was just the most pervasive and longest lived. I started collecting Andre Norton books shortly after we left Arkansas and I had to give Aunt Betty her books back. A few years ago, Aunt Betty's house burned down. She called me to tell me that my Andre Norton collection now beat hers. I hope that's not still true. Maybe I'll send her one...I know precisely which book to send.

Secret Book Hero Crushes

Oh goody. Another topic that points out what an odd child I may have been. I seem to have missed out on the crushing over book heros thing. I suspect I can blame George Lucas. At the point in my life where most other girls were falling for heros in books, I was a complete and unrepentent Star Wars Geek. I was all about Luke Skywalker and Han Solo.

And flying X-Wing fighters! I would have been GOOD at that. I suspect I might even have had a talent for bull's-eying womp rats in a T-16.

What I was bad at was reading books with markedly alpha heros and happily-ever-after romantic endings. I was reading authors who gave me female protagonists, Andre Norton, notable among them. I desperately needed those strong, smart, determined women at that point in my life. She delivered. Ordeal in Otherwhere has to be one of my favorites. A heroine driving her own fate on a world ruled by women? What's not to love?

That said, a few of her heros do stand out in my memory. Kethan in the Jargoon Pard. Prince Michael in The Prince Commands. Not because either story was much of a romance - the Jargoon Pard did have a bit of a romance in it, but both heros were good, admirable guys in tough circumstances. Prince Michael had the smart mouth and wit to make me appreciate him. I admit to being a sucker for a sense of humor. Kethan had the heart, brains, and determination to walk into the fire for a woman who barely knew he was alive until she, too, saw those things in him.

The heros all of my English teachers seemed to hold in such high regard? I thought they all needed a swift kick in the -- shins. The heros. Not my teachers. Okay. There was that *one*... 

Under Multiple Influences

TV, movies, books, computer games - it's always been about stories for me. I'm a sucker for narrative. It doesn't even have to be good, but it does have to intrigue me. Dark edging into creepy is always good for me. Sad stories need not apply. Being who and what I am, I really don't need any help with the whole depressive thing. I've got a lock on that all by myself.

So the list?
From childhood:
Star Trek - the original series

The Omega Man

The Andromeda Strain
Lost in Space
The Forgotten Door by Alexander Key (fantasy)
The Children of Morrow by H.M. Hoover (post apocalyptic fantasy)
The Time of Darkness by H.M. Hoover
The Dark is Rising Series by Susan Cooper (creepy Arthurian mythos goodness)

These gave way to everything Andre Norton ever wrote. I enjoyed Anne McCaffery's stories, but Andre Norton really is the one who gave me stories of women who drove their own destinies. Charles de Lint, Robin McKinley, Stephen R. Donaldson (anything that *wasn't* Thomas Covenant), Arthur C. Clark, Isaac Asimov, Michael Crichton. The original Star Wars trilogy, naturally. Somewhere in there, I absorbed a few too many B-grade pirate movies. Props to The Guns of Navaronne, though. That movie still makes me happy. And Alien. Oooo. Loved that movie because I loved how the story was told so effectively without all the standard horror props.

I loved comic books - especially The New Mutants. I got in on the beginning of that book and the writing was pretty solid initially. (Yeah, the writers pissed me off one too many times and I abandoned the book. My loss. But it made me write my own stories.) Several graphic novels caught my fancy, telling stories as they did with stark, beautiful art and sparse prose. I confess to having been addicted to Sandman.

These days?

Music is a huge influence. We won't go into who, what, where. You don't have that kind of time. Really. Books - Linnea Sinclair, Meljean Brook, Nalini Singh, Laurel K. Hamilton (initially - then I just couldn't take it anymore and had to stop), J.K. Rowling (I know, I know, sue me. I really enjoyed those books), and everything my fellow Word-Whores have written. No really. It's a good time. And based on the books penned between the lot of us, some of us are twisted. Not naming any names, just saying. I also have a really big science hobby. Watching science shows on TV was a big treat for me until we axed the TV and moved aboard a boat. Now I read science. Don't care what it is. I just like learning things I didn't know...though admittedly, a few of them are over my head. By an order of magnitude. That's another list that's too long. It's also the reason you won't find a photo of my bookshelves in this post. Besides the fact I'm one place and they're another - no - the stacks are three books deep and untidy. The only organization is 'what I've read' and 'what I haven't yet read'.  Thank heavens for the Kindle. Between my library and the DH's, we'd sink the boat.

Then we come to the computer games. Resident Evil. Do you know, I can't actually watch the movie? I watch parts of it, but I'm such a wimp when it comes to onscreen death and maiming. Write it into my own books? Sure! Watch it? I'll have nightmares for weeks. It's something about hearing the screaming. Can't do it. But the game? Oh, yeah. I'm zombie bait, but it is a compelling little story. And, of course, you already know about my World of Warcraft addiction.

So there it is. This odd conglomeration of multiple influences poured into my head, shaken (not stirred) and transmographied into something that means 'story' to me. Is it telling that 'story' usually means 'explosions'?