Links: mostly about fiction (Bujold, Scalzi, and Once Upon a Time!)

Loved this interview with Lois McMaster Bujold from Lightspeed Magazine about Captain Vorpatril's Alliance, especially this part:

I’ve actually done Ivan’s POV before . . . A lot of people who’ve been following him through the series as a secondary character who keeps popping up were convinced that he had hidden depths, but I keep saying, “No, no, Ivan has hidden shallows, and let me show them to you.” 

(To remind you: Bujold is very cool.)

For fellow fiction writers out there, you might want to be aware of the boilerplate contracts from Alibi and Hydra. John Scalzi writes:

THIS IS A HORRIBLE AWFUL TERRIBLE APPALLING DISGUSTING CONTRACT WHICH IS BAD AND NO WRITER SHOULD SIGN IT EVER. 

D'ya think he thinks it's a bad idea? Heh. Lots more (scarily enthralling) details at the above-linked posts.

-I've gotten geeky about Once Upon a Time before, but nowhere near as well as awesomely as Cindy McLennan does in this TWOP recap of the episode "Manhattan":

In the cosmology of Once Upon A Time, True Love serves as the deity -- a.k.a., the most powerful magic of all. Certain things are fated to happen, but that doesn't mean the characters are puppets. It is up to them whether they will work for Team Love or Team Evil. When people say hate is the opposite of love, they're often corrected by those who believe that hatred is passion gone wrong, and that indifference is love's true opposite. I hate to get in the middle of all that, so let's look at it a little differently: If True Love (emphasis on true is intentional and doesn't have to mean romantic love) is the ultimate good, then its opposite is Evil.

Basically, she starts by giving out that her bias is a Judeo-Christian worldview, and then argues that the show Once Upon a Time has its own theology. Which, I think, is right on, because a lot of the point of fantasy, as a genre, is to make little theologies. Fake ones, yes, but authors (screenwriters, etc.) use those little, pretend theologies, to try to figure out something about the real world.

Or to tell really good stories.

Or, well, both.

And I'm stopping there before this becomes a very, very long post about why fiction works the way it does and why it can do a million different things at once, and why it's awesome. No reason to fly all my geek flags at once. :)

Anyway, I'm not advocating McLennan's worldview wholesale, or anything like that, but I think her post is the smartest thing I've read so far about a show I enjoy very, very much indeed.

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell