Regular, non-exhausted, non-photographic business as usual will resume tomorrow. Until then: I was just offered a job, and I have a big decision to make.
It’s Monday! And I’m home. At least I hope I’m home. And sleeping. And hopefully not suffering from con crud after spending the weekend in the company of 70,000 unwashed nerds dedicated fans.
I suspect today may be the day where I need a guest poster the MOST, really. And looky! David from Comparative Geeks is here to save me!
(And watch, this will be the post where I have to make sure people behave in the comments. Do not make me smite you while I am crabby and tired.)
(Also, thanks to all of my guest bloggers for saving my butt while I was in Chicago!)
I started blogging back in the last presidential election cycle. And I started out with a crazy thought: what if the candidates presented their positions in the form of a science fiction story? A short tale of what they think the world will look like in 4 – or 8 – years, if they are president. Their stances are great and all, but between the balance of power between the branches, local versus federal, and the fact that they don’t want to fix everything or they’re not going to have anything to run on next time… well, their stances don’t necessarily tell us anything.
Of course, by starting blogging with something like this – without actually having followers – you end up sitting by yourself pondering. And I couldn’t figure out myself what it would all look like. The easier one was actually doing the reverse: thinking of how the parties would write a story of what the country would look like in 4 years if their opponents won… The usual sort of negative politics were sadly easier to consider than a positive vision of the future.
Well, we’re in a new cycle, I’m guest-blogging on a blog where there’s been plenty of political talk, and there is a much more interesting presidential race going on… so what might the future look like if the different candidates win?
Drumpf is of course the one that makes this seem like an easy exercise. Because it’s science fiction, and if there’s something we love in science fiction, it’s dystopias. Because that’s where pretty much every non-Drumpf supporter in the world likely expects his presidency to be headed: global dystopia. Recession if we’re lucky; World War 3 if we’re not. And the most dystopian I can think is a World War 3 with the US and Russia on a side, with Europe and their ally China (maybe?) against. And nukes. Probably nukes.
Good God, ya’ll.
Unfortunately, I could also see – somewhere amidst the Drumpf followers – there being folks who might turn to assassination. I could also see, if one of the other Republicans somehow wins the nomination, that they might pick up Drumpf as a Vice-President, to bring the party together. Meaning, I could see someone “voting-in” Drumpf via assassination. So I’m not liking how things look with a GOP win at all.
Even worse, that same logic applies with a Hillary win. We’ve got people all riled up. And there’s a whole lot of anti-Hillary sentiment, built on 20 years with her in the spotlight. So it’s easy to see dystopia here, too: and the who’s-the-Vice-President here is a bit fuzzier, but important. Unless, in the same logic as above, it’s Bernie…
I’m not sure I see the same result with a Bernie win. But I also see him having a Republican Congress – and not a whole lot happening. But it would open our politics up, so that’s something… and maybe there’s an increasing relationship with Europe, with other socialists.
I think for most people right now, staring ahead at this year… the best result we can hope for might really be for nothing much to happen the next four years. But those are my thoughts. Now it’s open to you – what do you think the country looks like in four years? Whichever candidate. Let’s discuss in the comments below!
Sunday. I am likely tired and crabby by now, and it’s the last day of the con. I cannot emphasize enough how much you need to drive to Chicago and come see me RIGHT NOW. Do it. I have to drive home tonight and I need entertaining stories to keep me awake.
Today: Indie author extraordinaire Adam Dreece!
Firstly, thanks to Luther for letting me guest post today. We’ve been friends for going on two years thanks to Twitter, and I hope we get to meet in person sooner rather than later.
Now, how about some “Messing with a good thing.”
When I told a friend of mine that I was writing The Man of Cloud 9, and how it wasn’t for the same audience as my series, The Yellow Hoods, he shook his head.
Phil has written a lot of books, and a few of his books have sold over 100,000 copies. He’s traditionally published for the most part, though he has some indie things, like an anthology with a few other authors, which has sold ‘only’ about 30,000 copies or so. Compared to him, when it comes to sales, I’m still thinking about writing.
So when I told him that I was writing a science-fiction novel that didn’t have any young characters, that it was ‘classic science-fiction’, he asked me, “Why? You already have an audience. You’re at an early point in your writing career, you should build that, not divide it.”
Since April 2014, I’ve released four novels and a novelette in my steampunk-meets-fairy tale world. The layered style of writing has been a hit with kids 9-15 and adults (usually over age 28). I’ve been building up my newsletter, and sharing goodies there that give me a very high open rate. So why-why-why-why, why would I not just keep feeding that group? Well, from my perspective, I sort of am.
I don’t want to be known as only “The Steampunk Fairy Tale Guy.” I want to be known as “A Great YA author.” An author you can trust for a great read that won’t leave you feeling like an emotional train-wreck, or bring graphic violence or sex into the story. I’ll bring you right up to the border of YA, I’ll make reference to things, I’ll infer things, but there’s a line that I won’t cross. I’ll be the ‘mature adult’ author who stepped over the line to YA, rather than someone who writes children’s stories with an edge or two.
Along this line of thinking, I started writing The Wizard Killer several months ago. It’s a serial that I publish every week (while it’s in preview, i.e. unedited and unrevised). It’s gritty and intense, a very different feel from The Yellow Hoods. And when my daughter, who’s 11, read it and loved it, it reinforced the idea for me that I can tell a great tale while still within the realm of “YA.”
So when I wrote The Man of Cloud 9, I wanted to bring to the table my life in technology, my experience in Silicon Valley and with startups, I wanted to tell a tale that a fourteen-year-old me would probably love to get into, and the thirty-year-old me would have been able to connect with. As for my younger audience? Well, they have Book 5 of The Yellow Hoods that’ll be coming out at the end of the year.
This all said, my friend had a really good point. I could end up with people buying the book for their kid, without reading the back, without seeing the recommended age we put on it, and the kid hates the book and the parent never buys another Adam Dreece book again. It is a risk. Also, people could look at the back of the book, not like it and decide not to give any of my other books a passing glance. But there’s an upside I’m willing to risk it for.
Suppose for a minute that I release The Man of Cloud 9 and it is a run-away success. Suppose I discover that I wasn’t meant to be known as the “Steampunk-Fairy tale guy,” but rather as an author of science-fiction? Would that be terrible? Nope.
And what if the adult audience that I’ve already built up loves the book and feels that this was for them? Something that reinforces their support and love of my work even more, by allowing them to have a different take on it, similar to how different Wizard Killer is?
As authors, we shouldn’t just write things in all sorts of genres and leave the burden to the reader to feel like there’s a dozen different people writing under the same name. In my case, I’m being consistent with my writing style, with my view on people and humanity, and how I capture the story, it’s just a more mature story than the other series I write. And guess what? That’s what a brand is about. You have different product lines (Cloud 9, Wizard Killer, The Yellow Hoods) but they are all unified by some base characteristics: Great stories, solid female characters, no real swears (what do I look like, a flaring pargo? Yig.), etc.
Will the experiment in branching out work? Sure. How much? That’s yet to be seen.
– Adam
Adam Dreece is an indie author and speaker. He’s one of the founders of ADZO Publishing, and has 4 novels in his series The Yellow Hoods, and has been published by Sudden Insight in its anthology, Paw for a Tale. His serial, The Wizard Killer, and blog posts can be found at AdamDreece.com. He’s also very engaged on Twitter @AdamDreece and on Facebook AdamDreeceAuthor.
It’s Saturday! Hopefully I made a lot of money yesterday, because this convention was insanely expensive. Anyway, James Wylder’s our guest poster today. Have a story! You like stories, don’t you?
This is a brand new short story set in the 10,000 Dawns universe. Its a fun, and continuing, series of sci-fi tales, so if you like it you can find more of it at jameswylder.com/10kd. Thanks to Luther for letting me write this guest post! See you at C2E2 if you’re there. -James Wylder A Magic Trick by James Wylder
Artwork by Annie Zhu
We’d burned through seven fuel cells just trying to turn our ship off to save power, a fact which I was trying very hard not to yell at the Captain about. The captain still wore her old coat from when she was in the Centro Marines, a long blue thing with a red tech-shoulderpad, and was finally moving to inspect our cargo as the Wind Fish clung to the side of the asteroid we’d finally landed on. Captain Nichols was smoking, which made her not only a bad role model for children, but also a danger to all of us since she could cause our ship to blow up accidentally at any time. I respected her a lot.
Nichols opened the first crate, and sifted through some generic supplies before lazily throwing the lid back on, then moved to the next which was filled with gold bars. Finally she opened the third crate, which wasn’t actually the last crate, but spoilers: it’s the important one. Inside was a gray box, maybe the size of a thick copy of one of those books that’s too long for me to pay attention to like “War and Peace” or “Jane Eyre.” It had a standard data cord port on one side of it, and the letter “A” painted on a different side. Not printed, hand painted. I didn’t even know how to hand write a letter A if you paid me and put a gun to my head for maximum motivation, but Mars had been doing weird stuff since their revolution.
Desi nudged me in the shoulder, “That’s how we’re making bank this trip, you know.” I squinted at the box. It looked more boring than that French book I’d tried to read about the guy eating a piece of cake.
“What is it?” She shrugged.
“Some sort of Martian computer program, military grade. Its supposed to be worth a fortune, or at least that’s what our sources tell us. The Index is willing to pay heavily to get one of these things, the Librarian wants it for something special. Or, at least that’s what the rumors say. He might just not want other people to have it.” Either made sense, really. Captain Nichols spun the box around in her hands, puffing away.
“Don’t we like, hate the Index?” I asked.
“Well sure, but they’re offering enough money in this case the Olympian Senate agreed to let us take it on. They get a cut, of course.”
“Of course.”
“Should we plug it in, see if it works?” Jackson asked. Nichols’ cigarette flopped down in her lip.
“Are you crazy? This is a military AI system. You plug this thing in there’s no telling the havoc it will cause.” Jackson looked at the box wearily. She looked at the thing like it was a spirit trapped in a magical ward of salt and bones. From what I knew about these things, she wasn’t even that wrong. Then again I didn’t actually know that much. We were cave-women in space.
“Megan,”she said to me, “get back to the cockpit and check if we’re being tracked.” I yawned, nodded, and started walking over there. I think she still wanted me to salute, but this wasn’t the military. The Valkyries were the best pirates in the solar system, along with every other group that called themselves the best pirates in the solar system, so it was a big tie. I’d joined up at fifteen, mainly because I couldn’t stand school. Living on Titan is frankly better than 90% of the Rim, since we have a corrupt poor government as opposed to no government, but schooling there is so boring. I had to read so many big novels, just because it was the cheapest lesson plan data package our teacher could get. Now I was twenty, and whether or not ship life suited me, I was doing it. There were just the five of us on the Wind Fish, me, the Cap, Desi, Jackson, and Elodie. Elodie was just on here on loan till we got a new mechanic cause our regular one had turned a proton redirector the wrong way and blown herself up leaving only her shoes and socks up the ankles.
Jackson had taken the shoes.
I slid the door to the cockpit open, rubbing my eyes with the other hand, and slid it back shut, only to turn and see a teenage girl spinning around in the pilot’s chair, with a towering cyborg standing next to her. Naturally, this was unexpected. My first thought was “Stowaways!” But that was impossible: there wasn’t any cargo, and we’d stripped the ship down to the barest weight we could before launch. The cockpit only had one way in and out, and the door made enough noise that any of us would have heard someone sneak in regardless. They had appeared inside the ship out of nowhere. There was no way they could get have gotten in, mass simply popping into unoccupied space like a rabbit out of a hat.
“Graelyn, could you stop spinning?” The cyborg asked, “It’s giving me a headache.” The girl stopped, and glanced over at me, grinning.
“We’ve got company.” She said. The cyborg turned, and jovially waved. He had no visible skin, just an outer carapace made of what looked like video screens that curved around his form. He also wore a blue trenchcoat, and what looked like one of those old Admiral’s hats you see in Napoleonic War Dramas. The girl was wearing high top sneakers, a matching blue skirt and blazer,and a white shirt and black tie. She had a pin of a cat, and one of a half-sun, half moon on her lapel.
“What the hell.” I said.
“Shh.” Graelyn said. “I’m Graelyn Scythes, this is–”
“Archimedes Von Ahnerabe.”
“And we’re here to stop you from dying.”
“And take your stuff.”
“Well, I was going to leave that part off till later.” My jaw was loose, and I wished I had a cigarette like the Captain now just so I could let it drop out of my mouth dramatically.
“CAP!” I yelled, and the crew stormed up behind me. The door slid open, and the four of them stood with weapons drawn. The Cap had a gun, as did Jackson, Desi had a vibro-Ax, and Elodie had grabbed a large wrench. Her purple clothes were still stained with grease from the engine room. The girl in the chair sighed, and raised her hands.
“I surrender.” She said with more than a hint of boredom. Arch was just watching her, and she raised her eyebrows and tucked in her lips and he raised his hands to.
“How’d you get on my ship?” The Captain demanded.
“We cut our way in.”
“We’d get signaled if there was a hull breach.”
“Would you get signaled if there was a stealth ship coming in on an attack vector, like, presently?” The Captain leveled the gun.
“Yours?”
“Oh not at all. We just want the box. Turns out the people you stole it from aren’t too happy about it though…” The Cap gestured at us to keep our weapons on the pair, and ran to a console, she fiddled with some equipment.
“Nothing on scanners…” She adjusted a few things. “Shit. The girl’s right, the ship’s bouncing data back at us to tell us it isn’t there, but the timing’s off a fraction of a second.” Cap slammed her fist on the console, which was totally unnecessary.
“Elodie, how long till you can get us up in the air?” I tried really hard to not correct her on the ship not being able to get into “the air” in deep space. Elodie blew out a breath.
“Not before they reach us.” The girl in the chair kicked her legs.
“So let’s make a deal. I save you from the Martians, you let me keep the box.” The Captain’s eyes bulged, she was furious.
“That box is worth more than your life.”
“Is it worth more than yours? Martians aren’t exactly kind towards thieves of high grade military tech. I’ll let you decide. No rush.” The time till the Martian ship intercepted us ticked down on a monitor dramatically. They stared off. Graelyn smirked. The Captain conceded.
“Fine. What do you need to do?” Graelyn hopped up.
“You guys just stay in here, I’ll do to the rest.” She slid out of the chair, and Arch followed her. Closing the door, they covered up the window by hanging Arch’s hat on it. There was a noise, and then nothing. When we finally decided to open the door, the cargo hold was empty.
“I don’t understand.” Jackson sputtered, as the sound of the Martian ship docking with us clanged through the hull.
The Martian Captain, who corrected us into saying they were from “Geru Ghara” not Mars every time they said the word, led two squads of Martian troops into the hold. A group of troops held us at gunpoint, while the rest searched the ship, opening every panel. I’d just tidied a lot of those panels, so it was a bit frustrating, like someone dumping out your trash on the floor after they entered your house. “This is an unusual ship.” The Martian captain finally said. Her left eyebrow had a thick scar through it. She wore all black, aside from a red scarf and a red tech-shoulderpad. Her long coat also had red and yellow stenciling, but I wasn’t sure that counted. You don’t get off for wearing a shirt with tiny green frog on it on St. Patrick’s Day after all.
“Its an old Centro Sleeper Ship. They used to send them throughout the system before drives got fast enough it wasn’t necessary, you’d freeze the crew and-”
“Yes, I know how they worked. But this is a stealth model.”
“There are more of them in service still than you’d think on the Rim, they don’t break down. I heard the Van Winkle and the Red King are both still–”
“Yes, yes… That’s not what I wondered.” The Martian captain pulled up a hologram on a handheld projector. Ironically, it was still branded with a “Centro Systems” Logo.
“This ship was tracked after it assaulted a Geru Gharian cargo vessel, stealing its most valuable cargo.” Our Captain shrugged.
“Clearly, it was a different Sleeper Ship.” The Martian Captain nodded, and put the hologram away.
“Did you fight in the war for Geru Gharian Independance, Captain Nichols?”
“The giant blue coat gave it away, huh?”
“Quite. So you served Centro?”
“If you think you’re going to trump up some charges on me just because I fought for Centro Systems, you’ve got another thing coming. After how the war ended I couldn’t keep fighting for them, so I came out here on the rim making an honest living hauling cargo.” Well, that was all true aside from the honest cargo bit, and the honest living bit. The Martian Captain’s eyes looked distant.
“I can respect that. Geru Ghara had hoped we’d all be able to work together after the war ended…”
“Clearly the Rim’s idea’s of independence are different than Mars’.”
“Geru Ghara.” She said, more faintly. “The war is past us now.”
“Is it?”
“Yes. There’s no way you could have unloaded all of this cargo. Your ship has no way to drop or vent its cargo hold into vacuum without killing the crew. A terrible and massively unsafe design flaw, certainly, but it proves you’re innocent. I’d watch out Captain, someone is trying to sully your good name.”
“Captain Hara.” A man yelled from the other side of the ship. “We have Centro ships inbound, we need to take off immediately.” Hara looked down at the five of them.
“It’s been a pleasure. I wish you all the best, and I hope you find the freedom you seek.” She gestured with her hand, and her troops shuffled back into their ship as quickly as they’d barged in. I hurried up, and ran to the scanners, watching them flee from the group of much larger Centro vessels on their tail. Spoilers, they got away. Good for them. Annoyingly for us, a Centro ship split off to check us out.
I won’t bore you, it went about the same.
That wasn’t the end of it though. If it had been, I might have been able to square it all away with excuses, like only hearing half a joke and assuming it would have been funny. But, as we got the ship ready, we all headed into either the engine room or the cockpit and as I opened the door into the cargo hold after getting pre-flight ready, all the boxes but one were back. You know which one was gone. I called for the rest of the crew, and we marveled for a moment, running our hands along what felt like a magic trick.
“Look, there’s a note.” Elodie said, and we ran over.
“Have fun stealing stuff, see you in the future. Love, Dawn.”
“Who the hell is Dawn?” Jackson asked.
“More what what the hell is it.” I added. The Captain took the note and pocketed it.
“We didn’t get the prize, but we still have a small fortune in other supplies here. Let’s get it back to base.”
“We’re gunna burn a powerpack just lifting off of this rock, you’ll be spending that small fortune in powerpacks just from this trip alone.” I said, and instantly regretted it. The Captain’s face lit up red, then softened, and she laughed.
“That’s life on the Rim, Megan. Get used to it.” And walked off.
I stood stunned, “I was born here! Cap, Cap! I was actually born here you know? You’re the one who moved here!” But no one was listening. There was work to be done now, and the stars were beckoning for us once again. I got a cup of coffee, and got to work.
I began to power the ship up to lift us off, burning up a powerpack, and felt her breath on my cheek. She was leaning over the back of my chair, her tie hanging down onto my shoulder.
“It’s not like anyone will believe you,” Graelyn said, “so do you want to know how we did it?” I nodded, not turning around. I half wondered if she’d slit my throat.
“There’s another you, in another life, who did this same thing. And another one, and another one. And I can cut between the air you breathe, and step through into those worlds, through time, through space, through your existence. I’ve seen this dawn before. We’re inter-reality travellers, Dawn. We’re here and there.” The hair on the back of my neck stood up.”
“You’re being really creepy.”
“Oh, uh, sorry.” She said awkwardly, as if she hadn’t realized standing behind someone whispering in their ear after sneaking up on them was creepy. I spun around in the chair in time to catch a flash of white light, and what looked like a white disk shrinking into nothing. I wasn’t sure if I’d dreamed that, or what, but my top concern was more important than any sort of cosmological bullcrap.
Zzzzzz….. Some of these could probably stand to be cropped a bit; blech. I’m tired.
My booth babe.
THIS DUDE. Holy shit. That gatling gun swings into position and SPINS.
I think Matt might be Kylo Ren.
The second recipient of the THIS GUY HOLY SHIT award. That shield’s a home build. He let me hold it. It’s actually made of steel, it’s HEAVY AS HELL and he is an absolute goddamn warrior for lugging that thing around with him all day. For ART.
Because sometimes Batman gets text messages too.
Sadly, Mojo Jojo wasn’t doing the voice.
I saw a lot of people dressed as the Joker– white, black, Asian, Hispanic, male, female, at least one person who was a guy dressed as a female Joker. This is not a guy dressed as the Joker. I think this ACTUALLY IS the Joker, and he had both of us THOROUGHLY creeped out by the time he left the booth. I wish to hell I’d gotten video of him– just the way he was MOVING, and the constant giggling. Holy shit. Like, Daniel Day-Lewis levels of method acting.
Fifteen years ago (July 2001), Studio Ghibli and Hiyao Miyazaki released Spirited Away, an animated feature-length fantasy that would become one of the most successful Japanese films of all time, winning national and international awards and smashing box office records.
I watched the film for the first time as a double-feature. A dear friend had been absolutely insistent that I watch some of Miyazaki’s work, and so one rainy afternoon we decided to watch Howl’s Moving Castle (2004) and Spirited Away. (Would that all rainy afternoon plans were so pleasant.) Howl’s Moving Castle works as an adaptation of the Diana Wynne Jones book of the same title, but the story for Spirited Away was a wholly original one.
And it is captivating. The whole business is a bit surreal—maybe more than a bit, really. (It’s often compared to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland; Lewis Carroll’s 1865 story and Miyazaki’s film can both be read as texts coming of age stories and suggest ambivalence about girlhood. Both stories were also inspired by real girls—Carroll’s text was written after he told the story to Alice Liddell, and Miyazaki has stated that his inspiration for Spirited Away was that he wanted to make a film for a young girl who was a family friend.)
Ten year old Chihiro and her parents are moving to a new home when they take a wrong turn, arriving at what looks like an abandoned amusement park. Chihiro’s father wants to explore the place, so the two of them and Chihiro’s mother climb out of their car. The animation and setting here are fantastic. The dilapidated and broken amusement park is suggestive of so many things—rampant and broken consumer capitalism, the boundary between childhood and adulthood, the conflict between traditional Japanese culture and Westernization, etc.
All is not what it seems in this place, of course. Chihiro’s parents stop to eat, but Chihiro herself has gone another way, where she discovers an old Japanese-style bathhouse. She’s warned by a young boy named Haku that she is now in the spirit world, and must get out before sunset. But when Chihiro finds her parents again to hurry them out, she discovers that they’ve been changed into pigs and that her way home has been blocked.
And as night falls, all manner of spirits and creatures make their way to the bathhouse. Chihiro finds Haku again, who advises her to demand a job in the bathhouse from Kamaji, the boiler-man, so that she can stay. Kamaji apprentices Chihiro to Lin, another of the bathhouse employees, and she is taken to Yubaba—the mistress of the bathhouse. Unlike everyone else in the bathhouse, Yubaba dresses in Western clothing, and her rooms are furnished in European style. She is completely out of keeping with the traditional minimalism of the place, and her greed is part of what makes her such a formidable opponent for Chihiro.
Yubaba symbolically and literally strips Chihiro of her identity when she replaces her name with “Sen.” Later, Haku warns Chihiro against forgetting her old name. This, he says, his how Yubaba controls and keeps her servants.
Chihiro then sets off to work in the bathhouse. The place is a maze of corruption and greed, and many of the other employees are rude to Chihiro because she is a human. At the bathhouse, she encounters a creature called No-Face, who wreaks havoc in the bathhouse when he starts giving out fools gold and then eating the other customers. No-Face grows larger and more monstrous as he consumes more of the customers, and only Chihiro can calm him. No-Face is eventually made to regurgitate the creatures he has eaten and leave the bathhouse.
Chihiro also has to save Haku, who has been poisoned by a magic seal he stole from Yubaba’s twin sister, by going to Zeniba’s home and apologizing for him. For Haku’s part, he wakes to discover that Chihiro’s love was strong enough to break the curse, and he finds her at Zeniba’s home. On their return journey, Chihiro remembers who Haku actually is; he is the spirit of the Kohaku River, and he is free again once Chihiro names him. Haku’s story is not just a reminder how the power of names in this spirit world but of ways that pollution and the destruction of nature affects that spirit world, as the Kohaku River was lost to urban development.
Likewise, as Chihiro’s journey draws to a close, she must recognize her parents. Yubaba sets Chihiro in front of a drove of pigs and gives her the task of recognizing her parents in order to gain their freedom. Yubaba’s trick, though, is that she has left Chihiro’s parents elsewhere. But Chihiro susses this out rather quickly, so she is able to win her freedom. Haku leads her back to the entrance, where Chihiro’s parents are waiting for her but do not remember what has happened. Chihiro, of course, remembers all. She’s not confused by the dust and leaves covering their car or the other markers of time, because she recognizes what has happened.
And so, as is often the case in children’s fantasy literature, Chihiro returns to the real world at the story’s end. She comes home to her family. Her place. To live the rest of her life. But during her journey, she has had the chance for true agency—not being looked after by her parents in a situation with the direst of possible consequences. And that agency has changed Chihiro. Even if she has all along had the courage, smarts, and loyalty to take on a witch (or two) and save those she loved, it is only in the doing that she is able to recognize that.
And damn, I love to watch it happen.
***
Diana is a nerd, a bookworm, a feminist, and a social media junkie. She is a freelance writer and researcher and the administrator of the blog Part Time Monster. You can follow her on Twitter @parttimemonster or find her on Facebook at facebook.com/parttimemonster. She lives in New Orleans with her son, her husband, and one very energetic terrier.
Well, we’re in a new cycle, I’m guest-blogging on a blog where there’s been plenty of political talk, and there is a much more interesting presidential race going on… so what might the future look like if the different candidates win?
Firstly, thanks to Luther for letting me guest post today. We’ve been friends for going on two years thanks to Twitter, and I hope we get to meet in person sooner rather than later.
Along this line of thinking, I started writing The Wizard Killer several months ago. It’s a serial that I publish every week (while it’s in preview, i.e. unedited and unrevised). It’s gritty and intense, a very different feel from The Yellow Hoods. And when my daughter, who’s 11, read it and loved it, it reinforced the idea for me that I can tell a great tale while still within the realm of “YA.”
Fifteen years ago (July 2001), Studio Ghibli and Hiyao Miyazaki released 
Ten year old Chihiro and her parents are moving to a new home when they take a wrong turn, arriving at what looks like an abandoned amusement park. Chihiro’s father wants to explore the place, so the two of them and Chihiro’s mother climb out of their car. The animation and setting here are fantastic. The dilapidated and broken amusement park is suggestive of so many things—rampant and broken consumer capitalism, the boundary between childhood and adulthood, the conflict between traditional Japanese culture and Westernization, etc.
And as night falls, all manner of spirits and creatures make their way to the bathhouse. Chihiro finds Haku again, who advises her to demand a job in the bathhouse from Kamaji, the boiler-man, so that she can stay. Kamaji apprentices Chihiro to Lin, another of the bathhouse employees, and she is taken to Yubaba—the mistress of the bathhouse. Unlike everyone else in the bathhouse, Yubaba dresses in Western clothing, and her rooms are furnished in European style. She is completely out of keeping with the traditional minimalism of the place, and her greed is part of what makes her such a formidable opponent for Chihiro.
Chihiro then sets off to work in the bathhouse. The place is a maze of corruption and greed, and many of the other employees are rude to Chihiro because she is a human. At the bathhouse, she encounters a creature called No-Face, who wreaks havoc in the bathhouse when he starts giving out fools gold and then eating the other customers. No-Face grows larger and more monstrous as he consumes more of the customers, and only Chihiro can calm him. No-Face is eventually made to regurgitate the creatures he has eaten and leave the bathhouse.
Likewise, as Chihiro’s journey draws to a close, she must recognize her parents. Yubaba sets Chihiro in front of a drove of pigs and gives her the task of recognizing her parents in order to gain their freedom. Yubaba’s trick, though, is that she has left Chihiro’s parents elsewhere. But Chihiro susses this out rather quickly, so she is able to win her freedom. Haku leads her back to the entrance, where Chihiro’s parents are waiting for her but do not remember what has happened. Chihiro, of course, remembers all. She’s not confused by the dust and leaves covering their car or the other markers of time, because she recognizes what has happened. 
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