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Guest Post from Ken Altabef: Designing a Fantasy World Around Inuit Myth

Book cover of Alaana's Way by Ken Altabef
An insatiable fever demon…
A restless Wind spirit…
A treacherous shaman…
A golden walrus…
And one courageous young girl.
Unlike the more familiar Greco-Roman or Norse pantheons which feature vivid characters and well-defined myth cycles, the Inuit myths tend to ramble, skipping madly about with the rapid scene changes of a disjointed dream and likely to end abruptly with a stoic, “˜”Here ends this story.”

The mythology is peppered with impressive spirits with interesting names. But aside from a name and a job description there’s little else to go on. So when I decided to write ALAANA’S WAY, an epic fantasy series about the first female shaman in an arctic world based on Inuit myth, I had my hands full. As shaman it’s Alaana’s duty to negotiate with the great spirits, and they all became colorful characters in the story. Their appearance and personalities were entirely up to me.

Another problem. A nomadic lifestyle, the vagaries of a mostly oral tradition and a fractured tribal system leave little agreement between different versions of the same story. Even the most established figure, Sedna, Mistress of the Sea, owns multiple conflicting origin stories. One version claims she was the daughter of two giants with such an uncontrollable urge for flesh that she tried to devour her parents in their sleep. Another tribe insists she was a young beauty forced to marry an elderly neighbor who turned out to be a monstrous carrion bird, leaving her no route of escape except a plunge into the salty depths. Or perhaps she was a poor orphan girl mistreated and cast into the sea by the other children; her fingers, chopped off as she clung desperately to the side of the kayak, fell into the water to become the walruses and seal. I had to tread carefully here. I decided, in a flash of Solomon-like insight, that all of them were true. I supposed that in the Beforetime, where dreams were reality, she was all those things, lived all those lives. But here and now she is simply Sedna, the Sea Mother who controls all the animals in the ocean.

wind and demon maskAnother established figure is Tulukkaruq, the Raven, who always represents a mischievous spirit in Native American folklore. The Inuit Raven is impressive indeed, having been credited with creating human beings and bestowng the gift of fire on us as well. But really, this one was easy. I gave him the personality of the Dark Knight’s Joker and urged him to plague both my shamanic heroine and her villainous nemesis in equal measure.

But what about the rest? Interpreting an entire pantheon is a daunting task, but I never flinched. I’m a fantasist. This is what I live for.

Tornarssuk
Tornarssuk
Consider Tornarssuk the guardian spirit of the polar bears. The name spoke to me. I pictured an enormous shimmering white bear with starry eyes. He would be fierce and deadly but also benevolent and wise, with a soft spot for human beings as well. Tekkeitsertok is the guardian of the caribou, so a tawny-furred man with cloven hooves and an impressive rack of antlers. I figured he was an old and docile spirit, more interested in sleeping than fighting, but he does get into at least one good brawl before the series’ end. The Whale-Man may appear as a gigantic black bowhead or a Poseidon-like man, and let’s make him the estranged lover of Sedna for good measure. I wrote a scene in book four where the two have a torrential undersea battle, her sharks on one side vs his whales on the other.

What about Erlaveersinioq, the Skeleton Who Walks, a terrifying spirit who loves murder and death above all things? I guess we can chalk him up in the villain’s column. Sila, spirit of the Wild Wind, was a wild card but in the southern tribes he is also the spirit of justice. Let’s put him with the heroes, but leave some question as to whether he’ll really show up to help. As for the snowy owl who leads the souls of the dead across the great divide, she should be petite and cute, with a light as bright as sunlight on fresh snow. Narssuk, who controls the weather, is an insane sky baby who lets down his caribou skin diaper to issue a stormy blast of thunder and snow.

Raven
Raven
Somewhere along the line I found mention of the Tunrit, a race of people who lived in the arctic before the Raven created human beings. A race of prehistoric supermen. I could find nothing more about them except for the name of the tribe, but that was enough. I had found my villain. A promethean figure among the first men, who had wrestled sabre-toothed tigers and brought the sun from the other side of the sky, and who turned to sorcery to atone for that terrible mistake.

So are my versions of these mythological figures accurate? Probably not, since they came mostly out of my own imagination. But they might be. And that’s an important point. In dealing with a cultural belief system, albeit an archaic and disfavored one, I felt a duty to be respectful. My books sit proudly on the shelves of the Toronto Public Library and in a home for wayward Inuit boys in Nunavut, Alaska. In correspondence I’ve received from Inuit people reaction varies from praise for giving these mythological figures new life, to a stoic acknowledgement of the fact that at least I didn’t contradict anything.

That last is not entirely true. A pivotal figure in the series is the Moon-Man. Many Inuit tribes posit the familiar Native American myth that the lecherous Moon-Man chases his sister the Sun across the sky each day in hopes of an incestuous liaison. This didn’t fit in with my elderly, romantic Moon-Man nor my version of the Sun as an extraterrestrial spirit. What to do? I decided to have my shamanic heroine Alaana ask the Moon-Man, on one her soul-flights to his realm, if the story was true. “Oh no,” he says, “that’s just a story people tell.” So at least the contradiction comes right out of the mouth of the Moon-Man himself. Who could argue with that?

Moon Mask
Moon Mask

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Enjoy this writing advice and want more content like it? Check out the classes Cat gives via the Rambo Academy for Wayward Writers, which offers both on-demand and live online writing classes for fantasy and science fiction writers from Cat and other authors, including Ann Leckie, Seanan McGuire, Fran Wilde and other talents! All classes include three free slots.

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Assembling an itinerary for a blog tour? Promoting a book, game, or other creative effort that’s related to fantasy, horror, or science fiction and want to write a guest post for me?

Alas, I cannot pay, but if that does not dissuade you, here’s the guidelines.

Guest posts are publicized on Twitter, several Facebook pages and groups, my newsletter, and in my weekly link round-ups; you are welcome to link to your site, social media, and other related material.

Send a 2-3 sentence description of the proposed piece along with relevant dates (if, for example, you want to time things with a book release) to cat AT kittywumpus.net. If it sounds good, I’ll let you know.

I prefer essays fall into one of the following areas but I’m open to interesting pitches:

  • Interesting and not much explored areas of writing
  • Writers or other individuals you have been inspired by
  • Your favorite kitchen and a recipe to cook in it
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Length is 500 words on up, but if you’ve got something stretching beyond 1500 words, you might consider splitting it up into a series.

When submitting the approved piece, please paste the text of the piece into the email. Please include 1-3 images, including a headshot or other representation of you, that can be used with the piece and a 100-150 word bio that includes a pointer to your website and social media presences. (You’re welcome to include other related links.)

Or, if video is more your thing, let me know if you’d like to do a 10-15 minute videochat for my YouTube channel. I’m happy to handle filming and adding subtitles, so if you want a video without that hassle, this is a reasonable way to get one created. ???? Send 2-3 possible topics along with information about what you’re promoting and its timeline.

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Interview with Richard Kadrey

Recently I reviewed Richard Kadrey’s The Grand Dark for Green Man Review. I enjoyed the book and kept thinking about it, so I had some questions. Richard kindly agreed to a follow-up interview. Here’s his answers to those questions.

Q: What was it about the setting of The Grand Dark that drew you? It feels as though it came first and then the story within it – or was it the other way around?

RK: All of my previous work had been set in real places, primarily Los Angeles and San Francisco. With The Grand Dark, I wanted to build my own world from the ground up. The character of Largo appeared pretty much at the same time as I was creating the city of Lower Proszawa in my mind. I wanted someone somewhat innocent and with very little power to contrast with the weight and complexity of the city. But he had to be fluent in the streets. Largo could have been a crook, but instead I made him a bicycle messenger. Someone at the mercy of the weather, the traffic, and moody cops.

Q: What fears did you have about moving away from Sandman Slim and into different waters?

RK: I was very nervous. Largo was the opposite of my best-known characters, especially James Stark, aka Sandman Slim. Stark is confident and powerful. Largo is just the opposite. His defining characteristic is the constant fear he lives with because of his brutal childhood. But Largo isn’t a wimp. He finds his strength as the book progresses. Stark, and even Coop in my caper novels, were already strong and didn’t need a lot of lessons. People associated me with that kind of character and I got some pushback at first. But now that the book is out, readers seem to be coming around to Largo and the tough time I give him in The Grand Dark.

Q: Some critics have said that speculative fiction, no matter what time period it’s set in, is about the times in which it’s being produced. Do you think that’s true of The Grand Dark, and why or why not?

RK: Trust me, this book wouldn’t have been nearly as dark if I’d written it at a different time and under a different president. We’re seeing the rise of a cruel, fascist ethos around the country. For me, it feels as if we’re hurtling toward some kind of great calamity, which is what’s happening to Lower Proszawa in the book.

Q: Does having written for comics shaped your novel writing process? Do you have a vision for a graphic novel version of The Grand Dark?

RK: I’ve always been a visual writer, so comics were a natural extension for me. Writing both comic and, now, film scripts has helped me break down stories to their basic components and put them back together again, scene by scene.

Q: What’s coming up next for you?

RK: I’m working on a new Sandman Slim novel and I’ve finished up a new film script that I really can’t talk about right now. I also have some comic proposals out. Because I’m also a photographer, probably the strangest thing I’d like to do is a photo tour of burial sites around the world, and then put them together in a book with a story about each place.

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Guest Post: Valerie Nieman on Going Away and Coming Home

Thomas Wolfe claimed “you can’t go home again,” but the place you sprang from is never going to go away from you, that’s for sure. It’s down there in the isotopes layered into your bones and teeth. It’s there in the way your accent shifts when you go home for a visit, no matter how long away nor what education’s done to change you.

My new book, To the Bones, takes me back to the West Virginia I knew, a place both beloved for its “wild, wonderful” hills and source of despair for its history of exploitation. It also brings me home to genre fiction, after a long time wandering (mostly) in the paths of literary and mainstream writing.

The book began because I couldn’t get started. I was completing a novel-in-verse that had been long in the gestation, and was ready for the next project, but a couple of false starts had left me cranky. I complained to a writer friend about how poorly things were going. The conversation rolled around to a discussion of how to dispose of a body, and I commented, “When I was back in West Virginia, I always said that if I murdered someone, I’d throw them down a mine crack.” He challenged me to do so, and to make it a horror novel.

I was off and running, with a book that would bring together Appalachian legends, zombie movies, quest literature, ecojustice, Celtic lore, and a bit of romance. To the Bones is a satirical look at the legacy of coal mining in West Virginia through a splintered genre lens.

My years as a farmer and newspaper reporter in the northern coalfields provided both setting and substance for the novel. I’d struggled with the lack of water after mining cut off the springs and wells at my hill farm. You generally own only the “surface rights” when you buy land in coal country, which meant that subterranean water was not guaranteed, nor did I stand to profit from the capped gas well in the back field. (That property is likely fracked by now.) My land rested above part of the Farmington No. 9 mine, where an explosion 50 years ago left 78 men dead””the bodies of 19 of them left entombed because it was too dangerous to reach them. A mine crack extended over a corner of the back pasture; another marred a neighbor’s field.

As a reporter, I’d covered mine accidents, train derailments, murders, wildcat strikes, mine subsidence, town meetings and camp meetings. Those memories came back, including the lethal orange color of acid mine drainage that painted the destroyed streams.

The very shape of the land found its way into fictional Carbon County, as it did in my first novel, Neena Gathering, published in 1988 and resurrected by Permuted Press a couple of years ago as a classic post-apocalyptic story. There are many ties between my first book and this most recent outing, including a number of settings loosely based on places where I went to school, farmed, fished, and worked at newspapers. Characters end up below ground, in pits and abandoned mines and that aforementioned mine crack, because that’s just what I do””Fred Chappell remarked once that my interests were chthonic, and from Neena onward, what lies hidden or buried has served to wind taut the warp of story.

To the Bones came quickly, and I’m a slow writer, so I have the feeling I’d already been on the road “home” for a while. I published a crime drama in 2012 that’s set in tobacco country, but the protagonist is from northern Appalachia. My latest poetry collection, Leopard Lady: A Life in Verse, begins in Kentucky and follows a mid-century carnival sideshow traveling the region from Pennsylvania to South Carolina.

I’d left the mountains, but they hadn’t left me. While most people think of “Take Me Home, Country Roads” as the West Virginia state song, which it’s been since 2014, I always think that “Green Rolling Hills” addresses the Mountaineer’s pain of leaving more directly””check out the lyrics here.

In terms of genre, I’d gone away like the speaker in Utah Phillips’ song, but the joys of writing spec fiction “never let me go” and were right there waiting to welcome me back when I found that returning road.

Here’s an old-time peach cobbler recipe from among those I’ve collected over the years. In my family, the fruit went in first and some kind of dough went on top, though I’ve known some will put the dough down and pour the fruit over. I don’t know what recipe Darrick uses, but the traditional dessert plays a small role in To the Bones. Just the thing to welcome home a weary wanderer.

Peach Cobbler

6 cups peaches, sliced
1 TBSP lemon juice
1/4 C packed brown sugar
1 and 1/2 TBSP cornstarch
1/2 C water
1/2 C sugar (white)
1/2 C flour
1/2 TSP baking powder
1/4 TSP salt
2 TBSP butter, softened
1 large egg

Grease two-quart casserole.
Put peaches in, stir in lemon juice.
Stir brown sugar and cornstarch, gradually add water. Cook about 5 minutes.
Pour over peaches.
Set aside 1 TSP sugar.
Stir together sugar, flour, baking powder and salt. Stir in butter and egg until soft dough forms. Drop over peaches. Sprinkle over 1 TSP sugar.
Bake 40-45 minutes at 400 degrees F


Valerie Nieman is a poet and novelist whose first West Virginia novel, Neena Gathering, was returned to print in 2013 as a classic in post-apocalyptic literature. She’s also the author of Leopard Lady: A Life In Verse; Blood Clay, a crime drama set in North Carolina; and a collection of short stories and two additional poetry collections. To the Bones drops on June 1 from West Virginia University Press.

News and excerpts from her work can be found at:
Facebook @valerienieman1 – https://www.facebook.com/valerienieman1/
Twitter @valnieman – https://twitter.com/valnieman
Instagram @valnieman – https://www.instagram.com/valnieman/
Website valnieman.com

Enjoy this writing advice and want more content like it? Check out the classes Cat gives via the Rambo Academy for Wayward Writers, which offers both on-demand and live online writing classes for fantasy and science fiction writers from Cat and other authors, including Ann Leckie, Seanan McGuire, Fran Wilde and other talents! All classes include three free slots.

If you’re an author or other fantasy and science fiction creative, and want to do a guest blog post, please check out the guest blog post guidelines.

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