On War and Women

Louise, thank you so much for inviting me to fill a guest spot for Heroines of Fantasy on your watch. I'm a big fan of historical fiction, even though I don't write it (yet), so in return for this little moment in the spot light, I promise to bring in some historical fiction authors on my watch next autumn.  

This month we're celebrating the release of my second novel, High Maga. The writing of this novel was such a rich experience, and today I'd like to share some thoughts on the events that inspired the story. So, without further ado, here's my guest post for HoF:

On War and Women

I’ve learned from our discussions on Heroines of Fantasy that one author’s “tired old trope” can be another’s world of opportunity. This message came home to me again just a few weeks back, when one of our guests listed war as a worn-out topic of fantasy.

That got me thinking.

High Maga, which debuts on the market this month, is essentially a story of war and violence.

Had I just spent the last three years crafting a tale that has been told too many times?

Or worse, was I telling a story that should not be told at all?

About a year ago, after reading a draft of High Maga, one of my critique partners questioned the content of the novel.  “Why so much violence?” she asked. "And why, in particular, the violence against women?"

The short answer is that war is a violent event. If an author chooses to tell war from the women’s perspective, sooner or later she will have to address the violence witnessed or encountered by those women.

The long answer has to do with my personal history and the history of my family.

I grew up with people who knew war on an intimate level. Not the battles of soldiers and veterans, but the struggles of the women left behind and the children they tried to protect as the world fell apart around them.

I heard about women who gave birth while bombs rained down on the city, of endless periods of fear and starvation and begging, of homes transformed to rubble, of daring escapes from occupied territories through dangerous midnight landscapes.

I came to understand war not as a heroic sequence of decisive battles, but as a desperate struggle for survival by civilians caught in the brutal crossfire.  

I learned that that a woman’s journey through war carries its own style of heroism. This is not always the charge-into-battle style that inspires our songs and movies. Rather, it is a heroism born of incredible endurance under some of the most brutal circumstances ever visited upon the human spirit. A heroism reflected in an awe-inspiring capacity to rebuild one’s life in the wake of utter destruction.

This is the vision that fed the writing of High Maga.

Deep inside, I wanted to pay tribute to the kinds of stories I heard as a little girl and to bear witness to the terrible loss that war causes, no matter how or why it is waged.  I sought to give a voice to those swept away by convulsions of violence, suffering through no fault of their own, their history silenced by death.

Above all, I wanted to paint my characters with dignity, even as they wandered -- or were thrust -- into the heart of darkness.

Did I succeed?

I will have to let my readers decide.  

But I am glad to have attempted the journey, and I am very grateful to all the characters of High Maga for entrusting me with the gift of their story. I hope I have done them justice.

~*~

About High Maga

Lands ravaged. Dreams destroyed. Demons let loose upon the earth.

War strikes at the heart of women’s magic in Moisehén. Eolyn’s fledgling community of magas is destroyed; its members killed, captured or scattered.

Devastated yet undaunted, Eolyn seeks to escape the occupied province and deliver to King Akmael a weapon that might secure their victory. But even a High Maga cannot survive this enemy alone. Aided by the enigmatic Mage Corey, Eolyn battles the darkest forces of the Underworld, only to discover she is a mere path to the magic that most ignites their hunger.

What can stop this tide of terror and vengeance?

The answer lies in Eolyn’s forgotten love, and in its power to engender seeds of renewed hope.

“War propels the book forward, and the characters are at their best when the events engulfing them are at their worst. . . . Fans of Gastreich’s previous work will want to catch this continuation of her story.” –Publishers Weekly

Purchase links:
Paperback
Kindle
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About the Author

Karin Rita Gastreich lives in Kansas City and Costa Rica. An ecologist by vocation, her past times include camping, hiking, music, and flamenco dance.  Her first novel, Eolyn, was nominated for the 2012 Thorpe Menn Literary Excellence Award.  Her third novel, Daughter of Aithne, is scheduled for release in 2015. Karin’s short stories have appeared in World Jumping, also from Hadley Rille Books, as well as in Zahir, Adventures for the Average Woman, and 69 Flavors of Paranoia.  She is a recipient of the Spring 2011 Andrews Forest Writer’s Residency.

Follow Karin’s adventures into fantastic worlds, both real and imagined, at
Eolyn Chronicles
Heroines of Fantasy
Eolyn on Facebook
Eolyn on Twitter

Five Reasons Why I Love (the New) Battlestar Galactica

Okay, so it's not so 'new' anymore, but as part of my summer fun, I've been watching season one of Battlestar Galactica again and remembering all the reasons why I thoroughly enjoy this series.  The full list is quite lengthy, so I've picked out the top five for this blog post -- all of which teach us something about great story telling in general.  Here they are, in reverse order:

5. Total Destruction

For all our whining and groaning about the old tropes in SFF, the truth is none of us ever tire of seeing the entire village burned to the ground. Especially at the outset of the story.

Galactica takes this old trope and makes it bigger than ever: not only is the village burned down, twelve planets are nuked. An entire species is driven to near extinction, its population going from billions to less than 50,000 in the space of a few hours. The enemy is so formidable it appears impossible that anyone will survive.  The ragged remnants of a sophisticated civilization have no choice but to run, surrendering their fates to the vast desert of space in hopes of finding a legendary livable planet that no one is even sure exists.

4. Those Sexy, Soulful Cylons

I get such a kick out of the fact that all the sexiest characters of the 2005 series are Cylons.  Definitely gives a new twist to the old artificial-intelligence-takes-over-the-universe idea. And what's more, they are highly spiritual sexy robots.  This is presumably not the way they were designed. But after the humans created and then banished the Cylons, the robots continued to evolve. 

Here we see a resurrection of the age-old questions first immortalized in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. What are the consequence of creating intelligent life? Can something we regard as merely a thinking machine have a soul?  And most disturbing of all, what would happen if beings of our creation turned on us and tried to destroy us (because we, after all, tried to destroy them first)? 

3. The Schizo Paranoid Scientist

I think James Callis's portrayal of Gaius Baltar is, in a word, brilliant.  Pulling again on the old tropes, Galactica gives a new and charismatic look to the classic mad scientist.  Gaius is a bit of a Judas as well, having unwittingly betrayed the colonies by providing defense information to his lover, who turned out to be one of those sexy soulful cylons.  (Indeed, the sexiest and most soulful of all.)  He lives out season one in absolute terror that his treason will be discovered, and tries to dedicate his superior intelligence to helping the remnants of human civilization survive, though he is constantly waylaid by tantalizing hallucinations of his Cylon lover, who somehow continues to manipulate him even though she's not really there.


2. Tension Between Military and Civilian Forms of Governance  

All my favorite stories have this thread, in one form or another.  Galactica sets it up beautifully through the characters of Commander Adama and President Roslin. 

On the day of the attack, Adama is preparing for his own retirement and putting his old ship to rest.  Roslin, a low-level member of the presidential cabinet, oversees the Ministry of Education and is 42nd in line for succession.  When the Cylons attack, Adama's ship is the only battlestar to escape, and all other 41 members of the cabinet who would have assumed the presidency before Roslin perish.  Adama and Roslin are forced to work together in order to lead their people to safety. Each comes to the table with different, often conflicting perspectives not only on governance, but on the basic plan for survival.


I particularly love the grace and mastery with which Roslin, portrayed by Mary McDonnell, assumes her new role as leader of a people in exile.  She is an amazing  female character: complex, able, and intelligent, one of many in the series, which brings me to the last (or first) thing on my list:




1. Kara Thrace (call sign: Starbuck)

When Starbuck was recast as a woman for the new series, there was some backlash from fans of the original.  I didn't see any of that, and quite honestly, I don't care.  Kara Thrace rocks, and while I too had a crush on Dirk Benedict back when I was 12 years old, I'm a woman now and I was totally ready for this cocky cigar-smoking fighter pilot to be one of the gals. 

Despite the rocky start with Galactica purists, Thrace, played by Katee Sackhoff, quickly established her place as one of the best woman warriors yet to appear on the SFF scene.  Gritty, complex, sexy, intelligent, hotheaded, and with a gift for defying authority, she takes control of the screen every time she appears. 

Looking back, they probably should have recast Apollo as a woman, too. (I mean, let's face it: Apollo the man just couldn't keep up with her!)  But oh well.  Maybe we'll see a woman Apollo, along with other interesting changes, when they film the 2035 edition of Battlestar Galactica. 

~*~

 

 

That's my list.  Now I'd like to hear from you.  Whether you saw this particular series or not, tell me about your favorite old tropes, and classic characters, remade in new and exciting ways.  In books, series, or movies -- everything is fair game. 

 

 posted by Karin Rita Gastreich