Auction for Terri: Dedication to my next novel.

A bunch of cool people are having an auction to benefit Terri Windling, who first published me, and pretty every good fantasy writer (except R.A.McAvoy) between 1980 and 1990. There are many cool things to bid on. I’ve put in the dedication to my current work in progress, Hawk. Yes, indeed, I’ll dedicate to you; or to someone you want me to.

Check it out here:http://magick4terri.livejournal.com/41067.html

On populism, despair, hope, and science

I’m currently reading William Shirer’s The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.  It’s brilliantly researched, and the author’s prejudices and idealism do little to reduce its value.  One of the things that strikes one very forcefully is the list of 25 demands in the program of the Nazi party, and the discussion of which ones were implemented and which ignored.  Many of these program points are reminiscent of American populism–both the left-wing variety and the right-wing.  If you look at some of the right-wing American populists (Father Coughlin, Huey Long, &c) you’ll see the same thing you see in the program of the Nazi party: proposals to break up financial oligarchy and to distribute the wealth more evenly–the same things you see in the program of left-wing populists.  Is the only difference between them that these program points are instantly dropped and forgotten when a Hilter or a Long comes to power?

Both left-wing and right-wing populism are distinguished by hostility to theory and to politics–by the belief that we don’t need an in-depth understanding of what we’re fighting against, it is sufficient that we’re angry at how the elite are abusing their privileges.  But privilege and power have a complex dialectical relationship to one another; it takes power to maintain privilege, and privilege in turn confers power.  Power in a society is what we call politics, and the argument over who has this power, who ought to have this power, and what ought to be done with it is the expression of the economic conflicts that drive society.  To take a stand on the economic conflicts but to ignore the political is to leave one’s self open to the influence of demagogues.  At best, you have the IWW, whose hostility to theory and politics led to their collapse; at worst you find yourself backing a Hitler, a Huey Long, a Ron Paul, and wondering how you got there.

Shirer’s book is frightening, because it shows what can happen when rage and despair have no productive outlet.  It is also encouraging, because a scientific understanding of how society works–and this book exactly a contribution to such an understanding–is our best hope.

What the narrator knows; what the reader knows

I had a friend email me with a cool question: How do you let the reader in on something the first person protagonist doesn’t?

I know it’s tricky, and I know it can be done, and I know it’s a rush when you pull it off.  My answer involved set-up: You establish the character as someone who is liable to miss drawing the correct conclusion when certain types of facts are in front of him, then you can have him report on things from which the reader will draw the correct conclusion, but the protagonist won’t.  For example, he might reminisce about a time a certain woman was attracted to him, and talk about the way she communicated it, and then say that he didn’t realize that until much later.  Now you can have his current lover drop clues that she is on the edge of breaking up with him, and the reader will believe that he doesn’t see it.  If you do it well enough, that is: it’s all about walking the line between, on the one hand, making the clues so subtle the reader doesn’t catch on, and, on the other, making the clues so obvious the reader won’t believe the protagonist doesn’t get it.

Anyway, I thought it was an interesting question, and worth throwing out to the Smart People who hang out here to see what other answers emerge.