Bittercon: Historical Eras and Genre

[sartorias]

This is off Readercon's Saturday panel list. I don't know how much interest this one will raise--but.

Their title and info is: Why Don't We Do It in the Reformation? Underutilized Historical Eras in Spec Fic. Oooh! A conflated version of their descriptor: There have been many alternate histories of WW II and the Civil War, but almost none of

Comments

[avengangle]

I think another problem is the educational system in America, at least. When we study World History, we study Egyptians, Greeks but not so much Romans except the fall of the empire, early Christianity maybe a LITTLE (although not much in public school), and then we skip to a generic Middle Ages (usually the late middle ages), and then bop on to the Renaissance in Italy (but nowhere else), the Reformation in England (oh, good, Shakespeare) and then Germany but nowhere else. Next we talk about America: the discovery thereof, the first English colonies, and then we skip ahead to the American revolution (unless it's an American History class, in which case we read that play first). Then the French revolution. Then Napoleon. Then the American Civil War. Then we get a little on the Victorian Era in England and industrialism (Henry Ford), but we mostly skip WWI to get to WWII (although we all know that someone shot the archduke and then Russia had to drop out because of the Communists

[swan_tower]

And then take that and stack it on top of the difficulty of researching more obscure periods. But I had been focusing more on the latter problem, and you're right; lack of a basic education in whole swaths of history poses a problem, too. I have a series of short stories I want to set either in imperial China or something a lot like it, and the first hurdle to overcome is that "imperial China" is a HUGE span of time I know nothing about. Which dynasty am I talking about, here? And which part of China? It's like saying I want to set something in pre-industrial Europe. But the only time I studied Chinese history it was the very early part, in an archaeology class, so I don't even know where to begin.

[avengangle]

What! You only have several thousand years and millions of miles to choose from! Why are you complaining? ;)

[sartorias]

Yeah...this reminds me of something I realized when reading an otherwise admirable fantasy set in Aztec times. The characters were stiff, the research, though careful and earnest, read as careful and earnest. It felt like a mechanical puppet show, the author did not seem to live in the time/space, or if they did, it didn't show in the prose.

I've read a couple of fantasies set in China that seemed really awkward, again, with lumps of undigested research standing out...and then characteristic western tropes in the people (one really, really gets hit with the differences when reading Cao Xueqin's novel).

Taking on a totally new time and place presents a whole lot of challenges.

[mrissa]

Don't you find, not just in history, but in any area of life, if you have read hundreds of primary texts, the changes and bits of language used by various writers to twist the time to fit their story show up when employed in someone else's story?

I have a particular problem with this in Elizabethan fantasies, when I can often say, "Yes, I can see that you read x. Good for you. You should also have read y and z."

I think people end up with problems with alternate histories if they're writing it in standard alternate mode and they feel their readership is unlikely to know what the real history was. This is less of a problem in fantasy alt histories (when the reader can be presumed to know that there was not in fact a giant purple troll on the Habsburg throne) than in SF alt histories (when the reader can't always be presumed to know who was on the Habsburg throne

[sartorias]

...or just assume that everyone was secretly a secular humanist.

Yes, a couple of writers have wryly commented on readers for dinging them for not having the right king on the throne when they are clearly (or thought they were clearly) doing AH, and not just that detail, but a host of others point the way. It's easy to look up a king's dates, and say, oh ho! Wrong king! Bad writer! if one is inclined toward that sort of thing.

[alecaustin]

Oh, gawd, the 'secret humanist' thing makes me gag. Historical characters do not have to share all of your convictions or your readers' convictions to be sympathetic. More than that, being aware that the guiding principles of your character are actually different from those a modern character would have and then thinking the implications through often leads to better/more interesting fiction.

As for dates... part of why I write historically-influenced fantasy rather than AH because it helps a certain class of person past the "Aha! I have found a source that disagrees with your source!" point-scoring and into the story. Because, y'know, it's not like historical sources contradict each other or anything. That never happens.

[sartorias]

ROFL

[swan_tower]

I discussed this topic a bit by e-mail with Kathy Sedia, and you hit several of our points: the force of strong models (like O'Brian) in shaping people's ability to imagine the era, and the fact that it's not just time period, but time period and place and to a lesser extent, the people involved. Lots of Tudor England, not so much the rest of Europe, and you're mostly looking at either the court or the theatre.

I think you're right, that it's a lot easier to imaginatively inhabit a time period and place if you've read fiction set there; without that, you have to sort of invent your wheels out of your nonfiction reading before you can go anywhere. (As I'm discovering the hard way, right now.)

[sartorias]

...and don't forget Dunsterville. Kipling's Stalky was a real type, and Dunsterville's memoirs are both funny and illuminating.

[jonquil]

Must read!

I've only read about his (and M'Turk's) autobiography, both of which comment that Kipling was much more of a BMOC than the Stalky books would lead you to believe.

[anna_wing]

Victorian to 1950s - Kim Newman's Diogenes Club novels

18th century inspired : Teresa Edgerton "The Gnome's Engine" duo of novels

Tim Powers

Gillian Bradshaw wins the prize for Most Unusual Settings:

Medieval France - "Wolf Hunt"
Sarmatians in Roman Britain - "Island of Ghosts"
Hellenic Kingdoms of the Ferghana Valley - "Horses of Heaven"

Judith Tarr - Crusades (both Europe and Outremer), Medieval England, Egypt at various points in its history, prehistoric Central Asia etc etc etc

There was a fantasy graphic novel some years ago about Vietnam called "The Light and Darkness War".

On the issue of political restrictions, a recent commenter on

[sartorias]

I saw that about Bellatrys!

Judith Tarr did her PhD in medieval studies, I believe, so she thoroughly knows the classical world.

[asakiyume]

Ooh, that one about Ferghana sounds cool.

[anna_wing]

It is. The Sarmatians one is fabulous. In fact, all of her historical fiction is rather good. Her first three novels were Dark Ages Arthurian fantasy and they're excellent.