Only weeping skies so silent
Cast past down like peace
Slowing beats in thoughts rent
Maudlin nights in mind can’t cease
Folding cloth will never crease
Though beams break through on past
Simple patters without caprice
In twilight stills but cannot last
To keep things a little fresh around here while I continue work on Seeds of Doubt, here’s an older short story that I wrote back in 2011. It is part of the Golden Days collection.
All she needed to do was be friendly, that night two years ago. He knew that it was an easy threshold to cross, and she did. Over the course of an hour at a house party, she was perfectly amiable, and stole his heart.
Lee didn’t remember that night every day, but it popped into his head often and unfailingly. Even now, twenty-six months later, he still thought about it at least once a week. He was devoted, heart, mind, and soul, to the girl sitting across the table from him.
Jenna returned his silent smile and sipped at the glass of white wine next to her plate of fish. She brushed back a lock of dark blonde hair, but it only slid back over her eyes after a moment. He covered his amusement by taking a bite of the pasta in front of him.
It was a routine night for them: classy restaurant, nothing too expensive, but certainly nothing that the proletariat would frequent. They were both dressed appropriately; he wore a button-up shirt and a vest over it, with freshly-pressed jeans, and she was in a petite dress of a startling blue. Cloth-of-gold was sewn sparingly through it, throwing off the occasional glint from the lights above and making for a perfect complement to her light hair and crystal blue eyes. Continue reading
As I’m sure many people are now fully aware, certain shocking and series-changing events occurred in the most recent Game of Thrones episode, this Sunday. As a long-time fan of the books, I was looking forward to seeing the reactions from all of the TV viewers; however, the whole shebang got me thinking about my own reaction to reading the scene, four years ago, and my thoughts on it follow:
As so many people discovered to their dismay this past Sunday night, George R. R. Martin really doesn’t have any compunctions against killing off his characters. The Red Wedding hit, in all of its brutal, awful finality, and the TV viewers were fully immersed in the world that readers of A Song of Ice and Fire have been living in for the past 13 years.
The reactions to this scene have been nothing but par for the course. As a reader myself, I distinctly remember the horror I experienced when reading that last, fateful, Catelyn chapter. Expletives certainly fit the situation. On the internet Sunday night and into Monday—and, undoubtedly, all week—fans took to their keyboards to loose strings of four-letter words at Martin, at the show, at HBO, and at the writers and producers. A common theme, once the profanity was sifted through, was a prevailing sense of “what next?”
Many viewers expressed a lack of interest in the show going forward, saying that there was simply no sense in maintaining a viewership for a show that does such awful things to its characters. Indeed, many readers put down A Storm of Swords after reading the scene, and a good number of them never picked it up again. Among those who did, many said that they never felt the same emotional investment in the characters and books, because it simply wasn’t worth the pain anymore.
All this hoopla over the Red Wedding is understandable, really. People died, painfully, horrifically, in front of us; to make things worse, they were the good guys. However, instead of just letting this all roll forward, from an entertainment point-of-view, we should all take a step back and look at just exactly what GRRM has done here.
It was obvious from the first book that even main characters were not surrounded by plot armor; the mind-blowing execution of Lord Eddard Stark, supposed protagonist of A Game of Thrones, was enough to pound that issue home. His death was received by fans with shock. Who saw that coming? However, it did more than just overturn a major fantasy trope (something Martin is exceedingly fond of doing): it established a tone for the whole series. It was not a random killing. It was not a character death thrown in solely to show the readers—and, eventually, viewers—that Martin wasn’t afraid to kill people off.
Instead, the death of Ned Stark displayed, in fell manner, one of the essential underpinnings of Westeros: actions have consequences. This is high fantasy, yes, but nothing will be handed to the characters, be they honorable and upright or practically dragged from the pits of hell. The result of this is that, all too often, those honest characters usually suffer the most dire consequences of all. Without plot armor and Deus ex machina, they suddenly need to play by the rules.
And here is the catch. While many fans are spouting vitriol and announcing their intents to avoid the series henceforth, wailing and gnashing their teeth, they are missing the point.
What Martin did, both with Ned’s beheading and with the Red Wedding, was make us care. He has given this series real meaning, and given real satisfaction to the achievements other characters have made. Every time now that Arya does something crafty and survives, every time Jon Snow upholds his values, and every time Tyrion displays his political savvy, we are reminded that these events aren’t lip service to the genre’s conventions. In the Seven Kingdoms, good things don’t happen to good people because they’re good people. Good things happen to people who earn them. And, in a world filled from top to bottom with strict social rules, it should be no surprise that flouting those standards can sometimes result in fatal consequences.
So, instead of abandoning Game of Thrones or A Song of Ice and Fire, fans should savor their triumphs all the more. Yes, the Red Wedding was stunning and horrifying. The very fact that it had such a tremendous impact upon the fanbase should stand as testament to the true magic that George R. R. Martin has spun together in this story.
We care, and we should keep on caring. Further trials await in the world of Westeros and Essos, from the Wall in the North to Dorne in the south, but triumphs await as well. It is only through that combination of failings and successes that we get true satisfaction for taking this journey.
Read on, people, and keep watching.
In celebration of the news that “A Golden Day” is going to be published this spring in the Greyrock Review, here’s the newest revised version! Enjoy…
Days like that were hard to come by. The September air was warm, but held just a hint of autumn’s crispness as it breezed through the multi-hued leaves on trees lining the street. Clouds dominated the sky, but enough sun broke through to illuminate the burnished reds and golds fluttering above.
Mark Yoren could not hold back a smile as he walked down the main road through campus. The weather was perfect, he thought, and did little except remind him of good times, both past and present. The future was all that troubled him, that day.
His senior year was upon him, the first test of the semester was looming, monstrous, scheduled for the next Monday. He and Andrew walked, side by side, and were silent despite the beneficent glow seeping through the husky greys and blooming whites of the cloud cover.
They were thinking about the same thing, Mark knew. Some of the best times they’d had since becoming friends happened on fall days like that. Days back in high school, five and six years ago, sneaking beers into their parents’ basements and drinking, or coming up with the most immature games they could think of. He missed the superficiality of it all. Continue reading
And here, for all to read, is chapter three.
The hallway stretching before Eritan of Near Jinda, Anointed Protector of the Flame, Emperor of Letaal, was a spray of color. Very few men knew that it existed, or rather, knew that it was anything like it truly was. The colors of nearly every flame known to Pirinism were present, in one way or another. The floor tiles twisted in a pattern of blue and white, befitting the hottest part of any flame; reds and yellows and oranges adorned every tapestry and every cornice. There was no black, which would have stunned any commoner.
Eritan smiled to himself, grim, and held that thought. No black. Not even those blasted black-robed priests were allowed in these hallowed halls. Only those he invited personally could tread upon these floors. And the Dragon Guard, of course, but he hardly noticed those stalwarts anymore. Two strode behind him, as usual, but he did not need to look at them to know how they would look. Stoic, to a man, the Dragon Guard held his life close and would die on a whim. They were the best in the Empire.
dcafwriting 