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Groups > rec.arts.sf.written > #499919
| From | "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <seawasp@sgeinc.invalid.com> |
|---|---|
| Newsgroups | rec.arts.sf.written |
| Subject | Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor |
| Date | 2018-10-09 08:47 -0400 |
| Organization | A noiseless patient Spider |
| Message-ID | <ppi81l$e2u$1@dont-email.me> (permalink) |
| References | <XnsA972AC6D8DF74Kdeuramagmailcom@85.214.115.223> |
(Spoilers below, naturally)
On 10/5/18 7:57 PM, Joe Bernstein wrote:
> So one reason I'm posting this is that I want to find out from people
> more experienced with the genre, perhaps from the author himself,
> whether I'm completely off base in saying:
>
> <Princess Holy Aura> is primarily a tribute to the magical girl
> subgenre.
>
It is unmistakably a Mahou Shoujo novel. Not only have I said that many
times, the book itself references it multiple times in-universe. The
girl in the front cover illustration (and all the illustrations on my
site for the characters) was drawn by an actual Japanese mangaka.
It's also inspired/shaped by/examination of memes and such (thus the
expy of the SCP foundation, Slender Man, etc.)
> Because if this is true, it affects everything else I noticed.
>
> 1. Its propulsive plot and appealing characters. Duh.
I think "appealing characters" is a general mark of most fun fiction.
>
> 2. Its weak characterisations. (I don't mean all its characters are
> weakly portrayed, but it does have some weak characterisations in
> characters who'd better have been stronger - but I'm guessing
> characters like Tierra MacKintor and Cordelia Ingemar, the main
> two I'm talking about, normally *aren't* strongly characterised in
> magical girl manga / anime.)
Not room enough in this book. If I'd done it completely according to
tropes, there would have been at least one or two battles in between
each girl arriving, with time for us to learn more about each of the new
girls before I threw in another one. However, one novel doesn't give me
the room to do a 26-episode series.
>
> 3. Its care in avoiding the obvious depths possible to the core idea.
>
> It doesn't avoid *all* of them.
I described writing this book as tapdancing on landmines while juggling
containers of gasoline. There were some Very Very Very bad directions
this could go (maybe beyond mere "Oh John Ringo No" and straight to "Oh
No Piers Anthony No"). So exploring various ideas had to be done ...
carefully.
The book takes care to keep the
> possibility that its protagonist could be seen as a pervert in heaven
> front and centre, even though it keeps refuting the idea. But a
> whole lot of other stuff is weakly developed if at all. We're told
> that somewhere inside the transformed protagonist's mind there's a
> discrete bit representing her former male self, reacting in fairly
> predictable ways to milestones in her female life. But we're also
> told that this character ultimately has no desire whatsoever to do
> as the book's setup demands, and go back to male life when the
> apocalypse is averted. Huh?
Steve/Holly changed during their tenure. To a small extent, this is
because there was, as Silvertail mentions, a "template" of the Magical
Girl that gives the nascent Holly Owen/Holy Aura an actual foundation of
... well, "essence of teenage girl", that Steve-Before-Book didn't have.
The book leaves open whether Steve had any hidden TG elements; it
wasn't necessary to delve into that one way or the other.
Another major factor is that while Steve had gaming friends, he had
very few PEERS. He was essentially alone in his life, his parents gone,
all his friends from childhood dead or dispersed, and his gaming group
the only outside contact he had. He was a nice guy, and he knew as
nodding acquaintances a lot of people around him, but he was in an
isolated, dead-end existence. The promise of "well, the magic will make
your life better if this ends well" is nice, but that's a vague future
promise even if you believe it.
Her existence as Holly, OTOH, was very real, immediate, and more
diverse and colorful than his existence as Steve.
>
> I think this dissonance invites a couple of misreadings:
>
> a) There really are female and male parts of the protagonist's
> personality, they struggle, and the female part wins because the
> personality is spending most of its time in a female body.
>
> b) The man had been on the edge of poverty. The girl is actually
> quite well off. The book is a parable of class.
One could use either one. I don't do "parables" or anything like that.
If you read my books looking for deep complex meanings, most of the time
all you're doing is looking for a Rorschach blot and projecting a
meaning onto it. Or you're going to have to assume that the complexity
comes unconsciously into the work, but then you have to assume I can't
speak to what the truth is.
>
> But if we interpret the book through the shojo manga lens, there's a
> simpler explanation. *Of course* girlhood is the right state for a
> shojo manga heroine, whether or not it's the state she was born to.
>
> So here we are. Much of what I wanted to see in this book - better
> characterisation of all the girls, but especially the two I named;
> substantially more attention to the psychic costs of the
> transformation - amounts to saying I wanted to read a different book
> from the one I picked up, and can reasonably be discounted. But I
> think the book *does* have a genuine flaw, at the end, when the
> darkness proper to the protagonist's decisions is undermined by their
> lack of clear motivation. [2]
If you mean Holy Aura's final decision to choose to attempt the
impossible, I'm rather surprised and disappointed that you miss the
motivation that I THOUGHT I had made clear through multiple repetitions,
and encapsulated by some of Holly's final words:
"I know," she said aloud, and looked up, at the towering figure that
was now nearly full-formed. "But I'm okay with that, completely…" and
her voice rose, echoing through the darkling gloom, "as long as children
NEVER have to pay this price again!"
Steve's motivation FROM THE BEGINNING was the protection of other
people. He HATES seeing people hurt -- physically, financially,
emotionally -- and in his old life he could do very little to help other
people except by giving them a few hours of escape into a game.
This is the REASON he accepts the power and becomes Princess Holy Aura
in the first place: because if he does not, people are going to die.
As Holy Aura, she HAS that power, and at the end point in the novel she
has -- she believes -- an opportunity to stop a cycle that has been
CONSTANTLY requiring children (by Steve's point of view) to shoulder the
burden of facing down monstrous adversaries, being injured, terrified,
traumatized -- to merely give a BREATHING SPACE until the NEXT set of
children gets dragged into this.
For Steve/Holly, this is a decision that is the very CULMINATION of
their lives -- the ability to say STOP! to destiny, to break the monster
that threatens her friends and their world, and leave the world ACTUALLY
a better place, at least in potential, than it would have been, with no
more cycles of children-warriors.
>
> Which doesn't even come close to overcoming the enjoyment the
> previous hundreds of pages had brought me. If this were really a
> review, trying to inform readers about the book, the above would
> be wholly disproportionate; the review should be nine-tenths positive.
> But if there are any readers here who do need to be informed about it,
> it's news to me; and the above is meant instead to provoke a
> discussion.
>
Thanks for that last bit, since I wasn't clear whether you'd liked the
book or not until now.
Later on you also make a statement... lemme see if I can find the
post... here: "...This doesn't have room for
their viewpoints, and he doesn't intend any more of this story,"
Not at all. I intend, whenever I can, to continue the story. I set it
up that way, after all. If I'd KNOWN for a fact that I'd have sequels,
yes, I might have left Holly's resurrection until the next one, but I
see a lot of potential for more stories. Part of this is implied in the
short story that accompanied the release of _Princess Holy Aura_,
"On-Site for the Apocalypse". There's lots to come in that universe.
Hopefully I get to write i.
And definitely no I didn't try writing for an award.
To my surprise, this one actually WON an award.
--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Website: http://www.grandcentralarena.com Blog:
http://seawasp.dreamwidth.org
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<Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor Joe Bernstein <Kdeurama@gmail.com> - 2018-10-05 23:57 +0000
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor xubist@gmail.com - 2018-10-05 23:53 -0700
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor Cryptoengineer <treifamily@gmail.com> - 2018-10-06 09:42 -0500
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor Dimensional Traveler <dtravel@sonic.net> - 2018-10-06 09:38 -0700
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor Robert Carnegie <rja.carnegie@excite.com> - 2018-10-06 12:28 -0700
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor Dimensional Traveler <dtravel@sonic.net> - 2018-10-06 13:43 -0700
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor David Johnston <davidjohnston29@yahoo.com> - 2018-10-06 11:46 -0600
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor xubist@gmail.com - 2018-10-07 06:09 -0700
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor -dsr- <dsr-usenet@randomstring.org> - 2018-10-07 08:34 -0400
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor Joe Bernstein <Kdeurama@gmail.com> - 2018-10-07 22:13 +0000
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor -dsr- <dsr-usenet@randomstring.org> - 2018-10-08 10:02 -0400
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor mcdowell_ag@sky.com - 2018-10-08 11:28 -0700
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor Joe Bernstein <Kdeurama@gmail.com> - 2018-10-08 18:31 +0000
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor Robert Carnegie <rja.carnegie@excite.com> - 2018-10-08 14:23 -0700
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor -dsr- <dsr-usenet@randomstring.org> - 2018-10-08 19:40 -0400
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor Joe Bernstein <Kdeurama@gmail.com> - 2018-10-09 16:33 +0000
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor -dsr- <dsr-usenet@randomstring.org> - 2018-10-09 13:55 -0400
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <seawasp@sgeinc.invalid.com> - 2018-10-09 18:56 -0400
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <seawasp@sgeinc.invalid.com> - 2018-10-09 08:47 -0400
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor Joe Bernstein <Kdeurama@gmail.com> - 2018-10-10 19:19 +0000
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <seawasp@sgeinc.invalid.com> - 2018-10-10 19:42 -0400
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor Robert Carnegie <rja.carnegie@excite.com> - 2018-10-11 00:13 -0700
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <seawasp@sgeinc.invalid.com> - 2018-10-11 06:55 -0400
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor Joe Bernstein <Kdeurama@gmail.com> - 2018-10-12 04:25 +0000
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <seawasp@sgeinc.invalid.com> - 2018-10-12 08:23 -0400
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <seawasp@sgeinc.invalid.com> - 2018-10-12 08:59 -0400
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor J. Clarke <jclarke.873638@gmail.com> - 2018-10-12 20:17 -0400
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor David Johnston <davidjohnston29@yahoo.com> - 2018-10-12 19:20 -0600
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor D B Davis <g@crcomp.net> - 2018-10-13 02:50 +0000
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor Robert Carnegie <rja.carnegie@excite.com> - 2018-10-13 05:46 -0700
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor D B Davis <g@crcomp.net> - 2018-10-13 14:55 +0000
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor David DeLaney <daviddelaney@earthlink.net> - 2018-10-13 09:29 -0500
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor D B Davis <g@crcomp.net> - 2018-10-13 15:21 +0000
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <seawasp@sgeinc.invalid.com> - 2018-10-13 11:41 -0400
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor Joe Bernstein <Kdeurama@gmail.com> - 2018-10-14 21:50 +0000
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor J. Clarke <jclarke.873638@gmail.com> - 2018-10-14 18:29 -0400
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor D B Davis <g@crcomp.net> - 2018-10-14 23:24 +0000
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor Robert Carnegie <rja.carnegie@excite.com> - 2018-10-14 20:01 -0700
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor Greg Goss <gossg@gossg.org> - 2018-10-15 02:05 -0600
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor lal_truckee <lal_truckee@yahoo.com> - 2018-10-15 09:18 -0700
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor Joe Bernstein <Kdeurama@gmail.com> - 2018-10-15 16:45 +0000
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor Gene Wirchenko <genew@telus.net> - 2018-10-17 22:54 -0700
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <seawasp@sgeinc.invalid.com> - 2018-10-15 19:32 -0400
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor goldfarb@ocf.berkeley.edu (David Goldfarb) - 2018-10-16 07:13 +0000
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor Magewolf <Magewolf@nc.rr.com> - 2018-10-16 14:13 -0400
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor Joe Bernstein <Kdeurama@gmail.com> - 2018-10-16 23:53 +0000
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor J. Clarke <jclarke.873638@gmail.com> - 2018-10-16 21:31 -0400
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor Greg Goss <gossg@gossg.org> - 2018-10-16 22:43 -0600
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor ted@loft.tnolan.com (Ted Nolan <tednolan>) - 2018-10-17 05:03 +0000
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor frank.scrooby@gmail.com - 2018-10-16 23:44 -0700
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <seawasp@sgeinc.invalid.com> - 2018-10-17 06:54 -0400
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor peterwezeman@hotmail.com - 2018-10-13 13:21 -0700
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor D B Davis <g@crcomp.net> - 2018-10-13 21:48 +0000
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor David Johnston <davidjohnston29@yahoo.com> - 2018-10-13 16:01 -0600
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor Joe Bernstein <Kdeurama@gmail.com> - 2018-10-12 21:42 +0000
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <seawasp@sgeinc.invalid.com> - 2018-10-12 18:16 -0400
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor Joe Bernstein <Kdeurama@gmail.com> - 2018-10-12 23:48 +0000
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <seawasp@sgeinc.invalid.com> - 2018-10-12 20:00 -0400
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor Joe Bernstein <Kdeurama@gmail.com> - 2018-10-13 00:36 +0000
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <seawasp@sgeinc.invalid.com> - 2018-10-12 22:04 -0400
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor Joe Bernstein <Kdeurama@gmail.com> - 2018-10-15 00:21 +0000
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <seawasp@sgeinc.invalid.com> - 2018-10-15 19:31 -0400
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor -dsr- <dsr-usenet@randomstring.org> - 2018-10-18 12:48 -0400
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor Joe Bernstein <Kdeurama@gmail.com> - 2018-10-19 04:33 +0000
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor Joe Bernstein <Kdeurama@gmail.com> - 2018-10-19 16:29 +0000
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <seawasp@sgeinc.invalid.com> - 2018-10-19 18:12 -0400
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor Magewolf <Magewolf@nc.rr.com> - 2018-10-20 09:45 -0400
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor Joe Bernstein <Kdeurama@gmail.com> - 2018-10-26 02:30 +0000
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor Robert Carnegie <rja.carnegie@excite.com> - 2018-10-26 12:35 -0700
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor Ivan Shmakov <ivan@siamics.net> - 2018-10-28 19:30 +0000
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor Joe Bernstein <Kdeurama@gmail.com> - 2018-10-28 23:03 +0000
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <seawasp@sgeinc.invalid.com> - 2018-10-30 08:18 -0400
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor Greg Goss <gossg@gossg.org> - 2018-10-31 01:12 -0600
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor Robert Carnegie <rja.carnegie@excite.com> - 2018-10-31 02:33 -0700
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <seawasp@sgeinc.invalid.com> - 2018-10-31 10:53 -0400
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor Lynn McGuire <lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> - 2018-10-31 14:27 -0500
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor Robert Carnegie <rja.carnegie@excite.com> - 2018-10-31 13:54 -0700
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor Peter Trei <petertrei@gmail.com> - 2018-10-31 14:41 -0700
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor Titus G <noone@nowhere.com> - 2018-11-01 14:40 +1300
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor Titus G <noone@nowhere.com> - 2018-11-01 14:34 +1300
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor Ivan Shmakov <ivan@siamics.net> - 2018-10-31 16:12 +0000
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <seawasp@sgeinc.invalid.com> - 2018-10-31 20:11 -0400
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor David DeLaney <daviddelaney@earthlink.net> - 2018-11-01 11:55 -0500
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor Robert Carnegie <rja.carnegie@excite.com> - 2018-11-01 16:12 -0700
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor Dimensional Traveler <dtravel@sonic.net> - 2018-11-01 17:43 -0700
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <seawasp@sgeinc.invalid.com> - 2018-11-01 19:35 -0400
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor Gene Wirchenko <genew@telus.net> - 2018-11-02 16:47 -0700
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha <taustinca@gmail.com> - 2018-11-01 10:18 -0700
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <seawasp@sgeinc.invalid.com> - 2018-11-01 19:35 -0400
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <seawasp@sgeinc.invalid.com> - 2018-10-10 19:47 -0400
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor D B Davis <g@crcomp.net> - 2018-10-11 14:57 +0000
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <seawasp@sgeinc.invalid.com> - 2018-10-11 18:15 -0400
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor Lynn McGuire <lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> - 2018-10-15 19:17 -0500
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <seawasp@sgeinc.invalid.com> - 2018-10-16 20:27 -0400
Re: <Princess Holy Aura> by Ryk Spoor Lynn McGuire <lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> - 2018-10-16 20:12 -0500
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