Eyes Are Bleeding, Now

[redbrunja]

So, I read until my eyes ached at the library, trolling through literary journals to try and find some a couple short stories to write about for the anthology that I need to put together for my into to fiction class.

I got zip.

Okay, I got one, under 500 word piece that I don't like very much, but aside from that? Nothing.

Does anyone know some online magazines with actually good fiction? Bonus points if it's cyber- or steam- punk that I can pass off as lit.

Also, at dinner, I got talking with mzminola , which got me to finally post the thinky-thoughts I've been having about the Codex Alera specifically, and a lot of other series' in general.

First, the Codex:

Now, before I begin, I want to state that I went through the four books of the Codex Alera like candy. Frankly, I've been avoiding multi-book series with big fat volumes because I just don't have the patience to learn a new world. But I got the first book given to me, and surprised myself from adoring it since Amara was introduced.

Also, I adore Max beyond all belief. And 20 bucks says that he was sexually abused as well as physically, because his reactions to his step mother just scream "bad touch!" to me.

Now, that said, there have been some things that have been bugging me in books 3 +4.

First, does anyone else feel that Amara is getting Worfed? It's like, she's awesome and badass, but she keeps getting cock blocked by Butcher so that Bernard can be awesome. Like, in that one fight around the air coach, where she had the chance to take down Lord Aquitaine and then failed because he turned at the last second, which let Bernard take them? And how this seems to be a theme?

It really, really bugged me at the end when Gaius set off the volcano, and Amara had not clue? It frustrated me that Bernard suspected and she didn't - the steadholder clued into something that the trained spy didn't? And, oh, yeah, never mentioned it to his wife?

(That said, I love the scene where Amara throws Gaius' coin back in his face.)

Now, let's talk about Tavi.

First, a little history. In the first book, I was like, 'oh, really, one powerless guy in a world with magic, yeah, like I've never seen that before.' In the second book and most of the third, I really loved him. He didn't get self pitying, and I really liked watching him work around not having powers. So I was like, 'hell, no' when he finally came into his.

By the forth book, I have no doubt that however awful or hopeless Tavi's situation looks, of course he's going to be alright. At this point, he's never had a plan NOT work on him, and while I'm on the edge of my seat waiting to see how he gets out of this particular scrap, I have no doubt he will. Especially when he had like, three different kinds of furies, even if he hadn't manifested any creatures.
Which brings us to the characters I like to call 'quadruple threat' characters.

I've read a lot of books with variants of elemental bending, and usually there is one character, sometimes more, who can use more than one element (typically, all of them). Often this will happen as the series goes on, when you want the main character to grow more powerful, and it results in a predictable loss of tension.

Joanna Baldwin is at this point in the Weather Warden series. It is one thing when the quadruple threat characters are off in the background, like how Joanna spends the first book desperately looking for Lewis, or you have Gaius who spends most of the novels either a.) out of reach or b.) stretched too thin to deal with the little events that are shifting history, but when your main character is that superpowered one?

It makes it really hard to keep the drama up.

Let's be honest: for all that Ozai was a badass dude, Aang gets just as much extra juice as Ozai does from the comet, and he had three other elements to work with.

Tavi's beaten just about everything using only his brain; add furies into the equation, and I don't doubt he'll make it through the apocalypse just fine.

Joanne has been a djinn and a human so many times I'm surprised she doesn't go back and forth every time she get wet. (Which with the way everyone loves her and her sparkly djinni lover happens a lot. *bitchsnaps*)

What happens when you make these characters superpowered in multiple directions is that you lose the the vulnerability factor. I love how Joanne used to be really vulnerable to earth magic, or how if you use wind furies and salt comes into the equation, you're fucked.

But now?

Why should I care? All these characters turn into Superman sans kryptonite, and it just gets dull. In book two or three, Tavi should have lost. His plan should have been clever and awesome and failed. I love the resolution of Ill Wind tremendously, because it's a deux ex machina that's earned, and a large part of me thinks the series should have ended there. I never had any doubt that Aang would triumph over Ozai, and not in the comforting, this-isn't-that-kind-of-story way, but in the boring, of-course-he-will way. (If you wanted to make me feel that Aang wouldn't have won, Mike and Bryan should have actually dealt with the issues that they set up with Aang's blocked chakra and made the threat of losing himself through spiritbending more than a passing danger that was first mentioned ten seconds before it "almost" happened on screen.) Harry should have actually done something to Voldermort, instead of having the villain of the series commit glorified suicide on Harry's soul.

In short: keep your characters weaknesses - they're what make them human and interesting and create tension.

Secondly: let your characters lose. Empire Strikes Back and the finale of season 2 of Avatar are awesome in that they raise the stakes. The good guys don't always win, so when we return, the stakes are higher and their is some question over whether or not our heroes will triumph.