URBAN FANTASY HAS ROOTS

Posted by John F. Allen Author on June 10, 2013

While I’m not a big fan of romance novels, I don’t mind them nearly as much when the characters are gritty and preternatural creatures are involved, downplaying the sappiness associated with most novels where the word romance is used. Paranormal romance novels are the next big thing and filling the bookstore shelves in record numbers. Spurred on further by young adult novels such as Twilight, this newly developed niche genre has been spreading like wildfire.

When I first heard the term urban fantasy used to describe a sub-genre of fantasy, I wasn’t exactly sure what the term meant. Most times the word urban brings to mind things associated with black people. I know that the word actually means, ‘relating to or belonging to a city’ however, urban radio, urban news, urban plight, the urban center are merely PC ways of referring to things associated with blacks.

The first novel I read—remotely fitting into this genre—was Guilty Pleasures by Laurell K. Hamilton, featuring vampire hunter Anita Blake. The novel was originally billed as a horror/mystery novel, which is as accurate of a description as any. The novel contained all of the elements of a mystery and read like a Robert B. Parker mystery novel which is a BIG compliment coming from me. However, the paranormal elements were present as well. Vampires, werewolves and zombies, oh my!

Another urban fantasy author named Jim Butcher popped up with a novel titled Storm Front, which introduced us to Chicago wizard Harry Dresden. The most common links between Hamilton and Butcher’s novels was:

a) both were set in major US cities, and

b) they both featured paranormal creatures.

I would also like to bring to light another commonality of the two novels—which is true about most novels in the genre,—in that the main characters were white. I have no problem with either author having predominately white characters because the authors are white and you often write what you know. However, shortly after I discovered these authors, I was introduced to another author named L.A. Banks. I was pleasantly surprised that a black author was writing in this genre and the novel featured a black main character. I found other black authors in the genre, yet those I did find such as Seressia Glass and Maurice Broaddus—were far and few between.

Another problem for blacks writing in this genre is the whitewashing of their book covers. Far too often you see books with black protagonists who aren’t featured on the book covers. Why is this? It’s almost like in the sixties when blacks weren’t allowed to be on the covers of their albums because the white mainstream wouldn’t buy them. I’m happy to say that Banks, Broaddus and Glass feature their black characters prominently on the covers of their books, which is as it should be.

The sad truth is there just aren’t that many black authors writing in this genre. As a writer whose work fits within the urban fantasy genre, I intend to add my voice to the fold with my debut urban fantasy novel, The God Killers due out this summer and published by Seventh Star Press. Over the years, I’ve spoken to countless people who are hankering for more works from black authors. Which lead me to believe that we should be working towards bringing black urban fantasy writers to the forefront of people’s minds and the bookstore shelves. I know there’s a market for black urban fantasy novels and that urban fantasy has small black roots which we must nourish and help to grow.

THERE’S NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN

Posted by John F. Allen Author on June 3, 2013

When I was a child, my grandmother told me one day, “There’s nothing new under the sun.” At first I didn’t understand what she meant. Later, as I got a little older I refused to believe her, and was determined to prove her wrong. Finally, when I began focusing on my career as a writer, I accepted her nugget of knowledge as fact, and learned to embrace it for the truth it is. However, if the above observation is true, then what makes any story different from the next?

The answer…

LIFE EXPERIENCE, IMAGINATION, VOICE AND STYLE.

As most fiction writers will agree, we are products of our environment and individual life experiences and therefore, it stands to reason that many of the seeds for our story plots originate from said life experiences. This can be from what we’ve dealt with on a personal level, what we’ve heard from others, or seen around us including—but, certainly not limited to—what we’ve watched on television, read in books or learned in school. These personal life experiences give our stories a unique flavor which cannot be exactly cloned due to the intricate variables in our individual lives.

I believe that there is a collective consciousness which extends to us all, as we tap into our imaginations and creativeness. We must also accept the fact that the possibilities for formulating scenarios involving larger than life creatures, myths, epic heroes and monsters is finite, just as our voices and styles are infinite. As writers, we sometimes find in the course of plotting a story that we read stories from someone else who came up with very similar ideas for their already published work(s). It is because of this, I continue to work against the truth stated in the title of this post, in order to produce unique stories. I feel in doing this, I can delve deeper into the recesses of my imagination, creativity and life experiences to produce my very own individual story. It is here that we begin to use our imagination to find a variation of the themes we draw from our life experiences and formulate creatively new and exciting takes on tried and true scenarios and themes. It is then that we brand our stories with distinctive twists and turns and imbue it with our own individual spirits and personalities.

As a writer, I’m constantly thinking up new story ideas and using my voice and style to tell the stories. All writers have their own unique voice and style, which separates them from other writers. When it comes to certain elements of storytelling, there are no new ideas. Often, writers of genre fiction ultimately come across elements in another author’s work that closely resembles their own. While this is a common phenomenon, it doesn’t mean that we can’t separate ourselves from other storytellers using similar scenarios and/or themes; it merely means we must work all the more harder at imparting our own essence into our work in order to make it exclusive to us.

Just as there are finite possibilities in regards to scenarios and themes, there is again something to be said for voice and style. I’ve read books that had such similar plots that if you broke it down to the bare essentials it could be the same book. However, what separated the books was the differences in how the authors delivered the story, developed the characters, and the language used to breathe life into the personalities of the characters. How we tell a story, and how much of ourselves we put into our works, is what sets us apart from other writers with similar ideas and themes.

Always remember the old Vulcan axiom from the Star Trek series, Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations (IDIC), the philosophy which celebrates the vast array of possibilities and variables in the known universe. And while there are finite themes when stripped down to their essential cores, when we take into consideration the life experiences, imagination, voice and style of the storyteller, the possibilities are indeed infinite and quite fascinating.

STAR TREK FRANCHISE DISCUSSION:

Posted by John F. Allen Author on May 20, 2013

To boldly go where we already boldly went before, while giving a dying franchise a shot in the arm!

THIS ISN’T A REVIEW OF THE STAR TREK: INTO DARKNESS FILM!!!

I saw a special screening of Star Trek: Into Darkness, prior to its official debut and while I really enjoyed the film and got a little more than what I expected, it wasn’t new and mind-blowing, which to me means that they did it right. The following is MY OPINION on what this reboot for Star Trek is and what it means for the franchise. This explores why I think director JJ Abrams has done a GOOD job with the franchise reboot and why the different direction/changes were necessary in my opinion. While this is an opinion piece and open to comments, let’s keep any disagreements civil and courteous, with the idea that I’m in no way trying to convert you to my way of thinking/opinion. That said, fellow Trekkies please refrain from tossing bottles and rotten tomatoes at me during a convention/conference or other such public event!

Quite a few Star Trek fans affectionately known as Trekkies (some of which I happen to KNOW and LOVE) were up in arms when JJ Abrams was tapped to direct the Star Trek reboot/reimaging. I have to admit, I was skeptical myself and I consider myself to be a more open minded Trekkie than most of my brethren. That said, if you look at box office receipts alone, the first film was VERY successful. This and the fact that it is an established franchise is the reason we have the sequel out in theaters right now.

Recently, I had an online discussion with some of my friends and fellow Trekkies about ST:Into Darkness and they weren’t impressed. Of course, some of them weren’t impressed with the first film in the reboot and neither they or I expected any different result. Besides the complaints of obvious plot holes (it’s not like any of the other Star Trek TV series and/or movies had them, lol!), there was the lack of respect they felt was given to the source material. This is the meat of this special, Star Trek Franchise Discussion!

It is my opinion (and therefore not law or any attempt on my part to sway you to my line of thinking) that while I’m a fan of Star Trek, I think that it was only really thought provoking sci-fi when and because the content was relative to the period in which it was spawned. (This is my personal opinion, so again don’t throw bottles and/or rotten tomatoes! =D). The core idea behind the TV show was Wagon Trail to the stars…most of today’s audience doesn’t even get that reference. The franchise had to reset and reinvent on some level just to be relevant to today’s audience (outside of Trekkies). Honestly, (again in my opinion) JJ Abrams has done just that. If he hadn’t, it would have been the same stories told the same way and I personally didn’t want that.

The Space Age is said to have officially began in 1957 with Sputnik, which was nine years prior to the debut of Star Trek: TOS. Something must be said in regard to the leap in sci-fi fanfare during this time as man was coming into an age of real life space exploration and this show was the inspiration for much of the fascination with space exploration and modern technology we take for granted today. ST:TOS was cutting edge for its time with wireless handheld communicators, wireless headpieces, pneumatic doors, portable computers, artificial intelligence, two way communication screens, needle-less injections and portable medical scanners. Guess what? We have all of those things as a reality today. Back then, our reality was Science Fiction and we’ve come a long way indeed. So, how do we take things that seemed so cool and FAR OUT (I know I’m dating myself) and make them new and fresh and hip to today’s audience?

I think JJ Abrams had no choice but to do things the way he did to make the concept and the imagery relevant to today’s audience, much to the chagrin of diehard Trekkies. There’s a reason that the deck of the Enterprise looks like the inside of an Apple store as opposed to how it looked on the show…relatability! Today’s generation knows what the Apple store looks like inside and they get excited by being there, a replica of the ST:TOS set…not so much. Abrams had to make the set look inviting to a new generation, while achieving a similar configuration to the original set. I would think this would be a VERY difficult undertaking to say the least (and for those whining about it, can you do any better?).

Another aspect of the lost of relevance ST:TOS is the idea of an international community. Most people 40 and over can remember a time when the world wasn’t at your fingertips and news from the other side of the world came in days, if not weeks, as opposed to seconds. Gene Roddenberry envisioned Star Trek as “Wagon Trail to the stars,” essentially a space western (is it any wonder Captain Kirk has such a cowboy-esque attitude?). He also addressed issues such as The Cold War and the Civil Rights Movement. It was very socially conscious to have a Russian and an African American (a woman no less) as main characters in the show, not to mention giving television its first interracial kiss! The show gave the world a glimpse of a world where we had moved beyond the constraints of race, creed, color, religion and even species, in an effort to be equally accepted. These were VERY hot bed issues of the time…not so much today (although, we still have a VERY LONG WAY TO GO!).

I say all of this to make the point that Abrams had to find a way to take a sci-fi franchise, steeped in past social and historical issues/relevance and relate that to a generation that had never experienced (even a little bit), what was very much a part of everyday life back then. Let’s be real, today’s kids (anyone 30 or younger) have not lived, breathed and otherwise experienced many of the struggles society had with the themes ST:TOS explored at that time. Ask them about the Cold War, the Civil Rights Movement or laws against interracial dating/marriage and you’ll likely get a blank stare as this is VERY common today.

The Star Trek franchise made another attempt in the late 90’s to revitalize itself and try to capture the spirit of ST:TOS, when they introduced a TV show called Enterprise. The show depicted the early days of Starfleet (pre Kirk) and while it resonated with some, it’s reception overall was lackluster compared to the series and movies that proceeded it. There is a reason (imho) that Enterprise failed to capture the audiences beyond a handful of seasons and was never revisited, and chief among them was it’s relatability to the audience/generation. That group of folks had grown up with Star Trek:The Next Generation as their (in some cases only) exposure to the Star Trek franchise and to quite a few of them, Enterprise was boring.

We also have to take into consideration that ST:TNG was best able to capture the audience with social issues of the time and cool technology (that had not yet been produced for public consumption). ST:TNG had holodecks, badge communicators, voice recognition software for computers, touch screen computer consoles and tablet PC’s. Kids today have all of those things now…it’s not anything to be excited about anymore and definitely not so cool and wonderful as it was in the mid 1980’s. Another thing about ST:TNG was that it didn’t have to try to establish preceding mythos of the franchise, it jumped right into the fray and won the admiration of Geekdom by providing a setting in the future , more advanced tech/weaponry, new species and special effects on par with anything the Star Trek movies ever produced.

The above opinions all work to illustrate the following: How could Hollywood take ST:TOS (a sci-fi franchise that had been struggling for years to crossover and reach larger audiences in the theaters), make it more mainstream and reach a newer, broader audience? They had to reinvent the wheel and that is a VERY difficult thing to do and impossible to please everyone in the process. I think that this is something the diehard Trekkies should take into consideration a bit more (or get their ideas at doing it better out to Hollywood). In my opinion it all boils down to taking the canon of a TV show made in the 1960’s which addressed the social and historical issues of that era, featuring technology that (about half of) is common in today’s world and making it resonate with today’s generation. A different direction had to be taken, love it or hate it, Abrams did that. He didn’t make a perfect movie(s), nor did he necessarily capture the charm and sense of wonder that ST:TOS had (although in my opinion that’s impossible), but what he did do is make films that introduced beloved characters to a new audience, took elements of the franchise and wove them into something new and relatable to said new audience. An effort which I personally salute!

In regards to the underwhelming box office numbers for the latest foray into the Star Trek franchise, I think it has far less to do with disgruntled fans of the genre and franchise, than it has to do with BOX OFFICE COMPETITION!!! With Iron Man 3(already a billion dollar franchise) having been recently released, and The Great Gatsby still at the box office, it’s no wonder (at least to me) that Star Trek didn’t earn as much as the studio had hoped. But, in all honesty, earning only 25 million short of what they wanted to see, against Iron Man 3 (a movie that had made a billion dollars already by the time Star Trek came out) was VERY impressive and respectable, imho.

In conclusion, I think that the Star Trek franchise accomplished its mission in that it:

A)Rejuvenated a beloved (but dying) sci-fi franchise while utilizing enough source material so that it wasn’t entirely foreign.

B)Reached a new audience with the summer blockbuster feel, and

C)Received enough box office receipts to be monetarily successful and competitive.

Was it a hit with everyone? Obviously not, but it did get everyone to take notice and whether you are with the new program or lamenting about the days of old, you’re doing exactly what the folks at Paramount are wanting you to do…TAKING NOTICE!

STAR TREK: INTO DARKNESS FILM REVIEW COMING SOON!!!