It’s a New Year and time for me to talk about my upcoming goals for 1001, The Reincarnation Chronicles. I’m planning on a new edition of Book One, The Qaraq, later this year. Currently I’m editing Book Five, The Qaraq and the Rejuvenator. After that I’ll return to my mega-outline of Book Six. Almost halfway through the series!
For more details about all that jazz, stay tuned for the rollout of The Maqaraqan, the newsletter for fans of the 1001 series. If you’re a Mystic Nerd and love long, complex fantasy epics, check it out. Or if reincarnation theories tickle your spirit. Or epics like the Arabian Nights allure you as much as they inspire me. Or you just like good old hybrid, visionary, speculative fiction.
Speaking of a recent series that mixes Romance, Fantasy, Thriller, and Warfare genres, I’m reading the ever-popular Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros. It’s another dragons-with-hot-young-riders series, but it’s great fun. Set in a war college, it’s Hogwarts meets Top Gun meets Dragonriders of Pern. I’m not a big fan of military exploits, but the humor and compassionate relationships make it a great read. Did I mention the sex?
A great deal of the humor comes from the convention that the dragons and human riders telecommunicate: “Do I have to use italics when I talk in your mind?” The device provides hilarious commentary and intimate repartee. The dragons are constantly interjecting mental wisecracks into their human’s messed up brains. And the humans are constantly flipping off the dragons mentally. The device is also extremely important to the storytelling.
Telecommunication is no new convention in the sci-fi/fantasy world. If books handle it with italics, film and TV are another story. In the Star Wars movies, when a character speaks in someone else’s mind (“Luke, I’m your father.”), there’s a fuzzy background effect on the screen, accompanied by a vocal leftover from 1960s psychedelic rock records. John Lennon delighted in innovating such effects at the Abbey Road Studio, but it’s over 50 years later, people. In Star Wars it was cheesy and unclear, and now it’s used in a gazillion other shows.
I pray that when the movie of Fourth Wing drops, clever effects people use a cool new technique to convey dragon telecommunication. If not, they should be crisped by dragonfire. Since it’s so important and so charming, we the viewers should take pleasure in the doing of it. The dragons shouldn’t have all the fun. Nor the riders. But did I mention the sex?
Another unique feature of this series is that the main character has a unique ailment. It’s based on real world EDS, or weak tissue disorder, where physical activity leads easily to dislocated joints and broken bones. Not a good fit if you’re a woman trying to stay atop a dragon while sword and dagger fighting. She’s heroic in her efforts to rise up the treacherous military ranks given her vulnerability.
I’m so busy keeping up with all the Worlds my characters travel to in their past life memories that I find little time to dwell on physicalization of their experience. But I should. I hope a little of Fourth Wing’s excruciating pain and writhing rubs off on me. Not literally; I know someone fighting this disease and researching it simultaneously. Talk about heroic. I’ll be happy with some figurative rubbing off so I grow as a writer.
Besides the bone-crunching reality, there are other delights that make Fourth Wing a page turner. A first-person narrator with a sense of humor about her plight tickles the pages. Relationships galore brighten the dialogue: friends, comrades, enemies, teachers, complex love triangles, mortal enemies. Plus, I’ve mentioned the sex.
I appreciate a fast read since I need more time for my slow write. But I also adore long, lugubrious reads like Three Body Problem or Ulysses or Clarissa – how the hell did that author pull off a 1500 page novel made up only of posted letters? I love it. I’ve been chastised for demanding a lot of my reader, but there’ve been crazier crazies than me. And if you’re a Mystic Nerd, you love it, too.
So I may not be writing a Fourth Wing type page-turner, but I do appreciate it, and I appreciate the difference from the 1001 series. For another book like this, check out my review of The Daevabad Trilogy. As for telecommunication, that’s where we have a similarity. The 1001 series has a precocious child mastering mindmeld; Naji starts speaking in vitro, branches out to group mind chats, and last week he projected his brain six thousand miles. Marvelous child!
Enjoy Fourth Wing if you’d like, and The Reincarnation Chronicles, if you insist. Check out The Maqaraqan at www.qaraqbooks.com/join.
Book Two of the 1001 series, The Qaraq and the Maya Factor, launches 10/01/2025!