Celebrating “The Gathering of The Lost”: R is for Romance
With the mass market edition of The Gathering Of The Lost recently published in the UK, I’ve been re-posting a few of the features from last year’s Blog Tour.
Today’s feature was first published on the Supernatural Underground on 1 April 2012 — almost but not quite a year ago!
I alluded to it in this month’s post on the Supe, as well, as part of my 1 March feature on “High Romantic Fantasy”, which I maintain is something quite different from Romance per se. (I also followed up with a few more thoughts on March 4, here.)
But just because High Romantic Fantasy and Romance are quite different genres, doesn’t mean that they are completely foreign countries: their boundaries do march in places and even overlap, which is why I can write a post titled:
“R is For Romance in The Gathering Of The Lost:
“…When considering different aspects of the book, what better to talk about on the Supernatural Underground than romance in The Gathering of the Lost.
Because Malian and Kalan, the two central characters from the first book, The Heir of Night, aren’t kids anymore. They are five years older and so of course romance is going to be there in the story, especially as they are hanging out with other young people — and at least part of their adventures take place in the land of Emer, which even has a tradition of “springtime love”:
“A springtime love, Kalan thought now. It was one of the oldest traditions in the knightly history of Emer, with a cycle of songs composed around both the tradition and some of the more famous lovers.”
Why springtime love? Well in the story it’s because of the nature of the society, where young people are brought up together and so of course there is love and romance — but they all know marriage is about political alliances and wealth and land, so such romances can usually never come to anything. But it’s also springtime love because romance is not only an inescapable part of the fabric of life, but also brings that bubble of joy and delight, not unlike the first hint of springtime in the air — however fleeting that moment may prove to be.
” … springtime love meant transience, coming into bloom and then gone again with the spring flowers. And already it was Midsummer …”
And of course this is epic fantasy so there has to be an element of the star-crossed and the doomed to its swag bag of romantic love. But there are also beginnings …
“The light brightened, growing stronger as the maelstrom fell away and she rose through impenetrable white mist. Unexpectedly, she smelled jasmine, as dizzyingly sweet as when she first stepped into the temple grounds. The mist thinned and trees appeared, their trunks a smooth dappling of light and shade. Somewhere in the distance, a nightingale was singing its moonlit song.
The nightingale, Malian knew, was one of the enduring motifs of Emerian springtime love. She wanted to smile, but already her bare feet were touching grass and the mist had grown fine as a veil, with only a single drift, like smoke, crossing the crescent of the blue moon overhead. A second moon, three-quarters full and green as winter twilight, shone lower toward the horizon …
as well as endings:
… The nightingale, which had been quiet for some time, was singing again and now the old Derai sorrow was all she heard of its song: Kerem the Dark Handed and Emeriath; Xeria’s grief for Tasian; Yorindesarinen dying alone, her body hacked and riven, with the Chaos Worm’s venom racking her veins.”
So perhaps we are back to High Romantic Fantasy after all…
—
But on a slightly other note, it may be that sometimes you, too, struggle to keep the many shadings of genre and subgenre in speculative literature straight? My fellow Supernatural Underground author, Merrie Destefano, addressed this very question in her March 10 post. To clarify the fine distinctions between: —
‘Creature—yay!
Creature—run!
Creature—smooch!
Creature—thwack!”
just click on:
Confused About What Genre You’re Writing?
And — as always — enjoy!