Last week, I participated in another SF Signal Mind Meld on the topic “When Genre Intersects Classical Literature & Myth.”

The more indepth brief was this:

“The Iliad and the Odyssey…the Epic of Gilgamesh…the Mahabharata…Journey to the West… These ancient myths and stories, and many others seem to partake of genre elements. Are they, in fact, on the Road to Science Fiction, to quote James Gunn’s classic series? How do they fit into the world of genre? How can they inform and be used in modern reinterpretations and borrowings of these myths and stories? What writers and stories best rework these myths and legends?”

Here’s my “wee mite” by way of a contribution:

” “Ah, Mon-kee…” Oops, got sidetracked into a kids’ TV favorite — but the Mind-Meld request did mention Journey To The West, which informs Monkey.

But seriously, mythology and fairytale/folklore were a formative influence on my path to SF-Fantasy. My first distinct encounter with mythology was a poster of the twelve Olympians featured by an elementary school teacher. I immediately wanted to know more and read all I could of the Greco-Roman, Norse, Celtic, Eygptian and Babylonian myths in swift succession, supplemented by collected folklore and fairytales.

Unsurprisingly, I was drawn to writers such as the Lewis’s, CS (Narnia) and Hilda (The Ship That Flew), Alan Garner, Ursula Le Guin and Diana Wynne Jones – and anything else I could lay my hands on. As a teen, I graduated to authors such as Tolkien, Cherryh, Moorcock and Joan Vinge. Given earlier reading, I readily recognized mythic influences, from the strong Norse elements of The Lord Of The Rings, to the Mabinogion in Garner’s work, and both fairytale and myth in many CJ Cherryh novels, as well as Vinge’s The Snow Queen. And then there’s the prevalence of the Matter Of Britain in SFF, from works such as Marion Zimmer Bradley’s The Mists Of Avalon, Mary Stewart’s The Crystal Cave, and Patricia Keneally’s The Hawk’s Gray Feather.

I am sure unconscious mythological influences inform my writing, but there are also conscious decisions, such as weaving aspects of the Arthurian cycle into Thornspell (a fairytale retelling of Sleeping Beauty from the perspective of the prince.) The Wall Of Night series has been said to be pervaded by “Nordic doom… an unrelentingly dark haunting atmosphere” (Specusphere.) Yet the story also draws on a specific Norse myth that should become apparent by the end of Book Three (of Four), due in 2015.

So I see my path to creating SF-Fantasy as shaped by mythology, and recognize similar influences in other works. Yet so long as authors are “making it new” in each literary generation, the material will never be “old hat.” Fine exemplars include Diana Wynne Jones’s treatment of the Loki story in her first novel, Eight Days Of Luke – a myth recently re-imagined for adults in Joanne Harris’s The Gospel Of Loki.

Having first experienced Mary Renault’s “legendary history” The King Must Die as a teen, I was intrigued to see the myth of Theseus and the tributes reshaped in Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games. Malinda Lo’s Ash recasts Cinderella with a Celtic influenced Faerie and figures such as the Hunter, while giving the traditional story a LGBTQ interpretation. In Junior fiction, Grace Liu retells Chinese myth in The Mountain Meets The Moon, joining Barry Hughart’s (adult) Bridge Of Birds and Guy Gavriel Kay’s Under Heaven and River Of Stars.

Which brings me back to Journey To The West and Monkey, but also the premise, to which I reply that mythology is not only always with us in SFF, but always speaking.”

As is the way with Mind Meld’s though, a diverse range of writers and SFF folk shared their thoughts on the topic, and you can check out the full range of  goodness here:

When Genre Intersects Classical Literature & Myth