Big Explosion

Okay, I was going to title this 'Moscow, part 3', but lovely Victoria Caswell pointed out that it was probably my boring titles that were keeping readers away over the past two days. She suggested I spice the title up.

The Russian mafia wasn't the only danger to be faced in Moscow in the '90's. Russians seem to have an odd connection with Serbs, so when the US began bombing the Serbs in 1995, there was clear anger directed at the embassy.

On September 13, 1995 I was working in the old Embassy building on the ring road. I spent most of the morning on the 9th floor, where the executive offices were. I went to lunch and then got sidetracked by some other work. As I began walking back toward the building, I was told that it had been attacked by a rocket propelled grenade. The person didn't know more. I hadn't heard anything, so I continued toward the back entrance. Had I gone to the front, I never would have gotten in, but few people used the back entrance. I came to the door that only the marine guard could open remotely, and I wouldn't have gotten through there either if at that moment a marine hadn't come bareling through it, allowing me to slip in.

I didn't notice anything strange in the building except that it was mostly devoid of people. I went up to finish my work.

Later I heard that a car had raced up on the ring road, a man had jumped out with the RPG and fired it into the 5th or 6th floor (I can't remember which now), and the car raced away. I could see the shrapnel holes in the wall and the hole where the RPG punched through. I was told it struck a large copy machine, and that perhaps the grenade had not detonated. No one was injured, thankfully.

Diplomats have no natural constituency back home to support us. When Congress wants to make cuts, they usually look at us as the easiest target to slash without raising a cry from the US public. The news likes to project an image of diplomats as coddled. They never bother to admit that from the end of the Viet Nam war until the newest wars began, more diplomats were killed overseas than military personnel.

Moscow, part 2

The mafia attack in yesterday's post wasn't the only one I witnessed while living in Moscow, though thank goodness I never saw any that were really dangerous to my health (barring a truly crazy twist of luck).

I had a friend named Gary who was the opposite of me when it came to socializing. He had no hint of shyness to him. He 'made' me go to clubs with him, and I am grateful for it, because even though I don't drink or really enjoy going to such places, Moscow in the '90's was an amazing time to visit and soak up a truly unique atmosphere. The only frustrating thing was that there were lots of very pretty young women being far friendlier than I had ever experienced in the US, yet embassy rules forbade us from dating them (this rule was dropped after I was there two years, thank goodness or I never would have been able to marry my wonderful wife). I got to watch Gary have girlfriend after girlfriend, while my options were limited to the few non-Russians who sometimes made an appearance.

One day Gary met a Belgian in our favorite club, a dingy, smoke-filled underground room called Krizis Zhanra where there was usually pretty cool live music and loads of young Russians and foreigners. Gary's new girlfriend wanted to drag us to a dinner party at her foreigners dormitory. We took the metro to a rather seedy part of town where the poor foreign students were housed. I was introduced to a very pretty but rather overly bold Belgian girl named Sabine, who proceeded to tell me lots of facts about myself, though she had never met me before. She got most of them right, too.

Gary and his girlfriend Ann wanted to go up to the roof to look at the city lights. The elevator didn't work, so we had to climb out onto a rickety fire escape to climb up the fifteen stories to the roof. It turned out to be a (mostly) good idea, since snow was just starting to fall, and the city looked particularly nice with all the lights coming on. We were standing there at peace when we suddenly began hearing odd popping sounds. We were confused for a moment, but then I followed the noise to one edge of the roof and looked down.

On the road in front of the dormitory were two parked cars, and a third car was speeding away from them. Two men stood in front of the parked cars firing pistols at the speeding car. We spent the next five minutes or so (since we had such a high view, and it wasn't as dark as the photos here) watching as the men leapt into the cars and gave chase to the first. The cars split up, but we never saw the end of the chase as they finally escaped our sight.

This night was the inspiration for my first Moscow scene in the book, which I have take place in an ancient, crumbling dormitory in this very part of town. The place has been abandoned over the decades as the Dark Times caused a contraction in the population, and a mafia group has taken over a room in the building as a safe house.

Moscow, part 1

I've been getting some writing done lately, which is amazing considering I went through about a two year slump. I was so twisted up between editing my first novel and trying to figure out which of the next two novels that I wanted to work on (not to mention a couple of short stories I wanted to polish up) that I ended up not getting much done on any of it.

I'm six chapters in now on my science fiction prequel to The Shard. You could check out the first three chapters on bookcountry.com if you like (though in the meantime I have switched the order of the first two chapters), or easier yet use the link on the right to the six chapters on Authonomy. It would be nice to get some five or six star reviews to counter the writers there who go around giving rivals one or two stars.

A large part of the inspiration for this story came from the four years that I lived in Moscow, from October 1993 to October 1997. I thought I might tell a little bit about that. **disclaimer: everything in these posts is strictly my own personal experience, and none of it can be taken as the view of the US government.

I started working for the State Department in August of 1993. They first sent me for language training at the Foreign Service Institute in Rosslyn, Virginia, which I thought odd since I had just completed three years of Russian language at the university, while these courses were starting at the beginning. Anyhow, I did eight weeks of that before they shipped me off to Moscow.

My mother was really nervous about me going, because events had really gone to heck there just at the time I was scheduled to go. You see that picture of the Russian parliament building smoking from all the tank fire? That building is directly across the street from the newer part of the American embassy (behind and to the right of the parliament in this photo). See those nasty tanks? Yeah, it was a fun time.

I was warned when I arrived that there was a real danger from sniper fire. One of our marines had been clipped in the neck from a huge empty lot across the street. Many believed it was the KSV (KGB) who were using the opportunity to harass us.

At first I was housed at a French hotel. The first year I was there they had me working night shifts. I would take the shuttle at 10 PM and return at 7 AM. One night in November I was waiting to depart on the shuttle. It was snowing, and the driver was standing under the hotel entrance smoking and waiting for 10 so we could leave. Across the street was a row of kiosks. Suddenly three black cars (Volgas, I think) raced up together and screeched to a halt across the street. Several guys hopped out, ran to one of the kiosks, and started spraying bullets into it with some sort of automatic rifles. It only took fifteen seconds or so before they had all hopped back into their cars and sped off.

The shuttle driver and I looked at each other and silently agreed that it was time to go, regardless of the official departure time. I learned as time went on that Moscow at that time was very similar to Chicago in the 1920's. Mafiosi were everywhere, and there were assssinations and bombings just about every day. I didn't write anything down, but I certainly internalized many of the mafia stories from those years, and I began piecing some of them together into the first inklings of a story. It wasn't meant to be science fiction at the time, but later when I was trying to improve a sci-fi plotline, the old mafia story seemed to fit right into place.

Been There, Done That

Let's say you grew up on Dungeons & Dragons (or other similar role-playing games like MERP). You love that type of world and you now want to write about it. You people your world with all the elves, dwarves, goblins, trolls, and dragons that you loved so much from your gaming days. You know in advance that a lot of readers will be turned off by this, since they've seen it a few times before and these readers never like to read anything similar to what they've read previously, but you aren't worried about that because you know there are still lots of readers out there who do like these types of stories.

So, you write and you write, and eventually you finish. Then you are dismayed when all your beta readers keep telling you how so many scenes remind them of Tolkien. How can this be, you say, since you were not thinking about Lord of the Rings when you wrote your story.

Well, it's simple really. Tolkien did it all (or pretty close to it). His books were so in-depth that as far as taking a party of mixed races and having them move about on a map (in pursuit of a grand, epic adventure, naturally), you are pretty much out of luck if you don't want anyone to draw any parallels to Tolkien. Want to move from one place to another? Okay, have the characters walk. Oops, Tolkien did that. Ride horses or ponies? Check. Ride in a cart? Check.

How about you come to a river? Take a ferry across? Nope, he's done that. Find a ford? Been there, done that. Ride a boat down the river? Cross on a bridge? Check and check.

Swamps or marshes? He's done it. Forests? He's done it all. Mountains? Cross in a pass? Find an unknown path? Find caves that lead you through it? He's covered them all. You might as well just have some big eagles swoop down and pick you up, but he's done that, too. I guess you could have the characters rig up a hot air balloon to carry them across, but that, at least to me, is a more modern version of fantasy than suits my D&D-inspired tastes.

I got some spot-on feedback on my book recently, and I am grateful as heck for it. I will really be able to examine some scenes and figure out a way to make them a little more unique. The only way it bothered me was in knowing that I had already tried to avoid Tolkien's more famous stories, yet some scenes still reminded the reader of parts of The Hobbit or LOTR. The fact is, much of my story was inspired not by either of those books but rather by the part of Beren's story in The Silmarillion where he escapes from Dorthonian by crossing under the mountains. That piece of his story always stuck with me, because Tolkien teased us by saying that Beren endured much horror during the crossing, but he didn't go into specifics. I always wanted to do a story that dealt with an extremely hazardous crossing beneath a mountain range. I didn't intend it to be like Moria.

The problem is that there are only so many realistic variations of passages under a mountain, and Tolkien pretty much hit them all. Rough stone, worked stone, small rooms, big rooms with pillars for support, chasms, bridges...there's not much else you can realistically work with, yet Tolkien did all those.

My reader was right, though. I may not be able to avoid Tolkien altogether, but I can at least ensure that big moments of the journey don't fall within similar settings. In other words, if I currently have an important battle taking place on an underground bridge, it's probably best to move it to someplace else so it doesn't make readers think of the ending of the Fellowship movie or book. It would have been embarrassing to me to have the book published and only then to hear from readers about such similarities, since I didn't know they were there, so to this friend I say, "Thank you."

To those who would say, "Well, don't use elves and dwarves and such.", I can only respond that this is my passion. I spent years playing D&D and living within this type of world. I always rued the fact that no one was ever publishing any stories set in such a world that dealt with it in a truly serious manner. Tolkien took his world very seriously, and that's why so many love him. The official D&D or Dragonlance novels? Not serious (at least in my view).

Gritty Fantasy

I've seen many blog posts, interviews, and articles over the past couple years talking about the new wave of gritty fantasy. The usual authors mentioned include Joe Abercrombie, Richard Morgan, and George R. R. Martin. Mostly what the articles mention is the focus on realism and everything being shades of gray rather than the old black and white of high fantasy.

I agree with the assessments only in regards to Martin. I love his shades of gray and the truly gritty, mostly realistic portrayals of human nature. I tend to disagree, though, when it comes to the other writers.

I love gritty realism if done properly. This is why Martin is my favorite living fantasy writer. Created worlds that are treated with the same seriousness of our own real world appeal to me.

Abercrombie and Morgan certainly do gritty and absolutely do shades of gray, but what they don't do, in my opinion, is realism. You see, realism doesn't mean only gray, with no admirable people, as we mainly get in their novels. In the real life that I know, people have lots of faults, and there are truly some bad characters out there, but mostly what I see are people who truly try their best to be decent. I've found this to be true even in the most backwards countries that I visit.

That's where these writers go wrong for me. They make everyone pretty much repugnant. No one in their worlds seems to have much altruism. One might argue that their times are different than ours, but I would argue back that regardless of how bad life may have been at any time in history, there have always been at least some people with more positive attitudes toward life or generally more cheerful dispositions. There have always been a few who try to do right. There have always been some heroes, even if not perfect. In Best Served Cold Abercrombie did briefly have one character make a few noises in the direction of wishing to be a better person, but that died quickly as the character evolved into a monster. He did also have another character have a generally cheerful disposition...while being utterly vile in all other respects (and this was the character I liked best in the book).

Martin does a great job of getting this balance right. He has a few flat out bad characters, such as The Mountain That Rides or Tywin Lannister, but mostly he gives us characters that may appear evil at first, but once you get to know them a little better you can see that your first thoughts about them were not necessarily the entire story. This would apply to Jaime Lannister, Tyrion, and a few others.

I don't mean to be overly harsh with Abercrombie and Morgan. I got some enjoyment from their books, and I certainly believe there is an audience for what they do. Their work just doesn't seem as realistic to me as so many bloggers or critics suggest.

My own aim in writing has been to take the sweetness that I love in high fantasy and instill some of the serious realism that I love from Martin. I put shades of gray, but I also have altruism and real heroes...even if flawed.

Self-Publishing Dream

Self-publishing is gaining a more and more respect these days, at least to a degree, but traditional publishing retains most of the advantages still. I primarily hold out hope for traditional publishing at some point, but I do have one intriguing idea that nags at my mind every so often, however unrealistic it may be.

Art by Stephan Martiniere

I dream of a book that is as much a work of art as it is a novel. I dream of finding just the right artist - one who loves my work and likes the idea of working with it, in the way that Alan Lee and John Howe and others did with Tolkien's work, while having a style that fits what I wish for in an artist. I dream of having that artist agree to be a partner in creating a high-quality self-published set of works that would stand out from the general self-publishing crowd. Imagine having not just a gorgeous cover, but thirty or so fabulous paintings scattered throughout each book, depicting the most amazing scenes.

Rueful

Being forward thinking has its drawbacks, I guess. I began querying my epic fantasy about a year and a half ago, and in my queries I commented that it was the perfect time to pick up such a book due to the forthcoming Game of Thrones and Hobbit movies. I got some requests from some really great agents but they all ended up saying 'close but not what I'm after right now'.

So, now Game of Thrones has actually come out, and as I knew it would be, it is huge. I expect a few agents are now interested in taking a fresh look at epic fantasy stories. I dislike the fact that I now feel I can't requery any of the many agents I tried already. It's sad, because one of them might actually consider my story in a fresh light now. Heck, George R. R. Martin was the very inspiration for my story, in style at least, though my story is very different. Wouldn't it have been better for an agent to do the work with me to polish the story a year and a half ago so that it could be ready for publishing now when the fire is hot, rather than only now showing interest in epic fantasy?