Random Thoughts: On the Origins of Red Sonja

So, in some very small circles I'm considered a genre writer. (One friend has called me the Queen of Ick Lit, another person has dubbed me an inventor of White Trash fantasy because of the novella Fork You which appeared in Panverse One.  )

That said, I am woefully under-read in that which might be considered the genre classics. This is because I have a reading list that is ridiculously long and while I tend to write fiction with paranormal, fantastical, and science fiction elements what I read is everything from reference materials to literary fiction, science to mythology, palmistry to biography, history to essays.... I could keep going, but you get the point.

I'm divided about whether or not this is a serious problem. I think it would be a larger issue for a writer to not also be a reader, no matter what form those word-built creatures called stories take.

It is pretty awesome to have friends who are more knowledgeable about genre than I am. I get to learn stuff, and they get to point stuff out to me that I haven't considered.

Enter my friend Richard, who is a bit of an expert on all things related to comics, genre fiction, genre film, and the career of Patton Oswalt. Over the holidays this year he gave me several genre books that I had not read before. It turns out that some of these books are/were kind of a big deal in terms of genre. This is the stack that I turn to when I am between new book purchases or I am not in the mood to re-read old favorites. I won't list all the authors, but there is one in particular that has my brain kind of buzzing.

Sword Woman by Robert E. Howard, precedes his version of Red Sonja and later versions said to have been based on multiple other red-haired, swashbuckling adventuresses. Dark Agnes de Castillon is an interesting figure to have emerged in the 1930s. The edition of the book that I have includes an introduction by Leigh Brackett.


Red Sonja in later fantasy/comic stories is one of those scantily clad heroines where sexualized imagery has a ridiculously large part to do with the reader appeal. Agnes de Castillon is a very different character than that. (Whether or not various versions of the cover art reflect it is a different topic best left to Jim C. Hines and John Scalzi if you recall this bit of gender-bending genius.)

"But I did not wear doublet, trunk-hose and Spanish boots merely to show off my figure, and the morion perched on my red locks and the sword that hung at my hip were not ornaments."

The statement, made by the heroine remains true throughout the narrative. While there is an awful lot of attention paid to her attire, which granted, is unusual for a woman in 16th century France, I can't help admiring that for the most part, Red Sonja's predecessor Dark Agnes remains dressed for battle rather than a debauched spring break as later versions would have it. To be fair it is also true that the attire of male characters in the story is also paid heed. It seems to follow a convention in the sword and sorcery genre that clothes tell you, the reader, the status/role of the characters.

Gender plays a huge role in Dark Agnes' story of origin in that it is her desire to escape a pre-scripted destiny due to her social status as a woman. She kills the bridegroom that her child-beating father is trying to force her to marry and flees. In the course of that adventure she finds that she rather likes sword-fighting and from there the narrative is a series of swish-slice-blood and narrow escapes from physical danger. You know, all the stuff of an adventure story.

Leigh Brackett explains Dark Agnes' appeal as a heroine and how she is a character who appeared well before her time in the aforementioned introduction. While the female protagonist with sword skill was beginning to rise in popularity in the fantasy genre, the sword-wielding woman was not popular in adventure stories of the 1930s. She describes Dark Agnes as an honest, pragmatic and active character not prone to self-pity. The character makes decisions, takes actions and sticks by those choices, unyielding. (What we might think of those choices in a modern context is a different discussion.) What I find remarkable here is the introduction of a strong female action hero during a time in fiction that I was unaware such a thing existed. I am not a Howard scholar, so I have no idea if when he wrote this it was his intention to break down boundaries in the world of fiction when it comes to women characters, or if it was just a new and different way to tell a story.

In the interests of full disclosure, this is a book that I would probably not have chosen for myself, but it has proven to be educational to me, and interesting in terms of the things it made me think about.

(*Cheesy blog-ending question alert*)

So, dear readers, what books have you been given that you would not have chosen that were eye-opening or thought-provoking for you?

Literary Influences

Very recently, in the land of facebook I was tagged in a note which requested that I name 15 authors who have influenced me and will always stick with me. This was sent by the fabulous Paul Winarski, who is producing my play, Road to Nowhere. I planned on responding to that when I had some time but then I thought it would make a great blog post, particularly since I sometimes struggle with ideas for Ye Olde Spotty Blog. It also made sense since the topic brought on a whole whirlwind of thoughts on the subject of literary influences.

Answering the question of who influences my work is not as simple as listing fifteen writers, although I can certainly do that. The first fifteen that pop into my head are as follows,
Lewis Carroll, Tom Robbins, David Foster Wallace, James Morrow, Angela Carter, Francesca Lia Block, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Christopher Moore, Charles de Lint, Oscar Wilde, George Saunders,
Daniel Handler (Lemony Snicket), Allen Ginsberg, Toni Morrison and Octavia Butler.

It's a good thing that there is a limit to the number of authors required, because otherwise you would be subjected to a massive wall of text containing a huge number of names. But here's the thing about those names. Each one of them is storied, in its own way. How and where I discovered their works has much to do with people in my life who introduced the work to me. Tom Robbins was suggested to me by Paul Shapera (yes, THAT Paul Shapera, of Steampunk Opera fame). Charles de Lint is a favorite of my brother's. Christopher Moore's work was beloved of my friend and co-author Kathy Morrow-Swartz. I read James Morrow's work for a class and was later lucky enough to meet him and his family. I'm also blessed enough to be able to call the Morrows my friends, which leads my to my next point about influences. My work is influenced as much by community as it is by the work that I have read. Conversations with the Morrow family have probably held as much sway as the fiction I've read by Jim, or Kathy's amazing poetry.

My work has been influenced strongly by the critique group I was in with Rune Skelley. Rune Skelley's writing prompts in particular are kind of like a magical key that unlocks the wine-barrel of creative juices. (There is probably a dirty joke in that statement somewhere, but I will leave that for you guys to parse.) Recently Juliette Wade (Analog) and I have been each other's writing cheerleaders. Dario Ciriello is another big positive influence. (check him out at www.panversepublishing.com )There are days when you stare at that page and can't seem to make it work, and the influence of someone in the writing trenches with you can make all the difference between a story that works and a story that's meh.

The writing is influenced by ideas or events (both large and small) from daily life. That's not to suggest I write fiction based on people I know, I don't. But a conversation about generational differences that I've had with a parent or grandparent will provide a new perspective with which to tackle characters, world-building or language. That extremely odd-looking statue of a leprechaun I saw at the dollar store while shopping with a friend might be the visual cornerstone of a character's apartment. The way the light falls on the bird-feeder in the backyard could provide clarity for a descriptive passage. Images or emotional states evoked by different types of music can also generate ideas. That dropped bit of subtext from a film might be something I want to explore further. So I submit that the question of what influences the work of a writer is infinitely more complex than what they have read.

Life influences the work of a writer. I remember going to a reading and Q&A given by Samuel Delaney at PSU. Heart pounding, crazy nervous, I raised my hand and asked a question about a particularly delicate passage he'd read from Dark Reflections. To me, it seemed a gorgeous, fearless piece of prose about sex, or the possibility of sex, and I asked him something like, "How do you do that?" I recall an emphatic response that one must "Pay attention." Good advice for life as well as art. That, for me, was a profound moment, as an aspiring writer and as a human being.

So, yes, pay attention to everything that you can. You can learn from everything if your eyes are open. (By the way, I'm still working on this. I will probably always be working on this, like I will always be working on that stack of books piling up near the bed.)

So, how about you guys? What are your thoughts on influences?