Unprecedented: Black Blossom
Oct. 26th, 2021 02:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ermingarden13. A book with a premise you'd never seen before quite like that
Black Blossom by M.C.A. Hogarth
Black Blossom – tagline: "a fantasy of manners among aliens" – and the rest of Hogarth's Kherishdar series take place among an utterly fascinating alien culture, that of the "Ai-Naidar".
Ai-Naidari society is based on (or at least extraordinarily similar to) Plato's Republic, but it's a version that actually works. Spending time in Hogarth's meticulously fleshed-out world is deeply enjoyable. The plot of Black Blossom is also intriguing, and the characters are all well-developed and sympathetic – the conflicts all arise from people who are acting in good faith, and reasonably think they're doing the right thing, but have differing ideas of what that is.
The first two works in the Kherishdar series – The Aphorisms of Kherishdar and The Admonishments of Kherishdar – are novella-length compilations of connected short stories; Black Blossom and Kherishdar's Exception are novels. I read Black Blossom first, and I didn't have any problems understanding it, so I'd say you can start with any of the first three, though I don't think Exception can be understood without Black Blossom.
Because of bad experiences earlier in her career, Hogarth has requested that no one write fanfic based on her books, and I respect that...but it does make me sad, because I definitely have fannish feelings about Kherishdar. How do you feel about these types of authorial requests? Does it matter whether an author is a mainstream success (e.g., Anne Rice) or relatively obscure, like Hogarth? Does the current expectation that authors engage with their readers via social media - and the correspondingly increased likelihood that authors will be shown or otherwise encounter fanfic of their work - impose additional obligations to respect authors' wishes? My instinct is that it does make a difference, but I'd like to hear other folks' thoughts on it.
The remaining questions:
14. A book balanced on a knife edge
15. A snuffed candle of a book
16. A book you'd take with you while you were being ferried on dark underground rivers
17. A book that taught you something about yourself
18. A book that went after its premise like an explosion
19. A book that started a pilgrimage
20. A frigid ice bath of a book
21. A warm blanket of a book
22. A book written into your psyche
23. A book that made you bleed
24. A book that asked a question you've never had an answer to
25. A book that answered a question you never asked
26. A book you recommend but cannot love
27. A book you love but cannot recommend
28. A book you adore that people are surprised by
29. A book you detest that people are surprised by
30. A book that led you home
Black Blossom by M.C.A. Hogarth
Black Blossom – tagline: "a fantasy of manners among aliens" – and the rest of Hogarth's Kherishdar series take place among an utterly fascinating alien culture, that of the "Ai-Naidar".
Ai-Naidari society is based on (or at least extraordinarily similar to) Plato's Republic, but it's a version that actually works. Spending time in Hogarth's meticulously fleshed-out world is deeply enjoyable. The plot of Black Blossom is also intriguing, and the characters are all well-developed and sympathetic – the conflicts all arise from people who are acting in good faith, and reasonably think they're doing the right thing, but have differing ideas of what that is.
The first two works in the Kherishdar series – The Aphorisms of Kherishdar and The Admonishments of Kherishdar – are novella-length compilations of connected short stories; Black Blossom and Kherishdar's Exception are novels. I read Black Blossom first, and I didn't have any problems understanding it, so I'd say you can start with any of the first three, though I don't think Exception can be understood without Black Blossom.
Because of bad experiences earlier in her career, Hogarth has requested that no one write fanfic based on her books, and I respect that...but it does make me sad, because I definitely have fannish feelings about Kherishdar. How do you feel about these types of authorial requests? Does it matter whether an author is a mainstream success (e.g., Anne Rice) or relatively obscure, like Hogarth? Does the current expectation that authors engage with their readers via social media - and the correspondingly increased likelihood that authors will be shown or otherwise encounter fanfic of their work - impose additional obligations to respect authors' wishes? My instinct is that it does make a difference, but I'd like to hear other folks' thoughts on it.
The remaining questions:
14. A book balanced on a knife edge
15. A snuffed candle of a book
16. A book you'd take with you while you were being ferried on dark underground rivers
17. A book that taught you something about yourself
18. A book that went after its premise like an explosion
19. A book that started a pilgrimage
20. A frigid ice bath of a book
21. A warm blanket of a book
22. A book written into your psyche
23. A book that made you bleed
24. A book that asked a question you've never had an answer to
25. A book that answered a question you never asked
26. A book you recommend but cannot love
27. A book you love but cannot recommend
28. A book you adore that people are surprised by
29. A book you detest that people are surprised by
30. A book that led you home
(no subject)
Date: 2021-10-26 09:58 pm (UTC)On the other hand, though, I find such a request unfair, as to me, it feels something is taken away from my reading experience right from the start - like I'm not allowed to feel passionate about the story or characters, if that should happen, and would not be allowed to explore what reading such a story evoques in me. As I generally consider stories, no matter in what form, as a widening of my own personal universe, and my mindspace, this possibility feels painfully restricting. All of that with the general viewpoint that stories, once they are told to an audience, and the box of the Pandora has been opened, become part of the audience's general "story treasure-trove".
Of course, I could always just write fanfic for myself (I do that a lot, though not for such reasons, but because I don't want or need to share these), or just share it privately with a few friends, but if I knew the author wouldn't want it this made me feel bad on top of feeling restricted. I've thought about this before, and I'm relatively sure that if one of the fandoms/stories/story characters I'm passionate about would suddenly turn out to be no longer "allowed" I'd continue in secrecy, because I can't just give up what's become part of me to such a degree. (I'm only talking about content I'm really passionate about, just to make that clear).
But if I knew right from the start the author doesn't want or forbids fan- or transformative works of their work, I'd most likely not read it in the first place. Not out of protest but out of not wanting to risk to get passionate about something I then can't explore.
Like I said, I don't expect any author or creator to interact with their audience, and I know that some authors consciously avoid any fan- or transformative work done for their works because they don't want to know about it, which I find perfectly acceptable.
In the present case (I've given the reasons for this author a quick look) I can totally understand why they don't want it, and would respect their request - but also not read their stories or books for the named reasons. I'm also deeply sorry for their experience as this is something truly horrible to happen to anybody (I can relate somewhat; I've had people exploit me in a similar way online, just not with content I created but personally about me as a writing forum owner and moderator), and I really hope they will be able to eventually leave that behind, not for possible changes in their fanworks policy but for their personal well-being.
(no subject)
Date: 2021-10-27 02:20 am (UTC)As soon as I finished Black Blossom, Aphorisms, and Admonishments (Exception hadn't come out yet), I went looking for fic...and eventually found the blog post I linked where Hogarth asks that no one write fic based on her work. If not for that, I imagine both Kherishdar and the Pelted 'verse would have solid little Yuletide-sized fandoms. The worldbuilding in both series is so good, I just want to play in Hogarth's sandbox....
If Hogarth ever achieves the mainstream success of someone like Anne Rice, I think the calculus about what degree of control she should have over her fans' behavior might change – but again, I'm not sure quite how to articulate the difference. On the one hand, you could argue that the more you're getting (monetarily) from your fans, the more you "owe" them in terms of ceding control of the fandom itself. On the other hand, from the perspective of any individual fan, the transactional aspect of the relationship is the same regardless of how many fans there are: I paid $4.99 for my ebook of Black Blossom, and that – what I personally gave Hogarth – is the same whether ten, a hundred, a thousand, or a hundred thousand other people bought the book. So that begs the question of whether an individual fan's "right" (ethically speaking, not legally) to create fanworks is dependent on how many other fans wish to do so. Is a transactional model correct, though? It certainly doesn't work with dead authors such as Tolkien. And does my "right" to create a fanwork depend on whether, e.g., I bought a ticket to a movie or streamed it illegally? That doesn't seem to work either.
I think a better analysis may have to do with power. Generally speaking, we view fan creators as having less power than the creators (or owners) of the original media, and that's definitely the case for, say, Disney, or the Tolkien estate. But in situations like this, where an author has a relatively small audience, the traditional power dynamics are in some ways inverted. If a fanbase numbers in the hundreds rather than the hundred thousands, each fan's actions have a proportionately greater impact on the author, both monetarily and emotionally.
Still not quite sure that's right, though, and it's definitely something I want to think about more in the future. (Maybe there's been an article in Transformative Works and Cultures at some point – I should take a look.)
(I should also note that I'm not suggesting Hogarth asking folks not to write fic is morally equivalent to Anne Rice threatening legal action – Hogarth, to my knowledge, hasn't done anything even close to that.)
I love what you said about a story being a widening of your own personal universe – that's such an evocative way of putting it!