New anthology coming this fall that my story is featured in.
This is your warning. Prepare for the Sha’Daa, for it is coming…
Edit: the first one was not the right one. Oops.
Bravery doesn’t end when a hero comes home.
Celebrate Memorial Day and remember all those who have given their time and more for us.
I was responding to something that my computer did to me this morning (stupid cheating AI doesn’t know that I know he’s cheating so I won’t slaughter him in Stronghold Legends…) when it occurred to me that I only enjoy certain types of villains. And believe me, stupid, crushing everything mad “I’m the villain!” characters piss me off every single time.
Where has the subtlety gone? Where is the creativity? Why are villains so cut-and-dry nowadays? I’m not asking for more layers than a wedding cake here, but even a one-dimensional villain could use a second side. Like the evil villain who wants world domination but loves his cat (or something)? I like that villain, because part of me thinks “Hey, I want to rule the world” or “Hey, I like cats” or both. But if a villain is simply “I’m evil because I’m crazy and like to blow sh*t up” then part of me wonders “uh, why?”. I don’t particularly care for the villain who is doing it because he has to. I want the villain who is doing it because he wants to.
There is a difference. I’ll give you three examples of villains I like and villains I don’t like.
Like
The Mayor (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 3): the Mayor is my favorite villain. He was crazy, smart, driven, ambitious, had morals (he was completely and thoroughly annoyed when people didn’t use manners) and looked at Faith as a daughter figure, even if part of him was using her to kill/distract Buffy. You knew that he was a bad guy who wanted to (*spoiler alert*) Ascend to demonhood, but he worked for over one hundred years to get to that point. In the meantime, he proved that he was more than just a jerk, when he tells the tale of his long-dead wife cursing his immortality while she withered away with age (of course, his pleasant rejoinder soon afterwards made you giggle because hell, he was insane) or his careful cultivation of the town (again, he wanted everyone there to be his food when he Ascended, but at least he was a little more polite about it that simply trying to garner some sympathy votes or something worse). He was, and forever shall be, the greatest villain Joss Whedon ever created.
Susan Shackleford (Monster Hunter International, Monster Hunter Vendetta, etc… by Larry Corriea): this may seem odd, but a master vampire (think Dracula but Southern, and not some wuss vampire like Mister Sparkly Pants) who has the brains, ambition and subtlety to accomplish her goals is someone that you want to read about and mourn the day when she finally gets staked. While she primarily wants to reunite her family, she also knows that it is not entirely possible and uses the hero of the novel, Owen Pitt, to her advantage without showing all her cards. Of course she loses (sorta), but she has everything going for her that makes a villain fun and enjoyable (as much as a villain can be enjoyable). Sure, she’s not the primary villain in any of the first three books of the series, but she’s there, and you simply know that she is the most dangerous game around.
Mab, the Queen of Air and Darkness (The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher): Mab is, to me, the best villain anyone can come up with. She is cold, heartless, remorseless, driven, smart, cunning, devious, slightly insane and one not to double-cross. It makes her interactions with Harry Dresden that much more interesting as you watch her try to collect on her debt from the young wizard (he owes her his servitude as the Winter Court’s Knight, eventually) as she both strives to force him to pay his debt as well as help him to stay alive. My issues with the most recent book in the Dresden Files series aside, Mab is simply too awesome of a villain to not mention. She has both the seduction and murderous intent to make even the most puritan of men (and women, I don’t think she discriminates) quail for and because of her. Even the hero of the series fears her intent, and constantly thinks he can outsmart her. It’s why I don’;t enjoy him as a hero, but love Mab as a villain.
Don’t Like
Loki (The Avengers): Look, I understand that a good villain needs to have goals. But when you’re simply black and white evil, you lose some of the oddness that goes into your character. Loki was insane, simple as that. But he also wanted to rule the world. But he was insane. And…. yeah, that’s it. He randomly lets people live to assist him while killing many others, exhibits a certain degree of cunning to rid The Avengers of certain elements, but goes about his final battle in a completely opposite way that was his nature. Loki, from what I remember of Norse mythology, was a cunning trickster who also happened to be the bringer of Ragnarok. He was not the brute force guy of the group (that would have been Odin and Thor), yet he constantly seems to be trying to out-brute the biggest brutes of them all in the movie. Bad form on his part, and made him a completely pathetic villain you felt sorry for (and not much more).
Glory (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 5): It seems that with Joss Whedon, it’s either a major hit or a major miss in the villain category. Glory was a goddess, pretty much a symbol for the end times that was going on in season 5. With the arrival of Dawn (Buffy’s “sister) suddenly in the story arc, Glory was there to harvest Dawn and bring about the end of the world. But Glory was crazy, too crazy for any sort of subtlety and cleverness. Instead, she relied on her craziness and her brute strength which, while interesting, made her a rather dull villain. The more I watched this villainess run around, the less I liked her and respected her. It was a dull, one-sided affair.
Darth Vader (Star Wars – Episode Three: Revenge of the Sith): Yes, he looked like a badass. He spoke as though his voice was coming from the bottom of Hell. His breathing sent chills down your spine. And his utter lack of compassion made him more fearful. Now, I’m not talking about the original series Vader, who looked, acted, appeared and basically made the entire series enjoyable. I’m talking about the Christian Hayden whiny, pathetic, “Ooh look at me I’m an emo villain!” Vader from the last movie of the new series. He was a joke. He wanted to save Amidala, help Palpatine control the galaxy and be a Jedi still, despite that everything he did went against the very code he swore to protect and uphold. Yeah, part of that was the fault of Obi-Wan Kenobi, but Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader made every single wrong choice he could. He did not have any presence on the screen, he could not invoke any pity or sympathy for his plight(s), and nobody really gave two cents worth of a rat’s ass for his “development”. Seriously, did anybody else think “he’s alive!” when he broke free of the straps on the gurney bed? I had a complete Frankenstein moment that almost made me giggle.
So yeah, I like me a good villain, Unfortunately, they are few and far between these days.
Not apologizing for the lack of updates. Would you rather read this or read something in print (or e-book)?
Thought so. Yes, I was working on Wraithkin and Failsafe. I’m also working on Heroes & Rogues, which needs to be done in about two weeks. Oops.
I keep linking to both Amanda Green‘s and Sarah Hoyt‘s blogs because of their views and opinions about the Big Six publishing houses who are currently under investigation by the DOJ here in the US for price collusion (which, for those of you who don’t know, is also called “agency pricing” and a “monopoly”, which violates all sorts of laws). I agree with them (mostly), and find their stuff to be very useful, both creatively and professionally. Plus, I really am a fan of both authors. Amanda has an excellent series about shape shifters that is very entertaining and everyone should go and give the first book a shot. Ignore the cover art.
Besides, isn’t it against the rules to judge a book by its cover?
Anyway, the reason I bring them up today is that I just replied to an article Sarah wrote about a non-fiction writer who is afraid that the Big Six publishing houses falling will end non-fiction writing. Sarah laid it out fairly well why the author is worrying about locking the corral well after the horses have escaped (my analogy… you like?) and then I proceed to, well, just about lose it — in a good way.
You see, a lot of non-fiction writers accuse fiction writers (me!) of pulling crap from air. Granted, a lot of our ideas might seem like they’re coming from thin air but the brain (so far as I know) is not a densely packaged organ filled with air (no blonde jokes people). But I know that I research like crazy (historian, remember?) for anything that might be looked at by my readers (I still get crap from my Beta readers about putting a safety on a Glock in my first draft of Corruptor, for example). I mean, I know a lot of the computer stuff in Corruptor was… off. But it had to be “off” in a reasonable way to explain technological advances in 20+ years while making it readable and understandable to the now. It needed research, and lots of it.
Now, I’ve accused fantasy authors of pulling crap out of their butts before (I still do, actually, for which I’m mildly apologetic about), but this fiction v. nonfiction thing is different. This is an entirely different argument (besides, we all know that there is no practical way for any fantasy author to make magic work other than being a “gift from the gods”… 
) about how much effort and energy goes into researching. Fiction authors research just as much (if not more) than nonfiction, but we fiction writers don’t need to cite our sources. Building the Appendix is probably the actual hardest part of writing a nonfiction book because you have to remember where what is cited. We don’t have to do this, and I think it makes them jealous. In retaliation, they strike back and accuse us of being “hacks”.
Hacks get paid? I can be a hack.
I can be a well-paid hack, too.
Now back to writing my “pulled from air” crap. I got bills to pay.
I normally try to stay out of politics on here, but friend and author KT Pinto made a very good point earlier today:
Never believe what a politician says as a general principle, but especially when they are trying to win an election.
It takes a brave man to have a startling revelation, it takes a braver man to have one that may lose him an election, not gain him one.
I doubt truer words have ever been uttered.
Why didn’t the president come out last year with this proclamation? Or do it right after he was elected? Or… I don’t know, while not in an election year? I get the why he did it now, but I just wish he’d been brave enough to do this when his job wasn’t on the line.
My own stance on gay marriage has been the same for as long as I can remember: I don’t care who/what/where you get married to, just don’t try to run my life.
Sadly, neither major party understands this.
Just a quick philosophical question for you younglings today:
If “getting lit” means getting wasted (i.e., trashed), why do we assume that downing so much alcohol that our breath can light an open flame from thirty paces is the epitome of a good time? I mean, if I’ve drunk enough that my drunken antics go from being entertaining to the entertainment (for that inevitable face-melting flame that will invariably arrive), wouldn’t “getting lit” be the exact opposite of what I want to do for fun?
