Stonefather by Orson Scott Card

ByJohn Brown

stonefather_72dpi“When Runnel was born, he was given a water name even though there had never been a wetwizard in the family.

In the old days such names were given only to those babies as would be sacrificed to Yeggut, the water god. Later, such names were given to those whould would live to serve as priests to Yeggut. Still later, wetnames went to children of families thath pretended they once had a watermage in their ancestry.

But now, in the village o Farzibeck, wetnames were given because the mother was fond of a nearby brooklet or because the father had a freind with such a name.”

So begins Stonefather by Orson Scott Card. It tells the tale of Runnel who is the ninth son and fifteenth child of a farmwife who likes all her children well enough but calls them all “by each other’s names and didn’t know enough numbers to take a census and notice when one or two were missing.”  He’s also the son a man who beats him. Eventually, Runnel leaves home and seeks his fortunes in Mitherhome, the big city far to the south.

This isn’t a full novel, but a novella of 112 pages. However, the Subterranean Press edition has a glorious cover and ink illustrations inside. More importantly, the story tells a tale that’s full of wonder, humor, and a number of delightful characters. It reminded me of the best of Card’s Hatrack books. But, of course, this world is very different. It’s strange, and I was happy to explore it with Runnel as my guide. Take an hour to read this. You won’t be disappointed. Then you can look forward, as I do, to the first of the Mithermage novels based on this world.

Share

Similar Posts

  • The Story Behind “Amazing Grace”

    ByJohn Brown

    John Newton writes the following about himself.

    “My father was a very sensible, and a moral man, as the world rates morality; but neither he, nor my step-mother, was under the impressions of religion: I was, therefore, much left to myself, to mingle with idle and wicked boys; and soon learnt their ways.”

    And learn them he did, and not just from wicked boys.  This is the John Newton who worked aboard a “respectable” slave ship and then became the captain of his own.  But this is also the John Newton who later wrote “Amazing Grace,” probably the most famous of all folk hymns.

    That song has been sung in countless arrangements and to different tunes. I love the version by The Five Blind Boys of Alabama sung to the music of “The House of the Rising Sun”.  Soulful.  Incredible.

    And the fabulous mash up of those two same songs performed by Jerry Lawson And The Talk Of The Town on NBC’s The Sing-Off season 2.

    And the more traditional version featured on the movie Amazing Grace sung by Chris Tomlin and titled “Amazing Grace (my chains are gone)”.

    There are simply too many wonderful versions to list.

    But what makes this song so wonderful is not only the words, but also the story behind the song.  This song isn’t a song of theology—it’s John Newton’s own heartfelt expression of gratitude to God, who helped him turn from his profane and wicked life and eventually fight against the ills he practiced.  Later in life, Newton became a supporter and inspiration to William Wilberforce who lead the fight to pass the British Slave Trade Act in 1807, which abolished the slave trade in that empire.

    Although the experience of Newton’s turning point is dramatic, and referred to in the song, his change didn’t occur over night.  In fact, it took him a number of years to fully come to himself.   It was 34 years AFTER he retired from slavery, which was years AFTER he turned toward a new life, that he published his forceful pamphlet Thoughts Upon the Slave Trade, in which he describes the horrific conditions of the slave ships and apologizes for a confession that “comes too late” and “will always be a subject of humiliating reflection to me, that I was once an active instrument in a business at which my heart now shudders.”

    My heart soars when seeing someone turn a life around (maybe because I’m in need of a turnaround).  It’s such a wonderful and instructive tale of hope.

    Recently, Asbury University Media Com students and an Asbury Art Dept student under the direction of Professor Greg Bandy produced a short 14 minute documentary called Amazing Grace: The Story Behind the Song on the fascinating story of how John Newton wrote the most famous hymn in the world . . . and helped bring about one of the most powerful social justice movements in the history of Western Civilization.  It’s a great tale.  Watch it below.

    Amazing Grace: The Story Behind the Song from Gregory Bandy on Vimeo.

    Share
  • |

    Since when did young adult fiction become the cure for cancer?

    ByJohn Brown

    Meghan Cox Gurdon wrote an opinion piece for the Wall Stree Journal called “Darkness Too Visible” in which she complained that it was hard to find young adult fiction these days that isn’t filled with coarse, dark material–profanity, pederasty, mutilation, etc. She claims that “contemporary fiction for teens is rife with explicit abuse, violence and depravity” and wonders “why is this considered a good idea?” She concludes by saying:

    So it may be that the book industry’s ever-more-appalling offerings for adolescent readers spring from a desperate desire to keep books relevant for the young. Still, everyone does not share the same objectives. The book business exists to sell books; parents exist to rear children, and oughtn’t be daunted by cries of censorship. No family is obliged to acquiesce when publishers use the vehicle of fundamental free-expression principles to try to bulldoze coarseness or misery into their children’s lives.

    This, of course, sent hordes of folks into a frenzy of posts sneering at Gurdon’s so-called prissy sensibilities, decrying censorship, and extolling the virtues of young adult literature and dark material in particular. For example, Mary Elizabeth Williams in a Salon piece called “Has young adult fiction become too dark?” rolls her eyes, then deigns to wade into what’s she thinks is an obviously juvenile argument to apparently show Gourdon how “stupid” she really is. Williams concludes:

    One of the terrific side effects of an obviously click-baiting piece of editorial twaddle like Gurdon’s is that it reminds people how many fellow passionate readers there are in the world. That incendiary WSJ piece promptly sparked a tear-jerkingly beautiful twitter #YA saves trend full of heartfelt reactions and links to outstandingly reasoned, article responses from well-read adults and teens on the value within so much of YA literature and its downright lifesaving effects.

    Williams suggests fiction doesn’t have the power to lead people into bad behaviors. After all, she assures us, “an entire generation of women managed to devour the ‘Flowers in the Attic’ series without having sex with their brothers.” No, according to Williams (and all the #YAsaves folks), YA fiction only saves lives. And she provides a link to prove it.

    But Williams misses the mark. Completely. This isn’t about whether fiction has power to influence us in good and bad ways. There’s a huge body of research on media effects which clearly proves fiction’s power for both. Nor is it about the theraputic uses of dark material.

    The heart of the matter revolves around a rather mundane thing–customer service and marketing.

    Gurdon and those parents she describes in her article want a certain type of entertainment. For years, YA fiction has provided that type of entertainment. But things have changed, and the YA label isn’t reliable to them any more. It’s like someone who has purchased steel cut oatmeal for years is now suddenly bringing the bags home to find them filled with sardines or, horrors, Twinkies.

    We can argue the merits of sardines and Twinkies. And a hundred other foods. We can argue the merits of certain types of stories for certain types of readers. And my metaphor above–maybe you think using Twinkies is unfair; maybe you would have wanted me to use something like Triscuts or Wheat Thins. But that’s all beside the point.

    The real problem here is that the publishers have ignored a significant segment of the market who want to buy books but can’t find the types they’re interested in. Either the covers and blurb material don’t help them find what they’re looking for, sometimes misleading them, or the publishers have simply made the mistake of not thinking about this segment of the reading market.

    The fix is easy. (1) Produce more books for these folks. (2) Label your books in a way that makes it easy for the consumer to find what they want. They’re not asking for censorship. They’re asking for a nutrition label that lets them know what they’re getting. Publishers can do what the movie and gaming industries have done with rating systems that prominently display on the cover. Or use some other method. This isn’t a moral issue, it’s simply a matter of helping the right customers find your good or service. It’s a matter of good marketing and branding.

    And I would think, with the upheavals in the book industry today, that publishers and booksellers would want to do whatever they could to boost sales. Surely it doesn’t help to turn customers away because your package is confusing them.

    In the meantime, the battle will rage and this simple practical core of the issue will be lost in the fires and clouds of smoke produced by the arguments extolling and excoriating the virtues and vices of fiction.

    Share
  • |

    Camille Paglia, Word Ninja

    ByJohn Brown

    I think I must disagree with half of everything Paglia says (I’m a Republican, she’s a Democrat). But when you can write like a kung fu master, you have to be read:

    Advanced whack-a-mole is clearly needed for that yammering smarty-pants Newt Gingrich, who is always so very, very pleased with himself but has yet to produce a single enduring thought.

    Holy schnitzel, that’s what words are for. I’m still laughing and nodding my head. Can I be Camille for a while?

    The fact is while Paglia is clearly liberal, she’s not a party lemming. This is one of the things that is so refreshing about her. She’s not afraid to call ’em as she sees them, even if that means roasting her own party or praising the other.

    More here: Too late for Obama to turn it around? Plus: The left’s visionaries lost their bearings on drugs — but the GOP is led by losers

    And here: Paglia page.

    Share
  • |

    Black Chokecherry Syrup

    ByJohn Brown

    When you live where we do, you cannot hope to landscape likes folks in a warm suburb. First of all, at 6,000 feet with a min temp of -30 Fahrenheit you can’t grow a lot of warmer climate plants. Second, the deer seem to eat everything else you do grow. So we’ve been looking and I think I’ve found a tree to add.

    I actually found it earlier when I was biking around the beautiful Round Valley and had to stop and go back to revel in the delicious fragrance. But I didn’t know what it was at the time. I do now. 

    It’s the black chokecherry.

    It grows naturally up here. Has beautiful fragrant blossoms in the spring. And it produces fruit that can be made into a delicious syrup. Oh, the raccoons like it as well.

    Now when you eat the raw berry, unless you eat it late in the fall, you’re in for an astringent, alum after-punch. But we picked the berries up a canyon behind our town after the first frosts. In fact, many of our berries were wrinkled. They just fine raw. Even Lilia, my pickiest eater, enjoyed them.

    We picked about 1.25 gallon ice cream buckets of the stuff. Then we followed this recepie and made about 4 quarts of syrup.

    • 3 cups chokecherry juice (see first step)
    • 3 cups apple juice (not from a store, but cooked from apples)
    • 6 1/2 cups sugar
    • (I’ve heard some folks add 1/4 teaspoon almond extract for a stronger cherry taste)
    1. Wash chokecherries, place in a large kettle, barely cover with water and cook, covered, for about 30 minutes till the cherries are soft. Mash gently and strain the chokecherry juice through a sieve or cheesecloth.
    2. Do the same with the apples.
    3. Pour the juice into a large kettle; stir in the sugar.
    4. Cook on high, stirring constantly.
    5. Boil hard for 1 minute.
    6. Remove from heat and skim foam.
    7. To can: Pour hot syrup into sterilized hot jars to within 1/8th inch from top.

    It’s absolutely delicious on pancakes. 

     

    Share

  • Black Hawk Down, Pete Blaber, Not Waving But Drowning

    ByJohn Brown

    A Ferocious Battle

     I just finished reading Black Hawk Down by Mark Bowden. It is the most gripping account of any battle I have ever read.

    In 1992 a Somali warlord attacked and killed U.N. peacekeeping forces. As a result, the US put a $25,000 bounty on his head and attempted to arrest and try him for war crimes. On October 3, 1993, by the order of President Bill Clinton, a force of United States Army Rangers and Delta Force operators, the Army’s most elite warriors, set out to capture several lieutenants of the warlord’s militia in an area of the Somali capital city of Mogadishu that was controlled by the warlord.

    The force of about a hundred U.S. soldiers helicoptered in during broad daylight. They roped down to the streets surrounding the target building. It was supposed to take them no more than an hour. They would bag the warlord’s lieutenants, put them on a convoy of Army trucks that had barreled into the city and were waiting right around the corner, and get out.

    But the citizenry, loyal to the warlord, weren’t going to take it lying down. They began to swarm with guns and rocket propelled grenades. They attacked, almost heedless of the danger. One Somali with an AK-47 rode a cow out in a strange charge, a number of other Somali’s taking cover behind (yeah, he and the cow died). But the Americans were overconfident of their Black Hawk helicopters. They didn’t think the types of weapons the Somalis had could bring them down.

    One chopper was hit and crashed. Then another. A third and then a fourth were damaged and barely made it back to safety before they crash landed. As for the Rangers and D-boys, they were in for the fight of their life.

    The book tells the story of their courage, but it also brings in the point of view of a number of actual Somalis who fought and were injured. In the process, we get a view of the battle that is both thrilling and poignant.

    Bowden did an excellent job researching and writing this. I could not put it down. It does include some military grade profanity, but it wasn’t there to titillate or shock. I’ve talked to those who saw the movie based on this book, and I could tell the book is, per usual, better than the movie. If you’re at all interested in the military and the military operations we conduct overseas, let me recommend that you read this book. 

    Delta Force Commander Shares Insights

    Delta Force is the world’s most elite counterterrorist fighting force. Pete Blaber was a Delta Force operator that worked his way up to become a Delta Force commander and took part in some of the most dangerous, controversial, and significant military and political events of our time.

    During his time in uniform, he learned a number of lessons about life, about how we make decisions and act on them. In The Mission, The Men, and Me, Blaber writes about a number of the missions he conducted and the lessons he learned from them.

    The missions were conducted in Montana, Iraq, Bosnia, and Afghanistan. One featured a commander stupidly ordering Blaber to take his men into sure destruction. Another featured some of the first plans to capture Osama Bin Laden, before 9/11. Another included a man in a gorilla suit.

    The lessons Blaber draws from these experiences are fascinating and apply to more than military operations. For example, the lesson he drew from the operation featuring the gorilla suit is something I use every day with my writing. Anyone who leads or manages or works in groups will find other critical lessons. This was another book I couldn’t put down. Anyone interested in special forces will love this book.

    Not Waving But Drowning

    “Not Waving but Drowning” is a poem by female British poet Stevie Smith. It was published in 1957 as part of a collection with the same title. The work is her most famous poem and describes a man whose distressed thrashing in the sea causes onlookers to believe that he is waving to them, not drowning

    I hadn’t thought about this poem since I was a student at BYU. Then a local poet read it as part of his remarks at a conference I recently attended. The image and message lingered with me for hours. I thought about it off and on over the following weeks. This is, for me, an incredibly powerful poem. It needs to be read aloud, I think, to be appreciated. Not in some silly way, but with the appropriate feeling. I’m going to record a reading for my website, but you can read it aloud for yourself. Or have someone else do it for you. Then read it again.

    Nobody heard him, the dead man,
    But still he lay moaning:
    I was much further out than you thought
    And not waving but drowning.

    Poor chap, he always loved larking
    And now he’s dead
    It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
    They said.

    Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
    (Still the dead one lay moaning)
    I was much too far out all my life
    And not waving but drowning.

    How often does this happen? Those onlookers, caring only superficially, thinking it was too cold, thinking he was funning. But it wasn’t too cold. And his heart didn’t give out. He was struggling for his life, and they were too preoccupied to see it.

    Too preoccupied to really see. 

    I wonder. Is there someone around me, that if I just looked, just paused from my rush, I’d see they were much too far out, and not waving, but drowning.

    Share

  • Gandhi & Waiting for Superman

    ByJohn Brown

    Enthralling History

    The miracle of Netflix means that no movie or television show becomes unavailable. And there are so many produced over the last fifty years that are so very good. I recently re-watched the 1982 Gandhi with my family and have to say it is one of those fabulous movies that’s amazing every time I watch it. Not once did the production feel dated. And even though I’d already seen it, I found myself enthralled with the events and the character played so well by Ben Kingsley. No wonder it won eight Academy Awards.

    The movie portrays the last 50 years of Mahatma Gandhi’s life. It starts in 1893, when Gandhi, educated in the UK, is thrown off a South African train for being an Indian and traveling in a first class compartment. Gandhi decides to start a non-violent protest campaign for the rights of all Indians in South Africa. Quite an undertaking in those years. He’s arrested and finds himself in a number of dicey moments, but ultimately brings change.

    Gandhi is then invited back to India, where he is considered a national hero. Leaders there urge him to take up the fight for India’s independence from the British Empire. Gandhi agrees and mounts a non-violent campaign of unprecedented scale. Nothing of this magnitude has ever happened in the recorded history of the world. Which is why it’s a rough road all the way to the end.

    There’s suspense and humor and heartbreak in this movie. But it goes far beyond entertainment. This movie will move you. It has power to change. This movie is what history should be. If you haven’t seen Gandhi, or haven’t seen it in a while, let me recommend you get it this week and sit down with friends or family to enjoy a wonderful experience.

    Education and Teachers Unions

    I find it interesting that teachers in Utah, one of the most conservative states in the union, send almost three million dollars each year to the National Education Association. That’s the $165 in NEA dues for each of the roughly 18,000 union members in Utah. This is interesting because the NEA, the largest labor union in the United States, is one of the biggest supporters of the Democratic party.

    For example, the NEA spends roughly 85-90% of its direct candidate donations on Democrats. The NEA is quick to point out that those direct candidate donations do not come out of the three million Utah teachers send to them, but from additional donations to one of their political action committees. It’s illegal, in fact, to contribute directly to candidates with money received from union dues. However, there are a lot of other ways to support candidates and causes in addition to direct donations. 

    Mike Antonucci, a teacher’s union observer, explains just how that works in his article “How Much Does the NEA Spend on Politics”. The upshot is that the NEA can spend as much as they want on politics with their dues. And the lion’s share of that spending goes toward liberal causes. ACORN, for example, has been a beneficiary of NEA grants.

    Now, I don’t see anything wrong with that. People should be able to donate to whatever cause they think is important. The NEA has just as much right to make their voice heard as anyone else. I just think it’s interesting that so many conservatives have been led to donate their cash to these causes. And it’s not just in Utah. About 60% of NEA members identify themselves as conservative or independent. And yet they donate to these liberal causes via the union. What’s even more ironic is that most of them probably do not personally donate anything close to that to conservative candidates and causes. It’s not like teachers have tons of extra cash.

    It’s a neat trick to get conservatives to donate so much money to liberals. And perhaps some teachers feel it’s the price they have to pay for the services they want from the union. I would think it would be better to start another union, but that’s me. However, this is not the only kink teachers unions have introduced into the education system.

    I’m not going to argue that teachers unions are evil. These unions arose in a time when female teachers were heavily discriminated against. They do some good things. But mixed in with the good is, well, you’ll have decide for yourself if it smells.

    A great place to begin is with the documentary Waiting for Superman. You should know this movie came out of the gate with a huge strike against it in my mind–it’s produced by Davis Guggenheim, the same guy who did An Inconvenient Truth. Good grief, that’s all I wanted was another two hours of Chicken Little running around saying “sky is falling, the sky is falling!”

    But I didn’t find any of that in the film. For example, the film doesn’t say all American schools are awful. It doesn’t say teachers are terrible. Contrary to what the movie’s critics claim, including the NEA and its many state and local affiliates, the film doesn’t suggest charter schools or standardized testing are the silver bullet answers to our issues. I simply didn’t encounter the sensational propaganda others claimed would be there.

    No. What the film does is examine some of the issues in our current system, which put so many children at a disadvantage, and the role the teacher unions play. It does not, as some critics claim, go on to suggest any solutions. It presents a problem, experienced by real parents and children right now, then poses a question: what can be done?

    I found it eye-opening and thought-provoking. I think it’s a must-see. If you have children or grandchildren in school, if you’re one of our many fine teachers or school administrators, you’ll want to watch this movie and then ask yourself that same question. What can be done? What works? What’s best for the children? And does the current way our unions operate work in any way against those interests? For those who elect not to go into immediate union-attack or union-defense mode, I think this film will introduce some valuable points to the discussion about education.

    Share