Your upcoming presentation at the
Library of Congress is titled “Social Reconstruction through Heroic
Fiction.” What is advantageous about heroic fiction in pursuit of
this goal as opposed to writing in other genres?
Heroic fiction is one of the earliest
forms of fiction known to humanity. Broadly referred to as myth,
heroic fiction allowed our ancestors to transmit values important to
culture from one generation to the next while telling a memorable
story. From the earliest stories of Gilgamesh and the Flood, heroic
behavior has been taught through story, including self-sacrifice, the
concept of putting oneself in service to an ideal, and the value of
honor, ethos, and personal struggle. Writing heroic fiction allows
the modern writer to tap into the timeless energy provided by ideas
of heroism, courage, and moral struggle, showing how these matter to
us today. And these ideals do matter, in a time where other genres
laud anti-heroes and chicanery and the supremacy of gadgetry and
those who triumph through being the worst they can be. In a market
where fiction editors tell writers they must put blood on every page,
the writer of mythic or heroic fiction may still do that, but the
battle fought will be a battle on many levels and the hero will
suffer pangs of conscience and make ethical decisions as a role model;
without the transmission of these values, any society is doomed by its
own excesses.
Although the works of Homer are
canonical, modern science-fiction and fantasy is sometimes considered
“unworthy” of advanced study. What are your thoughts on
supposedly educated people maintaining a dismissive attitude of
entire genres?
Great mythic storytellers are never classed with
“genre” writers: From Homer and Hesiod and Virgil, through
Shakespeare and Marlowe and Milton; including Mary Shelley, Kipling,
Melville, and C.S. Lewis, to the best writers of our day, if the work
has literary merit it is never classed as fantasy, or science
fiction, or horror: if it is “good” it is called literature. So
many of the formative works of heroic fiction are never labeled as
what they are – but still read, still taught, still enjoyed,
because good stories are timeless, and a good story is always one
that teaches us something about the human condition and our own
selves.
Do you think that the popularity of
“Game of Thrones” is hurtful or helpful to the reputation of
Heroic Fantasy as a genre?
Game of Thrones is a series, to my mind,
which is firmly based in anti-heroism, the situational ethics of the
late 20th century, and purposely so. Its characters
have no moral compass beyond their allegiance to their family or even
personal ambition; no higher cause; no gods or ethos drives them.
So, although it is not the violence or sex that makes me say The Game
of Thrones is not heroic fiction and can never be so defined, I say
it because GOT sneers at the shared ethos of humanity, often called
the “monomyth” because so many cultures share its tenets, and
those characters which thrive do so not out ethical superiority, but
unmitigated appetites, cunning and viciousness.
Speaking of GOT, there was recently a
social outcry when a rape was depicted on the show. However, in
previous shows a man had his genitals mutilated and there was no
social outcry. As a male, I thought this social response was highly
hypocritical. Can you offer us a perspective on this inconsistent
social response?
The lack of concern about the castration of an
anti-hero on a show full of graphic violence surprised me; the sudden
concern about one rape out of many, which rape happened to be by a
male of a female, also surprised me, but women have organized to
impose a political correctness that they believe is important; this
thirst for correctness is fine in politics, but dangerous ground when
politics dictates what artists may do or say. Despite all attempts
to rewrite history, reality remains in full force. Men are
aggressive; women are territorial; genetics predetermines this and no
amount of political pressure can do more than create a fantastical
façade over reality, which helps no one if understanding one another
is our goal. Penetration has, since ancient times, been dominance
behavior on the planet Earth: as often as not, men as well as women
were penetrated by their conquerors. The term “sack and pillage”
was socially modified from the earlier and more direct “rape and
pillage” but the two terms denote the same behaviors. Rape of
females now, in the 21st century, is a political issue;
and this series which in every episode has the most flagrant abuse of
people by other people, hit a sore spot in this particular episode.
Not, interestingly enough, because of the treatment of children,
which it might have, but in a particular rape of a woman whose own
behavior through the series has been reprehensible. In response to an
outcry about this particular rape in a story not set on Earth or
subject to any Earthly ethics or morality, the creators purport to
justify its violence as ‘historical.’ In our greatest myths,
including the Iliad and the Odyssey, men and women enslaved one
another, seduced one another, sacrificed one another, killed one
another – but did so within the acceptable norms of their culture,
and for reasons often precipitated by their gods. So to compare GOT
to mythic, Homeric, or any other heroic fiction is to compare apples
and oranges: members of a morally bankrupt culture such as the
families of Game of Thrones would in a heroic fiction eventually be
destroyed by affronted gods or heroes sent to end their reign of
terror; in that series, so far as I know, the destruction of these
characters by one another is simply another opportunity for gruesome
special effects.
I understand that “Beyond Sanctuary”
generated some controversy on its release due to a torture scene.
How is the modern public different in what it reacts to and how it
reacts, than the public of ten or twenty years ago?
The torture
scene in Beyond Sanctuary is but a few sentences long: to make one
character reveal what he knows, his friend is staked out over an
animal’s den and the animal is smoked out. The scene is not
graphic in today’s terms, but the words are clear; the torture is
worse for the man not being harmed, who tries to tell his torturers
anything to save his friend, and cannot. I’ve heard that this
torture technique, a venerable one, spread from there to many other
books and perhaps films, but I don’t know for certain. There is
sack and pillage in the Sacred Band of Stepsons series and the Beyond
Sanctuary trilogy: these are ancient war-fighters, not choir boys
and girls. There are prostitutes and drug dealers and slave traders,
as well, and traitors and vengeful deities. The realism in the Sacred
Band series may disturb some people; the treatment of women by men,
and of men by women, is often disturbing, and meant to be so. A hero
needs to struggle against heinous malfeasance, against tremendous
odds. Ours do, and sometimes they fall from grace. They struggle
most with conscience; some have the equivalent of post-traumatic
stress; above all they strive to adhere to the ethos that drives the
series, honor, loyalty, and love for one another.
You are very active with social media
such as Facebook. How has social media helped or hurt your career?
I still don’t know if participating in social media is worth the
time it takes away from writing, but I am experimenting with it. And
through it, I am gaining insights into the readership, and into the
ongoing fragmentation and recasting of cultural norms as we become a
world culture; in this homogenized future, where tolerance must
prevail, heroic fiction may once again take its rightful place as the
glue which allows societies to understand one another better and
cooperate effectively for the greater good. After all, the monomyth
has obtained in nearly every culture around the globe, and its
resonances still live in every heart among our nearly eight billion
souls..
Lastly, is there anything upcoming that
you would like to mention or promote?
We are doing the
Library of Congresstalk, of course, on June 25, 2014. The next event for us is the
release of our 2014 Heroes in Hell volume, Poets in Hell, the most
ambitious yet in this long-lived shared-world series. We are
publishing some new writers, and writing new books ourselves. We have
recently released
The Reader of Acheron, the first in Walter Rhein’s
series, a dystopian heroic fiction which has fascinating
possibilities. We’re writing a book about Rhesos of Thrace, one of
the most overlooked heroes of the Iliad, and planning both a new
series of anthologies of heroic short stories called Heroica, featuring many newer writers,
and a new volume in the Sacred Band of Stepsons series, tentatively
called “Sciamachy” and centering on precisely that: a sciamachy,
which is a war with shadows, and probably the most exciting Sacred
Band novel yet.
Beyond that, we hope to publish the
audiobook of
The Sacred Band this year with Auidble.com, narrated by
Chris Morris, close to twenty-three hours long and truly outstanding.
And we continue to search out new and exciting writers for our
micro-publisher, Perseid Press, providing books worth reading for the
experienced reader.
And, alongside all that, we’re
continuing our reissue and “Author’s Cut” program, republishing
expanded and revised versions of our favorite works from the 20th
century.
Thank you for this opportunity to tell
your readers about our current and future projects. As the heroes of
the Sacred Band say, life to you all, and everlasting glory. –
Janet Morris for Janet Morris and Chris Morris
