What Kings Ate and Wizards Drank - Krista D. Ball

I owe the people at Tyche Books a huge apology. I was provided with a review copy of this book and was aiming for a review in December. I did get around to reading it but then I got caught up in all the moving stuff so it is very, very, very late. But better late than never so here we go. I was first introduced to Krista D. Ball's work though the anthology Ride the Moon, which contains a piece of historical fiction based on an archaeological find in Labrador, Canada. It is one of the highlight of the Anthology for me and shows Ball's love for history. What Kings Ate and Wizards Drank - A Fantasy Lover's Food Guide is non-fiction and another way in which Ball's interest in history surfaces. It is a mixture of a cookbook, a writer's guide and a comical look at fantasy food clichés.

Food and Fantasy has a relationship that does not always do justice to the realities of acquiring supplies and storing food in pre-industrial civilizations. In her Fantasy travel guide The Tough Guide to Fantasyland Diana Wynne Jones poked fun at this several times. Her entry on food read:

See STEW, SCURVY, STEW, WAYBREAD (also known as Journey Cake) and STEW - though there are occasional BIRDS, FISH, RABBITS and pieces of cheese. Generally the diet is an unvaried one, although MARSH DWELLERS can do wonders with ROOTS. Puddings are unknown except occasionally in the court of KINGS. Tourists who suffer from diabetes should be quite safe. 

Something must have happened in the years since she wrote that, recently a cookbook based on George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire was published. Martin's decadent descriptions of court food are not for the majority of the population of Fantasyland. Ball's focus is more on everyday food.

It is quite possibly to write a whole library on the topic of food in history. Ball needs to limit herself to keep the subject manageable. She chose to focus on historical pseudo medieval European settings with only minor detours to other periods or parts of the world. Until recently encompassed a very large share of what was published in Fantasy. The genre is shifting towards other settings though. Asian inspired civilizations and other time periods are becoming more common. I wonder how much this limits the use of this book as a writer's guide. There are lot of general observations that are of value in any setting but not much in the way of concrete examples outside the European setting.

Within the limited scope of the book Ball is very thorough in her examination of food and how to acquire it. Hunting and foraging, the logistics of feeding a city or an army, seasonal food and preservation methods, food as a weapon, food available to different  social classes, the availability of beverages, food and health, equipment needed to prepare and carry food and even a bunch of recipes for the more daring of us to try out. I guess the most important lesson of the book is that feeding yourself in a medieval society takes a lot of knowledge and skill. The sheer amount of physical labour required to produce food and, perhaps even more importantly, preserve it before it spoils is easily overlooked. In our age of supermarkets and year round availability of fresh products we are experiencing unprecedented luxury. Perhaps with the majority of the population so far removed from the basic processes that provide our food, it is not surprising authors get so many of the details wrong. This book really impresses the value of food in a society where having enough of it is not a given on the reader.

Ball's writing style is fairly light. There's an impressive bibliography in the back of the book but she carefully avoided making it into a scientific publication. I found it to be very readable even if I at some at some points I would have wanted to know a little more. That kind of depth was, in all fairness, not what Ball was aiming for. The chapters usually include some sort of situation one encounters frequently in Fantasy. Ball then examines how food is generally handled in these situation and where more historical accuracy could be achieved. Or in some cases how blatant basic errors can be avoided. Not that any Fantasy author would (or should) let a lot of the things described in this book get in the way of a good story, but nothing makes our suspension of disbelief come crashing like a hero consuming a meal that takes hours to prepare while on the run from his enemies, or a heroine walking straight for the nearest patch of strawberries in early spring in a forest she's never been to before. This book makes you aware of all the little things that are easy to avoid once they have been pointed out to you.

One other thing this book reminded me of that is a bit outside the scope of the project is the way we only seem to use the choice parts of an animal or the best produce to eat fresh. In times when meat was a luxury few could afford on a regular basis, things were eaten that would make the stomach of more than a few picky eaters roll.  Pretty much every part was used and then we are not talking about unscrupulous cooks and merchants supplementing their supplies with things that even back then were not considered fit for consumption. I guess the whole horse meat scandal that broke recently shows that in that respect at least not a lot has changed. These days we may be a bit more wasteful but especially when it comes to meat, everything that cannot be sold in any recognizable form is still processed in some product. With the increased distance from the primal process of growing our own food many people have lost touch with where their food actually comes from. The focus of this book may be on how to avoid mistakes in writing in a historical fantastic setting but, perhaps unintended, it also underlines some of the absurdities of food supply chains and the production of processed foods.

What Kings Ate and Wizards Drank is a humours book and not a very heavy read but it touches upon the very basics of our survival. As such it points out a lot of very important matters to us if you are prepared to read between the lines. You could read it as a writing guide or a humorous reflection on the Fantasy genre. It is both of these things, but I thought there was even more to it if you project what this book has to teach on our current food situation. Looking at it in this light, What Kings Ate and Wizards Drank is a surprisingly relevant book. It is one of the areas in which I would have liked a bit more information. I see plenty of opportunities to expand it, or even have a more science fictional look at the subject. Maybe food in genre fiction is just too large a topic for one volume. What Ball has produced here is an intriguing introduction to the subject however. Read it and let and let Ball tickle your curiosity. You'll never look at stew quite the same way again.

Book Details
Title: What Kings Ate and Wizards Drank
Author: Krista D. Ball
Publisher: Tyche Books
Pages: 196
Year: 2012
Language: English
Format: E-book
ISBN: 978-0-9878248-8-2
First published: 2012

Blightcross - C.A. Lang

A while ago I read the themed anthology Ride the Moon, edited by M.L.D. Curelas and published by Tyche Books. This publisher has just stated up, in fact I think Ride the Moon was their first release, and they let me have a look at their forthcoming titles. One novel that caught my attention was Blightcross by Canadian author C.A. Lang. Lang also had a story in Ride the Moon, titled Tidal Tantums. I didn't mention it in the review. Blightcross is a full length novel that could very well be linked to that story. The novel is pretty hard to categorize but I guess it might fit the dieselpunk label. The description promised a mix of magic and technology, quite different from more traditional fantasies, which is one of the things that attracted me to the novel. And indeed, traditional it is not.

Meet Capra Jorassian, fugitive solder and con artist. Her life has been a string of attempts to steal from the gullible rich while staying out of the hands of the agents sent to capture her and bring her to justice. During one of Capra's attempts to gain wealth, on such agent finds her. They have a history together and he is not going to let her slip away easily. After a wild pursuit Capra and her companion end up on the streets of Blightcross with just the clothes on their backs. They need work quickly. Fortunately a booming city with a burgeoning oil industry ought to provide plenty of opportunities. And indeed, they soon find a promising job. Stealing a work of art from Till Sevari, the mad dictator that rules the city. They quickly find out the job is a bit more complicated than a simple burglary. Soon events spiral out of control and Capra needs to find a way to stop the complete destruction of the city.

Lang has created a world where technology has advanced quite a bit. There are airships, vast oil refineries, internal combustion engines and all sorts of mechanized vehicles. In short, anything that could be found before the digital revolution appears to be present in some form. That is not to say it is a modern world in all aspects. Many of the tasks that are now being handled by machines were once accomplished by a form of magic. This magic still lingers in the world and although it appears to be obsolete and on the way out, it still fascinates the dictator of Blightcross. The is a contradiction in his actions to subdue and replace magic though is huge industrialization effort and his private research into its nature. In fact his actions are so erratic at times that he must be even more insane than the general population seems to believe he is. There is more than a bit of megalomania in him, as well as the belief that he is acting for the good of the city. He's one of the more interesting characters in the novel although the author leaves us with more than a few questions about his past.

The city of Blightcross is described as an industrial wasteland basically. There is heavy industry just about everywhere and the huge expansion of the city has attracted large numbers of migrant workers for lesser developed regions of the world. The city is rife with ethnic tensions and social conflict, working conditions are appalling and pollution is severely limiting the life expectancy of the workers. Three is clearly a parallel with the situation in the middle east present in this novel, where oil rich states employ vast numbers of migrant workers in their industries and the wealth that pours into these nations is distributed in dubious ways. I couldn't help but wonder if there is some commentary on Canada's own oil industry in there somewhere. In particular it's environmental track record.

There is quite a bit of worldbuilding in this novel but in the end, it is a very plot driven tale. Lang doesn't pause to explain the political situation or historical aspects to the reader in the middle of a fight or heated discussion. He keeps the pace high and distractions to a minimum. It does result in lots of unanswered questions about what is going on the wider world. Capra was involved in a brutal armed conflict, the details of which, apart from a number of traumatic memories from Capra, are pretty scarce. The geopolitical ambitions of Blightcross and its relationship with its neighbours (and one assumes customers) is also fairly underdeveloped. I appreciate the author wanting to keep the pace up in this novel but I think in this area the novel could have been better. Second world fantasies do need a coherent structure in which to set the story and in the case of Brightcross, some aspects remain so vague that the responses of the characters, apparently stemming from their ethnic background, don't always make sense to the reader.

That being said, there is a lot of action in this novel, from strange machines wreaking havoc to supernatural beings threatening the world and from frantic attempts to break into strange buildings to desperate pursuits through the city, this novel has is all. Capra is quit an active main character. Lang decided to focus on a female main character, an interesting choice for a male author in his debut novel. Carpa is a very independent and somewhat stubborn woman. Years on the battlefield have shown her she is physically quite capable of taking on any man and this convictions shows in her actions. One of the many elements of the novel that could have done with a bit more attention is the observation that some of the cultures Capra encounters are not as emancipated as she feels they should be. Apparently she has a history there too.

Blightcross is an action packed novel and quite impressive for a debut. While I felt it lacked a bit of detail in some areas, and failed to properly explore the depth that is obviously present in this secondary world, it is an entertaining tale. One that shows a powerful imagination on the authors part and opens plenty of opportunities to further explore the setting. There are no easy answers or black and white situations in this novel, Capra is as flawed as any of the people who surround her and the author isn't afraid of showing the reader just that. In short, it is a promising novel. I wonder if the author means to write more stories in this setting.

Book Details
Title: Blightcross
Author: C.A. Lang
Publisher: Tyche Books
Pages: 350
Year: 2012
Language: English
Format: e-book
ISBN: 978-0-9878248-3-7
First published: 2012

Ride the Moon - M.L.D. Curelas

Ride the Moon is the first publication of Canadian publisher Tyche Books. It appeared on the last day of February but due to my extremely low productivity, I have only finished reading it last night. In their own words they "crave innovative stories that push the boundaries of our imaginations."  Ride the Moon certainly shows that ambition. It is a collection of stories with the moon as the theme of the stories and ranges from the horrific to the fantastic, from historical to post apocalyptic and from the mythological to the surreal. It certainly tries to live up to the publisher's mission statement but the editor is taking a risk with such a wide spread too. Even for a reader with an appreciation for several genres, not all these stories will be winners. It is an anthology that will stretch the limits of your literary comfort zone.

The anthology contains nineteen stories by authors from all over the English speaking world, although most of them are Canadian. I've read work by exactly none of the authors included, so I went into this anthology not knowing what to expect. Nineteen stories is a bit too much for me to discuss them individually, so I've picked a few I liked in particular.

The first story I want to discuss is The Dowser by Kevin Cockle. In a way it contains a lot of elements in one story that other stories zoom in on. The story doesn't mention a date specifically but I got the impression it is set in a future some decades from now, when a scarcity of oil is making itself felt. The main character, a man with an almost supernatural talent for finding oil deposits where technology delivers inconclusive measurements, is being lead to an ancient mystery. Oil deposits as a a trail of breadcrumbs leading to an Aztec deity. I thought this story fused the modern oil scarcity and environmenental concerns with the Aztec mythology very well.

Moon Dream by Rebecca M. Senese is quite a different story. This one too, is set in the future but one where economic collapse has lead to an end of all hopes of conquering space, people have more immediate concerns than sinking resources into developing spaceflight. Not everybody is ready to give up on the dream of walking on the moon however. Julia Threswald is determined to travel there one day, and if no space agency can help her, she will get there herself. There is a kind of Clarkean optimism to this story. The main character has a firm grasp of physics and although the author does not put as much emphasis on the technical side as Clarke would have done, there is the firm belief that there is a technical solution to this problem. A fine piece of science fiction.

On the Labrador Shore, She Waits by Krista D. Ball is a piece of historical fiction based on archaeological finds near L’Anse Amour in Labrador, Canada. The burial site contained the body of an adolescent, obviously buried with great care 7,500 years ago. One theory is that it was a sacrifice made to ensure the survival of the people in times of hardship. Ball spins a tale of pride, sacrifice and love around the archaeological evidence. It brings the hardships of living in such a challenging environment very close. It is always hard to make the reader feel why a character would see human sacrifice as the only way out in such a situation but in this story Ball pulls it off. It combines an emotionally powerful story with enough historical detail to make me do a search on the actual burial site.

Small Seven's Secret by Billie Millholland could be considered a historical piece as well but this time with a distinct Steampunk flavor to it. A Chinese scientist tries to harness the power of the moon to create a link between the Chinese Dowager Empress Cixi and the ruler of the British Empire Queen Victoria. To do it, he needs the cooperation of the untrained Zhang sisters, three of whom perish in the attempt. The seventh sister is not about to allow more of her siblings to be lost to the ambitions of the scientists. It's an intoxicating blend of magic and technology. Like a lot of good short fiction, the story leaves the reader with the idea that it could very well have been the core of a longer work.

One of the stories that leans more towards horror is Husks by Isabella Drzemczewska Hodson. One of the things the moon is often associated with is creatures of the night and this story contains a disturbing pair of those. A brother and sister grow up in an orphanage. They are a peculiar pair but nobody pays much attention to them, except for April, one of the women taking care of them. The plot itself is fairly predictable but it is such a beautifully written story that I had to include a few comments on it in this review. The omniscient narrator manages to convey both the strangeness of the pair, as well as the urges that lead to the inevitable conclusion of the story. It's written in the present tense with beautifully flowing prose. Stylistically, this story clearly stands out in the anthology.

Although not all stories worked equally well for me, there is plenty to enjoy in this anthology. Variety is the word here, I think there is something for is everybody. The e-book version I've read is professionally edited and apart from a few mistakes in the page numbers it was remarkably clean as e-books go. It is always nice to see a publisher take care with the e-book edition of their books. If this is the standard Tyche Books means to keep itself to, I think we'll see some very interesting publications from them in years to come. With Ride the Moon they have certainly added a few names to my list of authors to keep an eye on.

Book Details
Title: Ride the Moon
Author: M.D.L. Curelas
Publisher: Tyche Books
Pages: 268
Year: 2012
Language: English
Format: E-books
ISBN: 978-0-9878248-1-3
First published: 2012