Tag: tropes

Gray After Dark: A Book Review

On By Jennifer Mugrage4 Comments

Gray After Dark is a horror story about a jogger in the Frank Church Wilderness who is kidnapped by insane, Christian-y preppers. (#notallpreppers #notevenmostpreppers #actuallyprobablyjustoneortwo #notanyChristians #butstill)

The preppers are a father, Fred, (certifiable abuser) and grown son, Hamish, (brainwashed and cowed) who take advantage of female hikers to “tame” them and make them their “wives.” They don’t just prep like normal people, gardening, learning basic gun safety, having a backup generator, keeping chickens, etc. Instead, the live completely off the grid, in a shack way out in the middle of nowhere, and like the Ingalls family, they live on game and cornbread. They think they will be glad of all this when the SHTF.

But weirdly, Fred isn’t even that capable as a prepper. He will shoot a moose or deer and then just leave it. No real hunter would do that. He doesn’t bother to bathe himself, or allow the other members of his household to fulfill basic hygiene. For example, they have to sneak around behind his back in order to wash their hands before handling food supplies. Again, any capable off-gridder would know how important cleanliness is to avoid getting sick. And, of course, Fred also damages and endangers his own project by treating the two women in his household in a way that most capable hunters wouldn’t even treat their dogs. This is just part of his overall M.O. of shooting himself in the foot (metaphorically) by not having any control over his large collection of besetting sins. “He who loves his wife, loves himself” (Ephesians 5:28) is a Bible verse that Fred has apparently never come across.

The family has a shed on their property where they keep their food supplies: gobs of “white plastic gallon buckets.” (I assume Ihli means 5-gallon buckets or bigger, because gallon buckets are awfully small for storing bulk food supplies, but anyway.) In some of these buckets is flour. In others there are wheat berries. Where did these supplies come from? They must have been bought at some point, because Fred and Hamish clearly aren’t farmers. But that is never explained. Plastic food-storage buckets are designed to keep pests out, yet somehow, the flour has become infested with weevils. This is just one of a number of examples where the descriptions of the preppers’ lifestyle makes me scratch my head. To be fair, I have never survived off grid, so I don’t know enough about it to say that all this could not happen. (And bugs somehow made their way into plastic flour-storage bins when I lived in Indonesia.) But, I do get the vibe that Ihli is in the same boat as me when it comes to survival knowledge. Her conception of these particular preppers is that they live in ignorance and squalor.

As mentioned, Fred also does not appear to be a capable Christian cult leader (if that is what the book is going for). There are, indeed, horrific Christianity-adjacent cults where women are kept prisoner with a variety of brainwashing tactics, but these cults tend to use actual ceremonies, harangues, and Bible passages (though twisted). Fred is never shown reading anything (although he’s not stupid). “Mary,” the other woman in the household, reads the Bible to the new prisoner, but we are never told what passages. Again, the level of research seems to be “they’re violent and crazy, and also there’s a Bible.”

Besides being a horror/thriller, Gray After Dark is also a little bit of a love story. The chapters swing back and forth between the perspective of Miley and her ordeal with the preppers, and her dear friend, Olympics training partner, and not-quite-yet boyfriend, Brent. That’s right, in the manner of a romance novel. Brent is tracking Miley through the Frank Church Wilderness, which he compares to “looking for a lost watch in New York City.” He is really devoted to her, and his sweet strength provides a refreshing counterpoint to Fred and Hamish’s harsh weakness. The proportion is about two or three chapters of Miley to one of Brent.

And, though I’ve been somewhat hard on this book for its portrayal of the “Christian” preppers, it works really well as a thriller/love story. It isn’t really about Christian-adjacent prepping cults. Fred and Hamish are there to provide the horror and the threat. I’m willing to accept that people like this exist, albeit in small numbers (at least in the West), just as I’m willing to accept that large numbers of people become very animalistic in an EMP apocalypse or a zombie apocalypse, for the sake of the story. And that’s what Gray After Dark is … more of an “imagine this situation” type of story than an “all of society is like this” story of the kind we might expect from Margaret Atwood. It’s a page turner, and despite some minor hiccups I enjoyed it.

What do you think? Do you like thrillers? Love stories? Apocalyptic? Wilderness survival? Have you ever gotten bugs in your flour?

Made Sick by Tropesick? A Book Review

On By Jennifer Mugrage3 Comments

During the month of October, I like to post about scary things. I guess this book qualifies.

Through a comical series of events, I found myself drafting a contemporary romance novel. I don’t read much in the genre, but I thought it might be a smart idea to try. And where better to start than here, a romance that features a pair of young writers, working on a romance novel together, and every time they write a trope into their novel, it happens in their lives?

I mean, that’s kind of clever.

Also, like a suspiciously large number of contemporary novels out there, this one offers an inside glimpse of the publishing industry. That’s a double-edged sword, of course. I can’t help but be interested in what the industry is like (at least in Okie’s experience), just as I can’t help but be intimidated and repelled by it when I find out.

Anyway.

Tropes, in case you didn’t know, are also known as cliches, things that frequently happen in any given genre. There are so many tropes that, if you have written any fiction at all, I guarantee you have used a few, with or without meaning to. This is not a bad thing. Some tropes, like “not enough beds,” are super contrived, but others have become tropes because they represent common and powerful human experiences. For example, the fact that Absent Father is a trope doesn’t make the experience any less painful for the person experiencing it.

The strength of this book is that the premise allows the author to use a great many common tropes without flinching.

My feelings about this book are deeply mixed, and I’m going to express them in the manner of Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof: “On the one hand … but on the other hand …” There will be some spoilers here.

A pro is that the book takes place in and around New York City.

A con is that this means both the main characters are New Yorkers.

A pro is that both MCs are sweet, likeable people.

A con is that they are both hoes.

A pro is that the story is truly emotional.

A con is that several of the emotional turning points are expressed in pages-long sex scenes.

Another con is that these scenes take place before the characters are truly in love.

Con: not to mention married.

A pro is that the tragic backstory is revealed, little by little, in flashbacks.

A con is that, after a ton of foreshadowing and minimal revelation, there are a bunch of this-changes-everything twists packed into the last few pages. (Wait … is that a trope, too?)

(Spoiler): a pro is the truly unexpected appearance of the Meddlesome Ghost trope right near the end.

Con: (at least, it’s a con to me): Though in retrospect, there were clues about the ghost thing, the atmosphere of the story in no way prepared me for it. I feel this was a missed opportunity to get some chills out of this story. But perhaps this is how ghosts are handled in romances.

I must rant a little bit more about the hoe problem. Katie, the heroine, is presented as sweet, someone who “loves big” even when she has been hurt. She is “bright,” in the sense that her virtue causes a glow that is perceptible to the senses. (She also wears face and body glitter.) She has suffered, but she is not hardened and bitter. And yet, when we first meet her, she is sleeping with a guy she does not even consider her boyfriend, simply because she is a young, successful writer living in NYC and she wants to “have a fun summer.” I’m sorry, but this is really clunky psychology. If you are sleeping around just for fun, you are doing serious mental damage to yourself and to everyone around you.

In fact, both the main characters are presented like this. They are Broken in Some Way (as per the trope), but their brokenness is neither the cause of, nor exacerbated by, their promiscuous behavior. This seems to be a blind spot on the author’s part. It’s not true to life, and it throws off the emotional tone of the book. Rant over.

Misanthropic Quote: Most Cliches in One Paragraph

On By Jennifer Mugrage6 Comments

Gardy was essentially convicted the day he was arrested, and his trial is only a formality. The dumb and desperate cops trumped up the charges and fabricated the evidence. The prosecutor knows this but has no spine and is up for reelection next year. The judge is asleep. The jurors are basically nice, simple people, wide-eyed at the process and ever so anxious to believe the lies their proud authorities are producing on the witness stand.

-from Rogue Lawyer, 2016, by a very lazy version of John Grisham

I’m thinking of having a little contest. Who can find a paragraph crammed with the greatest number of offensive, lazy cliches? This is my submission. This is only the second half of the paragraph, but even if I had included the first two sentences, I still think you’d be hard-pressed to find another piece of writing where not a single word is wasted on any original thought.

This Meta Mystery has me in Stitches

On By Jennifer Mugrage2 Comments

… Of course, there’s a whole lot of this book to go, and so you already know that means that either Royce is wrong [about who the murderer is], or he’ll be killed before he can tell me. I will refrain from stating my preference on this particular matter.

-Benjamin Stevenson, Everyone on this Train is a Suspect, pp. 130 – 131

When Christmas Comes: A Book Review

On By Jennifer Mugrage2 Comments

Andrew Klavan brought this novel out in time for Christmas. I got it for a loved one, and of course I had to pre-read it.

The first thing I noticed was the texture. The jacket, and the book cover beneath it, both have a unique velvety feel that makes you want to pet them. I refrained from petting, and in fact tried to touch the book as little as possible. It is supposed to be a gift, after all.

On to the contents.

This is not the best Andrew Klavan novel I’ve read, but it is still very professional … and very Christmassy.

Klavan introduces a new sleuth, Cameron Winter: handsome, lonely, etc., etc., with a tragic back story that is only partly revealed in this book. Winter is a former (spy?), now an English Lit professor. Is Klavan trying to push the buttons on the female reading population or what? On the plus side, it does allow him to put in as many literary references as he wants, without straining credibility. I also learned some new words, like “homunculus.”

I get the impression Klavan is planning to turn out a Winter series. Also, I might have heard him hint at something like this on air. He’s said that he never before invented a sleuth who seemed to have enough depth to carry a series, but now he thinks he has one.

Of course, Winter’s name makes for many thematic puns in this volume. It was a little hard for me to relate to Winter (too perfect?). He does have that intuitive, beneath-the-surface-of-the-mind method of solving crimes that I love because it’s similar to my own thought processes, and that some of Klavan’s other sleuths have also had. But it’s hard to believe of him, because the rest of him seems too Tortured Golden Boy. For example, one of Klavan’s other sleuths who had this intuitive method was a portly, aging, kindhearted private detective with vices. Lots and lots of vices. His shambling presence made his intuitive methods seem more believable, and also made his sharp mind gleam out like a bright jewel in a dark setting. Not so with Winter. But perhaps Winter will grow on me as the series progresses. Yes, I will give him at least one more book to do so. 

I also think that I figured out the setting for this book! Sweet Haven is a little town surrounded by wooded hills, set near a large lake. It is within driving distance of the Big City, which is ALSO set near a large lake … which is, in turn, within driving distance of “the capitol,” which is where the university is where Winter teaches English Lit. At one point, Winter goes to Chicago, so Chicago must be sort of nearby but can’t be the Big City. Throughout the book, the skies are dull and grey, the temps are low, and there is plenty of snow, so we’re probably not in the South.

So, after getting about a quarter of the way through the book, I decided that it is set in Michigan. I think the Big City is Detroit. I pictured Sweet Haven set some way up the coast from Detroit, on the shores of Lake Huron. That would make the capitol Lansing. So naturally I assumed that Winter is a professor at MSU, and the MSU campus is where I pictured him going, including having the awesome fight scene in his tiny on-campus office. Setting this book in Michigan, and especially at MSU, will make it even more of a personal gift for its intended recipient.

This Link Has Everything

On By Jennifer Mugrage6 Comments

“Possible shaman’s snake stick from 4,400 years ago discovered in a Finnish lake”

First of all, the tongue twister. Shaman’s snake stick. Say that five times fast! The stick was a carved wooden snake, found in a lake (stop me before I rhyme again!) or swamp, so … possibly released there on purpose?

Secondly, an adorable picture of Finns digging in the mud. They look so happy. (As anyone should when they get to dig in the mud and find archaeological artifacts.)

Thirdly, this quote: “[S]nakes are loaded with symbolic meaning in both Finno-Ugric and Sámi cosmology, and shamans were believed to be able to transform into snakes.” Add these remote people, living at the far northern edge of the world, to the long long list of the world’s peoples who find spiritual and/or cosmological significance in snakes.

This link even has a book tie-in for me! Yes, it does! The upcoming third book in my trilogy will be called The Great Snake. And yes, it has snake cosmology. And no, this is not very original, but it is based in research. TGS is not available for pre-order yet, but you can get ready for it by buying and reading The Strange Land if you haven’t already done so. TSL is where the serpent makes its debut, at least in my books.

Those Creepy Fates

On By Jennifer Mugrage6 Comments
Left to right: Broken Top, South Sister, North Sister

There is a trio of mountains in Oregon called the Three Sisters. In fact, the town of Sisters, OR, is named for them. In this picture, you can only see two of the them (the third is hiding behind).

I use this picture for my illustration because, while there is a lot of great art portraying the Three Fates, it’s a little hard to find a picture that I can use without copyright infringement.

I recently read, with my kids, The Black Cauldron. My imagination was captured by the three swamp-dwelling little old ladies (if human?) who guard the Cauldron: Orddu, Orwen, and Orgoch. As far as I can tell, Lloyd Alexander made up these ladies and imported them into his story. Though triple goddesses are a recurring feature in Celtic mythology, they are not really the same as the three fates and it’s even a falsehood that they always came in the form of maiden, mother, and crone, as you will see if you read the scathing 1-star reviews of the book The White Goddess by Robert Graves.

The Greek fates are named Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos. Clotho spins the thread of a mortal’s life, Lachesis measures out its predetermined length, and Atropos cuts it. Norse cosmology also has fates, called the Norns … in some versions three, named Past, Present and Future; in some versions a large but unknown number, according to this article. Evidently the idea of fate personified as three or more women (or woman-like beings) goes way back in Indo-European cosmology. It shows up as late as Macbeth’s three witches.

I had ignored the Fates for some time (as one does); but reading The Black Cauldron made me wonder whether you can write a fantasy that draws on Indo-European cosmology and not at least tip your hat to them.

By their very nature, the Fates are creepy. Lloyd Alexander does a great job of making this feeling come through when he introduces Orddu, Orwen, and Orgoch. The heroes of the book, on first seeing the fates’ house (and by the way, the word ‘fates’ is not used), think it is abandoned because it looks so run-down and blends so well into the swamp shrubberies. There’s a loom set up inside the house, on which is a tangled mess of a weaving. (Don’t touch!) Then the ladies show up. Rather like Tom Bombadil in The Lord of the Rings, they seem cavalier about things that ordinary people regard as matters of life and death. Orddu keeps offering to turn the travelers into toads (“You’ll grow to like it”). Orgoch is excited about this because if they were toads, it’s implied she could eat them. Orgoch, the only one of the three who is clad in a black cowl, seems to want to eat everything. As Orddu says, “It’s hard to keep pets with Orgoch around.”

The three ladies light up when they hear that the travelers know Dallben, who it transpires they discovered as a foundling and raised. They refer to him as “little Dallben.” (Dallben is over 300 years old.)

The travelers stay the night in an outbuilding belonging to the three ladies. Taran, the main character, wakes up in the middle of the night and sneaks up to the window of the dilapidated cottage, which is now alight. He returns, reporting, “They’re not the same ones!” Orwen, Orddu and Orgoch now look young and beautiful, and they spend all night working on their weaving. The next morning, however, they appear looking just as they did before, and with the same apparent disregard for human life.

Lloyd Alexander has set a really high bar with this fictional, Welsh version of the fates, and I’m not even sure I could approach it. Here is an article that dives more deeply into an analysis of the fates and of all of Prydain, the fantasy world in which the book is set. Be warned, the article assumes you are familiar with the whole series.

A Special Valentine’s Day Excerpt from The Strange Land

On By Jennifer MugrageLeave a comment

If you are a father of daughters, and you are in a Mugrage novel, just be warned you might find yourself in this situation.

* * *

Hur grinned as he saw out of the corner of his eye his daughter Amal slipping away with some young man. Then he took a sharp second look at the man’s tall, lean silhouette. He darted into the dark and seized his daughter’s wrist.

She jerked back, pulled for a second between the two of them. The man realized what was happening and came to a halt. He approached, and Hur’s face fell.

It was as he had feared. Amal had her eye on Jai, Endu’s eldest son.

“Absolutely not,” said Hur.

Now it was Amal’s face that fell. “But, Papa!” She looked at him in dismay. Her face was round and pale in the twilight; her black hair was falling loose around it. She looked on the verge of tears.

Jai was not on the verge of tears. He was, as always, master of the situation. He took a step closer, looming over Hur without letting go of Hur’s daughter’s hand.

“Do you have something to say to me, Uncle?”

“I do,” said Hur. “No daughter of mine is going to marry a son of Endu. That is final.”

“Oh, Papa!”

“It has happened before,” said Jai.

“I am ending it now,” said Hur.

Jai shrugged as if to say that his heart was not broken. “I will take this up with the chief,” he said. He let go of Amal’s hand. Then he walked away, trying to appear nonchalant, off into the darkness.

He stood head and shoulders taller than Hur. Hur could remember when Jai was born.

He could remember when Amal was born, very vividly at this moment.

“I am nineteen years old, Papa,” she snapped.

“I held you nineteen years ago,” he replied, dragging her back towards their hut. “I made a covenant then to protect you. And I still intend to.”

There was no further confrontation when they reached home. Amal hid herself in her bunk, white-faced and crying.

Hur’s wife looked at him with a question in her eyes. Hur cast up his hands and sank to a seat, elbows on knees. He felt weak and dismayed.

He did not say to himself, What was my daughter thinking? She was a nineteen-year-old girl; he did not expect her to think clearly. It was his job to think for her.

And he had failed, or at least left it a bit too late. “It has happened before.” Had Jai been lying, trying to rattle him, or had he told the truth? Hur thought it was the truth. He could think of a few times recently when Amal had been unaccounted for. Well, now she would hate Hur when he forbade the match. She would just have to hate him. Better that she should hate her father for a little while than that she should suffer an abusive fate.

* * *

“How could they make a match without asking … The Papa? Tradition!”