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Q: You wrote in your most recent Q&A that Mildmay is a champion for the underdog. Do you feel that in hindsight, Felix is also inclined that way?
Yes, he acts like an asshole (although I cherish the character very much) but the worst trouble he gets in is mostly because he tries to help wandering spirits, repairing things that are broken (the Virtu itself), revenge on behalf of Gideon and Mildmay, and the things in Corambis which I won´t mention. Would you say that maybe Felix is the champion of the ´unsaved´? As a total projection of the complexities he himself has to deal with?
A: Yes. Mélusine p. 332:
( quote )
Q: Does Mildmay have precognitive abilities? There are a few times when he has foreshadowing of something going wrong, and he says that whenever he ignores that feeling, it always does. He can't see ghosts, but he does seem sometimes that he can feel when they're there (Boneprince's Garden, for example), but that might just be because he doesn't ignore the possibility, rather than feeling them directly.
And if he does, does that mean that these things aren't automatically tied into having magic or not? Like how some annemar can see ghosts?
A: Like his sense of direction, Mildmay's instincts are preternatural. I don't know the exact mechanism, but I think it's more a matter of processing subliminal cues than it is precognition or clairvoyance.
Q: I will probably regret asking this, but what does Felix mean by his keeper doing "lamprey" stuff? Isn't that a kind of eel?
A: Yes, a lamprey is a kind of sucker-mouthed, parasitical eel--or eel-like marine animal. In Mélusine, the word is used to refer to child prostitutes who specialize in fellatio.
Q: On what historical works did you base the traditions and theories of magic in the books?
A: Um. I didn't. To the best of my knowledge, I made it all up.
Q: Re: Apprentice to Elves: Are you enjoying it as much as you did the first one? Or haven't you started it yet?
A: We haven't started it yet, as both![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
matociquala and I are currently in the part of the creative cycle after the forest fire has been through and before things start to grow again. But we have a lot of shiny ideas.
Q: Ages ago you said that something you almost threw out in the first 50 pages of _Melusine_ became important in Corambis. Tragically I have lent out my copy of the book, so I can't look for it. Do you remember what you were talking about? Sorry I can't find the link to your exact quote. Or any other example of something you insisted on keeping without knowing why that did turn out to be important.
A: Oh dear. I'm afraid I don't remember that specific thing--but I can give you the example of Nera, which my editor wanted me to take out of Mélusine (because, as always, we were severely pressed for space) and I insisted on holding onto, even though I didn't know why. Come to find out, it's vital to The Mirador and not insignificant to Corambis.
... the thing I was talking about may have been the dream Felix has of being lost in a labyrinth on page 19.
It's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards.
Q: What about the Jeanne-chat-type of names? I know enough French to make out the mechanism, but what's behind those names? Are they nicknames or actual given names? And why is it done only with Jean/Jeanne?
A: No, they're real given names. It's an extrapolation of the Francophone habit of combining Marie with almost anything (the example I can remember off the top of my head is one of Barbara Hambly's Benjamin January books, where there's a minor character named Marie-Neige: Mary-Snow). I swapped it over to Jean/Jeanne so that it could be a co-ed phenomenon. The reason in Meduse (the world of the books) is that Jean/ne is such a common name that people started putting common nouns with it to distinguish one from another. So there's Jean-Soleil (John-Sun) and Jean-Tigre (John-Tiger) and Jeanne-Chatte (Jane-Cat) and Jeanne-Bette (Jane-Betty)--it doesn't have to be a common noun; it can be a (more ordinary) compound name like Marie Antoinette or Maria Theresa. (But making up the names with common nouns is more fun.)
And here's a question that's been asked a number of times:
Q: One thing that appealed to me most about Mildmay's character was the vast repertoire of stories that he knew. Since I knew that you'd based some of Mehitabel's plays on real plays, I was wondering whether any of Mildmay's stories had real-life equivalents.
Q: Do you know any of the stories that Mildmay tells. I'm currently in the middle of rereading Melusine, and I want desperately to hear the whole stories about the Iron Black Wolves, Jennico Sun Eyes, The Princess of Comets (not Comments as I just typed), and all of those poor doomed rulers of Marathat. To say nothing of the cultural significance of Sunlings.
Q: Will you ever write an anthology of the amazing stories that Mildmay tells, such as the one about Jenico Sun-Eyes (Melusine, pg 136 in the paperback)? They sound amazing and I want to here them. On a similar note, are any of them based on extant stories, myths and legends? if so, which?
A: Sadly, the answer to almost all of this is, no. Mildmay's stories are deliberately left very sketchy precisely so that I wouldn't have to write them. Writing folktales that sound like genuine folktales, instead of like twee and overly clever pastiches of folktales, is hard; I did try to write the story he tells the merrows--Julien Tinderbox and the vixen named Grief--but I have since become exceedingly grateful that it had to be cut for space, since I was uncertain about it at the time and have since come to find it embarrassing.
By and large, I put the story references together the same way I put together the scraps of history, so that the tiny bits you get can act like miniature poems. And there are some real-world analogues. Brunhilde (I don't remember how I ended up spelling her name, but I didn't do anything crazy, so she's recognizable), for example, is Brunhilde, only obviously instead of the stupid self-sacrifice ring of fire blah blah patriarchal oppression blah, she got to go around having adventures instead. Mark Polaris is Marco Polo. Things like that. But the stories themselves don't have analogues--or if they do, they're severely twisted. ( spoiler for Corambis )
And to round out the issue of Mildmay's stories:
Q: For a street kid with no formal education, Mildmay sure knows a lot about Melusine royalty/lineage and Mirador intrigue. Even more than some people who have an interest in the subject, or who live in the Mirador. I know he picks up stories, but where did he learn all these esoteric facts?
A: Popular culture in the Lower City has kept the history of the Marathine monarchy alive, whereas in the Mirador it's been severely out of fashion--not to say suppressed--since Michael Teverius murdered his cousin John Cordelius and declared the Protectorate. So the Lower City knows all about the kings and queens, the Thestonarii, the Ophidii, the Cordelii, whereas the Mirador has the history of the Teverii down cold.
[Ask your question(s) here.]
Yes, he acts like an asshole (although I cherish the character very much) but the worst trouble he gets in is mostly because he tries to help wandering spirits, repairing things that are broken (the Virtu itself), revenge on behalf of Gideon and Mildmay, and the things in Corambis which I won´t mention. Would you say that maybe Felix is the champion of the ´unsaved´? As a total projection of the complexities he himself has to deal with?
A: Yes. Mélusine p. 332:
( quote )
Q: Does Mildmay have precognitive abilities? There are a few times when he has foreshadowing of something going wrong, and he says that whenever he ignores that feeling, it always does. He can't see ghosts, but he does seem sometimes that he can feel when they're there (Boneprince's Garden, for example), but that might just be because he doesn't ignore the possibility, rather than feeling them directly.
And if he does, does that mean that these things aren't automatically tied into having magic or not? Like how some annemar can see ghosts?
A: Like his sense of direction, Mildmay's instincts are preternatural. I don't know the exact mechanism, but I think it's more a matter of processing subliminal cues than it is precognition or clairvoyance.
Q: I will probably regret asking this, but what does Felix mean by his keeper doing "lamprey" stuff? Isn't that a kind of eel?
A: Yes, a lamprey is a kind of sucker-mouthed, parasitical eel--or eel-like marine animal. In Mélusine, the word is used to refer to child prostitutes who specialize in fellatio.
Q: On what historical works did you base the traditions and theories of magic in the books?
A: Um. I didn't. To the best of my knowledge, I made it all up.
Q: Re: Apprentice to Elves: Are you enjoying it as much as you did the first one? Or haven't you started it yet?
A: We haven't started it yet, as both
matociquala and I are currently in the part of the creative cycle after the forest fire has been through and before things start to grow again. But we have a lot of shiny ideas.Q: Ages ago you said that something you almost threw out in the first 50 pages of _Melusine_ became important in Corambis. Tragically I have lent out my copy of the book, so I can't look for it. Do you remember what you were talking about? Sorry I can't find the link to your exact quote. Or any other example of something you insisted on keeping without knowing why that did turn out to be important.
A: Oh dear. I'm afraid I don't remember that specific thing--but I can give you the example of Nera, which my editor wanted me to take out of Mélusine (because, as always, we were severely pressed for space) and I insisted on holding onto, even though I didn't know why. Come to find out, it's vital to The Mirador and not insignificant to Corambis.
... the thing I was talking about may have been the dream Felix has of being lost in a labyrinth on page 19.
It's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards.
Q: What about the Jeanne-chat-type of names? I know enough French to make out the mechanism, but what's behind those names? Are they nicknames or actual given names? And why is it done only with Jean/Jeanne?
A: No, they're real given names. It's an extrapolation of the Francophone habit of combining Marie with almost anything (the example I can remember off the top of my head is one of Barbara Hambly's Benjamin January books, where there's a minor character named Marie-Neige: Mary-Snow). I swapped it over to Jean/Jeanne so that it could be a co-ed phenomenon. The reason in Meduse (the world of the books) is that Jean/ne is such a common name that people started putting common nouns with it to distinguish one from another. So there's Jean-Soleil (John-Sun) and Jean-Tigre (John-Tiger) and Jeanne-Chatte (Jane-Cat) and Jeanne-Bette (Jane-Betty)--it doesn't have to be a common noun; it can be a (more ordinary) compound name like Marie Antoinette or Maria Theresa. (But making up the names with common nouns is more fun.)
And here's a question that's been asked a number of times:
Q: One thing that appealed to me most about Mildmay's character was the vast repertoire of stories that he knew. Since I knew that you'd based some of Mehitabel's plays on real plays, I was wondering whether any of Mildmay's stories had real-life equivalents.
Q: Do you know any of the stories that Mildmay tells. I'm currently in the middle of rereading Melusine, and I want desperately to hear the whole stories about the Iron Black Wolves, Jennico Sun Eyes, The Princess of Comets (not Comments as I just typed), and all of those poor doomed rulers of Marathat. To say nothing of the cultural significance of Sunlings.
Q: Will you ever write an anthology of the amazing stories that Mildmay tells, such as the one about Jenico Sun-Eyes (Melusine, pg 136 in the paperback)? They sound amazing and I want to here them. On a similar note, are any of them based on extant stories, myths and legends? if so, which?
A: Sadly, the answer to almost all of this is, no. Mildmay's stories are deliberately left very sketchy precisely so that I wouldn't have to write them. Writing folktales that sound like genuine folktales, instead of like twee and overly clever pastiches of folktales, is hard; I did try to write the story he tells the merrows--Julien Tinderbox and the vixen named Grief--but I have since become exceedingly grateful that it had to be cut for space, since I was uncertain about it at the time and have since come to find it embarrassing.
By and large, I put the story references together the same way I put together the scraps of history, so that the tiny bits you get can act like miniature poems. And there are some real-world analogues. Brunhilde (I don't remember how I ended up spelling her name, but I didn't do anything crazy, so she's recognizable), for example, is Brunhilde, only obviously instead of the stupid self-sacrifice ring of fire blah blah patriarchal oppression blah, she got to go around having adventures instead. Mark Polaris is Marco Polo. Things like that. But the stories themselves don't have analogues--or if they do, they're severely twisted. ( spoiler for Corambis )
And to round out the issue of Mildmay's stories:
Q: For a street kid with no formal education, Mildmay sure knows a lot about Melusine royalty/lineage and Mirador intrigue. Even more than some people who have an interest in the subject, or who live in the Mirador. I know he picks up stories, but where did he learn all these esoteric facts?
A: Popular culture in the Lower City has kept the history of the Marathine monarchy alive, whereas in the Mirador it's been severely out of fashion--not to say suppressed--since Michael Teverius murdered his cousin John Cordelius and declared the Protectorate. So the Lower City knows all about the kings and queens, the Thestonarii, the Ophidii, the Cordelii, whereas the Mirador has the history of the Teverii down cold.
[Ask your question(s) here.]
