The Critics’ Corner
Michael J A Tyzuk writes about...
Danielle L. Parker’s “The Thief of Joy and Light”
Another issue of Bewildering Stories has hit the stands, so to speak, and with it comes another opportunity for me to make myself especially popular by tearing apart the work of others. So, you ask, who is the designated victim this week, Yon Scotsman? Why, none other than my own Partner in Crime, one Danielle L. Parker.
I always find myself attracted to longer works of fiction because, quite frankly, shorter stories intimidate the hell out of me. This is probably because I’m simply incapable of writing anything good that’s less than 25,000 words or so, and as a result I tend to regard people who can produce good work in such a short framework to be nothing less than living gods.
unfortunately for me, I seem to be alone in this handicap. Danielle certainly doesn’t have it. Long or short fiction, Danielle has a definite style and flavor to what she writes. She is equally comfortable with the well known purple prose of the pulp fiction style, as well as the less richly flavored, more intrinsically simple style that seems to have evolved in its place. Its a comfort that I envy, for even on paper I can only be who and what I is.
“The Thief of Joy and Light” is a continuation of Danielle’s Captain Blunt series. For those of you who haven’t been paying attention, Captain James Sherman Blunt, Master of The Pig’s Eye, is an independent space-farer, and the kind of fellow that you do not want to mess with. Basically he travels from world to world, meeting impossible creatures and having implausible adventures, while at the same time managing to come out the other side more or less intact.
Personally, I rather like the Captain Blunt character. Why? Simple: I figure it takes some serious intestinal fortitude to pilot a ship called The Pig’s Eye.
“The Thief of Joy and Light” chronicles the story of Captain Blunt’s first face-to-face contact with a race of snake-like creatures called Asps. A very high ranking member of the Asp social hierarchy wants the good Captain to perform a very special mission for him. If he succeeds, he gets a rather large sum of money. If he fails, or if he tries to run, then there isn’t any place in the galaxy where he can hope to hide.
Personally, I think that the biggest compliment I can pay to this story is that it’s just plain fun to read. That’s something that a lot of writers seem to take for granted these days. So many people in our profession are so obsessed with trying to write that next bestseller, or the next great work of literary art that they forget that the best kind of writing is the fun kind. Its a lesson that I’ve tried very hard to keep in my mind, and I know that Danielle has gone out of her way to do the same thing.
The Captain Blunt stories are just plain fun to read. That’s all there is to it. Escapism, pure and simple. And inasmuch as I think that some elements of the story can benefit from being expanded upon, I also think that to do so would be to possibly compromise the fun factor. With that in mind, I say don’t change a damn thing. You’ll wreck the whole thing if you do.
That’s not to say that “The Thief of Joy and Light” is perfect, because it isn’t. In that, Danielle isn’t alone. None of my stories are perfect, not by any stretch of the imagination. Come to think of it, I can’t think of anyone in the Bewildering camp who does write perfect fiction right off the hop. That’s okay, though. Perfection is overrated. Besides which, it just isn’t any fun.
If you want escapist fiction that’s just plain fun to read, a Captain Blunt story won’t steer you wrong. Highly recommended.
Copyright © 2005 by Michael J A Tyzuk
Thank you, Mike. Danielle will surely appreciate your encomium! It’s certainly deserved.
Just a couple of questions for you. If you find perfection somewhere, please let us know. In the meantime I think we’ll just muddle through as best we can.
Can’t pulp literature be... literature? After all, who said, “Life is problems”? “Thief” raises some interesting questions, such as sexuality between sentient species. Danielle handles it better than any other example I know of. It goes beyond a joke: what does it imply about sex in space, where everyone presumably wears a unisex-looking space suit? Or in any place where it doesn’t really matter what “people” look like? A poem in issue 142 approaches that very theme from another angle: Thomas D. Reynold’s “Our Eyes Are What Makes Us Human.”
Finally, what about the story itself? Can’t it be read as an acerbic — even acidic — allegorical satire on theological manipulation and oppression in today’s society? Doesn’t the manner of Captain Blunt’s victory over Lziren provide the ultimate rebuttal? Surely our patron saint is at this very moment enjoying a huge chuckle at seeing his life and work vindicated yet again. It’s time to repeat his own epigraph, which we’ve borrowed for Bewildering Stories as a kind of motto:
Dear friends who read this book,
Shun affectation and pretense;
And, as you visit, just take a look:
You'll find no harm and no offense.
True, it contains much to criticize
Unless you laugh, I'm sure you'll find;
But that is best, as I now realize,
Since ills beset us time out of mind.
Better, then, to write of laughter as we can:
Laughter is what's natural to man.
— François Rabelais
Copyright © 2005 by Don Webb
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