John C. Wright's Journal

Seedcorn is now posted.

Three of Four.

• Starving in Abundance

THIS episode contains the only scene I really thought was well done, at least, given the youthful greenness of my quill, which was the fight scene with a paintbrush.

Again, copying another writer’s style, I also attempted to adopt her worldview: and consequently the soldiers are somewhat less masculine and soldierly in their approach than would have been had I written in my own voice.

The ending is on an ambiguous but perhaps hopeful note, as mimicking the ending of LEFT HAND OF DARKNESS or THE DISPOSSESSED.

And so we say farewell to the Ekumen of Ursula K LeGuin. I will never offer this story for publication for money, and she has gone to discover the truth about the Dry Lands beyond the farthest shore.

I hold her to be a fine writer, one of the best in the field. She came from a time before 2015 when the Sci Fi field was not poisoned with politics and political correctness, and one could love a writer’s work without agreeing with the writer’s opinions as a civilian.

Seedcorn is now posted.

Three of Four.

• The End of the Envoy

IN this episode is my conceit of how political conflict is resolved, as seen from the moral foundation of a philosophy one might call Occidentalized Taoism.

Real Taoism is quietist, a philosophy of renunciation and submission to fate. Occidentals, informed by Christian thought even when we do not realize it, cannot accept true fatalism or true renunciation. The furthest we of the West tend to go in that direction is toward stoicism, or pragmatism, or the idea that ideals are worth pursuing even if they cannot be enacted.

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Seedcorn is now posted.

Two of Four.

• A Second First Beginning

The art of mimicking another author’s voice, always a doubtful proposition if not done out of pure admiration, consists of three elements: first, copying the lyricism, vocabulary, and word-choice (a particularly entertaining challenge when mimicking Jack Vance, for example); second, copying the plot-rhythm, stylistic patterns, or structures favored by the author (a thrilling challenge when mimicking A.E. van Vogt whose rapidfire sense of pacing and plot-twisting is legendary); but finally and most of all copying the theme and worldview of the author, making the kind of point with the story he himself would have made, not expressing your own opinion.

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Seedcorn is now posted.

One of Four.

• A Planet Called Patience

I have written more than one story in the background of favorite authors, such as Jack Vance and A.E. van Vogt, and, with the permission of their estates, had them published. As ever, my aim is to mimic the voice and vocabulary, capture the mood and message of the original author as best I may, intruding nothing of myself.

Some authors are more difficult to mimic that others. This was my attempt to pay homage to Ursula K LeGuin, by setting a story in the background of her Hainish Cycle, which includes such works as Rocannon’s World (1966) The Left Hand of Darkness (1969), The Word for World Is Forest (1972), The Dispossessed (1974), as well as Four Ways to Forgiveness (1994).

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