There are actually no Wallace Stevens references, this time (I should have used the above title last week) but, anyway, my latest Blog Gate post is up. It’s about episodic novels or, as everyone else on the planet calls them, fix-ups.
I don’t actually say so anywhere in the Blog Gate post, but the reason why this is on my mind is that I’m in the last throes of an episodic novel, the sequel to the upcoming Blood of Ambrose, and I’m flipping out about it, a little. In part, the Blog Gate post is an attempt to talk myself down. It must have worked because my face keeps smashing into the keyboard, an infallible sign of relaxation.
An enjoyable wee post. It’s no surprise to me to see you blog about the things you’re working on. Happens even to the worst of us.
Thanks! I probably should have been actually working on the novel instead… deadline looming… panic setting in…
No panicing!
Go write or I’ll sing at you!
That’s a threat I take seriously!
A very interesting article.
Thanks!
If I bought a copy of your novel, would there be any chance to get it autographed? 😎
I’ll be happy to autograph his novel for you. What should I put?
I’d be glad to autograph anything that doesn’t get away fast enough. Actually, this has already gotten me in trouble a couple of times.
In Ansible, David Langford occasionally makes jokes about readers hunting down “rare unsigned copies” of an author’s work.
LOL. That was funny. I have a signed copy of “Chicks in Chainmail.” Yeah baby!
When someone else writes a fix-up, it’s an “episodic novel.” When I write a fix-up, it’s a “mosaic novel.” I think the sequel to Blood of Ambrose should be a mosaic novel, too.
If I were pulling all my Star Smasher stories into a book-length collection, I’d order the first four chronologically, while breaking up the fifth existential one as interludes, basically glueing the pieces together with high-minded, ham-handed literary tricks, making the final act a climax of the mind (The Space King that Star Smasher has been searching for all this time is actually… himself!)
If you think about it, any book with more than four POVs is something of a
fix-upmosaic novel, since each character’s story would come out around novelette length. If each of those stories take place is disparate times or locations, the book fits even more neatly into those definitions.And I would love to have sign Blood of Ambrose. Where should I send it?
“Mosaic” makes sense–it’s a picture built out of pieces. “Episodic” may be too vague–lots of novels are episodic in structure (Huck Finn, Tom Jones, etc.) without being a fix-up in the Van Vogtian sense.
I could just have one of my Golden cousins sign Blood of Ambrose for you; the postage might be a little cheaper.
[edited for clarity]
Plus, mosaic sounds more appealing.
episodic novels or, as everyone else on the planet calls them, fix-ups.
So it’s okay for me to have been confused by “episodic”? I’d never equated it to “fix-up” before.
–Jeff Stehman
As far as I know, I’m the only one who calls fix-ups episodic novels. I guess “fix-up” bothers me because it’s used so vaguely. People use it to describe things that are really different (series collections vs. novelized stories).