2008 - 08/2008 Meeting

Page Created: 09/16/10. Last Updated: 11/0110. Last Google Group Page Update: 11/01/10.

SAM BUTLER

Stoneways Trilogy:

Reiffen’s Choice

Queen Ferris

The Magician’s Daughter

The official website of the series is: http://www.valingstoneways.com/

MEETING SUMMARY:

Meeting Date: August 9, 2008.

Meeting Site: Barnes & Noble, Hackensack, New Jersey.

Official Attendance: 16.

Meeting Program: Talk by Heroic Fantasy Writer.

Notes:

The Newsletter Account refers to the our guest's childhood encounter with Stan Lee and other Marvel Comics luminaries. Here is a link to the autographed M.M.M.S. stationary: http://valingstoneways.com/blog/2010/09/04/stan-lee-and-jack-kirby/. The full account of this encounter appears after the Newsletter Account.

Meeting Memories:

Newsletter Account:

The Science Fiction Association of Bergen County met on Saturday, August 10, 2008 at Barnes & Noble in The Shops at Riverside in Hackensack, New Jersey. Fantasy author S C Butler was the featured speaker.

The Ice Nine discussion ranged from books (the Library of America's new release of Philip K Dick novels) to movies (THE DARK KNIGHT) to television (PRIMEVAL, JURASSIC FIGHT CLUB) with stops along the way to graphic novels (500 ESSENTIAL GRAPHIC NOVELS) and the Hugo Awards.

Sam Butler is the author of the Stoneways Trilogy: REIFFEN'S CHOICE, QUEEN FERRIS, and the forthcoming THE MAGICIAN'S DAUGHTER, all by Tor Books. The books follow the adventures of three young friends: Reiffen, Ferris, and Avendar. During his introduction, Philip De Parto characterized them as Young Adult Fantasy which is not labeled as such.

Well, replied Sam, they are and they aren't. The books are primarily about the power of magic and how it effects the world and the user. Mr Butler feels that for all their virtues, a major flaw of the Harry Potter books is that there is no price to pay for learning magic. The Stoneways books are all about choices and consequences. REIFFEN'S CHOICE is about whether or not Reiffen will taste the forbidden fruit of enchantment. QUEEN FERRIS is about what he does with magic. THE MAGICIAN'S DAUGHTER is about what magic does to him.

Young Sam Butler grew up in Manhattan and was a fan of comic books, fairie tales, sci fi, and similar entertainments. When he was eleven, he and two friends noticed that the address of Marvel Comics was in New York City, took a bus downtown, and got to briefly meet and receive autographs from Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, and Wally Wood on Marvel stationary. In the intervening years, his friends lost their copies, but Sam still has his. It is one of his proudest possessions.

A year later, he attempted his first fantasy novel: THE BOY KNIGHT. It was, says the author, "Twelve year old drek." He got older, went to school, became a banker, and wrote unpublished literary novels. Despite the veneer of respectability, he still dabbled in the fantastic. He came close to selling a novel similar to RATATOUILLE at one point, but that fell through.

At some point he returned to a concept he had conceived twenty years earlier. He had loved The Lord of the Rings, but felt that elves had been done to death. Dwarves, however, were relatively untouched. Mr Butler felt that he could do something original with a race of underground miners.

His literary agent at the time was Alexander White, who had connections for the sort of literary novels that were Mr Butler's usual fare. Despite being relatively unfamiliar with the genre landscape, Mr White believed in REIFFEN and began shopping it around. Patrick Lo Brutto at Tor Books bit at the package.

The editor had two questions: Is there more and is there a map? The map business is not as frivolous as it might sound. In science fiction/fantasy, the author is creating a world which does not exist. Not only does a map help the reader visualize where one place lies in relation to another, it also helps the author stay consistent with distances. (This led to a separate tangent on travel times and the like in LOTR and THE HOBBIT.)

Parallels to the Stoneways and the works of Tolkien kept coming up. Just as LOTR evolved as a vehicle to explore the names and history of Middle Earth, the Stoneways developed as a vehicle for Butler to explore the land of dwarves. I am sure that I am not the only one who considers the dwarves' underground civilization to be the most fully realized section of CHOICE.

Mr Butler cited a diverse group of writers as influences, favorites, and models. He loves Jane Austin for her ability to seamlessly move back and forth between the serious and the comic, Anthony Trollope for nuanced examinations of social relationships and money, and the early Larry Niven stories for their sheer creativity. Other writers he cited were George Bernard Shaw, Arthur Ransome, and William Kotzwinkle.

The author answered a number of questions about his approach to the process of writing. He is not much of an outliner. When he begins a book, he knows where he is starting, where he is ending, and has no idea of what will happen in the middle. He learns the details as he writes the story.

Sam Butler is a big believer in the importance of writers' groups as a place where you can get honest feedback about what you are doing right and what you are doing wrong. He belongs to an on line critique group which has produced author Elizabeth Bear among other genre writers.

Our guest also talked about a variety of writers including C S Lewis, as well as poetry, baseball, Falstaff, plot holes, perceptive editors, what's wrong with most fantasy, and many other subjects. He was fun and informative and this newsletter account in no way does justice to the experience of being at the meeting and listening to him talk and answer questions.

- - - - -

The following account is reprinted with permission of Sam Butler and can be found at SFNovelists.com on February 1, 2009:

S.C. Butler February 1st 2009

How I Met Stan Lee (and Steve Ditko)

With NY Comic Con coming up next weekend, I thought I’d tell the story of how I met Stan Lee. Especially since I’m doing a panel Saturday at 1:30. If you’re attending the con, come on by and say hello.

I grew up in New York City during the Marvel Age of comics. My friends and I were huge Spider-man, Fantastic Four, Hulk, Iron Man, Thor, and Doctor Strange fans. We even liked Sgt. Fury (as the lead said, “The war comic for people who hate war comics.”) We read every page of every issue, joined the Merry Marvel Marching Society, and even ordered the miniature armies offered on the back (re-enact all of WWII for just $1.00!).

So it was only natural one day, while perusing the letters page and declaiming to one another from Stan’s Soapbox, that we finally noticed where the company was headquartered. 625 Madison Avenue.

625 Madison Avenue! That wasn’t much more than thirty blocks from our school. An easy walk, and an even easier bus ride.

So we went the next day. Turned out the Mighty Marvel Bullpen was located about two blocks from F.A.O. Schwartz, at the time the Holy Land of toy stores, which seemed only appropriate. Two such mighty cultural centers had to exist side by side. The only thing missing was Disney.

It also turned out that 625 Madison Avenue was a midtown office tower about twenty-five stories tall. I think it’s still there. Back then all office buildings had large information boards in the lobby with the building’s tenants listed alphabetically. There was no security, just a steady stream of men and women passing in and out through the revolving doors. No one took any notice of four eleven year old boys at all. We found the company on the bulletin board and rode an elevator upstairs.

I think the Marvel offices were on the seventh floor. There was a door at the end of the hall – double wooden doors with large gold letters attached spelling out MARVEL COMICS. At least that’s how I remember it forty years later. One of us opened the door and peeked in. On the other side was a waiting room with another set of double doors in the far wall and a receptionist behind glass beside the doors.

“Come on in, boys,” she said. “Are you Marvel fans?”

One of us, braver than the rest, asked if we could meet Stan Lee. She apologized. Mr. Lee was in a meeting. Would we like to look at some back issue order forms instead?

We were disappointed at not being able to meet Stan, but back issue order forms were well worth the time and trouble of coming all the way to midtown. We were pooling our money, about eight-seven cents, which, at the time, would have bought us five or six comics, and arguing over whether we wanted Thor 167 or Tales to Astonish 182, when suddenly the second set of double doors burst open and four men strode into the room.

“HI, BOYS! ARE YOU MARVEL FANS?”

It was Stan Lee. We were in such a state of shock we hardly noticed the other three guys. We just stood there, our mouths open, while Stan got some official company stationery from the receptionist, had the other three guys sign each piece of paper, then signed them himself (“HIYA, SAM!), while doing all the talking. Only when we got back on the city bus, still trembling with the aftereffects of religious rapture, did we realize who the other guys were. Their names were right there next to the pictures of Millie the Model and the Two-Gun Kid: Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, and Wally Wood. Holy Moly! The whole Yancy Street gang!

Our euphoria lasted for weeks. But, being eleven year olds, we lost the autographs by summer. In a couple of years we graduated elementary school and went our separate ways. Our mothers threw out our comics. When we ran into one another every once in a while, we always lamented the fact that all four of us had lost our precious autographs. In time, the whole adventure began to feel like a dream, the way Narnia did for Susan.

Only it wasn’t. One day in my thirties, I decided to reread my battered old copy of Dune. Something fell out as I picked it up, a piece of paper folded into fours. I unfolded it, and there they were. Stan, Jack, Steve, and Wally, just the way I’d remembered. Except for what looked like a cigarette burn just above Stan’s name.

I framed it, of course. It hangs on the wall outside my office, (the most valuable thing I own, as far as I’m concerned). My daughters, in their late teens and twenties, periodically fight over who will get it when I move on to that great four color process in the sky. For now, however, it is a constant reminder of why I write.

And why I’m still a fanboy.