Caitlín R. Kiernan

So, a while back, I came across a nitwit somewhere online who described Echo, a character I wrote in The Dreaming, as a "Mary Sue." Previous to seeing this particular comment, my familiarity with the phrase was extremely limited. Indeed, I only had some vague impression that it was used by writers of fan fic who wished to complain about characters written by other writers of fan fic. Last time Sonya (sovay) stayed over, we talked about this, and she was surprised (and annoyed) to see the term has apparently escaped the realm of fan fic and is being applied to non-fan fic characters. Myself, I thought it was a dubious concept to begin with, so, mostly, I was just baffled.

According to Wikipedia, a "Mary Sue" is defined thusly: "A Mary Sue (sometimes just Sue), in literary criticism and particularly in fan fiction, is a fictional character with overly idealized and hackneyed mannerisms, lacking noteworthy flaws, and primarily functioning as wish-fulfillment fantasies for their authors or readers. Perhaps the single underlying feature of all characters described as 'Mary Sues' is that they are too ostentatious for the audience's taste, or that the author seems to favor the character too highly. The author may seem to push how exceptional and wonderful the 'Mary Sue' character is on his or her audience, sometimes leading the audience to dislike or even resent the character fairly quickly; such a character could be described as an "author's pet". (Note that Wikipedia has tagged this article for a lack of cited sources, verifiable claims, etc.)

Now, tonight I see that Poppy (docbrite) has come across this Mary Sue Litmus Test thingy and applied it to two of her characters. So, I thought it might be interesting to try it myself, using Sarah Crowe from The Red Tree.

Not surprisingly, the test is stupid as hell. No, really. Big-time, ginormous, Godzilla-sized stupid. But regardless, Sarah only scored an 18. The author of the Mary Sue Litmus Test writes, "11-20 points: The Non-Sue. Your character is a well-developed, balanced person, and is almost certainly not a Mary Sue. Congratulations!" So, I guess that's a relief. One thing I can stop losing sleep over. Keep in mind, by the way, I have repeatedly admitted that Sarah Crowe is my most autobiographical character to date, though I'm not precisely sure how that admission fits into this mess.

There are so very many things wrong with the basic concept of a "Mary Sue" character, I'm not about to undertake a point-by-point critique. It's just dumb. By this definition, Tom Sawyer is likely a Mary Sue. I could make a very long list of famed literary characters who would fall into the Mary Sue category. And why the hell should we accept that the person who fashioned this test is any sort of authority on anything?

Obviously, this all begs the question of whether or not Echo might be considered a Mary Sue (by the standards of the person who wrote this dumb test). Maybe some other time I'll take it again, for poor Echo, but first I'd have to read back over a bunch of issues of The Dreaming, none of which I've read since 2004.

Fuck it, Dude. Let's go bowling.

Just a couple of reader e-mails I've meaning to get to...

Brett J. writes:

Hi, I've been a fan of yours since Silk and I've been reading your journal for a while. I have a question that I don't think I've seen you cover before, but I could be wrong. What would you think of people writing fan fiction or roleplaying as characters from your stories? I don't read or write any fanfic myself, but some of my friends do and I heard that George R. R. Martin doesn't allow it. I've never read anything by him, but it did get me wondering what some of my favorite authors had to say about it.

I also want to mention that my favorite part of Daughter of Hounds was when Emmie opened the box under Deacon's bed and found the "Calvin and Hobbes" comics all having something to do with dinosaurs. It was such a seemingly throw-away line, but it made me picture Deacon reading the paper over the years and being reminded of Chance and her work every time he saw the dinosaurs, so he'd clip it out and save it. I don't know if that's what you intended, but I thought it was a really genuine and touching way to say he still thought about her without putting flashing lights all around it.

I do read your livejournal, so if you'd want to address the fanfic question there there instead of a personal response, I wouldn't mind.

1) Fan fiction — Well, having written a little fan fiction myself, and fairly recently, at that (see Nebari.net), I can hardly say that I am opposed to fan fiction. Still, it's odd and somewhat disconcerting to think about someone else writing my characters and taking them places that I never meant for them to go. I've seen a little bit of fic based on my work. Not a lot. Anyway, generally, my stance is this: as long as the author of any fic based upon my writing understands that I am the sole owner of the copyrights in question, that he or she is, undeniably, violating the copyright while I look the other way, and so long as hesheit never, ever attempts to profit financially from that fan fic without my express written permission, then no, I really have no problem with it. Also, if someone writes a piece of fan fic based upon my work which I find in some way offensive and I see it, I will request that it be removed from circulation, and I will expect that request to be promptly honoured. That's the stance I took when writing Farscape fic. I stated openly that if I were ever asked, for any reason, to take the Nar'eth fic down, I would do so immediately and without any argument. As for role-playing, same rules apply.

2) the Calvin and Hobbes strips — Actually, the strips that Emmie finds in the box beneath Deacon's bed were meant to be the strips referred to in Low Red Moon (Roc tpb, pp. 86 & 89). I imagined they were something Deacon had kept from her university office in Birmingham. But I do also like your take on this, so maybe the strips in the box are a mix of the two, strips Chance clipped herself and a few Deacon added later on. However, on the other hand, since the 3,160th and final Calvin and Hobbes strip ran on Sunday, December 31, 1995, and since LRM is set in the autumn of 2001, with most of Daughter of Hounds taking place in February 2010, it's not likely there would have been strips for Deacon to have clipped from newspapers. Indeed, the one Chance clipped and posted in her office must have been clipped while she was still in school, prior even to the events in Threshold. At any rate, thank you Brett, and I am always very pleased when a reader is moved by the little things.

Also, thanks to Lyn Dunagan for this link to a recipe for cute trilobite cookies. Sadly, that's cookies shaped liked trilobites, not made from trilobites. I used to have a link to this same recipe page from the old website, and it's good to see it's still out there.

One last thing for now. Of all the shitty/stupid Amazon "reviews" I have had heaped upon me over the last nine-plus years, the following, of Threshold, would win hands down in any competition to find that Amazon "review" which is both the shittiest and the stupidest*. Someone named Jerry Franklin in House, New Mexico, writes:

The basic story is interesting and I certainly dont dispute that Caitlan Kiernan is a talented writer and author....but the constant use of foul language(it seems like every other sentence)and the subtle anti-christian bigotry absolutely ruins the story.There are plenty of talented authors who dont resort to the juvenile use of foul,crude,and explicit sexual language in order to produce an exciting,("realistic")entertaining storyline.But hey, if you like to hear every character in the book curse Gods Name every ten words or so and also if you dont mind a constant barrage of foul expletives with an underlying anti-christian bigotry pervading and infecting the entire book,then by all means go for it.

For one, he can't even be bothered to spell my name correctly. For another, the "review" is replete with typos and grammatical errors. For yet another, while I never really thought of Threshold as being explicitly anti-Xtian — it's easier to make a case for LRM being explicitly anti-Xtain — I also have no problem with it being interpreted that way, as I have admittedly become fairly anti-Xtian over the years**. Also, I'm pretty goddamned sure that Dancy never once cursed "Gods Name" [sic], though I suppose I might be mistaken. Also also, I honestly don't think Mr. Franklin quite understands the meaning of "goddamn." Basically, I fear that Mr. Franklin needs to stay far away from my books in the future. The profanity only gets worse as the years go by, and I doubt his "God" approves of me or much of anything I write. In fact, Mr. Franklin would probably be better off just staying away from books, in general.

(sigh)

* Upon reflection, this probably isn't true. I'm sure there have been worse. There must have been worse Those that included personal attacks (usually sexist, heterosexist, or cisgenderist), for example. The one's Amazon was kind enough to delete. But still. This one's high on the list.

** Before someone e-mails to say I've hurt hisherits feelings by saying that I take a dim view of most of Xtianity (though I'd think by now it was clear), I should at least be a little more perspicuous. This is not so much a specific dislike for Xtians, as it is for all patrifocal, monotheistic religions, especially those which engage in evangelism or apocalypticism, promote superstition and ignorance, and foster nationalist, racist, sexist, homophobic, cisgenderist, or anthropocentric worldviews. For that matter, I'd say the same of any pagan, polytheistic religions which do the same. In fact, it's easiest to say I'm generally anti-religion and be done with it.