Even in showing utopian futures–
For example
Those shining Starfleet days to come
With concertos played and plays performed
A shining-headed captain tooting his flute–
It is only the older arts that are seen
Unless there is some pop-point to be made
About kids these days and their newfangled ways
It must be remembered “U” comes long after “dys,” Something familiar from dictionaries and thesauri No few writers have all too clearly used, And it’s not likely the lawyers were lonely Being sent away
Even, As rarely, When new arts are made To feature in those hopeful futures, Think of where the poets appear And consider if it is not the case that Another Chixulub is ready to form
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A brief excerpt from Bee’s dream journal precedes “Kelsingra.” The chapter opens with Fitz and the rest taking such sleep as they can. When Fitz is woken by Perseverance coming off of watch, his Wit-sense responds to the presence of a larger predator that, upon investigation, proves to be a large bear showing the initial decrepitude of age. Fitz directs his companions to minimize the danger to them and reaches out to the bear through the Wit, but the bear attacks. The Fool and Spark flee through a Skill-pillar, while the rest scramble up trees and look on in anguish as the animal destroys their provisions.
You knew it had to be… Frozen History by MeetV on DeviantArt, here, and used again for commentary.
After the bear leaves, Fitz, Lant, and Perseverance take stock of what remains and reestablish their camp as best they can. That done, they prepare to follow the Fool and Spark, Fitz speaking plainly of what might befall them. Steeling themselves, they plunge through the Skill-pillar, emerging to find the Fool and Spark before them and angry dragons in evidence. As Fitz directs Lant and Perseverance to take what little shelter there is, the dragons speak to him. As Elderlings approach, Fitz presents himself formally, beginning to defuse the situation as the arrival of additional forces makes violence an unpleasant option. Arrangements are made to conduct Fitz and his group to Kelsingra’s leadership.
The present chapter is not the first part of the Realm of the Elderlings corpus to bear the name; it follows the fourth chapter of City of Dragons in that. Correspondences between the two chapters are limited, although there are some to be found. I’m not sure that there is enough to make any claims about parallel functions; I rather doubt that there is, although I’ve not done the kind of close reading of the two texts against each other that would reveal whether or not there is in any real sense. It’s another scholarly someday, I suppose, if perhaps a winter day due to the brevity I would expect from such a thing.
There are a couple of other things of interest to me as I reread the chapter. One of them is the reinforcement of the idea, going back to the Tawny Man novels, that the dragons communicate with each other and with their Elderlings through the Skill. The implication that the Skill is some lingering trace of Elderling heritage seems clear to me, although I tend to think that it is something that has grown up as the Realm of the Elderlings corpus has extended rather than something that was planned at the outset–but I’ve made comments about that kind of thing before. And it’s not something with which I find fault; people change, and so the work that they do will also change. Nor yet is it necessary for something to be perfect before it gets going.
The other that stood out was the dragons’ inability to find the Fool, the Elderling blanket serving to conceal him from their sight (although not their sense of smell). The implications of that that emerge for me are significant. That there is a limit to the dragons’ abilities is of import; they are often shown as being super-predators and, while some fight against them seems possible, odds are never good for those who oppose them. That the Elderlings of old seem to have produced materials that thwart draconic senses is also suggestive, prompting questions of factionalism and rebellion among them. There’s not enough in the text, certainly at this point, to do more than make a vague suggestion, and I don’t expect that there is some sort of parallel to The Silmarillion waiting in Hobb’s notes for some future editor or scholar to find that would elaborate on it, but what is fantasy for if not for prompting the imagination?
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First, let me report that my family is safe and I am safe. Second, let me say that I am not asking for anything for me or mine; we are safe, and we are well, and we are not those in need at the moment. But there are many, many people in and around the town where I grew up who are, because, early on 4 July 2025, a strong storm dumped a whole lot of water in a very short time on the headwaters of the Guadalupe River. The sudden rainfall triggered a flash flood of historic proportions; estimates I’ve seen put it at the second-highest levels of flooding on record, and reports I’ve seen indicate that the flood and flow meters that monitor such things were knocked out of commission by the flooding. Footage I’ve seen puts the river over roads that I don’t recall ever seeing go underwater, and pictures I’ve seen tell of damage that will take years to fix–in those cases where it can be fixed.
Because it is also the case that there have been dozens of lives lost in this–unlike the flood of my own experience in 2002, which somehow managed to spare people. No few of them were children camping along the banks of the Guadalupe River as they have for decades, whose cabins were ripped from their foundations in the pre-dawn hours by waters that rushed in before there was time even to gasp in surprise at their arrival. No few others were holiday goers, in and around Kerrville to celebrate, staying in RVs beside the water and waking to terror when they had gone to sleep in idyllic peace before. And there are few if any words of comfort that can be found in such days; such as there are surpass my ability to speak or write them.
I have done what little I can do, which is all too little against the demand. What else I can do, and what I do do, is to point out that donations to a local relief fund can be made here: https://cftexashillcountry.fcsuite.com/erp/donate/create/fund?funit_id=4201. Another is here: https://www.kerrvillechamber.biz/foundation-kerrville-area-rebuilding-recovery-fund/. Please give if and what you can to help the folks in my hometown and both up- and downstream from it. I’m familiar with the Community Foundation from my nonprofit work; they’re local folks and have been in town for a good long while. I expect that giving done through them will get where it needs to go to do what the community needs.
It is somewhat odd to me that, as I look back over this webspace, I’ve only had one prior post come out on this date, and that relatively recently. Given how calendars tend to work and that I’ve got more than ten years posting here, I’d’ve expected to have marked the occasion more than once before–but such hasn’t been the case. Some, I’m sure, will accuse me of anti-patriotism or anti-Americanism for it; it wouldn’t be the first time, and I’ve my doubts it will be the last. After all, how many people who have bedecked themselves in red, white, and blue, draped themselves in flags, and shouted their jingoism with full throat are themselves thusly accused?
Someone’s having a bang-up time… Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com
This is not about that, though.
I believe I’ve noted before that holidays–not just this one, but the fact of the holiday today invites reflection on holidays generally–are…difficult for me. I’m not a celebratory person by nature or habit (which is the case is not entirely clear); I am…wary of revelry and the indulgence that often accompanies it, certainly for myself. And it’s not, or not just, and issue of wanting to maintain appearances; were I more concerned with how I look to others, I would make a point of being out more among the day’s festivities than I have yet been. I’ve put in appearances, now and again, but rarely; I’ve attended the big Fourth of July event in my hometown exactly once, for example, and I’ve never made it to any of the other major area events for the day. Instead, I’ve either worked the day, or I’ve kept more or less to home–although that’s not really different from most other days for me; they find me working or home, rarely “going anywhere” or “doing anything.” But that’s not a new observation for me, either.
Such ruminations, such reflections, are typical of my holiday experience. I fail to feel what those around me do, and instead find myself living largely in my head. (Again, that’s not really different from most other days for me.) I don’t much feel connected to the traditions being honored, which I will stress is an issue of me more than it is of them; I am not owed outreach in this regard, and I am not complaining that I do not receive it, but am simply observing that I do not and that I do not seem to have it in me to reach out, myself. While such things as the cookout happen with me–I do enjoy doing so, but that’s another thing that’s not different from most other days for me, and I keep in mind Robb Walsh’s comment in one or another of his cookbooks that there’s a perversity in heating your house while you’re trying to cool it off–I don’t necessarily understand why so many of the other surrounding traditions have grown up or continue, and they don’t speak to me at this point in my life. Fireworks are pretty, yes, but they’re also expensive, and neither pets nor people with many forms of PTSD do well with them. Parades are neat, yes, but I’ve marched in enough of them to know they’re also markedly uncomfortable. A day off is nice, for those who can get it, but a whole lot of those who can make things an awful lot worse for those who can’t–and I’ve been one of the ones who can’t pretty often in my life.
I suppose that’s moving toward an actual point, here. Celebrate what you celebrate, sure, but keep in mind as you do that what you do still affects others. That it’s a holiday doesn’t mean you should be a jerk.
But that’s yet another thing that’s not really different from any other day.
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I have stared out at a lot of these… Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com
I had known about the sessions that are on offer for the 2026 Congress; I was involved in drafting the texts of the proposals and discussion of what and how to send them out. I was somewhat surprised to see that three sessions got accepted; the cosponsored one is not unusual, but that there were two paper sessions in addition was. Tales after Tolkien does not often do so well, but I guess, given the alignment of the three sessions (all of them treat adaptation more or less explicitly, each focusing on a different aspect of how the medieval gets re-presented to current-contemporary audiences), that there’s an expectation of papers to fill the sessions. (If you have an idea, send it in to them; it’ll be nice to have the company.)
I’ll be doing my part, as might be expected. One of the things about having so many scholarly somedays as I have is that I can easily pull on one or another of them for such purposes, take the opportunity the demand to produce provides to develop an idea I have had in passing. Given how many such somedays I’ve pointed out–most frequently with reference to Robin Hobb, as might be expected, but not exclusively with reference thereto, I don’t believe–I should have no trouble looking back and finding one thing I can pitch for a roundtable and another I can pitch for a paper session. (Congress rules prohibit presenting in more than one of each kind of session, with one notable exception that I’ll not get into here.) A roundtable talk generally runs five minutes or so, with discussion following, and that translates into something like 750 words; my normal blog posts run around 500 words anymore, so stretching to half again that much is not too much of a struggle. A conference paper is more variable; for me, such things run from around 2,600 to around 3,900 words, depending on how many other people are in the session–eminently doable for work I care about and that will necessarily have some citation and quotation in it (meaning I don’t have to come up with the whole text; I just have to identify what text needs to be present, which is its own challenge). I’ll have things to say, to be sure.
Determining just what my topics and approaches will be will take some doing, of course. So, too, will deciding whether or not I will attend the Congress in person or only remotely. The latter has been how I have done things in the past several years, not only because of COVID-19 dislocations but also because of my own attenuation from academe and, frankly, financial concerns. Getting from central Texas to Michigan isn’t easy or inexpensive, after all, and time away from my family is not always good for me. (That said, time to myself is not always bad for me, either, and it may well be good for them to have some time with me away…) I’ve got time to make some of those choices, though, and I look forward to putting in the thinking time of making them–as well as the time and effort I will spend on putting together my presentations.
Somehow, even after all the time, even after the disappointments, I still enjoy doing this kind of work.
It’s not just conference-writing that I do, though I do that. Maybe you could use some help with yours? I definitely do that.
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After a letter from Malta and Reyn that politely but tersely addresses what appear to be ongoing concerns between Kelsingra and the Six Duchies, “Dragons” begins with Fitz quizzing Lant and Perseverance about the passage of the Fool and Spark. They have no further answers for him, so they eat, and Fitz notes the improvements to the campsite the pair have made in his absence.
Shining brightly amid the darkness… Photo by Magda Ehlers on Pexels.com
Perseverance sits awake with Fitz for the first watch of the night and asks about the way the Fool and Spark are dressed, meeting Fitz’s answers sullenly. Later, after watches are traded, Fitz finds himself wakeful and joins Lant at watch. Lant asks his own questions of Fitz and is answered, although he is less sullen than he is whining in his receipt of those answers.
Further conversation is interrupted by the return of the Fool and Spark through the Skill-pillar. Spark is badly affected, and the Fool sports Silvered skin. Fitz directs Lant and Perseverance to attend to Spark and directs his attentions to the Fool. Managing to secure a glove over the Fool’s Skilled hand, Fitz guides his friend to where Perseverance and Lant attend Spark, and there asks for a report of events. The Fool lays out his reasoning and proceedings, and Fitz notes the uncertainty of Spark’s recovery.
At the Fool’s suggestion, Fitz looks for the camping equipment they had had together in that place after the Fool had died. With assistance from Lant, he finds it, and camp is reassembled. With that done, the Fool resumes his narrative, if with some prompting. Fitz learns that the Fool had gone to Kelsingra, navigating from echoes of draconic memories he had imbibed, finding the Skill well and touching what of the Silver he could. Doing so provoked the wrath of the Elderlings and the dragons, and the Fool and Spark fled to a ruined chamber, escaping from it only narrowly and returning to where they now sit.
The early portion of the present chapter puts Perseverance in a position not unlike that Fitz occupies with the Fool years before. Indeed, some of the boy’s phrasing in the current moment echoes that of the earlier man quite closely, and I am reminded again both of the fraughtness of gender performativity in the Realm of the Elderlings and of the need to update the Fedwren Project more than I have done. There are several scholars’ works already noted in it that speak to the issue; I have to wonder, I have to hope, that there is more current work that takes in the more recent entries in the Realm of the Elderlings corpus. It certainly presents itself plainly enough, not through what may or may not be a metaphorical treatment as some other things might or might not have been–but, as with several things, I am not the person to carry out a treatment of the matter, having neither the situated nor the invented ethos to address it.
Not entirely related: I appreciate the references to Rapskal and Heeby made in the Fool’s narrative. They are not named, and sensibly; despite who the Fool does know under the guise of Lady Amber, he would not have any reason to know, or even to know of, Rapskal and the dragon he serves. But it is entirely in keeping with their characters that they would jealously guard the Silver and move to violence before any other concern, and it is suggestive that some uses of the Skill-stone still seem to elude the Elderlings of Kelsingra at this point in the overall narrative. I find myself wondering if and how that will develop if and as Hobb presses ahead with her series (or if there is a Brian to Hobb’s Frank waiting somewhere, although a Christopher to her JRR might well be preferable).
I am somewhat struck with Fitz’s handling of matters in the present chapter. He seems to have a fairly decent handle on himself, which is…uncommon for him, even with his years and experience. So much said, it’s a good thing to see; how long it will last, though, I don’t recall. I guess I need to do more rereading…
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As happens from time to time, I found myself in a coffee shop of a morning recently. My wife had a couple of things she needed to do in the next town up from where we live, as did I, but I got done before she did and, rather than hover over where she was, I took myself off for another cup of coffee and a little pastry. (The coffee was alright, and the pastry was nice enough. It was a good little snack, though I really don’t need more snacks.)
A familiar enough scene… Photo by Afta Putta Gunawan on Pexels.com
I hadn’t necessarily expected to have the available time, so I didn’t set out with my usual accoutrements for going to a coffee shop. I didn’t have my journal with me to write in, I didn’t have a book with me to read, and I didn’t have any work with me to do. Consequently, I found myself sitting alone at the coffee shop, enjoying a pastry for less long than I should have done and sipping slowly at a cup of coffee, and I had the leisure to simply sit and watch and listen.
It was clear to me as I sat there that the coffee shop has a dedicated population of regular customers. A great many of the people popping in and through while I sat seemed to know each other and to be on good terms. Several stood around, their own cups of coffee in hand, talking together seemingly amiably; I was not trying to listen closely, but tone carries. A few others seemed to be engaged in some meeting–again, I wasn’t trying to listen, but things carry–and they seemed to get on well together. Too, there were a few working on some project or another, laptops open and earbuds in, doing as I have often done.
In all, it was a pleasant experience. I don’t often get to sit and watch; when I go to a coffee shop, I’m usually one of the people working or one of the people in a meeting, and I don’t go out often enough to be a regular anywhere anymore. Aside from <one bookstore [link Books to Share post]>, one or two places in the town where I grew up, and a since-closed tavern in Brooklyn, I haven’t really been a regular anywhere anywhen; I tend to go home and stay there unless there’s some cause to go out, and “because I want to” rarely suffices for that. I wonder if I should let it be so more often.
I did not stay much longer than it took me to sip away my cup of cooling coffee. My wife’s errands came to their end, and there’s only so long I can keep my seat on most coffee shop chairs. But it was nice to get to simply sit and sip, and I should probably try to do it again sometime.
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The salvos are still firing off The bombs are still falling And there are screams to drown out the sounds of either But no shouting will silence this ongoing war However many or mightier the other fights may be Because Of course This one little bit of performance actually matters
In such times as these, what connects us to our shared humanity is singularly important. Help secure your connection; have me write for you–all original work!
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After an entry from Bee’s dream journal, “Departure” begins with a gloss of Fitz’s ongoing preparations to leave Buckkeep in pursuit of the Servants at Clerres. How he equips himself and plans to proceed are described, as is how he is sent off by his family and the assembled court of Buckkeep. Fitz notes some unease and sets it aside as the formal farewell proceeds and Fitz sets out with a party suitable to his station towards the Skill-pillar that was Bee’s last known location. Arriving there, Fitz gives a few final instructions, steels himself, and proceeds through the pillar.
…sometimes you don’t. Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com
Fitz is surprised to find that Lant goes with him, and he is more surprised that Perseverance accompanies them. To their questions, he makes harsh answer, and then he directs them to set up camp as best they can, given their situation. Matters proceed as well as can be expected, and the three take stock of their supplies, making clear that neither Lant nor Perseverance had thought through their actions. Fitz manages to calm himself and assess matters more rationally, although he is still displeased, and he sends through the Skill to Nettle and Dutiful, updating them.
The night passes uneventfully for the three, and the next day sees Fitz go out to hunt, setting Lant and Perseverance to tasks while he purposes to do so. As the pair address them, Fitz makes his way to the old stone-garden, visiting onceagain Verity-as-Dragon, tending to his lost king and confessing himself thereto. The man within responds to his nephew, easing him into sleep.
Returning to Lant and Per, Fitz makes a kill of a rabbit and learns that the Fool and Spark have been by, using the Skill-stones to travel. Fitz is incredulous as he receives report of their actions.
I‘m minded as I work through this that one of my scholarly somedays–and there are many, as I’m sure those of you whose continued reading I appreciate will have noted–is correction and updating of the work in this webspace. More than one of the prior pieces of writing I’ve referenced in putting together this commentary has needed some adjustment, and I cannot think that those I’ve noticed this time around are the only ones that are in such need. While it’s good to have something to do, it’s an annoyance to have made easily avoidable mistakes in my work; I really should be doing better than that. For such things, I can but apologize, work to proofread what needs it, and try to do better as I move forward.
It might also well be written that the present chapter seems to make some use of deus ex machina, an old device about which I’ve made somecomment. There’s setup for such things as might appear so, though; Verity-as-Dragon is hardly new to the Realm of the Elderlings, after all, and the capriciousness of travel through the Skill-stones has been amply and repeatedly attested, in the present volume and others in the Realm of the Elderlings corpus. Verity’s response to Fitz might be a bit of a stretch, although it has been noted that the extent of Skill-knowledge that was available exceeds what is available; the recovery of what Regal had sent off to the Pale Woman was incomplete, and much of what was recovered was described either as damaged or at the leading end of substantial language change, such that it was unintelligible to modern-to-the-narrative-milieu readers. Verity, in isolation and seemingly interpenetrated with what might well be called a physical manifestation of Skill and which is used expressly to store and make available for consultation memories, has had time in which to plumb the mysteries of his magic. So perhaps it’s not quite so much deus ex machina, after all, but some variation on Chekhov…
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Earlier in the week, I made mention of having passed ten years of work writing in this webspace. In that commentary, I give a gloss of my site’s statistics, marking the changes to readership and productivity over time, and I’m gratified that, since a nadir in 2017-2018, my performance overall has been increasing. I could push more posts out into the world, perhaps; I’ve done so before, although I like to think that my writing has improved–and doing better work usually takes more time, meaning fewer individual pieces get out into the world. It’s certainly the case that I could be better about monetizing this webspace (although doing so has some possible problems; payment-facilitators don’t always like the kinds of things that I say, though I suppose I might be able to restrict some of the stuff that has naughtier words in it behind some kind of subscription–I’m not sure how all that would work, though). However such things may be, though, there’s some pleasure in seeing that I can keep something like this going, even if there is room to improve–but there’s always such room, for all things and by all people. I do not claim such greatness as to be exempt from all of that.
Yes, it’s recursive. And it’s mine, severally.
I have not generally gone on as much in such posts as the tenth-anniversary post as I might about what looking back prompts me to feel. Yes, I try to express gratitude that I am in such a situation as allows me to indulge my writerly passions, and I note being glad to see that there are eyes on my work; I am both grateful and glad of such things. But I am not only so, or not only about them.
One thing that having been at work on a project across time does it allow for a view of changes over that time. I have something like a stable record of my writing and the life that enfolds it, one that is open to public view. If it is the case that I am aware of a (potential) reading public and enact some curation of myself in response thereto, it is also the case that no such act can be untouched by whoever performs it. Greater minds than mine have noted that each of us is, at any given time, enacting one or more roles for one or more audiences, but there is something enacting the role, some actor playing the part, and even with the same lines and stage direction, there will be differences among performers, something of the actor inhabiting the part regardless of the actor or the part. So much is to say that even my curated-for-some-imagined-public self-presentation reveals much of who and what I have been and still am, and the changes to me over that time are clear even without recourse to the journals I still keep.
About some such things, I will not write here; I have plans for their discussion, a few of which bear in on the series of scholarly somedays I’ve cited across the years. About some of them, or at least one of them, though, I will comment now: there’s definitely been a change to my writing style across time. I can–and maybe will, another scholarly someday–pull out individual blog posts I’ve left in this webspace and distill out their formal features, things like word- and paragraph-counts, paragraph- and sentence-lengths, and reading level on any of several scales. I can look more concretely, albeit with more than a shred of narcissism, at common topics and treatments. Both might well be worth doing, but both exceed what such a blog post as this can really support; for now, it will suffice to say, I think, that I feel myself to be less stilted now than I was then. That’s not to say that I write more simply now than then; I’d have to pull data to be sure of that, but it does not feel so, in any event. If anything, I’m more complicated now; I feel more that I write who I am than who I think I have to be at this point. Given what I have given up, that much makes sense; while I have a public for which to perform here, I do not have editors (yet), and that’s a whole different kind of thing.
I’m not at all displeased by this. I think it’s better writing. I hope it’s better writing; with more than ten more years of practice behind it at this point, it ought to be–just as I ought to be, and am, pleased that I have readers yet who stick with me. I hope what I give you is what you want and need.
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Elliott RWI 