Introducing Mr Perky: Subverting the Fantasy Trope of Immortality in Contemporary Speculative Fiction

Introducing Mr Perky: Subverting the fantasy trope of immortality in contemporary speculative fiction

Jennifer Ryan

A novel (published under the pseudonym Jennifer Fallon) and exegesis submitted for the requirements of the Masters of Arts (Research)

Faculty of Creative Industries Queensland University of Technology 2009

Key Words

Fantasy, immortal, immortality, fantasy tropes, immortality tropes, desire for immortality, fiction, genre fiction, publishing, ways to kill immortals, plot device, Fallon, Canavan, Tolkien.

Abstract

The Tide Lords series of fantasy novels set out to examine the issue of immortality. Its purpose was to look at the desirability of immortality, specifically why people actively seek it. It was meant to examine the practicality of immortality, specifically — having got there, what does one do to pass the time with eternity to fill? I also wished to examine the notion of true immortality — immortals who could not be killed.

What I did not anticipate when embarking upon this series, and what did not become apparent until after the series had been sold to two major publishing houses in Australia and the US, was the strength of the immortality tropes. This series was intended to fly in the face of these tropes, but confronted with the reality of such a work, the Australian publishers baulked at the ideas presented, requesting the series be re-written with the tropes taken into consideration. They wanted immortals who could die, mortals who wanted to be immortal. And a hero with a sense of humour.

This exegesis aims to explore where these tropes originated. It will also discuss the ways I negotiated a way around the tropes, and was eventually able to please the publishers by appearing to adhere to the tropes, while still staying true to the story I wanted to tell. As such, this discussion is, in part, an analysis of how an author negotiates the tensions around writing within a genre while trying to innovate within it.

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Contents

Key Words ...... ii Abstract ...... iii Contents ...... iv Statement of Authorship ...... v Acknowledgements ...... vi 1. Introduction – The Fantasy Definition of Immortal ...... 1 2. Methodology - Fitting a Square Peg into a Round Hole ...... 5 3. Literature Review ...... 10 3.1 Trope: that immortality is desirable ...... 13 3.2 Trope: that immortals can be killed ...... 17 4. Case Studies ...... 19 4.1. Priestess of the White – Book 1 of The Age of Five Gods by Trudi Canavan .. 21 4.2. The Immortal Prince – Book 1 of the Tide Lords ...... 25 4.3. Reflective Case Study - The Gods of Amyrantha – Book 2 of the Tide Lords .. 29 5. Conclusion ...... 34 6. Bibliography ...... 36

Statement of Authorship

The work contained in this thesis has not been previously submitted for a degree or diploma at any other institution. To the best of my knowledge and belief, the thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made.

Signature ______

Date ______

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the members of my cohort for their support, particularly Sonny Whitelaw for writing an exegesis which helped me define my thoughts, Anita Blake for her advice and Valerie Parv for posting simple but brilliant questions that helped solve a potential plot problem in the subsequent books that followed The Gods of Amyrantha.

I must also mention the help of my supervisor, Craig Bolland, for his input and Nike Bourke, who made our retreat so interesting.

1. Introduction – The Fantasy Definition of Immortal

As a writer, I have always laboured under the belief that my creative work — the story I wished to tell and the world in which I wished to set it — was sacrosanct. I have never been averse to new ideas, criticism or editorial input, because, by and large, it has always served to improve the tale I wished to tell. If I disagreed with suggested editorial changes, I have been able to defend my stance and have usually won the argument.

I am also fortunate to enjoy a very close and effective working relationship with Stephanie Smith, my editor at HarperCollins Publishers, Australia, who has overseen my previous nine successful fantasy books, all of which were published by HarperCollins, in Australia, as well as being published in the US, the UK, Germany, France, and Russia.

In 2005, I sold a new, four-book fantasy series to Tor in the US and HarperCollins Publishers, Australia. Sold on synopsis and a detailed plot outline, the overarching premise of the series was immortality. Specifically, it related to the simplest definition of immortality — not subject to death (Collier 1977, 514) — rather than allowing my characters an “out”, or, as fantasy author Trudi Canavan refers to it: “the fantasy definition of immortal” (Fallon 2005).

According to Canavan (ibid), the “fantasy definition of immortal” in contemporary1 speculative fiction2 presupposes two things. Firstly, that one desires immortality, and secondly, that immortality means long-lived and not subject to ageing, rather than the inability to die.

1 In this exegesis, contemporary is regarded as the period in which the work was published or produced. 2 In this exegesis, speculative fiction is regarded as works of fiction published under current publishers’ imprints, such as Voyager, Orbit, Tor, etc., which by their own admission, specialise in publishing this genre. 1

Faced with the challenge of creating a world where immortality defied these suppositions, the first book of the Tide Lords series, The Immortal Prince3, was submitted to HarperCollins Australia in early 2006.

Following several lengthy discussions with both my agent and my editor, two issues were identified as follows:

1. The protagonist — an immortal desperately searching for a way to die — was unsympathetic. Readers liked the idea of immortality and it therefore was dangerous to present the idea as being less than desirable. 2. Because the immortals of this series (who are the enemy of mankind) could not be killed, the human characters would never be able to kill them. Therefore, the story lacked hope for a happy ending.

It became clear that this was genre, not literary, fiction, and as such, it must work within the tropes of the genre. Charles Babbage’s view of immortality, expressed as early as 1838, “The wish universally felt, and expressed in every variety of form, to remain in the memory of our fellow creatures... has sometimes been explained as being founded of an instinctive belief that we are destined to be immortal..." (Babbage 2007, 82) appeared to be the prevailing sentiment and my editor at HarperCollins, Stephanie Smith, was adamant Voyager’s readers shared this view (Personal interview, 2006). A rewrite was commissioned with the request that the “manically-depressed, suicidal immortal protagonist” be re-worked so he was more upbeat.

3 The proposed title of the first book in this series was Suicide of the Immortals but this title was rejected for being unmarketable. 2

This suggestion was problematic. Not only would such a change invalidate the entire premise of the series, but also made the plots of the other three books to follow redundant.

I do not think this hesitation on the publisher's part to buck the trope of immortality was intended to force me to produce a work I did not want to write. Rather, in my opinion, the eager acceptance of my four-book proposal now seems solid poof of the strength of the trope. It is my belief that my original proposal, and its implications, were not examined in detail when first submitted, where my intentions were revealed at the outset.

Rather it was skimmed over, the key words “immortals” and “Jennifer Fallon” identified, and the series purchased on the strength of two key factors: the immortality trope, a repeating theme that historically always does well in fantasy, and a named author with a sufficiently sound sales record to take a risk on a publishable work on the subject being produced.

Only when confronted with a work that defied the tropes did the publisher express concern. In my opinion, had the proposal been submitted by a less well-known author, it would have been examined more closely, and these issues raised prior to the sale of the work, not on receipt of the first manuscript.

The time frame in which the publisher’s concerns were identified did not mitigate the need to address them, however. In order to deal with these issues, the tropes needed to be defined, and a way around them discovered, that would allow the story to unfold as I had originally envisaged. Yet it was still necessary to produce a work that was acceptable to the publishers, and, ultimately, the readers of speculative fiction.

Any changes to The Tide Lords series would have to be done in such a way that the rest of the story continued to follow the general path of the series synopsis and outline, laid down in the original 2006 proposal (Fallon 2006). I had to explore the consequences of immortality, and some of the practicalities of living forever, and then present the ideas in a way that left the reader with the hope that lesser mortals would eventually prevail.

The remainder of this exegesis will firstly examine the sources of the tropes, secondly examine a work which I believe specifically influenced the publisher’s position, and finally reflect on how I was able to add new elements into my existing story, which acknowledged the tropes, but still allowed me to tell the story I set out to tell when I first conceived of a series that examined the dilemmas facing an immortal who truly could not die.

2. Methodology - Fitting a Square Peg into a Round Hole

For the sake of presenting this exegesis, it would have been very useful if I had, in order to defend my position, spent three months in a library researching the literary tropes of immortality in fantasy. It would have been even more useful if I had then presented a sound academic argument to my editors, backed up by numerous cited references, which swayed them to my position with my fabulously researched response.

Alas, this was not the case. The time between the editors at HarperCollins expressing dissatisfaction with my treatment of the immortality tropes and the solution being hammered out over a long-distance phone call, was, in fact, less than a week. This would have been even shorter, had I not sulked for two days before getting around to discussing the issue. The re-write took another two weeks, and the amended manuscript was in the hands of the line editor within a month of the original submission. Such are the pressures of working to a commercial release schedule planned up to two years in advance.

The discussion that took place between me and senior editor, Stephanie Smith (Personal interview, 2006), Associate Publisher, Voyager, regarding HarperCollins’ concerns about the manuscript was the key element in developing strategies to buck the tropes. For the purposes of defining the tropes for this exegesis, I have referred to a number of works on the subject, but it must be made clear at the outset that at no time, before during or after the discussion, were any other works about immortality mentioned in any discussion between the author and the editor.

There are sound reasons for this. Firstly, in my experience, no editor who intends to keep working in publishing is ever going to tell one author they liked another author’s take on a subject better than the one they just submitted for 5 publication. Quite the contrary. My career in over the past ten years dealing with editors in Australia, the US and the UK, suggests that they religiously avoid mentioning any other authors, even in the most banal terms, other to remark on their general health and wellbeing. Writers can be fragile, egotistical creatures and one of an editor’s functions is to convince the author they are the only writer in the world who matters, in the belief that this will elicit the best work from them. Greco (2005) states this need even more clearly, in his book, The Book Publishing Industry.

An editor must have a keen grasp of standard written English, communicate quickly and effectively with authors, and remain aware of the varied needs of authors, many of whom are mercurial, insecure and rather demanding, if not outright hostile to anyone who dares touch a single word or comma in a manuscript (Greco 2004, 126).

I have observed that editors want writers to believe they live only to work with them. I have never had an editor discuss another author’s work (unless they’re long dead, perhaps) because this opens a Pandora’s Box of questions about commercially sensitive information regarding who got the prettier cover, the bigger advance, and perhaps, most contentiously, the better publicity budget.

Editors are also, in my experience, very clever people. I have never met one who would willingly step into such a minefield. As a consequence, although a number of works, both currently in print and long forgotten, are quoted later in this exegesis to support the definition of the tropes and examine their influence, the spectre of these works loomed unspoken between us. They were never mentioned aloud. Greco also comments on this expertise, claiming “Everyone in publishing agrees that editing is an art (and not a science)” (Greco 2004, 126).

The second reason for not referring to these works during our discussion is one of expedience. When a senior editor with twenty years experience in the genre, and a spectacular record for picking bestselling authors4, is discussing a manuscript with an author with nine bestselling titles behind her in the same genre, there is a vast assumed level of knowledge between the two. “Some editors are generalist, others are specialists” (ibid), “A fiction editor reads works issued by competitors, poures over bestseller lists trying to detect patterns, follows the latest trends in fiction (whether it be serious literary fiction, experimental fiction, or short stories) and keeps up-to-date with the journals that publish fiction”(ibid).

Thus does it become unnecessary to refer to other works. No more than Einstein would explain where he learned his multiplication tables when discussing his Theory of Relativity with a colleague, would a fantasy editor bother to mention Tolkien, when talking of what the readers expect when they pick up a story about immortality.

This left me with a dilemma. How to present the solution to a problem defined in such vague terms as “everybody knows…”, “the readers like to see…”, and “the fans expect…” in a way that will satisfy the forms of academia? No market research was presented to support the Editor’s (or my) position. There were no studies quoted, no empirical evidence of any kind. Sales statistics are available on many of these works, but they are often commercial-in-confidence as well as being useless. You cannot compare the work of JK Rowling to any other author, for example, because her sales figures are such an anomaly, and to present an author with an argument along the lines of “Rowling did it this way, and she sold 100,000,000 books, so I think you should consider doing it that way too” is patently absurd, creatively fraudulent and frankly, insulting to the author and to Ms Rowling.

4 Stephanie Smith “discovered” (i.e. was the commissioning editor for) Fiona McIntosh, Trudi Canavan and Jennifer Fallon, among others. 7

So, the tropes are accepted without being spoken. My editor has no need, nor inclination, to mention specific works by other authors. We are left with a discussion that relies on the well-honed instincts of an expert editor speaking to an experienced author, both of whom accept these assumptions as true, because their experience leaves them unable to draw any other conclusions. Greco also speaks of Thomas McCormack’s take on the subject, in The Fiction Editor, The Novel and Novelist, which speaks of this skill set as “the ability to identify what is causing a response within a reader, which can vary from being unengaged, deflated, frustrated, or baffled by the title in question. This process leads to the editor’s inevitable quest to “repair” the manuscript, which is no mean assignment” (McCormack in Greco 2004, 130).

This notion is not unprecedented in the field of practice led academic research, either. “Acceptance or rejection of a practice or theory comes about because a community is persuaded. Even research specialists do not judge a conclusion, as it stands alone; they judge its compatibility with a network of prevailing beliefs” (Cronbach 1988, 6). These “prevailing beliefs” informed the discussion that resulted in the changes required to accommodate the publisher’s concerns while still staying true to the story I wished to tell.

This dynamic lends itself to an interesting methodological tension between this exegesis and the accompanying creative work. It would be fraudulent for me to claim that a literature review or other scholarly unpacking of genre tropes informed or inflected the creative work. My approach in writing this exegesis has been perhaps unorthodox in this respect. I have written the creative work, and then the exegesis, in that order. The dialogue between the works then, is unidirectional, rather than the kind of dialectic assumed in methodologies like an action research cycle5 (Brannick 2004, ix). My experience reflects that of the majority of the participants in Donna Lee Brien’s 2004 survey of creative

5 Observing and documenting practice; teaching and speaking about it; writing articles and books; implementing the concept and moving to advanced implementation. 8 writing RHD students where she found that “90% of respondents completed later or final drafts of their creative work before they began their exegesis” (Brien 2004). My methodology is more in line with Elliot Mishler’s contention that “Rather than relying for their assessments on an investigator's adherence to normal rules or standardized procedures, skilled researchers depend on their tacit understanding of actual, situated practices in a field of inquiry” (Mishler 1990, 415).

My methodology, then, in creating this thesis has been:

1. Practice led (perhaps to an extreme, where the practice was allowed, for commercial and other logistical purposes, to lead the non-practice research). 2. Self-reflective (in that I am analysing the issue after the fact, rather than allowing the analysis to inform the solution).

That being said, to claim that nothing other than my own self and my editor influenced the creative practice would, of course, be naïve. Writing does not take place in a vacuum. Part of my reflective approach in this exegesis will be to examine some of the issues and influences I believe were at play when I was writing the Tide Lords series.

Methodologically, this exegesis will include a literature review, albeit a brief one, for the purposes of positioning the reader against the tropes, that ambient unsaid that existed at the time of my editor and my conversations. I will then go on to examine a work I am certain influenced my own, because of the timing of its submission to the same editor just prior to The Immortal Prince being submitted (even though — as previously stated — it was never actually mentioned).

Finally, I will reflect on writing the first two books of the bestselling Tide Lords series, and how I navigated the tensions between market (both publisher and reader) expectations, and my own creative goals.

3. Literature Review

From my own creative perspective, and certainly a commercial one, the subject of immortality is very attractive. It resonates with readers and offers an infinite array of creative options within which to examine the concept. “Physical immortality is seductive”, according to S J Olshansky, in an article he wrote for the BBC in 2004:

The ancient Hindus sought it, the Greek physician Galen from the 2nd Century AD and the Arabic philosopher/physician Avicenna from the 11th Century AD believed in it. Alexander the Great roamed the world searching for it, Ponce de Leon discovered Florida in his quest for the fountain of youth, and countless stories of immortality have permeated the literature, including the image of Shangra-La portrayed in James Hilton's book Lost Horizon (Hilton 1933), or in the quest for the holy grail in the movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (Spielberg 1989) (Olshansky 2004).

The psychology of exactly why physical immortality is so seductive to humanity is a vast field of study and beyond the scope of this exegesis. My dilemma, in any case, did not arise from the many reasons — psychological, ontological or theological — that humans desire immortality, or even where the tropes originated.

It was enough that the tropes existed at all, and that I was now required to find a way around them.

Nevertheless, in this section, I will examine some of the sources of the immortality tropes for the purpose of defining them. I will look at a number of contemporary works, some of which, such as Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, could be considered the modern archetype of the tropes – notably within speculative fiction works. I will also look at several other works in the genre produced since Lord of the Rings first appeared, and several other works, which have bucked, on the surface at least, the tropes.

In examining peer-reviewed material, aside from Lake and Nestvold’s analysis the importance of tropes within the speculative fiction genre, Genre Tropes and the Transmissibility of Story (Lake and Nestvold 2007), published in the Internet Review of Science Fiction, there appears to be a paucity of peer reviewed articles specifically relating to the application of, and more importantly, the bending or breaking of, specific immortality tropes in speculative fiction. Despite this, fear of alienating readers with unfamiliar concepts, or those that fly in the face of the accepted trope is not unfounded. Jay Lake and Ruth Nestvold argue that “when familiar tropes are missing or unfamiliar tropes present, this can lead readers to reject a story outright” (ibid).

Sonny Whitelaw examines this phenomenon even more closely in her thesis, The Attraction of Sloppy Nonsense: Resolving cognitive estrangement in Stargate through the technologising of mythology. In it, she describes the technique of “familiarisation, de-familiarisation and re-familiarisation” (Whitelaw 2008, 3) as a technique to encourage the suspension of disbelief and the acceptance of the incredible as an everyday occurrence — specifically, in this case, immortals who truly could not be killed. “The more grounded the audience in the familiar,” Whitelaw says, “the more receptive they will be to defamiliarisation and refamiliarisation. Subject to the refamiliarisation being contextually coherent and credible, it provides a solid grounding—a new familiarisation—for further defamiliarisations and refamiliarisations” (ibid).

According to Joseph Campbell, all human mythology (and by extension, all speculative fiction) contains two common elements: “the recognition of mortality and the requirement to transcend it” (Campbell 1974, 22). This is the “familiar” of which Whitelaw speaks. Any successful subversion of the tropes of immortality requires a firm grounding in the existing tropes, before I could attempt to subvert it through defamiliarisation and refamiliarisation. This realisation evolved organically as part of my writing process. It is only now, after the fact, that my instinctive understanding of this self-evident truth became apparent.

Lake and Nestvold also support this technique of familiarisation first, to make the reader comfortable. “The tension for the genre writer lies in the balance between the degree of familiarity of the trope and the degree of novelty of the writer's innovation within the story at hand” (Lake and Nestvold 2007), and further, “when a writer takes up a standard trope, either to serve in its stock role or to invert it for their own purposes, they are tapping into the traditions and shared referents of their genre” (ibid).

Reflecting on this tension between trope and innovation, particularly the two tropes my publishers had identified: 1. The desirability of immortality 2. The expectation that immortals can be killed - it is useful to look at the origins and pervasiveness of these tropes.

Like Lake and Nestvold, I believe that “story happens in the context of the shared expectations of writer and reader, and the controlled management (or violation) of those expectations during the course of the narrative” (ibid).

The cultural fascination with immortality is pervasive, and a quick survey of authors who deal with the topic gives some hint as to how the trope has been

12 shaped within speculative fiction. The Encyclopaedia of Science Fiction states “almost all eventually favour the prospect” (Clute and Nicholls 1999, 616) of immortality, although the article offers no further definition of the descriptor “almost all”. Sharon Scholl, whose 1984 study Death and the Humanities examines the presentation of death in several modes, discusses the trope of desirable immortality in a variety of different media. Her book, which illustrates the diverse ways in which the humanities can express fundamental human experiences by drawing on visual, literary, and musical sources, states, “Immortality here on Earth, in the avoidance of extinction, has become the absorbing concern of this century” (Scholl 1984, 169). Indeed, Klotz argued that “all works of literature reflect man's obsession with death and his creative attempts to evade or postpone it” (Klotz 1979, 29).

Part of this seductiveness of immortality relates to two specific tropes that exist in many6 works of speculative fiction on the subject – namely, that immortality is regarded as a desirable state of being, but that ‘immortality’ is not necessarily a permanent state of being – that immortals may die.

I will now go on to examine these two tropes in more detail.

3.1 Trope: that immortality is desirable

James H Snowden asks in his 2007 book, Can we Believe in Immortality?, “is the hope of immortality planted in the very foundation of our being a true instinct, or does it really have a glimpse of ‘the green mountain-top of a far new world?’”(Snowden 2007, 2). Snowden assumes, as did my editors, that the desire for immortality is more than just pervasive, but an instinct inherent in all human beings.7

6 almost all, if you accept Clute and Nicholls’ word on it 7 Although in the case of a publisher one could safely assume that definition to be better defined as “all human beings who read and have a disposable income”. 13

In his 2003 online paper published by Brown University, Transcending Death: Mortality and Immortality in Fantasy Literature, Aramphongphan states, “The theme of mortality and immortality, well thought out and sometimes subtly presented, appears in the works of many well-known figures in fantasy literature, especially C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien” (Aramphongphan 2003).

This trope is further supported by Olshansky in his BBC article Don’t Fall for the Cult of Immortality, where he notes “It’s unsurprising the human race has often dreamed of immortality. Just as it reflects the general attitude toward death, fantasy literature also reflects the desire of becoming immortal. Indeed, immortality means not having to worry about death”(Olshansky 2004). The Encyclopaedia of Science Fiction dissertation on immortality states “Immortality is one of the basic motifs of speculative thought; the elixir of life and the fountain of youth are hypothetical goals of classic intellectual and exploratory quests”(Clute and Nicholls 1999, 616). Dr. David Brin, science fiction author and essayist, in an article originally written in 1999 for AOL’s Online Magazine, iPlanet, remarks on the diversity of authors who have written on the subject, stating that “a number of eminent writers like Robert Heinlein, Greg Bear, Kim Stanley Robinson and Gregory Benford have speculated on possible consequences, should Mister G. Reaper ever be forced to hang up his scythe and seek other employment”(Brin 1999).

These authors are “weaving once again the seductive web of immortality, tantalising us with the tale that we all so desperately want to hear, and have heard for thousands of years - live life without frailty and debility and dependence and be forever youthful, both physically and mentally”(Olshansky 2004).

Here again, “familiarisation”(Whitelaw 2008) appears as a factor for consideration, when looking for a way to subvert the trope. Olshansky describes the “seductive web of immortality” as something we “have heard for

14 thousands of years” (ibid). It is familiar and therefore any attempt to subvert the trope by defamiliarisation must ground the reader in this familiar trope first.

Aramphongphan goes on to say that “works often begin by presenting death as fearful and portraying immortality as desirable, ultimately they attempt to transcend death, answering the question why one should not fear it… because death and life form a cycle of life; without one or another, the stage of life would become incomplete” (Aramphongphan 2003).

It is important to note that there are works which treat immortality in a subtler way than just ‘being desirable’. Some authors have explored the complications and contradictions arising from humans being indefinitely long-lived. I would argue, however, that immortality is often desirable to the non-immortals, and its complications are mostly appreciable by immortals themselves.

Lynne Lundquist, in her essay, Living Dolls: Images of Immortality in Children's Literature, looks at two children's books to show that immortality is not always depicted in literature as desirable. "Peter Pan and Hetty, Her First Hundred Years offer two unpalatable prescriptions for achieving eternal life: Peter must stop thinking and suffers mental stasis, while Hetty must stop moving and suffers physical stasis" (Lundquist 1996, 204). One way or another, as Lundquist demonstrates, immortality exacts a heavy price.

The theme of the Tide Lords series examines this point of view. It considers the argument that “mere perpetual existence is obviously not enough” (Clute and Nicholls 1999, 616). In The Immortal Prince (Fallon 2007), the suicidal immortal, Cayal, articulates his despair to a mortal intrigued by the notion of living forever. “Immortality seems like such a gift at first. But here’s the real problem: you can, given enough time, master any skill, acquire any knowledge and once it’s done, there is nothing more”(Fallon 2007). The character,

Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged, from Douglas Adams’s Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy series (in Life, the Universe and Everything), having seen and done everything there is to see and do, solves the problem of his eternal boredom by dedicating the rest of his existence to insulting every single living being in the universe-in alphabetical order (Adams 1982, 147).

The public perception of immortality is, in my opinion, best summarised by the user-created Wikipedia, which offers anecdotal rather than empirical evidence on immortality: “Ultimately, one desires that this existence be of a desirable quality,” the anonymously authored entry in Wikipedia explains. “As the prevalence of suicide suggests, people would often prefer not to exist at all, than exist in a severely unpleasant environment”(Wikipedia entry 2006)8. Even Tolkien’s elves suffered for their longevity. “In Tolkien's Middle-earth mythos, the immortal Elves were said to view the mortality of Men to be a gift. This was chiefly due to the Elves' clear faculty of memory, which could accumulate millennia of sad experiences” (Wikipedia entry 2006).

Offering any material referenced in Wikipedia is problematic, of course, due to its unreliability. Ironically, even this has started to filter into speculative fiction. In Keith R A Candido’s novel, Supernatural: Nevermore, Sam and Dean Winchester approach an academic for his expertise in the works of Edgar Allen Poe. In response to the statement by the main characters that “we did some research” on the poet, the professor in question responds:

“Please God, tell me it isn’t Wikipedia. I swear that site should be banned… I’ve had to give out more F’s because of numbnut students who think copying an entire Wikipedia page constitutes research...” (DeCandido 2007, 246).

8 Wikipedia’s entry on immortality specifically states that the entry is not sourced or referenced. 16

So the site itself has achieved pop-cultural status as a recognisable reference source — hence its inclusion in a TV series tie-in novel — even while those using it as such are questioning its validity (ibid). The mere fact such an entry exists on a site created and fed by internet users — a site so recognisable that it is quoted in popular fiction — reinforces the strength of the trope, and is offered as a reference only in that context.

Trudi Canavan’s 2006 work, Priestess of the White, Book 1 of The Age of Five Trilogy, which has a cabal of five immortals ruling humanity, has her newly- created immortal lament: ‘I worry about being lonely,’ Auraya admitted. Mairae nodded. ‘Everyone fears that, mortal or not. You will find new friends to replace the old.’ She smiled. ‘And lovers, too’ (Canavan 2005 p150).

In Kushiel’s Dart, by Jaqueline Carey (2003), another fantasy that touches on a character dealing with immortality, the heroine spends much of the series trying to release her friend from the burden of immortality, which in his case, means he continues to age indefinitely, in much the same way as Tithonus, the immortal granted eternal life by Zeus at the request of his lover Eos, who continued age until he faded to nothing but a voice. Although at first glance, this seems to buck the trope, it is the character’s relentless and unending descent into decrepitude that causes his immortality to become a curse. Immortality, in and of itself, is not the problem, just that he does not seem likely to enjoy it.

3.2 Trope: that immortals can be killed

This trope in speculative fiction, the acceptance that even though long lived, or indeed impervious to harm, all immortals must have an Achilles heel, is pervasive and appears in works as diverse as Bram Stoker’s Dracula — whose immortal vampires can be killed by a wooden stake through the heart (Stoker 2004) — to Tolkien’s elves, who can be killed in battle, or by a broken heart. 17

Some authors have found a way around the fact that immortal means “living forever”(Collier 1977, 514). They opt for the device of “emmortality” a term coined by Alan Harrrington in his 1969 work, The Immortalist, and which was examined further in his 1977 novel Paradise1. “What is usually involved is, strictly speaking, extreme longevity and freedom from ageing”(Clute and Nicholls 1999, 616).

Other examples of mortal immortals in fantasy literature include the immortal god Torak, of David Eddings’ Belgariad series, who can be destroyed by the Orb of Aldur (Eddings 1983). Moral immortals in fiction, of course, feature far earlier than this. Homer’s Achilles, the son of the mortal Trojan king, Peleus, and the immortal sea nymph Thetis, had a weakness that enabled him to be destroyed. His mother, Thetis, dipped him in the River Styx to make him immortal, holding him by the ankle, which proved to be the only part of him that could be harmed. He is, in fact, one of the archetypes of this trope. His name — or rather his weakness, the Achilles Heel — now embodies the trope of immortals who can die or be killed.

The immortal god Xaphista, in my own Demon Child trilogy, is killed by the heroine finding a way to make his believers doubt him long enough for him to become mortal (Fallon 2002), enabling him to be trapped and then taken by Death. This work, like Eddings’, is set in a low-technology, quasi-medieval world where magic is commonplace.

The trope filters through, however, even to fantasy in a modern setting. Laurell K. Hamilton's Meredith Gentry series, whose heroine is part sidhe (elvish), part brownie, part human, and mortal because of her human blood, lives in Los Angeles where she works for the Grey Detective Agency, which specialises in "supernatural problems, magical solutions" (Hamilton 2005). In this fantasy set in a contemporary world, Hamilton writes of an immortal once

18 being killed in combat by her mortal heroine. Blood is exchanged at the beginning of a duel, which shares her heroine’s mortality, allowing her to kill her opponent (ibid). Like Eddings, Hamilton also uses the device of a talisman, in the sword “Mortal Dread”, a weapon that can bring true death to immortals. Similarly, old pagan gods of Neil Gaiman’s American Gods are engaged in a battle of survival with the new gods of technology, because they will cease to exist as people stop making sacrifices to them (Gaiman 2001).

The strongest evidence, however, of the pervasiveness of the “immortals can be killed” trope, comes, not from literary works, but from readers themselves. A promotional competition run on www.jenniferfallon.com in 2006 asked readers to suggest how they would kill an immortal. Of the 160 entries received9, only 12 of them did not propose some form of making the immortal mortal, either through the use of talismans, or emotional manipulation (Tolkien’s “dying of a broken heart” trope), in order to put an end to him.

4. Case Studies

In a conversation with Stephanie Smith (Associate Publisher, Voyager) in 2003, she related the following anecdote to me: “I swore I’d scream,” she said, “if I saw another fantasy manuscript off the slush pile that began with a teenage boy returning to his village after a day in the fields, or goat-herding, or whatever, to find his village destroyed, so he can set off on a quest to avenge them. And then Raymond Feist’s new book came out the other day, and it’s an international bestseller and guess what? That’s exactly how it starts. I could have cried. We’ll never stop them doing it now”(Personal interview 2007). Such are the tropes of fantasy, and even editors who wish to buck them, know better.

9 Can be independently verified by Speculate Pty Ltd 19

Sonny Whitelaw faced a similar problem to me while writing tie-in novels for MGM’s Stargate universe. She explains how, “by combining aspects of familiar ‘off-the-shelf’ novums10 to technologise the creation mythology, the audience is familiarised, defamiliarised and refamiliarised in a cogent manner, desirable narrative and character elements are used, restrictions imposed by the Stargate framework are met, and the newly-created technology is linked to the broader Stargate framework” (Whitelaw 2008, 36). This is, in a slightly different context, what I found myself having to do with the Tide Lords. I needed to combine aspects of familiar ‘off-the-shelf’ immortality novums (i.e. desirable immortality, immortality with an end in sight) with variations on the theme, such as limiting the number of immortals who seek death, and giving hope that one may succeed. In this way, as Whitelaw suggests, the audience is familiarised, defamiliarised and refamiliarised in a cogent manner, desirable narrative and character elements are utilised, and restrictions imposed by the immortality tropes are met.

In the following case studies, I will be examining three works: Priestess of the white, The Immortal Prince, and The Gods of Amyrantha. These are, respectively: a work which falls squarely within the immortality tropes I identified as being desirable; the work I submitted and then modified to cater for the second trope (the ability to kill a mortal); and finally, the creative work I undertook while working on this exegesis, which not only covers the first trope (the desirability of immortality), but also looks at the various devices I used to subvert the tropes, while appearing to adhere to them.

10 A novum is a specific plot device, an icon or concept original to an SF story that changes, “the mundane experience based upon some scientific or logical innovations” (Johnson-Smith 2005, 25). 20

4.1. Priestess of the White – Book 1 of The Age of Five Gods by Trudi Canavan

Trudi Canavan is a bestselling Australian author who, in 2005, was offered an advance of £1,000,000 ($2.4 million AUD) by Orbit for the worldwide rights to a 4 book fantasy series, set in the world of her earlier Black Magician trilogy. Canavan’s success is in no small part attributable to the UK sales of her Age of Five Gods series, the first book of which was published by HarperCollins Publishers Australia, just prior to the submission of The Immortal Prince to the same editor. Canavan sent me the manuscript in draft form, prior to publication, to read and discuss, because she was aware that I was also working in the same area, with the same tropes, and wanted my input.

In the opening chapters of Canavan’s 2006 novel, Priestess of the White, one of the immortal Five, when introducing the selection of a new member of their ranks, explains to the gathered population: “To the one we choose we bestow immortality and great strength. When our Gift is accepted, another stage of our great task will be completed” (Canavan 2006, 106).

Immortality, in this work, is considered a gift. In fact, it is referred to throughout the series as a capitalised Gift, in order to emphasise its importance.

Lip service is paid to the consequences of not ageing as the implications of immortality begin to dawn on the new immortal, Auraya. “Mairae looked exactly as she had ten years before when she had come to Oralyn to negotiate with the Dunwayans. This evidence of the White’s immortality sent a shiver down Auraya’s spine. One day, she thought, someone will look at me and marvel at this sign of the gods’ powers” (Canavan 2006, 195).

Ten years would not, in reality, provide evidence of immortality; however, within the context of this novel, this statement reinforces the consequences of immortality for the heroine and reminds the reader that not ageing is a part of the Gift, reinforcing the trope with which the audience is familiar.

As the story unfolds, this issue of immortality becomes problematic. The tension a writer must build in a scene to engage a reader becomes blunted by the notion that the character, despite the peril they appear to be facing, is immortal and therefore not in any real danger. Canavan attempts to address this issue through expositional question and answer dialogues between her newly immortal heroine, and others who have previously trodden the same path.

‘Is Rian in any danger?’ ‘No.’ ‘Then why did Juran warn him to watch for a surprise attack? Surely he cannot be killed.’ Dyara crossed her arms. ‘Only if he makes a foolish mistake — and he won’t. I taught him well.’ ‘So we’re not invulnerable. Or immortal.’ Dyara smiled. ‘Not exactly. Most would say we’re close enough to it. We do have limitations…’ (Canavan 2006, 106).

So, despite the constant references to the characters being immortal, by Chapter 6, Canavan has back-pedalled on the issue. Although she calls her characters immortal, they are not. They are now firmly back within the familiar and accepted trope of “immortals who can be killed”.

Canavan knows her market, knows better than to alienate her readers, and has a seven-figure advance to prove the efficacy of her technique.

I discussed this with Canavan at the time of reading the draft version, pointing out that one is, technically, not immortal if one can die. Canavan responded by coining the phrase “the fantasy definition of immortal”, or what she sees as the general acceptance by fantasy readers of the fact immortals are immortal in fantasy, right up until they die. She knows her market and had no intention of bucking the trope, as her writing bears out. When, during the process of writing this thesis, I asked her directly why she had chosen to go with the tropes of immortality rather than try to defy them, she responded, “because I needed them to be able to die for the story to work” (Personal interview 2006).

Canavan does not attempt to disguise her adherence to the trope. Her immortals fear death the same way mortals do. This is text-book “familiarisation”. The reader accepts the idea that Auraya can be made immortal as a Gift from the gods, because in all other respects she has human emotions the reader can relate to and identify with.

The knowledge hit her [Auraya] like a physical blow. The Pentadrian could kill her. She felt a wave of terror and hastily created another shield. Looking up at the sorcerer, she saw him smiling broadly. So much for immortality, she found herself thinking. People are going to remember me as the shortest-lived immortal in history! (Canavan 2006, 195).

Having effectively taken away the immortality of her characters, while still referring to them as such, Canavan can now provide her characters with quite normal (and familiar) human fears, such as acrophobia, in order to reinforce the trope.

The stairs were steep, narrow and worn to a dip in the centre of each tread. She started climbing and was soon breathing deeply. The higher she climbed, the more disconcerting the drop to the shore became. Wind

buffeted her, and she wondered uneasily what would happen to her if she fell. Dyara hadn’t taught her how to survive a fall. Would a defensive shield like the one used to protect her from a magical attack also save her from the impact of landing on the sand or rocks far below? (Canavan 2006, 40).

The technique of limiting a superbeing’s powers allows the reader to identify with the character, by making them vulnerable. It is also a convenient plot device for thwarting omnipotent characters, who, without such vulnerabilities, would suffer no opposition to their will and therefore rob the characters of any opportunity to develop or grow within the arc of the story.

Canavan takes this vulnerability one step further by making her characters’ immortality a temporary state of affairs. “The white ring on her middle finger almost seemed to glow. Through it, the gods gave her the Gift of immortality and somehow enhanced her own Gifts… In return she gave her will and her now never-ending life to their service” (Canavan 2006, 191).

Removal of the ring reverses the process. In Priestess of the White, immortality becomes nothing more than a convenient word used to describe a state of being that temporarily halts the ageing process.

Canavan does not consciously serve the tropes. Market forces and reader expectation are not issues that need consideration when they are catered to as a matter of course. Furthermore, true immortality (as in characters who cannot, under any circumstances, be killed) within the scope of her narrative would have been problematic and not enabled the progression of the story in the way the author intended.

The tropes, however, have been served. Canavan’s immortals desire immortality and they can be killed. Immortal remains an adjective to describe a concept at odds with its actual meaning.

4.2. The Immortal Prince – Book 1 of the Tide Lords

Two problems became immediately apparent during the structural edit of The Immortal Prince:

1. The main protagonist — an immortal desperately searching for a way to die — was unsympathetic. The immortality trope favoured the idea of immortality and it therefore was dangerous to present the idea as being less than desirable. 2. Because the immortals of this series (who are the enemy of mankind) could not be killed, the human characters would never be able to kill them and therefore the story lacked hope for a happy ending.

During the lengthy, and often fraught negotiations following the structural edit, a number of other issues were raised, such as the fear that readers would not relate to a character so determined to end his life. There was no facility for making new immortals within the current plot, precluding the hope for a character considering the prospect of immortality desirable from ever achieving their aim. The trope favoured the mortals in the story attempting to find a way to join the ranks of the immortals, not wishing to be rid of them, and my narrative flew in the face of this.

In my previous works, I was known for creating heroes with a great deal more wit and “snappy dialogue” (Timmony 2007, 12). The depression so pervasive in a determinedly suicidal hero did not allow for the kind of wise-cracking

25 dialogue the publishers (and more worrying for them, the buying public) had come to expect from a Jennifer Fallon fantasy.

The nature of the character, Damin Wolfblade (Fallon 2004), hero of my earlier Hythrun Chronicles series, had become my own private archetype. This was the type of character my readers had come to expect, the familiar trope unique to a Jennifer Fallon novel. Unfortunately, such a personality did not fit the character of an immortal willing to destroy a world in order to achieve his own death.

The irony — that I was now a victim of my own tropes — does not escape me. In my previous nine published works, I had (quite inadvertently) created a character type that had become both familiar and popular. To meet reader expectations, Cayal, the Immortal Prince, the key character in a series where the entire work was predicated on his desire to end his life, would have to be more upbeat and less, well, suicidal.

This realisation was problematic. Not only would such a change invalidate the entire premise of the series, but it also made the plots of the other three books to follow which had been laid out in synopsis form for the sale of the series redundant.

Any changes to The Tide Lords series would have to be effected in such a way that the rest of the series continued to follow the general path of the synopsis and outline. To explore the consequences of immortality, and the practicalities of living forever, the ideas must be presented in a way that left the reader with the hope lesser mortals would eventually prevail. I needed to return to the familiar, before taking my readers down the path of the unfamiliar.

I had an epiphany at this point, and was able to summarise the problem I now faced in one sentence – We need a character that all the male readers want to be and the female readers want to shag.

Although my editor objected to the crude nature of the statement, I knew I was on the right track.

The solution became immediately apparent to me. I could not, without invalidating the entire series, make Cayal less suicidal. But I could add a character — familiar and comfortable — who fitted the bill.

I needed to work in a protagonist who fitted the “all the male readers want to be and the female readers want to shag” criteria. I needed to create a character that sat firmly in the middle of the tropes, both the popular tropes relating to immortality, and my own trope that required me to provide the perky, likeable hero, readers had come to expect. He could spout all the snappy dialogue he wanted, without it seeming absurd. After all, this new character — Mr Perky as I began to think of him — would not be a character devoted to trying to kill himself.

The first challenge was finding a way to add another major character to what was, essentially, a completed work. I overcame this problem by not adding a completely new character, but by taking a minor character, that of the King’s Spymaster, and changing his role in the story.

The choice of the Spymaster for this transformation was not accidental. The occupation of “spy” has a connotation of danger, the title “master” implies expertise and intelligence. By default, the newly named spymaster, “Declan Hawkes” was a dangerous and clever man. I renamed him from the blandly- monikered “Daly Bridgeman” and halved the age of the original character from a jaded man approaching 60, to a young man of 30, further enhancing his

27 virility. With the stroke of a pen, this new spymaster was obviously smart, clever and ambitious.

This change required the addition of a new chapter 2 to introduce the character, and set him up as a major player. It also required the addition of two other chapters throughout the book to increase his profile. I then gave him a history of a long friendship and unrequited love for the heroine, further weaving him into the main story, and making him less and less like the add-on he was.

To add another layer and deal with the trope of “immortals who can be killed” I created a secret organisation within the story, the Cabal of the Tarot, of which the new spymaster was an integral member.

The Cabal’s function is to find a way to kill the immortals. Even though I have made it quite clear in the narrative that these immortals truly cannot die, by including an organisation devoted to finding one, I was able to acknowledge the trope. The mortals in the story have hope. More importantly, they have faith. They believe, despite all evidence to the contrary, that they will eventually prevail. The reader, thanks to the “fantasy definition of immortal”, believes the same.

The inclusion of a secret society devoted to destroying the immortals satisfied the publishers. They believed (and still do, I suspect) that I will eventually allow my immortals to die, even though I do not intend to allow this to happen. But while the mortal characters are engaged in finding a way to dispose of their immortal foes, the trope is (on the surface at least) being served. The publishers, like the readers and the characters in the story, have hope.

This then was the second of the two tropes that I wished to subvert, successfully dealt with. The Immortal Prince now offered a story of a suicidal

28 immortal, unable to find a way to die, and an organisation of mortals bent on the same outcome. Because all the characters believe a solution is eventually going to present itself, so too does the reader.

4.3. Reflective Case Study - The Gods of Amyrantha – Book 2 of the Tide Lords

As part of the promotional activities to publicise The Immortal Prince’s release in March of 2007, I ran a competition on my website, www.jenniferfallon.com asking readers to submit their suggestions on “How to kill an immortal”.

I posed the question, still wondering at the strength of the trope. More than 80% of the entries suggested the immortal, if he so willed it, could make himself mortal, and therefore be killed. Entrants seemed to understand the concept of immortality while not grasping that it was an irreversible state of affairs.

The entries11 ranged from the concise… Turn him into a mortal.

To the ridiculous… I would do so many random acts of complete stupidity that the immortal God would look at me and wonder what the hell he was thinking creating me. Once he started thinking like that I would continue doing these things until he got so upset he either A committed suicide on himself over being so depressed, or B he chose to make himself human long enough to come down and kill me (since the Gods in

11 Names of entrants have been withheld to protect their anonymity. 29

your books aren’t allowed) at which point I would turn the table and well, errr, chop his head off :)

To the well thought out, but ultimately absurd… Immortality is the concept of an infinite amount of time one has to live. Therefore, immortals cannot die, as it makes the infinite, ‘finite’, completely going against that definition. Immortals cannot be killed by physical means, nor can they be killed by any known supernatural means. But what is the source of immortality? For something to begin, there must be another beginning. If one takes away the source, the immortal will not die, but will cease to exist. Ta da! Problem solved. So, what could be the source? The source of the immortality is the world itself. Meaning, that the life source of all the creatures/plants/organisms in existence are all combined together into one whopping life source for the immortal. The immortal is using the life source of the immediate plane of existence he is in to live a long, long, long life. How to kill him? There is on way to go about it. He will be the source of his own destruction. The immortal will be so drunk on his ‘power’ he will misuse it, and flagrantly kill, pillage, abuse and wreck havoc upon the world, being the cause of much chaos and wars. However, little does he know, that with every creature that he kills, especially human, even the blade of grass he steps on, and ant he crushes between his fingers, the immortality is leaking away, bit by bit. As he heads off in the path of destruction, he will, ultimately, kill everything, and thus as a result himself. OR The protagonist discovers that and kills everyone in the world and when there are only both of them left, the protagonist kills himself and so saves the ‘non-existent’ world.

This last entry, where the author states “Immortality is the concept of an infinite amount of time one has to live. Therefore, immortals cannot die, as it makes the infinite, ‘finite’, completely going against that definition. Immortals cannot be killed by physical means, nor can they be killed by any known supernatural means” indicates that the reader understands the concept of immortality.

The following paragraph, however, indicates that even with such a clear understanding, they are unwilling to accept that it might be a permanent state of affairs. “But what is the source of immortality? For something to begin, there must be another beginning. If one takes away the source, the immortal will not die, but will cease to exist. Ta da! Problem solved.”

Combined with the publisher’s earlier concern over the problem of bucking the tropes and this definitive evidence from the end consumer, The Gods of Amyrantha needed to study these concepts in a more practical form in order to buck the trope, if the word “practical” can be applied to a work of fantasy dealing with immortality.

I had dealt with the issue of killing immortals by setting up the Cabal of the Tarot. But, if I was going to continue to successfully buck the trope of immortality (one that allows death), and address the first trope — the desirability of immortality, The Gods of Amyrantha would need to set the Tide Lords series up to examine both aspects of immortality.

By presenting immortality from both a jaded and fresh perspective, I could examine the trope in some depth, something that I still had plenty of scope to do within a four book series. Presented in the right format, and in a way that was character driven, as well as integral to the plot, not only could I avoid the expositional dialogue used so frequently in Priestess of the White whenever the

31 issue came up, but I could gently coerce the reader — and hopefully the editors — into coming around to my point of view.

The desirability of immortality trope, offered a plot problem of some magnitude. A large part of the story in The Immortal Prince is devoted to the reason why no more immortals can be made. The novum, which allowed immortality — the Eternal Flame — had been extinguished by the Cayal, the Immortal Prince, “I extinguished the Eternal Flame. For that reason alone, it was worth every life I destroyed to do it”(Fallon 2007, 523). With no hope of making any more immortals, the characters were not likely to be seeking a way to achieve it, therefore negating the likelihood that they would desire it. I had also outsmarted myself with the creation of the Cabal of the Tarot, and making most of the protagonists members of an organisation actively trying to eradicate immortality.

My task then, in The Gods of Amyrantha, was to address the problem of making new immortals. I achieved this by first discrediting the immortality-making powers of the Eternal Flame, giving the act of making an immortal a quasi- scientific basis. This technique was used in the Star Wars movies by George Lucas, when he introduced the concept “midi-chlorians” (Lucas 1999). By changing the “Force, a mystic energy field that "surrounds and binds us" in the original trilogy, into a deity by imbuing it with will and suggesting it could cause immaculate conception”(Domenjoz 2000) he justified the act via quasi- science.

By altering the nature of the Eternal Flame, I was able to devalue its purpose without negating the impact of the story told in The Immortal Prince. In The Gods of Amyrantha, another immortal reveals that the Eternal Flame was a deliberate deception, perpetrated by several of the original immortals to disguise the fact that immortality was a hereditary trait. If one is more than half-immortal, faced with a traumatic and life-threatening event (i.e.

32 immolation) immortality — along with the ability to wield Tide magic — would be triggered and a new immortal made.

This addition was warmly received by the publishers, who were now satisfied that the tropes had been addressed. It was possible, now, to achieve immortality. There was hope that if the immortal characters could not be killed, then perhaps the hero and heroine could join their ranks. And as a final concession to the tropes, at the very end of The Gods of Amyrantha, Declan Hawkes (Mr Perky, himself) is made immortal.

This twist at the very end of the book appears on the surface to be pandering to the trope. But it allowed a close examination of the implications of immortality in the next book, Palace of Impossible Dreams, from the perspective of a character yet to decide if the concept is good or bad, whereas previously, with only Cayal’s suicidal point of view, I was unable to pursue this point of view. The publishers accepted this and were satisfied that their concerns had been addressed.

5. Conclusion

The Immortal Prince was published in March, 2007. It achieved a ranking of #7 on the Dymocks National Fiction Bestseller List and spent four weeks at #1 on their Fantasy/Sci-fi list. The Gods of Amyrantha was released into Australian bookstores on 22 August 2007, with only minor changes relating to line editing. Another bestseller, it went to reprint five days later, four days before its official release date of 1 September 2007.

In December 2007, it was shortlisted in the Aurealis Awards in the Best Fantasy of 2007 category.

Palace of Impossible Dreams, Book Three of the Tide Lords, was submitted to the publishers in May, 2007, and accepted with almost no changes, except for a minor plot inconsistency relating to a particular character’s ability to earn a living. It also achieved national mainstream bestselling status, achieving #8 on the Dymocks National list and #9 on the Book City National Bestseller list in April 2008.

The third book, The Palace of Impossible Dreams, continues the theme of the original series. There is still a suicidal immortal. There is no clear way of disposing of them. The mortals are facing their rising power and the threat that their magically induced conflict might eventually decimate them. The story still centres on the need for Cayal to find a way to die.

Woven through this, however, are acknowledgements of the tropes designed to “re-familiarise”(Whitelaw 2008) the reader. By the fourth book, The Chaos Crystal (submitted to the publishers in May of 2008) - as the series nears the inevitable ending predicated at the outset by my desire to write a series about immortals that truly cannot die, I was able to go so far as to have the main 34 protagonist, Cayal, The Immortal Prince, openly acknowledge the trope, and then explain why he does not subscribe to it:

“People want immortality, or at least they think they do, because they cannot bear the idea of letting go. Those of us who have it, soon learn it’s not the gift it appears to mortal eyes, but that day I learned just how far some men are prepared to go, how much they are willing to forgive, if they believe it will help them live forever. Fools”(Fallon 2008).

With the introduction of a newly-minted immortal, I am able to examine his new status without the burden of ten thousand years of memories. There is hope that the heroine may be made immortal, if indeed, it proves too hard to kill them. And there is hope that they can be killed and the mortals will prevail.

I have my series centred on a suicidal immortal. HarperCollins and Tor have their series about immortals who can be made and unmade, not to mention a perky hero to carry the story.

But if one needs further proof of the publishers’ unfailing belief in the strength of the immortality tropes, it can be found in the HarperCollins Australian Publishing Program for 2007, where the entry for The Immortal Prince and The Gods of Amyrantha states: “from the bestselling author of Medalon and Wolfblade, comes a compelling epic fantasy quartet about the desire for eternal life”(HarperCollins 2007 P35).

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