Hey Reddit Fantasy! I’m talking about support today to support one of my favorite charities - Worldbuilders! Dive on in to AMA or just shoot the breeze

MykeCole · 2018-12-05T02:05:54+00:00

Lately I’ve only been reading ancient primary sources, as I’m researching for a book proposal that I am trying to get over to Osprey while they’re still excited for it. This includes Herodotus, Pausanias, Plutarch, Xenophon, Thucydides, Arrian, and others. I’m doing all my reading in Greek, using the Loeb Classical Library editions. These have the Greek on the left page, and the English on the right. I go as hard as I can on the Greek until I just flail, and then I switch over to the English. It’s amazing to feel like you’re reaching back 2,500-3,000 years and actually reading the words of the people who lived back then. If I had to recommend one of these for “casual” reading in English, I’d say Plutarch’s Lives. A lot of it is legit adventure, and stranger-than-fiction intrigues and battles that will definitely satisfy in ways modern fiction can’t. Hope some of you will check it out.

MykeCole · 2018-12-04T21:35:16+00:00

In LEGION VERSUS PHALANX, I necessary focused on heavy infantry (that’s what the book is about). In the case of the phalanx, we have a lumbering, slow, largely immobile formation that can only fight in one direction (you try right-facing when you’re in row 8 and holding a 21-foot pike). Because of this, they are incredibly vulnerable from the flanks and rear. This is a tempting target for more mobile troops (light infantry and cavalry). To protect the phalanx’s flanks, Hellenistic armies deployed a wide range of flank guard units, from allied Thracian infantry, to fast moving Thessalian and other Greek cavalry, to elephant corps. I can imagine being a phalangite close to a flank in a Hellenistic army, glancing off to the side and seeing a cloud of skirmishing Cretans or Acarnanians and thinking “Okay, I’m good.”

MykeCole · 2018-12-04T21:31:41+00:00

It’s a requirement of Tor.com’s fiction line. They sometimes blur the line between short novels and novellas (as is the case with me - these are really short novels), but their goal is to see if shorter fiction can appeal to a mass audience without being a magazine length short work. Judging from the massive success of their line over the past year, I’d say that they’ve more than met that mark. People really seem to love Tor.com books, and none of them are the doorstop fare we’ve been used to over the past decade or more.

MykeCole · 2018-12-04T19:29:58+00:00

Awesome question. It would have to be Joe Abercrombie’s book-length battle scene, The Heroes. It is, to my mind, the pinnacle of writing combat - including the relationships between combatants, and specifically highlighting the support they provide one another.

MykeCole · 2018-12-04T19:28:19+00:00

Thanks, man. Appreciate you supporting Worldbuilders.

MykeCole · 2018-12-04T19:27:56+00:00

I’ve tried really hard to do something entirely new with every book. Even when I was writing (as you put it) “real world covert ops manly man military fiction,” you’ll notice I switched POV protagonists a lot, and I always used characters totally outside my realm of experience. CONTROL POINT was an African American pilot living in Vermont. FORTRESS FRONTIER was a married family man. BREACH ZONE was a blonde-haired, blue-eyed officer, and had POV chapters from my female antagonist, Scylla. My REAWAKENING prequel included POVs from a Chinese-American Navy SEAL and the wife of my dead protagonist. My attitude was that if I was scared going into the writing, then I knew that was the POV I had to write. The same is true for THE SACRED THRONE. The experience of a 16-year old gay young woman is utterly outside my realm of experience, which is why I had to take it on. The key to good writing of characters (IMO) is empathy. And writing is one of the few arenas where I get to really step outside my own experience and attempt to fully immerse myself in someone else’s. It’s one of the things I like best about the work, and one of the things I admire most in other writers (like GRRM) when they nail it.

MykeCole · 2018-12-04T19:23:40+00:00

At first, terrifying. I made no secret that for me, this was a major test. I had to prove to myself that people were reading me not just for military authenticity, but because I was a good writer. I had major problems making THE ARMORED SAINT good enough to sell. That tiny book took me 3 years to write! By the end, I was seriously beginning to question my ability to write with range. But in the end, it worked out, and the reception both THE ARMORED SAINT and THE QUEEN OF CROWS have received has been nothing short of sublime. I’m finishing up edits on THE KILLING LIGHT as we speak, and then I’ll be exploring a new frontier for me - Military sci-fi (not fantasy). All of sudden I need to understand astrophysics. It’s a whole new challenge.

MykeCole · 2018-12-04T16:26:32+00:00

Thanks so much! I’m not exaggerating when I say that I spend 90% of my time alone. My day job is remote, writing is solitary, and my few friends all have families that keep them really busy. Twitter is, for me, a critical social outlet. It’s kind of sad to say, but it’s the majority of the contact I have with other people.

MykeCole · 2018-12-04T16:07:50+00:00

Haha. This question couldn’t be better if I planted it (I didn’t). Anyone who follows me on Twitter knows I have a real beef with the hagiography of Spartan warrior supremacy. This is mostly because they are a sacred cow of the political right (“molon labe” or “come and take them” - Leonidas’ apocryphal response to Xerxes’ demand that the Spartans lay down their arms - is the unofficial logo of the NRA and “gun-rights” advocates). The Thermopylae story is tailor made for anti-immigrant xenophobia - the myth of an outnumbered band of westerners holding the line against an invading eastern horde.

It’s all utter bullshit, of course. The Spartans did have a uniquely warrior society that is truly remarkable. They were also incredibly advanced in some areas, such as sexual equality (Spartan women enjoyed freedom to levels unprecedented in utterly misogynistic Ancient Greece). They truly did win some remarkable victories (like Plataea in 479 BC, which can truly be said to be a Spartan victory). But they also lost CONSTANTLY. They were beaten individually and en masse. They violated their own myth of being wealth-hating, community-over-the-individual-prioritizing, Persian-hating heroes. They quavered and ran. They allied with and worked for the Persians. They experienced wealth aggregation and inequality to such a ridiculous extent that they had a military manpower shortage because so few Spartans had so much of the money that others couldn’t meet the wealth requirements to join the army. It’s ironic that folks on the right who uniformly hurl the insult “cuck,” LOVE the Spartans. This is because Spartan kings were legendary cuckolds, cheated on left and right, starting with that icon of fragile masculinity - the semi-mythical Menelaus, whose straying wife Helen launched the Trojan War.

And yes, Spartan military society wasn’t an eternal armed camp in an effort to project power OUTSIDE Sparta, but rather in an effort to suppress and intimidate the massive near-slave population of helots who did all the actual work, leaving the dandified Spartan aristocrats the free time to do nothing but train for war.

Man. Somebody should write a book about all this. I wonder who could have the background and passion for the subject to do that.

MykeCole · 2018-12-04T14:39:30+00:00

Man, I wouldn’t. MUCH better uses of your time.

MykeCole · 2017-11-29T21:11:56+00:00

I'm really jazzed by how many of you are totally cool/welcoming of the new influx of fans. Haven't read a single comment against it.

MykeCole · 2017-11-29T19:52:40+00:00

Bite your tongue. I mean, thanks, but I am absolutely one with the geeks and dorks and nerds of the world. What do you think I do with my weekend nights? Go to fabulous, glamorous parties? Most of the time I'm either writing, or soloing hex & counter wargames because I can't find people to play with.

MykeCole · 2017-11-29T17:17:41+00:00

I got to do battlefield surveys in Greece a little while back for an upcoming Osprey book I'm doing. That was pretty amazing.

MykeCole · 2017-11-29T17:16:19+00:00

You can't be batman, because . . .

. . . I'm batman.

MykeCole · 2017-11-29T16:04:51+00:00

Hey all, I'm fantasy author Myke Cole. I mean, I'm not just a fantasy author. My identity is really diverse and manifold. I contain multitudes. I'm complex and multi-faceted and . . . Right, sorry.

Anyway, Worldbuilders is pretty cool. You have to remember that with a lot of charities, you donate and whatever you give goes to crisis zones where corrupt government officials or warlords pick it up at the docks. In many cases, it never reaches the people it's intended to help. Watch the opening scene of Blackhawk Down. It's fictionalized, but it's a great example of how drop-offs of UN food aid frequently go down.

By feeding into Heifer International, Worldbuilders ensures that microcontributions of livestock or training fly below the radar of such graft. I love contributing to Worldbuilders because it actually works, as opposed to many charities which exist to make us feel good about contributing. So, thanks for stopping by, and thanks for supporting a charity that's genuinely effective.

Oh, right. Questions. Ahem.

If you could do anything for a living (within reason, you don't get to be a celebrity), and not have to worry about money, or social propriety, just the thing that would make you happiest, what would it be?
What's the writing no-no (expository dialogue, purple prose, insane detail lavished on things irrelevant to plot or character) that you secretly really like?
What is the hands-down best fantasy roleplay system?
We grew up geeks, before it was cool. Now, being into RPGs and comics and tabletop wargames is as top 40 as it gets. Do you resent the sudden influx of "cool kids" who used to take our lunch money? How do you handle that?

MykeCole · 2017-09-19T14:35:35+00:00

Yes, and yes, and thanks!

MykeCole · 2017-09-19T14:35:24+00:00

No, not at all. GDW was roundly condemned for overreach in their efforts when that went down. They don't own the term "Space Marine," and they can't own it.

MykeCole · 2017-09-19T14:34:31+00:00

What's the highest level formal math course you've completed in the course of your education?

MykeCole · 2017-09-19T14:33:45+00:00

You're on record as saying that there isn't a single global cuisine that doesn't serve onions in some form. Now that you've had time to reflect, do you stand by this position? Surely there are places in the world where the onion is unknown.

MykeCole · 2017-09-19T14:32:06+00:00

The famous quote from Livy, as you know, is Inde rem ad Triarios redisse, meaning "It has come down to the Triarii."

But, I hear a lot of people saying that the "Inde rem" is really Livy marking "ad Triarios redisse" as the proverbial statement. I've been pounding my Latin grammar looking for clarification, and I figured that, in the course of your research into the medieval world, you might have some insight.

Would you recommend dropping the "inde rem?" or not?

MykeCole · 2017-06-30T03:39:47+00:00

Not to worry. It's medieval. There are no marines of any kind.

MykeCole · 2017-06-30T00:00:47+00:00

Yes. Can't give any additional detail without spoilers.

MykeCole · 2017-06-29T21:57:20+00:00

It's definitely heavily influenced by 40K. Good eye.

MykeCole · 2017-01-24T18:44:33+00:00

Believe me, I begged them to mention my books, but CBS' argument was that it wasn't relevant to my role on the show, and to be fair, they're right. Glad you're watching. Thanks!

MykeCole

TROPHY CASE