The Dreamstone (Ealdwood, volume 1) by C J Cherryh

[james_davis_nicoll]

Only the brave, the arrogant, the naïve, or the desperate Men trespass in Arafel's Ealdwood. Into which category does the latest visitor fall?

The Dreamstone (Ealdwood, volume 1) by C J Cherryh

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

"An interesting question would be what inspired that view of the Fair Folk"
...that it's the original view? Or, to be fair, an original view - it's straight from Irish myth. Modern fairy stuff tends to utterly ignore the Irish mythology while stealing all the names, which can cause confusion.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebor_Gab%C3%A1la_%C3%89renn#Milesians

[james_davis_nicoll]

I know that. But why were fairies seen that way?

[spiralsheep]

I know this is overly simplistic, but people want someone to blame when "bad" things happen to "good" people, and blaming the tribal deity/ies or local rulers or too many of your neighbours tends to be unhealthy so it's a better solution for most people to blame those invisible forerunners who had enough power to effect the surrounding landscape but have now apparently retreated* to... ?

* "retreated" because the current local rulers are useless, but divinely/inheritedly legitimate (so they insist), and they clearly didn't get rid of the landscape shapers so the shapers must've retreated for their own reasons.

ETA: And what I should've added is that the convenience of this sort of projection is the Fair Folk can be imagined as powers that be, or aristos, or neighbours, for the purposes of blame (or even be a source of good fortune when an explanation for that is required).

[(Anonymous)]

An excellent question. The Book Of Invasions predates the Norman Conquest, so we can't blame it on that. A way to depose the pre-Christian gods - "they were defeated by our ancestors and moved into the Otherworld"?

Also depending on where, when, and who... they weren't. Like all myths Irish fairy myths aren't a coherent body, but a growing-together of a thousand years of stories; compare and contrast Tír na nÓg and the Hunchback of Knockgrafton!

[kgbooklog]

Tchaikovsky's Doors of Eden suggested that the Fair Folk were based on homo sapiens, as seen by Neanderthals.

[patrick_morris_miller]

The Dreamstone is slender but reads like a longer novel

In my experience, everything by Cherryh reads like something longer. This is not bad per se but I always finish exhausted and having no real idea what the hell just happened - much like her protagonists.

[riderius]

The affect of the prose is possibly a consequence of the characters--because of the way Cherryh writes POV, the world is described from their viewpoint, so it makes sense for the descriptive prose to match the affect of their dialog and thoughts.

It is certainly why my fiction prose (much of which is consciously based on Cherryh) changes affect when I write characters and realms inspired by myth.

[philrm]

I haven't read as much Cherryh as I probably should have, but this has been my experience also.

[roseembolism]

A lot of fairy/supernatural folktales, once you get away from the epics and long form stories, seem to have a similar feel to UFO or ghost encounter stories. Not so much "Here's the linear story", as "My friend and I were walking home late one night when..."

Which isn't to say fairy folktales are UFO encounters or vice versa. But it sure feels like there's something in our brains that makes us prone to these sorts of tales.

[(Anonymous)]

Ditto. I read something like Downbelow Station and when I come out of it, I've experienced a lot of stuff and I'm four pages further than I was before

[(Anonymous)]

I found myself puzzling over the name An Beag (literally "the small"). How should it be translated?