In other news, now that The Gothic Novel has reached it's stunning conclusion* I've begun a new genre-parodying e-novel.
This one takes on the historical-mystery-thriller genre, which I both love to hate and hate to love.
I hate the dumbed-down scholarship and the way they put wild conjecture on the level with actual fact so that they're indistinguishable to the average reader (something scholars are quite capable of doing on their own without the help of fiction). I get annoyed with the way the protagonist, always a supposed genius in his/her field, will randomly forget hugely important information when convinient for building suspense**
But many of the genre's silly conventions appeal to me. I like the location-hoping, where every clue has to be visited in person at some famed historical site. I like the idea that great discoveries are just sitting there in plain sight, waiting for some one to accidentally figure them out. And I like an academic protagonist whose superpower is obscure knowledge. Especially, I like the character of the distinguished British gentleman with the sparkling wit and endless knowledge to turns out to be evil, usually.
The first chapter is currently underway. Stay tuned for...
When mild-mannered professor Nick Harris accepts a job at small college in the Midwest, he doesn’t expect anything more challenging than trying to interest a room full of teenagers in Early Modern history. But St. Mary Francis College holds the key to a centuries-old secret so powerful, so shocking, that the quest to unlock it sends Nick racing across the globe. He soon discovers that he’s not the only seeker interested in ancient truths. There are others following the same path, and some seem willing to kill to see that Nick never makes it to the end...
*I initially wrote "is done" in place of "has reached it's stunning conclusion," and whenever I do that (replace a simple word with a more hyperbolic statement) I imagine Winona Rider in Beetlejuice, writing her suicide note. "I am alone [scrtach scrtach] I am utterly alone. By the time you read this, I will be gone, having jumped [scratch scratch] having plummeted..." Just thought I'd share that. Incidentally, I learned the meaning of "utterly" from that scene.
**Interred with their Bones, which I'd otherwise classify as "pretty-not-bad," provides a particularly irritating example, in which the heroine totally forgets about Cardenio and then, when the plot requires it, it all "Oh, right! Shakespeare wrote some lost plays!"
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