Kenogaia was, without any doubt, a great book. However, I must say, you really missed a trick to enrich yourse…. the experience of your readers. Instead of wrapping the story neatly in one volume, you should have split it into three huge installments and followed strictly the tropes of the modern young adult fantasy. The first part should have covered the harsh combat training of the protagonists (which, BTW, was another key element missing. Where was the wise master who would instruct our heroes in the art of war and steel their resolve and then make the ultimate sacrifice in order to remove a great obstacle on their quest?) and its first tests in practice, and end on an optimistic note by defeating a secondary antagonist in a thrilling fight (Mr. Lucius being the prime candidate for this role). Then, in the second volume, our central characters should have suffered a huge setback after their first face-to-face meeting with the main enemy, losing a sidekick or two in the process, but still escaping with their lives. The final volume would see their final triumph over the forces of evil in a bittersweet ending (more sidekicks dying, some wounds never being healed, etc.). And you should have left the door wide open for many sequels and prequels and the associated merchandise (including a nice Funko Pop line).
And my final complaint: Where was the SEX? Have you recently looked at the New York Times’s bestseller list? In the last two years it has been dominated by the Fourth Wing’s fantasy series by Rebecca Yarros, which contains many tens of pages of material that the previous generation would classify as “soft porn.”. Some female classmates of my daughter even recently created an Instagram story where they read together the latest installment in the series, Onyx Storm, in a posh coffeehouse. I considered countering this by asking my daughter to make a similar Instagram story with Kenogaia, but, unfortunately, I have only the Kindle version. You may object that such graphic content may not be appropriate for books where the protagonists are minors, but when has that ever stopped George R.R. Martin or Stephen King?
If you follow my advice in your further endeavors in the fantasy genre, the only form of gratitude I expect is to be invited to your future Martha's Vineyard mansion.
I started listening to Fourth Wing, deceived by all the positive comments. But after a while it became unbearably stupid. Western civilisation really is dumbing itself down. Even we who enjoy the fruits of capitalism must realise that it is really a force of barbarism.
I think it says something about the zeitgeist that most people consider Game of Thrones more "realistic" when it has more incest, brutality, rape, torture, etc. That very well could be true, we are seeing lots of darkness these days, but I prefer more uplifting literature, I even proudly wear the badge of escapism. As an aside, I can only read so much Latin American literature. I was commenting to one of my professors once that it's so uniformly depressing I have to take breaks. I asked if there were any uplifting Latin American stories and she said sure, but when I asked for specifics she said she'd get back to me and has yet too.
Tim, you just got two Kindle purchases from me:). If you have written anything else than the Fear Her Wrath series, please send me a link to its Amazon page.
Well, I had the foresight to have a dragon in my book. Mind you, if the dragon had paused to have sex it might have sold better. But half a crumpet is better than none.
As a read it a third time, hopefully out loud this time to my 11yr old I will be sure to keep the glossary nearby. Siri will not be up to the task. I do wish you more time and creative energy for books like Kenogaia.
The parts with real words are pretty cool too. A personal favorite—
You’re making the classic error of assuming that you should trust your own direct experiences. But, in fact, isolated experiences are just subjective impressions, and subjective impressions are purely phenomenal—that is to say, they just take in surfaces and appearances, mere phenomena, which as you no doubt know, Master Ambrosius, with your grasp of the classical tongues, means ‘appearances.’ And such phenomena can include the appearances of things that aren’t really there. I, on the other hand, am speaking out of a deep reservoir of abstract expertise. It’s simply a statistical fact that extraordinary experiences of the sort you believe you’ve had are, well, extraordinary, which is to sayoutside the statistical mean, which is to say mathematically impossible. All but invariably, they’re attributable to delusion. Otherwise, they’re attributable to a misperception, of the sort an optical illusion might induce.”
It’s the statistical that’s real, precisely because it has been purged of every distracting and misleading element of lived experience and sensation and feeling and thought. I tell you, lad, sensibility is the enemy of sense. Sensuous intuitions, poetic inspirations, mystical intimations — it’s all nonsense. The hard factual core of reality is statistical through and through. By contrast, personal affective experience is just an evanescent and numerically nugatory embodiment of one possible point or vector within the distribution of the statistical field of probabilities, and therefore not real or true in itself at all. Something’s true or real, you see, only to the degree that it’s accounted for by the probability curve. The more atypical the experience you think you’ve had, the more it’s ruled out by the regularity of the statistical mean. Your imagined memories of your adventures with this unfortunate boy, for example, are so outlandish that they’d simply be excluded from a proper statistical calculus as anomalies, well in excess of any standard deviation from the median probability, and thus much too extreme to fit within any rational pattern of distributed likelihoods.”“Hence, it’s precisely because you’re basing your beliefs on direct, unrefined, unreduced experience that you can be sure that those beliefs aren’t to be credited. And it’s precisely because I’m relying on statistics unpolluted by the particularities of direct knowledge that you can take what I’m telling you as scientifically established.”
I was reminded of this during the election. Of course it only took a leaky rowboat to lead the American electorate adrift from reality to alternative facts, but that does not mean one can’t admire a dreadnought-class battleship of sophistry.
I think George R.R Martin misunderstands the genre of fantasy. He constantly talks about incorporating realism into his stories, but that's not the point of fantasy. It's meant to be unrealistic, that's what makes them so engaging.
I’m really quite incapable of grasping what anyone sees in those books, but one can’t criticize a man for making a living without committing any crimes.
Thanks for this list. While my training in “The Noble Tongue” (though I can’t remember what you called Latin in the book) helped me decode many of these, it’s great to revisit so many neologisms in one spot. I finished your novel the day my wife and I arrived in Barcelona; it was a city so colorful and whimsical I assumed it jumped right out of the book.
That's a really great idea. I've only read the first chapter, but Mr Ambrosius somehow reminded me of you - in his response about iridescence, for example. Not to mention observing the heavens from among books.
I hope you are recovering well and continue to keep you in my prayers.
I have a question—and it doesn’t have much to do with Kenogaia, I’m afraid—do you have a favorite M.R. James ghost story?
I started reading The Complete Ghost Stories after first learning about them through your brother's Substack. Of the ones I’ve read so far, Martin’s Close and The Residence at Whitminster are my favorites. Casting the Runes is also unsettling.
One of my friends is an expert on the history of psychical research. I’ll have to ask him whether James had any connection with the SPR—I’d be curious to know.
I came across this online: "A pun is not completely matured until it is full groan". Is this, or is this somehow not, a pun? And do you find it amusing?
Kenogaia was, without any doubt, a great book. However, I must say, you really missed a trick to enrich yourse…. the experience of your readers. Instead of wrapping the story neatly in one volume, you should have split it into three huge installments and followed strictly the tropes of the modern young adult fantasy. The first part should have covered the harsh combat training of the protagonists (which, BTW, was another key element missing. Where was the wise master who would instruct our heroes in the art of war and steel their resolve and then make the ultimate sacrifice in order to remove a great obstacle on their quest?) and its first tests in practice, and end on an optimistic note by defeating a secondary antagonist in a thrilling fight (Mr. Lucius being the prime candidate for this role). Then, in the second volume, our central characters should have suffered a huge setback after their first face-to-face meeting with the main enemy, losing a sidekick or two in the process, but still escaping with their lives. The final volume would see their final triumph over the forces of evil in a bittersweet ending (more sidekicks dying, some wounds never being healed, etc.). And you should have left the door wide open for many sequels and prequels and the associated merchandise (including a nice Funko Pop line).
And my final complaint: Where was the SEX? Have you recently looked at the New York Times’s bestseller list? In the last two years it has been dominated by the Fourth Wing’s fantasy series by Rebecca Yarros, which contains many tens of pages of material that the previous generation would classify as “soft porn.”. Some female classmates of my daughter even recently created an Instagram story where they read together the latest installment in the series, Onyx Storm, in a posh coffeehouse. I considered countering this by asking my daughter to make a similar Instagram story with Kenogaia, but, unfortunately, I have only the Kindle version. You may object that such graphic content may not be appropriate for books where the protagonists are minors, but when has that ever stopped George R.R. Martin or Stephen King?
If you follow my advice in your further endeavors in the fantasy genre, the only form of gratitude I expect is to be invited to your future Martha's Vineyard mansion.
I started listening to Fourth Wing, deceived by all the positive comments. But after a while it became unbearably stupid. Western civilisation really is dumbing itself down. Even we who enjoy the fruits of capitalism must realise that it is really a force of barbarism.
Capitalism is simply barbarism systematized. And, of course, when it reaches its terminal point, it necessarily engenders fascism.
Perhaps you should ghost-write my next novel.
Hahaha, thank you, but it would be akin to a Vogon poet ghostwriting Milton's works.
Is this why nobody reads my books? No porn? No heedless slaughter of supporting characters? No dragons?
No castrations, rapes, or flayings too (which George R R Martin has shown to be the very stuff of whimsy).
My mother complains that my stories are too violent, but apparently I haven't been going far enough. Flayings and castrations all round!
Yes, but I would say that his most distinguished motif is the endless description of food and drinks intake. He should have become a food critic.
Now that would have made for a great HBO series.
I think it says something about the zeitgeist that most people consider Game of Thrones more "realistic" when it has more incest, brutality, rape, torture, etc. That very well could be true, we are seeing lots of darkness these days, but I prefer more uplifting literature, I even proudly wear the badge of escapism. As an aside, I can only read so much Latin American literature. I was commenting to one of my professors once that it's so uniformly depressing I have to take breaks. I asked if there were any uplifting Latin American stories and she said sure, but when I asked for specifics she said she'd get back to me and has yet too.
Tim, you just got two Kindle purchases from me:). If you have written anything else than the Fear Her Wrath series, please send me a link to its Amazon page.
I should warn you that you will find some young adult tropes, just no sex or dragons.
Well, I had the foresight to have a dragon in my book. Mind you, if the dragon had paused to have sex it might have sold better. But half a crumpet is better than none.
As a read it a third time, hopefully out loud this time to my 11yr old I will be sure to keep the glossary nearby. Siri will not be up to the task. I do wish you more time and creative energy for books like Kenogaia.
The parts with real words are pretty cool too. A personal favorite—
You’re making the classic error of assuming that you should trust your own direct experiences. But, in fact, isolated experiences are just subjective impressions, and subjective impressions are purely phenomenal—that is to say, they just take in surfaces and appearances, mere phenomena, which as you no doubt know, Master Ambrosius, with your grasp of the classical tongues, means ‘appearances.’ And such phenomena can include the appearances of things that aren’t really there. I, on the other hand, am speaking out of a deep reservoir of abstract expertise. It’s simply a statistical fact that extraordinary experiences of the sort you believe you’ve had are, well, extraordinary, which is to sayoutside the statistical mean, which is to say mathematically impossible. All but invariably, they’re attributable to delusion. Otherwise, they’re attributable to a misperception, of the sort an optical illusion might induce.”
It’s the statistical that’s real, precisely because it has been purged of every distracting and misleading element of lived experience and sensation and feeling and thought. I tell you, lad, sensibility is the enemy of sense. Sensuous intuitions, poetic inspirations, mystical intimations — it’s all nonsense. The hard factual core of reality is statistical through and through. By contrast, personal affective experience is just an evanescent and numerically nugatory embodiment of one possible point or vector within the distribution of the statistical field of probabilities, and therefore not real or true in itself at all. Something’s true or real, you see, only to the degree that it’s accounted for by the probability curve. The more atypical the experience you think you’ve had, the more it’s ruled out by the regularity of the statistical mean. Your imagined memories of your adventures with this unfortunate boy, for example, are so outlandish that they’d simply be excluded from a proper statistical calculus as anomalies, well in excess of any standard deviation from the median probability, and thus much too extreme to fit within any rational pattern of distributed likelihoods.”“Hence, it’s precisely because you’re basing your beliefs on direct, unrefined, unreduced experience that you can be sure that those beliefs aren’t to be credited. And it’s precisely because I’m relying on statistics unpolluted by the particularities of direct knowledge that you can take what I’m telling you as scientifically established.”
I was reminded of this during the election. Of course it only took a leaky rowboat to lead the American electorate adrift from reality to alternative facts, but that does not mean one can’t admire a dreadnought-class battleship of sophistry.
Now I want to read Kenogaia again!
Go further. Buy it again.
Dear Dr. Hart,
It is very rewarding to see one's own mother tongue being used in such a fructiferous way in another's (extremely talented other's) mother tongue!
I think George R.R Martin misunderstands the genre of fantasy. He constantly talks about incorporating realism into his stories, but that's not the point of fantasy. It's meant to be unrealistic, that's what makes them so engaging.
I’m really quite incapable of grasping what anyone sees in those books, but one can’t criticize a man for making a living without committing any crimes.
Thanks for this list. While my training in “The Noble Tongue” (though I can’t remember what you called Latin in the book) helped me decode many of these, it’s great to revisit so many neologisms in one spot. I finished your novel the day my wife and I arrived in Barcelona; it was a city so colorful and whimsical I assumed it jumped right out of the book.
I've just started reading this book and enjoying it. Being Greek has some advantages. It would be ideal in audio though, and can't find it.
We were going to record an audio version—my son and I, that is—for Audible, but medical issues interposed themselves.
That's a really great idea. I've only read the first chapter, but Mr Ambrosius somehow reminded me of you - in his response about iridescence, for example. Not to mention observing the heavens from among books.
I’m currently reading Kenogaia and enjoying it very much!
Dear Dr. Hart,
I hope you are recovering well and continue to keep you in my prayers.
I have a question—and it doesn’t have much to do with Kenogaia, I’m afraid—do you have a favorite M.R. James ghost story?
I started reading The Complete Ghost Stories after first learning about them through your brother's Substack. Of the ones I’ve read so far, Martin’s Close and The Residence at Whitminster are my favorites. Casting the Runes is also unsettling.
One of my friends is an expert on the history of psychical research. I’ll have to ask him whether James had any connection with the SPR—I’d be curious to know.
Troy
I hope you don’t mind if I use some of these terms in future poems or essays!
Be my guest.
I came across this online: "A pun is not completely matured until it is full groan". Is this, or is this somehow not, a pun? And do you find it amusing?
It is indeed a pun.
This is a pun, yes.
Thanks, Dr. Hart. I'll be sure to keep this handy when I reread Kenogaia.