 |
|
| Home · Reviews · Interviews · Contests · Blog · Forums · Follow Us On Twitter |
|
by R.J. Carter Published: January 16, 2003
Harry Potter has competition.Is he a new young wizard? An elven adventurer? A giant space robot? No. he's a silverwing bat from the forests. Which was interesting enough to be our first question to the author, Kenneth Oppel. Not that anthropomorphic creatures in fantasy fiction are anything new, but Oppel's creatures are--while fantastic--also very, very real, and they dominate the population of characters. So why the chiropteraphilia? "I'd always promised myself I would never write a talking animal story," says Oppel. "I thought there was something absurd about furry woodland creatures in Edwardian clothing, drinking tea and eating scones. But I made an exception for bats because they just seemed such unlikely heroes, thought by most to be ugly, repellent creatures. I liked their gothic associations and the nocturnal world they inhabited. And at least my animals don't wear clothing! If I was going to write about animals, I really did want to try and make sure I portrayed them as real animals, and was true to their natures." "An animal-loving friend of mine introduced me to bats," Oppel continues, "and as I did a bit of research I quickly realized what fascinating creatures they were: they see with sound, they see with their eyes as well, but only in black and white, and they undertake heroic migrations as long as a thousand miles. (The migration, of course, was what gave me the plot kernel for Silverwing.) As far as I knew, no one had written a novel from the point of view of bats, so it was uncharted territory, and gave me an opportunity to do what I like best: create a totally different world, with its own technology and magic and history. And the bats brought so much fascinating material with them, not just in terms of their unique physiology, but also in terms of how many folk tales there are about bats from virtually all cultures--many of them have to do with where bats come from, how they got their wings, and why we only see them at night. I borrowed many of these stories for the Silverwing books, and elaborated on them to form myths and religions and histories for Shade Silverwing, and the other bat, bird and beast societies in the books." "So really it was the bats themselves that won me over." The lead character of Firewing is Griffin Silverwing is a newborn, the son of Shade Silverwing--possibly the most famous silverwing bat to ever live in Tree Haven. Griffin's friend is another newborn, a female named Luna. Griffin is pensive and anxious, perpetually ready with the answer to the question, "What's the worst that could happen?" Luna is in every way his opposite--exuberant and extroverted, and always taking the silly risks like buzzing the owls. To impress her and the other newborns, Griffin impetuously decides to steal fire from some human campers. In Oppel's world, the owls have acquired fire--so Griffin figures, why shouldn't the bats? And Griffin succeeds in stealing a single hot ember at the end of a thin reed. Unfortunately, as he nears Tree Haven, the reed continues to burn until it reaches his claws, and he drops it... ...onto Luna. Luna is badly burned, and as the elder matrons of Tree Haven struggle to heal her, Griffin tunnels to the lowest roots... and beyond. For while he hids in shame, an earthquake shakes the forest, opening a crack in the earth which sucks the newborn bat into the realm of Cama Zotz, god of the underworld! Cama Zotz! Ruler of the dead, and worshipped by the Vampyrum Spectrum, the cannibal bats! What Griffin discovers is thousands of bats who have died over the millennia, bats who still believe they are alive and no longer remember what it was like to be truly alive. The bats Griffin encounters recoil from him in fear--being the only living creature among them, Griffin glows with the light of life. Griffin feels horribly lost and alone in this land below the earth until he encounters a friend: Luna. And he knows she died, and that he killed her, and suddenly he feels much, much worse. When Shade finds out what has happened to his son, he embarks on a rescue quest into the underworld, through the same crack that took Griffin. But while Griffin found a friend in the land of dead bats, there's an enemy waiting for Shade: Goth, the cannibal bat Shade had killed in a previous battle. Goth himself is a recent arrival to this purgatory. Expecting to be a ruler in the land for having faithfully served his god, he is instead demeaned, enslaved, and shown what true punishment can be: It happened so quickly, Goth scarcely had time to flinch. Zotz's jaws snapped wider and plunged around him. He was in total darkness, casting about with his sonic eye, glimpsing the vast array of jagged incisors, each as big as himself. Beneath him pitched a great black river of tongue. It leapt high, knocking him deeper into the mouth, back toward the cavernous entrance to Zotz's throat. But Cama Zotz is not without mercy: He was tugged violently under the surface, acid searing his nostrils, gushing down his throat. Eaten away, from within and without. Caught in a powerful undertow, he was sucked through the liquid, away from the whirlpool's eternal grasp, and agonizingly squeezed down the undulating tunnels of Zotz's bowels. The smell of bile and putrefaction made him retch again and again. For Zotz has become aware of the living newborn in his realm. And he is granting Goth a chance at redemption: Kill the newborn, sacrifice it to him and maybe--maybe--Zotz would give Goth a chance to return to the land of the living. It's a gloomy, dangerous place. But there is hope. Evangelical bats--pilgrims, they're called--speak of a tree, a blazing tree, left behind by Nocturna, Zotz's twin and the light to his darkness. The pilgrims say that this realm is not the final destination for bats, and urge their dead brethren to fly to the tree, enter it, and Nocturna will return you to where you ought to be. Luna and Griffin decide that if Griffin enters the tree, Nocturna will return him home, and take Luna to wherever it is that good bats go when they die. And so they set out for the tree, unaware that Goth is on their trail. Shade, meanwhile, meets up with another band of pilgrims, also heading for the tree. They're a motley association of bats, some from species Shade has never before encountered. Oppel takes this opportunity to demonstrate how the perceptions of bats differ from those of humans, as Shade has his first encounter with Java, a foxwing bat: Hanging upside down from the ceiling, this enormous winged creature looked more beast than bat. Her body seemed to take up most of the cave. She was densely furred with long dark hair, and her age was obvious by the abundant streaks of gray. Her face tapered into a long muzzle and a neat pointy nose. Bigger eyes, Shade had never seen: dark, round, and penetrating, but surprisingly gentle. Her triangular ears were extremely small--how could you see with ears so small? She looked like a fox with wings. And what wings they were. They would easily span five feet when fully extended. Each separate quest is fraught with perils. As Griffin and Luna travel, Luna begins to remember more and more about the life she lost--and when she learns that Griffin dropped the flame on her, it puts an understandable strain on her friendship with Griffin: "So you didn't know I was underneath you," she said dully. Ironically, this scene gets repeated, with a twist. When Cama Zotz manages to corner Shade, they have a nice friendly chat about the jungle temple Shade destroyed with a dropped explosive disk. He intended to stop the sacrifice of a hundred bats that Goth was offering to Cama Zotz, which would allow the god to walk the land of the living. He succeeded, but killed a million Vampyrum Spectrum who roosted there: "What could I have done?" Shade demanded. Oppel presents complex characters who face difficult decisions, endure gruesome pains, and, ultimately, become people (excuse me, bats) the reader cares deeply about. And he does this without writing down to his intended audience (ages 8 to 12), expecting them to rise up and meet the challenge his writing presents. After all, even some adults struggle with some of the philosophical dilemmas contained herein. Consider this moment between Shade and Cama Zotz, when discussing the lack of intervention by Nocturna among her living subjects: "You think your god is so superior to me. Does she excel at looking after her creatures? I have saved my faithful from death, healed their wings, guided them, spoken to them, shown my face to them! What has yours done for you?" That's some pretty heady stuff, even for grownups to digest. But did the gore and philosophy present any kind of impediment to getting the Silverwing books off the ground (so to speak?) "I've never had any comments from readers, young or old, about excessive gruesomeness in the books," says Oppel. "I actually think that compared to what most 8-12 years olds see on their video game screens, and in their movies, the stuff in my books is rather tame. Just a little cannibalism after all!" "In terms of the philosophical dimension to the books," Oppel continues, "it certainly wasn't an impediment in getting the first one published--the publishers who turned the book down didn't cite it as such anyway! In general, I've always tried to write books that work first and foremost as thrilling stories, but also address or grapple with some interesting issues that arise from the story and characters as I write. With the Silverwing books, the whole idea of truth and history and god/religion/myth and all their myriad versions, really came to the fore, and it was something I became very interested in exploring through Shade's internal and external quests. Like Shade, kids who are 8-12 are already starting to ask questions about god, what 'truth' is--and questioning the received wisdom of their elders. To enjoy the books, you don't need to tune into this stuff--I think the books can be enjoyed simply as physical adventure--but, talking to kids and reading their letters, I think many readers really appreciate the underlying themes in the books. Certainly I've heard from quite a few readers who were fascinated by the notions of death and the afterlife presented in Firewing--there aren't too many kids who haven't wondered about all this, and often in surprising detail!" The overall result of Oppel's efforts is a story that's enjoyable by children and adults alike, who will find themselves willingly getting caught up in the enchantment and adventure of this unlikely band of heroes. With Firewing, Oppel ensures himself a name in the annals of fantasy literature with the likes of J.R.R. Tolkein, J.K. Rowling, and Brian Jacques. The ending is a shocker--there's a definite finality, and yet so much foreshadowing of things yet to come. So will there be another book in the Silverwing series? "I think there may well be another Silverwing novel," Oppel tells The Trades, "and it would definitely feature Shade, as well as Griffin and Luna and Marina. And of course Goth. I'm still waiting for the central ideas to come to me though. I never planned it as a series of any set length. After each book I waited until I had what I thought was an exciting idea before carrying on. I do think there's a fourth book coming; I'm not sure I'm ready to say goodbye to the characters or the world yet. Right now though, I'm finishing up another fantasy adventure novel called Airborn, set in an imagined past aboard giant airships. I decided to have a break and write about humans for a change!"  With any popular children's book series, one would expect some sort of movie deal to be in the works. Well, there's not a movie planned for the Silverwing books, but there is something just as good, if not more so! "Silverwing's currently in production as a 13-part animated miniseries, produced by Bardel Entertainment in Vancouver," says Oppel. "It will be aired on Teletoon in Canada starting in Fall 2003. I don't know who the American broadcaster will be... I try to post any up to date information on my website at www.kennethoppel.ca."That means syndication--something even a certain bestselling teen wizard doesn't have! Take flight with Oppel's family of silverwings--and be sure to check out the first two novels--Silverwing and Sunwing. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Copyright © 1997-2010 Burlee LLC. All rights reserved. | Reprints | Privacy Policy | Disclosure | About Us/Contact Us | RSS Feed |