One method I've devised for researching markets is to look up an author I like who's been published in a something I like to read, and see where else she or he has been published. Today I picked Ian Creasey, who wrote "Silence in Florence," which appeared in September Asimov's. The story's protagonist is a chambermaid in 17th Century Florence, and chamberpots play an important role in the narrative. In the blurb preceding the story, he's quoted as saying "...how often fiction concentrates on so-called important people...while relegating servants to mere background props. I wrote this story to redress the balance..."
Well, I just love that. Right now I'm reading War of the Worlds, by H.G. Wells, and as always with anything 19th century, the characters can count on their meals being prepared and cleared up after with no effort of their own, at least until the heat rays start flying. (Even Wells, whose social conscience I adore. It was the socio-economic reality of the time. Back then if you didn't have a servant, you probably were one, and in any case literally had no time.)
Creasey also wrote "The Hastillan Weed," which appeared in February 2006 Asimov's, and which I liked a lot. He's had many publications, and his news listing alone yielded many possibilities. I think I've settled on 2, both of which accept simultaneous subs, for "A Singular Being"'s next destination: Oceans of the Mind, and Shimmer.
3 comments:
I have always been puzzled as to why they've never done War of The World's as a movie exactly in the time and style it was written. I'd love to see tecnho-Victorian Martian Machines.
On the servant front, almost everyone had some sort of household help back then, even if it was just a hired girl to come in. Unless you were on the very, very bottom rung. But I also think that in a way this reflects the fact that you didn't have a lot of restaurants, that you made and and laundered your own clothes at home. Now you can take them to a laundramat or cleaners and someone still works there and offers some assistance with your cleaning, but they just don't live with you. You only pay them for the time you use. My Mom could remember being sent out to work as a hired girl doing laundry and ironing when she was so little she had to stand on a box to reach the ironing board.
I suppose people who want to make or see a movie of WAR OF THE WORLDS have gotten hooked on that this-is-really-happening-right-now quality the radio broadcast had. Too bad--I'd love to see a movie that's just like the book.
I think Wells (HG) targeted the assurance of the British Empire, and enjoyed imagining it shattered. What if somebody treated them the way they treated the populations of practically every continent on the planet? The setting in which the radio broadcast occurred was quite different. People shaken by the First World War, battered by the Depression, jittery from the rise of fascism... Quite a different bunch from the 19th Century Londoners who took 3 whole days to stop saying "Martians you say? Eh, what? Clumsy creatures. Can't get out of the pit they fell in" and start to panic and flee.
As for servants, with no automation more advanced than a Jacquard's loom, everything was so much work that the only way anybody could have any leisure was to make someone else do it.
I read the "Exodus from London" chapter today, and I think it would be great in a movie.
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