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This week: Mountains Edited by: Waltz Invictus  
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Although mountains may guide migrations, the plains are the regions where people dwell in greatest numbers.
-Ellsworth Huntington
Bring me men to match my mountains: Bring me men to match my plains: Men with empires in their purpose and new eras in their brains.
-Sam Walter Foss
Climb the mountains and get their good tidings.
-John Muir
I'm not convinced that faith can move mountains, but I've seen what it can do to skyscrapers.
-William H. Gascoyne |
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Mountains
I've had occasion to travel through several different mountain ranges, recently. While I live near the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, West Coasters kept telling me they're not really mountains. I'm always like "So what? They're cool."
And they are. But then I drove west - through the Rockies, then the Cascades in the middle of Washington State, into the Olympics of western Washington, down the coast of Oregon and California through I don't know what they're called but they're mountains too, into the Sierra Nevada, into the actual state of Nevada with its desert mountains - you get the idea.
Mountains are cool.
I pointed out last month in my editorial about coastlines that coastlines are boundaries, and can be treated as such metaphorically. Well, the same holds true for mountains - plus a whole lot more.
Check out any map from any fantasy novel ever (as far as I've ever seen, anyway), and you'll find mountains. The most famous are probably the range around Mordor, from Tolkien's epic series. But almost all authors use them: as barricades, as challenges, as symbols, and hell, just as scenery. Next time you read a fantasy novel, pay attention to how the author handles mountains. One fairly recent example that comes to mind is Brandon Sanderson's Elantris.
If you're going to put mountains in as anything other than metaphors, it might be helpful to know something about the forces that can create them. While the Great Oracle (wikipedia) identifies five major types of mountain, they're formed by either tectonic (plate shifting) or volcanic (magma) action, and then further shaped by erosion. I'll also throw in a third way to form a mountain, rare on Earth but perhaps more common on other solar system bodies (and perhaps in your fantasy writings): impact.
I'll elaborate on that last bit, because for the others you can go look at the Oracle. On my journey, I also visited the poorly-named Meteor Crater near Winslow, Arizona (yes, I stood on a corner there, but that's another story). The crater was formed something like 50,000 years ago when a giant hunk of metal from the Asteroid Belt slammed into the plains of what would one day become Arizona. The result was a giant crater similar to what you see on the moon - a rim raised above the surrounding terrain and a deep bowl. While the rim of that crater doesn't qualify as "mountains," imagine a bigger bolide or a lower gravity planet for it to hit and - boom - mountains.
Since we're talking about fantasy mountains, I'll also throw out another idea: Olympus Mons, the largest volcano in the solar system, is located on Mars. Its peak sticks up out of the thin Martian atmosphere. Now, that couldn't happen on Earth: our atmosphere is something like 100 miles thick (though the troposphere, the part we can live and breathe in, is less than a tenth of that thickness), and our Chomolungma (aka Mount Everest), the highest mountain, is only about 5.5 miles above sea level. But hey - fantasy is fantasy.
And finally, keep in mind that a fantasy world without mountains would make for rather boring journeys and scenery. Put them in there somewhere, and make them a challenge. |
A few fantasy and science fiction items. Some even deal with mountains:
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Last time, in "Fantasy Newsletter (November 22, 2011)" , I talked about coasts (hey, I got a theme going here).
Annette  : Uh, Waltz ... life on dry land didn't start five million years ago. Just for comparison, the dinosaurs (land dwellers) died out sixty five million years ago. Rumors have it the first humans were out and about five million years ago. Then again, I've also heard other rumors. Maybe you're referring to those.
Nope - if by "rumors" you mean "mythology," I'm not aware of any creation myths that go back millions of years. There might be one out there, though. It was simply that I forgot to put the minor word "hundred" between "five" and "million." Even I make typos occasionally. I was just seeing if anyone would be observant enough to catch it. Yeah, that's the ticket... Anyway, I went back and fixed it, so the newsletter now gives the correct (approximate) number.
shoumojit: There is one correction life in land migrated as per scientist more than 5 million years ago as dinosaur inhabited the planet more than 10 million year ago. Coastline has remained a source of inspiration as man realizes his venerability and creative idea about our human nature viz a viz the mother nature erupts and helps us to know our inner nature better.
Yep - see above response. Thanks for the comment!
Stephen Alexander  : An item apropos to your discussion [Submitted Item: "Invalid Item" ]
Thanks!
atwhatcost: First, I want to know where you found that Buffy T-shirt. I need it. lol
Second, funny you should mention the similarities to NJ and PA. They do exist, but boundaries bind, too. I've lived on both sides of the Delaware for over 2 decades. I'm writing a series of books that include the feel of four states and D.C. to show something of the similarities and differences in each area. It's more than politics - the very nature of a place defines the ones who live there. After all, compare the NJ shore to Maine or Florida's beaches. Something big just happened in your mind and it wasn't just the scenery.
Recently, I had occasion to drive from Maine to Washington State and down to California. I took U.S. 101 most of the way from WA. At one point, in CA, California Route 1 splits off from 101 and twists through nearly impassable mountains (see above editorial) until it reaches the Pacific Ocean. Now, I'd seen the Pacific several times during my journey south - 101 roughly follows the western coastline. But it just happened that I burst out of the mountains just minutes before the sun set, and was treated, serendipitously, to my first Pacific sunset. I'd been to the West Coast before, but somehow managed to keep missing ocean sunsets. The relevant point is that every coast is different, and has a different feel, and makes a different metaphor.
Oh, and by the way, since you asked: http://www.amazon.com/JINX-Buffy-Staked-Edward-T-Shirt/dp/B001QKPMR4 (I even had the chutzpah to wear that in the vicinity of Forks, Washington, a town where you can't step without tripping over something about... that series.)
And that's it for me for this year - I want to wish everyone a happy and safe Solstice season and New Year. See you in 2012! Until then...
DREAM ON!!!
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Fantasy: December 20, 2011 Issue [#4775]
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