Interlaced Pathways

Introduction

Introduction

“Not all those who wander are lost…”

—J. R. R. Tolkien,

“The Riddle of Strider,”

from The Fellowship of the Ring.

I’ve always like wandering. In context, the quote above refers to the character Aragorn, in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, as he wanders but knows his mission. In my wandering, I often had no mission, but never felt lost.

This collection of fantasy stories, all contemporary in the time I wrote them, owes a great deal to my wandering of all kinds. Wandering can be not only literal, but intellectual and emotional, as well. Together these wanderings can be an interesting mix, unique to each person.

When I was a kid, my friends and I gradually explored our suburban neighborhood, which held few mysteries for adults. With childhood wonder, we followed a creek that meandered between a long line of back yards until it flowed through a dark, scary tunnel into the local shopping center. The creek had crawdads, sometimes tadpoles, and was lined with wild garlic that we pulled up and took home.

On bicycles, we discovered a cemetery, without a sign giving information, surrounded by suburban developments that had grown up around it. Back yards abutted it on three sides, with the fourth facing the street.

The cemetery had a well-tended lawn and a chain-link fence. After climbing the fence, we found that the weather-worn headstones had dates going back to the 1860s. Long before the post-World War II suburbs had been built, this cemetery had served the area in pioneer times. Remnants of the Santa Fe Trail are still in the area. This discovery of local history was exciting and mysterious. We read names on the headstones and as we wondered what the people had been like, our imaginations wandered.

At the same time, I was fascinated by reading the works of Edward Eager, Jim Kjelgaard, and Howard Pyle. When I was old enough, I wandered through the novels of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. Many of Kjelgaard’s books are fantasy in that they are told from the viewpoint of an animal; Pyle’s “The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood,” while looking like a historical novel on the surface, of course is based on legends that have very little historical foundation. My exploration of these novels became entwined with Narnia and Middle Earth, as though I was following interlaced paths from world to world.

The realm of ideas—facts, controversies, falsehoods, myths and legends, and opinions—offers all kinds of wandering. They interlace well with speculative fiction.

People sometimes ask writers of speculative fiction “Where do you get your ideas?” Hearing the question repeatedly can make us cynical about coming up with answers. In my case, story ideas often come from the intersection of these pathways.

Some of the stories in this collection represent my take on established story-telling concepts such as an “odd shop” and a deal with the devil. Others offer a new take on Chinese folktales. I hope wandering through them will entertain.

I’ve always liked reading about the context for the creation of stories by other authors, so I’ve written afterwords for readers who might share this interest. Thanks for reading.

—William F. Wu