Balar Weapons & Burnout: The Magic of Kindling
On the reason I decided to try my hand at a retelling
Dear Reader,
If you’ve been here before, you might have read my post talking about the first time I saw Seven Samurai (1954) and The Magnificent Seven (1960) and how Kindling is a retelling and an homage to those iconic films. I’ve actually wanted to write something inspired by these movies for a long time—Captain Reed in the Reader Trilogy, for example, is in part inspired by the characters of Chris (Yul Brynner) and Vin (Steve McQueen) from The Magnificent Seven. But these stories are so good and complete on their own, I could never justify trying to reinvent them.
Until I started thinking about what they’d look like as YA.
What would change if the characters were young people? On the whole, the characters in Seven Samurai are former warriors, with experiences in battle that left them impeccably skilled but also scarred by the violence they experienced. To rewrite them as teenagers meant rewriting them as child soldiers, forced to fight at a very young age.
As I started wondering why that would be necessary, what kind of world would ask so much of its children in this way, I stumbled onto the idea of kindling magic—a power so formidable that it literally burned out its wielders, truncating their lifespan, so that adults, practicing and fighting with magic, would only have a few months of usefulness before their magic killed them. But children, taken from their homes at age five, trained up, and forced onto the battlefield by age twelve, well, they could be deployed for a good six or seven years before they burned out.
Which meant that these kids, these kindlings, these stolen children, were never really allowed to be children, forced into service at a very young age, sacrificing both their youth and their futures for the good of everyone else.
In the past few years, I’ve been thinking a lot about the promises we make to our young people as well as the promises we were made, to varying degrees, when we were young. A steady job? Affordable housing? A nice retirement? Loyalty from our employers, transparency from our government, a natural world that can sustain us for generations to come? Then I look around—climate disasters, financial instability, mass shootings, global pandemics—and it seems more and more clear that the future we dreamed of is neither the future we have nor a future we can guarantee to our children.
And I think about the kind of burden this places on them. I think about how we’re relying on them now to solve so many of these problems when we could not solve them ourselves. To be sure, I am so inspired by our young people, who as teenagers have organized marches on Washington, spoken at climate summits, mobilized on social media in huge and impactful ways, but I can’t help but wonder what it says about all of us that they had to?
What kind of world would ask so much of its children in this way?
And that was my entry into retelling Seven Samurai, a reason to reimagine it for young audiences today. Like Seven Samurai, Kindling is a story about former warriors coming to terms with their relationship to violence. At the same time, it’s a story about children who never believed they’d see twenty fumbling their way toward a new peaceful future, a new meaning beyond war. And finally, I hope it’s a reflection on the complexities of being young right here, right now, in this world at this turning point in history, with the whole of our uncertain future ahead. I hope this story is both sobering and inspiring. I hope it asks questions without easy answers. I hope it says something worth saying with a new spin on a classic tale.
In case you missed it
Launch party at Linden Tree Books! Join me and fellow authors Parker Peevyhouse, Randy Ribay, and Emily Skrutskie for Kindling Trivia Game Show Night at Linden Tree Books in Los Altos, CA on Fri. 3/1 at 6pm! This will be a little different than your usual authors-in-conversation event—this time I’ll be quizzing my friends on Seven Samurai, retellings, and—you guessed it—my own books! I think it’s going to be a blast, so if you’re in the area, I’d love for you to join us. Light refreshments will be provided. Please RSVP here!
Another review is in, and it’s a star! This one’s from Booklist, which calls Kindling “A thorough and gut-wrenching exploration of finding reasons to move forward after devastating loss and darkness and how community and connection can breed hope that will linger with readers long after the last page.” Read the full review here.
We’re heading toward the launch of Kindling, which means time is running out for you to submit your receipts!
With your purchase (or library request) of Kindling made before February 27, 2024 at 11:59pm PT, you can receive three beautiful “Polaroids” of the seven kindlings, featuring art by Naomi Giddings! Orders made through Linden Tree Books in Los Altos, CA will also arrive with a special Kindling bookmark. Submit your receipts + your name and mailing address exactly as you’d like them to appear on the envelope to: chee.preorders@gmail.com. Offer open internationally until 02/27/24 at 11:59pm PT or while supplies last.
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What I’m into these days
What I’m reading: I’ve read a number of stellar short stories lately, and I thought I’d collect them for you here. First, “Inventory” by Carmen Maria Machado (a literary postapocalyptic story to make the end of the world a little more beautiful), “Hwang’s Billion Brilliant Daughters” by Alice Sola Kim (a time travel story to break your heart), and “Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather” by Sarah Pinsker (a House-of-Leaves-esque story to keep you guessing).
What I’m eating: Westlake beef soup is so nostalgic for me—it’s one of those dishes I loved getting at Chinese banquets when I was a kid. This recipe for westlake beef soup by Made with Lau is super close to the flavor I remember from childhood, although I remember a bit of green in there, so I’ve been adding peas and cilantro (but I’m also wondering if it’d be good with bok choy or watercress). For an extra kick of salt, I’m drizzling with tamari, and I think for spice some chili crisp or sriracha would be good too!
What I’m watching: Death and Other Details on Hulu. If you’ve been here a while, you’ve probably seen me get obsessed with The Afterparty, an Agatha-Christie-style murder mystery TV show on AppleTV+, and I may have found my next obsession: Death and Other Details, starring Mandy Patinkin as a world-class detective trying to solve a locked-door murder on a cruise ship with the help of a precocious young sidekick/apprentice. I haven’t tried putting the clues together yet, but with Patinkin’s character telling the audience in voice over, “Pay attention. Details matter. If you want to solve a crime, any crime, you must first learn to see through the illusion,” it seems like the show is just begging for me to try and solve it.