Some people say truth depends on your point of view. In my perception, that is especially true for fiction. A change in point-of-view--let's call it PoV for short--can completely alter the atmosphere and impact of a story. Imagine if Heart of Darkness was told from Kurtz's PoV, or, as David Brin has mentioned, imagine The Lord of the Rings from Sauron's PoV.

Now, some people might say that this shouldn't change the story at all. Who cares who sees what's happening, it's the action that matters. Well, ask anyone about an event that you both witnessed a few months back. There's a good chance that while your accounts may differ in some small respects, like the colour of a participant's hair, generally, your accounts should agree. How about a soldier from North Vietnam and from the United States recounting the Tet Offensive? How close do you think their accounts of the same battle will be? And, quite possibly, neither would be lying, to their knowledge. They saw it, experienced it and understood it differently. We don't all see the same world. We all have varying conscious and unconscious filters through which perception passes.

I have to dive into Joseph Conrad here, because I love how he handles PoV. The character of Marlow is the narrator of both Heart of Darkness and Lord Jim. In Heart of Darkness, he is one of the main characters but in Lord Jim, he's an acquaintance of the main character, as close to a friend as Jim has. In both of these instances, the device Conrad used was Marlow relating a story to others. In Heart of Darkness, he and some friends are onboard a boat, and the night passes as Marlow weaves his tale.

What I love about all these instances is how it changes what we, the readers, can and cannot accept at face value from Marlow. Strangely enough, he's probably more truthful in Lord Jim, the story in which he has the least personal involvement. I would question everything he relates in Heart of Darkness because not only is he personally involved but also much time has passed since the events related and he's telling this story to acquaintances. Consider what you would relate, if you were involved in some dicey business. I mean, would you be completely honest, or might you fudge it a bit? And maybe you're not even fudging. It's been so long that you have subconsciously altered those events you don't remember with complete clarity.

Writers like Joseph Conrad don't want us to trust the narrators. It's intrinsic to every Conrad story and novel I've read. It's one of the things I love about him. Conan Doyle did it as well. Watson hints at much of Holmes' private life, but never comes out and says anything concrete. Maybe if Conan Doyle lived to day, his narrator would be more honest about Holmes. Then again, maybe not.

So, when we create, we must consider not only who the best PoV character will be--which is a titanic struggle itself--but how truthful this narrator will be. And perhaps, even when you intend the narrator to be completely honest, readers might wonder if things are exactly how they seem. Look at Croaker in the original Black Company trilogy. He out and out tells the reader that he's hiding things from them, that he's not honest in his portrayal of his comrades.

Maybe Glen Cook felt that today's readers are not as discerning as those of a century ago. Maybe it's true. Sometimes I need to remind myself that many fantasy and science fiction authors seem to have forgotten about the unreliable narrator. For me, figuring out how much truth the narrator will offer is half the fun.