The good folks at io9 profiled John Norman, the CUNY philosophy professor and author of the Gor series of novels, in an article you can read here.
I'll be talking in more detail about a few of the Gor novels later on (hopefully in April, possibly in May). I'm reading the seventh book in the series now.
The article actually reads sort of like Norman's Gor books: interesting, thoughtful, and densely worded -- so much so that I hesitate to blame anyone who applies the "TL:DR" label.
Even so, happy reading, because there will be a quiz on this later!
Showing posts with label stories not my own. Show all posts
Showing posts with label stories not my own. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Friday, March 18, 2011
State of the Genre: Are we living in fantasy fiction's Bronze Age?
I don't remember who said what at Patrick Rothfuss's book signing last week, but somehow or another, the author got to talking about tropes, and how he enjoys playing with them. In his speech, Rothfuss said that he didn't want a goblin army tromping through The Kingkiller Chronicle -- not that there's anything wrong with goblin armies, but they've been done to death for goshsakes and it's time to move on. I won't try to repeat the eloquence with which Rothfuss likened his trope-play to playing with his infant son (it was a really great analogy), but suffice to say that it involves expectations: once you know what your audiences expectations are, you have a certain power over them. You can mix it up, throw them a curve ball, and keep them on the edge of their seats and wanting more.
After some reflection, I realized why that sounded familiar: it's the same tactic that comic book writers of the Bronze Age used. Which, naturally, led me to wonder whether or not we are living in the Bronze Age of fantasy fiction.
You see, first of all, comic books had what experts call the Golden Age, which began when Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster introduced Superman in Action Comics #1 (DC, 1938). Other heroes came onto the scene soon: Batman, Captain America, Wonder Woman, etc., all in their flashy capes and tights, saving damsels or whole cities in distress from mobsters, mad scientists, and Nazis. They respected authority and promoted patriotism, didn't sweat, didn't smoke, and helped little old ladies cross the street -- it's not for nothing that Superman is sometimes called the the "big blue Boy Scout". Looking back now, we take for granted that a lot of these comic books, with their fairly simplistic art and story lines, are a little silly. But back then, this was explosive and dynamic stuff that captivated a nation and captured the imaginations of budding creative geniuses.
We don't have quite as big a milestone as Action Comics No. 1 to start off the fantasy genre's Golden Age. It began more slowly, with folks like Robert E. Howard and H.P. Lovecraft and others writing for the fiction magazines of the day, C.S. Lewis writing a series of otherworldly Christian allegories for his goddaughter. Arguably, the Golden Age ended when J.R.R. Tolkien published the granddaddy of them all, the epitome of Golden Age fantasy, The Lord of the Rings (Geo. Allen & Unwin, 1954-1955). Here, brave warriors, plucky children, and New Englanders fought eldritch horrors and saved whole kingdoms using swords or their wits (or both), aided by elves, dwarves, or friendly talking animals, saving the world from dragons, goblin armies, or monsters from another realm. As with comic books, these stories were largely considered fringe stuff for overweight basement-dwellers, who devoured them with voracity and dedication, and set about to create their own works.
(Okay, okay. Comic books really did begin before the beginning, and there's all sorts of examples of pre-Golden Age comic books out there. But it wasn't until the Golden Age that the medium really took off running. Likewise, fantasy fiction has its roots in mythology and heroic epics. But it wasn't really until the Golden Age that it became a genre all its own.)
The bottom line is that the Golden Age established the tropes that we've come to know and love in our comic books -- heroes in tights with silly names, fighting The Good Fight -- and in our fantasy fiction -- swords, spells, other races, other worlds.
If the Golden Age established the tropes, then the Silver Age perfected them. In the Silver Age of comics, which ran from approximately the late 1950's to the 1970's, the art and stories were slicker and more stylized. Older characters were revamped to be slightly less silly, and newer heroes -- the Fantastic Four, the X-Men -- were introduced. The morals were a little leaner: the characters fought The Good Fight, but sometimes wondered which side of it they were on. The comics were melodramatic and still sort of silly, but the Silver Age saw some of the great, classic story arcs and events that nerds like me still remember fondly, such as The Dark Phoenix Saga and the death of Gwen Stacy.
In fantasy, the Silver Age was the great age of Everything That Came After Tolkien, where everything old was new again and the tropes that were established earlier, were played till they bled. The stories were increasingly better written and less allegorical, the worlds bigger and more detailed, and the brave warriors and plucky children more closely resembled ourselves and the selves we wanted to be. The dragons they faced were bigger and more cunning, the goblin armies they faced were ... well, they were still goblins. This was the age of Michael Moorcock's Elric and Gene Wolfe's New Sun and John Norman's Gor, and a whole host of other heroes in other worlds. This was the age when a number of authors first got their chops writing original Conan stories, picking up where Robert E. Howard left off. This was the age when Dungeons and Dragons burst onto the scene and made fantasy something we, the fans, could live out rather than just read about, and with its success came a number of tie-in novels of varying quality, of which the Dragonlance universe is probably the most famous and successful. This was the age when James Oliver Rigney, Jr. sat down at his desk, came up with the pen name Robert Jordan, and began to craft his decades-long Wheel of Time saga (Tor, 1990-present).
As great as the Silver Age was, it had one inherent flaw: every story was exactly the same. Perhaps not exactly the same, but frightfully similar. The influence of Tolkien could not be escaped and, like a dark and shadowy demigod, loomed over all the great fantasy of this Second Age.
And out of that sameness ... came a new breed of fantasy ...
The Bronze Age didn't burst onto the scene like Nevermind amidst a sea of hair-glam pop. It's hard to say where it began. Rather, in both comic books and fantasy fiction, it crept up insidiously until it was there and we didn't realize that the new was newer, something was definitely different, and Goddamn did we ever like it. Because it didn't assume the same old tropes that we were used to. Instead, it thought about them, and when it could, turned them on its head.
The twenty years of the Bronze Age (c. 1970-1990) saw its usual cast of characters and the adventures they led turn dark, gritty, and more socially aware. Themes like racism and drug abuse affected heroes like the X-Men and Spider-Man, Green Lantern and Green Arrow. Questioning authority, heretofore verbotten in any mainstream comic, was suddenly the name of the game. There was sex, and there was violence, and both of those things had marked consequences. The flaws of our heroes were more pronounced, and in many ways served to make them more human, grounded, and easier to relate. True brilliance was met with critical and lasting acclaim: Alan Moore's anti-totalitarian classic V for Vendetta (Vertigo, 1982-1989) and his seminal Watchmen (DC, 1986-1987), which is the only comic on Time's list of the 100 greatest novels. At the same time, Frank Miller made a name for himself with The Dark Knight Returns (DC, 1986), the story of an older, angrier Batman and his conflicts with an evolving society and a Superman whose morals never changed while society's did. James O'Barr wrote the cathartic Crow (Caliber, 1989). Neil Gaiman's The Sandman (Vertigo, 1989-1996) defied labels and descriptions. You could say "Hell" and "damn" and it would be all right. The Good Fight was fought in our heroes' hearts.
Which leads me to the Bronze Age of fantasy fiction. It's harder for me to pin down, since this whole editorial is driven by the question over whether or not it exists -- has a new age been ushered in, or are we now at the apex of the Silver Age?
As with the Bronze Age of comics, fantasy fiction's current crop are dark, sexy, violent, and real. Authors such as George R.R. Martin, Terry Goodkind, Jacqueline Carey, Brandon Sanderson, and Patrick Rothfuss captivate us with new and original stories of heroes we care about and worlds we wish we lived in (or are glad we don't). The worlds are the biggest and the most detailed they've ever been, with politics as intricate and convoluted as those of our own world. The characters that populate them are the most familiar we've yet seen: brilliant yet ignorant, selfish yet brave. Heroes are no longer plucky orphans or handsome princes dreaming of renown but suffering everymen thrust into adventures and dangers beyond their ken. Warfare, once depicted as glorious, is now a violent bloodbath initiated by fools and executed by the desperate; swords are the symbols of both power and its abuse. Magic comes with a price -- possibly, the spellcaster's soul. The goblin army mentioned has vanished from the scene, replaced by barbarians, cold and brutal armies, or horrors from beyond the world. This is the age of the epic, where the fate of worlds hinges on the decisions of one poor sod.
Fueled by a widespread social angst of terrorist attacks, increasing government powers, global fiscal meltdowns, and natural disasters, the fantasy genre has fairly exploded within the past ten or fifteen years, until a fantasy novel sits pretty at No. 1 on the New York Times bestseller list. The genre reaches out and caresses others: among the most successful mystery and romance titles on the market today are those that feature vampires, werewolves, and ancient magic.
Now, here's the kicker, folks: as with all good things, this, too, must end. The Bronze Age of comic books came to a close in the 1990's, when the industry sort of collapsed inward. This was due as much to poor management as with the creative minds putting out stories, but it still led to the Dark Age. A few glimmers of light stood out, such as Jeff Smith's Bone (self-published/Image, 1991-2004) and Marvel's epic Age of Apocalypse crossover, but the decade was largely overshadowed by crass commercialization. While the medium has largely rebounded, with excellent titles including but not limited to Bill Willingham's Fables (Vertigo, 2002-present) and the various works of Brian K. Vaughan, Brian Michael Bendis, and J. Michael Straczynski, there's also a lot of dribble nursing its hangover from the 90's.
So. Is fantasy fiction doomed to repeat the pattern of comic books? The book and comic industries have historically been structured and marketed very differently (less so, now, since the advent of the graphic novel), so it's possible that the same mistakes that imploded the one won't be made by the other. Still, the precedent is set, and is worrisome. While I've no doubt that the genre will continue to evolve -- perhaps the grand epics we cherish today will be considered unwieldy tomorrow -- whether it will continue to use the tropes we've come to know and love, change them further, or chuck them out entirely in favor of new, remains a question.
For now, I think it's best to enjoy the Bronze Age, if it exists, and make as much of it as we can. If nothing else, it'll be great to point at it twenty or thirty years from now and say to our children, "Those were the days!"
After some reflection, I realized why that sounded familiar: it's the same tactic that comic book writers of the Bronze Age used. Which, naturally, led me to wonder whether or not we are living in the Bronze Age of fantasy fiction.
You see, first of all, comic books had what experts call the Golden Age, which began when Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster introduced Superman in Action Comics #1 (DC, 1938). Other heroes came onto the scene soon: Batman, Captain America, Wonder Woman, etc., all in their flashy capes and tights, saving damsels or whole cities in distress from mobsters, mad scientists, and Nazis. They respected authority and promoted patriotism, didn't sweat, didn't smoke, and helped little old ladies cross the street -- it's not for nothing that Superman is sometimes called the the "big blue Boy Scout". Looking back now, we take for granted that a lot of these comic books, with their fairly simplistic art and story lines, are a little silly. But back then, this was explosive and dynamic stuff that captivated a nation and captured the imaginations of budding creative geniuses.
We don't have quite as big a milestone as Action Comics No. 1 to start off the fantasy genre's Golden Age. It began more slowly, with folks like Robert E. Howard and H.P. Lovecraft and others writing for the fiction magazines of the day, C.S. Lewis writing a series of otherworldly Christian allegories for his goddaughter. Arguably, the Golden Age ended when J.R.R. Tolkien published the granddaddy of them all, the epitome of Golden Age fantasy, The Lord of the Rings (Geo. Allen & Unwin, 1954-1955). Here, brave warriors, plucky children, and New Englanders fought eldritch horrors and saved whole kingdoms using swords or their wits (or both), aided by elves, dwarves, or friendly talking animals, saving the world from dragons, goblin armies, or monsters from another realm. As with comic books, these stories were largely considered fringe stuff for overweight basement-dwellers, who devoured them with voracity and dedication, and set about to create their own works.
(Okay, okay. Comic books really did begin before the beginning, and there's all sorts of examples of pre-Golden Age comic books out there. But it wasn't until the Golden Age that the medium really took off running. Likewise, fantasy fiction has its roots in mythology and heroic epics. But it wasn't really until the Golden Age that it became a genre all its own.)
The bottom line is that the Golden Age established the tropes that we've come to know and love in our comic books -- heroes in tights with silly names, fighting The Good Fight -- and in our fantasy fiction -- swords, spells, other races, other worlds.
If the Golden Age established the tropes, then the Silver Age perfected them. In the Silver Age of comics, which ran from approximately the late 1950's to the 1970's, the art and stories were slicker and more stylized. Older characters were revamped to be slightly less silly, and newer heroes -- the Fantastic Four, the X-Men -- were introduced. The morals were a little leaner: the characters fought The Good Fight, but sometimes wondered which side of it they were on. The comics were melodramatic and still sort of silly, but the Silver Age saw some of the great, classic story arcs and events that nerds like me still remember fondly, such as The Dark Phoenix Saga and the death of Gwen Stacy.
In fantasy, the Silver Age was the great age of Everything That Came After Tolkien, where everything old was new again and the tropes that were established earlier, were played till they bled. The stories were increasingly better written and less allegorical, the worlds bigger and more detailed, and the brave warriors and plucky children more closely resembled ourselves and the selves we wanted to be. The dragons they faced were bigger and more cunning, the goblin armies they faced were ... well, they were still goblins. This was the age of Michael Moorcock's Elric and Gene Wolfe's New Sun and John Norman's Gor, and a whole host of other heroes in other worlds. This was the age when a number of authors first got their chops writing original Conan stories, picking up where Robert E. Howard left off. This was the age when Dungeons and Dragons burst onto the scene and made fantasy something we, the fans, could live out rather than just read about, and with its success came a number of tie-in novels of varying quality, of which the Dragonlance universe is probably the most famous and successful. This was the age when James Oliver Rigney, Jr. sat down at his desk, came up with the pen name Robert Jordan, and began to craft his decades-long Wheel of Time saga (Tor, 1990-present).
As great as the Silver Age was, it had one inherent flaw: every story was exactly the same. Perhaps not exactly the same, but frightfully similar. The influence of Tolkien could not be escaped and, like a dark and shadowy demigod, loomed over all the great fantasy of this Second Age.
And out of that sameness ... came a new breed of fantasy ...
The Bronze Age didn't burst onto the scene like Nevermind amidst a sea of hair-glam pop. It's hard to say where it began. Rather, in both comic books and fantasy fiction, it crept up insidiously until it was there and we didn't realize that the new was newer, something was definitely different, and Goddamn did we ever like it. Because it didn't assume the same old tropes that we were used to. Instead, it thought about them, and when it could, turned them on its head.
The twenty years of the Bronze Age (c. 1970-1990) saw its usual cast of characters and the adventures they led turn dark, gritty, and more socially aware. Themes like racism and drug abuse affected heroes like the X-Men and Spider-Man, Green Lantern and Green Arrow. Questioning authority, heretofore verbotten in any mainstream comic, was suddenly the name of the game. There was sex, and there was violence, and both of those things had marked consequences. The flaws of our heroes were more pronounced, and in many ways served to make them more human, grounded, and easier to relate. True brilliance was met with critical and lasting acclaim: Alan Moore's anti-totalitarian classic V for Vendetta (Vertigo, 1982-1989) and his seminal Watchmen (DC, 1986-1987), which is the only comic on Time's list of the 100 greatest novels. At the same time, Frank Miller made a name for himself with The Dark Knight Returns (DC, 1986), the story of an older, angrier Batman and his conflicts with an evolving society and a Superman whose morals never changed while society's did. James O'Barr wrote the cathartic Crow (Caliber, 1989). Neil Gaiman's The Sandman (Vertigo, 1989-1996) defied labels and descriptions. You could say "Hell" and "damn" and it would be all right. The Good Fight was fought in our heroes' hearts.
Which leads me to the Bronze Age of fantasy fiction. It's harder for me to pin down, since this whole editorial is driven by the question over whether or not it exists -- has a new age been ushered in, or are we now at the apex of the Silver Age?
As with the Bronze Age of comics, fantasy fiction's current crop are dark, sexy, violent, and real. Authors such as George R.R. Martin, Terry Goodkind, Jacqueline Carey, Brandon Sanderson, and Patrick Rothfuss captivate us with new and original stories of heroes we care about and worlds we wish we lived in (or are glad we don't). The worlds are the biggest and the most detailed they've ever been, with politics as intricate and convoluted as those of our own world. The characters that populate them are the most familiar we've yet seen: brilliant yet ignorant, selfish yet brave. Heroes are no longer plucky orphans or handsome princes dreaming of renown but suffering everymen thrust into adventures and dangers beyond their ken. Warfare, once depicted as glorious, is now a violent bloodbath initiated by fools and executed by the desperate; swords are the symbols of both power and its abuse. Magic comes with a price -- possibly, the spellcaster's soul. The goblin army mentioned has vanished from the scene, replaced by barbarians, cold and brutal armies, or horrors from beyond the world. This is the age of the epic, where the fate of worlds hinges on the decisions of one poor sod.
Fueled by a widespread social angst of terrorist attacks, increasing government powers, global fiscal meltdowns, and natural disasters, the fantasy genre has fairly exploded within the past ten or fifteen years, until a fantasy novel sits pretty at No. 1 on the New York Times bestseller list. The genre reaches out and caresses others: among the most successful mystery and romance titles on the market today are those that feature vampires, werewolves, and ancient magic.
Now, here's the kicker, folks: as with all good things, this, too, must end. The Bronze Age of comic books came to a close in the 1990's, when the industry sort of collapsed inward. This was due as much to poor management as with the creative minds putting out stories, but it still led to the Dark Age. A few glimmers of light stood out, such as Jeff Smith's Bone (self-published/Image, 1991-2004) and Marvel's epic Age of Apocalypse crossover, but the decade was largely overshadowed by crass commercialization. While the medium has largely rebounded, with excellent titles including but not limited to Bill Willingham's Fables (Vertigo, 2002-present) and the various works of Brian K. Vaughan, Brian Michael Bendis, and J. Michael Straczynski, there's also a lot of dribble nursing its hangover from the 90's.
So. Is fantasy fiction doomed to repeat the pattern of comic books? The book and comic industries have historically been structured and marketed very differently (less so, now, since the advent of the graphic novel), so it's possible that the same mistakes that imploded the one won't be made by the other. Still, the precedent is set, and is worrisome. While I've no doubt that the genre will continue to evolve -- perhaps the grand epics we cherish today will be considered unwieldy tomorrow -- whether it will continue to use the tropes we've come to know and love, change them further, or chuck them out entirely in favor of new, remains a question.
For now, I think it's best to enjoy the Bronze Age, if it exists, and make as much of it as we can. If nothing else, it'll be great to point at it twenty or thirty years from now and say to our children, "Those were the days!"
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
All good things to those who wait, pt. 1: The Wise Man's Fear reviewed
If it seems like I've been written a lot of glowing reviews lately, then it's because I've had the good fortune to read a lot of really excellent books in the past few months. And also because I've just plain put down a few bad books without bothering to finish them for review. The latter reason seems like a journalistic failing to me, even though I don't in any way fancy myself a journalist; still, it's a bad habit that I'm trying to break. Rest assured that my next review (I'm already pretty certain) will not be so warm.
That said, it seems like 2011 is sort of the Year of the Books We've Been Waiting For, doesn't it? Perhaps most notable is the scheduled release of A Dance with Dragons (Bantam, TBR July 2011), the long-delayed fifth volume of George R.R. Martin's acclaimed Song of Ice and Fire series. Personally, I remain skeptical (I, like many of you, have been hurt too many times to be otherwise), but this time the promised release date is backed up by a statement from the author himself on his website, whereas apparently the other dates were just overly optimistic guesses.
But first, to tide us over with a dark, prosaic dose, comes The Wise Man's Fear, Day Two of the Kingkiller Chronicle by Patrick Rothfuss (DAW, 2011). And even if we, the collective fan base, haven't been waiting for it quite as long as we have for Dragons, we've been waiting for no less enthusiasm. As a reflection of that enthusiasm, The Wise Man's Fear debuted at the No. 1 (hardcover fiction) spot on The New York Times Bestseller List.
Which says that the thing was eagerly anticipated. But was it worth the wait?
In a word: Yes.
If you were a fan of The Name of the Wind (DAW, 2007) you won't be disappointed here. (If you weren't, why would you read the sequel?) Rothfuss brings the same haunting, lyrical prose and deft storytelling to The Wise Man's Fear that made us fall in love with the original.
If you haven't read The Name of the Wind, I recommend you do so now. It's okay. I'll wait.
Seriously.
I'll wait.
All done yet?
No, that's okay. Take your time.
Done?
All right, then.
Now, when I went to go see Mr. Rothfuss speak last week, the author expressed a strong desire to bottle up the spoilers, so please, no talking about the book, thank you. Having had the opportunity to read both this and The Name of the Wind with as little foreknowledge as I think possible, I can definitely see Rothfuss's point. Which leaves us with the question of how I'm supposed to talk about the book without, you know, talking about the bloody book.
Well, first I'll talk about the physical book itself: as with the last book I reviewed, The Wise Man's Fear is a monster, weighing in at just under one thousand pages. And not one page of that -- not one word -- is a disappointment. Not one word is filler. Indeed, one even gets the impression that this author trimmed the thing down of any excess, any fluff or fat, to give us the leanest, meanest fantasy epic he could.
The result is an epic tome that keeps your attention all the way through, with nary a boring moment in the whole thing. Hell, if you're anything like me, you'll read this book even when you should be doing other, more productive things. I bought this book Thursday night and finished it this (Tuesday) afternoon.
Like The Name of the Wind, The Wise Man's Fear is a story within a story: that of Kvothe, hero and legend in his own time reduced for unknown reasons to the post of a small-town innkeeper, telling his "true" story and setting the record straight. Here, Kvothe goes on adventures and ...
Wait, I can't tell you that.
No, not that, either.
Or that.
Hm.
In the interest of not spoiling the book for you, as it was so graciously not spoiled for me, I'll tell you that Kvothe has adventures. Has the time of his life, even. Learns a thing or two. Grows up a little. I think I'm safe in saying that much.
As our narrator through both novels, Kvothe is obviously the most developed character; his narration makes for an interesting story dynamic as he explains what he experienced in his youth through the lens of a more educated and worldly grown-up. Other characters are seen through his eyes and processed through his (sometimes lack of) understanding. To that end, a few of the supports are fairly fleshed out and interesting, with their own stories to be unraveled, but many other minor cast members come off as a little flat -- there's the loyal friend, the dour mercenary, the kooky teacher, and so on.
That last is a little bit surprising. The Kingkiller Chronicle is happily free of many of those classical tropes that, poorly tended, can make every epic fantasy novel feel like the same epic fantasy novel you just read last week. Other tropes, he turns on their heads (or at least on their sides). Rothfuss even spoke publicly to that effect -- that he didn't want to write the Same Old Story. Still, as I've mentioned above, a few of the old standbys are present and accounted for.
Rothfuss clearly put a lot of thought and effort into shaping Kvothe's story-within-a-story journey, and no secrets are revealed before their time. I won't speak for the status of the major plot points in The Wise Man's Fear except to say that Rothfuss picks up all the threads from The Name of the Wind and carries them deftly. This is one of those few, rare cases where More Of The Same proves to be Exactly What We Need.
(Okay, I'll be honest: one or two subplots within The Wise Man's Fear were resolved perhaps a little hastily or too conveniently for my taste, such that I wonder as to their necessity. Still, they're not a waste of time, since they add to Kvothe's development and are entertaining.)
The storytelling itself is The Kingkiller Chronicle's ultimate strength. Rothfuss has an intricate, delicate, almost poetical form of narration that's easy to get swept into and hard to pull yourself out of. My own words fail me as I try to describe it. Suffice to say, it's some positively powerful prose, the likes of which there is tragically too little on the market right now. I'm eager to see what more wordplay this author has in store for us, both in The Kingkiller Chronicle's conclusion and in the continuance of Rothfuss's career.
I suppose you could say the eloquent narration stems from Kvothe's life as a musician, and at one stretch it's actually a plot point -- but I think it has more to do with Rothfuss's writing style than the development of this character.
With all that said, I would like to suggest something truly dangerous: Kvothe might actually be The Kingkiller Chronicle's weakest link. I don't mean that he's a bad protagonist, or even a bad character. He's not. Not at all. He's as resourceful and resilient, articulate and accessible a hero as you could possibly ask for. But that's also sort of the problem: even in his flaws, he's pretty much perfect. Of course, this is Kvothe's story in his "own" words, so a certain amount of leniency can be granted when Kvothe triumphs over and/or learns from adversity. But I get the feeling that Rothfuss, like many authors (J.K. Rowling and Stieg Larsson come to mind) is a little bit too in love with his own creation. It's a sadistic love, and Kvothe suffers on a Frodo-ian scale, but it gives me pause as I consider how Rothfuss will eventually resolve the Chronicle.
At the end of the day, a few quibbles aside, this is The Kingkiller Chronicle's Empire Strikes Back, a dark, heroic, mightily satisfying second act that was well worth the wait. Though it may be another five years before Kvothe finishes his journey and all our questions will be answered, The Wise Man's Fear leaves me with confidence that our patience will be rewarded.
That said, it seems like 2011 is sort of the Year of the Books We've Been Waiting For, doesn't it? Perhaps most notable is the scheduled release of A Dance with Dragons (Bantam, TBR July 2011), the long-delayed fifth volume of George R.R. Martin's acclaimed Song of Ice and Fire series. Personally, I remain skeptical (I, like many of you, have been hurt too many times to be otherwise), but this time the promised release date is backed up by a statement from the author himself on his website, whereas apparently the other dates were just overly optimistic guesses.
But first, to tide us over with a dark, prosaic dose, comes The Wise Man's Fear, Day Two of the Kingkiller Chronicle by Patrick Rothfuss (DAW, 2011). And even if we, the collective fan base, haven't been waiting for it quite as long as we have for Dragons, we've been waiting for no less enthusiasm. As a reflection of that enthusiasm, The Wise Man's Fear debuted at the No. 1 (hardcover fiction) spot on The New York Times Bestseller List.
Which says that the thing was eagerly anticipated. But was it worth the wait?
In a word: Yes.
If you were a fan of The Name of the Wind (DAW, 2007) you won't be disappointed here. (If you weren't, why would you read the sequel?) Rothfuss brings the same haunting, lyrical prose and deft storytelling to The Wise Man's Fear that made us fall in love with the original.
If you haven't read The Name of the Wind, I recommend you do so now. It's okay. I'll wait.
Seriously.
I'll wait.
All done yet?
No, that's okay. Take your time.
Done?
All right, then.
Now, when I went to go see Mr. Rothfuss speak last week, the author expressed a strong desire to bottle up the spoilers, so please, no talking about the book, thank you. Having had the opportunity to read both this and The Name of the Wind with as little foreknowledge as I think possible, I can definitely see Rothfuss's point. Which leaves us with the question of how I'm supposed to talk about the book without, you know, talking about the bloody book.
Well, first I'll talk about the physical book itself: as with the last book I reviewed, The Wise Man's Fear is a monster, weighing in at just under one thousand pages. And not one page of that -- not one word -- is a disappointment. Not one word is filler. Indeed, one even gets the impression that this author trimmed the thing down of any excess, any fluff or fat, to give us the leanest, meanest fantasy epic he could.
The result is an epic tome that keeps your attention all the way through, with nary a boring moment in the whole thing. Hell, if you're anything like me, you'll read this book even when you should be doing other, more productive things. I bought this book Thursday night and finished it this (Tuesday) afternoon.
Like The Name of the Wind, The Wise Man's Fear is a story within a story: that of Kvothe, hero and legend in his own time reduced for unknown reasons to the post of a small-town innkeeper, telling his "true" story and setting the record straight. Here, Kvothe goes on adventures and ...
Wait, I can't tell you that.
No, not that, either.
Or that.
Hm.
In the interest of not spoiling the book for you, as it was so graciously not spoiled for me, I'll tell you that Kvothe has adventures. Has the time of his life, even. Learns a thing or two. Grows up a little. I think I'm safe in saying that much.
As our narrator through both novels, Kvothe is obviously the most developed character; his narration makes for an interesting story dynamic as he explains what he experienced in his youth through the lens of a more educated and worldly grown-up. Other characters are seen through his eyes and processed through his (sometimes lack of) understanding. To that end, a few of the supports are fairly fleshed out and interesting, with their own stories to be unraveled, but many other minor cast members come off as a little flat -- there's the loyal friend, the dour mercenary, the kooky teacher, and so on.
That last is a little bit surprising. The Kingkiller Chronicle is happily free of many of those classical tropes that, poorly tended, can make every epic fantasy novel feel like the same epic fantasy novel you just read last week. Other tropes, he turns on their heads (or at least on their sides). Rothfuss even spoke publicly to that effect -- that he didn't want to write the Same Old Story. Still, as I've mentioned above, a few of the old standbys are present and accounted for.
Rothfuss clearly put a lot of thought and effort into shaping Kvothe's story-within-a-story journey, and no secrets are revealed before their time. I won't speak for the status of the major plot points in The Wise Man's Fear except to say that Rothfuss picks up all the threads from The Name of the Wind and carries them deftly. This is one of those few, rare cases where More Of The Same proves to be Exactly What We Need.
(Okay, I'll be honest: one or two subplots within The Wise Man's Fear were resolved perhaps a little hastily or too conveniently for my taste, such that I wonder as to their necessity. Still, they're not a waste of time, since they add to Kvothe's development and are entertaining.)
The storytelling itself is The Kingkiller Chronicle's ultimate strength. Rothfuss has an intricate, delicate, almost poetical form of narration that's easy to get swept into and hard to pull yourself out of. My own words fail me as I try to describe it. Suffice to say, it's some positively powerful prose, the likes of which there is tragically too little on the market right now. I'm eager to see what more wordplay this author has in store for us, both in The Kingkiller Chronicle's conclusion and in the continuance of Rothfuss's career.
I suppose you could say the eloquent narration stems from Kvothe's life as a musician, and at one stretch it's actually a plot point -- but I think it has more to do with Rothfuss's writing style than the development of this character.
With all that said, I would like to suggest something truly dangerous: Kvothe might actually be The Kingkiller Chronicle's weakest link. I don't mean that he's a bad protagonist, or even a bad character. He's not. Not at all. He's as resourceful and resilient, articulate and accessible a hero as you could possibly ask for. But that's also sort of the problem: even in his flaws, he's pretty much perfect. Of course, this is Kvothe's story in his "own" words, so a certain amount of leniency can be granted when Kvothe triumphs over and/or learns from adversity. But I get the feeling that Rothfuss, like many authors (J.K. Rowling and Stieg Larsson come to mind) is a little bit too in love with his own creation. It's a sadistic love, and Kvothe suffers on a Frodo-ian scale, but it gives me pause as I consider how Rothfuss will eventually resolve the Chronicle.
At the end of the day, a few quibbles aside, this is The Kingkiller Chronicle's Empire Strikes Back, a dark, heroic, mightily satisfying second act that was well worth the wait. Though it may be another five years before Kvothe finishes his journey and all our questions will be answered, The Wise Man's Fear leaves me with confidence that our patience will be rewarded.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Fanboy squee!!
Patrick Rothfuss, author of The Kingkiller Chronicle (that's The Name of the Wind [DAW, 2007] and The Wise Man's Fear [DAW, 2001]) came out to Books & Co. at The Greene in Beavercreek tonight, and despite the wicked weather, I drove out there to see him. The Name of the Wind actually brought tears to my eyes when I read it last year, and I wanted to meet the man who could write that prosaically.
While waiting for the event to begin, I began reading The Wise Man's Fear. I won't say anything about other than: if you weren't already, expect a review in the next few weeks.
Mr. Rothfuss, I'm happy to report, seems like a pretty nice, down-to-earth guy: early on, he established that he wanted to give everybody the sense that we were all chilling in somebody's house, rather than a stuffy, formal environment where he's A and you're B and the lines don't cross; he's a geek who clearly appreciates and takes part in geek culture; he's a fine storyteller (No, really? I hear your sarcastic mutterings) in spoken as well as written word, who seems to really enjoy spending time with an audience; and he's got a terrific beard.
I've met a few authors at signings in my day (most of them at Books & Co.'s two locations, come to that) and few have been quite as personable as Mr. Rothfuss. If you get the chance, go see him: it's worth the trip, even in snow like we had here tonight.
I won't pretend that I was slick when I met the guy -- anyone who knows me personally knows that this simply could not be the case. I handed him my book with something approaching awe. My tongue stumbled over my lips. He seemed pretty okay with that. And at the end, I handed him my business card (holy crap you guys, I handed Patrick Rothfuss my business card!) with a "Hey, this picture'll be on my blog," which he probably didn't care about, but took in stride. Because he's a geek and he knows how we roll.
So, hopefully in about five years or so, he'll be finished with The Kingkiller Chronicles and he'll swing back around this way, and I can get another fine piece of fantasy literature signed. Cross your fingers!
While waiting for the event to begin, I began reading The Wise Man's Fear. I won't say anything about other than: if you weren't already, expect a review in the next few weeks.
Two bearded geeks: me (l) and Patrick Rothfuss (r).
He said "Let's do 'tough.'" He does it well; I look a little bloated, don't I? Gosh.
Mr. Rothfuss, I'm happy to report, seems like a pretty nice, down-to-earth guy: early on, he established that he wanted to give everybody the sense that we were all chilling in somebody's house, rather than a stuffy, formal environment where he's A and you're B and the lines don't cross; he's a geek who clearly appreciates and takes part in geek culture; he's a fine storyteller (No, really? I hear your sarcastic mutterings) in spoken as well as written word, who seems to really enjoy spending time with an audience; and he's got a terrific beard.
I've met a few authors at signings in my day (most of them at Books & Co.'s two locations, come to that) and few have been quite as personable as Mr. Rothfuss. If you get the chance, go see him: it's worth the trip, even in snow like we had here tonight.
I won't pretend that I was slick when I met the guy -- anyone who knows me personally knows that this simply could not be the case. I handed him my book with something approaching awe. My tongue stumbled over my lips. He seemed pretty okay with that. And at the end, I handed him my business card (holy crap you guys, I handed Patrick Rothfuss my business card!) with a "Hey, this picture'll be on my blog," which he probably didn't care about, but took in stride. Because he's a geek and he knows how we roll.
So, hopefully in about five years or so, he'll be finished with The Kingkiller Chronicles and he'll swing back around this way, and I can get another fine piece of fantasy literature signed. Cross your fingers!
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
It's good to be king: Brandon Sanderson's The Way of Kings reviewed
I believe in Brandon Sanderson.
I first heard his name when he was tapped to complete the late Robert Jordan's widely acclaimed Wheel of Time series (Tor Books, 1990-present). Even though I haven't yet taken on that particular fantasy behemoth (please hold your stunned gasps and calls for my head on a pike until the end, thank you), I'm told that Sanderson's work on the series has been an impressive tribute to Mr. Jordan.
My first personal encounter with Sanderson was his Mistborn trilogy (Tor, 2006-2008). Taken as a whole, this was unquestionably the second finest work I read in 2010 and the finest fantasy that I read that year. It's a bold, complex post-apocalyptic fantasy saga with a little bit of Hong Kong kung-fu action. Its world building is solid and detailed. Sanderson's grasp on his characters is truly excellent: in each of them, we see strength coupled with vulnerability played out in a thousand fascinating facets, and yet each of these characters are their own individual. By the time I finished the trilogy, I was genuinely sad; I felt as though I'd just said goodbye to dear friends.
Okay, so Warbreaker (Tor, 2009) wasn't excellent. But I knew that Sanderson was capable of great things, so I was enthusiastic about The Way of Kings, the first volume of his proposed Stormlight Archive.
The Stormlight Archive is an ambitious undertaking, and would be for any author. According to Sanderson's website, his original plan was for it to span ten whole volumes (no telling whether or not that plan has changed). This would put it in a league with such fantasy heavyweights as George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire (Bantam, 1996-present), Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth (Tor, 1994-2007), and of course, the aforementioned Wheel of Time.
We're off to a fine start.
The best word to describe The Way of Kings is "epic." Everything about this book is done on a grand scale. As with Mistborn, there's a multinational plot whose roots trace back thousands of years, to a time when gods walked the land with men; a caste system whose strictures are threatened; magic, including what might as well by lightsabers; a continent of flora and fauna specially adapted to survive the harsh terrain; and a cast of fully realized and unique characters with whom you'll laugh and cry, struggle and despair and triumph.
That doesn't mean that Sanderson's delving into the same old territory as Mistborn. Though all of the skills that he perfected there are brought to bear here, Stormlight's world and characters are their own.
More immediately obvious than the book's internal elements is its outward physical size. It's positively titanic, weighing in at over one thousand pages. While this verbosity may be seen as a failure of some other authors who, as the old saw goes, were failed by their words and so used too many of them to overcompensate, let me hasten to assure you that this is not the case with Sanderson and The Way of Kings. This is a big book, but it's so packed with action and character development that there's nary a dull moment. Like a mighty river, this book flows smoothly and rapidly over rocky terrain; like a little inflatable raft on that river, Sanderson relentlessly carries us towards the waterfall finale.
This is the story of the soldier-slave Kaladin, who struggles to keep his team alive against impossible odds while discovering mysterious powers within himself. It's about the plotting scholar Shallan, whose quest for knowledge reveals secrets she never imagined. It's about Dalinar and Adolin, father and son aristocrat warlords who have to face an unknown enemy on the battlefield and unseen threats from their fellow nobles.
It's the story of Roshar, a continent continuously assaulted by sweeping killer storms and divided by nationality, ethnicity, and religion, and the looming threat, centuries-old, that hangs over the whole land.
Themes of leadership, integrity, self-assurance, and whether or not the means justify the ends, abound. Kaladin's quest to survive and lead his troops out of Hell's backyard incorporates an internal struggle against despair, powerlessness, self-doubt, and distrust of authority. Shallan's studies overtly court the discipline of ethics while she contemplates whether or not to betray her mentor's trust in order to help her family. Dalinar follows a strict code of ethics which dictate his every move, while around him people whisper that he's either grown too pompous and self-righteous, or mad, or both, to continue to lead; Dalinar wonders if they might be right. Perhaps more so than Mistborn (itself a cerebral trilogy), Stormlight promises to be a story of ideas.
While Kaladin is probably the "main" character of the book -- and he's a damn good one -- Shallan is the one I want to know more about. And it's worth noting that, while I didn't think much of Dalinar or his story arc in the beginning, by the end, I couldn't help but root for him.
Perhaps more intriguing are the secondary characters: Sadeas, who may or may not have good intentions while he does bad things; Szeth, the mournful assassin; Jasnah Kholin, who clearly isn't telling us everything; Wit, who definitely isn't telling us everything. Hopefully, their stories will be told in full as Stormlight unfolds.
While fairly self-contained, The Way of Kings sets the stage for a truly awe-inspiring fantasy epic that grips the reader's mind and heart. The Stormlight Archive has the potential to be truly monumental.
In Brandon Sanderson we trust.
I first heard his name when he was tapped to complete the late Robert Jordan's widely acclaimed Wheel of Time series (Tor Books, 1990-present). Even though I haven't yet taken on that particular fantasy behemoth (please hold your stunned gasps and calls for my head on a pike until the end, thank you), I'm told that Sanderson's work on the series has been an impressive tribute to Mr. Jordan.
My first personal encounter with Sanderson was his Mistborn trilogy (Tor, 2006-2008). Taken as a whole, this was unquestionably the second finest work I read in 2010 and the finest fantasy that I read that year. It's a bold, complex post-apocalyptic fantasy saga with a little bit of Hong Kong kung-fu action. Its world building is solid and detailed. Sanderson's grasp on his characters is truly excellent: in each of them, we see strength coupled with vulnerability played out in a thousand fascinating facets, and yet each of these characters are their own individual. By the time I finished the trilogy, I was genuinely sad; I felt as though I'd just said goodbye to dear friends.
Okay, so Warbreaker (Tor, 2009) wasn't excellent. But I knew that Sanderson was capable of great things, so I was enthusiastic about The Way of Kings, the first volume of his proposed Stormlight Archive.
The Stormlight Archive is an ambitious undertaking, and would be for any author. According to Sanderson's website, his original plan was for it to span ten whole volumes (no telling whether or not that plan has changed). This would put it in a league with such fantasy heavyweights as George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire (Bantam, 1996-present), Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth (Tor, 1994-2007), and of course, the aforementioned Wheel of Time.
We're off to a fine start.
The best word to describe The Way of Kings is "epic." Everything about this book is done on a grand scale. As with Mistborn, there's a multinational plot whose roots trace back thousands of years, to a time when gods walked the land with men; a caste system whose strictures are threatened; magic, including what might as well by lightsabers; a continent of flora and fauna specially adapted to survive the harsh terrain; and a cast of fully realized and unique characters with whom you'll laugh and cry, struggle and despair and triumph.
That doesn't mean that Sanderson's delving into the same old territory as Mistborn. Though all of the skills that he perfected there are brought to bear here, Stormlight's world and characters are their own.
More immediately obvious than the book's internal elements is its outward physical size. It's positively titanic, weighing in at over one thousand pages. While this verbosity may be seen as a failure of some other authors who, as the old saw goes, were failed by their words and so used too many of them to overcompensate, let me hasten to assure you that this is not the case with Sanderson and The Way of Kings. This is a big book, but it's so packed with action and character development that there's nary a dull moment. Like a mighty river, this book flows smoothly and rapidly over rocky terrain; like a little inflatable raft on that river, Sanderson relentlessly carries us towards the waterfall finale.
This is the story of the soldier-slave Kaladin, who struggles to keep his team alive against impossible odds while discovering mysterious powers within himself. It's about the plotting scholar Shallan, whose quest for knowledge reveals secrets she never imagined. It's about Dalinar and Adolin, father and son aristocrat warlords who have to face an unknown enemy on the battlefield and unseen threats from their fellow nobles.
It's the story of Roshar, a continent continuously assaulted by sweeping killer storms and divided by nationality, ethnicity, and religion, and the looming threat, centuries-old, that hangs over the whole land.
Themes of leadership, integrity, self-assurance, and whether or not the means justify the ends, abound. Kaladin's quest to survive and lead his troops out of Hell's backyard incorporates an internal struggle against despair, powerlessness, self-doubt, and distrust of authority. Shallan's studies overtly court the discipline of ethics while she contemplates whether or not to betray her mentor's trust in order to help her family. Dalinar follows a strict code of ethics which dictate his every move, while around him people whisper that he's either grown too pompous and self-righteous, or mad, or both, to continue to lead; Dalinar wonders if they might be right. Perhaps more so than Mistborn (itself a cerebral trilogy), Stormlight promises to be a story of ideas.
While Kaladin is probably the "main" character of the book -- and he's a damn good one -- Shallan is the one I want to know more about. And it's worth noting that, while I didn't think much of Dalinar or his story arc in the beginning, by the end, I couldn't help but root for him.
Perhaps more intriguing are the secondary characters: Sadeas, who may or may not have good intentions while he does bad things; Szeth, the mournful assassin; Jasnah Kholin, who clearly isn't telling us everything; Wit, who definitely isn't telling us everything. Hopefully, their stories will be told in full as Stormlight unfolds.
While fairly self-contained, The Way of Kings sets the stage for a truly awe-inspiring fantasy epic that grips the reader's mind and heart. The Stormlight Archive has the potential to be truly monumental.
In Brandon Sanderson we trust.
Monday, February 28, 2011
This old house
I'm not going to talk about deep and abiding disappointment regarding last night's Academy Awards. We're not going to get into how Winter's Bone was completely and unjustifiably snubbed. I'm not going to mention how it vividly translates, via a surprising cast of relative unknowns, one of the finest pieces of Twenty-First Century American prose -- a haunting and vivid portrayal of unflagging courage and loyalty in a piece of unknown Americana that most of us would rightly be too afraid to experience for ourselves -- from page to screen.
Nope, I'm not going to talk about any of that.
Instead, I'm going to make a confession: I've been skipping ahead a bit in my reading list. I'm at the mercy of my public library; sometimes, books requested take months to get to me, and sometimes days. I was #23 for Bill Bryson's At Home: A Short History of Private Life (Doubleday, 2010) for weeks, and then all of a sudden it was on the hold shelf waiting for me. Worry not, dear reader, for I've got Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues (Villard, 1998) on my bedside table and will review that, along with some comparative and contrasting material, soon enough. But At Home is what I just finished, so At Home is what I'm going to briefly talk about.
I first heard of Bill Bryson through a friend who had read a few of his books, but they didn't interest me; though I'd made the pledge to myself to read more nonfiction, I had mostly stuck to memoirs about food and the people who prepare it, and Bryson's books all seemed to be travelogues. I later saw him on The Colbert Report, promoting At Home. It sounded a little interesting, like something you would continually mean to read, but never get around to. But then I saw it at the grocery store of all places, picked it up, thumbed through the pages, and decided that it was worth a go. I requested it from my library; eventually, it made its way to me.
The book is something of a surprise. Bryson, the most British of Americans, takes us on a tour of his house, a former rectory dating from the mid-Ninteenth Century, and through this tour explores the history and development of the everyday conveniences we take for granted, focused primarily on the past 250 years and almost exclusively on the Western Hemisphere. But if that sounds dreadfully tedious, let me hasten to assure you it's not.
If you're looking for a technical history, bogged down in the tiny facets of material evolution, look elsewhere. Bryson's history isn't very literal: his history of the fuse box, for example, isn't actually the history of that little gray box many of us have in our basements (my old apartment had it in the kitchen), but rather a more general history of home lighting. His history of the dining room isn't just the history of the dining room but the history of food. His history of the scullery is the history of servitude. His history of the cellar is the history of the building materials we use today and the reasons why we don't use others. His history of the bedroom is the history of sexual relations, and also of death and burial. There's the story of how sedentary civilizations appeared before organized agriculture (a phenomenon which has me convinced space aliens were somehow involved) and there's the story of the daring Brit who made my morning cup of tea viable.
At Home is jam-packed with the minor anecdotes and the epic sagas, humorous and terrible and salacious, surrounding the people who created, developed, fought over, stole, refined, perfected, manufactured, and marketed modern daily life. The story of things, it turns out, is really the story of humanity.
Bryson tends to ramble a bit, and sometimes strays a farther from the point than we might actually like before coming back to it. Nevertheless, it's usually a fascinating story, filled with some characters of whom you've heard and many others you haven't.
Actually, Bryson tends to ramble a lot; while occasionally irritating (you'll find yourself asking where he's going with this or how it relates to that), it's a part of his charm, the same charm that makes this book possible. Seriously. By a less accessible author, this book would be dry as dirt. I think that's part of why he wrote it, actually -- because the story of our homes is actually interesting, if presented in an interesting manner. Bryson's history isn't quite as deep or complete as a dry and dusty history text -- this is, as the subtitle notes, A Short History of Private Life (emphasis mine). At Home is more like a history novel.
So, if you're looking for pure facts, the book is full of them, but they're not laid out in a chronological manner, or even a logical manner. Instead, you'll have to let Bill get around to telling you what you want to know in his own course, for which you'll have to read the whole book. (For ease of reference, and for the extremely lazy and those pressed for time, there is a handy index in the back, along with a bibliography.) Luckily, due to Bryson's easy, friendly writing style, At Home is a surprisingly quick read, and consuming the whole thing is no hardship at all.
I give this book an A-. Take some time, enjoy yourself, and learn a thing or two along the way.
Nope, I'm not going to talk about any of that.
Instead, I'm going to make a confession: I've been skipping ahead a bit in my reading list. I'm at the mercy of my public library; sometimes, books requested take months to get to me, and sometimes days. I was #23 for Bill Bryson's At Home: A Short History of Private Life (Doubleday, 2010) for weeks, and then all of a sudden it was on the hold shelf waiting for me. Worry not, dear reader, for I've got Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues (Villard, 1998) on my bedside table and will review that, along with some comparative and contrasting material, soon enough. But At Home is what I just finished, so At Home is what I'm going to briefly talk about.
I first heard of Bill Bryson through a friend who had read a few of his books, but they didn't interest me; though I'd made the pledge to myself to read more nonfiction, I had mostly stuck to memoirs about food and the people who prepare it, and Bryson's books all seemed to be travelogues. I later saw him on The Colbert Report, promoting At Home. It sounded a little interesting, like something you would continually mean to read, but never get around to. But then I saw it at the grocery store of all places, picked it up, thumbed through the pages, and decided that it was worth a go. I requested it from my library; eventually, it made its way to me.
The book is something of a surprise. Bryson, the most British of Americans, takes us on a tour of his house, a former rectory dating from the mid-Ninteenth Century, and through this tour explores the history and development of the everyday conveniences we take for granted, focused primarily on the past 250 years and almost exclusively on the Western Hemisphere. But if that sounds dreadfully tedious, let me hasten to assure you it's not.
If you're looking for a technical history, bogged down in the tiny facets of material evolution, look elsewhere. Bryson's history isn't very literal: his history of the fuse box, for example, isn't actually the history of that little gray box many of us have in our basements (my old apartment had it in the kitchen), but rather a more general history of home lighting. His history of the dining room isn't just the history of the dining room but the history of food. His history of the scullery is the history of servitude. His history of the cellar is the history of the building materials we use today and the reasons why we don't use others. His history of the bedroom is the history of sexual relations, and also of death and burial. There's the story of how sedentary civilizations appeared before organized agriculture (a phenomenon which has me convinced space aliens were somehow involved) and there's the story of the daring Brit who made my morning cup of tea viable.
At Home is jam-packed with the minor anecdotes and the epic sagas, humorous and terrible and salacious, surrounding the people who created, developed, fought over, stole, refined, perfected, manufactured, and marketed modern daily life. The story of things, it turns out, is really the story of humanity.
Bryson tends to ramble a bit, and sometimes strays a farther from the point than we might actually like before coming back to it. Nevertheless, it's usually a fascinating story, filled with some characters of whom you've heard and many others you haven't.
Actually, Bryson tends to ramble a lot; while occasionally irritating (you'll find yourself asking where he's going with this or how it relates to that), it's a part of his charm, the same charm that makes this book possible. Seriously. By a less accessible author, this book would be dry as dirt. I think that's part of why he wrote it, actually -- because the story of our homes is actually interesting, if presented in an interesting manner. Bryson's history isn't quite as deep or complete as a dry and dusty history text -- this is, as the subtitle notes, A Short History of Private Life (emphasis mine). At Home is more like a history novel.
So, if you're looking for pure facts, the book is full of them, but they're not laid out in a chronological manner, or even a logical manner. Instead, you'll have to let Bill get around to telling you what you want to know in his own course, for which you'll have to read the whole book. (For ease of reference, and for the extremely lazy and those pressed for time, there is a handy index in the back, along with a bibliography.) Luckily, due to Bryson's easy, friendly writing style, At Home is a surprisingly quick read, and consuming the whole thing is no hardship at all.
I give this book an A-. Take some time, enjoy yourself, and learn a thing or two along the way.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Be ye warned: here there be literature!
Just a trifling little thing: here's my partial reading list for 2011.
First, in order, books you can expect to hear more about in the coming weeks:
(EDIT: Astrikeout indicates that a book has been completed, not removed from the list.)
And then, slightly less orderly ...
Whew! So, that ought to get me through to about July. You can expect reviews of some, if not most, of the unnumbered books, too, assuming they make an impact.
If you've got other recommendations, send them my way! Leave a comment here, hit me up on Twitter, or send me an email.
First, in order, books you can expect to hear more about in the coming weeks:
(EDIT: A
The Vagina Monologues, by Eve Ensler (Villard, 2007). I'm not a fan of feminist philosophy and gender studies, but my girlfriend is, and she wanted me to read this. I actually enjoyed the last book she asked me to read, so I'm going to keep an open mind. I'm getting her back by making her read The Hobbit.)- Captive of Gor, by John Norman (Ballantine, 1972 -- this is the edition I have; it has since been reprinted by e-reads.com). The seventh in Norman's pulpy Chronicles of Counter-Earth science fiction series.
The Way of Kings, by Brandon Sanderson (Tor Books, 2010). His Mistborn trilogy was some of the flat-out, hands down best fantasy that I've ever read, and yes, if you're reading this blog and you haven't read them yet, you owe it to yourself to do so. I will be very interested to see what he does with this, the first book in his proposed fantasy epic.- The Shadowmarch series, by Tad Williams (DAW, 2004-2010). I've read the first two books in the series, but it's been years; I intend to start the series from the beginning again.
And then, slightly less orderly ...
At Home: A Short History of Private Life, by Bill Bryson (Doubleday, 2010). I saw Bryson on The Colbert Report and thought the book sounded good; a friend of mine recommended a few of his other books.- A Discovery of Witches, by Deborah E. Harkness (Viking, 2011). I think I read about this in the local paper.
- The Skewed Throne, by Joshua Palmatier (DAW, 2006).
- The Iron Thorn, by Caitlin Kittredge (Delacorte Books for Young Readers, 2011). The past decade or so has seen some surprisingly good young adult fantasy, so I'm not thrown off by that label; let the material stand or fall for itself, I say. I was directed to this by Cherie Priest's Twitter (she retweeted it from someone else).
The Wise Man's Fear, by Patrick Rothfuss (DAW, to be released March 1, 2011). The second book of Rothfuss's Kingkiller Chronicles, the first volume of which has had its praises sung widely. I will say that I actually teared up during one scene in The Name of the Wind (DAW, 2007) -- another that you absolutely owe yourself to read if you haven't already.- The Big Country, by Donald Hamilton (Dell, 1958). The source material for the fantastic film, which I also recommend for stellar performances from Gregory Peck and Burl Ives, and one of the best fight scenes ever choreographed (between Peck and Charleton Heston).
- The Windup Girl, by Paolo Bacigalupi (Night Shade Books, 2010).
- Naamah's Blessing, by Jacqueline Carey (Grand Central Publishing, to be released June 29, 2011). The conclusion to the latest trilogy by one of my favorite authors.
- The Kingdom Beyond the Waves, by Stephen Hunt (Tor Books, 2009). The sequel to Hunt's The Court of the Air (Tor Books, 2008), a strange, captivating book.
- Vamped, by David Sosnowski (Free Press, 2004).
- Clementine, by Cherie Priest (Subterranean, 2010). The other book in Priest's Clockwork Century series, about which I've previously raved. Luckily, my library has a copy of this one.
- Prince of Thorns, by Mark Lawrence (Ace, to be released August 2, 2011).
- The Heroes, by Joe Abercrombie (Orbit, 2011). Abercrombie writes some really great, gritty, grisly fantasy with flawed heroes and unhappy (realistic) endings, so much that reading his work is akin to emotional masochism. Still, like an addiction, you just keep coming back because you can't resist ...
- The Strange Affair of Spring-Heeled Jack, by Mark Hodder (Pyr, 2010).
- The Son of Neptune, by Rick Riordan (Hyperion, to be published October 11, 2011). Again, the young adult label doesn't bother me; Riordan's Percy Jackson and the Olympians series (Hyperion, 2005-2010) was top-notch, whether you're a young reader or old, and The Lost Hero (Hyperion, 2010) kept up the mantle of quality I've come to expect from this author.
- The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, by N.K. Jemisin (Orbit, 2010). Ranting Dragon's review of this made it actually sound good (which was, in fact, the whole point of the review).
- I, Claudius, by Robert Graves (Arthur Barker, 1934). This was recommended to me by a friend, who loved it, after I'd watched Caligula (1979 -- one of Malcolm McDowell's best performances).
- No Country for Old Men, by Cormac McCarthy (Knopf, 2005). The source material for the Coen Bro's. Oscar-winning existential western; I'm told that the book is even better. I've thought before about reading The Road (Knopf, 2006), which I'm also led to understand is excellent (and in fact once nearly bought it on the strength of its description, knowing nothing more about it), but I've never felt the need to be that depressed.
Whew! So, that ought to get me through to about July. You can expect reviews of some, if not most, of the unnumbered books, too, assuming they make an impact.
If you've got other recommendations, send them my way! Leave a comment here, hit me up on Twitter, or send me an email.
Friday, February 18, 2011
A Steampunk Double Feature Review: Dreadnought and The Buntline Special
Recently, two steampunk novels have crossed my path, that are definitely worth a mention. The first is Cherie Priest's Dreadnought (Tor Books, 2010), the latest entry in her Clockwork Century series. The second is The Buntline Special (Pyr, 2010), by Mike Resnick, which promises to be the first in an upcoming serial, The Weird West.
I came across Dreadnought's precursor, Boneshaker (Tor Books, 2009), quite by accident a little over a year ago, and I'll admit that I was a little iffy over it. For one thing, it bore the SciFi Essential Book seal of approval, and the SciFi Channel (now SyFy) has produced some questionable content on its own. For another, steampunk, in my personal experience, tends to be a very hit-or-miss subgenre when it comes to literature -- the good stuff is really, really good, and the bad stuff is hurtfully disappointing. It's a very visual subgenre: brassy bits and leather and boiler-powered everything, all of which is easier to depict through a more visual medium, such as painting or illustration. (Not that those are "easy"!)
Luckily, my fears were unfounded, and Boneshaker, the story of a worried mother out to find her lost son in a world of airships and zombies, turned out to be a real treat. So I eagerly looked forward to Dreadnought, the latest book set in Priest's Clockwork Century.
(Dreadnought isn't strictly a sequel, though it is somewhat of a spiritual successor, to Boneshaker. So you don't really have to read Boneshaker to understand Dreadnought, though it might help. According to the official website for the Clockwork Century, Priest has written another novel, Clementine (Subterranean Press, 2010), and a novelette, Tanglefoot (Subterranean Press, 2009). Clementine is sort of ludicrously expensive according to Amazon.com, but Tanglefoot is available for to read free from Subterranean Press's website.)
Dreadnought introduces us to Mercy Lynch, put-upon Confederate war nurse and widow. Having but recently lost her husband, Mercy is rather coincidentally called upon to travel across the length of a war-torn America to visit her estranged father, the last family she has left. To get there, she'll have to survive the Civil War at top speed and deal with some truly ornery train passengers.
Dreadnought isn't better or worse than Boneshaker, but it's a worthy heir. Priest flexes muscles that she only tantalized at having in her previous entry, by taking the world that she built and exploring it more fully. It's one hell of a world, where the Civil War has raged for almost twenty years while Texas remains an independent nation with its own interests. To escape the realities of war, soldiers take drugs that turn them from men into monsters -- literally. Mechanical walkers lifted straight out of classic science fiction roam the front lines. And a steam engine, the titular Dreadnought (who knew that steam engines had names?) transports a mysterious cargo and a mad scientist who guards it zealously.
Is it a perfect book? No, but it's pretty good. The beginning of the book is slightly problematic. In the space of too short a time, Mercy Lynch receives word that her husband has died on the front line and that her estranged father is dying. So, isn't it rather convenient that her single tie to anywhere has evaporated, just as she's asked to make a dangerous cross-country journey? While it's not unknown for tragedies of this nature to happen back-to-back in real life, here, it feels a little contrived. I'm willing to forgive the taste that particular plot development left in my mouth, however, as it's all over with rather quickly and gives Lynch the freedom and impetus to make the trip and get on with the story.
Mercy Lynch reminds me an awful lot of Briar Wilkes, the heroine of Boneshaker. They're not identical, but there's enough overlap to raise an eyebrow. And a second point of view, as in Boneshaker, might have been appreciated. Still, Briar was busy in Seattle and couldn't make the trip cross-country. This Briar-Mercy character is a good and interesting one, and Priest seems to have a firm grasp on her, so I won't think too hard about this.
In spite of all that, this really is steampunk at its best. The Clockwork Century is a world that's both familiar and yet terrifyingly different, and Priest has clearly put some thought into it -- not just the fun parts, like zombies and air piracy, but the hauntingly simple parts, like the dearth of educated men in a country fighting a war of attrition where every able-bodied man is sent to the front lines. And all of it is wrapped up in a clear, crisp writing style that drives the story cleanly and compellingly, like a locomotive, towards the story's inevitable and climactic confrontation.
More random was my encounter with The Buntline Special; I just happened to find it at the bookstore and thought it looked good. Plus, it was written by Mike Resnick, a trusted name in science fiction.
Like Dreadnought, The Buntline Special features a United States where westward expansion has slowed to a trickle: in this case, by unbeatable Native American magic rather than by a pesky, distracting Civil War. In the interest of expanding its borders across the North American continent, the United States has sent Thomas Edison to the remote western town of Tombstone to come up with a way to counteract the shamans' magic ... with science! Aiding Edison in the science department is Ned Buntline, here, inventor to the stars, able to invent anything Edison dreams up. And aiding the two of them with guns and muscle are the Earp Brothers -- Virgil, Morgan, and Wyatt -- and their friends Bat Masterson and Doc Holliday.
Of course, it's 1881, and if it's 1881 in Tombstone, then you know what's about to happen.
Resnick presents an alternative to the events surrounding the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. Geronimo and Hook Nose conspire with the local criminal element to kill Edison before he can find a way to counter their powers; for more firepower, they resurrect Johnny Ringo, gunslinger, egotist, and classicist. Cursed into a monstrosity, Bat Masterson slowly goes mad. Kate Elder employs whores both human and robotic, by-products of the scientific juggernaut of Edison and Buntline. And through it all, Wyatt Earp seeks a glory that will ensure his place in history after success has eluded him, and John Henry Holliday just wants to drink and gamble in peace while he waits to die.
The Buntline Special, like Bram Stoker's Dracula, presents a rather classic case of great idea, lackluster execution. Where Priest presented the tropes of her steampunk seamlessly, Resnick seems to bludgeon us over the head with his horseless carriages (it's only 1881), electric lights (here, common in Tombstone but unknown back East), super-hard brass that defies conventional physics, and robotic whores. The pacing plods in the first half of the book. The characters are all a little flat: Virgil Earp is dour and dutiful, Wyatt is sort of a lovable loser, and Kate Elder is bold as the Arizona desert.
The only exception is that of Holliday, on whom Resnick spends the most attention; here, he is fatalistic and humorous, loyal yet stand-offish, erudite and alcoholic. (Although, did we need reminders of Holliday's consumptive state every other page?) I would've appreciated more of this kind of attention to some of the other characters, which would have rounded out the novel a bit better.
Resnick has clearly done his homework with regards to the real events surrounding the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral -- as evidenced, if nothing else, by the bibliography he helpfully includes. The history of the Old West is filled with larger-than-life characters, and even if Resnick doesn't do them justice, it's clear that he knew who and what he was talking about.
I think my biggest problem with all of this is that Mike Resnick is one of science fiction's most celebrated authors. From someone less famous, less decorated, and less experiences, I think I could forgive a lot more. But from Resnick, the faults in this book are thrown into more sharp relief.
So, it's not a great work. But if all you know of Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday is Kurt Russell and Val Kilmer (or Kevin Costner and Dennis Quaid), then you owe it to yourself to learn more about them. And then you might want to come back to this book to check out what might have happened.
I came across Dreadnought's precursor, Boneshaker (Tor Books, 2009), quite by accident a little over a year ago, and I'll admit that I was a little iffy over it. For one thing, it bore the SciFi Essential Book seal of approval, and the SciFi Channel (now SyFy) has produced some questionable content on its own. For another, steampunk, in my personal experience, tends to be a very hit-or-miss subgenre when it comes to literature -- the good stuff is really, really good, and the bad stuff is hurtfully disappointing. It's a very visual subgenre: brassy bits and leather and boiler-powered everything, all of which is easier to depict through a more visual medium, such as painting or illustration. (Not that those are "easy"!)
Luckily, my fears were unfounded, and Boneshaker, the story of a worried mother out to find her lost son in a world of airships and zombies, turned out to be a real treat. So I eagerly looked forward to Dreadnought, the latest book set in Priest's Clockwork Century.
(Dreadnought isn't strictly a sequel, though it is somewhat of a spiritual successor, to Boneshaker. So you don't really have to read Boneshaker to understand Dreadnought, though it might help. According to the official website for the Clockwork Century, Priest has written another novel, Clementine (Subterranean Press, 2010), and a novelette, Tanglefoot (Subterranean Press, 2009). Clementine is sort of ludicrously expensive according to Amazon.com, but Tanglefoot is available for to read free from Subterranean Press's website.)
Dreadnought introduces us to Mercy Lynch, put-upon Confederate war nurse and widow. Having but recently lost her husband, Mercy is rather coincidentally called upon to travel across the length of a war-torn America to visit her estranged father, the last family she has left. To get there, she'll have to survive the Civil War at top speed and deal with some truly ornery train passengers.
Dreadnought isn't better or worse than Boneshaker, but it's a worthy heir. Priest flexes muscles that she only tantalized at having in her previous entry, by taking the world that she built and exploring it more fully. It's one hell of a world, where the Civil War has raged for almost twenty years while Texas remains an independent nation with its own interests. To escape the realities of war, soldiers take drugs that turn them from men into monsters -- literally. Mechanical walkers lifted straight out of classic science fiction roam the front lines. And a steam engine, the titular Dreadnought (who knew that steam engines had names?) transports a mysterious cargo and a mad scientist who guards it zealously.
Is it a perfect book? No, but it's pretty good. The beginning of the book is slightly problematic. In the space of too short a time, Mercy Lynch receives word that her husband has died on the front line and that her estranged father is dying. So, isn't it rather convenient that her single tie to anywhere has evaporated, just as she's asked to make a dangerous cross-country journey? While it's not unknown for tragedies of this nature to happen back-to-back in real life, here, it feels a little contrived. I'm willing to forgive the taste that particular plot development left in my mouth, however, as it's all over with rather quickly and gives Lynch the freedom and impetus to make the trip and get on with the story.
Mercy Lynch reminds me an awful lot of Briar Wilkes, the heroine of Boneshaker. They're not identical, but there's enough overlap to raise an eyebrow. And a second point of view, as in Boneshaker, might have been appreciated. Still, Briar was busy in Seattle and couldn't make the trip cross-country. This Briar-Mercy character is a good and interesting one, and Priest seems to have a firm grasp on her, so I won't think too hard about this.
In spite of all that, this really is steampunk at its best. The Clockwork Century is a world that's both familiar and yet terrifyingly different, and Priest has clearly put some thought into it -- not just the fun parts, like zombies and air piracy, but the hauntingly simple parts, like the dearth of educated men in a country fighting a war of attrition where every able-bodied man is sent to the front lines. And all of it is wrapped up in a clear, crisp writing style that drives the story cleanly and compellingly, like a locomotive, towards the story's inevitable and climactic confrontation.
More random was my encounter with The Buntline Special; I just happened to find it at the bookstore and thought it looked good. Plus, it was written by Mike Resnick, a trusted name in science fiction.
Like Dreadnought, The Buntline Special features a United States where westward expansion has slowed to a trickle: in this case, by unbeatable Native American magic rather than by a pesky, distracting Civil War. In the interest of expanding its borders across the North American continent, the United States has sent Thomas Edison to the remote western town of Tombstone to come up with a way to counteract the shamans' magic ... with science! Aiding Edison in the science department is Ned Buntline, here, inventor to the stars, able to invent anything Edison dreams up. And aiding the two of them with guns and muscle are the Earp Brothers -- Virgil, Morgan, and Wyatt -- and their friends Bat Masterson and Doc Holliday.
Of course, it's 1881, and if it's 1881 in Tombstone, then you know what's about to happen.
Resnick presents an alternative to the events surrounding the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. Geronimo and Hook Nose conspire with the local criminal element to kill Edison before he can find a way to counter their powers; for more firepower, they resurrect Johnny Ringo, gunslinger, egotist, and classicist. Cursed into a monstrosity, Bat Masterson slowly goes mad. Kate Elder employs whores both human and robotic, by-products of the scientific juggernaut of Edison and Buntline. And through it all, Wyatt Earp seeks a glory that will ensure his place in history after success has eluded him, and John Henry Holliday just wants to drink and gamble in peace while he waits to die.
The Buntline Special, like Bram Stoker's Dracula, presents a rather classic case of great idea, lackluster execution. Where Priest presented the tropes of her steampunk seamlessly, Resnick seems to bludgeon us over the head with his horseless carriages (it's only 1881), electric lights (here, common in Tombstone but unknown back East), super-hard brass that defies conventional physics, and robotic whores. The pacing plods in the first half of the book. The characters are all a little flat: Virgil Earp is dour and dutiful, Wyatt is sort of a lovable loser, and Kate Elder is bold as the Arizona desert.
The only exception is that of Holliday, on whom Resnick spends the most attention; here, he is fatalistic and humorous, loyal yet stand-offish, erudite and alcoholic. (Although, did we need reminders of Holliday's consumptive state every other page?) I would've appreciated more of this kind of attention to some of the other characters, which would have rounded out the novel a bit better.
Resnick has clearly done his homework with regards to the real events surrounding the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral -- as evidenced, if nothing else, by the bibliography he helpfully includes. The history of the Old West is filled with larger-than-life characters, and even if Resnick doesn't do them justice, it's clear that he knew who and what he was talking about.
I think my biggest problem with all of this is that Mike Resnick is one of science fiction's most celebrated authors. From someone less famous, less decorated, and less experiences, I think I could forgive a lot more. But from Resnick, the faults in this book are thrown into more sharp relief.
So, it's not a great work. But if all you know of Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday is Kurt Russell and Val Kilmer (or Kevin Costner and Dennis Quaid), then you owe it to yourself to learn more about them. And then you might want to come back to this book to check out what might have happened.
Monday, December 20, 2010
The Native Star review
It took longer than I'd expected it would, but I finally finished The Native Star, by M.K. Hobson (Spectra, 2010). I'd actually never heard of the thing until I read about it on Felicia Day's Twitter -- take that, detractors of social media! But I heard about it, I looked it up, I read it, and I'm glad if not thrilled I did.
It seems a strange thing, but I'd actually expected to not like this book, and here's why: from the beginning, I'd thought the thing was going to be a sort of steampunk bodice-ripper, with gentlemen engaged in ungentlemanly conduct with women in corsets, and maybe some sort of plot tacked on about a mad scientist hell-bent on destroying the world with a steam-and-magic-powered robot, or something equally ridiculous. Background? World development? Who needs them when there are corsets and robots!
Now, don't get me wrong -- that could be a perfectly fun guilty pleasure, even for a completely heterosexual guy like me. But I don't normally consider paperback romances to be the high point of literature (I think I'm safe in assuming that?). And that's basically what I'd expected this book to be, so I wasn't expecting much.
Happily, this book no such thing. It's a serious work of steampunk fantasy fiction, the likes of which there need to be more, with plot and characters and world development all at the forefront. Indeed, the titillation was virtually nonexistent (almost disappointingly so), enough to make one wonder if Ms. Hobson's sensibilities are every bit as Victorian as her characters'. But I digress.
The characters of country witch Emily Edwards and Big City warlock Dreadnought Stanton are reasonably well thought-out and developed, though I didn't think they really had the kind of chemistry they could have, and that their blossoming romance (yes, there is some of that) was sped along a little too hastily and could have been developed more. That Emily chooses Stanton over her original love, Dag, is as far-fetched as it is predictable.
(Don't worry, I haven't spoiled anything for you. Although I'd be deeply amused if the inevitable sequel spawned Team Dag and Team Dreadnought fan clubs.)
Remember where I said that this is a serious work, where plot and world-development were actually thought-out and developed, and not just tacked on? Well, therein lies the rub. The Native Star sometimes gets a little caught up in its own seriousness, and the story stumbles a bit around Ms. Hobson's attempts to explain the differences and conflicts between the various forms and philosophies of magic in her world, enough that I feel like the final conflict of the story could have been saved for the sequel and a lighter, less global-crisis sort of adventure might have better served this first book.
That all said, it's executed fairly well, in a summer blockbuster sort of way -- a good summer blockbuster sort of way -- and there's more than enough material for that inevitable sequel I keep mentioning. (Obviously I don't know whether or not there will be such a book, but c'mon. C'mon.)
In all, I'm looking forward to good things from Hobson, and I think if she can take her time instead of trying to cram everything into one story, then we'll be in for a hell of a ride soon enough.
It seems a strange thing, but I'd actually expected to not like this book, and here's why: from the beginning, I'd thought the thing was going to be a sort of steampunk bodice-ripper, with gentlemen engaged in ungentlemanly conduct with women in corsets, and maybe some sort of plot tacked on about a mad scientist hell-bent on destroying the world with a steam-and-magic-powered robot, or something equally ridiculous. Background? World development? Who needs them when there are corsets and robots!
Now, don't get me wrong -- that could be a perfectly fun guilty pleasure, even for a completely heterosexual guy like me. But I don't normally consider paperback romances to be the high point of literature (I think I'm safe in assuming that?). And that's basically what I'd expected this book to be, so I wasn't expecting much.
Happily, this book no such thing. It's a serious work of steampunk fantasy fiction, the likes of which there need to be more, with plot and characters and world development all at the forefront. Indeed, the titillation was virtually nonexistent (almost disappointingly so), enough to make one wonder if Ms. Hobson's sensibilities are every bit as Victorian as her characters'. But I digress.
The characters of country witch Emily Edwards and Big City warlock Dreadnought Stanton are reasonably well thought-out and developed, though I didn't think they really had the kind of chemistry they could have, and that their blossoming romance (yes, there is some of that) was sped along a little too hastily and could have been developed more. That Emily chooses Stanton over her original love, Dag, is as far-fetched as it is predictable.
(Don't worry, I haven't spoiled anything for you. Although I'd be deeply amused if the inevitable sequel spawned Team Dag and Team Dreadnought fan clubs.)
Remember where I said that this is a serious work, where plot and world-development were actually thought-out and developed, and not just tacked on? Well, therein lies the rub. The Native Star sometimes gets a little caught up in its own seriousness, and the story stumbles a bit around Ms. Hobson's attempts to explain the differences and conflicts between the various forms and philosophies of magic in her world, enough that I feel like the final conflict of the story could have been saved for the sequel and a lighter, less global-crisis sort of adventure might have better served this first book.
That all said, it's executed fairly well, in a summer blockbuster sort of way -- a good summer blockbuster sort of way -- and there's more than enough material for that inevitable sequel I keep mentioning. (Obviously I don't know whether or not there will be such a book, but c'mon. C'mon.)
In all, I'm looking forward to good things from Hobson, and I think if she can take her time instead of trying to cram everything into one story, then we'll be in for a hell of a ride soon enough.
Monday, December 13, 2010
Holy crap, I have a blog! and What I'm reading lately.
Like leaving the baby on the stove ...
Way back when, I went to the Writer's Workshop at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio. It was a fine experience, and one I definitely recommend, whether you're just starting out (like me) or already published and moderately successful. Because you can never be too good, right? And among the advice those fine folks from Antioch gave me, was to be publicly accessible, which meant having such things as a blog and a Twitter account.
The latter was simple; the former, less so. Say what you like about it, but Twitter is one of the simplest things you can do if you've got the right tools: take ten seconds out of your life to make an account, and then if you've got anything resembling a modern cell phone (or just an internet connection, which you already need to make the Twitter account, of course), you can tweet to your heart's content.
So, I made a (second) Twitter account for my professional life -- that is, one that focuses primarily on my literary world -- and something like the third or fourth blog account I've ever made for myself. But the problem with blogs, unlike Twitter, is that you've actually got to put some thought in it. You've got to take the time out of your busy life to put down a cogent thought or two. Who has the time or the energy for that?
Well, truthfully, I do, but I've just plain ignored the silly thing up until recently; it's always been in my mind, nagging me with that same feeling that I forgot to put the garage door down, but there's always been something more important that needed my attention more immediately (like researching the amenities of hotels in 1880s Kansas City). And anyway, who wants to read about a book that's only a third of the way finished in its roughest form? I'm not going to divulge plot points or anything substantive about my work, so there really won't be anything juicy on here. But I'm going to try to make a more concerted effort to talk about the writing process -- because it's the thing people keeping asking about at parties -- and also about what I'm reading. Because no man is an island,and I take comfort in reading stories that didn't spring out of my own mind.
So spread the word, invite your friends, make comments, share thoughts.
It's Jeff's literary world, folks. You're just living in it.
_______________________
In other worlds ...
I just finished In The Night Garden, The Orphan's Tales, Vol. 1, by Catherynne M. Valente (Spectra, 2006). This book is like nothing I've ever read: a modern-day Arabian Nights filled with witches and polar bears who turn into men and princes and princesses and Quests and sea monsters and ...
It's hard to say what this book is actually about, except to say that it's about a strange girl who tells a princeling stories that only she knows, and that each story spirals into another story, which spirals into another, and into another. The tales are rarely isolated, and as the book continues, we're reintroduced to elements and ideas from previous tales, creating a really intricate web of storytelling that you just don't often find (I'm reminded a little of George R. R. Martin on a basic level). It's kind of dark, but in a PG-rated sort of way. On a technical front, it's an ambitious piece of work, and my hat is off to Valente for keeping all the plot threads straight and for resolving them the way she did. However, the pacing is a little slow, despite the brevity of many of the individual tales -- there are just so many of them! Still, stick with it and your patience will be rewarded.
I give this book a solid B, and I think I'll pick up the sequel, In The Cities of Coin and Spice, at the library today.
Right now I'm reading The Native Star, by M. K. Hobson (Spectra, 2010) on the recommendation of actress Felicia Day on her Twitter (which you must follow to retain any shred of geek cred). I don't know Ms. Day personally, of course, but I must say she's got pretty good taste. I'm not very far into The Native Star yet, but I look forward to getting through it; the start was solid, and I'm optimistic about the rest. Hopefully I'll have more to say about it later.
Way back when, I went to the Writer's Workshop at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio. It was a fine experience, and one I definitely recommend, whether you're just starting out (like me) or already published and moderately successful. Because you can never be too good, right? And among the advice those fine folks from Antioch gave me, was to be publicly accessible, which meant having such things as a blog and a Twitter account.
The latter was simple; the former, less so. Say what you like about it, but Twitter is one of the simplest things you can do if you've got the right tools: take ten seconds out of your life to make an account, and then if you've got anything resembling a modern cell phone (or just an internet connection, which you already need to make the Twitter account, of course), you can tweet to your heart's content.
So, I made a (second) Twitter account for my professional life -- that is, one that focuses primarily on my literary world -- and something like the third or fourth blog account I've ever made for myself. But the problem with blogs, unlike Twitter, is that you've actually got to put some thought in it. You've got to take the time out of your busy life to put down a cogent thought or two. Who has the time or the energy for that?
Well, truthfully, I do, but I've just plain ignored the silly thing up until recently; it's always been in my mind, nagging me with that same feeling that I forgot to put the garage door down, but there's always been something more important that needed my attention more immediately (like researching the amenities of hotels in 1880s Kansas City). And anyway, who wants to read about a book that's only a third of the way finished in its roughest form? I'm not going to divulge plot points or anything substantive about my work, so there really won't be anything juicy on here. But I'm going to try to make a more concerted effort to talk about the writing process -- because it's the thing people keeping asking about at parties -- and also about what I'm reading. Because no man is an island,and I take comfort in reading stories that didn't spring out of my own mind.
So spread the word, invite your friends, make comments, share thoughts.
It's Jeff's literary world, folks. You're just living in it.
_______________________
In other worlds ...
I just finished In The Night Garden, The Orphan's Tales, Vol. 1, by Catherynne M. Valente (Spectra, 2006). This book is like nothing I've ever read: a modern-day Arabian Nights filled with witches and polar bears who turn into men and princes and princesses and Quests and sea monsters and ...
It's hard to say what this book is actually about, except to say that it's about a strange girl who tells a princeling stories that only she knows, and that each story spirals into another story, which spirals into another, and into another. The tales are rarely isolated, and as the book continues, we're reintroduced to elements and ideas from previous tales, creating a really intricate web of storytelling that you just don't often find (I'm reminded a little of George R. R. Martin on a basic level). It's kind of dark, but in a PG-rated sort of way. On a technical front, it's an ambitious piece of work, and my hat is off to Valente for keeping all the plot threads straight and for resolving them the way she did. However, the pacing is a little slow, despite the brevity of many of the individual tales -- there are just so many of them! Still, stick with it and your patience will be rewarded.
I give this book a solid B, and I think I'll pick up the sequel, In The Cities of Coin and Spice, at the library today.
Right now I'm reading The Native Star, by M. K. Hobson (Spectra, 2010) on the recommendation of actress Felicia Day on her Twitter (which you must follow to retain any shred of geek cred). I don't know Ms. Day personally, of course, but I must say she's got pretty good taste. I'm not very far into The Native Star yet, but I look forward to getting through it; the start was solid, and I'm optimistic about the rest. Hopefully I'll have more to say about it later.
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