Publisher: Tor Books -
Pages: 704 -
Buy: Book/eBook
One of the interesting things about this re-reading project of mine is discovering how I have changed as a fiction reader and, to a lesser extent, as a critic over the course of the past decade or so. As I remarked in my reviews of The Eye of the World and The Great Hunt, some of the elements that used to irritate me greatly were not as noticeable this time around, while other plot and characterization issues that I had dismissed during my first few reads of the series seemed to be more visible during this current re-read.
One thing that I focused on as soon as I began this re-read was the notion that this massive twelve-volume series (and counting) could be divided into distinct narrative arcs. In particular, I was curious to see if the first three volumes might differ in their plot structures and presentation from succeeding volumes. To an extent, there is indeed an interesting interplay between these three early novels that I have not seen during my current re-reading of the fourth volume.
Seeing [Rand] struggle to fight for control of his double-edged magical powers through his actions and failures […] was a refreshing change.
The Dragon Reborn opens several weeks, if not months, after the Battle of Toman Head that concluded The Great Hunt. Rand al’Thor, who has now successfully fought off the EVIL Ba’alzamon, the presumed Dark One in this Manichean-style cosmos, twice in the previous two volumes, is still struggling to deal with the revelations of the past year. Born gifted/cursed with awesome power that is tainted for males, Rand constantly frets in the early chapters about his “destiny” as the reincarnated Dragon Reborn and the belief that the apocalyptic Last Battle was drawing nigh. Although Jordan continues to lapse into lengthy descriptive passages that fail to let the characters illustrate their conflicts through their actions, I found myself being more drawn into Rand’s plight that I ever remembered being when I last read this book a decade ago. Seeing him struggle to fight for control of his double-edged magical powers through his actions and failures more than through his internal monologues was a refreshing change. Read More »
Publisher: Del Rey -
Pages: 368 -
Buy: Book/eBook
In recent years, I’ve reviewed several novels by Terry Brooks, most of which I walked away from with disappointment and uncomfortable acceptance. Slowly, with each new release, I was beginning to understand that Brooks, an idol of my adolesence, just wasn’t the same author I grew up with. This isn’t a comment on his skill, or his prose ability, necessarily, but rather an observation about the stories he now chooses to tell. His early novels were doorstops and told a complete story arc from beginning to end. After his third novel, however, he began to split these novels into ‘trilogies,’ and release them on a yearly basis. There’s little less satisfying than picking up a new book from a favourite author and being left hanging, asked to wait politely for a year and then pony up another $25 to continue with the fun. Whether it was marketing malfeasance on the part of his publisher, or a conscious decision by Brooks, excitement was slowly replaced by… not apathy, exactly, but controlled optimism. Brooks was on a treadmill.
Then I read Wards of Faerie (REVIEW), the first volume in his The Dark Legacy of Shannara trilogy, and, like the clouds parting over the Battle of Pelennor Fields, I was suddenly heartened and reminded of why I first fell in love with Brooks’ novels as a teenager. Read More »
Magic is often used to keep the status quo, until it becomes accessible to the common man and suddenly turns the world upside down.
You don’t see a lot of gunpowder in fantasy.
It’s there, especially in historical fantasy. But it’s not as common as one might think. Most fantasy seems to take place in a pre-gunpowder period despite gunpowder having been around in our own world since the middle ages. I think this has a lot to do with what we read when we were kids. Many of us grew up on medieval fantasy. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis dominated my childhood. When I was old enough to go looking for books at the library, I read David Eddings, Tracy Hickman, and Robert E. Howard. None of the stuff I read had any gunpowder in it and when I first started writing all my settings were medieval.
So beyond mere habit, why don’t we see much gunpowder in fantasy? I think that magic, in a lot of ways, fills in for gunpowder. It’s something mysterious. Perhaps it can be used by the common man, but the common man doesn’t know the secrets behind it. Only a few people can master those. It can be volatile and dangerous, used for both good and evil. Magic is often used to keep the status quo, until it becomes accessible to the common man and suddenly turns the world upside down. Read More »
[I’ve] closed a deal with Betsy Wollheim for a new epic fantasy trilogy called The Song of the Shattered Sands. It’s a story set in a powerful desert city that controls the flow of trade and spice through otherwise impassable terrain. There are echoes of both A Thousand and One Nights and Thieves’ World.
It’s a story about Çeda, a woman who fights in the pits to scrape a living from the cruel but beautiful city she calls home. As the story opens, she discovers that the book her mother left her before she died holds the clues to the unraveling the mystery of her mother’s death, which was tangled up in the story of the Twelve Kings of Sharakhai, men who have ruled the desert with an iron fist for nearly two hundred years. As Çeda begins to unlock the secrets hidden within the poems in the book—as well as what her mother was trying to do before she died—the Kings learn of her, and they will stop at nothing to keep those secrets buried in the desert where they belong. And so the chase is on. Çeda must unlock the hidden riddles of her mother’s book before the Kings find her. She had better hope she does, for she is the last hope for the people of the desert.
It’s great to see Beaulieu take the critical success he received for his first trilogy, The Lays of Anuskaya, published by Night Shade Books, and parlay it into a deal with a larger publisher. Daw is home to some of the best (traditional/epic/secondary world) Fantasy writers working today, including Patrick Rothfuss and Saladin Ahmed. Beaulieu’s Arabian Nights-inspired trilogy sounds like it will be a good fit. It’s great to see more Fantasy written that features a setting inspired by something other than Medieval Western Europe. After Beaulieu’s first trilogy, with a Russian-inspired setting, he’s quickly asserting himself as one of the most interesting world builders in the genre. I’m quite looking forward to this.
Last week, news spread that George R.R. Martin, author of A Song of Ice and Fire, signed a new two-year contract with HBO, including his continued participation in their ASOIAF adaptation, Game of Thrones and the development of new projects. On February 10th, in response to a question from a fan on his personal blog, Martin confirmed details about those ‘projects,’ including a potential prequel series to Game of Thrones.
Tuf would be fun. Dunk and Egg are being discussed. Robert’s Rebellion is part of Ice & Fire, won’t be a separate series. Sandkings was done by the OUTER LIMITS; I retain feature film rights, but television rights are gone.
While he speculates about his other properties, he admits specifically that discussion has taken place regarding Dunk and Egg, the heroes of his A Song of Ice and Fire off-shoot novella series. They would be a fun concept for a show, but I wonder if there is proper mass appeal for two characters that most fans of the series likely don’t even know exist. As he says, Robert’s Rebellion would be perfect, but nearly as big a production as Game of Thrones itself, and it’s integrally tied to the events in the series and might be redundant by the time the series/show ends. Non-A Song of Ice and Fire properties is an interesting idea, but, again, I wonder about the mass appeal. Me? I’m curious where the rights to the Wild Cards series rest.
