fantasy

Shortly after the end of spring semester, I started getting the fantasy itch - after all of the nonfiction reading I’d been doing, I needed something with orcs, elves, and swords. Along with installing Baldur’s Gate and Baldur’s Gate 2 on my PC^[1], I picked up some books that take place in the Forgotten Realms setting^[2]. I picked up all three books of the Dark Elf Trilogy, by R. A. Salvatore, as well as the Annotated Elminster, by Ed Greenwood.

I’ve thus far finished the first book of the Dark Elf Trilogy, Homeland. It was a fun read, but it could have been better; there were some things in it that drove me a bit bonkers, to be honest. One in particular? Salvatore’s (over)usage of varied tag lines in dialogue. In a short guide for writing dialogue, the guide at fictionwriting.about.com wrote:

6. Don’t try too hard to vary your tag lines when writing dialogue.
Veering too much beyond “he said/she said” only draws attention to the tags. Readers tend to read over these phrases anyway, whereas obvious efforts to insert variety, through words such as “interjected,” “counseled,” or “conceded,” draw the reader out of the action. If the writer is doing his or her work, the reader is already aware that the speaker is interjecting, counseling, or conceding. The writer won’t have to say it again in the tag.

I’ve seen this advice elsewhere on the ‘net, and it’s true - while you’d think “he / she said” over and over would get old, it really doesn’t. We’re used to it, we see it, we skim it, it’s gone - all we’re really taking in are the words that the characters are speaking. This is infinitely better than the reader stumbling over different (and at times peculiar!) tag words repeatedly.

Salvatore’s evil dark elf characters “said” a lot, but they also “grumbled” and “mumbled” a good deal. The two tag words that topped the charts, though? Snapped and growled. While I’m sure my perception of them was exaggerated due to some mild frustration on my part, I would have swore that one of these words adorned every single page of the book. Had they been used once or twice in the whole book, they would have caught my attention and given weight to the dialogue. Instead, due to how often I saw them, I started to think - do dark elves have a bit of canine DNA in them or something? They sure do growl and snap a lot…

I’m 15 pages or so into Exile, book 2 of the trilogy; we’ll see if the growls and snaps scare me away. Please, future fiction writers - go easy on such things.

1. Yes, I’ve played these before. No, my love affair with them will never truly end [↩]
2. The Forgotten Realms is one of the Dungeons and Dragons settings. More info can be had here. [↩]

Book title: Mort
Author: Terry Pratchett
Originally published: 1987

I finished reading Mort a couple of days ago, and perhaps the way to best indicate how much I enjoyed it is to say that I’ve already requested Reaper Man, book 2 in the Death series. I had a lot of fun reading this one.

The book focuses in on the Death character of Discworld, who looks like your basic Grim Reaper - skeleton, black hooded robe, scythe and sword. At the beginning of the book, Mort is “all elbows and knees”, and his father believes that he thinks too much. For this reason, his father ends up taking Mort to the village, in the hopes of Mort finding an apprenticeship. Death obliges, and takes Mort under his wing - or robe, as it were. When Death takes a day off and gives Mort a couple of jobs, Mort of course makes a mess of things. He has a crush on the young princess he’s supposed to be “ushering into the next world”, and so instead he kills the princess’s assassin. The rest of the book deals with how Mort tries to “fix” history, which continues to trundle along as if the princess were dead, and how Death tries to get in touch with his, er, human side.

While I enjoyed Mort’s character, what really made this book for me was the character of Death. There were some scenes in the book that literally had me laughing out loud, something I don’t do that often when reading a book. Many of the scenes that made me laugh were ones which dealt with Death’s peculiar character. He’s a mix between a humorless, all-work-and-no-play god, and a small child who is clueless of how the world works, due to his rather abnormal working conditions. This becomes readily apparent when he tries to do things that humans do, like going to the bar:

“I don’t see the point,” the stranger said. [Death]
“Sorry?”
“What is supposed to happen?”
“How many drinks have you had?”
“Forty-seven.”
“Just about anything, then,” said the barman. . . .

I burst out laughing at “Forty-seven.” In the book, Death also has a soft spot for kittens - go figure.

I loved this book, but a word of caution to those who might be inclined to read it after reading my post here: if you don’t like silliness mixed in with your fantasy, don’t read this. I’ve read that the Discworld series has developed over the years to not have such large amounts of gag humor in it, but this being one of the early Discworld novels, it runneth over with silliness. There’s a lot of stuff that just makes no sense, and if you’re someone who’s going to get caught up going “that’s silly” or “that wouldn’t work like that”, you probably won’t enjoy this.

However, if you think you’d like a kitten-loving Death, or a world that is held up by four giant elephants riding a 10,000 mile long turtle who’s floating through space, you’ll love this. Read it.

Over a month ago, my boss at work, who knows I love reading, plopped the library’s copy of Eragon down on the desk I was sitting at. “You said you really enjoy fantasy, I read this, and I’d love to have your opinion on it.” Well, the book still isn’t finished - and I’m afraid to say, it’s not going to be. I’ve expressed before how much I dislike abandoning a book half-way through, and I really tried to stick with Eragon, but it’s just… not good. No, that’s being kind; it’s bad. I know, I know - the fellow wrote it when he was 15. I know that. But the fact is, there’s a reason not many books by 15 year old kids are published: they aren’t good enough to be sent to press!

When I first started reading it, I thought it was decent - it was no “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit”, but it wasn’t atrocious, either. But the more I read, the more bored I became - I felt like I could see through the 300 pages between me and the ending, right to the ending. There was no suspense, no intrigue, no interestingness. Young boy finds dragon egg; dragon egg hatches, dragon chooses boy; bad guys come and level boy’s home; mysterious old bearded man takes young boy under wing and starts training him, while hiding his real identity for no good reason. Yes, yes, and in the end, the young boy grows up a bit and wins a huge battle against the evil King of the Empire, right, while helping the rebels? Well, yes, actually, that’s exactly right (I cheated and read the plot summary at Wikipedia after throwing in the towel.)

I knew as I read through it that much of it was stuff lifted straight from other books, but I didn’t realize how much near-outright theft had taken place until I explored some of the amazon.com reviews. Paolini stole (admittedly, probably unintentionally) from Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Chronicles of Pern, and other stuff to put together his work. His heavy borrowing from other works definitely shows, with the story (the half of it I plowed through, anyway) feeling extremely generic.

As many of the amazon.com reviewers remarked, hopefully Paolini’s parents self-publishing his book for him (before a big publisher picked it up) hasn’t led to an over-inflated ego. His huge commercial success might have already led to him thinking he wrote something truly great - which he didn’t. The book is mediocre at best, extremely bad at worst, not to mention full of borderline plagiarism (just look at the names!). I hope he reads the criticism and takes it to heart; he’s got a long way to go before he’s a good writer.

Now that I’ve tossed Eragon aside, I’ve moved on to The Crow Road by Iain Banks, which Cas sent to me as a gift. I’m only about 30 pages into it, but so far, it’s excellent. It’s got a feel to it I’ve not encountered before in a book, and I’m digging the Scottish bent it has.

Title: Harry Potter and the Sorceror’s Stone [amazon]
Author: J.K. Rowling
Publisher: Scholastic; 1st American Ed edition (September 1998)
Pages: 309
Book Number: 21

What’s this 52 Books in 52 Weeks thing about?

Note: The widely loved Cas (well, I love her to bits) brought it to my attention that in the United Kingdom, the book was apparently called Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, not the Sorceror’s Stone. I read up a bit on this here, and learned that many words were translated from the original English to American English. For this, I may very well hunt down a copy of the original version and read it instead. Really, are we Americans that stupid? And now, on with my little review:

This was not the first time I read this book. I don’t recall exactly when I read it the first time - perhaps a couple of years ago? When I read it the first time, I was reading it to try and figure out what the big deal about Harry Potter was. On that first reading, I didn’t really find what I was looking for. It seemed like an okay book, but I certainly didn’t love it. I think, however, that my first reading was marred by something, namely, me. I think I went to Harry Potter expecting it - perhaps even wanting it - to not hold up to the hype, to fall on its face. I believe that mindset drastically altered my perception of the book. (Well, duh!) With the recent release of the final book of the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, I decided I’d give the books another try with a more open mind. Instead of reading them to figure out the hype, I’d read them for - here’s a concept! - enjoyment.

So, how’d this second reading go? Great. I enjoyed the book a a lot. If I were to sum it up in a few words, those words would probably be “a fun little book.” Sure, the book isn’t written amazingly well. The characters are not hugely unique (and indeed, quite a few are very stereotypical). But when you get past that, if you skip criticizing it like I did previously - all in all, the book is a blast to read.

I came to really like a lot of the characters. I felt sorry for Harry, having to live with the intolerable Dursleys, and I simply loved Hagrid. If he were real, I’d invite him to come live with me. Albus Dumbledore could come visit, too, as long as he promised to do a bit of magic. (Speaking of Albus - Gandalf, anyone?)

Continuing with the fun and likeable mindset: Hogwarts. There are now two fantasy places that I’d love to live in for a while: Bag End and Hogwarts. Bag End could be the place I hang out to relax and read; Hogwarts could be the place I go when I want to get lost in an old, magical, spooky castle.

I suppose it’s a testament to how much I enjoyed this book, to say that I’m already reading the second one, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, alongside another sequel I’m reading, The Pale Horseman. If my enjoyment of the second one is on par with the first Potter book, I’ll probably end up reading the whole series. Ah - the power of having an open mind.

If there were any more books coming out (and I’m still not entirely convinced that there won’t be, but I’ve not read the last), I wouldn’t be going to the release parties, nor dressing up as a wizard. I’m not that into it. However, I can understand now what people see in the books. They’re not masterpieces by any means, but they’re a genuine blast to read.

Three notes:

1. Yes, I enjoyed the first book - a lot. Yes, I think I was a bit too hard on poor Harry and Co. on my first reading of the book. But - no, the books are not on par with Lord of the Rings. So there.

2. Look at this amazon.com search for “sorceror’s stone” in books. See anything peculiar? Why is the Urdu edition of it in the #1 spot? I have nothing against Urdu (or any other language), but my gut feeling is that the vast majority of folks searching on amazon.com for Potter books are looking for them in English. Strange.

This last note is really, really important…

3. PLEASE DO NOT POST SPOILERS IN THE COMMENTS. I have NOT read past book one (well, besides a little bit of book 2), and I don’t want anything spoiled. I don’t know who dies and who doesn’t, I don’t know who the half blood prince is, etc. etc. Please - no spoilers. Thanks.

Title: The Golden Compass [amazon]
Author: Philip Pullman
Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers; 1st ed edition (April 16, 1996)
Pages: 416
Book Number: 18

This is a book that had been on my shelf for years - literally. I received it as a Christmas gift when I was 16 or 17. At the time, I shelved it because it was a “young adult” book, and I was going through a peculiar phase in which I thought I was too “mature” for such things. The irony, of course, is that I was a young adult then, and now that I finally got around to reading it, I’m an adult - at least on paper, anyway.

So, how was it? It was a good book, and while I didn’t find it as great as many people have found it, I did enjoy reading it. There were two things in particular that I loved about it: the daemons that all of the humans had, and the panserbjørne, or armored bears. The idea of having my own daemon intrigued me - what would it be like to have part of my soul, essentially, represented by a creature I could talk to? A creature that could change shapes (at least until I grew older?) What shape would my daemon ultimately take, when it could no longer change?

The armored bears were… well, here, let me let an image speak for the panserbjørne:

Do I really need to explain that that’s cool? That image, by the way, is as far as I can gather, a concept image from the movie adaptation of the book, which is coming out in December of this year. Here’s the movie site.

I found it interesting how the book is suitable for children to read, but from an adult’s perspective, a lot of it can be seen as quite violent and morbid. Bolvangar, the “Experimental Station”, reminded me an awful lot of the “medical” facilities at places like Auschwitz. At Bolvangar, children had tests ran on them relating to Dust, but some children also had their daemons “severed” from them. After this operation, some of the children started losing their minds, because the daemons were a part of them, a part of their mind and soul; others died from the shock. The morbidness of the severing is lessened because there is no blood, no physical injury, etc. - the severing is a severing of the “link” between daemon and child. However, if you look at it a bit closer, it really is a disturbing idea.

The only problem I had with the book was that the main plot, regarding Dust - what it was, how it worked, etc. - just didn’t seem very fleshed out. Bits and pieces of information about the substance was sprinkled throughout the book, but by the time I finished the book, I still felt that I didn’t know much about it. Perhaps on a later reading I’ll pick up more on it. Someone I know who has read the whole series told me that the idea of Dust is fleshed out a lot more thoroughly in the second book of the series, The Subtle Knife, which I’m reading now.

One last note: I’ve seen quite a few reviews, both at amazon.com and in the front of the book, that say that The Golden Compass is on par with the Lord of the Rings trilogy. While I liked The Golden Compass, I’m going to have to flat out disagree with that. It’s a good book, but it’s not that good. Perhaps that’s just my long-standing biases popping out, though - I started reading The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings when I was 9 or 10, and haven’t stopped since. I obviously like it a little bit.