Title: Dragons of Autumn Twilight
Authors: Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman
Themes: Teamwork
Quotes: “You know," he said with unusual somberness, "I asked my father once why kenders were little, why we weren't big like humans and elves. I really wanted to be big," he said softly and for a moment he was quiet. "What did your father say?" asked Fizban gently.
"He said kenders were small because we were meant to do small things. 'If you look at all the big things in the world closely,' he said, 'you'll see that they're really made up of small things all joined together.' That big dragon down there comes to nothing but tiny drops of blood, maybe it's the small things that make the difference.”
Reading/Listening Time: 19 hours, 59 minutes
Review:
For some reason all my life I thought there was an actual book series called "Dungeons and Dragons" based on the game, and I wanted to read one last year. I found out there isn't a particular fantasy book or book series called "Dungeons and Dragons", which was kinda disappointing, but there are a lot of books inspired by the game and this is one of them.
The story itself has two listed authors, but I'm pretty sure there was a whole group of people involved in the creation of this story. Usually I'd think of that as a bad thing (like the new star wars trilogy, or that campfire game where kids take turns telling their own story and by the end it makes no sense), but here they're clearly held together by a coherent vision. They're not trying to make the story their own, and interestingly they end up making something that is greater than the sum of its individual parts.
I don't want to suggest that this novel is perfect, it's a little episodic and some of the dialogue is a little cheesy, but it is one of those books that you read and you feel like any one of the characters could have held a compelling protagonist role all on their own. That's something I really admire in a story (especially when you get to see that the "episodes" really are building on each other, it's like uncovering a mystery).
My favorite character in the story was Tasslehoff. I think he's the type of character that would have been really easy to write as a simpleton and I'm so so glad they didn't choose to do that in this book.
Title: The White Dragon
Author: Anne McCaffrey
Themes: Entitlement
Quotes: "So...the boy had discovered that flying a firebreathing dragon was not enough to keep him content with his life."
Reading/Listening Time: 13 hours, 6 minutes
Review:
I found this book while looking for another one that I'd bought a while back and lost. All I could remember about it is that had a white dragon on the cover. That book ended up being "Swords of the Six" by Scott Appleton. I'm only a couple of chapters into it, but I can't imagine it being dumber than this one.
The dragons in it are basically a glorified cleaning crew, they're not particularly intelligent but for some reason they're just so majestic that the main character becomes sexually aroused by watching them mate.
The humans are not a whole lot better. I really had a hard time caring about Jaxom because I think he's kind of creepy. He makes me think of this guy:
He's childish and entitled, and if for some reason he doesn't get what he wants he just takes it and eventually everyone comes round to congratulate him for taking initiative.
I would have really loved it if we saw Jaxom start to become this really horrible villain, and he was so powerful because he was willing to be ruthless and just take what he wants. This story admires those qualities though. It reads like it was written in at the height of the British Empire: people rule the world by acting like it already belongs to them. There are aspects of that mentality that I think are worthy of recognition and investigation, but this book doesn't even do that. It just assumes that we're gonna somehow relate to this awful person just by virtue of him being the main character.
It's a really bland story with horrible characters and it uses dragons, the one thing that could be really cool about it, like they're just cool looking dogs...
(I almost feel bad comparing them to dogs, because dogs are generally more endearing and less creepy. But maybe that would be different if we could read their minds.)
Title: Howl's Moving Castle Author: Diana Wynne Jones Themes: Insecurity and Vice Quotes: "It was very odd. Sophie had always thought she was nearly as strong minded as Lettie. Now she was finding that there were things she could only do when there were no excuses left." Reading/Listening Time: 8 hours, 36 minutes
Rant: About a month ago I made a post comparing the movie and book versions of this story, I want to talk about the book particularly here though because a lot of people assume that just because they've seen a movie based on a book they know the characters and they know what the book is about. And, guys, that's just not the case with this one. They are completely different. So if you've seen the Studio Ghilbi film I would highly encourage you to check this one out, but I would also caution you not to expect them to be exactly alike: this book is it's own thing, it has a completely different message and Book!Howl and Movie!Howl are completely different people. Review:
The story takes
place in an alternate reality where everything's vaguely Victorian,
but there's also wizards and sorceresses. They can be good or bad,
but most of the time it just sounds like they work their trade like
everyone else.
I think this book is real sweet and smart. It's about a girl named Sophie trying to make her way in the world. At the start, she's kind of neurotic and every time she wants to do something she always thinks all the reasons why she can't do the thing. It gets so bad, she has a hard time even going into town on a visit. Her normal routine bores her, but anything out of that routine fills her with terrible anxiety.
And then one day a witch walks into the shop where she works and curses her...into an old woman.! And you know, it's a curse...like it's not a good thing that happened to her, but really it kind of liberates her from everything that's been keeping her from doing the things she'd like to do with her life. I find it delightful that everything fearful and uncertain about her life suddenly becomes an opportunity; because she feels like she has nothing to loose, she's ready to make the most of it.
There's a lot to like about this story, but this was my favorite aspect of it.
At first the plot itself seems kind of oddball, like "The Wizard of Oz" or "Alice in Wonderland". Just a bit of random occurrences and obstacles kind of thrown together loosely for our protagonist to encounter, but there's actually a pretty substantial mystery behind it and there ends up being a satisfying resolution to it all and how it all fits together.
I'd written a whole character analysis for Howl, but I don't want to include it because I think focusing on him too much gives you the wrong impression of the book. It's like Iron Man in the first Avengers movie: he's a big part of it, but the story is more about the ensemble, and how their lives intertwined. It could have focused on Suleiman, or the General, or even the evil sorcerors and it would have been just as interesting because of the way it explores the characters motivations.
Title: The Mists of Avalon
Author: Marion Zimmer Bradley
Themes: Paganism vs Christianity
Quotes: “The older I grow the more I become certain that it makes no difference what words we use to tell the same truths.”
Reading/Listening Time: 16 hours, 1 minute
Review:
This is basically a retelling of the King Arthur legend from Morgaine's perspective, and surprisingly it doesn't make her out to be the villain. A lot of people kinda see it as a revisionist work for feminism....which I probably would have enjoyed, considering how I felt about Thomas Mallory's Le Morte D'Artur...but it's really more about the struggle between the people of two different religious groups, personified by the half-siblings Morgaine and Arthur.
It starts out seeming like the women are all liberated as Pagans, but as the story goes on you kinda see that they're as tightly bound by their beliefs as the Christian's are.
Both Morgaine and Arthur are under the thumb of their respective religious establishments, and they eventually get manipulated into engaging in ritualistic sex.
If that sounds really weird, it kinda is. But if you're familiar with the King Arthur Legends, their relationship is kinda a staple of it, and the explanation as to why and how it happened in this book is actually the one that makes the most sense to me.
I also liked that The Ladies of the Lake actually have an explanation for who they are, exactly. Why they exist, and what is their beef with Arthur and Co.
I mentioned in my "Le Morte D'artur Vol. 1" post about how I felt that that I felt that story was fragmented. It didn't feel like it was complete. Well this story fills in those gaps so magnificently that everything feels whole, and coherent, and complete. It's really quite masterful.
Notes:
I remember reading the first few pages at my grandma's house, as a kid, and came away feeling it was pretty hostile towards Christianity. Later on, though, it goes into a really thoughtful discussion about spirituality, and the theology of the two religions and why some people would prefer to believe one or the other.
It was especially cathartic for me because it reminded me strongly of the types of conversation I with my paternal grandmother when I was younger.
I will never forget the last meaningful conversation I had with her was shortly after I'd read this book and I was able to talk to her about it, and about faith, again. She was quite elderly and she didn't remember reading it herself, but she admitted "I read everything." I remember it was pretty prominently displayed at her house, so I'm pretty sure she did. I will always wonder if and how it may have influenced her views on faith and spirituality.
Title: Le Morte D'artur Vol. 1
Author: Thomas Mallory
Themes: Misogyny
Quotes: "And so every knight thinketh his own lady fairest."
Reading/Listening Time: 15 hours, 50 minutes
Review:
I kind of went back and forth with this one: wondering if it's more of a legend, or a fairy tale, or a fantasy story...
I kinda came to the conclusion that it depends on which version of the story you read. This one, I think, very much reflects the views of the time it was written just like a lot of contemporary fantasy does in our day. For that reason, I prefer to read it as a fantasy story.
The whole book is supposed to have been transcribed by Mr Mallory from a french book that he translated into English. I like to think that 'The French Book' reflected a bit of prejudice that the northern people may have had at that time, in regards to their southern counterparts, because I think a lot of it does not reflect positively on them. (I don't know if that was intentional, but there are definitely several bits that are quite laughable to readers of the modern persuasion.)
I didn't really feel that Arthur was the primary character in this story. It starts with him, but then it branches out to all these colorful figures: knights and ladies, sorceresses and Merlin...and what they're all going through. I particularly enjoyed Tor, and the whole story of how he was discovered. It just paints a delightful picture in my mind to imagine Tor and his siblings standing side by side in front of the royals and Arthur goes:
It's probably the happiest of the stories, at least it was to me.
It's also interesting to me that almost all of the sorcerers in this book are female, and unless they happen to be romantically attached to one of the knights, or to the sole male sorcerer (Merlin), they are almost invariably malign.
There's this whole ridiculously hilarious scene where this knight comes upon a group of women who are really pissed off at this other knight guy cuz apparently he was really disrespectful or something...
The Knight automatically get's all defensive and goes into #NOTALLKNIGHTS mode...
And it turns out he's completely justified in that reaction because the women are actually sorceresses. and they vaguely intimidated that other knight guy so obviously they're bad news...
Even though I've read a bit of classic literature over the years, and I've become a lot more accustomed to antiquated language, some parts of this book were a bit confusing and I had to work through them. There are some words that they used back then that clearly had a bit of a different meaning than they do today. If you're not familiar with the more archaic word use, or perhaps even if you are, I would recommend reading an annotated version of this book.
Rating: Oddly enough, I didn't rate this one after I'd read it. I guess I kinda had some mixed feelings about it. Several parts were funny to read, but mostly I felt like it was so fragmented that it was kinda hard to figure out the chronology of events. A lot of that was fixed (or at least explained) later in the year when I studied and read more about Medieval England.
Title: Mistborn: The Final Empire
Author: Brandon Sanderson
Themes: Religion
Quotes: "Well, that's what trust is isn't it? A willful self delusion..."
Reading/Listening Time: 24 hours, 25 minutes
Review:
The Final Empire takes place in like a post-apocalyptic world. I don't think it's exactly our world, but kind of similar. Aesthetically everything about the world is kinda eerie and muted: like there are these volcanoes that don't erupt lava they just spew ash out all the time. And at night this "mist" (which actually sounds a lot more like smog to me) comes out and for some reason it's creepy. The leaves of plants are always some shade of brown (never green), and the only flowers anyone has ever seen are in pictures.
There are even these primal-type creatures that take the form of whatever living thing they consume, so if your dog died and then you saw it walking around again...it *might* not actually be your dog, it might be a mist-wraith.
I would have loved it if they'd explored this aspect of the world a bit more. I think it has the potential to be very atmospheric and evocative, unfortunately it's not really used to that effect. There's not a whole lot as far as descriptions or feelings of that nature. Which is unfortunate, because as a world I felt it could have been absolutely enchanting.
Anyway, in this world society is separated into these two classes: the noble class (many of whom have these superhuman abilities where they eat different metals and gain the particular ability associated with that metal) and the skaa (who are like regular humans who are basically slaves). This whole social set up has been going on for quite a while, and while the occasional rebellion will flair up among the lower classes (and "House Wars" among the upper classes) it hasn't really amounted to anything in terms of positive social change.
This is largely because all the people (skaa and the nobles) have the same religion: they all worship their-apparently immortal-Lord Ruler as an aspect of divinity and they can't bring themselves to try to kill something that deep down they actually worship.
The story deals extensively with what it means to love someone, and what it means to have belief or faith in a person or a cause. I agree that love and conviction are powerful forces in a person's life, but I'm a but unnerved at some of the implications he's drawn in this book.
The only thing I can compare it to is "Avatar: The Legend of Korra" in that cartoon series they explore concepts like spirituality and connectedness through the POV of a character who not very in touch with their spirituality at all.
This book deals similarly with the concept of religion. It explores the idea of how significant it is to have a sense of purpose and devotion in life through the POV of these characters who don't really have any grounding beliefs. Their exploration of belief isn't so much in service of truth, rather more as a means of social control...which is exactly the same thing the villain of the book does.
So basically, religion exists to control people. Thanks Mr. Sanderson. Rating 2/5 Stars
Title: The Wheel of Time (Books 1-11)
Author: Robert Jordan
Themes: There are a a lot of them but I think for me the biggest one is Identity
Quotes: “We are always more afraid than we wish to be, but we can always be braver than we expect.”
Reading/Listening Time: 13 days, 23 hours, 51 minutes
Rant:
This series was my "silver tuna" as far as reading in 2017. I wanted to read a full, epic fantasy series from start to finish, and sadly I wasn't able to complete this goal for one simple reason:
I loved it too much.
Even the parts that were boring, or annoying. I loved them. I really think this author is the only one I've read that year who even approaches doing what Mr Tolkien did with his writing as far as how immersive and meaningful the world he creates is.
Reasonably I could have finished it well before New Years, but I got so accustomed to the narrative and the way Mr Robert Jordan tells his story that at the point in the the story where he died and his writing was picked up by another author...I just could not stand the transition.
I even tried reading one of Brandon Sanderson's books beforehand just so I could acclimate myself to his writing style. I know a lot of people who enjoy Mr Sanderson's books, but I guess I just don't understand those people because I thought "Mistborn" sucked...and I could probably mean that in a good way except for I don't effing care to when this guy is taking over the writing of what's become one of my favorite series' OF ALL TIME...
Now I don't want to make this entire blog entry about "F*ck Brandon Saunderson!" I'm sure his writing has it's virtues and I think it's wrong to hate on him just because he's not my favorite (that was my whole objective/intention in exploring the fantasy genre last year: I thought "You can't automatically discredit all of these stories just because they're not The Lord of the Rings.") But I am not in a place where I can appreciate what he brings to the table in light of what was taken away when Mr Robert Jordan died.
Review:
I was first introduced to The Wheel of Time in a writing workshop some years ago, and it was presented as an example of a fantasy book that didn't conform to literary archetypal story patterns. Now that I've read through most of it, I don't really know that I agree with that perspective 100%. I think just because it's so long, it's probably harder to pick up on where and how those patterns play out. What I think Mr Jordan was trying to do is find a marriage between the traditional "Hero's Journey", which kinda conveys a western perspective on life's journey and the idea that we can better ourselves through change, and the Hindu tradition that life and time are cyclical in nature, and that things that happen tend to repeat themselves: not only in our lives but in history and ultimately the cosmos, or all that exists.
One of my favorite things about this series is that it takes some pretty metaphysical concepts and explains them in a really concrete metaphors. The most iconic of these I think is definitely "The Wheel" itself: which describes all of creation as a spinning wheel and loom, continually in motion, weaving a grand tapestry with the "life threads" of living beings who live, die, and are reborn to serve the creator's pattern.
I've always thought of that kind of fatalistic philosophy as something that was really unfulfilling: who wants to be stuck doing the same things for the rest of eternity? If freewill is an illusion and the fate of some unknown cosmic mechanism arbitrarily rules all of our destinies for the rest of eternity...
Gosh that sounds quite dreary...
And it totally would be, if it weren't for the inherent complexity of human identity: variations in the pattern. In the first half of the series, there's this repeated refrain where several of the characters re-affirm their identity almost like a mantra-
"I am a blacksmith/wisdom/sheepherder of the Two Rivers/Emond's Field." even when those identities have kind of become obsolete because SPOILER ALERT they're actually not a blacksmith/wisdom/sheepherder anymore and they don't even live in the two rivers anymore...END SPOILER But that's the part of them that they value about themselves! It gives them structure and belonging, and even when you find out you are more than just those things it's still kinda the core of your being and it can give you power. To me it's interesting that where you come from can be less something that you need to overcome and more something you need to incorporate into the wholeness of your identity.
Instead of focusing on the futility of trying to change your destiny, you can focus on fulfilling it in the best possible way.
Notes:
I really like the thematic review, so I think I'll end it there even though I'd like to go through an analyze the story in a bit more detail sometime. There's a lot in here that's quite iconic...
Instead, please enjoy my Epic Character Posters and some of my favorite quotes from the series:
-"I would not mind you in my head", Lews Therin said, sounding almost sane, "if you were not so clearly mad."
-"There is one rule, above all others, for being a man. Whatever comes, face it on your feet."
-"Hope is like a piece of string when you're drowning; it just isn't enough to get you out by itself."
"I once saw a man hanging from a cliff. The brink was crumbling under his fingers, and the only thing near enough to grasp was a tuft of grass, a few long blades with roots barely clinging to the rock. The only chance he had of climbing back up on the cliff. So he grabbed it." His abrupt chuckle held no mirth. "He had to know it would pull free..."
"You know my choices. I am clinging to that tuft of grass on the cliff’s lip, praying for it to hold one more heartbeat."
-"Only a fool thought he knew what was in a woman's head just because she had a smile on her face."
-"Galad is so good he'd make you tear your hair out".
-"Almost dead yesterday, maybe dead tomorrow, but alive, gloriously alive, today."
MOAR WOT QUOTES:
-"The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and
pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and
even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes
again. In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come,
an Age long past, a wind rose above the great mountainous island of
Tremalking. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither
beginnings nor endings to the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning..."
-"A tool made for a purpose is not demeaned by being used for
that purpose"
-"Sometimes old enemies fight so long that they become allies
and never realize it. They think they strike at you, but they have
become so closely linked it is as if you guided the blow yourself."
-"Everything is linked, Rand. Whether it lives
or not, whether it thinks or not, everything that is, fits
together. The tree does not think, but it is part of the whole and
the whole has a feeling."
-"What he could not buy, because it was too expensive or
too large, he collected by seeing and remembering. All those remnants
of times gone, those wonders scattered around the world that had
first pulled him aboard a ship as a boy."
-"Not yet, light please! Not yet..." (I imagine this
would be like being told you're gonna get Alzheimer's disease when
you get older, and everyone starts treating you like you've already
got the early stages and you start getting all paranoid too.) Interesting subnote: after writing that bit (I took these quotes from my goodreads updates) I found out that I have one of the genetic markers for Alzheimers, not early-onset thank goodness but I can kind of imagine what Rand is going through.
-"Loial did not seem to think anything he himself did was
brave, or worth writing down"
-“What else can we do?” Leane said eventually. She rode slumped
in her saddle now like a sack of grain. “I feel so — empty.
Empty.”
“Find something to fill it up,” Siuan told her firmly.
“Anything. Cook for the hungry, tend the sick, find a husband and
raise a houseful of children..." (Siuan is having none of it
today)"
-"Everyone thinks they know the Prophecy, but what they
know is what Wise Ones and Clan Chiefs have told them for
generations...Not lies, but not the whole truth.""
-“Life is uncertainty and struggle, choice and change; one
who knew how her life was woven into the Pattern as well as she knew
how a thread was laid into a carpet would have the life of an animal.
If she did not go mad. Humankind is made for uncertainty, struggle,
choice and change.”
-"There is no one set path to the future. The Pattern makes
the finest lace look coarse woven sacking, or tangled string."
-"Boasting was easy when no one expected you to follow
through."
-"This isn't a story, [umm...I'm pretty sure it is...] he
isn't some invincable hero [he's made it this far hasn't he?], and if
his thread is snipped out of the pattern, the wheel of time won't
notice his going [that would actually be a really interesting turn of
events!], and the Creator will produce no miracles to save us [you're
all screwed].""
-"Even smiling, Nynaeve was angry enough to embrace The
Source." (that's it. that's all you need to know about nynaeve)"
-"You cannot tell a man he has the power to make the earth shake,
then expect him to walk small."
-"Nothing ever goes as you expect. Expect nothing, and you
will not be surprised. Expect nothing. Hope for nothing. Nothing."
(PREAACH!)
-"Half of what I know to be true is no less insane."
-"Men scheme and women plot, but the Wheel weaves as it
will."
-"But men needed the trappings, the symbols and
the names, the black coats and the pins, to help hold them
together."
-"And Selande had something extra, a steadiness, as if she
had already faced the worst fear in her life and nothing could
ever be that bad again.""
-"If a sword had memory he might be grateful to the forge
fire, but never fond of it."
-"Rand barely heard the voice in his head. Suddenly he knew he
did not have to describe Kisman and the others. He could draw them so
well that anyone would recognize the faces. Except, he had never been
able to draw in his life. Lews Therin could, though. That should have
frightened him...It should have."
-"I don't know what anybody's toes have to do with
anything, or feet either" (I just...yeah this one is hilarious...you had to be there...)
-"The Creator had made the world and then left humankind to
make of it what they would, a heaven or the Pit of Doom by their
choosing, The Creator had made many worlds, watched each flower and
die, and gone on to make endless worlds beyond. A gardener did not
weep for each blossom that fell."
-"Truth almost always did come out in the end, but by the end,
truth was often so wrapped around with rumors and speculation and
absolute lies that most people never did believe it.""
-"You don't shoe your own horse when you have a farrier, or
grind your own grain when you have a miller." (Guys
sexism is real)
-"She felt like an ant that had just become aware of
mountains."
-"Light, how the horror of yesterday became the uneasiness of
today, once you grew accustomed..."
-"In stories everything was wrapped up by the end, real life
was much messier."
-"My name is Nynaeve ti al’Meara Mandragoran. The message I
want sent is this. My husband rides from World’s End toward
Tarwin’s Gap, toward Tarmon Gai’don. Will he ride alone?" (EPPICC!)
-"I am nothing like these women, Toy. Nothing like them.
Perhaps I could learn, but I choose not to, just as I choose not to
steal or commit murder. That makes all the difference."
(Considering how we know you've had at least a couple of your
siblings assassinated, and you habitually brainwash your slaves and
treat them like sub-human slime...I'm not quite sure how I'm supposed
to take this, Tuon...)
-"I've never been on an adventure. I bet we won't
either of us cry ourselves to sleep on
an adventure. And if we do, we will make sure
the gleemen leave that part out."
-“Duty is heavy as a mountain, death is light as a feather.”
-“I will hate the man you choose because he isn't me, and love him if he makes you smile.”
-“You have made a place in my heart where I thought there was no
room for anything else. You have made flowers grow where I cultivated
dust and stones. Remember this, on this journey you insist on making.
If you die, I will not survive you long.”
-“The oak fought the wind and was broken, the willow bent when it
must and survived.”
-“If you must mount the gallows, give a jest to the crowd, a coin
the hangman, and make the drop with a smile on your lips.”
-“Run when you have to, fight when you must, rest when you can.”
-"He was swimming in a sea of other people’s expectations. Men
had drowned in seas like that.”
