Year of Epic Fantasy Reading 2017: Day 29 (The Golden Compass)

Title: The Golden Compass
Author: Philip Pullman
Themes: Moral development
Quotes: "And though she understood nothing, she was intrigued and delighted by the complexity and the detail."
Reading/Listening Time: 13 hrs and 7 mins (but I listened to it on 1.5x speed because it was a little boring)

Review:

For a long time I didn't want to read this book because I'd read some articles by the author and it really seemed like we didn't seem eye to eye on a couple of subjects, but that really didn't become an issue in this book. I mean, I can see how this can vaguely be construed as a reconstruction/criticism of The Chronicles of Narnia (Lyra vs Lucy, beauty in the natural world vs beauty in the "other" world) but, in this particular book, God is just a curse word. The author is dealing with some very specific religious dogma, and how dangerous it can be when it's taken to extremes.

It's about a girl named Lyra who grows up at a college in England with a bunch of old professors and her "Uncle" who's kind of a douche bag. There's some intrigue because her uncle is involved in this research and they made a discovery about wibbly-wobbly-timey-wimey, and also original sin...and then everyone from the college to the church tries to kill him...

SPOILER ALERT Lyra saves him from being assassinated and he doesn't even friggin care. Like WTH ASSriel?! END SPOILER

My biggest problem with this book was the characters. It was really hard to be invested in them when the adults are friggin cardboard and Lyra goes from like a 7 year old kid mentality to being, like, 11...to suddenly having the reasoning skills of an adult depending on what the writer wants from her at that moment.

The magic system was a little better: everything vaguely magical is described like it's a natural extension of reality, which was actually pretty cool. Unfortunately, it also kinda makes it feel like it exists mostly for aesthetics. I suppose that can be the point: that things just are and they don't have to have to serve a greater purpose, but it didn't make them particularly memorable for me.


Rating 2/5 Stars.

Year of Epic Fantasy Reading 2017: Day 28 (Wizard's First Rule)

Title: Wizard's First Rule
Author: Terry Goodkind
Themes: Truth vs Belief
Quotes: "Mice think they are in the right, but my cat still eats them."
Reading/Listening Time: 34 hours, 10 minutes for entire book, I skipped roughly 10% of it.

Review:

This book was like was like watching a crime drama. I don't know how you feel about crime dramas, but I think they can be pretty engaging (especially if they actually make you invested in the characters), but then inevitably it seems like they'll have these really graphic scenes that just kind of sneak up on you, and you realize you're watching torture-porn.

OK, maybe that's a bit of a strong label...what I mean is that the story can become gradually so much more graphic than it needs to be, and you hardly even notice because you're so wrapped up the tension of it all.

This story does have pretty engaging characters, I liked Richard, and Kalhan, and Zed. (And that cute little girl they kept running into, and the other wizard who was her friend and gave her the doll to let her know how much she was worthy of being loved...cuz everyone else treated her like crap and it #just #ugh #FEELS!)

I loved that each of them knew a different part of the mystery, that the other's didn't know...and how that influenced their whole group dynamic. Like, "I can't tell you this piece of information right now, because you won't understand it, or it will give you the wrong impression of me and right now we need to have each other's backs."-type thing...It's really suspenseful and engaging to read.

And I get that if you're going to have your main character weld a 'Sword of Righteous Indignation', or whatever, you're gonna need some really really horrible, universally despicable people to use it on.

But the whole depiction of someone grooming a child up for ritualistic sacrifice, conveyed using sexual euphemisms, was simply distasteful.I read most of this book on kindle, these types of scenes made me I wish I could eye-vomit that shit out of my head.

(I can't believe I paid for this book)

Rating: I was really torn with the rating, I eventually went with 3/5 Stars because I did enjoy the story. I have not desire to continue the rest of the series tho.

Year of Epic Fantasy Reading 2017: Day 27 (The Neverending Story)

Title: The Neverending Story
Author: Michael Ende
Themes: Imagination
Quotes: “When it comes to controlling human beings there is no better instrument than lies. Because, you see, humans live by beliefs. And beliefs can be manipulated. The power to manipulate beliefs is the only thing that counts.”
Reading/Listening Time: 13 hours, 46 minutes

Review:

I didn't notice until just now that the author's last name is "Ende" which is funny because in the book he makes a big point of giving his characters ridiculous last names. Like, the main character's last name is "Bux" (Pronounced "Books") and he gets a book in the story. The author's last name could be, like, a play on the title. I don't know if that was intentional, (because the story was originally written in German and I don't know the word for "End" in German) but it's pretty interesting.

All I remember from the movie version is that this kid in the real world is reading a book, and we see what's happening in the book as he reads it. And SPOILER ALERT all this crap happened to the characters in the book (like they died and everything was really sad) but in the end it was just A OK because the kid could always revisit the best bits in his imagination...

So, in his mind, he could go back to when the horse was still alive...and the little boy and the horse were just setting out on the adventure with all this enthusiasm and hope and totally ignorant of the pain and adversity they would face in the future.

(Which sounds totally healthy and appropriate to me...NOT!)

And even as young as I was (I was probably around 10 years old) I just thought it felt like cheating. Like, you're missing out on the whole picture and purpose of it if you just pretend like the bad stuff never happened.

Even though I still think it leaves a lot to be said, I can kinda appreciate where that part of the story is coming from now that I'm older.

What I appreciate even more is that the book version actually has a lot more to say about the purpose of an imagination, and the role escapist literature should play in real life.

The second half of the book could is actually more of a sequel. It gets really metaphysical and it examines the whole mechanism of imagination, and how it can gradually become a malignant force if you let it.

My favorite scene was when the book character Atreyu meets that werewolf who's chained up. It was so cool because they explain the difference between things like an imagining and a delusion, or how does a metaphor become twisted into a lie? Why the imaginary world is important to humans, and exactly why it absolutely shouldn't become "real".

It makes me wanna go back and watch the movie again.

Rating: 4/5 Stars.

Year of Epic Fantasy 2017: Day 26 (An Ember in the Ashes)

Title: An Ember in the Ashes
Author: Sabaa Tahir
Themes: Freedom
Quotes:“There are two kinds of guilt. The kind that's a burden and the kind that gives you purpose. Let your guilt be your fuel. Let it remind you of who you want to be. Draw a line in your mind. Never cross it again.”
Reading/Listening Time: 15 hours, 22 minutes

Review:

I wanted to read some fantasy novels that weren't based on European myths. I started out reading one called "The Bone Witch" but I kinda lost enthusiasm for it and couldn't finish. Then I remembered reading a magazine article about this lady who wrote a fantasy novel based on the concept of, like, "Your brother got kidnapped by terrorists, what would you do to save him?" but in a middle-eastern fantasy setting. And that sounded really interesting to me (especially coming off from "The Bone Witch" because I would have LOVED for that one to explore the sister and brother relationship it had more).

This one has a dual protagonist set up, and it's not actually the brother and sister. It's these two young adults on opposite ends of the sociopolitical spectrum: Elias is the guy and he's from this quasi-romanesque culture and he's going to this gladiator school so he can be a killing machine when he grows up.  Laia is from a kind of intellectual Persian/Iranian type-culture that lives in subjection to the not-romans. She wants to be a doctor, but her brother got involved with this underground rebellion and he got in big trouble. The rest of her family got killed, so she goes all clandestine to get help so he can escape before they decide to execute him.

One thing I really liked about this set up, is that it means there's always a lot going on with either one protagonist or the other. The whole time you're wondering how they're gonna finally meet up, and when they do it's interesting to see what they think of each other.

I guess it kind of is like a YA romance, but it didn't feel so forced because the author spent a lot of time developing both of the protagonists before they even meet, and the story doesn't progress their relationship unrealistically quickly. I kept thinking it would be totally stupid if Laia just fell for this guy who she thinks is gonna be a killing machine when he grows up, and I was so so glad when it didn't turn out that way and they were going to tackle the romance aspect a bit more tactfully and in a way that felt like it fit with the world it takes place in.

As far as the fantasy aspects, the story references a lot of things like Ifrits, Djinn and Ghouls (which makes my inner fangirl happy because I LOVE them!) They even have these monk-like guys/ladies who can see the future, and at one point they're described as almost reptilian in appearance (LIZARD PEOPLE YAAY!!!)

I will say it takes a while to figure out how all of these elements fit into the story, at some points they feel almost like they're gonna be used for asthetic but later on they become more relevant and there's an actual explanation for what happened to them.

SPOILER ALERT

Apparently a lot of them were killed by this Djinn called The Nightbringer some time in the past which is CLEARLY being established as set up for something significant later on END SPOILER

I think there's a lot in this book that is engaging, and quite a bit that is meaningful. I also really loved that you feel like, as seemingly intricate/detailed as this book is, we're only seeing a small piece of the whole puzzle of this world and how it works and it could get a whole lot bigger in the next one in the series.

Rating 4/5 Stars.

Year of Epic Fantasy 2017: Day 25 (The Kingkiller Chronicle books 1 & 2.5)

Title: The Kingkiller Chronicle: "The Name of the Wind" (Book 1) & "The Slow Regard of Silent Things" (Book 2.5)
Author: Patrick Rothfuss
Themes: Regret
Quotes: From The Name of the Wind: "Call a jack a jack. Call a spade a spade. But always call a whore a lady. Their lives are hard enough, and it never hurts to be polite."
From The Slow Regard of Silent Things: “It was wise enough to know itself, and brave enough to BE itself, and wild enough to change itself while somehow staying altogether true.”
Reading/Listening Time: The Name of the Wind: 27 hours, 56 mins & The Slow Regard of Silent things: 3 hours, 39 minutes

Review:

These two books are stories that I value more for the characters the present then the world they create.

The first book has this biographer guy going to find this reclusive legendary dude who apparently did all of these epic things when he was younger. He eventually finds him and convinces him to tell his story, but because the legendary dude (Kvothe) is really poetical he wants to tell it in his own way.

He's like "Well, you better get your pen ready cuz this is gonna take THREE DAYS for me to get through..."

The rest of the entire book is Day 1 of him telling his story...

Which, IDK...I think it actually takes LONGER than 24 hours from that point to the end of the book on audio so Kote/Kvothe, as long winded as he was, must have been talking REALLY fast.

Honestly, though, this book was a resounding success for me. It reminded me a lot of the people I've met and taken care of as a nurse. A lot of them have lived really interesting lives and done things they're proud of, and things they're not proud of. And because in the hospital or nursing home, sometimes you meet these people and they're in crisis, or at the end of their lives, they want to share it with you. And it's a truely precious thing! Even if you have NOTHING in common with that person...you can build that connection and you carry it with you for the rest of your life.

That's what this book captured so perfectly to me. Now, I don't greatly admire Kvothe as a heroic figure (I don't even accept him as a particularly reliable narrator) but there is a place in my heart for him because he makes me think of the individuality of each person I've ever met (even the people I don't like very much, because I don't think I'd have liked young!Kvothe very much).



The second book I read in this series is kind of a spinnoff. It's not Day 2 of Kvothe's journey, it deals with a completely different character who Kvothe met while he was in school. It's written in a very different style from the first book, and it's a lot shorter because it's just this snapshot in the life of this kind of severely autistic, homeless woman.

A lot of people didn't like it because it doesn't really advance the plot of the series a whole lot, but for me it had what attracts me to this world so much, which is the really interesting characters. Even as limited as Auri is in her perspective and the ways she can interact with the world, even in the ways she can think...there's a beautiful humanity to her. Her world is small, and she spends most of her time alone, but her life is so incredibly full. of wonder and beauty and tragedy...

It's amazing, quite honestly.


Overall the thing I appreciate most about Mr Rothfuss' writing his how he examines brokenness in people, and the idea that "broken" does not mean "ruined".  You can still be the best version of yourself even if you're disabled and feel like you can't achieve the same things as other people can, or you feel like you've failed in some way in your life. It's a really bittersweet message, and it resonated with me very strongly.

Rating: 5/5 For The Name of the Wind, 4/5 for The Slow Regard of Silent Things

Year of Epic Fantasy Reading 2017: Day 24 (The Wood Beyond the World)

Title: The Wood Beyond the World
Author: William Morris
Themes: Escape
Quotes: Feminine power
Reading/Listening Time: 5 hours, 20 minutes

Review:

This is another early fantasy that feels very strongly like a fairytale, but like not a particularly great one. It's about a guy named Walter who wants to get away from his cheating wife, so Walter's dad sends him out with his caravan to see the world. There's really not a lot of detail about his life at sea, everything is vaguely lovely except he keeps seeing these spectral-like images of three people wherever he goes: a lady, a dwarf, and a servant maid traveling together. 

While he's gone on the journey, the wife and her family start a fight with Walter's dad, and Walter's dad is injured and eventually dies. 

When he hears about his father's death, Walter starts to go back home to take it up with his In-Laws, but then he gets caught in a storm and pretty much says: "Screw it! IDC! I'm SO done!"

Eventually he ends up in this enchanted forest where everything and everyone seems suspiciously set up: like the whole of reality is playground, and he's the newest boy toy.

And he finally meets...the lady, dwarf, and servant maid. And he ends up getting involved in this conflict/rivalry between two female sorcerers. 

My biggest issue with this story is that Walter is the main character and he's really not that interesting as a person. I suppose you could make the argument that in the beginning he's trying to get away from "woman-problems" only to get caught up in "MOaR woman-problems", but really he's just a passive character. Walter is an observer, the real story is taking place between the lady and the maid...two people who NEVER ACTUALLY GET NAMES!!!

Which is really a shame because whole intrigue and scheming between the two women was actually pretty interesting.

Rating: 3/5 Stars (probably deserves 2/5)

Year of Epic Fantasy Reading: Day 23 (The Original Shannara Trilogy Books 1 & 2)

Title: The Sword of Shannara and The Elfstones of Shannara
Author: Terry Brooks
Themes: Duty, family
Quotes: "The rabbit knows a few tricks, that is why it is still alive after so many chases."
Reading/Listening Time: 26 hours for The Sword of Shannara & 23 hours, 12 minutes for Elfstones of Shannara.

Review:

These books are plagued by a set of boring male protagonists. Usually I don't mind male protagonists, even the one's other people say are boring.

Harry Potter?

Love him! Terribly sarcastic and bold, almost to the point of being a jerk. If I went to Hogwarts, I don't think we'd be friends, but that doesn't mean I would LOVE to have him as a friend! I could've been his introverted friend he takes along on adventures, and always seems to get into trouble with. He'd teach me not to be afraid authority figures, and to stand up to them if they're abusing said authority.

 A++ Probably my favorite character in the series besides Hagrid.

Luke Skywalker?

Honestly I really related to him as a kid, more so than I did Harry Potter. People always think of Star Wars as a really masculine story but to me there's a lot of Luke's emotional journey that transcends gender dynamics. Even as an adult, I see a lot of myself in him.

Frodo Baggins? 

Even though I rank him quite a bit below Bilbo on my "Definitive Tolkien Character Preference Chart", I really appreciate that he's NOT "Bilbo 2.0". He's really thoughtful, determined, and open minded (WAY more than Bilbo was)...But he's also kinda neurotic.

It's a re-occurring thing in the books that everyone kinda expects him to be weak or feeble, I think that's mostly because he himself is very conscious of his personal limitations (and makes an effort to accommodate for them), but also Mr Tolkien really puts him through a lot more than he does the other characters. Tolkien basically DESTROYS everything he loves (or rather he destroys Frodo's ability to enjoy the things he loves), and Frodo STILL goes on and fights the good fight until he can't anymore.

In his weakest and most pathetic moments, I still aspire to be like him.


But Shae Olmsford? Will Olmsford?

They don't really do a whole lot for me. They're kinda bland, half-elven blood notwithstanding. What makes it a bit worse is the narrative has really poor word economy so they'll take ten times longer to do something, or think something through, than a normal person would. So they're not only a bit bland, they're also pretty dim and kinda annoying.

The world these stories take place in is wonderful! I love how you just go into it assuming it's a generic fantasy world, and later on you gradually learn it's actually SPOILER ALERT a futuristic, post-apocalyptic dystopian reality END SPOILER

The side characters are fantastic, and I think they really steal the show. The second book was particularly a pleasant surprise, because the character that did end up being my favorite started out as a total JERK and went through ACTUAL CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT and it was so so rewarding.

So, yeah...you don't have to read these books for the titular characters.  Read them for Flick, Menion, Allanon, Balinor, Eventine, Panamon Creel, Keltset, Shirl, Amberle "Disapointment" Elessedil. They are the ones who really make these stories worth it.

I might eventually read the next book in the series, but it won't be for Wil's kids, becuz I'm pretty sure they're gonna be just as boring as their parents.

Rating:  4/5 Stars for The Sword of Shannara, 3/5 Stars for The Elfstones of Shannara.