Review: A Dance With Dragons

Meaty, beaty, big, and bouncy! Plenty of the usual Martin juiciness in character, interactions, schemes, and events. Brutality and suffering are well in evidence, side by side with hope and sincerity.

Alas, I start to tire of the cliff-hanger formula for each chapter. I would like to follow each story line farther, with fewer interruptions. Is this device so necessary? It's typical of a modern TV dramatic series. More than five major story lines are juggled in the air, and there are some important new characters. But their coming together is still mostly anticipated.

A Dance with Dragons left me with more questions than answers. It's a giant "coming next season!" promotional trailer.

I listened to the previous books on audio book. They are read beautifully and powerfully by Roy Dotrice, with the exception of A Feast of Crows, which is very unpleasantly read by a different narrator, and should be avoided. As audio books, they are marvelously effective, although it can be challenging without the aid of maps and appendices of characters, to remember who is who. On the other hand, a superb narrator helps one get the feeling of each character, story line and situation. There is a richness of consciousness in the voice which helps one absorb the story. Roy Dotrice is phenomenal.

Review: The Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin

The Dispossessed is a murmuring tale whose circular, interwoven structure echoes Shevek’s paradigm-shifting research into temporal physics while examining the moral consequences of two interlocked societies, one capitalist, the other communist.

The setting is the twin worlds of Urras and Anarres, each of which looms in the sky as the other’s moon; a symbolical relationship. Urras, a land of abundant resources and beauty, is the homeworld. Anarres, in contrast, is a dry, geographically dull, inhospitable place whose people work hard to survive.

Shevek is a brilliant theoretical physicist born on Anarres, which was colonized by the followers of Odo who abandoned Urras many centuries ago to found their own revolutionary anarchic society on Anarres. The reader is initially perplexed by the structure of the book, which alternates chapters form Shevek’s early life with chapters from his later life, written as if they were happening in the present time, telling parallel stories of this one man’s origins and later development. After a few such chapters the reader grasps the format and climbs happily onboard, and soon glimpses the rationale for this structure, as Shevek lays the mathematical groundwork for understanding the non-linearity of time, and thus proving the feasibility of time travel. His intellectual passion leads him toward political heresy in both Anarres, and later, Urras. Finally, he performs the first act in bringing Urras and Anarres together, collapsing their distance as his tale arrives full circle, at his simultaneous departure and arrival.

Review: The Bards of Bone Plain

Author: Patricia A. McKillip
Format: Hardcover
Page Count: 329
Genre: Fantasy
Publisher: The Penguin Group
Pub. Date: Dec. 7, 2010
ISBN-13: 978-0441019571
Rating: 8 out of 10

The Bards of Bone Plain is a lyrical fantasy that melds a remote, legendary past with a steam-driven modernity. The author, Patricia A. McKillip, neatly weaves an unfolding plot, populated with believable, attractive people, written with solid characterization and motivation.

Knife of Dreams

Knife of Dreams is much better than Winter's Heart or Crossroads of Twilight. Stuff happens in spite of Jordan’s usual foot-dragging, boring mental landscapes, and scene-killing clothing descriptions.

My favorite scene: Egwene mastering the situation as a prisoner of the Tower, converting the novices to her side, coping with the pain of punishment, drawing on her considerable inner resources, defying expectations, using her Aiel education. I thought that part of the book was especially well-paced and dramatized.

I’ve become more tolerant of Nynaeve, and more appreciative of her role as a source of amusement. Elayne, however, is an idiot, who succeeds in spite of herself. The Perrin/Faile separation was a trial in ways the author didn’t fully intend, and in the end the reader is relieved that THAT’s over. I was disappointed at the way RJ disposed of Rolan, but what would one expect from the Forsaken (e.g., Jordan.)

The buildup to Perrin's attack on the Shaido was a dreary, dull, drawn-out affair (as are most scenes.) I'm sorry, but that's not how one builds drama and tension, that's "frittering the time away and annoying the readers" or something like that.

I'm very much looking forward to seeing what Sanderson does in The Gathering Storm.

Review: The Last Page

Please see my guest-blogger review of Anthony Huso's fantasy novel, The Last Page at Dreams & Speculation.

Winter's Heart by Robert Jordan

Tor reread by Leigh Butler

Wheel of Time Challenge discussion on Dreams & Speculation

My "first half" review, through Chapter 18.

The second half of the book suffers from the same problems as the first half: chapters that are full of padding, pointless description, flaccid tension-building, wordy sentences, sub-plot shifts that ruin plot momentum, and meandering point-of-view writing that does little or nothing to enhance our understanding, enjoyment, or appreciation of the characters.

Jordan's editor evidently failed to tell him that a book composed of plotting and scheming is a dull thing without sparkling insights, tight dramatic writing, and unique characters. We can enjoy reading about the plotting and scheming that ensued, say, at the end of World War II, between Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill (if it's well-written.) I'm just offering that, for the record, to show that I'm not opposed to reading about "plotting and scheming" per se.

Review: Songs of the Dying Earth

Please see my review of Songs of the Dying Earth: Stories in Honor of Jack Vance, edited by George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois.

TJ is letting me be a regular reviewer at her Dreams and Speculation blog. Thank you, TJ!

Review: The Dying Earth

Please read and comment on my review of the audio book The Dying Earth by Jack Vance, published at Dreams and Speculation.
The Dying Earth influenced a whole generation of science fiction and fantasy writers who grew up in the 1950’s and 60's.

Review: The Name of the Wind -- and yay, I'm a guest blogger!

Thank you TJ at Dreams & Speculation for allowing me to be a guest reviewer! More incentive for me to read and write.

My review of The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss is here.

TJ has a lovely, popular book review blog focused on sci-fi and fantasy genres. I'm very impressed with what she's put together; she must be a reading and writing machine.

A Crown of Swords

Dreams and Speculation blog's Wheel of Time challenge

Tor's Wheel of Time re-read and synopsis by Leigh Butler.

I am tired of whining about the quality and characteristics of these books. This month I just plunged in, and read it as if I were AA-grinding in EverQuest. If you want a payoff, you knuckle down and endure the dreary bits. I'm glad to say I finished it a few days ago.

I'm getting better at skimming over useless redundant detail. I've settled in my mind that this is poorly-written plot-driven "young adult" lit, and I'm treating it as the smelly object it is, trying to enjoy a few sparkly bits here and there.

My attitude being less-than-serious, I'm not glaring at the details, demanding that they make sense, I'm just shrugging my shoulders and saying "whatever!" It's like watching a bad movie and saying to oneself, "what the heck, it's sort of entertaining, though the script/acting/costumes/setting/effects are wrong and stupid," which would be typical of most movies these days.

Lord of Chaos

Dreams and Speculation blog's Wheel of Time challenge: review of LoC.

Tor's Wheel of Time re-read and synopsis by Leigh Butler.

Sigh, what to say. I'm fully onboard with sci-fi author Adam Roberts' take on this series.

What I detest about the Wheel of Time series so far:

1. I am not finding the characters to be interesting and compelling; rather I find them to be flawed creations that serve the plot. I detest when characters are stupid and dense merely to create plot tension, and that happens over and over. Mat could be interesting, Rand could be interesting, Perrin could be interesting... but they're mostly stupid. That's not fun to read, it's tiresome and condescending to readers. Feh.
2. The BD/SM (bondage-discipline/sado-masochism) themes permeating the series -- what I'd call the dominance-submission theme, is repetitive and not insightfully handled. I expect works of literature to shed at least a small light on human nature, to create some catharsis, but that's asking too much from WoT, and I fear from the "epic fantasy" genre in general. The prurient naughtiness of the description of Egwene having her bare bottom spanked by the Wise Ones... words fail me, I want to say "wtf!?" The female characters are consumed with finding ways to dominate men (the one exception being Min, the tomboy.) Men, for the most part, are chumps about female wiles, except when Rand returns the favor, and the reader feels a cheap thrill of relief. Feh. 
3. The good/evil theme? I'm still waiting for some development there.
4. Finally, the writing style itself, which Roberts dwells on at length, is puffed up with circumlocutions, descriptions that add little or no insight into character or events, and repetitive characterizations (I've heard so much about Nynaeve yanking her braid that I expect her hair to fall out from the abuse.) I enjoy descriptions that create a vivid sense of place, when the place is important to the story (usually a major theme in sci-fi and fantasy), and some of these are quite good in WoT, but the way the character descriptions are handled spoils the effect. Really, if the author wanted sprightly plot turns and to go light on characterization, he should have used pungent, focused sentences, and shorten these books by 50%! Epic = bloat? Feh.

The Fires of Heaven

Dreams and Speculation's Wheel of Time Challenge.

Tor.com's Wheel of Time reread of TFoH by the ever-entertaining and in-your-face Leigh Butler

Adam Roberts' witty and snide review of TFoH. What most concerns him is the writing style. And really, I agree with him.

A very sprawling read, and I really began to feel bored. Very tedious and repetitive detail. What kind of literary mind repeats unilluminating details over and over, as if that conveys character? Perhaps he wrote each scene in isolation, then stitched it all together without realizing, "hey, I used that same description in the last chapter." A good editor could have pruned and tightened this up and reduced it by 200 pages without losing anything. This book demonstrates a failure in editing as much as writing. Perhaps by book five RJ's Tor editors were bowing and scraping — unwisely.

Starting The Fires of Heaven

So I broke down last night and started reading The Fires of Heaven, book 5 of The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan. Participating in a reading group does give one some of the "stick" when the "carrot" isn't so tasty.

Elaida, the new Amyrlin Seat, is being ignored because although she instigated the revolt and deposing of the previous Amyrlin, she doesn't herself command enough power and authority over the other Aes Sedai co-conspirators.

I'm going to try and be less of a curmudgeon about this, I get tired of listening to my own criticism. I think I can enjoy this as long as my time is available! Maybe it will stimulate my own writing, I have been taking a short writing course at WriterHouse, and I should make a stab at "speculative fiction".

(I remember that the biggest badass guild in EverQuest was the Fires of Heaven. On my server, it was Triton.)

The Shadow Rising

Book Love Affair blog discussion for this book and the Tor reread outline by Leigh Butler.

I feel like I'm being sucked along in this Wheel of Time epic. I'm not a rabid fan (they seem to be out there) but I am enjoying certain aspects of the story. It's written in a way that moves along well, for plot, and has dreamworld and magic themes that interest me, and I care just enough about the main characters to want to see what happens to them.

But still, I'm sad that there's so little depth of personality in the characters. Sigh.

Least liked scene: Egwene and Elayne chatting like junior high school girls about who's going to go out with Rand -- oh, excuse me -- who "really loves him." (gag me with a spoon, please!) The manipulativeness of the women, their disdain for men (even the women who claim to like men) is tedious. If this was a characteristic of just a handful of the female characters I could understand that as an intrinsic part of the story, but ALL the female characters despise men and talk to them in an egregiously condescending manner. And the men are social bumpkins who are unable to master the schemes of women; they respond like surly children who are constantly being scolded. In a word: there's NO romance going on anywhere in this epic, so move along. In defense, there is this conceit that men have broken the world, and now women are more powerful, but still, there should be some distinctness among characters about this condition of social relations between men and women. Bleah. I'm seriously considering not reading any more of this. The good part is that Rand seems to be becoming more of a man in this book, and he takes responsibility for his own actions, and resists the machinations of the women around him. Yes, the men are never manipulative, it's just the women.

Oh wait, maybe there is ONE female character who isn't SO manipulative: that would be Min. Whew. But she's rather a weakling, mostly a device for foreshadowing.

The Dragon Reborn

Book Love Affair blog discussion for this book and the Tor reread outline by Leigh Butler.

I love the feeling of being absorbed in a richly imagined alternative world, as I used to enjoy in Everquest, and I experience some of that in these books. They're very long, with enough juiciness and intrigue to stay inviting, although they have their frustrations for this reader.

It has become more clear to me how women dominate in the Wheel of Time world. The breaking of the world legend turns female power (saidar) into the authority, and women dominate or are equals in most of the societies, as compared to our world. To the extent that it's not mere "political correctness" I find that angle interesting and compelling.  Compare Jordan's WoT world to the Tolkien world of The Lord of the Rings: female characters there have a distinctly minor importance, Galadriel excepted. Is there a well-conceived theme of feminine and masculine principles organizing the thread of the Wheel of Time story and the trajectories of character actions? Mmmm... sort of,  but not really. I'll see how it unfolds.

The Great Hunt

Reactions to The Great Hunt
I found this book more absorbing than The Eye of the World; I finished reading it around Feb. 15 and had to force myself not to start The Dragon Reborn until March. Picked up Bernard Cornwell's The Winter King in the meantime, but more about that in another post (TK).

Leigh Butler's smartly written synopses at Tor are very handy references and refreshers.

I think these books need to be understood as "Lord of the Rings fan fiction". I read that quote somewhere. Wheel of Time could never have been written without LoTR. These books have similar strengths and weaknesses of LoTR: shallow characters, black-and-white vision of good/evil, a chaste and non-gritty way of describing and experiencing, richly envisioned landscape, culture, and long journeys, epic "save the world" plot, and of course the usual cast of warriors, magicians, orcs, elves and other such myth-like beings. For those of us who were entranced by LoTR, the WoT promises a much longer immersion in a magical world where one's actions have epic meaning and value.

Starting The Great Hunt

Reactions so far to The Great Hunt:

I'm enjoying Rand's resistance to his calling. Almost every genuine spiritual calling is met by horror and resistance. Oh, you need examples to prove the point? Moses, St. Augustine, Jesus (if you like Kazantsakis' deeply-felt interpretation) ... um, I'll think of some more. A "spiritual transformation" is a destruction of the ego. It's a "lose yourself to find yourself" thing. It's the meaning of death. Yeah, I don't think most of us are ready to die, we're way too full of self-love.

No, I think Siddhartha is a different story, Buddhism isn't about "spiritual calling", a Buddhist should laugh or snort about "spirituality", they wouldn't have patience with it. Most of what goes by the name of "spirituality" these days is new-age wishful thinking, quest for warm-fuzzies, yearning to feel connected or important.

I do like the Aes Sedai envisioned as spiritual practitioners.

The Eye of the World

OK, signed up for the Wheel of Time big read-in on Book Love Affair blog.

Just happenstance that I started reading WoT. I really liked George R. R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire (so far) and wanted to indulge my LoTR-inclination, did some research, and picked up The Eye of the World.

What I enjoyed in this book:

• Large, detailed world with (typical fantasy-lit) medieval-style political/economic/technology/cultural setting
• Plot-driven, suspenseful writing
• Sense of an epic, unfolding narrative
• evocative villages/towns/cities, buildings, clothing, and landscape descriptions
• Likable characters
• Tolkienesque equivalents are enjoyable homage: Aragorn/Strider, hobbits, wizards, Sauron.

What I didn't enjoy in this book:

• simplistic, unexplained good vs. evil scenario
• uncomplicated (dare I say shallow, one-dimensional) characters
• some continuity/context errors