by James Maxey
The biggest problem that I have with fantasy genre fiction, is the idea that a fantasy novel should be over 550 pages. I want to blame Robert Jordan, who after launching his "Wheel of Time" series, seems to have fixed it the public mind the idea that serious fantasy novels must have some physical weight in their corporeal form. However, I suppose the idea that fantasy stories should be epic starts with the epics themselves. The Odyssey particularly seems to be the source of many common themes in fantasy stories. In any case, since the late 90s fantasy novels have gotten generally fatter and fatter and suffer from severe cases of plot bloat.
This phenomenon, then, accounts for the fact that I've owned this book for a while without reading it. I picked it up at McKay's in Chattanooga last time I was through. At the time I was in the middle of a long car trip and feeling kinda bored killing time while Ryan browsed McKay's intimidating selection of used CDs. And so, I found myself browsing the fantasy section of a bookstore for the first time in years thinking about how much I loved fantasy novels as a teenager and how disappointing I find them now (when over 550 pages.) I was about through the aisle, which broke at the M's, when I was distracted by a paperback discarded on the floor. As I picked it up to put it away, the cover captured my attention. (Though not a neat person as a general rule, books seem to excite a more meticulous bent in my personal habits.)Dragons are one of my favorite things, and the cover has the picture of a huge reptilian eye reflecting the image of a man aiming a bow right into the eye. Let it never be said that good cover art fails to sell books.
In any case, Bitterwood has been collecting dust ever since. No matter how fantastic the cover art is, it is still a big fat fantasy novel and my general views eventually reasserted themselves. However,after reading Maxey's "Where the Worm Dieth Not" in Masked I realized that I recognized the name, although I could not remember where from. The urge to figure out where stuck with me though, and after searching through pile after pile of books, I found it in the bathroom. (I refrain from speculating how it got there.)
So, from there I went ahead, opened the beautifully bedecked cover, and began to read. I discovered two things. 1. James Maxey can handle longer format fantasy plots in a way that does not suffer egregiously from plot bloat. The characters are engaging, believable people who the reader cares about almost immediately. Also commendable, Maxey managed to write from a dragon's point of view in a way that was believable. The interaction between the two species, dragon and human, is reasonable. Maxey made nicely logical leaps about what the relationships would have to be like and, more importantly, the story has a point to make while avoiding the cardinal sin of preachiness. 2. The second, and more important, thing I learned was that the book is only 489 pages, and so does not force me to change my personal views on long fantasy novels. I was quite relieved.
The best thing about finishing an enjoyable book is realizing that it's part of a series. I was, at the end of the read, sad that it was over but Amazon consoled me; there are two more books in the series.
Monday, May 30, 2011
Sunday, May 22, 2011
6. Masked
Edited by Lou Anders
I had, recently, the new experience of coaching at the state track meet for my school. For those out there unaware, track meets are long strange affairs where the motto should be 'hurry up and wait.' It's hot and sticky hours of waiting under a searing Georgia sun punctuated by short periods of frenzied activity. For the coaches, it is almost entirely 'go there,' and 'do that' while our butts slowly go numb on aluminum stadium seating. Should it be surprising then, that when the we took the kids to the mall after the meet, I jumped at the opportunity to nip off to a book store and buy some distractions.
One of these distractions was a collection of short stories about super heroes. Normally, this isn't the kind of book I'd pick up but I recognized a few of the authors and I was, to be entirely frank, kind of desperate. Any anthology of short stories is hit or miss on quality and my general rule of thumb for an anthology to be successful that at least 50% of the stories are worth reading. Out of 15 stories, only one fell utterly flat which more than meets my requirements.
My particular favorites were:
I had, recently, the new experience of coaching at the state track meet for my school. For those out there unaware, track meets are long strange affairs where the motto should be 'hurry up and wait.' It's hot and sticky hours of waiting under a searing Georgia sun punctuated by short periods of frenzied activity. For the coaches, it is almost entirely 'go there,' and 'do that' while our butts slowly go numb on aluminum stadium seating. Should it be surprising then, that when the we took the kids to the mall after the meet, I jumped at the opportunity to nip off to a book store and buy some distractions.
One of these distractions was a collection of short stories about super heroes. Normally, this isn't the kind of book I'd pick up but I recognized a few of the authors and I was, to be entirely frank, kind of desperate. Any anthology of short stories is hit or miss on quality and my general rule of thumb for an anthology to be successful that at least 50% of the stories are worth reading. Out of 15 stories, only one fell utterly flat which more than meets my requirements.
My particular favorites were:
- "Cleansed and Set in Gold" by Matthew Sturges
- "Where Their Worm Dieth Not" by James Maxey
- "Downfall" by Joseph Mallozzi
- "Call Her Savage" by Marjorie M. Liu
Sunday, May 8, 2011
5. The Thirteenth Tale
by Diane Setterfield
A student recommended this book to me about three years ago. She was a good student and tended to have good taste in books, but this book was in the middle of some popular hype which I tend to find distasteful. The Thirteenth Tale actually deserves the hype it got and it's too bad that it has pretty much faded back out of general consciousness.
The story of the novel centers around two primary characters: Margaret Lea (the narrator), and Vida Winter. Vida Winter is an enigmatic and somewhat crotchety author at the end of her life. She is known for never disclosing her true history and instead inventing colorful, but spurious, back stories for herself. However, Ms. Winter decides to hire Margaret Lea to write her authorized biography before she succumbs to death. Her true biography.
The problem for Miss. Lea though is that she isn't really a biographer. She's a shop clerk at an antiquarian bookshop owned by her father. She's practically a hermit and her only hobby is putting together biographical essays on long dead and insignificant people. Oh, and she doesn't read literature by people who are still alive. So why, of all the people in the world, would Vida Winter, the most successful popular author of her day, want a hermetical bookshop clerk who never read her books to write what is perhaps the most sought-after biography in her world.
Regardless, Miss. Lea decides to take the job after several stipulations and the work commences. The narrative is primarily told in two interwoven voices. The first is Margaret Lea's, who's voice comments on her own thoughts, the world around Vida Winter, and the various supplementary investigations she does. The second voice, is the voice of Vida Winter as she tells her history to Miss. Lea. The balance between the two voices is superb and it avoids the trap of being too linear with clever side trips that all end up being relevant to the central mystery.
By the end of the story I found myself so wrapped up in the narrative that I was crying at the State Track Meet for Georgia surrounded by my team.
A student recommended this book to me about three years ago. She was a good student and tended to have good taste in books, but this book was in the middle of some popular hype which I tend to find distasteful. The Thirteenth Tale actually deserves the hype it got and it's too bad that it has pretty much faded back out of general consciousness.
The story of the novel centers around two primary characters: Margaret Lea (the narrator), and Vida Winter. Vida Winter is an enigmatic and somewhat crotchety author at the end of her life. She is known for never disclosing her true history and instead inventing colorful, but spurious, back stories for herself. However, Ms. Winter decides to hire Margaret Lea to write her authorized biography before she succumbs to death. Her true biography.
The problem for Miss. Lea though is that she isn't really a biographer. She's a shop clerk at an antiquarian bookshop owned by her father. She's practically a hermit and her only hobby is putting together biographical essays on long dead and insignificant people. Oh, and she doesn't read literature by people who are still alive. So why, of all the people in the world, would Vida Winter, the most successful popular author of her day, want a hermetical bookshop clerk who never read her books to write what is perhaps the most sought-after biography in her world.
Regardless, Miss. Lea decides to take the job after several stipulations and the work commences. The narrative is primarily told in two interwoven voices. The first is Margaret Lea's, who's voice comments on her own thoughts, the world around Vida Winter, and the various supplementary investigations she does. The second voice, is the voice of Vida Winter as she tells her history to Miss. Lea. The balance between the two voices is superb and it avoids the trap of being too linear with clever side trips that all end up being relevant to the central mystery.
By the end of the story I found myself so wrapped up in the narrative that I was crying at the State Track Meet for Georgia surrounded by my team.
Saturday, May 7, 2011
4. Tuck Everlasting
by Natalie Babbitt
It is a well known, but little considered, fact that there are fashion trends in the teaching of literature. The pedagogy set aside, what concerns me are the texts the gain in popularity and the ones that drop off the reading lists. These reading lists are sometimes referred to as the cannon and the texts as canonical. Whole sections of these lists are pretty static and tend to change rarely if at all: Hamlet and Macbeth for Brit Lit, something by Twain for American Lit, etc. Whole other sections turn over every couple of years. For example, there was a lot of buzz about trying to work Twilight into various curricula, up until the last book was published and the female protagonist had sex wherein the impulse to include the series faded out.
Since I focus on 11th and 12th grades, I tend to be pretty unaware of middle school trends but Tuck Everlasting turned up on my radar somehow, and I can only presume it was through the collective teacher subconscious.
While the story was cute, and the premise interesting, I finished Tuck Everlasting feeling rather unfulfilled. When a 10 year old if faced with the possibility of eternal life and youth, what decision would she make. I can see it go either way, really. Babbitt's conclusion however, was ill-supported through character development. Additionally, the 10 year old girl's instant infatuation with a 17 year old boy (or 104 years old really but he looks 17) seemed a little odd. Memories of being 10 are getting a little fuzzy, but I don't remember getting crushes on kids who looked 17, I got crushes on kids who looked 14 max... and I really didn't get many crushes until I was closer to 12. Additionally the fact that our 17(104) year old guy gets a similar crush on our 10 year old seems pretty....creepy. It just doesn't feel right.
Of course, I might be over-thinking this.
It is a well known, but little considered, fact that there are fashion trends in the teaching of literature. The pedagogy set aside, what concerns me are the texts the gain in popularity and the ones that drop off the reading lists. These reading lists are sometimes referred to as the cannon and the texts as canonical. Whole sections of these lists are pretty static and tend to change rarely if at all: Hamlet and Macbeth for Brit Lit, something by Twain for American Lit, etc. Whole other sections turn over every couple of years. For example, there was a lot of buzz about trying to work Twilight into various curricula, up until the last book was published and the female protagonist had sex wherein the impulse to include the series faded out.
Since I focus on 11th and 12th grades, I tend to be pretty unaware of middle school trends but Tuck Everlasting turned up on my radar somehow, and I can only presume it was through the collective teacher subconscious.
While the story was cute, and the premise interesting, I finished Tuck Everlasting feeling rather unfulfilled. When a 10 year old if faced with the possibility of eternal life and youth, what decision would she make. I can see it go either way, really. Babbitt's conclusion however, was ill-supported through character development. Additionally, the 10 year old girl's instant infatuation with a 17 year old boy (or 104 years old really but he looks 17) seemed a little odd. Memories of being 10 are getting a little fuzzy, but I don't remember getting crushes on kids who looked 17, I got crushes on kids who looked 14 max... and I really didn't get many crushes until I was closer to 12. Additionally the fact that our 17(104) year old guy gets a similar crush on our 10 year old seems pretty....creepy. It just doesn't feel right.
Of course, I might be over-thinking this.
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