7. Bitterwood

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.