Looping the Hen

A thousand words is sometimes better

I don't really read much anymore, although I used to be a fiend, blowing through up to 10 novels a week. I've been chewing a few pages a day on this. It is fairly standard fantasy fare, though the writer self-published his first novel and sold it to a major house after it did well. I like to stick up for the underdog. It is an easy enough read that 10-12 year olds could work their way through it, and it's family friendly. For those looking for a quick, easy and oftentimes enjoyable story, pick it up (though read the first novel in the series, Eragon, first). If you are looking for heavy plot and crafty machinations, this series is not for you.

For those liking their fantasy a little more passionate and a little deeper, try Mercedes Lackey's best (and may be her first?) trilogy, what I and some friends affectionately refer to as the Gay Mage Trilogy. Magic's Pawn is the first book in the series and introduces the first (as far as I can tell) homosexual protagonist sorcerer in a popular fantasy series. What I found so unusual about it was the fact that Vanyel's sexuality is just another part of the story, not the story as much of our culture and media have made it. A good deal of Lackey's work since is formulaic, as are most newer novels by Jordan, Rice, McCaffery, and Goodkind. That doesn't make her newer stuff bad, it just doesn't have the fire of her earlier, darker works.

(/on tangent) I remember the days years ago when after finishing a good trilogy, I often wished for more books in a series. Nowadays, I understand why 3 books is where most larger stories ended. I gave up years ago on The Wheel of Time as Jordan began to replay plots and storylines ad nauseum, and I am getting to the same place with the up-till-now superb Goodkind novels. I am becoming a firm believer in too-short series than too-long. At least trilogies I can look forward to re-reading beginning to end if the mood strikes. (/off tangent)

Even trilogies as long as another of my favorites: Tad Williams' Memory, Sorrow and Thorn, which although labelled a trilogy, comes in 4 very large books. The first novel is A Dragonbone Chair. Although it starts very slow (VERY slow; it took me several tries to get through) and uses many of the same fantasy touchstones as I have read a thousand times, the tale woven becomes much greater than its parts, and most of its peers. The climax of the story is reminiscent of the better of Terry Brook's tales, though more fulfilling and with better denoumont.

For a wonderful series one can finish beginning to end (of the first 3 books) in a weekend (or even a long day), Ursula K LeGuin's Wizard of Earthsea trilogy is among the very best. Very few authors will ever match this simply written, but compelling and engrossing masterpiece. Book two, the Tombs of Atuan, remains my favorite of the three. In it, LeGuin crafts as rich a dark fantasy religion as has ever been created, complete with rituals and secrets. Were the story presented only from the side of the hero of the original book, the story would have likely failed. However, her presentation of the story from two sides is ingenious and makes for a greater tale.
For those who saw Sci-Fi's atrocious adaptation, please discard any judgement's on the value of the sourcework. Night and day is not a great enough divide to explain the difference in quality between the TV and hardcopy versions.

Although I cut my teeth on Fantasy (is it that obvious?), nowadays a good hard science fiction series can often grip me much easier than its equivalent fantasy brethren. I hate to say it, but I believe the science fiction folks come out with a much wider array of plot schema's, even though fantasy and science fiction universes are equally limitless. For those who have never read any science fiction (other than maybe Star Wars), the first I read, and still the most memorable, remains Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game. I won't even try to briefly summarize; just buy it, read it, and enjoy it.

Rounding out my 5 recommendations for tonight is a book out of the imaginary realms altogether, and is considered by many to be one of the finest novels of the 20th century. Most of the time, I find books with those types of accolades miserably droll (War and Peace?) or exceedingly, breathtakingly, almost painfully boring. (Grapes of Wrath, ugg) Of course, I speak of Lolita, a book I only ended up reading after researching the reference to Nabokov's masterwork in the Police song 'Don't Stand'. Lolita is as close to a perfect novel as I have ever read, made even more astonishing by the fact that English was a 2nd language to Nabokov. (Russian was his first) His instinctual use and understanding of language, pun, and imagery puts 99% of writers (even good writers) below him.

At least for me, (and for G-Max if I remember), I could often only read the book a page or two at a time. I sometimes compare it to fudge. Almost painfully sweet, rich, and thick, but oh so satisfying. It took me almost 3 months to read through it the first time, even though it is probably only as long as a standard novel. (300 pages or so) The story is about one of the strongest-held (but most fantasized about) taboos in our society: older man and very young girl. Even the protagonist (also the narrator) knows what he is doing is questionable, yet he stills revels in his dark obsessions. One takes turns at being engrossed, disgusted, and bewildered, as the story could easily be (and is probably, in a thousand real life cases) true. Although not for the faint of heart, I recommend and often give this book to to the hard-core and openminded readers in my life.

Music tomorrow! Night!