A Fantasy Reader

First was the announcement of a new two-book deal make by Mark Charan Newton. Judging by his first novel, this is great news, it should make up for quality reading in the future. This is the author second two-book deal, the first one being Nights of Villjamur (review) and City of Ruins (coming this year). Mr. Newton was my choice for best debut in 2010 (here).

The news on Mark's blog is here.



George R.R. Martin created quite a buzz on Twitter and on the blogosphere by posting that he was able to finish a chapter of A Dance with Dragons. Good news here again, but George had to post again today to stop the rumors and speculations about the novel being finished. I don't really understand why people react like this. I'm as eager as everyone who has read ASoIaF, but let the man do his work without pressing him too much. There are enough good books out there to keep the wait entertaining. I think maybe George ought to stop posting updates... Anyway, you can read his thoughts here.

On a lighter tone, check out this news about the series on A Dribble of Ink. :)


Finally, there's an amusing poll on Brent Weeks page about the name of a character name. Mr. Weeks is in a fight with his editor about the name Gavin. He wants to know if people think that it sounds like a fantasy name. Myself? I don't think that the name is amazing but it sure fits well within a fantasy setting.

Vote here.

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Bauchelain and Korbal Broach is the first volume of a collection of novellas by Steven Erikson. The three novellas are Blood Follows (released originally in 2002), The Healthy Dead (2004) and The Lees of Laughter's End (2007). These novellas are set in the same Malazan world as The Malazan Book of the Fallen series. Bauchelain and Korbal Broach also appeared in Memories of Ice. The next book following the story of the famous necromancers is titled Crack’d Pot Trail and is available now.

Blood Follows is the story of how Emancipor Reese, who came to be the manservant to the two necromancers. The setting is the city of Lamentable Moll and a serial killer is hunting at night. Sergeant Guld is the king man investigating the murders. - The Lees of Laughter's End is set on the ship Suncurl, in which the necromancers are getting away from Moll. The sea hold dangerous beasts but it's even more deadly inside the hold. - As for The Healthy Dead, it's the tale of the degradation of the mighty goodness in the city of Quaint, inopportunely visited by two sorcerers and their butler.

For those of you who read Memories of Ice, the attachment with Bauchelain, Korbal and Mr. Reese is probably already acquired. Although you don't have to go through the Malazan series to enjoy these stories, it can simply add a nice layer of depth. The references to the god, the warren-base magic system, the empires and mercenary groups are not legion, but are sort of assumed by the author.

I enjoyed all the novellas, but I have to admit that The Healthy Dead stands out a bit. On the other hand, it could not have been what it was without the "real" introduction of the trio (and mostly Emancipor background) from Blood Follows. The manservant is usually the main PoV and that's a great choice, he's simply baffled by what he goes through and that's something to observe. Bauchelain is much more interesting from this perspective. Aside from those two, most of the protagonists that make the substantial parts are engrossing. I grew easily absorbed even though there's not much time for Erikson to develop them in so short tales.

One of the most defining characteristic about this volume was the humour. Bauchelain is witty, mostly so with Emancipor (poor guy at the wrong place in the wrong moment) and numerous situations are completely absurd. Erikson is known to be able to spice things up with a touch of amusement and kick ass moments, and in this case, he outdone himself. He really used the theme of necromancy in a perversely delicious manner. I'm completely positive about the fact that the author must have had a lot of fun writing this, you can feel it.

Why should you read this book? If you want a fun ride where you'll grin more often than not, pick it up. This is necromancy at a totally different level, set in unbelievable, well written and vibrating stories. In addition, it's fast read where you'll get pulled in strikingly fast. And lastly, if you're already a Malazan fan, you can't miss this.

Technically, the Tor cover is kind of nice since it's in the style of the other Malazan novels and it depicts pretty well the two necromancers. However, I still would have liked to get my hands on the individual editions. The paperback edition of the omnibus is 316 pages. It's just a bit sad that there's no map included, but it's understandable since were talking novellas.

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To add to this day extract, Blake Charlton posted the prologue and first four chapters of his upcoming novel Spellwright. I still wait eagerly for this one, from the echos in the blogosphere, it could be a contender for best debut in 2010. The book will be released in march.

Nicodemus Weal is a cacographer, unable to reproduce even simple magical texts without 'misspelling' -- a mistake which can have deadly consequences. He was supposed to be the Halcyon, a magic-user of unsurpassed power, destined to save the world; instead he is restricted to menial tasks, and mocked for his failure to live up to the prophecy. But not everyone interprets prophecy in the same way. There are some factions who believe a cacographer such as Nicodemus could hold great power -- power that might be used as easily for evil as for good. And when two of the wizards closest to Nicodemus are found dead, it becomes clear that some of those factions will stop at nothing to find the apprentice and bend him to their will!

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Mark Charan Newton posted a two chapter extract for his upcoming follow-up to Nights of Villjamur in the Legends of the Red Sun series, City of Ruin. The extract is for the prologue and chapter 3. So far the book is still listed as a june 2010 release.

On a totally different note, I just wanted to mention that I updated my map index with the following maps. They are not recent maps and I don't think they would have won their place in a best of list but at least they exist.

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Concisely... The Dragon Reborn is looking to make peace with the invading Seanchan while trying to secure peace in Arad Doman and make his feelings harder than steel. Egwene is enduring the worst to continue her defiance of Elaida. Tuon is finally crowning herself empress of her people and Mat is looking for a way back to more proper civilization. Perin is back with Faile, Nynaeve and Cadsuane are trying to help Rand to remember smiling, the forsaken are still plotting behind the curtains and the Dark One stirs. The wheel weaves as the wheel wills.

So, Tarmon Gai'don is still waiting to unleash its fury and we have a trilogy instead of a one book ending... but with my reading of The Gathering Storm done, I have to say that I'm glad to have two more novels to read in the same good old universe, and this with a fresh take. I was surprisingly amazed to feel right at home after reading a couple of chapters. Sanderson's writing is not the same as Jordan's but in my opinion, he skilfully succeeded in recreating the atmosphere of the world of Jordan. I often had the feeling that I was reading a novel by the late author. Maybe simply because it was the same characters in the same world but I will give the full credit to Brandon.

The story of The Gathering Storm ends more plots than the two or three last books. This is a nice progress for the general plot but the first 300 or so pages were kind of lagging at times. Hopefully, I felt that things were finely moving on after that. This is the story of Egwene rise and Rand personal struggle. That struggle was the main interest for me in the book. The farmboy rise to prophetic status is now terribly classic, but in this case at least, that rise is worth following. Aside from this though, there was some less compelling moments. Gawyn storyline was kind of a bore and some PoV choices like Cadsuane at certain chapters didn't feel right for me. Oh and just a little something I realized, how come Rand didn't give a damn about Mazrim Taim???

As I said, most of the story in this iteration is about Rand and Egwene. I was ecstatic to see that Elayne was not in the book, I always hated this character, way too annoying. By the way, something else that Jordan often wrote about that I disliked was the Aes Sedai (and sometimes any other women) destructing glances. Every Aes Sedai eventually had a more deep, penetrating and disconcerting look or sight. We were finally delivered from this. Also, the author didn't put too much explanations of the past story from the other books, good thing.

The central humorous element of Jordan's work is Mat. I dreaded (well... maybe that's too strong a word) reading Mat PoV chapters because of what I read in reviews on other blogs. Some said that Sanderson was off target with Mr. Cauthon. I don't agree. I have to admit that it feels a little strange when but judging by the situation in which Mat is, he ought to feel changed. He just left Tuon and almost everything is going wrong. His best moments were not in this book but still, I enjoyed his chapters. To remain in the humorous or rather amusing moments, Sanderson used a lot or created new names for the sword fighting forms in battles. I had plenty of grins, beware the Lotus Closes Its Blossom.

Wolrdbuilding was pretty much done but Sanderson had to use it correctly in order to achieve the right ambience. He said in an interview that this was one of his biggest challenges since he was used to write stories set mostly in one city. Here again, kudos to Brandon. The descriptions of every place I remember in the book are effective. I don't have much to add about the magic system since it's already well established.

Why should you read this book? Definitely because you've read the eleven novels preceding this one and you can't stop there even if it was not written by Jordan. Brandon Sanderson did a great work, I think it was a judicious choice.

Technically, the Tor cover is totally awful except for the fact that it really represent a scene from the book and that Rand hand is missing... The hardcover edition of the novel is 766 pages. The beautiful map of the world of the WoT is still printed inside both covers and there's a map of the city of Bandar Eban inside the book. A glossary is also included at the end of the book, which could be useful for people who haven't read a book in the series in a while.

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Brandon Sanderson announced today on his blog that the rights for the movie adaptation of Mistborn were optioned by Paloppa Pictures LLC, a Florida based movie company. You can read the complete press release on Sanderson's blog here.

There's not much that is known so far about his company but I agree that this is the kind of novel that could evolve pretty well as a movie. Anyway, I would like to see a movie about the Mistborn story.

Here's an excerpt of what the author had to say :

***

In other news, Patrick Rothfuss the interviewer strikes again for his fund raising for Heifer International (Worldbuilders). You probably remember this interview with Joe Abercrombie and this time he interviewed Brent Weeks, author of the Night Angel trilogy. The link is here and just a glimpse :

What's the most hurtful thing someone has ever said in a review of your book?

It wasn't a review, but on a forum, someone posted a topic of "Brent Weeks raped Robert Jordan." That was pretty cool, especially because RJ was pretty much a hero of mine. Will you tell me yours?

I think it might have been the Amazon reviewer who said all my female characters were whores or June Cleaver clones. That stung a bit. If you could punch one literary figure in the face, who would it be?

Hold it, you never said you were going to ask about Twilight. Bollocks to Team Edward. Come here, you shiny pansy! Oh, um... I mean, not gonna go there.

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Let's start the polls again this year.

So far, in my totally non scientific research about the fantasy readers practices and tastes, I observed the following :

The fantasy literature readers like to read epigraphs at the start of a chapter, only a minority of them are also audiobook listeners, most of them were introduced to the genre (here we can almost add the 'epic' specification) by Tolkien work, they prefer series over stand alone novels, they like to have maps included in their books, they have bought at least one book for the cover alone and they 'will/want to/have' read The Gathering Storm by Brandon Sanderson and Robert Jordan.

I could have added that Anomander Rake is the best Malazan swordman but that poll was at the beginning of the blog with only 6 votes.... :)

So then, we have a glimpse of the general definition of a fantasy reader. It probably doesn't apply to all but still ... interesting to see.

To continue on, here's the next question :

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Acacia is David Anthony Durham first fantasy novel. Before writing this book, he released three historical fiction novels. It's the first book of a trilogy and the second novel, The Other Lands, is out since a couple of months. By the way the "The war with the Mein" subtitle is not the name of the series as the second book mentions "The Acacia trilogy". Durham won the 2009 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer.

Acacia is an empire lead by Leodan Akaran. He's a father of four and addicted to the mist, a drug which, with the trade of children to a far away civilization, is at the center of his empire wealth. Aliver is the dutiful heir to the throne, Corinn is the dashing vain princess, Mena is the bright one and Dariel the young dreamer. When their father is murdered by an assassin from the Mein, chamberlains Thaddeus Clegg disperse the children all over the world to protect them. Acacia is then occupied by Hanish Mein the leader of his northern people. 9 years later, Corinn who was recaptured is still at court, Dariel is now Spratling the pirate, Mena is a priestess in Vumu and Aliver is learning hunting and leadership skills with southern tribes. They will strive against the Mein to regain their empire and fulfill their father wishes, rid Acacia of slavery and drugs.

Acacia sits very well within the epic fantasy category. The story is vast in scale, with big empires, vast battlefields and span many years of heroic feats. The world where the protagonists evolve is harsh and sumptuous at the same time. As far as the world building goes, it's not groundbreaking but there are enough original elements to keep it interesting. I liked to discover some different races and beasties. If often felt slightly typical but nevertheless absorbing.

From what the book shows, even with the best of intention, in the end it's more difficult than it seems to change the world. I think that this is the fundamental subject matter of the novel.

The magic system is not explained in details, let's just say that it derives from the word of God. Since all the sorcerers are afraid to use magic because they were cursed by one of their ancestor, its uses are not widespread. It's a basic way to control the power of magic for the author but then, I felt that Durham used this magic almost only as a miraculous escape trick from almost impossible odds. This ancestor also created the Tunish Nevrae, which by putting it simply means that the Mein people are prevented access to eternal slumber in a state between life and death when they are killed or simply die. This is the reason for the mein to conquer Acacia. It's a good way of adding an extra layer to the villains. They are not simply evil bastards.

The pace of Acacia is slow at first and just picks up slightly more speed as the story evolves. The characters spend a lot of time thinking and describing things. The reader is mostly behind the eyes of a different protagonist between each chapter. The four Akaran children are most often used but even the villains have their share of "page time". The characters are not totally good or evil, many of them are on the morally grey range. Thaddeus Clegg, the repentant traitor chancellor, Hanish Mein the conqueror and his love interest Corinn are the best examples. I grew very fond mostly of Leeka Alain (a deposed general) and Spratling the pirate.

Although it feels a little bit too classic at times, Acacia has a complete ending but there's ample space for sequels, many mysteries such as the Lothan Aklun (a far away civilization). By the way, Durham is not afraid to kill critical characters, that's a must in a story like this.

Why should you read this book? If you like empire centered epic saga in the classic genre but with a nice touch of surprising elements, this is for you. If you're simply looking for new authors with great potential, there again, this is for you. The drawback (that was not one for me) could be the long reflections.

Technically, the Doubleday cover for Acacia stands out a little but is not amazing. The hardcover edition of the novel is 592 pages. The unabridged audio book (from Tantor Media) is 29 hours 29 mins and the narration by Dick Hill is simply fantastic.

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Here's the cover for the Subterranean Press release of Crack’d Pot Trail by Steven Erikson (pre order are available now by the way). This is the fourth novella by Erikson with the two beloved necromancers from his Malazan world, Bauchelain and Korbal Broach. An omnibus with the three first novellas was released last year. The blurb follows the cover art.

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