Warning: Major spoilers ahead for those who have only watched the show or read a little of the series.
George R.R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" - starting with "Game of Thrones" and working through "A Feast for Crows," the fourth book of the series - is an exercise in pure fantasy brilliance. The books are by no means perfect - it can be frustrating crashing to a new point-of-view character just when things are getting interesting with another, and there is certainly a whole lot of exposition necessary to the story - but as a whole, so far, it's pretty genius, and certainly epic.
I was lucky in coming late to the books. I had barely even heard about them before the buzz started for HBO's new TV series, but after seeing the pilot episode, I sped through all four as fast as I could. Fans who have been reading them since the beginning have been waiting for years for the new installment. Since I'm a latecomer, I'll only have to wait a month to read the latest book, "A Dance with Dragons," which comes out July 12. Which is great especially with this series. In many ways ASOIAF (I'm not writing it out every time) plays like a soap opera, cutting from scene to scene with each character, only lingering long enough on one to let something interesting happen and then hopping to an entirely different part of the story. At the end of each book loose ends are dangling all over the place, and jumping into the next one is just a continuance of the same story. For some people that might be annoying. If I had to wait six years for the next book I would probably agree (and I may as I wait for the 6th and 7th installments). But in the moment of reading, it propels the action along, allowing the reader to get a little of a lot of great characters and leaving juicy tidbits driving you into the next narrative.
But one of my absolute favorite things about "Game of Thrones" and its successors is that this is one of the most feminist series of books I've ever read. Coming from a male author, this is especially awesome. I've always identified more with princesses who used their wits or swords than those who sat around waiting for a prince to rescue him, and that is definitely the school of thought that Martin's women come from. Most fantastically, Martin's female characters don't sit around mooning about who they're going to marry (with the exception of early Sansa). These are women whose identities are built around their personalities and accomplishments, not their romantic relationships.
The obvious feminist heroine is Daenerys, the overthrown former king's daughter and only living heir, who starts out a scared 13-year-old girl being forced into a marriage and evolves into a completely kick-ass leader out to get her family's throne back, with dragons and an army of slaves (freed by her) at her back. Dany is quick, resourceful and full of fire. Rape is a frequent issue in the books - the men on all sides consider it a natural spoil of war - and Dany puts a quick stop to that with her own men, despite heavy pushback.
The other obvious heroine is Arya Stark, the youngest daughter of Ned Stark, the man who originally seems to be the protagonist of the book - until Martin has his head cut off at the close of the first volume. Arya has never fit in with gender stereotypes, and her father supports her in this, hiring her a sword-fighting instructor when he discovers Arya's half-brother has given her a sword, Needle. At the start of the books Arya is just a little girl, defiant but definitely a child. By the end of the first she is fatherless and taking care of herself on the streets, hunted by the royal family, and through the following books she uses her wits and a touch of ruthlessness to stay alive. Even when all her hopes of reuniting with her family appear to be lost, she finds a way to survive, even if it means killing others in the process.
In addition to these two fantastic female characters, Martin includes Brienne, an "ugly" woman who is determined to be a knight and does rather well at it; the Sand Snakes, a group of sisters known for their cunning with poisons and other deadly skills; and least expected at the start of the books, Sansa Stark, Arya's older sister, who seems at first to be a doe-eyed innocent who just wants to be a pretty princess, but who learns as her circumstances harden to adapt and save herself.
The male characters are equally great. Tyrion Lannister, the "Imp", is a dwarf and the youngest son of a very powerful family who has used his sharp wits to stay alive and powerful. He is snarky and a lot of fun, but dark and hard when the circumstances call for it. His brother Jaime starts out despicable - he tries to kill a young boy to hide his incestuous relationship with his sister right off the bat - but he has a pretty fantastic redemption arc through the first four novels. By the end of the fourth book he almost feels like a hero.
Martin's book succeed in large part because of his characters, many of whom get to present unique and compelling points of view as he switches between them for the sake of the story, but the story itself is also fascinating. It starts as a quiet contest for the throne and evolves into all-out civil war, even before Dany becomes a serious threat across the narrow sea, and even without adding into the equation the White Walkers, who seem to be making an army of the dead behind the massive ice Wall that guards the North. The war on its own would be a great story - add in Dany's claim and some sinister zombies and you have something truly grabbing.
I'm sure these books are not for everyone. But for those who love fantasy, strong female characters, medieval war, or even just dragons or zombies, they are a great and absorbing read. I know I'm already pre-ordering book five.
Oh, and the show is pretty awesome, too.
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Recommended Reading: The Farseer Trilogy by Robin Hobb
I've been trying to compose a post on Robin Hobb all day, and I keep getting stuck. Over the past few months, I've read a total of three completely epic trilogies by Hobb: the Farseer trilogy, Liveship Traders, and Tawny Man. All of them were brilliant, and after trying to condense my thoughts into one blog, I realized they each needed their own post. So, for today, we'll concentrate on her first trilogy, the Farseer books.
The Farseer series centers around FitzChivalry Farseer, bastard son to Prince Chivalry, who steps down as King-in-Waiting after Fitz's grandfather dumps him unceremoniously with a royal guard to be taken care of by his father. Fitz never gets a chance to so much as meet his father. Instead, he's put under the care of the prince's man, Burrich, a gruff stablemaster who houses him with his prized dogs.
The story is told from the perspective of Fitz later in life, looking back on what's happened to him. This is one of the huge strengths of the story - everything we see, we see from Fitz's point of view. We may have an idea of the motivations and stories of other characters based on what he sees and hears, and the perspective he is able to provide, but it is wholly Fitz's story, and he is a compelling character.
After his father flees the royal residence, Buckkeep, in shame, Fitz slowly becomes integrated with the rest of his family: King Shrewd, Prince Verity and Prince Regal. The names are significant, and given to the royals in this particular family to mark the qualities they are expected to most strongly exhibit. Shrewd decides to use his illegitimate grandson to his advantage, making him an apprentice to the royal assassin and starting him on a path that will ultimately shape his entire childhood.
Without giving too much away, over the course of the three books (each coming in at several hundred pages), Fitz not only grows up and faces serious challenges to his life and the lives of those he cares about, he also experiences the benefits and pitfalls of the two major types of magic that exist in this particular universe: the Wit and the Skill. The Wit is an old magic, the ability to bond and communicate with animals, and a type of magic that is generally thought of around the kingdom as dark and wrong; the Skill is the magic of the Farseer line, an ability to communicate with other Skill users over long distances, in addition to other mental powers. Through his mixed parentage Fitz has gained both of these, and one of his most powerful relationships in the books is with a wolf, Nighteyes, who he bonds with while they are both still very young.
Fitz's other important relationships center around the new King-in-Waiting (his uncle Verity), who he comes to admire strongly and pledges his life to in as many ways as he can; Burrich, who is the closest thing Fitz really has to a father; Chade, the royal assassin who takes Fitz under his wing; and the Fool, an albino prophet who believes Fitz's destiny is tied solidly to the destiny of the entire world. The Fool plays an increasingly large part throughout the trilogy and becomes vital in the later Tawny Man books, and his relationship with Fitz is murky and tightly wound.
One of the weaker points of this trilogy is probably Fitz's love interest, Molly. She never really feels like an adequate foil for Fitz, and since it's told from his perspective, it's hard to say whether this is intentional - maybe she is not meant to be his true love - or a mistake on Hobb's part. She is supposed to be beautiful and tough, but she never elevates beyond that, and she seems to see Fitz more as a bad choice she can't help making than anything more substantial. Luckily, she is more of a background character than anything else, and their relationship is definitely a subplot and not the main substance of the book. And there are a few great female characters to make up for Molly's lack of much uniqueness - Kettricken, Verity's mountain-born queen, who starts out a scared and impulsive girl and turns into a strong, regal presence, as well as Patience, Chivalry's wife, who first shows up as a scattered and flighty woman but, again, ultimately comes into her own power and proves herself more than worthy.
The looming threat in the books comes from the Red Ship Raiders, enemies from the Outislands who "Forge" the people they capture in their raids, effectively removing their emotions and morals and basically turning them into zombies. There are some harrowing scenes of raids in the books, with villagers killing themselves and their children rather than be Forged, or of Forged ones killing each other over a shiny brooch or piece of food. Part of Fitz's job as apprentice assassin becomes going out with poisoned bread and sword to kill roaming Forged ones, and through his Skill he experiences nightmares that are actually visions of ongoing raids on people in the Six Duchies, his kingdom.
I really can't say enough good things about these books. I could type out pages and pages about the complexity of Fitz's bond with the Fool, or the depth of his codependent connection with Nighteyes, or his tumultuous and often unhealthy father-figure relationships with Burrich, Verity and Chade. Hobb has built a fully-formed world here, one that it's easy to dive into and get lost in for days, weeks, months, years. The Farseer trilogy stands on its own as epic and compulsively readable fantasy, and when combined with the Tawny Man series (which brings us back to many of the same characters), it is really a masterpiece of fiction. Each book is more absorbing than the last as the characters and setting start to feel more like home, and the story becomes more and more complex and captivating. Definitely worth the many hours of reading it takes to get through them.
The Farseer series centers around FitzChivalry Farseer, bastard son to Prince Chivalry, who steps down as King-in-Waiting after Fitz's grandfather dumps him unceremoniously with a royal guard to be taken care of by his father. Fitz never gets a chance to so much as meet his father. Instead, he's put under the care of the prince's man, Burrich, a gruff stablemaster who houses him with his prized dogs.
The story is told from the perspective of Fitz later in life, looking back on what's happened to him. This is one of the huge strengths of the story - everything we see, we see from Fitz's point of view. We may have an idea of the motivations and stories of other characters based on what he sees and hears, and the perspective he is able to provide, but it is wholly Fitz's story, and he is a compelling character.
After his father flees the royal residence, Buckkeep, in shame, Fitz slowly becomes integrated with the rest of his family: King Shrewd, Prince Verity and Prince Regal. The names are significant, and given to the royals in this particular family to mark the qualities they are expected to most strongly exhibit. Shrewd decides to use his illegitimate grandson to his advantage, making him an apprentice to the royal assassin and starting him on a path that will ultimately shape his entire childhood.
Without giving too much away, over the course of the three books (each coming in at several hundred pages), Fitz not only grows up and faces serious challenges to his life and the lives of those he cares about, he also experiences the benefits and pitfalls of the two major types of magic that exist in this particular universe: the Wit and the Skill. The Wit is an old magic, the ability to bond and communicate with animals, and a type of magic that is generally thought of around the kingdom as dark and wrong; the Skill is the magic of the Farseer line, an ability to communicate with other Skill users over long distances, in addition to other mental powers. Through his mixed parentage Fitz has gained both of these, and one of his most powerful relationships in the books is with a wolf, Nighteyes, who he bonds with while they are both still very young.
Fitz's other important relationships center around the new King-in-Waiting (his uncle Verity), who he comes to admire strongly and pledges his life to in as many ways as he can; Burrich, who is the closest thing Fitz really has to a father; Chade, the royal assassin who takes Fitz under his wing; and the Fool, an albino prophet who believes Fitz's destiny is tied solidly to the destiny of the entire world. The Fool plays an increasingly large part throughout the trilogy and becomes vital in the later Tawny Man books, and his relationship with Fitz is murky and tightly wound.
One of the weaker points of this trilogy is probably Fitz's love interest, Molly. She never really feels like an adequate foil for Fitz, and since it's told from his perspective, it's hard to say whether this is intentional - maybe she is not meant to be his true love - or a mistake on Hobb's part. She is supposed to be beautiful and tough, but she never elevates beyond that, and she seems to see Fitz more as a bad choice she can't help making than anything more substantial. Luckily, she is more of a background character than anything else, and their relationship is definitely a subplot and not the main substance of the book. And there are a few great female characters to make up for Molly's lack of much uniqueness - Kettricken, Verity's mountain-born queen, who starts out a scared and impulsive girl and turns into a strong, regal presence, as well as Patience, Chivalry's wife, who first shows up as a scattered and flighty woman but, again, ultimately comes into her own power and proves herself more than worthy.
The looming threat in the books comes from the Red Ship Raiders, enemies from the Outislands who "Forge" the people they capture in their raids, effectively removing their emotions and morals and basically turning them into zombies. There are some harrowing scenes of raids in the books, with villagers killing themselves and their children rather than be Forged, or of Forged ones killing each other over a shiny brooch or piece of food. Part of Fitz's job as apprentice assassin becomes going out with poisoned bread and sword to kill roaming Forged ones, and through his Skill he experiences nightmares that are actually visions of ongoing raids on people in the Six Duchies, his kingdom.
I really can't say enough good things about these books. I could type out pages and pages about the complexity of Fitz's bond with the Fool, or the depth of his codependent connection with Nighteyes, or his tumultuous and often unhealthy father-figure relationships with Burrich, Verity and Chade. Hobb has built a fully-formed world here, one that it's easy to dive into and get lost in for days, weeks, months, years. The Farseer trilogy stands on its own as epic and compulsively readable fantasy, and when combined with the Tawny Man series (which brings us back to many of the same characters), it is really a masterpiece of fiction. Each book is more absorbing than the last as the characters and setting start to feel more like home, and the story becomes more and more complex and captivating. Definitely worth the many hours of reading it takes to get through them.
Saturday, April 16, 2011
Review: "The Gathering" by Kelley Armstrong
At first, Maya seems like just a normal teenage girl. Going to school, hanging out with her friends, occasionally dating. Wanting a tattoo and teasing her dad. Living in a tiny town, built around a medical research facility, on a secluded island.
Healing wild animals. Watching her champion swimmer best friend drown. Feeling a mysterious urge to run through the woods at night. Bonding with cougars. Getting called "skin-walker" by a crazy old lady. Stumbling across dead bodies and uncovering family secrets. You know, normal teenager stuff.
Kelley Armstrong is a gifted writer. All of her books have fabulous protagonists, characters whose heads you can really get into through her words and story. Maya is no exception. She is a confident young woman, driven and hardworking. She's athletic and smart. But she's no Mary Sue. She's a three-dimensional and fully-relatable character, even as her life is turned upside-down by a series of confusing revelations that aren't exactly status-quo.
Anyone who has read Armstrong's Otherworld series, or her other young adult trilogy, will have a general idea of the world hidden underneath Maya's reality. (And if you haven't read the Otherworld books - get on it. They are ridiculously addictive.) "The Gathering" is the first in a new trilogy, and its greatest weakness is that in some ways it feels like an extended introduction. A lot happens, but not much gets resolved. That's okay - it is still a compelling and worthwhile read - but with a year to wait until the next book, it is also a little frustrating.
Armstrong's young adult books are great in that she doesn't sacrifice complexity. These stories are not dumbed down for a younger audience - really, the main difference is that the narrators are teenagers instead of adults, and the grown-up Otherworld books have much, uh, steamier scenes mixed throughout. Armstrong writes a great sex scene, but the relationships in "The Gathering" and the "Darkest Power" trilogy manage to sizzle even without the sex. As much as I hate love triangles, she has created equally compelling potential love interests for Maya in the characters of best friend Daniel and mysterious bad boy Rafe (Although of course she'll end up with Rafe. Who doesn't choose the bad boy?).
This trilogy, like the last YA trilogy, is set in the same world as the Otherworld books, with the St. Cloud cabal lurking evilly in the background. At some point one would assume these crazy kids who have been the subject of the St. Cloud's experiments will find their way to each other. I wouldn't mind if they found their way to the adults in the Otherworld, too, but I would imagine that book is quite a ways down the line. For now, I'll just have to wait until the next installment of this series. Or at least until the next Otherworld book comes out this summer.
Bottom line: If you like horror/scifi/fantasy, strong female protagonists, or just damn good stories, go read some Kelley Armstrong. I can't recommend her enough.
Healing wild animals. Watching her champion swimmer best friend drown. Feeling a mysterious urge to run through the woods at night. Bonding with cougars. Getting called "skin-walker" by a crazy old lady. Stumbling across dead bodies and uncovering family secrets. You know, normal teenager stuff.
Kelley Armstrong is a gifted writer. All of her books have fabulous protagonists, characters whose heads you can really get into through her words and story. Maya is no exception. She is a confident young woman, driven and hardworking. She's athletic and smart. But she's no Mary Sue. She's a three-dimensional and fully-relatable character, even as her life is turned upside-down by a series of confusing revelations that aren't exactly status-quo.
Anyone who has read Armstrong's Otherworld series, or her other young adult trilogy, will have a general idea of the world hidden underneath Maya's reality. (And if you haven't read the Otherworld books - get on it. They are ridiculously addictive.) "The Gathering" is the first in a new trilogy, and its greatest weakness is that in some ways it feels like an extended introduction. A lot happens, but not much gets resolved. That's okay - it is still a compelling and worthwhile read - but with a year to wait until the next book, it is also a little frustrating.
Armstrong's young adult books are great in that she doesn't sacrifice complexity. These stories are not dumbed down for a younger audience - really, the main difference is that the narrators are teenagers instead of adults, and the grown-up Otherworld books have much, uh, steamier scenes mixed throughout. Armstrong writes a great sex scene, but the relationships in "The Gathering" and the "Darkest Power" trilogy manage to sizzle even without the sex. As much as I hate love triangles, she has created equally compelling potential love interests for Maya in the characters of best friend Daniel and mysterious bad boy Rafe (Although of course she'll end up with Rafe. Who doesn't choose the bad boy?).
This trilogy, like the last YA trilogy, is set in the same world as the Otherworld books, with the St. Cloud cabal lurking evilly in the background. At some point one would assume these crazy kids who have been the subject of the St. Cloud's experiments will find their way to each other. I wouldn't mind if they found their way to the adults in the Otherworld, too, but I would imagine that book is quite a ways down the line. For now, I'll just have to wait until the next installment of this series. Or at least until the next Otherworld book comes out this summer.
Bottom line: If you like horror/scifi/fantasy, strong female protagonists, or just damn good stories, go read some Kelley Armstrong. I can't recommend her enough.
Welcome!
I've been a bookworm since I was very small. I was that kid with my nose buried in a book at recess and lunch in elementary school. I was also the girl reading "Gone with the Wind" in between new "Babysitter's Club" books in the 5th grade. Basically, books have always been a big part of my life. So I set up this blog to talk about them. Feel free to join me, and I hope you enjoy.
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