Silverthorn (Riftwars Book 2) - Raymond E. Feist

Rating: 5/10

Largely filler. Feist continues with his sparse, simplistic prose.

Develops some characters other than Pug, but these characters aren't enormously exciting.

Does set up some interesting plot for the third book but this was in no way the same quality as the first. Luckily it's really only a short story.

Magician (Riftwars Book 1) - Raymond E. Feist

The good stuff:
It's taken me a while to get around to starting this book, but on the whole I was thoroughly impressed. Feist's imagination and wild assortment of characters give this book depth. He does revert to a matter-of-fact, fire-side-story-teller method of prose for the most part, adding flourishes of detail usually only when describe a setting. This doesn't detract a great deal from the narrative itself however, so those attuned to a more elegant style of prose can still keep themselves interested if they are willing to sacrifice some adjectives for a solid yarn.

Two worlds, two forms of magic, multiple races. This has everything Tolkein style fantasy requires, but goes further. I realise that to characterise the story itself as Tolkein-esque is a little bit of a mis-comparison, except if you're not a fantasy reader. The Vahleru back story and Pug's final test on the tower - which revealed the nature of the gods, the enemy, and the Assembly - hint at an expansive mythology that could spawn multiple stories in its own right. The conflict on multiple fronts kept the story churning and I'll say it again; Feist has a fantastic imagination.

The not so good stuff:
Well, I say not so good, but I really mean "things that would have made this story awesomer," being well aware that awesomer is not a word. Firstly, the relationships between the protagonists were too straight forward. Pug is initially attracted to Carline, then goes away, meets another woman, and all of a sudden, Carline is out of the picture. Granted, he was gone for a long time, and he'd changed a lot upon his return, but if something had reignited when he returned to her, that would have made things a lot more sticky (read: interesting). I think Feist missed a golden opportunity for some conflict between Roland (who wasn't developed as a character at all really) and even with Laurie. Even the Tomas and Alagranna side story played out a little too easily.

Secondly, the main protagonist is developed for the first half of the book, and then for a large portion, perhaps a quarter of it, goes missing as a slave. All of a sudden years have past and there seems to be a disconnect between Pug and the reader, and we feel a little more distant. I'm not sure if that was the writer's intention but it also felt like his character never really assumed the dominant protagonist position after his stint in captivity. Perhaps this was to make room for wider character development, but I feel that Pug's time as a slave could have been a parallel plot line instead of just abandoning his story for four years. It would have been a major opportunity to develop a better sense of Pug's trauma for the reader, much like Patrick Rothfuss did during Kvothe's time in Tarbean.

To end on a positive note however, I'm glad to have finally read this novel, and will likely pick up other Feist story-cycles once I've finished with Riftwars.

Neverwhere - Neil Gaiman

Rating: 5/10

Plot (from Wikipedia):
"Richard Mayhew, a Scot living in London encounters an injured girl named Door on the street one night. Despite his fiancée's protests he decides to help her, but that unfortunately also means that he suddenly ceases to exist for regular people and becomes real only to the denizens of 'London Below', whose inhabitants are generally invisible and non-existent to the people of 'London Above'. He loses his house, his job and nearly his mind as he travels London Below in an attempt to make sense out of it all, find a way back, and helps Door survive as she is hunted down by hired assassins."



My favourite author, Patrick Rothfuss, strongly recommended this book. As a result I was always going to give it a go. The actual blurb itself seemed promising.

I hated it. From the annoying, whinging main character, to the one dimensional supporting cast, to the 'downtown-voice' dialog. It simply didn't appeal to me. Tori Amos (the singer) said she was over the moon about the book, and the characters were a part of her life. Well, as a person who places deep character development over plot, I was bitterly disappointed. I wonder if Ms. Amos even reads much. Let alone fantasy. Let alone urban fantasy.

True, Gaiman writes with wit and imagination, and the plot of the book was certainly noteworthy, and he's still a living legend for having penned The Sandman (one of the few graphic novels I intend to re-buy to keep in my personal library). The whole thing just wasn't what it could have been. The relationships between the characters, rather than being complex and involving, were vague and unsatisfying: is Richard attracted to door? well, lets see, he's not sure, let's not explore this avenue because we need to get to the next fancy location. While we do that, Richard will just prattle on about how bad things are for him so we feel sorry for him. Oh wait, we don't. He's annoying.

I hate to rag on a critically acclaimed book so much, against a writer who is so accomplished and has produced many other great works. Let's face it I'm not an international best seller. I just think that if someone like Patrick Rothfuss or Jennifer Fallon ever penned a similar novel, it would be a much more rounded text.

Legend - David Gemmell

Rating: 6.5/10

Interesting; from Wikipedia:
"Legend, published in 1984, is the first and most famous novel of British fantasy writer David Gemmell. It established him as a major fantasy novelist and created the character of Druss, who would appear in several subsequent books. It was also the first novel to be published in what later became known as The Drenai saga.

Gemmell first got the idea for the book in 1976. He was being tested for cancer, and to take his mind off it he tried writing a book, which he called "The Siege of Dros Delnoch". The fortress and its attackers, the Nadir, were metaphors for him and the cancer. In the end, he was found not to have cancer after all and he forgot about the book, which he claims wasn't very good anyway. However, in 1980, a friend of Gemmell's read the manuscript and told him that the story had potential. Encouraged, Gemmell set to work rewriting the book that would become known as "Legend". It was accepted by Century Hutchinson late in 1982"



I read this book on a work trip recently. You can google for the full plot, but let me save you some time. Good guys = Drenai, Bad Guys = Nadir. Powerful Nadir want the lands of the Drenai, whose military strength has waned. Drenai have one hope to stop Nadir: a 6 wall fortress. Two heroes, Druss The Legend, and Rek the Earl Of Bronze, lead the Drenai is a hopeless last-stand battle... and kick some serious ass.

This book was interesting to read, just to see what all the fuss about Gemmell was about. He writes like a story teller, simplistically, but concealing metaphors and symbols of life and struggle. Having read a lot of book by contemporary female authors recently, Gemmell's style in this book seems somewhat misogynistic at times, but I'm a guy so I can't hold that against him.

It is essentially a self contained epic, recounting the events leading up to and including a single battle. And though I don't believe it makes him the master of the 'hero epic' genre of fantasy that Borders would have me believe, it was still a fun way to pass the time.

The Chaos Crystal (The Tide Lords, Book 4) - Jennifer Fallon

Rating: 7.5/10

Blurb:
"The Tide Lords have gathered in Jelidia and learn that in order for Cayal to die, they must open a rift to another world. Before they can do this, however, they must find the Chaos Crystal that brought them to this world.

As they set off in search of it, they head to Glaeba, where Arkady has been captured by Jaxyn. She escapes and flees to Caelum to find Stellan, where she runs into Warlock and his family and learns that Elyssa, Warlock's cruel immortal mistress, knows the location of the Chaos Crystal.

With every immortal on Amyrantha searching for the crystal, the stakes are very high. And when they find it and finally open the rift, only two questions remain… Will Cayal finally be able to die? And where will the rift take the survivors?"




The ending to this series left me a little bit in limbo about whether I liked it or wanted to scream "cop out". It wasn't entirely satisfying, although it was certainly a plausible way to end the story. Except it didn't end. Which is perhaps paying homage to the central theme of immortality. If that's the case, then ok, it was pretty clever; the 4 book epic was merely a snapshot of an immortal saga. +0.5 to the rating :)

The book itself introduced a hell of a lot of explanations about the immortals and how they came to Amyrantha, but keeps some things (like the origins of the very first immortals) to itself. This I didn't find unsatisfying, given that the explanations given for the conduct of Lukys' and Kentravyon's characters were exceedingly 'nerd-science' and that appealed to me... as a nerd.

One thing I did find a little bit disturbing is that the 'witty' characters in the book all had the same 'wit', and therefore spoke similarly. This does little to promote contrast between the characters and robs them somewhat of depth, however the sheer scale of this narrative whole-heartedly mitigates that minor bug bear of mine. Fallon has completed her "multi-hued tapestry of myth, deceit and ambition" (thankyou publisher's weekly) with a cheeky and suprising ending. Yes, I was suprised by the ending, not because of the final setting, but because of what happens to a large proportion of characters!

The Palace Of Impossible Dreams (The Tide Lords, Book Three) - Jennifer Fallon

Rating: 7.5/10

Blurb:

"Branded and sold into slavery in Senestra, Arkady holds out little hope of being rescued. In order to survive, she to turns her new owner, Dr Cydne Medura for help, but as she discovers the truth about him, she learns it may end up costing them both their lives.

Back in Glaeba, Jaxyn's plans for the crown hit a snag, when he realises the one man who can challenge him for the Glaeban throne, Stellan Desean, the former Duke of Lebec, has sought asylum in neighbouring Caelum. With the Empress of the Five Realms and Tide Lords, Tryan and Elyssa on his side, he may well succeed in bringing Jaxyn down.

Meanwhile, as Warlock fights to save his pups from Elyssa's twisted notions of kindness and the chameleon Crasii, Tiji, finds some unexpected friends, Declan Hawkes, struggling to come to terms with his shocking transformation, leaves Glaeba to look for Arkady.

His search will take him to the very ends of Amyrantha, from the steaming Senestran Wetlands to the frozen wastes of Jelidia and the Palace of Impossible Dreams. Along the way he will find a reluctant ally - Cayal, the Immortal Prince."



This is another satisfying read in the series. The story progresses nicely, albeit cryptically for the most part. Fallon proves a master of the plot twist, the most surprising she leaves for the last page.

This book develops Declan's character a lot more by giving him lots of page time, and I found that I wanted him to assume the archetypal main character-hero role. Of course, being a work of one Jennifer Fallon means that archetypes are forbidden to go unblurred. In this way she steeps her fantasy epic genre in real life, which I hold to be the mark of a good writer.

This book also brings the peripheral amphibious and canine crasii characters to the fore. At first I thought this was because they were in some way important to the plot, however, having read the whole series and looked back at their role, I think it's simply a literary device to describe the actions of the antagonistic immortal characters of the maniacal Elyssa and her family, the disturbingly enigmatic Lukys, the amoral simpleton Pellys etc, without giving them the spotlight. This adds to the mystique of those characters that lean towards the evil side.

By the end of this thing I just wanted to get the last book over with, but not at all because it was becoming tedious. The threads of the story seemed to unravel a little further and I began wondering how the author was going to tie everything back up in her final installment. Again, Fallon's prose and storytelling ability ensure The Palace Of Impossible Dreams is a solid addition to a top series.

The Gods of Amyrantha (The Tide Lords, Book 2) - Jennifer Fallon

Rating: 7.5/10

Blurb:

"Arkady is in exile in Ramahn, the repressive Torlenian capital, where she makes some unexpected friends and some powerful enemies, all of whom seem bent on using her to wreak vengeance on each other.

Back in Glaeba, the King’s Spymaster, Declan Hawkes, has recruited the canine Crasii, Warlock, to spy on the Tide Lords attempting to steal the Glaeban throne. Warlock, desperate to get back to his pregnant mate, is forced to witness an unthinkable crime.

But things are not going smoothly for Declan, either. The Empress of the Five Realms and her family have turned up in Caelum, and Jaxyn Aranville wants any opposition to his plans for the Glaeban throne out of the way. That includes fabricating charges against Arkady’s husband, Stellan Desean, the Duke of Lebec, which are likely to bring her down, too.

And in the stark deserts of Torlenia, Cayal meets up with the enigmatic Tide Lord, Lukys, who convinces him he’s found a way for the tormented immortal to die. All he has to do is convince some of the other Tide Lords to help him. But with eight thousand years behind him in which to make enemies, that’s not going to be easy…"



Thoughts:

Still following the same formula as the original book, Fallon expands the number of cast members who become prominent in the story. Warlock and Declan Hawkes' characters are explored further, new characters join the fray, and the plot surrounding the origins of the immortals thickens immensely. Fallon also injects some excellent political intrigue in this novel, which is something I usually dislike in sci-fi/fantasy novels because it tends to overly complicate a good narrative. Fallon uses it to great effect to keep the storyline churning along.

Whilst it wasn't as much of a page turner as the first book, the chapters are much shorter, perhaps because there are more story threads occurring simultaneously and the author needed to context switch more frequently to keep everything moving at the same pace. Fallon manages to weave the disparate threads together quite nicely, and the pace of the story never gets tedious. For these reasons I found the book very easy to read in between doing other things, because I could read one or two chapters in a short space of time. Whilst the book doesn't answer a whole heap of questions posed by itself and it's predecessor, it did make me want to find out more.

Once again I needed a thesaurus for some of the words in Fallon's arsenal, nevertheless, the story telling is accomplished and satisfying. The author made good use of diverging story threads to create dramatic irony for the reader (Cayal and Arkady's story lines looking like crossing but not, and Declan Hawkes' suddenly becoming a major character and complicating any such tryst). At the same time, however, there is some satisfying conflict resolution at times, just not enough to kill the story!

A good, solid read.

The Immortal Prince (The Tide Lords, Book 1) - Jennifer Fallon

Rating: 8/10

Blurb:

"When a routine hanging goes wrong and a murderer somehow survives the noose, the man announces he is an immortal. And not just any immortal, but Cayal, the Immortal Prince, hero of legend, thought to be only a fictional character, a figure out of the Tide Lord Tarot, the only record left on Amyrantha of the mythical beings whom the part-animal, part-human Crasii believe created their race.
Arkady Desean is an expert on the legends of the Crasii. At the request of her childhood friend, Declan Hawkes, the Kings Spymaster, she is sent interrogate this would be immortal, hoping to prove he is a spy, or at the very least, a madman.

Set the task of proving Cayal a liar, Arkady’s own web of lies, and that of her husband and the King’s Spymaster will start to unravel. Nothing is really as it seems around Cayal, the Immortal Prince — the lies seem plausible, his stories improbable and truth more than any of them bargained for."



My Thoughts:

I read this book in 2 and a half days, inbetween visiting wineries and going the beach whilst on holidays. It was a compelling read, and kept me up at night wanting to know what happened next. The characters had real depth, and the dialogue was intelligent and well composed. I actually needed a thesaurus for some of the more obscure words Fallon managed to slip in. That's probably just me not reading widely enough :)

The plot was intriguing enough even though the storyline was fairly straight forward (well, at least for Fallon). Cayal, the Immortal Prince, provides a suitably likable anti-hero. Fallon manages to evoke a fair amount of sympathy for an otherwise flawed and unlikeable main character. The character of Arkady Desean is equally as well constructed, although she is a fairly traditional (albeit strong willed) female protagonist.

The limited omniscient narrator switches between major and minor characters alike kept the story telling fresh and lively.

The Alchemist - Paul Coelho

Rating: 6/10

Read this one on a plane from Hobart to Canberra. It was simple and easy enough to get into, but it was basically one long sermon thinly disguised as an adventure undertaken by a young shepherd, Santiago, on a pilgrimage from Spain to Egypt to find his "Personal Legend" - the one thing each person wants to accomplish in life.



The prose itself is sparse, which meant it didn't get in the way of the central message of the book. By about halfway however, I was well sick of repetitive themes, and in particular the phrase Personal Legend. This may be an artifact of the translation process, as the book was originally written in Portuguese.

Character development wasn't a great part of the mechanics of this story either, and I did find the beginning and middle parts fairly hum ho. What saved this book from becoming a complete waste of time was the ending, specifically when Santiago speaks the Language of The World to the desert, the wind and the sun. This may have appealed to my fantasy-genre sensibilities but it did tie the allegory together quite nicely.

I'm still not entirely sure if I would give this book the thumbs up or down. I think it's major appeal so far has been its accessibility to people who don't normally read, as it's quite short and easy to read. I'll definitely be interested to watch the movie, with Lawrence Fishburne cast as the eponymous character. I wouldn't however, rave over this book like a lot of others have done.

The Lies of Locke Lamora - Scott Lynch

Rating: 8.5/10

This book was a good self contained novel. It follows the life of Locke Lamora; a leader of a small gang of thieves known as The Gentlemen Bastards, who steal from the searioulsy rich using confidence tricks. I agree with one critic's take on this book as a "swashbuckling yarn."



Set on a fictional, yet rather violent renaissance-like archipelago, Scott Lynch does a surprisingly good job of building a believable fantasy world. Locke is a legend amongst the upper class for his ability to dupe the most guarded citizens out of their money, earning him the title the Thorn of Camorr. In reality however, he is a flawed, and largely likable anti-hero.

The story itself is told as a flash between the present and the titular character's youth, where he is accepted to into his gang and is mentored in the art of thievery by their father-figure master, 'Chains'. The story telling is done via a limited omniscient narrator who focuses largely on Locke to keep the main story arc going, which makes for an easy read. There are enough detours into other minor characters' points of view however, to build dramatic tension right up toward the final chapters.

Essentially, Locke's gang get caught up in a secret war between the current leader of the Undergound, and a mysterious usurper known as the Grey King. Locke becomes caught between trying to appease both sides whilst at the same time attempting to protect his men. This eventually leads to some hasty alliances between Locke and the other side of the law, and culminates in an extremely satisfying revenge ending. (It was satisfying for me, anyway).

There is a fair amount of swearing, and a healthy smattering of violence, which isn't all gratuitous in that it helps establish some seriously evil antagonists. Overall it was a definite page turner. It is extremely well written, and although it is one of seven planned books, it is easily read in isolation, as the ending resolves the conflict nicely.

The Name of The Wind - Patrick Rothfuss

Rating: 10/10

Description: Wow. This book surprised the hell out of me the first time I read it, and was no less satisfying the second time. The first in a trilogy called the King-killer Chronicles, The Name Of the Wind is essentially a hero epic narrated mainly in the first person by the main character, Kvothe. If you were turned off by that last sentence, don't be...

Although now in hiding, Kvothe is persuaded to tell his story to Chronicler, who has sought him out to give an account of how he became known as the King killer ... starting from the beginning. Kvothe feels that to tell the entire story in the right context he must start from when he was a child, meaning that by the end of the book, the King whom Kvothe assassinated to earn his malefic title has not even factored into the story. Not that this leaves the reader with any sense of frustration. The story of Kvothe's childhood, from his initial prolific grasp of magic (referred to aptly as 'sympathy'), to the massacre of his family by the Chandrian (bad guys), to his orphanage and eventual acceptance to The University, was enough to rob me of sleep for the few days I took to read it. Like any truly 'great' book, I found myself not wanting to finish it because the experience would be over and I'd have to wait half a year for the second book. I have given a copy of the book to others to read, and more than one has made the same remark.

The real magic of this book however, is that it even appeals to non-fantasy readers. My grandmother is the first to admit that she does not enjoy traditional fantasy, but she absolutely loved this book. I can see how many fantasy novels can alienate readers, and I think that the mark of a really good fantasy novel is that it can paint a portrait of another world, but still keep the reader's focus on familiar things such as relationships, emotions and good old fashioned wanting to know what happens next. Patrick Rothfuss delivers all these things. Fantasy elements are used sparingly, and obscure terms such as sympathy and naming (forms of magic) are described intuitively, without that pretentious I've clearly used a fancy word here because I am creative and if you don't understand it well then you must be unimaginative style present in too many novels of the genre.

For me, the vivid character constructions and their believable interactions (the unrequited romance between Kvothe and Denna being the most prominent), as well as the role of Kvothe's music and the natural dramatic progression of the storyline made this novel seem less like a fantasy, and more like an extremely well written historic text - if there ever existed such a thing as magic, of course. If there did, it would be this book. Read it.