Red Country by Joe Abercrombie

Red Country by Joe Abercrombie

So then Joe took his barbarians into the realm of the classic Western, and it was kinda awesome!

A caravan of merchants, misfits, and those who have lost something important head out into the badlands of wherever. They have a few folks with mysterious pasts along for the ride. After a few adventures they arrive in a depraved town that is caught in the midst of an underworld conflict between two bosses. Our heroes pick sides, get involved in the wild west range war that ensues. Everyone mostly loses, but there are some great heroics along the way.

And yes, Logan is here, if you are an Abercrombie fan. Good times.

The Heroes by Joe Abercrombie

The Heroes by Joe Abercrombie
There are no heroes here.

And no one gets to escape. They are all bound into a senseless and brutal conflict. Most of them die, usually after being maimed, defeated physically and spiritually, and end their lives morally bankrupt and mostly unmourned. There are no heroes here.

If you like any of Abercrombie’s work, you’ll like this. The focus stays mostly on the barbarians. These are men who know the legends of Threetrees and the Bloody Nine but not much more. Perhaps a few of the older Named Men fought with (and against) them a few times, but for the most part, those days are quickly fading into legend.

Byaz and the knights of the Union are here, also not being heroic. They try. But they fail, when stupidity, arrogance, cowardice, or other human frailties end up putting them in the mud.

There are no heroes here, but Abercrombie writes a high octane tale of three to five different factions in a local protracted skirmish that ends up with a lot of people dead. It’s an anti-war novel, in fact, and none the worse for treading familiar ground in both genres. Hardcore barbarian battle fantasy and Catch-22 style anti-war are seldom found in the same body. Nice work.

But there are no heroes here.

Best Served Cold by Joe Abercrombie

Best Served Cold by Joe Abercrombie
In a land without honor where only money and murder have value a rough and tough merc leader and her brother are betrayed.

She crawls back from death, gathers a collection of troubled badasses and ruins all their lives in her singular pursuit of vengeance.

I like Abercrombie’s violent, dystopian take on fiction. For my money, he’s better than Jar Jar Martin.

The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

Gaiman writes a great short work of fantastic fiction. I’ve found some of his longer works get a little tired by their conclusion, but I’ve yet to pick up a novella or collection of shorts stories by him that doesn’t deserve an A+.

The Ocean at the End of the Lane is such a novella. A man returns to his childhood home and encounters an old friend, who helps bring back his memory of one extraordinary month long ago…

Fantastic, nostalgic, imaginative, moving, scary, fun. Enjoy.

The Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard

The Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard

Howard penned the original Conan mythos back in the Nineteen twenties, almost a hundred years ago now. He was a Texan, and one of the very early American writers of the fantastic, usually mentioned alongside his friend and mentor H.P. Lovecraft. Like Lovecraft, Howard was published primarily in Weird Tales an early pulp magazine which catered to the macabre, the swashbuckling, and early sci-fi.

In this collection of republished tales, Howard addresses werewolves, dream-serpents, more werewolves, and other things that go bump in the night. It is possible that at the time these tales felt innovative; my mental chronology of fiction from the time just isn't quite tight enough to be able to say for certain. But they all feel like retreads.

Harder to deal with than their lack of fresh content is the decrepitude that infects Howard's language, making each paragraph a wooden, plodding affair, in which subjects and verbs seem as soggy and downtrodden as the settings and characters within. I'm willing to give some fair amount of blame here to the simple passage of years; it’s equally challenging to fight through, say, Natty Bumpo tales. Language has evolved, and some types of construction used regularly here seem as if they would be better to have remained buried. However, since there are some writers from equally long ago whose prose remains supple, Howard must ultimately shoulder some of the blame.

As a result, this collection isn't so much dreadful as it is dreadfully boring. Even as vacation reading, it was a challenge to plow through.

Last Argument of Kings by Joe Abercrombie

Last Argument of Kings by Joe Abercrombie

The grand betrayal here is pretty unsatisfying (Spoiler? Not really.) Still, The Bloody Nine, Grim, Threetrees, and the rest make this one worth finishing if you like barbarians, d20s, and the like.

Before They Are Hanged by Joe Abercrombie

Before They Are Hanged by Joe Abercrombie

Again, the Northmen steal the show here, though the demon-girl archer is fairly cool too. This is a tale of high adventure which owes as much to Dino deLaurentis and David Eddings as it does to Tolkien or Robert Howard.

The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie

The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie

Logan Ninefingers, “The Bloody Nine” is a really fun character. So are Grim, Threetrees, Black Dow, and the rest of the Northmen.

If you’re into fantasy, the first book is a treat.

Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman

Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman

Gaiman excels in the short story form. When his ideas get to run amok, but only for a few pages, he comes up with a number of gems. Some work better than others, but the whole treat is still delicious. This book motivated the Halloween 1000 word story challenge that the Doctor and I undertook in October, which resulted in two stories you've probably never read entitled The Altar of Crows and The Dust Man’s Birthday Party.  Turns out, writing truly short fiction is a fantastic way of honing craft skills. 

The Prince of Thorns by Mark Lawrence

The Prince of Thorns by Mark Lawrence

Mark Lawrence writes a snotty adolescent boy’s fantasy novel, with enough adult meanness to do George RR Martin proud. The Prince is smart, nasty, and works surprisingly well as an antihero you can easily hate but still want to keep reading about. 

Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson

High fantasy is cool. Fantasy this high is a little hard to take.

The Gardens of the Moon is book one of the “Mazalan Books of the Fallen” series, which is ten books long. And unlike most fantasy series, it is actually complete! (Jar Jar Martin and Robert Jordan, I’m glaring at you both.) So based on a lackluster recommendation from LT, I decided to give it a try.

The reign of the Empress is in decline. Assorted ancient demons, demi-gods, and other mega-powerful beings are involved in some complex scheming to… bring about or prevent the end of this dynasty, or some such. A few different unlikeable characters skulk around the kingdom unleashing Yu-Gi-Oh level magic powers against one another.

I wanted to like the whole affair, and some of the sequences involving troupes of flying assassins, their summoned minions, and high wizardry were pretty cool. But ultimately, I didn’t like any of the characters, or identify with this collection of Level 50 Immortals and their power struggle enough care enough to proceed past this volume. 

The White Rose by Glen Cook
In his conclusion to the Black Company trilogy, we get to watch the epic showdown between the White Rose and the Lady, and the awakening of the Dominator. The Black company is caught in the fat middle of all of this, and unfortunately, a lot of what happens doesn’t make much sense.

Cook’s writing is downright wooden at points (“To be seen was the Limper.”) The action is muddy (though the windwhales and mantas are cool) and the framework story by which Croaker gets manuscripts periodically from mysterious strangers just feels like the contrivance that it is.

I enjoyed the Chronicles of the Black Company, though the White Rose is certainly the weakest of the three novels.

Shadows Linger by Glen Cook

In Shadows Linger, Cook gives us further chronicles of the Black Company, though at first, we start far from them, in a little town where evil is growing. Croaker and the boys arrive and get entangled in events they cannot initially comprehend. The book starts slow, focused on deadbeats we don’t much care about, but by the conclusion, it’s been a great ride, with a few particularly cool ideas. (The mechanics of the Black Castle are particularly noteworthy.)

The Black Company by Glen Cook
I’ve been aware of Mr. Cook’s Black Company for a long, time, but had never had the occasion to investigate. As part of a Fall that I wanted to be focused on reacquainting myself with fantasy and RPGs (DarkSouls!), I picked up a new copy of the first three books in the saga of the Black Company, entitled Chronicles of the Black Company. Glad I did.

Simply put, Mr. Cook writes what feels a lot like a Vietnam war novel in a fantasy wrapper. A company of soldiers plot and fight and laze their way through a morally black universe in which subterfuge, misdirection, and the fog of war constantly obscure the real meaning or significance of most events.

Our narrator, Croaker, is also the company physician, and the current chronicler of the Black Company’s history. He’s a soldier, a normal guy (at least at first), and he plays cards, lounges, shirks work, and generally does everything we’d expect from a soldier. Even his language is closer to that of a grunt stationed outside of Saigon than an an Authurian legend; no “thees” or “thous” here. Descriptions of events are terse; combat is seldom play-by-play. Instead, the company crosses weeks in the eyeblink of a paragraph.

The battle at the Stair is a particularly cool moment… The Taken are a neat idea, well executed, and Croaker is a fun narrator. I enjoyed The Black Company, and look forward to reading more of their Chronicles.

A Dance of Dragons by George RR Martin

What to say about George RR Martin’s megaselling franchise? Fifteen years ago, only us geeks read fantasy novels, and with a few noteable exceptions, very few of those were filled with the kind of foul language and sexual-sadism that permeates Mr. Martin’s world. Now, HBO has picked up (and done a fine job) of televising the first book of a Game of Thrones, and everyone from the nerd fringe at Dragon’s Lair, to the cute little pixie lawyerette in The Professor’s graduating class seem obsessed with the World of Westros. So what on earth to say about this book that hasn’t already been said?

Let’s start by suggesting that Mr. Martin’s narrative seems to be running away from him. So much time in A Dance of Dragons is spent with minor characters about whom no one seems to care. We’re forced to slog through endless pages of court intrigue amongst men with colored beards whose names read like fantasy clichés (Renak, Hizdahr, and Skahaz? Really?) The book only barely manages to narrow the focus of the ever-expanding cast of characters, and resolution of any kind still seems thousands and thousands of pages away.

These complaints aside, there are some fun action sequences here. Dragons, ship–fights, etc. And some of those characters you love are revisited, and have interesting things happen to them. Jon Snow and Aria Stark make an appearance. That wicked little incestuous queen Circe receives some measure of just dessert, and things finally start to happen in the North.

If you’re already this far into the series, grab and enjoy, since you know you will anyway. If you’ve not already started these, then you either live under a stone, or you know already that violent, dark fantasy isn’t your thing. As for me? I’ll be awaiting the next novel in the Song of Fire and Ice, and eagerly awaiting HBO’s next season of Game of Thrones. It’s far from art, but it’s still fun.

A Wise Man’s Fear by Patrick Rothfuss
“Rothfuss dazzles with his second installment!” – Tim Fields, theWORD.

Patrick Rothfuss continues the adventures of Kvothe, bartender, musician, lover, sorcerer in this rambunctious, thoughtful second novel. While there are a few structural issues with the book — cases where the story appeared to have nearly gotten away from him, and had to be reeled in using particularly crude mechanics – the sequel to the Name of the Wind is even better than the first. Rothfuss feels more sure in his tone, and the adventure, violence, love, and general fantasy of the deal are all more pronounced.

There’s a lot to love in this book, and I cannot wait for the third, which will likely be called The Shape of the World, since the phrase appears repeatedly in reference to future events.

The Kraken by China Mieville

Ummm, Lumm, Dumm indeed. Mieville is smart, erudite, wacky, and has great skills with language. But this is much more Pynchon than Perdido Street. In London, cults with strange magics vie for control of sacred artifacts. There’s a stolen picked squid corpse involved. But it’s all a bit silly and the main character was too much of a clueless Hitch-hiker’s Guide castoff to be that interesting. The darkness, the blood, the beating heart of awesome that infected New Cruzoban and rode distant rails as part of the Iron Council just isn’t to be found in weirdo cult London.

The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

Rothfuss has done a fine job of writing a kickass book in a genre so mired in cliché that it usually struggles really hard to do anything fresh. The Name of the Wind deals with the story of Kvothe, a young phenom who is cast adrift in the world and becomes a hero of sorts. The story is told as a retrospective; a legend related by the legend himself around the table at a tavern in a troubled land…

The writing is smooth, clever, and engaging. Rothfuss refrains from the leaden sentences and archaic diction that pollute so many fantasy novels. Kvothe is a likeable character in a cast full of likeable characters. And while we’ve seen many of these places before (the gypsies here are reminiscent of Robert Jordan’s gypsies, the University here has shades of Hogwarts, etc.) they all feel fresh here and tie together into a mostly believable world.

I wish the novel had been longer, which is as high praise as a book can get I suppose. I started and finished over the course of a few days surrounding the Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle. The sequel, A Wise Man’s Fear, comes out in March of next year. I look forward to reading it.

The Iron Council by China Meville

Meville has cool ideas. It’s that simple. From golem commanding thaumaturgies to mangled half-men Remade, to the catacopic stained zones where chaos reigns, he shows us a darkly fantasic mirror of our own world.

The Iron Council is set in the same world as Perdido Street Station, many years after the events described therin. It’s not a sequel, or really related in any way, and you don’t need to be familiar with Meville’s other works to enjoy this one.

Meville could improve the occasional impenetrability of his prose, which makes wading through all of his novels a bit tiresome at points. He overuses arcane words, and obscures the flow of narrative needlessly on occasion.

But he gives you very interesting places, characters, and action sequences. What do they they all really mean? Not much, I think, other than telling a fine and dark tale of things that might have occurred in a strange place which never existed. It’s not fantasy, except in a literal sense. It’s not horror, though often horrific. It’s fine speculative science fiction, I suppose. And it’s good, if a bit tedious at times.

Happy New Year!

I can't believe that my last posting is from a book I read last summer in Houston! I'm back in Austin now, of course, and months have passed. Oh, so many fine books and interesting times! Just returned from a six week walkabout, half work, half-play. Colorado, Orlando, Tampa, South Beach, Key West, Manchester, Glasgow, London, Oxford... But as the Wizard of Oz reminds us, there's no place like home.

It's a cold and rainy saturday night. Before heading off into the night to ROCK, a couple of backdated posts:


Leisey’s Story by Stephen King

Yawn. It’s a word I’d never associated with the master of pulp horror before. King has dee-lighted me from It to Skeleton Crew. But Leisey’s story is just a little… dull. Ultimately, my problem is that the narrative voice of Leisy just isn’t very interesting. And the trick of having her never curse, but instead use silly made up curses, like in Misery, well… It worked well for a psychotic nurse. Once. And sifting through the ashes of a marriage is an interesting thing, but... Well, for a beautiful and much shorter take on this, Joan Dideon was far more worth ones while. Anyway, not much else to say here except that I wasn’t impressed.



Thinner by Richard Bachman

If you’re driving and getting a blowjob at the same time, try not to run over any gypsies. They can curse you and make you get progressively thinner. Cool novel, fun premise, fairly weak AIDS parable, as people described it in the eighties. Classic Stephen King from a time before it was known that Bachman was a pseudonym. Good resolution. Nice, wicked little tale.


Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows by JK Rowling

Well, it’s done. It must be a challenging thing to wrap up an epic fantasy novel.
Especially one whose popularity has so exploded that it’s become way more than just a series of books in the collective mind of planet Earth.

The final installment in the boy-wizard saga is fine. It’s not good, really. At least most of it isn’t. There’s an interminable ‘wandering in the woods’ section in which our three friends have fallings out and dues ex machinas pop out from behind every bush. But the big battle for Hogwarts at the end is fairly satisfying, and we get a checklist of all the things that should happen in an epic novel like this. Lessons learned, love triumphs over hate, martyrs are made, old friends lost, etc. Funerals? Check. Marriages? Check.

IF this sounds overly snarky, I apologize. I did very much enjoy the sprawling Harry Potter series. Ultimately, there was just as much substance here as there is in a Hogwarts Value Meal from McDonald’s, which seems appropriate, since commercialism swallowed this franchise up whole, and will likely dance around in it’s skin for the next fifty years. At least until Rowling starts her next series… I think I read somewhere that it’s going to be called, “Scarry Trotter and the Sorcerer’s Bone.” It’ll be produced by Vivid.

Thanks JK. I enjoyed your novels.