The Kids’ thoughts on the Hobbit

We finished reading Tolkien’s The Hobbit this week – the first full-length book I’ve read to the kids.  It was a the obvious choice, as this was also the first book my Mom read to me.  It’s been a while since I’ve read that book and several things stand out after so many years.  Tolkien wrote in  long, descriptive, balanced sentences.  Very nice to read aloud.  The sense of place and history, the sheer amount of description is palpable in The Hobbit.  Of course this has become one of the prevailing themes of fantasy fiction, so no surprise there.  Finally, Bilbo is just a great character.  And now onto the girls’ thoughts as recorded be me with a few questions here and there…

One favorite part is when Bilbo went to talk to Smaug.  He saw the weak spot by getting Smaug to roll over by telling riddles.  Bilbo was pretty brave there.  I was afraid Bilbo might be found by Smaug, and he’d attack him and eat him.  I thought this was the scariest part.  Instead he just got a little burnt.

October Good for Lovecraft

Any month is a good month for the fiction of horror master H.P. Lovecraft, but October provides an added aura of foreboding.  Not that many of Lovecraft’s stories are particularly Halloweenish, and he was more apt to include ageless alien demi-gods in his fiction than ghosts or witches or the like, but there’s something about a gray stormy evening with a cold autumn wind blowing that makes passages of nameless horror especially tasty.  For this reason I’ve been re-reading at least one classic Lovecraft story each October the last few years.  (Having read virtually all of them the first time back in college.)

Books: Moving Pictures

…by the indomitable Terry Pratchett

In Moving Pictures, the denizens of Pratchett’s Discworld inadvertently find themselves awash in movie madness.  Yes, those scatterbrained alchemists have figured out how to transfer captured pictures (painted very quickly by captive demons in small camera-like boxes) to film.  They quickly find it necessary to move from the city of Ankh-Morpork to an arid outpost without much going for it but the everpresent sunshine (to avoid the wrath of the wizards at Unseen University).  That outpost’s name: Holy Wood.

Very soon people (and trolls and dwarves and talking animals) find themselves drawn to Holy Wood for unexplainable reasons.  It seems right.  They know they can make it.  And they want to be in the moving pictures. Among them are perennial student-wizard, Victor Tugelbend, a dude who can’t sing, can’t dance, but can handle a sword OK and looks great in front of the camera, Ginger, former milkmaid from the-little-town-you-never-heard-of, who looks great in an evening gown, and Gaspode the talking wonder-dog.  Soon Cut-me-own-throat Dibbler, Ankh-Morpork’s most celebrated salesman of sausages-0f-dubious-origin, arrives and proceeds to set himself up as the mogul.  A group of dwarves suddenly discover an overwhelming urge to sing the hi-ho-hi-ho song.  A troll changes his name to ‘Rock’ and whittles off bits of his nose to increase his appeal and versatility.  These folks literally find they have stars in their eyes.

Books: Shadow’s Edge

…by Brent Weeks

Shadow’s Edge is the second book in the Night Angel trilogy, which chronicles the struggles of Kylar Stern, assassin, Logan Gyre, aspirant-King, Vi, another assassin, and others against the sadistic Godking, Garoth.  The Godking’s forces successfully invaded Cenaria at the close of Book 1, Into the Shadows (see review), bringing a lot death (and presumed death), mayhem, and misunderstanding to the major characters.  Kylar’s mentor, master assassin (or ‘wetboy’ as Weeks has unfortunately designated killers with magical talents) Durzo Blint is gone, and Kylar soon swears off killing to pursue his childhood love, Elene.  This means leaving the city and fleeing in search of a more normal life.

Unbeknownst to Kylar, his best friend Logan is not dead but rather imprisoned in the Hole, which is the most brutal dungeon in the land, filled with the rapists and cannibals.  Logan has to survive down there without revealing his identity and completely losing his humanity.

When the Sa’kage (the city’s vast underworld crime syndicate) soon learn they can’t bargain with the brutal Godking, they begin to oppose him and help form the resistance.   For that they need Kylar, who has now absorbed an ancient magical forces called the ka’kari and has become nearly immortal, and they need an heir to the throne – Logan.  A fairly straightforward plot that still manages to get bogged down for nearly half the book.  Some of the subplots turn out to be far more interesting – at least until the book’s climax.

Books: Gaudeamus

…by John Barnes

In Gaudeamus, the reader gets a rare combination of authenticity and weirdness that combines science fiction, detective fiction, and a good dose of self-deprecating humor.  John Barnes uses the technique of casting himself as the 1st person narrator and his buddy Travis Bismarck as the protagonist.  This allows Travis, a private detective with a storyteller’s mentality, to pop in and expand upon his increasingly strange tale of secret government research and extraterrestrial game wardens.  Meanwhile, the author/narrator frees himself to tell character-revealing back stories, comment on society, and scoff at his buddy’s story while secretly hoping it’s all true.

You can cast it as metafiction or an ironic and over-the-top nod to creative non-fiction.  Barnes use of the p.o.v. shifts between himself and Travis illustrates the allure of different types of storytelling, and it stands up to inspection also.  In other words, Barnes could (and does seem to) claim that hey, this is all true – it’s what my friend told me, and here’s the back story from my perspective.  It’s the kind of narrative technique that would spark a lively debate at your college writers’ workshop – if, that is, they could be bothered with something that has sci-fi overtones.  I suspect Mr. Barnes would find this amusing.

Books: The Way of Shadows

…by Brent Weeks

Sometimes you just want some good old fashioned sword-hacking, shadow-stalking, mage-fire hurling type fantasy.  Plenty of action, high-school level romance, badass villains, and , familiar archetypes…  In The Way of Shadows (Book 1 in the Night Angel trilogy),  this is precisely what you get.

The novel starts with young Azoth, an orphaned street beggar, eavesdropping on the troubles of one Durzo Blint, the best and baddest magically enhanced assassin (weeks uses the term, ‘wetboy’ – a questionable choice) in all of Cenaria.  This scene leads to Azoth’s attempt to apprentice himself to Durzo as a way out of the gutter.  Azoth has enough challenges what with scraping enough pennies together to eat and pay his guild dues to a Fagin-like outfit, and he’s watching out for his friends Jarl and Doll Girl to boot.  To make matters worse, Azoth, like all orphan heroes, is inexplicably brave, and stands up for his friends in the face of the bigger older bullying Rat.  Rat responds by buggering Jarl and cutting Doll Girl (this book pulls few punches), and Azoth seeks out Durzo in an attempt to help his friends out of their predicament and take some vengeance.

Of course Durzo agrees to take on this new apprentice, but only if Azoth can prove himself by killing Rat.  Then it’s on.

Books: In the Eye of Heaven

…by David Keck

In the Eye of Heaven is high fantasy with a good dose of grit and grime.  Set in a mythical medieval Europeanish land, where the oaths of kings and dukes really do tie them to the land, the book recounts the tale of Durand of the Col, a young squire and second son set to inherit a small backwoods holding where he will serve as his father’s bannerman.  But then that holding’s true heir shows up after fifteen years missing, and Durand finds himself without prospects.  To make matters worse, he’s being stalked by an otherworldly power who seems insistent on offering advice and marking Durand for a different path.

You really can’t blame Durand for panicking and riding off without his sword.  He soon falls in with a wandering bard and embarks upon a plan to attach himself to some noble as a knight-in-arms and earn his keep with honor.  Of course it’s never quite that easy.

Books: The Skinner

…by Neal Asher

The Skinner is well-crafted intelligent adventure sci-fi.  It’s the second of Neal Asher’s books I’ve read, and I’m sure it won’t be the last.  It builds upon premises set forth in his first book, Gridlinked, which posits an intergalactic future with warp gates known as ‘Runcibles’, a vast confederation of humans called the Polity (which happens to be run by superintelligent AIs), and plenty of rogue cyborgs, weird alien races, and deadly planetary vistas thrown in for good measure.

Asher’s universe also imagines humanity as nearly immortal in a basic sense.  That is to say, through physical enhancement – cybernetic, genetic, memory transplant, etc. – the humans of these books can live is as long as they like.  Theoretically.  Assuming, of course, they don’t meet a particularly nasty and violent end, they can afford the upgrades, and they don’t become bored and choose death (either consciously or subconsciously).  This theme of immortality/longevity plays strongly throughout The Skinner. And in the brutal Darwinian ecosystem of the Planet Spatterjay, it provides a nice counterpoint.

Take, for example,  one of the main characters: the reification, Sable Keech.  Keech is a walking corpse, his body a mash-up of robotic parts and dead-but-constantly-replenished flesh.  His mind consists of half an organic brain and a computer with memory and personality uploads.  Not the most popular or socially acceptable version of immortality, but effective.  And Keech has a mission: find and kill the villains who not only killed him 700 years earlier, but were also responsible for war crimes rivaling those of  Hitler or Pol Pot.

Books: Narcissus in Chains

by Laurell K. Hamilton.  Narcissus in Chains is horror/fantasy/romance aimed at a more feminine audience,  from the popular series of ‘Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter’ novels.  The target reader for this book is likely:  a) She-nerds, b) Grown-up Buffy aficionados, c) Romance readers with decent imaginations.  I’m guessing I’m not part of the Anita Blake marketing campaign, but I bought the book for the wife, having heard good things about the series, and she suggested I check it out when she was done.  I was also curious about crossover romance/fantasy/horror/erotica writing aimed squarely at females, as it has become an important subset of the whole speculative fiction scene.

Narcissus starts off with promise, as Anita quickly finds herself in a seedy dominant/submissive/leather sex type club in East St. Louis, which is run by were-hyenas.  (C’mon, admit it: if you live in St. Louis or downstate Illinois you’ve probably at least considered checking out one of those clubs at some point…) Anita needs to rescue a couple of her were-leopard peeps who enjoy being dominated, and she needs the help of her two recently neglected beaus to do so.  It seems Anita has been mystically melded to effete Vampire Lord Jean-Claude and buff Werewolf King Richard through the marks they shared in a previous book.  She’s been putting off choosing between them, but this has caused those marks to become holes in her magical defenses.  Holes that are in danger of being penetrated.  And Anita quickly realizes the only answer is to have Richard and Jean-Claude fill both those holes…

Saucy…  Intriguing…  Oooh…

In the Book Hopper

Looking at the recent content, it seems we’ve been lax in postings about books, reading, and scifi goodness.  This will soon be rectified.  I can explain: I decided to go back an reread Ray Feist’s Magician (which is a big-ass book) to see how it compared to my teenaged memories of the novel.  Not surprising, but it definitely seemed a lot more awesome to my fifteen year old self.  I also read The Ballad of Billy Badass and the Rose of Turkestan by William Sanders around Christmas: a fun if somewhat dated nuclear sci-fi yarn.

I’ve been reading some comics — expect something on Ed Brubaker’s Sleeper soon — and catching up on some short fiction with Weird Tales and other miscellany.

Right now I’m about to finish Laurell K. Hamilton’s Narcissus in Chains, which the wife read and recommended, and then it’s on to Neal Asher’s Skinner, David Keck’s In the Eye of Heaven, John Barnes’ Gaudeamus, Steve Erikson’s House of Chains (yes!), and probably Tobias Buckell’s Sly Mongoose in no particular order.  Yeah, that should keep me busy for awhile.  I’m a little bit obsessive about my reading, and of course always reserve the right to sneak something else in that catches my eye, but expect to see more book posts in coming months.