Fantasy Book Review

By Joshua S Hill
or, A Moron’s guide as to why I’m not going to summarize the book for you!
In a day and age where providing someone a Tinyurl to something I’ve written saves me from having to continually repeat myself, I have decided to explain what a book review actually is. With any luck, it will allow me never again have to explain why I haven’t summarized the entirety of a book, and why you are an idiot if you expect me to do so.

These questions are always so difficult as there are always so many to chose from. I would have to say the most recent fantasy book, that has easily become one of my favourites, is Michelle Paver’s Wolf Brother. Paver has created a wonderful series here that is so simple and effective – it’s an effortlessy paced novel. Clive Barker’s Weaveworld in terms of dark fantasy - Barker is one of the most imaginative and visceral writers out there and his work really gets under my skin. It’s as though his words possess you - his style of writing is highly disturbing, yet there is still always something very innovative and complex in the worlds and characters he creates. Of course, my third would have to be The Lord of the Rings. This one really does speak for itself.

The voordalak - a creature of legend; tales of which have terrified Russian children for generations. But for Captain Aleksei Ivanovich Danilov - a child of more enlightened times - it is a legend that has long been forgotten. Besides, in the autumn of 1812, he faces a more tangible enemy - the Grand Armée of Napoleon Bonaparte.

One of the things that I have found as I have read fantasy book after fantasy book, is that life is different in those books. Of course it is, ya daftie, I hear you cry, but bear with me. I obviously know that life is different, that’s why I read them: when you are a freelance writer, you look for any chance possible to jump out of the real world. But you have to remember that if a bit of the book is different, then it is all different from your reality.

When a new series begins, often you will expect book two to be better than book one, and so on. It makes sense. The writer will get better as they go on. Sadly, life is not always so neat, and there will be writers, like Terry Pratchett, who go out of their way to break the mould. This is what happened when Pratchett wrote The Wee Free Men, the first in a quartet of books but simultaneously the 30th book in his lovingly created Discworld.

One of the great character templates in literature is the often dim-witted, often humorous sidekick who is allowed a moment of center stage wisdom. If done poorly, it can be nothing short of horrible. But when it is done well, there is seldom anything that can beat it. And in a series of more than 30 books that are all pigeon-holed into the fantasy/comedy genre, Terry Pratchett has made attempting this template into an art form.

Where there is light, there is surely darkness, and in this story that has never been more true. Dragons grew mighty and terrorised the world of Krynn, dragons of evil, their cruelty known to all though a great knight of Solamnia, Huma called down the gods to forge the Dragon Lance that would be the weapon to destroy the darkest of living creatures.

For over four years, Andrzej Sapkowski has been one of those authors that has been dangled in front of me, mentioned in passing by Polish readers here and elsewhere, along with an occasional mention on a couple of non-English-language sites that I frequent on occasion. Maciek (Vanin) in particular has been one who has been singing his praises to me, even going so far as to post a link to a fan-translated story (one that was done with Sapkowski's blessing, I later learned). What I read was intriguing enough for me to want more. I looked into buying the Spanish-language editions, but the shipping costs (close to $25 per book) were too prohibitive for me to import from Spain and I never could find any available in American online stores. So I waited. And waited some more, fearing that Sapkowski might never be published in English translation. Until last year, when I heard that Gollancz, perhaps influenced by the upcoming The Witcher game (which stars the main character, Geralt, of most of Sapkowski's stories), agreed to publish some of Sapkowski's work in English translation for the UK market. The Last Wish is the first of those works to be published in English.

Welcome to the sensual, savage, and fantastic world of Altiva. It is a world of crystal-smiths and warp wizards, first visited in the novel Death at Dragonthroat where Ku’zn, blue-furred warrior woman of the Z’n, gained her freedom from slavery. Now she begins a journey to free her brother, who along with her had been sold into contract bondage to save her tribe. She visits the strange, plague-wracked city of Orania only to encounter bigotry and deception in her search for him.

Timion the Black has exhausted his options. Reckless, despicable, Timion’s own band of mercenary men turn against him, leaving him for dead in a back alleyway. Fate deposits the usurped buccaneer into the hands of altruistic nuns. There he finds his way to health and into their debt. Revenge, dark magic, and clever technology collide, catapulting Timion beyond the rim of the known world - beyond the mythic Boiling Seas. There he finds a forgotten, corrupt race sharpening their swords for conquest – their dark, evil eyes set upon his home port of call: Glammenport.

The making of the Rings - In 1981, BBC Radio 4 broadcast the first episode of the serialisation of JRR Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. Brian Sibley recounts. The recording of the Rings - Director Jane Morgan talks about the casting, music and the feeling of euphoria that accommpanied the recording of the BBC's serialisation of The Lord of the Rings.