Wednesday, February 27, 2019

My father and I just finished Solstice Wood by Patricia A. McKillip

My father and I just finished Solstice Wood by Patricia A. McKillip.

Sequel to Winter Rose, the book, while naturally superb, is markedly unlike any McKillip book we have read, as not only is it clearly set in our world but, astonishingly, is it not written in the mytho-poetic style that characterizes all of McKillip's work. Indeed, we did not believe that was possible for her to write a Fantasy book in a different style. That said, though, even if it was not recognizably a McKillip book in writing and setting, it certainly was in depth of plot and story: A wonderful, down-to-earth tale of Fae heritage and weaving magic and fear born from what happened to Rois and Corbet Lynn.

Congratulations for bridging the gap between forest and Lynn Hall, Sylvia, Iris, Tyler, Judith, Owen & Rue, Dorian & Leith. Love is truly the most powerful weapon against traditional fear.

Wednesday, February 20, 2019

Tolkien biopic

First a film about Ursula K. Le Guin and now a biographical drama film about none other than J.R.R. Tolkien. Plus BBC and HBO are co-producing and dramatizing Pullman's His Dark Materials, Amazon is making a TV adaptation of Jordan's The Wheel of Time along with some form TV series set in Middle-earth that will explore new storylines that precede the events depicted in Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring. Tis certainly a good year for Fantasy literature on the big screen and, on that note, here is the man to whom we ultimately owe it all:


Luck the filmmakers who seek to tell the tale of the Master. Tolkien was more than great writer, he was a great man in every respect.
A man whose relatives were shocked when he elected not to immediately volunteer for the British Army, and who later recalled that "in those days chaps joined up, or were scorned publicly. It was a nasty cleft to be in for a young man with too much imagination and little physical courage." But he did join, later writing that "Junior officers were being killed off, a dozen a minute. Parting from my wife then...it was like a death."

"One has indeed personally to come under the shadow of war to feel fully its oppression; but as the years go by it seems now often forgotten that to be caught in youth by 1914 was no less hideous an experience than to be involved in 1939 and the following years. By 1918 all but one of my close friends were dead." - J.R.R. Tolkien

Thursday, February 14, 2019

The Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin

Just got back from seeing the Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin at Somerville Theatre.
It was amazing. Inspiring.

As I have said in the past, Le Guin was a titan, a wall breaker, in Fantasy, writing about Schools of Magic and facing our own inner demons long before anyone else. And I owe her my own book series no less than I owe Tolkien.

Sunday, February 10, 2019

Fantasy Book Tiers

We all have our favorite books and it is no secret that mine is J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, yet what happens when one finds a book that is clearly in the same league even is it is not one's favorite? Take J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, for example: it is very different from LOTR yet is still similar in many ways and, while Rowling did not found the modern Fantasy genre as Tolkien did, Harry Potter was an undeniable literary classic that inspired another whole generation of readers and began the Golden Age of Fantasy. All of which is why I call Rowling the the Heir of Tolkien.

That being the case, though, what do I do? Do I call Harry Potter my second favorite book? I could, given my above praise of her, but would it really be true. Sure I love Harry, Ron, and Hermione, yet, emotionally, I am no less attached and invested in the tales of Lyra Silvertongue and Will Parry, Eragon and Sapphira, Sabriel and Lirael, and Will Treaty & Halt; from the His Dark Materials trilogy by Sir Philip Pullman, The Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini, The Abhorsen Series by Garth Nix, and The Ranger’s Apprentice Series by John Flanagan. I love those books (and several others) just as much as Harry Potter, yet at the same time recognize that they are not quite in the same league as Tolkien and Rowling. Close to, but not quite.

Thus, in reaction to this, my Dad and I gradually created what we call Fantasy Book Tiers to measure both a Fantasy author's skill as well as story. Below I will try to articulate what each tier means along with adding a few authors Dad and I agree belong in that rank, but it is difficult to do as authors of the same tier often write quite dissimilar books.

1st Tier: Those Fantasy Masters who break beyond the ordinary conventions of the genre, possessing a unique skill and writing style that regularly shocks and delights even veterans of the Fantastic. (Tolkien ranks as the highest of this Tier for obvious quality reasons as well as the fact that none of the rest would have existed without him.)
Authors: J.R.R. Tolkien, Diana Wynne Jones, J.K. Rowling, Patricia A. McKillip, and The Neverending Story by Michael Ende.

2nd Tier: Books such as I mentioned above, acknowledged classics possessing both story and characters you love, but are not quite in the same league (or tier) as those such as Tolkien, Jones, and Rowling. However, like the Top Tiers, these are crossover books that can be enjoyed and young and old alike.
Examples: The Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini, The Abhorsen Series by Garth Nix, and The Ranger’s Apprentice Series by John Flanagan, The Earthsea Cycle by Ursula K. Le Guin, The Bartimaeus Sequence by Jonathan Stroud, The Dark is Rising Sequence by Susan Copper, The Noble Warriors by William Nicholson, and His Dark Materials trilogy by Sir Philip Pullman.

3rd Tier: Good page-turning books that leave you genuinely caring about the characters and awaiting sequels, yet are not what you would recommend to a friend trying to get into Fantasy. Average one might call them, though I think that term a tad harsh.
Examples: The Children of the Lamp series by P.B. Kerr, The Annals of Drakis by Tracy Hickman, The Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander, and The Echorium Sequence by Katherine Roberts.

Here ends the tiers, as Dad and I use the term "4th Tier" to describe books we deem unworthy of our time. (After all, why read a lesser book when you could be searching for undiscovered better ones or re-reading classics?) More to the point, these rankings are not ironclad for the simple reason that every book is different and may be of varying quality even if they rest in the same tier. Dad and I, for example, describe The Dark is Rising and His Dark Materials as "upper 2nd Tier" as we judge them as good as it is possible to get without being Top Tier. Furthermore, Dad and I have been debating whether The Children of the Lamp is "upper 3rd Tier" or "lower 2nd Tier" for years. Hence these Fantasy Book Tiers are merely approximate categories we created to sort our favorite books into a more organized literary canon

Monday, February 4, 2019

Profanity in Fantasy

It is amazing when one finds a truly insightful statement in the YouTube comments section (and no, this is not sarcasm):

"Swearing is lazy. It shows a lack of vocabulary and imagination when conversing with others. That's why it's all the more impressive when someone threatens or insults someone without using any curse words. Real thought goes into what is said."

I post this because it captures with perfect eloquence and clarity why I loathe swear-words, never using them in life and avoiding then when possibly in Fantasy. (Yes, I know I read A Song of Ice and Fire and that it was/is stiff with profanity, but recall that I was once GRRM's most avid of fans, calling him the American Tolkien, and judged his work just masterful enough to tolerate the language.)

Indeed, growing up reading Fantasy and having parents who raise one to genuinely despise profanity and other forms of crude language is a blessing. Why? Because you learn to speak elegantly and use archaic words with deft precision.


Also, in place of such base and/or simplistic words, one learns to be creative. I say "silence" and, in place of swear-words, oaths like "Thank the flame", "Gods and sacred Goddesses", "Darkspawn", "Freya's tears", "By all the gods above and below the Earth", "Bones, Body, and Blood", "Fire and Hemlock". Oaths which, I think, prove the validity of the above quote.