Kevin's Watch

Murrin wrote:I'm noticing now that sci-fi is 30% story and 70% 'ooh look at all this fancy technology I made up'.

Sounds like you made an unfortunate choice of which sci fi to read.

Oh, no, it's still seeming like a good book (in fact it's highly recommended over in the 'space opera' thread), it's just very noticable that it spends far more time talking about how things work than they ever would in fantasy. I may have exagerrated a little - perhaps 60% story and 40% technology is more fair, but still a lot of pages on the technology.

Thanks to the reference in SRD's Fantasy in the Modern World, I've been reading Tennyson's Idylls of the King. (If a verse rendition of the King Arthur cycle in about 10,000 lines isn't fantasy, I'd like to know just what it is.) You know what? This stuff rocks. 'Gareth and Lynette' is as neatly turned a short story as you would ever find in prose, and the overall 'story arc', as a modern screenwriter would say, is the closest thing I've ever seen to a perfectly constructed tragedy.

But people won't read that stuff nowadays, and for two reasons: (1) it's old (but phony re-creations of the Middle Ages in phony archaic prose aren't?), and (2) we've been trained to think that 'poetry' means the self-indulgent emotional spew of angst-ridden adolescents, and therefore hold our noses and flee.

Do yourself a favour if you haven't read Tennyson. Get hold of the Idylls, forget that they're broken up into lines of verse, and read them as if they were a novel. (A surprisingly easy exercise.) The vocabulary is odd and a bit old-fashioned, but no more so than the Covenant books; in fact, it's easy to see where SRD got some of his stylistic effects. But unlike SRD (or any other modern author), Tennyson is incredibly concise. The story gallops along at breakneck speed, yet you don't feel that anything is left out, because every word is vivid and descriptive and yields tasty informational juice. You need to read slowly enough to pay close attention, but that won't hurt — it's not a long book.

By the way, I don't think SRD's take on the Idylls is quite accurate. Arthur doesn't fail because he is an epic character thrust in among a bunch of unworthy mere mortals; he fails because Guinevere, who is not only unworthy but doesn't even get the idea of heroism, gradually infects the rest of Arthur's Britain with jealousy, cynicism, and lies. She is, to use a riff familiar to us all at Kevin's Watch, the hand of Corruption at the court of Camelot.

Aw, the heck with it. Either I'm preaching to the converted, or to people who won't understand because they have no intention of trying. At least it's on topic. That's the fantasy that I'm reading right now.

Variol Farseer wrote:Aw, the heck with it. Either I'm preaching to the converted, or to people who won't understand because they have no intention of trying

Here's at least one vote for this kind of commentary, Farseer. It doesn't matter that I haven't read it, your opinion is well worth while, and interesting to read. And now I may read it.

I read Idylls a long time ago it is an amazing piece of work-the language reminds me of Eddison's stuff...

Variol Farseer, I have found as I get older that things I was "required" to read when I was younger
were such a chore, yet now that I am older I devour them with a relish. I can't seem to get enough of the old Classics. Now I can read them with no pressure, no motive other than enjoyment, and knowledge gained in this manner is cherished and well-kept.
I think I will get me a copy of "Idylls of The King" now and I'll get back to you.

Love the new avatar, Danlo. Yours too Furls.

Thanks! That's the "real" Danlo from War in Heaven, the last book in the Neverness series (Sci Fi). Well having been blown away by the first two books in the same author's (David Zindell) Ea Cycle; The Lightstone and Lord of Lies (fantasy) I now find myself looking for something new to read since The Evening Star (book three in the Ea Cycle) won't be finished till next spring-so that joins the waiting list along with Runes and A Feast for Crows. I don't think I'm ready for Tigana (Kay) yet and not really ready to embark on the massive Memory, Sorrow and Thorn tetralogy (Tad Williams)-so I've decided to give The Dragon Waiting by John M. Ford a go...will let you know how it goes!

danlo wrote:I don't think I'm ready for Tigana (Kay) yet and not really ready to embark on the massive Memory, Sorrow and Thorn tetralogy (Tad Williams)

Strictly speaking, it's a four-volume trilogy. I know that's a contradiction in terms, but To Green Angel Tower was originally meant to be one book. (And it is one book, in hardcover . . . about the size of the Manhattan telephone directory, but one book, right enough.) Problem: Tad Williams signed the three-book contract before he was done writing the series, and TGAT came in hugely over length. It was impossible to fit in one set of paperback covers, so . . . 'Volume Three Part One' and 'Volume Three Part Two'.

Everyone else who has talked about a four-volume trilogy was joking. Not our Tad, nope, nuh-uh. I had the honour of meeting Tad Williams a few years ago: great guy, life of the party, but he has the same problem as King Arthur — he can't count to three.

I have been working on Roger Zelazny's Dream Master for a couple of weeks now. It's about a psychiatrist who can manipulate people's minds by entering and controlling their dreams. For whatever odd reason, the book is giving me the creeps, and I can't read more than a handful of pages at a time...

I recently finished Tad Williams' The War of the Flowers and Michael Chabon's Summerland. Ironically enough, both novels were stories of humans stuck in a Faerie world. I don't even read a lot of this stuff, but somehow found myself reading them back to back. And it was amusing to learn of Padfoots and Ferishers in both books, having never heard of either of these types of fairy before.

Both were good, neither were spectacular. But both impressed me enough that I will consder other Williams and Chabon books in the future.

Now I'm reading Neal Asher's The Skinner, a science fiction adventure featuring an out-of-control ecology on a water world, where a virus from predatory leeches makes humans virtually unkillable. It's pretty good and Asher is a competent writer who makes this far-out plot almost plausible, but I am starting to notice that certain "comic-book" elements are starting to creep in.

I should have . . . no, check that. I WILL have this novel finished by next Tuesday - the publication date for Song of Susannah. YAYYYYYYYY.

I just finished Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game. I had heard many times that I should read it and now that I have I'm sorry I waited so long. I enjoyed it very much. I started reading DragonFlight weeks before, but I'm totally bogged down with McCaffrey's use of so many proper names. I hope I can bulldoze my way through the next 30 or 40 pages so I can attempt to understand who and what I've been reading about in the first chapter.

Well In teh last Month I've read :

Eaters of the Dead,
The Fifth Elephant,
Dune,
The Gunslinger,
Lord Fouls' Bane

and now I'm reading Reave the Just and other Tales.

None too suprisingly, I am reading Lord Foul's Bane.

I could see taking a break between the First and Second chronicles, but not between Illearth War and Power that Preserves. I would be going nuts. Draining or not.

Really!!!! Keep going DUUUUUUUDE!!!!

FizbansTalking_Hat wrote:Well I am pretty mcuh done with Illearth War but I've decided to take a bit of a break from Thomas Cov...

Ummm...that...that...that is just wrong...

Don't stop now! ARGH!

Sum sui generis
Vs