Dilvish, the Damned/The Changing Land

Dilvish the Damned was not written as a novel; it’s a collection of linked stories featuring the same protagonist. The framing device reads as episodic, as we skip what would be major plot points in another novel. 

Each “chapter” of Dilvish, the Damned begins in media res – since these are all linked short stories, we get a “novel” with the device of significant events being elided. One story will be looking towards overcoming a particular obstacle – and then the story afterwards will be set after the obstacle has been overcome. It’s less a novel than a linked series of vignettes. It works, but it’s not quite a unique enough device to not make me wish that the story was more conventionally told.

The Changing Land is set as a sequel to Dilvish, the Damned, and is written as a novel, so it’s a little less frustrating to follow. It’s essentially a dungeon crawl, which is both kind of cool and, given Zelazny’s inclusion on the recommend reading list to the initial Dungeons & Dragons, unsurprising.

Dilvish is your typical Zelazny protagonist – hypercompetent, wisecracking, notorious. If the first novel hadn’t grown out of short stories, I’d question whether he really needs two novels devoted to his arc. Not that the novels aren’t fun – they certainly are, even if they’re markedly different in tone and pacing.

The ending of each book is a little disappointing, and almost makes me wish that Dilvish hadn’t gotten a resolution, and that Zelazny had continued to flesh out the world.

The Buried Giant

One of the perks of being a respected author is that you don't wind up in the fantasy ghetto, even if you write what looks like a fantasy novel. I would argue that The Buried Giant, while set in a fantasy world, isn't so much a fantasy novel as it is an allegory; for memory, and for a long-term relationship.

The Buried Giant plays with Arthurian legend, but just as scaffolding; the story could be set in any other country, with another set of mythology. The real story here is between the aged married couple, Axl and Beatrice (which, as our author notes "[p]erhaps these were not their exact or full names, but for ease, this is how we will refer to them.") Our story begins with Axl and Beatrice in their village, where they are disrespected and mistreated, so they decide to journey to their son's village, despite having little memory of him, where the village is, or if he'd be happy to see them.

Axl and Beatrice (as well as nearly everyone else we encounter in the story) have problems with memory; events that occur mere hours earlier fade in people's minds, and events of a few weeks ago are all but gone, unless prompted by others. Why and how is slowly revealed over the course of the story, as Axl and Beatrice travel their (limited) world, in search of their son's village (which is described as a few day's walk away).

I read a review which describes The Buried Giant as "Game of Thrones with a conscience," which I can't agree with; this isn't a large, lush, fleshed out fantasy world, and Ishiguro isn't given to exposition dumps. Information is hinted at before being stated outright, and some things never do get stated or explained. This is done to underscore the fragility and transience of memory, even through the (foreshadowed and ambiguous) ending.

I think I'd like to revisit this again at some point -- a second look might make some things clearer.

The Six-Gun Tarot

I was recommended The Six-Gun Tarot by an AV Club review some time ago, and I'm glad I picked it up. It's a fun Western fantasy set in a world much like ours, but not quite. (Actually, it almost feels like it is set in our world, just with Golgotha soaking up all the fantasy elements before they get to the rest of us.)

Golgotha is a very hodgepodge Western fantasy setting; there's a Chinatown, Mormons, Indian legends, other religious trappings, heads in jars, a member of an ancient order of assassins, and some sort of Lovecraftian horror. That sounds kitchen sink-y as all hell, and it's a credit to Belcher that he pulls it off.

Some criticisms: the book feels almost episodic, in an in-media-res sense -- characters will refer to a wacky or supernatural event from the past, and it'll be just brushed aside. With juggling many characters and arcs, some of them can get a little bogged down. I'm not sure how I feel about the treatment of women here; there's one character whose entire life story feels like a tragedy, and another who feels like she never quite got where the author wanted her to go.

All in all, this is a fun fantasy novel that doesn't drag too much and is worth checking out.

McSweeney's 45

It's another anthology from McSweeney's, with dueling (ok, alternating) tales from a Bradbury anthology and a Hitchcock anthology. Some of them are classics (Bradbury's "The Pedestrian"), some are tediously long (Lucille Fletcher and Allan Ullman's "Sorry, Wrong Number"), one is out-of-place (John Cheever's "The Enormous Radio", while an excellent story, just doesn't quite feel like it belongs in here).

China Mieville's "The Design" is excellent and really impressed me, and Brian Evenson's "The Dust" certainly feels like it could be in a 50s/60s anthology. Kafka's "In the Penal Colony" is both terrifying and awful (and the machine described therein is featured in Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun). Julian May's "Dune Roller" is an example of a really worthwhile story I was previously unfamiliar with (more than likely because Hitchcock, rather than Bradbury, picked it, but it certainly could have been a Bradbury pick). In contrast, Benjamin Percy's "Suicide Woods" doesn't belong in here, both because it has little in common with the other stories in the anthology, and because it has far too much in common with stories in other McSweeney's anthologies. I feel like I've read it a dozen times previously, and that's not a good thing, either for it or those other stories.

Overall, recommended. Even the stories I was less than thrilled with are page turners (and as far as page turners, the last story enclosed here is terrifying, and has a lot in common with a favorite, Alfred Bester's "Fondly Fahrenheit.")

I read the concluding three books of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series more or less over a long weekend; these final three were completed by Brandon Sanderson, as Jordan died before he was able to finish them. While I wasn't overfond of Jordan's style, I was skeptical of having someone else finish a long series. Luckily, Sanderson doesn't descend into a Jordan pastiche.

Probably the biggest difference between Jordan and Sanderson (although perhaps this is a function of the fact that the series is ending) is that stuff happens. These books simply aren't the moving-the-characters-as-chess-pieces that some of the earlier ones are, since the characters can only move so far. A Memory of Light is action practically start-to-finish, and the other books keep a decent pace, as well. That said, there are a few down points; there's one character who gets the same treatment Jordan gave him (Hey, remember this guy? He's still out there in the world, being ominous, but not doing much else)

Still, I got what I paid for -- fantasy action in a Manichean world. I don't think the series has aged well, or (more likely), I've aged past it, but I don't blame that on Sanderson -- I felt the pacing here was better than Jordan's. Worth picking up if you were curious how everything would end.

Lords and Ladies

Terry Pratchett's Lords and Ladies is one part of an extensive series (thirty eight total novels, according to Wikipedia), but I was able to read it as a stand alone novel, without being familiar with the rest of the series, or its extensive mythology. This is a major point in its favor, as many series can be impenetrable if the reader isn't familiar with the basic premise and previous plotting.

Lords and Ladies is pretty standard comic fantasy (although Pratchett is one of the originators of the genre, so maybe that's not a totally fair criticism) with witches, elves, dwarves, trolls, wizards, and a jester who has become king. The conflicts are predictable, but the resolution not quite so. A worthwhile way to spend some time, although I have little desire to read the rest of the series. (It is, however, a comforting thought that if I were struck so, it would not take me an inordinate amount of time).