Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
When I started through my morning blogroll today, I was amused to see a post on the latest Harry Potter book over at Calpundit Monthly (Warning: Spoilers). Put together with all the other speculation and commentary floating around the Net, this started me thinking about the book some more.
This is not a particularly good idea, as these are not, for me, books that reward deep thought. Whenever I end up thinking about the details of the Potter universe, I end up finding a whole bunch of things that strike me as stupid and annoying, and I wind up thinking less of the series than I did when I started.
In the interest of cutting this (somewhat) short, then, I'm going to bang out a quick booklog post, and move on to other things (I'm halfway through Midnight Tides by Steven Erikson right now, which is just a little bit of a change of pace...). In the interests of politeness, I'll keep the main body as spoiler-free as possible, and put all the spoilery stuff about the ending in comments. That's probably the most interesting bit, so do make sure to look, if you're no longer worried about spoiling the book. I will, of course, be happy to respond to comments here, though I'm going to try to avoid reading much of anything else about the book after I post this.
So, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. It was better than the last volume, that's for sure, though given how little I liked the last book, that's not actually saying much. The hormonal teenager bits are still excruciating, but at least they're not used to drive an idiot plot (a sub-plot in which people act like idiots, yes, but that's not as bad). We're also spared the ham-handed attempts at social satire that marred the previous couple of books-- the new Obligatory Bumbling Professor is another Type who comes in for ridicule, but it's not as irritating as with the tabloid reporter and the horrible educational bureaucrat. There's also some actual movement on the overall series plot, which is good.
Unfortunately, this is all really too little, too late. While this is a much better book than the previous one, it seems like the previous book squandered the last stock of goodwill for the series. For most of the book, this one failed to really hold my attention-- it wasn't a chore to read, or anything, but it wasn't difficult to set it aside to do other things, either. And it was awfully easy to find things to dislike about it on the way through-- things that were intended to be cute and charming (and may have worked that way in the first couple of books) generally came off as irritating.
On a slightly higher level, I thought there were some serious structural problems regarding Chapter 2 and the ending (which I viewed differently than Kate did), and I'm not really thrilled about some of the things the ending sets up for the second book. Detailed thoughts on those problems, and why I'm hoping most fans of the books are wrong about the ending, will follow in the comments.
Posted at 8:01 PM | link | 7 comments
Meeting Expectations, Continued
Two more books that I really can't discuss sensibly in any details:
Mike Carey's The Wolf Beneath the Tree maintains the high quality of the Lucifer series (it's volume 8). There's not much else that can be said about it without massixe spoilers for the earlier volumes.
Whenever the entire arc in complete, I may try to do some full-series wrap-up. Until then, well, if you liked the earlier volumes, you'll like this. If you haven't read the earlier volumes, read them first.
Carl Hiaasen's Skinny Dip is, well, a typical Carl Hiaasen novel. The Good Guys are charming and smart and come out on top, the Bad Guys are stupid and venal and destroying Florida's environment, and their demise is colorfully inventive.
You'll get more of the jokes if you've read his earlier books, but it's also reasonably self-contained. It's a high-quality airport book-- sort of like Elmore Leonard with more noble protagonists.
(Also, I did some minor updating of the template. More substantive posts are coming, really.)
Posted at 9:34 AM | link | no comments
Preaching With Intent to Convert
Over on her LiveJournal, Kate offers a list of books to introduce people to fantasy literature. (This apparently grew out of a discussion elsewhere in LiveJournal space that I never saw.) Her list of books (if you want the reasons, go read her post):
The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien.
Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay.
Finder or War for the Oaks by Emma Bull.
Nine Princes in Amber by Roger Zelazny or Jhereg by Steven Brust.
Last Call by Tim Powers.
Spindle's End by Robin McKinley
Resurrection Man or Mockingbird by Sean Stewart
Sorcery and Cecilia by Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevermer or The Element of Fire by Martha Wells.
Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett.
Tooth and Claw by Jo Walton.
I am, of course, completely unable to resist this sort of thing, and I'm also egotistical enough to put this on my own site, rather than leaving a huge comment in Kate's space. Hence this post.
There are a couple of different ways to approach this sort of thing. Either you can attempt to do a list of books that provide a comprehensive survey of the genre and its sub-genres (more or less what Kate was doing), or you can come up with a list to pitch to a specific subset of non-genre readers. I did the comprehensive survey thing on my other blog, with regard to pop music, but I'm more inclined to do the other version here.
Thus, to make the problem a little more tractable, I'm going to pre-emptively restrict the set of imagined readers-to-be-converted to primarily people who read mainstream fiction, a term which here means "books you find shelved under 'Literature' in your local big-box chain." I'm not going to attempt to pick books that might appeal to people who read romances or mysteries, mostly because I figure those people need less convincing-- if you're buying books in those categories, you've already had to get over the idea that genre fiction has cooties. The people who need to be convinced to read fantasy are the ones who think it's all craptastic D&D knock-offs. (Also, I don't read romances, and only read a specific subset of mysteries, so I can't really speak sensibly about the tastes of those readers... It's not that I read all that much mainstream literary fiction, either, but I feel like I have a slightly better idea what works there.)
I would keep a few of the books from Kate's list: Tigana has already been shown to work well for some English faculty, and Tooth and Claw would probably work pretty well with anyone who has read Victorian fiction. Good Omens is a fine choice as well.
I'd also keep a couple of the authors from Kate's list, but choose different books. For Powers, I'd be somewhat inclined to go with Declare rather than Last Call. Declare is a secret history Cold War spy novel, and nicely mixes supernatural elements with real history and a fairly straightforward spy plot. It's not likely to work for Tom Clancy people, but I think it would be an easy sell to people who read, say, Alan Furst. Last Call covers more important territory in the fantasy landscape, but it's very confusing for the first two-thirds of the book, and might turn some people off.
Of course, with the inexplicable popularity of poker at the moment, it might not be that hard to push on people...
Speaking of poker, I like Steven Brust enough to want to keep one of his books on the list. Unfortunately, Jhereg doesn't really seem like the best choice. It's fundamentally not a terribly deep book, and I'm not sure it would appeal to anybody who wasn't already comfortable with the fantasy genre. The series as a whole has some real depth to it, but the books that might appeal to a more mainstream reader require so much backstory that they can't really be read alone.
A better choice might be Agyar. It plays most of the same games with unreliable first-person narration that the Vlad Taltos books do, but it's much more polished than the early Vlad books, and it's self-contained.
The other author I'd keep is Sean Stewart, only I'd go with his most recent, Perfect Circle, over Mockingbird, for much the same reason that I'd prefer Decalre to Last Call. They're similar sorts of books, in many ways, being family stories set in Texas, but Perfect Circle is a little more restrained, hewing much closer to the territory of mainstream literary fiction. Mockingbird isn't a bad choice, but for the specific task of getting mainstream readers interested, I think Perfect Circle would be slightly better. (To be fair, Kate hasn't read Perfect Circle yet, as far as I know.)
Of the others on Kate's list, I haven't read Sorcery and Cecilia, The Element of Fire, or Spindle's End, so I can hardly recommend them. I like both the Emma Bull books mentioned, but neither of them really feels like the sort of thing I'd recommend to a non-genre reader. I'm tempted to suggest John M. Ford's The Last Hot Time as an alternative, but I suspect that the whole subgenre of Borderlands-style urban fantasy is probably no good.
Things I would push at non-genre readers? Someone in Kate's comments suggested either The Princess Bride or One For the Morning Glory. As William Goldman has a decent reputation as a mainstream writer, I'll give John Barnes the nod. Kate thought the vocabulary might be a problem, but I think it would fit right in with a certain strain of cutely experimental metafiction that already exists in mainstream fiction. The biggest knock against it is probably the fact that he really hasn't written anything else that's remotely similar to it (the soon-to-be-booklogged (really, I swear) Gaudeamus comes closer than anything, but it's not very close), and some of his other books are really pretty dire.
Another suggestion in Kate's comments was Mark Helprin's Winter's Tale, which is a good idea. Helprin is more likely to be found on the Literature shelves than over in the genre fiction ghetto, though, so I'd probably go for John Crowley's Little, Big instead, as Crowley is more closely associated with SF than Helprin. They're very similar books, in many ways-- big stories of sweeping magical transformations, drunk on their own imagery. Crowley's has more concrete ties to existing mythology, and a somewhat tighter focus. They're both books that tend to leave you wondering what happened, but that's not really that big an obstacle.
A somewhat problematic inclusion is Kij Johnson's The Fox Woman. Not because I have any doubts about the book-- it's a fantastic book-- but because I originally thought of lumping it together with Barry Hughart's Bridge of Birds, which kicked off a big spiral of liberal guilt, as if I was just looking for one token non-European book, and so on.
Ignore all that, though. It's a terrific book, rich with detail, and absolutely deserves a place on the list. The fact that it's a non-European story is just a nice bonus.
Including duplicates and slight modifications from Kate's list, that's nine books. The tenth is the real problem-- Kate has The Lord of the Rings in that last spot, but I don't think it's a sure thing for people who normally read modern literary novels. It can work for some people, but there's not a lot of overlap between the virtues of Tolkien's work and the virtues of modern literary novels.
Of course, leaving it off means that there's nothing on the list in the "epic fantasy" sort of vein, which runs afoul of a sort of residual desire to span the whole fantasy genre. It's a big omission, because whatever nasty things people may say about "Extruded Fantasy Product" and the like, it's a very big part of the genre as it exists today. And it's really, really hard to come up with any other epic fantasy to recommend.
But then, on reflection, it's probably not that bad a thing to just leave it out. After all, if there's a subgenre of fantasy more likely to confirm all the worst prejudices of mainstream fiction readers, I'm not sure what it would be (are "Magic: The Gathering" tie-in novels a subgenre?). Fundamentally, it's just not an area of fantasy that's likely to appeal to someone who isn't already inclined toward that sort of thing.
And, really, if you were setting out to try to get an SF reader to read mainstream fiction, it'd be idiotic to give them the sort of deadly-dull books that they probably hated in high school (Ethan Frome or whatever). If you want to get a SF reader to see some redeeming qualities in mainstream fiction, you should give them books that are closer in spirit to SF-- Chabon, Lethem, Pynchon, some Tom Robbins, that sort of thing. You'd start with the "mainstream" side of "slipstream," and go from there. How do I know this? Because that's how I got back into reading some mainstream novels.
So large-scale epic fantasy is a write-off. OF course, that leaves the list sort of heavy on modern-world fantasy, without much in the way of your classic knights and dragons sort of stuff, which shouldn't bother me, but does. So I'd probably go for filling that last slot with something like Dunsany's The King of Elfland's Daughter. It's not really much of a modern novel, either, but it's got a much different feel than Tolkien, in a way that it seems to me might be more effective for people who don't like more traditional genre fantasy.
Ask me again in a week, and I'd probably come up with a completely different list, but that's a place to start, anyway.
Posted at 9:36 PM | link | [ hide comments ]
You probably should feel bad about leaving out the large-scale epic fantasy...well, except not, since there's no moral imperative in making up these lists, so I guess you really shouldn't feel one way or another in particular. Let me start over again..
Much of this depends on the framing criteria of your list. You explicitely note that you're more interested in the "gateway drug" theory of list formation, and maybe on that theory you're right that sweeping epic fantasy may not be the best hook for literary fiction types. On the other, "survey of sub-types" theory, though, as I tried to sort of point out at Kate's, I think you could could well make several defensible categories out of the "sweeping epic fantasy" group.
At any rate, I think new readers could do worse than getting turned on to Martin's Song of Ice and Fire, Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen, Bakker's Prince of Nothing, even Carey's Kushiel series . Nor do I think the fact that none of those series (except Carey's) are finished yet is an argument against possible inclusion...it may even argue in favor if we're looking for a gateway drug approach. Get 'em hooked an make them want more.
The subjectivity of my comment should be obvious, of course. I'm pimping for the big epics because that's the sort of thing I like, if they're well done. Bad epic fantasy is like a fork to the eyeball, of course, but then as far as I'm concerned, so is bad several-other-sub-genres.
I'm rambling, so I'll stop now.
Trent Goulding, 07.21.2005, 6:20pm | permalink
No mainstream reader could ever read Erikson. Even with Kay, the number one complaint I get from non-genre readers is, "They all have those silly names..."
Mike Kozlowski, 07.22.2005, 12:59am | permalink
Trent: On the other, "survey of sub-types" theory, though, as I tried to sort of point out at Kate's, I think you could could well make several defensible categories out of the "sweeping epic fantasy" group.
Possibly.
For that sort of list, though, larger groupings are better.
At any rate, I think new readers could do worse than getting turned on to Martin's Song of Ice and Fire, Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen, Bakker's Prince of Nothing, even Carey's Kushiel series.
On the "gateway drug" side of things, Martin might have an infinitesimal chance of success, but the writing is frequently inelegant, and the story is complicated enough that I think you need to have some feel for the epic genre already to really appreciate it.
Erikson is hopeless. Even long-term epic fantasy readers find it difficult to figure out what's going on in the early books, and the names are unbelievably daft. I mean, Midnight Tides lists a character named "Ublala Pung"...
I haven't read Carey or Bakker.
Really, Tolkien is the best bet, being both epic and relatively small-scale, but LotR has been ripped off so thoroughly and pervasively that I think it's likely to cause bad reactions. In sort of the same way that people can complain that Tolkien isn't as good as, say, Terry Brooks, I could see non-genre readers thinking that it's just too similar to the cheesey D&D-inspired crap that they think is all of fantasy.
Nor do I think the fact that none of those series (except Carey's) are finished yet is an argument against possible inclusion...it may even argue in favor if we're looking for a gateway drug approach. Get 'em hooked an make them want more.
I'm very leery of recommending unfinished series, having been badly burned by Dan Simmons and Orson Scott Card, and a host of others. It really is possible to write a book so bad that it retroactively damages the books that came before it.
Of the authors you list above, Erikson might be the safest, since the Malazan books are self-contained enough that you could easily read the first handful, and not feel cheated by not knowing the rest of the story. It's not even entirely clear to me what the overall plot is, a hundred pages into the fifth book (in which he appears to have decided to re-boot the entire series on a completely new continent...).
Chad Orzel, 07.22.2005, 8:02am | permalink
I thought I'd posted a similar list for science fiction to Usenet many years ago, but it appears that I decided not to post it because the discussion was turning into one about the Necessary Canon, which wasn't something I wanted to get into. That's the problem with these lists; you have to be careful that your gateway drug samples don't turn into Necessary Canon, and belittle rather than attract outsiders in the manner of all that awful jabber about "cultural literacy" in the early 1990s. It's important to convey the idea that if you don't in fact like the first thing on the list that you try, it's still worthwhile to try some of the others, and that this isn't some sort of obligatory chore you have to do to join the club.
Matt McIrvin, 07.22.2005, 9:26am | permalink
Actual conversation this morning in Chateau Steelypips:
KATE: By the way, Trent is on crack.
CHAD: . . . and here I always thought he was such a nice boy.
Which is to say, I wouldn't give someone I was hoping to convert to fantasy "A Song of Fire and Ice" either (even if they were big War of the Roses fans, I'd try them on _The Dragon Waiting_ before that, and I know full well that's a dubious proposition).
As for Chad's list, belatedly:
I just don't think _Declare_ is as good as _Last Call_, though it's been a while since I read _Last Call_ and so I might well be misremembering how confusing it is at the start. My recollection of _Declare_, however, is that the big finish . . . isn't, which made it kind of disappointing. However, you may be right that it's a better choice for thriller-ish types.
My admiration for _Agyar_ is of course boundless. I wasn't thinking of it because it's dark snark rather than happy snark, but for the audience you're going for (rather than my hypothetical plural audiences), it would probably do very well.
You're right, I haven't got around to _Perfect Circle_ yet.
KATE: By the way, Trent is on crack.
CHAD: . . . and here I always thought he was such a nice boy.
It's really distressing. I mean, he seemed so respectable, but here he is, doing crack and pimping epic fantasy...
I just don't think _Declare_ is as good as _Last Call_, though it's been a while since I read _Last Call_ and so I might well be misremembering how confusing it is at the start. My recollection of _Declare_, however, is that the big finish . . . isn't, which made it kind of disappointing. However, you may be right that it's a better choice for thriller-ish types.
I don't remember having a problem with the ending of Declare, but it was lacking in pyrotechnics. The problem with Last Call is that there's a whole bunch of magical card-playing early on, and then a big chunk of the middle where all the characters join the reader in trying to figure out what the hell just happened.
My admiration for _Agyar_ is of course boundless. I wasn't thinking of it because it's dark snark rather than happy snark, but for the audience you're going for (rather than my hypothetical plural audiences), it would probably do very well.
I prefer the Vlad series, as a whole, to Agyar, but the first few Vlad books are pretty squarely aimed at a genre audience. I think Brust is a writer that mainstream readers could probably enjoy, but I don't think Jhereg is the place for them to start.
(My AP English teacher did enjoy To Reign in Hell, though. At least, she never returned it...)
Chad Orzel, 07.23.2005, 9:47am | permalink
I like the bit in Last Call with all the characters trying to figure out what happened. As I mentioned in a subsub comment somewhere on Kate's livejournal, I've also gotten positive returns from of all things THE SCAR from a friend who mostly reads mainstream Iain Banks type stuff
Tom Scudder, 07.23.2005, 1:30pm | permalink
No such list is complete without a Swanwick and a McKillip, IMO. I've never read Spindle's End, but I think Sunshine is a very good McKinley. If they like Harry Potter-type stuff, maybe Sabriel and sequels by Nix? And, if you don't want to put in Bridge of Birds, I will.
Aaron, 07.23.2005, 4:53pm | permalink
If you're looking to confirm suspicions, Baen puts out some military fantasy that's pretty dreadful -- Elizabeth Moon's Pakesenarrion books, for instance. (For me, they work to confirm my stereotype of Baen books; for someone unfamiliar with the genre, they might ruin all of fantasy.)
Mike Kozlowski, 07.21.2005, 6:00pm | permalink