Current Reading - February 2020
I have not actually finished any of the books from my January reading update, but I have made good progress on most of them. Ben Elton’s Time and Time Again really went off the rails once I picked it up again, so I am especially curious to see where it ends.
I am about two-thirds of the way through The Last Wish and am still enjoying it. In the meantime, I finished the first season of The Witcher, and parts of the television series follow the book remarkably closely—for better or worse.
The stories are full of references to classical fairy tales. These can be entertaining, but they also introduce a certain silliness that makes the material difficult to take entirely seriously. In many ways, the stories remind me of classic pulp adventures. That, too, can be either a strength or a weakness, depending on what you expect from them.
Most of my reading time over the last few weeks has been taken up by Brandon Sanderson’s The Way of Kings. I had heard a great deal about Sanderson but had never got around to reading anything by him.
The Way of Kings is epic fantasy in the most literal sense: a very large book, a large cast and a world carrying the weight of a long and complicated history. The story initially limits itself to a relatively small number of viewpoints, which works well for me. Too many viewpoint characters can make even an interesting story feel fragmented and difficult to follow.
The worldbuilding and mythology are compelling, but what interests me most is the role of history. The past does not merely decorate the setting; it appears to shape the conflicts, beliefs and misunderstandings of the present. I like stories that do not exist entirely in the now. Connecting past and present makes both the narrative and the world feel more alive.
The Tor hardcover runs to more than a thousand pages, but the story feels remarkably fast-paced. The initially separate viewpoints come together effectively in the final part of the novel, and despite its size, the book does not feel especially bloated.
That is not always true of epic fantasy. There are plenty of series that begin with the same apparent control and then fail spectacularly to sustain it, either in length or pacing. After this first book, however, I was impressed and curious to see whether Sanderson could keep all the pieces together as the series expanded.
After finishing The Way of Kings, I wanted something entirely different. In this case, “reading” is perhaps not quite the right word, because I chose an audiobook.
Those who know me know that Steven Brust is one of my absolute favourite authors. I had generally bought his books as they appeared from around the time I caught up with the Vlad Taltos series at Issola.
For some reason, however, I never got around to Vallista, then the most recent Vlad Taltos novel. Perhaps limited shelf space played a role, or perhaps it was because I had not enjoyed the preceding books quite as much as the earlier ones.
Either way, Brust is an excellent storyteller, and I wanted to discover how the series worked in audio. Since I was already in the mood for more Vlad Taltos, Vallista seemed the obvious choice.
The larger story had not moved forward dramatically in the preceding books, but that is not primarily why I read the series. I return for Brust’s wit, narrative voice and the relationship between Vlad and Loiosh.
I am about a third of the way through the audiobook and am not disappointed. Bernard Setaro Clark narrates it, and his Loiosh is excellent. If you have not yet discovered Steven Brust, you have a great deal to look forward to.
Years later, I returned more fully to my changing relationship with the series in Returning to Dragaera.
As always, I hope to return with another reading update in a week or two, although the better part of a month is probably more realistic. These posts are already becoming less a schedule than a record of whichever book managed to ambush me next.
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