Only in silence the word,
Only in dark the light,
Only in dying life:
Bright the hawk's flight on the empty sky.
The girls and I saw Tales from Earthsea a couple of weeks ago. I was worried that it would be rubbish; there's always that concern when your favourite literature is transferred to another medium. I was relieved to find that it wasn't terrible. It wasn't great, mind you - I'm not sure why they cut 'n' shut two of the books together or why they transferred just about everything to dry land. And why were all the characters so bloody white? But they did seem to get the feel of the piece about right.
It's got me re-reading what will always be the Earthsea trilogy in my heart, though there's actually now five novels and a book and a bit of short stories. Sheer poetry.
Its not that usual for me to like this kind of stuff. Now, this is a big admission for a nerd to make, but with a few exceptions I hate the whole fantasy genre. It tends to be derivative, cliché ridden, populated with 2 dimensional characters, and horribly predictable. Most of it could have been written by a half smart computer program.
The exceptions? Earthsea, The Lord of the Rings, Gormenghast, and His Dark Materials. Oh, and I didn't mind a spot of Midkemia in my youth, not if I didn't want anything to exercise the mind too hard.
Talking of His Dark Materials, I'll be trying to get to The Golden Compass this weekend if I can too. I'll let you know.
Posted to Books and magazines by Simon Brunning at December 05, 2007 01:57 PMThere are a list of books that you should read...no really, books that break the idea that this genre is full of bad writers. More later.
I'm not with you on Phillip Pullman. And speaking of books kids should read, Tamora Pierce and Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events. Of course there are others.
Posted by: Annabel on December 5, 2007 02:33 PMWhile I'm more than happy to believe that there are other good writers in the genre, writers I've not come across, I'm unlikely to change my mind about the fact that there are loads of rubbish ones.
I've read a bit of Lemony Snicket to the kids. I quite liked it - never really considered it fantasy, though. Don't know Tamora Pierce - I'll look into her. As it were.
Posted by: Simon on December 5, 2007 02:44 PMI've always had a sweet spot for everything LeGuin writes, and Earthsea is no exception. That said, I haven't seen Tales from Earthsea yet - I made the mistake of seeing the other Earthsea TV movie a while back... But it's good to hear this isn't as abysmal.
I gotta admit I'm very fond of Stephen Donaldson's fantasy. Both The chronicles of Thomas Covenant and Mordant's Need mixes traditional fantasy cliche's with some quite heavy material.
Posted by: Ola Bini on December 5, 2007 03:49 PMOne I'd add to the list would be Robin Hobb. Her fantasy is defintiely not standard fare. It has an interesting viewpoint, not that of the hero or the villain, as is traditional in most fantasy, and is pretty good because of it.
Her first three trilogies, the Farseer Trilogy, the Liveship Traders Trilogy and the Tawny Man Trilogy, are all based in the same world and should be read in that order, though they are only very loosely connected. If the first book (Assassin's Apprentice) doesn't entince you, the rest won't either.
That being said, I don't particularly like her latest trilogy, the Soldier Son trilogy, and wouldn't reccommend it. This is much like Feist: I loved Magician, but found his later books to be a not particularly enticing read. I still occasionally reread Magician, though.
Posted by: Moof on December 6, 2007 08:10 PM