Books

For those of you who can stand being held in suspense for years at a time, I'd highly recommend The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. It is, as far as I know, his first and only novel. All I can say is he better hurry up and write more. Only don't hurry too much--I wouldn't want him to slide one hair below the bar he's set himself with this marvelous debut.

NPR has recently put out a list of the top 100 sci fi and fantasy books, with a fantastically funny flowchart to go with it. The Name of the Wind made the list, as did several others that have me held in suspense: George R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series and, somewhat paradoxically, the stand alone novel Sunshine by Robin McKinley. McKinley doesn't write sequels. The closest she ever came was to write two books in the same world...about 1000 years apart. So our chances of a sequel to Sunshine seem low. But I want one. It leaves so much unsaid. It is brilliant and beautiful and mesmerizing. I read it by flashlight, an annoying flashlight that would stutter out every few minutes and I would have to wind it up again and give it a shake. I was exhausted, camping, at Pensic for the first time, and still I read by flashlight deep into the night every night. And then it left me hanging with a thousand questions unanswered.

I think about my own muses, the muses for my novels, the muses for my SCA composing of poetry and songs, even the muses for my clamorous rpg characters. I have cried out for inspiration many a time and will many more times, especially this year. But for once, I would like to petition the muses on someone else's behalf: go give Robin McKinley the inspiration she needs for a brilliant beautiful sequel to Sunshine.

All told, I've read 32 of those top 100 sff books, and am familiar with another 26 or so through movies and articles about them. A few of those 32 are cheats: I've read Dune and heard through oral tradition much of the rest of the series and watched the miniseries covering the next 2 or 3 books, but by no means have I read the whole series. But I think even most fans of the series would agree that the original Dune is the core of it, the best.

I've been thinking about how I would go about judging the "best" books in a given catagory. I think my criteria would have to include: intelligence of the writing, emotional pull of the tale/characters, style points, and that entirely subjective element of whether I ultimately "liked" it. For example, I read China Mieville's The Scar which is intelligent, tightly written, and has some emotional pull, but mixed thickly with the emotional pull is emotional repulsion which is ultimately the stronger force. After I finished, I felt that I had read a "good" book, but that I didn't "like" it. Much as I feel repulsed by the intelligent beautifully written Othello or the Changeling from Renaissance literature.

It's not that they have to end well. I loved Jacqueline Carey's Sundering duology, which did for Tolkien's tropes what Paradise Lost did for Genesis. It is epic tragedy by genre; you know it can't end well. She twists the dagger again and again. But it is intelligent, the emotion draw is superb, the style is exquisite...and I can't help but love it despite the inevitable tears. I'm more likely to reread the Kushiel books, where the tears are in the middle more than the ends of the books, but I can't not love the Sundering books for all that.

And there are books that score highly enough in other categories that I can forgive a dip in one. Snow Crash never had me terribly emotionally engaged. I didn't dislike Hero Protagonist or YT, but nor was I terribly attached to them. Nevertheless, it was a tightly written witty well-crafted romp and I enjoyed it immensely. I can't help but agree with its placement in the top 100 despite my usual preference for character-driven books.

But the books that didn't make their list that would make mine would be Martha Wells (Fall of Ile-Rien series as well as pretty much anything she's written), Elizabeth Hayden's Symphony of Ages (that first trilogy was great; the later books still good though not quite as much so.). And I'd have to put in Sorcery and Cecelia or The Enchanted Chocolate Pot: Being the Correspondence of Two Young Ladies of Quality Regarding Various Magical Scandals in London and the Country. Doesn't the title just say it all?
ss

Mistress Music

Music is a proud, temperamental mistress. Give her the time and attention she deserves, and she is yours. Slight her and there will come a day when you call and she will not answer. So I began sleeping less to give her the time she needed.

As the incipient Bard of the Mists and one who is already not getting enough sleep, I admit this quote filled me with a sort of resonant horror.