Donnie Darko explained

I’m a bit late watching this movie, but here it is (if you haven’t watched this sci-fi movie you’ll have no idea of what I’m talking about).

The movie can only be understood through the online material. Here’s a starting point:

Like life, and much of Wolfe’s work, Donnie Darko can only be seen forward, but only understood looking backwards.

That said, the semi-official FAQ doesn’t really explain everything, and about those parts that don’t make sense it simply states: “this is open to interpretation”. Nope. It’s open to interpretation because you didn’t get it. Heh.

The real explanation comes from here.

This is my own paraphrase. EVERYTHING makes sense, is consistent, explained and never forced. There isn’t anything ambiguous.

First thing: the real theme of the movie is the demonstration of the existence of god. Which is the element that ties together all the plot threads.

Postulate: the space-time is an entity trying to preserve itself the same as all organisms do. It can happen that the system has a crisis, and the entity has means to counter and solve this crisis, the same way an human body develops antibodies and can heal wounds. Trying to preserve itself.

The space/time anomaly in the movie, generating the Tangent Timeline, is not caused by someone, or the random actions of someone, or weird super-powers. It is not due to something related to the characters in the movie. It is simply a natural phenomenon, like the fall of a meteorite. So the characters in the movies aren’t “special” by any means. They are simply caught in the anomaly. This is important.

Now. The anomaly is a danger for the integrity of the space/time entity. In the same way it happens to a human body if it doesn’t heal, if the anomaly persists for too long, the space/time sort of “collapses”. So the situation needs to be fixed within a set maximum time-frame.

The anomaly has also an epicenter. All those who are caught near the anomaly become the “antibodies” of the system. This means that ALL characters in the movie are “zombies”, lead by a greater will (space/time). If you could “interview” antibodies they wouldn’t say who they are, what is their function and so on. Because they operate unknowingly, unconsciously. They are simply manipulated. Unaware. They have illusion of life and conscience, but they can’t choose or really live.

This creates two groups. From a side, everyone in the village, the manipulated, zombie ones. From the other, our hero, Donnie Darko.

There’s one main difference. The manipulated ones have no real “conscience”, as they are manipulated, and have no special powers. While Donnie Darko has special powers (that allow him to fix the time anomaly and “save the world”) but also has the freedom of choice. This means that the manipulated ones, being just puppets, are lead by an all-knowing hand. So an hand who knows how to fix things. While Donnie Darko has conscience, but no knowledge.

So. Manipulated ones, who know how, but don’t have the power to. And Donnie Darko, who has the power to, but doesn’t know how.

The WHOLE movie is about (subject) the manipulated ones trying to induce Donnie Darko to do his task. A tutorial. They will try to make Donnie Darko do it. Force to do it. Induce.

Most of the plot in the movie is pure, awesome Deus ex machina revealed. Making all sort of things happen just to induce Donnie to do something.

For example: why the old crazy woman goes every day to check her letter box? Common answer: because she knows something, so she goes to check if a letter about that something arrives.

Nope. That woman is a zombie like everyone else. She checks the letter box to induce another character to say “someone should write her”, to then induce Donnie Darko to do it. This letter being sent would then, at the end of the movie, induce the old woman to find the letter, and start to read it in the middle of the road. Who consequently induces a car to arrive, dodge the woman in the middle of the road and kill Donnie’s own girl.

Why Donnie’s girl dies? To induce, once again, to make him do his task. Death and life of zombies don’t matter. What matters is simply persuade Donnie. Push him to “do the right thing”. That is: using his powers to fix the anomaly and save the world (so preserving the time/space self-preserving entity).

This introduces the theme of god. Donnie can see the future movement of people (the translucent tentacle coming out the chest). So he speaks with his teacher. Meaning: if I can see the future, then it means things are already determined before they happen. So this means that there is god, as someone who makes those choices and sets the plan. BUT. If, I, Donnie Darko can see where they will go, so having the power to *change* it, then who am I? What happens if I don’t do what they tell me (save the world)?

Teacher reply: I cannot answer because… (stupid reason). Of course he cannot. This is a scene about Donnie Darko (god’s tool) asking god (a manipulated one) what happens if he doesn’t do what the god asked him to do. Of course god can’t answer that. Taboo.

So, again, the movie is about Donnie Darko’s internal conflict: do I do it, or not? Do I fulfill my role or not?

In the scenes with the psychologist, Donnie says he:
1- Knows there’s time limit, so that things aren’t going to last. Something is going to happen (end of the world).
2- He doesn’t want to die alone.

He knows that when the time is come (the maximum time limit of the Tangent Universe), he will be alone. Him and his vision/tutorial (Frank/god). He will be alone because he knows that the he will have to make the choice alone. To do his task or not.

Added element. Everything that happens in the Tangent Universe isn’t in any way “normal”. It’s simply the realization of Donnie’s own wishes. He finds a girl, fucks her, is handsome, is intelligent, has success with everyone, kicks various asses. He’s basically badass all around, a winner.

NOT because Donnie’s really badass. But because that’s his own wish. He’s got powers. He has the power to realize all he wants. So he actually LOVES this Tangent, unstable Universe. Because everything is great for him.

This also explains a part that is rarely understood. There’s a point where Frank tells him (before he teaches him how to do his task, by opening a wormhole in the movie theatre):
Donnie: “Why do you wear that stupid bunny suit?”
Frank: “Why are you wearing that stupid man suit?”

Now, it makes sense asking someone *why* he’s wearing a bunny suit. Because there’s a choice, so a reason. While it doesn’t make sense to ask someone *why* he wears a man suit. Because it’s not a choice. You are born with it.

What Frank implies there is: nope, Donnie. You’re not just a man. You’re past that. You’ve got powers. You can be whatever you want. Why are you still sitting here, pretending to have a normal life (wearing a man suit)?

That’s the transition. Frank is “teaching” Donnie who he really is (god’s tool to do a task, with super-powers and all). In fact shortly after he teaches Donnie how to use his power to fix the anomaly.

Donnie has the choice. To recognize god and complete the task. Or still cling to his pretty but ephemeral life. Denying god.

Why does Donnie Darko die at the end of the movie?

To begin with, he has the choice to live. He could complete the task and still live. The task doesn’t require Donnie’s death. It only requires Donnie to “give back” his pretty ideal life, as that Tangent Universe would be “sealed”, solving the anomaly (god, aka the space/time entity, would cheer at this point).

So why he decides to die? It’s quite simple. As written above, he’s scared to die alone. He’s scared to follow Frank/god’s order and give up at least part of his life. But when he finally accepts the task, he also accepts the existence of god. He seconds the greater will, so he *affirms* it. By doing so, he’s not alone anymore.

He basically passed the test. Accepted god. Hence he transcends his own being. By doing what he does he didn’t *have to* die. But he’s so “past it” that his mortal body, girlfriend, family and EVERYTHING he cared about, are now pretty useless. He’s beyond. He recognized god and doesn’t need anymore a mortal life and body. Stopped to care about the ephemeral stuff of everyday’s life.

OR. He’s betrayed. Used as a tool, induced to believe he’s transcended. Induced to kill himself after his task was complete. Either you believe in god, rewarding people who comply. Or you believe in the space/time entity who operates to simply preserve itself. Kinda selfishly. And once the tool is used, it is tossed away and killed. Making the tool believe that he’s got a much better life.

Either you believe in god as a generous entity. Or you believe in god as a manipulative one. Or just a living entity preserving and caring for itself. Discarding parts of itself, as a process, same as we shed cells during our own life cycle.

The movie obviously stops there. It doesn’t show what happens if the anomaly isn’t fixed (it’s just the space/time entity making people believe that things would go very wrong if the anomaly wasn’t fixed. But maybe only selfishly). It doesn’t show what happens to Donnie’s “life” past death.

Quite a wonderful movie-idea. One of the most ambitious ever.

Problem is, the movie doesn’t provide the tools to understand itself. You have to read stuff online, read the “solution”. I think it would have been much better if these arguments were also real themes *IN* the movie. Instead of outside of it.

The Shadow of the Torturer – Gene Wolfe

I’ll start quoting another review:

An Earth of the far future; a post-technological society living on the ruins of the past; ancient guilds with arcane rituals and origins lost in antiquity; cold and casual depictions of torture… Gene Wolfe describes all of these things in magnificent and luscious detail. Unfortunately, this takes up so much space that there isn’t room for a plot.

On a forum recently I wrote that I’ve never been so close to the end of a book without having a clear opinion about it. In fact I could write two reviews, one full of praises and another as harsh criticism. I still don’t know whether I liked the book or not, but I can say I was intrigued.

In a way the impression it made on me is a mix of Lovecraft and Gaiman’s Sandman. It’s nowhere a classic fantasy setting, or even a classic tale. It is… weird, shady, full of convoluted, self-referential symbolism. I could say that the book builds a barrier between the fictional world and the reader. Either you are able to pass it, and get sucked in, or you bounce back, and you’ll never understand what’s so special about it. I somewhat sat on that edge and took a peek at what’s beyond, but without really getting into it completely.

That quote from the review is symbolically important exactly because it underlines a main trait, and what I expect to be a typical reaction to the book. It is baffling because you pass time reading with the hope to find… something. A development, or a direction that turns what you read before into something meaningful. You read and expect a build-up. Toward something. But you keep reading, and waiting, this something never arrives. You turn the last page and you wonder: so what?

There’s no resolution. This is just a first book in a series, so you don’t even expect that kind of resolution, but at least you expect something, somewhere. A direction. A point. You expect a plot driven by something, but as that quote says, you keep reading and you don’t find anything. So is this book completely empty of meaning?

Nope, on the contrary. But that meaning isn’t where you usually look for it. There’s no plot, no direction, no resolution. Characters are ghosts, the events are entirely disconnected and improbable, there’s no logic sense or flow whatsoever. Yet the book is full of meaning. It just isn’t where you are looking. It’s not in what is written, the black of the text. It’s instead in the white between the lines. The place where you don’t usually look for things.

The content in the book will be only accessible if you got a key to decipher it. Many readers, with typical expectations, will glide over this kind of book and find nothing. They aren’t to blame as the writer surely didn’t care about them, and didn’t try to make his book accessible. In my case I fell in the first group, keep on reading with the hope of finding a key somewhere, then started reading forums and websites and finally got some clues about where to look.

That’s the risk with this book, that you read it without knowing where to look, or expecting something that never arrives. So what is this all about? It is about the two levels. One is the surface, the denotative level. What things are explicitly. So the plot, what happens, the dialogues, the descriptions. And then there’s the symbolic level. What things represent. This book is filled with this kind of superstructure. It’s weighed by it and, in fact, it’s not an easy read. It’s terribly twisted, convoluted and alien. It is not simple because you have to move there and understand a way of thinking that may be so far from yours.

Where the book becomes extraordinary is in its internal consistency. This book isn’t a tale. It represents instead the head of its narrator. It’s written in first person and it is the mind of Severian of the Torturers. In order to read it you have to enter his mind. And his mind doesn’t work as common minds. Everything you “see” is filtered through Severian eyes. You don’t see the world in its “correct” representation, but as personal interpretation.

And here comes the main theme of the book: deception. The writer, the god of this world, making things as he wants, lies. So you have to look past this curtain. You have to look between the lines. From a side you have to understand the wicked mind of Severian, his twisted, paradoxical way of thinking, enter into it, from the other side you have to tear it apart to understand the blind point. Where he is lying. Where he is moving the pieces and for what kind of reason.

This is why most of the book come as an enlightenment. As an epiphany. You read dumbly and somewhere you see glimpses of light. How often depends on your affinity with the writer, because as I said Gene Wolfe doesn’t really care whether you get it or not. He isn’t writing for you, he is writing for his peers.

It’s also no wonder that this book generated so much speculation. It lives past the text as what makes it unique is what beyond the text. Your own (and other readers) speculations. What makes interesting discuss the book instead of simply reading it as a direct experience. So you enjoy it with this kind of delay.

Even in this case what makes it great is the internal consistency and hidden layers that make it deep and complex. That is typical of this kinds of “worlds”. That go past the medium itself. The mythos. This book generated its own mythos that survives the book itself and that is as deep as you decide to dig.

You decide whether you want to lose yourself into it, or if this kind of commitment isn’t for you. Sure is that Wolfe requires a kind of total attention that no other entertainment medium requires today. It will remain in history as one of those things that less and less people manage to understand and love, but with an heart special and unrepeatable.

A little gem that will be often mistaken as colored glass.

P.S.
I contributed with one slight speculation here.

The Road – Cormac McCarthy

This book wasn’t part of my reading queue, but my dad bought it and I decided to read it as well as it is rather short with its 200 pages written large.

It’s a famous book, from a respectable author, and won the Pulitzer in 2007. The theme isn’t even too far from the genre, as it describes a post-apocalyptic world. Maybe it would qualify as sci-fi, but it becomes instead a good argument to discuss what separates mainstream (and recognized) literature, from the specific genres that are often disregarded.

As the world where the novel is set is barren, so is the prose and the plot. Think about an hybrid between the “Fallout” games and “I am Legend”. But here things are much more penetrating. What you see written in the first page is the same you’ll see through the rest of the book. There’s nowhere to go. But the father and son, protagonists of the novel, move forth. Clinging desperately to an empty hope that is directly felt by the reader.

This is a world made of ash. There are no oasis. The lack of frills and decorations in the prose help the effects the book wants to convey. The more the prose and plot are naked, the more you see the life, in its most encompassing meaning, to the bone. It doesn’t cover, doesn’t veil, doesn’t distract. Naked. And it’s frightening, lacerating, but transmitting a sense of vulnerability and preciousness.

At its core the book describes the relationship between a father and son. The apocalyptic setting may appear as a distraction, but it becomes the opposite. It is a way to strip that relationship from all the worthless parts, and go to the heart. Since there’s no real plot, the 200 pages become a meticulous description of survival. It is so precise that you are brought there and there is no possible way to read the book while keeping a detached mood. Again since there’s no plot, you, reader, become the protagonist. The father and son move forth, walking step by step across the world, heading south to survive the winter. With this lacerating hope to survive just a little longer and find a better world, accompanied by the certainty that there aren’t any chances. So the reader moves through the book, and what is left to do is simply reaching the end of the book and find out what happens to the characters, expecting the worst. Because here reading is like a torture and you have to work hard to keep going, as oppressive as it feels.

That meticulousness of descriptions becomes, in a way, obsessive. The difficulty of survival isn’t simply about the concrete aspects, but also of the mind accepting what is going on without shattering. It’s unsustainable. There isn’t anything to cling to, no gods, but the direct demonstration than no god can actually exist. So what’s the sense?

I have my own interpretation of the novel. You may think it’s extreme, you may close the book and think that it passed like a bad dream, that you saw the worst, but it wasn’t real. My interpretation is that what is in the book isn’t distant from real life. That those nightmares are concrete. The form of those nightmares may be different, but their substance is in our everyday life, and the distance we feel from that world and ours, the same distance that allows us to stay sane, is just illusion. It is hope. It is a lie we believe in. It is a way to keep the eyes shut and repeat endlessly that everything is going well.

This brought up something I was thinking about before even starting to read the book. What should we teach to our children? Do you protect them, put an hand on their eyes, make them have a life of happiness, of positive dreams, keep them playing, smiling, oblivious? Or do you prepare them to the real world, and so stripped of all the frills, as dramatic at it can be, with that sense of being completely alone, and feel that oppression? Reassured or awakened? Comedy or tragedy?

What is this world? Why do we live? To pretend we’re blind? Or to forget we can see?

I’m sure out there are more people dying than people reading books, playing games, watching movies. So what is real? The illusions we use as shrouds to stay blind and flee for the reality that the mind can’t understand or tolerate? We hide from the view those who suffer, those who are ill. We reject those thoughts and pretend they don’t exist. We have a representation of society that just follows the successful types and makes them a standard. Is all this just so we can bear the weight no one can bear?

This book goes through that. It shows the worst the life has to offer and makes no attempt to hide how terrible it is. It slaps it in your face. At the same time there’s a “fire”. The hope you still have to cling to, something that tells you that you aren’t simply made of flesh, to become ash.

At the end I think the feel is reassuring. That what is in the book isn’t alien, but something we know. It tells the story of a father and his son, and that relationship is as true as what we live. It is the same story that goes on between every father and every son.

It doesn’t show the worst, but the best we are.

Gardens of the Moon – Steven Erikson

The story so far:
It’s a tale of two warring factions. It starts in the middle of the campaign of a Roman-like empire ruled by a mysterious empress, moving to expand her territorial control beyond what’s reasonable. The other faction being the “free cities”, who form an alliance to try to fight back and preserve their independence. Two opposed groups. The rest of the plot is about the insane proliferation of sub-factions.

Each of these two big groups is divided into a number of internal factions, with their own hidden history and plans, often not aware (or completely aware) of each other, often not even aware of where they stand. From there rises the emergent complexity of Erikson’s world. And not only we have a number of factions criss-crossing each other, but then even the gods enter the fray. Adding more foreshadowing, mystery and forgotten history. Everyone messes with everyone else. With the added principle at the foundation of it all: power draws power.

The result? A convergence. There’s a high number of sub-threads in the plot due to the interaction of these many factions, all converging to a point. Not only conceptually, but also geographically. Thankfully Erikson is coherent, so everything is well explained and makes sense, and the reader has the feel already halfway through the book that everything is moving exactly toward that point, and that it’s gonna be a real mess.

That’s the structure of the book. A really good structure. It starts with a bang, a powerful scene that is admirably handled (first you see the gruesome aftermath, then you are brought right there). Then there’s the calm after the storm, and, for the 500 pages between that first part and the climax, Erikson meticulously builds up his dominoes just so he can blow everything up later in a handful of pages.

While it moves on, there’s a whole lot of showmanship. Fireworks. So much that maybe you can find them a bit too excessive. So much stuff, characters and plots are presented that they could easily fit a fat trilogy. Still, the book doesn’t feel like moving too fast, because you know that all it happens isn’t resolutive but just another step toward the final reckoning.

There’s a guy half Marilin Manson, half Sephiroth from Final Fantasy 7, who goes around sitting on his moon-shaped airship. There’s a Jaghut Tyrant, who lifts his index and a volcano rises out the earth, that flicks his thumb and turns everything to ashes. Armies of zombies (kinda), all kinds of weird creatures like flying insects used as helicopters, a winged monkey, a chaos-powered wooden puppet. There are named swords with particle effects, powerful mages, a fool who walks through dreams, demons, dragons, other dimensions, gods.

Continuously, powerful forces who can destroy and enslave worlds are mentioned. You think that this scenario is complete? That these are the “villains”? No, because before the end you discover that the forces at play are just “diversions”, and that bigger players are just about to come in.

Now, I deliver death.

An endless stream of “you’ve seen nothing yet” and it almost feels like the Dragonball of fantasy literature.

But don’t get me wrong, because all of this is awesome. The worldbuilding is consistent, gritty and realistic. It has a strong sense of wonder, but it doesn’t slip on it and it’s probably the best setting ever. Brave and ambitious. Inspired and visionary. There’s attention to the different cultures and how all these uncommon aspects can affect what’s around them. The concept of gods walking among men is about how the perception of people change, when they know that gods aren’t an abstract, dubious ideas, but they are concrete, and affect visibly the world around you.

As with Tolkien, there’s history to the world going back for thousands of years. Unlike Tolkien, history here isn’t just a distant horizon, but instead comes back to take its toll. And knowing history means having an advantage, being ahead of your enemies. Gods, being immortal, have patience. Men, being mortal, are continuously on the edge.

On top of all this goodness, if you like its taste, there are a number of flaws. I often read complaints on the forums and now I can comment with my own experience. For the most part those flaws exist, but are marginal details that don’t get in the way. On the other side there are certain aspects that are more relevant.

To begin with, Erikson uses a tone that doesn’t change much through the whole book. For Glen Cook this worked because he used a single POV, for Erikson this works less, because he offers the POV of just about everything, included anthropomorphic animals that appear a bit silly. With so much display of power it is counterproductive to show every POV because you diminish the sense of wonder and have a normalizing, flattening effect on everything. The “flat” tone also makes the “voices” of all characters also flat, so making them all too much alike.

This gets worse as it loses a lot of the charisma of the characters and the novel feels distant. You aren’t easily drawn in as you fail to understand and sympathize with the characters. You always feel a separation and this works against the interest when powerful scenes are depicted. They kinda happen, they are pretty, showy, but fall a bit short because of the lack of emotional involvement.

Another flaw is that Erikson is abrupt with descriptions. When he says someone is “tall and lean” then he’s already giving out too much. All the characters seem a bit like black shapes, not because they lack a distinctive characterization, but because Erikson doesn’t linger to explain and describe. He moves on, only handing out a couple of words every hundred pages. The characterization is actually there and works, but you have to extrapolate it by yourself.

This is painfully obvious if you come from reading something like Abercrombie. In that case every phrase and word is carefully studied to give a particular feel of a character. Detail. Emergence. Here the grand scope and ambition makes characters cower. They are crushed by the plot.

There’s a love story hidden in the book that is completely developed in the background. A lot of readers complained it doesn’t make sense. The truth is that it’s very consistent, but it happens in ellipsis. It’s veiled. Like the rest of the characterization, you have to infer it. And for most readers this just means that it never happened, as it was never clearly exposed.

These two (flat tone and weak characters) are the two biggest complaints. I recognize the first as a flaw, but the second is more a choice of the writer than a flaw. In the case of the love story there was so much going on that exposing it would disrupt the pace of the book with a scene completely inappropriate. That love story represents a plot shift, but it was outside the themes of the book. And, thinking about it, Erikson dealt with it in the best way possible.

Another minor flaw I recognize is about the Deus Ex Machina. There’s a whole lot of it. I see how people are gonna hate this, but for the most part, it’s excused in the plot. Deus. Gods. In this book there are gods. They exist as part of the plot. They bend the plot as they like. They ARE Deus Ex Machina. Because they can.

This is actually one of the best realized aspect of the book. In Greek mythology gods were personifications and projections of human weaknesses, desires, ambitions and so on. Erikson takes inspiration from that. Gods weigh in everyday life, they are characters themselves, involved directly in the plot and not just abstract entities. Erikson has all of this, but his way is unique and charming in its own way.

The gods in this book intervene in everyday life in subtle ways. For example there’s the classic scene of someone who suddenly sees a coin on the ground, crouches to grab it, and doing so dodges a dart shoot by an assassin. A so classic scene that is completely ineffective and unbelievable. Ruins the consistence. But here it’s not a coincidence. It’s not chance, it’s Chance. It’s a god manipulating things.

What makes all this interesting and unique is that these gods don’t just intervene in subtle ways, pulling threads as they like, but that they are promptly detected by “normal” people who use magic. These characters can sense the presence and activity of the god, so discover who’s moving things behind the scenes. What makes this so interesting is that, while detected, the presence of the god isn’t directly explained. People can detect gods but can’t detect their intentions. And all this leads to a kind of passive observation filled with fears, because if a god is there and is meddling, then no good things can come out of it. Power draws power and soon it will be a mess for everyone. And if you want to live, you have to anticipate the gods’ moves.

It’s like a labyrinth. You on a side, a god (minotaur) from the other. You can’t see through walls, so you can’t see where the minotaur is moving. But you KNOW it’s there, and you have to find the exit all the while avoiding to face the minotaur.

This means that for the most part the Deus Ex Machina is inside the plot itself, and not an external intervention of the writer. But there’s also a part, 2/3 into the book, and then the end itself, with a row of fortuitous encounters that are a bit too convenient and feel forced. So there’s still a bit of external leading and “lucky” intersections, which is an even bigger flaw because the plot was already solid enough to not need it at all.

The relationship between men and gods is, after all, the theme. Erikson is an archaeologist and deals with the effects of cultures. With gods all around, men don’t have the control of their own lives. They are preys. Tools. They feel desperate, hopeless, with a sense of doom. At the same time they still fight the hopeless war. And being hopeless makes them unpredictable. Leading to acts of sacrifice and heroism. The quality of men versus gods.

This book isn’t simple to get into. Both because it’s multi layered and because of some of the flaws explained above. But it also sets in motion a truly epic saga that is evocative and fascinating in all its parts. With a powerful imagery and epic scope that is unparalleled in the whole genre. The end of the book, while accelerating to a maddening speed, manages to both wrap the plot in a satisfying way and lay the premises for at least the next two books, so that it puts in you the curiosity to follow through.

It requires more than the usual attention and work from the reader. Tolerance to apparent dead ends and continuous POV changes. To unclarity, opaqueness, hidden purposes, misleadings. Faith in the writer. That’s a lot to ask, but it pays back with a setting with an unprecedented scope and depth.

He drew another satisfied breath of steamy air. “We must needs await, at the end, the spin of a coin. In the meantime, of course, wondrous food beckons.”

Shadows Linger – Glen Cook

Second book of a trilogy, but also part of a series of ten books in total. I didn’t comment the first book, but I read it. It was wonderful.

In order to explain what I think about this second book, I have to explain a few things about the first, because I started reading with some expectations and those expectations had a weight on my opinion about the book. The fact is that I loved the first book. For its setting, its pace, its structure. It’s from many points of view a “perfect” book. Every piece fits together and it’s masterfully planned and executed. In 310 pages Glen Cook wraps up an epic campaign that other authors would pan for thee books of 600+ pages. And this without leaving you feeling like you missed something.

The structure (first book, not this one) is probably the very best quality and what sets the book apart. Seven chapters, about 60 pages each. Each of these chapters are “standalone”, in the sense that you could read one in the middle of the book without feeling like you are missing a piece of the story, and so can’t understand what the hell is going on. Each also has its start, development and conclusions. So each chapter feels like a novella on its own. This isn’t all, the real quality is that not only the story is wrapped up perfectly around this structure, but that each chapter/novella adds plot elements and characters that contribute and move steadily onward the overall story that spans the whole book. It feels as modern as possible, like it happens now with the most successful TV series, that need, from a side being self-contained to be accessible to who didn’t follow every episode and remembers every detail, and from the other plot elements that link all the episodes together, giving the series its continuity and overall development. So no stalling. The Black Company follows the same principle and Glen Cook executed this masterfully in this first book. It couldn’t have been plotted and structured better. I had a few minor complaints (like how some “spoilers” were handled) but they are just small details toward the end.

I consider that book exceptional because it’s as steady as possible. There’s no slacking, no slows down, no weak parts. In 310 pages the author shows how he has perfect control over his story. And it’s very good, with plenty of unexpected and clever twists. With an end that doesn’t disappoint. The story could have just ended there, but it didn’t.

I don’t know if more books were planned from the beginning, the flow of the second book isn’t perfectly smooth, but still coherent enough to not give the feel of something artificially excused. The real problem is that the structure that made the first book wonderful, was completely discarded for this sequel. Instead of long chapters and self contained stories, we have this time a linear plot developing through the book, and organized with very short chapters (often just 4-5 pages) and an attempt to do different POV. I honestly didn’t like this choice as it gives a too fragmented feel. On the other side the chapters are so short that you keep turning the pages and read more as the next “exit” point is just two pages away, and the end of one chapter always making you wish to turn the page and look for other developments.

Gone the mastery of the structure, but also gone the overall “feel”. No more the militaresque campaign, but a bend toward a “spook”, supernatural theme, leaving you with the impression you are reading a fantasy version of Dracula. I was disappointed because I wanted more of the same, and instead I found something much different, with a plot much, much less inspired and deep. In fact I was much deluded by this second book, but as I went on reading it captured my interest more.

The first 2/3 of the book present two plots, one encapsulating the other. The book wasn’t a complete disappointment because I think Glen Cook achieved his purpose. This purpose was to make readers care more about the inner plot, instead of the outer. Without spoilering much, there’s an “outer” plot still about the Lady and the Dominator fighting each other, with the Black Company caught in between, just trying to survive and choose the lesser evil. With the Dominator rising his castle near a small town lost up the north of the world, forgotten by all. The “inner” plot is instead about the day-to-day miserable life of the people of that town. These two plots initially made distinct also geographically as the scenes with the Company happen at the other side of the world, also used to show how the Lady uses liberally the Company, tossed from one side of the world to the other. You start reading with all the hype once again on the Black Company (the first scene is superb, from the point of view of kids to return the reader the sense of wonder and badassness of the Company), but progressively the focus moves toward those who look like minor characters, and that instead become major ones. In fact Glen Cook artificially zones out the Black Company itself to narrate a “covert” operation with just a few members of it, that are “flown” far away. So there’s already here the will to move away from the theme and execution of the first book.

Even in this case, though, the trick that holds the second book is the same of the first: small things affecting big things. Just applied to a different context. The whole coolness of the first book was “watching” the normal men of the Black Company walk among much powerful beings. Giving the impression of gods walking among men. But gods made of flesh, powerful and intimidating, but with their own weakness. And then the fun of watching clever men fuck with the power of these gods. Because you shouldn’t underestimating the Black Company. This shift of power and point of view from the bottom was what made the first book awesome. In the second book this theme is applied differently, there’s less the same kind of direct confrontation, but the mess-up that feeds the story is still about some smallish acts that generate a disaster. Just think at the miserable people of this lost town, just thinking selfishly how to survive the next winter, stealing money to each other, all caught in their personal dramas… While a black castle is growing just over their shoulders, growing on their filth and miserableness.

And then you have the climax: huge glowing balls rolling around, invisible giant feet stomping the ground, flying carpets airstrikes, eggs exploding into fire and a black castle made of goo and smelling pretty bad too.

Before it all happens, though, there’s another strong point of the book, that is the return of the Company into the scene. And also the demonstration of why and how they are cool: Get things done. Quickly. Efficiently. Competently.

Then the mess. And, as you may guess from my words above, a really weird mess. Even if helped by the strong realistic way Glen Cook has to describe things. While the scene presented is so surreal to be silly, it’s still described in a “serious” way that makes it still consistent and believable. Even if I have to say that the descriptions of the first book were more inspired, beautiful and better written. The prose of this second book in general has a slight dip in quality.

Those five immediately encountered the portal from elsewhere that expelled the cold breath of the infinite. They all perished.

And once again it’s interesting the contrast. The weird magery stuff from a side, and the concreteness, down-to-earth approach and mindset that the Company has.

Another aspect I was thinking about but that isn’t underlined in the book, is how there’s a sort of meta-fiction. The book you are reading that you have in your hands, exists also in the fictional world as a physical entity. In fact it’s written in first person, and the protagonists writes and “records” what happens, as it is his other duty within the Company, the annalist. So sometimes there are references at how the book itself was saved from danger. Because it’s implied that if you have it in your hands, then it would have been saved somehow. As if the Company really existed.

Last thing about the style: as I said the book is written, like the first, in first person. But feeling like third. Even more so in this book than the first Glen Cook plays with this concept. It’s not present tense, as the events are “recorded” by the annalist, and this time there’s an attempt at different POV, so scenes where the writer isn’t directly present, and so written in third person. It’s a book written in first person but where the writer is not the protagonist, only an “observer” that, due to the context, is also sometimes present physically and doing things. It’s interesting.

All in all the book disappointed me because the militaresque feel I liked and the cleverness of the plot is mostly gone, replaced by an unimaginative spook theme that was kept throughout the whole book (instead of occupying just one chapter and then moving on, as in the first book). The writing is a bit worse, the structure and plot not as good. But at the same time it’s not as deluding as I initially thought. It’s as if Glen Cook started from an awful concept, but managed to still pour good things into it. I don’t consider this an exceptional book, especially because I keep comparing it with the first and in no way it can stand that comparison. But, on its own, I enjoyed reading it and the Company has still not lost any charisma.

Glen Cook has less aces up his sleeve, but he still knows how to play the game.

The Blade Itself – Joe Abercrombie

Review in short:

Go buy and read it no matter of your personal tastes. This book won’t disappoint.

I have a bunch of notes scattered around and I’m not sure if I can put them together in a coherent way. In part because my opinion changed through the course of the book. I usually just need a few pages to form a good idea. 30 pages of Glen Cook’s Black Company were enough to give me a precise idea of what I was going to read, same for Donaldson’s first book in the Gap series (just to name two I’ve read recently). With this one instead it was different and only starting form Part 2 (about 200 pages into the book) I started to truly like it. Then it was a steady crescendo.

Some general infos: The Blade Itself is a first book in a trilogy already completed (the third book is due out soon in the UK) and a debut of a relatively young writer (early thirties). Kind of a “modern” fantasy. It has the different POVs written in third person but still as a subjective view, as is habit nowadays, and is (feels) very far from the “already seen”. Feels “fresh”, actual. The overall plot itself doesn’t shine in originality, but I think it’s a misleading element. I also read some reviews about the book before I start reading it and all of them said it was the old plot, old characters but with a funny and original twist. This is true but misleading. It’s not the way the book feels. It’s not just a critical approach to a tired and stale genre, it’s not a “what if” or a simple exercise revolving around a gimmick. You don’t have to have fantasy knowledge to appreciate the style Abercrombie gives to old ideas. Instead it stands on its own. This book is awesome and just doesn’t need and doesn’t want to be compared to something else in order to spill its own value. It’s not good in relation to something else, it is good on its own.

The point being that throughout the book I didn’t thought at this sublayer of wit. I didn’t felt detached enough to give it the cold analysis. Instead it worked on the emotional side. And moving toward the end I really cared for the characters, felt the story emotionally, and I couldn’t-care-less about the supposed academical exercise about “old fantasy cliches with new twists”.

I define it “modern” in the sense of mastery. Take for example the current TV series. Sometimes lacking in ideas, but the *writing* itself today is much more developed and effective. There has been tangible progress. The pacing, the sharp conversations, the wit. These abstract aspects taken from television carry over to this book. It is far from the archaic feel of Tolkien, of the evocation of distant worlds. It is instead modern, sparky, fresh. It is also written with the knowledge of the culture, so those kind of stereotypical situations that appear in the book are always surprising because you never know in which direction the writer will drive them. There was one review that said “It’s written with more wit than most writers use in their entire career” and it is true. There is no filler in the book and every page brings on something ingenious to the point that you wonder if the author can really keep up this pacing throughout.

So the pacing. When I started reading I was skeptical. Very skeptical. A new author, so I started to nitpick things, imagining flaws, criticizing in my head every page, every description. 100 pages in, I was not impressed. Funny, witty, yes. But not impressed. It seemed to go nowhere, the characters were interesting but I still looked at them with a very detached eye. I was amused, but not involved. You know, reading with a kind of air of superiority. The book didn’t seem that good. Felt a writer who was trying hard, but too hard. Like falling short of the point. Good try, slap on the shoulder.

Why it changed then? Is the remaining of the book so much better that it surprised me? Not really. There are no sharp turns or sudden improvements of quality. The book, as I said, is uniform and with a steady crescendo. What was different is that I started “caring” and felt there. I stopped criticizing, I stopped caring about picking (imaginary) flaws and just was carried away in the story.

Now this may be a personal thing, but there are some objective considerations to make. The beginning wants to be fast and catching, but suffers of its own structure. There are a few different POVs as is typical of “modern” fantasy but the scenes are brief so you read very small chunks of different stories and this makes kind of hard to get involved and absorbed into them. It feels fragmentary. You need to wait at least 200 pages before some threads come together, till you discover that the small chunks all belong to the same plot, like branches of a river. On the other side there’s something “catching” even if you don’t know enough of the story, the characters and the scenes. That pays back and entertains while you wait to grasp what is going on as the situations are fun and witty, with characters sharply characterized and so dissimilar that it’s hard to favor one or the other. They are just impossible to compare and seem to belong to entirely different stories and styles (which is a manifest purpose of the writer: give each POV its own style, even in the writing).

So this fragmentation didn’t help to get hooked into the story. It’s hard to feel there when you don’t see “the point” and the scenes feel disconnected. At the same time, now that I read the whole book, I don’t think it’s a “flaw”. It’s just a structural weakness of what the author wanted to do, but I don’t think it could have been done better. It even becomes a theme in the book. Quoting:

If you’re going to travel with a man, and maybe fight alongside him, It’s best to talk, and laugh if you can. That way you can get an understanding, and then a trust. Trust is what binds a band together, and out there in the wilds that can make the difference between living or dying. Building that kind of trust takes time, and effort.

This is a self-referential metaphor for the reader and the book, how both need time to slowly develop that kind of “friendship”.

The other particular aspect is that the book feels like theater. This is a strong impression that I had while reading. There are writers, think for example Jordan, that follow their characters all the way. The narrative is continue and it’s like the writer never leaves them. It flows in detail. Abercrombie is the exact opposite of this. The whole book is structured in relatively brief scenes, with one setting. You don’t get to follow the various characters, instead you have small slices of their lives, taken at critical points. You don’t get to follow them, you read instead just about key moments and scenes that drive the plot and character development.

This aspect is important because it defines a particular approach that you read about in every other review. You can easily detach the characters (live actors) from the background scenography, that is static. Often the scenes take place into a single room or another symbolic space, and when the scene is over the whole setting disappears and is replaced. Ceases to exist. Feels like you are watching theater, live actor with scenery in the background, with relatively short but significant moments represented. Like Shakespeare made fantasy and prose, but with the distillation of meaning, so that you get no “filler” that is typical of epic fantasy plots. Everything superfluous is chopped off.

It is meaningful because, as others would say, Abercrombie isn’t the worldbuilder writer. You aren’t here to read about secondary worlds with complex history, you aren’t here for that emergent layer. That’s treated as scenery. It’s just the set-up, where the strong point is instead about the live actors. The characters, the introspection, the witty, sharp conversations, the black humor, the sarcasm. It’s all very effective and gives the classic fantasy setup a refreshing feel.

The story starts spread out, then gets together, spreads out again before the end. In the latter chapters the writer does some showmanship, instead of binding one scene and chapter to one POV, he chains them. This is fantastic. You basically see the exact same scene from the various POV (so short paragraphs) that you got to know through the book. One after the other, in the same scene. There’s no repetition, you don’t get the next POV re-telling the same you just read, but the time is instead continuous, flows, and yet you see how much the different POV completely twists the perception of the story. This is pure mastery, from a side you recognize how each character definitely has an unique voice and is perfectly defined, from the other it makes the read compelling, never slogging, and all part of the crescendo.

I start reading and thought the writer was good but average. When I reached the end I simply thought that I don’t have any right to criticize him. He isn’t a good writer, he is one of the very best. He isn’t a young writer trying to do something with his first novel, he’s already a worthy “first tier”. He is no rookie, no need to improve. He is an excellent writer and surprising too.

One critique I have on my notes and that I still find valid, from the perspective of the writing, is about the “retrofitting”. There are two different kinds of writers, those who give you just a summary of the action, and those who describe a battle blow by blow, precisedly described. Abercrombie falls in the latter and is rather good at it. Only flaw for me as a reader is that, while the action is consistent, I still had some difficulties to follow it, so had to reread a few passages to have them clear in my mind. The problem with this is a kind of uneven balance in the way he describes things. So sometimes there’s a lack of focus on what’s more important and not enough on some minor element, with the consequence that the “picture” in the mind of the reader comes confused if not corrected.

I can compare this quirk with Jordan as I recently read it. With Jordan I’m never confused. When I read I picture a scene in my mind, with the elements described. It’s something automatic. Sometimes I don’t notice consciously elements I put in my picture, then I go check and they are there in the text too. For example the book may described a scene in a big room, and I have it in my mind, then I notice the picture I have has the room with a domed ceiling. I don’t remember if I imagined it or read in the description but when I go checking the text I notice it’s there. As I said Jordan is always perfectly consistent. I never need to correct the picture I had, I never need to “reposition” characters on a scene because one I pictured on the right is instead on the left or behind. With Abercrombie instead I have some problems. While he is consistent, as I said, he is more confusing. Just as an example he may start to describe the rain in a paragraph, then describe the woods in the next. The characters are in the woods and it’s raining, but it’s more difficult forming the picture if you think of the rain, then have to add the woods. I’d give more “weight” to the woods. And this is a very small example of a writing habit that I found through the book and that not only applies to the descriptions, but also to the plot. The writer never gives more elements than those that are absolutely necessary for that immediate scene. Often you miss huge chunks of both descriptions and plots, that you read later in the book and have to “retrofit” into the Big Picture. It’s not a flaw per se, but I wanted to point it out.

In particular you can take one of the three major POV (but there are a bunch of characters in the book). Logen, as a main character, is vaguely described at the beginning. It’s like you see things in first person perspective. Wihtout a mirror you can’t see yourself (so Logen). And it’s in fact till the second half of the book that you actually have the character physically described. Through the reactions/eyes of other people. While this is again some writing showmanship, you also in this case have to “retrofit” things. You may have imagined Logen in your head in a way, but then only halfway through the book you have more elements that may contradict your arbitrary mental “image”. As a demonstration of this I didn’t like in a special way Logen, but in the second half of the book I was completely in love. One of the very best characters EVER. I was laughing out loud at some passages. He’s great. And yet he’s a kind of barbarian stereotype that you have branded in your memory, and yet he feels like something you never read before.

There’s also a very small POV. A party of characters. Just a few chapters here and there through the course of the book. But it is some of the very best shit I’ve ever read. The most fun fighting and BADASS party ever. I’m out of superlatives but these guys deserve more. Just a few pages and they deserve the price of the book, and I so hope they have more space in the progressing of the story. I don’t want to spoiler but once again they show how good Abercrombie is. Short scenes, a party of characters, and in just a few lines he gives each one splendid, awesome characterization. While the main, more complex POV had to grow on me, with these guys it was love on first sight. They are something special. It’s all about one word: charisma. And tons of it. Make you laugh, and some of the best, yet totally realistic fighting. Brutal, exciting.

So I think I’ve written down everything I have on my notes. The theatrical feel, top notch writer, focus on the character, great emotional involvement for me, but only starting with the second half of the book. Some (many) absolutely A-W-E-S-O-M-E characters, especially smaller ones (like Brother Longfoot and that “party”). One thing I forgot to point out, the “acting” isn’t overly realistic, but made slightly showy and excessive, exactly like theater works. At the same time the characters themselves are totally consistent with themselves, their situation and the setting. So while the whole pictures comes a bit bloated, it’s still absolutely believable.

Oh, and I have this image stuck in my head, Malacus Quai looking like Steve Buscemi.

By the way, the author has the best blog. Updated frequently, informative and funny.

Monday I order the second book through Amazon, along with more books from Erikson. But now I’m going to read something I already have on my pile. Still haven’t decided (likely the second book of the Black Company, as it is a short read).

The Geat Hunt – Robert Jordan

I don’t plan to turn this into a fantasy book review site because those reviews are in their own ways a literary work and I can’t expect to do it without a perfect grasp of English (which is again my second language). I also read slowly so I can’t make a satisfying blog with reviews. They would appear too rarely. So here are some conclusive considerations about “The Great Hunt”.

I already commented a few points and those are still valid. 60 pages from the end I still loved the book, then those last few pages left me disappointed as it happened with the ending of the first book. It may sound weird because for most readers the conclusion of the book is where the fun is. The plot threads come together, the action catches up, lots of cool and spectacular stuff happens… But it still didn’t explain enough to retroactively validate what happened in the 600 pages before. This isn’t an ultimate judgment on the book because some of those answers may come later in the next books, but I had hoped in a better conclusion and plots better wrapped up.

I still liked the book a lot overall. It is far superior to “The Eye of the World”, better pacing, more original, perfectly handled by Jordan. My impression is that he has everything under control and never slipped once. It’s not the best fantasy I’ve read, but in its kind it was near flawless, as long you accept and are interested in what the author is doing.

Schematically, there were three flaws in the first book:

1- The pacing. There are certain parts of the book, especially in the middle, that felt slow and redundant. Then the story becomes suddenly interesting once again, but this interest slows down before the end. The pacing was uneven.
2- The ending. “The Eye of the World” had a very poor end. Worse even than Sword of Shannara that is already top of the worse. It felt cheap, predictable and anticlimactic.
3- Tolkien. Some key elements in the story and its development remind of Tolkien so much that you can draw exact parallels through most of the book. So it feels like you already read the story before.

What makes this second book so much better comes directly from the flaws of the first. The pacing is improved. A so long story never moves fast, this will always be a trait of the saga, but at least it doesn’t slog, it keeps its pace steadily. The beginning of the book (100 pages or so) is the best part. From a side it reintroduces all the characters and plots from the first book, from the other it unveils so many mysteries right away. It’s a kind of “infodump” that isn’t boring, but that instead becomes the core of the rest of the book. More than once I went back to reread a chapter as I had more elements to figure out prophecies. Instead of a story dragging a mystery till the very end, this time everything is explained at the beginning, like a big setup. Then threads part from that core plot, the pacing slows down, but is kept steady for the remaining of the book. Every chapter has a precise function, it can be summarized in a few lines but it’s planned carefully to serve a purpose. The plot opens up, becomes interesting, the cast expands. I was worried that each book was a repetition of the same plot with minor changes, instead it’s really one big story that moves forward step by step. It flows.

Those situations that in the first book felt like rip-offs from Tolkien acquire in the second book a precise role, to the point that not only this second book is better on its own, but it also made me revalue the first. *Everything* from the first book has consequences showing in the second, every tiniest detail and minor character. It gains breadth, felt more original and interesting, and had better pacing overall. So I can say that the story of the first book started in parallel with LotR, but those parallels flew then in a completely different direction, in a broader vision that, while archetypal, is unique on its own and not simply an homage to other works. It acquires its strength and personality.

The first book was the “typical fantasy story”. Competently told and planned, but already read too many times. In fact it left me so unimpressed that I wasn’t planning to follow through and read the second book anytime soon. But for various reasons I started it, just to read the first few chapters, but they were so good and interesting that I continued, and then decided to go till the end. My opinion is that the “sameness” was used intentionally to present a familiar story. Set the basis, giving the readers something to hang on and get involved. Something accessible.

Which is also the main quality of the series. It’s both ambitious and accessible. Popular and deep. I said this before, it’s not the realistic, adult kind of fantasy, but it keeps a strong consistence in the world and the things happening. So, again, it sticks to a classic idea of fantasy. Heavily archetypal.

Plot device: teleporting. The journey is often a core element in a fantasy novel. It’s also one difference between the modern world and the myth of the past, places far away are mysterious places. Places of legend. There’s an idea of unknown, what’s beyond the sea is a mystery. Far away and stranger. There’s a part of this that Jordan delivers exceptionally. For example the way along the story new populations are discovered and how they are entirely foreign one to the other. What happens in the world is unknown, only some echoes arrive, never complete facts. And of course hostility, because who’s felt as a stranger is also felt as a danger, so all these close populations tend to ignore the other or be hostile toward it.

Then there’s a part that Jordan does poorly. The journeys in the first two books are a bit inconsistent because characters never go through them completely. There are reasons why many fantasy books have maps, one is that there are journeys. You go from point A to point B, look at the map, figure out how long the journey is going to be. It gives perspective, consistence. But in these books the characters in most cases only go through 1/3 of their journey. It’s like if the journey isn’t intended to be so, but just as a plot device to make a few things happen along, and then, after they happened, the whole party instantly appears at destination. Literally, because Jordan uses two different means of teleporting, one for each book. It feels like a MMO where the sense of space is now rarely respected as there are “shortcuts” that kill the idea of space. It may be good for a computer game, but in a fantasy book it diminishes the consistence, sense of geography, sense of progression. It feels too much like a trick.

About the story itself: either you have a simple canvas to then refresh and repeat with each book, or you have to divide the plot between many books. I started reading Jordan knowing nothing and I thought it fell in the first case, to the point that I wasn’t planning to read past the first book because I had enough. I was far from the truth, instead. The plot moves onward, slowly but steadily. Events in the first book were just a set up. Seeds that would develop later on. The story opens up, expands, gains breadth. Never shifting in a new direction. The second book isn’t a sharp turn from the first, but it finally makes evident how everything is perfectly connected and planned ahead. It shows that there’s a vision and that it is quite impressive. Beyond what the first book suggested.

There’s a particular point that surprised me. About 350 pages into the book a few *very* minor characters from the first book reappear. Those kind of characters that you think are there just as figureheads. Not only they are carried over to this second book, but they are used to testify a major plot device. Instead of just happening because some characters say so, you are shown the result of it. You are shown the consequence. This is a perfect example of the “show, don’t tell” rule. One of the best executed I can remember. (for reference this is the concept of ta’veren, or the influence that certain special persons have on the life of all they meet. Here Jordan shows how all those minor characters had their life changed concretely. He shows concretely, explicitly how ta’veren spontaneously operates)

And finally the characters. I know it’s fashionable to hate Jordan but I don’t agree with the critics. I don’t agree on the fact that his women are all alike to the point you confuse the names. My opinion is the exact opposite of that. Jordan’s characters are heavily archetypal, so much that they are quickly familiar. If each one has one or a few distinctive traits, then it should be easier to recognize them, not harder. Something archetypal isn’t realistic, but it helps the familiarization. This is what Jordan tried to do from my point of view. Archetypal characters easy to recognize, not easy to confuse. Cardboard cutouts, to an extent, yes. But not alike.

The characters are indeed a bit “stiff” and whiny, but not to the point that I find them overly annoying, and not all characters. The development is well done on the main ones, but their acting was too excessively dramatized for me. That’s my main dislike.

The evil side instead deserves its own considerations. The real villain is as stupid as in the first book. Completely unbelievable and inconsistent. But at the same time he’s there just for presence, because the true villains in the book are minor characters that are much better characterized, more clever and even more believably evil.

Overall I liked the book. My opinion remains about the same I wrote (linked above) when I had read the first 200 pages, with the difference that I expected more from the end, and more explanations about the plot threads. Sadly those last 60 pages left me with the impression that there were too many “deus ex machina” and artifices, but something similar happened with the first book, and the second made me reconsider the whole thing. So I can’t exclude that I won’t get my answers from the next books.

I finished reading the first book thinking it was decent but lacking originality. Planning to read the sequel in a distant future. I finished reading this second instead with a greater satisfaction and determined to read the next soon. I know that the quality only improves up to the fourth book (considered the best), then stays good till the sixth. Even if it sinks from there I believe it remains a worthy read. So I’ll go on.

I’m reading “The Blade Itself” by Joe Abercrombie now (180 pages in) and it’s completely different. More original, witty, intriguing. It’s a better book, but it’s not the classic tale and kind of pleasure you get from reading Jordan. It’s not that archetypal ideal of fantasy where you can lose yourself, the most pleasant of the journeys and escapism.