#41: The Fellowship of the Ring Review

 

    
     I have a whole lot of nostalgia for these books, having been read them by my dad when I couldn't read, and having watched the movies a good hundred times (especially the 1977 Hobbit, which, incidentally, remains the best Tolkien adaptation ever). So after a fair gap of time, I felt I was ready to revisit the classic series which changed much of how fantasy literature is written. Does it remain the ultimate epic of the genre, or is it overrated?
     The plot is one most everyone knows: a hobbit named Frodo is given a magical ring that must be cast into the fire of Mt. Doom to defeat the dark lord Sauron, whose life force is held within the ring. assisting him in his efforts are Gandalf the wizard, Aragorn the ranger/king, Legolas the elf, Gimli the dwarf, Boromir the fighting man of Gondor, Sam the gardener, and Merry & Pippin, comedic hobbit duo. They go through many adventures and whatnot while slowly making their way to Morodor. Now that is a desperately condensed summary, but if you want to know more, go read the Wikipedia page, or, heaven forbid, the book.
     What I feel has always separated Tolkien from the other great fantasy writers (Zelazny, Vance, Leiber, Ashton Smith) is his world building. No one before or since has ever matched this. Essentially, what Tolkien does here is not create a book, but create an entire mythology which runs this world. He does this through the tales, the songs, the characters, and the settings; in no other work of fantasy I have read has their been this much effort into creating a believable world, and Tolkien pulls this feat off quite well.
    Unfortunately, this is a quality of Tolkien I can appreciate more than I actually like. I can see the monumental work he has done and I am quite impressed by it, but I do not fell I really needed to know the history of every race. It is neat stuff, but any time there is a long and lengthy explanation of some aspect of the world, it just bogs down the story. While things such as the Shire,  the Council of Elrond and Tom Bombadil are interesting, they bring the story to a screeching halt and seem like an unnecessary detour.
     I will say this is more my preference than anything. Some people regard this world building as being the most important aspect of a story, whereas I think the most important things are character and story. The reason The Dying Earth and Lord of Light remain my favorite works in the genre is because they have edge of your seat storytelling and characters that you can root for and enjoy. While Tolkien's story and characters are good, they feel almost incidental, more of a vehicle for him to show off his world than anything else. The former two works are certainly not as detailed about their world as Tolkien is, but they provide enough detail to give the reader a good sense of place and then use that as a way to tell interesting and compelling stories.
     From all of this, it may sound as though I do not like the book, which would be quite a false impression. I do enjoy the book as the parts of the story that work do work quite well. The trip through the Mines of Moria remains one of the best sequences in all of Fantasy Literature and the characters do play off one another nicely, even if they are a tad simplistic at times. The language is beautiful and descriptive, working splendidly as the steed through which we are shown the world.
     The Fellowship of the Ring is a hard book for me to review. For my taste it has major story telling problems, such as spending far to much time in the Shire at the beginning, to many strange and pointless detours. The world building is phenomenal, but a lot of it is unnecessary in my opinion. Yet the whole thing still rather works in spite of these flaws and it remains a good book. Perhaps undeserving of its title of greatest fantasy book ever written, yet nevertheless, good. This opinion might not be popular, but then again, neither am I.
Note: I listened to the audiobook version of this read by Rob Ingles. It was competently done, though nothing spectacular. Then again I was measuring him against Christopher Lee's version of Children of Hurin, so that was a hard standard.
Overall:     6/10
-Captain Joshua
Next Time: The Two Towers

Homage to Catalonia Review

George Orwell with his master (Orwell was really a dog)

     I started this book last winter, but had to return it to the library before I could finish it and thus have been in suspense for about six months as to who would win the Spanish Civil War. If you are looking for a deep account of that conflict, this is probably not for you. It is half a journal by Orwell about his time in the war and the other half is some commentary about the events of the war, with his putting great focus on how the war and the socialist party were distorted by the press of other countries.
     One of Orwell's key distinctions as a writer has always been a very journalistic form of description. This serves him well here, as he is able to make even the seemingly mundane conditions of trench warfare fascinating. It also works quite well when he is writing his commentary on the situation as it makes his complaints seem well founded and not petulant.
     The story is most interesting when Orwell writes of the inter-workings of the three sides of the resistance. The Spanish Civil War was such an odd conflict, with Anarchists, Socialists, and Communists teaming up to try and stop Franco and his fascist army, yet the conflict among the three groups of resistance seems to overshadow the actual war, with the Communists slowly wresting power away from the others before turning on them while soldiers from all three were still at the front seeking to halt Franco.
     Some of Orwell's opinion pieces do get a bit long however. They are certainly interesting, but always seem to be interrupting the actual plot and I frequently found myself skimming over these parts. They are not bad, but are just lesser.
    The book is a pretty good account of both war and politics, though not history. Orwell's style works well here, and the book reads quite well, though occasionally it gets a tad boring. Probably not worth waiting six months for, but a good book nevertheless. Overall: 7/10
-Captain Joshua

The Poison Eaters and Other Stories Review

Do Not Try This at Home

     Awhile back, I read that the new Lucifer comic book was being written by Holly Black. The name had an oddly familiar ring to me, so I went to see who she was. I discovered, through my vast Wikipedia powers, that she was actually the co-author of a series I have rather fond memories of, The Spiderwick Chronicles.
     I therefore decided to give something else by her a read. Black faced quite a challenge though, I rarely ever read anything written after the year 1970, and find most things written after that time to be lesser in quality, with the noted exceptions of Kevin J. Anderson and Alex Bradley. Did Black join that group, or does she fall by the wayside of dull YA authors?
     The book, as could be grasped from the title, is a collection of short stories published by Black from 2004-2010. The stories all fall somewhere in the horror or urban fantasy genres. My individual thoughts on the stories are as follows:

1. "The Coldest Girl in Coldtown": This one had an initially interesting premise. The idea is that vampirism has become fairly widespread with most of the bloodsuckers in America going to live in a closed off community called Coldtown. The culture has become rather obsessed with the phantoms of the night, and many seek to be bitten by vampires to join what they regard as a very romantic lifestyle.
     The eponymous Coldest Girl is Matilda, who was bitten by a vampire a few weeks ago from the start of the story. The rules of vampirism in this story is that once you are bitten, you do not change fully into a vampire until you chug some blood. If you wait a number of days, you will eventually revert back to human, but the trick is that you have an intense craving for blood that whole time.  
     Matilda deals with this by getting completely blitzed. However, her friend, Dante, tells her that his sister and Matilda's boyfriend have gone to Coldtown to get bitten and made into vampires. The questions then become how will Matilda save the two, and will she give into her hunger along the way?
     The idea is not a bad one, and some of the world building Black does is interesting. Unfortunately, Matheson Syndrome kicks in about this time. For those who are unaware, Matheson Syndrome is named after author Richard Matheson, my favorite horror author. The effect of the syndrome is that you create an interesting world and have a lot of neat ideas in your story, but it is brought down by having all your characters being fairly unlikeable. Matheson is often able to work around this by having everything else in his stories being so good that you forget about the character, or just being very light in using his characters.
     This story, however, does not possess enough of the remedies Matheson often employs to free itself from the disdain I felt towards the main characters, side characters, and peripheral characters. There is, of course, a certain school of literature that believes people should be portrayed as they are, not idealized, and that necessitates making your characters unlikeable. Perhaps this makes the story of greater literary merit, but that doesn't mean I have to like it. I give it a 5/10. The world building stuff is interesting enough to make it fairly average. This story got expanded by Black into a full novel, but it is probably one I shall pass upon.
2. "Reversal of Fortune": I will try to be a bit briefer on this one. This story involves a girl who challenges the devil to an eating contest in order to bring her dead dog back to life. The tale has a few nice moments, such as the devil first suggesting a fiddle contest, and the way the contest ends is rather clever. However, Matheson Syndrome strikes again, bringing the story to a 5/10.
3. "Boy Who Cried Wolf": This one was just sort of boring and didn't have much to offer. It is about a boy who reads a lot and turns into a werewolf and runs away from his family. It is just fantastically unremarkable with very little for or against it. The ending was fairly funny though, so I give it a 4/10.
4. "The Night Market": Tomasa's sister has been cursed by an elf because she refused to fall in love with him. Tomasa, therefore, goes to the elf several times, pleading with him to lift the curse. The story has a neat premise, and I thought the world building was done better here than most of the other stories. Matheson Syndrome also stays its hand this round as the characters, while not particularly likeable or deep, are nevertheless ones we can root for to win. The problem is the ending here. I will not spoil it, but it is really stupid and makes no sense, particularly when there was a much better path the story might have taken. That basically causes the positives and negatives to average out to a 6/10.
5. "The Dog King": Not bad, but the reverse cannot be claimed either. the premise is that there are dog and wolf fights that take place in a mythical kingdom, but there is also a wolf owned by the king, who changes into a boy; and people are getting killed by a wolf. Honestly the whole thing makes little sense, but some of the scenery is nice; and the characters are not annoying, just nondescript. Oh well, I give it a 5/10.
6. "Virgin": The plot and characters were all terrible, but darn there was some good atmosphere. 4/10.
7. "In Vodka Veritas": The story follows a lonely high school student and his friend right before prom. It is the usual teen angst "who am I?" story until the kid, getting slightly drunk on prom night, discovers the Latin Club, tired of being picked upon, has instituted an ancient rite which causes the students and teachers to descend into a festival of Bacchus. I will let you guess what that entails. What is our hero to do? Find out tonight on Supernatural Angst High. Matheson syndrome strikes again, but there are a few funny moments in the book to elevate it. As someone who took far more Latin then should be allowed under the Geneva Convention, I found it highly bemusing that they were the ones seeking revenge. I give it another 5/10 I fear.
8. "The Coat of Stars": It is a classic fairytale type premise of a tailor who returns to his home and discovers his childhood friend, who has been missing for years, was kidnapped by faeries and therefore makes coats for the fairy queen to get his friend back. I think you all know what degenerative literary disease struck the story and brought it down to a 4/10.
9. "Paper Cuts Scissors": This story involves a guy who is studying library science in grad school, but he is doing it so he can get an internship to work for this old dude who can bring characters out of books. The guy's girlfriend could put things into books, and after an argument, put herself into a Russian romance novel. The guy is hoping the old dude can take out his girlfriend. There follows lots of questions about the human condition and literary characters interacting. This story was complete and shameless pandering to book nerds, so I naturally kind of loved it. The simple joy of seeing Edmond Dantes and Naruto hanging out, and Wolverine asking "Who's John Galt?" brought many a smile to my face. It is the gem of the collection. 8/10.
10. "Going Ironside": This is the shortest story in the bunch. Thank goodness! 2/10.
11. "The Land of Heart's Desire": This one was nice in a very low key way. The premise is that there is a coffee shop catering to faeries. However, the human who runs it, in an effort to increase business, tells of it online. It works, but it makes the fairy king rather displeased. The characters were actually likeable here for a change, and this was just a nice simple story. Overall 6/10.
12. "The Poison Eaters": A tale about three sisters who are deadly to the touch and what their father has planned for them. Not bad, just kind of bland for the most part. 5/10.
     As one might have guessed from the individual reviews, I think Black's main problems come from characterization. Her characters are oftentimes just unlikeable, making me not really care if they succeed in their goals or not. Her world building talents are rather impressive, and her prose style is easily readable like most YA authors. However, her stories always left me thinking they could be retooled to be so much better than they were. None of them were terrible with one exception, yet neither were any of them great, with one exception. It seems the curse of literature published past 1970 leaving no impression upon me is to continue for awhile. Overall: 4.83/10
Book #39
Next Book Review: Homage to Catalonia-George Orwell
-Captain Joshua

Why Being a Book Nerd is Excellent

Reason: Because you have conversations like this:
Friend: "What are you reading?"
Me: "The Monk"
Friend: "Is it good"?
Me: "Oh Yeah, it's great, ever problem in it is solved by an angry mob burning down a monastery"!
Friend: "Cool..." (Wonders why they are still my friend)
-Captain Joshua