Tough Traveling: Immortals

The Thursday feature "Tough Traveling" is the brainchild of Nathan of Review Barn, who has come up with the excellent idea of making a new list each week based on the most common tropes in fantasy, as seen in The Tough Guide to Fantasyland by Diana Wynn Jones. Nathan has invited anyone who is interested to come play along, so be sure to check out the first link for more information. Compulsive list-maker that I am, I'm very excited to take part!

This week's tour topic is: Immortals

IMMORTALS are fairly common in Fantasyland. There are three kinds:
1. GODDESSES AND GODS, who exist forever unless people stop believing in them.
2. ELVES or DARK LORDS, who live forever unless someone kills them.
3. Humans who are
a) Cursed and have to spend Eternity drearily Questing and/or hating everything.
b) MAGIC USERS. These generally find plenty of occupy the long years and mostly have a rather good time.

It's feast or famine with these Tough Traveling weeks! We could probably go on forever with books featuring immortals, but to keep this post to a reasonable length and because time is limited, I thought I might be cool if I split up my list using the categories outlined above and feature just a couple books (hopefully one obvious choice, and one not-so-obvious choice) for each.

American Gods by Neil Gaiman
The following two entries are specifically for "Gods who exist forever unless people stop believing in them." Well, that's pretty much the central premise of this book, the idea that gods and other mythological creatures exist due to the sheer force of spiritual belief or mental discipline. From Odin to leprechauns, immortality was achieved when immigrants to the US brought with them their beliefs, though as that belief began to wane thanks to obsession with technology and new fads so did the power of the mythological beings. (Review)

Thief's Covenant by Ari Marmell
The minor god Olgun doesn't actually have a physical body, but he definitely still counts in this category (and I also love these books so much, I never miss an opportunity to talk about them). Instead, he hitches a ride in the protagonist Widdershins' head because she is his last worshiper. They need each other, as Olgun can augment many of Widdershins' abilities and help her get out of tough jams, and Widdershins being his last believer is also the only reason Olgun still has a presence in this world. (Review)

The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien
The obvious choice and most well-known example for immortal ELVES, it would be remiss if I didn't include them. Exactly as the examples states, Tolkien's elves in world of Middle-earth are immune to disease and do not experience physical aging, though they can still be killed by violence or by wasting away when they lose their will to live. Otherwise, they're essentially immortal.

Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo
My entry for immortal DARK LORD is the Darkling from Bardugo's Grisha trilogy. At first, all we know of the Darkling is that he is the charming, handsome and mysterious leader of the Grisha, but then he is eventually revealed as main antagonist. Turns out all the Darklings who held leadership in the past were all one and the same man - he is an ancient powerful force that has existed since the beginning. (Review)

The Scroll of Years by Chris Willrich
Hmm, cursed humans. Well, Imago Bone isn't exactly what I'd call "dreary". In fact, as a thief and scoundrel, he lives a pretty merry and exciting existence adventuring with his lover Persimmon Gaunt. But he has been touched in some way with immortality. I don't know how precisely, since I've never read the short stories, but the book's description states "A thief in his ninth decade who is double-cursed", Imago has not aged in nearly seventy years. Cursed? Check. Immortal? Sounds like it to me. Questing? Always. (Review)

Hounded by Kevin Hearne
Here's my example for a human MAGIC USER who finds plenty to occupy their long years and mostly have a good time. Uh yeah, that pretty much describes Atticus O'Sullivan to a T. The guy definitely knows how to have fun, and at the moment this two-thousand year old druid's idea of fun is setting up shop in Tempe, Arizona with his talking dog, selling herbal tea to college students and New Age types. Plus, he gets his kicks looking and acting like a frat boy. (Review)

Tough Traveling: Dark Lord

The Thursday feature "Tough Traveling" is the brainchild of Nathan of Review Barn, who has come up with the excellent idea of making a new list each week based on the most common tropes in fantasy, as seen in The Tough Guide to Fantasyland by Diana Wynn Jones. Nathan has invited anyone who is interested to come play along, so be sure to check out the first link for more information. Compulsive list-maker that I am, I'm very excited to take part!

This week's tour topic is: Dark Lord

There is always one of these in the background of every Tour, attempting to ruin everything and take over the world  He will be so sinister that he will be seen by you only once or twice, probably near the end of the Tour…

Thank you, Nathan, for finally giving us an easy one. Dark Lords (and Ladies) run rampant in fantasy and science fiction, and what I tried to do with my list was think outside the box a little and aimed to mix some of the obvious classic ones in with others who might not be that well-known. As usual, I only list the books I've read, but I still had to cut myself off at ten. Here they are, listed in no particular order of importance or evilness...
 

Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling - Lord Voldemort
Still, let's just get the big You-Know-Who out of the way right off the bat. I have a feeling the boy wizard once known as Tom Marvolo Riddle who eventually became the infamous Lord Voldemort is going to be appearing on many Dark Lord lists today. I am also sure Harry Potter is going to show up a lot more on these Tough Traveling posts.

The Iron Wolves by Andy Remic - Orlana
One of the handful of Dark Ladies I can think of, Orlana the Changer is evil incarnate, a inhuman entity in a sexually attractive woman's body. Cold and sadistic, she commits all sorts of monstrous deeds on her victims just for the fun of it. She is best known for turning the bodies of men and animals inside out and splicing them together to form new nightmarish creatures, and for sacrificing innocents to birth the Mud Orc army she'll need to take over the world.

Star Wars novels by various authors - Sith Lords
Always lurking in the background waiting to ruin everything and take over the galaxy? So sinister and evil that he'll only be glimpsed on screen a handful of times if we're lucky? Pretty much every Sith Lord and Darth that ever existed fits this archetype. A few Star Wars books that I've enjoyed which focus mainly on the "Dark Lord" include the Darth Bane trilogy by Drew Karpyshyn and Darth Plagueis by James Luceno.

The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien - Sauron
Here we have another heavy hitter in the world of Dark Lords, one who I'm sure needs no introduction. The lord of the rings and creator of the One Ring was also the lieutenant of another notorious Dark Lord, Morgoth, whom I would have included in this list as well if I'd actually managed to get through The Silmarillion in its entirety.

Stormdancer by Jay Kristoff - Shogun Yoritomo

Stormdancer is a coming-of-age story about a young girl and her fight against a despotic Shogun. Yoritomo is a monster who uses violence, torture and threats to control the population of Shima. With the Guildsmen standing with him behind his tyrannical rule, he chokes the land with the lotus industry, killing slaves to grow the destructive crop and continue making war on his enemies.

The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan - The Dark One
The head bad guy in Wheel of Time, the Dark One has many names including the Father of Lies, Lord of the Grave and Sightblinder, but his true name is Shai'tan, though it is said to be dangerous to use it. The characters in the series know him to be an ancient, power and evil force, the embodiment of destruction and chaos. 

Wizard's First Rule by Terry Goodkind - Darken Rahl
Come on, with a name like Darken Rahl, he's gotta be evil. Indeed he is the primary antagonist for the Sword of Truth series, said to be a vicious man and ruthless wizard. He likes to rule with an iron fist, has an unquenchable thirst for revenge and has no qualms about using torture to get what he wants. Obsessed with world domination, his pastimes include building an army and hunting down confessors.

The Emperor's Knife by Mazarkis Williams - Pattern Master
The Cerani Empire is held in the grip of terror by an epidemic. The plague, which strikes young and old and rich and poor alike, causes geometric patterns to appear and spread across the skin until the victim dies in agony, or worse, becomes a mindless minion controlled by an unknown and mysterious enemy, the Pattern Master.

Children of Fire by Drew Karpyshyn - Daemron
Long ago, a great warrior called Daemron was was chosen by the gods to lead the war against the Chaos spawn. Daemron, however, grew corrupted and the savior of the world instead became its destroyer. He was thwarted in the end, banished and sealed behind barrier called the Legacy. Now the Legacy weakens, and Daemron grows strong enough again to cast his essence into the world.

Mistborn: The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson - The Lord Ruler
Known as the divine and invincible "Sliver of Infinity", the Lord Ruler's reign is filled with red skies and falling ash, and enslaved Skaa are forced to live in misery and fear. At the beginning, no one knows who he is or where he came from, just that the world has sucked ever since he installed himself as a deity and assumed absolute power over the Final Empire.

Man, a lot of these were hard to write without revealing massive spoilers. I'm looking forward to seeing others' Dark Lord lists.

Are We There Yet? (a sort of Eye of the World review)

The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan

Two stars for effort, worldbuilding and potential, especially knowing that Brandon Sanderson takes over in the end, but, having finally gotten through Eye of the World (audiobook really helped), I understand why I put it back on the library shelves, along with The Sword of Shannara , when I was a teen.

Review done, let's move on to commentary about a problem I'm seeing a lot in epic fantasy: epicness for the sake of epicness. I think it's a disease some authors have. That is, writing these huge stories within these massive worlds with all sorts of characters. That isn't necessarily a bad thing. Eye of the World develops some pretty strong lore and (vaguely) interesting characters, but after a while, I started to wonder how much of the story was actually necessary.

Are we there yet? Perhaps we should stop at another tavern.

As far as epic fantasy goes, I've read and loved The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit before it, but don't ask me to read them again. I was quite happy with the movies and not at all troubled by what was edited out. Die hard fans might complain about the lack of Tom Bombadil, but I'm okay with that because he really wasn't that integral to plot and/or character development (No, he wasn't. Stop it.). When thinking about an Eye of the World movie saga, I can see alllll the scenes that could be excised with no real loss to the story -- because did we really need to visit yet another tavern??

Game of Thrones is another prime example of an author that has lost his way in his epic fantasy. I can't stop praising HBO for sifting through the detritus to bring only the meat, without ever losing the heart of GRRM's original story and I'm looking forward to how they end the TV show far more than I am looking forward to whatever GRRM eventually plans to do. Assuming he has greater plans than just fanboying over himself.

Back to Eye of the World for a moment. I said the book had some (vaguely) interesting characters. Actually, the only character I care about is Moiraine. I could do with a few less of the younger ones on this fellowship. Half the time, I can't even tell them apart. I suppose that's convenient if any of them were to die, but I can't really say the deadly and dangerous events in the story have filled me with enough dread to actually believe anyone was going to be hurt in any interesting way. I mentioned Brandon Sanderson above, and frankly, he's about the only thing that would encourage me to read on any time soon because I am fond of his characterization and know that he will do a good job of making the characters more likable and memorable than they currently are.

Oh you're just bitter, you might say, and you'd probably be right. But having recently read and loved what Ursula K. Le Guin could accomplish in under 200 words, my meh-ness grows over epic fantasy that is epic just because the author does not know how to trim the fat.

2 of 5 stars