Tough Traveling: Large Man

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: Large Man

LARGE MAN…He is very calm, very strong, and not at all stupid. In some cases he will have been a BLACKSMITH, which accounts for the ease with which he severs the chains in the Galley.

Okay, so I was completely stuck for the theme for this week. I tried googling for ideas. And let's just say, I hope no one else made the same mistake I did with the search term "fantasy large men". Yeah, I don't recommend that at all. You would not believe the results that came up. Not what I had in mind.

So I'm afraid I'm going to have a rather weak list this week. The thing is, the LARGE MAN (who is also sometimes a blacksmith) feels like it has come up a lot in the books I read, but I can never remember, as this character is so often in the background, "just some guy" the main characters happen to meet, who might not even be named. A few on my list are going to be more prominent and better known large men instead, even if they don't really fit the description.

Red Country by Joe Abercrombie
Lamb is Shy South's cowardly old stepfather, a big man but also quiet and taciturn. The two come back from town one day to find their farm burned to their ground, and Shy's two young siblings Ro and Pit stolen away. Their journey to get the children back brings out a whole new side in Lamb, and we discover he has actually been hiding a bloody past of his own. If you've read The First Law trilogy before this, you're in for a treat!

A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin
Martin's series is peppered with freakishly large men (and women, in the case of Brienne of Tarth). We have the Clegane brothers, Ser Gregor and Sandor who are both huge and heavily muscled, the former who is nicknamed "The Mountain" because of his enormous stature. We also have Hodor, of course. Well over seven feet tall, it has even been suggested by Osha that he might have some giant's blood in him.

Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling
Speaking of giant's blood, we move on to a character who actually is half-giant. Rubeus Hagrid is the son of a human and a giantess, and at age six he was able to pick up his father and put him on top of the dresser if he annoyed him. Plus, every one of these Tough Traveling posts requires Harry Potter, so glad I was able to get it in for this week.

The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson
The Horneater called Rock is Kaladin's fellow bridgeman in Sadeas' army whose real name is so hard to pronounce that everyone just calls him by the nickname. He is also a large man. He is described as nearly seven feet tall with thick limbs and a powerful torso. Despite his size, others around him are generally not intimidated by him because of his jovial nature. He is quick to laugh and is well-liked. He likes to cook and refuses to fight because being a soldier is not considered reputable in his culture.

The Broken Empire by Mark Lawrence
Prince Honorous Jorg Ancrath travels with his band of gritty brutes, with Brother Rike being notably one of the larger and more blood thirsty members of his gang. There's even a great quote about his size: "Most men have at least one redeeming feature. Finding one for Brother Rike requires a stretch. Is 'big' a redeeming feature?"

Book Review: The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson

Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson

Genre: Epic Fantasy

Series: The Stormlight Archives #2

Publisher: Gollancz

Publication Date: March 2014

Author Info: www.brandonsanderson.com

Wendy's rating: 4 of 5 stars

"Want what you need. Embrace it. Desire it.
And bring it to you."

I am giving this epic fantasy a grudging four stars. I gave the previous book the same, teetering towards five stars because of the exciting finale, but this book is a much slower burn and there were many elements that I did not enjoy.

First of all, I will remind you that I am not a fan of epic fantasy for the sake of epic fantasy. This book is HUGE. The previous book was HUGE. And I expect the next books to be—wait for it—HUGE. I have no idea how Sanderson fits all of his worlds, theologies and magics in his head. Each of his realms are richly detailed and complete, to the point of perfectionism, and Sanderson works hard to deliver ALL of that information to the reader. It goes against the “show, don’t tell” writing policy, especially when pages are spent on things like how-to magic, back story, or the tiniest bug is described in detail. Once again, I mostly listened to this as an audiobook, narrated by Michael Kramer and Kate Reading, and I believe that helped me get through what may well have been too much for me to handle, what with my constant distractions of late.

Words of Radiance follows directly on the heels of The Way of Kings, with Kalladin and Bridge Four now firmly in place as the bodyguards of Dalinar Kholin and his family, including the whiny king of Alethcar. Dalinar’s former BFF continues to harry Dalinar’s efforts to unify Alethcar against the Parshendi, bringing an end to the greedy squabbles between the highprinces and ultimately ending the war that was originally intended to avenge the death of their previous king, Dalinar’s brother.

While I enjoyed some aspects of the internal politics, a lot more of it was just annoying because of how childlike it was. I certainly understand that it is intended to be so, as the nobility fight over baubles and pride, but this became most disappointing when it came to Sadeaus using such childish means to undermine Dalinar. I felt that Sadeaus’ character was done a great disservice in this book. He went from a stalwart general, fighting alongside Dalinar, and eloquently expressing his grievances when they did not see eye-to-eye, to a man who didn’t want to share. That can be an understandable transition for many reasons, but I felt that his stubborn refusal to consider Dalinar’s proposal and his juvenile attempts to discredit Dalinar were not well portrayed in a character that initially was better written and seemed above such pettiness. I suppose that is a true enough reflection of reality, but, as with many things in the book, the repetition of Sadeaus’ foils grew tedious and ultimately disappointing.

I will also add Shallan’s tongue to my collection of annoyances. She is a young woman with a sharp mind who, against protocol, tends to speak it, often in witty commentary. Only, her commentary is not particularly amusing, and as she keeps pointedly using it to spar, it just became an irritation, especially when dealing with Kalladin, who seems to have been set up as a potential second love interest for Shallan, as they bicker in true kindergarten playground fashion.

I also got tired of Shallan’s back story. I didn’t enjoy this form of interjecting pieces of the life altering moments of Kalladin’s life in The Way of Kings, and I liked Shallan’s back story even less as it dragged on and on. It is meant to give the characters depth, and help us understand why they come to certain pivotal decisions, or undertake certain actions, but I find this storytelling process tedious. More so because the climax of these past events had become glaringly obvious several hundred pages earlier.

I ought to be subtracting points for what I want to proclaim are extra pages, but damn it, I can’t. Because, while there is more than necessary and it does bog the book down, all the detail comes back around to serve a purpose. Nothing is forgotten. There are no loose threads left dangling in the storm, and no meandering subplots to be excised when the author (looking at you, GRRM) can’t figure out what to do with them. Sanderson seems to know exactly where everything is going, and has everything neatly packaged in his mind. For this reason, I am cautiously willing to forgive all of the things I complained about above, and even the introduction of a few characters over the course of the two books, who appear and seem to be of importance, but are not mentioned again for a long time, if at all. I’m sure they will return, but perhaps their introduction would have been better served later. Ultimately, I’m sure that in the next however many books the Stormlight Archives will take, Sanderson will unravel and connect everything for us.

Plus, any of the blah blah blah is balanced by these rich characters and plots. I particularly loved being able to see this war from the side of the Parshendi in this book and to better understand why they are fighting against the humans. There is still much to be revealed there, but I was pleasantly surprised to be offered the opportunity to meet the “enemy” so soon, and I loved the insight into their sing-song forms of communication (which, incidentally, reminds me of elcor—because Bioware ruins everything…).

Audiobook Review: The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson

The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson

Genre: Epic Fantasy

Series: The Stormlight Archive #1

Publisher: Tor Books

Publication Date: August 31, 2010

Author Info: brandonsanderson.com 

Wendy's Rating: 5 of 5 stars - It is evident that Sanderson has this entire world perfectly detailed in his head, and he seems determined to make sure the reader sees it exactly as he does... 

With three hours left on the audiobook and constant interruptions at work where I usually listen to my audiobooks, this happened:

I got through the work day, running home to read the rest because the narrators just weren't reading fast enough, dammit! I now am suffering from severe book hangover, knowing that I have to wait until March 4, 2014 to find out what happens next in Words of Radiance. You'd think with all this, that I'd throw all the stars at this book, but I had to deliberate on that a bit. My bookflail showed up in the last 200 pages of a massive book. But I'm just not sure I could have made it through the first 3/4 if I'd not opted to listen to the audiobook.

The world Sanderson has built is immense and his lore covers everything from fashion, to theology, to weather, to magic, to politics, and more. A lot more. A. LOT. MORE. It is incredibly impressive, but the interjection of lore building exposition and flashbacks became disruptive after a while. It is evident that Sanderson has this entire world perfectly detailed in his head, and he seems determined to make sure the reader sees it exactly as he does by including full descriptions of even the smallest element, rather than allowing the reader to use a bit more of their own imagination.

Considering the intended length of the series, weighing in at twenty books, I assume the information dumps will become less of an issue as it progresses (save it for the wiki, please). And fortunately the lore influx is also balanced by the depth of the characters, which is what helped me pull through. In other epic fantasies, you don't really get to know the characters, and in some cases you can't even tell them apart. Here, there is as much time spent with the development of the major characters and the supporting cast important to them. Perhaps more of Kaladin’s backstory is told than is necessary, but I can excuse this because of how vivid and interesting the character is, such that you actually come to care about him and the others, rather than merely liking him because he's cool.

The audiobook was read by Michael Kramer and Kate Reading, the same people who narrated Robert Jordan’s unimpressive The Eye of the World, which inspired my post on epic storytelling for the sake of epicness. With this in mind, I should have been daunted by this book’s information overload and the twenty book series, but this is Brandon Sanderson. I’ve actually only read 2.1 books by him (though I own several) and completely subscribe to the well-earned hype. His world building *is* truly amazing. His unique and varied approach to the use of magic in each of his stories is fascinating (in the case of Warbreaker, it’s specifically what attracted me). And his characters are very real and very endearing. If Sanderson gets carried away sometimes with too much lore, I can forgive him because it feels like him eagerly inviting you into his head, rather than him just unnecessarily padding out a book and/or killing time till he figures out what the story is supposed to do next.

As for the story itself, it was really impressive. A pointless war for vengeance is at the heart of everything, with mysteries stemming from this core in all directions. The last 200 pages of the book are so intense because those vines of mystery, along with all of these intriguing characters, start to come together in the end, creating all new mysteries that demand that you continue the journey.

Wendy's Book Haul: Santa!

Parents who stress over Christmas like I did last year might be a little envious of this week's book haul. This represents the the last of my Christmas shopping for my daughters. Six gorgeous hard cover books! My eight year old will love them, and while the five year old isn't so big on reading, the Elements of Harmony My Little Pony book will give her lots to look over while she watches her favourite show.

Yeah okay... I did grab a few digital and audiobook titles for myself too... damn Amazon sales...