Number 20 is Possession by A.S Byatt. I really, really liked my first foray into Byatt's novels (The Children's Book), so I thought I'd give her 1990 Booker Prize winner a shot.

It's a complicated piece of work with multiple narratives and authors. Ostensibly, the 'hero' of the book is Roland Mitchell, a bit of a sad-sack scholar, an expert (but not THE expert) on a fictional Victorian poet, Randolph Henry Ash. One day Roland is going through a pretty much ignored collection of Ash's mundane papers (bills and such), and comes across the draft of a letter that points at something unknown before now; that Ash may have had a relationship outside of his marriage.

And so begins the literary mystery that is the heart of this novel. Mitchell sleuths out the identity of Ash's lover, another poet named Christabel Lamotte, and with the help of a Lamotte scholar, Maude Bailey, they find a packet of letters between the two poets and unfold a hidden love story.

This book isn't as easy a read as The Children's Book was as the narrative shifts from Roland and Maude to the letters between Ash and Lamotte and includes their poetry as well. I can certainly appreciate Byatt's artistry here as she does an excellent job in writing as two separate Victorian characters, both their private correspondence and their published poetry. Of course though, this book has also reminded me that yeah, I'm still not a fan of poetry.

I found though, that because of the letters and the poetry, while we really get invested in the relationship between Ash and Christabel, it leaves the modern characters a bit ... lacking. We're supposed to see progression in the relationship between Roland and Maude as well, but it never seems as natural a thing. Roland still seems to be a spectator in life, and Maude is still only defined by being 'cold'. They started off being defined more as characters, but by the time the Ash/Christabel correspondence is uncovered, the modern characters are given short shrift as their entire raison d'etre is to investigate further into the lives of the two Victorian poets.

All that being said though, I found the ending actually a little sad, so obviously some of Byatt's characters did resonate with me.

And now we take a brief pause in our fantasy reading to bring you a little bit of non-fiction. Number 19 is The Jaws Log by Carl Gottleib.

I admit I had a moment of indecision when thinking about whether or not to include this book because I don't do re-reads on this blog, and technically, I have read this book before. But that was... 30 years ago? And honestly, I'm not sure I read it so much as just looked at the pictures.

This book details the making of one of my all-time favourite movies, Jaws. I mean, I already know a lot of the history of this movie and the trials and tribulations they went through making it, but this book was chock full of details that I still didn't know and once gain, I am amazed that this movie even got made, let alone be the increadible movie that it is.

I heard a nasty rumour not long ago that someone was thinking about re-making Jaws, and if anyone ever does, they need to be forced to read this book so that they know they will be shitting all over an amazing, hard-wrought, finely crafted movie that became a block-buster almost in spite of everything that happened. And there should then never, ever be talk of a remake.

Number 18 is The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. Yes, I broke down and read it.

I'm a little surprised at myself, mainly because I don't deal with post-apocalyptic-type stuff. But... I found this didn't bother me too much that way.

I'm not going to say too much about this book. I enjoyed it actually. As far as popular teen-lit x-over stuff, this is VASTLY superior to that sparking vampire series. The writing is a zillion times better, and we won't even compare the two protagonists. Hell, I'm sure Katniss could do away with awful old Edward with no problem.

Not too sure if I'll continue on, if I can track em down in the library, perhaps so.

Number 17 is Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss. This is the sequel to The Name of the Wind. We pick up the story pretty much where it left off. In fact, it started the exact same way as the last book and I had to double check I'd bought the right one. But I had so off I went. We're back at the University with Kvothe. Of course he continues to get in trouble and eventually, he's in so much trouble that he has to take a leave of absence from the school. Funny enough, when this happened, I had been thinking that we need to get out of the University, and voila. Kvothe's lone noble friend has finally managed to attract what could be an extremely powerful sponsor for him. So off Kvothe goes to try and impress a man who's close to a king. I liked this part of the novel. There's some nice court intreigue, and quite a bit of romance as Kvothe also manages to run into his unrequited love, Denna, as well as help his patron woe an appropriate bride. The action then moves to the countryside as Kvothe is charged with to rid the neighbouring woods of bandits who are stealing tax money from his patron. With the usual fantasy small band of misfits, they manage to do so. I liked this part too. It was the next part I didn't. We then get this... diatribe where Kvothe follows a legendary creature of the Fae and becomes her lover for awhile. I don't know. I found this part rather boring. And trite. And annoying. And repetative. However, once he leaves and goes to the homelands of one of his comrades, it gets interesting again.

For the most part, I truly enjoy Rothfuss' world builiding, he's doing a lovely job overall, but I found so much about his foray into fae to be a mistep. It just came across as... too much.

We return to the University and I found by that time, that, like Kvothe, it was good to be back on familiar ground.

I'd also like to move the story forward in the narrative framing plot too. I'm sure we will, but right now, it's moving a little too slowly.

The next book, number 16 of this year, will have a very important footnote added to it. The book, The Magician King by Lev Grossman, is the first book I read in digital form. That's right, for my birthday, I got a Kobo e-reader. I won't talk about my feelings on the Kobo here as I'm still working those feelings out, but as I got it last Thursday and finished the book on Monday... I guess I don't hate it as much as I thought I might.

Of course, the speed with which I read it can also be attributed to the fact that The Magician King is a good book and a worthy successor to The Magicians.

When we catch up with Quentin and the other king and queens of Fillory, they're living the high life of... well, not doing too much at all. This lifestyle really suits some of them (Eliot and Janet), but Quentin seems bored and Julia, she's still broken. After a rather scary hunt for the Wishing Hare, it is revealed that things are not all right in Fillory and Quentin seizes upon this to go on a Quest. For he believes that a quest is just what he needs.

The narrative of this book is different from the last, and I found it an excellent departure. While most chapters deal with Quentin and his quest, the others focus on Julia, who was only a minor character in the first book, and tells the story of what happened to her and her journey to becoming an extremely powerful hedge witch. Of course, her story ends up being important to the main narrative as well, and it does all tie nicely together.

The Quest itself is simple, but not, just as all good quests should be. There is a lot of... coincidences, but that being a rather large trope of fantasy, it didn't bother me even if it did become predictable a couple of times. Grossman obviously knows his heroic quests, heck, there's even a harrowing of 'Hell' at one point.

The book ends up at a surprising place though. Well, it was a suprise and wasn't. It puts Quentin in a VERY unhappy place (whereas all those closest to him are very happy) and I'm not sure what that means. I don't know if there's another sequel coming or not, but if there is, I'm wondering if Quentin might go the Martin Chatwick route and if so, man that'll be a helluva read.

Number 15 this year is The Magicians by Lev Grossman. This book really is Harry Potter x Narnia but written for adults. I know that probably sounds really banal, but did I love this book? Damn right I did.

The main character, one Quentin, is such a perfect study of 17 year old teenaged ennui that it's almost hilarious, but not. Just like real teenaged ennui. He's incredibly smart and incredibly unhappy, and obsessed with a series of children's books about the imaginary country Fillory (this would be the Narnia stand-in). When Quentin finds himself suddenly accepted to a school for learning magic called Brakebills (this would be the Harry Potter part), Quentin thinks that finally, he can be happy, he'll be learning something few learn, and maybe, maybe he can go to Fillory.

But unlike Hogwarts, Brakebills comes across as much tougher. Cause you see, in The Magicians, magic is more like computer science or advanced chemistry or electrical engineering. You have to be prepared for long, hard study and practice to master, complete with incantation, confounding variables, deep thought, passionate virtuosity, and great precision. It's kinda awesome.

The first parts of the novel deal with Quentin's time at Brakebills and the weirdness that goes on there (the 4th year trial is particularly wicked), and the various characters. Quentin doesn't really find himself much happier, despite everything. He still hangs on to the idea that maybe one day finding their way into Fillory will make him happy.

Fillory, when they get there, is everything that they never thought it would be. It was brutal and and dangerous and in their arrogance, everything goes completely wrong. Once again, also awesome.

I have to go out and the sequel to this right away.

Hey guess what? Number 14 is more fantasy! I don't think I've read this much consecutive fantasy novels that weren't all part of the same series in a very long time. But anyway, number 14 is The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie. This came suggested from a number of sources, so thought it was time to give it a try.

Glad I did. So since this is the first book of a trilogy, this is our introduction. We meet the cast ; Barbarian Logen Ninefingers, crippled Inquisitor Glotka, selfish-spoiled pretty boy Jezal; the commoner who made good Major West and of course the powerful and enigmatic magus, cause you always need one of those.

I liked all the characters, even when they were made to be unlikable. Jezal is a complete pratt, West is a little too moral, Glotka is so very cynical (with good reason though), and Logen, well he's not as barbaric a barbarian as he's been in the past.

So not only do we meet the characters, but Abercrombie does some very successful world building too as he takes us through a few countries and their history and the wars that all of the main characters (except Jezal) have lived through. It's nicely done.

I don't have much to say other than I did enjoy this book a lot and will definitely be forging ahead with this crew, especially as they were finally heading out on the quest that that aforementioned powerful and enigmatic mage had enlisted them for.

Number... crap, what number am I on? Oh yeah, lucky number 13. And it is The Dragon's Path by Daniel Abraham. I picked this book up because it got a good review from the AV Club, invoking a favourable comparison to GRRM no less, so I decided to give it a shot.

I could immediately understand the GRRM comparison as Abraham structures this book exactly like GRRM structures his Song of Ice and Fire books; each chapter is told from the POV of a main character. The difference is that Abraham has less main characters than GRRM does. There are three main characters, Marcus Wester, Cithrin and Geder. Then a few other lesser characters who also get POV chapters.

I found this a little... hard to get into. It wasn't bad or anything, it just didn't really reach out and grab me. I found the worldbuilding a little... I don't know, pedantic? I just didn't find the unfolding of the world's history to be that interesting. Perhaps because I felt it was somehow disconnected from what the characters were going through? Geder has an almost unhealthy interest in history, but since his interest is put forth as almost frivolous and child-like, I found it hard to take all of it seriously. And I just found all the different races kinda Star Trekian and a little difficult to keep track of.

Abraham's court intreigue is definitely not on par with GRRM's. Now, the comparison is a mite unfair because that is the sort of thing that GRRM so excels at, but at this point in fantasy writing, if you're going to approach court politics, you have to bring your A game. I think we have a B game going on here. One of the other POV characters (Dawson) is knee deep in this, a nobleman mover and shaker who is convinced he is saving his king, and he brings some of the other characters into the fold whether they want to or not.

I have no problem with characters being far flung from one another, but other than at the very beginning, I just wasn't seeing connections between their storylines and that kinda annoyed me. I'm sure it will come back around again and be tied together, but the sense of... urgency isn't there? I dunno.

Not to say that there aren't some very good parts to this book. Geder makes an incredibly huge, dire decision that I definitely didn't see coming, and his character is growing very interesting. He's almost doing a reverse Jaime and I can respect that. In fact, I think I found Geder's plotline to be the most interesting of them all.

All this being said, I felt the book did considerably pick up in the second half, so it is enough to make me want to continue on when the next one comes out.

Since this is about books and concerns two of my favourite authors, I thought this would be a good place to post it for posterity.

Wednesday of last week, I did an interview with the CBC for a piece they were doing on George R.R. Martin. They wanted to talk to a fan, and my friend who works for the best sci-fi/fantasy bookstore in Toronto immediately thought of me and put my name forth.

The piece aired on Sunday, on The National no less. I'm on it for like 30 seconds, and they got my name wrong, but still, there I am along with interviews with George himself and Guy Gavriel Kay, who is undoubtedly, my favourite author. Supreme geek moment as far as I'm concered :)

Here's a link to the piece: http://www.cbc.ca/video/#/News/TV_Shows/The_National/1233408557/ID=2068554409