In the fourth installment of his A Song of Ice and Fire series, George R. R. Martin veers from his juggernaut of a fantastic story, slowing down to pick up the pieces left over from A Storm of Swords. Here, with only a select cast of his trademark and ever-expanding (and sometimes murderously contracting) pageant of rich point-of-view characters, Martin crafts a novel-length transition piece. While it disappoints in comparison to the previous three outstanding novels, which are among the finest, most entertaining fantasy novels written in decades, the novel maintains Martin’s excellent writing, captivating characters, and fascinating situations. The book offers some insight on how A Song of Ice and Fire can capture the crown of the best fantasy epic of the modern day.
While most fans know the history of A Feast for Crows’ publication and the long wait for fifth book, A Dance With Dragons, here’s a quick summary. In 2005, Martin published A Feast for Crows with a note indicating that it was only part of text meant to be a huge fourth novel. So, he split the text in two, placing some of his point-of-view characters in this book, and the remainder in a fifth book. Fans have spent years since in sometimes impatient furor demanding the “other half” of the tome (it arrives this summer, July 12, 2011), replete with fan favorite (mine included) characters Tyrion and Jon Snow, among others.
This split structure reveals itself in the novel’s story. Unlike the previous novels, here the multi-character story is flatter, the build up less climactic and epic. A Feast for Crows opens with Westeros a ruin in the thralls of war. The landscape is apocalyptic. Winter is coming. The lands are muddy wastes, decorated with hanged soldiers. Packs of wolves and outlaws haunt the land, and the common folk suffer terribly.
That theme is more present than ever. Martin’s previous books squeezed tension between the nobles of the game of thrones and the commoners. Here, we see devastation, dismemberment, horrible cruelty, rape, torture and worse inflicted on those poor bastards not lucky enough to be born in a noble house. And, yet, every single point-of-view character has some kind of noble lineage or direct link to high nobility. True, some – like Arya – are thrust into commoner roles, seeing through their own eyes the sometimes ugly, sometimes profound, and nearly always suffering lot of commoners. Martin manages to draw out our egalitarian sense of pity for these folk, while still stoking our root-for-the-underdog sense of heroism for the noble-born good guys – like Brienne or Samwell Tarly (notably, both “slum it” with hapless commoner companions).
At the center of the book are those lascivious, leonine Lannister twins, Cersei and Jaime. Both feature prominently in the book, particularly Cersei, whose chapters outnumber those of all other point-of-view characters in the book. She serves ably, maddeningly as antagonist.
The focus on those twins, who spend the half the novel in the same locale, dampen Martin’s ability to reveal a fantastically realized world in Westeros and the lands across the sea. While their events ultimately prove interesting, the build is slow. What’s more compelling is Martin’s strength as a character transformer. He’s at his best showing detail by detail how Cersei spirals out of control and Jaime distancing himself from her and gaining back some of his own self.
Through them, we see key events, like the siege of Dragonstone, but Martin reveals these from afar, after-the-fact. Unlike, say, the battle at King’s Landing or the Red Wedding in previous books, we don’t even a point-of-view character present for their own part in the action. The “off-stage” effect feels less powerful than those tense scenes of pinpoint action in previous books that Martin then follows with subsequent chapters and perspective. The mix is genius drama in A Storm of Swords. Here, it’s quieter.
Tales of the Viking-like Iron Men, who finally unite and throw their own hat in the ring for the game of thrones by invading the mainland, seem to dwindle as the book progresses. Point-of-view chapters from varying Greyjoy family members wander and ultimately fizzle, leaving this reader uncertain why Martin bothered. It seems as though he’s experimenting, then gives up the game there.
The star of the book is Brienne, the ugly lady warrior knight. In her search for Sansa Stark, she faces the toughest struggles and the book’s only real, exciting action. With a motley crew of unwanted companions wandering the apocalyptic landscape, she’s heroic, driven, and at her best when Martin whispers, and sometimes reveals her vulnerabilities. In Brienne, fans of the series find a noble hero worth cheering for opposite the cynical villainy of Cersei and her cohorts.
The beloved Starks aren’t wholly absent. Sansa and Arya prolong their separate lives as refugees with hidden identities. Their chapters, also, are too flat, feeling more of the same from their chapters in previous books. And, we get a glimpse of Jon Snow through Samwell Tarly, who then ventures out on his own for a wandering, slightly confused trek to the south.
All told, the chapters do indeed build to a compelling ending, though some are whopping cliff hangers. Martin’s writing is solid, though I will say his affectation of describing clothing and medieval foodstuffs reveals one hell of a Renaissance faire complex! That’s my good-natured rubbing, as the novel held up surprisingly well for me given all the flak it received from personal friends and online commentary. It was enough to confirm that Martin will continue writing fantasy I’m thrilled to read.
A Feast for Crows: B+
Tags: A Feast For Crows, A Song of Ice and Fire, B+, epic, fantasy, George R. R. Martin, Review
I spent the week on vacation with my family. We drove to Denver to stay with my wife’s sister and enjoy the tourist attractions. Among those was the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, where they had a special touring exhibit, Real Pirates! The exhibit was wonderful, and inspiring for my current writing project.
The exhibit featured artifacts from the Whydah, a slave galley turned pirate ship by “Black Sam” Bellamy in the golden age of piracy. The ship wrecked off the coast of Cape Cod in 1717 during a storm. Barry Clifford located the wreck in the 80s, and it’s now touring the nation in various museums. The exhibit displays the usual stuff — cannonballs, parts of muskets, various tools and utensils, and an impressive display of real pirate treasure in the form of hundreds (thousands?) of silver coins. It also had many interesting insights into the make-up of pirate crews (including many black and Native American sailors, their mentality about going “on the account” (a.k.a. signing on to be a pirate), their almost dandy style, and the cultural mess of the triangular slave trade.
I tried to sketch down some notes about it all, but managed to lose the notes on my smart phone. Still, it was inspiring stuff, and I managed to write down much in my journal later on.
Canada and I decided to cut our trip a bit short and drive back home late Thursday night. She asked about my note taking and what I was up to with this writing thing. I explained it all to her, my idea for a fantastical novel of sky pirates. She knew I had been up to something, and I think is more than a little pleased I’m finally getting around to that writing thing she’s always wanted me to do. She has no idea how I needed to get all that out from the echoes of my head.
I spent a lot of time this weekend doing more research and sketching out more ideas, names, second-world geography. Oh, true, it’s not the first time I’ve dived into a creative project like this, and often those ideas sit idle, or used in ways other than fiction writing. But, I have an inkling — only that so far — that I’m finally getting myself into a strange routine to see this through.
Tags: Colorado, Pirates, second world, slavery, vacation, world building, writing
UK author Mark Charan Newton writes one hell of a blog. (He also writes fantasy novels — check out Legends of the Red Sun series). Two recent posts from him dive in to writing styles and second world building. He talks about his approach to both as a writer, but also acknowledges other techniques. And, he praises Scrivener software, which I’ve checked out as a demo for PC. It’s a powerful writing tool that remains straightforward to use and learn.
Check out both posts:
Planning Arrangements – here he talks about narrative structure and writing.
Building Secondary Worlds – Mark breaks down the components of imaginary places he writes about, from names of characters to the color of the buildings they inhabit. Fascinating stuff.
Tags: fantasy, Mark Charan Newton, world building, writing
While we’re living in interesting times, we might as well enjoy the show. Brave New Worlds is a great companion to an increasingly acrimonious and digital world. Editor John Joseph Adams has assembled a relevant anthology of dystopian short fiction for the 21st century.
The anthology assembles dystopian classics along side more contemporary works. Included is Harlan Ellison’s classic, “Repent, Harlequin!” Said the Ticktockman among other notable stories from notable speculative fiction authors like Ursula Le Guin and Robert Silverberg. Here, too, are contemporary writers, like rising star Paolo Bacigalupi.
(NOTE: The ebook edition does not include three classics that appear in the print edition. Those are: The Minority Report by Philip K. Dick, Billennium by J. G. Ballard, and Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. These are literary greats, in my view, but as this review is from the ebook, I don’t include those works here except to say that Harrison Bergeron is one of those “everyone reads it in high school” stories. I have no doubt these improve the already wonderful anthology.)
Unsurprisingly, the book offers a panoply of dystopias, and only a few of the expected Big Brother variety. Adams’ has edited here a thoughtful variation on theme, a Noah’s Ark of awful places we never want to visit. Fortunately, most of them we want to read. Taken as a whole, the collection is superb. At their best, the stories are profoundly troubling and timeless. Sadly, a few — blissfully only a very few — are political screeds that can’t carry the torch of the classic and contemporary greats within.
There are 30 stories in Brave New Worlds ebook edition (33 in print). Rather than comment on all, I’ll settle for highlighting ones I thought were outstanding as well as a couple that I thought stumbled:
The Best
Three stories in this collection stood out:
The Funeral by Kate Wilhelm is a wonderfully cryptic narrative told through the eyes of a girl in an impossibly strict (and violent) school for girls. The story is beautifully constructed and leaves readers piecing together three generations of totalitarian education. It’s a haunting, fascinating work.
The aforementioned “Repent, Harlequin!” Said the Ticktockman by Harlan Ellison is one of the funniest black humor stories I’ve ever read. It deserves its already established reputation as a classic of science fiction, and it lays bare the absurdity of those who know what’s best for you.
Finally, Cory Doctorow’s The Things that Make Me Weak and Strange Get Engineered Away is a well-realized, well-crafted work. It’s one of the longest in the collection for good reason. Doctorow crafts an elaborate landscape for a near-future monk of the digital age who unravels the paradox of his dystopian masters.
The Rest
Other superbly written stories in the collection include:
O Happy Day! by Geoff Ryman is by far the most disturbing work in the anthology. I see other reviewers have wide-ranging reactions for this one, but I found it superb. (Pop Squad by Paolo Bacigalupi runs a distant second on the disturbing scale, and his Blade Runner-esque tale is also excellent.)
Amaryllis by Carrie Vaughn is almost sweet, despite knowing all along that the powers that be force people into awful decisions about procreation.
The Lunatics by Kim Stanley Robinson along with Jordan’s Waterhammer by Joe Mastroianni, strike me as companion tells of enslaved miners breaking over inhumane circumstances to face oblivion. The tales are both fascinating viewpoints of those who lack full awareness of their awful situation, but nevertheless realize the injustice.
All told, the remaining stories are worth reading. I found about three works that read more as political posturing than accessible narratives, but I wager that any reader could say the same of nearly any thought-provoking fiction.
Brave New Worlds: A-
Tags: A-, anthology, Brave New Worlds, dystopian fiction, John Joseph Adams, short fiction
In 1996 while on a dinner break from my night job as a college newspaper copy editor, I discovered a new paperback with an interesting cover. It had some wolves and a young heroic looking fellow in the snow. I’d never heard of the book, nor the author. My friends, who also loved reading fantasy novels, had never mentioned it.
It turns out that heroic youth on the cover was a character named Jon Snow. The “unknown” author was George R. R. Martin, and the book was the first copy I ever saw of A Game of Thrones.
I remember clearly finishing the book. I had probably read it for a couple weeks, but I finished the thing in mad dash until 5 a.m., at which point I exclaimed to my then girlfriend, now wife, that it was the best book I ever read.
Ok, I may have exaggerated at that point. I have read better books. Not many. I loved Martin’s characters, and cheered that for once I wasn’t totally put off by clichéd, regurgitated fantasy. I became an A Song of Ice and Fire evangelist to all my friends, and I still smugly remind them who introduced them to the now famous series.
Oh, there are much more devoted fans of the series than me, I have no doubt. But, I love the books deeply.
But, I confess, I’m bitter. When news arrived about A Feast for Crows, I learned it was a riven text, and that A Dance With Dragons was its delayed twin that contained all my favorite characters’ chapters. Those friends shared their slight disappointment after reading. And, life otherwise got busy.
So it was that this fan, discover of the Western Kingdoms, never read A Feast for Crows in some kind of self-inflicted protest. What a waste. I decided my next read would be a treat to myself. Bring on the disappointing saga! I can’t wait.
Tags: A Feast For Crows, A Game of Thrones, A Song of Ice and Fire, fantasy, George R. R. Martin
I’m still reading Brave New Worlds. My reading pace is normally pretty slow. Throw on to my schedule a new workout regimen and my and my wife’s new addiction to watching Dexter on Netflix means I’m way behind here.
The anthology is fascinating. It’s been a long while since I read any short fiction, especially speculative fiction like this. I studied it formally in college years ago, and outside of that I had read a lot of science fiction short story classics.
I confess, I have forgotten how thick with political identity the speculative genre is. It’s almost quaint to me to see how things have changed. That sounds more condescending that I mean it, though. I’m just fascinated to see so many of the stories in this collection featuring climate change as a key premise, for example.
The collection is, at least thus far, also heavy into themes surrounding gender issues, GLBT, and especially reproductive issues like abortion, fertility and population growth (or devastation on a couple cases). I have no quibble with the topics. Indeed, I don’t think I can say I even have a quibble with the political positions these authors take.
But, I do find the conceits surrounding the oppression and the ruling powers of these dystopia are sometimes so bizarre as to be political farce. In one story, an evolved Catholic church conducts infanticide-by-baptism because the infants are diagnosed as infertile. In another, a new American theocracy resurrects a Green party pot smoker and then summarily cites imaginary George W. Bush era terrorism laws for his being a terrorist. To be fair, other stories go the opposite direction as political commentary, including troubling story of a matriarchy run amuck that imprisons violent men.
But, I will say there’s precious little political viewpoint in this collection that isn’t either left-leaning being self crticial or left-leaning criticizing the right. That’s not really surprising; it’s not even disappointing. That’s not my point. It echoes my experiences and observations for current day geek subcultures, most of which at least acknowledge slightly left-leaning politics and at most extreme rant against race, religion or conservative politicies with their own shouting groupthink.
So, yes, I find some of the stories to be those kinds of screeds. Which I think is an odd reaction for me to have. Speculative fiction is a vast playground in which I like to think of myself as the open-minded adventurer, eager to explore unusual worlds and stretch the boundaries of settings, ideas, and themes. And, dystopian fiction is especially likely to present extreme, political landscapes and villains. Yet, I still find a small number of these stories to be careless. Stories in which the terror of dystopia isn’t villainous, or even bleakly humorous, but trite and ill-conceived.
I think those kinds of stories do not stand the test of time, which is the bullshit way of saying they aren’t very good stories.
Thankfully, Brave New Worlds is not full of such stories. They are the exception, not the rule.
Tags: Brave New Worlds, politics, short fiction
I’m 35. This year, my wife and I moved into our dream house after six frustrating and stressful years of trying to move out of our first home. Now, we and our two children have a wonderful place to live.
When I was 15, my dream was to be one of two things – bass player in rock band or a novelist. I’m was always a pretty mediocre musician at best, but I could write. Or so I thought, anyway. I chose my beloved University of Iowa based solely on its world renown graduate fiction writing program, the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. My mother made me reply to at least one other school just to be safe. I barely bothered. I was a Hawkeye.
I actually made it into a select portion of the university’s undergraduate creative writing program (taught by some talented Writers’ Workshop graduate students), but the truth was I wasn’t ready to become a world renown fiction writer. I got the journalism bug not long after I decided I needed to have some kind of job. I needed that job because I wanted to marry my girlfriend – now wife – and have a home and family. That desire outweighed my novelist dream.
I got a great education along the way, and a degree in English and journalism both. The journalism degree turned out well. I’ve been working at a media company for 13 years, and have a respectable income sufficient to buy this wonderful house I’m sitting in now.
No regrets. I knew all along I was making choices that would prevent me from being the writer I dreamed of being some day. Pay the bills first. Feed the kids. Get a nice home for us to have a decent life in. Then, writing.
Ok, not even then. I’m currently a graduate student . . . in a Masters of Business Administration program. Not exactly a beatnik existence, huh? At least it’s also at Iowa! Life-long Hawkeye, here. Classes chew up a lot of my time, and will continue for a couple more years. But, it helps my career considerably. It ensures my kids have great coverage and a college education some day.
Still, I didn’t lose that creative urge entirely. For much of my leisure time over the last 10 years, I created indie role-playing games. I had some decent success, too, and wrote and published three unique games – a Western game called Dust Devils, a horror game called 44: A Game of Automatic Fear, and a Greek myth inspired modern fantasy called Nine Worlds. The latter two are available for free at StoriesYouPlay.com.
But all of that added up to much less time reading, and almost zero time writing fiction.
About two months ago, something changed – the kind of change I think people require before they can will themselves into doing something hard. After all this time, I wanted to read fiction again. I’ve read more books in the last two months than I have in the last two years. It’s refreshing, and it’s not going away any time soon. Something in me clicked.
Something else clicked, too. I got that desire to write again, that dream revived. And, I confess, it remains just a desire. Writers write, of course. So, all I can say so far is that aspiring writers research. I’ve spent my last few days writing some imaginative notes about the age of sail, the moons of Jupiter, Archimedes, and Pascal. Oh, and pirates.
There’s a wonderful idea there, begging to get out as a work of long fiction. It’ll take hard work, patience and willpower, all amid an already very busy life of work and school and family and friends. Given 20 years of distant dreams, I have no illusions how challenging it will be.
I’m going to give it a shot.
Full disclosure: I’ve met Matt Forbeck a few times. I can’t say I know him well, but what I do know is he’s an extraordinarily nice guy.
Angry Robot Books just recently released Amortals by Matt Forbeck in the U.S. It’s been making rounds in the UK on reviews, and is currently gathering up good reviews here in the states as well. It’s a science fiction thriller with plenty of twists, turns, and technological tricks.
Hot on the heels of my reading of Sandman Slim, Amortals is another first person account with a detective fiction feel. The protagonist narrator is Ronan “Methuselah” Dooley, the world’s first and oldest amortal. Amortality is the technological centerpiece of the book, a process where people can be resurrected by means of a clone and downloaded memories. Dooley dies protecting the president in the early 21st century, and his heroism helps usher in widespread acceptance of the new technology for a new era of rich, amortal haves and poor, mortal have-nots.
The book begins with Dooley’s latest death. After a string of dying in the line of duty over about 200 years, Dooley’s almost become used to the process. But, this death is more gruesome than most, and leaves a cold trail of who or what his killer wants.
Forbeck wastes no time propelling Dooley and his mortal partner Querer, a middle aged woman whom he distrusts initially, into action. After a presidential celebration of his rebirth, Dooley begins collecting up information, especially via his nanoserver implants. The effect for readers is seeing the technological layers of the world through Dooley’s eyes as a living, breathing internet enabled world reveals clues and threats. It’s a nice touch to consider how information swarms our senses, even in today’s real world.
Pacing in the first half or more of the book earns that thriller label for the book. Dooley’s attacked by Indian gangster, snipers, and rocket launching mystery men, then chasing after same in acrobatic hover car action. The action makes for a pleasant, page turning read.
Dooley himself is a salty dog of an agent, but also a lens for readers. He’s roughly my contemporary (and Forbeck’s) – someone born in the late 20th century, and still remembers bits of his family life from that time. Forbeck adds just a tad too much for my tastes on some minor details – it’s clear he’s writing for geek culture by drumming up Dooley’s fondness for Settlers of Catan in one passage, rather than the more rough and tumble Eastwood type that he otherswise behaves as in the line of duty. It’s a small thing, but one that snapped me out of an otherwise well done character who’s far too old for his young cloned appearance.
The Amortal Project, the official organization that controls amortality for an elite superpowered United States, is the matter of much controversy. Dooley’s investigation is peppered with references to religious objection and activism against the immorality of amortality. Here again, Forbeck makes some interesting commentary on the consequences of amortality, including class warfare and religious extremism, for which Dooley seems to have no interest.
Nestled between action sequences is Dooley’s introduction to his sixth generation descendant grandson, whom he calls Six. The teenager forms a bond with Dooley, but also introduces the relationship with the boy’s father, whom Dooley calls Five. It ends badly, or so Forbeck leads readers to believe.
It all turns sharply when Dooley encounters his killer, someone much, much closer to him than he ever suspected. The book then builds rather quickly to a revolutionary turn for Dooley with Querer at his side. Here, the book suffers. While the future shocks revealed in the final chapters of the thriller provide interesting turns, Forbeck rushes. The story builds to a dramatic confrontation with the Amortal Project conspirers, and then ends abruptly. Forbeck abandons Dooley’s relationship with Six. We see nothing of a key religious figure, or the presumably messy consequences of a probably better world. It’s a clumsy ending to an otherwise entertaining near-future science fiction thriller.
The book does provide a fascinating appendix (I read the Kindle edition — I assume it’s also in print). Forbeck includes a brief history of him getting the book published, and how he crafted the work over several years. He even includes the original version of the first chapter written in the 90s. It’s a interesting peek inside his emergence as a published writer, and will be especially worthwhile to aspiring writers.
Amortals: B-
Tags: Amortals, B+, Matt Forbeck, Review
Getting emotionally invested in narratives
My Kindle robotically tells me I’m 93% through Brave New Worlds. It’s a depressing reminder how slow I am in reading this collection of short fiction. I was on a tear in December and January for reading, and now I see I’m back to my plodding pace.
So, instead of my usual whining, how about some silver lining?
I’m genuinely astounded at how I, and presumably other readers, approach narratives. When I read a novel, I enter a narrative, however complex, of compelling characters and events. This all feels natural. I’m eager to turn pages and discover the ups and downs of it all.
But, in truth, it requires effort. Let me call it interpretive effort. I get invested into the tale. It doesn’t even mean I must “like” the characters; it holds true even when I find them fascinatingly abhorrent. The point remains; it takes effort to read and appreciate fiction, and certainly to consider its value and meaning as a story.
When I read short fiction in series, that seemingly natural feel fades away, and that interpretive effort becomes obvious. Each story takes that little bit of investment that adds up — for me, at least — to interpretive effort. This is true for me regardless of my fondness for the stories. Brave New Worlds is excellent overall, and yet I’m still plodding along, emotionally worn out, so to speak.
I should add that Brave New Worlds is a collection of dystopian fiction. It seethes with bleak themes and ugly, depressing resolutions. It takes more emotional verve than usual to kick off reading a second story after just finishing one in which, say, work camp revolutionaries are literally obliterated.
That said, I think the point stands. Again, it’s not complaining. I find it a fascinating thing for both readers and writers.
Tags: Brave New Worlds, dystopian fiction, emotional work, narratives, reading