pro libertate net

It was quite sad news when a friend of mine told me about Robert Jordan’s death in 2007. I started to read the Wheel of Time series in the mid-nineties, then it was the German translations that were split up in two or three books for each of the original books. Since each of these shorter books costs about as much as one of the originals I soon switched to the original English version. International book imports just became affordable and I discovered my preference for original versions of books and movies… So I started over. And now, a decade later the series was about to suddenly end without a conclusion. Sad news, indeed.

So it was quite good news when the publisher Tor Books announced that their will be a conclusion nevertheless. Jordan had left enough material so that another author could take over the task to write the concluding volume. A kind of licensed fan-fic. And it is certainly better than most fan-fic I know. Brandon Sanderson – I had never read anything by him before – did a great job. Though he did not try to imitate Jordan – thank you! – his style keeps true to the spirit of the series. There is less of the Tolkienesque descriptions of the environment, there is definitely a faster pace than in the other installments. This faster pace may, of course, be due to the looming conclusion of the series. Yet, finally some loose ends are tied up. This is rather satisfying. Jordan seemed not to be able to round off any of the many sub-plots. There was always another twist that prolonged the story.

As I was not following any of the discussions and (p)reviews when the imminent publication of The Gathering Storm finally was announced – I did not want to spoil my own reading experience of the book – I was rather surprised when I learned that this last book is not the last book. There will be another two installments of the Wheel of Time series coauthored by Sanderson as there was too much material to cover it in just one book. And indeed, The Gathering Storm does not leave the impression that Sanderson needed to pad the story.

With Angel Fire East Terry Brooks continues his rather dark pre-apocalyptic fantasy series of The Word and The Void, a kind of prequel to his Shannara cash cow. It tells basically of the same characters and the same struggle as the two novels that came before: Running with the Demon and A Knight of the Word. While there was a significant development of characters in the first two installments, no such thing happens here. Also, the female protagonist’s commendable community service pales against the worthy cause that was the center piece to which Brooks directed the readers’ attention in A Knight of the Word.

Though still a work that provides some diversion and, yes, entertains it is all too skillful and leaves an impression of mass production. Indeed Brooks seems to re-cycle ideas from his other contract work. Angel Fire East ends with an understanding that there will be a child born of magic, a savior to The Word who will bring balance to the Force. The same year Angel Fire East was published, 1999, Terry Brooks published the novelization of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace as well. And this joint theme is just too much of a coincidence.

Pratchett’s Discworld novel number five – Sourcery – features again Rincewind and (my favorite) Death, together with his three fellow horseriders of the Apocralypse, the apocryphal apocalypse.

The story is nice and everything. It’s just apt to kill some time on a train trip. The most remarkable thing about this novel, however, is Pratchett’s extensive use of footnotes. There are 25 footnotes in total. There were some footnotes in his earlier novels, too. Yet, here he really establishes the footnote in his work as a literary device that provides a departure from the main narrative, tells a different story altogether, and provides meta-commentaries on the plot – a comic relief from an already comic novel.

Only in 2007 I stumbled upon Trudi Canavan’s debut series The Black Magician trilogy featuring a young girl with a natural talent for magic. I liked this series a lot. Yet, I did not touch Canavan’s second trilogy Age of the Five. I do not really know why. The Magician’s Apprentice, however, drew my attention again as it is a prequel to The Black Magician trilogy.

Canavan either has a very good editor or is just a great writer. The book’s 750 pages are being read in no time (I have just read the paperback). The plot has some similarities with that of the original trilogy. The most obvious is, of course, the main character being again a young girl with a natural talent for magic. Nevertheless, the story is not only sufficiently original it is so intriguing that I had to lend the book to my fiancee who happened to catch a glimpse of just a few pages.

I am already looking forward to the sequel, The Traitor Spy trilogy.

Every once in a while I get on a little book buying spree. Either because I am in London at Waterstones and had enough time to leaf through a number of books or because I just saw something in a store and decided to buy it later on the net. In that case I start to work through a list that may be a littler bit longer. Lev Grossman’s The Magicians was on my most recent book wish list… I only later found out that it is also on the Best Books of 2009 list of several newspapers.

Does it belong on such a list? Yeah, maybe.

The book is divided in several “sub-books” that are considerably different in content and atmosphere, reflecting the different stages of the protagonist’s personal pursuit of happiness. While the first part is a little bit like Harry Potter for grown-ups – the slightly depressed and manic “hero” gets to a magic college – the second part feels like a LARP gone bad.

I like Grossman’s nerdy, non-positive, dirty, bleak, and yet romantic picture of the world. His protagonists are no heroes, they are not infallible. Their quest is not motivated by a noble moral and they are taken for a ride. And even the happy end has a sad undertone.

The Magicians is thus at least on my personal Good Books of 2009 list.

Pratchett created a wonderful character: Death. You just have to love every encounter with this guy. Each dialog sparkles with this unique dry sense of humor that is one of the reasons I like Pratchett’s work.

Death appears in almost all Discworld novels. Mort, however, is the first book in which Death is one of the main characters and has more “page time” than otherwise.

Mort is definitely one of my favorite Discworld novels.