Fantastic (Literally)

I wrote a while ago about The Expanse, a series of sci-fi books that I really enjoyed. (I recently re-read the first one, and still found it to be pretty great.) I figured I would proceed onward with the works of James S.A. Corey, but, alas, that's not actually a dude; it's two dudes, and as far as I can tell, Daniel Abraham is the one that handles the heavy lifting of the prose-writing in those books. I figured I would catch up on the rest of the stuff he's written and, after dashing through the books in the Long Price Quartet and The Dagger and the Coin series, I'm fairly confident in saying this: shit's dope.

Now, understand that I'm not a big fantasy guy, outside of video game and RPG system plots. I've read Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, sure, and a few of those laughable Sword of Shannara books, but apart from that, magic and wizards hasn't really been the kind of thing that I reach out for when I’m looking to pick up a new book. (And yes, I’ve tried the Game of Thrones stuff enough to know that they’re really not for me.) Part of that is just due to the fact that I don’t read a lot of fiction anymore, but the sheer repetition of the same old orcs and wizards across many of the fantasy series that I’ve dipped into has been off-putting. It’s like Tolstoy wrote: “Happy families are like science fiction, which seems more vibrantly varied in the imaginative flights of its best practitioners, but unhappy families are like fantasy novels, which are for dorks.” I think it went something like that, anyway.

Anyway, Abraham’s two fantasy series are both pretty damn good. It’s possible I like them largely because they’re both magic-light fantasy settings; these aren’t D&D worlds where every village has a priest casting Cure Light Wounds when you get a stomachache. The Dagger books are purposefully set in an almost magic-free world, hundreds of years after the extinction of the dragons that ruled the world, and while magical swords and creepy priests eventually show up, the bulk of the plotlines are driven by believable characters without any unique abilities (unless you consider simply surviving in the world a unique ability; it’s a dangerous place). The bulk of the chaos in the story is driven by armies and generals, but, somewhat amazingly, considering the genre, most of the battle scenes are dispatched in five or ten pages. The war is what drives the story, and the characters fight, command, and survive that war, but rattling sabers aren’t what Abraham’s interested in; it’s the way all of the characters interlock throughout the years of conflict that he emphasizes, and he does pretty well at that.

The Long Price features a more core magical experience, with a dozen or so wizards (they’re called “poets,” but yeah, they’re basically wizards) with the ability to command god-spirits capable of reshaping the world with a whisper or a thought. I didn’t like this quite as well as I did the Dagger (in the sense that I finished the four books in perhaps a month as opposed to the marathon two-week session that got me through the other series), but they’re still really interesting and feature many of the strengths of the Dagger books, although the central characters feel a tad more muted than their companions in the other series. They also tend to be a bit shorter than the Dagger books, for those with limited time.

It’s difficult to sum up what I like about Abraham’s work. Nothing about it is especially moving or difficult; he just writes pageturners that consistently fail to annoy me in the way that a lot of fantasy does. His use of language is always readable with occasional bursts of elegance. His characters have internal lives that are interesting, and his treatment of their personal relationships feels restrained and tempered instead of overly passionate or overwrought like you’ll find in some of the more flowery writers working in popular genres. People fuck and fight and fall in love and kill each other without resorting to moonlit soliloquies or pages upon pages of exposition. The books can feel somewhat brisk as a result, but hey - it's not like every book needs to be Infinite Jest.

I dunno, I dig it. The Expanse books are better than either of these series, although that series also looks like it’s tending towards an open-ended nature that at this point makes it feel a little unfocused. I’m assuming that the next Dagger & Coin book will be the last one, just from the general momentum of The Widow’s House. It’ll be interesting to see how he wraps that one up. For a series that revolves around a plucky banker fighting against a brainwashed central government that wishes to control the world, there’s a little plot twist at the end of Widow’s House that makes me suspect that the entire work is some kind of meta-troll on economic libertarians, which would be amusing.

Anyway, read them if you like, or don’t! But read the Expanse books, for sure, even if the upcoming SyFy series looks fairly skippable, just based on its production values.

Hmm, might have to go into those books as well then. I read the Expanse novels because of your tweets and such about them, and boy, I love them! Even ordered them to my bookstore, sells pretty well. Don't have that much sci-fi in Norway, which is a shame as it seems people really want it. Some people anyway.

I'll have to take your word on the trailer for the series, as the video is not available to watch in my country. Damn. I almost had hopes of that being at least a little bit good.

@jaqen_hghar: You can probably find it elsewhere; Daniel Abraham initially tweeted another link.

@rorie: Thanks! And yeah... not so sure about that. Got some cool actors though. Heh, I see myself watching all of it regardless of quality, just to satiate the need for more Expanse. Let's hope it turns out decent at least.

You should try reading Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun. It's a dense read but ultimately very rewarding and a sci fi masterpiece.

This is exactly why I loved The Expanse series, just a super solid bit of writing with an interesting setting and plot line. That syfy show looks god awful, which is such a bummer (but not unexpected). I can't believe they are making Miller wear a fedora.

I have yet to dip my toe in to their fantasy stuff but I might, especially the Dagger and coin series if it gets the Rorie-puppy-stamp of approval. I believe it's already on my Kindle from the last time you mentioned it.

This does sound extremely interesting. I've always loved the D&D books because I read them growing up but this sounds like something that I could really get into right now.

And, that show actually looks like it has a bigger budget than most other SyFy productions.

If you have no read the Patrick O'Brian Aubrey–Maturin series you are missing out. It is more historical fiction than anything else; but the stories, characters, and historical bits are great. The nice thing is the books are not too long, about 375-400 pages.

If you are smart you will listen to them in unabridged audio, because Simon Vance brings the stories alive with the various English dialects. Also, the dry English humor comes through in the audio books.

@monkeyking1969: Isn't that the basis for Master and Commander?

If you're looking for some more Fantasy novels without orks or too much magic, I heartily recommend the Gentleman Bastard series. It's about a group of thieves pulling heists in a fantasy version of the mediterranean.

It is the basis for the movie, but it is complicated since the first book of the series is called Master and Commander and the tenth book is The Fra Side of teh World, and the movie is actually a conglomeration of the two Aubrey–Maturin books. The movie is pretty good, but it misses some of teh interpersonal connections. Nevertheless, I think the movies is rather nicely done; but as we know books are often better than their movies.

If anyone did Patrick O'Brian games correctly, they would be one part Assassins Creed Black Flag, one part Uncharted 2, and one part Mass Effect 2. When a gamer reads them, they will come away wishing they could play them. Sea-battles, spying, a six foot tall Englishman pretending to be a bear across Napoleonic France....these books have it all. And for all the nerds out there, Aubrey–Maturin are Kirk-Spock in term of relationship/mindset/characters.

The Aubrey–Maturin books are fun, humanly epic, and just very well written with wonderful characters. They are not dry or boring in any way, which is what people might expect.

Yeah, this does not look cheaply made at all. From the props, the costumes, the CG, all of it looks really good for a SyFy/SciFi production.

@rorie do you by any chance have goodreads account? (I'm asking because I would like to see books you gave max. rating to)

Wow, I didn't think you'd actually give DA's fantasy works a try. That's cool.

Although it's kind of embarrassing since I recommended his works to you based on how much I enjoyed the first two in the Long Price series, yet I haven't finished the third book. I got distracted and read a bunch of other fantasy since then. I should get back to it soon.

Other reads I'd recommend: Blood Song, Name of the Wind, Game of Thrones (I'm guessing you've read this already), and lastly, if you're willing to give modern high fantasy a try (no orcs or elves), Way of Kings is likely your best bet.

I might be offering up the obvious here, but have you given any of the Discworld novels a shot? Pratchett's take on many fantasy tropes and his impeccable wit make for fast, incredibly enjoyable reads. It's very fantastical, but certainly not your typical swords and sorcery setting.

Also, in terms of science-fiction, have you read anything from John Scalzi? I'm a huge fan of his works, and they offer swift, no-nonsense adventures that I find tackle some interesting social and political issues. His book Redshirts is an absolutely marvellous parody of Star Trek and other science-fiction franchises, a blast from prologue to conclusion.

The rise of audio books has made me enjoy books again as someone with dyslexia and has a hard time reading long pages of text. And audio books for scifi and fantasy books are much more available now which is great.

recently listened to The Martian by Andy Weir a book i would of never got through if it wasn't a audio book. and it was awesome

Funny, I've always thought pulp sci-fi was as likely to drown in its own technobabble and fantasy equivalence ("Noble Aliens" "Industrious Aliens" "Plucky Humans) as pulp fantasy is to drown in Tolkien-imitation wankery. I read a lot of bad fantasy and sci fi novels in middle school.

Still, these sound pretty good. I'll have to put them on my short list of "books I should read whenever I feel like reading books".

I read the first three books of the Long Price but I think they never published the last one in Canada, which really sucks because I was really enjoying them.

Actually, that was years ago, so maybe there is some ebook available now. I should probably look in to that.

I got to book 3 of the Expanse and said fuck it. The whole series feels formulaic, and complaints about the fourth book seem to verify that opinion. Each book is basically a few pages on the overarching, interesting backstory buried in 300 pages of inconsequential action adventure. The Coreys routinely fail to make me care about any of their characters, and it's been mostly the same characters since book 1. Though one or two of the new characters in the third book looked potentially interesting, I'm sure book 4 is back to the misadventures of Holden and co since it was the same with the book 2 to 3 transition. I think at this point I'll wait for a couple more books to come out (supposed to be 9 in total) and see if Corey stops the wiffle-waffling and gets to the point already.

"The Name of the Wind" and "Wise Man's Fear" by Patrick Rothfuss. "Page turners that don't annoy me." would be the perfect blurb for these books (the first two of a series still being written). And they're just good, for no discernible reason. Their magic is sparse, and is basically high-level alchemy, their characters are interesting, but not particularly unique, but it just works. And the series has an incredible plot-framing device that lends some good urgency to the main story's goings on.

I really dug these books, way more than I initially ever thought I would. Patrick Rothfuss has an amazing way with words, not overly flowery but has a keen sense on when to detail what that some writers really stumble on (GRR ahem). I read the Expanse series (first 2 books anyway) along side the two books in the The Kingkiller Chronicles and I found both series wholly engrossing.

I would be interested in what @rorie thinks about them. They have their cheese to them, but something really enamored me to the setting and the characters.

Agreed, I think he'd really like them, judging by his other fantasy choices.

I think what really got me about Rothfuss is that I had a hell of a lot of fun reading them, and it was obviously he had a lot of fun writing them. I tend to forget that Fantasy can be fun, especially after too many hours of GRR and the Malazan series. Or really any of the new Fantasy writers who are deadly serious all the time. Even Wheel of Time became decidedly unfun (if still a good time) after the first four or so books.

@yothatlimp: @thethinwhiteduke: Rothfuss is often a delight to read, but if you didn't know, he does at least 200 rounds of revisions for each book (front to back). So he clearly spends a lot of time pondering what should go where. He claims that 200 is the magic number that gets the book to where he wants it.

And with regards to Gurm, I actually enjoy his super detailed writing style. It makes it a lot easier to get immersed when you have a scene (or meal) described so thoroughly. Although it might be the nostalgia speaking. Last time I read an Ice and Fire novel is when Dance came out (2011).

Can't wait for the next installment of both series'.

I can definitely appreciate the detailed descriptions in GRRM's stuff, it was just the Kingkiller stuff was such a palette cleanser after re-reading through the whole Ice and Fire series again.

I think there was a sample of a Rothfuss book at the end of one of the Dagger and Coin books. I'll give them a whirl!

I think I tried it a long, long time ago and found it tough going. I'll see if I can pick up a used copy somewhere.

I do but I rarely update it. Probably haven't looked at it in a couple years since the last time I scanned my library.

I tried getting into Rothfuss but I can't do the "super powerful chosen one" stuff any more. Now Joe Abercrombie's work, that is a good direction for fantasy novels - ultra violence and characters full realised as shitty people!

@rorie How far did you you get in The Expanse series? All 5 books? i did not realize they were on a 1 per year schedule so I actually need to get caught up on 4 and 5.

How did 4 and 5 compare to the first three?

"Now their conversations were so careful, it was like the words all had glass bones. So he changed the topic."

I really love the way they describe Basia and Lucia's marriage in the beginning of book four.

Book 5 doesn't exist yet, so I'm a bit confused about this question. Book 4 is good, but not as good as 1 or 3 (2 is my least favorite)

Yeah, 1 and 3 are the best ones so far. We'll see how 5 goes. I'm a little annoyed that they seem to be keeping the series open-ended rather than having a set number of books; not sure they can keep up the suspense at this pace.

Oops, I did not realize 5 wasn't out until June!