Category: A to Z 2012

H is for historical

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I know — in my defining the genres post, I established that historical and epic are different. Thus, this one is cheating for me. I don’t care.

Inhuman creatures, good vs. evil, main character with a dark past, sword fights, a story that takes place across two continents — Alchemist of Souls sounds perfectly like epic fantasy until you throw in that it takes place in an alternate version of Elizabethan England. Besides, I love Anne Lyle’s book, and if you enjoy fantasy or Elizabethan tales (including the requisite cross-dressing), you should check it out.

Mal Catlyn is a character who draws you in. He’s down on his luck, and you get the feeling from the very outset that he’s done things and seen things. When the guards come looking for him, even though he can’t think of anything he’s done that’s illegal, he runs, which tells you that even if he tries to stay on the right side of the law, he might not stay on the right side of everyone in power. Then there are all his thoughts about the skraylings, and you want to keep reading just to find out what they have to do with his murky past.

Also be sure to stop by her Website, where she has goodies like desktop wallpaper and deleted scenes.

This is a post for the Blogging from A to Z April Challenge. My theme is epic fantasy, and blog posts will cover authors, books, tropes, themes, or anything else I can think of to fill the alphabet. Check out some of the other bloggers participating or follow my blog by e-mail if you like what you’ve read.

G is for good vs. evil

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The classic theme for epic fantasy is good vs. evil. It’s big, it changes the world, nations hang in the balance. The nations of the North unite to fight Sauron. Only the Sword of Shannara can defeat the darkness. The Rebels have to destroy the Empire. Good must be triumphant.

This lack of shades of gray is why some people don’t believe that George R. R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire series is epic fantasy. It may have all the trappings (although use of magic is low), but all the stakes are personal, individual goals. I’ll come back to this idea when I hit the letter “S.” (Ha! You’ve just had a sneak peek!)

What do you think? Do you like to read or write good vs. evil stories?

This is a post for the Blogging from A to Z April Challenge. My theme is epic fantasy, and blog posts will cover authors, books, tropes, themes, or anything else I can think of to fill the alphabet. Check out some of the other bloggers participating or follow my blog by e-mail if you like what you’ve read.

F is for farmboy

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Poor farmboy goes on a quest and winds up saving the world, right? He doesn’t have to be a farmboy; he can be a pig-herder, a baker’s apprentice, or some other menial occupation. You see it everywhere from Lloyd Alexander to Christopher Paolini — poor boy makes good (even if the pig herder goes back to being a pig herder). Continue reading

D is for different worlds

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Different, or secondary, worlds are a defining feature of epic fantasy. They are elsewhere, somewhere fantastic and magical, sometimes reached by a portal (like Narnia), sometimes existing on their own without connection to our world.

Secondary worlds are internally consistent, no matter how different from our world they might be — dragons and fireballs, shapeshifters, other races, water breathers, magic wands, kingdoms that last for millennia still ruled by the same family, form-fitting breastplate for women warriors that doesn’t directly lead to their demise — the list can go on and on. All that matters is that it be Other and make sense within itself.

Each of the authors I’ve already talked about this month excel in creating new worlds for us to visit, and there are more coming. The secondary world is compelling, immersive, complete in the ways it surrounds the characters and they interact with it — but it is not necessarily somewhere we’d want to actually be. I wouldn’t be too comfortable in Joe Abercrombie’s world or George R. R. Martin’s. I’m not even sure I’d fare that well in Middle-Earth. But I can visit these places when I read and feel as though I am in a different world, a world created for my enjoyment.

Well, more likely for the author’s, but at least I get to visit.

This is a post for the Blogging from A to Z April Challenge. My theme is epic fantasy, and blog posts will cover authors, books, tropes, themes, or anything else I can think of to fill the alphabet. Check out some of the other bloggers participating or follow my blog by e-mail if you like what you’ve read.

C is for Cooper

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If you haven’t seen Songs of the Earth by Elspeth Cooper, but you enjoy traditional epic fantasy, with knights and swords, wild magic — and perhaps even a church that forbids the use of such magic — you should definitely go pick it up. This book is the first in her Wild Hunt series, which should tell you that there are other classic tropes at play — the spirit world (here called the Hidden Kingdom), filled with demons and fey, with nobility that hunts the magic stags, and a Veil between the worlds that can weaken or tear, with the threat of spirits pouring through from the other side. This book has plots, schemes, machinations, petty evil, deeper evils, threats of war, and personal rivalry — everything one could hope for in an engaging read.

Gair, the protagonist of the book, is the first person we meet, a man who has been able to do magic since he was a child, a man who worked to become a knight until his careless use of magic exposed him. At the beginning of the book, he is imprisoned in an iron cell, awaiting the outcome of his trial for witchcraft and praying to the Goddess to deliver him.

One of the reasons I originally picked up this book is because of the Song. Magic is perceived as music that the wielders can hear but normal people cannot. This magic is referred to as the Song. I wanted to check this out because I’m actually planning an epic fantasy that relies on music and magic being intertwined, and it’s nice to see how others have used the concept. I love the way Cooper describes the Song, especially when Gair is trying in vain to control it, as well as how he strives to hear subtler melodies within the Song to learn how to do new types of magic.

This book was originally published by Gollancz in the U.K., then by Tor in the U.S. Spelling and word usage are British English (my first clue was the spelling “judgement,” which I prefer but most American dictionaries and publishers do not), which makes perfect sense for the author. I only mention this so others will not be thrown by mention of stooks or other words with which they may not be familiar.

Very different from yesterday’s book, but just as highly recommended.

This is a post for the Blogging from A to Z April Challenge. My theme is epic fantasy, and blog posts will cover authors, books, tropes, themes, or anything else I can think of to fill the alphabet. Come back regularly to see what else I’ve had to say — or check out some of the other bloggers participating.

B is for Black God’s War

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Black God’s War is the first book in Moses Siregar III’s planned series, Splendor and Ruin.

From the first page, I was captivated by Lucia, who manages not to be petulant and jealous when her younger brother is born and takes all of the attention. Her interactions with Lord Danato, the Black God, are fabulous, especially the way she keeps trying to ignore him. After all, she chose Ysa, his sister, as her patron. In general, I love the gods, who come in pairs, as well as the ceremony where children choose a patron god for their life.

Siregar does a marvelous job with both the characters and the world-building, creating lands (Rezzia and Pawelon) that I’m eager to return to. If you’re interested in checking out The Black God’s War, he has ways for you to do so, including a free novella and the first chapter of the novel up on his Goodreads page. If you’re interested in finding out more about him, be sure to check out his Website.

Edit: I forgot to mention Black God’s War is 99 cents on Kindle. (It was free over the weekend.)

This is a post for the Blogging from A to Z April Challenge. My theme is epic fantasy, and blog posts will cover authors, books, tropes, themes, or anything else I can think of to fill the alphabet. Come back regularly to see what else I’ve had to say — or check out some of the other bloggers participating.

A is for Abercrombie

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Joe Abercrombie writes gritty fantasy. The first thing I picked up of his wasn’t the First Law trilogy, but rather the standalone Heroes, set in the same world. The first chapter told me exactly what I was in for: the viewpoint of men and women in battle, trying to carve out a part of the world for their superiors, complete with profanity, honest opinions, and respect for people on the other side. The people aren’t caricatures, and the world doesn’t have soft edges.

In Abercrombie’s words (taken from his site):

I want magic and adventure, sure, but I want it to hurt. I want blood, sweat, and tears, and plenty of them. I want to read about characters as selfish, as flawed, as complicated, and as unpredictable as real people. I want a fantasy that can shock and surprise, amuse and horrify, delight and excite me, all at once.

If that sounds like the kind of story you can get into, go check out Abercrombie’s work.

Today’s post is my first for this year’s Blogging from A to Z April Challenge. My theme is epic fantasy, and blog posts will cover authors, books, tropes, themes, or anything else I can think of to fill the alphabet. Come back regularly to see what else I’ve had to say — or check out some of the other bloggers participating.

A to Z coming to a blog near you

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April begins on Sunday, as you might have noticed. Last April, I participated in the A to Z blogging challenge. This year, I’m doing it again, and unlike last year, I’m going with a theme: epic fantasy. Posts will be about authors, books, tropes, themes, or anything else I think happens to fit.

I will still make my normal posts — the Merry-Go-Round blog tour post on the second, the gratitude posts on Mondays, the genre-defining posts on Fridays, and pictures of my garden or random other posts as I see fit. This is adding to the blog for a month, not changing it overall. Just expect more content for the month of April.

Also, if you’re inspired, you can go sign up to join in, but hurry — sign-ups close on Monday! If you follow that link, you’ll see the others who are signed up to participate (currently 1,365 blogs). Check some out; see what they have to say. You might find a new favorite!