Tag / novel

by booksoverlookedblog

Eragon 26: Literary Stockholm Syndrome

I’m beginning to worry that I have some kind of literary Stockholm Syndrome, because I’ve actually been enjoying Eragon lately.

“The Witch and the Werecat” is another chapter I was looking forward to reading. We’re properly introduced to Angela and the werecat Solembum, both of whom I’ve always rather liked.

Angela is a fictionalized version of Paolini’s sister, and that makes me wonder a couple things. First of all, how much is the real Angela like her fantasy counterpart? There’s no real way I can answer that, so the next question would be, “is it really okay to put someone you know in real life into your novel?”

My immediate thought is to recoil from the idea, but that is largely Twilight‘s fault, considering that waste of paper was originally written as a story for Stephanie Meyers’s sister. Yes, I know Eragon and Twilight are very different books, and Eragon came first, so I’m really not being fair about this. Putting a person you know in real life into a book also brings up the thought of a self-insert main character. I’ve both read and written enough fanfiction to tell you that self-inserts more often than not lead to Mary Sues and bad writing.

So I was a little wary when I came across Angela again, and I have to say that I still legitimately like the character. She’s not some beautiful woman, she’s an old, quirky witch who’s a lot of fun to watch, and I’m glad that she comes back later in the series.

Now, what about the werecat?

Eragon first sees Solembum and assumes he’s a normal cat, and tries to reach out to him with his mind. Solembum responds using the same type of mental communication Eragon shares with Saphira, and Eragon just assumes that he’s talking to her. It was probably done for humorous effect, but he can’t tell the difference between Solembum and his dragon? Really?

The werecat blinked lazily. ‘Knowing is independent of being. I did not know you existed before you bumbled in here and ruined my nap. Yet that doesn’t mean you weren’t real before you woke me.’

…Did Solembum just drop a Schrodinger reference that I would have never understood at age fourteen?

Angela, the herbalist, offers to read Eragon’s real fortune using the knuckle bones of a dragon. This was another scene that I liked a lot as a kid. When I was reading Eldest, I would frequently go back to this scene and try to figure out how all the things Angela tells him would play out.

One of the things Angela starts with is weird to me, though. After casting the bones, she says that Eragon is one of the few that is free to choose his own fate. I honestly would expect the opposite of that Saphira’s egg would have never hatched if he hadn’t touched it–I would call that destiny. I’d think that people more like Jeod and Angela, ordinary people, would have more choice in their lives than Eragon. He has to be a Dragon Rider; there’s no way he can back out.

The bones also promise an epic romance. Yeah, right. It became obvious to me when I first read this book that he would fall in love with Arya, the elf woman in the prologue. In Eldest, he does confess that he loves her, and they are friends, but she often treats Eragon with disdain. I never finished reading the third book in the series, Brisingr, but I didn’t feel a whole lotta love between the two of them there, either.

Plus, Eragon’s confession in Eldest is just cringe-worthy.

The last part of his fortune was that Eragon would be betrayed by someone in his own family. He objects to this right away, saying that his cousin Roran wouldn’t do anything like that.

I make fun of Eragon a lot here for failing to see the obvious, but this was a twist that took me by surprise when it happened near the end of Eldest, and Eragon’s long-lost brother shows up. I really think I should’ve seen that one coming.

Before Eragon leaves the shop, he receives two more pieces of advice from Solembum.

When the time comes and you need a weapon, look under the roots of the Menoa tree. Then, when all seem lost and your power is insufficient, go to the rock of Kuthian and speak your name to open the Vault of Souls.

I haven’t read far enough into the series to know what the “Vault of Souls” is, but I’m intrigued, despite myself.

Like in the previous chapter, I think the foreshadowing is handled well here. Some of the things in Eragon’s fortune happen in this book, and there’s enough information to keep me interested in learning how these things will come to pass.

 

 

 

by booksoverlookedblog

Eragon 22-23: Not Half Bad

Something unusual happened. I actually liked this chapter. While I was looking forward to reading flying scenes, especially because I’m a student pilot. However, I was sure that they would only disappoint. They did not. I even loved Eragon’s anticipation as he prepares to fly with Saphira.

Saphira waited impatiently while Eragon tightened the bands around his legs. Are you ready? she asked.

He sucked in the fresh morning air. No, but let’s do it!

That is exactly how I feel when I’m getting ready to take off. I’m always nervous and excited, but pretty soon, the sheer joy of being able to fly takes over. Then the book describes Saphira’s grace, riding on updrafts, performing aerial maneuvers…and I almost exploded in nerdy joy when Eragon sees that Saphira uses her tail as a rudder. And then, then it gets even better when Saphira lets Eragon enter her mind see the world through her eyes, feel the sheer joy of flying. GOD I WANT TO DO THIS SO BAD WHY ARE DRAGONS FICTIONAL.

It’s a good thing there’s only one of me right now, because I can’t even.

Okay, time to take a deep breath, and stop fangirling.

After weeks spent tracking the Ra’zac, it seems that Eragon and Brom have finally lost the trail. That they managed to have it for that long is kind of dubious to me, but whatever, at this point I’m along for the ride. The Ra’zac appear to have taken flight, which kind of begs the question why they took so long to fly away in the first place. Also, having not found Saphira or Eragon in Carvahall, I feel like they were doing a really shitty job of finding Saphira. Wrecking Eragon’s farm was the equivalent of leaving the hero for dead in a cunning trap, and anyone who’s ever watched a Bond movie knows how that ends.

My brain just stopped for a second. I just realized the Ra’zac are Ringwraiths. I guess I can’t like this chapter anymore.

Along with the flying, though, I’m glad that the plot’s finally moving along. Eragon finds a flask of oil that’s used to burn flesh and muscle, and nothing else. That’s pretty fucked up. Brom elucidates some of them ways it could be used against your enemies and generally be cruel. The teenage version of myself (and the part of me that likes to torture characters) thinks that’s awesome. More than I want to admit.

I also like that Brom and Eragon decide to use a decidedly mundane method of tracking the Ra’zac after they find the oil. No spells, no mind-reading, just tracking where the oil was shipped from and to. It’s as simple as finding the right document. And after so much swords and sorcery, I appreciate this practical approach.

I’m glad I liked this chapter, because the next one was just padding. I really can’t see how this made it into the final cut of the novel. Eragon is curious about what the ocean is like, and Brom tells him “the sea is emotion incarnate”. What?

Most of this chapter is, essentially, a montage. Eragon and Brom traveling, practicing swordplay and learning how to use magic. So little happens in this chapter that the most memorable line might be when Eragon thinks, “Everything about me is turning hard.” He’s thinking about his muscles and how fit he’s becoming, but I’m still immature enough to snort at that. Then I remember that this book was written by a fifteen-year-old. I’m only picturing a young Christopher Paolini also laughing at that line, or trying to convince someone that it’s so deep. The latter is what I would have done at fifteen, and the former is what I’m doing now. Because I am still a child and low-hanging fruit will always make me chuckle.

 

 

 

by booksoverlookedblog

Eragon 21: Do NPCs Really Need Names?

Apologies for the unexpected pause in posting; a death in my boyfriend’s family have slowed down blogging for the time being.

I wonder if I’m being too hard on Eragon. As much as I make fun of it, I love high fantasy. My favorite games are the Dragon Age series, I’ve already made references to Lord of the Rings on this blog, and obviously I fell in love with The Chronicles of Narnia before my age had even reached double digits. I’m working through A Song of Ice and Fire, and I have d20 in my purse right now, just in case a Dungeons & Dragons game pops up.

In short, I am a nerdy, and sometimes my thoughts betray how nerdy I actually am. Because, as I was reading this chapter, one of my first thoughts was, “Brom would make a great rogue…maybe who took a few levels in wizard…no, he multi-classed to Spellsword.”

Then I decided maybe I should go outside for a little bit.

When Eragon and Brom  enter another town to re-supply. Paolini runs into the same problem I have at times when I write background characters: naming them. If they’re only appearing in one scene and never again, their names are that important. But it’s really annoying to write or read “the man with the mole” or something of that ilk every time the character gets mentioned. A lot of the time, it’s just easier to give the NPC a name than refer to them by their description, however inconsequential they are. In Eragon, these bit characters often volunteer their names upon meeting Eragon and Brom. When I write brief meetings, I often don’t have the background characters give their names. Usually, I’ll have another character call them by their proper name, at which point “the man with the mole” can be called by his name in the narration. It honestly rarely occurs to me to just have minor characters introduce themselves.

I’m not sure if you’d have guessed, but the girl who blogs about fantasy books and has a home-made Jedi robe in her closet is something of an introvert. For most of my life I have been afraid of people and social situations, and especially the telephone. Even though I’m much more sociable and outgoing now than I was as a kid, I’m still not a person to generally start conversations, and it almost never occurs to me to tell someone my name. Last month I spent an hour talking to someone I met in an airport, and we had a great conversation, and I never told him my name, nor did I learn his. So my question is this: do “normal” people ever just directly introduce themselves?

Trevor, the minor character that Brom and Eragon meet, tells them that traveling has become dangerous with Urgals attacking their villages, and says that the king should be doing something about this. Brom, for whatever reason, agrees.

Wait. Didn’t we establish several chapters ago that the king is crazy and evil? Yet Brom thinks that Galby should know that Urgals are getting organized and attacking people? And no one ever thought that maybe, just maybe the Big Bad had something to do with this?

merida-headdesk

Also, we get this gem from Eragon.

“And you can do this even though you aren’t a rider?” asked Eragon.

Eragon, HOW ARE YOU THIS DUMB?!

There were a couple things I did like about this chapter, though. First, Brom teaches Eragon about communicating mentally with other sentient creatures, the same way that Eragon is able to talk to Saphira. Though years of playing DnD has made me disagree with Brom’s definition of sentience, it is a cool idea to be able to communicate with any living creature. The exposition didn’t have the clunky handling, either, as it did in some previous chapters. And there’s also this small piece of brilliance from Brom.

Think about it: you can communicate with any sentient being, though the contact may not be very clear. You could spend the entire day listening to a bird’s thoughts or understanding how an earthworm feels during a rainstorm But I’ve never found birds very interesting. I suggest starting with a cat; they have unusual personalities.

Yes. As the proud owner of one the derpiest cats on the planet, I agree so hard. Think of all the other famous fictional cats: the Cheshire Cat, the pirate cat in The Last Unicorn, and…okay, that’s all the cats I can think of, save perhaps Thackery Binx, who isn’t even really a cat.

But wouldn’t you love to know what Princess Monster Truck is thinking? I sure would.

princess-monster-truck

She is everything that is right with the internet.

Even better, my cries for more Saphira have been heard. She tackles Eragon and demands that he start flying with her so she can keep him safe. Some of her dialogue makes her sound like a concerned mom, but I’m happy she’ll be in the story more after this. Now that I’m a pilot, I’m also looking forward to reading more flying scenes, which I suspect will be much different from Eragon’s first flight.

 

by booksoverlookedblog

An Ember in the Ashes

I’m back, baby! I’ll be getting back to Eragon shortly, but I’d like to take a a moment to review a more recent book, An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir. I’ll also be posting parts of this review on GoodReads, so don’t worry–I’m only plagiarizing myself.

An Ember in the Ashes follows the stories of two main characters: Laia and Elias, with each chapter switching between their perspectives. They lead very different lives in the Empire; Laia is a poor Scholar, while Elias is one of the top students at the elite military academy, Blackcliff. When Laia’s brother is jailed for treason and her family is killed, she seeks the help of the Resistance to save him. In exchange for freeing him, she agrees to spy on the Commandant, the leader of Blackcliff. Elias dreams of freedom outside of Blackcliff and plans to desert after his graduation, even though doing so is punishable by death. When fate intervenes, Elias stays at Blackcliff, where he finally meets Laia, and their lives are forever changed.

As long as you don’t mind first-person present tense or changing character perspectives every chapter, the prose is quite good. I never came across a line that made me want to pull my hair out because it was so poorly phrased, which is more than I can say for some of the books I’ve reviewed on this blog. Even so, some of Laia’s chapters just felt like they were padding, and only part of the book to keep with the pattern of switching between the two characters. This is especially true during Part 2, when most of Laia’s chapters are just details of the Commandant’s abuse. They don’t reveal any new information about Laia or the Commandant, nor do they move the plot forward. I’m all for treating your characters horribly, but at least make sure that their suffering is for something. Laia herself is a rather insipid character. She doesn’t grow much throughout the novel, her most daring moment being when she agrees to spy for the Resistance. Even that seems out-of-character for her, as she’s quite meek and doesn’t take risks. Elias’s side of the story is more interesting, and he’s one of the few characters in the book I ended up liking. At times, I really felt that the novel could benefit by removing Laia’s chapters entirely.

Laia’s character isn’t the only one that needs to be fleshed out. The Commandant – who is also Elias’s mother – is the lead villain in the story. She is evil because…well, because she’s evil. She enjoys abusing her slaves, killing members of the Resistance, and actively tries to get others to murder Elias. Her reason behind all this? She’s evil. She’s never made even slightly sympathetic, and the readers are never really shown her motives.

The world building is also problematic. The first two chapters are in media res. It might be exciting, but because the book’s just starting out, the reader has nothing invested in the two main characters. We don’t have any reason to like them, and can’t really appreciate the impact of their actions until later in the book. Exposition in the beginning of the book feels heavy-handed and shoved in for the benefit of the audience. In later chapters it comes more naturally. Or maybe I’d just gotten used to it at that point.

An Ember in the Ashes wasn’t really a book for me. Sometimes I thought the book would redeem itself, but for everything in it that I liked, it did two things that I didn’t. At the end of the day, its flaws outweighed its strengths.

Still, if it sounds like a book you might enjoy, check it out. I just wouldn’t recommend paying full price.

I only came to read An Ember in the Ashes in the first place was because my sister and I are in a small book club. Obviously, this wasn’t my selection for the group. My sister and I were not overly thrilled with the prospect of reading yet another young adult book staring a girl in an oppressed society starting a revolution and finding true love along the way. To help keep us both sane–and give us something to smile about while we dragged ourselves through this–I texted her a one-sentence review of each chapter. Please, enjoy my descent into madness.

  • Chapter 1: I read this chapter three hours ago and I already forgot the brother’s name because that’s how little I care.
  • Chapter 2: There’s so little world building or characterization that I neither understand the importance of or care about anything that’s happening.
  • Chapter 3: All the things I dislike in this chapter won’t fit in a single sentence.
  • Chapter 4: If Elias wanted to desert, why didn’t he run when the school literally kicked him out to survive on his own for four years?
  • Chapter 5: Have I ever mentioned how much I hate first-person present tense?
  • Chapter 6: Not really loving the way the exposition was handled here, but it’s more than the rest of the book has given us so far.
  • Chapter 7: At this point, “character development” would mean that the main character develops a personality.
  • Chapter 8: Just once, I would like to read a young adult fantasy novel that never uses the word “destiny”.
  • Chapter 9: I’m a little amazed that I have the willpower to not throw this book across the room.
  • Chapter 10: You know, it is possible to write a young adult fiction without having a “chosen one”.
  • Chapter 11: Wait, when did Laia grow a spine?
  • Chapter 12: The more I think about the details of Blackcliff Academy, the less sense it makes.
  • Chapter 13: I really hope the Commandant becomes an actual character, and not just a villain who’s evil for the sake of being evil.
  • Chapter 14: OF COURSE LAIA IS SO BEAUTIFUL WITH HER GOLDEN EYES AND LONG EYELASHES AND “FULL LIPS”
  • Chapter 15: When will this end?
  • Chapter 16:  Every time this book comes close to being cool, it ruins it.
  • Chapter 17: Laia’s chapters are nothing but light torture porn.
  • Chapter 18: I seriously suspect Sabaa Tahir has mommy issues.
  • Chapter 19: This is not how you build a strong female lead.
  • Chapter 20: Changing perspectives every chapter makes the slow story progression less noticeable, and I’m not sure if Tahir is a genius, or can’t get a handle on pacing.
  • Chapter 21: All of Laia’s chapters in a nutshell: Laia is sad because someone either tells her she makes a lousy spy or hurts her.
  • Chapter 22: There’s one female character with depth, and her entire arc is about men lusting after her.
  • Chapter 23: I make a motion to replace all Laia chapters with Spiro Teluman chapters.
  • Chapter 24: Can we talk for a second about how Elias and Helene didn’t actually use their cunning to pass the Trial of Cunning?
  • Chapter 25: This chapter made me so happy because it means I’m halfway through this waste of paper.
  • Chapter 26: I strongly suspect Helene’s sudden burst of racism is because Tahir noticed she was a much better female lead than Laia.
  • Chapter 27: Generally, it takes normal human beings more than thirty-second conversations to fall in love with each other, no matter how beautiful they are.
  • Chapter 28: This is just four pages of Elias thinking Laia is hot.
  • Chapter 29: If the flirting in this chapter was any more awkward or forced, it would be the second Avengers movie. #2Burns1Stone
  • Chapter 30: This book talks about sexual violence a lot.
  • Chapter 31:  Achievement unlocked: cameo character is more intriguing than main character.
  • Chapter 32: I also vote to remove insipid and predictable love triangles.
  • Chapter 33: NOPE.
  • Chapter 34: Can we go one chapter without mentioning rape?  
  • Chapter 35: I’m not sure what I hate more: that Helene goes completely against her established character, or that Laia’s only role in this book is to be a punching bag.
  •  Chapter 36: The Helene-Elias romance subplot is so, so dumb.
  • Chapter 37:  Five bucks says the Resistance is going to betray Laia.
  • Chapter 38: And now we’ll take a break from an Ember in the Ashes to bring you a less interesting version of The Hunger Games.
  • Chapter 39: You know, this backstory would have been really useful AT THE BEGINNING OF THE FUCKING BOOK.
  • Chapter 40: There are so many logical holes in the Trial of Strength I wouldn’t be able to list them all here.
  • Chapter 41: Laia, how are you this stupid and still alive?
  • Chapter 42: So many eyerolls.
  • Chapter 43:If the Commandant knew that Laia was a slave since the Moon Festival, why didn’t she kill her much sooner?
  • Chapter 44: The “Trial of Loyalty” is really just a test of who could get to Laia the fastest.
  • Chapter 45: I call bullshit on Laia suddenly be able to take the Resistance leader hostage, in his own hideout, surrounded by his supporters.
  • Chapter 46: This is the closest thing we get to an explanation of the Commandant’s anti-social behavior, and it still fails to explain anything or make her an iota more sympathetic.
  • Chapter 47: Laia is way overdue to become a strong heroine, but when it actually happens, it just is out of character for her.
  • Chapter 48: I’m supposed to feel something at Elias’s rapidly impending death, but mostly I’m annoyed that all he’s doing is whining and quoting Serenity.
  • Chapter 49: We really shouldn’t have to wait until the second-to-last chapter of the book for the main character to do something useful.
  • Chapter 50: OH THANK GOD I’M DONE

Final Thoughts:

T81Ltam

I hated this book. The love triangles were unnecessary and sloppily written, the magical aspects go unexplained, the villains are never given any depth, Laia is almost on par with Bella Swan as a female lead, and the book doesn’t even freaking end. I’ve read 50 chapters of this crap, and nothing gets resolved: not the romantic subplots, Laia’s quest to save her brother, or even a basic explanation of Helene’s sudden magical powers. Nope, there’s a sequel coming out, and someone’s already got the movie rights.

And, to get on my soapbox for a minute, this is also on par with Twilight for bad female role models. Helene is the token strong girl, but her entire character arc is about men lusting after her, and her doing anything she can to keep Elias alive. Including swearing fealty to the man who has directly said that he’s going to rape her. Laia’s not much better, as her arc is almost entirely her getting tortured or beaten up (and then rescued by Elias)–for another male character, albeit her brother–and she doesn’t do anything proactive until the very end of the book. The one female character whose arc doesn’t revolve around a man is the Commandant, who is a heartless monster (for no fucking reason).

This book is 446 pages of drivel. Sabaa Tahir’s prose is well-written, but the characters are flat and boring, and the story has no satisfying resolution.

Screw this. It’s my turn to choose the next book for book club, and after reading Me Before You, The Nightingale, and now, An Ember in the Ashes, I need to get away from all this stupid chick lit. If you need me, I’ll be nose deep in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

by booksoverlookedblog

Eragon 1-2: SO INTENSE.

When I began this blog, I knew right away that I wanted to re-read Eragon for it, mostly to see if the book I loved as a teenager was as bad as everyone said it was. I did have one pretty big hang-up about getting it started: the length. Almost 500 pages long, reading a book this size was no mean feat for a fourteen-year-old, and might prove to be even more of a challenge for an adult with a full-time job who spends most of her weekends either traveling or working. Sometimes both. And this book gets pretty heavy as a carry-on. Plus, the table of contents alone is 3 pages long. That’s a lot of chapters to review.

Flipping through the book, I realized that the chapters don’t have even lengths. The first chapter is about 2.5 pages long, as is the second. They’re fairly quick reads, and though I expect some big, fat chapters later on in the book, right now it doesn’t seem like such an intimidating project. But I do have a good backlog of posts, so…let’s give it a shot.

Chapter one introduces us to the titular protagonist, Eragon. We learn that he’s just a teenager (because of course he is), who’s a skilled hunter and tracker. The prose isn’t bad, but there’s just something about it that feels lacking. It seems like Paolini was reaching for flowery language, but prose that is still easy to understand.

What doesn’t feel lacking is just over-the-top. Three paragraphs in, and I’m already scoffing over Eragon’s description:

“Eragon was fifteen, less than a year from manhood. Dark eyebrows rested above his intense brown eyes.”

It’s the “intense brown eyes” that gets me. That’s the kind of phrase I would have used in fanfiction when describing a character. It’s a description that just doesn’t make sense to me. When someone has “intense” eyes, I can only picture a person whose eyes are unearthly–in that they’re glowing, or can hypnotize you with a stare. For me, it’s just too vague to actually mean anything.

However, his ridiculous eyes do lead him to a blue stone, the same one that the elf was carrying in the prologue. I think that there’s supposed to be suspense here, but anyone who read the inside flap of the book can tell you right away it’s got something to do with the blue dragon on the cover. However, it does lead us to the first sentence that made me laugh out loud in this book.

“The stone was cool and frictionless under his fingers, like hardened silk.”

It’s another case of trying to using flowery language, except it backfired hilariously. I know that he’s trying to say that the stone is really smooth, but “frictionless”?

If it were truly frictionless, Eragon wouldn’t be able to hold it. It would be sliding out of his hands, slipping through the forest, and no one would ever be able to catch it. The mental image of that–a huge blue stone, forever moving across the world–is funnier than it should be to me. Maybe because right now I’m wishing that’s what would really happen.

…maybe that’d be a better way of keeping the stone safe, rather than teleporting it somewhere where it might never get found, or worse, fall into the wrong hands?

And that about does it for the first chapter. Like I said, it was pretty short. Moving on to the next…

The first two pages of this chapter are nothing but description. It’s not bad, and it wasn’t even that boring. We’re also introduced to Sloan, the butcher. I never liked Sloan; as a kid it was because he’s a dick. Now, it’s because he’s a dick to just the main character. He hates Eragon, and the reason that’s given is because Eragon isn’t afraid to venture into the mountain range where Sloan’s wife was killed.

I read the first two books completely, and almost finished the third one in this series. Some major shit happens to Sloan, and I think it’s meant to be his comeuppance for being an asshole to Eragon. It’s a pretty disproportionate punishment for just being a jerk. Even Eragon, who’s supposed to be our hero, punishes Sloan right after saving him.

I guess I should just be focusing on this book, and this chapter, but Sloan’s treatment gets taken too far.

We also see the farm that Eragon lives on, with his uncle and cousin.

Okay, I’ll accept dragons and magic and elves. I cannot accept that a farm has only three people living and working on it. If they can’t afford farmhands, shouldn’t Uncle Garrow have, like, eight kids? A farm is freaking hard to run, especially when you only have three people working on it, and one of them seems to be hunting in the woods more often than not, if Sloan’s dialogue is any indication.

Also, this is our first description of Garrow:

“His worn clothes hung on him like rags on a stick frame. A lean, hungry face with intense eyes gazed out from under graying hair.”

SO INTENSE. What does that even mean?

by booksoverlookedblog

Eragon Prologue: A Scent that Would Change The World

Hoo, boy.

When I started this blog, I knew right away that one of the books I wanted to read for it was Eragon. I loved this book when I was fourteen, but I’m aware of all the terrible reviews it’s gotten. The main character has been called a sociopath, the overall story is said to be Star Wars with dragons, the writing’s been called proof that Paolini has access to a thesaurus. Now, it’s time for me to go back and see if any of that is true.

But before we go any further, let’s get the Star Wars thing out of the way right now. The first Star Wars movie (A New Hope)  follows a classic monomyth structure. This is where a lot of familiar storytelling devices come from: the call to adventure, the wise old man, the first failure. The protagonist succeeds and fails, and finally wins the day and learns a lesson.

Eragon, inasmuch as I remember, follows the same monomyth structure. It’s not necessarily that it’s a rip-off of Star Wars, but that it follows the same story structure that has existed…probably for as long as stories have. Can you really blame a fifteen-year-old novelist, in his first book, for using a tried and true formula?

Well, yes, I suppose you could.

Enough of that, let’s jump right in!

“Wind howled through the night, carrying a scent that would change the world.”

Oh my God.

That’s the first line of this series.

That’s the first line.

If I spotted this in a bookstore today, picked it up, and read the first sentence, I would have slammed it shut so fast. I have a terrible feeling that the awful, corny sentence I just read is going to set the tone for the rest of this book.

But I loved this book as a kid. And it was really popular! There’s gotta be a reason why so many people enjoyed it! It can’t be all bad, right?

…Right?

The prologue follows a “raven-haired” (groan) woman who is clearly on a mission, but we don’t know what that mission is. The first time I read this book, I was totally confused, and had no idea what was happening. Because I was an idiot, I took that as a good thing.

My reasoning was this:

1. The Similarillion is a great book.
2. I had no goddamn clue was was going on in The Silmarillion.
3. Therefore, if I didn’t understand what was happening in the long fantasy novel, and it had a lot of made-up words, it was good.

Now I know the opposite to be true. Confusing your audience is a good way to lose them pretty quickly. Case in point: I never actually read past the first chapter of The Silmaraillion.

Paolini tells us about a “Shade” and “Urgals” chasing our dark-haired beauty, without really explaining what they are. We can figure out that Urgals are just another flavor of orc, and a Shade is some kind of magician, presumably an evil one. I guess I can see why you’d want to use different terms than the norm when writing a book like this, but a rose by any other name still smells.

Anyway, the beautiful woman gets captured, but teleports a blue stone far away from her location. Anyway, the hero will eventually save her and–

They were right. They were right all along. This is just Star Wars.

No…I have to hold out hope. I have to believe that this isn’t just a a rip-off of a better, more beloved franchise. It’s just the monomyth structure! It’s just the monomyth structure!

Maybe if I say it enough, I’ll convince myself that it’s true.

It’s just the monomyth structure, it’s just the monomyth structure, it’s just the monomyth structure…

by booksoverlookedblog

The Magician’s Nephew, Chap. 13: Does This Remind You of Anything?

There’s apparently a lot I’ve forgotten about this book, but some parts I remember vividly. Chapter 13 has one of those scenes. Recalling the disappointment of re-reading the previous chapter, though, I approached this one with caution.

Polly, Digory, and Fledge all find what’s simply called “The Place”, where the magical tree is growing. It has high walls and golden gates, warning against climbing the walls or stealing the fruit from one of the trees. Digory goes into the garden alone, and there’s a few paragraphs dedicated to that decision.

Near the end of a lot of fantasy stories, the main character finds often her or himself facing off against their main antagonist alone. I’m never sure how I feel about this trope, because if their allies are readily available, then they should also join in the fight. There should be a reason given as to why the protagonist has to go it alone. If the supporting cast is busy fighting a dragon, and the main character is the only one that can kill the sorcerer, fine. If you go it alone for drama, or tradition’s sake…that’s sort of dumb. The movie Labyrinth probably has the weakest excuse, with Sarah facing off against Jareth (and his mighty crotch) by herself because, “that’s the way it’s done”. I understand that it’s an important moment for the character to stand up to something to face their fears, but sometimes doing it alone out of choice is impractical.

In this case, the only reason Digory goes into the grove alone is because Polly and Fledge can see that it’s a “private place”, somewhere you wouldn’t want to walk into unless you’ve been invited. I’m actually okay with this. Maybe it’s the way this scene was written, or maybe it’s because even from the air, all three characters could feel that this place was special. I’m also okay with this because Digory isn’t in any apparent danger, nor has he been since Jadis ran off.

This chapter was probably the most memorable in the book, and holds up very well even now.  Digory is sorely tempted to take one of the apples for his own, and tries to rationalize eating one for himself. Just like we all do, when we want something really badly but know that we shouldn’t. It also shows us the magical quality of the fruit, that he had been planning on returning it to Aslan right away, until he smells it. This passage was as difficult for me to read, because I love fruit, and they all sounded so delicious.

The most important part of the chapter, (and the novel, if you ask me), is Digory finding Jadis in the garden, happily eating one of the apples. It’s made her stronger, but also made her skin and hair completely white, setting her up as the White Witch in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. It’s obvious she hasn’t been invited into the garden and that she’s stolen the apple for herself. She tries to convince Digory to eat one as well and become strong and immortal like her. When he refuses, she aims below the belt.

‘Do you not see, Fool, that one bite of the apple would heal her? You have it in your pocket. We are here by ourselves and the Lion is far away. Use your Magic and go back to your own world. A minute later you can be at your Mother’s bedside, giving her the fruit. Five minutes later you will see the color coming back to her face. She will tell you the pain is gone. Soon she will tell you she feels stronger. Then she will fall asleep–think of that; hours of sweet, natural sleep, without pain, without drugs.  Next day everyone will be saying how wonderfully she has recovered. Soon she will be quite well again. All will be well again. [. . .] And what would your Mother think if she knew that you could have taken her pain away and given her back her life and saved your Father’s heart from being broken, and that you wouldn’t–that you’d rather run messages for a wild animal in a strange world that is no business of yours?’

Holy shit.

This is the reason I’ve remembered this chapter so well. Growing up with a sick aunt and chronic illness as a backdrop in everyday life, I would have given just about anything for an apple like that. I remember holding my breath while this scene was read to me. Of course I wanted Digory to take the apple back to Aslan. That was the right thing to do. I hoped that Aslan would be able to heal Digory’s mother, but what if he couldn’t? The Witch said that it was Digory’s only chance at eternal life–what if it was the only way to heal his mother?

I connected with this passage, this dilemma so well. I was such a shy and straight-laced kid, always doing what I was told. If I were in Digory’s shoes, though, I may have very well stolen an apple for my sick aunt. It’s a test of faith; how loyal Digory feels towards Aslan, or how much he wants to save his mother. He hesitates, though, giving Jadis an opportunity to remind him that she’s evil. The reminder is all Digory needs to refuse, and leave with Polly and Fledge to return to Aslan with the magic fruit.

I chose to read The Magician’s Nephew again for a few reasons. It was the first in the Narnia series I ever read; I thought I remembered the basic story well enough and…

Well, this last one just makes me sound silly.

It took me awhile to come around to the “Aslan is Jesus” allegory. Sure, it made sense–Aslan comes around at Christmas, is killed for Edmund’s sake and  is then reborn (which just about made me cry)…it’s not a difficult connection to make. I never liked it all that much because it sort of demystified this really cool, powerful character. When I was a child, it made Aslan feel less approachable. As an adult, it’s because I’m not terribly religious, and don’t enjoy having religion shoved down my throat, even if it’s in the form of a fuzzy lion. Because, c’mon, you can’t watch the Disney Narnia movies and tell me that you don’t want to cuddle with Aslan.

But back to the point…I chose The Magician’s Nephew because I thought it wouldn’t be overly religious.

Oh, how wrong I was.

The scene that I remembered the best was nothing more than a gender-swapped Garden of Eden story. How the hell did I miss that? If it were any more transparent, this book would be made of glass.

Aslan help me, I’m an idiot.

by booksoverlookedblog

The Supernaturalist Chap. 1: Cosmonaut Hill

It’s time to take a break from manga for the time being, and move on to books that have more words than pictures.

This time, our trip down memory lane will take us into the future, with The Supernaturalist by Eoin Colfer. Colfer’s probably most known for the Artemis Fowl series, though he did write several stand-alone novels (and adult novels now!) I never got into the Artemis Fowl books, but have enjoyed Colfer’s other works. I first read The Supernaturalist when I was fifteen, and remember enjoying it a lot. It’s not typical of what you would normally think of Colfer’s books, in that it’s science-fiction. No faeries, no demons and angels, but a lot of cool technology. That’s not to say that it’s without its otherworldly creatures–this is Eoin Colfer we’re talking about, after all.

And before I go any further, I want to point out that “Eoin” is pronounced “Owen”. This is because Gaelic makes no sense.

The introduction to the book, the main character, and the world itself are very direct. It starts with a baby, abandoned in Satellite City, where the book takes place. The baby (named Cosmo Hill, as he was found on Cosmonaut Hill) is sent to Clarissa Frayne Institute for Parentally Challenged Boys, the kind of orphanage that Miss Hannigan would be proud to run. Clarissa Frayne makes all its money through product testing. That is, the boys they take in become test subjects for various companies. Just in the introduction, we’re told that Cosmo’s “teeth were white than white, and his hair was lustrous and flake-free; but his insides felt like they were being scored with a radioactive wire brush.” It’s quickly established that the life expectancy for an orphan at Clarissa Frayne is fifteen years old. Fourteen-year-old Cosmo knows that he’s running out of time, and is determined to escape.

This is all told to use within the first seven paragraphs of the book.

Normally, I wouldn’t like an introduction like this. There’s no dialogue, no action, just facts about the world and the main character. However, I have been reading Neuromancer by William Gibson lately, and Gibson doesn’t explain anything. It’s fine to leave your characters in the dark, and it’s fine to withhold information from the audience. However, you shouldn’t withhold so much information that the reader doesn’t have a clue what’s going on. Like whether your characters are on a space station or on Earth. Really, Gibson, it’s not that hard. Just say they’re on a fucking space station already, so I don’t have to keep guessing.

But I digress.

After the introduction to the main character and the setting, we finally get to see what Cosmo’s life is like at the orphanage. Even though The Supernaturalist doesn’t sport the matrix, hackers, or AI, I would still say that it’s a cyberpunk novel. It has many staples of the genre: high-tech, low life; the heroes are criminals and outcasts; powerful corporations; Earth a decade or so into the future, and that future is terrible. This book was my introduction to cyberpunk, which I enjoy a lot.

Cosmo’s day-in, day-out routine isn’t easy, especially since he’s a human guinea pig. The orphans are rounded up, put through whatever product testing needs to be done for the day, then get sent back to their “dorm” to rest for the night. I bring up the dorm specifically because it was something that really confused me when I first read this book.

“The rooms were actually sections of cardboard utility pipe that had been sawed into six-foot lengths. The pipes were suspended from a network of wires almost fifty feet off the ground. Once the pipes were occupied by orphans, the entire contraption swayed like an ocean liner.”

This setup was something I found nearly impossible to picture as a teenager. I think it was “pipes” that threw me off. I can visualize it better now, but don’t really see how something – pipes and wires holding who knows how many kids – could be stable. Even though it’s made clear from the start that Clarissa Frayne doesn’t really care about the well-being of its “no-sponsors”, I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t want the whole thing to collapse.

I also want to know what they do with babies that come into the Institute. I imagine there’s some kind of nursery, but when do they decide that the kids are old enough to be product testers? Or are they given experimental formula right from the get-go? Considering the way these kids are treated, I’m guessing it’s the latter.

We actually don’t see too much of Clarissa Frayne in this first chapter, because most of the real action starts when the orphans are being transported back to the institute. I also like how Colfer fits in little details about the world without being too overt about it. For example, when Cosmo takes a survey, it’s a “sixty-kilobyte questionnaire” and he ticks off answers with a “digi-pen”. It’s a small detail, but it tells you that this setting is influenced heavily by electronics. This only gets reinforced when we learn about the Satellite. The Satellite runs almost everything in the city (Appropriately, called Satellite City, nicknamed “The Big Pig”), including the vehicles. When the bus Cosmo’s in loses its link to the Satellite,  the driver doesn’t even know how to control it manually using the steering wheel. While it begs the question, “why have a driver in the first place?” this event kicks off Cosmo’s escape.

The bus gets slammed onto its side by other vehicles that are still linked to the Satellite, making them essentially on autopilot. After a collision leaves on its side, most of the adults – the marshals – are badly injured and out for the count. Mostly. There are only two marshals that are given names and Redwood is one of them. Not only is he wholly unpleasant, he’s sadistic and has no problem choking one of his charges, who happens to be cuffed to Cosmo. Redwood actually lets Cosmo and Ziplock get off the bus and make a break for the city. Unbeknownst to them, they’re still being tracked, and all Redwood has to do is follow their tracker patterns to get to the kids, which gives us this exchange:

“Redwood keyed the talk button on his communicator. ‘Fred. Send the Hill C and Murphy F tracker patterns to my handset.’


Fred cleared his throat into the mike. ‘Uh…the tracker patterns?’


Redwood ground his teeth. ‘Dammit, Fred, is Bruce there? Put Bruce on.'”


It goes on for a couple more paragraphs, with Redwood having to explain step-by-step how to email those tracker patterns. This could have been done to explain to the reader how it works, or as a way to give Cosmo and his cuffed partner more time. It didn’t really seem important to me when I first read the book, but now I love it.

Wherever you work, you will always have the one idiot coworker who doesn’t know what they’re doing. If you’re lucky, they’ll also make your job difficult due to their incompetence. And if you’re really lucky, like me, you will be the one person in the entire office that everyone comes to when they have IT problems. Then they act like you’re a wizard when you fix it, but all you’ve done is Google the solution.

Or maybe that’s just me. Anyway, I appreciate that even in the future, there will still be idiots who don’t know how to do their jobs.

Redwood catches up to the boys on a rooftop, and he grabs Ziplock’s jumpsuit at the edge of the roof to try to take him back. The jumpsuit rips, however, sending Ziplock and Cosmo over the edge, and landing on a generator. Both receive a huge electrical shock and get blown off the roof. Ziplock dies, Cosmo is badly hurt. He sees strange blue creatures land on him, and they seem to be sucking away his life force. He is rescued by three strangers who are reluctant to take Cosmo with them, until he starts talking about the blue creatures.

The story itself has a few good twists that really keep the plot moving, and there’s a lot of foreshadowing when Cosmo meets the group. On one hand, it makes me feel smart that I can recognize the plot points before they become plot points, but on the other, it makes me cringe a little bit. Not because it’s too clunky or poorly written, but because a lot of trouble could have been avoided by one character speaking up sooner.

Reading this now, the exposition does bother me a little bit. In a sci-fi or fantasy setting, I much prefer information being gradually revealed, usually through characters telling the new guy what’s going on. It’s needed in this chapter, though, with Cosmo and Ziplock already being familiar with the “rules” of the universe they live in. I much prefer it to having no information, at any rate. There were also a couple things I noticed that I didn’t when I first read this book. The first chapter seems much darker to me, for a start. A kid gets killed, Redwood only gives them the chance to escape so he has an excuse to punish them; Ziplock, specifically, because he’s the one who’s always mouthing off at Redwood. It’s kind of disturbing how the adults are so casual about using the kids as test subjects.

There’s also Ziplock’s death. Reading this as an adult and well past the age of the protagonists, it seems much sadder to me that he died so young. When you’re fifteen, anything over eighteen years old seems old. Turning twenty seems like it’s a million years away. So, fourteen years seems like a decent amount of time. As an adult and twentysomething, I can see that it is much to short of a time to live.