It’s easy for my wife to tell if I’m ‘properly’ sick; if I don’t have any interest in touching a keyboard for a while, it’s official - I’m ill. More reliable than any doctor’s prognosis. I came down with proper ‘flu for the second time this winter, which sapped my energy to do pretty much anything for the last few days. Sucks. I didn’t even have the energy to play any games until late in the weekend!
As such I passed much of my (waking) time reading. I like reading fiction, but these days it tends to be mostly limited to holidays and periods of illness because I seem to have so many other things to do - and a lot of my reading time is always taken up with technical volumes when I’m mentally alert. No such luck over the last few days, so the book I devoured this time was Ysabel by Guy Gavriel Kay, one of my favourite authors. I like Kay’s books because while being strictly fictional and regularly tinged with the fantastic, they’re always very much based on a real place and period in history, which gives them a solidity that many novels lack. A Song for Arbonne for example is loosely based around the Albigensian Crusade, and Last Light of the Sun revolves around the Viking invasions. In all cases he has a knack of creating very deep, believable characters and story arcs within the larger overall context that are hugely involving.
Ysabel was a little different to usual, being based in contemporary times, albeit with plenty of historical influence. Based in Provence, Kay does a characteristically good job of establishing the setting, and of weaving a simple modern day story into a historical fantasy / mystery. It’s slow to start, but once you get past the initial few chapters (in hindsight, necessary for establishing the normality of the setting and characters before beginning to spin it out into something larger & more unusual), it’s hard to put down. It might not be his best work (Tigana still holds that accolade, although many of his recent books have come close, particularly Lions of al-Rassan) , but it’s very enjoyable nonetheless. Recommended.
If you’re waiting on something from me, give me a couple of days since I’m still recovering & catching up.
March 10th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
I want to go back and read some GGK now that I’m older and more mature, but I had bad experience in high school, I had to analyze a writing style for a report in a writers craft class, and was running very late on the assignment, so at complete random I chose “Sailing to Sarantium” and read through it in about a week, I wanted to DIE, the characters are indeed very very deep, so much so in fact that to my (probably biased) memory about 75% of the book took place inside someone or another’s head as they pondered the meaning of their existence.
March 10th, 2008 at 2:48 pm
I’ve read a couple Guy Gavriel Kay books, including Song for Arbonne and Tigana. Good author.
Have you read George R R Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series? Very good, and has a realistic feel like GGK but I find GRRM’s books are very character driven and he’s probably my favorite fantasy author.
March 10th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
@Grey: I’ve only just started Sailing to Sarantium, I’ll have to see what I think - it’s one of the few GGK books I haven’t read yet.
@Falagard: no, I’ve never read any GRRM before - now you’ve pointed it out I’ve added the first one to my Amazon wish list so I don’t forget.
I also really enjoyed Robert Jordan for a while, until he started spinning the Dragon Reborn tale out longer than I think it warranted. I decided to stop reading them until they were all finished, since each one was taking longer and longer, and indeed every fan’s dread was realised when he died without finishing the series. I also like Raymond E Feist - I think he’s milked his series a little too much now and has become a bit lazy, but occasionally there are books that stand out, like Exile’s Return. Tad Williams is another good one, although again he’s unreliable - the Otherland trilogy was fantastic but others I’ve read have been not so good.
Aside from fantasy, I read Ben Elton from time to time too - First Casualty I thought was great, and Stark/This Other Eden were very entertaining. I also need to read far more Neil Gaiman than I do. So little time!
March 10th, 2008 at 3:31 pm
If you have some time, you also may want to check Lois McMaster Bujold’s work. She’s one of my favorite authors.
In a fantasy setting, “The Curse of Challion” and it’s followup “Paladin of Souls” are Great …
(the second one got the Nebula, Hugo and Locus awards if you pay attention to these).
March 10th, 2008 at 4:02 pm
We’ve read the same books, Steve
I feel the same way about Tad Williams. I’ve enjoyed all of his books while I was reading them, but after they were over I usually feel a little let down for some reason. I’ve read Otherland, Memory Sorry and Thorn, War of the Flowers, and have started the Shadowmarch series. Otherland was his best.
I’ve read Raymond E Feist’s Magician series. Good books.
Robert Jordan I enjoyed his first 2 or 3 Wheel of Time books since they were a new and interesting fantasy setting but then stopped at about 5 or 6 since they were just being drawn out.
I haven’t read any Ben Elton or Neil Gaiman so I’ll have to add those to my mental list of suggested authors from people who have the same taste as I do
March 10th, 2008 at 5:26 pm
@Shadow007: excellent, thanks.
@Falagard: cool
I have a few more for you - Manda Scott’s ‘Boudica’ quadrilogy I liked a lot, and also Alice Bordacht’s (== Anne Rice’s sister) Silver Wolf and follow-ons I enjoyed for being a bit different (lycanthropy story in the final crumbling years of Rome). There’s a lot of good stuff out there for sure.
March 10th, 2008 at 7:15 pm
I was wondering where you were hiding.
I can’t get into fiction myself, the only fiction I’ve really ever enjoyed is Dan Browns series of books which were quite gripping. Otherwise the only fiction I ever really read was during my school years.
Get better soon mate