Filler, but Decent Filler Nonetheless

New Spring by Robert Jordan

I picked this up after recently hearing of Robert Jordan’s death. He died having yet to finish his epic Wheel of Time series, but luckily, left notes and the necessary materials needed so that someone else can finish it. As a fun, I’m on the fence as to whether or not someone else should finish it – Although the series had been lagging from Books 7 through 10, Book 11 was much better and we had the chance to see glimmers of the younger Jordan, the one who ushered us into his world years ago, so who would want someone else finishing his work for him? Better it go unfinished. On the other hand, if he did indeed leave enough material, thousands of fans are waiting for the concluding volume of this series. I still have yet to decide what I would prefer (although the choice is already out of my hands as someone is working on it as we speak). My only fear is that George R.R. Martin may never end up finishing his A Song of Fire and Ice Series (although I don’t know how many volumes it is supposed to be, so may this next volume is the last). As an aside, I feel bad concerning the fact I worry about whether these authors are finishing up their epics rather than being concerned over their health, but those two concerns are severable and you can feel bad both for the writer as a person and his work.

So, here in New Spring, Jordan gives us a prequel – namely, how Moraine and Lan met one another and became Aes Sedai and Warder. We are introduced to young versions of Moraine, Siuan, and other Aes Sedai all before Rand’s birth, as well as the events that begin Moraine on her long journey to find the Dragon Reborn. In many ways, while reading this, I felt a certain sense of familiarity come over me – as if I was coming home so to speak. Much of this series is something I grew up with since it has spanned so long, and being introduced to younger versions of these characters was a nice addition to the series.

My major problem was the rushed feeling of it. The first hundred pages really has a nice balance to it, but suddenly, when confronted with the climax, it seems as if Jordan wanted to finish it as soon as possible. The bonding between these two pivotal characters is both formulaic and superficial and I was disappointed that more did not happen.

But, I’m glad I read this and think fans will at least get some pleasure out of this. More pleasure, at least, than some of the later volumes of the series.

A Different Kind of Sequel

Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card

I actually first read Ender’s Game when I was in college, much later than when most sci-fi and fantasy buffs come across Card’s classic. I actually started using it with students I tutored in middle school as a way of trying to get them hooked on reading. It almost always worked.

In Speaker for the Dead, Card fast forwards 3000 years. In the aftermath of Ender’s victory over the buggers, instead of being honored as being a savior, he is vilified as one great murderer. The fault for this is his – after the final battle, Ender had gone off and found the hive queen and learned all about the bugger race, realizing that the buggers had never been enemies to begin with. He ends up writing a treatise that casts him as the villain and reshapes his own legacy. This book finds humans making contact with a new race and trying to correct the mistakes from the past.

Reading Card’s sequel, although one has to use that term loosely, was both an entertaining and ultimately disappointing experience. Critics have hailed this as a better written book, which is hard to argue against. The moral and religious overtones are explicit, as are the attempts at showing the emotional depth and pain many of the characters feel. But is it better than its predecessor? Sadly, it does not even come close. The success of Ender’s Game was in its innovation and creativity. Here, Card seems as if he’s struggling to become more of a literary writer, a writer with something to say. His point of view is well-received, but it is too heavy-handed. He may as well have written a philosophical treatise.

Overall, you don’t have to read this thread of the Ender series to have closure. Stick to Ender’s Shadow and the more recent thread following Ender’s brother than this and the two books that follow it.

Murakami Strikes Gold...Again

Over the course of a single evening, Murakami weaves together the stories of two sisters, one of whom is in a perpetual sleep-state and another who lives on the fringes, reading books in late night diners, an amateur trombonist, and a love hotel called Alphaville where a Chinese prostitute is beaten by a computer programmer who goes days without ever seeing his wife or children. The regular loneliness all of the characters, yet when you read about them on the page, you always can’t help but wonder why it is they are so lonely or why it is no one in the fabric of Murakami’s world, people are not all over them.

The narrative goes back and forth between the two sisters – Mari and Eri – and you keep reading at a faster and faster pace so as to find out how the two storylines intersect. Reading Murakami is as addictive as everyone says it is. I’m in my first year of law school and was still so engrossed that I finished this book in less than two days.

Both long-time Murakami fans and new ones alike will marvel at this work.

An Improvement from the First

Eldest by Christopher Paolini

Like the first book in the series, there is something oddly addictive about fantasy, even formulaic and somewhat predictable fantasy. Maybe that’s why there will always be a market for it – you may know what is going to happen, but you speed through the pages anyways, curious to both reacquaint yourself and see if the story will present some surprising twists and turns (this is why George R. R. Martin remains the best fantasy writer present – his books are full of twists, turns, and actually strong prose, something absent from most fantasy books).

This second volume in Paolini’s trilogy is an improvement on the first – you can feel his writing and his pacing mature. Eragon is sent off to the elves, where he and Saphira train in preparation for the cataclysmic battle that will come in Book III. Paolini does something that reminds me of early Robert Jordan – he tries to present multiple perspectives, but has problems making any but Eragon’s compelling. His rendering of other characters and their somewhat uninteresting perspectives made me skim as fast as I could to get to the Eragon storyline. I hope that with his final book, he will have become better at pacing and balancing between his characters.

Overall, a decent fantasy read that will certainly entertain you, but may not quite impress you.

Human Tragedy in the Great War

A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway

This, one of Hemingway’s first, is said to be the best American novel to emerge from World War I. Against the backdrop of a war-torn Italy and soldiers on the front-line tired of fighting, Hemingway presents a love story between Lieutenant Henry, an ambulance driver, and Catherine Barkley, an English nurse. What amazes me the most is the way Hemingway’s short prose manages to convey so much pain and anguish. The characters’ disdain for the war really does bleed through everything. And the prose never shifts its pace or diction – Hemingway uses the same short, descriptive sentences to describe a scene and to describe the death of a character.

I’m not sure I can see many weaknesses in this novel except one thing – the sheer annoyingness of Catherine. There were so many instances when I wanted to slap her for her constant repetitiveness. I would argue there are few heroines who come across as irritating on the page. And yet, regardless of this, you ultimately root for the two characters as they retreat from the on-coming German army and then flee into Switzerland.

I only wish more writers today were writing stories as wonderful (and ultimately tragic) as this one.

Some great quotes:

“You’re my religion. You’ve all I’ve got.”

“We never get anything. We are born with all we have and we never learn. We never get anything new. We all start complete.”

“No, that is the great fallacy; the wisdom of old men. They do not grow wise. They grow careful.”

Formulaic, Yet Addictive Fantasy

Eragon by Christopher Paolini

I had long talk with a friend about this book and we both came to the same conclusion – this is as formulaic as it gets, not all that creative in any sense, and yet you find yourself speeding through the book anyways. All of the predictable fantasy tropes are present – the young boy who knows nothing of the world, lives in an isolate portion of an empire, yet has a destiny to become great, is chased out of his home by evil powers, and soon becomes a great hero that is rejoiced throughout the land. This may as well have been a children’s version of the first book in Robert Jordan’s “Wheel of Time” series. Anyways, the book follows Eragon and his dragon Saphira as they navigate a war between two factions – The Empire and the Verdan.

I do want to emphasize that it’s a great book for younger readers and is the kind of thing that will hook twelve-year olds and capture their imagination. It will hopefully inspire them to try other fantasy series and hopefully branch out into other genres. But is Eragon “good”? Not so much…But it will still entertain and be a decent edition to the fantasy canon.