I’ll admit, even with the strong recommendations I was getting for this book, I did have some trepidation picking up Red Sister. The only other work of Mark Lawrence that I’ve read previously was Prince of Thorns, which I had a lot of difficulties getting into. The problem wasn’t so much with Lawrence’s prose, which I quite liked, or his world-building, but with his protagonist. While the story of an irredeemable psychopath does have the potential to be interesting, I found myself driven to apathy […]
“Finding Fantasy, Again”
Short story is not my normal genre. But I’m trying to expand my readership, and I like fantasy, so I took the plunge and bought “Neverland’s Library.” The compilation was a neat idea, where 21 different fantasy authors were asked to write a short story that captured the pure fantasy that we know and experience as children. Ultimately, it does its job. It was good; and I feel bad saying that because there were 4 stories in the collection that totally blew my socks off […]
“A dark time comes. My Time. If it offends you, stop me.”
Back when I reviewed Prince of Thorns I had two complaints that kept my rating at a 3 instead of a 4. Those were: 1. World-Building. If my roommate hadn’t told me about the fact that this was supposed to be in our distant future and that we’re the builders I wouldn’t have had a clue. I love Mark Lawrence’s style, but much of this novel may well have been taking place in a setting bubble for as much as I grasped from the page. […]
Anything that you cannot sacrifice pins you. Makes you predictable, makes you weak
I blame the internet. Earlier this year I was telling my roommate about a run of books I was in that were great, but sad. She’s dubbed my year as “The Depression Readings”. I mean, to a certain extent this is fair. I have read Burial Rites, The Black Country, Tell the Wolves I’m Home and The Age of Miracles in a 6 week period. That’s a lot of heavy reading, emotionally. So, at some point she decided that it was her mission to bring […]
On Maps, Morality, and Boring Psychopaths
Let’s talk about maps for a moment. A fantasy staple since the year dot, the map at the front of the book is perhaps the most evocative element of a given genre epic. Your humble correspondent used to draw fantasy maps in high school (no, I wasn’t exactly knocking ’em dead with the ladies, why do you ask?). Granted, not every fantasy epic comes with a handy map. I can think of a few authors off the top of my head (Glen Cook, Joe Abercrombie, […]