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We can't let the sci-fi people have all the fun can we? Also, us college students are either done or almost done so we shold have time to get down to reading some good brick-sized fantasy books. I'll set up a voting thread for a book of the month after I get a good number of nominations.
After thinking about A Game of Thrones by George Martin I've decided to go with Black Sun Rising by C.S. Friedman, since its works better as a stand-alone despite being the first book of a trilogy.
Black Sun Rising has two things going for it, world building and character building. The world of Erna is a nicely-built place which is dark without being annoyingly Goth. The main driving force is the fae which is one of the better attempts to build magic that is a natural force that follows rules that make sense. Equally interesting is how the fae interacts with the human subconscious which results in all the nasty critters in Erna being the result of the dark side of the human psyche.
One result of all this is Black Sun Rising is one of the few bits of fantasy in which religion isn't some kind of hazy Deism, an evil maiden-sacrificing cult or a mere rip-off of medieval Catholicism. Basically since magic in Black Sun Rising is responsive to human will, faith has concrete power and the whole point of religion is to tame magic and make Erna more like a vaguely-remembered Earth. So its nice to see religion that actually makes sense in a fantasy context.
But what really makes the book its characters, specifically Gerald Tarrant, who's the best-realized representative of the intelligent/"fallen"/sauve/cold/aristocratic/amoral/nasty anti-hero cliche that I can remember reading, especially since there's interesting psychological conflicts with no angsty self-pity or whiny moping, which is a massive relief and makes him fun to read about.
The concept that the world is based around and the interesting character(s) easily make up for Black Sun Rising's flaws, but there are a few. Motivations for a pivotal choice or two are a little hazy, the dialogue could've been a little less stilted, the plotting isn't the best I've ever seen and the "bad guy" isn't quite fleshed out enough (more of that comes in the sequels I think). But overall, its well worth reading since its an intelligent bit of work and does a lot of good conceptual reworking of fantasy stocks of trade. Highly recommended.
After thinking about A Game of Thrones by George Martin I've decided to go with Black Sun Rising by C.S. Friedman, since its works better as a stand-alone despite being the first book of a trilogy.
Black Sun Rising has two things going for it, world building and character building. The world of Erna is a nicely-built place which is dark without being annoyingly Goth. The main driving force is the fae which is one of the better attempts to build magic that is a natural force that follows rules that make sense. Equally interesting is how the fae interacts with the human subconscious which results in all the nasty critters in Erna being the result of the dark side of the human psyche.
One result of all this is Black Sun Rising is one of the few bits of fantasy in which religion isn't some kind of hazy Deism, an evil maiden-sacrificing cult or a mere rip-off of medieval Catholicism. Basically since magic in Black Sun Rising is responsive to human will, faith has concrete power and the whole point of religion is to tame magic and make Erna more like a vaguely-remembered Earth. So its nice to see religion that actually makes sense in a fantasy context.
But what really makes the book its characters, specifically Gerald Tarrant, who's the best-realized representative of the intelligent/"fallen"/sauve/cold/aristocratic/amoral/nasty anti-hero cliche that I can remember reading, especially since there's interesting psychological conflicts with no angsty self-pity or whiny moping, which is a massive relief and makes him fun to read about.
The concept that the world is based around and the interesting character(s) easily make up for Black Sun Rising's flaws, but there are a few. Motivations for a pivotal choice or two are a little hazy, the dialogue could've been a little less stilted, the plotting isn't the best I've ever seen and the "bad guy" isn't quite fleshed out enough (more of that comes in the sequels I think). But overall, its well worth reading since its an intelligent bit of work and does a lot of good conceptual reworking of fantasy stocks of trade. Highly recommended.
ACK!
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