Since there are so many different sub-genres within the category of fantasy itself, I cannot proclaim myself an expert by any means. However, I want to give to those that have not ventured into this genre a taste perhaps of what it is I truly appreciate about said genre and what I look for in a good fantasy novel. Of course, there will be discrepancies in taste and you ought to take my opinions and recommendations with a grain of salt knowing that these are all novels I thoroughly enjoy, and perhaps may not be suited to everyone. However, I will try to cover as many bases as I can, and perhaps give each of you an inkling of what it is I find so fascinating about fantasy novels.
I personally am more of a fan of epic fantasy novels, where the world, the peoples, the language, everything is different. The key to reading fantasy novels is having a vivid imagination. I feel that if you can create vivid imagery of the events being described, the people, the objects in the story, the words begin to come to life as though you were sitting through a film. There are three main things that I generally look to in fantasy novels and these are the criteria by which I judge those that I read. Of course, for each person it is different, but if you are looking for a place to begin, this is as good as any;
1.) Characterization
In my view of the world, regardless of how drab and uninteresting any setting may be, if you are around anyone interesting, you will entertained nonetheless. The same holds true for novels, especially fantasy. When you're in an unfamiliar world, you want to cling to the familiar, in that case, the more real and personable the characters are to the readers, the more the readers will become attached to them. It's not really just being able to perform amazing feats either real or fantastic, but the person has to seem like someone you can stand next to and talk to. One author I would recommend with amazing characterization is Raymond Feist. Especially since much of fantasy is written in series, you are dealing with the same characters for a good 3-5 books, unless somewhere in the middle the author decides to kill them off. If any of the main characters is rather unbearable for some reason or another the series becomes a drag and any of the novels then become rather difficult to read. However, as different people have different personalities, they will gravitate towards different characters in different novels.
2.) Plot
This one seems obvious, for any story to succeed you have to have a good storyline. I think that beyond just being an interesting story, the protagonist must have a cause that you can root for and the antagonist must have some sort of evil scheme that you also wish to see fail. Of course if you can have many such ranges with such a general criterium, from novels of epic preportions such as Tolkien's Lord of the Rings or Weis and Hickman's Dragonlance: Chronicles or even down to personal successes of being accepted or overcoming societal heritage such as in Salvatore's Dark Elf Trilogy or Icewind Dale Trilogy. To keep it interesting and from getting redundant and predictable of course, authors are liable to introduce plot twists, which are all very good and keep readers on their toes. Of course, if the story becomes too complex or convoluted or the plot becomes unclear, it oft becomes tedious to read, for me, such examples would be Weis and Hickman's Stone of Tears series or George R. R. Martin's Game of Thrones. Beyond just the plot in the book, I believe that plot throughout a series must be maintained as well. Several authors meeting with successes in earlier volumes of their series have tended to drag out their stories, begging for resolution, which won't be forthcoming for several more volumes. In my opinion such authors are; Robert Jordan, The Wheel of Time (series starts getting stale after about book 5-6, probably could have ended in book 3), or Terry Goodkind, The Sword of Truth (I got to book 6 and I felt like there was no longer any direction in this series).
3) Narrative
I believe that even given predictable plots and characters what makes formula writers somewhat enjoyable to read is simply that they have amazing narrative. If you add good narrative to an original story it makes it all the better. A couple of formula writers that I still enjoy, simply because of their narrative style are; David Eddings (The Belgariad, The Mallorean, The Elenium, The Talmuli,...) and Brian Jacques (Redwall series). By narrative, I mean how the book is written or how the story is told. The style in which the narrator speaks oftentimes can make any story interesting, which pretty much can be summed up in discernment of what is important. Sometimes authors like to add too much description into everything, adding a lot of useless information that ultimately doesn't add anything to the story. An author with good narrative will include only that information which you need and is pertinent to the story or development of the character.
I don't believe that you need all three of these to get a "good" novel but the more the better. So long as it has any one of the three though, I feel that it at the very least will be a moderately enjoyable read. Below is a list of my favorite authors and their series (I will probably compile a more complete list later):
Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman
Dragonlance: Chronicles -Dragons of an Autumn Twilight, Dragons of a Winter Night, Dragons of a Spring Dawning (technically Dragons of a Summer Flame goes in here too, but that was kind of written as an afterthought and isn't truly part of the series)
Dragonlance: Legends - Time of the Twins, War of the Twins, Test of the Twins
Deathgate Cycle - Dragon Wing, Elven Star, Fire Sea, Serpent Mage, Hand of Chaos, Into the Labrynth, The Seventh Gate
R.A Salvatore
Icewind Dale Trilogy - The Crystal Shard, Streams of Silver, The Halfling's Gem
Dark Elf Trilogy - Homeland, Exile, Sojourn
Legacy of the Drow - The Legacy, Starless Night, Siege of Darkness, Passage to Dawn
The Hunter's Blade Trilogy - The Thousand Orcs, The Lone Drow, The Two Swords
The Sellswords - Servant of the Shard, The Promise of the Witch King, Road of the Patriarch
Spearwielder's Tales - The Woods Out Back, The Dragon's Dagger, Dragonslayer's Return
Crimson Shadow - The Sword of Bedwyr, Luthien's Gamble, The Dragon King
Demonwar Trilogy - The Demon Awakens, The Demon Spirit, The Demon Apostle
Raymond Feist
Riftwar Saga - Magician: Apprentice, Magician: Master, Silverthorn, A Darkness at Sethanon
Krondor's Sons - Prince of the Blood, The King's Buccaneer
Riftwar Legacy - Krondor: The Betrayal, Krondor: The Assassins, Krondor: Tear of the Gods
Serpentwar Saga - Shadow of a Dark Queen, Rise of a Merchant Prince, Rage of a Demon King, Shards of a Broken Crown
Conclave of Shadows - Talon of the Silver Hawk, King of Foxes, Exile's Return
Monday, October 29, 2007
Sunday, October 7, 2007
On Appreciating: Bread
So, for anyone that's been around me for any length of time over the past few years, knows that I have this unique love for bread. It goes beyond craving for carbohydrates and starches, but to simply put it, I love bread, and I want to share that love and appreciation with you.
To most people, bread is something pretty simple, kind of a base for all the good stuff. Well, I feel that on its own, bread can be appreciated like other foods, such as pasta, rice dishes, stir-fry, etc... Here we go!
I'm sure many of you have seen the movie Ratatouille there's a line in the movie that says something like, "You tell good bread by its sound." Which to some extent is true. I'll get into that later though. So, how to pick out good bread... Well, there are various aspects of bread that needs to be considered before we can determine which one will suit our needs. So the main aspects I like to consider in a loaf would be the following three: texture, density, and flavor.
Let's break down each category now. Texture, this includes both the crust and what I'll call the meat of the bread, how if feels both in the mouth and to the touch. Good bread will feel crisp, but not crusty, soft, but not mushy. When you pick up a piece of bread, it should feel substantial, but it should be delicate enough that you need a serrated bread knife to cut it, lest it become mashed flat. French breads have the danger of falling under two categories that make it not as appreciable as other breads, they can either be very crusty; in which the crust is extraordinarily hard and dry, near to the point of lacerating your mouth, or the bread can be very elastic; where the bread is very difficult to break apart because of how tough the "meat" of the bread is. Personally, I prefer italian type breads.
Density, it's basically how compact the bread is or how much air there is inside of it. Generally speaking, sweet breads, such as cornbread or pumpernickel are usually denser than what I'll call salty ones, such as sourdough or italian. So in this sense it's a matter of preference, I've had breads that have been denser that I thoroughly enjoy. Usually, they will go well with butter, honey, or molassass, something sweet. The key though, in denser breads is making sure they have enough substance, additionally you want it to retain a certain amount of moisture so that it is not crumbly, it should be like a really firm cake. On the other hand, breads that have a little more air, such as sourdough, italian, como, etc... you want a little air, but you don't want it to be too airy, like the pre-sliced Wonderbread type stuff. The interior should be chewy, but not tough, and works well as an absorbant. There should be a greater distinction between crust and "meat" and these types of bread are well accented by basalmic mixes, soups, or in sandwiches if you toast them.
Flavor, there's a lot of leeway in this, so you can kind of do what you like. I prefer my breads a little more simple, sourdough is actually very nice, it's subtle enough that you taste a little bit of the sourness, but it is complemented well by anything you have with it. Denser breads I usually prefer with more flavor, some honey or molassass, it's hard to go through bland pumpernickel just because it feels like there's so much of it per bite.
These are what I feel are some of the key things to look out for in enjoying good bread, I feel one of the greatest and underappreciated parts of a meal.
To most people, bread is something pretty simple, kind of a base for all the good stuff. Well, I feel that on its own, bread can be appreciated like other foods, such as pasta, rice dishes, stir-fry, etc... Here we go!
I'm sure many of you have seen the movie Ratatouille there's a line in the movie that says something like, "You tell good bread by its sound." Which to some extent is true. I'll get into that later though. So, how to pick out good bread... Well, there are various aspects of bread that needs to be considered before we can determine which one will suit our needs. So the main aspects I like to consider in a loaf would be the following three: texture, density, and flavor.
Let's break down each category now. Texture, this includes both the crust and what I'll call the meat of the bread, how if feels both in the mouth and to the touch. Good bread will feel crisp, but not crusty, soft, but not mushy. When you pick up a piece of bread, it should feel substantial, but it should be delicate enough that you need a serrated bread knife to cut it, lest it become mashed flat. French breads have the danger of falling under two categories that make it not as appreciable as other breads, they can either be very crusty; in which the crust is extraordinarily hard and dry, near to the point of lacerating your mouth, or the bread can be very elastic; where the bread is very difficult to break apart because of how tough the "meat" of the bread is. Personally, I prefer italian type breads.
Density, it's basically how compact the bread is or how much air there is inside of it. Generally speaking, sweet breads, such as cornbread or pumpernickel are usually denser than what I'll call salty ones, such as sourdough or italian. So in this sense it's a matter of preference, I've had breads that have been denser that I thoroughly enjoy. Usually, they will go well with butter, honey, or molassass, something sweet. The key though, in denser breads is making sure they have enough substance, additionally you want it to retain a certain amount of moisture so that it is not crumbly, it should be like a really firm cake. On the other hand, breads that have a little more air, such as sourdough, italian, como, etc... you want a little air, but you don't want it to be too airy, like the pre-sliced Wonderbread type stuff. The interior should be chewy, but not tough, and works well as an absorbant. There should be a greater distinction between crust and "meat" and these types of bread are well accented by basalmic mixes, soups, or in sandwiches if you toast them.
Flavor, there's a lot of leeway in this, so you can kind of do what you like. I prefer my breads a little more simple, sourdough is actually very nice, it's subtle enough that you taste a little bit of the sourness, but it is complemented well by anything you have with it. Denser breads I usually prefer with more flavor, some honey or molassass, it's hard to go through bland pumpernickel just because it feels like there's so much of it per bite.
These are what I feel are some of the key things to look out for in enjoying good bread, I feel one of the greatest and underappreciated parts of a meal.
On Appreciating: An Introduction
So, I think since I need something a little more light-hearted to share about, I am going to start a short series of reflections entitled On Appreciating, which will discuss the various things I find enjoyable. In discussing such things, I will hopefully be able to break down the various reasons I enjoy the said topic of discussion. Well, I suppose that's enough of an introduction for now, unfortunately I don't really consider myself a connoisseur of introductions, so this is not really a blog on appreciating introductions, I apologize for any confusion caused.
Friday, October 5, 2007
The Purpose of Blogging
People are probably wondering why I do this, as opposed to just putting up my sporadic and apparently depressing notes every now and again on Facebook. Of course, there could be the real possibility that no one is really wondering why I am doing this and not really anyone cares. Either way, I felt that it would be appropriate for me to explain myself to those readers (or lack thereof) that are reading this. So I found this place pretty randomly by Googling free online blogging, it's nice because you can just use your GMail account to access everything. The layout is nice and straightfoward, and there isn't a whole lot of confusion as to how to use it. It's much more practical than my previous website and easier to organize than Facebook (not to mention it's not as commoditized as MyJournal or Xanga, I like the obscure).
As for why I'm blogging again, after my vain attempt previously with my own HTML website... Well, needless to say, I need an outlet of some sort, I suppose this provides that outlet. I'm at somewhat of a roadblock on my other writing (i.e. my novels and screenplays) that I need something that feels somewhat more conversational, somewhere where I can write like I talk. Granted I don't know that there'll be someone "listening" on the other end, but sometimes it's just good to get it out there. Additionally, I've decided to try to post daily reflections on my devotionals through Oswald Chambers's My Utmost for His Highest and other Biblical passages hopefully through this as well, to keep me accountable. I haven't gotten to today yet, but I have not forgotten. Well, that's that in a nutshell. Hope those readers out there enjoy, and if not, meh...
As for why I'm blogging again, after my vain attempt previously with my own HTML website... Well, needless to say, I need an outlet of some sort, I suppose this provides that outlet. I'm at somewhat of a roadblock on my other writing (i.e. my novels and screenplays) that I need something that feels somewhat more conversational, somewhere where I can write like I talk. Granted I don't know that there'll be someone "listening" on the other end, but sometimes it's just good to get it out there. Additionally, I've decided to try to post daily reflections on my devotionals through Oswald Chambers's My Utmost for His Highest and other Biblical passages hopefully through this as well, to keep me accountable. I haven't gotten to today yet, but I have not forgotten. Well, that's that in a nutshell. Hope those readers out there enjoy, and if not, meh...
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