Robert Jordan

Well -- I have finally read Robert Jordan. More specifically, I have read The Eye of the World, the first book of the Wheel of Time series.

According to the 20+ review snippets on the cover, Jordan is apparently the next Tolkien, and this series is The Great Fantasy Epic of Our Time. I'm figuring it's pretty safe to assume this is mostly hyperbole. Every fantasy author people like tends to be proclaimed the Next Tolkien. The overwhelming concurrence of the reviewers and readers on this point, however, is a bit unnerving. Especially given the utter banality of this book.

Quite honestly, I hated it. I thought it was predictable, boring, laughable, and way to long. I thought the prose was thick, heavy, dry, and sleep-inducing. It took me a week to sludge through his 800-odd pages, and there is no way I want to repeat that experience a dozen more times.

Does this mean it is a bad and terrible book? No. It does not. Not necessarily, at least. I have said some of those same things after reading Sense and Sensibility, The Brothers Karamazov, The Divine Comedy, and even The Lord of the Rings. Call me a heretic, apostate, blah blah blah -- I still never want to read those books again.

So I'm a bit wary of going after Jordan. I know that once there's a gut-reaction dislike of a book or movie, it's quite easy to find myriad reasons why it's so terrible. And I know that once I have a gut-level liking for a book or movie, I'm very good at gleefully ignoring its faults. Things that would arouse mocking laughter and criticism in one case get shrugged off in another. (I'm thinking here of the reactions I've seen to everything from A Tale of Two Cities to The Scarlet Letter to Oedipus Rex to Underworld to Star Trek to Firefly to Harry Potter to CS Lewis to Pullman to GRR Martin to GG Kay). Shucks...I could tear and nitpick the Star Wars original trilogy to pieces if I wanted to. But I don't want to. I tell people to get a life. "It's a rollicking fun story; just roll with plot holes and forget about the metaphysical ramifications."

On the other hand, I'm still scratching my head over Jordan. What on earth did I miss? Why are people so crazy about him? I can understand the attraction of Jane Austen, The Lord of the Rings, the Divine Comedy, and Russian writers, even though I can't stand to read any of them. I can agree that those books contain elements that are worthwhile, enjoyable, or thought-provoking. I can appreciate the artistry that went into that literature. I can agree that I am something of a blockhead for being incapable of appreciating it. But I CANNOT understand this attraction to Jordan. Not liking Jane Austen feels akin to saying, "I don't like to eat gourmet Chicken-spinach casserole." Not liking Jordan feels akin to saying, "I don't like Coke."

Or, looked at from another angle...I appreciated the fact that I could recommend The Eye of the World to my friends and sisters if I wanted to. There's no sex (graphic or otherwise) in it, and I don't think any horridly terrible language or violence, either. But I didn't like the fact that there was no reason to bother recommending it. Was there any outstanding prose and description, like in Kay? Was there any incredible plotlining and characterization, like in Martin? Was there any knockout satire and worldbuilding, like in Fforde? I've a limited amount of time on my hands, here...why should I sludge through 800 pages of pure mediocrity when there's better stuff out there?

Sure...there were occasionally things I enjoyed. I rather liked the way Jordan played with the concept of cyclical history. Perrin turning into a wolfman was awesome. I liked watching Mat and Rand having to live as apprentice gleemen. But other than that, I didn't find much of interest. There's a Dark One bound by the Creator in the Mountains of Dhoom (honestly -- they're CALLED that) with his Trollocs and wraith-things, intent upon taking over the world. There's a farmboy who's actually heir to a some ancient bloodlines, a cool sword, and a Prophecy. He and a party of companions (ax-wielding blacksmith boy, archer boy, bard, warrior, magic-wielding lady, two more magically inclined girls) flee the village pursued by the Dark One's minions. They get separated, run into lots of trouble, finally get back together (the bard is replaced by an animal-thing), finish reaching the spot where a semi-final showdown will occur, and defeat the Dark One when the farmboy calls on heretofore unused magical ability. There's some politicking and political discontent going on in the world, and some vigilante groups, some gypsies, and the magic-wielding Aes Sedai who have their own purposes in mind.

It's not bad, per se. Conceivably, it might have been a cool book. Some of it has definite potential...the "group gets scattered" part, or the "naive farmboys hit outside world" theme, or the "politicking/divisions/ulterior purposes" idea. Shucks -- even Dark Lords, Chosen Ones, and Quests (though rather overdone by now, and a bit of a turnoff for me) have been executed well. But compared to other writers, Jordan manages these poorly.

Por ejemplo...Tolkien also separated his guys. Each group then went and did crucial things that united nations of good guys and/or set up the bad guys. When the storm broke, evil got defeated. Everyone was reunited in a denumount. The End. Where did Jordan miss the "scattered groups do important things on an international level to unify the factions against the looming threat before at last being reunited" idea? Do I have to read the next nine TWELVE books to get to that part of the story? I wonder...do they get separated again, and reuinited again, in each book? Or does Jordan finally leave them alone, like he should have in the first place?

Somewhat related to this...did Jordan also miss the "scattered groups get caught up in the international/national troubles and have to fend for themselves" idea? Politicking and vigilantes and groups of people at cross-purposes with one another are cool. Wars with multiple contesting factions, focused on their own very troubles, while shadows of deeply evil things loom on the horizon(s)... THAT is awesomely cool. But Jordan is no Martin, any more than he is a Tolkien. When do run-ins with these factions/cultures/politicking ever cause deep and lasting changes to the character's life-purposes, character, and goals? Aside from Perrin, who becomes a wolfman tied into the rebirth of legendary magic, everyone seems to glide through any contact with the outside world unscathed. Why not just teleport them to the Eye, give them a few lectures on magic, and have done with it? With all the other magic pulled out of thin air when it's convenient (applications of elemental magic, the passageways, the green man, Rand), WHY NOT throw in teleportation?

Final verdict? I guess it's OK fantasy. But with Martin-Kay-Pullman-Lewis-Tolkien (and maybe Robin Hobb or Stephen Brust, too) out there, what makes you think I'd even bother with Jordan? Perhaps his books do get better. But after the first one, I'm not inclined to give him another chance.

Half-Blood Prince, part 2

Okay...Snape. Again: I've done a lousy job at predicting her red herrings, even when I got in trouble for reading the books when I was 3/5 of the way through Prisoner of Azkaban, and had 18 months to guess the ending. My grand prediction was that Sirius was trying to kill Lupin. Ha!

Here goes nothing; spoilery stuff galore below.

Basic Option 1: Snape is good. (Sort of).
This was my initial reaction. Rowling is pulling her favorite red herring again, and working really hard to make us fall for it this time. But it's still a red herring.

I can't exactly say that Snape is good. He's not. He's a bitter, cruel, vicious, messed up man, with a history of terrible acts...who somehow managed to come up on the right side of things. Probably only because of Dumbledore's friendship.

When has Dumbledore ever been this drastically wrong about a person's character? He may screw up in some things (like going after a locket that isn't there, like not telling Harry the prophecy, like underestimating Draco's ability to get Death Eaters into Hogwarts), but when it comes down to seeing a person's heart, he's always judged rightly. I'm with Lupin. If Dumbledore trusts him, I do too.

The Unbreakable Vow caused a lot of problems. Snape agreed to it, probably because he was on the spot, had to make a split-second decision, and goofed up. Bellatrix was calling his bluff. Narcissa was pleading with him to save her son. And perhaps Snape wasn't expecting the third clause of the Vow. Though it's possible that he had already talked to Dumbledore about Voldemort's plan, and they'd agreed that Snape should kill him (Dumbledore) if Voldemort demanded it.

Anyhow -- once the Vow was in place, it's only a matter of time. Once it was evident that Draco would not be able to kill Dumbledore, someone had to die. If Snape refused, then Snape would die. If Snape fulfilled the vow, then Dumbledore would die. Moreover -- and I may be wrong on this -- I'm pretty sure that if Draco failed and another Death Eater killed Dumbledore, then Snape would die. It's a no-win situation. Once the Vow was in place, the best anyone could do was postpone the time of confrontation with Draco. (The necklace and gin, I believe, did not have enough "Draco is going to fail"-ness to them to force the situation. The confrontation in the tower, on the other hand, did).

I don't know if Snape told Dumbledore the whole story of the Vow. My first thought was that he did, and that Dumbledore made a pragmatic command decision about who had to die. The argument between Snape and Dumbledore arose because Snape didn't like Dumbledore's call on this matter. Then up in the tower, Dumbledore pleaded with Snape not to mess up the plan. However, it's not clear at all from the book that Snape informed Dumbledore about the depth of the mess he was in. I rather like the idea of things getting out of hand in the tower -- of Dumbledore underestimating Draco, not expecting Death Eaters, not knowing the extent of Snape's dilemma. I can't see him making the promises to Draco that he did, unless he expected to survive a bit longer.

Now...there's "revulsion and hatred" on Snape's face as he kills Dumbledore. Interesting choice of words:

Hating himself, repulsed by what he was doing, Harry forced the goblet back toward Dumbledore's mouth and tipped it, so that Dumbledore drank the remainder of the potion inside (571).

Snape gazed for a moment at Dumbledore, and there was revulsion and hatred etched in the harsh lines of his face" (595).

All in all...people made some big mistakes. Bad things happened. Sacrifices had to be made. But all this is setting the stage for Voldemort's defeat. First, we have the classic mentor-death, showing Harry that he has to learn to battle and survive on his own. Secondly, the good guys now have a person deep within Voldemort's trust and councils. We're looking at the first part of a longer story. HP6 is putting the pieces in place, setting us up for something like a "Snape is good" twist in HP7, just like the first half of HP1 set us up for the "Snape is good" twist in its second half.

A final consideration: Rowling's world would lose a whole lot of subtlety, and a whole lot of gray, if every guy that Harry thought was evil was actually evil. Or if every guy who looked evil was pure evil. I stayed with the series because, in book 1, Snape turned out to be the "good guy."

Basic Option 2: Snape is evil.
I need to go back and read the series from this perspective. Because, by golly, it just might be right. At first I thought, "No way! Rowling's world doesn't work like that! Dumbledore wouldn't be that incompetent! He's freaking demi-omniscient! He always manages to fix things, and he always knows what to do!"

But if Dumbledore is more fallible than we assumed, it's gloriously, tragically inevitable. The whole series has been leading up to a moment like this -- a moment when Dumbledore for once bets wrong. When Harry realizes that not even Dumbledore had everything under control, or had all the answers, or was without a major failing. Snape's evilness works. It's an inescapable necessity. It's a foreshadowed tragedy. It makes an awesome-cool story.

Dumbledore, who usually gets this sort of thing right, eventually makes a misjudgment of a person's character. There have been foreshadowings of his fallibility (see above; see Order of the Phoenix; etc). Other teachers mention that he can be too trusting -- that it has always been his weakness. Dumbledore acknowledges his potential to make catastrophic mistakes.

"But as I have already proven to you, I make mistakes like the next man. In fact, being -- forgive me -- rather cleverer than most men, my mistakes tend to be correspondingly huger" (197).

And he does make a huge one, which costs him his life, and that of several other people, too (the murders at the beginning of the book, at the very least).

HP6 isn't meant to be a set-up for book 7, any more than 5 was a set-up for 6. This volume has reached an end and a resolution. The mystery has been solved; the answer had been revealed. This page of the drama -- a tragic one -- has been completed. It's time to move on, making the best of the new situation.

This is the way the books have always ended...a twist that has a ring of finality. The final chapters are always a revelation of the true nature of things. In Philosopher's Stone we realize that Quirrel is evil, and that Snape is innocent (at least of that particular crime). In Chamber of Secrets, we realize that Riddle is evil, and that Hagrid is innocent. In Prisoner of Azkaban, we realize that it's actually Pettigrew who is evil, and that Sirius is innocent. In Goblet of Fire, we realize that Crouch the evil and guilty man. In Order of the Phoenix, there's no 'villain' to find, per se. But there is the matter of Sirius's death. Despite some ambiguity, it was evidently real and final, just like Dumbledore & Co. said. There's no loose ends; he's not coming back. (His non-return is what convinced me of the finality of Rowling's conclusions. Even if there seems be wiggle room, there actually isn't). So happens in Half-Blood Prince? It is revealed that 1) Snape is actually evil, and 2)Dumbledore is dead. Given the finality of each of the previous book's revelations, we should assume that these things are what they appear to be.

I don't like it. I don't want Harry to be right about Snape. But if HP6 follows the pattern of books 1 - 5, Evil!Snape is the way Rowling wants her world to be. I can be OK with that (if not overly thrilled); a Dumbledore-tragedy plot arc is still quite cool. Moreover, while I may mourn the state of the series as a whole, Evil!Snape sure makes book 6 a lot more gripping and chilling than Good!Snape.

Final consideration for this side: Voldemort is "the most accomplished Legilimens the world has ever seen." Snape might be very powerful in Occlumency...but I have a lot of trouble believing he's that powerful.

In Conclusion...
Basically (QuickSummary!): If this is a book complete in itself, following the pattern of books 1-5, then Snape is evil. If this book is "part 1 of 2," then Snape is probably good.

I'm aware there's probably an Option 3: "Snape is on his own side." I'll have to think about it, but I don't find this too plausible. Everyone is pretty much ends up either helping Voldemort ("evil") or not helping him ("good"). Snape is now either a Death Eater or Fake Death Eater. I'm sure plenty of DE's are allied with Voldemort for their own ulterior purposes or their own survival...and that doesn't make them merely "on their own side."

My bet is currently on Good!Snape...after I wrote this, I found that Rowling said she considers this book a "part 1 of 2." However, Evil!Snape makes book 6 a lot more interesting, and should be a pretty fun framework to use when re-reading the series. Also, I’ll probably read book 7 using the Evil!Snape template. Gleefully going along with a red herring can be fun. 1) If he’s good, I’ll be pleasantly surprised. 2) If he’s evil, then he’s evil. 3) If he’s evil and I’m betting on good, it’ll be a bit of a letdown and disappointment. Sort of like realizing that Sirius’s death was a settled issue.

Half-Blood Prince, part 1

I usually wait until books show up on the library shelves....but I gave in this time and actually put Half-Blood Prince on hold at the library. Here follow some initial reactions...basically, everything except a prediction on Snape.

Spoilers for certain.

1. It's generally not a good idea to start a book with a punctuation error. My 12 year old sister, whose writing I'm correcting this summer, knows better than to let this pass:

It was nearing midnight and the Prime Minister was sitting alone in his office...

2. Holy Moses -- the potion of Deus ex Machina! And I thought Veritaserum was bad! ::collapses on the floor in uncontrollable gut-wrenching laughter::

I'm considering letting it pass, because Harry Potter seems like a semi-absurd world. (If Fforde had included Felix Felicis in his books, I'd have thought it was a stroke of genius). I usually don't care about absurdities and plot holes in the HP world. Still, this honestly seems like a bit of extraordinarily lazy plotting. Along the lines of "Oops! Some really improbable cooincidences have to occur! And I don't have time to think up a plausible chain of events!" The Deus ex Machina potion also brings up the retroactive effect problem again. Potions as super-powerful as this ought to have had a huge impact on the wizarding world. Their effect should have shown up before book 6, like Polyjuice potion did. There should be some awesome-solid reasons why they aren't used all the time (at least by Voldemort).

The same probably goes for Unbreakable Vows, but those at least didn't send me into fits of giggles.

3. Do I care who is "snogging" whom? NO!

Maybe it's just because I've never been on a single date, and never had a "boyfriend". Maybe it's because I've had a grand total of ONE crush in my entire life. (Well -- okay. TWO. Once you've learned to identify them, they can't ambush you anymore. You can shove them in a cage and laugh at them until they die).

I liked Bill and Fleur. I thought the whole thing was sweet, funny, fitting, and believable. But everyone else? Why oh why did we have to spend 30% of the book worried about these kids' childish 'romantic' squabbles? Was there honestly ANY doubt that Ginny and Harry would end up together? Or Ron with Herminone? You could see it coming from HP2. I was thrown off by Viktor and Cho in HP4; those relationships actually raised some doubt in my mind about the direction Rowling was going to take her characters. The pairs matched believably, and stayed together for a whole book. But this time around? Lavender Brown, Dean, and every other love interest were so obviously unfitting and short-lived it wasn't even funny. Forgive me if my eyes skipped whole pages.

I'm rather confunded by Tonks/Lupin as well. I guess it works, but I would have never seen if coming. Lots of other people seem to share this sentiment, so I'm going to assume my confusion isn't just due to not having read the books for two years.

4. Tentative theory...I'm wondering if the Harry Potter books could be considered an example of a (perhaps unsuccessful) Cerebus Syndrome. The stretchings of plot that work in a lightheard boarding school/whodunit/parodical world might not prove workable once things start getting more serious and dramatic. The same might also be said for the moral framework of the world.

Then again, I've probably just read way to much meta, which uber-analyzes everything and tends to make it more serious than it is.

5. Tom Riddle is an awesome villain. He's smart, he's evil, he's manipulative, he's persuasive. I like skilled and intelligent villains.

6. Harry and Co. aren't very nice to the lower-schoolers. I forgave them for any inconsideration in HP5 -- but they're 16 now, and you'd think they'd grown up a bit. Especially since Ron and Hermione are both prefects now.

7. The commentators at the Quiddich games are horrible. It's another thing I never noticed when the books had a lighter tone. If they're going to be this biased, they need to rotate commentators. Luna was probably the only close-to-objective one.

8. Snape is smart. He's talented. He's a freaking prodigy and genius. Has no one else noticed this? He practically rewrites the potions system. He's got some uber-occlumentic abilities. He invents spells and hexes. He's managed to double-face his way -- to either Dumbledore or Voldemort -- for years. Double bonus points if it's Voldemort ("the most accomplished Legilimens the world has ever seen"). And who does Dumbledore go to when really nasty stuff needs to be healed and fixed? The last time we saw people of this caliber were Voldemort and Dumbledore. I honestly can't think of another current wizard who comes close.

If you were this good, and people didn't recognize and respect it, wouldn't you be a bit bitter, too?


When I finally get around to it, Part 2 should be on Evil!Snape vs. Good!Snape. Rowling threw me for a loop on this one -- I don't know what to bet on at the moment, and the more I look at it, the more confused I get. I'm also notoriously bad at predicting the endings to her books, so you'll be better off going with whatever conclusion I don't reach.

George R. R. Martin and "A Feast for Crows"

//Quick-fix Edit as of 1/03/06: Martin has officially lost his plot in a morass of sex and violence. Revised verdict: NOT recommended to anyone. There's better books out there. Read those. Yes, I'll back this up with a three-point persuasive essay if you want to call me out on it.//END EDIT

Ok. I've done some minor editing to this to make the content more understandable to the uninitiated. :-)

A Brief Intro
Here is George R. R. Martin's web site. He's currently writing a fantasy series entitled A Song of Ice and Fire.

Here is a spoiler-free Wikipedia page that introduces this series. I can't vouch for the spoiler-freeness of any pages connected to this one, but this particular page is nice and bland, and gives a good feel for his worldbuilding.

The Song of Ice and Fire books have phenomonal plotlining and characterization. Martin has subplots upon subplots that interweave and connect. He manages to make you side with whichever character currently has the PoV. (Except for Theon Greyjoy. I despise Theon, and hope he dies a terrible, horrible, grusome death. It would be poetic justice to the nth degree). It is very likely that Theon will meet said death, because Martin is not nice to his chracters. Bad guys die, good guys die, minor characters die, main characters die. Multi-faceted civil wars are tearing apart the kingdom(s) of Westeros, and worse things lurk around the corner.

I wish I could recommend these books to everyone I know; again, the plotting and characterization are incredible. But his stuff would also be rated R (or M, or whatever the rating is) for violence, language, and sex. Maybe higher. There's portions of these books that I skip.

Some thoughts on A Feast for Crows
Now that all the stuff up there is out of the way...

There's a Cersei chapter up! I'm probably the last to hear about this, but I'm going to shout about it anyway. First because it's Cersei. Martin's finally made her a PoV character...and darn it, I think he's almost pulled another Jaimie. Secondly, this is a much more recommendable chapter than the Theon one that was up the last time time I checked. Now, even though the chapter pretty much spoils the series so far, I won't have to worry so much about people I know hearing me mention "Martin" and running across one of his (IMO) worst chunks of writing.

Here's the link -- though if you haven't been reading A Song of Ice and Fire, be aware that it obviously contains really big spoilers for the first three books in the series.

I'm probably the last to hear about this announcement, too.

::sigh:: Seven books, now, is it? Weren't there only supposed to be four when he started this series? I've every confidence in Martin as a writer, but here's hoping that he doesn't go Robert Jordon on us. And I do find myself among the readers disappointed that they won't get their favorite characters in A Feast for Crows. With maybe one or two exceptions, every character I really like is now in the North or East.

The splitting up of the book like this also seems to throw the balance of the series out of whack. There's always been a tension to the books. On one hand, you have the murderous, backstabbing struggle for the Iron Throne that's plunged just about every house into war with one another. This is very bad, and very terrible, and lots of horribly cool things happen in the middle of all of it. But on the other hand, there's the northern and eastern chapters. They remind you that Westeros is in a race against the clock -- a race which most inhabitants don't even realize they're in. The end of an Age is approaching. Bigger, scarier threats are looming and building. Winter is Coming. An Empire arises. Magic awakens. Whoever gets the Iron Throne isn't going to last too long. You're thus kept from getting too wrapped up in the civil war; you're reminded you of the big picture, which is more ominous and more hopeful all at the same time.

But if anyone can pull this division off, it would be Martin.