Four and a half Torches (Out of Five)

With Dragon Haven, the follow-up to Dragon Keeper, Robin Hobb is back in fine form!

Actually, I suppose she was always in fine form — Dragon Haven and Dragon Keeper were meant to be one book, but the manuscript got too unwieldy and the publisher decided to split it in half. Maybe it’s more accurate to say that the second half of the Rain Wilds Chronicles is the reason fantasy fans have been lining up to buy Robin Hobb’s books for the last 15 years.

Dragon Haven picks up from the abrupt ending of its predecessor: A band of ragamuffin hunters and keepers are trekking through the Wilds with a group of misfit dragons, hoping to lead them to the ancient city of Kelsingra.

While the first book in the Rain Wilds chronicles was laden with character development and a sense of moving the pieces into place, Dragon Haven is where the real journey begins. Does the mythical city of Kelsingra even exist? Will the dragons and their keepers ever heal from their physical and emotional limitations? Who is the mole within the core group? Will they keep the traditions of their old society intact or form new customs?

I mentioned this is my review of Dragon Keeper, but it’s always so striking that it’s worth noting again: Robin Hobb creates some of the most complex, conflicted, authentic characters in any fantasy universe. What I love about Hobb’s characters isn’t just that they’re layered, but that all of them — from the main players to the supporting cast to the dragons — grow and change over the course of her stories to meet the challenges they’re faced with.

If I had one complaint about Dragon Haven, it would be a lack of any kind of action (except a flood). The plot is tight and quick without any major battles or disasters, but Hobb writes them so well, and in a way that gives most of her stories a greater sense of urgency, that it seems like a shame not to have included any this volume. It would have been interesting to see this group handle external conflict as a team, to see how it could have changed their dynamic.

Aside from the fully-realized characters, there’s plenty of other Hobb trademarks in Dragon Haven. The setting is so lush and dense that it feels like the Rain Wilds are a character all their own. And, of course, there’s the prose. Hobb has such a refreshing way with words, with turns of phrase, even with dialogue. It’s why she can get away with writing less action in an action-thirsty genre. She is, at times, mesmerizing in Dragon Haven.

Dragon Keeper and Dragon Haven do not work as standalone volumes. They need to be read together to be appreciated, and, frankly, to be understood. It’s a hefty tome if you consider the books together, but it’s definitely worth the time.

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Three and a Half Torches (Out of Five)

In 2003, Robin Hobb ended her third Realm of the Elderlings trilogy with Fool’s Fate. Six years later, the bestselling author has returned to Bingtown with Dragon Keeper, the first of two books in the “Rain Wild Chronicles.”

According to the provisions of their negotiation at the end of Fool’s Fate, Tintaglia has shepherded her serpents up Rain Wild River, but when the tangle begins to cocoon, it becomes apparent that something is dreadfully wrong. The baby dragons can’t fly or fend for themselves, and since Tintaglia took off with her new mate at the end of “The Tawny Man Trilogy,” the task of maintaining the infants falls to the townspeople in Cassarick.

When the financial and physical burden becomes too much to bear, the Cassarickians recruit Thymara and Alise Finbok as dragon keepers to escort the tangle to the Elderling city of Kelsingra.

Thymara is essentially an outcast because of her physical limitations. She is mesmerized by the dragons after watching them hatch, and feels a kinship with them because of her own deformities. Alise Finbok, on the other hand, is a bored housewife with a head full of dragon lore and a nose for adventure.

Hobb is deft at writing strong, complex, authentic female protagonists, and she’s created two highly relatable ones in Thymara and Alise. The Dragon Keeper is as richly-imagined as her other stories, though it reads a little more like her earlier trilogies (with the story being told through four different narrators).

Long-time fans will sink back into Hobbs’ luscious prose with abandon, but newcomers — or anyone looking for a standalone novel — might have a hard time schlepping through the obscenely long setup. The ending is also uncharacteristically abrupt.

Hobbs originally wrote the “Rain Wild Chronicles” as one book, but her publishers decided to split it in two, which explains the bizarre pacing. If you can hang in for the exposition, you’ll reap the payoff in old friends from previous trilogies.

Dragon Keeper was released in the UK and Australia last summer, but only hit shelves in America on Tuesday. The follow-up novel, Dragon Haven, will be released in 2011.

I’ve been a Hobb fan for a long time, and will pick up Dragon Haven with the same eagerness as Dragon Keeper. I have a feeling they will read much better when paired together.

Looking to buy this book (or any other media)? Support TheTorchOnline.com by purchasing it through this link.

Have a question about something fantasy-related? Ask the Oracle! (Be sure to include your first name and the city, state, and/or country you are writing from.)

Q: I watched the first couple of episodes of Being Human, and liked it okay, but it bugged me that the girl had to be so passive and emotional. I know that’s what you’d expect of a ghost, so why didn’t they break the stereotype and make her the werewolf? What do you think? — Linda, Whidbey Island, WA

A: The Oracle definitely shares your feelings that the show didn’t break any gender stereotypes, at least in the first few episodes. But I was pleased to see that change in the third episode, where she becomes much more active.

The Oracle was curious what the actress who plays Annie, Lenora Crichlow, thought, so I decided to ask her.

“I think Annie’s a fantastic role model for women,” she tells TheTorchOnline.com. “I get annoyed with this idea that female traits are weak, to be emotional and vulnerable [is to be a bad thing]. Annie’s vulnerability, her compassion, her empathy, her wanting to do things for people, all become what save her really. Later on in the series, her empathy and her intuition as a woman become integrated into her supernatural self.”

According to Crichlow, the first season is “a journey of empowerment [for Annie, but] it’s lovely that she is vulnerable at the beginning, because I think a lot of women are. We lose ourselves in relationships, we sacrifice our careers, and all that. Not just women, obviously, but it a common thing for women. But she can’t stay the same, if Annie wants to move on, if she wants to be seen. I’ve been through that. I know what’s expected of me, but I can turn it up a notch and reach my potential. Annie does a similar thing.”

Q: Is it true that the Laurell K. Hamilton series of novels, Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter, is being made into a movie or TV show? — Kethlyn

A: The Oracle can reveal that in March, IFC and Lion’s Gate announced that they had optioned the series of novels, which is now also a series of graphic novels, with plans to turn them into a TV movie. At the time, they said that filming would begin this summer for a 2010 air-date.

But when contacted by the Oracle, the producers said there was nothing further to report (something the Oracle interprets to mean that filming is not beginning this summer). Hamilton’s agent suggests you check the author’s site for future updates.

Still, as long as the current vampire hysteria lasts, it’s a pretty good bet this project will get made eventually.

Q: You always hear about how C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien were good friends who each week read to each other from their drafts of Narnia and Lord of the Rings. It’s a great story, but is it true? — TheMan, Chicago, IL

A: The Oracle can reveal that, in fact, it is. The two were members of The Inklings, the famous Oxford University discussion group that met weekly (and sometimes also daily, at the local pub) to discuss their own and others’ books, and to encourage two things: strong narrative, or plot, and the genre of fantasy. For a time, Tolkien and Lewis may even have been each other’s closest friends, and Tolkien definitely contributed to Lewis’ move from atheism to Christianity; Lewis eventually became one of the most famous Christian theologians of all time.

But Tolkien and Lewis did have occasional fallings-out, sometimes serious ones, for all the ordinary reasons: disagreements over religion (Tolkien was annoyed by Lewis’ embrace of the Anglican Church, which Tolkien detested and considered anti-Catholic), and women (Tolkien felt that Lewis’ relationship with Joy Davidman, the subject of the movie Shadowlands, intruded on their friendship).

But each absolutely shared and no doubt received important feedback from the other on their most famous works, The Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia. (Interestingly, Tolkien didn’t think much of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, arguing that the overt religious message over-powered the story.)

Q: A few weeks back, in a special about J.K. Rowling, they said she shortened her name to initials per the editor’s request so boys wouldn’t be put off by a female author. I can think of several examples of women fantasy authors going by initials or male sounding nicknames, but does it still happen as much these days? How prevalent is it in fantasy and sci-fi? — Angela, Mooresville, NC  USA

A: The Oracle is sure he doesn’t have to point out that there was a time when female authors almost had to pick a male-sounded pseudonym just to be taken seriously by the world at large. George Eliot anyone?

“Very few writers still do this, and I don’t see much advantage to doing it,” says literary agent Jennifer DeChiara of the Jennifer DeChiara Literary Agency. “When I see it on a manuscript, I think, ‘pretentious,’ and I’m sure most editors think the same thing. It also gets in the way of book promotion — how can you send an author around or talk about them if you’re hiding who they really are?”

Still, although this is far less common than it used to be, it’s probably more common in genres that have large male readerships, like fantasy and sci-fi. For example, fantasy author Margaret Ogden chose the pen name “Robin Hobb,” precisely because it’s gender-neutral. Likewise, Katherine Alice Applegate, the author of the Animorphs, Everworld, and Remnants children’s fantasy book series, chose to go by “K.A. Applegate.”

Another famous example is Dorothy Catherine, or “D.C.” Fontana, Gene Roddenberry’s former secretary who became a television writer for many classic science fiction shows, including three Star Trek series, The Six Million Dollar Men, Land of the Lost, He-Man, and Logan’s Run (she also wrote under several completely “male” pen-names).

But the Oracle believes such pen names will now mostly be a thing of the past, for two distinct reasons: (1) anti-female prejudice even in genre circles is less now, in part because brave, unapologetic pioneers like Ursula K. Le Guin proved that brilliant genre writing knows no gender and that such pseudonyms were not necessary, and (2) the female readership of science fiction and fantasy, always much bigger than most publishers knew, is now so large that a female name might not only not be a hindrance, it might even be an asset.

Have a question about something fantasy-related? Ask the Oracle! (Be sure to include your first name and the city, state, and/or country you are writing from.)

When it comes to entertainment, we’re all looking for the Next Great Thing. But sometimes while sorting through all the great new fantasy books, we forget that we just might have missed the Last Great Thing, either because it was published before we were born, or it somehow just slipped through the cracks.

The upside to looking backward for our next fantasy reading material isn’t just that we might discover some great new book series; since they’re all long published, we also don’t have to wait three years for the next installment to come out!

Here are some of my favorites:

The Fionavar Tapestry (The Summer Tree, The Wandering Fire, and The Darkest Road) by Guy Gavriel Kay

Published between 1984 and 1987, I hadn’t read these books until one weekend in 2006. How did I ever miss them? It’s the first on this list, because it inspired the list.

If you’re a Narnia fan, The Fionavar Tapestry is the series you want to hunt down first. In it, five college students are transported to another realm, Fionavar, the place where myths and legends are born. Each character has his or her own “destiny,” and Kay’s ability to handle multiple viewpoints is impressive, especially at such an early point in his career.

The trials and tribulations they go through will more than hold your interest. And those who survive, will, by the end of the series, stand beside not just the heroes of Fionavar, but also the mythical archetypes of King Arthur and Sir Lancelot. It’s high fantasy at its best and if you’re a fan of Kay’s later work, it goes without saying you should check it out.

Memory, Sorrow and Thorn (The Dragonbone Chair, The Stone of Farewell, and To Green Angel Tower) by Tad Williams

Before Tad Wiliams gave science fiction fans the Otherland series, he gave fantasy fans Memory, Sorrow and Thorn. Published between 1988 and 1993, the series has all the things we crave: Young lad with a destiny greater than his humble beginnings? Check. Magic Swords? Check. Trolls? Williams calls them “Qunacs,” but check. Elves. They are called “Silva,” but check. A beautiful, headstrong and brave princess on the run, and an ancient evil that threatens the land? Check and check — although none of this is exactly what you expect it to be.

This is a trilogy that will remind you why you fell in love with fantasy in the first place — with one of the best, most involving climaxes I’ve ever read.

The Hammer and the Cross (The Hammer and the Cross, One King’s Way, and King and Emperor) by Harry Harrison

With this alternate history fantasy trilogy, science fiction legend Harry Harrison and co-author and Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey (who writes under the pen name John Holm) ask some thought-provoking questions:

What if gods drew their power from humanity’s faith in them? What if the brutal Vikings had established a culture of learning under a just king? What if their priests established a less bloody church that encouraged debate and reason? What if they mastered the high tech weapons of their day, like ballistas and catapults, and formed an alliance with the southern half of Britain and ruled the northern half as brothers? What if the Roman Catholic Church established an elite order of knights and tried to crush them all?

I have a question of my own: What if you go your entire life and never read this terrific series?

The Farseer Trilogy (Assassin’s Apprentice, Royal Assassin, and Assassin’s Quest) by Robin Hobb

If you’ve read her recent Soldier’s Son trilogy, you know Robin Hobb is an author who deliberately defies fantasy conventions. Published between 1995 and 1997, The Farseer Trilogy is the first-hand account of Fitz-Chivalry Farseer, the bastard son of a disgraced, once-crown prince. Snatched from his mother’s arms as a child and given to his father’s stable master, he never knows his mother.

His childhood is rough, but eventually he’s noticed by both his grandfather, who teaches him the workings of the court during the day, and Chade the royal assassin, who teaches him his darker arts at night. Meanwhile, a war with an old enemy looms, and it goes without saying that Fitz factors into it prominently.

I’ll not spoil anymore of it, but I promise you there are no predictable plot lines or stock archetypes here. (Note: There are two other series set in this world, The Liveship Traders and The Tawny Man. All are interconnected yet also stand alone.)

The Great Book of Amber: The Complete Amber Chronicles by Roger Zelazny

Once sold as single titles in bookstores, these ten books were repackaged into collections — first as two five-volume narratives published in the 1970s and 80s, but now published as one. These ten books together are shorter than some trilogies, but say twice as much.

At one end of reality lies The Courts of Chaos, an ever-shifting realm where primal forces are unbound and malleable; at the other lies Amber, the first city, the shining light of order that spawned all other cities. Our world and all of the possible others in between are just shadows cast by the ever-changing disposition of these two most primal forces of creation.

Confusing? It is at first even to our narrator, who awakes with no memory, held in a private hospital in upstate New York. Once he’s escaped, he soon regains his memory, taking his place among his family, the immortal royal family of Amber, who for centuries thought him dead. Demigods have begun angling for the throne in their sire’s absence, but soon find themselves under a threat that could destroy all of creation and return it to the rule of chaos.

If you’re not familiar with the late Roger Zelazny’s work, you should be, and this is as good a place to start as any.

So there you are. Go pick up one of these great fantasy series and have yourself an all-weekend marathon read!

Interested in buying any of these books (or any other media)? Support TheTorchOnline.com by buying them through this link.