Heroic Dreams - All Things Medieval

Epic fantasy can be a difficult thing to translate over to television. For that matter it can be a difficult thing to translate over to the big screen. There have been some big successes and also some big failures. So, what is one of the early indicators of whether or not a movie or tv series in the genre will be good? You can get a good clue by who they are casting to act in it.
Well, HBO has given the green light to producing a series based on A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin which is the first book in the Song of Ice and Fire series. This is simply one of the best fantasy series ever written (It made my top five list).

Ok, about the cast

The cast is in place and it has some pretty heavy hitters. Sean Bean, who played Boromir in Lord of the Rings will play the lead role of Eddard Stark, and the role of Queen Cersei, will be played by Lena Headey who starred in 300 Opposite Gerard Butler. These are some big hitters and you really couldn’t ask for any better than that.

This is not going to be a light hearted epic fantasy romp. It is going to be adult fare which makes sense because that is what the books are. They are well written and very deep with lots and lots of political intrigue and a whole boat load of cloak and dagger stuff.  There is a lot of buzz about this series and they are saying it could be one of the best that HBO has produced.

This series could bring the genre of fantasy a long way.  They have a great cast in place and it is rumored that the network spent between 5 and 10 million on the pilot. This is something that I am really looking forward to it and here is a quote from HBO programming chief Michael Lombardo “The fantasy is so incidental, it has a very adult tone. You forget it’s fantasy while you’re watching it, and that’s what I love about it.”

The first installment of the series is predicted to air somewhere around March or April of 2011.

 A New MainStream Big Title by Robin Hobb

I have been a reader of Robin Hobb for a long time. I just enjoy her books. Here new book “Dragon Haven” is scheduled for release in May. You can pre-order it now on Amazon.com here: Dragon Haven That’s terrific and I am really looking forward to it but the thing I really want to say about this book is the Harper Collins decision to give away the complete first chapter (over 50 pages). It is a free pdf download. I think this is a great promotion and it says a lot about the book. A publisher has to really believe in an author and in the writing to do something like this. Well, I would imagine that Robin Hobb is in that top tier of writers. You can open it up right here: Chapter One of Dragon Haven 

This book is the second in a new series by Hobb. The first book is Dragon Keeper and if you want to know about her other series of books you can see a complete list on my Fantasy Guide Website here: Robin Hobb Books

And a little something from the small press: (Although with the power of Amazon.com backing it I am not sure we should categorize CreateSpace as a small press

Not Ordinarily Borrowable: or, Unwelcome Advice by Thomas Thurman

Here is a fun childrens and young adult fantasy story about a young woman who goes to the library to check out a book. When she gets there she discovers that a dragon had been there, wreaked havoc, and stolen her book (among others). So, what should she do? Should she follow after the dragon and attempt to recover the book? This is exactly what Maria does. It is a wonderful little tale as we adventure along with Maria and watch as the gains the things she needs to face the dragon.

If you are looking for something that is lesser known yet well written and a fun read this is the book.  It’s always a pleasure to discover a little gem that nobody else knows about.  But don’t try to check this book out from the library. You may discover it has been mysteriously taken!!

About My Fantasy Guide Website:

I have been writing and reading Epic and Heroic Fantasy of all kinds for pretty much all my life. It is something I am really passionate about. if you love this subject or are simply interested in it you can check out my website called “The Fantasy Guide”. Lots of stuff there including reviews by me and other writers and the biggest list of epic fantasy series books on the web.  The Fantasy Guide Website

At the end of every year Amazon.com releases the best of the year in books. It is a highly anticipated look at the editor picks, award winners, and top tens. They have released their best of for 2009 and on the list are of course a bunch of great books.  These include a Dark Fantasy novel by Kami Garcia called Beautiful Creatures and the latest installment in Rick Riordan’s Olympian series entitled The Last Olympian (Percy Jackson & the Olympians, Book 5). You can see the complete list here: Amazon.com’s Best of 2009

Amazon also does the top ten of each genre and here are the top ten in Best of Science Fiction & Fantasy :

1. Palimpsest
2. The Red Tree
3. The Other Lands (Acacia, Book 2)
4. American Fantastic Tales Boxed Set
5. Boneshaker (Sci Fi Essential Books)
6. The Other City (Eastern European Literature) (Eastern European Literature Series)
7. Yellow Blue Tibia
8. Eclipse 3: New Science Fiction and Fantasy
9. Interfictions 2: An Anthology of Interstitial Writing
10. The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart

I have chosen my Top Three from this list and you can read more about them on my Fantasy Guide Website here: Will’s Picks in the Science Fiction & Fantasy Genre for 2009.

In my travels I ran across this magnificent wood cut by Kuniyashi. It is of the legend of Tametomo. In the legend he is attacked by a large sea serpent and rescued by spirits. It’s a wonderful story and it immediately made me think about the legend of Beowulf and how he faced sea serpents. I just think that it is kind of interesting how there is a similiar tale across very different cultures. It wouldn’t be much of a surprise to me if the stories, with different names, are actually based on the same person oh so many centuries ago.

It’s kind of like the Noahs ark thing. It is said that just about every culture in the world has a story of a big flood and of a man who built an ark to save the creatures of the earth. Even though they have different names they must be the same person. I wonder if Beowulf and Tametomo are the same person?

I really fell in love with this piece of art. The blue is just stunning. It was about $5oo so I balked. But, thinking about it now I really should have bought it.

Lamentation (The Psalms of Isaak)      This is an interesting new Epic Fantasy book by a first time author and it is the first in a scheduled series of epic fantasy books. There are a couple of things I want to say about this novel. First off, it is well written, crisp and clean. Everything flows smoothly and before you know it you are 100 pages into it.

As far as the story and the action goes it is excellent and there are some neat things in the novel that make it stand out. I won’t go into them at any depth just in case you intend on reading it. But one of the things I like is the use of magic when it comes to battle scenes or potential battle scenes. Powders are used that render a person very quiet, very fast, and veritably invisible. Not everybody can use these because you have to be specially trained but both sides have people that use these powders and it makes for some very interesting battles because you have both normal combatants and powdered combatants on each side. 

Otherwise the novel is just a good fantasy read with some nice flavor distinct to this world and the author flexes a good amount of imagination in realizing the world.

There are two things I do want to say about this novel that put it a notch up in my opinion.

The first thing is how he manages the various barons, lords, houses, factions, etc. This can be a sore spot for me because I really don’t see the reason for getting into all the deep politics of a world. This whole schema started with Dune. But modern day writers seem to love it. The more complex the social structure the more interesting it is - to most anyways. But not so to me! Because it lends itself to difficulty in following what the heck is going on. After X amount of characters I start to lose interest, particularly because the ethics of the novel start to get muddled. I find myself wondering who is the bad guy and who is the good guy. 

But this muddling because of complexity doesn’t happen in this novel. Scholes, while he does have a rather complex social system with various houses, he handles it well. We get introduced to the them slowly and we always have a good handle on who is who and what is what. I give him 5 stars for that.

Here is the thing I really like the most about this novel: But in order to tell you I have to be a bit of a spoiler, not serious but somewhat, so consider whether you want to read any further or not.

**** Spoiler Alert*****

This is where the author took a risk that I approve of. I am a big advocate of taking risks in the genre of epic fantasy because well, haven’t we all read 15 variations of middle earth, just with different names? In a typical epic fantasy novel things start out bad. Something happens and our hero is off to the races to develop himself and save his world. What this means is that the book works slowly to a crescendo from first page to last. And thats all well and good. Its a good way to write a book but Scholes turns this on its head in Lamentation.

Lamenation begins with an enormous crescendo and works its way down from there! Huh? you say? Yup, the biggest, baddest, ugliest crescendo is how the book opens!! So where do we go from here? Well its an interesting ride because we get to follow our characters as they deal with what happened and try to put the pieces back together. Well, some try to put the pieces back together while others try to start anew. It’s a great approach to an epic fantasy novel. Just for this alone it makes the book worth reading. I give it four stars out of five and look forward to the next installment in the series.