100 Books in 2010: 20

Posted by Adrienne on March 12, 2010 under Books | Be the First to Comment

I’ve been reading fantasies lately: one stand-alone novel and two that are the third volumes in trilogies. I do like a good fantasy! Something that’s set in a different world and has a bit of magic in it, like these:

The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

The Last Unicorn is one of those books that, at some point during the reading, I realize that there’s a lot of symbolism/metaphor stuff going on, and I’m not really getting it. Those kinds of books are always slightly disappointing to me; I’d rather have a story – especially a fantasy like this one – work on multiple levels where repeated readings reveal the symbolism rather than having it be so obvious at first.

In any case, the story follows the titular Unicorn as she searches the land for the rest of her kind, who have disappeared. On the way, she meets Shmendrick the Magician and Molly Grue, a woman with no special powers. There’s a witch, an evil king, and a magic spell, along with the powerful Red Bull – in short, it’s got a lot of the regular ingredients for a fairy story. It just didn’t seem to go anywhere and I didn’t care much about the characters. If I want a fairy story in future, I’ll read Farmer Giles of Ham or Stardust before picking this up again.

The Hero of Ages by Brandon Sanderson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The world is dying. The ash is falling more and more often, burying the crops and the roads. The mist comes during the day now instead of just at night, and it kills. And Vin is hearing voices in her head. Is she insane? Is she the Hero of Ages? Can she save the world?

The final book in the Mistborn trilogy, The Hero of Ages wraps up the story very neatly, even explaining some of the mysteries in the first and second books. It was a great final act for the story, wrapping up the stories of all of the characters I had come to like (and even a few that I didn’t care as much for). And the surprise at the very end was a real shocker that I wasn’t expecting at all. I’ll definitely want to read this series again, after a few years have passed, when I’ve hopefully forgotten most of the details – I want to be surprised all over again!

The Darkest Road by Guy Gavriel Kay

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

7 months after starting The Darkest Road, I have finally finished it. When I first started the book in August ‘09, I had just finished reading the first two books in The Fionavar Tapestry and was ready to find out what happened to the characters, even though I had begun to lose interest just a bit in book 2. For some reason, I didn’t finish The Darkest Road and it came due at the library, so I had to return it. And it sat there on my Goodreads list, taunting me, waiting for me to pick it up and finish it. So I finally did!

Once I started reading this third volume in the story of Kim, Jennifer, Dave, Paul and Kevin, I had a hard time remembering why I had lost interest. Fionavar is a rich world, full of history and myth, and also under siege by the forces of evil. The five friends fit in to these myths in surprising ways, and the story climaxes in several places, each with a major choice to be made by a character. It was all quite gripping and fascinating, even though I did quite often think of The Lord of the Rings.

Would I recommend this trilogy? If you are into fantasy, particularly the very epic fantasies, like Tolkien, Goodkind and Eddings, then yes. Be warned that the second book does bog down a bit, and the beginning of the third book doesn’t help much until several chapters in. If you stick with it, though, you will be rewarded with a great payoff, even if you are strongly reminded of other fantasies you’ve read.