As I sit here on a Friday night listening to Harry Potter music and contemplating the fact that I’m required to come up with yet another topic for my editorial, I am, once again, starved for ideas (I should really figure this choosing topics thing out, I have three more editorials to write after this). However, moving on, in an effort to make this first paragraph connected to the rest of my editorial, I will talk about books.
I’m a bookworm. During school terms I don’t get to read very much, but I make up for it on work terms. Even during a school term, grabbing a book for a few minutes of reading can be a great way to relieve stress. If you’re looking for other ways to relieve stress, you should check out the Stressbusters article on page eight. Books are a great form of entertainment, and they’re also much more reliable than internet. Your books don’t crash the way the University internet does on Saturday of production weekend. They’ll always be there, unless you dump them in water or burn them, but that applies to the internet (or at least computers) too.
I love fantasy books, particularly epic fantasy. If you’re not sure what epic fantasy is, think of The Lord of the Rings type of books. (Don’t you DARE mention Twilight. Don’t even THINK about Twilight. If you want to see my opinion, go look at The Tin Soldier PCP from Spring 09. I still stand by that, and could probably write this entire editorial about the evils of Twilight. It is a horrible series that isn’t about vampires. Vampires DON’T sparkle.) If you’re looking for some self-help-make-yourself-a-better-person books, you’re looking in the wrong place, but if you’re looking for books about magic, swords, and battles I might be able to help.
A fantasy series I’ve been reading for a long time is The Wheel of Time, by Robert Jordan. It’s consists of 13 books plus a prequel, with the last book coming out next year (I hope). The series is based on the idea of cyclic time, as the events of the past come around again. The Dragon, the champion of the Light who saved the world from the Dark One, is remembered with fear for the destruction in the aftermath of the war. He has been reborn again, and his birth marks the resumption of that war. Throughout the series the books explore not only the story of the man meant to save the world and destroy it, but also the state of the world as a whole. How is this divided world still suffering from events of the distant past going to unite to prevent its own destruction?
Jordan has created a complex world, with a staggering cast of characters. Starting small, with a single village, Jordan soon throws us, readers, onto a world stage. With different nationalities, political factions, and power struggles, we see everything from dramatic battles to the struggle of one man trying to shoulder the destiny he was prophesized to fulfill, and the personal cost of shouldering the fate of the world, of being named responsible for not only its salvation but also its destruction. Prophesies such as “Yet one shall be born to face the Shadow, born once more as he was born before and shall be born again, time without end. The Dragon shall be Reborn, and there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth at his rebirth. … Like the unfettered dawn shall he blind us, and burn us, yet shall the Dragon Reborn confront the Shadow at the Last Battle, and his blood shall give us the Light. Let tears flow, O ye people of the world. Weep for your salvation.” (The Great Hunt, Book Two of The Wheel of Time), point out over and over that he will bring destruction as well as hope. Jordan skilfully places us within the mind of a man trying to handle the pressures of these expectations.
Some of the best praise I can come up with for Jordan is that, when he places us within the mind of a madman, he manages to make him seem sane from the reader’s perspective. It’s only once you step into another character’s point of view that you realize that perhaps things that seemed completely rational don’t actually make any rational sense. Any author that can convince you, at least temporarily, that hearing voices is ok, is skilled indeed.
Unfortunately, Robert Jordan passed away before he could finish The Wheel of Time. He knew this might happen, and he left enough material behind for someone else to finish his work. The author chosen was Brandon Sanderson, who has done an amazing job so far with The Gathering Storm and The Towers of Midnight, books eleven and thirteen. Book fourteen, A Memory of Light, should be coming out in 2012, and I await it with anticipation.
Every cloud has a silver lining, and this was no exception. In this case, it led me to my current favourite book, Brandon Sanderson’s The Way of Kings. It’s the start of a new epic fantasy series called The Stormlight Archive. Again, this is a society in ruins. The peace and prosperity of the past is a distant memory, from a time before the Knights Radiant, a group of people sworn to protect people with their magical abilities, abandoned their duty. These once revered people are remembered with anger for abandoning their charge and leaving a world fighting over the remains of what is left of their power.
The story follows four main characters, an assassin who doesn’t want to kill; a healer who has become a slave, facing certain death on a battle line; a young scholar who is planning a daring theft; and a war leader tired of war, trying to find the meaning of leadership from old writings.
Another book I like is Gardens of the Moon, by Steven Erikson. It’s the first book in the series, A Tale of the Malazan Book of the Fallen. I haven’t actually finished this series yet, since it’s a series which really requires you to pay close attention (not the kind of book to read in 5 minute segments). Erikson takes a “sink or swim” approach to his books; rather than starting with something small and moving you into the larger scheme of things with explanations, he dumps you right in the middle of a war. Without much backstory, the reader is scrambling to figure out characters motivations, and the laws of the world they have been immersed in.
In a way, this makes the story that much more real. The characters themselves rarely know the motivations of those around them, and the history they know is rarely complete. You’re along for the ride and struggling as much as the characters are to determine what’s really happening and why. There are enough details to suggest there are reasons for what’s happening; problem is that you have to work to get them.
I fully intend to read this series cover to cover during my next work term. Gardens of the Moon was excellent and I think that the entire series will be a rewarding read. There are also some additional books that are set in the world by Ian Cameron Esslemont, who created the Malazan world with Erikson. I haven’t read those either but they’re also supposed to be good.
While I do read fantasy books for the escapism aspect, they can still be used as a commentary on the world around us or to explore. The books I’ve mentioned cover topics such as responsibility, politics, trust, and justice. Whether it’s a leader so obsessed with personal power that they hurt the cause they claim to serve, or a slave trying to find meaning in a life which could end at any time, they allow us to reflect on our own choices and culture, if we choose to do so. It is by no means a requirement, and I definitely read more for the story and characters than any kind of social commentary. If I don’t care about the characters, then no amount of social commentary is going to keep me reading.
If these types of books aren’t your first choice, and you still managed to read until this point, I still highly encourage you to go pick up a book. There are all kinds of books of which you never know what you’re going to find. Books are an easily-portable source of endless entertainment. Some books, especially the ones I mentioned above, are better on the re-read. The number of seemingly-throwaway dialogue or characters that have so much more meaning when you read through them a second time in The Wheel of Time is incredible.
Go read a good book!
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