Demons and New Orleans

Several years ago I read an interesting fantasy novel by Tim Lebbon titled Dusk (rating: 7/10).  I noted at the time that I liked Lebbon's style and his imagination, although I thought his descriptions of violence were a bit over the top.  And I found the sexual references unnecessary rather than supportive of the story.  The world he portrays is a very ugly one, but it has the promise of being transformed if the heroes can only protect the boy who can bring magic back into the world.

I never did read the second volume, Dawn, probably because I was afraid that my hopes for seeing everything turn out for good might be dashed.  And I couldn't continue reading of ugliness if I didn't know for sure that beauty would finally return.

Now I've finished a very different book by Christoper Golden and Tim Lebbon, The Map of Moments (rating: 9/10).  An example of the sub-genre now referred to as urban fantasy, the story begins in post-Katrina New Orleans.  Driven to save his dead lover, the main character experiences a number of supernatural episodes showing him the sinister magic that has been controlling New Orleans for some two hundred years.

I found the plot of this novel to be very original and the story kept my interest.  I had to stay with it till the end, and I was rewarded by an ending that simultaneously tied everything together and surprised me both.  The Map of Moments was not marred the way I thought Dusk was (and feared that Dawn would be).  Just enough violence to make the supernatural truly horrifying, and no gratuitous sex.  And perhaps most importantly, the relationship between the main character and the woman he loved and lost to Hurricane Katrina was central to driving the plot.  This book is "A Novel of the Hidden Cities", and I'm eager to see if the other novels in this series (including Mind the Gap [London], The Chamber of Ten [Venice], and The Shadow Men [Boston]) are as good as this novel was.

40 years of books

This past week, March 8 marked the 40th anniversary of my database of books I've read.  In those 40 years I've read well over 2000 books, averaging one a week.  When I started, I kept the database on index cards and stored the cards in larger and larger boxes until I finally converted it all to an Excel spreadsheet.  But when Collectorz.com came out with their Book Collector program, I knew I had to migrate to it.  It was a monumental task because I not only moved the information in the Excel spreadsheet to Book Collector - I cataloged all the books in my collection as well.

As I look back over what I've read, it's hard to characterize what I've read.  I've read non-fiction and fiction of virtually every genre (though I'm not sure I've read a romance novel yet!).  I've read long books, like the Bible, and Tolstoy's War and Peace, as well as short books that are no more than a literary swallow for a bibliovore.  There are few books I've reread, with the exception of The Lord of the Rings, primarily because there are always so many other books waiting to be read I can't spare the time on rereading.  There are books that I'm happy to talk about with other people, and books that are so personal to me I can't comfortably talk about them.

I'm still hungry for more books.  That's why I wind up buying books faster than I can read them.  That's why I consider myself a bibliovore.

Swords

Swords are important icons in fantasy literature.  In many cases, a sword is the only thing the hero has to vanquish his enemies - human or inhuman.  Sometimes the value of the sword lies in the strength of its wielder, sometimes in the magic than imbues the blade.  Sometimes a sword is of such importance it actually is named, as anyone familiar with The Lord of the Rings trilogy can tell you.  Glamdring - Gandalf's sword - glows when orcs are near.  Narsil - reforged as Anduril - had symbolic importance in the defeat of Sauron and the rise of Gondor.

Here are some of my favorite named swords:

• Excalibur - the sword of King Arthur
• Stormbringer - the sentient, difficult-to-control soul-eating blade of Elric of Melnibone', the fantasy anti-hero created by Michael Moorcock
• Terminus Est - the sword and badge of office of Severian, professional executioner and torturer appearing in the series titled The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe
• Changeling - the blade and technological device used by science fantasy heroine Morgaine in The Morgaine Stories by C. J. Cherryh

None of these swords is simply a strong piece of sharpened metal.  In each case they are virtually a character in their own right.