SciFi and Fantasy eBook Club discussion

I'm about 65% percent through the book so far and I have to say I'm enjoying it immensely. It's dark; its exceptionally dark. Some of the things in the opening chapters are possibly offputting to some - beheading the dead and almost dead, rape, burning villages, torture, casual dismemberment - from the start, its not clear who Brother Jorg is or why he and his men are so awful. They're clearly anti-heroes but it's less clear what made him and them the way they are or why we should like them.

But, I quickly found myself fascinated with 15yo Jorg. I liked him even as he casually watched his men destroy a peasant village. I found myself wondering what made him such a hard young man; he's no wandering innocent and this is no coming of age tale of a peasant destined to be a great warrior.

I'm not going to go in to spoilers this early in the book. Instead, I want to talk about the world built for this story. It's a mostly Christian world - Catholic even - here magic works. There are 100 kingdoms in what was once an empire and is not a patchwork or warring groups looking for advantage and all trying to become the new Emperor. From descriptions, this empire fell apart some time back and the fighting has been going on for some time, but there are no clear details as to time scales.

The map provided at the beginning may or may not be an alternate Earth or it may be a future Earth. There are indications that this is set some time after the fall of a technological society, but there are no details on that either.

This is one of the better swords and sorcery fantasies I've read in some time. I've already clicked on the next book in the series .....

I admit I couldn't get past the first chapter. Too gruesome and violent for me.

OK....I've contemplated reading this, and b/c I'm admittedly gruesome and 'like' horrid stuff....I'll probably (*grin*) add this to my TBR list :)

Judy, I think this is similar to books like the Thomas Covenant series where there are some who just don't like the violence - I'm not surprised by those who are unable to read it. In fact, I was wondering about that as I started reading it.

The most shocking part of it to me is the banal attitude towards the violence. The violence itself isn't graphic but the casual writing style and the casual character attitudes make all the difference.

You're exactly right. I read the first Thomas Covenant book and found it too depressing to continue the series. That wasn't a bad book, but Thomas as a character just didn't appeal to me. And I agree it's the attitude more than the actual violence. (I read Stephen King too, lol! Adore him!) But there was just something about the style of writing that just didn't appeal to me.

I'll be curious to hear what others make of it.

I read four pages, and that was enough for me. But then, it's a novel about a dystopia, and I've never seen the point of writing or reading novels about dystopias. Isn't it enough that we live in one?

I read this one in December - I liked it, but I agree the violence is disturbing. Well, maybe more the attitude towards violence, and the relish expressed about killing, rape, etc. The world is pretty interesting and I liked the hints about the past and the builders.

I like that the author kept adding little bits of this world's back story in as the book unfolded as well as little bits of Jorg's back story. I have to admit that I was surprised by the final revelation as to the Count of Renar's identity.

The nobility of this world are all completely amoral. It's a world ruled by violent sociopaths so it seems.

Fascinating.

An entertaining book. The violence and viciousness didn't bother me a bit. In fact, at the end, the author copped out IMHO with his plot explanation for Jorg's nastiness. It ok for characters to be just mean, especially with the world the way it was. The author was making excuses for the violence.

And the world is an interesting place. I saw it as our future in thousands of years. Perhaps long enough for contenental drift to reshape the map.

I also didn't like the writing style: it was too simple and lacked detail. There is a point when they are about to go under the Red Castle and Jorg said his men and horses were nervous. The scene begged for for details.

I'm on the fence about going on with the trilogy. I think I can see the trajectory of the story and it's the same old stuff. But maybe I'm wrong.

I'm just 12% in so far, but seems decent to me to this point. I'm okay with the violence and such, but then I had no problem with the Thomas Covenant books, either: as long as there is some rationale for what happens and I don't feel it's only being done for sensationalism, I can deal with it. I don't necessarily have to like the main character, I just need to understand him/her and be interested in finding out what will happen.

Of course, I've read a lot of military history, and I grew up watching daily broadcasts from Vietnam, and as such I think I have about as good an understanding of the brutality of war as you can have without actually having experienced it (thankfully). So far the story's situation makes me think of the 30 Years War, with rival armies moving around the area, laying waste to the population, accomplishing nothing significant for year after year.

Odd that someone mentioned the Arendt book. I've been thinking of rereading it. There is a German movie I want to see about her writing that book that looks pretty good, though a few reviews said you'll have to like watching people talking about the nature of evil to enjoy the movie.

In any case I'm not sure trivializes death any worse than a lot a modern books. And I don't think the people of Jorg's world would get overtly weepy and moany with a touch of the ultra violence. Jorg is also just a kid. This is where the author fails IMHO - he could have gone the Clockwork Orange path or the natural war is cold route for Jorg, but he gave a less satisfying way at the end.