What I've been reading lately.

Robin Hobb - Farseer Trilogy

This is a pretty good fantasy series.  The books are long.  They didn't seem that long when I picked them up at the bookstore but the paperbacks are 600+ pages and the font is small.  Each book took me a lot longer to get through than I expected.  The story follows the exploits of a young royal bastard as he becomes the king's assassin.  Lot's of courtly intrigue.  There's a good love story (actually several love plot lines) in there.  The magic is interesting and while not completely unique it is reimagined enough to be new.  There's also the near-manditory dragons that have a rather interesting background/origin.

The book is written in the 1st person so there is a lot of good emotional involvement in the lead character.  Ms. Hobb does a good job of capturing the emotional rollercoaster ride of a teenage boy as he struggles with responsibility, the opposite sex and his own developing sense of right and wrong.  If the books have a weakness it is that they sometimes drag a bit.  As I said above, the books are long.  Some of the length seems to be unneccessary.  There are many tense and exciting scenes but there are too many long periods when the action comes to a near stand-still.  Fortunately these parts are infrequent and scattered.  If they were all in one spot, it would be a book killer.

Grade: B+

Brandon Sanderson / Robert Jordan - The Gathering Storm

I've been a fan of The Wheel of Time fantasy series for 20 years now.  It has the attributes I wanted in a series.  It's big and complex.  The characters are interesting.  The bad guys are bad but understandable.  The good guys are flawed but likeable.  The storyline is long and meandering.  Sometimes it seemed to meander a bit much but Mr. Jordan always seemed to pull it back together.  I was disappointed when Jordan died before being able to finish his series.  I was relieved to hear that Brandon Sanderson had been hired to complete the Wheel of Time and looked forward (with a little trepidation) to seeing if he would be able to pull the job off.

I'm very pleased with the results so far.  The Gathering Storm is a well-constructed story and holds quite nicely to the tradition created over 15+ years by Robert Jordan for the series.  It has a solid story arch reminiscent of the books in the first half of the series.  The plot is fast-paced with a lot of significant action.  Many story lines from earlier books are tied up and concluded nicely (some rather abruptly).  There are numerous surprises and answers to long-asked questions. 

I find that Sanderson doesn't have the same writing style as Jordan but that he stayed very true to the previous books and his style isn't so different as to be distracting.  Sanderson actually does a bit better at internal conflict and emotion than Jordan, in my opinion.  I think he understands that as one of his strengths and played to it in the book.  The Gathering Storm is a darker and more brooding book than any other in the series but given where we are in the story, that's not inappropriate.  I thoroughly enjoyed the experience and look forward to the last two books.  Get to work Mr. Sanderson!

Grade: A