Robin Who?
Jun. 26th, 2005 01:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
progA Game of Thrones shoved me down, sat on my chest, and proceeded to slap me in the face repeatedly with a wet slab of totally awesome. I'm so happy there are three books ahead of me, the third of which is brand new. Looking forward to joining the ranks of groaning waiters for the next three.
The parallels with the start of Robin Hobb's series was disheartening at first; Jon<->Fitz, Tyrion<->The Fool, Ghost (or others)<->Nighteyes. And the royal sigial (for a while, at least) was a buck. And some other stuff. But obviously it was just surface coincidence... as soon as the characters became more established I really forgot all about Hobb's stuff.
I don't buy the apparent non-advancement of the civilization we're presented with, though. It seems to be a standard mideval-for-thousands-of-years scenario, which I find especially problematic in light of the fact that it evidently reveres its scientists. What gives? Do we ever get an explanation for this? Or do I have the scope of the timeline wrong?
Magic is present but very rare and frightfully expensive, which is probably my favorite way to see it handled, even in an all-out different-world fantasy like this. Clever touch in that most of the references to magic and spells the characters toss around actually seems to be explanations for perfectly mundane crafts they don't understand (or wish to keep secret). The appearance of really-real magic near the end seems even more disturbing as a result.
That priest with the flaming sword, pointedly mentioned in a couple of conversations, sounds like a hoot. I hope he gets a speaking role later on.
I am of course nervous about the presence of dr*g*ns, all too often the self-jumping sharks of fantasy literature, but I feel I am in good authorly hands and trust that he knows where he's going with this.
The parallels with the start of Robin Hobb's series was disheartening at first; Jon<->Fitz, Tyrion<->The Fool, Ghost (or others)<->Nighteyes. And the royal sigial (for a while, at least) was a buck. And some other stuff. But obviously it was just surface coincidence... as soon as the characters became more established I really forgot all about Hobb's stuff.
I don't buy the apparent non-advancement of the civilization we're presented with, though. It seems to be a standard mideval-for-thousands-of-years scenario, which I find especially problematic in light of the fact that it evidently reveres its scientists. What gives? Do we ever get an explanation for this? Or do I have the scope of the timeline wrong?
Magic is present but very rare and frightfully expensive, which is probably my favorite way to see it handled, even in an all-out different-world fantasy like this. Clever touch in that most of the references to magic and spells the characters toss around actually seems to be explanations for perfectly mundane crafts they don't understand (or wish to keep secret). The appearance of really-real magic near the end seems even more disturbing as a result.
That priest with the flaming sword, pointedly mentioned in a couple of conversations, sounds like a hoot. I hope he gets a speaking role later on.
I am of course nervous about the presence of dr*g*ns, all too often the self-jumping sharks of fantasy literature, but I feel I am in good authorly hands and trust that he knows where he's going with this.
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*groan* *wait*
Date: 2005-06-26 10:13 am (UTC)Re: *groan* *wait*
Date: 2005-07-04 04:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-26 02:12 pm (UTC)