Tag: fantasy

Book Review – Spinning Silver – Naomi Novik

A rewrite of Rumpelstiltskin, this is a great steady story to the end. I enjoyed Naomi’s writing style and the way she managed to layer many aspects of the story’s character’s together and still created a wonderfully cohesive story. It was published in 2018 as a stand alone novel, but I would welcome additional chapters into this universe. I gave this book an easy 5/5. This new version of the fairy tale includes a great battle between fire and ice, but the rest of the characters go through difficult and sometimes disturbing events to reach their happy ending.

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** Alert, Spoilers Below **

Set in the world of Lithvas, with a medieval flavor of princess and princes, the story begins with Miryem and her father’s money lending business. Already impoverished, her mother soon becomes ill and creeps toward the edge of death, while her father remains incapable of collecting the full debt of his borrowers. Miryem decides she is done being poor and to procure medicine for her mother, she begin’s collecting her father’s debt for him.

She discovers she is good at it but holds the borrowers to their terms, forcing them to pay back their debts sometimes with non money items. Soon they have money for themselves and to fix the repair the house and Miryem discovers she is gifted and purchasing items from other locations and reselling them at a good price, or spinning Silver into Gold as the saying goes.

Meanwhile, while she is performing rounds on borrowers, one planter who can’t pay back his debt, she suggests his strong young daughter come to her house to perform chores and work off his debt. Wanda soon becomes irreplaceable addition to the household.

Miryem’s ability to create gold attracts the notice of the Staryk king who thrice brings her swaths of their magical silver, telling her if it isn’t transformed, he will turn her to ice or his queen if she succeeds. She takes the silver to a jeweler and they create first a ring, then a necklace and finally a crown. The Duke’s daughter, who is not especially beautiful, becomes breathtaking upon donning the trio of Staryk silver. All three times, she turns the silver to gold and he comes for her, ferreting her away to the magical ice kingdom of Staryk.

Meanwhile, Irina, Daughter of the Duke of Lithvas and the new owner of the trio of Staryk silver, soon becoming the wife of a Tsar, Tsarina herself. She has a great grandmother Staryk, which means the silver from their realm calls to her. Her new Tsar husband, Miryem, battled through life with a demon in tow. The demon of fire, intends to harvest her soul slowly and painfully. Her Staryk background and their silver, allows her to escape through mirrors and evade being in close quarters with the Tsar. She offers a bargain for the King Staryk’s soul instead of her own and her countrymen.

After a long battle between Staryk and the Fire lord, the Staryk becomes imprisoned within a silver chain and circle of candles from their realm. The Tsar intends to drain Staryk slowly and painfully ebb his life force away and demands to know his real name, which he refuses to relinquish. Killing the King Staryk, will stop the extended winter in Lithvas, but it will also kill the kingdom of Staryk, and everyone in it.

Miryem betrayed the Ice King and tried to kill him, but eventually realizes her mistake, and tries to free him from the silver chain’s imprisonment bonds. The fire lord catches her and injuries both of them heavily before they manage to escape into Lithvas. Miryem and her companions are forced to carry him to a special spot for crossing into the realm of Staryk. Before they can, the fire lord captures Irina again, and forces her to use her Staryk silver on a mirror to bring him into the realm, set to destroy the Kingdom of Ice.

The final twenty pages cover Miryem agreeing to help fight the fire lord, but on the condition that the extended winter must end upon Lithvas and that his people are not allowed on their side anymore. Riding a wild deer into holy frozen mountain only to find its frozen waterfall unleashed onto the people. Staryk and his people fight valiantly but are unable to overcome him. Miryem lures him into the mountain and changes silver to gold in an enclosed storeroom releasing the equivalent of sunlight on him, finally dispatching him.

The end is a happy one, where everyone gets who they want or need. I strongly recommend adding this to your reading list.

Book Review – The Raven Tower – Ann Leckie

My first novel of Ann Lecki’s, The Raven Tower is an interesting quandary of a multiple god universe. It is told from the standpoint of one of those larger strength gods and his ascent through his lifespan. this includes learning merely to hearing the humans that begged for his help and eventually evolved into moving himself across countries. I give Ann’s novel a 4/5 rating as it was beautifully written. The plot lines are wonderful, if only a bit slow in the beginning. That first half were meant for world building and so the slow pace is justified. I enjoyed that the point of view for the book, centered on this one god within the matrix of gods, each with a justified purpose, be they large or small.

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** Spoiler Alert** Below

As implied, the story begins centered on one god, in a multi-god universe, The Strength and Patience of the Hill. He survives most of his life in a large boulder. An aspect of the plot, that I enjoyed, is their inability to lie. If they tried to speak things that were not wholly true, or outright lies, the universe would make truths. And any energy differences would be exacted from that god and could kill them if they were not watchful with their words. Gods can take forms of animals or other aspects of nature, they may also move to another one but it requires much power and effort.

As I mentioned before, the first portion of the book takes us through Strength and Patience’s life history, his journey through being alone and then upon being with humans. He even learns to speak to those praying to to him, first through patterns of inscribed tokens but eventually he speaks to them directly. Initially, he inhabits to northern part of the Country, Iraden.

One of the other gods within Iraden, that we meet is called the Raven, who is naturally, a Raven. Located within the port city of Vastai, much further south than Strength and Patience, initially. The Raven is linked to humanity, uniquely, by being tethered to the Raven’s Lease. Lease’s are bound to the Raven’s will and submit their lives to this cause but gain the power of a god. There is always an heir to the lease, somewhere is the bloodlines of the original family.

In the present time, we discover the most recent Lease’s heir, Mawat. Son of the existing lease and current commander of the army, he is notified his father is ill and must return to Vastai immediately. He returns with his attendant, a transgender man named Eolo. They must travel along much of the country, to reach Vastai, but when they do return, they find Mawat’s Uncle, Hibal on the leases’s bench instead. Mawat accuses Hibal of murdering his father and attempts to communicate with the Raven one-on-one. Mawat will be required to sit on the ground, in the square and appeal the Raven for a private audience. This move accuses Hibal of foul play while obtaining the bench.

Meanwhile, Eolo, is thrown into the Raven’s world by a private audience with Hibal, where he attempts to lie to Eolo and convince him Mawat’s father abandoned the Lease’s Bench of his own accord. Hibal contests he fled, but Hibal allows Eolo to ask three questions to the Raven in Mawat’s stead. The answers convince Eolo, a dangerous game is still in play. Eolo discovers Mawat’s father beneath the Raven’s tower, half alive.

Within the Raven’s tower, he uncovers none other than Strength and Patience enslaved to the Raven. His eternal turning provided power and life to keep the Raven alive but he was slowly dying. Finally, he discovers a god touched stone, which makes Eolo invisible upon touching it. Eolo utilizes the stone to exit the tower in one piece, but Mawat does not believe what he claims to find.

After much convincing, Mawat and Eolo return t the tower and indeed find his father. Rather than being exited he is angry and claims his father was selfish since he was unwilling to pay his life to the Raven, as it is with Leases’s. They release Strength and Patience from his bondage to the Raven and then Mawat makes quick work of the usurper, Hibal. His father dies shortly after of his injuries and undernourishment. Mawat is framed for a high ranking official’s death and the city is flooded. Dysentery and enemy forces attack, proving the Raven is indeed dead and unable to help his people. Finally, the snake god kills Mawat, but Strength and Patience promises to look out for Eolo, since he is truly a gentle soul. Strength and Patience leaves Vastai vowing to never come back.

This was one wild ride in the final chapters.

Book Review – The Witcher, The Last Wish

Despite that I am an avid video game player, I have not stepped into the Witcher Universe before last week. The coronavirus in full swing, I have been adding to my reading list and making progress through many on my list, and this was one of those. Overall, I gave this book a 4/5, and plan to finish the series in short order.

The Last Wish is 281 pages long, and that includes pages dedicated to the next book in the series, but they were so worth it. I have seen my fair share of negative reviews on this series but I do not understand them. The world Andre Sapkowski introduces immediately had me fixed and I finished the first book, well into the evening.

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Geralt, our main character, is a ‘mutant’ of their world, designed to battle monsters of the realm.. This world includes everything from spriggas, to vampires, to bulbous oozes, which choose to inherit the dirtiest locations of town. Being a non-human, he is gifted with additional speed and strength over ordinary men but he consumes elixirs to heighten his hearing and reflexes even further, prior to battles or skirmishes. Close behind Geralt were Dandelion, a famous singing bard that, told many tales of Geralt and his many exploits over the years.

Early in this book, we discover that Geralt is somehow wounded, and slowly decaying according to his temple, healing friends, but there are many swaps backward and forward in time, telling his story until he meets his soul mate, Yennifer.

Yennefer and Geralt happen into each other after Dandelion and Geralt attempt to fish for their dinner. Accidentally, they fished up a type of Genie in a bottle that tried to kill Dandelion before he could make his wishes. On the edge of death, Dandelion is transported precariously to the next town, Rinde. Security at the entrance gates, tries to stop their passage until morning but seeing Dandelion’s condition, allow Geralt to leave him with them while he enters down and requests help from their local sorceress, Yennefer.

Yennefer, is a powerful sorceress, capable of lightning, and thunder and burning you to a clean crisp.She is not particularly, trustworthy, and seems more inclined to manipulate men to do her bidding, as opposed to actually loving caring for some one else, but she finally agrees to see to Dandelion’s condition.

She betrays Geralt, and he wakes up in a communal jail cell beneath the city. He is summoned before the local mayor about the same time Yennefer attempts to chain the genie to her will. Havoc ensues throughout the town as buildings are destroyed. Her magical spell bindings are not strong enough to truly bind him.After much toil between Yennefer and Geralt, he finally convinces her to abandon the binding and release the genie. A destroyed town blooms into their love for each other.

We do not find out why he is dying, but I hope it’s soon resolved next, in book 2. I look forward to the next 5-6 books in this world.