XPost: alt.fan.tolkien, rec.arts.books.tolkien, alt.books.cs-lewis   
   From: Taemon@zonnet.nl   
      
   Dirk Thierbach wrote:   
      
   > Taemon  wrote:   
   >> Dirk Thierbach wrote:   
   >>> Taemon  wrote:   
   >>>> Oh, boy. I review fantasy for the public library   
   >>> Anything you can recommend? :-)   
   >> My heart bleeds for the current German fantasy.   
   > Ah, the *good* German fantasy authors (e.g. Michael Ende, Cornelia   
   > Funke) are usually marketed as children's books :-) If you can get   
   > your hand on "Der Spiegel im Spiegel" ("The mirror in the mirror") by   
   > Michael   
   > Ende, read it. Definitely not children's fiction...   
      
   Oh, I'll keep that in mind. I do, of course, get my own books, but I'm   
   limited to what the library has (and its English fiction department is   
   rather small) or what I can get from Mobipocket.com. This all apart from   
   what I get to review, of course. But that isn't that many. One or two a   
   month. I also do cognitive science, animal caretaking and casual games, but   
   the fantasy market is much, much bigger :-)   
      
   > Though there's not a lot of good German fantasy authors, and probably   
   > few could be classified as "current". And we don't have to talk about   
   > Hohlbein and Co.   
      
   This - this monstrous *thing* I described before, from Felten? It won a   
   PRIZE. A prize! Well - I don't think it will appear in many Dutch libraries   
   . (I managed twice to keep a release from being offered to the   
   libraries at all - sometimes I think I'm too harsh for this job.)   
      
   >> It's what I mainly get these days (translated to Dutch). Nah... I   
   >> haven't gotten a good book in months.   
   > I don't mind if it's not current. :-)   
      
   Ah. You have heard from George R. R. Martin? :-)  Best current fantasy if   
   you ask me, but he seems to have hit a writer's block. I think I already   
   recommended Neal Asher to you. And K.J. Parker, if you think cruelty is   
   funny. And everything from Sheri Tepper. And that first Julian May series...   
   Oh! But that is sf... let me look it up... hard to google something called   
   "The Golden Age"...  John C. Wright. I've only read part   
   one, and I loved it (it's one of those inevitable trilogies). Took me a   
   while to realise that I could safely ignore everything about names like   
   "Phaethon Prime Rhadamanth Humodified (augment) Uncomposed,   
   Indepconciousness, Base Neuroformed, Silver-Gray Manorial Schola, Era 7043"   
   that I didn't understand and just go with "Phaethon, that guy". It's not   
   relevant. The book is full of that kind of phrases and it gets funnier all   
   the time. Very original. But hard sf. And Walter Jon William's Dread Empire   
   series. On the surface quite standard heroic sf, but the heroics are so   
   understated... I really liked it. And it grows on you.   
      
   But fantasy... Robin Hobb is very good. Somewhat less famous is Chris   
   Wooding, The Braided Path. Part three slows down, but before that, woooh.   
   Quite a trip.   
      
   >> Fortunately, I am not restricted to reading what's sent to me so I   
   >> have found Abercrombie to recommend :-)  Another series called   
   >> "First Law", and the best of them.   
   > I have "The Blade Itself" here, but haven't read it yet. The beginning   
   > was not so promising, so I got distracted... but maybe that was just   
   > a first impression.   
      
   Go on and give it a try. If you don't like it, don't bother with Parker.   
   He's more so.   
      
   > BTW, I can recommend "The Name of the Wind" by Patrick Rothfuss (not   
   > German, despite the name). A really good read.   
      
   Ah, got that to review... let me dig that up... I wrote:   
      
   ==========================================   
   Eerste deel van een fantasyserie en een verdienstelijk debuut. Het boek   
   vertelt het (eerste deel van) het levensverhaal van de charismatische en   
   begaafde Khotve, uit zijn eigen mond. Tragisch, afwisselend en spannend weet   
   het lot van de verder weinig sympathieke Kvothe te blijven boeien. Een   
   enkele stoorzender is het veelvuldige gebruik van omineuze slotzinnetjes in   
   de trant van “toen wist ik nog niet dat onze tijd bijna om was”, die de   
   lezer enigszins op afstand houden.   
   Bevat overbodige kaart. Vakkundige vertaling, behalve in de frequente   
   rijmpjes (“‘t is waar/onomkeerbaar”).   
      
   ==========================================   
      
   Rough translation:   
      
   First part of a fantasy series and a pretty good debute. The book tells of   
   the (first part of the) life's story of the charismatic and gifted Kvothe,   
   from his own mouth. Tragic, varied and exciting, the fate of the less than   
   sympathetic Kvothe keeps entertaining. A disturbing aspect is the   
   often-applied use of ominous sentences like "at the time I didn't realise   
   our time was almost up" that keep the reader at a distance.   
      
   Contains superfluous map. Expert translation, except in the frequent little   
   rhymes (example of horrible rhyme).   
   ===========================================   
   Hm. I must have been in a hurry :-)  I have 1100 characters to use. I   
   remember afterwards regretting not adding something about the other   
   characters being very flat, especially the love interest. Kvothe himself was   
   rounded enough, but the token pretty woman did nothing for me.   
      
   I never got the subsequent parts in the series, though. Are they any good?   
      
   T.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)