Tor.com has just uploaded
my conversation with James Enge, author of the just-released Swords & Sorcery novel,
Blood of Ambrose.
I'm fascinated by Enge's world building, and his views on fantasy fiction in general. Check out the whole post, but here's a taste:
About elves... I love Tolkien’s work, but I think the elves of The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings are the weakest parts of his world-building. He too obviously has his thumb on the scale. Everyone is beautiful and sings and loves learning? All the children are above average? The elves of the First Age are more plausible because they’re more fallible. But I couldn’t see introducing elves into Morlock’s world without giving them more realism: showing the ugly elf, the ill-tempered lazy elf, the tone-deaf elf. At that point it becomes less like sword-and-sorcery and more like Bored of the Rings.
Tor.com has just uploaded my conversation with James Enge, author of the just-released Swords & Sorcery novel, Blood of Ambrose.
12 comments:
Dangit, I'm starting to wonder if you do these things specifically to separate me from my money (I kid).... I just picked up Midwinter, which has been a great ride so far, and I was on the fence about this one too, guess I'll just have to take the leap, and check out the shorts you have up on Pyr's site. This isn't lip service, Pyr really puts out a lot of quality product.
Greg, that's exactly what I'm trying to do. It would be easier if you'd just write me a check, but I suppose you'd want something back for it, so I make books.
No, seriously, thank you, this is really good to hear. I don't think the Enge will disappoint. I can't stop raving about it myself, it's true, but now that people are starting to read it, I'm getting back some overwhelmingly positive feedback confirming my opinion. Also, read the sample chapters BEFORE you read the shorts if you can. The three chapters set up the character - and it's the best set up I've ever seen for making your lead mysterious - then the shorts feature him, so that would be my preferred order.
That sounds like a great idea, Enge's work sounds like it is right up my alley, so to speak. I tend towards the Howard, Abercrombie, Ruckley and Martin side of fantasy ("Waiter, I need a napkin for all these names that have been dropped"), I like a little, or even a lot, of grit in my fantasy. I'll let you know what I think.
I think you are describing my kind of fantasy too. Enge strikes me as being very tonally similar to Joe Abercrombie, but is positioned a shade closer to Fritz Leiber, so is like Scott Lynch in that regard. Like all of those authors, he can be comedic one minute and gruesome the next. You should also check out Joel Shepherd's Sasha when we publish it in the fall, as it's going to fit right in this vein too (less comedy, more grit, and Joel's characteristic political savvy.
Groovy, and I should have mentioned Leiber before, he is very, very good, I've really enjoyed Glen Cook too, he's really done his part in the gritty vein. Truth to tell I could go on an on about authors like them, or Karl Edward Wagner (especially his Kane stories), most people where I am from tend to think fantasy means Tolkien or Jordan or Paolini, stuff like that, though I have a friend who is unconsciously moving that way without my influence. I do think I'll spring The First Law and Midwinter on her(Midwinter first, it's nice and compact, though Abercrombie isn't too long-winded). Man, here I go again, but one last note one of the things I like most of this type of fantasy is it's brevity, thousand page fantasy epics weary me, I feel more like I've been read than have read at the end of most of them, so on that note I'll cut this short.
Ha. You know, as will be obvious to anyone who looks at our current/forthcoming titles, we're publishing a higher volume of fantasy titles than we used to, which means, for me, more time spent reading each book. I always felt 293 pages was the idea for a science fiction book (and a lot of books that go beyond that feel like they go about 20 pages too long). Of course, and as I tell my authors when they ask, books are the length they need to be, and it's different with every book. But more fantasy means more pages, even if they aren't 600 page tomes!
In addition to that, I must say that some writers can make a tome of that size seem less daunting, I enjoyed, though it's not fantasy, Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon and the MMPB was over a thousand pages, to be fair it was, really, three novels. Johnathan Strange and Mr. Norrell is similar in that respect, for me.
I'm still trying to get into Lynch, I like the idea of The Lies of Locke Lamora, but the book itself. I should just restart, or give it 50 or so more pages, it's dangerous to judge a book of that length too early.
Well, I am sold on The Blood of Ambrose now, though I ended up reading everything in exact reverse order (that only really affected the shorts, and not greatly, just a matter of chronology, not quality), I just have to know what Morlock gets up to when he's given an entire novel.
Ha. Now that's good news! Am I write about the way the chapters set up the character then?
You guys are horrible!
Look what you've done! Made me order that book from Amazon with next-day delivery.
And here I was all set to start Kenyon's series (which I started quite some time ago & then set aside for some reason that I don't remember).
Horrible, horrible, horrible!
:-)
And no, I'm not going to read any of it online.
Remember, the two short stories are NOT in Blood of Ambrose, so you can read "A Book of Silences" and "Fire and Sleet" without spoiling anything. They are set many years after the events of the novel though, if you want to read them after the book.
As to the Kay Kenyon, SFRevu just wrote, "This may well be the most ambitious epic science fiction series of the current decade....If you are not already reading this series and you are at all interested in current science fiction, you really should be."
Thanks Lou!
I tend to be a chronological reader - I enjoy sinking myself into the progression provided by reading of events chronologically. So, I'll save the stories to read until after I've read Blood. It's always fun for me to see if I can see any elements of the "what happened before" - would I have predicted this? Am I surprised it happened this way? Ooh, I guessed wrong, what did I miss? That sort of thing.
It's been spring the last 2 days here in West Seattle - the cherry & plum trees are all blossoming, & their white & pink flowers are everywhere! Time to take my books, quilt, & drink bottle to the park 3 blocks away.
Enjoy it. It's 70 degrees here after several days in the high 40s / low 50s.
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