On my second time through this book, I have lots and lots of thoughts. Be warned, this is not so much a review as a series of reactions, mostly broken up by character, so spoilers ahoy. Ye’ve been warned, matey. (I have no idea why I’m suddenly a pirate.) Back when I first read this book in 2011, I came to it fresh off my first re-read of the first four books, which I had devoured in the space of about a month. I was also super […]
Emotionally and historically epic.
The Lions of Al-Rassan is an incredible book that’s inspired by the religious and political conflict that marked Moorish Spain. It follows several characters from three at-odds religious groups: the Kindath (based on Jews), Jaddites (based on Christians) and Asharites (based on Muslims.) Though the religions as described in the novel bear no real-life similarity to their analogous counterparts, and the particulars of history don’t entirely line up with the events described in the book, GGK’s alternate imagining still captures the ideological turmoil that was rampant […]
An epic fantasy anthology, cherry-picked from other sources.
This was a pretty great anthology. I was probably destined to like it because it’s pretty hard for me to dislike most kinds of fantasy. This is also different than some anthologies because the editor didn’t commission pieces for this book, but collected them from other already published sources. I sampled a lot of authors I’ve been meaning to try for some time, although I’m annoyed that some of the stories occur halfway through a series or something like that. If you like Epic fantasy […]
“We broke the world to make it whole…”
In a possibly controversial opinion, the final novel of the Earthsea cycle just might be my favorite. To get here, we’ve had two great adventures, an exploration of a foreign ritualistic spirituality, and a pointed take on the value of women in a world of male-dominated power, both political and magical. In this last book, all of those elements come together, and the story looks back to the origins of magic, just as it looks forward and asks where the people of Earthsea truly stand in the […]