Hûw Steer's Blog, page 21

Review – The Wood Between The Worlds

Another review is in for Nightingale’s Sword – this time from The Wood Between The Worlds… and it’s a good one!

“even more action-packed and atmospheric than the first… it sure is a great read”

Thank you to Erin Kahn from TWBTW for some very nice feedback and comments – judging by what you’ve liked about the series so far, my ideas for book 3 might be right up your street…

Read the whole review here.

2 Reviews: Iron Widow & Legion

I read a fair few books while in Florida, but I wanted to focus on two today for a little review.

The books in question are Xiran Jay Zhao’s Iron Widow, and Brandon Sanderson’s Legion. Both were thoroughly enjoyable reads, and I’d definitely recommend them – but on reflection, I found I found the same problem in both. Which is interesting, given how fundamentally different their plots and styles are.

Iron Widow is essentially a retelling of the story of Empress Wu Zetian, the only legitimate female monarch in China’s very long history. Except everyone is piloting giant anime mechs against hordes of kaiju. You may be able to figure out why I was drawn to this book. It’s a very strong premise, and fundamentally it’s very well realised. There are plenty of allusions to the real history, interspersed with dynamic and exciting scenes of giant robots kicking arse. What’s not to love?

In contrast, the three Legion novellas are a much more grounded affair. Stephen Leeds is a schizophrenic, who hallucinates a large host of people. But instead of being a hindrance, they’re a help, as each one embodies an aspect of Leeds’ intellect: his knowledge of history and culture manifests as the bookish, genteel Tobias; his forensic expertise as the germophobic Ngozi; his survival instincts as the abrasive, foul-mouthed JC. With the aid of this squad of hallucinatory friends, and many more, Stephen Leeds solves crimes. Again it’s a really strong base idea that’s very nicely realised throughout the book – Sanderson is nothing if not thorough in working up his magic systems and the like.

The stories themselves are of course very different. Zetian’s story in Iron Widow is one of bloody-minded vengeance, as she sets out to beat the living daylights out of her patriarchal society and rise from peasant girl to Empress – which is an exaggerated version of what the real Wu Zetian did, only with less mecha. It’s quite a short book, and very focused on Zetian’s viewpoint and feelings throughout, keeping the action flowing and the anger simmering. It really is a book full of righteous rage, and it’s fantastic for it.

Legion is of course three stories rather than one continuous narrative (though they do link together in the last), each following a different case and exploring different aspects – literally – of Stephen Leeds’ personality. As they’re novellas they’re again short, and so again stay tightly focused on the characters themselves – at the expense of background worldbuilding, which is unusual for Sanderson.

That’s the issue I have with both Legion and Iron Widow. They’re short, tight stories, but that means sacrificing a lot of what’s necessary to make a good story great. Legion’s three stories delve into Leeds’ personalities, but there are lots of allusions to darker aspects of his condition that just don’t ever get explored. For Sanderson this is unusual, even for his novellas – usually he still manages to cram in the crucial worldbuilding even in shorter stories. Legion is great, but it should have been three novels, not three novellas.

Iron Widow also lacks this exploration of the background. So laser-focused on vengeance is Zetian that she doesn’t spend any time looking at the world around her. There are brief insights into a really well-realised world – the other mechs and the society around them, the way that humanity has adapted to a world under constant threat from giant monsters. There are a couple of really nice scenes with people playing with action figures of the various giant mechs, or building what are basically gundam kits – just a few scenes delving into things like that would have given the world so much more life. Iron Widow might have benefited from a second perspective, even if it was only for a few chapters, just to give an alternate angle on a very interesting world.

In summation, these are both books well worth reading. But while they’re fantastic stories, they’re not quite fantastic worlds – or if they are, they’re just not properly displayed.

The Long, Dark, Breakfast-Time of the Soul

William Gibson once wrote that the feeling of jet-lag is roughly akin to your body having travelled, but your soul moving more slowly.

“Souls can’t move that quickly, and are left behind, and must be awaited, upon arrival, like lost luggage.” – William Gibson, Pattern Recognition

Having now just landed in the UK from America on an overnight flight (but not, unfortunately, having slept for more than about an hour), I know exactly what he means. Something just feels incomplete, and I suspect it will all day.

(As I have barely slept, this post is basically a bit of a ramble.)

I have, after all, travelled 5 hours into the future. And back into the cold (the glorious, glorious cold), which is the appropriate weather for early March, not the ridiculous Floridian oven-temperature I’ve been in for a week.

In some ways the actual time away has been more disorienting than the act of returning; the heat, the time difference, and the strangeness of Florida, its vast size and simultaneous lack of stuff to fill it with…

I did visit some cool wetlands though. There were alligators. It was neat.

It was a good trip (for work), if a long one. I wasn’t writing anything in particular during it – as I’ve been watching so much Hustle lately I dusted off an old project with some conmen of my own. It’s basically one short story that I’ve been trying very hard to publish for years (I think it’s one of my best; magazines seem to disagree) – I’ve not got an overarching plan for a bigger story, so I’ve just been writing some little vignettes to expand the world and the characters a bit. I’ll do something with it one day.

Now I am returned, and vaguely normal service will resume. I got through most of my reading list – A Memory Called Empire is the only thing I haven’t started yet, but that’s because I picked up volume 2 of Y: The Last Man and also Sanderson’s complete Legion omnibus to tide me over. Also I had the end of Sandman to read. When my brain is more adequately functioning, I’ll write up a review or few.

For now, though, rest, a restoration to my normal keyboard, and a bit of relaxation.

Away – Reading List

Abroad for work at the moment, so nothing much to report this week, save perhaps my reading list for the trip – there are some books there that’ll probably turn up in review form on this blog. Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao is right at the top of the list, as it’s a) giant robots and b) medieval Chines history, for which I have a particular weakness. Arkady Martine’s A Memory Called Empire gives me some pleasantly Iain M. Banks-esque vibes.

But I’m also about to finish the Department 19 books by Will Hill, which I started as a kid but never quite finished (as, in fairness, he hadn’t finished writing them yet). TL;DR: secret military agency versus vampires. They were, and still appear to be, marketed as kids’ books. I’m not sure they should be. The bloody violence is very well written, but there’s an awful lot of it.

I’ll write some thoughts up once I’m done reading them all. And then, once I’m back home and no longer have to worry about suitcase space, the Riftwar beckons…

Inventing the Radio

Looking back on the various books and stories I’ve written, I noticed a bit of a trend: namely that regardless of the universe and its technologies, I really like my characters to be able to talk to one another over a distance. Essentially, I’ve been repeatedly inventing the radio microphone. Only sometimes it’s magic. Or involves invasive surgery. I thought I’d explore a few of those solutions, and why it’s not necessarily a bad thing to remake something that already exists – or to always make communication ‘easy’.

I write both fantasy and sci-fi, but you’ve probably realised that one of those genres lends itself to featuring some form of ‘radio’ than the other… namely because it’s already a thing that exists. But just because there’s already a radio doesn’t mean that everyone just has to use walkie-talkies. I’ve used conventional earpieces and microphones in several works (or comms systems in space-suits, or just telephones), but sometimes you don’t want anyone to know your characters can talk to each other. There are plenty of solutions to this – a favourite of mine is to take advantage of bone conduction audio and implant mics and earpieces in someone’s skull. Sounds a bit grim, but it ain’t half handy when you need to be subtle.

My point is, don’t let the fact that something already exists stop you from inventing a new version of it, especially in spec-fic. There are always ways to make something more interesting and still fit in your world.

In fantasy, it’s a bit different. In a genre that’s usually based to some degree on real history it’s hard to deploy a thoroughly modern invention. But if you’ve got magic, then it can be done. Telepathy is the obvious answer – though not something I think I’ve ever used myself. If you’ve read the Boiling Seas books so far – particularly Nightingale’s Sword – you’ll have seen what’s probably my favourite solution. Resonators: magically paired bits of metal that vibrate in exactly the same way even when separated, and therefore work like a mic and speaker. (Please don’t apply too much actual physics to this idea.) With 3 POV characters to deal with I wanted to make sure they could always talk to each other if necessary, so I spent a while thinking up something that fit in the universe – and I’m pretty happy with it.

But does this make things too easy? Does enabling distance communication take away tension and stakes? Absolutely not. There are obvious merits to having one character aware of a situation while another in a different location is ignorant… but it can be just as powerful to have both characters aware, but only one of them able to do anything about it. Equally, just because characters have the ability to talk over distances doesn’t mean they’ll always be able to do it. If you’re sneaking around you don’t want to be having a loud conversation with your friend, and if you’re in a hostage situation you don’t want to give the game away by letting your captors know you’ve got a line to the outside. I’ve had a lot of fun crafting in-person conversations that simultaneously give information to people on the other end of the line. And if you really need characters to be cut off from conversation, you can just do that. Interference, increased distance – there’s always a way to take away the advantage you’ve bestowed if necessary.

That was a bit of a ramble. But I hope it gives a little insight into the way I think about this sort of thing when I’m writing.

And if you can think of any other technologies that have been reinvented in interesting ways, let me know in the comments!

First Rule of the Con

The question ‘what’s the best TV show ever made?’ always gives me pause. I start thinking about Star Trek, (and which of those series is the best), Doctor Who, The Good Place, and loads of other seriously strong shows that I really love.

But then I remember that there is an objectively correct answer,* and it’s Hustle.

The original crew

The world is full of crooks and very nasty people, and a lot of them get away with it because they’re rich. The bent politicians, the investment bankers – the ones who’re just out for themselves and nothing else.

Mickey Bricks and his crew of con artists are there to redress the balance. Their first rule is that ‘you can’t cheat an honest man’ – but there are plenty of dishonest ones to keep them busy.

Hustle is 8 series of beautifully crafted cons, each episode setting some of the most genuinely lovable characters I’ve ever encountered against some very unpleasant marks. Albert Stroller (the late Robert Vaughn) ropes in marks for Mickey Bricks (Adrian Lester) to trick as the inside man, while Ash Morgan (Robert Glenister) makes everything happen, from fake IDs to setting up Bollywood film sets. They’re supported at first by master manipulator Stacie Monroe (Jaime Murray) and the brash, impulsive Danny Blue (Marc Warren) – from series 5 onwards they’re replaced by a brother and sister duo of talented novices, Sean and Emma Kennedy (Matt di Angelo and Kelly Adams). And Billy Bond (Ashley Walters) was also there for a bit too.

The second iteration.

They’re a seriously well-crafted set of characters. Each has their own strengths in the actual con, but even when they’re not working their interactions are really well-written – there’s not a two-dimensional one among them. And because every one of them has to play multiple roles in-universe, all the actors get to show off some serious chops. It’s one thing to play multiple parts – it’s another to play multiple parts while always ultimately in character as someone else entirely.

Each con is beautifully set-out. Every episode is a different scam from start to finish (though many a liberty is taken with timelines as the show progresses). There’s definitely a formula: meet the mark, set up the grift, get everything running smoothly until a last-minute complication seems to have sunk the scam before someone in the crew reveals the plan B that they’ve had all along and it all works out in the end. But there’s such a variety of villains and different scams – from fake stamps to the Hollywood sign – that it never gets old, and the showrunners were also smart enough to drop in the odd curveball episode with a completely different structure and theme to break things up. The reveals of the real con are very seldom predictable, and there are some clever scams in there that will genuinely make your jaw drop. And the moment when the smug mark opens up a briefcase full of cash only to find that it’s all bundles of newspaper is never not satisfying, no matter how many times you see it.

And pretty much all the cons are real techniques. There was actually a companion series on BBC 3, The Real Hustle, where real ex-grifters would explain common short-con scams to help stop you getting caught out yourself. But in Hustle itself everything is explained en route too. Sometimes one of the crew will explain an idea to another (the often-hapless Danny Blue usually acting as the audience surrogate). But just as often, a con will be in full swing, building up to its crescendo – and then everything will freeze, and Adrian Lester will turn directly to the camera, in-character, to tell us exactly what’s about to happen. And it works. Hustle plays delightfully fast and loose with the fourth wall: there are plenty of cheeky winks to the audience as someone takes the bait, or acknowledgements of the inherent ridiculousness of the situation. An episode might open with a con-in-progress, or it might start with a monologue to camera about what’s just gone wrong.

Now even if you haven’t watched Hustle, anyone who’s watched the US show Leverage/Leverage: Redemption may be thinking that this sounds familiar. And you’d be right. I’ve only watched a little of it, but it seems that Leverage is essentially the same show, just set in America instead… but Hustle did come first, and there’s a cheeky line in an early episode of Leverage that is apparently straight from the writers:

“Word is on the street that you run the nastiest crew this side of the Atlantic.”

i.e. there’s another crew in the UK who could give the Leverage lot a run for their money…

I love this show. My sister and I came across it when we were kids, but only from season 5 (the cast change) onwards. We watched it to the end, loved it – and then Netflix became a thing and we realised there were 4 more series we’d never seen, so we watched it again. And then we left home and watched it again separately. Then it came off Netflix and I was sad for a while, until it came back onto iPlayer a little while ago and now I’m already halfway through series 4 again. No matter how many times I watch it, Hustle is never not good.

Despite the fact that Hustle was filmed/is set from 2004-12, the premise of hitting the real bastards where it hurts is more relevant than ever these days. Leverage: Redemption seems to be doing pretty well as a more recent take. But I’d love a new series of Hustle more than anything, even with no more Robert Vaughn.

Because if the first rule of the con is ‘you can’t cheat an honest man’… well. There are a lot of marks around these days. And I think we could all use a knowing wink to camera to cheer us up.

*Take this as seriously as you will. But watch Hustle first if you want to argue.

Comics Are Stupid: Jay Garrick’s Colander

I like superhero comics. I like them when they play it straight, and I like them when they do things that are completely and utterly absurd. And most of all I like it when something utterly absurd is plucked from the annals of the past, featured in a modern comic, and is somehow made not stupid.

I have a few of these lined up to write about. But we’re going to start with one of the most ridiculous costume pieces in superhero comics – which given these are superhero comics is no mean feat. I am, of course, talking about Jay Garrick’s ridiculous helmet.

The Flash vol. 5 #22 (2017)

Jay Garrick is the original Flash, first introduced way back in 1940. I have a soft spot for all the Flashes, particularly Barry Allen. None of them are ever the most serious heroes, in personality or story. Barry, for instance, gets his powers from being covered in unspecified chemicals and then struck by lightning. But Jay Garrick is the daftest of them all. Jay Garrick gets super-speed from inhaling hard water vapours. He breathed in a bit of limestone. Now he is fast. This is the Golden Age of Comics. It makes sense.

He then chooses a costume. In a nice piece of sentiment, among his choices is his father’s old First World War helmet. However:

That is not a WW1 helmet. That is a colander with wings on it. It is a wide-brimmed hat that would surely fly off instantly at the speed of sound, and if it did stay on would only slow Jay down from air resistance. It also does nothing whatsoever to hide his secret identity. Instead, the Flash’s writers decided that Jay would vibrate his face very quickly so anyone looking at him would only see a blur. This in itself is quite sensible – it’s certainly better than a domino mask that hides none of your facial features whatsoever. However Jay Garrick never seems to have quite grasped the concept of secrecy:

Who on earth could be the man behind the colander? Certainly not this guy. (Flash Comics #1, 1940)

Yes, that is the fastest man alive playing tennis with himself. In his civilian clothes. In broad daylight. On a public court.

But Garrick somehow got away with it, and even decades later in the 1990s – by which point there had been 3 other Flashes with significantly less daft costumes (but still with wings for ears because why not), he continued to wear his colander with pride.

And then, in Infinite Crisis, 65 years after Garrick first started being utterly ridiculous, his helmet was useful.

Infinite Crisis #4, 2006

Infinite Crisis was a classic apocalyptic crossover comic; the multiverse was collapsing, every hero and villain in the DC universe turned up to do something about it and simultaneously fight Earth-2 Superman, the Man of Cast-Iron, and Superboy-Prime, the Man of Oh My God He Just Killed 2 Teen Titans With A Single Backhand.

In the panel above, all 3 currently-active Flashes – Wally West, Bart Allen, and Jay Garrick – are trying to run Superboy-Prime into another dimension to imprison him. He is naturally not happy with this, and tries to murder them with his heat vision. And he would have done it – if not for Jay Garrick’s colander. Jay Garrick’s colander, a piece of junk from the First World War; Jay Garrick’s ridiculous, pointless helmet… which just deflected a laser eye-beam that is usually enough to melt through steel.

Never mind that Jay immediately drops out of the run because he’s an old man and can’t keep up with the others. Never mind that the mirror-shiny helmet somehow absorbed the heat vision and didn’t deflect it. Never mind that it looks stupid. Jay Garrick’s helmet just stopped Wally West from having his head taken off.

He continues to wear it to this day (a day in which he exists again, being unfortunate enough to belong to the Justice Society of America, who are written out of existence approximately every 5 minutes). I believe he’s even turned up in the Flash TV show. That’s right, the damn thing’s made its way into live-action. And as you can see from the first image above… it doesn’t actually look that bad.

But more modern uses be damned. It was completely pointless and utterly ridiculous for 65 years… but in Infinite Crisis, Jay Garrick’s colander, the silliest piece of costume in DC history, finally became useful. I’m not sure what else happened in that comic, because there have been at least 17 universe-shattering crossover Crises since. But none of them can match the majesty of Jay Garrick’s hat.

Riftwar Re-Read #1 – The Empire Trilogy

You know you’ve written a good side-story when your readers are so immersed that they forget there’s a war on. A war that, let’s not forget, is literally in the title of the entire book series.

The Empire trilogy by Feist and Janny Wurts certainly qualifies. We’re taken away from the front line of the Riftwar and into the cut-throat world of Tsurani politics, as we follow the rise of Mara of the Acoma, a young girl unexpectedly forced into leadership of a noble house. She’s inexperienced, she’s naïve, and the other players in the Great Game of politics couldn’t care less about her. Mara needs to learn fast, and she needs to do it well, or she and her house will be dust in the wind.

The first book, Daughter of the Empire, deals with this rise from ruin to riches. We’re plunged into the rich world of Kelewan head-first and it’s a glorious experience. The pan-Asian inspired culture is a real treat to explore, from architecture to social conventions, and it’s all described in truly magnificent detail. Just a trip across some not-wheat fields is a sensory experience. Delving into the warrens of some giant alien insects, or the splendour of the Imperial Court, is even better. Mara’s transition from naïve girl to ruthless political operator is a thrilling story set against a beautiful backdrop. A backdrop that includes the setting of the main series of books. Midkemia, setting of Magician and most of the rest of the series, is occasionally name-dropped in the background. The Riftwar itself is happening… but it’s just a background event. There’s a whole Empire to explore here, and events on another world couldn’t be less relevant.

The Empire gets explored to some degree in Magician, but not quite like this. Magician is just a taste.

The war does get relevant in book 2, Servant of the Empire, which explores the same culture clash as Magician – just from the other direction. The arrival of Kevin the Midkemian slave shakes things up a treat in the Acoma household; instead of ‘barbarians’ adapting to Tsurani culture we see the Tsurani begin to grudgingly admit that some bits of ‘barbarian’ culture might be worth a look. All the while there’s more intrigue and more scheming as Mara immerses herself even more deeply in house politics.

If there’s a flaw to this second book – and in the trilogy as a whole, to be honest – it’s in what’s rapidly becoming Mara’s signature move: Doing Nasty Things For Good Reason But Not Saying Why. Her actions are always explained away as being for the greater good of her house or the whole Empire, or even a specific person – and they do pretty much always make sense. But half the time 90% of the personal pain and hardship could very easily be avoided by Mara just… explaining what she’s going to do. There’s a particular example at the end of Servant – I can’t say what as it’s a major spoiler – but it’s a very sad scene that would have been infinitely less sad if Mara had just said something. Similar things happen a lot, and while the whole ‘alien cultural values’ thing makes Mara’s actions make some sense, it often just feels like emotional trauma for the sake of it.

On to Book 3, then, Mistress of the Empire: where the world expands dramatically. The core plot of Imperial political scheming comes to a head in seriously dramatic fashion – this time the wizards are involved, and they’re almost all arseholes – Mara deals with some serious personal tragedies, while at the same time she’s off on a quest to an entirely new part of the world to utterly upend Tsurani society. It seems like a lot, and it is, but Feist and Wurts balance things beautifully. All these plots happen, all are resolved, and pretty much all the loose ends from the previous two books are wrapped up neatly too, in a very tense and well-written ending – even if we do get more of Mara’s DNTFGRBNSW. It takes good writing to make a reader genuinely believe the world is about to fall apart.

So that’s the trilogy on its own. But how does it stack up as part of the greater Riftwar?

Well, as I implied above, for most of the trilogy the Riftwar itself – i.e. the conflict between Midkemia and Kelewan – may as well not be happening. It’s most prominent in Servant of the Empire, when Kevin the Midkemian is knocking around, but the war doesn’t really affect House Acoma much. Beyond the appearance of a main-series character in Mistress, Midkemia is almost completely irrelevant in that book.

In terms of actual timeline, Magician starts during Daughter of the Empire, but finishes during Servant – and the entirety of Silverthorn and A Darkness at Sethanon also take place during Servant. Let that sink in. The whole opening trilogy of the Riftwar is a minor event in the background of one and a bit books of the Empire series.

And that’s brilliant. The Empire is a vast and many-faceted thing – there are dozens of houses, all with their own interests, all doing their own thing in the Great Game of politics. For Midkemia in Magician, the Riftwar is the biggest thing that’s ever happened in history – the entire Kingdom is forced to mobilise to defend itself, and the war affects every facet of civilisation. The Riftwar is everything. But for the Tsurani… it’s Tuesday. The battles are alluded to, and Kevin exists, but the Acoma have more important things to do, and at no point did I ever feel that they weren’t more important. The sheer scale of the Empire and its alien culture comes across beautifully via this literary device, and it’s incredibly well done.

I can’t wait to re-read Magician now with this perspective – especially now that I’ve met the men and women behind the armies of the Tsurani. House names and armour colours are just words and colours to the soldiers of the Kingdom – but now I know all the political wheels spinning in the background it’s going to be a very interesting experience. Equally, there are some events in Magician set on Kelewan that have very different implications now that I’ve seen the other side of the story.

All in all, well worth the read. I wouldn’t recommend a new reader start with this trilogy over Magician, but if you’ve read the Riftwar before it’s definitely worth the shift in perspective. What was already a beautifully realised universe just got a whole lot bigger for me.

What Am I Writing?

You may have wondered what I’m currently doing creatively. So have I, to be honest.

In an effort to start the new year how I mean to go on, I’ve been lining up some short story submissions to start working on. That means delving into various documents and notebooks of old scribbled ideas, bits of half-remembered dreams that seemed really cool at the time, and the like, to get some actual inspiration.

But I’m taking my time, because I want to actually get some good ideas and, crucially, plan out the whole thing before I start. Because this is a weakness of mine: I see a cool quote or think of a cool concept, and just start writing without really considering overarching plot, or character development, or an ending. I just go, and keep going.

On the one hand, it’s quite liberating to just write, coming up with everything on the fly and seeing where the story takes me. On the other hand, most of what I write like this inevitably ends up being three times as long as it should be and meandering all over the place before it finally contorts itself into a somewhat unsatisfying ending. Case in point: the original draft of Nightingale’s Sword, which before several months of editing was 40,000 words longer and half as coherent. Likewise suffering are Salvage Seven (which I have not forgotten about, I promise) and The Scar, which I paused a while ago for lack of ideas.

Does that stop me doing it anyway? Absolutely not. So while I come up with ideas for these short stories, I’m currently merrily plugging away at a completely unplanned project based on a quote from a William Gibson book. I have no idea where it’s going, I have barely any clue what it’s really about… but it’s fun.

“Sufficiently perverse and titanic arseholes,” he said, “can become religious objects. Negative saints. People who dislike them, with sufficient purity and fervor, well, they do that. Spend their lives lighting candles. I don’t recommend it.”

William Gibson, Zero History

The Great Riftwar Re-Read

Some books shape us. Especially when we’re young. There are worlds we travel to as children that never truly leave us. (Not to say that the same isn’t true when you’re an adult, but you know what I mean.) I read a lot when I was a kid; I powered through every scrap of fantasy and SF I could get my hands on. I spent hours in every library within easy reach, especially at my high school,* devouring Tolkien and Pratchett and Iain M. Banks. And dozens of others besides.

But I’m not going to talk about any of those. Because as much as I love all those authors, and as much as they’ve shaped my taste in literature and my writing style (which is a lot), there’s another author who affected me more than any of the rest, thanks first to the generosity of my English teacher, Mr Preston (who gave half his fantasy collection to the school library, including these books), and my dad’s friend Andy (who coincidentally was getting rid of his own fantasy collection, including the very same books).

Raymond E. Feist, and the Riftwar saga: 29 books spanning from 1982 to 2013, and one of the best fantasy universes ever created.

Luckily enough I had the expanded edition from the beginning.

The first Riftwar book, Magician, starts in fairly standard fashion. A young boy discovers he has magical talents in a generally medieval European-style fantasy world, and goes off to become an apprentice while his best friend becomes a soldier. There are castles and wise old wizards and forests of elves. Seems fairly standard for fantasy, right?

Well, that’s when sorcerers from another planet rip a hole in space-time and throw an invading army through it. Those are the Rifts; this is the War. And now the story gets really bloody interesting.

In the first book alone, Feist takes us (meaning impressionable, 11-year-old me) on a journey across two very different worlds experiencing a very violent clash of cultures. The invading world of Kelewan, unlike the European-style Midkemia, is based on Japanese and Chinese cultures, full of grand political intrigue and matters of honour. Also alien insect-people. And back home on Midkemia, there are two factions of elves warring for dominance, and a long-dead race of dragon-riding demigods seizing the opportunity to reincarnate themselves. And there’s an enigmatic sorcerer with far too much knowledge of both worlds pulling the strings from the background.

And this, I will remind you, is all in the first book. The first of 29.

Because the Riftwar saga is a generational thing. Generally focusing on the royal family of one particular kingdom and their various friends and allies, the first trilogy deals with the original protagonists – but then the baton passes to their children in the next pair of books, and to their children in the 4-book Serpentwar, and so on. Feist captures this wonderfully: each set of children is very recognisably influenced by their parents, and you can see the same traits you admired in that original crew being passed down in lesser or greater measure to each subsequent generation. It’s immensely rewarding for a long-term reader too. When you’re reading book 27 and you spot a tavern in the background of a scene that’s named after a character from book 5, for instance, it’s so satisfying.

One of my favourites – book 19 of 29.

Meanwhile, wizards (and dragon-riding demigods) are largely immortal, and so while the kids deal with the immediate crises of each book, the very same protagonists from the very beginning are handling the big cosmic battles that are raging in the background, first in the original two worlds and then in many, many more. Feist balances all this masterfully. It’s a beautifully rendered universe with so many stories in it, and each internal plotline explores a new facet of it.

The Riftwar is proper epic fantasy. Feist’s style and scope have influenced pretty much everything I’ve ever written to some degree. I started writing my first book when I was about 12, and you can really tell from that original draft who I’ve been reading.

But while I owned most of the series, and I picked up most of the gaps from various libraries, I never actually finished them. I got as far as the first book of the final trilogy in the saga, but then went off to university, where my bookshelf space was alas severely limited and several feet of Riftwar books had to stay behind.

I’ve got lots of bookshelf space now.

I have begun my great re-read of the entire Riftwar saga. I’m starting from the beginning, reading in chronological order, and I’ll pick up the books I’m missing along the way… until finally I get to the end, and have a nice complete collection to boot. I’ll pause for some palate cleansers en route, but this is my main reading project for the next year or so. And as I get through each section (not every book, as I don’t fancy writing 29 reviews of a single series), I’ll review them and stick them up on here. If I convince even a couple of you to read Feist’s work as well, then it’ll all be worth it.

I’ve actually not begun with Magician. Feist and Janny Wurts actually wrote a spinoff, the Empire trilogy, set during the events of Magician but in the cut-throat noble court of Kelewan. It’s all political intrigue and machinations, and I’m thoroughly enjoying it so far – apart from the last two books I never got to and one other spinoff, they’re the only books in the series I’ve never read at all.

This is such a long-running series that there’s no hope whatsoever of me having a matching set of covers.

The Riftwar made me the reader, and the writer, I am today. Diving back into Feist’s world after so long is a wonderful experience. I hope you’re intrigued by the concept… because I’m going to be talking about this a lot.

What books shaped you?

*That’s secondary school, i.e. 11-16, for those of you across the Pond.