Focus on Fantasy

Ursula Kroeber Le Guin was born in California in 1929 and started writing as a teenager. Mostly during the 1960s and 1970s she has written many novels, most of them part of science-fiction or fantasy series, making her an influential author in these genres.

Especially by writing the popular Earthsee series, Ursula K. Le Guin has had a large influence on the development of the fantasy genre during the 20th century. A television mini-series, also called Earthsee, was even made in 2004.
Themes

Le Guin is known for including a number of themes in her stories. Her novels often center around social aspects such as anthropology and ecology. Persons and races are suppressed or discriminated, causing the protagonists (who are often colored people) of the stories to rise up against the establishment. Another theme is the disrespect of people for nature with all possible consequences.
Works

Within the fantasy community Ursula Le Guin is of course mainly know for her novels of the Earthsee series. But she has written many more books, most with science-fiction elements.

Below a listing of Le Guin’s most important works:

Earthsea
A Wizard of Earthsea, 1968
The Tombs of Atuan, 1971
The Farthest Shore, 1972
Tehanu: The Last Book of Earthsea, 1990
Tales from Earthsea, 2001
The Other Wind, 2001

Hainish Cycle
Rocannon’s World, 1966
Planet of Exile, 1966
City of Illusions, 1967
The Left Hand of Darkness, 1969
The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia, 1974
The Word for World is Forest, 1976
Four Ways to Forgiveness, 1995
The Telling, 2000

Other
The Wind’s Twelve Quarters, 1975
Orsinian Tales, 1976
The Eye of the Heron, 1978
The Beginning Place, 1980
Always Coming Home, 1985
Lavinia, 2008
Official website of Ursula K. Le Guin

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Funcom has announced that the MMORPG Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures will become free-to-play later this year. This means that players can play the game for free or become a premium subscriber with access to additional content.

In addition, the studio will re-launch the game this summer under the new name ‘Age of Conan: Unrated’. Conan was already known for its brutality and nudity and these features will be given even more attention in this new release.

The game is quite popular and has received good reviews. It can be expected that making it free-to-play will significantly increase the number of players.

The online game will also include content from the upcoming Conan the Barbarian movie.

Press release on Ageofconan.com

Amidst a period of watching the first of the Games of Thrones episodes and reading a lot of Malazan tales (The Crippled God by Erikson and Stonewielder by Esslemont, reviews coming soon!), I have found the time to read a very nice novel called Blunderland, written by Elizabeth O’Kane.

Contrary to the high/ epic fantasy I am mostly into, Blunderland is a contemporary fantasy novel describing an Alice in Wonderland kind of story.

Story

Blunderland tells the story of the young woman Fin who enters a world called Blunder that is quite different from our own but also connected to it at the same time. Interesting as this world is, all is not right and Fin finds herself at the center of the problems. First she has to escape the Creeps who are after her but then she finds out she is the only one who can stop them from ravaging Blunder.

See below for the back cover summary.

Review

As stated above, Elizabeth O’Kane has created a very enjoyable contemporary fantasy story by writing Blunderland. She has managed to include several interesting and fascinating fantasy concepts in the story. Being transported to a fantasy world is of course nothing new but Blunder is linked to our world and events there may influence our world on a large scale. Also other aspects, like superfast cars and using folded or knotted materials to “write and read” instead of pen and paper are nice little differences. What I would have liked to see is that these fantasy elements were more structural, providing a more consistent and deeper setting of this fantasy world.

The story that is told interchanges dark, disturbing events with light, almost childish situations in which the main character Fin explores the otherworldly aspects of Blunder and its people. Although these extremes sometimes felt too far apart, O’Kane has managed to find a balance that kept the story exciting and fascinating.
A point of criticism I do have is regarding the pace of the story. There are quite a few moments when nothing much is happening except for Fin taking yet another shower and playing with her dog. This doesn’t seem to fit well with the urgency of stopping the Creeps.

Apart from the main story of Fin having to safe Blunder, a lot of attention is given to the personal issues of Fin which have caused her to forget parts of her past and continue to influence her behavior. This gives the story the necessary depth and definitely helps build the character.

Conclusion

All in all, I have really enjoyed reading Blunderland. The pace and depth of the story could have been somewhat better but I hope that Elizabeth O’Kane is already working on a sequel (or prequel) that will allow for this. The land of Blunder, its history and its connection to our world definitely seem to have more than enough elements that would justify using it as the setting for other stories!

Back cover summary

With the help of an irritating shaman, the ridiculous Sullivan brothers, and a host of other oddball characters, Fin is unwittingly propelled into the role of savior as she and Zipper traverse through an outlandish world where nothing will ever be normal.

Many years after the original game, the sequel Alice: Madness Returns is almost finalized and scheduled for a June 14, 2011 release in the US and a June 16, 2011 release in Europe.

Alice: Madness Returns is a sequel to American McGee’s Alice, which was made for PC in 2000. This game was quite a hit and sold over 1.5 million copies, resulting in high expectations for this sequel that will be released for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360.

Important to mention is that the game is definitely not for children. It is rated PEGI 18 as the game has strong horror elements with lots of blood and suspension.

Trailers

A new trailer of the upcoming fantasy movie Conan the Barbarian has been released. It is the first real trailer with actual footage of the the movie. It looks quite impressive with a lot of action, which of course is to be expected of a Conan movie, but it remains to be seen if the story is any good.

Conan the Barbarian will be released to theatres on August 19, 2011. Jason Momoa, Khal Drogo in the fantasy TV series Game of Thrones, will star as Conan.

See the trailer below!

By showing a dead King Kong, George R.R. Martin has let the world know that he has finished writing A Dance with Dragons!

The due date for this fifth installment of the highly acclaimed fantasy series A Song of Ice & Fire is July 12, 2011.

The timing is of course great as HBO’s new TV series Game of Thrones, based on the first book of Ice & Fire and co-produced by George Martin, has just aired and is turning out to be quite the hit series. A Dance with Dragons with fly of the shelfs!

I cannot wait to get my hands on this book, read it and let you know if it is just as great as its predecessors!

Source: Not A Blog

Preview

The future of the Seven Kingdoms hangs in the balance.

On all sides bitter conflicts are reigniting, played out by a grand cast of outlaws and priests, soldiers and skinchangers, nobles and slaves. The tides of destiny will inevitably lead to the greatest dance of all…

Much has been said and written about the first Game of Thrones episode. Viewer numbers of the first episode were very good and most reviews have been quite positive. Some reviews however, were rather negative.
I have decided to wait with writing a review till after the second episode to be able to better form my opinion.

Having seen all the trailers and previews out there, most of the first episode was already known to me. I was somewhat surprised that the episode started beyond the wall but it did set a the stage for the episodes and seasons to come and created an exciting and tense start of the first season.

Positive elements

Game of Thrones clearly has it positive elements. First of all, it looks great: the settings created, the landscaped, the computer-generated elements, and the costumes all are visually stunning. You immediately see that there are no amateurs at play here.

Secondly, the acting is really good. Both the young (inexperienced) and the older actors put in an excellent performance which is especially important for such a character driven series.

Lastly, viewer numbers are good and HBO has ordered a second season. With enough viewers and the backing of the studio, Game of Thrones will have time to develop and find its place.

Less positive elements

A lot of time was spent on introducing all the characters and their personalities, which is understandable given the sheer amount of characters involved in the series. This was done well but I am still afraid that viewers unknown to the books will have had a hard time with the first episode. For me, having read all the Ice & Fire books so far, it resulted in a feeling of being a bit overwhelmed as well.

A second point, but this may be personal, is that the sex and nudity in especially the first episode were a bit over the top. I got the impression a lot of it was included in the episode just to make it more interesting instead of it being really needed for the story. On the other hand, George R.R. Martin never shied away from a bit of flesh in his novels.

Conclusion

I can be short in my conclusion: I liked the first two episode of Game of Thrones but they left me not completely satisfied. Somehow, the series has not yet been able to truly grip my full attention. I will continue to watch the series and I hope that it will become better by the episode, resulting in it being the best fantasy TV series ever.
The last point I want to make is with the story of A Song of Ice & Fire being so good and complex, the TV series may take its time to find the perfect combination of complexity and accessibility but it the end I am confident it will result in something great.

Contrary to almost all other well-known fantasy series, the Shannara trilogy is set in the distant future. However, all other classic elements of fantasy stories are present: strange lands and races, magic and a fight between good and evil.

Author Terry Brooks has written many Shannara series after the original trilogy, many of them best sellers, making him one of the most successful fantasy authors.

Story & Setting

After the destruction of the world as we know it, several races (men, elves, dwarves and trolls) fight each other for world domination. A group of elves, known as the Druids try to prevent war and defeat evil, as do the members of the Shannara family, who are from mixed heritage of elf and man.
Magic plays an important part but throughout the series technology is also being used.

Conclusion

With a storyline and races comparable to those of The Lord of the Rings, some say this series is a simplified copy of LoTR. To me, that statement is cutting corners a bit. However, I also feel that the series is a nice and easy read but not much more than that. Then again, Shannara has a lot of fans and has been an introduction to fantasy for many so I felt I had to include it in the list of best fantasy series.

There have been plans to make a movie based on the Shannara novels (Warner Bros had to rights to do so until 2010) but so far this has not happened.