The start of a new year is a good time to glance back at the past year and try to make some sense of everything that happened. I will do this in a small way by summing up some of the major ripples in the pond called fantasy during 2010. This means that I have made an overview of the best fantasy novels, series, movies, TV series and games of the past year.
Perhaps this short overview will point out a movie you have not seen or remind you of a novel you should have read during last year. If not, it will at least help you form an opinion of the level of the fantasy media in 2010.
Fantasy books and series
First, a quick look at the most popular fantasy books of the pas year. Several novels stand out but in particular Towers of Midnight, the 13th novel in Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time series. It has been written by Brandon Sanderson and the general opinion is that he has done this quite well. This is also reflected by the number one position of the book in the New York Times Best Seller list and the fact that it remained high in this list and was sold in high numbers for many weeks.
Another novel that is absolutely worth mentioning is Under Heaven, written by Guy Gavriel Kay. Kay is probably best know for Tigana but has shown that he can become a stable and important author in the genre.
Last book I want to mention is the recently released Stonewielder. Written by Ian Cameron Esslemont and set in the Malazan world he has created with Steven Erikson, it is a great read that I will review in the near future.
Fantasy movies, TV series and games
The major fantasy event on the screen in 2010 must have been the latest Harry Potter movie The Deathly Hallows: Part I. This penultimate movie in the Potter Series was of course very popular and successful and, I have to admit, quite good. I will review the movie sometime in the coming weeks.
Of course there were more new fantasy movies in 2010, like Twilight: Eclipse and Clash of the Titans. Both are entertaining films but not ones you will remember as a classic.
Looking at fantasy television series, there was the news of the cancellation of Legend of the Seeker which is a shame but not that big a loss as this TV series had dwindling viewer ratings and simply wasn’t that good. Hopefully, HBO can fill the gap and show how a fantasy TV series should be made when Game of Thrones airs on April 17, 2011!
On the game front there has not been much fantasy activity worth mentioning. The World of Warcraft expansion pack Cataclysm was very successful but that was hardly surprising.
Looking back, I would say it was a pretty decent year for the fantasy genre but not a great one. In one of the next posts I will look ahead and will explain what the year 2011 has to offer and boy, that will be something!
Although I haven’t read the novel yet and therefore cannot post a review on it, I at least wanted to bring the news that Guy Gavriel Kay has published his latest book: “Under Heaven”.
This eleventh novel of the author of Tigana is set in the Tang Dynasty of 8th-century China and tells the story of Shen-Tai, the son of a general who sees it as his duty to his father to mourn and bury the soldiers who died in a battle in which also his father was killed. Not only does he bury the soldiers of his own people but also the enemy dead. Then he receives an unexpected gift of 250 rare horses from a princess that turns out to be a gift that will change his life. Shen-Tai has to return from his exile to his home city. As the gift is extremely precious, people are willing to kill for it which is why Shen-Tai has to go to extraordinarely lengths to protect his life.
So far Under Heaven seems to have been well-received so I am looking forward to reading this novel. If anyone has already read it, feel free to comment as long as you don’t give away major spoilers!
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born op January 3, 1892. As author of The Hobbit, The Silmarillion and especially The Lord of The Rings, Tolkien is seen by many as the best and most influential fantasy author. Personally I have put him on a second place as there is one author who’s style I prefer but I too cannot deny that no other author has done more for the genre genre than J.R.R. Tolkien.
Most important works
Everyone with even the slightest interest in fantasy is of course familiar with the pinnacle of Tolkien’s works: The Lord of the Rings. Translated into dozens of languages and read by millions, LOTR has become one of the major literature works of the 20th century. In turn, the movies were the cinematic highlights of the first decade of the new millennium.
Next to The Lord of The Rings, Tolkien also wrote The Hobbit and The Silmarillion. The Hobbit has more of a fairytale feeling to it, describing the adventures of the hobbit Bilbo Baggins who, together with a group of dwarves, tries to steal back a treasure from the dragon Smaug.
The Silmarillion is a collection of stories and descriptions of Middle-Earth before the age in which The Lord of The Rings is set. When Tolkien died he had not finished the collection but his son Christopher Tolkien, with assistance from Guy Gavriel Kay (author of Tigana) completed the book in 1977.
Style of writing
Tolkien’s writing style may not the most accessible ever. He liked to write elaboratively about the settings of his stories and to go in much detail about the world, the races and the characters he created. He even went as far as creating complete mythologies and languages, like Elvish. Personnaly I do not dislike his way of writing but I can definitely imagine people growing quite tired of it.
To conclude: the world and stories Tolkien has created are simply fantastic and by writing The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings he produced the main landmarks of the fantasy genre. He deserves all the recognition and credit he has gotten and I wish he could have seen the full impact of his works.
Almost all good fantasy stories come in the form of series. As discussed earlier, it is difficult to find a single book containing a good and well-balanced fantasy story. The genre has a preference for series, probably because it provides more room for building and describing the world the author has created.
Written in 1990 by Guy Gavriel Kay, Tigana is one of the few exceptions to the rule. Kay has managed to encompass his fantasy story in one book and, while not focusing on too much details, did make it feel like a real world and also made enough pages available for character development.
The story
Tigana tells the story of a peninsula called the Palm, ruled by two foreign sorcerers and their armies, dividing the continent in two parts. The sorcerer king Brandin lost his son during the conquest of one of the kingdoms of the peninsula called Tigana and therefore cast a spell to make all people, except those from Tigana, forget the name of the kingdom. Together with several other people Alessan, the former Prince of Tigana, plots not only to kill Brandin but also the other sorcerer Alberico of Barbadior. Alessan sees killing them at the same time as the only way to really free Palm from the oppressors.
Another main part of the story is the life of Dianora, a woman from Tigana who intented to kill Brandin but becomes part of his harem, falls in love with him and ends up as his wife.
Both story lines slowly come together throughout the book and as a reader you find out how the characters are connected to each other and how the story will play out in the end.
Conclusion
Tigana is a great book, with a good story, original concepts and interesting characters. Magic, and with it fantasy, is not a very big element in Tigana. Wizards mostly have subtle powers like influencing other people.Therefore, the book can be considered as low fantasy.
I have to admit that I haven’t read other books by Guy Gavriel Kay but, based on Tigana, I will definitely do so in the future.
