Day 97 - Fantasy Books

I stopped reading fantasy when I was in my early 20's.  At the time it seemed to me childish and immature.  I did try a number of times to get into the latest fantasy craze, but I had moved on to vampires and comics.  Once a week I would run down to the bookstore and pick up my latest comics.  I was mesmerized by the art and the stories was all a good soap opera would want.  Let me tell you that TV soaps have nothing on the comics.  So for years I immersed myself into that world and for a while I wrote.  Nothing profound or great - just random melodramatic thoughts.   Now I immerse myself in television.  I am a television junky if there ever was one.  I love the stories I love the interaction I even love the bad acting.

But I still like a good book.  About ten years ago I started up with fantasy again.  My vampire phase has pretty much petered out, and while now I do occasionally read a good vampire story, I lean more towards mysteries and yes fantasy.   It started when I was trying to entertain myself while I exercised on my stationary bike.  I had discovered books on tapes and I wanted something that would hold my interest but I didn't have to pay very close attention to, so I found an epic fantasy story.  I found the beginning horribly boring and I had to listen to the beginning about 4 times because I would space out in the middle and couldn't track all the characters let alone the main characters.  Then about 12 hours into the book it go really interesting.  I mean I was riveted.  I couldn't wait to find out what happened next and to my joy this author had 8 more books just like this one.  Each book was over 35 hours long, and they kept me going on my exercising better then any trainer could.  During the course of time he wrote 3 more books and then got sick. It is all one story and it was suppose to end, but he never finished it.  But they did get someone to go over his notes and finish the story for him.  There is one more book left and the author has done a great job picking up from where he left off.  So I will - hopefully - be able to see how the story ends.  Unfortunately, that is probably where that universe will end though.

But getting back to the point - most fantasies have similar story lines - an ordinary boy/girl has extraordinary abilities and doesn't know about them, has to fight to save there world - they win and live happily ever after (yes some fairy tales do tell the same story with less words.)  What sets fantasy stories apart is to write a fantasy it has to be over 300,000 words.  I don't know if that is a rule, but it seems that all fantasies are huge.  Epic is I guess what they call them.  That is a lot of words.

So I am still reading fantasy, mystery, and sometimes political thrillers, but I haven't graduated to "literature" yet, give me a few years, maybe I will become more sophisticated.

All of this to say I found a new fantasy series that I am fully enjoying and it isn't the formula as stated above.  And the author is the one who is finishing up that great series  - so anyone who enjoys fantasy would enjoy him.

Try it you might like it. -