Book: Clifford D. Simak - Way Station (1963)

Have you ever heard of the term space opera? To those familiar with the science fiction genre it has a history of meaning and nowadays it is broadly used to designate a dramatic, large-scale epic involving aliens, space battles and heroic adventures on other planets. Like Star Wars. Way Station is none of that. It is about an old veteran of the American civil war, living like a hermit in an old wooden house with his rifle in a country of small-minded hillbillies.

Yet it is sometimes called a space opera. It is the most unique, heartwarming, one-of-a-kind novel. Enoch Wallace lives by himself in a valley in the middle of nowhere and he is 124 years old, but doesn’t look a day older than 30. By day he recieves the mail, sometimes interacts with his redneck neighbors and their deaf daughter, and disappears again into his wooden house. Unknown to others, the back room of his house is also an intergalactic way station, that recieves alien visitors and sents them on their way again. But the CIA takes notice and begins to spy…

There is hardly any action in this book. No space battles and otherworldly adventures. Instead it is soft and quiet and Wallace is a low-key, warm character. But I could not put this book down for a second. It is a small and fast-moving story and at the same time a bit philosophical and even mystical. It is filled with alien artifacts that forever remain a mystery and now and then an alien drops by for a cup of coffee. Simak hardly explains anything, but gives us small glimpses of the wonders out there in space. He lifts the curtains only a second to show what is waiting for us when we are ready to join the rest of the universe.

If the down-to-earth Enoch Wallace can open his mind to the wonders of the universe in his own back room, then so can we all. 40 years after publication, no writer has yet published something remotely similar to this little novel, and its small number of pages is a small price to pay for such a rich and timeless story.

Book: Robert Holdstock - Mythago Wood (1984)

Let me share with you a real discovery: Robert Holdstock’s Mythago Wood! This book came to my attention because simply everybody seems to like it; critics and readers alike. And so did I.

The central premise of this book is utterly weird and original. I am hesitant of telling you about it because if I do, you will not be able to discover it for yourself. Let me just tell you this: it is set in 1944, in England. A small piece of forest in Herefordshire, unknown to the people at large, is still primal forest, unchanged since the end of the Ice Age. You can run around it in an hour, but enter it, and there seems to be no end to it after walking a day, a week. The Wood seems to generate mythical figures from our past. But how? And what is there to be found in the deep of the wood? Stephen Huxley has already lost his father and brother to that mystery.

There is much more to it. Holdstock delves into the deep of human history, from the stories of Robin Hood and King Arthur down to the shamans of the Neolithic and the end of the last Ice Age. Mythago Wood is an exploration of myth and the primal forces of our subconscious, but set in an adventure of fantasy and horror.

Holdstock presents his story as real and rational, as a mystery that should be investigated, and when elements of fantasy suddenly strike it is scary, and should be scary. His story is a lot of things: it starts as a supernatural mystery with a 19th century feel, completely with semi-scientific diary entries, evoking Bram Stoker’s Dracula or the stories of Sherlock Holmes. Then it morphs into a horror story, and a highly emotional love story, and finally a quest of discovery, revenge and redemption.

Holdstock delivers it in elegant, neat and clear British prose. I can see this turn into a movie someday. Not often have I read such a rich and gripping novel. I recommend it to everyone.

Book: Ray Bradbury - Fahrenheit 451 (1953)

In the world of Guy Montag, the firemen’s hose does not spray water, but kerosene. It is a world were everything is backward, twisted, yet eerily familiar. People are discouraged to think, only talk about empty things and live like zombies, continuously entranced by empty popmusic and empty reality series on TV-walls. Books are illegal, and burned. It is the job of the firemen. Incidentally, fahrenheit 451 is the temperature at which book-paper catches fire and burns.

Just read some of the famous opening lines:

“It was a pleasure to burn.

It was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed. With the brass nozzle in his fists, with this great python spitting its venomous kerosene upon the world, the blood pounded in his head, and his hands were the hands of some amazing conductor playing all the symphonies of blazing and burning to bring down the tatters and charcoal ruins of history. With his symbolic helmet numbered 451 on his stolid head, and his eyes all orange flame with the thought of what came next, he flicked the igniter and the house jumped up in a gorging fire that burned the evening sky red and yellow and black.”

As you can see already, Bradbury has a very visual style of writing, with great care of imagery and the rhythm of the words. Bradbury loves words. His poetic style is still unperfected and not as controlled as in his later works. Fahrenheit 451 was one of his earliest books, written at a young age. But it makes his novel fast, short and explosive, like a fire itself. It is also a bit quirky and over-the-top in its descriptions and metaphors, but its flaws make the novel actually more lovable. And more than 50 years after publication its messages are still glowing embers. This book refuses to be put out.

It is kind of distressing that some of Bradbury’s predictions have become recognisable in our modern times. This twisted world that he describes wasn’t the result of a twisted government, but it was the general tendency of the times. It was the overcrowded world, high on mass production and fast living. Fahrenheit 451 is about the loss of thinking, leading to the loss of books. But, predictably, Guy Montag the fireman sees the errors of his trade and starts an adventure of rebellion.


Like Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four and Huxley’s Brave New World, this is a real dystopia classic and really worth reading. It has also spawned a reasonably good movie (1966), but that of course misses Bradbury’s virtuoso writing style.

Book: Douglas Adams - Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (1987)

As far as I know, this is the only Science Fiction Mystery Detective Comedy ever written. A unique artistic project. Douglas Adams was also the writer of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and if you like that, you will probably like this lesser known work as well.

Douglas Adams is like a loose cannon that drills itself all the way through the most diverse subjects, and then injects all his newfound interests into his stories. While he was working on Dirk Gently, he was, for instance, completely fascinated by computers (which was a wholly new thing back then) and he enthusiastically added some computer talk here and there. Among other things and other things (and other things). But that is the whole point of Adams’ novel: the “interconnectedness” of everything. It is unsurprisingly also the very belief of his esoteric detective Gently. And so Adams created a free pass for himself to drag the wildest things together and fuse them into a novel like a master smith. Wildly different storylines about telephone recorders, a misplaced sofa and electric monks start to fit only at the end like a jigsaw puzzle, and Dirk Gently, master of the interconnectedness, once again solved the case.

As a result, Adams’ novel does not feel like the kind of novel that has been worked on for a decade to perfect, but more like a recording of Adams’ interests at the time. The whole interconnectedness theme sounds a bit as an excuse for Adams to talk about what holds his mind. What saves this book is, off course, Adams sense of humor. Adams is a very intelligent man with a power over words, and likewise his British silliness is intelligent and witty.

Tall. Tall and absurdly thin. And good-natured. A bit like a preying mantis that doesn’t prey -- a non-preying mantis if you like. A sort of pleasant genial mantis that’s given up preying and taken up tennis instead.

Book: J.D. Salinger - The Catcher in the Rye (1951)

Please excuse the following obliquatory slimy introduction. This is one of the most famous American novels of all time and has permanently claimed a high spot on all those all time top lists. The author, J.D. Salinger, recently passed away so his masterpiece is suddenly in focus again. It’s one of those books that get ruined because students have to read it against their will on schools, but it is actually an exhilarating read for everyone older than fifteen. End of introduction.

The Catcher in the Rye is about a loudmouthed teenager named Holden, who has some real problems with the adult world. He is no child anymore but wants to protect all that is childlike and innocent, that what he has lost himself. But the adult world waiting for him is fake, phony, a goddamn joke. For about 24 hours we look through his eyes while he tells us how he raves like a cussing madman through the streets of New York, disliking everything that crosses his path.

Holden is a worst case teenager and we all recognize some part of ourselves in him. His memoir is funny as we sympathize, because yes, we have been there and we know the world can be phony place, and we admire his skill to dislike almost everything. But his view of the world is also a bit of a trap that pollutes your own, because it isn’t very optimistic. It isn’t the answer to life, but Holden has yet to learn that fact.

J.D. Salinger delivers it all in sharp, witty, crystal-clear prose. Holden is a unique character, and one of the best ever written. The story feels straightforward, simple, but the writer is a master of dialogue and hides just beneath the surface a depth and complexity that you don’t even consciously notice upon first read. It is easy to read and to relate to, funny and sad. It will not leave you unstirred.

Book: Richard Dawkins - The Greatest Show On Earth (2009)

The Evidence For Evolution, as the second title goes. More than 30 years have passed since Richard Dawkins wrote the influential The Selfish Gene and followup books, and established himself as a brilliant scientist and educator. That was the start of his journey into popular science writing, ending up with the controversial The God Delusion. Any man changes over three decades and Dawkins’ journey is deeply reflected in his books.

Even though Dawkins explains that this book is not about The God Delusion but about science, The Greatest Show On Earth is hardly a return to the dense and high level The Selfish Gene. His stories have become simpler, using more words to explain less information, and sometimes are on the brink of being pedantic. Especially when the science he presents is interspersed with comments to and about creationists and the like (although, as a biologist, I must say that his chapter about Missing Links and likewise nonsense was very entertaining, yet also highly distressing that he needed to include it). His increasing passionate way of reasoning may have its origin in the tradition of British intellectials, but I am afraid it does not help Dawkins and instead impassionates the countermovement.

One could say that Richard Dawkins has “evolved” according to his environment during the last 30 years and is now conducting an “evolutionary arms race” with creationists. His clear reasoning is still there, and Dawkins remains one of the world’s foremost scientific minds and educators, but reading The Greatest Show On Earth is not unlike stepping into a crossfire where one is forced to pick a side. But I suppose that is what Dawkins set out to do.

Books: Malcolm Gladwell - The Tipping Point (2000) and Blink (2005)

Malcolm Gladwell is a journalist working for The New Yorker and he has the great talent of unearthing and tracking down unseen forces that have a big influence on our daily lives. A very useful skill for a journalist. Gladwell then transformed into a sort of pop sociologist after he started to bundle his articles into books. Very succesful books, I might add; number one international bestsellers and so on and so forth.

The Tipping Point (2000) is the story about hypes. Why do certain brands have sudden succes and other don’t? Why became Sesame Street so well-known? Why did the 80s crime epidemic of New York suddenly stop? Why is it so hard to stop teenage smoking? The Tipping Point is about that crucial moment in which the momentum of change passes a threshold and cannot be stopped. According to Gladwell, ideas and messages are contagious like a virus and spread or die out.

Gladwell talks to lots of social scientists, psychologists and specialists from all sorts of branches of research, but also to CEOs and advertisers and brings all his findings together to present a sort of rulebook on social epidemics. But his story is never boring; he presents every chapter with case studies and examples out of our daily lives. Gladwell’s books, both The Tipping Point and the next one, Blink, overflow with interesting examples and fascinating people.


Blink (2005) is also about the social effects of a psychological phenomenon. This time he dives into the mysterious world of the subconscious. How does our subconscious influence our judgement, and, just as important, how can we influence the subconscious of others? Gladwell shows that it happens all around us and our free will is not as free as we think it is.

Gladwell’s books are immensely popular and not without controversy. They make great coffeetable conversation and are passed on from person to person. And while the correlations he makes are a bit pseudoscientific now and then, he opens our minds to real and unseen worlds so we can understand these times just a little bit better.

Book: George Orwell - 1984 (1949)

It is one of the best known books ever written. So many concepts expressed in this book have been copied and used that the very book itself and its title have become symbols. Whenever governments get too powerful or seem to meddle with psychological manipulation, there is someone who stands up and waves a copy of 1984 in their faces. It is the scariest book I have ever read.

The novel is filled with episodes that give you an uncomfortable feeling in your stomach. The Two Minutes Hate is a classic one. Other scenes are more dramatic, such as the vision of the pyramids of the Ministries of Truth, Love, Peace and Plenty that tower over the rest of the city. There are scenes that are a bit comical as well, such as the mandatory morning exercise and Winston’s job as a modifier of documents to change records of the past, but never funny. Instead these scenes have a terrible sadness in them.

Orwell systematically blocks all hope for the reader that the world will ever get better. The fascist state Winston Smith lives in will stay that way forever and the rest of the world is no different. The world exists in a balance that is maintained by three states, which keeps it forever turning. It is a nightmare without end; the future forever ruined. Even the past is lost to memory and destroyed by lies. It makes you want to bury your face in your hands and hide far away. To quote one of Orwell's characters: "If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever."

In 1948, when the book was written, totalitarianism was a real fear. Nowadays it is a bit dated in its prophetic power, but it is a story that will never get old. It is immensely powerful and alarming and as a call to freedom it will always remain relevant. Highly Recommended.

Book: Richard Adams - Watership Down (1972)

Author Michael Moorcock once said that if the bulk of American sf could be said to be written by robots, about robots, for robots, then the bulk of English fantasy seems to be written by rabbits, about rabbits and for rabbits. Well, let me tell you this: you don’t know rabbits. Richard Adams did. He spent days and days watching rabbits and he wrote a book about it. And what a book! If there ever was an instant classic, a must-read marvel that screamed originality, it is Watership Down.

You just don’t make this up. A 400 page rabbit-epic with a power to rival the greatest adventure tales ever put in print. The story circles around a small bunch of rabbits, led by the brave Hazel. His psychic brother Fiver gets a vision of bulldozers and the imminent destruction of their hill, and so they decide to leave their warren with a few others in search for a new home. Along the way they have great adventures and encounter danger and temptation at every turn.

Adams gave every rabbit his or her own character and every warren its own way of running things. He gave them their own language, complete with rabbit proverbs, poetry and culture. You would do wrong to think that this is simply a childrens book. It is a book filled with tensions and toward the end, as Hazel’s bunch is threatened by the tyrannical rabbit Woundwort, downright violent. It explores the ways that heroes are made and communities are formed.

Watership Down is one of the great originals and worth anybody’s time.

Book: Cordwainer Smith - The Rediscovery of Man (1999)

In 1950, an unknown author under the pseudonym of Cordwainer Smith published a short story in an obscure magazine that was hardly read. The magazine disappeared, but the story remained and slowly gained prestige and admiration in the word of science fiction. But nobody knew who Cordwainer Smith actually was. Over de next few decades, the mysterious Smith published another two score short stories of remarkable genius and readers discovered that all these stories were somehow linked and formed an immense arc of future history. But who was this Cordwainer Smith? It turned out to be a man named Paul Linebarger, an expert in psychological warfare and godson of Chinese prime minister Sun Yat-Sen. His best stories are now bundled as The Rediscovery of Man.

The “rediscovery of man” has a double meaning for me. The starfarers in Smith’s tales are tragic, human figures (even if they are not always, technically, human) and are given a mythical feel in later stories that refer back to earlier ones. Smith asks himself what it means to be human, and what it means to love and feel, in strange future times. He does so far more profoundly than most writers, whose idealized characters are too often found on space ships. So, while Smith’s universe is one of the most unique, strange and beautiful, it is also one of the most real, because he combines it with real people. He rediscovered man in science fiction.

After reading a few of his stories, I got the impression that Smith was narrating them to me from a distant future as legends of the past. I am reading singular moments in history, only it just happens that this history is my future. The eternal stories of the Lady Who Sailed The Soul and the Crime and Glory of Commander Suzdal should have been in my history books and I should have seen countless adaptations in film, but I live in the wrong age. This is not the age of the Instrumentality of Mankind. Reading Cordwainer Smith feels like gaining a cultural background in the shape of striking stories from a genius imagination. See what science fiction is capable of.

Book: Alexandre Dumas, père - The Count of Monte Cristo (1844)

Ever since 1844, Edmond Dantès has become a figure of almost mythlike proportions. He is the archetype avenger. Everyone who ever felt the need to take revenge, be it a child who felt an injustice or a victim of serious wrongdoing, everyone has become, momentarily, Edmond Dantès. The Count invariably gets hinted at in every modern avenger tale, such as the extraordinary Korean movie Oldboy, because Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo is the ultimate, the blueprint tale.

Perhaps only one iconic image measures itself with Dantès: Captain Ahab and his mad search for Moby Dick, but whereas Ahab dissolves into madness and perishes, Dantès plans with care, takes his revenge over course of years, and even saves himself. For madness is the danger of vengeance. But the best part of the book is not the ending, but meticulous planning of revenge that Dantès savors and we with him.

The Count of Monte Cristo is an “epic” tale of adventure, action and drama, and it has remained so popular over the years that it has become iconic. It is quite old, yes, from 1844, but Dumas knew how to write a story. Every part of the story, the downfall of happy Edmond, his mysterious resurrection and entry into society, and the slow vengeance with countless sidestories and characters, is perfect and exciting. It is a book to lose yourself in.

Book: Oliver Sacks - The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat (1985)

Neurologist Oliver Sacks presents 24 extraordinary stories about his patients. He tells their stories, how they deal with afflictions from Tourette to autism and beyond.

Most of us hold on to the idea that our body and our spirit are separated from eachother, and that our identity is an indivisible whole, but neurological diseases seriously question that assumption, and it makes neurology unnerving and fascinating at the same time. To read about people who have to fight to maintain their identity, their soul, against the most bizarre symptoms of a damaged brain; to read about those that do not even realize that something has gone wrong, strikes a deep chord.

Every case of neurological disease is a very personal one, because the very identity, the spirit, of the sick is at stake. In the 19th century it was common practise to present such a case as a life story, until the advent of the more cathegorical, distant neurology of the 20th century. Oliver Sacks means to bring the personal story back, to show how patients with neurological problems battle for their identity as heroes in a tale, and find their own ways of dealing with it.

Sacks as an observer is very thorough, human and sympathetic. His insights bring light in the worlds of his patients that are so difficult to understand. His stories are heartfelt, exciting and arresting for anyone who values his own mind, and for anyone who ever suspected that sanity is relative and self-identity can be a fleeting thing, easily lost.

Book: Susanna Clarke - Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (2004)

Not many authors present as their first publication such a big book as Susanna Clarke did. Big in wordcount and ambition, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell enters the field of literature as an immediate classic after Clarke had been working on it for a decade. At times, her book is alternate history in which England once had magical fairy-infused past, or an historical novel set at the time of the Napoleonic Wars.

Mr. Norrell, a grumpy, boring, serious man who reminds me of the actor that plays Mr Beckett in the second and third Pirates of the Caribbean movies, and his pupil Jonathan Strange, the typical English gentleman given by flights of fancy, are two talented magicians who, as the only real magicians of England, work to rediscover the workings of magic. In the process they become each others adversaries and in the ensuing battle for recognision the boundary between sanity and madness begins to shatter. Meanwhile, a gentleman with thistledown hair, brought into the world as the result of amoral use of magic by Mr. Norrell, begins to haunt their steps and the English societal landscape.

All this is an smashing counterpoint to proper English decency. Here is one of the main points of Clarke’s novel. The exploration of Victorian Englishness as a sort of comedy of manners. In this, and the elaborateness of her work, like the shimmering of a compendium of magical scholarship, her book has evoked many comparisons with J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, but Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is quite something else. It is a flowing patchwork of a wide variety of styles and moods, ranging from pure fantasy to military literature to gothic horror. Very entertaining and impressive.

Book: Tom Holland - Millennium (2008)

One way of storytelling that has become more and more popular is narrative history. It is not the dry educational highschool book that sums up the important parts and it is not historic fiction. Instead it is history told as a story. Tom Holland is one of the best selling authors in this field after his brilliant book Rubicon hit the scene, where he relates the final 100 years of the Roman Republic as a nailbiting story. His next book, Persian Fire, told us about the wars between the Persians and Sparta. Now his third book, Millennium, is in store.

Millennium tells about a fateful part of the Middle Ages. Around the 10th century, Europe is chaos. Holland shows us how, from the rubble and the vacuum left of the Roman Empire, modern Europe gradually shapes itself. It is an age of Franks, Saxons and Vikings. Of monks, knights and castles. It is a story of bitter yearning for the past, for the glory of the Roman Empire, by the desintegrating Byzantium and the western upstarts as Charlemagne who all see themselves as the heirs of the Romans and the last bullwark of young Christianity. Tom Holland has a brilliant flair for the dramatic and his tale is a gritty one.

Holland also wanted to suffuse his book with a statement for which is questionable proof. It is the idea that important revolutions in the order of the world came to pass partly because the year 1,000 was approaching fast, and many people therefore believed the End of the World was near and the Antichrist would arise. Bloodlusty pagans and the glorious expansion of Islam were to be omens of this. I think Holland occasionally tries to force the information we have too hard into this framework, but it does tie together this diverse and fascinating part of history.

Book: John Gardner - Grendel (1971)

Grendel is the mysterious monster from the old English epic Beowulf from the 10th century. Grendel has never gotten a very clear description and writers and filmmakers have given us many interpretations of the beast to choose from. John Gardner’s Grendel is the best by far, for in his little novel Grendel, he is the main character. We see his part of the Beowulf story through his eyes as he narrates his feelings and actions.

Grendel is a pathetic little monster, filled with loneliness and doubt. He hates the world, but the world does not even care. “ “Ah, sad one, poor old freak!” I cry, and hug myself, and laugh, letting out salt tears, he, he! till I fall down gasping and sobbing. (It’s mostly fake.)” Grendel points out to us that he doesn’t think that he is more noble than the deers that go at it again at springtime. He knows he is a monster, and fails to see any reason in it. Grendel asks the dragon for help but realized that the old one is not his friend. “My advice to you, my violent friend, is to seek out gold and sit on it.” Eventually he keeps attacking the humans, inspired by the human storyteller (“the shaper”) who names him the big adversary of the Danes. Only this way Grendel could make a purpose for himself in the big cosmic show.

Grendel is a bittersweet tale, at once humoristic and sad. He pesters the humans with glee but is convinced in the back of his head that nothing has any meaning. He revels in psychotic mindgames, talks to himself and has an unhealthy love/hate relationship with his mother. “(whispering, whispering. Grendel, has it occured to you my dear that you are crazy?)”

And when finally the big hero arrives, Beowulf, John Gardner describes him as utterly insane. For only a complete inner obsession with heroism can end Grendel’s nihilism. So what is there to live for, as Grendel asks himself? His road at least seems a dead end. “Poor Grendel’s had an accident,” I whisper. “So may you all.”

Book: Gene Wolfe - The Book of the New Sun

Consisting of:
The Shadow of the Torturer (1980)
The Claw of the Conciliator (1981)
The Sword of the Lictor (1982)
The Citadel of the Autarch (1983)

“It is possible I already had some presentiment of my future. The locked and rusted gate that stood before us, with wisps of river fog threading its spikes like the mountain paths, remains in my mind now as the symbol of my exile. That is why I have begun this account of it with the aftermath of our swim, in which I, the torturer’s apprentice Severian, had so nearly drowned.”

So much has been said and written about these books. I feel I cannot do then justice in this little review. After finishing these books, I felt I was living in a hypnotized state, with Severian’s (or Gene’s) eloquent manner of speaking resounding in my head. It felt like my life was a continuation of Severian’s story and in a way it was so, because the Book of the New Sun’s impact on my mental life was very great for quite a long time.

When I look back on other epics, such as Tolkien’s The Silmarillion or Eddison’s The Worm Ouroboros, I fail to completely recall all the scenes, but I am left with a vague remembering of great happenings of the size of Wagnerian mythology. The Book of the New Sun awakens this feeling during the reading of the text, because it is up to the reader to tie up the loose ends. Severian, the main character, narrates what has happened to him but he is an unreliable narrator. He, like all of us, interprets and lies to himself. Gene Wolfe plays a sneaky game of words and I didn’t know until halfway through the first novel that I was trapped in it. The rule of the game is to pay attention and to find the grand story behind the story. The plot behind the plot. Thinking back on it, months after finishing the book, I keep on reinterpreting his words and finding clues.

As Wolfe makes Severian say at the end: “Before you assume that I have cheated you, read again”. And so I did, and indeed all the answers are there in casual revelations, only now I read more carefully, new questions arise. This book is meant to be reread multiple times, and every reread feels like a personal resurrection because it makes you feel more intelligent.

So far I haven’t even discussed Gene Wolfe’s mastery over the English language. Severian is one of the most extraordinary characters ever brought to life and he speaks in beautiful sentences. His world is set in the so far distant future that the stars are visible during the day and incomprehensible technology from the past manifests itself as magic. The books are wildly inventive and original but at the same time very sober. I will go further and say that The Book of the New Sun is so much more than speculative fiction. It is a profound meditation upon history, symbolism, religion, philosophy and mythology and perhaps the best thing I have ever read.

Book: Ursula K. LeGuin - The Earthsea Quartet

Consisting of:

A Wizard of Earthsea (1968)
The Tombs of Atuan (1971)
The Farthest Shore (1972)

The Earthsea novels are considered milestones in the fantasy genre and have never gotten out of print. Nowadays they are presented as the Earthsea Quartet, as the book Tehanu (1990) is added as a fourth, which is written almost 20 years after the third. Tehanu feels disconnected from the original trilogy in style and substance and I will say some more of it at the end of my story.

The three Earthsea novels have gathered a lot of critical acclaim thanks to LeGuin’s knowledge of anthropology and psychology. The Archipelago she sets up harbours an immense diversity in cultures and every book expands upon another psychological theme. Most impressive of all are the subtle differences in style that LeGuin used between books to get to her themes.

The first book, A Wizard of Earthsea, reads as a travel memoir. It follows the adventures of the young wizard Ged while he travels from island to island and grows up. The wizardschool he end up in is a very clear progenitor of the later Harry Potter novels. The ending comes straight from psychoanalyst Carl Jung. LeGuin’s style is very descriptive and a bit detached.

The second book, The Tombs of Atuan, might be her best and provides a perfect balance with the first. While Ged travels around the world, the girl Tenar stays her whole life on one single place. LeGuin takes her time to describe this place so that it really comes alive. There are only a few locations in the fantasy genre so fully realized (perhaps only Gormenghast). If the theme of the first book is growing up, the theme of the second is love and trust. Tenar is a richly developed character and LeGuin’s style is personal and involving. The third book, The Farthest Shore, is again a travel story but not as detached as the first. Its theme is death and the circle of life. The adventures of Ged end, but overlap with those of the young prince Arren, who grows up.

By highlighting the psychology I do not want to convey that these are boring books. Not at all. For those who like to read about dragons, dark shadows, old forces and the open sea Earthsea is a must read.

Then a word about Tehanu. The reactions to this book are almost solely negative. It is, let me say this, a very well written book. But the magic seems lost and almost nothing happens. The hero of the trilogy is described as a shimmer of what he once was and is involved in little backyard adventures. It may have a lot to do with the fact that LeGuin had become a passionate feministe. I don’t want to scoff at feminism but she gave Tehanu a didactic aspect that severly hurts the magic.

Book: Mervyn Peake - The Gormenghast Novels

Consisting of:
Titus Groan (1946)
Gormenghast (1950)
Titus Alone (1959)

Mervyn Peake is not so much a writer, but more a painter. A painter of scenes and he uses words instead of paint. In broad lines he sketches a room, scrutinizes it from a distance, advances like a predator with his fingers raised high to strike upon his paralyzed keyboard, but when he reaches the keys he puts a few well-chosen words where they belong with a loving touch and a twinkle in his eye. Such are his chapters built up.

His chapters are sometimes not more than a single scene, or a single conversation. You can imagine that the Gormenghast novels do have an elaborate plot because there is simply no time and space for it. The book is already thick as it is. But it does not matter, for it is the atmosphere that matters. The tale is set almost entirely within a claustrophobic castle of enormous proportions, Gormenghast, with its mysterious shadows and creaks from old age, howling drafts, twisting alleys and stairs. The characters are near caricatures, grotesque but compelling.

Mervyn Peake created something wholly original by plunging the darkest chasms of his imagination and painted a surrealistic, macabre masterwork that somehow connects to deep roots of the subconscious. Gormenghast paved the way for gothic subcultures and its influence is clearly to be found in the Harry Potter novels. Some consider it to be one of the greatest works of the English language.

Reading Gormenghast is not easy. I cannot read for long stretches because the mood and darkness of the place becomes too oppressive, but I cannot stay away from it for too long because Peake’s descriptions have enveloped my mind. I have never been so fully immersed in another world.

No book can prepare you for the Gormenghast novels, because they are unlike anything ever written.

“Over their irregular roofs would fall throughout the seasons, the shadows of time-eaten buttresses, of broken and lofty turrets, and, most enormous of all, the shadow of the Tower of Flints. This tower, patched unevenly with black ivy, arose like a mutilated finger from among the fists of knuckled masonry and pointed blasphemously at heaven. At night the owls made of it an echoing throat; by day it stood voiceless and cast its long shadow.”

Book: E.R. Eddison - The Worm Ouroboros (1922)

The Worm Ouroboros is a curious book. Written 30 years before The Lord of the Rings, it is often seen as the Ring’s predecessor. And when Tolkien’s work was published, the comparison with Eddison’s book did not always go in Tolkien’s favour. Eddison too gives us a fully realised world, the creation of which began in Eddison’s teenage years.

Eddison believed in living life to the full, like commercials tell us today. All his characters are larger than life, glorious heroes and passionate villains. Houses are grand, the landscape is legendary, women are beautiful and glory is worth dying for. The book makes me feel like hitting my chest with a fist and let out a primordial scream, but it is not a primordial book. There is real philosophy behind it. Eddison believed in this world, and especially beauty, beauty of women and beauty of landscapes, is a real tangible thing in this world. At the beginning it sounds overdone, but it has a cumulative effect to the extent that you actually feel that you experience a world with a different set of values. Ancient Greek, or Viking. It is the only way in which the ending of the book would make any sense (I can say no more).

Add to this that Eddison is a fantastic storyteller. When the action starts, it is there to stay till the end of the book. And he tells his story in Shakespearian proze, which might be hard at first, but gives a wonderful feel to it. It will make you read the story in small pieces so you can savour it slowly and let the wonderful feel linger in your brain. (Here I must confess that I have read the Dutch translation, but even so, the book’s volcanic nature apparently has radiated through.)

So here we have scene after scene of beautifully crafted material. Our heroes are happily climbing an unclimbable mountain, while looking to tame an untameable animal to ride to a land which cannot be reached, while their country gets invaded by a perpetually resurrecting villain. Still the book is a flawed masterpiece, because it has some irksome failings. 1) The first 15 or so pages give an introduction about a guy that dreams about flying to Mercury and then disappears from the story, 2) All the nations have names like demonland, impland and witchland, but all the inhabitants are simply humans. Let us forgive and forget these quirks. Perhaps Eddison could not discard some of his teenage ponderings.

This book is a force of nature. It becomes the symbol of a philosophy that stays with everyone who reads it.

Book: Patricia McKillip – The Riddle-Master Trilogy

Comprising of:
The Riddle-Master of Hed (1976)
Heir of Sea and Fire (1977)
Harpist in the Wind (1979)

In the seventies, two writers, Patricia McKillip and Stephen Donaldson, had a close friendship and both set out to write their own fantasy epic. Donaldson published the first book of his Chronicles of Thomas Covenant and in the same year, McKillip published The Riddle-Master of Hed. I suppose the two would make a nice pair on your shelf.
Both authors claim to be inspired by Tolkien. But although McKillip admits so, her trilogy is remarkably original. Far more so than piles of epics that do not make such confessions. And although there is now available an excellent omnibus of all three parts, her story stays quite unread.

On with the review. McKillip’s writing is not just solid, but also lush and dreamy. At times quite descriptive, but always beautiful:

"The wind sped past like wild horses, pouring through empty rooms, thundering down the street to spiral the tower and moan through its secret chamber."

The book can be reread just for the richness of her writing. But let’s not forget her characters. Almost all of them are human. There are no Elves of Dwarves or Dragons in this epic. Only wizards and things-I-will-not-spoil-for-you. They have a very realistic feel about them. Especially in the second half of the story, the main characters are supposed to be romantically involved, but they quibble and whine and on the whole really get to know each other. Also the character Deth is one of the most interesting characters in the history of the fantasy genre.
The worldbuilding is very rich. During the story, McKillip makes the reader familiar with its interesting past in moments of creative brilliance. Also her idea of a magical land-rule remains fresh throughout the books and the riddle-society as an alternative to science or an historical institute feels utterly believable. And the story itself is epic alright. Battling armies, ancient powers, world-rule.

Are there no negative comments to make? Well, I didn’t like her use of names. Deth, Yrth, Hel, Hed. It sounds too shallow to me.