Fantastic Authors

Despite growing up enamored of knights and playing Dungeons and Dragons, I never read Tolkein. Then, as a junior in college, I took a class called something like the Philosophy of Fantasy. It delved into the underpinnings of certain fictional works and what they reflect about our own mythology. My roommate Jason mentioned how much he enjoyed the Lord of the Rings trilogy so many times that I ended up reading his books that semester. That was my first exposure to J. R. R. Tolkein. It is such a beautiful and well-crafted body of work that labelling it anything seems inappropriate for it stands as great as any book of any genre that I have ever read. Tolkein was a superb writer, with a splendid sense of style. The genius of the work is how intricately woven they are in a true body of work. The genius of the work is how well it is written and how easily it draws in the reader. Millions of readers are testament to these facts. His work tends to ring truer from his personal research and interests in existing mythologies from across the world, particularly the Nordic. The stories are engaging. The stories are compelling. Simply put, the best works among the fantasy genre. Perhaps among the best of all fictional works. Superb story-telling of the highest measure.

Also in that class, I read works by C.S. Lewis and came to read the Screwtape Letters and the Space Trilogy. These roundaboutly addressed more directly the Christian themes and motives behind his writing. I found this a little too wordy and less compelling. The stories I read seemed more a platform for communicating a message than a goal in and of themselves. Perhaps my reading of his nonfiction works - such as Mere Christianity - tempers this impression. However, there seems no great rush to bring his written work to film so perhaps there is something missing after all.

Years later, I decided to read the source books for the Conan the Barbarian film I enjoyed so much. I had read great reviews of Robert E. Howard and knew that the stories evolved from magazine articles into adored characters by millions. Main characters he created that were featured as movies include Conan, Kull, and Red Sonja. I plucked the first five Conan books in the series believing I would enjoy it very much. It was oddly redundant however and I stopped at the third book in the series. The writing is less craftful and more action-oriented. That is fine, but the derth of character development is not. Every episode was clearly a Conan finds himself in a cartoonish predicament and finds a cartoonish resolution. That is the purpose these books serve. Reading them without pictures is almost a disservice for they draw so heavily on selling the bulk and superior, animalistic skills of Conan and the author is not quite the best at delivering engaging descriptions. He clearly had a vivid imagination, so much so that he failed to accurately describe in any real detail the places Conan travelled, the human side of any of the warriors, or the reason for all the adventure really. The best Conan story I like is the story of his creation, where the author stated he felt Conan in the room with him and so he continued to write about Conan's exploits rather than to turn and face the behemoth.

A couple years back I bought a book of a few short stories by H.P. Lovecraft. There was an immediate and odd sensation from reading these. I am not prone to silly thoughts of supernatual beings and lifeforms beyond my conception, yet reading these arose a great appreciation for such oddities. The stories themselves revolve around the same themes, places, and character stypes, but they are very good. I got the sense that one collection of them is enough as they repeat the same messages in different ways. Clearly very good though. A curious sensation they created in my head is the sound of steel rubbing on steel under immense pressures, not unlike deep sea vessels crashing in upon themselves in the pressures. Very strange. Very good though.

This year I decided to read some of Jack Vance. I started with Big Planet, which was imaginative, not well written, action-oriented pulp. There was enough there to keep the imagination very enthralled so I read a series of short stories called Eight Fantasms and Magics. At least half of these stories were better than half the movies I have seen in the past five years. I was rapt with joy for his diverse and compelling works, all of which were very imaginative and unlike each other or most other works. The writing varied in skill from mildly vague to very rote in devotion to action. Oft with immediacy in his writing. I grew to like that however and am in the midst of taking on Chateau D'if and envision myself reading much more Vance over the years.