Book Recomendation: The Belgariad

The Belgariad
   By David Eddings

Book 1 - Pawn of Prophecy

Book 2 - Queen of Sorcery
Book 3 - Magician’s Gambit
Book 4 - Castle of Wizardry
Book 5 - Enchanter’s End Game

“The first thing the boy Garion remembered was the kitchen at Faldor’s farm. For all the rest of his life he had a special warm feeling for kitchens and those peculiar sounds and smells that seemed to somehow combine into a bustling seriousness that had to do with love and food and comfort and security and, above all, home.” – Pawn of Prophecy

Ever since I first picked up Pawn of Prophecy back in high school the Belgariad has been one of my favorite all time fantasy series. They are some of those books that I always keep in my library and pull out to reread time and time again. I even have the audio version, read by Cameron Beierle who is one of my favorite readers for Audible, and will often turn leave one on at night to listen to as I drift off to sleep, soothing my mind with a fun and familiar story.

The story follows Garion, a very young boy growing up on an isolated farm. Like most boys he dreams of adventures and excitement. But when the world is threatened by an ancient evil several of the adults in Garion’s life turn out not to be the commoner’s they had appeared but powerful sorcerers of legend and they must abandon their disguises and leave the farm to save the world. Young Garion finds himself inexplicably and suddenly wrenched from his quite life and pulled into a life of real adventure with a dire race across the world to prevent the awakening of a dark god bend on enslaving the world.  

Rereading the books now that I’m older I can, if I’m looking for it, notice problems with the writing style. Eddings tends to be a bit clichéd at times. But where his writing might suffer in technique he definitely makes up for it in two ways: First, he is excellent at characterizing things quickly and plugging them smoothly into the narrative in such a way that make you interested in that character. Second, there are a lot of ‘behinds the scenes’ world building that I find really fascinating – how different types of magic works, the pantheon of gods, the history of the world. Usually the book kind of just throws these things out quickly here and there were they are needed but I found them very fascinating.

The books themselves are not very complex but they are very entertaining and easy to read mixture of adventure, humor, and fantasy. The series was very popular in the 90s and remains so today so it is easy to find the books at any library or to buy inexpensive copies online (thank goodness, since I’ve had to replace mine a couple of times as I wear them out or give them to friends).

Book Recommendation: The Liaden Universe

This has become one of my all time favorite universes of books. I have to say universe rather than series because the reading order of the books is really up to you as most of them can be read independently of the others.

However, for the full experience I would recommend reading the novels in order of their internal chronology which would make it Balance of Trade, Local Custom, Scout’s Progress, Mouse and Dragon, Conflict of Honors, Agent of Change, Carpe Diem, Plan B, Fledgling, I Dare, Saltation, Ghost Ship, Necessity’s Child, Dragon Ship and Trade Secret. 

I intentionally left out Crystal Soldier and Crystal Dragon which are in many ways prequels to the whole universe of stories... those two novels deal with the story of the universe before, how it was destroyed, and how the survivors came to Liad, Terra, and the other worlds in the new Universe. I would recommend reading the two Crystal books sometime after Scout's Progress and before Fledgling.  

But those are just recommendations, the novels are pretty easy to ready in just about any order. The only warning I'd give about reading order is Crystal Soldier needs to be read before Crystal Dragon and Carpe Diem, Plan B, I Dare, Ghost Ship are serial as is Fledgling, Saltation, Ghost Ship, and Dragon Ship. Yes, Ghost Ship is in both series as the two storylines intermingle.

The stories are written by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller who do a wonderful job crafting intense plots, vivid backgrounds, and facinating characters.

I've only mentioned the novels in the universe but the Liaden Universe also has two or three dozen short stories as well. These are easy to get on Amazon for Kindle but woe be to anyone like me that wants to get them on paper... it gets down right expensive. Its a bit easier to collect them all in paper if you order the reprintings Ombibuses that gather bunches of them together: Liaden Universe Companion Volume One, Liaden Universe Companion Volume Two, Liaden Universe Constellation One, and Liaden Universe Constellation Two. (Hint: I have the final three of the four and if any of you REALLY love me and want to give me an impractically expensive gift, the Liaden Universe Companion Volumn One usually sell on E-bay or Amazon for about $200-300 dollars a copy - for a book that was originally around $20, unfortunately it had a small run and was already out of print before I discovered the Universe for myself).

Liaden Universe stories are usually a wonderful blend of action, scifi, comedy, culture, cats and romance. A delight to read for almost anyone.

Doorways of the Mind

“Perhaps the greatest faculty our minds possess is the ability to cope with pain. Classic thinking teaches us of the four doors of the mind, which everyone moves through according to their need.

First is the door of sleep. Sleep offers us a retreat from the world and all its pain. Sleep marks passing time, giving us distance from the things that have hurt us. When a person is wounded they will often fall unconscious. Similarly, someone who hears traumatic news will often swoon or faint. This is the mind's way of protecting itself from pain by stepping through the first door.

Second is the door of forgetting. Some wounds are too deep to heal, or too deep to heal quickly. In addition, many memories are simply painful, and there is no healing to be done. The saying 'time heals all wounds' is false. Time heals most wounds. The rest are hidden behind this door.

Third is the door of madness. There are times when the mind is dealt such a blow it hides itself in insanity. While this may not seem beneficial, it is. There are times when reality is nothing but pain, and to escape that pain the mind must leave reality behind.

Last is the door of death. The final resort. Nothing can hurt us after we are dead, or so we have been told.” 
- Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind

Thumbs and Ammo: By Tom T

Thumbs and Ammo: By Tom T: By Tom T

Book Recommendation: The Ranger’s Apprentice by John Flanagan

Recently I’ve discovered and started reading John Flanagan’s Ranger’s Apprentice Series. Initially I did not like the series as it seemed to me to be sort of plagiarizing off of Raymond Feist’s Magician’s Apprentice Series. In fact it seems fairly obvious that Flanagan used Feist’s books as a template for his own, at least in their initial stages.

The Magician books focus on two young orphan boys being raised as wards of a back-country lord. The custom in the area is for all children in the area to spend time working for all of the various craftmaster’s in the keep so that they may be evaluated and chosen into an apprenticeship that is suitable for them. In the Magician one boy has no problem becoming a warrior apprentice but the other isn’t chosen by any of the craftmasters and so is looking forward to a life of exile. At the last moment the Lord’s magician surprises everyone by stepping forward and taking the boy as an apprentice, something that the magician has never done before. The boy has always dreamed of being a warrior and so is uncertain and scared of the life this promises him.

The Ranger books does the same thing, although I don’t think quite as well. Only orphans are faced with needing a craftmaster to choose them to be an apprentice, otherwise they become common field hands. And there is no period of the children working under the craftmasters to be evaluated, it is much more of a… ‘yah, they look like they could do it’ kind of selection. But like the Magician books one of the boys is immediately selected for warrior training and the other is left standing alone and scared with nobody asking for his service… until the Lord’s mysterious ranger does so, something he’s never done before.

The Lost City of Gold

The Lost City of Gold - A movie rough

 

Characters

 

Good Guys

• Carl and Jane, husband and wife archaeologists
• Michael, archeology graduate student, and our stories main protagonist
• Jessica, anthropology graduate student, Michael’s girlfriend
• Daniel, male athlete, Michael’s brother, handsome, smart, and talented but a bit lazy
• Lora, Daniel’s girlfriend, beautiful but vapid
• Tori, organizes and leads expeditions for Carl and Jane, expert outdoor woman
• Terrance and Paul, Tori’s assistants. Terrance is in love with Tori which she is aware of but she doesn’t feel the same way because Tori is secretly attracted to Paul but hasn’t acted upon it because of her job supervising him and the friendship between Terrance and Paul. Unknown to either Terrance or Tori is that Paul is in the closet and in love with Terrance.
• Ryan, brilliant but socially awkward university student who is really good at putting the clues together but not with dealing with his crush on Jessica.
• The good guys also have several other minor members, such as several local Central American guys who have been part of previous expeditions are join the group when they reach Central America.

Bad Guys

• Aaron, archaeologist, competitor with Carl and Jane but unethical
• Mr. Gravis, billionaire businessman and artifact collector, often secretly fund’s Aaron’s expeditions
• Franco, Mr. Gravis’ head of security, enforcer. Secretly worships Pauline
• Jessica, our hero Michael’s girlfriend is unfortunately also Aaron’s lover, although she doesn’t realize how unethical he really is or about his secret backers and how bad they are.
• Pauline, Mr. Gravis’ personal assistant. Beautiful and an expert at manipulating men (and women) with her looks. Also very smart and organized, and not afraid to get her own hands dirty although she prefers to trick others into doing her dirty work.
• The Bad guys also have several other lesser characters for muscle: Gravis/Franco security employees, Aaron’s disreputable Central American contacts, people drawn in by Pauline, etc.

Masters of Stealth

Photos I've seen from around the web showing that cats are masters of the game of hide and seek.