Karsa Orlong

It was good. and

Maybe they're the next six Malazan books

See!! You could've just stopped at "Noooo"!

No And the other book is a trilogy in one volume, so it might take a while I don't know if it's a magic sword yet - or are you posting spoilers again?

Oh sorry, I hadn't noticed

I have another word for those people, but I'd better not post it here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3safFEUMJ4 2:20 onwards

Thanks It's only 200 pages long No, you know me, can't usually read two books by the same author on the trot Now reading Poul Anderson's The Broken Sword

Book #72: The Forgotten Beasts of Eld by Patricia A. McKillip From Amazon: THE FORGOTTEN BEASTS OF ELD is a spellbinding tale of chilling sorcery, human complexities, and dynastic war. Sybel is just sixteen when she is given a baby to raise. Born and brought up on Eld Mountain, with only the fantastic creatures called there by wizardry as playmates, she knows nothing of humankind . . . until the baby awakens emotions she never knew she had. And when Coren, the man who brought the baby to Sybel, returns to Eld, her serenity is shattered once again. Thoughts: Continuing my trip back through some fantasy books of yore, I found out about this one by chance as I was browsing. Winner of the inaugural World Fantasy Award in 1975, McKillip's tale of a young girl who lives alone in a mountain fastness surrounded by mythical creatures has the feel, to me, of an ancient legend, or even a fairy tale, passed down from generation to generation. Sybel, the ivory-haired protagonist of the story, is a remarkably complex and three-dimensional character. In the manner of a great saga, the book opens with a brief history of her ancestry, from the wizard Heald (who "coupled with a poor woman once, in the king's city of Mondor, and she bore a son with one green eye and one black eye") to his son Myk, to his son Ogam, and finally to Ogam's daughter Sybel who, as you can gather, is touched with wizardry. From her cold, abrasive beginnings, as she has been left alone since her father's death, she begins to discover her humanity when a lord of Sirle, Coren (the seventh son of a seventh son, no less), flees a war to bring a baby to her, as she is, apparently, the baby's cousin. The baby boy, Tamlorn, is a royal heir, and Coren believes it is only with the remote Sybel that the boy will be safe from those who would use him to their own ends. And then there are the beasts themselves. Sybel, like her father and his father before him, has the ability to "call" these creatures, and once "called" they are bound to her. Among them are the falcon, Ter, who acts as something of a bodyguard ("I told you to drop him off the top of Eld Mountain," Sybel says to him when Coren first appears ) and the great boar, Cyrin, who is the wisest of them all but who will only convey that wisdom in the form of riddles. "The giant Grof," he says, "was hit in one eye by a stone, and that eye turned inward so that it looked into his mind, and he died of what he saw there". This riddle, in itself, is key to the whole story. And then there is the Liralen, a great white bird that Sybel has been calling for ages but cannot find. If it sounds a little generic, well, it isn't. In fact, I'd go so far to say as it is quite unique - I've never read anything like it before, and it isn't at all what I expected it to be. You might be able to tell where it's going, and you might even be able to tell where it will end, but it's the inevitability of it all, and McKillips' ability to play against those expectations, that raise it above the crowd. It's layered with meaning, gorgeously written, and full of wonderful characters. McKillip also has the know-how to make you question, in the second half of the novel, whether or not you should really be liking these characters quite so much. There is one chapter that is quite horrifying in its intent, chilling, even. She's also got quite a light touch with the humour, which is very welcome. If I had any quibbles with it - and I had to have one - it's that she has a tendency for a kind of stutter in the dialogue, in that the character will start to say something, pause, and then start again. Not a major issue as such, but it does happen rather a lot, which makes it more noticeable. This is the sort of book you could imagine finding on an elderly relative's bookshelves, hidden away in a corner, that you take down and blow the dust from its cover and lose yourself in it for hours. It has a timeless, ageless quality to it, and is filled with myths and legends that even the characters themselves have mostly forgotten, lending it a sense of history and depth which, I guess, is what has led McKillip to be compared to Tolkien. I hate that sort of comparison, though, because it leaves her on a hiding to nothing. That said, I think this is a wonderful, wonderful book - one with which to sit in front of the fire on a cold winter's afternoon. Recommended! 9/10

Heathen

Well I hope you've got Enemy of God and Excalibur ready to go. That's one of the few trilogies where I've read them one after the other and still wanted more at the end of it

Yeah, I've no idea why he's changed the series title

Hmm, interesting. Strange choice for the film - hopefully it'll grow on me Don't think they can top Gollum's Song from The Two Towers, for me. It still spooks me a bit when the music starts at the end of the film, it's so ominous To paraphrase one of the comments on Youtube "how did we get from this beautiful piece of art to Ed Sheeran?" I've removed the swearing from that sentence

That's interesting, I didn't know there was a difference as I haven't read any of the Sharpe books, but the Warrior Chronicles books (the ones about Uhtred and Alfred the Great) are very similar in style and feel to the Arthurian ones. Probably why I've been enjoying them so much.

Oh yeah, Remedy Lane is an awesome album

Great review, Tim! Makes me want to read it all over again ETA: I just looked, and it's two years to the day, and almost exactly to the minute, since I posted my review of it. How bizarre

The problem was probably that I didn't realise it was a supernatural story before I started it. I was expecting lots of detail about the hunt for this killer, and how it played out whilst Jack the Ripper was getting all the attention, and lots of atmospheric Victorian London. But none of that happened. I just thought taking the supernatural angle was a bit of a cop-out, like she only wanted to research it so far, and then decided it was easier to explain it all away I don't know if I'd've preferred it if I'd known beforehand that it took that approach. I think I'd still feel that it lacked atmosphere and character. Others may love it, though.

Open Range - I'd seen it before but fancied watching it again. It's decent, but drags on a bit too long at the end.

Tbh, not really - there's too much else I want to read first

There you go And I haven't bought the sequel, so I was right Can't believe you went and looked that up

These aren't the droids you're looking for . . . <<waves hand mysteriously>>

Yes. Yeeeessss, that's exactly what it is