High Fantasy — Fantasy Fiction

Towers of Midnight

The snakes and foxes–the Aelfinn and Eelfinn–have been so built up in my head for decades that there was simply no way it could live up to my own personal hype. It felt to me like the world-building in Song of Ice and Fire, where reading the first two books two or three times in 2003, you got the sense that the generation prior to what was happening on the page was were the real interesting stuff happened. For the Aelfinn/Eelfinn, the mysteriousness of the bargains, the iron/music/fire weaknesses, the transposition through generations of interhuman contact into a culture object—to the unwinnable boardgame (so cool!)—it was just so different from the rest of the book, and it felt amazing to catch glimpses of without it being too clearly explained. When characters that weren’t Matt mentioned playing and never winning Snakes & Foxes, it was the closest the book comes to dramatic irony, and I loved it.

David DinaburgSeptember 1, 2024The Wheel of Time, High Fantasy

Lord of Chaos

Beyond the expanded scope from adventuring party to nation-state wrangling, the plot has to slow for another major reason: Travelling. Rand can warp around, collapsing time and distance in such a way that “the journey” as a trope barely exists anymore. And “the journey” is the beating heart of the Fantasy genre: we all live in the travelogue that “There and Back Again: A Hobbit’s Tale” built. Now that he and a few others can move around the world near-instantly, plot-restrictions-via-distance are a thing of the past.

David DinaburgNovember 30, 2020High Fantasy, The Wheel of Time, Fiction

The Fires of Heaven

What I wrote about Perrin in The Shadow Rising holds true for Nynaeve in this volume; she is a microcosm to understand another of Rand’s problems. This time, it isn’t about delegating responsibility and accepting your limits, but about understanding—maybe even embracing—who you are; even if you don’t want to. Rand has to come to terms with Lews Therin: his past, his present, and his refusal to put women in danger, even to the point where Moiraine has to sacrifice herself to save him.

David DinaburgAugust 10, 2020High Fantasy, The Wheel of Time, Fiction

The Shadow Rising

I called Perrin the star of The Shadow Rising, but I think it might be Moiraine. Here she is, the Allanon, the Belgarath, the Gandalf, and all of her hobbits are hyper-powered wizards in their own right, not to mention stubborn and distrustful of her after a lifetime of culturally ingrained biases against everything she is and stands for. Is it simply because I’m old that I find Perrin interesting, or think Rand may be a doofus for pushing back so hard against experienced advisors? Will Moiraine continue her trajectory into being the secret best character in the whole series?

David DinaburgJuly 15, 2020The Wheel of Time, High Fantasy

The Dragon Reborn

It is weird feeling of anxiety, balancing reading through a book quickly because it pleases you, but slowing down because there is not an easy way to pick up the next in the series. For good or ill, the third book in the Wheel of Time is where the series finds its feet. All the characters are who I remember them being: Mat’s not a jerk anymore; Perrin is a little boring; Elayne, Egwene, and Nynaeve start rolling their eyes with exasperation at “men” on the reg:

David DinaburgJune 13, 2020The Wheel of Time, High Fantasy, Fiction

The Great Hunt

It’s risky to extrapolate my enjoyment of Lanfear, considering that I do not know where the books ultimately go but lots of other people definitely do: maybe Lanfear will miss the Medea or Elphaba treatment and be saddled by the standard “foul temptress gets an ironic comeuppance” character arc. Or perhaps she will be the bland metonym for never being so evil that you are unable to be redeemed? Forsaken, until you aren’t:

David DinaburgMay 28, 2020The Wheel of Time, High Fantasy, Fiction

Mistborn

[E]ugenics and selective human breeding aren’t...great...topics for any fantasy novel. The concept of “high” blood giving someone magic powers is a classic classist trope that should stop; I’m really impressed with how the new Star Wars movies yanked itself away from another “magic bloodline dynasty” story. Mistborn does not. Secret heritage will never go away, apparently, because the world loves that moment when someone busts in and starts yelling, “You’re a wizard, ‘arry!” You know, like being born an aristocrat.

David DinaburgMay 27, 2020High Fantasy, Allegory

A Darker Shade of Magic

When there were only forty or so pages left of Darker Shade and little prospect of a satisfying resolution, I braced myself for the “Book One Cliffhanger Ending,” where the immediate threat has ended yet a larger horror rises in the distance. But it comes together in an altogether pleasing, albeit alacritous, way. Things—life, culture, people—won’t return to their pre-adventure status, nor will they maintain the heightened stress of all-consuming plot-based action. If there was never another book, things would be okay.

David DinaburgMay 25, 2020High Fantasy, Shades of Magic Series, Magic, London, Fiction

The Eye of the World

The Wheel of Time, the High Fantasy series equivalent of Moby Dick at least in terms of wordcount, has popped up enough times for me lately for me to give it a serious look: “One thing we can do. We can try. What seems like chance is often the Pattern. Three threads have come together here, each giving a warning: the Eye. It cannot be chance; it is the Pattern.” And so I’ll start this journey, for the second time. I’ve read up until at least book six—possibly eight, because I at least recognized that cover—of the fourteen novels. The first book, The Eye of the World, still does as good a job setting everyone up, building out a world, and having as silly a climactic battle as it did when I was sixteen.

David DinaburgMay 19, 2020Fiction, High Fantasy, The Wheel of Time, The Wheel of Time Series, Magic