Ultra Hip Book Reviews: October
Books let us glimpse the darker sides of ourselves, though I believe art encompasses the entire spectrum of human understand and wisdom so we too glimpse the light as well. Though some books may not reflect who we are as single individual, having never experience quite those same moments as ourselves, we still get to see diverse roles in life, people with different sets of values and those who think another way then we do. It’s time to experience what is different with a segment I like to call:
Three Books I Recently Finished That Will Pleasure Your Eyeballs.
One: Nine Princes of Amber by Roger Zelazny.
What if you wake up from a coma and not know who you really are? What if the act of simply waking up was the first instance of an adventure which takes you to magical lands where you will learn you’re not a mere mortal but someone with a heritage not of this Earth? That is precisely what happens to the protagonist in his book, the Nine Princes of Amber.
Carl Corey wakes from a deep sleep in a hospital with no idea who he is or where he comes from. The medical staff inform him that he was in a car crash and his sister, Evelyn is paying for the medical bills. When he goes to find her, Carl finds strange people who insist on calling him Corwin. These are the first steps he will take in learning who he really is. Little does he know that he is one of the Nine Princes of Amber and his own brother, a warrior from the same world named Eric, wants Corwin out of the way.
The Nine Princes of Amber became an instant fantasy classic the minute it was brought to shelves back in 1970. It spawned twelve sequels and six short stories the in the same world of Amber. If you want to be well read in the Fantasy genre, The Nine Princes of Amber is certainly a no brainer. Read it.
Two: The Book of Skulls by Robert Silverberg.
Robert Silverberg certainly makes an impression with this book about life and dead, about friendship and betrayal. Most writers are afraid to show what lies deep side us all, some feel if we do so would we only show our species as dark creature who value nothing and only care about ourselves. What Silverberg does here is he takes four young men, different from each other in terms of religion and sexual orientation and makes a statement about existence, sins and the demise of the human spirit.
The four main characters go on a personal quest into Arizona to find a temple they’d read about in a mysterious text called The Book of Skulls. Each go to the temple because it is said those to arrive they must go through a ritual that would make some of them live forever but there is a catch: two are chosen to never take their last breaths while two others must die. The majority of the novel is about them going to the temple, showing by flashback it tells in the first person from each of the four men. Their past are wicked and how they treat each other is not very civil. The last parts of the book tell of how they come to grips with their life and past and how maybe living forever is not as rewarding as one might hope.
I couldn’t quite place the genre for this book. According to Wikipedia this is a Science Fiction novel yet I couldn’t find any of the elements in the work for such a description. It has horror element and is shocking at times but certainly not scary. I suppose you could call it Fantasy even is not entirely the case with The Book of Skulls. Still, this is very good book with lots of personal insights from Silverberg. I can’t say that I thought the book was supposed to be entertaining but still, it was very educational, worthily as some of the best philosophical books I’ve read.
Three: Mort by Terry Pratchett.
Have you ever wanted to know what Death was really like? Not the You-Can’t-Wake-Up kind of Death but the physical manifestation of Death – you know the guy in the black robes and the bladed gardening tool.
Terry Pratchett has been a Fantasy treasure since his first publication of A Colour of Magic in 1983. His written a few things before then but A Colour or Magic was really his breakthrough work. Mort is his fourth volume in the Discworld series and for the most part it could one of his best (even though I’ve only read the first four novels and will continue to read them until I find something better). It tells of Death who grows tired to his job and hires and assistant, Mort, to help with daily task of taking lives. More attention is paid to Mort then Death, and the assistant is a fully realized character, who has trouble taking on the responsibility of ending people’s lives. In fact, one life ordered by Death to be put out of misery is a princess whom Mort has fallen in love with. But Mort won’t kill her, he can’t, and his inaction causes the harmony of Discworld to go out balance both.
Pratchett’s book is very funny, sometimes over the top and usually very precise in how it shows its characters. I have to say my favorite scene in the book is when Death is drunk and complaining about his job the way most of us would if we grew tired to the same menial task everyday.
I guess even Death has his moments of sheer grim.
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