Introductory sci-fi fantasy books? Not the New Yorker's list!

The New Yorker, one of my favourite magazines, has posted a little ‘intro to fantasy’ which is shockingly pedestrian in its recommendations. Well, that’s unfair. Tad Williams and Terry Goodkind are shockingly pedestrian. Terry Brooks is pretty pedestrian. Robin Hobb is actually pretty good and the sort of thing I’d suggest if making recommendations to someone who had just read Tolkien, as is Patrick Rothfuss. Guy Gavrial Kay is also great but Steven Erikson is just wacky. For new fantasy readers? Hell no.

What’s sort of interesting about this is that there’s no George R. R. Martin on the list. I thought it might be because it was an unfinished series, but so are the Erikson and Rothfuss series.

So what would be on my list? Well, I think I’d keep Robin Hobb, at least the Assassin trilogy, and Patrick Rothfuss. Then I’d add in George R.R. Martin and Ursula LeGuin’s Earthsea books (yes, all of them). Then I’d toss in Scott Lynch’s wonderful Gentlemen Bastards stuff and probably, for a kicker, put in China Miéville’s Perdido Street Station. I’ve tried to keep this in the spirit of the original list – easy books that are within the mainstream of fantasy, but Miéville is there to show that it can be so much more as well…

Mark Charan Newton has already posted a list which does the opposite – it tried to completely counter the New Yorker list. I’m sure it will be the first of many.

Legend of the Seeker – Good geeky fun

A few weeks ago a friend of mine sent a link to the trailer of a new fantasy show called Legend of the Seeker. I watched it and seeing as I’ve got a rather soft spot for cheesy fantasy decided to give the first episode a go.

The show is based on the Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind and I think the first season roughly covers the events in the first book, Wizard’s First Rule (which was the original name for the series). Though I’m not sure about that as I haven’t read the books, and have to admit that the reports of them from friends of mine aren’t making me rush out to start.

It’s a pretty standard tale of the classic every-man, Richard Cypher, who finds is given a magic sword (the Sword of Truth), realises his destiny and heads off to save the world. Along for the ride is the rather lovely (if I do say so) Kahlan a Confessor who has the ability to control people and bend their will to her own and a wizard named Zed who was meant to train Richard in the ways of the Seeker, but got distracted with letting him have a ‘normal’ childhood. Now he must travel the world to fight the evil Darken Rahl, and of course his legions of soliders, who Richard is prophesied to kill.

It’s filmed in NZ so the scenery and back drops are all rather beautiful in a way now familiar to millions thanks to the Lord of the Rings trilogy and it sits in the space left vacant by Xena and Hercules, though with a higher budget and better special effects (well most of the time). It is produced by RenPics (the same people who produced those shows) and the similarities are certainly there. The writing isn’t likely to win any awards and it is rather heavy on the cheese at times, but like Xena strangely addictive. So it’s become something of a guilty pleasure of mine the last few weeks, buoyed along with a couple of good episodes which managed to break free of the standard Good vs Evil shtick.

The one thing that I certainly didn’t miss from Xena was the terrible accents forced on Kiwi actors for the American market. I understand that this is an American show but seeing as almost every one of the actors (except Bridget Regan the actor behind Kahlen) is either from New Zealand or Australia surely they could have just let the country bumpkin types keep their normal accents.

Regardless it is good to see another series being made in New Zealand and making use of some really great talent, so not every Kiwi actor has to do their stint on Shortland Street.