Now that I’ve had a few weeks to let my feelings about the televised adaptation settle, I did a re-read of the novella which started it all: Martha Wells’ All Systems Red. Part of my motivation to do so was to put “faces” to characters, and another part was to consider the questions of adaptation. Mostly, though, I read it because it’s a damned good book. There’s a reason this series is so beloved, after all. And a lot of what hooked us with the first installment did, in fact, make it into the TV show.
Just, for the most part, not exactly as in the original text.
That’s an absurd premise, indeed. When you stop to think about it, though, most of the “what if” ideas that launch us into science fiction stories are absurd. We’re probably never getting to travel to whatever point in the past or future we want to at the press of a button. We’re probably not going to hurtle through interplanetary space at speeds above that achieved by photons of light. And so on. While many “what if” stories dig into the technical mechanics of the thing, they usually also shine a light on what people would (or at least might) do when faced with this new element in society. What might time travel or FTL space travel do to “us”? Oh, and make sure to include some actual-science-y stuff because those nerdy details are fun to speculate about, of course.
But what if we threw out any need to dig into the high-tech gee-whiz of it all and replaced that aspect with… well, Cheez Whiz?
What we’re left with is the human angle, and that’s what this novel is all about.
I’m through the back half (or second installment, if you prefer) of Raymond E Feist’s Magician and boy, do I have thoughts. Some of these thoughts are holdovers from the first half that were too much entwined with what I knew was yet to come, so they’re getting added to the pile.
Let’s get into it. And, fair warning before you proceed: While I’m going to do my best not to give away the whole story in case you decide to pick this up to read later, I can’t discuss some of the high points (and pain points) without revealing a few things in the process. Sorry.
My original plan was to read a few chapters of Raymond E. Feist’s Magician, then write about those chapters. Instead I got through nearly half the weighty tome in one sitting.
It’s a “ripping yarn,” indeed. And what else is one to do on a groggy New Year’s Day evening?
So last night I polished off the remaining chapters of that which was released originally as Magician: Apprentice, or as this part of the story is named in the Author’s Preferred Edition doorstopper volume, “Pug and Tomas”. There’s a lot to get into. This’ll take a while.
Happy New Year! As a bit of a project, adding a dollop of purpose to this website, I’m going to kick off some ruminations on books I loved in my teens and twenties that I haven’t dusted off in a while. We’re in a house with room for proper bookshelves now, after all, so my books are actually conveniently located. Happy days!
This does, of course, mean that I’ll need to actually re-read these books… which, given the changes in sensibilities over the years, might lead to some interesting thoughts.
Interesting to me, anyway.
Will I still love these books when read with mid-2020s, 50-plus-years-old eyes? Have these books aged more like wine or like milk? I guess there’s only one way to find out. I mean, other than asking The Internet. Let’s not do that.
I’m kicking things off with the inaugural installment of one of my most favorite fantasy novel series back in the day: Raymond E. Feist’s Magician.
Yes, the whole weighty tome, mainly because that’s what’s on my shelf, and really if you try to stop at the original break point (the end of what was originally released as Magician: Apprentice) you’re stuck with an absolute cliffhanger. There’s no point in evaluating half of a story.
I don’t yet know if I’m going to write about these books in discrete installments or just post a big wrap-up at the end. Locking myself into a set of requirements before I even know how this is going to play out seems like a bad idea. Hopefully this first go-around will help me sort out how I want to handle this project going forward.
And with that, it’s time to go curl up under a suitable lamp and indulge in some reading.
There’s an old line which goes something like, “Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.” It’s hard, incredibly hard, to convey one’s thoughts and information about one medium in a whole other, wildly different medium. Just ask any of those YouTubers trying to get their takes about film and song across, I imagine they’d agree.
