Two good fantasy novels!

So I'm back from my vacation, which was happily rattlesnake-free. I read three books - three books in a week! I can't remember the last time I did that. That's not true, actually, it was last July. I read the first five Harry Potter books while waiting for book six, which I ripped out of the FedEx man's hands and devoured in a day. So that was six books in two weeks, but it was mostly rereading which always goes faster for me.

At any rate, two of the three books I read were first novels from fantasy writers. Finally I found some good ones - and two in one week! The first was Doppleganger by Marie Brennan. Please, do not just this book by its cover:



Woman with tight leather, cleavage-baring outfit - I'm not a fan. Especially since the woman in the book wears clothing made from something called windsilk that covers every inch, including the face. Think ninja. But cover art gripes aside, I enjoyed this novel. It played on the theme of the price of magic, which is one I always get into. The plot unfolded in a very satisfying way, revealing the mechanics of the relationship between the witch Miryo and her Doppleganger Mirage (the warrior woman) bit by bit. Everytime I thought I'd found an unintentional loophole, it was neatly resolved. There is already a sequel in the works, and I could see this going series, but it doesn't leave anything unresolved at the end, only the sense of possibilities for more. Most admiringly, although there was clearly quite a bit of world-building going on, the book doesn't attempt to tell you everything about this place. The emphasis is on this story and these characters, no long essays on their political structures or what have you.

And none of my gripes from before pop up at all. In fact the literacy thing is an issue raised in the novel (albeit briefly).

The second book I read was a contemporary fantasy, which isn't what I write, but then again neither is high fantasy in fictional worlds. It's called The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl by Tim Pratt.

(Blogger is pissing me off. It says my image was uploaded, and yet it isn't here. So even though it has a better cover than Doppleganger I can't show it to you. You can take my word for it or see for yourself at Amazon.com here).

The plot is nothing new - a girl opens a door to another place (Dreamtime/land of fairy/medicine lands all rolled up into one), but doors to other worlds is an old favorite of mine; I don't think I can read to many stories on that conceit. And if the girl in question is one who writes and draws her own comic books... dude, I'm so there. Plus, this one has the addition of a cast of very engaging characters. They are all art students or former art students, and most have their own unique shadings of mental illness, but they all feel very real. My favorite was Denis, the obsessive-compulsive fan of modern art, who preferred intellectual approaches to art over emotional ones (the exact opposite of me, actually). Denis is an asshole, sure, but he's a very engaging asshole.

The third book I read was not fantasy or even fiction. It was The Opposite of Fate: A Book of Musings by Amy Tan. It actually came out before Saving Fish from Drowning, I'm not sure how I missed knowing it was out there (it certainly seems like Amazon.com emails me every time there is a new release remotely like a previous purchase). It's a collection of essays, many about her mother, all about writing in one way or another. It was a very interesting read, and I would particularly recommend it to other writers. It's not about the craft per se, not the way Stephen King's On Writing is, but the musings of a successful writer are always worth a read, in my opinion.

While reading Saving Fish from Drowning, I was wondering what drew me to her work. After all, I don't have mother issues, but I don't think it's Schadefreude that's drawing me to these stories about mothers and daughters. I think it's because Amy Tan seems to share my underlying world view, a sort of yin and yang between rational science and irrational magical thinking. Her books all have that interplay between them, where it's possible to simultaneously believe that there is no such thing as ghosts because there is no scientific proof and all those sounds coming from the atiic have very mundane explanations, and at the same time believe that there actually is a ghost up there. To believe that there is no such thing as fate while you stock up on good luck charms.

It sounds paradoxical, but that's just the way my brain works.