Fantasy - Macmillan Library

Why I love fantasy. And our newest fantastic giveaway!

Posted on June 8, 2010 by Ben Rubinstein

So I just finished book two of Robert Jordan's The Wheel of
Time, The Great Hunt. It was a fantastic read, and reinforced my huge,
enormous, colossal love for fantasy. Jordan really stepped up the
intrigue in the second installment. While I loved the first book, I was a bit
worried that the series might devolve into a reductive battle of good and evil.
But in The Great Hunt, he shows that there are many more factions than
we had believed, and even within those factions there is infighting as goals
clash. [...]

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The debut of a daring heroine (and author)!

Posted on May 12, 2010 by Ben Rubinstein

Beth Bernobich's Passion Play is the coming of age tale of Ilse Zahlina, the daughter of a wealthy merchant. When he reveals his plans to marry Ilse off to a another merchant, she feels like just another item in his ledger. Matters are made worse when she finds that his last fiancée disappeared mysteriously, an occurrence most seem content to dismiss. Resolute not to end up a man's puppet like her mother, Ilse flees in the night, takes a new name, and seeks a life where she can forge her own identity.

Ilse's world seems to be pseudo-feudal, set in a sort of pre-fundamentalist Islamic Middle east. [...]

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Geeking out over Fantasy.

Posted on March 18, 2010 by Ben Rubinstein

So, if you read our monthly newsletter you'll know that right now I'm reading the fantastic Spellwright. And I don't think I've been this geeked about a fantasy book since Lamentation.

The magic revolves around grammar and language, and there are multiple languages that wizards can master. The REAL kicker comes in the nature of the antagonist. Sure, any other author could be content with demons destroying the world with tooth and claw, but not Charlton. (continue reading) [...]

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A Plea to Authors of Urban Fantasy

Posted on March 15, 2010 by Ben Rubinstein

So. I'm reading an urban fantasy novel. Big shift from my usual epic fantasy reading, right? And I've come up with a quibble that struck me once before. I'm not going to point fingers at any manuscripts, that's not the point. What's done is done. But we can be vigilant in the future.

Urban Fantasy tends to have immortal characters that have been around for a very long time. Usually vampires. But in the case of this book I'm reading, it's dragons and dwarves. And sometimes these characters speak with weird affectations and accents. Why? Because they're centuries old? Us mortals manage to adapt or drop accents in the short spans of our lives, why can't immortal (or just long-lived) characters? Especially when it seems pretty important for them to remain inconspicuous.

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Ben’s Take on Warbreaker

Posted on February 17, 2010 by Ben Rubinstein

Warbreaker was a title from last year that I never got around to reading. But I took the advice of Jessica Moyer at Midwinter and pulled this one off my shelf. And man am I glad I did.

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