Milestones | 1000 and Counting

Way back when, in January 2010, I launched The Speculative Scotsman. Why? In large part because I wanted to talk to the world about Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay: a book that moved me hugely.

I wasn't sure what I'd do with a blog about genre fiction in all its multifarious forms afterwards, but I figured I'd cross that bridge when I came to it, and I did, I think. I had a tower of books to be read even then, and The Speculative Scotsman, in the beginning, gave me a great excuse to dig into it a little.

It wasn't long before review copies of new novels started arriving, lending the site some small sense of acceptance, but the icing on the great cake came when, to my surprise and delight, a few of my favourite bloggers blogged about this new blogger they'd noticed.

Me, I realised. Me! :)

It'd be a fib to say I haven't looked back since. I have, from time to time. I've struggled to keep up the pace; I've come close to burning out on books; I've lost my faith in fiction only to find it again, and again, and again. For a blogger, this is par for the course, of course. These questions come with the territory.

And what with the superblogs out there — the Tor.coms and the IO9s — the landscape looks a lot different today than it did then: one of the many ways I've been feeling my age of late. Between that and suddenly turning 30, I just don't have the energy I used to. I can't compete: that's clear.

But this was never about winning; this was about sharing something. Something special. Something I crave as much today as I did in the beginning.

Today, in any case, marks a very special blogaversary for me. One I wasn't sure I'd ever see, because sometimes it has been hard. But never mind my more maudlin moments: the vast majority of the time it's been absolute magic. Blogging is in my blood now. I don't know what I'd do without it. Without you, in truth.

This is the thousandth post I've published on The Speculative Scotsman. I can't imagine I have another thousand in me, but together... together we'll see, won't we?

Now, because it seems so fitting I can't resist, I'm off to celebrate with some Guy Gavriel Kay...

Season's Greetings | The Fun of the Future

Four years to the day my time with Tigana compelled me to launch this blog, 2014 is here, and though I'm still very much in holiday mode, and of course, horribly hungover, I wanted to take a second to say: welcome to the future, folks!

I can only hope it's as bright as Orange promised.

So what's to come in 2014? Well, one wonders. For me at least, not knowing is perhaps half the fun of the future — and I don't, in any great detail — but plenty, I expect, including a few fairly major changes. 

Before all that, though, stay tuned for Top of the Scots. I already have my lists locked. All that remains is for me to explain, because I imagine my choices might surprise some of you. Expect more on that momentarily. And in the meantime?

Sincerely, readers dear: I hope you all have a happy New Year. :)

Letters From America | Week Two: Lost Souls and Liquor in New Orleans and Florida

Last time we talked properly – that is excepting the intros and outros appended to each of the guest posts you’ll have seen on the site since – I had just arrived in New Orleans, having been knocked for six by the sheer size of everything here in the States. I should perhaps amend that observation now that I’ve seen a smidge more of this massive landmass; after all NOLA was dramatically different from Houston, and Panama City Beach – where I’ve been recovering since – is a whole other kettle of fish again.

But look at me and my seafood-based wordplay! If you didn’t know different, you’d be forgiven for thinking I was having a whale of a time here in America. :D

I am, at that... though New Orleans, as I intimated in the inaugural edition of Letters From America, was rather a shock to the system after the incredibly warm welcome we were treated to in Texas. Long story short: me and mine got off to a bad start on our first night in New Orleans, and though things were looking up by the time we left, I still hadn’t quite come around.

So I didn’t love NOLA, no. But by the end I didn’t despise it either, and after that first night – no gory details today, I’m afraid – to be able to say even that speaks to how much more pleasant the city was once we found our skinny Scottish feet in it.

Wait, I didn’t say the city, did I? You must excuse me – that’s not entirely true. I suppose we were in the city, which is to say surrounded on all sides by endless urban sprawl, but honestly, it hardly felt like it: we didn’t leave the French Quarter once during the entire time we propped up the Best Western on Rampart. Perhaps we should have, quite against all the advice we’d been given... not least because by the end of our stay, I for one was feeling a bit boxed-in.

In fairness to the place, I think the trips I’ve taken to beautiful little European cities like Krakov and Bruges and Bratislava somewhat spoiled me on New Orleans, without me even realising it. All quaint places, I guess, with beer and wine and good food and music in abundance, but none of the nastiness that kept cropping up here, nor the ripe aroma of piss and shit and sick in the air everywhere, and definitely lots less leering. Also: if you’re planning on spending more than a few days in the French Quarter of New Orleans, have your paperwork in order to declare bankruptcy in the midst of your trip.

My nostalgia for the New Orleans Poppy Z. Brite painted so perfectly in the books I swore by as a moderately freaky teenager probably didn’t help matters either. Lost Souls and such; especially the Liquor trilogy Brite ended up capping off her writing career with.

I did wonder how different the French Quarter would have been if I’d only experienced it before the horrors of Hurricane Katrina. I didn’t ask any such thing, obviously. It seemed impolite... not that decency seemed to be any sort of obstacle to the innumerable booths and shops and street-walkers looking to make a quick buck on glorious guided tours of the devastated areas.

But I should digress. At the end of my time in New Orleans, I was certainly keen to get on with the rest of this crazy-with-a-capital-crazy road trip, but we’ll be taking a few happy memories home with us, and it wouldn’t do to overlook them: one born hot and throbbing in Maison on Frenchmen Street – on open mic night and everything – and another, oddly, from a ghost tour with a guy from Haunted History who told some of the best spoken word stories I’ve ever heard. Ever.

So what happened next?

Truth be told, it’s a bit of a blur already. We drove for six hours in a rented Nissan, delighting in all the classic rock radio stations we kept picking up along the way, only to lose mere moments later. We stuck, cleverly, to the right side of the road, which felt wrong on so many levels. Eventually, we arrived at our beautiful apartment in Panama City Beach, and slowly settled in.

And then? Then: beer. On the balcony, and on the beach. A stone’s throw away from the sea and the sand, while the sun split the skies... oh my. I don’t mind saying it’s been kinda sorta stunning here. With Spring Break and March Madness mostly over, there was time and space to let everything we’ve seen and done here in the States to date sink in, and I’m glad of that. It was beginning to feel a bit surreal.

A few hours from the time of this writing, alas, we’ll be leaving Panama City Beach behind, and one of our party as well – though we’ll catch up with her on the back end of this trip. In the interim, the other half and I are heading to a lovely log cabin in the woods of upper Alabama, where by hook or by crook, there will be books!

Sadly there’s only been the one since last week’s Stephen King, but it was – how to describe it? – a bona fide beauty. A masterfully wrought political parable for the larger part, A Song For Arbonne by Guy Gavriel Kay also took in tragedy, romance, fate, friendship, and occasionally even farce. It couldn’t quite eclipse Tigana in my heart - I wonder sometimes if anything ever will - yet it’s certainly the best book I’ve read in a long time.

Do stay tuned for more thoughts of that sort shortly; I should have a review ready before I’m back in Britain. For the moment, my thanks to those of you who recommended it. And to everyone who plumped for The Lions of Al-Rassan instead, take heart in the fact that I abandoned several essential items of clothing in order to bring more books than I’d meant, among them that other Guy Gavriel Kay, which given the magnificence of A Song For Arbonne I’ve half a mind to read immediately.

On the other hand, A Game of Thrones is sat right there. Staring at me, even. The monster.

Speaking of which, how was the premiere of the second season? It kills me that I missed it, but maybe that’s for the best. Maybe this year I wait till I have all the episodes and watch them in one massive whack. Maybe that’ll give me time to read the bloody books I’ve brought all the way across the Atlantic...

Anyway! I’ll be back again next week with another of these sentimental Letters From America, but between times I’ve lined up another round of brilliant guest bloggers for you to look forward to. Remember to give them a warm welcome!

Reviewing Reviewers' Reviews

I'm given to understand The Left Hand of God finally made its bow in the US. Now a whole other continent can get a copy of the year's worst fantasy that much more easily! To my American readers: I do not envy you the disproportionate hype that will inevitably accompany its release.

But hear ye, and hear ye well. I'm not going to gripe about The Left Hand of God today. Indescribably tempting though it is, at this point I must have dedicated more words to debating that book on The Speculative Scotsman than any other. Tigana might be the reason I started blogging in the first place. The Passage might be my favourite read of the year. It's The Left Hand of God that I keep coming back to, though. Time and again, it seems to resurrect itself in my mind as a springboard for interesting discussion. As in this case...

Last week, over at Only the Best Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Seak read and reviewed Paul Hoffman's execrable fantasy. He didn't love it, nor did he hate it - but that's neither here nor there, really. When I read The Left Hand of God, I turned its first pages with great expectations. The publicity blitz - the millions of pounds spent on advertising, the iPhone app, the book trailer - had seen to that. There are an uncountable number of fantasies that I simply don't have time to read each year, but here was one, and at the very start of 2010, that I simply couldn't afford to miss. Or so I was led to believe.

Seak, on the other hand, as well as - going from the comments on his review - several other speculative fiction fans, has come at The Left Hand of God from an entirely different angle. I don't know that I was the first blogger to rail against Hoffman's book, but clearly enough of us did to effectively counterbalance the hype with negative expectations aplenty. Seak went into The Left Hand of God expecting it to be awful, and though he admits it was "not without its flaws, overall [he] enjoyed" it.

So Seak's experience with The Left Hand of God, and thus his review, was coloured by his expectations - not the expectations generated by the manufactured buzz, as in my case earlier in the year, but by actual reviews of Hoffman's novel. Like mine.

All of which brings up an interesting question, though I'm afraid this is mostly one for the other bloggers reading this pint-sized diatribe.

As reviewers, do you read other reviewers' reviews before composing your own?

For myself, I do everything in my power to ensure that I don't. Which isn't a slight on those bloggers who do - I intimately understand the temptation to check one's own opinion against the general consensus for fear you're way off base - it's only to say that I want the reviews I write to be reflections of my personal experiences, however against the grain they may be in some cases. I worry that my own opinions might subconsciously shift to more closely align with those others I've read or heard were I to read what Adam or Ken or Aidan or Larry or any of other bloggers whose judgment I respect were to say. I try so hard to maintain a sense of subjectivity, in fact, that I have an RSS reader which nearly chokes every time I load it because it's so backlogged full of reviews I won't let myself read - yet.

So what about you guys?

Blogging in the Year We Made Contact: Odyssey One (The Niche)

When I Iaunched The Speculative Scotsman in January, I'll admit: I had precious little understanding of exactly what variety of venture I'd begun. There wasn't a purpose in my mind more complex or carefully calculated than the vague notion of writing something about how much Tigana had moved me.

And yet, four months and more than a hundred posts in, here I remain. Blogging - and every day (though I fear that might change in the near future). And it's gone well; very, very well, by my own reckoning. Not to toot my own horn here, but TSS has attracted support from a wide array of publishers, professional authors and fellow bloggers that I hadn't dared hope might notice my humble scribblings. I couldn't be happier that that's the case. Their belief, their enthusiasm, lends credence to what I'm doing here - which, I should say, isn't churning out one review after another. There are reviews on the blog, certainly - and there always will be, never fear - but I have done, and will continue to do, whatever I'm able to delineate such articles with more diverse commentary and content.

In any case, the site's success has been a very pleasant surprise to me. One discerning colleague has even gone so far as to call me a Magical Scotsman. But I've a confession to make: this isn't the first time I've blogged.

I won't bore you or embarrass myself with the particulars, but yes, it's true. A few years ago, I kept another blog. And though that hardly moved the heavens and the earth, I didn't let its unfortunate failure discourage me. Between then and now, I kept writing. I reviewed video games for Ace Gamez. I was a blogless BlogCritic. I wrote articles for local newspapers and copy for a couple of adverts.

But all that's beside the point I mean to make today. Today, I'd like to make use of the perspective given me by the blogosphere's overwhelming reception of The Speculative Scotsman versus the veritable wet blanket which mercifully smothered The Other Site Which Must Not Be Named to underscore some of the more imperative differences between the blogosphere then and the blogosphere now. It's going to take a couple of posts, I'm afraid; I've a lot to say on this topic. And I'm certainly not alone in that.

Let's begin by considering the place of blogs in this enlightened era. From the entry dated March 12th in his tour journal on the wonderful Bright Weavings, Guy Gavriel Kay - author of the forthcoming Under Heaven, not to mention the very book that inspired The Speculative Scotsman - had this to say:

"One of the realities these days, and I had an email exchange with an entertainment editor for one major paper about this, is how brutally the space for books is being cut in newspapers and magazines – as in 70% in one case I just learned of yesterday.

"There's a serious fight among publishers and publicists for a diminishing amount of media real estate to 'cover' their books. (This is a reason for more of an online push.) Editors are ruefully aware that they are not doing an especially good job of covering what's being published, because they can't. And given that the size of any review is limited, the money paid is pretty trivial, and it takes time to read and carefully consider a book, the odds against (and this was the editor's point) thoughtful engagement with a novel and a well-written review are... extreme.

"In theory, online reviewers have no such space pressures or need to rush, but all sorts of other considerations come into play when you get to the book blogging world. Among others, it is widely noted that the Internet tends to steer us towards communities of the like-minded, and so you find a lot of online reviewing that is targeted to narrow genres or spheres of interest, and for many books, an appraisal that comes only from a specific perspective might be a problem.

"Having said that, it can also be an asset... someone targeting historical fiction or photography books or any other specific area is far more likely to alert people to titles in that field than any newspaper and to be well-grounded in that field. That's an upside. As I think I said earlier in this Journal, editors will speak, legitimately, of the role of the gatekeeper, the man or woman ensuring some measure of quality or appropriateness and credibility, and perhaps a push for revision or fine-tuning, to a review. But my sense is that credibility can arrive over time for some people online too, just from the craft and care they bring to their work.

"I have a general sense that the decline of newspapers is taking with it the importance of covering books, and it saddens me."

So Guy Gavriel Kay is taking us seriously. That's a hell of a start!

Moreover, his assertions regarding print media are of paramount importance. What with the collapse of the global economy and the increasingly less supplemental role of free, like-for-like internet resources, newspapers and magazines - which cost money to produce and must thus cost money to consume - are struggling to keep from going under. And in some, admittedly negligible, ways, it's our fault.

But there's no sense in crying over spilt milk. Except for a select few outlets, the print media is undeniably on the out. It's a sad fact; a fact nonetheless. And so the responsibility falls to us - amongst others of course - to bring news, views and reviews to those consumers who look now to the internet for such things, and by extension the blogosphere, where before they would buy a broadsheet or the latest glossy issue of SFX.

It was perhaps three years ago that I idled away my time with The Other Site Which Must Not Be Named, and then, though there were blogs - and no shortage of them - they catered, as Kay observes, to very narrow niches. In many respects, they still do. I would disagree, however, that "an appraisal that comes only from a specific perspective" is necessarily a problematic thing. Practically speaking, as amateur, not to mention unpaid writers, bloggers are only able to devote so much of their time to creating content for their blogs - by and large, they also have lives to lead, and must somehow, between blog posts, make enough money to pay for those lives.

However, such considerations aren't what interest me here. The most significant problem with my blog of yore was, I think, that I didn't delineate its concerns clearly enough; I had hoped that somehow, if I wrote a little about everything, people who wanted to read about any one of those things would somehow discover it. That, um... that didn't pan out. And it's easy, in retrospect, to see why. The internet is pretty huge, after all, and given that there's so very much of it - and so very much of it that doesn't interest you at all - in order to find those things you are interested in, you have to look for them. Surfing the internet is, I feel, an increasingly outdated notion. Perhaps it once had some relevance, when the web itself a more humble endeavour, but we are no longer carried along on a great wave: we drive that wave, whether by plugging a keyword into Google or following links and the like from sites we already know scratch our particular itches. Sometimes we come across something new, something that surprises us; an obscure alleyway that leads away from the thoroughfares we travel along each day in the unique online experience that we have each created for ourselves.

That bloggers tend to define the boundaries of their interests and address as thoroughly as possible those concerns is both practical and purposeful, then. And further, when you read a review of a fantasy novel written by an experienced fantasy reader, does that not lend the review that much more credibility? Certainly for those readers interested in a particular genre, criticism originating from like-minded perspectives must surely hit home more directly than any general review. An avowed fantasy reader understands first-hand the tropes of fantasy; a print journalist, meanwhile, whose purview is likely more encompassing - no-one hires, let's be a frank, different reviewers for each genre of literature - might well grasp the broad strokes, but miss the finer points of such fiction. To return, one last time, to that old chestnut, how many glowing reviews of The Left Hand of God did you see in the papers? Give that book to a blogger with any experience of such narratives, however, and... well, we all know how I feel about Paul Hoffman's first genre novel.

Time, I think, to tie a pretty little bow on this first installment of Blogging in the Year We Made Contact. But before we do, what have we learned? I'll start us off. Conclusion number one: the blogosphere has, at least in the three years I've been active (and inactive) in it, become an increasingly legimate source of criticism. And conclusion number two: though it's a fact that most blogs cater to niche audiences, their narrow focus need not be a cause for concern. Indeed, perhaps it's a cause for celebration.

For my own part, I don't know that The Speculative Scotsman would have reached nearly so many readers had I just been a Scotsman who blogged. That I am a blogging Scotsman with an interest in speculative fiction has introduced me to a wonderful, lively and thoughtful community of others with similar interests. You lot!

Readers, you really are the bee's knees.

Book Preview: Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay

[Pre-order this book from Amazon

in the UK / in the US]

***

They say honesty is the best policy, so let's begin this preview with a little truth-time: if, in the first moments of 2010, there was a single impetus behind my decision to launch The Speculative Scotsman, Guy Gavriel Kay was it. Or, more precisely, Tigana was it.

With the mad rush of the holidays behind me, I wanted to relax with a good book, and for one reason or another, nothing on my shelves seemed to fit the bill. In the time I had spent lurking around the fringes of the speculative community, I'd often heard Kay's name bandied about, and some confluence of my general dissatisfaction with the fiction I'd been reading before Christmas and a timely recommendation sent me to Amazon. A miracle of the postal system meant Tigana arrived in the downtime between the big day and New Year's, and soon after I had gotten to grips with the first few chapters of Kay's dense fantasy epic, I was savouring his novel's every word. You can read more of my thoughts in the first full review to grace the pages of The Speculative Scotsman, but suffice it to say that I was gripped, right through to the last, bittersweet moments of Tigana.

I've since invested in more of Kay's back-catalogue, and though I've struggled to find an opportunity to actually read A Song For Arbonne or Ysabel, I very much forward to a little downtime during which I can do just that.

Realistically, however, I don't imagine I'm very likely to have the chance in the immediate future; certainly not before Kay's new novel has hit bookstore shelves. Under Heaven, his first new fantasy since the aforementioned 2008 World Fantasy Award-winner is very nearly upon us. Though the the reading populace at large will have to wait until late in April for their next Guy Gavriel Kay fix, ARCs of Under Heaven are already doing the rounds with bloggers and reviewers in Canada and the States; here in the UK, meanwhile, advance copies should be upon us within the next few weeks. If I'm lucky enough to recieve one for review here on TSS, rest assured: I fully expect to drop every one of my other critical responsibilities like proverbial hot rocks.

I may only have been waiting a few, short months for another opportunity to immerse myself in another of the lush, historical environments Kay is known to so effectively set his fantasies against - as opposed to the thousand days some long-term fans have suffered through - but my appetite for Under Heaven is no less fully-fledged for that differential. Saying that, the short while I've spent anticipating it, and even the longer period others have, is nothing compared to the length of time the forthcoming novel has weighed on Kay's mind. According to an audio interview with Alex Telander of Book Banter, the esteemed author has himself "been thinking about [Under Heaven] and living with aspects of this since before I published Last Light of the Sun - that’s more than six years ago."

In a publishing environment increasingly driven by the characteristic immediacy of new media such as blogs and e-zines, the ramp-up to Under Heaven's release date isn't likely to mark a quiet, stress-free time for the World Fantasy-winner, but as of now, the manuscript is itself out of Kay's perfectionist grasp at last. In point of fact, in his journal on the wonderful Bright Weavings in late January, Kay even wondered if midday was an appropriate time to pour himself a good single malt.

If by some strange happenstance this preview comes your way, Guy, I say to you: go for it. You've certainly earned a little tipple of the Highland Park.

Some other, excellent tidbits emerged from the aforementioned Book Banter interview - including the likes of this quote, on the voice Kay employs in Under Heaven: "This book [represents] a much more formal society, it’s a much more verbally structured culture; I couldn’t write this one with the tone that I used for Ysabel". But I wouldn't want to be stealing Alex's thunder by repurposing too much of such an stimulating glimpse into what awaits those of us excited by the prospect of Under Heaven, so if you need your anticipation whistle whetting, I'd heartily advise you go here and listen to his excellent interview with Kay for yourself.

Until the reviews begin in earnest, however, your best bet for a taste of the wonders Kay will shortly conjure up comes from the plot synopsis:

"For two years Shen Tai has mourned his father, living like a hermit beyond the borders of the Kitan Empire, by a mountain lake where terrible battles have long been fought between the Kitai and the neighbouring Tagurans, including one for which his father - a great general - was honoured.

"But Tai's father never forgot the brutal slaughter involved. The bones of 100,000 soldiers still lie unburied by the lake and their wailing ghosts at night strike terror in the living, leaving the lake and meadow abandoned in its ring of mountains. To honour and redress his father's sorrow, Tai has journeyed west to the lake and has laboured, alone, to bury the dead of both empires. His supplies are replenished by his own people from the nearest fort, and also - since peace has been bought with the bartering of an imperial princess - by the Tagurans, for his solitary honouring of their dead.

"The Tagurans soldiers one day bring an unexpected letter. It is from the bartered Kitan Princess Cheng-wan, and it contains a poisoned chalice: she has gifted Tai with two hundred and fifty Sardian horses, to reward him for his courage. The Sardians are legendary steeds from the far west, famed, highly-prized, long-coveted by the Kitans."

Doesn't that sound just fantastic?

I don't know that, for me, it'll necessarily be the equal of Tigana - there's always something about your first encounter with an original new voice that's near-enough impossible to compete with - but I've little doubt that Guy Gavriel Kay has another thoughtful, evocative tale to tell, and with all the otherworldly environment of Tang-dynasty China as his backdrop of choice, I, for one, can hardly wait.

Here's to Under Heaven!

***

Under Heaven

by Guy Gavriel Kay

2010, HarperVoyager: London

[Pre-order this book from Amazon

in the UK / in the US]

Recommended and Related Reading

Righting The Left Hand of God

We're all adults here, aren't we?

Well, here's hoping the thought of a little homework doesn't discourage you from reading the remainder of this post. There's really only a very little, I swear it! For those of you who have already scrolled through my review of Paul Hoffman's The Left Hand of God, a free pass. For those of you who haven't, well... why not? Click through and get caught up. Don't forget to read the comments!

Go on. I'll wait.

...

Quite finished? Excellent. Let's get on with it, then.

I'll admit, I had a notion that a review of The Left Hand of God would appeal to many of the kind souls who frequent these pages. Penguin's incredibly widespread publicity campaign has made certain that there's a great deal of buzz surrounding Hoffman's debut - enough to have hoodwinked several of my fellow bloggers into tipping it as among the most promising SF&F debuts of 2010 - and with its publication in the States still months away, the level of anticipation for The Left Hand of God remains high enough that anyone writing anything about it is guaranteed a bit of traffic.

Skeptics: the above rationale is not why I'm writing about The Left Hand of God again. You have The Speculative Scotsman's word, and Scotsmen, especially the speculative variety, are well known to be honour-bound by their word. Also, if you believe me, I will give you each a cookie.

In any event, I expected that my review would get a bit of attention from those fantasy fans that, like me, had been taken in by the unending hype behind Hoffman's genre debut. What I didn't expect was for traffic to the article to surpass every other piece published to date here on TSS. I mean, come on, Guy Gavriel Kay fans; you're letting the side down!

To my relief, no-one got too up in arms about my reaction to The Left Hand of God. Wait, had I not mentioned that this was the first out-and-out negative review I've written for the site? Well, you should have done your homework. To surmise: The Left Hand of God is hardly fit to prop up your worst enemy's gangrenous ankle. It's a book written by committee. A committee, moreover, who hasn't a clue how to write anything more worthwhile than derivative dreck with designs on selling fantasy to legions of readers to whom Twilight represents the height of literary fiction.

But decrying the UK's bestselling book isn't going to make it any less popular, is it? We're talking about the opinion of a single, small-scale blogger, after all. If you've a mind to see the other half of the equation, there are certainly plenty of more positive reviews of The Left Hand of God out there - although I strenuously disagree with nearly every flattering thing professional critics and fellow bloggers have alike asserted regarding Hoffman's debut. Nevertheless, that very question feeds into the issue I hope to address with this post. What good does a bad review do?

Perhaps I should rephrase and ask, instead: what bad does a bad review do? Eloquent, I know, but all the same, it's an easier question to answer. In the comments section of the aforementioned review, you see, where I'm pleased to say cooler heads prevailed than I'd anticipated - consider my expectations adjusted accordingly, readers; you really are a fine bunch - the most common reaction to my so-called "sodomising" of The Left Hand of God was something along the lines of this, from Phil of A Fantasy Reader:

"I'm glad I read your review, that book was on my 2010 reading list (sadly simply because of the hype) and now it's off."

And this, from Jason, who makes his home over at the excellent Kamvision:

"For some reason I wasn't sure about this one to begin with... Something I read - maybe it was about the author - put me off. Anyway, thanks to your review I'm really not going to bother trying to cram this into an already very tight schedule. Cheers!"

Now this, surely, is one of the prime motivating factors behind why we bloggers do what we do. To inspire people to read books they otherwise wouldn't, and discourage them from wasting their time and money on something that isn't worth either.

Assuredly, I find reviewing to be a great way of collecting together my thoughts on books, films and video games that in all likelihood I won't remember with any real clarity a few years from now, but if that were the only reason I began blogging about speculative fiction in all its forms I'd have been as well to start a diary as launch TSS.

For me, the reviews I publish here are firstly my contribution to the great conversation that goes on between the various members of a community that's built itself around SF&F. Individually, whatever our respective reach and readership, we're none of us terribly powerful when you come right down to it. Together, however, as a single entity amassed at the fringes of genre fiction, we're capable of touching nearly every part of the literature we love to an incredible extent - from writers to publishers to readers, bloggers are an influential force that each of these groups would rather have on their side than on the opposing front.

But that doesn't mean we all have to agree about everything. For my money, a review is a sort of balancing act; an accounting of the various positives and negatives that make up the whole that is the product you're reviewing. A review needn't be anything so sterile as that description perhaps suggests, but I would go so far as to say it's amongst our obligations, as bloggers, to state, according to our own judgment, what does and doesn't work about a particular piece of fiction - obfuscating either the good or the bad so that your argument seems clearer seems to me the sign of a poor argument.

At this point, let me reiterate one final comment from The Left Hand of God review that speaks to the entire issue at hand. Sam Sykes, author of the hotly-anticipated Tome of the Undergates and soon to be TSS interview subject, found a high horse and rode it into the ground. Apologies for his foul language - evidently the gentleman's username on Twitter (follow him @SamSykesSwears) isn't just smoke and mirrors to disguise a specimen of infinite sweetness and light - and do note that I've edited his reaction for brevity, and furthermore, taken great glee in so doing. You can find his unaltered words in the comments for the original post.

Without further ado, then, over to you, sweary Sam:

"Reviews aren't everything and everything a reviewer hates you won't necessarily dislike.

"This is most definitely not a slight or a discouragement of Mr. Alexander or his fine blog. He definitely does a service here, as do all reviewers, but that service is still giving us his opinion, not necessarily telling us what to buy.

"The biggest thing I've learned so far is that the phrase 'different strokes for different folks' (or blokes, if you're inclined) is not just a phrase as it pertains to books: it's a goddamn mantra.

"Everyone gets some negative press. This is because what is written just doesn't work for everyone. Some people want grittier, some people want more angst, some people just want something closer to something they already know. As a result, I don't really take any review as negative anymore, because for every point that a reviewer says is not good, someone else says: 'shit, that's for me!'

"Admittedly, Mr. Alexander's review was a bit harsh and he's absolutely correct to tell you exactly what he thinks of a book; if he coddled you, he'd be a fraudster, and sentenced to the eighth level of hell to be sodomized with hot irons. But that doesn't necessarily mean you won't like the book.

"That went on a bit, didn't it? The point of this all is that you shouldn't feel poorly for buying a book that someone later didn't like. There are tons of popular books out there that I absolutely could not bring myself to like.

"Besides, even if you end up hating it, you'll want to keep it around, because you will find a sentence you just truly hate and someone will eventually ask you what the worst book you ever read was and you will want to have it on hand to quote from."

I find myself very much in agreement with Sam's argument. Ultimately, either in a review or in the case of an article such as this, what I'm stating is an opinion, nothing more concrete than that and nothing less pliable. But then, that's all any of us are doing - even those critics in the enviable position of being able to trade theirs for cold, hard cash. If you've enjoyed some of the same books The Speculative Scotsman has, you'll probably enjoy the books I've read that you haven't; equally, you probably won't like The Left Hand of God, nor be entirely blown away by the likes of Cherie Priest's Boneshaker. But in all likelihood, you'll love Tigana.

However, whether you're a reader or a fellow writer, if the opinions published on TSS diverge from your own - and inevitably, even if we find ourselves nodding in agreement the majority of the time, they will - so much the better; much as I feel a review is better when it encompasses both pros and cons, surely the community as a whole is made stronger if it's truly representative of the vast swathe of reactions every piece of fiction leave in its literary wake.

When I was growing up, my folks would fight a lot. Maybe that's got something to do with why I find fiction such an invaluable diversion, but I digress; I certainly haven't had a hard life. Nonetheless, whenever I'd ask why they were always shouting at one another, they'd say to me, "N. R. Alexander, couples who don't fight, why... they aren't couples at all," which I thought was ridiculous. Isn't that ridiculous? What's surprising, though, is that the grown-up me might agree with them - to a point. Disagreement, I believe now, is healthy. Energetic debate gives you a fresh perspective on issues you might not ever have realised there was another side to.

In the grander scheme, I'd wager that the disparity of opinion in the blogosphere coalesces, eventually, into a kind of counter-intuitive parity; that the very divergence of the opinions voiced here and elsewhere comes, in the end, to form a representational entity that can simultaneously cater to readers of every taste and inclination, from one extreme of the spectrum to the other. That one blogger might hate a book while another thinks it's the best creation since the cheese slice, I think, is of little significance in individual terms, but when taken together, this glorious collective of opinions at odds with one another is surely an infinitely more valuable entity than any single recommendation, be it positive or negative.

So you see, fighting is fun and helpful... although my parents are still loons.

Here endeth today's lesson!

Book Review: Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay

[Buy this book from Amazon

in the UK / in the US]

"Set in a beleaguered land caught in a web of tyranny, Tigana is the deeply moving story of a people struggling to be free. A people so cursed by the dark sorceries of the tyrant King Brandin that even the very name of their once beautiful land cannot be spoken or remembered.

"But not everyone has forgotten. A handful of men and women, driven by love, hope and pride set in motion the dangerous quest for freedom and bring back to the world the lost brightness of an obliterated name."

***

It is not deceptive to say that Tigana begins with a lie. But then, many of the best tales do. There is plenty to be said for straight-forward narrative progression, of course; stories told from beginning to middle to end with nary a word wasted on anything so distracting as a character arc. The best such novels can achieve a breathless pace that carries the reader from beat to headlong beat unmindful of such oversight. If that appeals, Richard Morgan will be waiting to take your names after class. Thoughtful, tragic Tigana, however, strikes an ideal balance between that frenetic sense of momentum and the distinctly slower motion of more considered fantasy sequences.

From the first, Guy Gavriel Kay is a masterful pacemaker. We are plunged into a world most assuredly in motion with tell of the death of the Duke of Astibar. In one of that province's public houses, a painter and a poet debate the chances that their former lord will be a given a proper burial by the brutal Barbadian oppressor who has ruled over their people since the bloody invasion he staged decades ago. Initially, it seems an overwhelming task to grasp the broad spectrum of political, religious and moral machinations already underway at the outset of Tigana, but Sandre's passing tenders to the reader a timely insight into the nine divided states that make up the peninsula of the Palm, a nation after renaissance-era Italy's own oft-divided hear; it sets the scene for a chain of events that will transform the provinces forever after.

The disgraced Duke's death also serves to introduce the reader - surely already entranced - to the motley fellowship of nobles and nobodies whose inexorable forward motion effects this shift. Chief amongst them, in prominence and in power, is Alessan, the single surviving Prince of Tigana, the only province of the Palm to hold at bay the invading Ygrathan armies more than momentarily. Tigana's brief resistance managed to claim the only son of Brendin, King of that powerful force, but in his heartbreak, in his anger, the arrogant overlord dwarfed the small victory won by Alessan's people with a tragedy so crushing that the young Prince has grown up in a world in which his nation's very name has been removed from the memories of all those who knew it.

Alessan remembers, however, and in tribute to his most treasured memory he has sworn to rid the forcibly forgotten province of Tigana and indeed the entire Palm of spiteful Brandin of Ygrath, as well as the mercenary Barbadian aggressor who rules in the East - the blunt edge of the sword in every sense. Only by uniting the divided people of the peninsula can Alessan hope to overcome the deck that has been stacked against him, and with a fierce rallying cry, he gathers to arms an assortment of unique individuals, each with their own stake in the intertwined fates of Tigana and the greater Palm.

In Devin d'Asoli, a naive young singer with the voice of an age, the reader is given an appropriate surrogate; in Baerd, brother to Alessan - if not in blood - Kay shows us firsthand the torturous horrors of the blight Brandin and Alberico have wrought upon the Palm. Erlein, a troubadour bound unwillingly to Alessan's cause, is an exploration of choice and obligation; and the women of Tigana, too - Catriana, Dianora, Alais and others - are as strong as any of the men that might be said to drive the narrative, as pivotal, and as more than the lustful objects of affection so many fantasies are content to suggest. With few exceptions, each of Kay's expansive cast are drawn and developed with a flair rarely matched elsewhere in the genre. Suffice it to say that the Palm would not be such an extraordinary peninsula were it not for the flawed characters that bring its struggles to bear.

Only Alberico is given short shrift in the narrative. Certainly he is left wanting some more comprehensive character arc when set against Brandin, a sly, sensuous King who tempers his arrogance with charm. We come to know him through Baerd's long-lost sister, Dianora, whose perspective as the preeminent prostitute in Brandin's so-called ‘saishan’ offers the reader brief glimpses of a character who stands in stark relief against the terrible force Alessan tends to remember.

Dianora's occasional chapters give depth and texture to the inescapable sense of tragedy that pervades Tigana, complicating, deviating and alleviating. They beg the question. Is the inevitable cost of Alessan's epic endeavor - the price in blood - truly a just toll to pay? When the game changes, when assumptions are not merely unmet but utterly undermined, must not the rules of play alter with it? In the end, can the reality of Tigana possibly match the recollection of it?

Tigana is a tale of identity above all else, of the fallibility of memory, and from the telling truthfulness of its very first words, Kay explores these powerful themes with a characteristically subtle touch. His prose is poetic, protracted and powerful; his touch and tone deft without dumbfounding or ever dulling the impact of the text. He weaves the complex fabric of his heartfelt tale with enough attention to detail that the reader must maintain such an exquisite awareness of the world of Tigana that its narrative punches that much deeper. Kay is a lyrical author indeed, even musical: so powerful is the ebb and flow of the song he sings, from brutality to beauty in the blink of an eye. His mastery of the language is perhaps unparalleled in the entirety of speculative fiction.

When Kay calls into question subjects such as politics, religion and morality - as he is wont to do - his only answer is a resounding rebuff. Tigana is a novel to make of what you will. Bring nothing to the table and nothing is precisely what you will receive. Come with some sense of self, on the other hand, some notion of the importance of the past to the present, and a tale unlike any other will unfold before you.

Although it begins as an historical adventure of apparently humble proportions, Tigana ultimately reveals itself as a touching romantic tragedy that belies the relative brevity of the experience. What Kay accomplishes in this slim single volume is staggering. They call him the heir to Tolkein's tradition, and though he is an equally methodical author, Kay’s incredible way with words often quite eclipses the rather pedestrian lord of the Lord of the Rings with whom he is so often compared. Tigana is an endlessly exciting and always emotional epic for the ages.

***

Tigana
by Guy Gavriel Kay
1999, ROC: New York

[Buy this book from Amazon
in the UK / in the US]

Recommended and Related Reading

Quick Book: Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay

Much as I hate to disappoint - and at such an early juncture - my first experience of the great Guy Gavriel Kay's pseudo-historical fantasy fiction has been decidedly lacking in the wanton contrariness The Speculative Scotsman will count as its Mighty White bread and butter. Reader, truly: I loved this book. Almost without reservation, I loved Tigana.

After months spent searching in earnest for the next great fiction to fall for, a succession of weeks idled away in Retribution Falls and outright wasted Under the Dome that Stephen King would have us believe he spent three decades thinking about, Guy Gavriel Kay's sweeping single-volume epic proved to be a literary revelation. So desperate was I to find the next thing, in fact, that I had resorted to that most troublesome of recommendation machines: Amazon.

Browsing through some of the more notable fantasies forthcoming in 2010, the wonderful cover of Kay's next novel caught my eye, and so began a relentless trawl through the surprisingly sparse selection of reader reviews to find the best appetiser for this author with which to whet my appetite.

I'd heard the name bandied about before, of course, but it took six degrees of seperation from a China Mieville listing readers of The Speculative Scotsman will be hearing about shortly to point me towards the great towers of lost Tigana.