Rain Wild Chronicles

Title: Dragon Keeper, Dragon Haven, City of Dragons and Blood of Dragons
Author: Robin Hobb
Published: 2009-13
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 553+570+433+545



I'd pre-ordered Fool's Quest (sequel to last year's Fool's Ass(assin)) and it popped up on my Kindle right on time. I'd even started on it already when I happened to read on the internets that some bits in it 'spoil' the Rain Wild Chronicles,  which are the only ones in Hobb's Elderlings-books that I have not read. What to do, then? I've been intending to read them at some point, so not reading them first could spoil something important. But... but... four books, all around 500 pages?! Yeah, I went and got cracking. No pain, no gain. Or something.

This here is a SPOILER for the Liveship Traders books! At the end of Ship of Destiny, the dragon Tintaglia was working with the liveships and people of both Bingtown and Rain Wilds, to bring the sea serpents up to their old cocooning grounds. After some time, the serpents would come out as dragons, and terror glory would fill the skies again. Dragon Keeper starts at the hatching, but... the serpents had been serpents for too long, and they came out of the cocoons too soon. Mighty dragons, they are not. Cranky and hungry and deadly, yes. Flying magnificence, not so much.

The feeble dragons need keepers and food, and over time, become a nuisance. So a few unwanted outsiders volunteers are hired to take the dragons upriver, to find a place where they might find a better life, and hopefully never come back. There's about 15 dragons with a keeper for most of them, and the river barge Tarman (an ancient Liveship itself) and its crew along for transporting cargo. A few hunters are hired as well, to help the keepers feed the dragons. And there's even an expert on dragons and Elderlings, Alise Finbok from Bingtown, a young wife whose life's passion the exotic creatures have always been. Following her is her husband's secretary, who is not so keen on the stupid animals.

The dragons dream of the ancient Elderling city of Kelsingra, but its whereabouts or whether even two rocks of it stand anymore are unknown. So they trudge on up the Rain Wild river, hoping for a new home. The traveling seems to be good for the dragons: they are growing stronger with the exercise and learning to hunt for themselves. Still, it's nice when the puny humans groom and praise them. The keepers are changing as well, from just being around their dragons, towards what the Elderlings of old used to be. The lost world may not be so lost after all! So much happens and the characters grow and evolve, and, gasp! actually talk to each other when they have misunderstandings! Or secrets. Even I done fucked up reeeal bad -secrets. Not always, but it's so refreshing!

If I remember correctly what I read hastily a few weeks back, these books were originally intended to be just one or two books. The story in Dragon Haven continues straight from the end of Dragon Keeper, and frankly, I've been reading these back to back, jumping straight into the next after finishing one, so that I can't exactly remember where one ended and the next started. City of Dragons again continues straight from where Dragon Haven ended, but it's more the start of a new book than just a new chapter: it brings along new characters, some old familiar ones, some who have only ever been mentioned, and some completely new faces. I may or may not have let out a happy little squee when a few old favourites popped up!

I finished Blood of Dragons late last night, and started again on  Fool's Quest already. Since I was eager to get to it, reading the Rain Wild Chronicles seemed a bit of a chore at times, especially at the beginning, but I did end up caring for the characters, cheering for the dragons, and punching the air and shouting 'Fuck YEAH!' when a certain someone got their comeuppance, and then some! Oh yesssss. Mrs Hobb can be so, so cruel, but she's also so, so good.

And now, I'm going to go and spend the rest of the Sunday reading. I'm eager to get to the new adventures of Fitz and the Fool, but I'm also eager to get to meet the keepers and dragons again!


   But on his return to the city, he had seen what a dragon's wrath could do. She had not intended to pock the paving stones with acid holes, nor fill the harbour basin with sunken ships. That damage had been incidental. He had seen the harm that one dragon, fighting on behalf of a city, could do.
   He stood on the deck and tried to count the oncoming dragons. He stopped at ten. Ten times dead was very dead indeed. The slaves chained to their oars were praying. He was tempted to join them. 

The Gunslinger

Title: The Gunslinger
Author: Stephen King
Published: 1982, revised version from 2003
Genre: Fantasy and Western
Pages: 224



Oops. I've been so busy reading lately that I haven't had time to update!


Sooo yes. I took my first step towards the Dark Tower after reading several times how good the series is. I haven't read King since I was in my very early teens (The Eyes of the Dragon was my favourite, and I just found it from a used book store! Yay!) and the first original Gunslinger-stories are older than I am, so it's about time.


The Gunslinger Roland (wrote Ginslinger accidentally: that would make for a different kind of book) is following the man in black in a world that has many similarities to ours. He knows he has to catch the man in black to reach the Dark Tower, but when Roland comes across a farmer, the man in black has passed some weeks ago already. As he spends the night in the farmer's small house, Roland tells him -and the readers- the story of a town called Tull, which he passed some time before the book started. It gives insight to the world, his past, and the man in black. And then it's time to continue traveling.


I was about to jump straight into the next book, but then some other books happened. It's like, the more I read, the more books I have/want to read.




   The man in Black fled across the desert, and the Gunslinger followed.

 

The Color Purple

Title: The Color Purple
Author: Alice Walker
Published: 1982
Genre: Drama and a lot of other things.
Pages: 295


When I was a kid, like, both sides of 10 years old, we had this cable movie channel, and I'd watch so many movies, including the one that was made based on this book. Some day, I'm going to have to ask my parents if they paid any attention to what we'd watch...

The Color Purple is set in the early decades of the 20th century, in the Southern United States. Young Celie is given away to marry Mr. ______ instead of her younger sister Nettie, mostly to care for Mr. ______'s children, and to work. Nettie, not wanting to live with their father -who'd already fathered two children on Celie, and given both away- runs away first to her sister, and then to find work in the town. Celie doesn't like her new husband or his children, but being uneducated, female and black, doesn't really have a lot of choice in the world. Sounds like a bad arrangement all around, but once Mr. ______'s old lover, the singer Shug Avery comes into the picture, even Celie starts to see some colour in the world.

Told in letters from Celie to God, and between the sisters Celie and Nettie, the years and pages just fly away. The world takes the sisters far away from each other, and even if they can't truly keep in touch, they're never out of each other's thoughts. Life goes on and families grow. People, too. Once again, 'I'm just going to read a few pages' turned into 'Whooops, the book is over. What now?'


   Mr. _____ say, Well Sir, I sure hope you done change your mind. 
   He say, Naw, Can't say I is.
   Mr. _____ say, Well, you know, my poor little ones sure could use a mother. 
   Well, He say, real slow, I can't let you have Nettie. She too young. Don't know nothing but what you tell her. Sides, I want her to git some more schooling. Make a schoolteacher out of her. But I can let you have Celie. She the oldest anyway. She ought to marry first. She ain't fresh tho, but I spect you know that. She spoiled. Twice. But you don't need a fresh woman no how. I got a fresh one in there myself and she sick all the time. He spit, over the railing. The children git on her nerve, she not much of a cook. And she big already.
   Mr. _____ he don't say nothing. I stop crying I'm so surprise. 
   She ugly. He say. But she ain't no stranger to hard work. And she clean. And God done fixed her. You can do everything just like you want and she ain't gonna make you feed it or clothe it. 

Turn Coat

Title: Turn Coat
Author: Jim Butcher
Published: 2009
Genre: Noir urban fantasy
Pages: 432,listened to the audio book


Hey wow, I'm finally starting to catch up to Mr Butcher! A few more years and I'll actually have to wait for the next book to come out.

The 11th Dresden Files book starts with Harry's favourite (not) Warden stumbling onto his doorstep, asking for sanctuary. Warden Morgan, a pain in Harry's ass (not like that!) for years and years has been framed for murder of a Senior wizard of the White Council. As much as Harry would like to kick the man back out and laugh as he's executed with barely a trial, he believes Morgan to be innocent, and ends up helping him. Even when it brings a nasty Skinwalker monster to his trail, and even when helping Morgan puts both him and his apprentice into serious trouble with the Council.

As always, things aren't quite that simple, and there's plenty of And Then It Got Worse. I find it's harder to concentrate on an audio book than on one that you read, so I did miss some action and details, but damn, I got a lot of walking done. James Marsters is a joy to listen, and it was nice to hear him speak with an English accent for a while, again (Spiiiiiiiiike!). As usual, I'm tempted to jump straight to the next one, but hell, I've also got a pile of other books that I want to jump into.


   There’s power in the night. There’s terror in the darkness. Despite all our accumulated history, learning, and experience, we remember. We remember times when we were too small to reach the light switch on the wall, and when the darkness itself was enough to make us cry out in fear. Get a good ways out from civilization-say, miles and miles away on a lightless lake-and the darkness is there, waiting. Twilight means more than just time to call the children in from playing outside. Fading light means more than just the end of another day. Night is when terrible things emerge from their sleep and seek soft flesh and hot blood. Night is when unseen beings with no regard for what our people have built and no place in what we have deemed the natural order look in at our world from outside, and think dark and alien thoughts. And sometimes, just sometimes, they do things. 

Quote from Wikiquote. 

Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde

Title: The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde
Author: Robert Louis Stevenson
Published: Originally in 1886
Genre: Horror!
Pages: 88


The classic horror tale! First time reading it, and I haven't even seen any of the numerous movies. Or TV-series. Or parodies. Or heard the radio shows. But! I have read The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen -comics, and there met both Dr and Mr.

The main character of the story -and this came as a bit of a surprise to me- is neither, though, but the lawyer Mr Utterson, an old friend of Dr Jekyll's. On a walk with his cousin, they come across a door along a street, and the cousin is moved to tell a story of how he met an off-putting little man called Mr Hyde, whom he followed to the same door after a small accident. Later on, Utterson realises that the door is also connected to the house of Dr Jekyll, and that there is a troubling connection between Hyde and Jekyll.

Perhaps because I knew what the connection was, or because I started the short book on the same day I went back to work, holiday over, the story didn't really catch my attention. But at only 88 pages it was a quick read, and well worth it to see for myself the tale that has inspired so many people for over a century.


   Mr Utterson stepped out and touched him on the shoulder as he passed. 'Mr Hyde, I think?'
   Mr Hyde shrank back with a hissing intake of the breath. But his fear was only momentary; and though he did not look the lawyer in the face, he answered coolly enough: 'That is my name. What do you want?' 
   'I see you are going in,' returned the lawyer. 'I am an old friend of Dr Jekyll's - Mr Utterson of Gaunt Street - you must have heard my name; and meeting you so conveniently, I thought you might admit me.'
   'You will not find Dr Jekyll; he is from home.' replied Mr Hyde, blowing in the key. And then suddenly, but still without looking up, 'How did you know me?' he asked.