5 posts tagged “fantasy”
❝ Ramona Koval: Have your imagined worlds served the same purpose for you over the years that Virgil's imagined world serves for him, a place that he can go, a place that he can be, a place he can discover things?
Ursula K Le Guin: Apparently,
yes. It's not as if the real world isn't enough, but the more the
merrier. And of course an imaginary world, as every kid knows who draws
a map of their island or their city or something like that, that's
where you can make things happen the way you want them to happen.
Within limits, of course. If you're writing your story honestly, pretty
soon things happen the way they have to happen in that story and you're
not quite as much the boss as you thought you were, but we love to be
masters of something, to be controlling something. Most of us love to
be in control, and an author is in control, to some extent at least, of
the world they invent. ❞
(Italics mine)
Having never read Marchetta before, but well aware of the popularity and genre of her previous books, I wasn't sure what to expect from Finnikin of the Rock. After a slightly shaky start, in which the worldbuilding gave me cause for concern, Marchetta takes control by virtue of her obvious strengths; characters, and the dynamics and dialogue between them.
I suppose the main criticism I have of this novel is that there isn't more of it. More space for worldbuilding would certainly have added to it. It's not that it's under-done, but rather under-explored, something fantasy fans might have trouble with. But many fans of Marchetta's earlier works may not be fantasy readers, and the lighter worldbuilding may just be an asset in winning them over.
Made of strong emotion, terrible acts, and hard choices, Finnikin of the Rock is a tough, brilliant diamond of a novel.
This review appeared in aurealisXpress in December 2008.
Steve Brust has released a Firefly novel (fan-fiction) that can be downloaded for free. I've read a couple of his professionally published novels, and my particular favourite is one he co-wrote with Megan Lindholm (also writes as Robin Hobb), called The Gypsy.
