personal demons
Saturday, 5 May 2007 11:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
freckles_and_doubtThe publishers' clearances bookshop had a copy of Sergei Lukyanenko's Night Watch (R50 for a new trade paperback, all you locals!), and I have spent the last two days, in between clutching my brow and bemoaning the sinus headache, joyously motoring through it. I haven't seen the film, although a lot of people seem to have loved it: after reading the book, which I thoroughly enjoyed, I forsee a happy dark-fantasy DVD session somewhere in my near future.
This is an amazingly original piece of fantasy literature, even given its situation in the contemporary genre of urban fantasy with non-human beasties all over the show - vampires, werecreatures, magic-users, all terribly Laurel K. Hamilton, but far more intelligently done. There are some stylistic issues related to the translation: the tone is rather flat, and the translator has done that contemporary, journalistic thing which drives me absolutely crazy, which is to break the text up into more or less single-sentence paragraphs. (Aaargh. Hate it. Jonathan Kellerman does it, drives me bats). Paragraphing aside, the flatness of style works very well with the content of the story, which puts a gritty, thrillerish spin on the fantasy elements, with more than a touch of noir. It's a surprisingly compelling mix.
Above all, though, what I really enjoy about the story is its assault on the usual good/evil poles of high fantasy. This is an extremely thoughtful re-assessment of the unquestioned binaries of fantasy, dealing far more in compromise and pragmatism than most fantasy is capable of doing. Not only do the characters continually reflect on the implications of their allegiances, but the thriller component, working out through a series of twists, surprises and double-bluffs, also ends up undercutting the classic moral certainty of the fantasy epic. Oh, yes. Colour me impressed.
Department of Random Linkery: jo points out the extreme beauty of the site for the film version of The Golden Compass, a judgement with which I heartily concur. Since LJ, bless its cotton socks, refuses to embed the Personal Daemon generator thingy, I have stuck it on my other blog, here. I like both the detail of the personality test, and the provision for other people to moderate it. Cute. And I got a snow leopard. Heh.
Also, XKCD's Internet fantasy map. Très cute. I'm trying to think up a way to make my internet culture class analyse it.
This is an amazingly original piece of fantasy literature, even given its situation in the contemporary genre of urban fantasy with non-human beasties all over the show - vampires, werecreatures, magic-users, all terribly Laurel K. Hamilton, but far more intelligently done. There are some stylistic issues related to the translation: the tone is rather flat, and the translator has done that contemporary, journalistic thing which drives me absolutely crazy, which is to break the text up into more or less single-sentence paragraphs. (Aaargh. Hate it. Jonathan Kellerman does it, drives me bats). Paragraphing aside, the flatness of style works very well with the content of the story, which puts a gritty, thrillerish spin on the fantasy elements, with more than a touch of noir. It's a surprisingly compelling mix.
Above all, though, what I really enjoy about the story is its assault on the usual good/evil poles of high fantasy. This is an extremely thoughtful re-assessment of the unquestioned binaries of fantasy, dealing far more in compromise and pragmatism than most fantasy is capable of doing. Not only do the characters continually reflect on the implications of their allegiances, but the thriller component, working out through a series of twists, surprises and double-bluffs, also ends up undercutting the classic moral certainty of the fantasy epic. Oh, yes. Colour me impressed.
Department of Random Linkery: jo points out the extreme beauty of the site for the film version of The Golden Compass, a judgement with which I heartily concur. Since LJ, bless its cotton socks, refuses to embed the Personal Daemon generator thingy, I have stuck it on my other blog, here. I like both the detail of the personality test, and the provision for other people to moderate it. Cute. And I got a snow leopard. Heh.
Also, XKCD's Internet fantasy map. Très cute. I'm trying to think up a way to make my internet culture class analyse it.
